,,the ,,will ,,to ,,doubt ,,an ,,essay ,,in ,,philosophy ,,for ,,the ,,general ,,thinker ,,by ,,alfred ,h4 ,,lloyd ,truth hath neither visible form nor body2 it is without habitation or name2 like the ,son of ,man it hath not where to lay its head4 ,,london ,,swan ,,sonnenschein ,,co41 ,lim4 #be ,,high ,,street1 ,,bloomsbury1 ,w4,c4 #aijg ,,preface4 ,the chapters that follow comprise what might be called an introduction to philosophy1 but such a description of them would probably be misleading1 for they are addressed quite as much to the general reader1 or rather to the general thinker1 as to the prospective student of technical philosophy4 ,they are the attempt of a ,university teacher of philosophy to meet what is a real emergency of the day1 namely1 the doubt that is appearing in so many departments of life1 that is affecting so many people1 and that is fraught with so many dangers1 and in attempting this they would also at least help to bridge the chasm between academic sophistication and practical life1 self-consciousness and positive activity4 ,with peculiar truth at the present time the ,university can justify itself only by serving real life1 and it can serve real life1 not merely by bringing its pure science down to1 or up to1 the health and the industrial pursuits of the people1 but also by explaining1 which is even to say by applying1 as science is applied1 or by animating the general scepticism of the time4 ,that this scepticism is often charged to the peculiar training of the ,university hardly needs to be said1 but except for its making such an undertaking as the present essay only the more appropriate the charge itself is strangely humorous4 ,one might also accuse the ,university of making atoms and germs1 or1 by its magic theories1 of generating electricity or disease4 ,scepticism is a world-wide1 life-wide fact2 even like heat or electricity1 it is a natural force or agent--unless forsooth one must exclude all the attitudes of mind from what in the fullest and deepest sense is natural2 scepticism1 in short1 is a real phase of whatever is real1 and its explanation is an academic responsibility4 ,its explanation1 however1 like the explanation of everything real or natural1 can be complete only when1 as already suggested here1 its application and animation have been achieved1 or when it has been shown to be properly and effectively an object of will4 ,so1 just as we have the various applied sciences1 in this essay there is offered an applied philosophy of doubt1 a philosophy that would show doubt to have a real part in effective action1 and that with the showing would make both the doubting and the acting so much the more effective4 ,but it may be said that effective acting depends1 not on doubt1 but rather on belief1 on confidence or credit4 ,this will prove to be true1 excepting in what it denies4 ,to be commonplace1 to write down here and now what is at once the truism and the paradox of this book1 a vital1 practical belief must always live by doubting4 ,was it ,schopenhauer who declared that man walks only by saving himself at every step from a fall8 ,the meaning of this book is much the same1 although no pessimism is either intended or necessarily implied in such a declaration4 ,doubt is no mere negative of belief2 rather it is a very vital part of belief1 it has a place in the believer's experience and volition2 the doubters in society1 be they trained at the ,university or not1 and those practical creatures in society who have kept the faith1 who believe and who do1 are naturally and deeply in sympathy4 ,and this essay seeks to deepen their natural sympathy4 ,here1 then1 is my simple thesis4 ,doubt is essential to real belief4 ,perhaps this means that all vital problems are bound in a real life to be perennial1 and certainly it cannot mean that in its support ,i may be expected by my readers to give a solution of every special problem that might be raised1 an answer to every question about knowledge or morality1 about religion or politics or industry1 that might be asked4 ,problems and questions1 of course the natural children1 not of doubt1 but of doubt and belief1 may be as worthy and as practical as solutions4 ,some of them may be even better put than answered4 ,but be this as it may1 the present essay must be taken for what it is1 not for something else4 ,it is1 then1 for reasons not less practical than theoretical1 an attempt to face and1 so far as may be1 to solve the very general problem of doubt itself1 or say simply--if this be simple--the problem of whatever in general is problematic2 and1 this done1 to suggest what may be the right attitude for doubters and believers towards each other and towards life and the world which is life's natural sphere2 emphatically it is not the announcement of a programme for life in any of its departments4 ,the substance of chapters ,i41 ,,ii41 ,,iii41 ,,iv41 and ,v4 in small parts1 and ,,vi4 and ,,viii4 was given during the summer of #aijc in lectures before the ,glenmore ,school of the ,culture ,sciences at ,hurricane in the ,adirondacks1 and except for some revision chapters ,v4 and ,,vii4 have already been published--,science1 ,july #e1 #aijb1 and the journal of ,philosophy1 ,psychology and ,scientific ,methods1 ,june1 #aije4 ,to ,professor ,muirhead1 the ,editor of the ,ethical ,library1 ,i wish here to express my hearty appreciation of his interest and assistance in the final preparation of this volume for publication4 ,a4 ,h4 ,l4 ,,the ,,university ,,of ,,michigan1 ,,ann ,,arbor1 ,,michigan1 ,u4,s4,a4 ,,contents4 ,i4 ,introduction ,,ii4 ,the ,confession of ,doubt ,,iii4 ,difficulties in the ,ordinary ,view of ,things ,,iv4 ,the ,view of ,science3 its ,rise and ,consequent ,character ,v4 ,the ,view of ,science3 its ,peculiar ,limitations i4 ,science would be ,objective ii4 ,science would be ,specialistic iii4 ,science would be ,agnostic ,,vi4 ,possible ,value in these ,essential ,defects of ,experience ,,vii4 ,the ,personal and the ,social1 the ,vital and the ,formal in ,experience ,,viii4 ,an ,early ,modern ,doubter ,,ix4 ,the ,doubter's ,world i4 ,reality1 without ,finality1 in all ,things ii4 ,perfect ,sympathy between the ,spiritual and the ,material iii4 ,a ,genuine ,individuality iv4 ,immortality ,x4 ,doubt and ,belief ,index ,,the ,,will ,,to ,,doubt4 p4#jja ,i4 ,,introduction4 ,without undue sensationalism it may be said that this is an age of doubt4 ,wherever one looks in journeying through the different departments of life one sees doubt4 ,and one sees1 too1 some of the blight which doubt produces1 although the blight is by no means all that one sees4 ,there is heat everywhere in the physical world1 but not necessarily only arson or even destructive fire4 ,morals1 however1 social life1 industry1 politics1 religion1 have suffered somewhat--and many would insist very seriously--from the prevailing doubt4 ,moreover1 if the outward view shows doubt everywhere1 the inward view is at least not more reassuring4 ,who can examine his own consciousness without finding doubt at work there8 ,we would often hide it from others1 not to say from ourselves1 but it is there1 and we all know it to be there4 ,other times may also have been times of doubt1 but our day1 as the time to which we certainly owe our first and chief p4#jjb duty1 is very conspicuously and very seriously a time of doubt4 ,now there are some1 and they are many1 who would decry the discussion of such a thing as doubt1 for they see only danger ahead4 ,doubt they compare with death or disease1 and to dwell upon any of these is idle1 unnatural1 morbid4 ,why not let such things alone1 and look only to what is pleasant1 to what is good and true and beautiful8 ,then1 too1 doubt1 the confession of doubt1 is the royal entrance to philosophy and the risk of an entanglement with philosophy1 which seems to them the source of much that is harmful1 the essence of all that is impractical1 is altogether too great4 ,doubt for them is even less to be played with than fire1 with which already it has been compared here4 ,again1 as others in matters political and industrial1 so they in matters intellectual and spiritual resent anything that appears likely in any way to disturb the standing credit of the country4 ,to doubt is just to join the opposition1 and the opposition is made up of heretics and agents generally of mere destruction4 ,to treat doubt as real and positively significant1 as having any true worth in human experience1 as being even a proper object of will1 is to stop permanently1 not the wheels of commerce and industry1 but the wheels of the present life in all its phases4 ,in a word1 perhaps one of the words of the hour1 ,christian ,science has not wished to be more inhospitable to the reality of disease than have these believers to the reality and usefulness of doubt4 ,yet all who feel in this way are short-sighted4 ,their contentions1 like those of their cousins1 perhaps p4#jjc their country cousins1 the ,christian ,scientists1 may have worth for being corrective1 but at very best they are only one-sided4 ,in a fable1 never in real life1 a man might get the smell of burning wood in his house and refuse to recognize the danger because of the inevitable delay to his business which the alarm of fire would involve2 but doubt is not less real nor less dangerous1 nor even less capable1 when under control1 of useful applications4 ,any danger1 too1 squarely faced is at least half met4 ,why1 then1 be so impracticable1 so like characters in fables1 as to overlook or turn one's back upon the doubt of the day1 refusing it a place and a part in real life8 ,the negative things of life can be so only relatively4 ,death itself cannot possibly be absolute1 and doubt1 not unlike death1 indeed perhaps only one of death's messengers1 must be even a gift1 or an agent1 of the gods4 ,some things1 dangerous when hidden1 are wonderfully serviceable1 when recognized and controlled4 ,sometimes men really have entertained angels unawares4 ,and so throughout these chapters1 although some may think me and those who follow me morbid1 and although we may have to enter the dangerous parlour of philosophy1 the doubt of our time is to be squarely and fairly faced4 ,in all candour1 we are from the start to be confessed parties to it1 hiding nothing intentionally1 and at the same time trying always to give nothing undue emphasis4 ,the doubt that all seem to know1 that many really feel without perhaps clearly confessing1 and that some confess or even actually boast1 we shall face and examine closely1 p4#jjd trying as we can to find its true meaning and real worth4 ,in short1 the confession of doubt1 of our doubt1 and the fruits of confession are the burden of these chapters4 p4#jje ,,ii4 ,,the ,,confession ,,of ,,doubt4 ,our confession must1 of course1 be thorough-going1 and can be made so only through a complete statement of every possible reason that experience affords for the attitude of doubt4 ,to the end1 therefore1 of such a statement we shall consider in this chapter certain general and easily recognized facts about doubt itself1 while in chapters that follow we shall continue the confession by examining1 first1 our customary or common-sense view of things1 and then the view of science1 and having brought together in each case numerous incongruities1 or contradictions1 which ordinarily are at best only casually noticed or timorously overlooked1 we shall find ourselves facing in a peculiarly telling way1 not only certain strong reasons for doubt1 but also some of the real issues that doubt raises4 ,as no issue1 moreover1 can be more central or crucial than the meaning of the contradictions found to pervade our views of things1 before completing our confession we shall allow ourselves some reflections1 that should prove useful to us in the end1 upon the possible worth of contradiction in human experience2 for even to casual thinking contradiction1 although good ground for scepticism1 suggests some positive advantage and opportunity2 the advantage of breadth1 p4#jjf for example1 of freedom from special form1 or the opportunity of personal spontaneity and initiative as against the restraints of formal consistency1 of class1 and of institution2 and if these things1 among others1 can be associated with our case for doubt1 our reflections will certainly not have been in vain4 ,then we shall close our confession by seeking the companionhip of a great doubter of modern times1 and by learning what we can from him of doubt itself and of the doubter's natural world4 ,and finally1 as a result of all our own efforts1 supplemented by his help1 we shall be able to reap some of the fruits for life and thought that a confession so fully made may fairly claim4 ,from start to finish1 moreover1 of this study of doubt we have to remember that there can be no important difference between what is possible and what is real4 ,thus anything whatsoever that can possibly be doubted is really doubtful4 ,also1 if anybody is amazed to hear mention of facts about doubt1 as if doubt should not somehow submit to its own nostrum1 let him merely reflect that1 strangely enough1 nothing is quite so indubitable as doubt1 nothing so convincing as the reasons for doubt4 ,let me not be too subtle1 but to doubt doubt is only to affirm it1 and somehow--whether for good or ill need not now be said--all the negative things of life possess a peculiar certainty1 and are all most easily proved4 ,a great ,frenchman once put the case quite plainly when he said1 after canvassing very carefully the whole field of his consciousness1 that his doubts were the only things there1 the only things he could be quite certain about1 and these were so very real that they left him absolutely p4#jjg nothing but belief in himself1 in his all-doubting and ever-doubting self1 to rest upon4 ,his was surely a sweeping confession1 and his residuum of belief may not at first sight seem very promising or very substantial1 but quickly1 ,i think1 we shall find ourselves in agreement with him1 at least as to the reality and the wide scope of our doubting1 and it is also a possibility well worth foreseeing that we may even find his belief in the reality of an ever-doubting and all-doubting self a rock for our own saving4 ,so1 to turn now to those general and easily recognized facts1 which were to be the special interest of the present chapter1 in the first place3 ,we are all universal doubters4 ,we are all universal doubters in the sense that every one of us doubts something1 and there is nothing which some of us have not doubted4 ,who would be so rash as to say that what a fellow-being had questioned might not be questionable to himself also1 or that1 if anything in his own experience had ever been subject to question1 all the other things might not also be subject to question8 ,but the merely dubitable is the already doubtful4 ,in this sense1 therefore1 not so abstruse and formally logical as it may appear1 we are all universal doubters4 ,our life is ever cherishing what we are pleased to call its verities1 some in religion and morals1 some in politics1 some in mathematics and science1 some in the more general relations to nature1 but what elusive things these verities are6 ,how shallow1 or how hollow all of them are1 or at one time or another may become4 ,to take a rather minute case1 such as it is p4#jjh always the philosopher's license to make use of1 a case that is1 however1 quite typical in experience2 here is a word--any word you like--that has been spoken and written by you for years4 ,always before it has been spelt correctly and clearly understood1 but to-day how unreal it seems4 ,are those the right letters1 and are they correctly placed8 ,is that the true meaning8 ,what has happened1 too1 to give rise to these unusual questions8 ,well1 who can say8 ,and who has not substantially asked every one of them1 not merely with reference to some long-familiar word1 but also with reference to much larger things in life8 ,self and society1 love and friendship1 mind and matter1 nature and ,god have again and again been subjected to essentially the same questioning4 ,the verities of life1 all the way from simple words used every day to the great things of our moral and spiritual being1 have lost1 sometimes slowly1 sometimes very suddenly1 the reality with which we have supposed them endowed1 and although we may still bravely believe we find ourselves crying out passionately for help in our unbelief4 ,there certainly are the verities2 not one of them can possibly fall to the ground2 yet these very verities are never quite in our experience4 ,still the world has its thoroughly confident people4 ,every one of us has met some of those estimable beings to whom doubt seems wholly foreign1 people who assert with trembling voice and sacred vow that their convictions1 political perhaps or religious1 are unassailable1 and that they must hold them to the grave4 ,but1 whatever may be said of political convictions1 religious convictions have often been p4#jji regarded as a contradiction of terms4 ,how can one be sure and religious at the same time8 ,moreover1 positive people under any standard are notoriously as fearful as they are dogmatic4 ,fear is often1 if not always1 the chief motive of dogmatism1 and fear is hardly the most natural companion of genuine confidence4 ,the part which the emotion of fear has had1 both in the personal life and in the doctrine of the dogmatic among men1 would make a most instructive study4 ,if1 then1 dogmatic people are slaves to their fears1 while more thoughtful people1 as has not needed to be said1 seem to get no reward from their self-consciousness but the uncertain reward of their doubts1 then only such as live quietly1 asserting nothing1 depending on nothing1 and even assuming nothing1 but simply taking what comes1 are left to represent genuine belief4 ,yet how many such are there8 ,a few may seem to approach the ideal1 if ideal it be1 but the class itself in realization must be said to be a hypothetical one1 and few1 if any1 of us could ever really envy or strive to imitate its supposed manner of living2 for1 in spite of all the dangers and all the doubts and fears1 only the constantly examined life can ever really lure us4 ,doubt1 besides being a general condition of life1 seems to be also incident to what gives life worth4 ,but1 furthermore1 not only are we all universal doubters2 the case for doubt in the world is1 if possible1 even stronger2 for also--and this is the second general fact3 ,doubt is a phase1 nay1 a vital condition of all consciousness4 ,to be a conscious creature is to be a doubting creature4 p4#jaj ,in so many ways psychology is teaching us to-day with renewed emphasis that we are conscious of nothing as it is1 and that more or less clearly we all know our shortcoming in this regard2 or again1 with still more directness and emphasis1 that for us there is no such thing as a state of consciousness which does not indicate tension1 or unstable equilibrium1 that is to say uncertainty1 in our activity4 ,nor have we need of the testimony of science to these facts1 since common personal experience is well aware of them4 ,in small things and in great consciousness transforms or refracts4 ,in small things and in great consciousness marks a moment of poise between an impulse to do something1 and more or less distinctly recognized conditions or relations that would put restraint upon the doing of it4 ,even the law of relativity1 a psychological law only in its definite formulation1 in its idea a simple fact of everyday experience1 true for all conscious states from the crudest perceptions of the organs of sense to the most highly developed ideas of critical reflection1 by binding as it does all the details of actual or possible experience into a whole1 every part of which acts upon the other parts1 points very directly to this fact of poise and instability1 besides indicating also that knowledge never can be literally or objectively exact1 and that at least with some clearness every knower must know it cannot4 ,how can there ever be even a single stable or a single finally accurate element in the consciousness of a creature whose experience1 in the first place1 can comprise only related1 interdependent parts1 and whose nature1 in the second place1 is an essentially mobile and active p4#jaa one8 ,moreover1 as just one other way of suggesting the inexactness and uncertainty of consciousness and the balancing1 tentative nature of all conscious life1 we always think1 and think properly1 of conscious creatures as having will1 as doing what they do purposely or from design4 ,the new psychology1 however1 to which we naturally turn1 and which again has only formulated what we can recognize from everyday experience1 declares that the purpose in conscious activity is not a developed1 but an always developing one4 ,purposive action is action that never finally knows1 but is ever finding out its real intent1 purpose being identical with the progressively discovered meaning of action4 ,a volitionally1 purposively active being is always a seeker as well as a doer4 ,indeed1 any doing would itself be empty1 or idle1 if it were not a seeking1 and so if it were not subject to conditions of some uncertainty4 ,in so many ways1 then1 through the necessary inexactness of consciousness1 through the unstable equilibrium of all conscious activity1 through the law and fact of relativity1 and through the tentative and provisional nature which must always belong to purpose1 we see how doubt must be a phase or condition of all consciousness4 ,illustrations are abundant4 ,thus1 once more to take a somewhat minute case1 which is really more significant for being minute1 with regard to conscious activity being in a state of tension1 visual sensations always involve muscular sensations1 and these are incident not only to expressed1 but also to possible1 yet restrained1 movements4 ,the eyes may have been p4#jab moved and the head turned1 but in spite of the impulses present in them the legs have not been used to bring the observer nearer to the object seen1 nor have the arms and hands been raised to secure a contact with it1 and perhaps a tracing of its lines1 although some stimulus for such contact and tracing must be always present as a part of the actual or possible value of the experience4 ,or1 again1 to adopt an illustration used for a different purpose by ,professor ,william ,james1 so simple a process as the spelling of a word is complicated with all sorts of diverting and unsettling impulses as each letter is expressed4 ,let the word be onomatopoetic4 ,can ,i really spell it correctly8 ,and what a gauntlet of dangers ,i have to run4 ,the initial letter o tempts1 perhaps with childhood memories of the alphabet1 to p-q-r-s-t1 etc41 or to indefinite words or syllables1 actual from my past or possible to my future experience1 such as of1 off1 opine1 ,october1 -ology1 -ovy1 and so on1 or1 to suggest mere possibilities1 such as ontic1 oreate1 ot1 or ow2 and every succeeding letter is equally a scene of combat1 a place of dangers met--safely met1 let us hope1 and triumphantly passed4 ,worthy the boy1 or the man1 who reaches the end unhurt4 ,and what a voyage of uncertainties1 what a course between hope and fear1 confidence and doubt1 the spelling of words or the spelling of life as a whole always is4 ,one's whole vocabulary1 real or possible1 or one's whole repertory of acts is more or less directly involved1 whatever one does4 ,as to the tentative nature of purpose1 which seems the only other point here that can possibly require illustration1 the right we all p4#jac reserve to change our minds in the different affairs of life tells its own story4 ,we never do do1 or can do1 exactly what we consciously would do2 and recognizing this1 men1 as well as women1 insist on the right of a change of mind1 and sometimes even of conscious misrepresentation or of disparity between their seeming and their being in thought or in deed4 ,that such a claim has its dangers does not now concern us2 it has also its opportunities2 but the fact of it and the ground for it are quite evident4 ,even jurisprudence1 for which loyalty to established and visible forms is peculiarly sacred1 has its ways1 direct and indirect1 of recognizing that purposes develop1 that the returns are never all in1 that any purpose or meaning must sooner or later assume a new form1 and so may even now be other than it seems4 ,bequests for institutions1 for example1 are allowed to continue in force1 although1 with the demands of a more enlightened day1 the formal conditions under which they were made have been openly violated4 ,in short--for it all comes to this--,not the letter1 but the spirit1 is an inevitable comment1 or at least an inevitable feeling about everything that is done4 ,a man vaults a fence1 and then1 even if he get over fairly well1 vaulting is not what it was for him4 ,he may continue to use the old word1 or the same arms and legs1 but with a changed meaning and a changed feeling of limb and muscle1 and so with a new purpose and a new body to control and modify his next performance4 ,and what is true for vaulting is true also for making boxes or tables1 for writing essays1 for talking1 for thinking1 for founding colleges or theological seminaries1 or finally1 for p4#jad what we so indefinitely call living4 ,an activity such as throughout its length and breadth ours is1 conscious activity that must for ever heed the call3 ,not the letter1 but the spirit1 an activity that never is1 therefore1 and never can be without the elements of the game1 since it must ever wait on its own revealed consequences in order to grow into an understanding of its real meaning2 such an activity1 among other things1 cannot but fasten doubt upon us as a most natural heritage4 ,as man is conscious1 to doubt is human4 ,other things may be human1 too1 but doubt is so certainly and conspicuously4 ,thirdly1 in this presentation of general facts3 ,doubt is inseparable from habit4 ,habit is usually associated with what is permanent and established1 but just here lies its undoing4 ,as we usually understand it1 habit really deadens what it touches by leading to abstraction or separation from actual conditions4 ,conservative as it surely is in things important and in things unimportant1 in things personal and in things social1 it sets him who is party to it behind the times1 for no act in its second expression1 no simply repeated act1 no mere habit could ever be up to date in the sense of really meeting all the emergencies of its own time4 ,personal habits make fixed characters2 social habits make customs and laws2 religious habits make churches and creeds2 intellectual habits make schools2 and of all these products1 which for the sake of the single term we will call institutions1 it must be said1 however paradoxically1 that in being made they are also outgrown1 for the habitual turns formal and unreal and so unsatisfying4 ,a growing nature has p4#jae her ways of making even conservatives keep pace with her4 ,an institution in the sense of an acquired manner of action1 personal or social1 can never really be an end in itself1 although to a narrow view it may often seem to be2 it is at best only the manifested means to a newly developed or developing end which must eventually transform it4 ,in so large a thing1 for example1 as political life1 the institutes of monarchy have become the instruments of democracy1 and this conspicuously ever since the ,french ,revolution2 in the history of thought1 of man's intellectual life1 the objective dogmas of one time have been only the subjective standpoints of the next1 the metaphysics of one time has made the scientific method1 the working hypothesis1 of the succeeding time2 and in so small a thing as a child's vocabulary1 the oft-repeated and finally mastered syllable ba1 or some other equally intellectual1 has become in time only one of the means to a whole word1 say baby or bath1 or even basilica or barometrograph4 ,in all life the thing we get the habit of is only a tool with which we strive towards something else4 ,some one thinking no doubt of ,hercules has called the institutions of life a great club which the irresistible arm of society1 always a hero when looked back upon1 swings fatally against the present4 ,so intimately is change seen nowadays to be related to habit1 or indirectly involved in it1 that in technical science a new account of habit has been formulated4 ,to cite but one case1 ,professor ,baldwin1 says3#a ,habit expresses the tendency of the organism p4#jaf to secure and retain its vital stimulations1 and such an account1 placing the interest of habit in so general and so changeable a thing as vital stimulations1 is designed to make habit fundamentally1 not merely a tendency to repetition or imitation1 but instead a demand for constant adaptation or differentiation4 ,in the doctrines of inheritance1 also1 always moving necessarily in close sympathy with those of habit1 a similar departure has been made4 ,both habit and inheritance are in fact seen to belong to life in a world of change1 or variation1 and they have assumed what ,i will style a protective colouring accordingly4 ,the habit of always being adapted is at least as radical as it is conservative4 ,with this reform in the account of habit we have not only analogous reforms1 as was said1 in the account of inheritance1 but also in the scientific view of character1 custom1 law1 creed1 and the institution generally4 ,moreover1 if in scientific theory we find these new views1 in practical life there are at least signs of the same standpoint4 ,what may be called a new conservatism--the most truly conservative thing being taken to be the most thoroughly pertinent or adaptive thing--has for many years been getting possession of us1 and is now quite manifest4 ,our political constitutions are amendable constitutions2 our religious rites and doctrines are recognized as only symbols2 our theories are only standpoints4 ,so1 once more1 because change is at least an ever-present companion1 if not actually an integral part of habit1 doubt must be as real and general as habit4 p4#jag ,change must make doubt4 ,sociologically1 institutionalism must always imply a contemporary scepticism2 the conservative must have an unbeliever for his neighbour4 ,indeed1 to add an important point1 some go so far as to say in general that change1 that is1 something new and different1 is not only a necessary incident but also an actual motive in all activity1 and when all is said they seem quite right4 ,perhaps habit1 as always an interest in adaptation1 would imply as much4 ,certainly novelty is a universal motive1 and as for society there can be no question that it has a very strong predilection for lawlessness in all its forms4 ,true1 it may be objected that at times men1 individually or collectively1 seek not something else1 but simply more of something already secured2 more money1 it may be1 or more learning1 or more territory1 or more pleasure4 ,there is1 however1 in spite of man's many conceits to the contrary1 no change that is purely quantitative4 ,more is also different or other4 ,accordingly1 we both always find1 and1 what is even more to the point1 always seek a real change whenever we do anything4 ,to speak again in most general terms1 the motion in the outer world1 which is the fundamental stimulus of all 'consciousness1 both physically1 that is1 literally1 and figuratively1 is more than merely an outer stimulus2 something there is within the nature of the subject which answers to it with perfect sympathy and makes it equally an inner motive4 ,forsooth1 could any stimulus ever produce a response without its being in accord with an existing motive8 ,life1 then1 is a game1 and the game of life1 doubts and all1 is a real interest as well as a necessity4 ,we are p4#jah creatures of habit1 but we have1 and we cherish1 no habit stronger or more essential than the habit at once of adaptation and variation4#b ,a fourth general fact1 very closely related to the foregoing1 is this3 ,doubt is necessary to life1 to real life1 to deep experience4 ,doubt is but one of the phases of the resistance which a real life demands4 ,real life implies a constant challenge1 and doubt is a form under which the challenge finds expression4 ,the doubter is a questioner1 a seeker2 he has1 then1 something to overcome2 he fears1 too1 as well as hopes4 ,were all things settled once for all1 were all things clearly known and freely executed1 or were the consequences of the things to be done always capable of being accurately foretold1 there would be no real p4#jai living1 there would be nothing really to do4 ,in such case life in general1 or in any of its different expressions1 religion1 or politics1 or art1 or science1 or industry1 or morals1 if one may suppose for a moment that any of these differences could ever develop1 would consist in a purely passive condition1 a mere fixed status2 it would be a wholly static thing falsely called life2 its movement1 if movement there were1 could be only the rest or routine of strictly mechanical motion4 ,to a real life1 then1 doubt1 as an evidence of challenge and resistance1 is absolutely necessary1 and appreciation of just this necessity is certainly an important part of our present confession1 and the confession is important1 because it is sure somewhat to brighten what heretofore may have seemed a dark horizon4 ,confession often changes night to dawn1 and here the association of doubt with real living1 with a world in which there is always something to do1 awakens emotions that such words as relativity1 and instability1 and change1 and even game1 have discouraged1 or even wholly suppressed4 ,leasing1 perhaps better than any one else1 has given expression to these emotions1 and has at the same time reflected what in his day had certainly begun to be1 and what in our own time very widely and very deeply is1 the ideal spirit4 ,thus1 as he wrote3-- ,not the truth that any one may have or may think he has1 but the honest effort which has been exerted to compass it1 makes what is really worthy in human life4 ,for not in having1 but in seeking truth1 are those powers developed1 in which alone man's ever-increasing p4#jbj perfection consists4 ,possession makes us inert1 lazy1 proud4 ,if ,god held in his right hand the perfect truth1 and in his left the ever-restless struggle after truth1 and bade me choose1 although ,i were bound to be ever and always in the wrong1 ,i should humbly select the left1 saying3 ',father1 give2 surely the pure truth is for ,thee alone4' ,this is a splendid utterance1 and it has touched a responsive chord in human nature the civilized world over1 not so much1 however1 for the humility of the choice as for the zeal in a life of seeking and striving1 or for the idea that knowledge is itself a dynamic thing1 a living1 moving function1 not a passive possession4 ,the knower is made also a doubter1 and the doubter appears as having1 in a sense1 forgotten1 without for a moment betraying1 the constant doubting within him4 ,if ,i may so speak1 he has1 even while he lacks2 such is the condition of his seeking2 such is the way in which doubting is necessary to real living4 ,doubt saves from the possession that makes inert1 lazy1 proud1 yet does not take away4 ,doubt makes experience always deep1 even putting consciousness in touch with reality1 and it makes life for ever living4 ,still others may be quoted in the same vein4 ,socrates made life1 particularly mental life1 if this may be supposed distinct1 essentially active or dynamic when he identified true wisdom with self-conscious ignorance1 with a power in one of always finding oneself in error1 and in modern times ,hegel has done the same thing as effectually1 though perhaps not in general so intelligibly1 by finding a principle of negativity or contradiction the very mainspring of all p4#jba consciousness1 of all thinking4 ,known truth is at once imperfect or even false1 being necessarily partial1 relative1 and at best only tentative1 very much1 let us say1 recalling something already remarked1 as an established form of life is no longer the real life1 but merely the developed means to a revolution1 a life that is passing even as soon as it has come4 ,for the rest1 the positive value of doubt to real life can hardly need further emphasis4 ,in one form or another the idea1 as important as many may find it commonplace1 must constantly recur in these pages4 ,we turn1 therefore1 to our fifth1 and for the present1 last general fact1 with which we shall find ourselves still in sight1 perhaps even in clearer sight of the brighter horizon4 ,we are all universal doubters2 doubt underlies all consciousness2 even habit has gloomy doubt1 as ,horace would say1 sitting up behind2 like pain or want1 like ignorance or contradiction1 doubt is a dynamic principle1 making experience deeper and ever deepening1 and life real and alive2 and fifthly3 ,as man is dependent and feels dependent1 he is a doubter4 ,his widespread1 or rather his universal1 sense of dependence begets doubt4 ,witness the fact that doubt shows man a seeker after company2 the company of nature1 the company of his fellows1 the company of ,god4 ,of course the social impulse1 thus to be associated with doubt1 is only one of the phases of its dynamic and life-giving character1 for a social life1 a life of dependence on what is without1 of real relations beyond self1 must be a life of real and constant movement4 ,nothing so much as such relations gives p4#jbb vitality4 ,this special phase1 however1 of the place of doubt in real life is a very interesting one1 and it suggests1 besides1 so much that is of positive value as almost to transform what so far has been in large part a sceptic's confession into a sceptic's boast4 ,thus1 in the first place1 doubt seeks the company of nature4 ,return to nature6 has time and again in human history been the cry of the human heart4 ,has civilization lost its hold1 seeming unreal1 artificial1 formal8 ,has morality become hollow8 ,has a lover suffered the shattering of his dearest hopes8 ,has a creed lost its credibility8 ,have you and ,i wearied of our study or our labour1 whatever it be1 and come to wonder if it1 or anything1 is worth while after all8 ,have friends1 ideals1 and ,god ,himself deserted us8 ,we turn1 and all people turn to nature4 ,exactly so the homesick traveller takes himself homeward1 or the prodigal arises and goes to his father4 ,and your experience and mine1 and the poetry of all literatures1 which tells so deeply the experiences of all men of all times1 are a constant witness to the comfort1 and forgiveness1 and renewed confidence in self that nature imparts4 ,nature is our infancy1 in which all things are possible2 she is our untrammelled will2 she is infinitely hopeful for us and infinitely kind2 her necessity is so wide and so open that its very law1 so different from any human law1 is our greatest opportunity4 ,true1 our resort to nature is sometimes1 perhaps in greater or less degree always1 by the way of moral dissipation1 or political anarchy1 or intellectual suicide1 or religious profanity2 but even these dark ways to the home and the great mother-heart of p4#jbc us all have never been hopelessly misleading4 ,if history and literature and personal experience can be trusted1 even they have led to a kind nature4 ,have you never failed in anything and become reckless1 and then profited from the very knowledge of yourself which the recklessness uncovered8 ,personally and socially recklessness1 return to nature that it is1 is always a helpful assistant to nature's great teacher1 experience4 ,great is the pathos1 but also1 as it is understood1 great is the inspiration of ,rousseau's passionate outcry that his will was perfectly good4 ,he was incapable of a single wholesome relation in life1 yet1 so he said1 no man was better than he6 ,rousseau1 philosopher of revolution1 spoke for nature4 ,out of her great love1 nature always takes the will for the deed--and perhaps she alone should have the privilege of doing that2 for she knows that the deed1 however violent1 however bad1 is sure to leave at least the will good4 ,but intellectually1 as well as morally or politically1 or as well as in any of the departments of the practical1 emotional life1 when trouble comes we turn to nature4 ,nature has a mind as well as a heart1 and when state1 and church1 and social tradition have lost their validity and infallibility1 their various formul being no longer reasonable to us1 when we have to depose them from their position as our accepted teachers1 then we become scientists1 which is to say1 intellectual prodigals4 ,science1 the open-minded study of nature1 is only a homesickness for truth seeking relief4 ,does the scientist doubt8 ,he is one of the princes of doubters4 ,he doubts1 as in due time we p4#jbd shall more fully appreciate1 even to the extreme position of agnosticism4 ,he doubts all things human that always he may be learning of nature4 ,so the companionship of nature for the comfort and pardon which she is sure to give1 and for the deeper knowledge which she is certain to impart1 is a passion of the doubter4 ,true1 no passion is free from dangers2 yet this passion1 at least this passion1 has somewhat of hope in it4 ,but1 secondly1 the companionship of one's fellows is not less strongly desired4 ,huddling together in time of distress is by no means peculiar to the animal world2 in human life it has more than once made distress seem richly worth while4 ,we have each other in word or thought has been the comforting reflection of many a family1 or many a community1 when the money has gone1 or when in other ways1 possibly through a great fire1 or a great earthquake1 or the ravages of a disease1 afflictions have come1 and ,now we know how others have suffered has been not less common4 ,indeed1 it is my own conviction that these two reflections always rise together4 ,the distress or affliction of doubt1 however1 is certainly no exception to the rule4 ,doubt often separates an individual from the customary corporate life with which he has long identified himself1 throwing him out of his church1 or his party1 or his society1 or even his immediate family1 but the doubter at once feels his loneliness1 and gets a yearning1 never realized before1 for social relations4 ,benedict ,spinoza may have been better than most of us1 but he was not in any other way different1 and though maligned and insulted1 as earlier in history p4#jbe another of his race had been1 for his doubts and heresies1 and though exposed to the dangers of the assassin's knife1 and finally1 when other measures failed1 with special cruelties excommunicated by his synagogue1 he loved his people1 and all men besides1 as few have loved them4 ,doubt makes one dependent2 isolation gives a sense of loss2 and1 if ever a solution of the doubt comes1 in the life and consciousness which it enjoins the lost companions1 whether they will or not1 are included with oneself4 ,in many ways this is an important fact2 yet it must suffice that we see the affinity of the doubter for society4 ,man ever confidently seeks what man has lost4 ,dependent man and doubting man must have society4 ,that doubt1 furthermore1 not only creates a motive to social life1 even to the restoration of lost companions1 but also by weakening the barriers which have divided some class1 a sect perhaps1 or a party1 or a nation1 or a race1 from some other class1 puts social life on a broader and deeper basis1 is also an important fact1 and full of significance beyond our immediate interest4 ,thus1 to suggest indeed how those two reflections mentioned in the preceding paragraph are inseparable1 besides his wish to retain or recover his wonted companions1 the doubter would also associate them and himself with new companions1 ,i venture to say1 as if in a figure1 with ,gentiles as well as with ,jews1 and this gives to doubt1 or to those who experience it and adequately use it1 a most significant rle in the evolution of society1 the rle of mediation between old friends and new1 between the past and the future1 the narrow life and the broader p4#jbf and deeper life1 what is conservative and what is progressive2 but at least for the present it is again enough if we see that doubt1 not only by its personal losses gives the motive1 but also by its removal of barriers gives the larger possibility of society4 ,and1 in addition to the company of nature and the company of man1 doubt1 springing as it does from man's sense of insufficiency1 seeks also the company of ,god2 yet not of the ,god of any theology4 ,as here conceived1 ,god is that which lies at the back of nature1 and at the back of man in the sense of being in character broader and deeper than either of these1 and quite superior to any difference between them2 he is the single1 all-inclusive1 wholly indeterminate reality upon which the doubter depends1 and must depend2 he is as nameless and unspeakable as he is indeterminate and all-inclusive1 and he is real and perfect only as so nameless4 ,to theology1 ,god is determinate2 to doubt1 imperfect if determinate4 ,at times1 perhaps only half in earnest1 or at least not clearly knowing if he is in earnest or if he wishes others to think him so1 the doubter speaks of nature as his ,god1 of the hills1 or the fields1 or the sea1 or the sky1 or the busy street as his church1 or the great book of the universe as his ,bible4 ,at times1 with the deepest emotion and with open avowal1 nature and ,god are fully one to him1 and the poetry1 or the science1 or the philosophy1 to which his doubting leads him1 is veritably a religious revelation4 ,but always his doubting1 as he knows it1 as he is honest with it1 is an appeal1 not merely to nature as physically a powerful agent in the life he is pursuing1 nor to others like himself who1 by sharing1 p4#jbg may lighten his distress and enhance his final victory1 but also to a full1 inclusive experience2 to a life1 perhaps like his own1 yet indeterminately deeper than any he has known2 to a mind and a heart1 such as he knows must be present in that which surrounds him and moves within him1 in knowledge more enlightened and in emotion more inspired1 than his doubting mind and faltering heart have ever been2 and such a life or such a mind or heart1 whatever name it be called by1 is ,god4 ,can mind appeal to anything but mind1 or heart to anything but heart8 ,and doubt--can it be doubt without the appeal8 ,the doubter who refuses or hesitates to speak the name of ,god may thus be a protestant1 but plainly he is no atheist4 ,a mere name1 in any case1 is quite as likely to obscure as to illumine the reality2 the chiaroscuro effect must ever belong to it4 ,doubt is no road to atheism4 ,as a way to theism it may be beset with hardship1 and its goal may be quite beyond the horizon2 but the doubter is not by nature an atheist2 quite the contrary4 ,as no other1 feeling dependent1 he is a seeker1 and even a confident seeker after what is perfect4 ,he truly and confidently seeketh1 for he seeketh after what hath neither visible form nor body1 what is without habitation or name1 what1 like the ,son of ,man1 hath not where to lay its head4 ,he seeketh1 what his very seeking itself is1 not a ,god1 but the life of the ,god4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the general facts about doubt are now before us1 and although much needs yet to be said in explanation1 and a further fact is reserved for a p4#jbh concluding chapter1 still not so darkly as it began this first chapter in our confession of doubt has come1 perhaps somewhat abruptly1 to an end4 ,we have next1 entering more fully and critically into the conditions of our human experience1 to scrutinize closely our ordinary habits of mind1 those common-sense views of things that on the whole prevail among men4 ,in these ideas1 impulsive1 unreasoning1 above all often flatly contradictory1 we shall find some of the strongest reasons for our doubting nature4 #a ,mental ,development of the ,child and the ,race4 ,methods and ,processes4 ,by ,james ,m4 ,baldwin4 ,macmillan1 #ahie4 #b ,let me add1 that if certain people1 struggling in the present maze of educational theory1 and objecting1 with a zest and a combativeness that fairly belie their contentions1 to the use of interest as the primal educational motive1 if these people would only recognize change as always a part of interest1 their greatest trouble would be removed4 ,they refuse to have education easy or pleasant2 interest1 they insist1 must make it so2 and doubtless the advocates of interest are in part to blame for this view2 but change1 which to my mind is involved in all interest1 includes resistance and struggle2 change is ever a challenge to effort2 and1 such being the case1 an education led by interest is not necessarily easy or idly pleasant4 ,the real meaning of the interest theory1 at least as ,i have to understand it1 is simply 7#a7 that the natural child or the natural man always has something to do1 and 7#b7 that education should promote that something4 ,it is far from meaning that there should be no compulsion or discipline1 no pain or self-denial4 ,whoever honestly over expected to do1 or ever did any thing without these8 ,the interest theory1 then1 would not eliminate hardship or discipline1 but1 to my understanding1 by making education serve actual life1 would substitute a natural for an artificial and externally imposed hardship4 ,not hardship1 but real achievement makes the educated man4 p4#jbi ,,iii4 ,,difficulties ,,in ,,our ,,ordinary ,,views ,,of ,,things4 ,if the doubter were brought into court under indictment for his offences against common sense1 against ordinary experience and belief1 and the jury of his peers sitting upon the case were composed1 as of course it would be likely to be1 of faithful believers chosen at random from the different walks of practical life1 no better defence could possibly be offered than a simple statement of the incongruities which the consciousness of ordinary life is constantly addicted to4 ,true1 for some reason lying deep in human nature1 a defence that ends by convicting the jury of error1 is hardly likely to lead to the immediate discharge of the prisoner2 judges or jurymen are not in the habit of taking a rebuff in that way2 but in course of time the prisoner will be justified1 and his justification1 however tardy1 is all that now concerns us4 ,to his defence1 therefore1 and the discomfiture of his judges1 but to the latter without any malice1 we turn at once4 ,and where shall we begin8 ,our predicament in this defence is something like that of the small boy1 bewildered over the task of picking up his nursery4 p4#jcj ,i can't do it1 he says4 ,there are so many things2 ,i can't tell which to take first4 ,poor little fellow6 ,if he halts now1 what will he do when the littered room--,i had almost said the littered playroom--of his later life confronts him8 ,contradictions under foot everywhere are certainly not less confusing than blocks1 horses1 papers1 trains1 marbles1 picture-books1 and the like--or unlike--scattered over a nursery floor4 ,here1 for example1 in practical life is the natural1 physical world4 ,how real1 brutally real1 it is2 its very law is fate2 its forces are no respecters of persons1 inexorably ruling and compelling all alike1 giving life and taking it1 full of the grimmest humour1 raising hopes only to cast them down4 ,is some one rash enough to suggest that things physical are only so many ideas1 real only as states of mind1 of ,god's mind possibly1 in some way coming to consciousness in the senses of men8 ,the practical man knows a thing or two about that4 ,he kicks a stone1 or strikes his fist loudly upon a table1 and so ends the matter1 laughing the mad idealist away4 ,and yet1 prestissimo change6 ,what do we hear him saying now8 ,this brutally real world of physical things and powers is but a fleeting show2 a thing only of space and time4 ,what is really real and abiding is the spiritual that is everywhere and always4 ,another world there is1 not to be spoken of in the same breath with this present world1 a world compared with which this is but a mist before the eyes4 ,in so many familiar ways this duplicity towards what is real is manifest4 ,people go to church to do such a wonderfully strange thing2 nothing more p4#jca nor less than to save their real souls from an unreal world1 or sometimes to hide a real worldliness under unreal rites or symbols4 ,you may think me worldly1 selfish1 sensuous1 says some one1 and ,i can not deny that often ,i do seem so1 but this life of mine is ever only a yearning after the things that are spiritual1 for which1 as you see1 ,i pray so earnestly1 and which have nothing at all to do with one's worldly life4 ,yes1 we do see1 and particularly we see that things spiritual are often an impertinence in worldly affairs4 ,the real self never does the things that are really done4 ,only this1 just this is where the duplicity lies4 ,again1 from some one else1 a practical man presumably and an accuser of the doubter1 we hear the following3 ,only the spiritual life is real2 look to it that you fear1 as ,i fear1 deeply and constantly the material world hanging like a sword over us all4 ,can it be1 as would certainly appear1 that superstition is still among us1 that so readily we can give reality to unreality1 that belief in ghosts still holds our human minds8 ,once upon a time--at least once--the ,christian ,church rose in bitter resentment because a certain man1 by merely questioning the separate reality of the physical world1 threatened to deprive the holy priesthood1 with all its time-honoured prerogatives1 of its heaven-appointed labour4 ,yet what is to be said of a church that prefers to think of an independent physical world1 by which man is bound and damned1 in order to save for itself the task1 either hopeless or useless1 of rescuing him8 ,labelling a man rescued or ,christian does not make another-world creature of him4 ,in political history1 too1 what p4#jcb a paradox it is that kingship by divine right has always been also kingship by physical might4 ,the practices of an avowed supernaturalism have always been strangely materialistic4 ,so1 in high places and in low1 in the affairs of men now and in the past1 the physical and the spiritual have ever been in a most remarkable relation2 each real in and by itself1 but with a most unusual courtesy also unreal at the slightest motion from the other2 each now supreme1 and now wholly subject2 each now the whole life of man1 and now the very opposite1 the antipodes of all that is human2 and each self-existent and independent1 yet never without its real need of the other4 ,here surely is contradiction1 or vacillation1 in experience that is1 to say the least1 very confusing to him who reflects4#a ,but1 to take up something else certainly not less confusing to the ordinary mind1 practical1 and unaccustomed to reflection1 this is a world of separate1 individual things1 of chairs1 hands1 atoms1 eyes1 stars1 men1 stones1 books1 leaves1 rivers1 lives1 mountains1 relations1 notions1 distances1 days or years1 and so on1 p4#jcc indefinitely and above all indiscriminately2 a world1 moreover1 into which in part ,god1 in part man1 defying an equally powerful agent of chaos or dissipation1 has put at least for a time a certain kind of order1 an order that might be said to be good enough for all practical purposes4 ,yet with all its indiscriminate manifoldness1 and with the irregular1 uncertain conflict between chaos and order1 it is nevertheless a single world1 in short1 just one more individual thing1 one more example1 perhaps outdoing all others1 of the marvellous license with which human beings are wont to speak and think of a thing4 ,chairs1 hands1 mountains1 men1 stars1 and the whole universe1 are all things1 and in this world of things1 that is itself another thing1 or1 should ,i rather say1 apart from this world of things1 that is another thing1 there are two1 at least two1 discordant powers taking turns at making order and disorder4 ,confusion indeed6 ,nor have ,i exaggerated it4 ,the loose association of chairs1 distances1 and days2 the easy assumption of two supreme agents working against each other2 the certain uncertainty about these agents being in the world or out of it1 of it or not of it2 and the readiness with which the whole universe1 the all-inclusive thing1 is treated as only one more thing to be included3 these habits of the ordinary mind show a confusion that seems like insanity4 ,can we even face them safely and soberly8 ,for special regard ,i select just one1 perhaps the central one2 the habit of treating the universe1 the unity of all things1 as but one additional thing1 the whole1 as if it were only another part1 the complete p4#jcd and infinite as if distinct from or outside of what is finite or incomplete2 or again1 in good old philosophical terms1 the ,one as if it were another and so in effect1 but one of the ,many4 ,now some there are1 and their number may be large1 who never have thought of the contradiction and consequent confusion in the notion of a single world made up of many single things1 yet itself another thing1 or of the ,infinite as external to the ,finite1 or of the ,one as not in and of the ,many1 but the contradiction is there1 and can scarcely need more than mention to be seen4 ,even in theory1 scientific or philosophical1 the wholeness or unity of the many things of the world has sometimes been taken for just one more thing1 as when ,anaximander taught that it was that thing which is no one of the world's things1 or for one of the many things supposed by it to be unified1 as when ,thales so navely declared all things to be water4 ,anaximander and ,thales were only ancient ,greeks1 albeit very wise and enlightened ,greeks1 living as early as #fjj ,b4,c41 but in very recent times they have had followers4 ,electricity has been taken as the one force of all other forces4 ,our chemists1 some of them1 have been hunting down the one element among the rest4 ,statesmen and churchmen have often dreamt of one man as somehow in his single person expressing the unity of all human life1 and more than once they have even imagined him present in the flesh4 ,god1 although the ,being in whom we1 as ourselves persons1 live and move and have our being1 has ,himself been another person4 ,society and its supposed component individuals have made two orders p4#jce of existence4 ,life and living creatures2 history and its many events2 the solar system and its planets3 nature and all her various kingdoms3 these have also been held apart1 making amazing dualisms4 ,but1 simply to repeat from above1 taking the whole or the unity of all things as itself an independent thing1 as itself one more thing1 is a contradiction that needs only to be stated clearly to be appreciated4 ,let me hope that ,i have stated it clearly4 ,nor is this particular conflict in our ordinary ideas yet before us in all its fatefulness1 for--as if to defy the principle of consistency to the very last degree of its forbearance--we are often1 if not usually1 given not only to unifying our world of things in terms of just one more thing1 or of persons in terms of just one more person1 but also to thinking of this one more thing1 or person as sui generis1 as altogether different in nature and substance4 ,so do we mingle our duplicity about reality with that about the unity of things4 ,the many1 for example1 are physical or of the substance of matter2 the one is ideal or of the substance of mind or spirit4 ,the many persons are merely human1 the ,one is divine4 ,strange1 indeed1 that men should ever take one more as the unity of all the rest1 but if possible it is at least1 at first sight1 stranger that this one more should be relegated to a sphere wholly apart and peculiar4 ,in the madness of such compounded contradiction there may lurk real method1 but of the contradiction and of the compounding there can be no question4 ,even the soul1 a something1 an entity1 that each one of us has been in the habit of claiming for himself p4#jcf and of holding very sacred and inviolate too1 has been subjected to the same way of thinking4 ,doubtless1 since ,god has not been spared1 we should hardly expect the soul to escape4 ,we view the soul so materialistically1 even while we insist that it is not material4 ,we say1 we think1 that it is something in the body2 yet1 of course1 we are at our wit's end to tell just what particular place it occupies there4 ,similarly1 ,god is supposed to be somewhere in the ,universe1 yet in no assignable place1 and the chemist's universal atom is somewhere also1 though surely not in the same place1 and1 wherever it be1 waiting with its own1 yet certainly a divine patience that ought to be inspiring1 for experimental discovery4 ,but with regard to the soul1 although the life and unity of the body1 although one of the things in the body1 the soul itself is not bodily at all2 it can enter the body and is important--who dares say how important8--to the body1 and it can1 as at death1 leave the body1 but though for a time in1 it never is of the body4 ,a strange standpoint certainly1 but men insist that it is quite as true as it is strange4 ,it seems very much like saying that when you build a house1 in order to ensure it real solidarity1 to give it real permanence and integrity1 you should make a special point of putting your bricks or your lumber together1 not with clinging1 well-set mortar1 or strong pins and straight-driven nails1 but so much more sensibly1 because so much further from what would be like the material bricks or lumber1 or like the equally material mortar or nails1 with those real and really compact things1 absolutely continuous or indivisible1 or at least indestructible p4#jcg even when disintegrated1 empty space and pure uneventful time4 ,with such space and time there would be union indeed ,i ,but1 again1 strange as such a procedure in building a house would be1 men insist or at least ,i can readily imagine their insistence1 that houses are built in that way1 and built successfully4 ,the method may seem absurd1 but they insist that it is not madness4 ,are not abstract plans and such seemingly unsubstantial things as mathematical formul1 which are very near to being made of empty space and time1 the real strength and integrity of all our great modern structures8 ,and the soul1 whatever be said of its being an immaterial thing1 is nevertheless1 even for being both immaterial and thing1 the very sinew of the body4 ,here may be method1 then1 and sanity1 but there is always contradiction1 obstinate contradiction1 compounded contradiction6 ,the soul1 unity of the body1 is only another thing or part in the body1 and at the same time1 though in the body1 it is after all not really of the body4 ,possibly1 perhaps necessarily1 such patent contradiction1 and1 more than all1 such compounding of contradiction1 like doubling a negative1 make for what is without contradiction1 but this wholesome result is not consciously intended1 and in the face of all1 whatever our hopes or our beliefs1 we must feel grave doubts and confess our doubting4 ,those who do build better than they know1 if enlightened1 would not again build in the same way4 ,two contradictions may be better than one1 but even two make us wonder4 ,closely connected with the contradictions in our p4#jch customary ideas of reality1 and ideas of wholeness or unity1 there is the way in which we calmly take opposite sides in our notions about space and time1 and about that very fundamental factor of our experience--causation4 ,these are1 all of them1 so general and fundamental as possibly to seem too abstruse even for mention in this place1 since throughout these chapters we are courting simplicity1 but of space1 and time1 and causation1 only what is very simple needs to be said4 ,thus to the ordinary consciousness how fatally things are separated from each other by conditions of space and time4 ,then is not now4 ,here is not there4 ,space and time are only physical and as brutal as all things physical1 separating this from that with a finality that knows no degree4 ,lovers1 continents apart1 despair over the cruel distance4 ,time tears us ruthlessly from those dear to us4 ,what is to be1 as well as what was1 though in the next moment1 is absolutely beyond our grasp4 ,could anything be freer from dispute than the reality and the separating brutally of space and time8 ,yet1 almost at a whisper1 all distance and all duration become as nothing4 ,do not the lovers write to each other1 flatly and passionately denying that they are far apart8 ,do we not constantly forestall the future and retain the past8 ,indeed1 when all is said1 a thousand years are as one day1 and all the places of the earth are one4 ,so real1 and so vast1 and so physical to us but a moment ago1 space and time have now passed into mere phantoms of the imagination4 ,we live1 then1 not only in a world that is brutally spatial and temporal1 but also1 and at the same time1 p4#jci in a world that is not spatial and not temporal at all2 and living here--or there8--we have again to wonder and to doubt even in our belief4 ,to our own constant amazement we find that we make our life a bridge over what would seem to be an absolutely impassable chasm4 ,as for causation our temerity is not less surprising4 ,wet and dry moons1 unlucky ,fridays1 holy and unholy numbers1 haunted houses1 so-called providences1 free in the sense of indifferently1 irresponsibly free wills and fiat deities with their suddenly made worlds may not be generally in vogue at the present time1 at least among the better educated1 the enlightened and not infrequently conceited classes1 but even among the wise and the consciously informed they have their natural offspring1 and ,i am not so sure that many of them might not be found almost intact1 at least in the more retired parts of the consciousness of my readers4 ,to illustrate1 for some if not for all of us1 this is a world of many free and independent causes1 yet also it is the single effect of one cause2 it is again1 our mood having changed1 the single effect of two absolutely unlike beings or natures1 each of them an all-powerful cause2 it is a sphere here and now of causal1 creative1 productive activity1 but it was itself created once for all long ago1 at a date which the exegete hopes--in the equally distant future6--to determine for us2 it contains some things that are only causes and some that are only effects1 or some1 or all1 that are both causes and effects2 it has parts that are the accepted causes of other parts2 it has causes1 those acting now and the one original cause1 that are temporally p4#jdj antecedent to their effects2 and1 not to make the list longer1 it is variously a world of one last effect1 of one first and only cause1 of an infinite series of causes and effects1 and in whole1 or in part1 it constantly shows something made out of nothing or nothing resulting from something4 ,a wondrous world most assuredly2 and yet at first statement this record of our various notions of causation may not appear as a very serious arraignment of the consciousness which it exposes4 ,moreover some people actually glory in such a wonder as it presents4 ,but1 to be plain1 though also monotonous1 the uncaused cause or the effect that is only a part of the whole1 or the cause or the effect that refuses to share in the other's nature1 or finally the causation that is now so individual and so manifold and so effective1 and that was once so single and so complete1 is something that must give any thinker pause4 ,can a moving body move an immobile body8 ,can some things in the universe be mobile2 others not8 ,can the moving body and the moved body belong to different moments of time8 ,can motion lead to rest or rest to motion8 ,but our ordinary ideas of causation would allow1 or even require1 an affirmative answer to every one of these questions4 ,alas6 ,shall this labour proceed8 ,can we afford to continue it8 ,the defence of the doubter is getting almost too successful2 it is becoming too personal to be pleasant4 ,the task of picking up the room of our ordinary life grows harder1 not easier1 as it moves forward4 ,every thing that we touch tells of a spirit of violence in our nature4 ,even the small boy can not have been more lawless1 for his toys were all p4#jda battered perhaps1 but not1 like ours1 all broken4 ,can we afford to go on8 ,afford it or not1 we simply can not help ourselves1 for our self-confidence is already shattered2 our attention to the disorder is already beyond our control2 each one of us is the doubter we would defend4 ,here close at hand1 where we have to see it1 is another contradiction common in all human experience4 ,it inheres in our conceits about knowledge4 ,for us1 on the one hand1 the world we know not only really is1 the tree out yonder or the planet miles and miles away being really and actually there1 but also is just the world which our knowledge reports to us4 ,what we have knowledge of is in our belief a real thing in and by itself1 and we know it literally and directly1 not figuratively1 not afar off through symbols2 we know it as it is2 we know a real world1 and we know it face to face4 ,yet1 on the other hand1 with all this simple confidence in our knowledge1 what are we also given to saying1 or assuming when we do not say it8 ,even in the moment of our confidence we humble ourselves with the cry of our utter foolishness1 making our recognized foolishness only a counter-conceit4 ,what but perfect folly is our knowledge before ,god's knowledge6 ,illusion6 ,the dream of a few hours or a few years6 is so often the best we can say of the whole fabric1 past and present1 of human consciousness4 ,not now1 but only in the hereafter are we to see reality face to face2 now we see only very darkly1 if at all4 ,some one here protests strenuously1 raising an objection that might very properly have been raised p4#jdb before4 ,thus1 ,i am told that only different people1 or only the same people at different times1 ever hold two opposite views1 whether about knowledge or any thing else2 never one and the same person at the same time holds them both2 and so the present arraignment can not be as serious as it is made to appear4 ,well1 with this objection ,i can agree in part1 for there is at least a half-truth in it1 but by no means does it tell1 either in general or in particular1 that is1 with regard to the special case of the conceits about knowledge1 the whole story of double living or double thinking among men4 ,indeed the easy way1 in which men make the distinctions of society or the distinctions of time bear the responsibility for what must always in the end be the conflicts of their personal lives1 is but another illustration of the difficulties besetting their ordinary views of things4 ,duplicity of view1 like anything else in experience1 must always be more than a matter of different people or different times1 for the simple reason that1 whether directly personal or not1 it is present in the environment of the individual person4 ,so1 even if those two positions1 confidence in worldly knowledge and religious trust and humility1 for the sake of argument be momentarily associated only with different persons or social classes or times1 our present point will really be just exactly as pointed1 for there is always a third person or class or time into whose direct single experience the duplicity or contradiction is bound to enter4 ,consider1 for example1 the case of a child4 ,for a part of the week he is perhaps at school2 on ,sunday at church2 and the life in which he thus takes part must p4#jdc appear to him1 there being in all probability little or no reservation on either side1 to be hopelessly divided against itself4 ,now is knowledge power2 now hindrance and greatest danger4 ,now he is to learn all he can2 now1 on the other hand1 to forget what he may have learned4 ,so is the conflict about him made his personal conflict1 and exactly as in his case1 so in all human experience the individual must share personally whatever the environment affords4 ,the individual and the environing society are the closest of blood relations1 though we often allow ourselves1 all too easily as has been said1 to lose sight of the fact2 they live under the same roof1 and rely for sustenance on the same fare2 and while to some the contradictions of life may be overlooked as personally impertinent and unimportant1 being referred wholly to the environment1 they are plainly the unavoidable heritage and the personal responsibility of every individual that counts himself a member of the human race4 ,the objection1 then1 that was raised does not remove contradiction as a cause of doubt1 but merely emphasizes what in a subsequent chapter must occupy us1 the social aspect of experience4#b ,thus1 not only does experience1 in ways now coming to our view1 teem with contradictions1 and is contradiction a cause of doubt1 but also experience so conditioned is social as well as individual1 a matter of personal relations between man and man as well as a matter of the single person's inner responsibility4 ,society in its manifold classes1 in its conflicts and in its history1 may help us to see the whole of experience1 the unity p4#jdd of experience on all sides and in all parts1 but it never does1 and it never can1 relieve the individual1 or deprive the individual1 of any side or part of what makes up an experience-whole4 ,grown men and women may be more definitely set in their lives and their ideas to certain specific things than children1 but in no one1 young or old1 can such specialism ever be wholly exclusive of any of the other things4 ,to return to our immediate interest1 if men are given to being doubters in their views about reality1 spiritual and material2 about unity or wholeness2 about space and time1 on the one hand fatally vast and independently real1 and on the other formal and illusory2 about causality1 so actual and positive now1 and yet so complete yesterday1 or ever and ever so long ago2 and about knowledge1 so perfectly wise and so thoroughly vain and foolish2 if1 ,i say1 men are double in all these different ways1 in their moral judgments they seem1 if possible1 even more confused1 and the confusion1 the division against themselves1 is the more serious for being with regard to what so directly concerns personal life and human fellowship4 ,to begin with1 as will indeed readily appear1 the offences of our moral judgments1 which often1 if not always1 are largely influenced by religious or rather theological conceptions1 are only a peculiar expression of the two-faced attitude towards causation1 human persons or wills being the causes specially involved4 ,in general the causes of the universe are of three sorts1 those of natural force1 those of supernatural agency1 and those of human agency1 and although toward them all essentially the same attitude is p4#jde assumed1 it is worth our while to consider particularly the causation that is commonly adjudged to belong to the human will and the moral ideas that spring from it4 ,for the purposes of the moral consciousness we translate the two conflicting powers of our world1 or the spiritual reality and the material1 into two agents of good and evil respectively1 each having a power of doing whatever1 true to its peculiar character1 it may will to do1 and then1 as if in accord with this way of thinking1 we find two distinct selves1 a good self and an evil self1 within each one of us1 and we also divide the body social into two exclusive classes1 the class of those who are identified with the righteous life and the class of those given to the unrighteous life1 the sheep and the goats1 the elect and the damned4 ,but1 to say nothing of the fact that these three ideas of the two powers1 the two selves and the two classes1 cannot be made really to accord with each other1 although they possess an outward agreement1 is it not clear that any attempt to take the good and the evil as two mutually exclusive things1 be they spirits or selves or classes1 is to destroy at once the real substance of virtue and the real value of the consciousness of evil8 ,in practical life this means1 what everybody knows so well1 that an isolated1 unduly holy righteousness1 a sort of touch-me-not goodness1 is bound to be empty1 to be only ritualistic and aristocratic or pharisaical1 and in any one of these respects it appears decidedly unrighteous2 while an isolated unrighteousness1 besides having at least the moral worth of a protest against its counterpart1 is in itself exactly like the original p4#jdf sinfulness of the theologian2 being unavoidable1 it is wholly without any warranted opprobrium4 ,indeed1 it all but comes to this1 that righteousness as a fixed thing1 fixed to a part of the universe or to a part of the individual self or to a part of society1 is really in just so far evil1 and the direct opposite of such righteousness is proportionately good4 ,good and evil1 then1 may not mix well1 but certain it is that contradiction results from the common attempt of men to regard either as untainted or untempered by the other4 ,still1 not upon this real difficulty in our moral judgments would ,i now lay greatest stress1 although it is real enough and important4 ,in yet another way our moral consciousness is at war with itself4 ,in estimating the worth of human conduct1 so far as this is determined by its initiation1 we are in an almost hopeless tangle4 ,we are more than likely to think of other people as influenced by their environment in what they do1 of ourselves as quite original and responsible1 as independent of any such influences2 or1 more fully and more exactly1 we are given to referring our own bad deeds to environment1 our good deeds to ourselves1 while for others we are prompted to do just the reverse1 referring their good deeds to environment1 their bad deeds to themselves4 ,such is human nature--not1 to be sure1 at its best1 but common human nature2 and even when we escape the foregoing personally invidious distinctions1 we still--and this is the main point--treat self and environment as two naturally conflicting1 altogether independent sources of conduct4 ,two different and independent sources of anything1 p4#jdg however1 can only make for conflict and contradiction4 ,if only our courts of law could judge responsibility either wholly from the determinations of environment or wholly from those of personal will1 or again1 if only the will and the environment could be seen as not so radically opposed1 what a simplification would ensue1 and how much freer and more certain justice would be4 ,to venture on a variation of an aphorism1 where there's another way there is always a loophole2 where there's environment there is always a shifted responsibility2 where there's a free will there is always a will taken for some unperformed or imperfectly performed deed4 ,so the double origin of conduct offers a very serious difficulty1 which1 when it is understood1 is not unlike that of the two powers or selves or classes1 but even more is to be said in exposure of our moral judgments4 ,thus we have the confident conceit of freedom1 of our own freedom in good or our neighbour's freedom in evil1 or in general of man's freedom to act without regard to the determinations from environment1 but we have also a strange though possibly a fortunate way of qualifying the very freedom that we claim4 ,we claim freedom only to avow1 almost in the same breath1 duties and responsibilities4 ,we have the freedom1 but only the duties make it worth anything4 ,a startling paradox this1 so familiar to us all3 ,i am free to do all that ,i ought to do1 or1 ,i am free to carry out certain necessities of my true life4 ,a startling paradox2 and1 above all1 a strange way of escaping the necessities of environment1 unless1 forsooth1 it really opens the door1 or supplies a secret door1 by which the p4#jdh necessities of environment and the necessities of one's true life can come together8 ,if freedom demands law1 why should it hold aloof from the natural law1 the law of environment so definitely present8 ,possibly1 then1 as once before suggested1 one contradiction in experience may be the corrective of another1 the paradox of freedom and duty only correcting the contradiction of two sources of conduct1 personal will and environment4 ,in the case1 for example1 of the disposition to distinguish between one's own acts and another's1 with respect to their initiation by will or by environment1 to mingle duty and necessity with one's own supposed freedom is equivalent in effect to denying one's neighbour's freedom because of the restraints of his environment4 ,but such considerations1 however promising for future reflection upon the conflicts in our moral consciousness1 are not of immediate interest4 ,our doubts may once more find hope in the reflection that the faults of experience may balance themselves1 but we have no occasion to abandon our doubting as idle or meaningless4 ,contradictions that balance each other1 errors that are mutually corrective1 are still contradictions1 are still errors4 ,so1 to reduce our moral judgments1 confusion and all1 to small compass1 we are free1 others are not2 they are free1 we are not2 and our freedom is bound by duty1 by duty to the moral law1 while their freedom1 unless a hopeless lawlessness1 is bound by the environment and its law4 ,again1 good and evil are each unmixed1 and moral acts serve two masters--that is to say1 spring from two sources4 ,we may1 therefore1 p4#jdi still believe in morality--yet how can this be8 ,and freedom--yet how is freedom possible8 ,but finally1 as last to be examined1 there is the idea of law1 just now brought to attention4 ,this idea is a focus for a good many conflicting views4 ,witness the familiar argument from the knowledge of law in nature to fatalism1 an argument as absurd as it is widespread1 for the bare fact that we know the laws of nature really emancipates us from the blind fate to which the argument points4 ,can knowledge ever mean anything but freedom8 ,certainly no law can ever be known unless the sphere of its operation accords with the nature of those who have the knowledge4 ,simply to know is to share in and be at one with whatsoever is known1 and the clearer and more cogent or rational the knowledge1 the truer and realer is this participation or union4 ,the law we know1 then1 must have all the meaning and the natural authority of a law of our own enactment1 and so must actually have the sanction of our will4 ,will1 ,i say1 cannot help sanctioning knowledge1 for knowledge is always true to1 because conditioned by1 the natural action of the knower4 ,but no such message of freedom1 or say of human opportunity in natural necessity1 is commonly received by men at large from the evidences of law in nature4 ,superstitiously they see only fate4 ,clear knowledge and blind fate6 ,nor are we commonly satisfied with only so much superstition4 ,we go still further and make the case as bad as possible by treating the law we know as if in its spirit1 if not in its letter1 it were final4 ,in other words1 we view nature1 with some of whose ways we p4#jej have become conversant1 not merely as a source of blind fate1 or external necessity1 for our lives1 but also as essentially and ultimately a sphere of strictly mechanical routine4 ,yet here again we are surely reasoning beyond our premises--the very essence of superstition--for the routine we know can never answer substantially1 or even formally1 to nature as she really is4 ,our positive knowledge1 our knowledge that arrives at specific formul1 even though these formul reach the noble dignity of mathematics1 is bound to be in terms of some particular experience1 personal or national or racial2 it is relative and special2 it is partial knowledge2 and he is superstitious1 and does1 indeed1 argue beyond his premises1 who takes the whole1 whose law he does not know1 to be literally analogous to the part1 whose law he thinks he knows1 but can in fact know only partially4 ,no whole ever is one of its parts1 or merely analogous to one of its parts2 a law never is the law1 or even in its lawfulness literally analogous thereto2 and mechanicalism1 whether as a popular or a philosophical ism1 has no justification save just this false analogy4 ,and the prevalent confusion in the notions of law or lawfulness is of course reflected in the corresponding notions of lawlessness4 ,here1 as with other negative terms1 men forget that negatives necessarily are quite relative to their positives4 ,all specific1 definitely manifest1 known and positive lawlessness simply must have some place in the law of things2 it can no more be an absolute lawlessness than any human routine can be supposed final2 and1 on the other hand1 there can be no positive law whose breaking has not some p4#jea sanction2 there can be no lawfulness which does not warrant some lawlessness4 ,this truth1 perhaps as nothing else could1 must show the error in the notion of mechanical routine as affording an adequate description of the ultimate nature of things4 ,where the whole always gives point to the negation of any of its parts1 where the law always sanctions some breaking of any law1 to think of the whole in terms of its parts may be human1 but it is of the human which is prone to err4 ,those who would still insist upon seeing only routine in law1 and upon judging lawlessness as only relative to such seeing1 might do well1 rising above their ordinary views1 to remember with some real appreciation that once upon a time the law-breakers and the reformer were very closely associated2 they were associated in life1 and at the end they were crucified together4 ,whatever may be one's theology1 there is a deal of food for thought in those deaths on ,calvary and in the several lives which they closed4 ,lawlessness suggests the supernatural4 ,so many have promptly concluded that just as with the knowledge of law in nature human freedom must be resigned1 blind fate taking its place1 so anything or anybody at all supernatural1 ,satan--for example--as well as ,god1 must once for all withdraw4 ,if law reigns1 ,god can will whatever he wills only because the law is so2 the law is not so because he wills it2 and this in common opinion only makes him decrepit1 without real initiative1 dead4 ,yet1 once more1 what superstition6 ,the knowledge of law has never robbed man of his freedom1 nor even slain his ,god2 or this at least3 the loss of freedom or the death of ,god1 for p4#jeb which any law that man has had knowledge of has been responsible1 has always been only the forerunner of a larger and fuller freedom and of his ,god's resurrection and glorification4 ,this or that law may rob and may kill1 but this or that law1 let me reiterate1 never is the law1 and why common opinion has to judge all things in heaven and earth1 as if it were1 is hard to comprehend4 ,neither nature nor ,god1 if these two need to be thought of as two1 is law-bound2 each rather1 with a meaning which ,i must hope now to have made clear1 is law-free4 ,the law in which nature is free is as infinite1 as transcendent of any particular human experience as the ever-developing freedom of man or as the will of ,god4 ,and ,god1 or the ,supernatural1 is not confined to the narrow sphere of what man knows1 as man knows it2 this stands only for what man calls nature4 ,god is the all-inclusive sphere or source of the absolute law1 for which knowledge can be only a constant striving1 or which is itself even a party to the constant striving4 ,somehow the law must be a living thing1 not a routine3 the supernatural must be not nature as she is known1 but nature's fullest and deepest life4 ,very emphatically what has just been said about nature or ,god being law-free1 or about the law being infinite1 or not analogous in form or substance1 in spirit or letter1 to any thing in positive knowledge1 is no argument for the ,jonah story or even for the miracle of the wine at ,cana's wedding feast2 and yet time and again people who apparently should have done enough thinking to know better1 to the great satisfaction of thousands have used the infinity of p4#jec nature's or ,god's lawfulness1 which is to say the only partial and tentative character of all human knowledge of law1 as a clinching proof of all the miracles in the ,bible4 ,can they not see that like what is lawless in general1 the miraculous must be in the premises only relative to the experience of the time8 ,even chance is not less so4 ,the spiritual meaning of those miracles may persist1 for the miraculous we must always have with us2 but if even our relative1 imperfect knowledge stands for anything1 if it be even a tentative knowledge1 a working standpoint1 the literal truth of most1 or even all of them1 disappeared long ago4 ,miracles1 like laws1 come and go2 only the miraculous1 like the law1 goes on forever4 ,and this leads to something else1 to something also very common1 perhaps the reverse of the foregoing4 ,with what an unaccountable delight many of us have accepted naturalistic explanations1 for example1 of the sun standing still1 or of the retreat of the waters of the ,red ,sea1 or of the ,immaculate ,conception1 or of any of the many other marvels in either the ,old or the ,new ,testament1 and have thought that so our old beliefs are to be preserved4 ,i have myself heard honest and earnest men1 even members of an academic community1 appeal to parthenogenesis as a fact in nature which would at least make the miracle of ,christ's birth scientifically plausible as well as spiritually significant2 but such an appeal1 besides being1 in my opinion1 positively irreverent1 is as blind religiously as it is ignorant scientifically4 ,cannot such men appreciate1 and cannot all others who do as they do also appreciate the fact that naturalistic explanation of p4#jed any miracle1 if really a genuine explanation1 may prove the fact1 but must in just so far destroy1 ,i do not say the miraculous1 which is indestructible1 but the particular miracle8 ,the lawful miracle1 then--lawful1 of course1 so soon as explained--is one more contradiction in our prevalent notions about law4 ,that it exemplifies1 too1 a habit of mind which is exercised by us in many directions besides that of interpretation of the arbitrary things of the ,bible can hardly need be said4 ,in life generally the arbitrary is peculiarly fond of going to law1 sometimes to what is called nature's law1 as when revolutionists of all sorts--strikers and radical reformers--raise the cry of natural rights1 laying down the law as to what men are by nature1 and sometimes to human law1 as when the conservatives in government or business with their vested rights1 be these coal mines1 oil fields1 or political privileges1 appeal for justice to the courts or to the military4 ,but1 to say no more1 with the lawful miracle1 with law the strange support of what is arbitrary1 with this as a very good example of the duplicity which in general we are all of us wont to allow in our practical life1 the present exposure of our ordinary consciousness must come to an end4 ,with regard to the real substance of things1 or to their unity1 or to the nature of space and time and causation1 with regard to the worth of knowledge1 with regard to our human conduct1 to its freedom and responsibility1 or finally with regard to the place of law in nature and in the life of man1 our ordinary consciousness is manifestly inconsistent and vacillating--nay1 is grossly contradictory2 and we are p4#jee led at least to suspect that the disorder which we have found is inherent and essential1 having the nature of an original human defect4 ,such a defect1 however1 is cause for doubt2 so that man1 above all practical man1 having inconsistency or duplicity as almost1 if not quite1 an uncontrollable habit with him1 should be himself a prince of sceptics4 ,and yet1 although we have indeed found man spending at least his waking hours in a room that seems disorder incarnate1 and although before the court of practical life the doubter seems thus to have been thoroughly justified1 while his too hasty judges are in turn condemned1 nevertheless the case for doubt is not of such a character as to leave absolutely no hope for belief4 ,now and again in the evidence1 as it has been disclosed1 have we not felt the presence of something1 not yet given its due weight1 that would make man more than a mere doubter and unbeliever8 ,have we not been led to suspect that somehow1 without loss of their reality and validity1 the most cogent reasons for doubt1 even the contradictions in our views of things1 might turn into bases of belief1 that an experience essentially paradoxical may not be as hopeless as at first sight it may appear1 that in all the madness there is at least a chance of some method8 ,the view of science1 however1 must be examined before our attention can be turned definitely upon such a possibility4 ,enough if in our present doubting we are still left with a little hope4 #a ,in the rise of ,christian ,science1 against which ,i have no special grudge1 although ,i have already taken exceptions to its claims1 there is a special case1 special because affecting a single1 relatively small class1 of the popular hospitality to contradiction4 ,thus1 the ,christian ,scientists would reduce all reality to mind1 but at the same time they busily deny reality to a large group of mind facts1 namely and notably1 the ideas of disease4 ,recently1 it is true1 according to the newspapers1 their healers have been told to decline to doctor infectious or contagious diseases1 yet not because such diseases have any reality1 but because the illusion of them is so real as to make the ,christian treatment of them both imprudent and impractical4 ,philosophies and religions of illusion are certainly weird1 uncanny things6 #b ,chapter ,,vii4 p4#jef ,,iv4 ,,the ,,view ,,of ,,science3 ,,its ,,rise ,,and ,,character4 ,with science we usually associate accuracy and consistency1 and at first thought we are not likely to expect that the work and standpoint of science can contain anything substantial enough for the doubter to base his claim upon2 but second thought is our first duty at this time1 and second thought always changes the view1 and in this particular instance it will show science in important respects to be quite as vulnerable as the unreflective consciousness of practical life1 for science also is honeycombed with contradiction and paradox4 ,more than once scientists themselves have turned sceptical about their work and its results4 ,the cry of bankruptcy in science1 not merely as a charge1 but also as a confession1 has been heard in the land not infrequently2 now perhaps low and uncertain1 but again clear and strong4 ,and why not8 ,why should the scientist escape the questioning of other men8 ,subtle and wonderful as science is1 does it transcend humanity8 ,surely1 when all is said1 the scientific consciousness is not formally different from the ordinary consciousness4 ,the same eye is looking at p4#jeg the same world1 only through microscopes and telescopes4 ,the same mind is measuring the same environment1 only with carefully devised instruments of precision instead of arm's lengths or stone's throws and rules of thumb4 ,in a word1 science is merely the ordinary consciousness highly developed1 not without considerable abstraction1 into critically conscious method and clearest possible perception4 ,indeed1 perhaps without myself clearly knowing all my reasons1 ,i am constrained to say that science is related to ordinary perception very much as the inventor's consciousness of his wonderful flying-machine to the simple sensations of a bird4 ,the mechanics of flying1 so elaborately present to the former1 are nevertheless also present in the latter1 while with both we have the same eye or the same mind looking and the same world seen4 ,the boasted methods and ideals of the one are but the only half-waking instincts of the other1 and whatsoever is essential to either belongs also to the other4 ,but1 to mark the great difference between them1 the inventor has the disposition to treat flying abstractly--that is1 as if a thing by itself1 as if for its own sake2 and he goes even farther1 making abstraction of the mere explanation and mechanical expression of flying2 while the bird simply flies1 and1 if ,i may hope to be understood1 all things else1 the sun and the wind1 the trees1 and all living things1 and you and ,i who follow his course are flying with him4 ,but no poetic soaring such as this can satisfy our present needs4 ,to understand and appraise the view of science we must trace its rise as clearly as we can1 p4#jeh and then critically examine its peculiar conceits1 its own ideal methods and attitudes4 ,as for the rise of the scientific view1 we may well return to the definition of science given above3 the ordinary consciousness highly developed1 not without considerable abstraction1 into critically conscious method and clearest possible perception4 ,perhaps development of anything is always at the cost of abstraction2 but be this as it may1 science certainly arises through an abstraction1 namely1 through the abstraction of consciousness of one's world1 through the treatment of this mere consciousness as something to be cultivated quite for its own sake2 and the motive and the meaning of such a treatment are not far to seek4 ,consciousness1 to the exclusion or inhibition of direct1 overt action1 becomes a matter for abstract1 which is to say1 exclusive cultivation1 with any serious change1 with any upheaval in the familiar conditions of life4 ,a man--or boy1 if you prefer--is taking a cross-country run1 and for a time all goes well2 the manner of his going suffers no interruption1 or no serious interruption2 but gradually the undergrowth thickens from low bushes to higher brushwood1 and at last1 perhaps quite suddenly1 breaking through some wild hedge1 the runner finds himself at the very edge of a stream too wide and too deep for any ordinary crossing4 ,thereupon his running1 or at least his forward running1 say the running of his real life1 ceases1 and looking takes its place4 ,he is now1 in a familiar phrase1 looking before leaping2 yet with his looking there is a good deal of running too1 more or less overt1 but also more or less p4#jei instrumental or merely mechanical1 as1 going from one point to another1 he measures the relations of bank to bank1 or of possible stepping-stones to each other1 or hunts for fallen logs or for shallow places4 ,but1 finally1 the measurements all made1 the peculiar conditions as fully as possible appreciated1 in the way found to be most feasible he crosses the stream and runs again4 ,and just in that looking before leaping1 with the accompanying check put upon the forward running and with the change of the real life of running into merely instrumental action1 we get at least a glimpse of what science is1 of the sort of abstraction that its rise implies4 ,only science1 specifically so called1 is more than such a casual1 merely personal study of a new situation4 ,science is the distinct work of a distinct class abstractly studying a new situation that has confronted the progress not of an individual1 but of a whole people1 and in this character it gets at once all the advantages and all the conceits that belong in general to the life of a class4 ,it gets1 too1 all the limitations4 ,science1 once more1 is not strictly a personal experience1 although in personal experience1 like that of the cross-country runner1 we can get a glimpse of just that which may develop into science4 ,science is characteristically a profession4 ,the runner withholds his running for a time and merely looks and studies1 yet his looking is only for a time2 sooner or later he will run again2 and even while he studies there is his continued moving about1 his instrumental action1 as we called it2 but the professional scientist waives all thought of possible future activity4 ,although in reality p4#jfj his looking is before leaping1 it is not consciously so for him2 he is one who under the constraints of his class merely looks and studies1 making of these processes things quite worthy in themselves4 ,in other words1 to enlarge somewhat on what has just been said1 the rise of the profession of science does indeed involve both the same check upon the real life and the same reduction of activity to a purely mechanical or instrumental character that we have pointed out in the case of the runner at the bank of the stream1 but a number of different social classes divides the labour4 ,in general1 society as a means to the expression and development of human activity1 be the activity running or living in a broader and fuller sense1 always shows the different phases or factors of the experience identified more or less exclusively with as many different classes or groups1 and1 in respect to the particular case here under consideration1 upon the rise of science society appears to delegate the work of careful observation and critical thinking to a separate class1 which1 as already suggested1 gives up any direct responsibility to the real life4 ,another distinct class1 arising contemporaneously1 is composed of those who do feel directly responsible1 or practical1 continuing the life of positive1 overt action4 ,this second class maintains the vital processes1 although in a more or less consciously instrumental way1 since its members have the lives of others as well as their own lives to support4 ,so society gets its workers or labourers as well as its observers and thinkers4 ,the rise of science1 then1 involves a disrupted society4 ,moreover1 the division is by no means so p4#jfa simple as the foregoing analysis may seem to have implied4 ,observing and thinking1 for example1 have often made1 too1 separate sub-classes1 and also there have been many distinct groups among the workers1 such as clerks1 soldiers1 artisans1 road-menders1 and tillers of the soil4 ,the simple analysis1 however1 has been quite enough to show1 what has seemed to need emphasis1 that all the passions of social life1 or rather of social caste1 are brought to bear upon the profession of science1 giving it the peculiar conceits and advantages of class or caste1 and also imposing upon it the peculiar limitations4 ,the advantages1 among others1 are the strength that lies in union1 and the long continuity and the imitation that always ensure an accumulation of experience and a refinement of method and an attainment to impersonal1 impartial standards2 the conceits are exclusiveness1 sense of sanctity or intrinsic worth1 and consequent claims to aristocracy2 and the limitations1 although possibly already quite obvious1 are hereafter to be pointed out4 ,but whatever the limitations or the opportunities1 it is now our chief concern that the social conditions of its rise must greatly intensify the abstraction of science1 the treatment of the consciousness of the world1 which is but the sphere of action1 the totality of the manifested conditions of action1 as something to be cultivated wholly for its own sake4 ,nor is this fact that science is an abstraction1 intensified by the conditions of class life1 the only fact to which the rise of science bears witness4 ,there is something else equally significant--something1 indeed1 so intimately involved in this as perhaps not p4#jfb properly to be referred to as another fact at all1 being only a further manifestation of what is already before us4 ,there never arises abstraction without duplicity4 ,plainly a disrupted society1 such as has been seen to be incident to the rise of science1 means also a disrupted life4 ,in general the corporate life of any single class resulting from the division can be only partial1 ,i do not say in respect to real life1 since this phrase has itself been associated with too narrow a meaning1 but to human nature1 to human life in its entirety1 in its real fulness1 in its true breadth and its true depth4 ,all class life1 ,i repeat1 involving as it does disruption and selection of some particular interest or relation1 is inadequate to any human being1 and the life of science is no exception to this rule4 ,membership in any class and conformity to its peculiar life1 which is partial and abstract as partial1 have never satisfied anybody1 and the life of the professional scientist1 again1 is no exception to this rule4 ,accordingly any abstraction in life1 the isolation of any specific interest1 when seen in just the light of its necessary inadequacy1 of its definite1 more or less exclusive partiality1 must imply in life a demand for reality and completeness1 and this the more as the abstraction is assertive1 as the isolation is insistent4 ,simply1 the whole life will never brook an untempered neglect from any of its always self-assertive parts4 ,plainly1 however1 as plainly as a disrupted society must mean a disrupted life for each resulting group1 such a demand can be met only in one way1 if the cause for it continues2 it can be met only by some form of duplicity1 by some way in which1 however indirectly1 the life of those p4#jfc concerned will always really be more than it seems or will always actually imply what explicitly or formally it appears to exclude4 ,no such narrow life1 in short1 as must always characterize any social group1 can ever be without its compensating innuendoes or indirections for the life from which it is outwardly aloof1 and while the peculiar manner in which the true reality and the wholeness of life are thus conserved will very naturally always be determined by the particular class or the particular class-character involved1 being of one sort for road-menders and of quite a different sort for scientific observers1 the organization of society seems bound at every turn to show that duplicity1 compensation as it always is for partiality1 is an indispensable condition4 ,duplicity1 whatever may be its own special dangers1 is always better1 being nearer to reality1 than narrowness4 ,is not the road-mender also a good ,catholic1 or in some other way1 conventional or unconventional1 religiously devout1 piously doing1 not his own1 but another's work8 ,does not the scientist give point to the idea of another and different life1 that is to say1 of his life of knowledge not being the whole of life1 by the agnosticism which he not only carefully asserts but also actually embodies as a factor in his method8 ,the road-mender slaves at his humble task1 ignorant and yet trustful1 believing in an infallible wisdom and an absolute power1 and the scientist lives with great enthusiasm to know the world as it is1 but tells us at the same time with no less enthusiasm and with a meaning that certainly ought to temper his exclusiveness that the object which he studies and describes p4#jfd is nevertheless really unknowable4 ,to quote ,mr4 ,spencer3 ,the man of science 444 more than any other1 truly knows that in its ultimate essence nothing can be known4 ,surely there is meaning for ,stevenson's story of ,dr4 ,jekyll and ,mr4 ,hyde in other fields besides that of morality4 ,class life must always involve its members in a protective or compensating duplicity4 ,but now1 whatever in the life of other classes this duplicity1 which conserves the wholeness of life even when formally life is narrow and partial1 ought to be called1 in the profession of science it often goes under the name of dualism4 ,seen at different angles1 it is now dualism1 now objectivism1 now agnosticism4 ,in each of these different ways the scientist1 quite outdoing or transcending his profession1 recognizes a sphere of reality or a sphere of activity1 that is beyond that of the knowledge which he makes his special business1 and1 as is very important to observe1 the peculiar manner of his recognition of this sphere1 or the peculiar character of his duplicity1 is relative to just the abstraction which makes his science what it is4 ,thus his peculiar duplicity is one of conscious subject and unconscious1 external object1 of observing man and objective nature1 of real knowledge and unknowable reality4 ,yet here1 before discussing further the relation of dualism to science1 it is well to observe that the positive history of science justifies the account of its rise which has now been given4 ,the age of science among the ,greeks was coincident with the closing conflict between ,greek civilization and the general life p4#jfe of the ,mediterranean1 and the age of modern science began1 not to attempt a long story1 with the discovery of ,america4 ,all looking before leaping is transitional or revolutionary1 and while1 of course1 there had been transitions and degrees of scientific inquiry before1 the science of the ,greeks belongs to that very critical transition from ,greece to ,rome2 and modern science1 to the transition1 certainly not less critical1 from ,christendom to--who can say to what8 ,but not only does history show science to arise when there is a stream to cross2 also it shows the life of the time1 in the first place1 to be sharply disintegrated1 its different factors being separately and abstractly expressed through as many different social groups1 and1 in the second place1 in each of the groups to be given to double living1 to the storm and stress of being one thing and seeming another4 ,always an age1 conspicuously and characteristically scientific1 has been an age of clearly developed classes and of a general duplicity in living4 ,thus1 to give a striking1 although possibly too philosophical an illustration of the duplicity1 ,democritus1 the great materialist and atomist1 and ,plato1 the great idealist1 were contemporaries and equally were creatures of their day and generation1 and their century was the century of great achievements in ,greek science4 ,moreover1 as regards the coincident organization of society1 we know at least of ,plato that he was keenly conscious of the divisions of society into distinct classes4 ,and in very much the same way materialism and idealism1 not to mention hedonism and rigorism1 or naturalism and supernaturalism1 p4#jff have been inseparately associated with the rise and the successes of modern science4 ,these philosophies1 it must be remembered1 are always more than so many conflicting isms4 ,they are1 too1 more than the special conceits1 in theory or in practice1 of so many separate social classes or of the great leaders of these classes4 ,in their very differences they are the definite1 the public expression of a conflict1 or division1 that inwardly affects every individual member1 whatever his class or profession1 which the society contains4 ,in the day and generation of ,democritus and ,plato were there not well-defined parties1 manifest in all the different and separately organized phases of life--moral1 industrial1 political or religious1 namely1 the parties of the conservatives and the radicals8 ,and were there not also1 as typical individual characters1 each of them revealing to everybody something present within his own life1 the only conventional loyalist and the more truly loyal reformer1 as well as the idle or careless transgressor and the coldly calculating traitor8 ,a life so divided and so variously impersonated was certainly teeming with duplicity4 ,nor have we yet finished with the evidence from history4 ,an age of science has always been not merely an age with a stream to cross1 nor yet merely an age of classes and double living1 but also an age of a thoroughly conscious utilitarianism4 ,whether materialistically or idealistically1 all things have been treated and also looked upon as means to some end1 not ends in themselves4 ,for the disrupted society all activity has been more or less consciously calculating and instrumental4 ,as we know1 the disruption means p4#jfg actual1 when not also intentional1 division of labour1 and surely there never has been division of labour without eventual development of a distinct sense of the various special instruments and activities as utilities rather than things of intrinsic value4 ,for a time1 it is true1 the several classes and their activities may maintain the semblance of conservatism and independence2 but their inevitable duplicity is bound sooner or later to give a consciously conventional or utilitarian character to the conservatism1 and just this makes the activity of the people instrumental or only mediately instead of immediately worthy4 ,if1 as some are sure to contend1 the division of labour always tends to end1 and often does end1 in the formation of castes1 and in consequence the instrumental character of the activities is forgotten1 it needs only to be said in reply that an invitation is then given to some outside power to step in and to make use of1 instead of just treasuring or hoarding1 the developed instruments or utilities4 ,caste in the organization of society not only induces absolutism at home1 but also1 and in this way is fully revealed its real but suppressed utilitarianism1 invites conquest from abroad4 ,the days of ,greek science were1 almost notoriously1 days of conventionalism and utilitarianism3 witness the ,sophists and their teaching1 and the life which they waited upon for pay2 while the surviving conservatism1 by which1 as cannot be questioned1 the life of the time was blind to its own real mission or purpose1 made possible and even historically necessary1 first1 the ,macedonian1 and then the ,roman conquest of ,greece4 ,what the ,greeks1 being too conservative1 though p4#jfh utilitarian1 failed to make full use of1 another people1 less hampered by tradition1 finally appropriated4 ,and as for the days of modern science1 these1 so far as unfolded to our view1 have not been unlike in kind3 witness the ,machiavellism1 with which they began1 and the spirit of commercialism1 which has characterized them throughout4 ,one thing more1 too1 from the facts of history may have our attention1 although possibly this addition is quite unnecessary--the fact1 namely1 of scepticism coupled always with a hopeful curiosity4 ,a disrupted society1 dividing the labour of human life1 is as sceptical as it is conventional1 and as given to experiment and exploration1 which are never without their sense of mystery1 and even to conquest1 never without its risks1 as it is utilitarian4 ,was it curiosity or mere ,hellenic conceit1 the sense of adventure or the mere dogmatism of a ,greek1 that took ,alexander abroad with his armies1 or that earlier turned the attention of ,athens to the possibilities of the ,west8 ,and which1 curiosity or religious and political propagandism1 a pagan greed or a ,christian piety1 inspired the ,western and ,southern voyages of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries8 ,which gave rise even to the ,crusades8 ,it would be interesting1 if our present purposes only warranted the undertaking1 to trace the forerunning conditions of a period of scientific endeavour4 ,we could then show both how scientific curiosity has developed as but one expression of a general interest in experimental endeavour1 in adventure and in conquests of all sorts1 and especially how this interest1 with its mingling of doubt and p4#jfi confident seeking1 has been preceded by a period of art4 ,art1 appeal as it always is from the human as expressed in the established ways of some given social organization to the natural1 shows a people sensitive to a mystery1 a real but unseen end1 in its developed activities1 but not yet willing to let the experimental and instrumental character of those activities have free expression4 ,it appeals to the natural1 which is of course the sphere of all adventure1 but1 still cherishing the human1 it never gets1 so to speak1 out of sight of home4 ,science1 the successor of art1 shows home1 that is1 the human and the subjective1 left far behind4 ,but to follow out the line of thought here suggested would take us too far afield4 ,let it suffice1 then1 that we see these two things3 how historically and socially the investigations of science1 whatever their relations to an antecedent art1 such as that of the ,greeks or of ,christendom in the ,renaissance1 are but an incident within a general life of appeal to nature--that is1 of exploration and conquest--and then how the scepticism1 involved in the inquiries of science1 is intrinsic to a life that1 for reasons now clear to us1 has become both conventional and utilitarian1 both formal--or unreal in itself--and consciously only instrumental4 ,the first of these brings to mind what was referred to in a previous chapter1 that science is man in his doubt seeking the companionship of nature2 and the second will aid us greatly in understanding the attitude and method of science1 to which1 having the evidence of history1 we have next to turn4 ,we have found the rise of science to imply a general abstraction of the various factors in human p4#jgj life1 and to be itself1 in particular1 the abstraction of the consciousness of nature1 nature being the totality of the manifest conditions of life4 ,this abstraction has been developed and intensified by the formation of distinct social classes2 and1 in the special case of the consciousness of nature1 by the formation of a class of scientists1 so called1 who cultivate their science for its own sake4 ,we have found the rise of science to imply also a general duplicity1 evident within the field of science in what is known as dualism4 ,duplicity is a natural accompaniment of all abstraction1 and it has1 as we saw at least in part1 a certain protective and corrective function1 which both the logic of experience and the social and historical conditions of its expression and development warranted us in ascribing to it4 ,and1 finally1 we have found that in actual life abstraction and duplicity make activity conventional and utilitarian1 that is to say1 consciously instrumental or--let me now say--experimental4 ,in just these conditions1 then1 the general abstraction and duplicity1 the conscious formalism and regard for utility1 and the sense of experimentation1 we have the determinant1 formative influences of science's attitude and method1 for any given set of conditions always makes the method with which the conditions themselves are met4 ,socrates1 with his method of cross-questioning so fatal to all ideas that should give knowledge any visible form or resting-place1 was but the spirit of his time1 the spirit of radical inquiry become incarnate and assertive in public places4 ,he was but a visible1 public exponent of the critical examination of life which the self-consciousness of his time made necessary4 p4#jga ,indeed1 no organic form1 no living creature1 ever reflected the character of its environment more fully1 or more successfully effected an adaptive life than the method1 with its searching questions1 and its subtle1 logical gymnastic1 of that honestly and radically inquisitive ,sophist4 ,and the standpoint and the procedure of science1 in respect to the relation to their environment1 are closely comparable with the method of ,socrates4 ,thus science seeks a complete abstraction of the looking consciousness1 and then with a timely duplicity it looks to a wholly external1 natural world4 ,so in the field of its peculiar abstraction does science take the character and colour of its surroundings4 ,but1 further1 it presumes upon the peculiar forms and conditions of its subjective1 looking consciousness1 the activities of the mind1 being mediative or instrumental to the presentation of the external objective world1 and it uses also the activities of life at large1 both the bread-and-butter activities and the mechanical inventions1 both the political and the industrial organizations1 as supplementary aids to its observations2 for just science1 the looking consciousness1 is the end1 and this end is presumed to justify every available means4 ,so1 again1 does science take the cue from its environment1 expressing in its own way and to its own purposes the general experimentalism2 and this the more significantly when we remember that1 besides being experimental1 treating the mind as an instrument and life's activities at large as only aids more or less directly pertinent to the mind's work1 it is agnostic4 ,its peculiar agnosticism not only reflects p4#jgb its duplicity1 as was before suggested1 but in addition shows how very abstract its knowledge is1 and--,i know no better phrase--how timelily adventurous4 ,a time of science is a time when all things final are beyond2 yet also1 when all things present1 however mysteriously1 are really leading yonder4 ,further1 science always divides the field of its operations1 and so1 besides greatly compounding its abstractness1 reflects in its own way1 or1 as it were1 projects on its own plane1 what ,i will call the specialism of the contemporary social organization4 ,there is division of labour in this1 but there is also a difficulty1 which1 among other difficulties1 is hereafter to be considered4 ,and there is1 finally1 one more characterization of science which is suggested by the conditions of its rise1 but by something in those conditions not yet brought into clear view4 ,an age of science is an age of a rising1 although perhaps formally suppressed and disguised individualism1 and quite in sympathy1 the method of science is inductive1 science1 though interested in classification1 always having regard for the natural rights of particular things1 of single individuals1 reasoning from the particular to the general1 as the phrase runs1 not in the reverse order4 ,individualism has been a much misunderstood thing1 be it a social movement or a logical condition of inductive thinking4 ,the individual as person or as objective datum has been greatly abused4 ,but at least for the present1 waiving any discussion of the true character of the individual or any protest that the individual and the definite or particular must not be confused1 ,i would only assert1 but ,i venture to assert p4#jgc strongly1 first1 that behind the conventionalism and utilitarianism of the life of a society divided into distinct classes1 behind the abstraction and the inevitable duplicity1 behind the sense of experiment and adventure1 the individual person is the real power1 and secondly1 that in induction science has only translated this real individualism of its time into an attitude or method for the conduct of its looking consciousness4 ,in this way1 as in those other ways1 has science been educated to its peculiar manner4 ,we have thus seen how science arises1 and how its rise gives it a certain character4 ,but already suspicion of limitations in the view of science1 and so of a case for doubt with regard to it1 has come to us4 ,abstraction and duplicity both suggest limitations1 though these may not be unmixed4 ,what the specific difficulties are1 however1 and how far they really justify our doubting1 must be reserved for the ensuing chapter4 p4#jgd ,v4 ,,the ,,view ,,of ,,science3 ,,its ,,peculiar ,,limitations4 ,limitations or opportunities8 ,error or truth8 ,in the familiar illustration the tracks which limit the locomotive to a certain course are essential to its successful movement1 and something of the same kind may be true of science4 ,a man's vices and virtues are never really far apart1 and1 again1 the same may be true of science4 ,but for the moment we are to approach science from the standpoint of its limitations2 we are to see how its own natural ideals1 as suggested by our characterization of the scientific view1 are evidence of its inadequacy4 ,so doing we shall take a most important step towards a thorough-going confession of doubt4 ,among scientific men it is a commonplace that for accuracy and genuineness or purity1 that is to say for complete abstraction1 science must be 7#a7 independent of life1 all the subjective interests1 whether personal or social1 the interests of politics1 industry1 morality1 or religion1 being science's most unsettling influences2 7#b7 specialistic1 the ,jack of all trades in science being anything but persona grata among scientific men2 and 7#c7 agnostic or positivistic1 all conceits p4#jge about what is beyond positive experience1 and even all dogma about what seems really present to experience1 being most arrant heresy2 and every one of these ideals1 besides being derived from the habits or instincts1 commonly unrecognized and unappreciated1 of the ordinary consciousness1 is wholly in accord with the conclusions of the preceding chapter4 ,the attitude of science1 as there disclosed1 involved a looking to an external world--the objectivism2 a division of the field--the specialism2 and an experimental1 adventurous mind--the agnosticism or positivism4 ,it involved other things1 too1 but these three are now selected1 so to speak1 as three determining points of science's circumference4 ,consideration of them1 to whatever results it may lead1 should meet all the demands of the present task4 ,as for the results1 these will show fundamental difficulties1 very like to those of ordinary experience1 to lurk in each one of the three ideals4 ,the scientific consciousness is abstract and just for being in consequence objectivistic1 specialistic1 and agnostic it is artificial and unreal1 though perhaps only relatively or not unmixedly unreal1 and especially it is honeycombed with paradoxes and contradictions1 with the translated but not transcended contradictions of ordinary life4 ,to the examination1 therefore1 of these difficulties1 or limitations1 we must now turn1 taking the three ideals in order4 ,i4 ,,science ,,would ,,be ,,objective4 ,the ideal of a purely objective science is in many ways a great delusion1 for it may effectually blind p4#jgf science to its necessary subjectivism1 so far as it gets any substance or content1 and to its necessary formalism1 so far as it acts upon a merely external world4 ,with regard1 for example1 to the last point1 just so far as the ideal of objectivism is realized1 science becomes merely so much technique4 ,by technique here is meant everything that makes scientific work purely mechanical4 ,a purely mechanical procedure is the inevitable1 the natural and necessary method of a pure objectivism4 ,scientists have their formal etiquette about pre-empted problems or fields of research1 their notions about originality as dependent merely on working a new field--hence the pre-emption to prevent transgression or theft of originality1 their conceits about bibliographical information1 linguistic proficiency and technical phraseology1 their satisfaction over publication1 contribution1 production1 and research1 and an almost ,gaston-,alphonse deference of each to each among the different branches of scientific inquiry2 and under technique all these things1 as well as the more familiar matters of method and apparatus and material1 are here included4 ,physicians1 we are told1 and not infrequently also their patients1 suffer from a professional ritual and etiquette1 but they are far from being alone in their misery4 ,scientists1 would-be objective scientists1 and all who appeal to them1 are a close second4 ,technique must have its real uses1 but plainly it has its limitations4 ,it is one of the enabling conditions1 a sine qua non of science1 if science is to be objective1 but it takes the life out of science4 ,a science that gets no further1 that is only objective1 that is1 pure and inductive p4#jgg is wholly vain1 being like a domestic animal which is only a pet1 or rather like a vigorous plant that runs luxuriously to leaves1 never bearing either flowers or fruit4 ,its much vaunted observation and experiment may fill a good many pages and a good many volumes1 but material1 even material in books1 and experiments1 even carefully1 minutely reported experiments1 are neither roses nor apples4 ,a fruitful science relates itself to something more than a mere independent object4 ,a fruitful science involves synthesis1 not formal1 but real synthesis1 as well as analysis1 its decomposed object being also only the separated details of some organizing activity4 ,indeed1 however unconsciously1 or even however against its own avowed interest and desire1 science has that organizing activity in the real life4 ,the real life has seemed aloof1 but science is truly an integral part of this life4 ,science's very genesis in social evolution1 in spite of1 nay1 even because of its abstraction by a distinct class and the assumption of a professional garb1 is witness to this relationship4 ,again1 fruitful science is practical invention1 not abstract discovery1 and the real life of a person or a society or a race is as important to it1 as much a warrant of its conclusions1 as any object1 however mathematically described or describable1 with which science was ever concerned4 ,as for the thing invented1 the tool or the machine1 in general the instrument of adaptation to environment1 this sometimes takes visible1 wholly material form2 sometimes it appears as a method in the practical arts or in the fine arts or in education or government2 sometimes it is only an p4#jgh atmosphere or point of view1 a habit of mind2 but whatever it is1 it is useful1 incalculably useful1 and its invention as something that is widely distinguished from mere receptive observation1 if this be even possible1 or from mere accurate description1 is science's primary justification4 ,but this1 objects somebody1 is sentiment1 and sentiment of the sort that quite destroys science1 making real science1 serious and accurate science1 quite impossible4 ,well1 it does of course dispense with a purely objective science4 ,it suggests the idea1 perhaps the uncomfortable idea1 that1 as in some other departments in life1 so in science1 death is a condition of success4 ,science must die to its objective self before it is saved2 it must lose its whole world to gain its own soul4 ,or1 to put the same idea differently1 if the assertion be not too much like verbal play1 a subjective science is not hopelessly unscientific4 ,is a man less interested in having a proper edge on his razor because eventually he must use it on himself8 ,nothing but a keen edge can ever ensure a velvet shave1 and nothing but the truth1 the more accurate it be the better1 can ever set anybody free4 ,still1 all questions of sentiment or of sharp razors or of the accuracy that liberates aside1 we can get support for our scepticism about a science that1 if purely objective1 must be also empty and mechanical from science itself4 ,the consistent evolutionist is obliged to deny pure objectivity to any scientific knowledge1 just as in general he is obliged to think of all consciousness as never something by itself1 but one of the positive conditions of organic development4 ,to p4#jgi be an evolutionist1 and at the same time to think of consciousness as only an external ornament of life1 or in its higher development as the exclusive privilege of a distinct class1 to think of it as an aside in life1 perhaps a sudden result without in any way being also a condition of development1 to suppose science to be solely objective and for its own sake1 is nothing more or less than simply to stultify oneself completely4 ,even for the historian1 whether avowed evolutionist or not1 whose great business is to remind us that what is here or what is now is not all1 the devotion to science for its own sake1 which also in other times has possessed the minds and hearts of certain men1 can be at best only a local and a passing phenomenon4 ,finally1 apart from the standpoint of evolution or history1 it is to be said that human society at large is sure to resent what may be styled the aristocratic temper which pure1 objective science is all too likely to acquire from the exclusiveness of its ritual or technique1 or say from its abstract and academic dress1 and the resentment of society is important evidence always4 ,aristocratic temper1 whatever its direction1 is certainly as desirable in social life as it is necessary2 it is incident to the development of all institutions--political1 ecclesiastical1 industrial1 ceremonial1 educational1 and1 to add to the familiar list1 epistemological2 but the resentment which it is sure to awaken is not one whit less serviceable to society1 ensuring as it does1 among other things1 the extension of science1 the translation of science into life4 ,so1 to gather the threads together1 two difficulties p4#jhj have now appeared as affecting the objectivism of science4 ,the first1 that of burial in technique1 gave us our starting-point1 and the second has come to light with discussion of the first4 ,thus1 not merely is a would-be objective science1 through its bondage to technique1 made formal and empty1 but also1 as perhaps only the other side of the same truth1 a would-be objective science materially--that is1 for its scientific doctrines--and formally--that is1 for its motives and methods--is always in practice dependent upon the demands and sanctions of real life1 and so not purely1 or not dualistically1 objective after all4 ,there is1 in brief1 no other conclusion4 ,either science must be empty1 a matter merely of dead rites and dry symbols and irrelevant ideas1 or it must be pertinent and practical2 and1 if the latter1 its boasted independence is gone4 ,a purely objective science seems to get only subjectivity for its pains4 ,yet this conclusion is easily misunderstood4 ,it is far from denying any meaning to such words as object or objectivity4 ,the object is denied only as an external independent existence4 ,the object still remains to experience as possibly of mediative value to its beholders1 mediating between the actual in their life and the possible1 between the partial life and the whole life1 the old and the new1 the social1 which is always narrow1 and the personal4 ,the whole must be always objective to the part1 the possible to the actual1 the personal to the social2 or1 conversely1 the objective1 natural world can be only the convincing witness to the part or to the actual or to the social1 not that there is an independent1 wholly external world1 but p4#jha that there is a whole or a possible or a personal4 ,truly1 we are all one1 writes ,fiona ,macleod4 ,it is a common tongue we speak1 though the wave has its own whisper1 the wind its own sigh1 and the lip of man its word1 and the heart of woman its silence4 ,we are all one4 ,man and nature1 which man beholds1 or the subject and the object1 of which the subject is conscious1 are one2 but an objective science would hide this from us1 not tell it to us4 ,but besides burying science in technique1 and besides involving it in an only disguised1 albeit a socially significant subjectivity1 the ideal of wholly objective knowledge has also made science conservative in a way that must have peculiar interest here4 ,reference is not now made to the double truth or the double life which an objective science sanctions so cordially that men can hold so-called advanced scientific ideas without feeling them in any serious conflict with the traditional teachings of religion and morality1 but to something else perhaps not wholly unrelated to this1 and certainly not less suggestive of contradiction4 ,while science is commonly supposed to be advanced and radical and up to date1 if anything is1 it is so only in a way which calls for a very important qualification1 for it manages to perpetuate1 not indeed the letter1 but the spirit of old views4 ,at its best a purely objective science can give only a new material content1 or a new arrangement perhaps of an old content1 to existing and time-worn forms of thought2 it cannot possibly do that in which real progress must always consist1 namely1 develop1 recognize1 and adopt new forms of thought1 new categories2 p4#jhb it cannot do that without betraying its own ideal of mere objectivism4 ,objective science--to give a commonplace example--has said relatively to a certain doctrine of creation that spirit did not precede matter1 but instead matter preceded spirit1 and--except for the excitement of the drawn battle which such a startling declaration has precipitated--this can hardly be said to have involved any great advance4 ,cause and effect have indeed been made to change places by the new deal1 and perhaps in common fairness it was high time that a change be made1 but no new conception of causation itself has been recognized4 ,the new creationalism1 the materialistic1 has no essential advantage over the old4 ,again1 while deposing the ,first ,cause1 an objective science has made all things causes after the same plan--individual1 arbitrary1 antecedent causes2 and this is only to multiply indefinitely1 perhaps infinitely1 the offensive creationalism4 ,not so1 says some one2 there is a splendid democracy in it1 and it implies a great deal more than mere multiplication4 ,indefiniteness1 or at least infinity1 transforms anything or everything to which it is applied4 ,by making all things causes one forces into science the important principle of the equation of action and reaction1 everything being seen as acted upon as well as acting1 and this principle1 as if by turning creationalism fatally against itself1 yields a new standpoint1 that of mechanicalism4 ,granted1 and granted cordially1 but has a purely objective science any right to change its standpoint8 ,possibly this does not mean very much4 ,then approach the matter from another side1 risking a p4#jhc reference to one of science's pet conceits1 the question of fact4 ,it has been for science a question of fact1 of mere objective fact1 whether matter made mind or mind made matter2 whether this or that thing is or is not a cause of some other thing2 whether certain very low1 perhaps unicellular organisms show purpose in their activities or do not1 are gifted with a natural tendency to social life1 a real interest in their kind1 or are not so gifted2 or--to take just one more case--whether the changes in the brain that precede bodily movement are or are not directed by consciousness1 consciousness being in one case in causal relation with the brain1 and in the other only an idle1 external accompaniment1 an epi-phenomenon2 but in each of these questions of objective fact we see the scientist only standing in his own light1 obscuring the view of what above all else it is important to see4 ,are mind and matter1 cause and effect1 purpose1 society1 brain-processes and consciousness such well-established conceptions1 are they such independent constants in the scientist's formul1 that wholly uncritical questions of fact are all that one needs to ask about them8 ,why1 when one really thinks about it1 to assume1 as the questions of fact of an objective science are made to assume1 that anything either is or is not something else1 is about as blinding and ill-advised as could well be4 ,it has the pleasing form of open-mindedness1 but only the form4 ,it is very much as if some earnest1 yearning truth-seeker should exclaim3 ,i would see clearly2 therefore ,i will not open my eyes4 ,no doubt it keeps the scientist busy1 eternally busy1 dealing and redealing his facts or data1 as busy indeed as the playful p4#jhd cat that so hotly pursues her own tail1 but it does not contribute much that is positive and progressive4 ,the very best that one can say for it is that it turns the kaleidoscope of human experience1 leading as it usually does to a new arrangement of hard1 unchanging things4 ,to the question1 for example1 about lower organisms showing purpose or social feeling in their activity1 the scientist1 after most careful experiments1 may answer in the negative1 and be quite emphatic in his answer too2 but almost at once he--or some one for him--will appreciate that mankind1 when scrutinized and experimented upon in the same way1 under the same instruments and through the same laboratory methods1 is similarly deficient2 and then1 somehow1 the wind is taken out of his sails1 since social feeling and purpose refuse to be so easily disposed of4 ,in this case1 as in all cases1 the question of mere objective fact simply returns1 as importunate as ever1 for another reckoning1 with ,shelley's cloud silently laughing at its own cenotaph4 ,and what is the difficulty8 ,once more the difficulty is in the assumption1 so natural to an objective science1 of fixed conceptions4 ,are purpose and social feeling so fixed in their nature1 and above all so well understood1 that their presence or absence can be established by an experiment or two or ten thousand conducted on strictly objective principles8 ,no conceptions are fixed1 and instead of questions of fact we should have1 what a strictly objective science cannot have1 questions of meaning4 ,thus1 not3 ,are low organisms1 or any organisms1 social or purposive8 but3 ,what1 if anything1 do the processes of their p4#jhe lives testify as to the real nature of society or purpose8 ,the conservative character of objective science1 or the view-point in its question of fact which the conservatism determines1 is the chief source of the negative attitude of science so familiar to all and so often an object of complaint4 ,to take1 perhaps1 the most widely interesting case1 for science to suppose that ,god either is or is not--because he must either be or not be the particular thing men have thought him--is to beg the theological question altogether4 ,indeed1 for this question of ,god's existence and for any other question of objective fact a negative answer is almost1 if not quite1 a foregone conclusion1 since the very putting of the question is1 ipso facto1 evidence that a new idea of the thing inquired about--of ,god1 perhaps1 or purpose or society--is at least just below the horizon of man's consciousness1 and so that the old idea has already lost its validity4 ,nothing ever is where you seek it1 or what you seek in it1 for the simple reason that your conscious seeking has changed it4 ,why1 then1 look--perhaps with a telescope after a ,god in the skies--for what you should know you cannot find8 ,why despair when a question meets a no of its own dictation8 ,the real questioner lives in a living world1 in which all things change and die1 yet only for rebirth1 while the objective questioner simply cannot see that the negative of his answer can be only relative to what is already passing4 ,in so many ways1 then1 a would-be objective science is open to criticism1 and affords in consequence a cause for doubt4 ,only subjectivity can make it fruitfully p4#jhf and worthily scientific4 ,only a change in the form of its question can make it substantially as well as formally progressive4 ,only a tempering of its negative answers to a merely relative meaning can make it honest4 ,it is looking at what is not1 and in a way which is artificial1 and it sees everything only in the clear light of its own shadow4 ,surely to be scientific is human2 to be objective is to rival the lover's unselfishness4 ,,ii4 ,,science ,,would ,,be ,,specialistic4 ,but1 secondly1 there is the scientist's ideal of specialism1 which is at once not less earnestly cherished and not less strikingly at constant war with itself4 ,what specialism for science means is known at least in a general way to everybody1 and that an objective science must be made up of numberless independent inquiries needs only mention1 since the objective world1 if really innocent of all personal or subjective relations1 is necessarily manifold and discrete1 being made up of a number of wholly separate details1 and being approachable in every one of its parts from a number of wholly separate standpoints4 ,the objective world apart from a subject is like a workshop without a workman--a collection of unused and so unconnected tools and materials each one of which may have an infinite number of uses2 and the objective scientist views it very much as a stranger1 perhaps a savage--may ,i be forgiven that mark--might view the lifeless shop1 seeing now this thing1 now that1 but never the living unity of all the things4 ,so1 to repeat1 as soon as the self or subject is removed and the world is turned objective1 all things and all views of things must fall p4#jhg apart1 and science as the observation of such a world can be only special4 ,not so clear1 however1 or at least not so commonly appreciated1 is the peculiar fallacy and contradiction of specialism to which attention is asked here4 ,once more is science to be seen as in a sense standing in its own light1 since it cannot be at once special and directly and literally true and adequate4 ,to begin with1 specialism makes vision1 the mind's vision as well as the sensuous vision1 dim or distorted4 ,it may even be said to induce a species of blindness or1 as virtually the same thing1 to create in consciousness curious fancies1 strange perversions of reality1 seen not with the natural eye at all1 but with the imagination1 always so ingenious and so original1 and one might almost add so hypnotic1 in its power of suggestion over the senses4 ,in ways and for reasons neither unknown nor unappreciated by most men1 specialism even closes one's eyes and makes one dream4 ,it makes the specialist among physicians see his special ailment in every disorder1 and every disorder in his special ailment1 and this so truly that merely to consult him may be to fall his victim4 ,true1 he may never be1 perhaps can never be1 wholly wrong1 and his transgressions1 conscious or unconscious1 have often helped discovery1 but nevertheless his situation1 not to say that of his patient1 is full of humour1 and always among other troubles he is under the error of partiality or one-sidedness4 ,and in science generally the specialist always does and always must dream4 ,his dreams may be waking dreams1 but he is always transgressing his own proper bounds without ever p4#jhh clearly comprehending that he has transgressed4 ,nor1 be it admitted1 can this necessity of dreaming be a wholly unmixed evil to science4 ,however unfavourably it may reflect on the final1 literal validity of any special science1 it only shows nature1 or reality1 preserving her unity against the attempted violence of specialism4 ,it shows that in spite of the specialist being all eyes for his own peculiar object1 the mind that is within him and that is above all else--such1 apparently1 is the nature of mind--responsible not exclusively to the special and sensuous1 but to the all-inclusive and essential1 and is therefore bound to conserve for experience the interests of an indivisible universe in every particular thing1 leads him1 devotee that he is1 patiently repeating his sacred syllable1 into most wonderful visions4 ,for the sake of inclusiveness and reality his mind projects his would-be special consciousness into regions of strange subtlety and marvellous logical construction2 as ,oriental priest or ,occidental scientist he is a specialist1 yet not without a mind1 or a real1 ever-present world1 which refuses to be special1 and as he dreams he comes to see1 yet knows not that he sees1 the whole universe4 ,a seeing blindness1 then1 is this specialism2 a monomania too1 but1 of course1 conventional and respectable4 ,mathematics and physics and chemistry and biology and psychology1 not to say also the social sciences1 all depend upon the far-seeing mystical visions of the mind1 if not of the eye1 upon the subtle1 logical constructions which their would-be scientific specialism1 their desire to know all things narrowly1 forces upon them4 ,each one may be special1 but each as it p4#jhi gains precision and as it becomes truly an account of the facts1 under the guidance of an exacting mind that at any cost must present the whole to consciousness1 conserves within itself the common universe of them all by developing under what is called the scientific imagination all sorts of indirections1 disguises1 abstractions1 logical constructions for the things and view-points of the others4 ,each to be veracious has no choice but to be also voracious1 and when1 for example1 a physical scientist insists on seeing his world only physically1 while in reality it is of course1 to say no more1 a world of chemical process also1 and even of vital and mental character1 he is sooner or later constrained to admit to his thinking what above were called abstractions or logical constructions1 but what also pass under the name of working hypotheses4 ,these are formally true to his physical standpoint1 but any outsider in order to explain why they are hypotheses that work must call them compensating or conserving conceptions--in short1 logical constructions that are1 or that in part involve1 substitutes for the neglected points of view1 being1 as it were1 the secret agents of a universe refusing to be divided4 ,to characterize them in just one more way1 a science's working hypotheses1 results as they are of science's blind but brilliant dreaming1 many or all of them1 are doors in the panelling by which the other sciences are quietly admitted to a room seemingly tightly closed to all comers4 ,every science1 and this the more as it becomes scientific1 must entertain all the others1 however unwittingly4 ,tennyson's flower in the crannied wall1 so often plucked1 is nothing in p4#jij all-inclusiveness when compared with a well-developed special science4 ,no science1 physical or psychical1 biological or social1 ever does or ever can live to itself alone4 ,it may will to1 but it does not and it cannot4 ,all the others live with it and for it--nay1 they all live in it4 ,yet in actual practice1 what are these working hypotheses that work because they are compensating conceptions or doors in the panelling8 ,no veracity without unrestrained voracity is interesting as a formula1 but how verify it8 ,verification1 or illustration1 is now imperative4 ,illustration1 however1 is very difficult for a reason which the scientists now on trial must allow me to mention4 ,the scientists know too much about the sciences1 or at least of them1 while ,i know too little4 ,still1 as too much knowledge is often the source of obscurity1 and so only a form of ignorance1 my situation is not altogether hopeless4 ,thus1 while it is true that the scientists are likely to insist1 even in the face of a mind bound to preserve the unity of an indivisible universe in all the varied studies and conclusions of science1 that physics is only physics and chemistry only chemistry and biology only biology and psychology only psychology1 and while also all illustrations must come from the field of their special studies1 and may therefore only set them more firmly in the wilful blindness of their specialism1 still the principle of a conserving mind1 or an eternally conserved truth or an indivisible reality1 is a disturbing influence which they cannot evade4 ,then1 too1 ,i am forgetting and allowing them to forget a very important fact in scientific work to-day4 ,in these p4#jia times the running together or merging of different sciences1 as if through something of the nature of a chemical reaction1 is a very familiar phenomenon4 ,it is as familiar1 although not so loudly heralded1 as that of the railroads and industrial companies2 and it has been taking place with such persistence and confidence as actually to suggest a natural affinity1 each of the sciences involved having the rich experience of discovering itself already in the others4 ,this fact1 then1 must make illustration less difficult1 since1 in a way that must appeal to the scientist as no merely theoretical considerations can1 it proves or goes very far toward proving what is to be illustrated4 ,moreover1 specific illustration is hardly necessary in the sphere of the different physical sciences1 or again1 in that of the social or the psychological sciences1 for within each one of these groups the affinity but just now referred to has been very clearly exemplified1 as in the interesting case of physics1 chemistry1 and mathematics1 which nowadays are one science1 not three1 and which can be held apart only on methodological grounds1 not metaphysically4 ,illustration1 accordingly1 appears1 after all1 to be needed only for the specialism that separates the physical and the psychical sciences4 ,physiological psychology and physically experimental psychology1 both of them suggestive of nothing less incongruous than seething ice1 are sure to come to mind at once2 but also there is a mathematical psychology1 comparable with a developmental mechanics and biometrics in biology1 and hardly a single field of science1 however apparently distant and alien in nature and interest1 has not contributed something p4#jib to psychology or to epistemology1 the general science of knowledge4 ,but now it is likely to be objected by some one that just because sciences1 whether in clearly related or in widely separated fields1 are useful to each other1 just because they can serve1 as they do1 in the rle of methods of each other1 they are not necessarily in any real and natural affinity4 ,may not their association be purely one of utility1 involving no surrender of special individuality and requiring in any case only temporary relationship8 ,the question is absurd4 ,any means that really serves an end must have something in common with the end it serves2 and1 again1 an end that really sanctions a means1 whatever the means be1 must itself be1 at least potentially1 which is after all to say essentially1 in and of the means employed4 ,different sciences1 then1 even physics and psychology1 or natural science and theology1 cannot be even temporarily methods of each other without partaking in some way1 under some disguise or other1 through some peculiarity in their conceptions or in the relations of their conceptions1 of each other's subject-matter4 ,in view of this fact of mutual participation of nature and idea among the sciences that use each other1 ,i have myself conceived1 and in another place have given expression to1 what appropriately may be called a physical psychology or epistemology4'#a ,this new hybrid science is especially concerned with nothing more nor less than those substitutes1 disguises1 or p4#jic indirections1 really present in all the physical sciences1 for the peculiar nature1 for the peculiar sort of unity1 intensive instead of extensive or qualitative instead of quantitative1 or say also even vital and spiritual instead of physical1 which is always associated with mind4 ,in conservation of matter1 energy1 what you will1 in plenitude1 in motion as only relative and so as always under a principle of uniformity and constancy or even immobility1 in motion too as inclining to vibration1 which suggests poise or tension1 or to rotation1 in which we see rest as well as motion1 and finally1 not to extend what might be a long list1 in the infinity of space and time or of quantity1 the physical sciences have hidden entrances for the silent1 usually unnoticed admission of what is psychical4 ,but ,i may seem to be jumping too far1 to be presuming too much4 ,then put the case in this way--not quite so direct1 but to the same goal4 ,all of these conceptions1 so necessary to a working physical science1 need very little examination to be seen to be treacherous to the physical standpoint and its peculiar categories4 ,one might as well try to make water unsupported assume definiteness of form as to conceive the conservation of energy or plenitude or the relativity of motion in the character of what is physical1 or at least of what is properly and conventionally physical4 ,being treacherous1 then1 to the physical science that has conceived them1 they are1 as was said1 doors for what is not physical2 hidden doors1 perhaps1 but certainly doors to be opened at will2 and by them mind is bound to enter the physical world and its sciences4 ,to those familiar with the history of philosophy1 the speculation p4#jid of the early ,greek thinkers1 notably ,anaximander1 ,parmenides1 and ,anaxagoras1 will afford illustration of the physical view running1 in spite of itself1 into treacherous conceptions1 and eventually reaching the discovery of their treachery and with it the idea of mind or ,nous4#b ,so for science is the material world1 what properly it is often said to be1 a sort of dark mirror of man's inner life1 of his psychical nature4 ,physical science as consciousness of the outer material world is not1 and has itself shown that it cannot be1 merely and exclusively physical4 ,by virtue of its working hypotheses1 which are as secret doorways1 it is psychical also4 ,though darkly and indirectly it is our human self-consciousness4 ,perhaps it is our self-consciousness rendered impersonal or the self seen through the mirror of not-self or through the disguise of what a photographer would call a negative2 and1 if it may be so described1 we are reminded of ,burns3-- ,o wad some power the giftie gie us1 ,to see oursels as others see us6 ,it wad frae monie a blunder free us1 ,and foolish notion4 ,only the bonnie ,robert himself was too much of a specialist in poetry to see that natural science was the very thing he prayed for4 ,and just as there is thus a physical psychology1 so p4#jie in like manner there is a psychological or epistemological physics1 which in its turn is concerned with the indirections1 or doors in the panelling1 present in all the psychical sciences1 for those very physical things quantity and matter4 ,the devil will have his due2 even an optimistic theology has to recognize him4 ,and psychology has a sensuous self1 the self of the purely sensuous consciousness1 which has always involved it in a curious psychical atomism1 a projection1 in a word1 of the physical on the plane of the psychical4 ,sensationalism1 too1 as a psychological theory in the history of thought has always been associated with materialism4 ,with regard1 then1 to the separation even of the psychical and the physical sciences1 which obviously has at its base the distinction between mind and matter1 we observe that our principle of affinity and mutual participation still holds4 ,by a sort of projection or reproduction mind and matter both appear1 the one openly1 the other in disguise1 in each kind of science4 ,however unawares1 the physical entertains mind2 the psychical matter2 and specialism1 so far as standing for anything more than scientific method1 has to withdraw from its last stronghold4 ,the very dreaming of the scientific imagination is its undoing4 ,for other evidence against the integrity and adequacy of specialism1 showing how mind defies specialism and conserves its indivisible universe1 there are the following simple but certainly interesting facts4 ,all the different sciences1 however special and however apparently alien in subject matter1 are wont to use the same general methods--as1 for example1 the laboratory or experimental method or the historical p4#jif method1 the fatal consequences of which to the cause of pure specialism may easily be inferred4 ,history is famous for overcoming differences4 ,the common interest in mathematics must also be mentioned1 for mathematics1 through its latest developments in danger of turning into a pure logic1 is quite independent of all those material differences that separate the different sciences4 ,it is formal and universal1 not special2 so that the special science that would also be mathematical appears somehow to be at least in aim as universal as it is special4 ,perhaps mathematics more than anything else has fed the voracity which we have seen veracity to exact4 ,has it not been the chief agent in the virtual annihilation of the barriers between physics and chemistry8 ,this particular mingling of the special sciences has been mentioned here already1 but mathematics is threatening the party-walls of all the other sciences also4 ,further1 what are we to infer from the idea that all sciences seek law8 ,certainly law is not special as science has seemed to be4 ,somehow law is not many1 but one4 ,many laws can only be different phases or cases of one law4 ,the very essence of law is to be one and single and all-embracing4 ,to put the case theologically1 could any one suppose that ,god made the laws of chemistry and sociology and psychology as so many separate and independent enactments8 ,on such a supposition he had been a strange ,god indeed1 lacking the very thing1 unity of being and character1 which men have come to associate with divinity1 and what theology demands of ,god1 science1 even against its own specialism1 must demand of its object4 ,again1 p4#jig the way in which by implication1 when not openly1 one science is given to handing over its hardest problems to another is very instructive as well as amusing4 ,not many years ago ,i was present at a joint meeting1 a good-natured and doubtless honestly ambitious conference of biologists1 physiologists1 and psychologists1 and the addresses then made have often reminded me of one of ,thomas ,nast's famous cartoons3 ,a closed ring of political grafters1 none other than the notorious ,tweed and his followers1 each pointing to his neighbour and putting on him the responsibility of a very embarrassing situation4 ,find the rogue was the artist's inscription2 but with apologies for the association1 we can easily change it to ,find the special science4 ,and1 lastly1 in this list of the simple evidences against an adequate specialism there are the conspicuous analogies other than those of common method or common interest in law1 which are always easily traced among the sciences1 even the sciences in the opposite camps of matter and mind1 of any particular time4 ,atomism in physics is contemporary with atomism in psychology and with individualism in political philosophy2 a monarchical politics with an anthropomorphic1 creationalistic theology and an also monarchical physically centred astronomy1 whether heliocentric or geocentric2 and a ,newtonian astronomy1 which really makes a law or force instead of an individual body the centre and control of the solar system1 with democracy or constitutionalism1 and with inductive instead of deductive logic and naturalistic instead of dogmatic theology2 so that at no time1 whatever the scientist's special interest1 whatever his p4#jih special syllable1 can he fail to have at least a formal sympathy with others4 ,such analogies among the sciences1 so often recognized and so absorbingly interesting to the students of the history of thought1 if not exactly doors in the panelling1 may be said to make the panelled partitions at least translucent if not unsubstantial and transparent4 ,but the most important fact in illustration of our case against specialism is yet to be considered1 and unfortunately it takes us where to some the waters may seem dangerously deep4 ,not only for reasons already given and emphasized is the special science a misnomer1 a contradiction in terms1 except in so far as specialism be taken merely as an incident1 not without its humour1 of scientific method1 but also for the same reasons 7and chiefly because the truth and reality of the universe are bound to be conserved7 every special science must sooner or later develop its doctrines either into direct paradoxes or into tenets that oppose and contradict each other4 ,thus1 as has been shown1 specialism in science is itself a paradox1 and1 as now asserted1 every special science assuming precise form and real validity becomes a home of paradoxical or contradictory doctrines4 ,indeed1 these doctrines just through their opposition appear be the most effective agents of that compensation for neglected points of view1 or conservation of all points of view1 which we are insisting is for ever forced upon the scientific specialist4 ,in the cases of physical epistemology and epistemological physics we have already seen doctrines working to this end4 ,in those cases the real treachery to the avowed p4#jii standpoints lay in virtual when not open contradiction4 ,and1 for the general principles1 is it not quite clear that nothing so surely as contradiction in any given point of view1 or in the specific doctrines developed under it1 can serve the interests of any other points of view8 ,i have heard it said1 but by whom originally ,i do not know1 that a paradox or contradiction was only the mind on tiptoe struggling to look over a very high wall4 ,the point is just this4 ,the special science1 because special or partial and because at the same time courting scientific character or validity1 that is1 conformity with reality1 must be relative1 formal1 abstract1 artificial1 unreal1 but also for exactly the same reason it must contrive to admit to its conceptions other view-points than its own4 ,its own peculiar view-point is relative1 but that it may attain actual validity it is bound to overcome its relativity by admitting1 secretly perhaps yet not less truly1 other points of view2 and paradox or contradiction is the natural door for such admissions1 the original view-point being tenacious to the last4 ,physics says3 ,i will be physics through thick and thin2 ,i will be physics though the heavens fall and though dreadful paradoxes arise2 and in like manner psychology cries aloud3 ,i will be psychology though ,i suffer from a splitting dualism for my pains4 ,have you1 gentle reader1 never held and held and held to some particular notion about things1 modifying the details perhaps little by little1 but always imagining yourself strictly loyal to the old1 old view1 and then suddenly discovered your consciousness alive with contradictions8 ,if you have1 you know1 possibly p4#ajj too well1 the natural history of every special science1 and also you can sympathize deeply with the hen and her cherished chicks that proved ugly ducklings4 ,the special science1 ,i repeat1 must be hospitable1 however grudgingly1 to strangers1 though at the expense of becoming thoroughly divided against itself4 ,such hospitality is an obligation--call it logical if you will1 or moral or metaphysical1 for the name matters not if it only suggests coercion--which is not less binding upon the scientific spirit than upon the spirit of racial unity1 always urgently present in you and me4 ,you and ,i may be so special or exclusive as to drive strangers from our doors1 but an impulse to call them back and give them entertainment always follows--an impulse that is only the necessary reaction of the expulsion4 ,humanity is indivisible in spite of our asserted exclusiveness1 and nature is indivisible1 too1 in spite of specialism4 ,partiality of any sort1 along any line1 in any field1 can never long persist without1 though often darkly and indirectly1 though by the way of bold1 unrecognized1 or unconfessed paradox1 receiving from outside all that it would exclude4 ,i am not merely repeating4 ,at first1 we saw only that the scientific imagination brought to the special science as its working hypotheses certain conserving or compensating conceptions2 then1 that these conceptions involved treachery to the science that harboured them2 but now we are face to face with the fact that their complete1 their most effective form is the paradox4 ,would that ,i had the ability to write with the penetration and the clearness of statement that the p4#aja subject should certainly elicit1 upon the strange equanimity with which mankind1 in science or in practical life1 receives and faces a direct negative or an open contradiction4 ,perhaps the habit of easy division into positive and negative1 the ready resort to dichotomy1 explains the mystery2 perhaps the fact that negation or opposition is and can only be in kind1 that there never is or can be any real change or need of change in a mere negation1 is at least an important factor in the case2 perhaps1 again1 the very hopelessness of the dualism1 which a flat1 unequivocal negation plainly involves1 is also to the point2 but1 beyond all peradventure1 we do accept the direct negative with a patience1 even an indifference1 that may greatly assist our natural conservatism1 whether of thought or life1 but that on being recognized certainly does arouse our wonder4 ,good and its opposite evil1 true and false1 real and unreal1 unity and plurality1 life and death1 the indivisible and the divisible1 rest and motion1 plenum and vacuum1 immaterial and material1 actuality and illusion1 lawfulness and lawlessness3 these and so many other opposites are the common stock-in-trade of our living and thinking1 and we accept and use them with a complacency that cannot easily be exaggerated4 ,yet the negative in each and every one of them holds the future of the universe in the palm of its hand4 ,and the special scientist before his inevitable paradoxes is as conservative and as complacent as the rest of us4 ,but it is one thing to say1 or even to reason out cogently and satisfactorily in every way1 that the p4#ajb special science1 if both persistently special and honestly scientific1 must be sooner or later inwardly contradictory and treacherous to itself1 and it is quite another thing to show the contradiction in actual cases4 ,the actual cases1 however1 are more easily found than many are likely to suppose1 and at mention they may even seem like forgotten memories1 like things which at some time we have noticed but become callous towards4 ,thus the atom is through and through a self-contradiction1 being itself only a part of a divided reality1 yet at the same time itself real only because indivisible2 and a science harbouring such an atom can hardly be said to be unmixedly physical4 ,the vibration1 too1 already referred to here as motion in poise or at rest2 infinity as one more quantity that is significant because not quantitative2 the sensation1 a component element of consciousness that cannot possibly be composite2 the plenal physical medium1 which can be physical only if displaceable by other material things1 and so plenal only if not physical1 and which has served besides as an immobile yet infinitely elastic basis of motion or its transmission2 and1 to give just one more instance1 in moral and political science the person1 a self-existent1 actively free being or entity whose every deed as well as whose every thought is responsible to something1 being adaptive and therefore social1 social with other persons and with nature1 and whose every virtue implies dependence and an existence shared with something else3 these are all also self-contradictions4 ,and in view of them who must not see how the special sciences are always more than special1 ever correcting p4#ajc in ways that may be unappreciated by themselves their partiality of view1 ever responsible to the totality of things even while they would observe things only under selected view-points4 ,such contradictions1 once more1 show mind loyal to what students of logic are familiar with as the universe of discourse4 ,even in science you cannot discourse about anything without at least implicitly discoursing about everything1 although in order to do so you must speak in such paradoxes as the atom1 the person1 the biologist's vital unit1 the vibration1 the plenum1 and the like indefinitely4 ,nor is the scientist the only dreamer of paradoxes among men4 ,ordinary practical life1 as we have seen1 teems with paradoxes4 ,but1 for purposes of illustration1 not to say also of giving greater breadth and depth to the view1 a reference to the situation in the religious consciousness will have peculiar value here4 ,a religion that supplements reverence for a personal ,god1 working miracles and caring for the elect1 who even nowadays are more or less elect1 with belief in a devil1 even nowadays more or less personal1 is clearly a blood relation to science1 and it is besides by no means so unnatural or irrational as is often declared1 particularly by the scientists4 ,its two errors1 just because opposed1 conserve what is real1 and no science can claim more than that4 ,indeed1 a science1 notably a special science1 like a theology1 might well be described as a system of mutually corrective errors1 of abstractions that1 because abstract1 distort the reality of things1 but that also because being at difference with each other and eventually p4#ajd falling into contradictory and so counteracting pairs are at least parties to what is real and true4 ,by hook or crook1 by the hook of abstraction or the crook of contradiction1 every science gets in touch with the universe as a whole1 and so even with its errors is a working science4 ,the errors of many a religion1 by their working together1 have not failed to save men4 ,so we may return to the assertion that in its specialism1 as well as in its demand for objective knowledge1 science is self-contradictory1 and with this conclusion established the exposure of science already offers a very strong case for the doubter4 ,yet it does this only to the extent and in the sense that contradiction warrants doubt4 ,after all is said1 have we been only exposing science8 ,has attack been our only procedure8 ,do we not find1 as we reflect1 that in our exposure there has also been something very near to defence8 ,or1 once more1 through the science to which we have taken exception have we not seen a science in which we could believe8 ,in the examination of science's objectivism we saw that technique buried science1 but--though we did not say this in so many words--that there might be a resurrection4 ,if fruitful in inventions serviceable to life1 science was justified in spite of its cultivated objectivism1 and the objectivity itself1 besides an aid to accuracy1 has further significance as possibly an earnest of wider social relationship1 of broader and deeper life4 ,the question of fact1 too1 if appreciated and so made subordinate to the question of meaning1 was even allowed1 and science1 although at once formally conservative p4#aje and materially negative and destructive1 seemed after all to be the promise1 so to speak1 of a new dawn for the very things denied4 ,and now in what has been said of the specialism of science1 the same turning of the edge of attack is all but manifest4 ,every special science is narrow and relative--it is in the form of an unreal dream2 but reality somehow gives form to the dream1 for there are always the compensating conceptions4 ,the contradictions by which the compensation has been effected are1 then1 interpretable not more as causes of doubting science than as reasons for confidence in it4 ,thus1 to be tedious again1 the special science is relative and formal2 it is a peculiar system of ingenious abstractions that in so far are also errors2 but its formal character includes also contradiction2 its errors are so related as to correct and balance each other2 so that1 even in the face of our necessary scepticism about it1 science has been evident to us1 as also was the consciousness of ordinary life1 as somehow always building better than it knows or than its methods or ideals and doctrines viewed only from without would lead one to expect4 ,moving in it we have certainly felt the presence of1 something1 not yet called by name1 which is very like a principle or power of validity1 preserving the reality of things even in and through the relativity and contradiction under which the things are seen4 ,while the letter of our knowledge1 even of our scientific knowledge1 must ever have an indeterminate future2 while rest or stability1 ultimate reality or consistency is quite impossible to it1 still its inner1 active spirit seems a source of faith that is inviolable1 that cannot be shaken4 ,different p4#ajf quantities1 such as four and two1 and sixteen and eight1 do not make the same sum1 much less are they the same digits2 but they are in the same ratio1 and similarly the truth of science would seem to lie in the ratio1 the working together1 of the errors of science4 ,outwardly and materially changing with time and with people1 assuming ever new forms and comprising always new doctrines1 science nevertheless1 as an active force1 as a positive resultant1 is at least now conceivably always the same and applicable to the same life4 ,even the ,babylonians of an ancient day successfully predicted eclipses1 the very errors of their astronomy working together for truth1 exactly as the heresies of pagan religion seem to have balanced each other to the preservation and the development of the life which we of the present day and the ,christian civilization are pleased to call our own4 ,accordingly the science we have to doubt is also manifest to us as at least a possible object of faith4 ,the very causes of our doubt before our very eyes have turned1 or are in process of turning1 into possible bases of belief1 and our confession of doubt as it proceeds is proving ever more worth making4 ,we are trying to be such honest doubters4 ,we are indeed such penitent believers4 ,,iii4 ,,science ,,would ,,be ,,agnostic4 ,still we have1 thirdly1 the agnosticism of science to consider and appraise4 ,agnosticism confines knowledge to actual positive experience1 and in its form of positivism to an only tentative acceptance of actual experience1 and it is thus in effect an admission of p4#ajg just those limitations which have been found to belong to science as objective and special4 ,objectivism and specialism have both shown science to be standing in its own light1 or at least to be standing in the way of any direct and positive knowledge of reality4 ,whatever they make possible to our virtual as distinct from our positive consciousness1 whatever indirectly or implicitly may through them belong to our conscious life1 formally and visibly1 positively and directly1 we cannot know reality4 ,in a word1 science must and does recognize an unknowable1 or at least an unknowability in things1 and agnosticism is accordingly important among the three determining points of science's circumference4 ,but here is now our problem3 ,does science put the right value upon1 does it ascribe the right meaning to1 its agnosticism8 ,is the implied scepticism of the sort that we can cordially accept8 ,especially1 does science have any due appreciation of the negative1 not to say of the suggested dualism1 in the opposition between the knowable and the unknowable8 ,now both objectivism and specialism plainly involve aloofness1 which is perhaps only another word for what in the preceding chapter was called abstraction4 ,by the first of these two isms science is held aloof from life2 by the second1 through the many divisions1 from itself1 that is to say1 part from part4 ,men who would be scientists withdraw1 as we hear them boast1 from affairs1 and as they withdraw it is also as if they put on distorting and even discolouring glasses1 through which in one and another special way they would behold the objective world4 ,their withdrawal p4#ajh is thus not merely physical2 it is also mental4 ,to look out of the window one must turn one's head and lift one's eyes and adjust both head and eyes in other ways2 but looking in general1 whether from the needs of an objective or a special view1 also demands certain pertinent adjustments1 and the demanded adjustments make the resulting experience just so far aloof1 just so far discoloured and distorted4 ,granted that these terms can be only relative in significance4 ,to be aloof from something is to have it equally aloof from you1 and you should be no more discredited by the separation than it4 ,to be distorted and discoloured is to be so only with regard to something that in its own peculiar way may be equally transformed4 ,such relativity1 however1 cannot deprive the differences involved of real significance2 it can only emphasize the general instead of the narrow1 local application of the terms found to be relative4 ,what is relative is not unreal2 it is simply shared1 like cousinship4 ,so science1 the looking of science1 means real aloofness and real disfiguration4 ,the truth of this has already been apparent to us in a general way1 but it will be worth while here to be more specific4 ,the space and time1 for example1 in which scientists observe things are widely different from the space and time of will and action4 ,in ordinary life a difference is felt between the world we know and the world we live1 but the extreme professional attitude of science greatly widens the differences4 ,for science space and time are quantitative1 divisible1 formal1 mathematically correct1 and independent of what is in them1 their reality or qualitative p4#aji value to active life being hidden or at least only very indirectly presented--,i suggest1 in the constant opposition of their finiteness and infinity--while for will and action they are qualitative1 indivisible1 inseparable from what is in them4 ,who ever did anything in a composite1 divisible space and time8 ,action in such a sphere would be hopelessly jerky2 with ,zeno's flying arrow it would just always rest in statu quo1 though its status in quo might have an indefinite series of positions4 ,again1 the scientists reduce causation to mere uniformity of co-existences or sequences1 which is no real causation at all1 being only so much passive existence or mechanical process1 while will or action is causation1 the positive interaction of things1 the active relation1 the vital unity1 of what was and is and is to be4 ,it is true that here1 too1 the causation of real life is darkly presented by science in a constant opposition between a single first cause and an eternal series of causes1 for such an opposition makes real causation in an important way quite transcendent of the mere differences of time2 but1 setting this concession aside1 who ever did anything in a world either of one cause active long ago or of an infinite series of causes8 ,and1 once more1 science needs elements1 while will or life is the eternal denial of elements or anything like them4 ,says a well-known writer3#c ,it is one of the greatest dangers of our time that the naturalistic 7or scientific7 point of view1 which decomposes the world into elements for the purpose of causal connection1 interferes with the volitional point of view of real life1 p4#aaj which can deal only with values1 and not with elements4 ,the danger involved will occupy us in a moment1 but the bondage of science to elements1 to a composite world1 to a thoroughly decomposed reality1 will hardly be questioned4 ,through contradiction1 again1 as in the chemist's component atom1 itself not composite2 or the biologist's vital unit1 which bids fair to be the master paradox of the day1 science may darkly and indirectly preserve the world of real life1 the world that is neither one element nor many1 but in this case as in the others the indirection1 after all is said1 only emphasizes the aloofness4 ,so science is aloof1 and in being aloof it disfigures and defaces reality1 and the argument for agnosticism is consequently unassailable4 ,no one more effectively has shown this than ,immanuel ,kant1 although one may question ,kant's final appraisal of the fact4 ,here certainly is no place for an exposition of the ,kantian philosophy1 but1 briefly and simply put1 that philosophy has characterized space and time and the relation of cause and effect1 not to mention certain other very general data of experience1 as the a priori forms of all valid1 objective knowledge1 and being translated this is to say that these so-called forms are the enabling attitudes of the merely looking consciousness or the peculiar glasses which1 as it were1 the mind puts on whenever it turns just to look4 ,the typical ,boston girl1 according to the cartoonists1 is never without her glasses4 ,in like manner the typically1 professionally correct looking consciousness1 the observing1 scientific mind1 is never without those enabling attitudes4 ,do you ask if they are then only subjective attitudes8 p4#aaa ,they are subjective only as they are relative4 ,they are subjective only as they express the aloofness of the scientific observer4 ,and they are subjective1 lastly1 only in so far as can be consistent with ,kant's further characterization of them as in every instance imbued with essential opposition or antinomy4 ,remember that an attitude that harbours opposition is always tip-toeing to overcome the bounds of its own natural vision4 ,such an attitude cannot be unmixedly subjective4 ,but what now is the danger of science's agnosticism1 of science's own admission that being objective and special1 or being under the constraint of certain enabling attitudes1 or being at best only tentative in all its doctrines1 it is not and cannot possibly be formally realistic8 ,one might imagine1 or expect1 that confession of its limitations would be good for the soul of science1 and in truth we shall certainly find some advantage resulting from the confession1 but even science's agnosticism is faulty in a serious way4 ,the writer quoted above has told us that the great danger always threatening science is that the scientific will interfere with the volitional point of view1 and this is equivalent to fearing1 in the interests of science1 that the scientist will forget his agnosticism and try to render what he cannot know in terms of what he does know1 or that the man of affairs will look to science for his programmes of action4 ,such a fear1 however1 may play to the professional conceits and the professional isolation and abstraction of the scientific point of view1 but it is very far from grasping the true import of the conflict between knowledge and unknowable p4#aab reality4 ,i should myself assert1 in partial if not in complete opposition to ,professor ,mnsterberg1 that science's very natural danger is that the scientific and the volitional point of view will be kept apart1 that the professionalism and the formalism and what ,kant called the phenomenalism of science will prevent their interference4 ,at least1 this danger is just as great1 and just as seriously a danger1 as the other4 ,most people know well enough that keeping science and life or theory and practice apart has the effect of making the former lose itself in a highly morbid intellectualism1 and the latter in the dead monotony1 of a mere existence1 sometimes presumptuously styled practical life1 but such a result seems not to trouble either ,professor ,mnsterberg or the conventional scientist whose cause the vigorous professor has espoused4 ,in other regions1 fortunately1 a formal disparity is not accepted as arguing to a natural divorce1 but is even considered1 let it be said1 a reason for association2 and as for the disparity between science and will1 it is quite true that life without science is lifeless and that science without life is meaningless4 ,perhaps the crowning fault of the agnostic scientist is his lack of humour4 ,he takes himself too seriously4 ,the lover1 when his fair one has formally disagreed with him1 rejecting his suit with her outspoken ,no and promising lasting friendship and good-will even to assurances of assistance in his next venture1 takes hope1 smiles grimly within himself1 and feels sure still that she and he1 however disparite1 are meant to live together for better or worse4 ,but the rejected scientist takes the unknowable's ,no as if it p4#aac were final1 and then1 retiring to his study or laboratory1 proceeds1 though in a morbid1 abnormal way1 to mingle the scientific and volitional standpoints every time he writes a line or makes an experiment4 ,we watch him as he goes1 and find his case not without its humour4 ,if the true lover upon being rejected were satisfied thereafter with caressing the lady's photograph1 then he and the agnostic scientist would be in the same class4 ,but1 as is needless to say1 ,i am not writing a novel4 ,so1 romance aside1 unquestionably the forms and doctrines of the scientific consciousness are peculiar1 being1 as has been shown1 logically subtle1 imaginary and innocent of direct practical realism1 being1 in short1 the inhabitants of a world quite their own1 and to impose them intact upon active life cannot fail to bring disaster1 the usual disaster of a misfit4 ,yet1 let us bring to mind1 in the first place1 that the scientific consciousness is not essentially different from consciousness in general1 and that consciousness in general deals1 and always must deal with artificial forms1 with symbols1 constructions1 and transformations2 and in the second place1 that it always knows with some measure of sophistication that what it deals with is symbolic or constructed4 ,conscious creatures1 from the moment they begin to draw breath1 are trained to see one thing objectively and to understand or construe quite another thing for active expression4 ,there is no visual sensation without muscular sensation1 and most men1 if not all men1 have really learned in the long years of their own and their race's experience to get along without seeing p4#aad and yet also without foregoing the sensations in their muscles6 ,man's long training1 in a word1 has taught him to use what he sees as not direct reality1 but only a symbol of reality1 and so in volition always to allow for the practical unreality of the objects before his consciousness4 ,the mere words bread and butter1 for example1 or even the visible things in a restaurant window1 have never brought satiety to a hungry child1 nor do ,i myself fear that they ever will4 ,moreover1 the long training that is the surety against danger1 and that at the same time has made man keenly awake to the value as well as the humour of symbolism1 is just what has rendered the high development of professional science possible1 and is also what makes possible and properly controls the application of science to practical life4 ,it may now be asserted that the facts are not in accord with the view to which ,i have just given expression1 that sometimes1 and very of ten too1 the forms and doctrines of science are imposed without modification or translation upon practical life4 ,thus1 though the names for edibles themselves as present to the eye--or to any other sense--are not normal substitutes for food1 nevertheless some people1 whether from poverty or from indigestion1 have fed on them1 just as they have taken long journeys with maps1 time-tables1 and guide books4 ,in education1 too1 the formal conditions of science have suggested object-lessons and pure induction2 in political organization we have had programmes of extreme elemental individualism1 of lawless democracy1 and of abstract communism and ,christian ,socialism2 in religion ,god p4#aae has been like a thing seen1 perhaps a tree walking or a man working1 whether with hoe or rake or with other implement1 perhaps a trident1 and belief has been identified with an articulate dogma or formula2 and many a realistic novel1 treating the details of life as a scientist might treat them1 or many a psychological novel1 more problematic than artistic1 has been put upon the market4 ,but what can all this mean1 undoubtedly true as it is1 save that science belongs to life1 yet is applied to it with difficulty and only under conditions of conflict8 ,in the case of the edibles1 poverty or illness1 both of them incidents of conflict1 is responsible for the unnatural substitution1 and in cases of education1 politics1 religion1 and literature1 the substitution is equally a makeshift which the conditions of conflict impose upon life4 ,an individualistic programme will not work1 nor will a purely socialistic programme work4 ,mere induction will not educate4 ,no visible ,god ever was divine1 and no articulate creed ever was true4 ,life is a game throughout2 its vital character1 its very integrity is its experimental character2 it is not a settled1 abstractly perfect thing4 ,life is dynamic1 not static4 ,accordingly it must move forward by its mistakes1 or by storm and stress of the incongruous and misapplied1 being inspired1 not by somebody's complacent optimism1 but by a sacrificial1 always heroic idealism2 and its scientific practices1 however truly a mixing of things formally incongruous or disparite1 are just aids to its reality4 ,moreover1 those science-formed practices are always in some measure sophisticated4 ,human nature is rather a fine thing in its way1 as p4#aaf many a man has flattered himself and his kind by saying4 ,witness the homeless1 ill-clad1 starving child feeding over the odorous grating and before the well-stocked window of the restaurant1 and feeling1 if not actually saying3 ,as long as ,i cannot have and eat1 it is good to smell and see4 ,witness1 also1 the educator or the statesman or the priest or the novelist4 ,each knows his makeshift and feels some of the humour of it1 and in his closet1 when not before his public1 acknowledges the violence to which he is lending himself4 ,and another fact1 besides that of the actual applications of science1 which1 however violent1 prove the need as well as the dangers1 and besides the sophistication1 perhaps also the sense of humour1 which always accompanies the applications and at least tempers their violence1 must also be mentioned4 ,those science-formed programmes always go in pairs4 ,individualism and socialism1 realism and mysticism1 ,epicureanism and ,stoicism1 orthodoxy and heresy are inseparable1 socially and historically2 and the effect of such pairing is plainly to correct whatever of violence the sense of symbolism and the sophistication and the humour of the time may be unequal to4 ,thus in the movements and programmes of society for any given misfit there is always a counter-misfit4 ,possibly human life1 at least as socially organized1 is only a competition of misfits1 its programmes coming1 not through the acquired supremacy of one side or the other1 but through the constant mediation1 the balancing and interacting of the two1 and the misfits are perhaps exclusively the gifts of science or at least p4#aag of the observer's consciousness generally1 and man is at once serious and humorous enough to impose what science gives on the real life of his fellows1 as a ready-made clothier might on a stray countryman2 but is a city1 then1 to have no ,hyam1 and is the life of society also to dispense with the gifts of science because they are imperfect8 ,there are worse things than clothes not made to measure or than the men who sell or buy them4 ,there is the life that never changes its old clothes for new4 ,there are the clothes that never get on the market at all4 ,accordingly the interference of the scientific with the volitional point of view is1 to say the least1 not the only danger which the scientist or the practical man needs to recognize4 ,there is also the danger that the disparity between science and life1 or between knowledge and the unknowable1 will be construed to mean that the two are never to live together4 ,science may be innocent of any direct accord with reality1 being in form quite innocent of a real realism1 but after all1 whether by itself or in its various applications or renderings in human life1 it is so innocent only in a qualified sense1 only with reference to the form of its specific doctrine and attitudes taken individually4 ,as itself a living whole1 part acting upon part1 each abstraction corrected by some counter-abstraction or perhaps by some inner self-opposition1 as conscious too of its own conditions and limitations1 as sophisticated and even humorous1 both for all logical purposes and for all purposes of applicability in the life of society it is realism itself4 ,as harbouring what above was called1 in so many words1 an p4#aah inner active spirit of veracity or power for reality1 a constant agent of validity and applicability1 it is itself a party to the real life4 ,but return to the idea of the divorce of science and life1 which is such an easy conclusion of agnosticism4 ,if divorced1 it was said1 they are lost1 the one in a morbid intellectualism1 the other in the dead monotony of mere existence4 ,now1 in view of the fact that many have found such a divorce to possess the highest ideal value1 it seems worth while to remark that after all is said the separation can be only apparent1 not real4 ,even if we neglect wholly the writing and the experimentation of the scientist1 as volitional as they are scientific1 and the practical consciousness1 moral or prudential1 of the disciple of the real life1 as scientific as it is volitional1 we shall find such to be the case4 ,we know men who have what may be styled1 and what sometimes is abusively styled1 a double life4 ,they have their science1 perhaps their laboratories and their books and their own pet doctrines1 and they have also their social affiliations in business and in politics and in religion2 and1 whether it be ideal or unideal1 admirable or reprehensible1 their life certainly does seem double1 because their sociology and their business1 or their political theory and their party ties1 or their biology and their religion simply will not mix2 but their apparent duplicity has apparently little or nothing to rest upon4 ,it may count as two1 numerically1 but such counting never makes being4 ,men should count less and think more4 ,on the terms of such a numerical separation1 as was said1 the science can be only formal1 the life only dead2 but such a p4#aai science and such a life make one existence1 not two2 and1 however amusing the conclusion may be1 it is nevertheless true that the science1 for just what it is1 has been applied1 making the life just what it is4 ,are scientific technique with its aloofness and logical abstractions and a life that in its own special1 affairs can be only conventional and ritualistic1 or say routine in the study or the laboratory and routine in the church or market-place1 are these so different as really to be1 whatever the appearances1 independent and distinct8 ,they may count as two for being in just so many different places1 but the man1 scientist or practitioner1 is always necessarily with himself1 and in this sense never in more than one place1 so that in character and value the two routines are one and the same4 ,moreover1 the ennui which together they are sure to induce must end sooner or later in a common cry for help1 in a passion for reality that will turn each toward the other with an irresistible appeal4 ,once more1 then1 there is danger for science not merely in the interference1 but in the obstinate independence of the scientific and the volitional point of view4 ,a protected science may have no less1 but also it has no more justification than a protected industry4 ,competition with life and will may often bring science low1 degrading its methods and impairing its professional success1 but protection involves at least equal risks4 ,professor ,mnsterberg--but may he forgive me my ,homeric epithets--is a too zealous epistemologic protectionist4 ,the difficulty as to the agnosticism of science may be presented in another way4 ,dismissing all thought p4#abj of either interference or divorce and all thought of the scientist forgetting his agnosticism or taking it too soberly1 we may say that the scientific agnostic1 being under the spell of the scientific way of dealing with things1 is disposed to treat the unknowable as if it were but one more thing or fact among all the other things or facts with which he is wont to deal4 ,the world for him is then composed of two departments or groups1 which like a good scientist he classifies and labels1 the knowable and the unknowable2 and nothing could be simpler or more natural4 ,though the point of what follows may be lost in its appearance of mere wordiness1 so to speak1 the world of his interest1 of his formal knowledge1 includes1 among the other things1 that which he knows to be unknowable1 and with the inclusion and the knowledge of unknowability he imagines his responsibility to the unknowable both to begin and end4 ,or1 again1 the agnostic scientist regards the unknowable as something apart from the knowable1 as something not for him to know and also not having any vital1 intrinsic relations to what he does know1 but something nevertheless objectively presentable to a creature with knowing faculties altogether different from his4 ,the unknowable is thus for him still the object of a looking and thinking consciousness1 yet never of his looking and thinking consciousness2 it is knowable1 and formally knowable1 yet not to him1 not through any of the forms of knowledge1 the enabling attitudes1 at his command4 ,and nothing1 ,i say once more1 could be simpler or more natural4 ,but1 properly and professionally scientific as it may be to give to agnosticism this turn1 it is very p4#aba decidedly an excellent example of professional blindness1 being a sort of reductio ad absurdum1 of the scientific point of view1 for plainly it treats the unknowable as a matter1 first1 of knowledge--the scientist's knowledge of its unknowability1 and as a matter1 second1 for knowledge--the knowledge of the creature with the different faculties4 ,surely such treatment is not honestly agnostic4 ,science1 therefore1 if it would be honest as well as scientific1 must forget its professionalism and take the negative of the unknowable in another way4 ,in what way8 ,in making reply to this question ,i must resort to a distinction1 which ,i have frequently found useful1 between the dogmatic and the merely instrumental4 ,thus agnosticism may be dogmatic1 as the conventional scientist would hold it1 flatly declaring for an unknowable1 or it may be instrumental1 esteeming the unknowability in things1 not merely as relative to the existing conditions of knowledge1 but also as a constant demand upon science that it never rest in itself1 that it for ever treat its results as only a means to some end4 ,so viewed an instrumental agnosticism is also teleological1 but not in any sense of a fixed and static telos4 ,telic character or purposiveness and fixity are like oil and water4 ,whatever the traditional theologian may think or say1 they simply will not mix4 ,of the two kinds of agnosticism1 the first hardly calls for further treatment1 for it is plainly that which has been recently examined and found to be more scientific1 or at least more professionally scientific1 than fully and personally honest1 and the second is p4#abb very nearly akin to positivism1 but must be scrutinized closely1 for it certainly leads beyond the usual bounds of positivism4 ,the positivist in science1 as has been indicated above1 accepts only actual positive experience and accepts that only tentatively4 ,the working hypothesis is thus the master of his mind4 ,what he knows1 however well established in his actual1 positive consciousness1 is at best only relative and mediative4 ,but--and just here appears the defect of his position1 or just here we see him still only the professional scientist--the mediation which absorbs his interest is merely one of formal knowledge2 what he knows always leads him just to more knowledge2 his formulated hypotheses as they are tested are but aids to new formulations3 whereas1 besides this mediation1 there always is another at least equally significant1 for knowledge under the very conditions of its rise and formulation must for ever be a means to something besides mere knowledge4 ,recognition of this other mediation1 accordingly1 is all-important to any final appraisal of the meaning of agnosticism1 to an appraisal that is justified just through being superior to the special interests of formal and professional science4 ,is it not one of the functions of the various negatives in our human life really to save life from the narrowness of its various professional abstractions1 and is not the attitude of agnosticism but one of these negations8 ,and now1 if for a paragraph or two ,i may be even offensively abstruse1 the conditions of our positive experience1 of our actual knowledge1 are such1 and are commonly recognized to be such1 that there must always be an unknown4 ,every working hypothesis p4#abc by implication points to an unknown4 ,it is equally true1 however1 that the conditions of positive experience are such that there is no fixity to this unknown2 and the unknown changes in consequence1 both in possible content and in possible quality or value1 with every change in knowledge4 ,but always an unknown which is never the same unknown must mean something more than merely a yet-to-be-known2 yes1 it must mean even more than an infinitely1 eternally remote yet-to-be-known1 for its being always1 or its being infinitely distant1 simply makes it something besides positive knowledge actual or possible4 ,it must mean something which1 though not knowledge1 is nevertheless in knowledge1 now and always2 something served by all knowledge but itself other than any knowledge2 something1 then1 which exceeds or transcends whatever the formal enabling conditions of knowledge are capable of presenting1 but is itself intimately and vitally involved in the presentation2 or1 once more1 something which is not at all in the character of a separate unknowable thing or sphere of things1 nor even of a separate part in the things known or knowable1 but is in the character rather of an unknowability1 perhaps in a sense a relative unknowability1 belonging to the very things and to every part of the very things that are known or1 let me say1 inhering in the bare possibility of all knowledge4 ,must there not be a sense in which just that which makes knowledge possible is itself quite impossible to knowledge8 ,who makes a law must be superior to the law1 or legally supreme1 and what makes knowledge possible can hardly be fully and directly an object p4#abd of knowledge4 ,given actual1 positive knowledge1 then1 and there must always be not merely an unknown1 but also an unknowable2 an unknowable1 however1 that is in and of the knowledge1 not in place or in character a thing by itself4 ,i said ,i should be abstruse1 and ,i have not yet finished4 ,in fully appraising agnosticism we need to consider at close range another idea of the positivist4 ,thus for the positivist knowledge is not a having1 but a getting--on the principle that unto him that hath shall be given2 not a knowing1 but a questioning and seeking2 not a being1 but a becoming--that has its ground in a being so real as to be without fixity of form4 ,and this is plainly equivalent to making movement and action essential to the very nature of the knowing mind or to making knowledge dynamic instead of static1 and infinitely plastic--even like life itself1 that is always greater than its cross-sections or specific forms4 ,but in general to an active nature nothing can ever be quite external2 to a truly active nature there can be no essential impossibility4 ,for reflect4 ,the mere existence of anything external or of anything impossible would in just so far remove and deny the intrinsic character of the activity2 in just so far it would set the supposedly active being in fixity of life and definiteness of form4 ,for an essentially active nature1 therefore1 all things--all things in heaven and earth--are both present and possible1 and so1 specifically1 if that active nature be the knowing mind there can be no unknowable that is at the same time alien and altogether impossible to the knower4 ,even the very forms of the knower's knowledge must for ever compass p4#abe pass more than they may visibly present4 ,the knowing itself in its own right and nature must be more than formal knowing1 or than the objective1 special science1 in which the formal knowing has its professional realization4 ,and the knower1 as he knows1 in and through his knowledge must always be compassing just that which is not impossible to him1 but only unknowable--that is1 impossible merely to his direct1 formal knowledge4 ,is the inedible or the invisible or the impenetrable or the unbearable or the illegible or even the unintelligible ever wholly impossible8 ,such negatives1 and in fact all negatives1 besides saving life from the narrowness of its various forms1 do this positive thing3 they open the door of life's wider1 nay1 of life's infinite opportunity or possibility1 and at the same time they render those various definite forms really mediative or instrumental1 making them parts in an essentially purposive existence4 ,with just this meaning1 then1 a meaning larger and deeper than that usual to positivism1 the attitude of the agnostic is instrumental and teleological4 ,agnosticism simply endows the knower--must we not even put our conclusion so8--with a wider freedom than that of knowledge1 and yet also makes his knowledge both share and serve the wider freedom that is given4 ,instead1 then1 of pointing to a known unknowable1 before which either some non-human creature or some human vice-regent of such a creature is not obliged to be so knowingly humble1 instead of establishing the conceit that knowledge or science is wholly for its own sake and so of divorcing knowledge and real life1 instead of making castes out of the social p4#abf classes of those who look and those who do1 the unknowable must be taken to point to the necessary unity of knowledge and life1 of theory and practice1 to the fact that all looking is incident to a running and before a leaping1 that all knowledge is responsible to life1 and that only life1 however directly unknowable1 can ever inform knowledge4 ,it even suggests ,i think with ,carlyle that the end of man is action1 not thought1 though it were the noblest4 ,yet1 in truth1 though its own emphasis may thus exalt action1 it cannot mean any depreciation of thought or knowledge1 only their enlistment in the service of life4 99 99 99 99 99 ,at this point it would be interesting to show in detail how action--that is1 volition or application to life as central to the meaning of agnosticism--is not only the logically appropriate nor yet only the sentimentally ideal1 but also the inevitable1 the inner and actually real motive1 the natural outcome of the scientific standpoint in each one of its three attitudes4 ,such a showing might follow historical and sociological lines1 or it might appeal to psychology or it might be abstrusely logical1 but ,i can ask attention only to a few suggestions of so general a character as not to be easily classified4 ,the natural consequence of objectivism is something like that attributed by many to modern militarism1 since it ends by inducing the very thing it claims to prevent4 ,an objective science discloses the mechanical nature of man's environment1 besides making man himself also a good deal of a machine4 ,but a machine1 whether environment or personal being1 is always a p4#abg tool whose fine1 accurate adjustments are just so much presented opportunity that by a sort of hypnotism turns the scientist's consciousness into that of an effective agent in the world4 ,somehow a real machine must move1 and in the case before us with the movement the asserted distinction between looking subject and seen object collapses hopelessly4 ,witness such a collapse1 as the runner1 who has been studying the stream before him1 takes his leap1 or in history as an age of self-consciousness1 conventionalism1 and utilitarianism1 is followed by the rise of ,napoleon4 ,so does objectivism pass over into action4 ,as for the special ,science1 it may be impractical1 because partial1 but we have seen how at least formally it loses its partiality1 becoming even all-inclusive1 indirectly compensating for its narrowness of view and so becoming virtually co-extensive with all its associates in science4 ,the dividing partitions may still stand1 but only as unsubstantial forms wholly transparent and ineffective1 so that the undivided universe is really present to consciousness4 ,the undivided universe1 however1 as present to consciousness1 is a call for will1 since it cannot be fully realized in any formal consciousness4 ,the natural decline of an asserted specialism1 then1 or the development of specialism into a mere form without substance1 into a virtual universalism1 makes science applicable4 ,it makes science applicable1 for in the first place it gives freedom from the bondage of mere special technique1 just as1 for example1 the decline of religious--or irreligious8--sectarianism1 a form of specialism certainly1 is sure to free religion from the bondage of ritual1 and in the second place1 as was the p4#abh fate of objectivism1 it makes the distinction between self and not-self1 subject and object1 man and nature1 only a formal one1 since the real unity of the objective world is exactly that in which the self has its true realization4 ,in like manner a religion turned non-sectarian shows man truly living and moving and having his being1 not aloof from ,god1 but in ,god4 ,thirdly1 whether because of the freedom from technique or ritual or because1 as the waters of science become quiet with the union of its many streams1 the objective world does clearly mirror the image of the self1 the decline of specialism1 like the decline of sectarianism1 brings what some are pleased to call the liberation of the human spirit4 ,the psychologist would call it the development of knowledge into will--in a word1 the application of science1 and the historian would record it as the dawn of a new era4 ,psychologically and historically the human spirit is liberated and nature is let loose at the same time4 ,details can always be observed objectively and specially or separately2 the whole1 on the other hand1 is bound to draw the observer into itself and so to change the observation into motive and will4 ,and1 lastly1 as for agnosticism1 suffice it to say1 in addition to what has been said1 that the suppressed passion for reality to which agnosticism must always testify ensures in good time the assertion of the volitional as distinct from the merely scientific point of view4 ,whatever this may mean psychologically1 historically and sociologically it means that a time of agnosticism leads to all sorts of applications of science1 such as those1 for example1 in legislation and in industry4 ,in morals p4#abi and religion1 too1 the same wish and will to use the results of science shows itself1 as in the social settlements1 in scientific charity1 in the institutional church1 and in the university extension movement4 ,agnosticism1 marking1 as it always does1 dissatisfaction both with the uninformed and with the conventionally informed life1 and also rendering mere formal knowledge1 however logically correct and thinkable1 unreal or artificial1 calls for a larger freedom of life through the mediation of knowledge4 ,but interesting as such reflections as the foregoing are1 and interesting also as it would be to undertake an account of will in general in its relation to a consciousness which in so far as scientific is always artificial and symbolic1 and is in particular1 as we have found1 always a poise between opposing points of view1#d ,i must bring to an end this rather lengthy examination of the standpoint of science4 ,if ,i have not already tarried too long1 the special task of this volume certainly does not warrant further attention even to so important a department of human experience4 ,in conclusion1 then1 it is now quite apparent that science is a fruitful field for the doubter4 ,science lacks self-sufficiency4 ,socially it means the rise of a caste1 and logically it involves abstraction and consequent division against itself4 ,its most cherished ideals1 as shown in its attitudes and methods1 are chimerical1 or impossible4 ,in general and in particular it has a p4#acj paradoxical standpoint1 being not less given to contradictions than ordinary consciousness4 ,but1 as must be added1 the case for the doubter of science has led also toward a belief in science4 ,not infrequently in the course of the foregoing discussion it must have seemed even as if belief rather than doubt were the controlling motive4 ,a little child has said that faith consists in believing what you know to be untrue1 and our present state of mind cannot be far from such a faith4 ,actually the science which we may believe in is the science of which we are also confirmed doubters4 ,we doubt the formal attitude and the formal doctrines just because they are abstract1 phenomenal1 paradoxical1 but at the same time we have to believe in the spirit--there seems to be no other word available--as an ever-present agent of validity1 because1 in spite of all1 the very incongruities save these formal doctrines from their apparent artificiality and abstraction1 and put them in touch with what is whole and real4 ,and if1 as was suggested1 the scientific consciousness is only the specially developed consciousness of ordinary life1 then we have gained also a new confidence even in the unreflective paradoxical consciousness of everyday life4 ,yet1 that we may more fully comprehend what this means1 we shall next consider at some length the possible value of the defects in experience which have now been observed4 ,ideas1 which have appeared heretofore as little better than hints or suggestions1 can then be presented in clearer form4 #a ,see an article3 ,epistemology and ,physical ,science--,a ,fatal ,parallelism1 in the ,philosophical ,review1 ,vol4 ,,vii1 ,no4 #d1 ,july1 #ahif4 #b ,see articles3 ,pluralism3 ,empedocles and ,democritus1 in the ,philosophical ,review1 ,vol4 ,x1 ,no4 #c1 ,may1 #aija2 ,a ,study in the ,logic of the ,early ,greek ,philosophy--,being1 not-,being1 and ,becoming1 in the ,monist1 ,vol4 ,,xii1 ,no4 #c1 ,april1 #aijb2 and ,the ,poetry of ,anaxagoras's ,metaphysics1 in ,the ,journal of ,philosophy1 ,psychology1 and ,scientific ,method1 ,vol4 ,,iv1 ,no #d4 #c ,see ,mnsterberg's ,psychology and ,life1 p4 #bfg4 ,houghton ,mifflin and ,co41 #ahii4 #d ,for an interesting account1 mainly psychological in standpoint1 of will as involving such a poise1 see ,mnsterberg's ,grundzge der ,psychologie1 ,vol4 ,i1 chap4 xv41 ,leipzig1 #aijj4 p4#aca ,,vi4 ,,possible ,,value ,,in ,,these ,,essential ,,defects ,,of ,,experience4 ,an original sin1 or an essential defect1 must somehow be for some good purpose4 ,at least1 if a general faith in the ultimate propriety of all things has any ground to stand on1 such must be the case4 ,the sin or the defect cannot be unmixed2 its very originality1 its essentiality1 must line it1 though it be the blackest of clouds1 with some silver4 ,theology has sometimes forgotten this1 but an honest doubter cannot afford such a lapse4 ,yet before examining the possible worth of the original defects of experience1 or1 as some might regard the present enterprise1 before attempting to give the devil himself a character1 we must recall the various steps of our general undertaking as it has progressed so far4 ,we have been1 in the first place1 occupied with a thorough-going confession of doubt1 with the greatest possible candour hunting down all the reasons for the attitude of doubt which experience affords1 and so far1 in the second place1 we have found doubt justified1 whether for good or for ill1 because of its potential when not actual universality among men1 of its character as a condition of all conscious life1 of p4#acb its importance to real active life and deep experience1 of its intimacy even with habit1 and of its natural sense of dependence and consequent impulse to companionship with nature1 man and ,god1 but more than all--and this was the special interest of the last two chapters--because of the paradoxical and self-contradictory nature of all human experience4 ,as regards the last point1 our ordinary consciousness1 the often-boasted consciousness of common sense1 was found to harbour a widespread1 very persistent duplicity towards such vital things as reality1 wholeness or unity1 space and time1 the causal relation1 knowledge1 moral freedom and natural law2 and science1 to which many when dislodged from their ordinary standpoint have been accustomed to retreat with greatest confidence and hope1 was examined with similar results4 ,science was found in its rise to involve abstraction of interest and disruption of life1 and in its avowed point of view to be--suppose ,i say at this point--impossible but contradictory4 ,so1 in a word1 as a clinching argument for doubt1 as an argument that at least on the surface has less of hope in it than any of the others1 we are face to face with the bare1 hard fact that in the very nature of human experience1 besides the relativity and instability and subjectivity1 there dwells a spirit of positive violence4 ,contradiction is just one phase of the error to which all men are said to be addicted4 ,as a background for the inconsistent theologian1 the fickle woman1 the shifting politician and other equally double-faced monsters1 we see both-sidedness1 individually and to a certain extent socially1 to be a basal habit of human nature1 p4#acc and if the doctrine of original sin is tenable at all1 in just this fact it would appear to have its strongest support4 ,humanum est errare may be translated3 ,man is most human when hopelessly divided against himself4 ,but just here our confession of doubt has reached a critical stage2 since in experience apparently at its very worst1 as if in a medley of discords we have caught a promise of real harmony1 and so something from which to get genuine hope4 ,in the very habit of duplicity or contradiction we have again and again had suggestion of an agent of validity1 a power for adequacy in experience1 which would hold even a phenomenal1 relative1 partial experience to a real world4 ,in short1 really the strongest reason for doubt is possibly a ground of belief2 or1 as was said in substance at the close of the foregoing chapter1 the very experience of which we are already confirmed doubters is1 after all1 just the experience which we seem to see our way to believing in4 ,since the time of the great ,leibnitz1 and probably since the time self-conscious man drew his first breath1 all genuine optimism has caught its most assuring vision of what was good1 not in something quite apart from what was evil1 but in and through evil itself1 as if what is evil must be ever building better than it seems or than it knows4 ,very much as mathematics has viewed the negative quantity as an integral part of the whole system of quantities1 so in the person of ,leibnitz--statesman1 historian1 scientist1 mathematician1 and philosopher--and ,i imagine in the person also of you or me1 though we may not claim the same p4#acd authority1 the human mind has been wise and deep enough to see evil1 representing all the negative things of life as an organic part of the best possible world1 even of the world created by an infinite ,god4 ,at least since ,leibnitz's time1 ,i say1 optimism has generally justified itself1 not by denial of evil in the world1 but in and through evil4 ,not long ago a young man who was perhaps more profound and reflective in his habits of mind than wise in his manner of statement1 said to me that the most spiritual truth as yet disclosed to him was the identity of ,god with the devil4 ,a shocking declaration1 of course2 yet1 to say the least1 not very far from the very spiritual idea1 welcome to most1 if not to all1 that the conviction of sin is the beginning of salvation1 or that the consciousness of ignorance is the very ground of wisdom4 ,and here1 similarly1 belief within doubt1 not belief apart from doubt1 or validity and reality only in a contradictory experience1 not aloof from a contradictory experience1 is the sum and substance of what our confession has certainly been leading towards4 ,nothing1 it is indeed true1 so blasts a man's assurance as to have his ideas and arguments on a certain matter1 or on matters in general1 exposed as defective1 and worst of all as positively inconsistent1 and with his discomfiture human nature must always entertain the warmest kind of sympathy4 ,in fact1 upon just this sympathy ,i have been depending in the development of the argument of this book4 ,but human nature1 however sympathetic1 is really superior to any momentary discomfiture1 and most if not all men sooner or later come to value highly p4#ace even their once discomfiting inconsistencies4 ,i am glad1 we seem to hear a fellow-being say1 that after all1 in spite of myself1 ,i did recognize the other side4 ,you abused me and called me double2 yet so doing you were double too4 ,i see now that my duplicity saved me1 not1 however1 for your view or for another's1 but for the both-sided and true1 which we both shared and served2 and exactly such a reflection on the inconsistencies of experiences1 in their less or in their more fundamental manifestations1 is the burden of the present chapter4 ,again1 to one who complained that with every breath he took he had to contradict himself1 respiration being as necessary to his breathing as inspiration1 just as in walking falling is as necessary as rising1 we might properly and satisfactorily reply3 ,you are really alive1 sir1 and just this answer is also quite pertinent to any who might be disposed in their doubting to despair over the essential duplicity of human experience4 ,is not experience more than any one idea or any one ideal8 ,being really alive1 is it not infinitely more than this or that thing1 than this or that place or time1 than this or that power or will1 than this or that point of view8 ,and1 if more1 what so surely as universal duplicity and self-opposition can ensure at once its vitality and its integrity8 ,i am not forgetting or wishing my readers to forget that there are other defects in experience besides this of self-opposition1 besides experience's habit of never failing to induce its own conflicts2 but no defect seems to me so central or so conclusive as this1 and none is at the same time so clear in its testimony to the intimacy of doubt and belief4 p4#acf ,subjectivity1 relativity1 phenomenality1 artificiality1 partiality1 and instability--certainly an imposing and appalling list1 though logically ,i must suspect it of being at least a cross-division--are all noteworthy defects2 but supposing the list exact and complete1 we must recognize that all these either beget contradiction or are begotten by it4 ,contradiction is just the life or the heart of the interesting family to which they belong1 and so in applying our thinker's stethoscope to that heart we shall have determined the hold upon life of the whole race4 ,now1 there are five things1 some of them already foreseen1 that seem worth saying here of the essential habit of self-contradiction1 and they seem worth saying because so effectively and so comprehensively they warrant the conclusion that even upon our strongest reason for doubt we may rest a genuine case for belief4 ,thus1 for the first of the five1 contradiction incites and even in itself implies movement2 it requires1 or positively it is1 action4 ,as a mode of thinking1 as a logical form1 it is the way1 perhaps the only possible way1 in which the mind can1 so to speak1 make a cross-section or take a picture of activity or give the semblance of fixity1 the formal appearance of static nature1 to what is dynamic4 ,the photographer trying for a portrait of reality might ask it only to look pleasant1 but the logician1 for whom reality was essentially dynamic1 would demand manifest opposition1 for in no other way could his art1 limited to conditions of rest1#a p4#acg be equal to its subject4 ,where experience is contradictory1 then1 there is movement1 whether for that which is known or for him that has the knowledge4 ,in your character or mine1 so like a lover's unselfish selfishness in its apparent inconsistencies1 in our double views about reality or unity or law1 in a subjective-objective science1 in an agnostic philosophy1 in all these the contradictions are only the marks of essential unrest1 of necessary movement1 that make the picture possible4 ,for a world of opposites there can be no peace4 ,the very things opposed are themselves fluent and unstable1 and that third something1 the tertium quid1 a picture of which the opposition tries to be or to which the things opposed necessarily point1 belongs1 as ,alice in ,wonderland seems to have discovered1 to yesterday or to-morrow1 never to to-day4 ,but1 secondly1 contradiction1 at least as here understood1 is an expression1 or in experience a means to the expression1 as well as to the maintenance1 of real unity4 ,in general this is because real unity cannot take sides1 and so can never reside in anything that is1 but must rather be served by the co-operation of all things and in particular by their mutually corrective or balancing differences4 ,this no doubt will appear to some readers as just one more example of a philosopher's impossible subtleties1 as a mountain with its top in so rare an atmosphere that the common man would not dare to climb it if he could4 ,yet1 suppose together we rise to the heights of this seeming impossibility by a little unprejudiced study of the conditions1 remembering that the summits of very wonderful mountains1 plainly impossible of ascent1 have often been reached p4#ach from the other side1 and that difficulties of breathing are often due to a needless exhaustion4 ,to take a first step1 then1 contradiction is only difference1 or contrast1 at its limit4 ,naturally there is some opposition1 some mutual resistance1 in all difference1 in that1 for example1 between one man and another1 or one thing and another1 between religion and art1 red and green1 or warm and hot1 and often the difference or the opposition seems very slight2 but contradiction1 so called1 is only this difference abstracted and unrestrained--it is difference at its worst or best1 difference as only opposition1 or1 once more1 difference where any possible unity of the things opposed has lost all material ground or all chance of actual1 visible form1 and has become1 accordingly1 at most merely an empty1 abstract principle4 ,contradiction1 then1 is difference so wide that unity seems wholly betrayed rather than served or maintained4 ,a real unity1 however1 requires for its realization just the freedom from material form or ground which such extreme difference would force upon it4 ,it therefore gains instead of losing reality by passing into the world of the materially and visibly empty and abstract1 or1 say1 by leaving behind any hope of a finite residence and entering the sphere of the infinite1 to which difference1 or at least contradiction1 so cordially invites--or expels--it4 ,and1 this being true1 we can see how unity is served or maintained1 as was said1 by the contradictions of experience4 ,commonly men have an idea that differences mean1 or point to1 unity1 but they are more likely to suppose that the unity is by mere contrast or antithesis than p4#aci clearly to recognize that it is a most intimate fact of the differences themselves4 ,they will even see in a number of things only so many varying aspects of some one thing1 and will go so far as to look upon the aspects as actually enriching and deepening the unity1 but they still fail fully to appreciate how the real unity is immanent and immediate in the differences4 ,again1 in all their thinking they contrast1 and may consciously observe that they contrast1 only objects or people that really have something in common1 comparing1 on the other hand1 only such as in some way are manifestly different1 and in their practical affairs they compete only with those who with them are parties to one and the same life1 a fundamental sympathy1 indeed1 being a necessary condition of their rivalry1 and actually and actively hate only the beings whom because of a common humanity they might love2 but here1 too1 their appreciation lags behind the fact4 ,in life generally1 moreover1 in small things and in large1 extremes do have the habit of meeting4 ,a man's virtues are so near to his vices4 ,the widest variations in things are only relatively at variance4 ,even what is cold is somewhat warm4 ,nothing is absolutely anything4 ,in history a single ideal1 rising to influence1 has always divided men into two opposing camps4 ,witness the fact of bipartisanship1 not in politics alone1 but in all of life's interests4 ,democrats and ,republicans1 ,radicals and ,conservatives alike have loved their country and honoured their country's flag and1 regardless of party1 their country's heroes or patriots4 ,epicureans and ,stoics--in recent times or long ago--have found the same life worth living4 ,the p4#adj ,roman ,law and the ,roman ,holiday1 working together1 like the right and the left hand1 different yet in sympathy1 made the great empire4 ,two men1 furthermore1 in active1 open conflict are in truth at serious difference with each other2 but1 as they might even say1 if their conflict were in the form of a debate1 where words instead of fists or pistols were the weapons1 in the bare1 unapplied principle involved1 or say in the abstract1 in the final success of whichever is the best man1 they do and they must agree4 ,simply throughout this life of ours there has been and there can be no idealism without conflict and no conflict1 whatever the issue or the manner1 without common weapons1 which means1 too1 without some common relationship and some common interest4 ,as for the idealism1 too1 what is it but a demand for real unity8 ,and the common weapons1 or for quite general purposes1 the common forms in which a conflict or an opposition is expressed1 as if the hiding-place of unity1 perhaps a sleeping unity1 only indicate in the very differences a basis1 a potential of agreement1 even an earnest of an underlying and sometimes awakening accord4 ,so1 truly1 in life at large extremes do meet4 ,but commonly men recognize at most only that they meet1 without realizing that their difference is intrinsic to a real unity4 ,where unity is real1 then1 there must be infinite difference1 and infinite difference is just what the contradictions of experience impose upon experience and make it responsible to4 ,infinite difference gives to everything an opposite and to all things unity2 to every man a rival and to human society1 as a whole1 solidarity4 ,against the material it sets the spiritual2 against p4#ada the particular1 the general2 against the subjective1 the objective2 against the living1 the dead2 against the lawful1 the lawless2 against the caused1 the uncaused2 and to all these1 the spiritual and the material1 the subjective and the objective1 the living and the dead1 the lawful and the lawless1 the caused and the uncaused1 it gives place in a perfect unity2 not1 of course1 in any material unity1 since such unity could not be perfect1 but nevertheless in a real unity4 ,for our first step1 therefore1 in the ascent of that impossible subtlety1 contradiction is only difference at its greatest limit2 for the second1 difference in general1 whether partial or extreme1 marks an underlying1 or more precisely an indwelling unity2 and for the last step1 real unity is served1 not betrayed by difference4 ,moreover1 the wider the difference1 the nearer it be to positive contradiction or opposition1 the more conclusive and effective is the service4 ,remember1 real unity can never take sides2 in the world of things it must be always both-sided4 ,it cannot be here or there1 now and then--be the then in the past or in the future1 this or that4 ,in the words1 used of truth1 perhaps an appropriate refrain for this book1 it can have neither visible form nor body1 neither habitation nor name2 like the ,son of ,man1 it cannot have where to lay its head4 ,the particular opposition of life and death affords a peculiarly serviceable illustration1 for it is1 of course1 at the bottom of many of the most searching paradoxes of our human experience4 ,real life cannot be confined to any single organic form or to any single group of organic forms4 ,in fact1 it cannot be bound even to the organic as commonly distinguished from the p4#adb inorganic world4 ,so for the biologist1 very much as for the theologian1 whenever life takes a residence1 death must ensue sooner or later4 ,life and death1 then1 as opposites1 become the medium of real life4 ,but not only have we here a helpful illustration1 also we have a suggestion that should prevent an easy misunderstanding4 ,in general1 as so plainly in this special case1 the opposition1 so necessary to reality in experience1 to a real life or to any real unity1 can itself be complete and effective1 not through any single instance of extreme difference1 not through the opposition of just two distinct things1 but only through an accumulation or summation of all possible instances1 so to speak1 from difference at zero to difference at infinity4 ,in fact1 a real opposition or rather a truly infinite difference1 could be only in such a sum4 ,not the single climax of death1 but the constant dying1 to which it is only a climax1 is what makes real the opposition of life and death and makes this the medium1 as was said1 of the real life4 ,death must constantly condition all the movements and processes of life3 it must have all possible degrees4 ,and1 in like manner1 extreme difference at large1 just to be real itself and to make for real unity1 must be in and through all possible degrees of difference4 ,in other words1 the perfect opposition1 or contradiction1 upon which reality depends1 like the perfect death1 is rather a continuum than the wide gap1 or chasm1 which so many have thought it2 it is a graduate difference1 not a single cataclysmic difference4 ,difference in gradation or degree1 ,i have sometimes heard it said1 is not real difference2 but this statement1 though by no means without warrant or meaning1 is p4#adc misleading4 ,surely a cataclysmic difference1 a difference in kind1 can be only one finite case of difference2 the negative1 or opposition1 in it can be only relative2 whereas1 when in degree1 difference becomes necessarily infinite4 ,accordingly1 as we must not forget1 from this point on through the remainder of this book1 the contradiction of which we have been thinking and which we have found infecting experience at every turn1 is not1 what at first and even second thought it may have seemed1 just an opposition of two things2 between its lines1 as it were1 it is inclusive of1 or maintained by1 all the manifold and various things in life and consciousness2 it is the completed1 short-circuited sum of an infinite series4 ,an infinitely many-sided world is the only world that can claim real unity1 and a world of such real unity is the world to which the habit of contradiction1 which we have observed1 relates our human experience4 ,so far1 then1 in estimating the possible value of this central and essential defect of experience1 we have found that it implies action and that it makes for1 or testifies to1 real unity4 ,now1 thirdly1 perhaps only to enlarge upon what has just been said1 contradiction is an absolutely effective correction of narrowness or partiality or relativity or one-sidedness in life or consciousness1 and so it makes experience not abstract1 but realistic4 ,this is in truth only another view of the worth of contradiction to integrity and vitality1 to unity and reality1 but it would emphasize1 what is very interesting at least to the metaphysician1 and cannot fail to be of some interest to the moralist and the theologian1 that where there is real unity there p4#add is also true reality4 ,only the ,one is4 ,the ,one and ,being are the same4 ,there can be but one substance1 as also but one ,god4 ,so men have said in effect throughout the ages1 and where they have conceded reality or substantial character to manifoldness1 the concession has simply concealed a reassertion1 but with fuller and deeper meaning1 of the intimacy of unity with reality4 ,what makes for real unity or wholeness1 then1 must impart realistic character1 giving actual contact and intimacy with just that of which1 so to speak1 the world is made4 ,now individual things or ideas always show life suffering in some measure under tangential digressions from the circle of its real wholeness1 and only opposition can save them or can preserve the reality to which they both belong and contribute4 ,has not ,emerson1 among many others1 declared with a cogency and a depth of meaning which quite defy the superficiality and levity attractive to a few1 that mere consistency is narrow and confining8 ,any particular view-point or idea or ideal1 any particular thing or activity1 simply needs an opposite to balance the abstraction or digression which being particular must always involve4 ,particularity1 specific individuality1 is certainly a necessary condition of real worth in life1 but with an equal necessity there could be no life1 no conservation and wholeness of life if the particular1 individual things stood unchallenged in the world1 and no realistic experience1 if experience were not thus paradoxical and divided against itself4 ,life1 therefore1 gets not only movement and unity from the contradictions that lie at the very heart of experience1 but in getting unity it gets also contact p4#ade with reality1 and the three together may be summed up in the one word poise4 ,montaigne marvelled at the hopeless folly of mankind as compared with the wisdom of ,god1 but man's folly is divided against itself and so imbued with ,god's wisdom2 and with countless others he saw the ideas of man to be only subjective and unsubstantial and irresponsible1 but man's ideas1 though fanciful and illusory1 though subjective and imaginative1 work against each other for what is real and substantial4 ,man's ideas co-operate for their own correction and so for communion or intimacy with a character that is not less substantial or responsible than that of ,god himself4 ,and so1 fourthly1 the contradictions of experience make experience supremely practical4 ,they make it practical just because they make realistic1 or substantial1 an experience which without them would be abstract and only relative and phenomenal4 ,possibly this is the hardest thing of all to apprehend1 or at least to express satisfactorily4 ,yet the fact1 to which ,i keep returning1 that only the both-sided in everyday matters or in science or in any form of positive experience can accord with reality and its wholeness1 is assuredly quite to the point4 ,in practical life there always are1 and emphatically there always must be1 two sides1 to every thing1 to every question4 ,in practical life1 too1 or at any rate in all effective activity1 there always is1 and emphatically there always must be1 something very like to leadership2 but any truly practical leadership1 any leadership that is all along the lines of life1 be it of things1 ideas1 persons1 or social classes or parties1 can never be confined to a p4#adf single individual representative1 but must be instead a leadership of many4 ,no thoroughly practical leadership1 ,i say1 can ever be on one side or the other1 but instead of being one-sided it must be both-sided1 or rather1 infinitely many-sided2 it must be between or among all the different and opposed individuals2 it must lie1 perhaps in a sense sleep1 in rivalry and competition4 ,there can be no visible leader1 whose leadership is wholly practical1 whether of things or realities--for the metaphysician--or of ideas or categories--for the logician--or of persons or classes--for the statesman or the moralist or the theologian4 ,metaphysical reality1 the truly practical and realistic knowledge1 the political supremacy which is complete and inclusive1 or the wholly moral life or the divine life must forever be secured1 not through a single manifestation presiding over the others1 but through the divided labour of them all4 ,yes1 real leadership1 like real unity in general1 is a divided labour2 it is a labour that effects successful co-operation through its very differences and conflicts3 for reality1 a labour perhaps of different elements or entities2 for knowledge1 of different ideas and standpoints2 for morals1 of different standards2 for politics1 of different parties and platforms2 for divinity1 of different ,gods2 and for life at large1 a labour of infinite differences1 which means also a labour of opposites1 that at once develop and correct each other to the glory of that which is real and practical4 ,it would be peculiarly interesting to examine further this principle of a practical1 truly realistic experience ensured to human life through the inner p4#adg conflicts of experience4 ,the history of morals and ethics1 for example1 notably of the perennial conflict between hedonism and idealism1 could not but cast a good deal of light upon it2 and the history of political struggles1 or the history of the great controversies in science--such as that between vitalism and anti-vitalism or that between atomism and energism2 or in philosophy1 between dualism and monism2 or in theology1 between naturalism and supernaturalism1 would also be most illuminating2 while1 also perhaps appealing only to the few1 in the logic of the negative1 as it has developed from the earliest times1 or in psychological theory--for example1 in the dispute of the advocates of the innervation theory and the afferent theory1 or in ,hering's theory of vision1 or1 again1 in the life and movement of any one of the time-worn paradoxes of popular or scientific or philosophical ideas1 one might expect to find suggestive illustration4 ,in philosophy1 ,anaximander1 ,heraclitus1 ,zeno1 ,socrates1 ,spinoza1 ,kant1 and ,hegel have all found negation1 or contradiction1 necessary to any adequate account of reality4 ,explorations1 however1 in their teachings or along any of the paths that were suggested1 would lead us too far astray4 ,fifthly1 then1 not only do the contradictions make experience realistic and so practical1 but also they make it essentially social4 ,a life or an experience that is contradictory has 7#a7 movement1 7#b7 unity or integrity1 7#c7 reality and poise1 and 7#d7 practicality2 and then it has besides1 as if the medium through which these four things are sustained1 7#e7 social character1 society being only the visible expression1 the p4#adh outer realization1 of the both-sidedness1 of the infinitely differential unity or the divided labour1 which an active1 yet thoroughly self-controlled1 truly realistic1 practical experience requires4 ,in a former chapter1 it will be readily recalled1 an impulse to social life was found to be intimately connected with the attitude of doubt1 and here clearly we are confronted with only another view of the same fact1 since contradiction has become our most cogent reason for doubt and is now seen to require the social relations4 ,an individual whose experience is ever divided against itself is1 ipso facto1 a social character1 his social environment1 whether in its narrowest or broadest manifestation1 adding nothing to his nature or to the struggles of that nature1 but only making the division against himself constantly and manifestly real4 ,the social environment1 as it were1 just proves the man1 his struggle and all1 to himself4 ,some have agreed that the individual consciousness contained nothing on which to ground a positive case for society1 for direct positive social interest2 but so long as man's experience is necessarily paradoxical or contradictory1 so long as man is divided against himself1 or as the labour of life and reality is a divided labour1 the case for society and for personal interest in society is clear and conclusive4 ,a basis for society lies in the very nature of experience4 ,society is not something added to individuality from without4 ,let us here beware of easy sentiment4 ,let not our thinking conjure false sweetness and light4 ,experience is truly and essentially social2 the individual was not meant to dwell alone2 but herein is no immediate p4#adi cure-all1 no promise of an unperturbed brotherly love1 of a life for one and all of simple peace and blissful quietude4 ,on such a plan society would hardly suit the individual with whom1 and with whose natural experience1 we have become acquainted4 ,to speak with the extravagance of a counter-sentimentalism1 the individual of our present acquaintance is forever spoiling for a fight4 ,in the life of the society to which he belongs2 in the life where he watches for his incoming ship1 there must always be hate and evil in all their forms1 lawlessness and destruction1 illusion and error2 but--and just here sentiment1 the sentiment of a really searching optimism1 called once before a sacrificial and heroic optimism1 may find some assurance--never an unmixed hate1 never a wholly idle destruction1 never an unmeaning error4 ,can anything1 indeed1 that has another thing against it--that has1 in short1 an opposite--ever be itself unmixed8 ,the good or the evil in society1 being always opposed1 is always also shared4 ,so few people recognize1 or appreciate1 what a great mixer opposition is4 ,death is the passing only of inadequate or unworthy life4 ,hate witnesses only a false love2 sin1 a pharisaical righteousness4 ,destruction marks an imperfect construction4 ,and in all its forms1 evil is not so much something in and by itself as an exposure and reproach of what is supposed to be unmixedly good4 ,public crime1 for example1 is not so local as it appears2 it is only a generally1 widely private vice made locally manifest1 and the respectable and law-abiding1 who adjudge it evil1 are bound to feel as if adjudging and condemning themselves4 ,in a word1 the individual's natural society p4#adi is never without evil1 but in all its forms the evil has somewhat of good in it2 and although social life1 not less than individual life1 must be one of conflict and discord1 nevertheless1 because the various factors or factions1 however opposed1 can never be unmixed1 because the members of society must all be good and bad1 right and wrong--,i almost said living and dead together--instead of being hopeless for having evil in it1 the life of society is so much the more worth living4 ,shallow sentimentalism may not so esteem it1 but we need give little thought to shallow sentimentalism4 ,so our use of the word society is not sentimental4 ,society means conflict4 ,it is just the natural sphere of life and reality as for ever a divided labour1 as for ever divided and laborious--divided even between the powers for supposed good and for adjudged evil1 and through the conflicts1 in which the division is expressed1 what is true and good and vital is being forever kept real4 ,or1 to repeat1 society is the natural medium through which movement1 unity or integrity1 poise and reality1 and practicality are secured and realized in human experience2 it is that which makes the individual's division against himself manifestly real and positively and progressively effective for a life1 yes1 for his life1 at once of vitality and perfect wholeness4 ,but now that the five things are said1 now that the contradictions of experience have been seen to serve experience by giving it movement1 unity1 poise1 practical reality and social character1 somebody is sure to remark facetiously that on the evidence contradiction is something we should all cultivate assiduously1 and p4#aea that henceforth to face both ways1 the butt of so much opprobrium1 should be one of man's greatest ideals2 in brief1 that the inconsistent creatures in politics1 morals1 and theology are the coming examples for mankind4 ,verily the devil has been given his promised character4 ,but1 alas6 in the spirit of such startling humour one would have to conclude also that because crime has beyond all question been a means of social development1 being all-important to the awakening of the social consciousness and conscience1 all men should at once take thought and find it their duty to turn criminals2 or1 again1 that because death has a fundamental part in the order of nature and is1 moreover1 of greatest spiritual worth and significance1 we should all morbidly seek it1 being successfully righteous only by being suicides4 ,true1 we do need to recognize the positive function of crime in the progress of civilization1 or in the history of law1 and also to be aware of crime as a possibility in our own lives1 and we need to be ready to die and to feel besides that dying we are far from losing all that is worth having1 but to court crime or to seek death would certainly be to deprive either of the very worth which has made it significant4 ,and in much the same way we may very profitably recognize contradiction or controversy1 whether personal or social1 as a necessary condition of all valid experience1 but not on that account are we to cultivate what is contradictory1 to be always blindly spoiling for a contradiction4 ,like crime or death1 if directly courted1 contradiction would lose its peculiar effectiveness4 ,the both-sidedness or the all-sidedness1 which at once develops and conserves human life1 is only p4#aeb that which is maintained with a tenacious1 even with a would-be consistent loyalty to each and every side4 ,so1 although grossly misused if directly courted1 this defect of experience has its place1 even its ideal value1 in experience1 and what on the surface seemed an almost if not quite hopeless reason for doubt1 has truly become all but transfigured1 seeming now a source of real assurance4 ,with ,heraclitus of old1 only perhaps seeing even more than he saw1 we can glory in a world of strife4 ,doubting all things1 we can yet believe that all things work together for what is real1 for what is good4 ,but let me now put the result1 so far secured1 of our confession of doubt in a new way4 ,for a life in which every thing has an opposite1 every idea a counter-idea1 truth very plainly1 as has indeed been frequently said1 cannot be a specific consciousness nor reality a fixed thing4 ,truth is not a creed1 but a spirit4 ,reality is not a thing1 but a life4 ,and for being a spirit truth is only the more realistic8 ,for being a life1 reality is only the more substantial4 ,perfection1 too1 even the ,perfect ,one1 with whom we associate the true and the real1 is no particular separate being in a certain established exclusive status1 at once infinitely and passively excellent1 but a power ever dwelling in the strife that makes for movement and poise4 ,for being such a power1 too1 he is only more surely perfect1 only more certainly infinite and excellent4 ,such terms as spirit1 life1 and power are confessedly somewhat dangerous terms to use4 ,especially the first is liable to misunderstanding4 ,yet1 whatever p4#aec common usage may be1 when ,i say that truth is not a creed but a spirit1 that reality is not a thing but a power1 the reference is directly to that agent or principle of validity which has been found to hold our experience1 naturally so faulty1 to contact and intimacy with the real world4 ,a spirit of truth1 a principle of validity there is1 to which the very faults of experience give witness1 and in view of this we who doubt1 who doubt the particular things1 the creeds and the objects generally1 the definite forms and ideas1 the habits and standpoints of our everyday life or our scientific theory1 may yet believe2 we may believe in the real spirit1 or power1 which makes all things parties to the divided labour of a real life4#b #a ,this limitation is shown1 for example1 in the logical principle of identity4 #b ,the worth assigned in this chapter to the contradictions of experience involves a standpoint which apparently is at variance with that of ,mr4 ,f4,h4 ,bradley1 whose book1 ,appearance and ,reality1 has occupied such an important place in the philosophical study and controversy of the last ten years4 ,of course1 here is not the place for final criticism of ,mr4 ,bradley1 since the present examination of doubt is no such scrutiny of experience as his2 it is far short of what would make a complete philosophical argument4 ,nevertheless1 a word or two expressing the nature of the difference between his view and the view advocated here can hardly be impertinent4 ,thus1 if ,i read him rightly1 ,mr4 ,bradley has argued from the paradoxes of experience to the complete1 hopeless phenomenality of experience1 while in this study of doubt the argument has been from the paradoxes of experience to a thoroughly realistic experience4 ,again1 ,mr4 ,bradley's ,absolute is able to include the phenomenal1 the relative and contradictory1 only because this is so unsubstantial as to offer no resistance1 while here there has not even been any question of inclusion4 ,all experience1 our position has been1 is informed with reality2 its very contradictions hold an otherwise phenomenal1 relative1 changing experience close down to a real world2 and this position1 ,i repeat1 is at variance with what ,mr4 ,bradley has seemed to say4 ,see1 however1 a short article1 ,relativity and ,reality1 in the ,journal of ,philosophy1 ,psychology1 and ,scientific ,methods1 ,vol4 ,i1 ,no4 #bd1 ,november1 #aijd4 p4#aed ,,vii4 ,,the ,,personal ,,and ,,the ,,social1 ,,the ,,vital ,,and ,,the ,,formal ,,in ,,experience4 ,contrasts such as those in the title of the present chapter1 the personal and the social1 the vital and the formal1 or instrumental1 are always dangerous to clear thinking1 and yet in spite of the danger no thinking can avoid them4 ,they can be only relatively true2 the terms in which they are couched cannot fail1 sooner or later1 from one standpoint or another1 to make an exchange of the very things to which they apply1 since opposition1 as must be remembered1 is always a most effective mixer1 and therefore they can only punctuate the naturally chiaroscuro character that belongs to all articulate thinking4 ,nevertheless1 used with self-control1 they are distinctly serviceable4 ,in our recent dismission of the value of the essential defects of experience1 and particularly when we came to associate social character with the habit of contradiction1 a contrast of the personal and the social was very plainly implied1 and some special attention to this contrast1 ,i feel sure1 will help us to comprehend more fully what was said at the time1 and will be of great advantage also to our general purpose4 ,it was p4#aee said that society was nothing alien1 or additional1 to the nature of the individual1 that a basis for society lay in the very nature of experience1 that so long as man was divided against himself and the labour of life and reality was necessarily a divided labour1 the case both for society and for personal interest in society was clear and conclusive2 but this was not fully to define the parts that are played by the individual person and the social group in the development and maintenance of human life4 ,some1 for example1 would fear more for the safety of the individual or the person than for that of society2 and just in recognition of their fear1 we honest doubters1 who are now also at least potential believers1 must look to our defences4 ,long ago ,plato drew an analogy of the soul or self1 of the human individual1 to society1 and so1 too1 ,aristotle1 though not to society1 but much more broadly to all nature1 and the one analogy or the other has had a good deal of fascination1 not to say intellectual inspiration1 for thinking men ever since4 ,yet1 so far as ,i am aware1 at least one of the implications of the idea has never been fully stated or appraised1 and this is much to be wondered at1 since there is involved a strong case for both the personal and the social in the maintenance of experience4#a ,plato found reason1 will1 and sensuous nature in the individual and analogously a thinking or law-making class1 an official or military class1 and an industrial or p4#aef appetitive class in society2 and ,aristotle1 in very much the same way1 found the parts of the individual soul analogous to the vegetable1 animal1 and rational kingdoms of nature1 and either of these analogies is simple enough and reasonable enough to be formally understood1 if not at once wholly appreciated1 with its mere statement4 ,still1 in order to be sure of appreciation1 in order especially to get the reflected light on the relation between individual and society1 we must look to the facts and conditions which are presented very closely4 ,to begin with1 such an analogy1 dealing as it does with the relation of a part to the whole1 has and should have1 for a reason not hard to find1 the freedom of the city of logic4 ,other than logical approval of it might be cited4 ,biology and sociology and psychology might be called in to give testimony4 ,and out of the past1 the more recent past at least as known to the historian of philosophy1 ,leibnitz with his lex analogi1 or for that matter with the general import of his monadology1 might be appealed to4 ,but without tarrying for assistance from these quarters1 highly respectable though they are1 ,i make a simple1 yet perhaps timely and--with apologies for so much emotion--soul-satisfying reference to the logic in the case1 for after all biology and sociology and psychology are always under the restraints of logic1 as well as alliterated with it2 nor does the evidence of logic depend on mere technical acquaintance with given sets of facts4 ,thus1 in these enlightened days1 to say nothing of ,plato's time or ,aristotle's1 how can the true part of anything ever dare p4#aeg not to have an analogy1 even a part-for-part or one-to-one correspondence to the whole in which it is comprised8 ,and--this being1 as in due time will appear1 quite as important--how can a whole1 be it society or nature or anything else1 ever have parts without having also1 actually or potentially1 parts within its parts8 ,in fact1 given any divided whole1 and the division1 however far it may be carried1 will always involve at least these three typical factors3 7#a7 ,the individual as the part still undivided1 though at the same time necessarily inwardly alive with the self-same differential operation to which it has owed its origin2 7#b7 the group-part or class1 which for the convenience of the adjective form may be known also as the faction1 and which was so important to ,plato in his analogy of the individual to a class-divided society2 and 7#c7 the all-inclusive whole4 ,and among these factors in all possible ways--that is1 even between individual and individual1 or individual and group or group and group1 as well as between either individual or group and whole--an analogy in terms of all the various elements of the original differential operation will persist4 ,such1 almost truistically1 though also perhaps somewhat subtly for ordinary purposes1 is the logical condition of division or differentiation4 ,difference1 like its limit opposition1 is thus a great mixer1 and division can be no mere separation or isolation of parts4 ,the saying comes to my mind from somewhere1 that though division may reveal distinct vertebr1 the vertebra always conceal a spinal cord4 ,analogy1 however1 although thus universal1 although p4#aeh applicable1 as said1 in all of the possible ways1 must itself share in1 must be quite under the spell of1 the differentiation2 it must have as many various forms as it has expressions4 ,in every expression the relation must indeed be one of analogy1 but it can never be of the same order or degree4 ,that of the individual to the group or faction must be qualitatively distinct from all others1 say from that of the individual either to another individual or to the all-inclusive whole4 ,nor can the much used and frequently abused distinction between small and large writings1 as when history is taken as a large writing of personal biography or a social institution of some special phase of personal character1 adequately represent the differentiation here in mind4 ,consider how various1 internally and externally1 are all the terms among which the analogies obtain4 ,thus1 as of direct interest here1 factional differences are bound to be sharper or wider1 they are inevitably more deeply set and more openly exclusive of each other than individual differences1 and in consequence the faction is1 not indeed absolutely1 but characteristically special or particularistic4 ,perhaps because of its intermediate position between the individual1 which is the whole implicitly and potentially1 and the completely inclusive environment1 which is the whole actually and definitely or explicitly1 it is1 so to speak1 significantly only one among many1 instead of being1 as in the case of each of the extremes1 many in one4 ,it conspicuously appropriates a particular character1 and while not excluding any of the other characters which are incident to its own special production1 it includes these on the whole only in a negative way1 in p4#aei the way in which opposition includes what opposes it or action the reaction it always implies or in general any different thing the thing or things from which it is different4 ,the extremes1 however1 as was said1 are each many in one1 though in different ways4 ,the individual1 being still only potentially divided and being1 as it were1 the latest residence of the primary operation1 is always in some measure directly and positively active with all the different factors of the operation1 and this in spite of the restraints of any particular class-affiliation1 and the whole1 though macro-cosmic with respect to the microcosmic individual1 is at the same time qualitatively distinct1 as distinct at least as the explicit from the implicit1 the actual from the potential4 ,whatever a merely formal logic might say1 a real logic requires that at most microcosm and macrocosm are only metaphors of each other4 ,even their difference of size would be quite enough to differentiate them at least as sharply as the difference of size differentiated imperial ,rome from her prototype the ,greek ,city-,state4 ,can the whole and the part be one or many or many in one1 can they be real or alive or conscious1 can they be material1 can they be personal1 can they be anything whatsoever in qualitatively the same way8 ,men have often seemed to think so1 but without any good reason4 ,the faction1 then1 the individual and the whole1 are qualitatively different expressions of the elements of the operation that has made them2 and their relations1 always dependent on analogy1 must be various accordingly4 ,but now1 to leave these questions of logic and to turn directly to the case for both personality and p4#afj society1 no idea can be more immediately useful to us than that of what is often styled the unity of experience4 ,of course this unity1 as it is real1 must meet just those tests of reality1 or of a real unity1 that we have already remarked1 but within the limits of a definition the unity of experience is neither more nor less than the totality of human relations4 ,it is the experience-whole comprising all the phases of human nature2 in other words1 all the actual or possible relations of man to nature in general1 or all the manifold states and activities1 stages and events1 however different1 however seemingly contradictory1 in human life4 ,a real unity1 as we know1 being denied local habitation and a name1 is necessarily a thoroughly differential unity2 and human nature is analyzable in an indefinite number of ways4 ,it is1 to illustrate1 physical1 mental1 and spiritual1 or more elaborately1 it is athletic1 industrial1 political1 intellectual1 moral1 sthetic1 and religious1 and in its social life has developed institutions answering to these different phases of itself4 ,it is1 again1 lawful and lawless1 old and young1 conservative and radical1 sympathetic and selfish4 ,but whatever the mode of analysis or division or dichotomy1 the unity of experience embraces all the elements1 aspects1 or relations that are discovered4 ,in a word1 even in the language of the simple logic indicated above1 the unity of experience is only the all-inclusive whole1 but here without regard to any distinction between what is actual or explicit and what is potential or implicit1 out of which has sprung the differential operation that has made human society and human history1 that has given rise to a manifest p4#afa social life1 to the social class or faction and to the individual person4 ,and the person as the real individual1 as the part that is still undivided1 and that is therefore in itself quick with the differential operation1 is thus the living1 integral exponent of the unity of experience4 ,he is1 above all1 its unformed or untethered vitality4 ,in him every phase or part of what is possible in human nature moves with some power4 ,he is religious1 political1 industrial2 or spiritual1 intellectual1 and physical2 or good and bad1 conservative and radical1 all in one2 and characteristically he is each and all of these without the restraints of such visible forms or rites as now and again may become instrumental to their expression4 ,hence the familiar idea of the universality1 which is identical with the indeterminate character1 of any side of human nature2 of the political side1 for example1 or the religious or the physiological1 of the lawful or of the lawless4 ,not any particular political status1 nor any particular religion1 nor any particular body is universal1 but the political or the religious or the physiological is universal--as universal1 to repeat1 as it is indeterminate4 ,not any particular lawfulness or lawlessness1 but the lawful or the lawless is universal4 ,personally1 just to sum up what has been said1 all individuals are all things in one1 and this idea1 as it is understood1 should correct that erroneous treatment of individualism1 whether as a movement in the life of society or even as an incident of the scientific method of induction1 to which reference was made in the discussion of the rise of science4#b p4#afb ,but the story of personality cannot be told by itself4 ,whatever the person may be characteristically1 he is never that alone1 and before any estimate of all that he is or of all that enters into his life can be attained1 attention must be turned to society1 the other horn of our present interest1 and particularly to the social class or faction4 ,if the person in his peculiar character is general or all-inclusive with reference to the unity of experience1 the factional life is special1 particular1 or partial2 it is one-sided and outwardly exclusive4 ,sociologically as well as logically factional differences are1 as has been suggested1 wider and sharper than individual or personal differences4 ,personally all men are free1 socially approachable1 liberal in thought and act2 not so factionally4 ,judged from its classes society is even a hot-bed of specialism1 its classes always tending to become castes1 and of hostility1 its differences inducing open conflict4 ,an illustration of this we have already seen in the rise of the profession of science4 ,whence1 to emphasize at once a most important conclusion1 the typical relation of the person to the class is not1 as so often said or implied1 that of the particular to the general2 instead it is that of the general to the particular1 of the whole to the part1 and significantly that of the vital to the instrumental4 ,yet1 to say no more than this would be a serious mistake1 for at least in two ways this statement must be modified4 ,doubtless the required modifications are directly consequent upon the nature and origin of the relation1 but nevertheless they need to be carefully observed4 ,thus1 logically and sociologically p4#afc factional differences are not merely wider and deeper2 just because more definitely set1 they also imply higher development4 ,factional life may be special1 but through the strength that union gives and the power and efficiency that spring from repetition and imitation1 it attains a high degree of skill and insight4 ,again1 factional life1 like that of corporations1 lacks soul2 it tends to become formal and mechanical and in the sense that this indicates it is static4 ,hence its instrumental character4 ,between individual and class there is a difference very like that between impulse and habit1 or organic life and mere physical process1 or function and structure1 or say human nature in terms of its life-principle1 of its distinctly dynamic character1 and in terms of its establishments or institutions4 ,accordingly the relation of the person to the class is indeed that of the whole to the part1 but of the whole in a state that is formally undeveloped to the part more or less highly developed1 and of the whole as a living1 functional activity1 the differential operation of the unity of experience1 to the part as an institution or instrument4 ,from all this it appears that the labour involved in the maintenance and development of human life is divided between the person and the social classes in some such way as follows4 ,the class life stands for analysis and special development and establishment2 personal life for synthesis and vitality4 ,the factional life of the class is specialistic1 and reaps for human nature all the familiar advantages of specialism2 the personal life is general or universal1 and saves human nature from the disruption and the stagnation to p4#afd which specialism and its formal establishment always tend4 ,the factional life is mediative and instrumental2 the personal life is initiative and purposive4 ,and while so to define the distinction between person and class1 or in general to regard their relation as one of whole to part1 even with the qualifications that were promptly added1 may involve some unavoidable abstraction1 and so some limitation of the view2 nevertheless the view is as real and significant at least as the conditions upon which it rests4 ,even though persons may be differentiated from each other in an indefinite number of ways1 no two being personal1 materially1 in the same way1 no two having the same factional restraints1 still the relation of whole to part1 subject only to the distinctions of development and of dynamic or static character1 remains significantly the typical relation of the person to the class4 ,the person may be only a part of the class1 as parts are merely counted1 but in interest and possibility1 in the fullest reach of his vitality1 the person is larger than the class4 ,and1 if this be the typical relation1 then not only is the story of the person seen to be inseparable from that of the class1 but also there is clearly a real place in social life at once for the person and for the class4 ,factional life lacks completeness and vitality1 and personality1 the living1 integral expression of the unity of experience1 supplies these defects4 ,true1 a conflict of classes or factions may always be counted on1 since the unity of the total life1 which of course includes the classes1 will prevent their ever being indifferent to each other1 and this conflict will make for both completeness and vitality1 but p4#afe negatively1 indirectly1 always as if from outside4 ,only through the person can vitality and completeness be secured positively and directly and immediately4 ,personality1 on the other hand1 lacks definiteness and practical efficiency1 and only the special mechanical life of the class can supply these needs4 ,so in the two together we see a most indispensable co-operation4 ,the person1 furthermore1 because of his particular class affiliation1 with the attainment in the way of skill and insight which this imparts1 is always naturally under constraint not merely to overcome the specialism1 but also to apply the special training beyond the immediate sphere of its development to all sides of the nature that is within him4 ,out of the depth and breadth of his personal character1 bounded only by the unity of experience1 he must ever react against the narrowness and the factional ritual1 and taking this ritual--or special professional technique--to be valid mediately rather than immediately1 in spirit rather than merely in letter1 must ever seek to translate his factional experience1 its skill and its insight1 to all parts of human life4 ,only so can he be true both to his special classification and to his personal wholeness4 ,but an insistent question3 ,is such translation possible8 ,on the possibility the case for either personality or a class-divided society must finally depend4 ,on the possibility hangs also the worth of this case to the general argument of this book4 ,logically1 there certainly can be but one answer1 and that an affirmative one1 since analogy1 the primal condition of translation1 must be universal p4#aff among the parts of any unity as well as between any part and the whole4 ,no two parts1 it is true1 can be literal1 prosaic reproductions of each other1 but metaphors of each other all parts are bound to be1 and any part and the whole must also have this relation of the metaphor1 so that any acquired1 more or less highly developed power of thought or action1 however special and however technical1 may and must have meaning throughout the whole life of the person or of humanity4 ,accordingly1 with the acquired freedom of any part1 the metaphors1 relating part to part1 may1 if not must1 flash to the remotest regions of the person's experience-world4 ,the left hand1 with its unconsciously developed power1 of course usually unexercised1 of mirror-writing1 affords only a very crude illustration of what this implies1 and a very imaginative illustration is in the flashing of the morning light as it reaches height after height of the beholder's outstretched world4 ,the conclusions of logic in this matter have sometimes been questioned1 if not defied4 ,quite properly1 it may be1 many people1 and particularly many among scientists1 have been in the habit of distrusting the leading of mere logic in the solution of their problems4 ,but in this particular matter ,i think that no scientist has ever succeeded in making out a negative case4 ,a few have tried to do so1 have thought themselves for a time successful1 and then in the end1 though not without some reservation1 have gone over to the other side4 ,probably their undertaking has been inspired by the extravagant views sometimes entertained1 as when money-getting is supposed to educate p4#afg people to an appreciation of music and art1 or a ready memory for one class of things to imply the same facility in acquiring a memory of another class of things1 or skill in the use of tools to make a good dentist1 or physical self-control or intellectual sincerity to ensure moral truthfulness4 ,whereas1 if it could be remembered that no special training could ever be literally applicable beyond the particular sphere of its attainment1 the relation of part and part of human nature being only analogous and metaphorical1 and that in any scientifically observed case special training1 when artificially acquired1 or when a result only of a suggested and merely imitated routine1 can hardly count as conclusive evidence1 the problem would lose much of its interest1 and science would be ready even to accept the logical solution4 ,logically1 then1 the translation is possible1 and scientifically there is no real evidence against its possibility4 ,as to the translation being positively natural or necessary1 as well as possible1 the suggestion may not be impertinent that whatever is truly possible must be also real2 that is to say1 certain of realization or rather somehow and somewhere1 in some manner and in some degree already in expression4 ,even the possible can never have been made out of1 or sprung up out of1 nothing4 ,moreover1 the translation here spoken of1 wherein one developed side of life flashes its message1 more spiritual than literal1 to another side or the other side of life1 plainly can require nothing unnatural4 ,it exacts only that all the different elements of our nature and experience1 whether as personally or as factionally manifested1 shall be p4#afh forever true to their origin4 ,the apparent obstacles to translation certainly cannot be obstacles on the ground of the analogies of the various parts being only metaphorical instead of literal1 for already in the original differentiation that has made person and faction1 that has separated the parts1 these have been overcome4 ,the very nature of the person is their overcoming4 ,the unity of experience must persist assertive and inviolable1 whatever the divisions of experience4 ,the distinct vertebr must always contain a spinal cord that has a common origin with them4 ,and it remains to be said that since the person is thus at once the living integral exponent of the unity of experience and the member of some class or faction1 translation is his most characteristic activity4 ,in this translation1 too1 we see him a leader1 or a party to real leadership1 by nature4 ,in it lies his true genius4 ,indeed1 this translation is just that which makes the great leader or the great genius1 for through it the person is ever showing himself superior to his class and training1 and to the formal institutions that have brought him up4 ,factional life1 as we know1 develops through imitation and repetition1 but personality through invention under guidance of the flashing analogies4 ,invention1 too1 the application of special development beyond the sphere of its origin1 is only the psychological term for what sociologically is leadership4 ,in the theory and in the practice of art1 morals1 religion1 politics1 science1 and all the other special sides of experience1 the factional and the personal are ever to be distinguished in this way--the one imitative1 the other inventive4 ,witness p4#afi the familiar antitheses between the typical and the vital in art-expression1 the formally ideal and the really pleasant in morality1 the legal and the sovereign in politics1 the orthodox and the spiritually alive in religion1 technical skill and originality in science1 and so on4 ,these antitheses are all very important to the understanding of human experience1 particularly of its history1 but they are frequently seriously misapplied4 ,more than anything else they show the personal ever asserting its superiority over the factional2 the living whole1 over the developed1 established part2 and always in order that the whole1 overcoming the exclusiveness of the part1 may translate and appropriate its acquirements4 ,there is thus a case for personality hidden in that historical analogy of the individual to its group-divided environment1 whether society or nature1 and there is also an equally strong case for society as something distinct1 as something that has its own peculiar work to do4 ,the rles1 too1 that belong to personality and society are as distinct and as real1 besides being as organic to each other1 as in general are whole and part4 ,but the person1 at once a corrector of partiality and a leader1 a distributor of special development1 holds a conspicuous place and moreover takes a part that just because of his essential superiority to the definite and formal is of the greatest moment to our conclusions as to the nature of all positive experience4 ,all positive1 formal experience we found defective even to the extent of paradox or contradiction1 but personality1 characteristically1 must be superior to this defect4 ,personality must bridge all p4#agj the divisions of experience1 all the gaps in society1 all the chasms of history4 ,it must be1 though perhaps one may not safely use the word1 the very incarnation of that spirit of truth1 that principle of validity and power for adequacy1 which has already come to our notice more than once4 ,factionally experience is relative1 phenomenal1 divided against itself2 factionally1 too1 it is at once formal and contradictory2 but personally it reaches beyond the forms and contradictions1 and is directly in touch with what is true and real4 ,so the contrast between the personal and the social1 the vital and the formal1 shows itself quite parallel to that between the real and the phenomenal1 the true and the paradoxical4 ,a business man says to a friend3 ,personally1 as you know perfectly well1 ,i should prefer to do what you ask1 but professionally ,i simply cannot1 for you know also that business is business4 ,a preacher declares3 ,personally ,i should just like to speak out clearly and without restraint1 but my church will not let me4 ,personally the soldiers in opposite camps exchange many courtesies1 but factionally1 professionally1 they meet with rifle and sword on the battlefield4 ,the father punishing his offending child says3 ,this hurts me more than you4 ,and1 in general1 personally there are no divisions of life--all are all things together1 and restraints that separate man and man are lacking2 but factionally there is always restraint1 and open conflict and inner inconsistency are unavoidable4 ,the person is thus the medium1 not of an abstract universality1 but concretely1 through his factional training and his leadership1 of the universal life4 p4#aga ,and1 finally1 the life of the person is gifted with a great faith1 for it is in touch with an untethered reality2 but1 factionally1 life is a constant doubting1 for it is constantly narrow and it is a constant contending4 ,so are faith and doubt as close to each other1 as inseparable1 as whole and part1 as person and class1 and with this conclusion we seem to have won for the doubter the right to say confidently3 ,my doubts cannot destroy me2 ,i am2 even in me there dwells the power that makes for reality2 even in me1 in spite of the very defects that the conditions of my social life impose1 there lives the spirit of truth4 ,nay1 even the social life itself1 when mine as well as social1 is also real and true4 #a ,this paragraph1 and many of the paragraphs that follow it1 except for considerable revision and adaptation1 were published some time ago4 ,see an article1 ,the ,personal and the ,factional in ,society1 in the ,journal of ,philosophy1 ,psychology1 and ,scientific ,methods1 ,vol4 ,,ii1 ,no4 #ac1 #aijf4 #b ,chap4 ,iv41 p4 #gb4 p4#agb ,,viii ,,an ,,early ,,modern ,,doubter4 ,i referred in an earlier chapter to the great ,frenchman who boldly declared that his doubting was all that he could be certain about1 but that this1 being so very real1 being indeed universal1 left him a belief in himself1 although only in his always doubting self4 ,descartes' belief in himself has interest for us1 for while his thinking followed lines somewhat different from our own1 he seems to have reached nearly1 if not quite1 the same very personal conclusion1 namely1 the right of the doubter to say3 ,i am4 ,descartes was born in ,touraine in #aeif1 and for the larger part of his life he was at least nominally a resident in the ,paris of ,louis ,,xiv1 ,montaigne1 and the earlier ,jesuits4 ,he was educated at a school of the ,jesuits in ,la ,flche1 and in the course of his mature life he published works of importance not merely in philosophy1 but also in science and mathematics4 ,his ,meditations and ,search after ,truth are easily first among his contributions to philosophy4 ,he died in #afej4 ,yet not exactly with the ,descartes of positive history1 but with ,descartes as a doubter1 as perhaps the most notable progenitor of the modern confession p4#agc and the modern use of doubt1 are we now directly concerned2 for without the license of this broader view we might lose a large part of the advantage of the centuries that lie between ,descartes' time and our own4 ,he had many disciples1 and these disciples uncovered much in the ,cartesian philosophy that ,descartes himself failed to see1 or saw only imperfectly4 ,he was not without faults1 too1 some moral and some intellectual1 if the two are separate1 and these faults we shall not consider1 though the conscientious historian should never play to the sentimentalist by disregarding them4 ,but with our present task we can afford to forget the faults2 just as we cannot afford to lose the interpretations and corrections of the disciples4 ,with interests as vital and personal as ours1 we seek something more than matter of fact4 ,our interest is very near to that of the historical novel1 but needless to say1 this book is an essay in philosophy1 not a novel4 ,past men and past times can be really useful to us1 only if1 belonging as we do not to the seventeenth but to the twentieth century1 we really use them4 ,what we ourselves are able to find in any period or in any human career is always truer or realer1 possibly in a sense it is also better history1 than what lay on the surface at the time or than what was seen1 however profoundly1 even by contemporaries4 ,so much better did ,descartes and all really great men build than they knew or even willed4 ,descartes came into ,european life at a crucial moment4 ,the period of the ,renaissance1 with its rediscovery of the old world and its stirring vision of the new1 had culminated in the ,reformation1 not p4#agd merely in the religious reformation that set ,protestant against ,catholic1 but in the reformation that appeared in every department of man's life--in art1 literature1 and science1 in morals and in politics1 as well as in religion4 ,man asserted his independence of established authority in any form4 ,man1 not king1 not pope1 not even ,god1 became the real centre of the universe4 ,justification by his own faith was simply overflowing with a meaning that knew no bounds in his experience4 ,but the birth of ,descartes was fifty years after the death of ,luther1 and by the time he had reached his intellectual majority1 as might well be expected1 the ,reformation had changed from a spiritual enthusiasm--whether among those who were its great leaders or among those who1 not less devoutly1 were bent on summarily checking its progress--into a practical1 thoroughly worldly situation4 ,the two opposing parties1 without exaggeration1 seem to have settled down to real business1 and not less in the thought of one than in that of the other the end justified any means4 ,the society of ,jesus was definitely organized and began its notable career in #afdj1 and although its members1 the ,jesuits1 have given to history many wonderful examples of devotion and heroism1 ,jesuitry itself is synonymous with the extreme materialism to which the ,roman ,church resorted in its desperate defence against the ,protestants4 ,and on the other side1 men became not less sensuous and worldly1 giving as good as they got4 ,they simply met1 or opposed1 like with like4 ,reading the history of the time with p4#age its controversies and jealousies and intrigues and persecutions1 one can only conclude that the honours were about even4 ,if ,catholicism felt justified in her acts of sensuous brutality1 of almost hellish violence1 which culminated in the massacre of ,st4 ,bartholomew1 ,protestantism was made the specious1 yet not less welcome1 excuse for worldliness1 general materialism1 and sensualism out of the ,church and in it4 ,any religious reform1 or reform of any sort1 must always bring an unscrupulous lawlessness with it1 and the great ,reformation was by no means an exception to this rule4 ,extreme humanists1 naturalists1 atheists1 sensationalists1 social and physical atomists1 ,machiavellists1 sceptics and opportunists of all sorts1 swarmed in every capital of ,europe1 and especially in ,paris4#a ,but the extravagant1 more or less unconventional things of any time are often the best signs of its inner life1 since in them we see a few men boldly1 if not prudently1 stepping over the bounds of custom1 and sometimes even of decency1 and giving expression to what is actively present1 though often suppressed or concealed1 in the lives of all4 ,thus contemporary with ,descartes1 and from one side or another expressing the materialism of his day1 there were at least three very significant movements1 all of them endorsed by parties1 of course under different names1 from both of the contending churches1 or from their outside echoes or reflections1 and all of them at least in some degree when not in great degree beyond the bounds of common conventional respectability4 ,these p4#agf movements in one church or in the other1 or in neither1 as the case might be1 were1 first1 a scoffing scepticism2 second1 a dogmatic mysticism2 and third1 a most visionary gnosticism4 #a4 ,vanini 7#aehe-afai7 in ,italy1 ,montaigne 7#aecc-aeib7 in ,france1 and ,bacon 7#aefj-afbj7 in ,england1 among many others that might be named1 were more or less extravagantly1 not mere doubters1 but satirical1 often derisive1 scoffing doubters of everything in human life4 ,conceit of knowledge1 whenever asserted1 in church or state1 in everyday consciousness or in science1 was declared idolatry and held up to constant ridicule4 ,could man's wisdom at its best be anything more than a blinding folly8 #b4 ,and religion1 the religion of a few1 as if in acknowledged sympathy with these sceptics1 surrendered everything but ,god--,god being more a longing than an actual fact2 a spirit than a positive thing or person4 ,even within the ,catholic ,church the ,oratory of ,jesus1 a society energetically opposed for good and sufficient reasons by the ,jesuits1 was organized in the interests of a purified1 truly spiritual ,christianity2 and among those who had broken with the ,catholics appeared new sects of many names1 such as the ,friends of ,god1 ,collegiants1 and the ,brotherhood of the ,christian ,life1 but with one ideal1 the direct untrammelled worship of ,god4 ,god is1 they proclaimed in so many words2 and ,god1 just ,god1 is all4 ,church and creeds and rites and priests are hindrances1 not helps1 to true religion4 ,this attitude1 commentary as of course it was on the conditions of the day1 had almost more satire in it and more doubt than any of the words p4#agg of the most active scoffers2 it was so unconscious2 so quietly and so piously it picked up the crumbs that the scoffers left4 ,indeed1 the sceptics and their devout1 pure-minded contemporaries1 ,pierre ,charron 7#aeda-afjc7 and ,jakob ,boehme 7#aeie-afbd71 both advocates of religious purity against theology and sensuous ritual1 must be said not to have engaged in separate activities1 but to have shared the labour of a single activity4 ,scepticism and such mysticism are but two sides of the same shield4 #c4 ,but with the scoffing scepticism and its complementary counterpart1 the dogmatic mysticism of religion1 there was associated also a most visionary gnosticism4 ,thus the science of mathematics was heralded as a key to all the secrets of the universe4 ,a few simple applications of mathematics to physical phenomena had been successfully made by the scientists--for example1 by ,galilei--and ere long certain men in the world of the intellectual life went wild over the possibilities of mathematics4 ,obliged1 as soon they were1 to abandon every other field of knowledge--theology1 politics1 material science1 tradition1 and convention--they needed but little encouragement to give themselves heart and soul to this last resort4 ,their enthusiasm for mathematics doubtless had a deeper source than this simple account of its rise would suggest1 for an intellectual atmosphere in which just such a purely logical1 abstract science would develop was the natural product of medievalism2 but ,galilei's successes may be said to have precipitated the movement1 and in any case for many mathematics became1 both in its principles and in its method1 an intellectual p4#agh cure-all1 and in consequence not only were remarkable advances made in the science itself1 but men went to the extreme of applying the methods and the formul of mathematics in every conceivable direction4 ,religion1 morality1 and politics1 as well as natural science1 were all subjected to mathematical treatment4 ,among the surviving monuments to this activity the ,ethics1 so called1 of ,benedict ,spinoza 7#afcb-gg7 is certainly the most noteworthy2 a work of five books on ,god1 mind1 emotions1 bondage1 and freedom--each with its special quota of axioms1 propositions1 corollaries1 scholia1 and the like1 and the procedure of the whole amazingly consistent with that of ,euclid4 ,excuse1 also1 a personal reminiscence4 ,i can myself recall how in the enthusiasm of a first course in geometry ,i formulated a ,euclidean proof of the proposition3 ,knowledge is power4 ,i1 too1 had my axioms1 my special demonstrations1 my corollaries1 and my final ,q4,e4,d4's4 ,but any present-day resort to mathematics or its methods is only a shadow1 or an echo1 of the movement of the seventeenth century4 ,at that time it was a movement of last resort and all the passion of a deceived intellect1 of a mind given over to the most far-reaching doubts1 and a disappointed faith1 once more acquiring hope1 was present in it4 ,the truths and methods of mathematics--what but veracity incarnate1 the very mind of ,god made manifest to mankind6 ,nor1 furthermore1 does it take much reflection to appreciate that mathematics was after all a very appropriate form for credible knowledge to take in a time of scepticism and of religion turning to purism4 p4#agi ,trustworthy knowledge of actual things--that is to say1 real concrete knowledge--being held impossible1 there was nothing left but knowledge of the strictly formal relations of things4 ,formal principles1 just like those of mathematics1 are altogether innocent of the confusion in actual things and persons1 in particular events and current issues2 and accordingly in the seventeenth century1 just by reason of this innocence1 they were peculiarly timely4 ,doubt seemed quite unable to touch them2 controversy was turned to agreement before them2 and even a truth-loving ,god1 so to speak1 could appeal to them in support of his right to rule the minds and the lives of men4 ,you and ,i might question the reality of the things we count or the justice of the ratio between our wealth and the wealth of certain others in the world1 but we could not easily question that two and two are four1 or in matters of wealth that one thousand and two thousand dollars are in the same ratio as two million and four million4 ,such knowledge as this may not settle any actual quarrels that we have1 for example1 over the number of acres we own or the taxes we pay or the prices charged by our butchers or grocers2 but what of that8 ,the quarrels are idle any way1 and our mathematical wisdom1 being exact from the start and self-evident1 is a basis of perfect agreement between man and man and men and ,god4 ,in short1 mathematics is exact and universally credible just because it is so empty and so logically formal1 being always in the abstract1 in that ideal1 wholly blessed region1 where there is no disputing1 where all men readily admit anything that can be p4#ahj suggested2 and its being exact for this cause made it the only credible knowledge for ,descartes' time1 a time at once of scepticism and mysticism4 ,with ,vanini1 then1 and ,charron1 who were separately engaged1 as was remarked1 in a single activity1 we may associate the mathematicians of the day1 among whom none were more distinguished than ,descartes himself and the members of the ,cartesian school4 ,to ,descartes we are largely indebted for the ,analytic ,geometry1 and ,pascal did important work in the ,theory of ,equations4 ,in rough outline we now have the times of ,descartes before us1 and with deepened meaning ,i may say again that ,descartes came into ,european life at a crucial moment4 ,materialism was rife1 not merely theoretically among a few scientists and philosophers1 nor practically in some isolated class of dissipated human beings1 but really and more or less openly everywhere in the whole life and feeling of society4 ,even the devout played into the hands of the worldly by their very purism4 ,and an accompanying doubt1 cropping out significantly1 now in positive irreverence1 now in mysticism1 now in intellectual formalism1 appears to have thoroughly possessed the minds of men4 ,there was1 too1 in ,descartes' day a growing sensitiveness to the paradoxes of man's experience which have occupied so much of our attention4 ,nothing was what it seemed4 ,one writer boldly declared--not much later--that ,france1 nay1 the whole world1 could not be happy until all should turn atheists4 ,the boast of ,louis ,,xiv1 ,i am the ,state1 whether literally made or not1 was hardly less startling4 ,the sensualism of p4#aha the ,catholic ,church or the ,pharisaism of the ,protestant was flagrantly paradoxical1 and was keenly felt to be so on all sides4 ,men turned doubters perforce1 and in the fact that with their scepticism rose also a movement at once of individualism and cosmopolitanism1 we cannot fail to see how the course of history illustrates the conclusions of a previous chapter4 ,the time was one in which through its humanism1 or its cosmopolitan individualism1 civilization was to reap the harvest from the medieval organization of society4 ,descartes1 in spite of1 or perhaps because of1 his training at a school of the ,jesuits1 seems to have caught the spirit1 the real meaning of his time1 getting behind the mere letter of their instruction and of their point of view4 ,only mathematics gave him any satisfaction1 and he left the ,la ,flche school in the first place conscious that he had learned little or nothing1 in the second place curious about the possibility of men ever knowing anything1 and in the third place evidently through the influence of mathematics strongly prejudiced in favour of introspection1 or of thought conducted independently of things1 as the only possible way to certainty4 ,this education1 then1 and its outcome1 true as it was to the life of the day1 fitted ,descartes for his life work1 which was nothing more or less than the erection of a system of philosophy on the basis of a thorough-going confession of doubt4 ,descartes entered upon his great task by taking his day at its word4 ,st4 ,paul1 addressing the ,athenians1 reminding them of one of their own temples1 and quoting their own poet ,aratus1 was not more tactful4 p4#ahb ,thus1 as if speaking directly to the sceptics about him1 ,descartes doubted everything1 because he found1 not only in his own consciousness1 become too reflective for implicit belief1 but also in the wide experience of his race1 that everything was dubitable4 ,he doubted church and state1 science and society2 and he went even farther than this4 ,also he boldly doubted mathematics1 so long his own support and the reliance of many others in his time4 ,he did not know surely that there might not be an evil spirit in the universe1 a spirit of deception1 which even in mathematics was obscuring the mind's vision1 making it see things not as they are1 but as they are not4 ,deception was real enough and obvious enough in life at large to make such a suspicion as this at least plausible4 ,moreover1 the notion of an agent of evil in the world had been a commonplace for centuries4 ,it was just a part of that medieval training4 ,so although nothing could be said with certainty either way1 the plausible mischance had to be faced2 mathematics went the way of all doubtful knowledge1 and man was left with literally nothing but his doubt1 his universal doubt4 ,dubito1 said ,descartes2 to doubt is my inmost nature2 and speaking so he at once marked the first step in his reasoning1 so important then and now1 and in the simplicity and directness of real genius reported a great1 deep fact of his own experience and of that of his time4 ,but universal doubt is a real experience1 being real just because universal4 ,nothing ever is real that is not universal4 ,what is always and everywhere is just the mark of something that really is substantial4 ,a real p4#ahc experience1 however1 real because universal1 be it of doubt or of anything else1 means a real self1 so that in the always doubting self ,descartes found reality1 or a real self2 and this always doubting self he further characterized as a thinking self4 ,in other words1 the real thinker was for him the universal doubter1 and1 contrariwise1 the universal doubter was real1 a real thinker1 a real self4 ,before ,descartes' time1 to speak generally1 men had identified reality with fixed condition or possession1 with specific knowledge or established power or definite prerogative1 divine or human1 and truth was an object of faith rather than thought1 say an unchanging programme for life rather than a pure principle--there is such a wide difference between a principle and a programme6 ,but ,descartes1 as we have seen1 identified reality with loss or privation1 with such an empty-handed thing as doubt2 he recognized no self but the thinker1 and no thinker but the doubter4 ,we always feel the pathos of those who1 suffering constant privation1 find and often declare that life is very real1 and yet the sense of reality that comes in this way--namely1 in the way of a privation that denies reality all residence in positive experience--is especially strong1 and the pathos we feel is certainly not all4 ,something else hard to name appeals to us1 too1 and changes the pathos into a nobler because a more positive feeling--good will1 perhaps1 or honour--since the persistent holding to reality commands a deep respect4 ,yet1 putting this more positive feeling apart1 only the pathos of ,descartes' real self1 real because a thinker and thinker because a universal doubter1 can occupy us now4 ,enough if we see that p4#ahd the reality was as indubitable as the universal doubt1 the self always being real up to the reality of its experience1 and that the pathos is not more for him than for the sceptics and mystics and mathematicians of his time4 ,but1 again1 in the ,latin words1 burdened1 as so often the ,latin has been1 with the experience of all ,christendom3 ,dubito1 cogito2 ergo sum4 ,i doubt1 ,i think2 ,i as doubter and thinker am4 ,that ,i am seems a sort of epitome of the humanism1 not to say of the pathos of the humanism of the time4 ,man had lost everything but his own self1 his lacking1 longing1 always seeking self4 ,montaigne put the situation plainly when he said in so many words1 that portrayal of self was the beginning and the end alike of physics1 the science of outer reality1 and metaphysics the science of all reality4 ,man had been left with his mere self1 robbed of beliefs and traditions1 and abandoned by everything but his doubts and the empty companionship which these afforded1 but to that1 an unshaped thing with an undefined activity1 real only for what it did not have1 he clung tenaciously and often enthusiastically4 ,and ,descartes spoke for him3 ,knowing that ,i have nothing1 ,i am4 ,but in this self that was real only because always lacking1 always doubting1 ,descartes found a priceless treasure4 ,every one is familiar with the principle of ,christian theology1 that the conviction of sin is a real promise because the actual beginning of salvation1 and every one has some appreciation of this principle4 ,it is a principle1 too1 that no priest ever made or could ever unmake1 belonging as it does to the very nature of conscious creatures4 ,in like manner1 p4#ahe then1 ,descartes recognized in the consciousness of doubt1 or say of intellectual error1 the real promise1 because the actual beginning or even the very presence of veracity in knowledge4 ,the doubter1 conscious of error as he must be1 was never without and never by any possibility could be without a sense for truth1 an idea of veracity4 ,doubting all things he must yet believe in truth4 ,plato said centuries before that mere opinion1 however false1 was nevertheless always in love with true knowledge1 and this ,platonic love ,descartes found in the doubter's conviction of error4 ,in ,plato's spirit ,descartes insisted that doubt was a constant yearning for truth1 a persistent faith in it4 ,doubt was informed with truth1 with the idea of truth1 very much as one has the idea of a thing that one cannot master4 ,man might be a doubter of all things1 then1 but in spite of his doubt he must believe in the reality of things1 not exactly in the individual reality of each and every thing1 but in reality in and among all things4 ,for him1 doubting and self-conscious1 there must dwell in the world a realizing nature or power1 an agent of perfect veracity1 checking any experience from being altogether deceptive4 ,and1 for the present1 to narrow our attention to a single phase of the doubter's natural idea of veracity1 as ,descartes reasoned about it1 truth and everything that goes with truth1 perfection and absoluteness in all its phases1 could not be solely human if to doubt was human4 ,they must1 in consequence1 be divine4 ,so ,god1 a spirit of truth and righteousness1 was real1 as real as the real self of always doubting but ever truth-loving man4 ,dubito1 cogito2 ergo sum3 etiam p4#ahf ,deus est4 ,i doubt1 ,i think2 as thinker and doubter ,i am3 and what is more1 ,god1 veracity incarnate1 is also4 ,and here begins or began a great controversy1 nor can the issues of it be said to have been wholly settled even to-day4 ,what did ,descartes understand when in this way he proved to himself the existence of ,god8 ,was only the ,god he seemed to have lost once more restored to him1 and restored intact8 ,did he merely justify1 and so return to its old place of authority1 the traditional theology of his day8 ,was his doubt1 as some would view it1 not his own genuine experience1 but simply the conceit and pretence of method8 ,these questions need an answer1 for their answer affects not only ,descartes' regained religion1 but also his regained real world in general4 ,so many have been disposed almost to laugh outright at the simple-minded ,descartes for his doubting everything from matter and mind to ,god1 only in the end to get everything back4 ,they have seen him as one chasing the verities out by one door only to welcome them with outstretched arms as they run in at another that had been left open for their return2 and this view of him has been strengthened by the fact that conservatives in religion the world over have made ,descartes their victim by appealing to his proof1 borrowing for themselves his philosopher's robes1 as if these could be easily assumed and as easily put off4 ,but as to the justice of such a view there is little if any good evidence4 ,matter-of-fact history is not our first concern here1 as was said2 yet1 whatever may or may not have been uppermost in ,descartes' mind1 the doubt of his day was both general and very p4#ahg genuine1 and the final worth and validity of his thinking lies wholly in that1 not in his or any one's mere logical gymnastic or verbal strategy4 ,moreover1 for reasons which hardly need to be given1 the strong probability is that1 notwithstanding his well-known lack of courage in openly living up to or even thinking up to all the consequences of his reasoning1 he did feel in his philosophy not a mere recovery of what had seemed lost1 nor a cunning apology for the old1 but the birth of a new point of view2 and1 if this possibility should be verified1 among other things the conservatives1 who have been borrowing so much support1 have been little if any better than parasites4 ,still1 even the probabilities in the case are relatively insignificant to us1 since the people of the time and of later times1 and we ourselves from the scepticism and mysticism of the seventeenth century1 have learned to think of ,god with a fulness of meaning never attained before1 as--what shall ,i say8--not a definite truth1 but the living spirit of truth2 not a passive perfection1 but a perfect activity2 and not even a divine person1 in the sense of one more separate being of consciousness and will to inhabit the universe1 but the moving and conserving power of all personality--the very active principle of reality present in the vicissitudes and conflicts of our existence4 ,and1 such being the outcome of history1 we have to take it as really the meaning of the great ,frenchman's formul4 ,we put aside the controversy1 then1 with the simple reflection that results in history or anywhere else are at least very hard indeed to conceive if they are anything more or less than realized motives p4#ahh perhaps the realized motives of a man or men building somewhat beyond their clearest knowledge4 ,whatever has come about must always be what more or less clearly men have been feeling after4 ,the ,god whom ,descartes really proves to his time1 and still more positively to us1 must surely be the ,god not of a satisfied unquestioning believer1 but of the universal doubter who loves truth and whose doubting and loving make him the always curious thinker2 a ,god without visibly or even quasi-visibly fixed or specific character of any sort1 since with his nature set to such a character1 tethered like a beast to a stake or like the sun bound to an orbit1 he would not be and could not be divine enough--which is to say1 veracious or perfect enough--for a universal doubter's curiosity2 a ,god1 then1 who has the divine character of true infinity1 who is1 too1 a spirit in fact as well as in word4 ,infinity certainly cannot belong to a being that is apart2 such a being would at once belie his nature2 and spirits1 divine or human1 must not be supposed to be1 like ,elijah1 the merely translated beings of this visible and tangible world1 for they can belong only to the invisible and the intangible1 which is in this world and of it1 in its knowledge1 in its love and strife1 in its changes of all kinds1 in its work and in its suffering4 ,yes1 a truly living ,god1 living here and now1 is the ,god of ,descartes' proof2 the ,god of just that world of movement and conflict1 of poise and reality1 to which the differences and above all the contradictions of experience1 as examined by us in preceding chapters1 have already borne witness4 ,let us recall how we were able to say that the very conflicts of human p4#ahi experience were the wisdom of ,god4 ,and if this all amounts to saying1 as apparently it does1 that only ,descartes' universal doubter1 who loves truth too much ever to claim its final possession1 can believe in a real ,god1 then we have reached something that will surely repay the most careful reflection4 ,some have criticized ,descartes for what they regard as a fallacy in his reasoning4 ,he jumped1 they claim1 without any real warrant1 from the idea of a thing as his premise to the actual existence of the thing as his conclusion1 from the idea of veracity1 so necessary in the consciousness of the doubter1 to the substantial existence of a perfectly veracious being1 as if1 to use their time-worn analogy1 the idea even of the very smallest sum of money would make the money itself materialize in somebody's pocket4 ,but1 whether or not ,descartes fully understood his own thought1 this criticism is very superficial1 and it gets only a specious cogency from the same matter-of-fact history that we have already pushed aside4 ,no idea1 however clear1 however necessary even to the consciousness of a doubter1 of perfect truth could ever conjure into existence the unworldly1 independently existing1 spiritually and intellectually isolated ,god of the ,middle ,ages2 and for that matter one might say1 ,i think quite pertinently1 that money not in the pocket is something less than real money1 or--which comes to the same end--that the idea of money1 if the pocket be indeed empty1 must imply some sense of the emptiness as well as of the money2 and with such an implication the idea taken for its full meaning is no such conjurer as ,descartes' critics have chosen to imagine it4 ,after p4#aij all the mere ideas1 or the mere things in general1 that appear in controversies1 are only ingenious ways of packing the jury4 ,an adequate idea--that is to say1 an idea taken just for its full meaning1 for what it denies as well as for what it affirms1 for the complete universe of its discourse--does and must answer to existence2 yes1 and to substantial existence too4 ,so1 again1 the ,god that ,descartes by the doubter's idea of veracity proved to his time and to us1 if not also as clearly to himself1 can have been no mere substantial existence wholly outside the doubter's life and consciousness4 ,in such case the universal doubting would indeed have been only the insincere verbal strategy of a conservative1 the conceit of purely artful method1 and the jump objected to would have been quite necessary4 ,but ,descartes' ,god answered to just the idea of truth which a universal doubter could honestly entertain2 to truth realized only in and through doubt2 a ,god1 living in and with the seeking1 struggling consciousness of the doubter4 ,furthermore1 for a being1 call him doubter or thinker or what you will1 whose very nature in deed and in word is awake to a sense of lack and is in consequence making a continued outcry3 ,never this1 but always something else1 something fuller and realer1 something including and using this1 something maintained by the very conflicts of this1--for such a being very plainly there never can be anything that is wholly and hopelessly beyond1 that is not potentially and so actively real in him2 there can be no outer nature1 but an including and developing nature1 and no transcendent ,god1 but an indwelling1 ever uplifting1 p4#aia forward-bearing ,god4 ,exactly such a being was ,descartes' real self1 the self of his ,i am--,i as thinker and doubter am--and this self had need neither of struggling with nature nor of wrestling with ,god in order to get one or the other on its side1 for in its doubt1 in its constant confession of incompleteness1 even--though this is a flagrant paradox--of its own reality as in a sense always outside or beyond itself1 it had won the supreme victory at the start4 ,negatives are always such very sweeping1 comprehensive things2 and to be1 so to speak1 one's own negative1 to be real and lacking1 is somehow to include all things within one's own life and interest4 ,if ,i may apply an ordinary phrase in an extraordinary way1 to be always beside oneself1 always doubting1 always wanting1 always striving1 or to be1 in the words of earlier pages1 ever and always divided against oneself1 is to have enlisted man and nature and ,god for ever in one's service4 ,there is truly such a difference between programme and principle #a ,it is the difference between medievalism and modernism1 between supposed finality and recognized and asserted movement1 between supernatural authority and the authority of natural growth4 ,enthrone a programme1 and it is arbitrary and exclusive2 it claims1 as it must1 the sanction of another world2 it hopelessly divides human nature as personally embodied or as socially organized2 it makes life and its sphere irrational and so dependent on a blind faith3 but a principle1 enthroned1 draws all things into itself1 using to its own constant realization even the changes and differences of life1 making faith p4#aib and reason lie down together1 and transfiguring both a brutal nature and an inhuman ,god by revealing them as not indeed formally but vitally rational1 and not indeed mortally yet humanly alive4 ,in ,descartes' proof of ,god we see the birth of modernism2 the programme deposed2 the principle set in the place of authority4 ,finally1 then1 ,descartes did not simply restore what had been lost4 ,though we have been regarding only the religious aspect of his philosophy1 we can see in general that1 just as not the old ,god1 but nevertheless ,god1 remained to the doubter's life1 so also not the old verities at large1 yet nevertheless the verities1 or not the old reality1 yet nevertheless reality1 remained also4 ,man1 after all his doubting1 even because of it all1 was enabled to return to the world of all those isms1 the all-pervading materialism1 the scoffing scepticism1 the dogmatic mysticism1 and the intellectual formalism1 with a new spirit1 a spirit of real confidence1 a spirit of hope1 a spirit of life1 that just by reason of its wants and conflicts believes itself not only very real but also fully worth while4 ,and travellers to-day visiting the streets of ,paris or going anywhere the doubting and despairing world over1 would do well to imagine ,descartes1 as the modern doubter1 travelling and thinking with them4 #a ,see an article by ,h4,c4 ,lea in the ,american ,historical ,review1 ,january1 #aijd1 ,ethical ,values in ,history1 especially p4 #bch seq4 p4#aic ,,ix4 ,,the ,,doubter',s ,,world4 ,the doubter's world is a world in which1 as we journey1 we shall discover four features that are especially noteworthy and that accord fully with the principles of ,descartes as well as with the findings of our own confession of doubt4 ,thus1 in the order1 or suppose ,i say in the itinerary1 here to be followed3 7#a7 ,reality1 without finality1 in all things2 7#b7 perfect sympathy between the spiritual and the material2 7#c7 genuine individuality2 and 7#d7 for whatever is indeed real1 immortality4 ,i4 ,,reality1 ,,without ,,finality1 ,,in ,,all ,,things4 ,doubt is only a particular state1 or phase1 of consciousness1 and it is worth while to observe that any state of consciousness whatsoever1 any attitude of mind1 must assume or postulate something real4 ,indeed1 this assumption of reality is so positive that no consciousness is ever without some will to believe1 while no will to believe is ever without some real object believed in4 ,can there be smoke without some fire1 or a seeming without some being8 ,were either of these things possible1 then by the same token there could also be a willing without some doing or a wanting without some having4 ,to be conscious of something1 p4#aid then1 means not only that something is assumed and1 if assumed1 willed to be1 but also that something really and truly is4 ,of course1 the consciousness is2 but1 however subjective1 the consciousness must have more than its mere subjectivity1 than its mere seeming or wanting or willing1 being in some way genuinely objective or grounded in reality4 ,in a word1 all consciousness implies and demands1 postulates and possesses1 a real world2 possibly not just the world formally presented to it1 but nevertheless reality1 and reality1 too1 in which somehow the presented world has a place and part4 ,this may or may not be axiomatic1 but at the very least it is very near to being axiomatic1 and1 near or far1 it quite agrees with the conclusions to which1 although along somewhat more specific lines1 our own thinking and ,descartes' thinking have been constantly pointing4 ,as ,descartes might have said1 there is no consciousness without a thoroughly warranted ,i am1 and no ,i am without an also thoroughly warranted ,the world of my consciousness is and is objectively real4 ,but in implications about reality the doubter's consciousness differs from the believer's consciousness2 not by any mere denial1 for unqualified denial must be wholly alien to honest doubting1 and the doubter is himself a believer1 but by a peculiar assumption as to what the reality is4 ,simply doubter and believer1 so far as they may be taken as independent characters1 do not live in the same real world4 ,thus1 for the distinct believer--that is to say1 for the specifically dogmatic believer1 for him who is1 or who for the moment may be supposed to be1 p4#aie tenaciously and immovably loyal to some specific body of doctrine and to some specific manner of life--reality is always tethered to some stake2 while for the doubter it is too real and too free to suffer any such bondage1 being infinite and all-inclusive4 ,for our doubter1 at once fully self-conscious and honest1 no possible experience can ever be in itself real and final1 nor1 on the other hand1 can any possible experience ever be altogether unreal and illusory4 ,his reality1 ,i say1 must be at once free and all-inclusive4 ,indeed1 it could not be either of these without being the other4 ,for him nothing is the reality1 just because all things must belong to reality4 ,for him1 again1 the world's reality is nowhere1 just because everywhere2 in no defined thing fixedly and completely1 just because in all things--in them not merely distributively1 it is true1 but as they work together2 and invisible and intangible1 indeed generally unknowable1 just because any consciousness is necessarily limited to the definite and inadequate mediums1 or forms1 of positive knowledge4 ,so the doubter has a real world1 but his own real world4 ,moreover1 in the great freedom of its reality we see how all things taken individually or distributively1 must be1 as the word is used1 only relative2 and in the perfect inclusiveness1 how nothing1 however relative1 can ever be unreal4 ,relativism and scepticism have been perenially associated1 but relativism is not a nihilistic1 but a deeply realistic philosophy2 it is just the sceptic's natural realism4 ,all things are relative1 but only because reality is at once free from anything1 and yet inclusive of all things4 ,what is relative is p4#aif thus not flatly unreal1 as is often supposed1 but significantly both real and unreal or neither real--not real to itself alone--nor unreal--not without its part and place in whatever is real4 ,the sceptic1 though always a relativist1 is thus also a most profound realist1 and the nature of his realism must help us greatly to our view of the doubter's world4 ,moreover1 ,descartes and his followers were also nativists or intuitionists1 and1 at least for the freer interpretation here permitted1 their nativism was of a peculiar order1 and it involved1 accordingly1 a world which was real in a peculiar way4 ,usually nativism has stood for the assertion of certain inborn and so necessarily valid and unchangeable ideas or characters or powers2 as when men contend that particular ideas of ,god are unassailable because immediately intuited as a part of man's very being1 or again when men declare a particular genius to be born1 not made1 or insist that a voice of conscience born1 not bred1 in them1 tells them explicitly to do and even to make others do this or that specific thing1 to live and make others live in this or that specific way1 to accept and make others accept this or that specific programme of politics1 morals1 or religion4 ,furthermore1 nativism of this prevalent type not only has claimed final validity for what is thus inborn--or given independently of the changing conditions of experience--but also has commonly punctuated this claim by viewing the inborn1 or the intuited--for example1 the dictates of conscience--as direct1 immediate1 unequivocal signs and mandates of ,god himself4 ,genius has been not human1 but divine4 ,the intuition at large has p4#aig passed for nothing more or less than a supernatural revelation4 ,but such an understanding of the innate1 though serviceable beyond measure to the specifically dogmatic believer1 and though implying too1 as of course it should1 the natural1 appropriate world of such a believer1 does not agree with the principles of ,descartes4 ,such an understanding of the innate can imply only a world not merely of definite1 substantial reality1 but also of definite1 substantial unreality4 ,how real to some people1 how definite and substantial the unreal is2 how brutally fixed and yet how alien to what they are given to finding real4 ,they are nativists of the conventional type1 and for them the negatives of all things are as fixed and as really or as substantially not this or that as the positives to which what is innate for them bears its special witness4 ,their world1 in short1 is a world of tethered error as well as tethered truth1 of hopeless1 unmixed evil as well as a wholly untainted1 unassailable--and why not say also hopeless8--virtue1 of absolute and effective lawlessness as well as an unswerving law1 of a free and omnipotent devil as well as a free and omnipotent ,god2 for1 in simplest language1 the rule is a very poor one that does not work both ways4 ,a world1 however1 which is so constituted1 calls emphatically for revision of the view that imparts its character to it4 ,where the unreal is as real as the real1 the evil as effective as the good1 the false as conclusive as the true1 there is certainly need of some second thinking4 ,as some good ,irish philosopher might put the case1 if just this is wholly good or true or real1 and just that is wholly p4#aih evil or false or unreal1 then the good or the true or the real cannot be exclusively just this1 the evil or the false or the unreal cannot be exclusively just that1 and the innate1 responsible for a world so made1 cannot be just in terms of certain fixed ideas or characters or powers4 ,when1 forsooth1 has the manifest existence of evil in any form1 of intellectual or moral error1 of political anarchy1 of religious heresy1 or even of natural violence1 not shaken man's conceits about what is and what is right8 ,the very conceits--and this the more as they are definite and assertive--help to make the manifest evil1 very much as a definite law has its part in making a particular crime1 and the evil so arising1 as it is distinctly manifested1 cannot fail to assail and unsettle the conceits4 ,according to the ,cartesian nativism1 on the other hand1 particularly as it was developed by such men as ,malebranche and ,spinoza1 the innate1 which is always at once the final appeal of man's conceits and the conclusive witness to what is absolutely real1 was indeed one with the divine or supernatural1 but it was perhaps just by reason of its truly divine or supernatural character and origin untethered4 ,how could the universal doubter be born with a specific knowledge or a specific programme of anything1 when the definite or fixed1 the specific in any quarter whatsoever1 must always be a possible object of doubt8 ,only the purest principle1 or spirit1 is impregnable against the attacks of the sceptic4 ,to doubt such a principle is indeed only to enhance its importance4 ,the sceptic1 then1 the universal doubter1 is born only with1 and what is more he cannot be born without1 a real p4#aii interest and constant faith in truth1 in true knowledge and right action1 but no special experience can ever compass the length and the breadth1 the depth and the height of this interest or this faith4 ,he has a native love for truth and righteousness1 a belief in them1 as real and as inviolable1 as universal and as necessary1 as his doubt2 but the very doubting in him forever saves both the truth and the righteousness from being destroyed by satisfaction or crucified by any final embodiment4 ,he loves and he trusts with all his heart1 and he lives in a world that forever serves the truth and the righteousness of his love and faith4 ,so1 taken at least for what he promised1 or for what he said between the lines1 ,descartes was a nativist without the nativist's disastrous bondage to form and creed1 to fixed character and specific programme4 ,he was a nativist1 but for him the innate lacked its self-destructive definiteness2 it was just a spirit or principle1 or what ,i have also called a life or power1 ever present not in some1 but in all experience1 and so at once sanctioning all things1 and1 because able to find perfection in none alone1 each single thing being relative1 sanctioning also a constant conflict between things as good or true or real1 and things as bad or false or unreal4 ,whatever is relative is necessarily1 so to speak1 both-sided or divided against itself4 ,the relativity is such conflict4 ,before the judgment-seat of the innate1 in short1 all things1 being relative1 must be parties to conflict both individually and collectively1 nor is their conflict anything but an old story to us4 ,all the paradoxes of experience have been evidences of it4 ,the conflict apart for the present1 however1 the meaning p4#bjj of ,descartes' nativism is just this3 truth in all experience1 reality in all things1 and reality1 or truth1 a principle1 not a programme4 ,just this1 too1 discloses to us the nature of the doubter's real world4 ,in the last chapter we saw in particular the idea of ,god which the universal doubter would naturally and consistently entertain and cherish4 ,we saw how in the proof of ,god ,descartes1 deposing the programme1 set the principle in the place of authority1 and how in consequence ,god became identified with all that was human1 with all the seeking and striving1 the hoping and despairing1 the erring and the suffering1 of man's life4 ,god's nature just drew all things into itself2 the very conflicts of life were his perfection2 the incongruities of experience were his infinite wisdom4 ,but the doubter has a metaphysics1 or cosmology1 as well as a theology2 ,descartes lost and regained a world as well as a ,god2 and the doubter's metaphysics1 or cosmology1 proceeds from this simple creed3 ,reality in all things4 ,so runs the creed's supreme article1 and its two important clauses are these1 equally familiar to us3 ,reality without form or residence--real as a spirit1 not a programme1 and3 ,nothing finally and fixedly real in itself1 yet all things working together for what is real4 ,with this creed clearly in mind1 moreover1 we may look out upon the world and see things that possibly we have never seen at all1 or not seen so clearly before4 ,we see that just because reality is so profound1 so spiritual1 and so inclusive1 just because nothing can be absolutely real in itself1 all things must be relative--this we saw before1 but have we ever quite understood p4#bja stood the meaning of relativity8--and must be relatively at once real and unreal4 ,perhaps ,i am still adding little1 if anything1 to what has been said already1 but distinctly and emphatically the real world can comprise only things that individually are relative1 relatively real or good or true1 and that being thus relative secure their place and part in absolute reality only by being also relatively unreal or evil or false4 ,the very conflict of the relative ipso facto puts it in perfect unity with the absolute4 ,and so1 seeing this1 we see not only a world of relativity and consequent conflict1 but also a world whose universal relativity makes for a genuine absoluteness1 and whose conflict can never be in vain1 but instead is always realizing and effective4 ,thus1 all things relative1 that is to say all things at once real and unreal1 good and bad1 true and false1 are in the constant service of the absolute2 and then1 only employing again the language of religion and1 if not exactly interpreting1 at least adapting some well-known lines3 ,all service ranks the same with ,god-- ,whose puppets1 best and worst1 ,are we2 there is no last or first4 ,all things1 serving reality1 are whatever they are together2 yet could not be that1 were there not a constant conflict in and among all things4 ,all men serving ,god are whatever they are together2 yet1 in like manner1 could not be that were human society not a sphere of conflict harsh and unceasing4 ,so we find ourselves well upon our way in the world of the doubter--and what a world it is6 ,no p4#bjb finality1 because so much reality4 ,conflict1 forever necessary to its effective realization4 ,relativity1 that is to say finiteness1 of all things1 of all things in it1 just for the sake of its own true absoluteness1 just to conserve its own actual infinity4 ,and1 also1 in such a world human life1 individually and socially1 gets new interest and vitality4 ,there is given to human life so much fellowship1 and yet1 at the same time1 so much hostility and competition4 ,society and the individual1 though neither loses its own peculiar importance1 are so vitally intimate with each other4 ,we cannot1 however1 enlarge now upon this point4 ,another consequence of the peculiar realism of the sceptic has a more pressing interest4 ,is our universal doubter naturally and honestly an evolutionist or a creationalist8 ,of course1 he may be neither1 or he may be one or the other with a meaning different from that usually recognized4 ,terms like these are so very hard to control4 ,conceivably the doubter1 a very versatile character always1 might even be both evolutionist and creationalist4 ,but1 as the terms are commonly used1 he must be said at least to have his face towards an evolutional and away from a creational view4 ,the difference1 again1 is seen in that between principle and programme4 ,an evolutional world is the working out of a principle2 a created world1 of a programme--the fixed design of some specified being4 ,true1 one may speak with much significance of persistent1 continuous creation1 of a creation active at all times and in all things1 and it is to the point that the ,cartesians made much of a doctrine that was very near to such a notion2 but a truly continuous creation p4#bjc could be only an orthodox substitute1 or disguise1 for evolution4 ,a truly continuous creation could be bound by no programme2 by definition it could have neither date in time nor location in space4 ,and1 what is of even greater moment1 a continuous creator1 ever present and ever active1 could never be more or less than the persistent reality of the world itself4 ,how could he be aloof or different8 ,so have we come1 once more1 to the immanence of ,god as a necessary idea of the sceptic4 ,the doubter's world1 then1 is the scene1 as realistic as you will and perhaps we may say1 too1 without unwarranted enthusiasm1 as bright beneath the morning sun1 of the ever present1 ever active life of ,god or--with the same meaning--of an evolution which we may call ,god or nature as we please4 ,from this thought1 too1 if only we remember that nothing is unreal and no experience is without some contact with reality1 there is but a step to the idea that ,god and man are actively parties to one and the same life4 ,to repeat from above1 the conflicts of human life are the perfection1 the perfect living of ,god4 ,god is1 nay1 ,god's life is1 not what some1 but what all men do1 and the doubter's world is just the world1 the world of things always relative1 the world of constant conflict1 in which alone this can be true4 ,,ii4 ,,the ,,perfect ,,sympathy ,,between ,,the ,,spiritual ,,and ,,the ,,material4 ,but we pass to the second feature of this world in which we are journeying1 namely1 to the sympathy of the spiritual and the physical4 p4#bjd ,as a matter of course the sceptic1 by his peculiar attitude of mind1 must imply something with reference to the relation of the two worlds1 or the worlds commonly supposed to be two1 the spiritual and the material1 and because for him the reality cannot be exclusively one definite thing or any number1 small or large1 of definite things1 all of them independent and exclusive1 he must imply in the world of things1 be these two or as many as you please1 that they always work together for whatever is real4 ,such an implication at first hearing may or may not appear to be a pregnant one1 but at least it suggests that in some genuine way there must be sympathy between the two things1 the two worlds--spirit and matter1 mind and body4 ,these two must work together for whatever is real4 ,but by this necessary sympathy between the spiritual and the material is not meant a mere parallelism so called4 ,thinkers1 present and past1 have tried to be satisfied with such a meaning4 ,to be quite real1 however1 sympathy must be substantial even to the point of unity1 not formal4 ,some friends1 and even some married people1 are parallel1 life matching life at each and every point1 but not positively and vitally sympathetic4 ,still1 in parallelism1 the very name for which is fairly indicative of its import1 there is a convenient approach to the meaning here intended4 ,moreover1 our ,cartesian philosophers were much given to a theory of parallelism in their views of the relation of the two spheres of mind and matter2 their specific doctrine of continuous creation1 already referred to1 was parallelistic2 and they found the human mind and p4#bje the human body1 though distinctly two1 still parallel4 ,then1 too1 in more recent times1 parallelism has been in evidence1 figuring conspicuously at least as a working standpoint in the psychological laboratory1 and figuring also1 ,i venture to add1 as an important assumption in philanthropic work4 ,accordingly1 although the term itself does convey a good deal of its meaning1 ,i shall try1 in words as simple as possible1 to show exactly what the theory of parallelism is4 ,this done1 we shall be able to see1 or think through parallelism to sympathy of a more genuine and a more vital sort4 ,as was said1 the doctrine of continuous creation1 holding as it does that the mental and spiritual life of ,god and the constant changes in the natural world1 the world said to be of his creation1 are always in accord1 ,god in his relation to the world being1 so to speak1 always up to date and having his attention on every place and part1 is distinctly a parallelistic doctrine2 but1 quite apart from any theological reference1 parallelism asserts that all states1 or events1 in the two spheres of body and mind1 of spirit and matter1 are 7#a7 equally real and substantial1 and 7#b7 perfectly harmonious and consistent1 in just the sense that always in connection with any condition or change in one realm there is an accompanying condition or change in the other1 although 7#c7 between the two there exists and can exist no causal connection whatever4 ,obviously to make either1 whether by what is known as causation or in any other way1 the producing and wholly determining condition of the other1 or of anything in the other1 would be at once to unsettle the equivalence or balance of their reality1 and equally real p4#bjf they must be4 ,thus1 in more detail1 mind is denied any independent part in the production or determination of anything in the material realm1 and matter is in no way the source of what transpires in mind4 ,each is1 so far as the other is concerned1 quite its own master4 ,each is absolutely without any arbitrary influence1 any influence not natural or sympathetic or co-operative1 upon the other4 ,so to speak1 neither imposes on the other a must that is not at the same time already the other's would4 ,in other words1 any state in one is always the occasion1 but1 so far as an independent causation goes1 the wholly passive occasion of something quite pertinent occurring in the other4 ,is there an idea1 a state of consciousness2 then1 corresponding1 there is some real thing1 some physical object adequate to the idea4 ,is there an act of will2 then1 corresponding to it1 some movement in the material world4 ,were the relation different from this1 were mind and matter ever independent causes1 not merely coincidents or perhaps co-operative causes1 of each other1 then1 as is worth adding1 besides the disturbance of the equivalence of reality1 already referred to1 there would be implied a fixity of plan1 or manner of action1 and a definiteness of possessed power in the nature of the supposed causes1 and these implications would also give offence4 ,yet in the world of our journeying there must be causation--on some plan--of some sort4 ,parallelism1 though sometimes supposed to be more sweeping1 is really and consistently a denial only of isolated1 independent causes4 ,it denies1 not causation1 but causation as ever localized or with an exclusive residence4 p4#bjg ,in very much the same way certain political ideas1 growing to explicit expression contemporaneously1 have denied1 not sovereignty or power1 but an exclusively localized sovereignty or power1 as in the case of absolute monarchy or of an absolute institution1 whether church or state4 ,parallelism1 or at least the inner meaning of it1 simply imposes certain conditions on a still real causation4 ,these conditions1 too1 necessarily involve a significant1 even a revolutionary change in the nature and value of any cause1 but beyond peradventure they are unavoidable conditions4 ,thus1 every active thing having any part in the causation of the world must always be only one among other active things1 each also with some part4 ,then1 secondly1 all active things must co-operate1 in1 if not actually through their differences working together and harmoniously for what is real4 ,in short1 they must be parallel4 ,and1 lastly1 as something not formally asserted by parallelism but still far from incongruous with it and1 as seems to me1 even demanded by its inner meaning1 all active things must be always acted upon as well as acting4 ,to give a single illustration1 though this may be quite superfluous1 parallelism would view the life of a skilled labourer at work in his shop as a process in two parts4 ,on the one hand1 the environment1 comprising not merely all the tools and materials1 but also the body of the workman1 moves as a mechanism1 each part flying to its appointed task consistently with the particular thing to be done2 and then1 on the other hand1 the mind and the will of the mechanic1 not by any independent ab extra causation1 but p4#bjh nevertheless at every thought or sensation coincidently and pertinently accompanies the environment's mechanical movement4 ,each process is consistent within itself1 not following nor yet preceding1 but accompanying the other in perfect step4 ,what makes the environment so tractable or the mind so practical8 ,the credit here has usually been given to a tertium quid1 to ,god1 who is so made more a mediator than a creator4 ,god is the ,great ,paralleler4 ,but the third condition that was to be met--how about that8 ,are the workman's mind and his environment each at once acting and acted upon8 ,are their two processes virtually one instead of two8 and is the mediation accordingly1 just in the fact of such unity instead of in some being acting as if from without8 ,so far as the formal theory goes1 as was said1 this third condition is not fulfilled1 but the theory cannot be understood as opposed to such unity2 rather it is a first step and a long step towards an appreciation of it4 ,the formal theory1 alike in its assertion of the parallelism and in its view of ,god as mediator rather than positive creator1 is an effective attack1 consistent1 as we have seen1 with the demands of an honest1 thorough-going scepticism1 upon the fixed1 independent1 arbitrarily creative cause in any form4 ,it does not openly assert causation in any other sense4 ,seeming quite oblivious1 for example1 of causation as action with an accompanying reaction1 or of what ,i should style an organic or differential causation4 ,but1 besides making and needing to make no denial of this1 it all but opens the door to recognition of such a view4 ,in such manner1 then1 as simply and as briefly as p4#bji ,i find myself able to put the case1 runs the theory of parallelism2 with its equal reality and its non-interference of two distinct but thoroughly correspondent agencies or substances1 certainly a theory of a formal1 rather than genuine and vital1 sympathy4 ,metaphysically it is dualism still persistent4 ,but one needs only a little insight1 and perhaps also a slight leaning towards the gruesome1 to see that it is dualism--at least the dualism of the medieval type--already in a shroud4 ,even dualism demands1 and should always be allowed1 its funeral service and a decent burial4 ,with the passing of dualism1 however1 the sympathy becomes more than merely formal4 ,two things always equally real cannot be really two1 and a perfect parallelism1 though satisfying to certain cherished traditions in philosophy or theology1 is so saturated with unity as to be almost1 if not quite1 at the point of precipitation4 ,without attempting1 therefore1 any further appraisal of parallelism metaphysically1 we may turn to what will seem more practical4 ,looking or thinking through this metaphysical theory we can see that it is equivalent to a declaration that the physical and the spiritual in human life1 or in life at large1 are meant for each other4 ,perhaps in a somewhat stilted fashion1 but nevertheless beyond any chance of question1 it is a philosophy that makes man and nature always accordant and adaptable1 and coming as it did in the history of thought near the beginning of the modern period1 it can lay claim to this meaning on historical as well as on logical grounds4 ,its value to philanthropy1 too1 perhaps only another sign of its modernism1 is easily p4#baj detected1 since it supplies just such tangible means as the material conditions of life for the accomplishment of philanthropic ends1 and its service to scientific psychology1 plainly an indispensable service1 lies in its making the physical nature a medium1 not merely for the expression1 but also for the study of what is psychical4 ,as for its relation to the argument of this book1 it is simply dualism meeting2 or trying to meet1 the demand1 in the first place1 that reality itself should be indeterminate--always a tertium quid--and1 in the second place1 that the things that are definite1 be they material or spiritual1 should work together for reality4 ,under the same demand1 be it said1 atomism could stand only if supplemented by some doctrine of assumed unity or co-operation among all the elements--as1 for example1 by ,leibnitz's doctrine of pre-established harmony4 ,but1 furthermore1 looking and thinking through the theory of parallelism1 we can see something of special significance for the doubter's world4 ,men often forget that new relations of things mean new things1 or at least new characters for the old things4 ,thus1 mind and matter1 or man and nature1 if become1 or found to be1 parallel1 are no longer the mind and the matter1 the spiritual man and the physical world1 that they were4 ,the two things1 just by their complete correspondence1 are changed in a most important way4 ,that they must be changed is quite evident1 but how to state exactly what the change is is not easy4 ,that the change1 too1 must be in the direction of their more vital union is evident to us1 but again the precise description of it is difficult4 ,still1 ,i submit that the p4#baa effect of correspondence1 whether this be natural or imposed1 is to make the things concerned1 in the present instance the spiritual and the material1 at once dynamic and teleologic in character and function4 ,moreover1 they are dynamic with the same reality and teleologic for the same end4 ,to correspond to something1 as parallelism makes matter and mind correspond to each other1 is not1 and cannot be1 simply to have a certain character1 self-contained and generally static2 it is1 and apparently it must be1 to have a constant call to action1 a constant motive to go beyond self1 and so to make one's nature mediative or instrumental4 ,wherefore1 if this be in truth the effect of correspondence1 in our doubter's world mind appears as a thinking1 not a mere knowing1 and matter as a moving1 not a mere being2 and the thinking and the motion are instrumental1 or mediative1 to the same end1 to the same reality4 ,all of which1 moreover1 being translated1 means1 on the one hand1 that in our doubter's world man is free to think to some practical purpose1 and1 on the other hand1 that the material world will serve both his thinking and his purpose4 ,as to the first of these1 the freedom of thought1 mind by being relieved from all danger of any arbitrary interference from the physical world1 has at once the conscious right of independent procedure and the positive assurance of its thinking1 thus free and independent1 being quite practical or applicable2 for plainly the freedom is in1 not from1 the material world4 ,nothing possible to thought1 no consistent chain of reflections upon experience1 however abstract1 can possibly fail to be exemplified in the p4#bab natural world1 or--as ,hegel said1 giving more direct expression to the same idea--the real is rational and the rational is real4 ,the applicability of thought to life1 therefore1 the real utility of looking well before leaping1 the ultimate service even of the most technically scientific theory is what we see from our present observation-tower1 and the splendour of the view hardly calls for remark4 ,man is free to think1 to think in his world and about it2 and his thought is always incarnate2 it is an unfailing mediator between him and the life of the material world about him4 ,well begun is half done is an old saw1 and for human conduct a great truth1 but ,well thought is well done is even greater1 if not older4 ,think clearly1 and the fulfilling act1 the overt expression of your thought1 is already ensured4 ,a thoroughly developed plan finds its execution1 as it were1 already provided for2 such is the perfect sympathy between the mental and the physical world4#a ,now1 however1 that we have observed the complete freedom of the thinker in the doubter's world1 now that we see the thinker free1 not only to develop his thought abstractly1 but also to expect that the conclusions which he reaches will be exemplified in his p4#bac world and so to be able to apply them there1 we are in great danger of serious misunderstanding4 ,thought is indeed free1 but the truly free thinker is no single individual developing some particular point of view1 although even such a one must always have some part in the freedom of thought4 ,free thought is deeper than any of its formal expressions and broader than the positive experience of any of its exponents2 it belongs to the life of mind as present throughout the whole sphere of all conscious life2 and the single individual has part in it only when his actual1 articulate thinking is supplemented by his conscious doubting of his own peculiar standpoint1 his treatment of this as only tentative and mediative1 and his consequent appeal to thought as always deeper and broader than just what he sees1 or--amounting really to the same thing--only when his thought is mingled in social conflict and mutual accommodation with that of others4 ,in the doubter's world the thought that is at once free and fully applicable is social--just as we know doubt to be social2 that perfect applicability1 so essential to truly free thought1 simply cannot belong to all thinking1 or to all thoughts1 distributively and indiscriminately1 to all specific thoughts and ideas1 though all must be capable of some application1 more or less enduring1 but only in the first place to the thinking that1 like pure mathematics1 is exact and general simply because strictly formal and abstract1#b and in the second place to the thinking that when material and concrete1 when dealing1 with actual affairs and definite practical relations1 makes up for its consequent p4#bad relativity and subjectivity by inner paradox or contradiction1 in so far as individual or personal1 and by open opposition and controversy1 in so far as it is social1 and assumes accordingly only the value of a means to an end4 ,much has been said in earlier chapters#c of the paradoxical nature of human experience4 ,there was seen to be among men no knowledge without a contradiction1 and the ever-present paradoxes of experience were recognized as causes of thorough-going doubt4 ,but1 although at first sight seeming to blast man's ordinary experience1 and his science also1 these paradoxes were eventually found also to give to experience movement and poise1 reality and practicality1 and to involve the individual in a life that was as social as it was real1 and thereupon they became as certainly reasons for faith as causes of doubt2 they were witnesses to a principle of integrity and validity1 a spirit of veracity moving through all experience4 ,accordingly1 once more1 our truly free thinker1 the thinker whose thought is thoroughly applicable to life1 is such a one as lives for and with this principle of validity or spirit of veracity1 having his every thought informed with it4 ,he is not the single individual1 holding tenaciously to some specific standpoint1 but the doubter ever using what he sees and knows1 and in using appealing beyond what he sees and knows1 or he is even the social life that only more directly and explicitly embraces and uses the views of all individuals1 these views always working together for what is true and real2 or1 lastly1 he is the truth-spirit itself which is ever superior to p4#bae anything that is either merely individual or merely social4 ,the free thinker is just the honest doubter2 a believer in what he knows or thinks1 but only as a working view to something else2 and1 consciously1 a social being1 through controversy sharing with others the practical experience of what is real4 ,with regard to the peculiar case of mathematics1 which is widely applicable because formal and as exact as formal1 it seems enough to say that while mathematics has very properly become the ideal of all knowledge1 not excluding such sciences as psychology and sociology1 the final value1 the peculiar applicability of mathematics1 lies in its character as a general attitude or method4 ,it is not strictly a science1 but the ideal method of science4 ,doctrinally1 that is1 as to any specific intellectual content1 there can hardly be said to be any pure mathematics1 any final body of formula absolutely exact and fully applicable4 ,has not doctrinal mathematics had a history8 ,has it now no promise of future changes8 ,but whatever has a history--can this be quite pure8 ,have even those axioms1 which once upon a time you and ,i learned to respect for their self-evidence1 been free from the criticism and revision of the mathematical experts8 ,then1 too1 taking any particular formula from so-called applied mathematics1 such as that simple but altogether typical one of the lever1 what do we find8 ,an equation is said to exist between the product of the weight by its distance from the fulcrum1 and that of the power by its distance from the same point1 but in application this formula can never be fully exemplified4 ,the fulcrum never is a point4 ,the perfectly homogeneous lever1 so p4#baf necessary to the equation1 is unattainable1 if not also unthinkable4 ,there can never be complete absence of friction1 nor perfectly ideal suspension of the weight or application of the power4 ,and the necessary atmospheric disturbances1 even in a vacuum1 to say nothing of the difficulties of absolute measurements1 are not less fatal4 ,only as method1 therefore1 which really means as procedure according to standards of strictest accuracy and of highest logical consistency1 or as closest1 most constant loyalty to a spirit of truth1 not as doctrine1 can mathematics be said to be freely applicable4 ,mathematics seems to me to be at the very heart of the working hypothesis4 ,its tests of accuracy are such as forever save science from anything like doctrinal dogmatism4 ,historically there is much significance in the fact that our doubter1 ,descartes1 was almost the inventor of the ,analytic ,geometry1 and that this and the ,calculus1 which came afterwards1 and which we owe chiefly to ,leibnitz and ,newton1 comprise rather a methodological than a doctrinal mathematics4 ,with their invention and development the application of mathematics to material facts1 or it would be better to say to the investigation of material facts1 took tremendous strides4 ,so ,descartes1 who doubted mathematics only because it was not satisfying doctrinally1 regained in this case1 as in that of his ,god or his material world1 not exactly what he had lost4 ,alike in mathematics and theology he lost doctrine and creed2 he won method and life4 ,and1 to return1 with reference to the relation of mathematics to the free thinker1 nothing can be clearer than that this science1 at least sometimes so called1 as p4#bag a method or attitude exacting clearest possible procedure and highest logical consistency1 is the very principle of veracity1 upon loyalty to which the freedom of thought must always depend4 ,like this principle1 too1 mathematics--so much more truly than any other discipline--is superior to anything that is either merely individual or abstractly social4 ,so1 looking and thinking through the theory of parallelism1 we see how thought is ,bet free4 ,man is free1 as was said1 to think always to some practical purpose4 ,secondly1 then1 with regard to the material world1 said to serve his thinking and his purpose1 this in its turn is liberated also2 it is liberated for a life of its own law and order4 ,nature1 the material world in general1 is no longer the victim of arbitrary changes4 ,such changes as spring from the occultly creative acts of the spiritual world1 or more exactly the spirit-world1 represented by ,god in the character of an extraneous being1 by a personal devil or by those minor spirits or powers of light or darkness1 often if not usually described as objects of superstition1 no longer interfere with nature's orderly course4 ,she is left1 unmolested1 to be just her natural self1 consistent and persistent in the way prescribed by her own inner being4 ,and then1 while subject to no arbitrary interference1 she is herself never given to interference1 but is1 on the contrary1 in her own right1 essentially at one with that other world1 the world of the thinker4 ,poets have ever fondly sung of nature's sympathy with man1 and her sympathy deep and abiding is exactly what we now observe1 nor can any poem too loftily give expression to it4 p4#bah ,and what1 in more detail1 of this sympathetic nature--of this ideal world1 or perfect home1 of thinking man8 ,with much interest we certainly might trace all the aspects of its character corresponding to the different phases of the thinker's life1 but discussion of them all would take too much of our space and might seriously tax an already tried patience4 ,so we shall confine ourselves to one thing alone4 ,the truly free thinker was said to be one who believes in what he knows or thinks1 but only as a working view to something else4 ,no thought of his could ever compass the fulness of truth within him4 ,what1 then1 of nature8 ,corresponding to the thinker's positive knowledge1 to the specific law or order1 which at one time or another he finds manifest in his world1 there is the well-known1 but often misunderstood1 character of nature as a great mechanism1 moving of course under the law4 ,but corresponding to his only tentative acceptance1 though always trustful use of what he knows1 there is the much neglected character of nature as not an idle1 unproductive mechanism1 always doing exactly the same thing1 but1 if ,i may so speak1 a moving1 developing1 ever-productive one1 serving some end larger and deeper than the known law4 ,nature must indeed be a machine if the thinker's knowledge demands uniformity or law1 but an instrument of something other than her mechanical self1 in short1 not a merely revolving1 but an evolving1 always productive machine1 if the knowledge itself is never final4 ,the material1 mechanical character of nature1 as ,i have said1 is often misunderstood4 ,the real meaning of it is lost1 and with serious results4 ,in the first p4#bai place1 it is taken as if it involved a wholly external1 physical nature1 and in the second place it is taken as if it represented this nature only as moving through its changes according to a certain law and as having in consequence nothing to do but keep up the dead1 strictly mechanical existence of its law-fixed character and incidentally involve man in the tireless turning of its fatal wheels4 ,but nothing could be more superficial1 or even more needlessly superstitious1 than this4 ,obvious facts are overlooked or1 if seen1 forgotten4 ,the simplest demands of a truly scientific mind are slighted so inexcusably4 ,could any law of an alien1 external nature ever be an actual or possible object of knowledge8 ,and could such law as is known --of a nature not alien--ever have any but a relative value1 a provisional mediate character8 ,nature may be a machine1 but the law of her moving is never identical with any law in positive knowledge1 though what is known is always informed with the law of her moving2 and this is to make her more than a mere machine4 ,again1 no known law is ever the law1 and under the law nature must be qualitatively different from what under the known law she appears to be4 ,to neglect this difference1 then1 is seriously to misunderstand the mechanical character of nature4 ,yet some one promptly objects that ,i am not at all fair to the common understanding of mechanicalism4 ,i am told that no one ever thinks of nature as revolving strictly in accord with any known law4 ,all men who give any thought to the matter concede that the really ultimate law must be not anything that is known1 but only what is yet to be known1 and is p4#bbj merely like in kind to such laws as men have cognizance of4 ,this interesting concession1 however1 quite fails of its purpose1 since it does not meet the real difficulty here in question4 ,it shows mechanicalism1 not indeed bound to any particular knowledge1 but nevertheless still conceiving the final lawfulness of nature after the analogy of a particular law1 the merely known or unknown or unknowable character of which matters not at all4 ,the analogy is what misleads4 ,the analogy only serves to deaden what really lives4 ,when will men cease to think of the whole after the analogy of the part8 ,of the1 as if it were a8 ,when will ,god cease to be only another person8 ,and the universe only another thing8 ,and the lawfulness or unity of all nature only another formula8 ,this or that formula may show nature a mechanism as smooth running and as blindly given to dead routine as could be imagined1 but nature is ever more and other than known formul of men1 and as more and other1 or say as answering to the free spirit of truth that moves in the thought of men1 she is as free in her real lawfulness as she is infinite4 ,by reason of her infinity there is no law that she may not break4 ,a law may make her a mechanism1 dead and idle2 the law makes her an organism living and productive4 ,how a positivistic science1 making all knowledge wait on actual experience1 and accepting all knowledge only tentatively1 can ever be mechanicalistic or appeal to the ordinary understanding as an argument for the mechanicalistic view of things is hard to conceive4 ,if one reasons from known forms to uniform activities1 must one not also reason from the always provisional p4#bba and developing knowledge to productive activities8 ,must not the mechanism evolve into something more1 adding something to man's life1 realizing something for all life1 enlarging even the nature of ,god himself8 ,once more1 therefore1 corresponding to the law that men may know and that they can know only as their working hypothesis1 there is nature1 a mechanism moving and herself at work1 while corresponding to the great living fact of nature's final lawfulness1 or to the thinker's sense of truth as a spirit or principle1 not a form or creed or programme1 there is the constantly1 genuinely productive life of nature1 the mechanism1 as has now been said several times1 ever evolving beyond its form and law4 ,her law is not a law1 any more than the thinker's passion for truth can be finally satisfied by a formula or than ,god's continuously creative life can ever culminate in a single finishing act4 ,the doubter's world1 in short1 or so much of it as is said to be material1 is not law-bound1 but law-free3#d an organism1 not a mechanism2 and upon the value of this vision of nature1 upon the theoretical or the practical value1 whether to science or to philosophy1 to morals or to religion1 to politics or to industry1 it seems hardly necessary to dwell4 ,but1 to add a word or two in very general appraisal of it1 such a nature1 served as it is by every law1 by every mechanical action1 yet bound to move1 is active always from design2 its life is essentially purposive4 ,not that it serves the purpose of anything1 or any being1 beyond itself1 but in every part and movement it is itself always maintaining an end1 the end of its p4#bbb its own untethered reality4 ,in words used before1 and applied alike to the spiritual and the material1 it is at once dynamic and teleologic4 ,such a nature1 be it especially observed1 is the basic condition1 if not also the very inspiration of our modern industrialism4 ,this industrial age1 struggling against the old-time militarism1 in its religion1 in its art and in its literature1 in its leisure and in its labour1 in city and in country1 is an age of machinery2 of machinery in all the manifold forms demanded by all the various departments of human life1 not of wheels and belts alone2 an age of the conscious employment1 for human purposes1 of the resources of all sorts1 the materials and the forces which the natural environment affords4 ,freedom1 not slavery1 is recognized as man's ideal portion1 and in order to ensure the freedom1 not human nature1 but physical nature is mechanicalized2 or1 with the same intent1 all the formal means1 or instruments1 of life are taken as incidents of environment1 not as essential to man4 ,so is industrialism supplanting the old-time militarism that sought1 in all the relations of life1 to identify the human with the instrumental4 ,witness the values now put upon theories and creeds1 upon rites and institutions1 upon personal habits and social laws4 ,all of these1 to begin with1 are means1 not ends2 and1 further1 they are means whose devising--so man is insisting1 as never before--must be1 as near as possible1 true to nature4 ,the sovereign conviction of this age of industrialism appears to be that the only sure way to human freedom is the way of nature2 employment of such instruments as she can supply2 obedience to such law as she may disclose4 p4#bbc ,but many have found this age of industrialism insufficient4 ,it seems to them so materialistic4 ,it would view things so much from the standpoint of cold naturalism4 ,the attitude of laissez faire as meaning ,let nature do the work1 has so widely possessed the minds of men4 ,if only we could get back some of our former idealism and regard nature as once more subject to some supernatural will6 ,despair like this1 however1 is blind and as needless as blind4 ,dependence on a lawful1 mechanical nature can bring to human life no loss of what is truly ideal and personally worthy4 ,instead1 it brings constant gain1 for the knowledge of law and the making of machinery do not rob men of personal opportunity1 but rather make the opportunity for personal achievement only the more manifest4 ,a mechanical nature is always for man1 not man for a mechanical nature2 and its movement is always productive for man4 ,if1 then1 industrial life has tended1 as it has been supposed to tend1 towards materialism and fatalism1 the reason can lie only in the blindness of such as refuse to see clearly this visible fact4 ,not merely something always doing1 but something always that man is doing is the definite message of a nature that ever manifests herself under the form of law4 ,to the thinker1 in no uncertain syllables1 she says3 ,go forth and do4 ,and our age of industrialism1 if hearing this bidding1 will lose its unnatural materialism1 and find itself quick with a moral and religious instead of a narrowly practical and commercial motive4 ,so in the doubter's world are the spiritual and the material genuinely sympathetic4 p4#bbd ,,iii4 ,a ,,genuine ,,individuality4 ,besides the reality1 without finality1 of all things in experience1 to which we gave our first attention in this chapter1 and the perfect sympathy of the spiritual and the material1 which we have just seen to give new dignity to the intellectual life1 making thought free1 and new worth to the life and movement of nature1 making nature not lifelessly mechanical1 but mechanically productive2 besides these two features of the doubter's world1 there still remain two others to be observed by us4 ,for the first of these there is the fact of a genuine individuality4 ,different persons1 as well as different things1 possess a substantial worth to the real and the true4 ,no one may be either real or worthy by himself1 but no one is unreal for being dependent on others4 ,the persons1 like the things1 that work together for what is real1 find the service its own reward4 ,reality1 having no exclusive resting-place must itself be dependent4 ,it is dependent on an infinite multiplicity of differences4 ,therein lies the person's chance for individuality2 nay1 it is his right to it and assurance of it4 ,before the days of ,descartes1 to speak generally1 the typical individual in human society--and let me say also1 though at the expense of running into a rather violent metaphor1 the typical individual in any class or group whatsoever--was the soldier1 a creature of another's will1 doing only another's work1 and having reality only by virtue of characters so apart from individual peculiarities as actually to imply existence in another world4 ,the individual1 in other words--if p4#bbe at once real and worthy--was then an unearthly being4 ,for a being so constituted1 or living as if he were so constituted1 the creationalistic theology and the analogous monarchical politics were of course largely responsible1 since in their different ways they took individual independence of action from the general run of mankind4 ,they imposed on men at large a certain uniform of life and belief1 and then1 as it were1 appeased them for this suppression with a doctrine of another life in a world yet to come4 ,plainly1 then1 the time was not one when personal individuality1 except as it was referred to the other world yonder and apart1 was recognized as of much positive worth4 ,under the regime of prescribed routine1 of life with regard to the hereafter1 and of mysterious powers of all sorts1 more or less in good standing in the realm of the unworldly1 personal individuality1 though in itself not without some honour1 was valued chiefly and primarily for the different conditions1 the different relations to the things of this world1 and the different views of these things1 which men succeeded in overcoming1 or rather in completely denying and eschewing4 ,a worthy individuality was thus secured rather through self-denial than self-expression2 through the vassal's devotion to his lord1 the gallant's submission to his lady1 the courtier's humility before his king1 or the saint's self-abasement before church and heaven4 ,just think a moment of resting your claim to distinct personal worth on the mere fact of what you have eschewed or escaped being in some way different1 perhaps more worldly1 more dangerous1 and more powerful1 from what some others have eschewed or p4#bbf escaped1 and you will be able to appreciate the main ground of the ideally significant distinction between man and man in the days before ,descartes4 ,but with the advent of the doubter's view of life absolutism and its appropriate other-worldism melted away like snow beneath a noonday sun1 and upon their going self-denial ceased to be the cardinal virtue and the chief ground of an approving self-consciousness4 ,authority came to be placed not in a visible form1 but in an abstract principle4 ,law became superior to laws2 monarchy to monarchs2 divinity to ,gods2 truth to truths1 and righteousness to rites and habits4 ,the abstract principle1 too1 instead of being1 as many might imagine1 a wholly shadowy thing1 real only to the logician1 stood for something vital and substantial1 for something wholly real1 for an inner spirit or life or power in the very things of experience4 ,authority1 henceforth refused to any specific thing1 whether person or manner of life1 institution or formal belief1 became a prerogative of all things together1 of all persons or all manners of life or all creeds2 and1 residing in the working together of them all1 it made personal worth consist no longer in the denial of individual characters and relations1 but in honest assertion and open use of them4 ,as some have liked to describe the change1 the universal individual1 the individual as an authoritative and heaven-made type1 that dictated a life and a belief to others generally1 passed away1 and in its stead1 instead of unity as itself an individual1 instead of an incarnate type1 came unity as in the relation1 or the activity maintaining the relation1 of all individuals4 ,instead of a single planet1 for p4#bbg example1 as the controlling centre of the heavenly bodies1 came the unity of the solar system through the force or the law of gravity4 ,instead of a monarch or a book or a city the self-sufficient ruler of human life and human thought1 came unity through the ballot2 through freedom of thought--always loyal only to a real unity and in being thus loyal also always tolerant2 and through all sorts of like means to individuality4 ,the universal individual died1 and there arose1 as it were1 out of his grave the living unity of manifold individuals1 each one different1 yet each quite essential4 ,and the change brought a transfiguration4 ,it was as if the human soul had entered a new body1 or as if the human body had received a new soul4 ,not least among the significant evidences of the new life were the rise of the study of history and the awakening of a keener and more practical interest in men and things the wide world over4 ,with its valuable accounts of the manifold experiences of different peoples and different times1 at last seen to be real parts even of the life present and at hand1 the study of history became wonderfully absorbing and inspiring2 and not less valuable than this travel in time was the travel in space1 the real travel or the imaginary1 which accompanied it4 ,furthermore1 such ideas as balance of power and preservation of the worth and integrity of the individual nation1 and division of labour and right of free speech and of political and religious liberty1 developed into most powerful influences in the life and consciousness of society4 ,and1 to return definitely to the single person1 he found himself1 not in spite of1 but because of his p4#bbh special place and special standpoint1 an active participant in the effective life of his time4 ,instead of being a mere soldier as before1 he found himself a mechanic2 certainly the proper inhabitant of a mechanically productive nature4 ,doubtless the term soldier lends itself more readily to philosophical generalization than the term mechanic4 ,perhaps1 too1 distance in time lends enchantment to the view1 for the day of the soldier was1 while the day of the mechanic is4 ,the day of the soldier has reached the stage of romance and reflection1 while the day of the mechanic suffers from what is commonplace and prosaic1 from the associations of a particular life1 from dust and smoke and factories1 from tools and utilities4 ,yet the mechanic must be the romantic figure of the future4 ,he is the typical individual of these modern times1 of these times of the free because practical thinker1 and of a nature not lifelessly mechanical but mechanically productive4 ,forget the grimy hands and the noisy machinery1 the overshadowing smoke and the apparent absorption in mere utility1 and think only of the man1 who in his best moments feels himself individually responsible and capable1 who believes in himself as having at once a peculiar and a necessary part in the real life of his time1 and who expresses himself through some skilful mastery over the resources of nature1 applying to them the principles his own thinking has uncovered1 and using her machinery to the ends of his own nature1 which1 as we have seen1 is bounded only by the unity of experience4 ,remember1 too1 the mechanic of our modern world is p4#bbi not the factory labourer alone4 ,wherever in social life1 whether in political activity or in industrial management1 in educational methods or in religious effort1 there appears a man who appreciates the need first of observing natural conditions and finding natural laws1 and then of acting only in accord with the suggestions of the laws discovered1 just there is the mechanic1 the responsible agent of a law-free but always lawful nature4 ,the soldier as creature of this world was only a passive1 wholly material part of a mechanism which depended for its movement upon some outside power or will2 but the mechanic1 be he humble labourer skilful in the use of tools1 or political leader supporting no law that is not1 so far as can be known1 in accord with natural life1 or religious reformer loyal to life as it is1 shares positively in the activity that makes the machinery go and in whatever this activity produces4 ,and yet one thing more must be said4 ,just as before we had to view free thought in the light of a divided labour1 the individual sharing in it only as he treated his own peculiar experience as hypothetical1 as a means to an end1 not merely an end in itself1 or as he was subject to the restraint and correction of the different experiences of others1 so now we must recognize that effective activity1 not less than true thinking or than realistic experience1 is also necessarily the labour1 never of one alone1 but of many4 ,the successful mechanic--in other words1 the fully responsible agent of a law-free nature--is never an isolated creature with merely such a sentimental concern for his neighbours as might spring from the recognized chance p4#bcj of meeting them in that world of the hereafter1 where all are to be equal and where love and peace are to supplant the present hate and rivalry2 he is1 on the contrary1 one among others1 different from him1 it is true1 and often very positively at variance with him1 but engaged with him in a single activity and achievement4 ,his difference works not against1 but with their differences for thoroughly controlled1 truly effective activity4 ,as things are real1 though never final1 so men1 at work in the world1 are individual and individually important1 but never alone4 ,the facts in the case1 logically and practically1 appear to be somewhat as follows3 ,the individual's view-point1 and the special machinery by which he undertakes to realize it1 can be only tentative or provisional2 they have the character1 and usually he knows that they have the character1 if ,i may use a somewhat extravagant term1 of makeshifts2 and1 such being the fact1 he is bound always to be in a state of constraint or tension1 in a relation of suspense towards them and towards the environment to which they refer or belong4 ,he feels a positive resistance1 a something disposed to counteract what he would do1 and of course the feeling means that he is really party to a growing life1 not established in a completed life4 ,suppose a view-point1 or a machinery that was perfectly applicable1 that worked perfectly1 that never did and never could give out1 that might not even very suddenly go all to pieces1 and that therefore put no strain nor uncertainty upon him who held or employed it2 could such a view-point or such machinery be of any service to a growing life1 to productive p4#bca activity8 ,most certainly not4 ,tension1 or a strained relationship1 is necessary to every individual's conduct and to every individual's ideas4 ,but this strain1 to be real1 just to accomplish its own purposes must be not merely of a person with his own ideas or with the outer world to which the ideas refer1 but of a person with other persons2 not merely of conscious man with a mechanical nature1 but of conscious and mechanically active man with other conscious and mechanically active men4 ,it is now an old story for us1 but an important one1 that there must be society4 ,a genuine individuality requires society4 ,society is a medium not by which something is added to individual life1 but by which something in individual life is kept real and manifest4 ,by maintaining1 as it were always from without1 the natural tension of individual life1 it ensures to the individual the constant growth that is his legitimate inheritance4 ,the doubter is a social creature4 ,the free thinker accepting his ideas only tentatively1 though at the same time using them hopefully1 sure that they will lead somewhere1 is a social creature2 and the mechanic is a social creature1 being one with others for whom life is not routine but growth1 and among whom the growth in which each has his part induces constant tension1 the tension of difference1 the tension of opposition and competition1 the tension of mutual correction and compensation1 the tension1 finally1 of reality refusing to be bound4 ,not the individual's provisional standpoint1 nor yet the machinery that he employs and that sooner or later must go to pieces1 not these alone1 ,i must therefore reiterate1 make the individual effectively p4#bcb active in a growing world1 make him a worthy creature doing the work of nature or of ,god2 these have their place and part2 but constant relation to other individuals1 the objects not less of hate than of love1 not less of rivalry than of friendship1 is also essential4 ,in the so-called material world all things1 in and by themselves unreal1 get reality1 yes1 get individual reality1 only as through their very differences they work together for what is real4 ,in the world of mind1 or thought1 if this can be imagined apart from the world of things1 all thoughts or ideas1 in and by themselves untrue for being subjective1 relative1 and partial1 get truth only as also through their differences1 so tense and interactive1 they work together for what is true4 ,and1 likewise1 in the world of persons1 if indeed this can be imagined apart from the world of thought1 all individuals1 call them now mechanics or what you will1 though in and by themselves without personal worth or real individuality1 without freedom or immortality1 get genuine worth and are assured even immortality only as shoulder against shoulder they work together for a life that is true and real1 worthy and genuine4 ,but in an earlier chapter1 dealing with ,the ,personal and the ,social1 the ,vital and the ,formal in ,experience1 a different argument for individuality was insisted upon4 ,then the person was individual because of his independence of particular form2 now he is so because a real life demands the particular and different1 with which he is assumed to be necessarily identified4 ,then he was the living1 integral exponent of the unity of experience1 free with the p4#bcc genius of universality1 now he is one among all the particular conflicting elements of that unity--or at least of the reality to which that unity refers4 ,so there appears to be even an inconsistency in my thinking4 ,yet1 ,i venture still to think1 the inconsistency is only apparent4 ,certainly it should be remembered that the person's asserted genius for universality was not for the universal in an abstract sense1 in the sense of the universal as something by itself and apart from particulars2 rather it was for a constant enriching of the universal through particulars1 for the translation of any one particular relation and experience1 which had reached a higher state of development1 to all the other actual or possible relations of life2 and this can mean only that the universal1 in which the personal individual has a place1 is not denying or betraying1 but always holding and lifting up to itself all particular factors or elements in the unity of experience or of reality4 ,simply1 though perhaps abstrusely too1 the universal is just all the particulars2 unity is always in and through difference2 and there is1 therefore1 without inconsistency1 a case for individuality from either side4 ,indeed1 the life of the individual being1 as was said1 always in a tension or strain of difference1 of opposition and competition1 is bound to have1 it can be real only as it has1 both a particular form and a genius for universality4 ,not in the sense of that conventional theology1 crudely dualistic and unthinkable1 but in a sense that is not to be gainsaid and that may give some meaning even to the conventional theology1 every individual is real only in having a body and a p4#bcd soul4 ,the soul of a man is only his genius for universality1 but for a universality that works through1 not that is independent of1 the particular4 ,so the difference between this chapter and the former chapter is merely one of emphasis4 ,the double character of the individual1 however1 as it is now before us1 starts an inevitable question4 ,is the individual as immortal as real8 ,if he is immortal1 does the immortality belong to both sides of his character1 to his body and to his soul1 or only to one8 ,and1 admittedly1 this question offers more serious difficulties than the suspicion of inconsistency4 ,how can it be met8 ,,iv4 ,,immortality4 ,to write a useful essay on immortality has long been one of my ambitions1 and1 as regards the views in that essay1 my faith and my reason alike have so far brought me to this thesis3 ,whatever is real is immortal4#e ,a most meagre contribution to the subject1 ,i hear some one exclaim4 ,but is it so very meagre after all8 ,a most gloomy contribution1 says another1 for evil1 and above all death1 are real4 ,but is it so gloomy8 ,remember1 not even death can be real alone4 ,possibly1 too1 the meagreness will seem less and the gloom will be illuminated if the need of the real being also the ideal1 is brought to mind4 ,that the real must be ideal1 that the world must be so p4#bce constituted that the law of whatever is good will prevail in it1 has been a faith manifested among all men and expressed through history in countless ways4 ,true1 no particular experience ever satisfies it4 ,not even the particular things we adjudge to be best are adequate to it1 and the things we think evil1 the suffering and the hardships of all kinds1 the always tragic death and the too often offensive life1 seem its eternal rebuke4 ,yet the faith remains1 and you and ,i and all others are forever calling out to it4 ,our very doubts are its altars2 our honest1 rational thoughts1 as they are uttered1 are prayers2 perhaps the only prayers to which we have any right4 ,so the real1 which must be also the ideal1 is immortal2 and this1 quite apart from any particular questions about the body or the soul1 makes a world to live in and to hope in1 whatever happens4 ,of body and soul1 too1 it says something4 ,these1 in just so far as they are real1 are immortal1 and any real relation between them is immortal also1 for the conclusive test of immortality is just reality1 reality here and now4 ,whatever is real in your life or in mine1 whatever reality our present personality may possess1 be it physical or spiritual1 be it both or neither of these1 that and only that is immortal4 ,that and only that1 however1 let it be said again1 is now or never4 ,the most serious error1 so it seems to me1 in all the controversy about immortality1 is the notion1 or the superstition1 that something that is real now can pass away1 or that something real in the future is not real1 not freely real now4 ,with this error corrected1 of course at the expense of certain attempts to bind reality to p4#bcf something that is visible1 if not to the natural eye1 at least to the eye of the mind1 man has nothing to fear4 ,reality will hold him to itself1 will support whatever truly inheres in his friendships or his family ties1 in his best hopes or in his personal conceits1 for ever and ever4 ,reality can never betray what it has ever harboured4 ,and the whole trend of thinking in this book has been to make the reality here spoken of a most hospitable harbour4 ,so innate to all experience is the spirit of truth1 the principle of veracity1 that life can have no absolute illusions4 ,true1 life also can have no positive knowledge final and exact1 so that all things definitely manifest are only relatively true or real4 ,all things definitely manifest1 whether to the consciousness that looks without or that looks within1 are mixedly true or false1 real or unreal4 ,but just this impossibility1 now so familiar to us1 at once of absolute illusion and of absolute knowledge1 is1 as said so often1 a condition of the true and the real1 and it means in this place that nothing which is ever defined1 which is ever hypostasized or apotheosized1 which in any way is erected into a thing or nature quite by itself1 possessing determined or determinable qualities1 can ever be said to be either mortal or immortal1 since it must be as truly one as the other4 ,it must be significantly1 but never purely and exclusively either4 ,not this hand of mine nor that picture on the wall1 not this body which1 so to speak1 ,i seem to wear1 nor that soul1 which you or ,i imagine to be in the body and more or less loosely connected with the body1 is unqualifiedly immortal4 ,nor yet p4#bcg is any of these unqualifiedly mortal4 ,still1 again1 there is immortality1 and an infinitely hospitable immortality1 which the hand and the whole body and the soul1 be it yours or be it mine1 all have a place and a part in4 ,there is immortality1 and1 besides those things that were just named1 divinity is also immortal4 ,but even a ,god dies1 this being just one of the things that make him ,god4 ,any man1 then1 or any being1 or any thing1 may say1 ,i am immortal4 ,no one1 however--to speak now only in words directly applicable to man--may say1 ,my body is immortal1 nor even1 ,my soul is immortal1 if1 so speaking1 he means only what he seems to say4 ,body and soul alike1 if two separate things1 are both of them at once living and dying4 ,they are equally mortal or immortal1 for only so1 as two things1 can they belong to the real self4 ,can parts1 be they two or many more1 ever be unmixedly what the whole is8 ,there is immortality1 then1 yet nothing1 not the body nor the soul1 is wholly or selfishly immortal4 ,reflect1 to take an illustration from the practice1 if not from the conscious thinking of men1 how through the centuries of the dualistic view of human nature1 the saving1 or the losing1 of the separate soul has been a keen human interest1 and how the separate body1 living1 has been neglected and despised1 and1 dead1 has been cherished and honoured4 ,yes1 man's immortality is deeper1 and it is more hospitable1 than any distinction1 be this invidious on one side or on the other or be it not1 between the physical and the spiritual4 ,even in the case of the spiritual1 the cannot be a4 ,the soldier and the mechanic have been mentioned p4#bch as types of personal individuality appropriate respectively to the medieval and the modern period1 to the period of the universal individual1 on the one hand1 and of unity realized1 not through a type1 but through the working together of different individuals1 on the other4 ,the type was of another world2 the living unity is here and now in this4 ,for the mechanic1 then1 death is not what the soldier has found it1 and immortality is different too4 ,but how fully to describe the difference1 and how above all really to appraise it1 ,i do not clearly know4 ,perhaps there is not enough of the poetic in my nature4 ,the soldier1 as the political historian or as the philosopher sees him1 has had his appreciative poets1 but the mechanic has been little sung4 ,the mechanic's death1 however1 and the life following it1 afford a theme that some poet of the future1 let me hope1 will be able to do justice to4 ,the soldier leaves this for another world1 by his violent death only fulfilling his extreme subjection here4 ,the mechanic1 somewhat like the tools which he employs1 actually continues with the always productive life of this world1 by his death1 natural rather than violent1 even contributing to1 as well as sharing in1 what is produced4 ,not less than the soldier's is his after-life an appropriate fulfilment of his earthly career2 each gains through death the natural reward of his life's service4 ,but though ,i find myself so unable to say what ,i would1 to express either in prose or in poetry all that ,i seem to feel1 there is just one thought that ,i must try to articulate1 and that will certainly assist the understanding of the difference between the two deaths or the two after-lives4 p4#bci ,soldiers are companionable1 of course1 but they live less in and with each other than in and with the will which they serve or than in and with the separate world which at any moment may suddenly take them to itself4 ,their lives1 accordingly1 or their deaths1 are aloof from each other1 and are brought together only through their common subjection or their common destiny1 through something which is without4 ,but the mechanic is social in his own nature1 in his own right4 ,the very reality1 too1 of the world in which he works is1 as in so many ways we have seen1 maintained only by a divided labour4 ,it is1 then1 a reality1 or a labour1 that bridges the chasm between one man's life and another's1 as well as between all separate lives and the unity of all life4 ,it makes the many lives parallel and harmonious--nay1 it makes them actively and vitally sympathetic4 ,not1 as is certainly true1 at the expense of any one's real individuality1 for each man has his place and his part1 real and immortal1 and not one falls unnoticed or unguarded to the ground2 but1 nevertheless1 whatever all have and do1 they have and do together4 ,they live-and-die together4 ,there is1 in a word1 but one death1 as well as but one life1 the life or the death1 which all share1 and which accordingly is definitely and specifically nowhere and nobody's4 ,and in the light of this supreme unity1 while any live1 none can be merely dead1 or while any die1 none can be merely alive or living to themselves or their time alone4 ,and1 living and dying together1 in and with each other1 all are parties to the immortality of what is real4 ,so1 again1 there is immortality for mankind--the p4#bdj immortality of him whom ,i have called the mechanic4 ,there is immortality1 mine and yours and ours4 ,we die1 but not as dies the soldier1 who leaves this life for another quite apart1 securing there a companionship denied him here2 we die a death that is never death alone1 and we die as we live1 in a companionship that is real now and throughout all time4 ,furthermore1 our death is always1 or always may be1 self-denial1 and self-denial1 too1 in its supreme moment1 the moment of its greatest achievement1 but our self-denial is also very different from that of the soldier4 ,there is immortality1 then1 but what results has all that has now been said for the interpretation of history1 for our feelings about the life and death of our fellows1 and for the relevant doctrines of ,christianity8#f ,we commonly think of history as the passing of persons1 nations1 and civilizations4 ,men come and go1 but history goes on for ever4 ,to be sure1 history accumulates1 as if its gifts from humanity1 innumerable treasures1 books1 relics1 institutions1 buildings1 machinery and the like1 but the donors1 as we are wont to think1 are lost to it1 remaining as ideal influences perhaps1 but not as vitally active in the life they once assisted4 ,this common view1 however1 must now seem wrong4 ,the past must ever persist in the present1 and not as an aside in some other world1 nor yet as merely so much ideal influence1 but vitally as a party to the present4 ,those that were must also live now4 ,have we their literature8 ,yes1 and their consciousness p4#bda too4 ,their institutions8 ,and also their life4 ,their achievements8 ,and their power and will4 ,altogether too fanciful1 some one thinks2 but give it meaning from what has been said here especially about individuality4 ,in the real world there can be but one life and one death1 and we individuals1 whatever our century1 divide the labour of them both4 ,even our present life and consciousness and our will must be said to belong1 in return1 to those who have gone before2 for it is wrong1 it must be wrong1 to think of the life of the past and the life of the present as two lives1 as independent and perhaps even different in kind4 ,not those that are now gone once lived and we live1 but they and we are living1 they in us1 and we with them2 they in the world of our life1 not in a world yonder and apart4 ,they live in us1 to suggest a simple analogy1 that is perhaps more than a mere analogy1 very much as our own past selves1 our infancy and our youth1 are alive with us and in us to-day4 ,if a physical scientist can see the same force in the military weapons and engines of ancient times that he sees in those of our own time1 if a sociologist can find the same social phenomena then and now1 may not the historian regard the older life in general and the newer life as not less intimate8 ,did different winds blow in #adib from those that blow to-day8 ,was it a different sun that shone in #ejj ,b4,c43 from that which shone in ,a4,d4 #ejj1 or which shines1 or tries to shine1 to-day8 ,we do not deny that the animal nature is still alive in us as well as around us1 although at the same time we suppose it to belong to a very early period in our development4 ,why1 then1 should we exclude what is p4#bdb so much more recent8 ,because it is too distinctly human to be so robbed of its temporal independence1 of its own date and place8 ,that is certainly a strange reason in view of the fact that men have insisted on erecting1 in their minds1 for the human nature that has passed away1 a place which is altogether timeless and eternal4 ,why not dignify human nature1 then1 by making it1 and all that it bears1 eternal in its own natural life1 not in a sphere that is unnatural8 ,it is sheer materialism1 in letter or in spirit1 either to entomb the historic past1 as some would1 in books and monuments of all sorts1 or1 as others would1 to lay it aside in a so-called immaterial world4 ,who does either of these things forgets how the books are written and how the monuments are erected1 and how in general the things of the past come to be4 ,the future is always a party to whatever is done4 ,the men who have ever achieved anything have always been1 in their character and in their work1 as if made by the future1 ahead of their times4 ,an uncanny phrase1 unless one can think of the deeds and men of any time as in a vital unity with the deeds and men of all times4 ,a man is great only as he identifies himself with some social force1 with some actual movement of his day1 fulfilling it out of a long past1 bringing it to focus and so making it definite and manifest1 and as the life around him which gave him birth1 adopts his will and repeats his achievement4 ,history has many cases of human societies repeating in their lives as a whole the careers of great men4 ,only it is not repetition exactly2 it is resurrection and continuation4 ,great men make history1 but they make it only because they p4#bdc are alive in it before their birth and survive in it1 in its doing and in its thinking1 after they die4#g ,would history be even thinkable without such continuity8 ,could we honestly call it history8 ,what good ,american to-day is not1 convinced that he has a share in what ,washington and ,lincoln accomplished years ago1 and also--and this one may1 or may not1 regret--in the doings of ,benedict ,arnold and ,booth8 ,and1 to put a very practical question1 would it not be well if in the popular consciousness great men1 good and bad1 were really identified with history instead of being treated as fixtures outside of it8 ,make them separate fixtures and you make them oracles1 the spirits of quite another world1 with which the demagogue1 as if a medium1 can excite the people2 but identify them in a vital way with history and they must grow with it1 speaking quite as much out of the present conditions as out of the past4 ,hero-worship is too often idolatry1 and for my part the literalism of it is only spiritualism trying to be respectable4 ,every extravagance1 of course1 has to have its lawful or conventionally respectable expression4 ,but what1 now1 of friendship and family ties8 ,can we view these in the same light8 ,i think we would2 ,i think we can2 ,i think we must4 ,true1 it is easier to speak in this large1 philosophical way of history and of the men who have had part in it1 inventing and effectively using the machinery that has enabled its progress1 than of such matters as friendship and p4#bdd family4 ,in these latter matters the heart more than the mind is addressed4 ,still1 the relations of friendship and kinship are not themselves born1 nor do they die and all friends abroad and kin at home live and move and have their being only in these4 ,does it destroy or even weaken the meaning or the reality of friendship to have it said that the relation is as universal as particular or local1 and as eternal as temporal8 ,is a relationship worth less than any one of its manifestations8 ,why1 the universality of the relationship gives meaning or reality to any manifestation4 ,friendship1 then1 or kinship1 for this person or that1 cannot be separated from the experience in general4 ,separate it1 and one's friends or kin surely do die1 remaining after death1 like the characters of the older history1 as only ideal influences1 or as unearthly spirits that sometimes idly chatter4 ,but in reality1 friendship1 or kinship1 is one1 not merely many1 all of its members labouring together for1 and forever surviving in1 what it truly is4 ,the friends1 then1 or the kin that lived1 live still4 ,in others about us8 ,yes2 and in ourselves too2 or rather in the relation of man to man or in the unity of all that lives4 ,not literally in others1 then1 although the meaning intended was a genuine one1 nor yet literally in ourselves1 for nothing crudely like transmigration of souls is in my mind1 but--to repeat--in the living relationship of friends or kin4 ,there is indeed a truth in transmigration1 as also in other related notions2 witness all the facts of inheritance1 of historical succession or continuity1 of social growth and personal character1 of evolution2 but it is the truth1 or is near to p4#bde the truth1 of a reality that is conserved even in its changing4 ,the soldier of the past1 let me say1 at his death was translated1 but the mechanic of to-day is transmuted4 ,the latter word may be stranger and harsher in sound than the former1 but there is truly less violence and more honour in its meaning4 ,so1 again1 friends and kin that ever lived1 live still4 ,friendship and fatherhood and motherhood and all the relations of kin1 nay1 all the relations of life1 that make our individuality real1 that make it personal1 that make it social1 that make1 it natural1 have been from the beginning1 live now1 and must survive forever1 and by their survival hold for the present and the future life all who have ever been4 ,where would faith go1 and where worth and responsibility1 if birth really created and death destroyed1 or if birth were a coming from no one knows where1 from a realm unlike and apart1 and death the return8 ,birth cannot create or introduce2 it can only express1 revealing and realizing4 ,death cannot destroy or translate2 it can be only fulfilment at a crisis4 ,the mere wordiness of a philosopher6 ,possibly4 ,and yet ,christianity has very nearly implied1 if indeed it has not actually said1 and said or implied again and again1 exactly the same thing4 ,to science1 ,i know1 we are peculiarly indebted for the conception of the organism1 or the organic1 which enables us to bring together the universal and the individual1 the eternal and the temporal1 the omnipresent and the local1 without losing the worth or the reality of either1 and of course--for so they would not be together--without erecting separate quarters1 or worlds1 for their p4#bdf occupation2 but1 when all is said1 science has only applied at large the very special and personal doctrines of ,christianity1 and has therein helped ,christianity to a better consciousness of itself4 ,the ,resurrection1 the ,immaculate ,conception1 the ,divinity1 the ,immediacy of the ,kingdom1 the ,sacrifice1 and the ,brotherhood of ,man are doctrines which one and all testify quite directly that our real individuality1 our real being1 lies not in a separate existence of any sort1 here or hereafter1 but in the abiding relations of the actual life now4 ,in these the ,christ resides1 the always living ,christ4 ,what else can the following mean8 ,in as much as ye have done it unto one of these1 my brethren1 even these least ye have done it unto me4 ,and again3 ,for whosoever shall do the will of my father which is in heaven1 the same is my brother and sister and mother4 ,the living ,christ1 one of the dogmas of our day1 is more than a fancy and more than a dogma1 and for no one so truly as the scientist1 the evolutionist4 ,christ was too great1 too deep-lying1 too far-reaching in human history not to be more4 ,the letter of ,christianity1 we are often told1 has got to go1 but it is quite as true that the real letter of ,christianity has got to stay1 has yet to come3 the real letter1 ,i say1 not the parody of a mere physical appearance and reappearance nearly two thousand years ago4 ,if ,christ was really not born as men are born1 if he did not really die1 if truly he still lives in and with our lives to-day1 if ,christianity honestly means the brotherhood of humanity and the divinity of man1 then simply the ,christ was more than a pagan's messenger from another world1 and p4#bdg more than the creature of a single moment in history or a single place2 also he reveals to us more in ourselves than any of these things1 and instead of resorting to such notions as parthenogenesis and trance to explain the birth and the resurrection1 we must rather recognize in him1 and in ourselves1 an individuality that has1 not in spite of1 but because of1 birth and death1 a share in1 a place and a part in the immortality of what is real4 ,now ,i am not a good preacher1 plainly1 nor am ,i exactly a sympathetic theologian1 and also ,i know too well the defects of argument through scriptural quotation2 but ,i have to hope1 as personally ,i believe1 that in the foregoing paragraph1 given in conclusion to the discussion of immortality in the doubter's world1 ,i have suggested what at least is not an unchristian appreciation of ,christianity4 99 99 99 99 99 ,our journey in the doubter's world here comes to an end4 ,all things are real1 yet none final4 ,the spiritual and the material in life are sympathetic even to the point of being vitally at one with each other1 thought being free and practical1 and material nature being lawful but law-free1 and mechanical but productively so1 and being in her productiveness definite opportunity1 not blind necessity1 to human life4 ,and1 the universal individual being dead1 having returned to the other world from which he came1 all particular individuals have real and personal shares in the life that is1 in the work that is ever to be done4 ,living or dying1 the individual1 as we have found him1 is the mechanic of to-day1 not the soldier of yesterday4 #a ,the last few sentences seem like a paragraph from some psychologist of the day4 ,my colleague1 ,professor ,w4,b4 ,pillsbury1 for example1 has just published a book on the attention1 in which appears the following statement3 ,it seems that the problem of voluntary activity is largely1 if not entirely1 a problem of the attention 444 4 ,the processes which are effective in the control of a man's ideas are ipso facto in the control of his movements1 and this1 besides being the current psychology1 is quite in accord with our doubter's vision3 ,well thought is well done4 7,see ,attention1 chapter ix4 ,london1 #aijg47 #b ,chap4 ,,viii41 pp4 #agg seq4 #c ,chaps4 ,,iii41 ,,iv41 ,v41 and ,,vi4 #d ,see also an earlier discussion in this book1 chap4 ,,iii41 pp4 #di seq4 #e ,two preliminary efforts have already been put in print4 ,see the ,appendix1 ,a ,study of ,immortality in ,outline1 to a book3 ,dynamic ,idealism3 ,an ,introduction to the ,metaphysics of ,psychology 7,mc,clurg1 #ahih74 ,see1 secondly1 an article3 ,evolution and ,immortality1 in the ,monist1 ,april1 #aijj4 #f ,except for a few changes1 the next few paragraphs are taken from my article1 ,evolution and ,immortality1 in the ,monist1 ,april1 #aijj4 #g ,in a small book1 ,citizenship and ,salvation1 or ,greek and ,jew1 published some years ago1 ,i have tried to show this of ,socrates and ,christ4 p4#bdh ,x4 ,,doubt ,,and ,,belief4 ,there was once a brook that ran1 at times slowly1 at times more rapidly1 through fields and woods1 under trees and over rocks4 ,at every chance1 whatever the obstacles in its course1 it fell1 much or little1 as it could2 but impatience and uncertainty filled its life as the minutes and the hours passed4 ,had life nothing more in store for its troubled waters8 ,was this groping downward all8 ,were the memory and the accompanying hope1 which haunted every thwarted move1 of no avail8 ,would true fulness of life never be attained8 ,but a great moment for the brook came1 rewarding it at last1 bringing assurance in place of threatened despair4 ,a precipice intervened1 and the waters fell hundreds of feet2 a glorious fall --spray1 sunlight1 colour1 eloquence4 ,now1 spoke the brook from the deep1 smooth pool below1 now ,i have lived2 now ,i know that my life was real and that my life was good1 for ,i have found myself1 ,i have found my world2 and ,i have found them where ,i thought them not4 ,and1 speaking so1 the brook flowed on contented4 ,the confession of doubt1 which we set out to make with all possible candour1 is now nearly concluded even to the harvesting of the promised fruit4 ,the confession began1 as will be remembered1 with recognition of certain general and easily demonstrated facts1 of p4#bdi which there were five1 as follows3 7#a7 ,we are all universal doubters4 7#b7 ,doubt is essential to all consciousness4 7#c7 ,even habit1 though confidence be the horse1 has doubt sitting up behind4 7#d7 ,like pain or ignorance1 doubt is a condition of real life4 7#e7 ,and the sense of dependence1 so general to human nature1 gives rise to doubt1 although also1 like misery1 it always seeks company--the company of nature1 of man1 of ,god4 ,then1 after this beginning1 which left us by no means so hopeless as might have been expected1 we proceeded to try the doubter1 nay1 to try ourselves1 first before the court of ordinary life with its ordinary views of things1 and secondly1 before the court of science1 and1 in both trials1 we found the doubting justified4 ,alike in ordinary life and in science1 even in science where such a result was perhaps hardly to be expected1 we found what at least seemed like illusion and what certainly was paradox1 and almost against our will we had to conclude that a spirit of contradiction and duplicity and vacillation dwelt at the very centre and the very heart of our human experience4 ,this spirit of violence1 too1 as the evidence of its presence accumulated1 bade fair to dispel whatever hope our confession had left us4 ,yet out of the evidence there gradually did appear a reason for deepest assurance1 and in the end our fear1 not our hope1 was dispelled4 ,contradiction was seen in its very nature to possess positive value4 ,it was seen to protect experience1 even while experience was specific and concrete1 definite and individual1 against any fatal digression or partiality of view4 ,it was deeply conservative1 corrective1 and p4#bej compensative in its effect1 but it was all this without ever being merely negative or destructive towards anything1 since its own efficiency required persistent individual differences4 ,to experience it gave movement1 constant unity or wholeness1 realistic value and poise1 practicality1 and1 lastly1 social expression4 ,and we were able1 accordingly1 to conclude1 in so many words1 that both ordinary life and science1 so given to duplicity in their standpoint and in their ideas1 were really building well1 far better1 indeed1 than they seemed or than they clearly knew4 ,contradiction1 in short1 as we came to see it1 meant unity1 but not an empty1 abstract unity2 it meant unity rich and real with an infinity of differences2 and so what had at first appeared an uncompromising reason for doubt turned1 right before our doubter's eyes1 into an unassailable ground of belief1 making the very world which we had been so uncertain about a world for an inviolable faith4 ,but truth1 we saw at once1 could no longer be identified with a formal idea1 known or unknown or unknowable2 reality could no longer have the character of a fixedly constituted thing1 whether such a thing were present in experience or not2 and perfection1 even the perfection of ,god1 could no longer be a mere status1 a passive possession of certain characters1 attributes1 or prerogatives4 ,truth became1 as was said1 in want of a better word1 a spirit2 reality was a life2 perfection was a power4 ,and thereupon1 with the new view thus afforded us1 coupled as it was especially with the sense in which personally a man could claim reality for himself and yet be party to the factional life of society1 we were able to turn to p4#bea ,descartes1 an early modern doubter1 a father confessor of many doubters1 and1 overlooking some of his shortcomings in thought and character1 to appreciate both the use that he made of doubt1 the intimacy that he1 too1 found between doubt and faith1 and the world of reality1 of most vital sympathy between the material and the spiritual1 of genuine1 personal individuality1 and of immortality1 through which he led us1 doubter1 universal doubter though he was4 ,that great ,frenchman1 as we were enabled to understand him1 got back the world1 the self and the ,god which he seemed to have lost1 but he got them all back transfigured4 ,he got them back1 not by denying and excluding what appeared negative and treacherous in their nature1 but by facing this and using it1 by accepting it and turning it even against itself4 ,the very ,paris to which he returned as believer was the same ,paris1 the ,paris of doubt and of evil in all its forms1 that earlier1 hopeless and despairing1 he had put behind him4 ,and1 once more1 his experience was ours1 and so helped us to interpret and deepen ours1 quickening the value of our own previous discovery that within the very sources of doubt lay the real bases of belief4 ,our own doubted world of what was relative and artificial1 and above all contradictory1 had already turned1 without loss of anything that was in it1 into a world of reality and belief4 ,and so1 for this concluding chapter1 as but a sort of focussing of what almost from the beginning has been borne in upon us1 but especially at the close has been rich in reality and meaning1 we have a sixth general fact1 which may now be added to the original five4 p4#beb ,we believe through our doubts2 we believe1 not in something apart1 but in the very things we doubt4 ,to this fact really inclusive of all the others1 or if not to this fact at least to this conviction which we have achieved here1 we shall now turn1 and in our concluding chapter we may even forget1 or retain only as the appropriate background1 many of those more special or more technical details that from time to time have occupied us4 ,after so much1 that to some1 if not to all1 who have followed me to this place1 may have appeared open to the charge of being mere theory1 certain simple1 very practical considerations1 appealing quite as much to the emotions as to the reason1 can hardly be out of place4 ,those who are already satisfied1 who foresee only repetition1 who are themselves without emotion1 or who consider anything like the drawing of a moral to be as useless as it is inartistic1 need read no further4 ,i4 ,we believe in the very things we doubt4 ,doubt1 this is to say1 can destroy nothing4 ,it only calls for closer scrutiny1 for wider and deeper view1 for greater achievement4 ,its effect is only to make over1 renew1 or fulfil what has already been and must ever remain an object of faith1 and so doing it keeps the old faith alive4 ,it questions all things1 but properly1 consistently it raises1 not questions of mere existence or reality1 but questions of meaning and worth1 and whatever it truly questions it always quickens4 ,have p4#bec we not found that with its inborn and insatiable passion for truth doubt must believe in everything1 and that to satisfy this passion1 since all things must work together for what is real and true1 it must reject nothing but seek even the universe in everything8 ,all things1 from the momentary sensation in your little finger1 or the tree yonder on the lawn1 to the personality of ,god or the divinity of ,christ as an idea in the consciousness of millions of people1 all things are2 they are in experience2 they are unassailable realities of experience2 but--and just this is as far as the truth-loving doubter1 the doubter who is honest with his own self-consciousness1 can go--what really are they8 ,what are they8 is such an honest question4 ,in this question1 too1 there is more reality for the things inquired about even than in any man's assertion that they are this or that they are that4 ,but the question ,are they8 would be downright treachery4 ,we doubters1 then1 believe1 but would ever know what we believe2 we have1 yet would realize every possibility that what we have affords4 ,doubt1 ,i repeat1 destroys nothing4 ,from time to time certain doubting people have called their prophets impostors1 and have imagined themselves able to put the impostors out of the way1 but1 as history has always shown1 only with the result of reviving among themselves and often of awakening in the minds and hearts of others the sense and conviction of just that for which the offensive impostors may have suffered violent death4 ,even history's petty impostors1 too1 as well as those who have proved heroes and great leaders1 have always had their justification4 ,an p4#bed absolute impostor has never been4 ,again1 certain people have cried illusion and unreality at things political or moral or even at things physical1 but only in the end to feel1 and to make others feel1 first1 their evident narrowness1 if not their actual dishonesty1 and then their need of a more hospitable idea of what is valid and real4 ,nothing can be1 or ever has been1 unreal4 ,and1 in general1 doubt of a thing or a person or a ,god only needs its own conscious assertion to turn actually into an appeal from its particular object to the ideal or spirit or principle for which the object had stood1 and upon this appeal even the object that has been for a moment condemned is justified and glorified4 ,thus1 doubt may deny or depose or put to death1 but as it is honest it also realizes or restores or revives4 ,through doubt the sensuous1 which is the particular and visible1 is ever becoming spiritualized2 even this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal puts on immortality4 ,or1 in these words1 if we doubt we may reject the object1 the letter1 but we cannot reject the letter without accepting and asserting the spirit1 and we cannot assert the spirit without recalling and exalting and even worshipping the letter4 ,the rejection makes for universality by casting down the barriers of the particular experience of time or place1 of person or nation1 of the ,greek perhaps1 if again ,i may look to history1 or of the ,jew or of the ,christian1 while the recall and the worship make for definiteness4 ,without the previous rejection the worship could be only idolatry4 ,so1 as ,descartes will be remembered virtually to have said1 doubt is innately loyal to reality in p4#bee everything1 and just through this loyalty the world it spurns1 the world of ,god and man and nature1 is for ever called back1 a real world once more1 because a realized1 a spiritually realized world4 ,why forget1 as so many seem to1 that reality is an achievement2 achieved it may be1 as with the brook1 even by a great fall8 ,but have you ever climbed a mountain up and up and up1 through thick woods1 over rough1 almost impassable trails1 into clouds dense and chilling1 stormy and angry1 over treacherous snows and frightful cliffs1 and come out at last on the very top to see both earth and heaven1 yourself between1 the clouds dispersed1 the hardships and dangers all forgotten1 the whole world real and yours8 ,well1 that is doubt become achievement4 ,have you worked at some problem of everyday life1 or a problem of science or philosophy1 patiently or impatiently applying all the rules and precepts at your command1 trying every resort known to you1 and in final desperation many you only guess at1 and then1 when failure seems almost certain1 caught a glimpse of the real meaning and the real way1 attaining to an insight that reveals a new world to you8 ,that1 too1 is doubt rewarded4 ,have you ever visited1 perhaps more curiously than reverently1 some great ,catholic cathedral1 or1 better still1 some temple of the far ,orient1 and watching the worshippers there1 suddenly had a vision of religion as greater and deeper than any ,protestantism or even than ,christianity8 ,that1 again1 is doubt's achievement4 ,have you ever suffered a great heartrending disappointment1 let me say a great personal loss1 and p4#bef found it seemingly impossible to return to the routine of your former life1 but nevertheless1 almost imperceptibly1 come into a sense of presence and gain from the very thing that seemed taken from you8 ,that1 once more1 is doubt without its sting1 robbed of its victory4 ,doubt means sacrifice1 often enormous sacrifice1 but always a more than equal gain4 ,the light that casts the shadows of doubt1 when one can face it1 and really does face it1 as1 for another example1 in this book we have been trying to face it1 is so splendid and so uplifting4 ,so1 a third time1 doubt destroys nothing2 it only makes reality forever an achievement and belief a constantly active life4 ,the fact1 now no stranger to us1 that doubt is social1 also shows this4 ,doubt is social1 as has been said1 since by its isolation it makes the longing for company1 and by its greater freedom the larger opportunity for company2 and since also the very contradictions or controversies which arouse it are never merely individual1 being always social also1 and social relationship means effort and sacrifice1 and is accordingly a peculiarly interesting witness to the losses that doubt must suffer for its greater gains4 ,doubt1 in short1 shows belief1 working not merely for the reality of all things1 but also for the love of all men4 ,as social1 then1 as working for the love of all men1 doubt involves sympathy4 ,yet not an easy1 passive sympathy4 ,a restless1 labouring1 always growing sympathy is the sympathy of the doubter2 a sympathy that makes all it covers labour and grow also4 ,does it hurt your business to doubt it sufficiently to make you able to sympathize with the interests of p4#beg another8 ,to this question ,adam ,smith gave a timely answer when at a critical moment in industrial history he found in sympathy a condition of successful competition4 ,does it hurt your politics1 if you can lose enough of the partisan's conceit or the jingo's bombast to sympathize with the other parties or the other nations8 ,the value of real independence in politics is one answer1 and the idea of federation among competing states1 or of international polity as a basis of successful national life1 is another4 ,does it hurt your understanding to outgrow your own profoundest ideas and see some validity in the doctrines and formul of others8 ,does it hurt your ,christianity to make concessions to another's ,christianity or to the worship of any land or any time8 ,the reading of the last great book1 or the visit to the pagan temple1 is an answer4 ,simply the doubter the world over1 social being that he is by nature1 imbued as he is with a living sympathy1 must recognize1 and must labour to maintain or achieve1 the unity of humanity4 ,for him just this is ,god1 or truth1 and it is worth far more than anybody's religion or than anybody's rational formul4 ,it must stand1 too1 both as the universal authority which both religion and reason have over the lives of men and as the motive or living principle1 or spirit1 by which particular religions and particular formul1 however serviceable1 are forever unstable4 ,but doubt1 which is thus social and imbued with a living sympathy1 and which though requiring sacrifice does not destroy belief1 but only makes belief active and reality an achievement1 may be viewed here in still another way4 ,it shows mankind using or spending p4#beh instead of either hoarding or throwing away any of the resources of knowledge and faith1 of developed habit and personal association1 which life accumulates4 ,some doubters1 as men say in the business world1 invest what they have2 some speculate4 ,some are conservative1 even timorous2 some are very rash4 ,yet doubt as expenditure is necessary to all who would enjoy the proper1 natural increase of their possessions1 and while the rash1 be they transgressors or reformers1 sensualists or materialists1 or equally impractical idealists1 at a throw may win or lose great riches of mind or spirit1 the timorous and ultra-conservative1 the practical and conventional1 are not less dependent on chance4 ,there are the new rich1 too1 and the aristocratic poor1 and both remind us strongly that the real use of what we have is not only a duty1 but also a very sober duty4 ,to hoard blindly or spend rashly is to risk unwisely1 perhaps to lose all1 or1 if to win1 to win idly2 while to use well1 to doubt clearly and honestly1 to doubt even in one's belief1 to doubt only for fuller meaning1 for broader and deeper life1 for richer companionship1 is personally to earn lasting spiritual treasure4 ,modern science1 whose knowledge comprises merely working hypotheses1 the means to truth1 not truth itself1 or if truth1 then only a living1 growing truth1 affords one of the best examples of this4 ,modern science is a great faith1 a great belief1 but only because it is a life1 not a status or possession1 only because it is a constant spending1 a constant using of knowledge1 that earns interest1 even compound interest1 as regularly as the years go by4 ,and experience in p4#bei general1 as well as science1 is also a great belief1 and also only because always doubting and so always using and always earning4 ,doubt1 in a word1 is more than a necessity of experience2 it is distinctly a duty4 ,experience itself is but another name for that hard master who says to every unprofitable servant3 ,thou wicked and slothful servant1 thou knewest that ,i reap where ,i sowed not1 and gather where ,i did not scatter2 thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the bankers1 and at my coming ,i should have received back my own with interest4 ,take ye away therefore the talent from him and give it unto him that hath the ten talents4 ,,ii4 ,that doubt is only the expenditure of the treasures of life for future gain human history bears witness in a striking way4 ,times of a general scepticism among any people have always been also times of conventionalism and utilitarianism towards all things great and small4 ,to employ again a word used before1 this means that life has come to regard its establishments of all sorts as only instrumental1 not final4 ,of course1 conventionalism and utilitarianism are commonly decried1 just as the accompanying attitude of doubt is commonly decried2 but the fears1 though not altogether idle1 are usually short-sighted1 for there is gain ahead4 ,in a certain community1 for example1 patriotism1 morality1 and piety1 long identified with specific forms and customs and doctrines1 have come at last to seem quite unsubstantial4 ,a rising cosmopolitanism perhaps has undone the first1 sensationalism p4#bfj or naturalism the second1 and mingled ritualism and secularism the third4 ,but however unsubstantial all three may appear in consequence1 they are nevertheless retained as still useful1 as means to some end1 being at least good things to wear or to assume in any way1 and from the change1 though it appear so like decline1 the community in the end is most decidedly enriched4 ,how can this be8 ,in answer1 let us beard the very king of the race of the conventionalists and utilitarians in his forbidding den4 ,machiavelli1 with his teaching that the end always justifies the means1 and his open advice to the leader who would be successful1 to make a point of at least seeming loyal and good and pious1 shows a typical mingling of the sceptic and the utilitarian in sacred things4 ,moreover1 what ,machiavelli taught was also common practice in his time1 and soon became a principle of brilliant statesmanship all over ,europe4 ,and to add meaning to his case by associating it with others1 conspicuously in ,descartes' time1 as we have observed1 and also in ,athens at the time of the ,sophists1 and in ,jerusalem when the ,pharisees flourished1 the same standpoint was much in vogue2 while in our own times we do not need to look far to find it4 ,education1 social life1 politics1 religion abound in it1 for the tribe of the ,machiavellists is no more a lost tribe than it is one that began with him whose name it bears4 ,if the name is too offensive to some by reason of its connection with a particular character and a particular period in ,italian history1 for ,machiavellism they may substitute institutionalism1 certainly a more innocent term at first sight2 but the offensiveness1 though hidden1 p4#bfa or half-hidden1 still remains a part of the fact with which we have to deal4 ,the meaning of institutionalism is just that of some asserted end justifying any available means1 and so under cover of its peculiar conceits sanctioning violence4 ,watch any institution and see how one or another of life's objects of devotion is become1 or fast becoming1 a mere utility4 ,the institution makes life mechanical1 and doing this it is as treacherous as it seems loyal to the treasured things of life1 the developed ideas and established customs2 it is even as sceptical towards them as it seems faithful2 and in the spirit1 if not in the letter1 of ,machiavellism it shows them no longer implicitly worshipped1 but in use1 which is to say1 put to the bankers1 and so robbed of their character of sacred treasures4 ,and as for ,machiavelli himself1 it may be worth while to remember that with all his offensiveness he has undoubtedly been very much maligned1 and that to any student of history he seems only a very apt though an unpleasantly outspoken pupil of the most powerful institution of his time--the ,roman ,church--for which things moral and religious had certainly become effective instruments of very worldly ambitions4 ,so in ,machiavellism or in institutionalism1 the name now being indifferent to us1 we see worship passing into use2 we see sacred things become secular1 or things supposed final becoming only instrumental2 and we see1 therefore1 what appears like loss or decline4#a p4#bfb ,but can there be anything besides loss or decline8 ,this again is our question1 and the answer now comes quick and decisive1 whether we are thinking of ,machiavelli or the ,sophists1 of the old-time ,pharisees1 or of those in our own life4 ,decline and even fall never tell the whole story of anything1 and just because they mean use1 even secular use4 ,that men must worship is surely true1 but also men must and do use1 and the use1 in spite of the strain of the offence and resistance which it is sure to arouse1 brings profit always4 ,use1 secular use1 may imply sacrifice of the letter or the established form1 but it always leads to liberation of the spirit4 ,in scepticism1 therefore1 and the coincident conventionalism and utilitarianism towards sacred things1 in the institutionalism which harbours all these1 though often darkly and secretly1 we may always read1 what in truth history has again and again exemplified1 the throes of birth1 the birth of the spirit4 ,must it not be that any visible institution1 be it ecclesiastical or industrial or political or educational or ceremonial1 just because an institution designed in some way to serve an active1 growing life1 is always an outgrown1 falling institution8 ,as in the case of the ,roman ,church in the days of ,machiavelli1 an institution upon its establishment actually justifies its enemies by its own practices1 while the enemies1 so justified1 do but lay it bare1 exposing its hidden thoughts and ways1 forcing reform upon it1 and perhaps in the end themselves remaining to pray4 ,so is the spirit born1 and so do we see in the personnel of society what a wonderful triumvirate1 working p4#bfc for the real growth of human life with a power that nothing can resist1 is made by the avowed sceptic1 the loyalist1 always secretly conventional and utilitarian1 and the reformer1 the great spiritual leader4 ,even ,machiavelli in his most offensive pronouncements must have felt something between his lines which expressed would have transfigured their meaning1 not to say also his reputation1 greatly1 and1 consciously or unconsciously1 he was certainly a party to the development of what is best in modern life4 ,as for the ,sophists1 whether we see them as sceptics or conventionalists1 did they not have ,socrates among them8 ,between them and him1 when all is said1 the difference was only that between talent and genius1 between great formal ingenuity1 which always means opportunism1 and really vital insight1 which1 shattering opportunism with its own weapons1 means loyalty1 not to existing forms1 but to the spirit dwelling in the forms4 ,much in the same way1 too1 the ,jewish ,pharisees had ,jesus1 a contemporary1 who did but recognize and earnestly teach what they were really practising1 namely1 the utility of the law1 or the law for man1 not man for the law4 ,only what for them was merely a selfish opportunity1 absorbed as they were in the vested interests of their time and generation1 was manifest to him--who was a genius and who used for real gain the talent which they hoarded--as a great spiritual fact1 as a universal truth1 bringing opportunity and freedom to all men under all law1 not to some men under one law4 ,thus they were institutionalists2 he1 by merely turning their narrowness into a principle of all life1 became a reformer1 and1 indebted to them as he was1 he could p4#bfd forgive them even when they opposed him4 ,genius always forgives2 the spirit always recalls and cherishes the letter that has given it birth4 ,so the institution as an historical fact1 whether we see it with the eyes of ,machiavelli or with those of a pope1 with the eyes of ,protagoras or with those of ,socrates1 with the eyes of the ,pharisees or with those of ,christ1 may show worship turning into use1 the sacred becoming secular1 but it shows also the life of society becoming enriched2 it shows investment for future gain2 it shows doubt1 not destroying anything1 but achieving only what is real2 it shows the life of the spirit4 ,,iii4 ,no period of man's earlier doubting can be more interesting than that of the centuries just prior to the ,christian era1 when the peoples of the ,mediterranean contributed so much1 directly and indirectly1 to the preparation for ,christianity and to the discovery1 or revelation1 which finally came and in due time changed the ancient to our modern world4 ,what the preparation was has already been indicated1 at least partially1 in the references that have been made to the ,sophists and to the ,pharisees4 ,christianity has been only the interest1 the earned increment1 or rather should ,i not say the compounded principal1 of the scepticism1 of the formalism and the utilitarianism which beset the ,greeks and the ,hebrews1 to mention no others1 as their peculiar civilizations were merging into the larger and deeper life of a great empire4 ,in their several lives the demand came1 and came1 too1 from within1 not merely from without1 as in all life p4#bfe it must come1 for use of their gathered treasures1 whether spiritual or material1 and the rise of ,rome was but the result of that demand satisfied1 of the use realized4 ,as for the scepticism1 this with all its incidents made the use possible1 made it possible for the peoples to give or relinquish what they had to the larger life to which they all belonged1 while the religion of ,christianity spiritualized for them all the resulting empire4 ,those wonderful races of the ,mediterranean1 who achieved--at least some of them--such great things in all that counts for civilization1 became at the last most extravagant sceptics1 not only formulating1 but also very generally living up to1 the conviction of ignorance and forgetfulness of reality4 ,everything which their long past had gathered for them they resigned--or let me say crucified--and themselves they threw1 as if with an investor's recklessness1 upon a world of chance or fate1 upon a world seemingly of empty forms in all human relations1 a world of disguises for license and of mere conceits of moral power and religious piety4 ,sensuous mysticism and pantheism1 formalism of all kinds1 ,stoicism1 ,epicureanism1 legalism1 and cosmopolitanism were crosses upon which one people and another1 one class and another1 nailed their long-cherished devotions1 their love of ,god and man and nature1 of temple and family and country4 ,a great doubting1 then1 was truly theirs4 ,a great sacrificial offering was their preparation for ,christianity4 ,in a way1 with a completeness that seems to have no parallel in history1 they put their talents to the bankers--despairing1 of course1 but hoping also1 p4#bff if only their doubting1 when it came1 may be supposed as genuine as their earlier believing4 ,from the ,north and from the ,east and from the ,south their good men came1 and their rich and their wise1 and laid what they had at the feet of the life that was new born4 ,people read their histories so differently4 ,the pagan doubt1 the ,christian revelation and belief1 the conversion of the pagan world to ,christianity1 the ,renaissance1 in which the conversion was in a sense reversed1 and the ,reformation mean such different things to different people4 ,some must still have it that paganism1 or pre-,christianism1 ended in absolutely blind despair1 in the avowal of complete failure--as if such despair or failure could ever find words for its own utterance2 that ,christianity came into a hopelessly pagan world wholly from without1 came into a world of nothing but unmixed doubt1 and brought with it nothing but unmixed belief2 that the conversion was a sort of conquest1 by a power all its own capturing the pagans1 so wholly unnerved as to be quite incapable even of a futile resistance2 that the ,renaissance1 restoration as it was of the pagan life and thought1 was at best a great condescension on the part of ,christendom and at worst an unfortunate return to the pagan idols2 and that in the ,reformation the ,christian ,religion ,militant did but retreat upon the ,bible as its impregnable fortress4 ,but such history can hardly be our history here4 ,for us the rise and the progress of ,christianity have had quite a different character4 ,to strike at the foundation of that whole structure the pagan doubting was too articulate4 ,it was1 also1 too earnest4 ,it was too genuine4 ,the races did indeed resign1 as with p4#bfg an investor's recklessness1 all that they had1 but their recklessness was not unmixed4 ,their doubting had hope in it as well as despair4 ,it still loved the spirit of what had been even when it betrayed the letter4 ,it had its martyrs1 too1 as well as its suicides2 its sense of life as well as its enervating fear of death4 ,say what you will1 then1 a great1 warm1 yearning belief dwelt within it4 ,and so1 just because the pagan doubting was too earnest and too genuine and too articulate1 because it was1 in truth1 a great sacrificial offering1 the crucifixion on ,calvary was also too true to life at ,athens and ,alexandria1 as well as to life at ,jerusalem1 and the resurrection of the spirit was too true to life at ,rome2 they were too true to mean anything but fulfilment and achievement4 ,everywhere1 in every place and in every department of life1 the letter had been rejected2 but everywhere also--and this1 nothing else1 was the true conversion to ,christianity--the spirit was accepted4 ,acceptance of the spirit1 too1 meant that in good time the letter would be restored1 as indeed at the ,renaissance it surely was4 ,christianity1 therefore1 came when the times were ripe for it4 ,it came not from without1 but deeply from within the pagan life of the ,mediterranean4 ,moreover1 if in this way1 not in that other way1 we must read the rise of ,christianity1 then we must read both the ,renaissance and the ,reformation under the same light4 ,the ,renaissance1 as was just said1 brought a restoration of the letter2 but1 necessarily1 of the letter under the light of the spirit1 of the letter transfigured4 ,the ,renaissance1 so dramatically manifested in the ,crusades1 was only ,christendom returning to its p4#bfh birthplace4 ,with its crusades to ,jerusalem1 to all the old capitals1 to the pagan ideas and institutions1 to the ancient languages and literatures1 ,christianity rediscovered itself in the past1 winning back in this way some of its childhood1 curing a homesickness that a worldly church had made it feel1 securing for itself such a deep experience as comes to a man who1 after years of wandering and forgetting1 has returned to the home of his infancy4 ,and as for the ,reformation--if indeed this was a retreat1 shall we say1 of a defeated religion upon the ,bible1 its supposed impregnable fortress--we need only to remember the pagan origin1 the ,hebrew and the ,greek inspiration1 and the ,roman atmosphere of that sacred book4 ,and of the relation of ,christianity to paganism1 just one thing more4 ,the ,christian revelation1 so wonderfully portrayed and enacted in the life and character of ,jesus1 was only an idealization1 a spiritual interpretation1 of the very present1 the thoroughly actual life of the time1 of the life that the pagans1 doubting but believing1 despairing but also trusting1 resigning all but hoping for more1 had already brought upon themselves2 a life of self-denial1 of common1 universal humanity1 all men being members one of another1 and of perfect faith4 ,perhaps the self-denial was bravely concealed in an accepted subjection1 but it was not less real4 ,perhaps the common humanity was military and imperial1 yet it also was real4 ,perhaps1 too1 the faith was blind and fatalistic1 but it was nevertheless faith4 ,can faith go farther or do more than fatalism8 ,the pagans1 then1 had become ,christians in fact or status1 and ,christianity came1 breathing p4#bfi life into the bare fact1 into the self-denial1 and the broad humanity and the faith1 and made these not the mere phases of bare fact or condition1 but motives and ideals1 manifesting them heroically in a single human life1 and so in the form and with the power of a personal discovery of self4 ,where genuine doubt is the ,god is always born4 ,,iv4 ,to come down to more recent times1 for open belief in what they doubted1 for doubt well controlled in its expenditure1 for doubt as raising questions of meaning rather than the more radical questions of reality and existence1 perhaps no people of ,christendom has been so conspicuous as the ,english4 ,of course1 as has been remarked1 expenditure may often become too conservative1 and the question of mere meaning may encourage casuistry2 and into the pits of undue conservatism and casuistry the ,english have certainly fallen more than once1 so that certain critics have even found them1 and in some measure the ,anglo-,saxons generally1 given over to hollow disingenuous living4 ,in ,english political life1 for example1 the attitude during the conflict with the ,american colonies in the eighteenth century affords a conspicuous illustration of this1 and intellectually and religiously ,english life1 has its chapters of an unfortunate reserve4 ,but although no good and honest ,american can fail to find objectionable solecisms1 some of them decidedly ,british1 in the formulated and manifested life of the ,anglo-,saxons2 nevertheless ,english history is a very obstinate argument in behalf of the ,english temper4 ,frenchmen1 though p4#bgj so neighbourly to ,england1 have been conspicuously more radical than the ,english in their doubts and problems1 and in consequence have been at once more reckless and more vacillating in their solutions4 ,the ,english1 always so practical1 throughout their history have held to their world as primarily real and consistent1 and have therefore neither lost themselves whether in fear or in hope of some other sphere1 nor been only fickle servants of this4 ,consistently and constantly they have sought only the ever more effective use of what they had1 of what they found about them4 ,not revolution1 then1 but evolution has been the keynote of their history4 ,their other world1 in practice1 has meant other parts of this--witness their colonial activity as well as their missionary enterprises--or only other in the sense of deeper and fuller expression of this--witness the testimony of so many of their historians4 ,macaulay1 for a classic example1 dwells at some length and with much emphasis upon the ,english people's genius for a progressive conservatism1 remarking that in religion and politics and social life they have given up less of their past than any other people1 and yet at the same time have kept in the forefront of modern progress4 ,it may be contended that this was truer in ,macaulay's day than at the present time1 but there is enough truth in it now to give it point4 ,instead of courting doubt as if it had worth in itself1 the ,english may be said on the whole to have courted candour4 ,candour does not exclude doubt1 but it is never merely negative1 and for this reason it is peculiarly normal and wholesome1 although of course having its own dangers4 ,to be candid1 in the p4#bga sense of the word here intended1 is to accept what is1 which in lack of a better term we may call nature1 and to insist only on seeing this1 and living up to it1 deeply and fully4 ,the doubting ,french have appealed to truth and righteousness or reality as only an innate conviction1 and so have easily missed the possible realism of such conviction4 ,descartes made just such an appeal1 and though he did indeed gain1 or rather regain1 a real world1 the reality did not quite receive even from him1 as we have seen1 its full due of closeness and intimacy with human life4 ,rousseau1 later1 made the same appeal1 finding his own personal will intrinsically good1 but his philosophy1 though a passionate1 uncontrolled belief in reality1 was taken1 not unnaturally1 as a call to revolution4 ,but the simple1 candid ,english1 on their side of the ,channel1 have appealed1 not primarily to anything abstractly within the self1 not to a mere ideal or sentiment or subjective belief1 but to reality embodied and palpable--in a word1 to nature1 the great all-inclusive sphere of candid experience4 ,in ,france1 again1 nature has failed ever to be a thoroughly practical thing1 a positive1 directly interesting1 wholly pertinent situation4 ,it has been a cry1 of course1 sometimes of alarm1 sometimes of hope2 a great enthusiasm1 too2 a dream2 an ideal--if not unideal--substitute for the present life2 a sphere often1 too often1 quite opposed to ,god and government and organized society2 but never1 or almost never1 a present responsibility to be clearly recognized and calmly measured2 never1 or almost never1 a part and parcel of the present life2 never1 or almost never1 something that lives in and p4#bgb through ,god and government and society4 ,in ,england1 on the other hand1 so differently1 if ,bacon and ,locke and ,berkeley and even ,david ,hume may be trusted2 if ,shakespeare and ,coleridge and ,wordsworth1 or ,hobbes and ,burke and ,blackstone1 or ,charles ,darwin and ,herbert ,spencer are representative2 in ,england nature has ever been very real and very present2 not outside of manifest ,english life1 but actually incorporated in it4 ,how else understand ,english deism2 the laissez faire economics2 the peculiar nature and growth of the ,english constitution2 the pragmatism of ,english science2 the sun-warmed atmosphere of ,english literature2 the nature-homage and bodily vigour of ,english recreation8 ,how else account for the ,english people's progressive conservatism8 ,the most radical doubt must eventually appeal to nature and1 what is more1 must sooner or later bring man to live with nature practically and responsibly1 intimately and sympathetically2 but candour1 like the candour of the ,english1 that never doubts without at the same time believing1 lives ever with her4 ,perhaps the ,english people need to have what they seem never to have had--though the ,armada threatened something of the kind1 and the loss of the thirteen colonies1 or even the ,boer war was1 not without its value--a great1 overpowering disaster1 a deep all-searching despair2 yet1 be this as it may1 their part in the struggle of a life that must always doubt in order to grow is always instructive and is often inspiring4 p4#bgc ,v4 ,the sceptic has been referred to here as a member of a wonderful triumvirate1 and1 leaving now the field of historical illustration1 we must return to that characterization4 ,the other members of the triumvirate were the loyal defender of the formal law and the great spiritual leader4 ,all three were said to be parties to the real life of the spirit1 and the sceptic seemed to have a co-ordinate part with the others in this life4 ,but was ,i not conceding too much8 ,certainly there are many who will wish to protest4 ,yet ,i was only making the doubter and the believer face each other squarely and honestly4 ,both are parties to any reform4 ,no leader or true reformer ever can neglect or betray the contentions of either4 ,in the organizations of society professional conditions may hold the two characters apart1 but vitally they always belong together4 ,if truly we must believe in what we doubt1 how can there fail to be between them1 not indeed a shallow and sentimental sympathy1 but a deep1 heroic sympathy that is always superior to the differences of the disrupted life1 of a professionally organized society1 without betraying them8 ,at once opponents and companions--this is the truth about the doubter and the believer4 ,consider how taken alone neither would be quite justified1 while together both are justified4 ,perfect approval or1 for that matter1 perfect disapproval1 can belong to neither singly1 not to you or me in our doubting1 even though we fully confess1 nor yet to him who hides his doubts in an outward show that p4#bgd almost deceives him as well as others4 ,of course in all matters as well as in this of intellectual honesty1 the conceit of individual righteousness or individual possession is a very strong one1 but it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a man who is anything or has anything to himself alone1 to enter into any kingdom4 ,is not life everywhere a movement and a struggle8 ,and who is there1 rich or poor1 law-abiding or lawless1 righteous or unrighteous1 faithful or treacherous1 believing or doubting1 who can stand aloof1 or who needs to stand aloof1 and say to himself3 ,i personally1 within my own nature1 have no part in the struggle2 for good or for ill1 ,i am just what ,i am1 and with him that is against me ,i have and can have no dealings8 ,the doubter1 then1 and the believer may have to look askance at each other2 the looking askance may be quite appropriate to the conflict in which each has and must feel his social rle1 but1 at most and worst1 they are only jealous lovers4 ,they may be given1 and profitably given1 as much to quarrelling as to gentleness1 but they love still1 and1 to borrow part of a line from a familiar college song1 their battling love affords just one more view of that which makes the world go 'round--instead of off at some tangent4 ,should some one awake to new views come to me and ask which ,i would have him do1 break away from his traditions and all that they involve or hold to them1 ,i could only say1 in the first place1 that1 whichever way he turned1 he would have some1 though only some1 justification1 for he could not be either right or wrong exclusively2 in the second place1 that his decision p4#bge not only must be made1 and made strongly1 one way or the other1 but must also be his1 not mine2 and in the third place1 that no decision should ever be an absolutely final settlement4 ,decisions are only means to action1 and as such they can settle nothing finally4 ,they are not even protocols of peace1 often being1 on the contrary1 merely signals for firing at closer range4 ,sometimes ,i know they seem even like real treaties1 providing the terms of a permanent harmony1 and they appear to determine just where the parties to them really stand4 ,but1 after all1 they do but bring the conflict home1 making it domestic or personal instead of settling it4 ,so once more to my inquirer ,i may say only this3 ,choose2 fight2 fight fair2 fight with yourself as well as with your enemy2 with your belief1 not merely with his dogma2 or with your doubt1 not merely with his dishonesty4 ,so fighting you and he will truly be at once opponents and companions4 ,,vi4 ,is life1 then1 only a comedy8 ,is it no better than one of those well-conducted duels that save the honour of all1 concerned but bring injury to no one8 ,let me say1 in these last pages1 that life appears to be three things1 to which ,i should like to call attention4 ,it truly and seriously is a comedy2 secondly1 it is poetic2 and lastly1 it has all the gravity and earnestness of duty4 ,its very tragedy comprises all of these4 ,an old teacher of mine1 a much respected and somewhat old-fashioned professor at one of our larger universities1#b p4#bgf once published a book entitled1 ,poetry1 ,comedy and ,duty4 ,exactly what his reasons were for associating these apparently incongruous phases of life ,i do not recall1 but the man and his title have remained pleasantly and significantly in my memory1 and the reasons which follow1 in substance if not in form1 can not be very far from his4 ,thus1 as to the comedy of life1 we need only to reflect that where extremes always meet1 where there is always conflict1 but conflict of such a nature that the parties to it not only may change sides1 but also in a genuine sense are always on both sides1 in such a life politics cannot be alone in making strange bedfellows1 but the opportunity for comic situations must be unlimited4 ,a life in which reality has no residence1 and truth no place where to lay its head1 in which fools may utter wisdom and the wise may speak folly1 in which reformers are easily confused with transgressors and death itself is said to be life1 is bound to be richly and deeply humorous4 ,of such a life there can be no understanding1 into it there can be no insight1 without the keenest sense of humour4 ,to say no more1 that doubter and believer are companions as well as opponents1 is cause for a deal of merriment--at least among the gods4 ,but life's comedy is also a poem1 and no one save a poet can truly comprehend it4 ,even a metaphysician must be not merely a humorist1 but also a poet2 perhaps he must be more the poet than any other4 ,poetry is the portrayal of life through suggestion of harmony1 or poise1 among its conflicting elements4 ,nor can life be seen1 or known1 in any more direct p4#bgg way2 only the balance of opposites1 which always makes the poem1 can possibly present it to our ken4 ,commonly men feel this when they insist that all portrayal of life1 or of reality in general1 must be dualistic4 ,dualism1 be it the theologian's or the moralist's or the metaphysician's1 the statesman's or the scientist's1 never is and never can be anything but so much poetry2 richly and deeply significant always1 and always alive with what is real1 but always poetry1 never prose4 ,can a reality1 that is real only if1 to the forms of experience1 it is always a tertium quid1 can such a reality ever be present to any other than a poet's consciousness8 ,reality is not knowable face to face2 it is beyond the reach of positive knowledge2 though dwelling in1 and informing all knowledge1 it can never come to the surface of knowledge2 for so1 to its own betrayal1 it would take sides and get a habitation and a name4 ,true1 by analogies one may conceive it1 as the religious man thinks of ,god's personality1 or as the philosopher thinks of the unity of his world1 or as the scientist thinks of nature's law2 but the analogies are always so many tethers1 and are accordingly necessarily partial1 whereas no whole can ever be quite in kind with any of its parts4 ,we may conceive reality1 then1 by the use of analogy--that is1 by projecting what we do know of one or another side of life beyond its natural sphere2 but such projection1 at least for him who has both insight and humour1 who feels the limits of his knowledge and the grandly transcendent way in which he has used his knowledge for the crossing of some chasm1 and the solution of some conflict in his life1 is poetry4 ,for p4#bgh him who is lacking in both insight and humour1 who sees just what he sees and no more1 who insists on making reality accord literally with his own formal experience1 it is only prose4 ,prose is simply formally consistent experience1 experience that is wholly bound to some determined standpoint1 and1 being this1 in what it presents--that is1 in its subject-matter--it is always1 not adequate and inclusive1 but partial and narrow and one-sided to reality4 ,prose1 in short1 sacrifices wholeness1 that is to say1 depth and breadth of view1 to mere formal consistency4 ,poetry1 at least in its subject-matter1 is above formal consistency and above partiality4 ,through its very license poetry bears the message of what is real and whole4 ,poetry forever prefers reality to prosaic peace4 ,so life is a comedy1 rich and deep1 and it is a poem1 realistic and inclusive4 ,it is1 finally1 a serious duty4 ,to many1 stern and oracular in their moral sense1 the character of duty will seem not to fit at all well into a life that is always humorous1 and that is never real and complete without being also poetic4 ,but it does fit4 ,duty1 they hold1 is quite too sober ever to be mingled with humour or comedy1 and quite too precise and explicit1 too plainly prescribed1 and in its spirit1 when not in its letter1 too legal ever to appeal to a poet or to be in any way associated with what appeals to him4 ,but tell me1 is the ,puritan's notion of duty an accurate one8 ,is it the highest notion8 ,is it even profoundly moral8 ,has duty no chance at all on any other plan8 ,in a word1 are humour and poetry truly fatal to real duty8 ,why1 even such questions must make the stern rigorists among us hope just a little1 p4#bgi though also these good men may still fear1 for the relief that the questions seem to promise4 ,perhaps they mingle their hope with fear1 only because1 as ,i feel quite sure1 they forget that comedy and poetry always bring more than mere relief4 ,the real comedy and the true poetry of life are altogether too deep to do only that4 ,they do indeed bring relief from the rigour and prosaic consistency of any specific programme or uniform1 and so to any man they are always welcome1 though he continue to suspect them of being wrong2 but they bring also a responsibility that is fuller and larger and harder than the formal precept or prescription4 ,should the rigorist ever love his enemies8 ,not if he would be consistent4 ,should he ever find hope in what he fears8 ,should he ever laugh at his own manifest smallness8 ,yet these are real duties2 they are great1 transcendent duties2 and1 richly humorous as they are1 only a poetic consciousness can ever appreciate them and truly feel their living obligation4 ,for this1 our life of comedy and poetry1 which is real only as it is both1 no principle can come nearer to the very foundation of duty than just the principle1 deeply true3 ,whatever is1 is right4 ,men have laughed and men have wept over this truth4 ,was ever more perfect mingling of doubt and belief8 ,was ever greater jest8 ,or more tragic fact8 ,but truth it is2 the truth of all duty2 and it is life's eternal comedy--the alpha and the omega1 too1 of life's own poem4 #a ,as a positive event in history1 belonging to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries1 ,machiavellism was symptomatic of the great change of the period4 ,cherished institutes1 whether of politics or economics1 of art or morals1 of the spiritual life or the intellectual life1 were becoming instruments4 ,thus1 democracy was supplanting monarchy1 ,protestantism ,catholicism1 modern science scholasticism1 etc4 #b ,the late ,professor ,c4,c4 ,everett1 of ,harvard ,university4 ,,index ,a ,abstraction1 of science1 #eh1 #ajg2 and duplicity1 #fa ,agnosticism1 #ge1 #ajf2 special dangers of1 #aaa1 #aag2 dogmatic and instrumental1 #abj2 as call for action1 #abe2 as passion for real life1 #abh ,analogy1 among the sciences1 #ig2 of individual self to environment1 #aee2 of universal to particular1 #cc1 #bbj ,anaxagoras1 #id ,anaximander1 #cd1 #id1 #adg ,anti-vitalism1 #adg ,aristotle1 #aee1 #aef ,atomism1 #ig1 #ajb ,b ,babylonians1 #ajf ,bacon1 #agf ,baldwin1 #ae ,belief1 as unquestioning1 #h1 #aid2 and doubt1 #ec1 #aje1 #ajg1 #acj1 #acc1 #aib1 #bdh ,biology1 #hh1 #ij1 #ajd1 #aaj ,boehme1 #agg ,body1 and soul1 #bbg1 #bcg2 immortality of1 #ada1 #bcd ,bradley1 #aec n4 ,burns1 #id ,c ,candour1 of the ,english1 #bgj ,carlyle1 #abf ,catholicism1 #age ,causation1 #ci1 #hb1 #hc1 #aji1 #bje ,change1 and habit1 #ae2 as motive1 #ag2 of purpose1 #aa ,charron1 #agg1 #ahj ,chemistry1 #cd1 #cf1 #hh1 #ij1 #ia1 #aaj ,christ1 #ea1 #bdf1 #bfc ,christianity1 and immortality1 #bdj2 preparation for1 #bff2 different views of history of1 #bff ,christian ,science1 #b1 #cb n4 ,class1 the social1 #fb1 #abf1 #afb2 relation of1 to doubt and belief1 #aga ,comedy1 #bge ,companionship1 with nature1 #ba1 #ga2 with man1 #bd2 with ,god1 #bf ,contradiction1 in ordinary views1 #cj2 in idea of reality1 #cj2 of unity1 #cc2 of space and time1 #ch2 of causation1 #ci2 of knowledge1 #da2 of morality1 #dd2 of law1 #di2 as of value in experience1 #d1 #cg1 #aca2 and dualism1 #aja2 as corrective of narrowness1 #ajj1 #aaf1 #adc2 as meaning action1 #acf2 as realizing unity1 #acg2 as securing reality and practicality1 #ade2 as requiring society1 #adg2 as not to be cultivated for its own sake1 #aea2 as related to person and class1 #agj ,conventionalism1 #ff1 #bfj ,creationalism1 #hb1 #bjb ,crusades1 #bfg ,d ,death1 #ada1 #aea1 #bci ,deduction1 #ig ,democritus1 #fe ,development1 special1 transferable1 #afe ,descartes1 #f1 #agb1 #aif1 #bea1 #bed ,dichotomy1 #aja ,dogmatism1 and fear1 #i2 and belief1 #aid ,doubt1 as widespread1 #a1 #g2 actual1 if possible1 #f2 as essential to consciousness1 #i2 and habit1 #ad2 as making life real1 #ah2 and feeling of dependence1 #ba2 as ,basking company1 #ba1 #bee2 as mediator between old and now1 #be2 and atheism1 #bg2 and belief1 #ee1 #aje1 #acj1 #acc1 #aib1 #bdh1 #bgc2 as investment for gain1 #bei2 and candour1 #bgj ,dualism1 #fd1 #aja1 #adg1 #bji ,duplicity1 of science1 #fa2 of life1 #aah ,duty1 #dg1 #bgh ,e ,education1 and interest1 #ah n4 ,emerson1 #add ,energism1 #adg ,england1 peculiar scepticism in1 #bfi ,environment1 as source of conduct1 #df2 social environment and personal individual1 #afi1 #bca ,epicureanism1 #aaf1 #bfe ,epistemology1 #ib ,evil1 and good1 #de1 #acc1 #aej1 #bgf ,evolution1 #gh1 #bjb1 #bdf ,experience1 unity of1 #afj ,experimentalism1 #fh ,f ,fatalism1 #di ,fear1 and dogmatism1 #i ,france1 peculiar scepticism in1 #bga ,freedom1 of will1 #dg2 of thought1 #baa1 #bbg ,g ,galilei1 #agg ,genius1 #afh1 #aif1 #bfc ,god1 ,descartes' proof of1 #aha2 fallacy in ,d4's proof of1 #ahi2 ,d4's idea of1 #ahf1 #aij2 sceptic's idea of1 #bf1 #ahg1 #aij1 #bjc2 death of1 #bcg2 birth of1 #bfi ,h ,habit1 and doubt1 #ad ,hebrews1 #be1 #bfd ,hedonism1 #fd1 #adg1 #bfe ,hegel1 #bj1 #adg ,heraclitus1 #adg1 #aeb ,hering1 #adg ,hero-worship1 #bdc ,history1 standpoint of1 #gi2 of ,christianity1 different views of1 #bff ,hope1 even in doubt1 #ac1 #ai1 #cg1 #dh1 #ec1 #aje ,horace1 #ba ,hypotheses1 working1 #hi1 #ic1 #beh ,i ,idealism1 #fe1 #adg ,illusions1 #b1 #bc n41 #bed ,immortality1 #ada1 #bcd ,impostor1 the1 #bec ,individualism1 #gb1 #aaf ,individuality1 #aee1 #afe1 #bbd ,induction1 #gb1 #ig ,industrialism1 #bbb ,infinity1 #eb1 #ajb1 #adb ,institutions and institutionalism1 #af1 #ei1 #bfj ,interest theory1 in education1 #ah n4 ,j ,jesuits1 #agb ,jesus1 #ea1 #bdf1 #bfc ,jews1 #be1 #bfd ,jurisprudence1 standpoint of1 #ac1 #dg ,k ,kant1 #aaj1 #adg ,knowledge1 contradictory views of1 #da2 of law1 and freedom1 #ea1 #bab2 and the unknowable1 #ajf ,l ,labour1 division of1 in special relation of person and class1 #afc2 division of1 in experience1 #bcb ,law1 standpoint of1 #ac2 courts of1 #dg2 contradiction in idea of1 #di2 and nature1 #ea1 #bah ,lawlessness1 #ea1 #ada1 #bfa ,leadership1 #afh1 #aif1 #bfc ,leibnitz1 #acc1 #aed1 #baj ,lessing1 #ai ,louis ,,xiv1 #agb ,luther1 #agd ,m ,macaulay1 #bgj ,machiavelli1 #ff1 #bfa1 #bfc ,malebranche1 #aih ,materialism1 #fe1 #adg1 #age ,mathematics1 #hh1 #ia1 #if1 #acc1 #agg1 #bae ,mechanic1 the1 as social type1 #bbh2 peculiar death of1 #bch ,mechanicalism1 #hb1 #bah ,method1 ,socratic1 #ga2 historical1 #ie2 experimental1 #hd1 #ie2 mathematical1 #if ,miracles1 #ec1 #bdf ,monism1 #adg ,montaigne1 #agb1 #agf1 #ahd ,mnsterberg1 #aji n41 #aab1 #aai ,mysticism1 #agf ,n ,nast1 #ig ,nativism1 #aif ,nature1 return to1 #bb2 relation of science to1 #bc1 #ef1 #gd2 and ,god1 #bf1 #bjc1 #bga2 sympathy of1 #bc1 #bjc2 and law1 #ea1 #bbj2 as mechanical1 #bag2 ,english and ,french views of1 #bga2 knowledge of law of1 and freedom1 #di1 #bab ,necessity1 in conduct1 #dg2 superstition of1 #di1 #bab ,negativity1 #c1 #bj1 #cg1 #hc1 #he1 #id1 #aja1 #abe1 #acc1 #adg ,newton1 #ig ,o ,oratory of ,jesus1 #agf ,p ,paradoxes1 in ordinary consciousness1 #cj2 in science1 #ge1 #ih2 in religion1 #ajc ,parallelism1 #bjd ,paris1 #agb1 #aib1 #bea ,parmenides1 #id ,pascal1 #ahj ,person1 nature of1 #aee1 #afe2 relation to reality1 #agj1 #ahd2 relation to doubt and belief1 #aga2 part in society1 #afi1 #bca ,pharisees1 #bfb ,physics1 #hg1 #ij2 epistemological1 #id ,pillsbury1 #bab n4 ,plato1 #fe1 #aee1 #aef ,poetry1 #bgf ,positivism1 #gc1 #ajf1 #abb ,practice1 and theory1 #aac ,principle1 and programme1 #ahc1 #aia1 #aid ,programme1 and principle1 #ahc1 #aia1 #aid ,protagoras1 #bfd ,protestants and ,protestantism1 #agd1 #bfh ,psychology1 #aj1 #hg1 #ia1 #baj1 #bab n42 physical1 #ib ,purpose1 #aa1 #hc1 #hd ,q ,question of fact1 in science1 #hc ,r ,radicalism1 #ff ,realism1 of doubter1 #aic2 of believer1 #aic2 in contradiction1 #adc ,reality1 double views of1 #cj ,reformation1 #agc1 #bff1 #bfg ,relative1 the1 #aj1 #acf1 #aii1 #bjj ,relativity1 law of1 #aj1 #acf ,religion1 and scepticism1 #bg1 #ahd1 #ahi1 #bfh2 as paradoxical1 #ajc ,renaissance1 #agc1 #bfh1 #bfg ,rome1 #bfg ,rousseau1 #bc1 #bga ,s ,scepticism1 #agf1 #bfe1 #bfi ,science1 as a return to nature1 #bc2 like ordinary consciousness1 #eg2 as confessing to limitations1 #ef2 defined1 #eh2 as abstract1 #eh2 as a looking before leaping1 #eh2 and duplicity1 #fa1 #abi2 method of1 and environment1 #ga2 specialism of1 #ga1 #hd2 as inductive1 #gb2 objectivism of1 #ge2 technique of1 #gf2 and real life1 #hj1 #abe1 #abh2 as conservative1 #ha2 and question of fact1 #hc2 as negative and destructive1 #hc2 specialism of1 #ga1 #hf2 mergers in1 #ia2 physical1 as self-consciousness1 #id2 as paradoxical1 #ge1 #ih2 agnosticism of1 #ajf2 aloofness of1 in ideas of space and time and causation1 #ajh1 #aji2 application of1 #aad2 scepticism of1 #bc1 #beh ,sin1 original1 #aca ,skill1 special1 as transferable1 #afe ,smith1 ,adam1 #beg ,socialism1 #aaf ,society1 as sought by sceptic1 #ba2 as related to individual1 #db1 #afe1 #aga1 #bca2 and science1 #bc1 #fj2 division of experience in1 #fj2 as real to lower organisms1 #hd2 as medium of conflict1 #adg ,society of ,jesus1 #agd ,sociology1 #hh ,socrates1 #bj1 #gj1 #adg1 #bfc ,soldier1 the1 #bbh1 #bch ,sophists1 #ff1 #bfb ,soul1 contradiction in idea of1 #ce2 and body1 #bbg1 #bcg2 immortality of1 #ada1 #bcd ,space1 #cg1 #ch1 #ajh ,specialism1 blindness of1 #hg2 in social organization1 #ga2 of science1 #ga1 #hf2 dreams of1 #hg2 artificiality of1 #hg1 #ig2 contradictions due to1 #fc1 #ih2 passing of1 #abh ,spinoza1 #bd1 #adg1 #agi1 #aih ,spirit1 reality1 or truth1 as a1 #aeb2 of veracity1 #aje1 #acc1 #agj1 #bad ,stoicism1 #aaf1 #bfe ,supernaturalism1 #cb1 #eb1 #adg ,superstition1 #di1 #bah ,t ,technique1 #gf1 #aai2 special1 as transferable1 #afe ,tennyson1 #hi ,thales1 #cd ,theology1 #bf1 #aca ,time1 #cg1 #ch1 #ajh ,training1 special1 as transferable1 #afe ,truth1 spirit of1 #aje1 #acc1 #agj1 #bad ,u ,unity1 contradiction in idea of1 #ca2 as expressed through contradiction1 #acg2 of experience1 #afj ,universality1 of doubt1 #a1 #g2 of human characters in general1 #afa ,utilitarianism1 #ff1 #bfa1 #bfc ,v ,validity1 spirit of1 #aje1 #acc1 #aec1 #bad ,vanini1 #agf1 #ahj ,vitalism1 #adg ,w ,will1 nature of1 #aa2 freedom of1 #dg2 to believe1 #aic2 in relation to agnosticism1 #aba1 #abe ,z ,zeno1 #aji1 #adg