RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX
B Stu^p in tbe pbilosopb^ of Ibumantsm
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BY
F. C. S. SCHILLER, M.A., D.Sc.
Fellow and Senior Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
NEW AND REVISED EDITION
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & Co., Lim.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1910
535"
n 10
I
First Edition, A/ay 1891 ; Second Edition, C^/^^^r 1894
Third Edition, November 1910
PREFACE
It is no easy matter to compose a new preface to a book on
metaphysics written twenty years ago. For in twenty years
even the most stationary of subjects may make some progress,
and even the most case-hardened of metaphysicians must
have had a good deal more experience, and ought to
know a good deal better. It happens, moreover, as regards
the present book, that the subject has evolved at a revolu-
tionary rate, and that its author has been carried along in the
central whirl of the movement. The discovery in philosophic
method, which is generally called Pragmatism, but more truly
and significantly Humanism, has rendered more or less out of
date every earlier work in metaphysics, in much the same
way as the rise of evolutionism rendered out of date every
pre-Darwinian book on biology, not of course in the sense
that nothing of value remained in the work of the earlier era,
but because so distinctive a novelty had come into being
among philosophic positions that it was imperative that every
writer should define his attitude towards it. But this revolu-
tion has antiquated no work more painfully than that of
those who have been most conspicuously sympathetic towards
the new method and have most wholeheartedly adopted it.
For they must feel most keenly the defectiveness, stupidity
and blindness of their earlier gropings.
The practical difficulties to be surmounted in a revision of
Riddles of the Sphinx, would therefore probably have seemed
462645
p
vi Riddles of the Sphinx
insuperable, if I had not felt that I owed a debt of gratitude
to the taste of the unknown public which throughout those
twenty years steadily showed its appreciation of a work for
which neither its author nor the critics had done anything to
speak of The author had flung it namelessly upon an alien
world, and then turned to other researches ; the critics, as was
natural, had ignored it. For, of course, it was a hard book to
review; it could neither be dealt with by the method of
reviewing the author's last book, nor by noticing the label
of the school to which it belonged, and discoursing about that.
Its readers, therefore, could not but be people who had found
it out for themselves ; and so, when a new edition was called
for, it seemed a duty to make a special effort to continue to
cater for their taste.
/Yet it could not conscientiously be issued without extensive
revision. For not only had my own views undergone
enormous development and expansion, owing to the philo-
sophic revolution I have referred to, but my estimate of the
proper place of philosophy in the world, and my attitude
towards metaphysics, had been deeply modified, and I could
not honestly refrain from indicating this.
The change in both cases has tended towards greater
modesty. I no longer dare to claim so much cosmic im-
portance, either for philosophy in general, or for my own
speculations in particular. Greater experience of the world
has forced me to admit that philosophers have enormously
exaggerated the importance of their functions, and that the
world has always known little, and cared less, about what
they thought of it. I cannot but admit that I did not
sufficiently allow for their professional bias, and took them
and their ways too seriously — far more seriously than they
Preface vii
themselves are wont to do in private. I took philosophy to
be a manner of life, in the simple-minded old Greek way ; I
had not yet discovered that for most of those called philo-
sophers it has been either a profession or a pastime, and that
nothing jars upon their habits more than the notion that it is ^
something to be carried into practical life and related to its /]
conduct. \
As {ot metaphysics, I now wholly disbelieve in the pos-
sibility of framing a system that can convince, or even please,
everybody, or lay claim to absolute truth and certainty. This
idea of the nature of metaphysics is refuted by the whole
history of philosophy, which becomes a mere playground for
lunatics and a training-ground for sceptics, if we force this
interpretation upon it.
It is ruled out no less by the essential aim of metaphysics.
The proposed aim of metaphysics is to synthesize all
knowledge, to systematize the data of the sciences, to
reflect, and to reflect on, the universe as a whole. But
this lofty ambition necessarily renders it intensely personal.
It cannot forbear to include also the data which consist
in the idiosyncrasy of the philosopher who attempts the
synthesis. Nay, it is just in these data that the principles "'y^f*^^
are found that connect and unify the rest, and their influence z^"*^^
is the more potent the less the philosopher himself is con-
scious of his agency, y^ractically, therefore, a system of
metaphysics, with whatever pretensions to pure thought and
absolute rationality it may start, is always in the end one
man's personal vision about the universe, and the 'meta-
physical craving,' often so strong in the young, is nothing but
the desire to tell the universe what one thinks of it./ Of
course the tale may be worth telling, if it is told well. But
^
viii Riddles of the Sphinx
the idea that it is to hold true literally for all, and for all time,
is ludicrous. No truly autonomous rrtjnd will really assent to
another's system in all its details. Not even the most sub-
servient mind can really assimilate another's system without
modifying its terms and values, by reason of the differences of
its psychical history. No truly progressive mind can preserve
literally unchanged for any length of time all the details of
its own system. Among metaphysicians, therefore, the
highest rank for honesty and instructiveness must be
accorded to Schelling, who had the life and leisure to express
his successive opinions of the universe in half-a-dozen
'systems,' and to Plato, who so intensely lived his philo-
sophy that he never lived to complete his system at all.
Once one has grasped the real nature of metaphysics as a
spiritual pursuit, how can one write, or even re-edit, a system
of metaphysics ? It seemed a hopeless undertaking.
Fortunately I discovered that my sins had not been
irretrievable. Trained in an evil school, I had argued
metaphysically indeed, but had not dogmatized. Indeed in
my preface (p. viii) I had explicitly professed " to treat my
subject in the order which it assumes to the individual mind
as it sets out on its explorations. By setting out from the
anti-metaphysical agnosticism of ordinary men, it starts with
a stock of ideas which are more familiar to men than the
fundamental conceptions of metaphysics, which come last in
the order of discovery. And at the same time this arrange-
ment brings out more clearly the natural dialectic of the soul
and the necessity of the process which impels it, step by step,
from the coarsest prejudice and crassest 'fact,' towards the
loftiest ideals of metaphysics. But an adequate defence of
the plan of the book may be made also on its intrinsic
Preface ix
merits. It is written not only in the order which is likely to
be most palatable to the ordinary reader, but also in the order
which is natural both to human thought and to the course of
the world, which is required by its inductive method of philo-
sophizing (ch. vi § 2), the order in which it took shape in the
author's brain, and the order which is most worthy of the
dignity of the subject. For by representing the course of the
argument as a sort of philosophical Pilgrim's Progress, it
most emphatically asserts the vital importance of the points
at issue. . . .
As to the remaining points which might seem to require
explanation, the author must refuse to apologize for what
may seem the romantic character of some of his conclusions.
For romance is a relative term, and for his part he would
often be inclined to agree with the uninitiated public in
looking upon some of the most ordinary assertions of the
dullest everyday philosophy as the wildest and most per-
nicious romance. ^And in any case, no apology should be
needed for the romance of philosophy in an age which has '^"v^^
rightly learned to appreciate * the fairy tales of science.' If ^^^*^"^^
truth seems stranger than fiction, it is because we have ^
previously abased our minds to the level of superstitions none
the less fictitious for being unpoetical."^
So. with a little toning down and a good deal of annota-
tion, it has seemed possible to produce a revision of the old
Riddles of the Sphinx, to which its author could once more
affix his name. Though, as regards method, the argument
has been greatly strengthened by a more fully conscious
reliance on the Humanist attitude, the central doctrines are
essentially maintained, and may be taken to attest the stability
of the author's personality. What has often had to be altered
X Riddles of the Sphmx
was their expression in the language of the time. Where
additions have been of a substantial character, and not
merely verbal, they have been enclosed in square brackets
or signalized in notes/ But I have not thought it expedient
to alter the character of the book by introducing system-
atically references to the philosophic literature of the day.
To have done so would probably have rendered the book too
technical, and certainly have rendered it more controversial.
And it has been my fate to be so steeped in technical contro-
versy, that I could not but welcome an opportunity to
express myself without constant reference to what the other
side were saying, especially as it seems doubtful when (if at
all) my pen will be at liberty for a purely constructive
exposition.
For, after all, I am bound to confess that if I were now
free to handle the whole subject afresh, the result would not
be identical with the contents of this book. It would not
improbably be something my professional confreres would
feel constrained to treat with far more respect ; it would very
likely be something considerably inferior, because longer
and duller, far more technical and learned and controversial,
and less simply conceived. But it is never possible to rewrite
completely, and a partial revision is always unsatisfactory,
especially to the author. This may as well be confessed, as
the acute reader will doubtless detect that the revision has
not been a labour of love. Still I cannot wholly disavow a
work of which I continue to admire the enterprise, while I
marvel at its audacity.
^ They will be found chiefly in chapters iii, v, vi, and ix.
Preface xi
I have taken the opportunity of adding to this edition by-
way of appendices two recent papers which seemed congruous
with the book's subject and level of thought. They were
written for the Pan- Anglican Church Congress (1908) and
the Hibbert Journal (1909), and I am indebted to the proper
authorities for the leave to republish.
Oxford, Jtdy, 19 10.
ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
PACK
Chapter I. Introductory 2
§ I. The prevalent despair of solving the highest problems
of knowledge not justified in an age of progress. § 2.
Causes of this despair in the faulty attitude of religion,
philosophy, and science. § 3. Its results — a positivist
temper — " ive can do without philosophy^^ § 4. But we
can not. Philosophy as the theory of Life, and so practical.
§§ 5-8. The problem of philosophy really that of all
knowledge ; shown both in the common origin of religion
(§ 6), philosophy (J 7), and science (§ 8), viz.. Animism, and
in their common end, viz., practice. § 9. Hence Positivism
must admit that philosophy is desirable and important. It
can only assert that it is impossible, and § 10 thereby become
Agnosticism.
Chapter II. Agnosticism i5
§ I. Its two varieties, scientific and epistemological, Spencer
and Kant.
§§ 2-6. Objections to both. §2. Suspense of judgment on
the problems of life impossible in practice. § 3. The argument
from the known to the unknowable always involves a
contradiction. § 4. The impossibility of a transition from
the known to the unknowable. § 5. No infinity in things
to suggest an unknowable. § 6. Agnosticism must be
rendered consistent by a denial of the causality of the Un-
knowable, which is thereby reduced to nought.
§§ 7-10. Spencer ian Agnosticism, § 7. {a) Direct
arguments to show the existence of the Unknowable refuted ;
xiv Riddles of the Sphinx
(i) growth of knowledge is 7wt a growth of ignorance; (2)
explanations are not required ad infinitum j (3) a limit does
not imply something beyond it ; this is true of (conceptual)
space, but not of knowledge. § 8-10. Spencer's indirect
arguments from the difificulties of pietaphysics should not daunt
an evolutionist. § 9. The self-existence of God, how tenable.
§ 10. The infinite regress of causation and the question as
to the cause of the first cause. But this difficulty is one of all
causation, extending also to science, and therefore sceptical.
Insuperable, if an absolute first cause is meant, but not if only
a cause of our world.
§§ 1 1-2 1. Kantian Agnosticism. The defects. of our minds
preclude us from the knowledge of things as they really are.
SS 12-17. His positive arguments examined. § 12. Kant's
refutation of his own distinction of things-in-themselves
and appearances. § 13. His claim to have made an
exhaustive analysis of the mind. § 14. His distinction of
Form and Matter in knowledge. But we cannot know until
we try. § I5- The epistemological standpoint incompatible
with the evolution of the mind and the development of its
categories. § 16. Epistemology is futile as well as false
(§ 17), if the ''''immanent criticism of experience'^'' does not
transcend its limits. The ambiguity of "« /r/^r/" .• it should
be taken logically only, and not of priority in time. §§ 18-21.
Indirect arguments from the metaphysical difficulties of
(§ 19) theology, of (§ 20) the antinomies, of (§ 21) psychology.
§ 19. Kant's claim that of three possible proofs of the
existence of God, two are false and the third is inadequate.
But if the third can prove a limited God, is not this all that
is needed ? § 20. The antinomies, the infinity of Space and
Time. The thesis inadequately stated, being suppoited by
science as well as by metaphysics ; the proof of the atitithesis
holds good only of our ideas of Space and Time, and identifies
Space with what fills it. A third alternative in the case of
Time, ignored by Kant. § 21. Kant's attack on the reality
of the soul; its assumptions and contradictions. § 22. The
origin of agnosticism, a phenomenon of the growth of know-
ledge. § 23. The transition into Scepticism owing (i) to
the impossibility of refuting metaphysics without upsetting
science, and § 24 (2) to the self-criticism of Agnosticism.
Contents xv
PAGE
Chapter III. Scepticism . . . . . . . 5^
§ I. The meaning of Scepticism, and § 2 its invalid forms.
§ 3. It must be immanent and base itself on the irreconcil-
able conflict of the data of consciousness, e.g.^ between thought
and reality.
§§ 4-14. The origin and flaws of the conceptions forming
the first principles of science. § 4. They are mutilated
anthropomorphisms, and (§ 5) cannot grasp the Becoming of
things. § 6. This shown in the case of Time. The fiction
of its discreteness. Time measured by motions and motions
by Time, a vicious circle. Its infinity and self-contradiction.
§ 7, Space. Its infinity. Atomism v. its infinite divisibility.
Matter and Space and the Void. Real and conceptual Space
and the truth of geometry. § 8. Motion measured by Rest,
but Rest illusory. If all motion is relative, what of the
conservation of energy? How can there be potential energy
or position in infinite Space ? § 9. Matter., an abstraction.
The solidity of atoms does not account for the hardness of
bodies. The wonders of the Ether. Action at a distance and
inertia. Matter a hypothesis which is not even self-consistent.
§ 10. Force., only depersonalized will. The interaction of
bodies a theory. § 11. Ca7tsation.,\is animistic origin. It
will not work unless arbitrary isolations and connexions are
made in the complex of phenomena. Even so it involves the^
difficulties of an infinite regress or of a First Cause, and finally,,
it conflicts with free will. § 12. Substance, the permanent
in change ; no proof of this. § 13. Becoming x\o\. a category,,
but a contradiction to thought which science can deal with
only as Being and Not-Being. But Being a fiction, for all
things become. So (§ 14) none of our principles can deal
with Becoming, because of the radical difference of thought
and feeling (reality). The meaning of the a priority of
thought.
§ 15. The characteristics of the Real; individual, substan-
tival, presented, becojnes in Time and Space, has infinite content.
And of Thought, does not becoine in Time or Space, but is
valid eternally; abstract, universal, discursive, discrete,
adjectival, necessary. Hence, § 16. a harmony of truth and
fact, viz., knowledge, is impossible. §§ 17-18. This con-
clusion is confirmed by logic, both as to judgment, which
-states ideas as facts, and (§ 18) as to inference, which does-
xvi Riddles of the Sphinx
not even pretend to correspond with facts. The course of
explanation leads away from reality. § i8 («) No intelligible
meaning to be given to the notion of Truth : the failure of
its seven definitions. § i8 {b.) Nor is Truth saved by
being called indefinable. § 19. Hence the case for know-
ledge is hopeless. § 20. But yet our assumptions work.
This plea only shifts the ground of the argument, and by
denying (§21) that knowledge ultimately works in practice,
Scepticism passes into Pessimism.
•Chapter IV. Pessimism
§§ 1-2. Pessimism essentially the theory of the inherent
perversity of things, rendering all the aims of life illusory.
§ 3. Not based on hedonism ; the belief that life is misery
the consequence, not the cause of Pessimism.
§§ 4-19. The Ideal of Happiness. § 4. As happiness is
■complete adaptation to environment, it is impossible in a world
of change. § 5. So there is no adaptation to the physical
•environment — all must die. Nor (§ 6) to the social — births,
marriages and deaths. Nor (§ 7) is harmony attainable in
the soul — inherited discords and incompatible claims. Life
for the individual a fruitless struggle, with a certain prospect
of defeat. §§ 8-10. The prospects of the race no better,
-either physically, § 8 socially, § 9 ; or psychologically, § 10.
Owing to the rapidity of the changes in the conditions of life,
•our feelings are survivals from obsolete modes of life, and
conflict with our reason. Our bodies still less harmonized
with our duties. §§ 11-17. The evidence for Pejorism, the
growth of misery. § 12. Evidence that the physical organism
^does not adapt itself quickly enough to changed conditions.
Increased sensitiveness to pain, and diminished power of
recuperation. Death itself evolved. § 13. Material progress
renders spiritual misery possible, and (§ 14) provokes social
• discontent. § I5- The social environment has grown too fast,
and so (§ 16) has the discord in the soul, most obviously
• (§ 17) in the case of the sexual feelings, which have retained
an excessive strength from animal times, although the
smaller waste of life renders it needless. They are fostered by
society, but their wholesome gratification becomes more and
more difficult. Consequent growth of immorality and misery.
• ^ 18. The evolutionist argument for Meliorism : adaptation
Contents xvii
PAGE
must prevail, for the unadapted die,— § 19, unless the nature
of things is so perverse that the environment changes more
rapidly than adaptation takes place.
§ 20. The Ideal of Goodness. The moral value of life
would only aggravate its misery. But goodness is as
impossible as happiness : depends on the proportion between
the moral ideal and actual conduct. If then the moral ideal
is capable of infinite growth, it is unattainable, and we fall
further and further short of it.
§ 21. The Ideal of Beauty. The sense of beauty the least
developed ; its conflict with the other ideals ; makes us
sensitive to the ugliness of ordinary life.
^0 § 22. The Ideal of Knowledge. It, like the rest, requires a
fixed environment, and so baffled by the Becoming of the
world. § 23. But the success of Pessimism may be due to
the rejection of metaphysics.
BOOK II.
Chapter V. Reconstruction 129
§ I. Result so far to prove that a new method alone can
answer Pessimism, though, § 2, even that will only be an
alternative. No direct answer to Scepticism or Pessimism
possible. But if philosophy can solve all the problems of life,
it may be esteemed successful. The three great characteristics
of life to be accounted for. § 3. The Humanist rehabilitation
of Truth disposes of Scepticism. § 4. But even this does
not refute Pessimism by working perfectly, though, § 5, it
holds out hopes that it will. § 6. The reaHty of the Self as
the one indisputable fact and basis of philosophy. Attacked
in vain by Hume and by Kant (§ 7). § 8. The Self as a
concrete agent is a necessary implication of the Humanist
account of Truth. § 9. The necessary anthropomorphism
of all thought ; choice only between good and bad. § 7. The
bad either false or confused. § 8. The confused anthropo-
morphism of science, and, § 9, the ideal of true Humanism :
to show how all things are of like nature with the mind.
Chapter VI. The Method of Philosophy . . . .148
§ I. The Naturalistic method to be rejected as un philosophic,
&nd S 2, based on the lower sciences alone, and (§ 3) explain-
xviii Riddles of the Sphinx
I'AGK
ing the higher by the lower, which is impossible, and then
denying the higher. Its value in its appreciation of
the continuity of things and its accumulation of data. § 4.
The inability of mere criticism to discover truth. § 5.
The Abstractionist method which dispenses with
application to fact. § 6. Its failure. § 7. By denying the
continuity of higher and lower it either regards them as
antagonistic, and ends in dualism and pessimism, e.g.,
Platonism, or, § 8, it ignores the lower altogether, like the
Eleatics and Hegel. § 9. The flaw is that the method is
abstract, and that first principles, which are abstractions are
all false, all the more (§ 10) when they are picked up at random.
§ II. The Humanist method is concrete and takes human
nature as the clue. It explains the lower by the higher, but
admits their connexion. Its metaphysics to be derived from the
sciences. ^ 12. Its difficulties ; (i) scarcity of precedents,
§) 13. (2) Our imperfect knowledge of the lower, and § 14
(3) Our imperfect attainment of the higher, which remains
unimaginable to the lower. § 15. These defects limit its
achievements, yet, § 16, much light may be derived from the
new data of science.
Chapter VII. The Metaphysics of Evolution . . .171
§ I. The theory of evolution, like all others, must be based
on ultimate principles, i.e.^ metaphysics. ^ 2. It is a special
case of the historical method, which assumes the reality of
history, and so of time. Also (§ 3) that the past has caused
the present, and that things have had an origin. But how if
causal connexion is an illusion, and the infinity of time renders
a beginning incredible ? Hence the historical method assumes
a real beginning" of things, or at least of their history. § 4.
Evolutionism shares these assumptions, and adds the assertion
that history proceeds from the simple to the complex. § 5.
By erecting this fact into a universal principle evolutionism
becomes metaphysical and philosophic, as in Spencer. § 6.
Evolution as a history of all things, and so involving a sort of
teleology. § 7. But in what sense is a history an explanation ?
The three results of historical explanations : an inexplicable
datum,, a passing into something else, or an origination out of
nothing, and, § 8, ultimately they all resolve into the last.
J 9. The logical necessity of this process illustrat^ed by .
Contents xlx
PAGE
evolutionist theories, and §§ 10-12 most completely by Sir
W. Crookes' theory of protyie, and of the genesis of the
elements. § 13. Does it refer to a historical event or assert
an eternal process ? If the latter, the mechanical cosmogony
0/ evolutionism would be complete. § 14 But protyle is
indistinguishable from nothing. The genesis and dissolution
of atoms a couple of miracles, § 15. Hence historical
evolutionism must be supplemented by metaphysics, and it
must be admitted, § 16, that it is really successful only when
it derives the actual from its germ or potentiality, as explained
by Aristotle. § 17. Though in Time the potential comes
first, metaphysically the actual is prior, § 18. So protyle, as -
the pure potentiality of the whole phenomenal world, implies a
prior actuality, i.e.^ tion-phenomenal cause of its evolution, and
so a transcendent Deity becomes necessary, of whose purpose
the world-process is tbe working out. And as its earlier stages
are more remote from that purpose, the true significance of
ihings lies in their end, and all explanation is ultimately
teleological. § 19. The necessity of teleology is also
derivable from the analysis of the conception of a process,
for, § 20, a process is necessarily^////^, and so the world, if it
is in process, must have a beginning and an end in Time,
with referenc^e to which fixed points all events must be
arranged teleologically. § 21. But this teleology does not
lend itself to abuse by human conceit, nor is it incompatible
with scientific mechanism, which it supplements but does not
supersede, being itself based on scientific data. § 22. Yet it
can only gradually work down to the lower facts. § 23. The
process can not be everlasting, nor, § 24, alternate in cycles.
This idea due (i) to the difficulty of grasping the reality of
progress, and to the confusion of our world with the totality
of existence, and (2) .to ignorance of the nature of eternity.
§ 25. Summary.
Chapter VHI. Formulas of the law of Evolution . 209
§ I. Evolutionism asserts that the course of the world
conforms to the conception of a process. But a process of
what? § 2. Spencer's formula— true as far as it goes, but
inadequate. § 3. Von Hartmann's formula, not applicable
to the inorganic. § 4. The perfection of the societies of the
aiits and bees. But § 5 it is attained by the sacrifice of the ,
XX Riddles of the Sphinx
PAGE
individual and of the possibility of progress. § 6. This
suggests that real progress concurrently develops the individual
and the social medium. § 7. Shown in actual society, in the
division of labour, § 8, in the growth of knowledge and science,
§ 9, in military strength, § 10, in social intercourse, and § 11,
may be traced also in the earlier stages of human evolution.
§ 12. Apparent exceptions. Caste States have higher social
structure, but repress individuality. Greece sacrificed the
family to the State, but could not control the individual.
Rome secured the self-subordination of the individuals, but
made them too mediocre to find any one who could adapt the
Roman training to a universal empire. § 13. Among
animals both individuality and sociality are at a lower stage.
§ 14. In plants and the lowest animals individuality
becomes too faint to be any longer distinguished from the
social medium. Perhaps dependence on it has here become a
physical bond, as, § 15, is certainly the case in inorganic
nature, where physical combination is the analogue of society
and individuality is evanescent. § 16. In the evolution of
chemical substances, the most complex came last, though
before life. But even in the elements there are signs of
individual differences. § 17. The precosmic condition of
atoms before combination began. § i^- ^^ut can this
formula of Evolution also supply an ideal? Yes, for as yet
neither society nor individuals are perfect. Evidence that we
are imperfectly individualized. Hence § 19 the ideal of perfect
individuals in a perfect society is the ideal of Heaven. § 20.
The advantages of this formula.
BOOK III.
Chapter IX. Man and the World 239
§ I. Its subject, the 'material' environment. §§ 2-11.
Space and Time and their infinity. § 2. The senses of
mfifiity^ the popular, § 3, the negative, § 3^;, the ' infinite ' of
impotence and of power, and § 4, the mathematical sense.
Infinity inapplicable to quantity. § 5. No need to regard the
infinity of Time and Space as other than ideal ; and § 6, it is
impossible to infer from this ideal infinity that of the real world,
which would render knowledge impossible. § 7. The meta-
physical difficulties of infinity. Space and Time as abstractions.
Contents xxi
PAGE
§ 8. Infinite Time self-contradictory. An infinite whole, an
infinite process, and an infinite regress of causes impossible.
§ 9. These difficulties reappear in science. The dissipation
of energy in infinite Space. The atom and infinite divisibility.
The equilibration of energy. If the world is infinite, Evolution
is a mistake. § 10. In favour of infinity there is only a dis-
ability of our thought, which in the case of Space may rest on a
psychological illusion and prove purely subjective and tem-
porary. § 1 1. But the reality of the world-process is bound up
with that of Time. But the consciousness of Time depends on
that of change. If, then, change can be transcended, so can
Time. Time, Becoming and Evil, as corruptions of Eternity,
Being, and Perfection, and so Time passes into Eternity at the
completion of the world-process.
5§ 12-15. Idealism and Science^ § 12. The denial of an
'external world,' a corollary from the primary fact of idealism,
which idealists are anxious to avoid. § 13. That fact being
inconclusive in itself must be interpreted either by a universal
mind (in which case the world remains an illusion) or, § 14, for
an i7ninatient realism, by realities, existing in consciousness, but
not only in consciousness ; z>., the Self and the world are
correlative facts, and if ultimate existence is ascribed to the
one, it must be also to the other. But they need not turn out
to be such as they appear. § 15. Thus idealism refutes
materialism, and brings out the distinction between phenomenal
and ultimate existence ; § 16, but this must be shown in detail.
§§ 17-26. The explanation of matter^ § 17. Matter an
abstraction. The unknowable substratum of Force. All its
effects due to forces. But the substratum of the forces need
not be material. § 18. Intelligence as the substratum of
Force. Monads as the metaphysical account of the material.
§ 19. These result also from the analysis of ' Force.' § 20.
Reconciliation of idealism and science, matter not being an
ultimate fact. § 21. It is the result in consciousness of an
interaction between the Deity and ultimate spirits, or Egos.
§ 22. The relation of these Egos to the Deity and to our
phenomenal 'selves.' § 23. This account borne out by
scientific evidence. Hypnotism and the conception of an
objective hallucination. Secondary selves. § 24. Thus the
progressive phases of the interaction of the Egos with the Deity
form the history of the world. § 25. How the world's exist-
/xxii Riddles of the Sphinx
PAGE
ence in consciousness is compatible with its reality and with
the plurahty of spirits. Parallels in dreams and the collective
hallucinations of hypnotism.
. §§ 25-28. The significance of matter. § 27. The fallacy
of separating body and soul as aspects of the same interaction.
•§ 27: This rejection of dualism does not lead to materialism
if the relation of body and soul be inverted and the body
. regarded not as what causes but as what represses conscious-
(^Jc^Lqaa/^p ness. The growth of organization a growth of labour-saving
M^sJjS^ mechanism which liberates consciousness. ^ 28. Hence
/ matter is a divine mechanism for controlling resisting spirits,
an explanation which fits the facts as well or better than
materialism.
§§ 29-31. The spiritual evolution of matter. § 29. The
properties of matter are seen' to be less opposed to those of
spirit. Modern materialism less uncompromising than ancient.
§ 30. Matter less of an obstacle to spiritual evolution.
Material and spiritual progress interdependent in society and
also in the individual. True development is harmonious, and
does not involve antagonism with lower phases of life. § 31.
Yet there is truth also in the ascetic view of matter, as it char-
acterizes an essentially imperfect world. § 32. How the
existence of the world, before that of conscious beings, may be
reconciled with the idealist assertion that matter exists only in
consciousness.
Chapter X. Man and God ...... 302
§ I. Man and his cause — God. His nature as implied
in the earlier results, {a) As the first cause, but only of the
phenomenal world. {Jb) As a factor in the interaction which
produces the world, {c) As personal, {d) as finite, because
only a finite God can be inferred, and all force implies resist-
ance. So God is in all, but not all. § 2. The finiteness of
God conflicts with religious and philosophic tradition, but may
be proved.
§§ 3'23- The doctrine of the hifinite. §§ '^-'j. The
religious conception of God — a mass of contradictions. His
infinity incompatible with all His other attributes, e.g. (i)
personality, (2) consciousness, (3) power, (4) wisdom, § 4. (5)
Goodness; either God is evil or everything is good. The
failure of the attempts at reconciliation': § 5. For the
'U^A}y^>^^
Contents xxill
PAGE
Infinite there can be no reality in good and evil, nor meaning
in the phenomenal world and its process. 56. Nor does it
admit of Revelation. § 7.' The origin and history of the
attribute of infinity. Monotheism a compromise between
polytheism and pantheism. But it may be pur<;ed ff its con-
tradiction by omitting the infinity.
5§ 8-23. The hijinite in philosophy — Pantheism. § 8.
In pantheism ' God '^ the universe as a whole § 9. The
exceptions to this view e.^.^ J. S. Mill. § 10. Pantheism a
mistake (1) emotionally, because it renders good and evil
illusory. §§ 11, 12. (2) Scientifically, because it destroys the
reality of the world-process and the meaning of the world, and
ultimately (§ 12) must declare all change illusory. Hence,
either we and our world, or the Absolute, an illusion. § 13.
The objection that finite minds cannot grasp the Infinite, un-
tenable, for. if true, tliey would never have formed the con-
ception of an Infinite, § 14. The attempt to make the Infinite
a postulate of feeling. But how can feeling decide delicate
questions of metaphysics ?
5§ 15-20. (3) The logical basis of Pantheisin. § 15.
The main basis of Pantheism logical — but fallacious. § 16.
The words ' all ' and ' whole ' ambiguous. A finite totality z/,
an infinite maximum. § 17. The ' Infinite ' a misnomer
because a real whole must be finite. § 18. But anyhow the
world is not a real whole. The two ways of conceiving the
relation of a whole to its parts, of which the one would not
apply to the absolute ' AH,' and the other would make it an
ideal whole. § 19. A third way conceivable, if the reality of
the whole could be directly inferred from the reality of the
parts. But it is not yet realized, and (§ 20) if it were, it would
make the parts as necessary to the existence of the whole, as
the whole to the parts. Though the ideal of social harmony,
this does not justify Pantheism,
§§ 21-23. (4). The metaphysical basis of Pa?itheism. §21.
The ultimate question of ontology. Is existence one, dual, or
many?. Monism, Dualism, Pluralism. Why Dualism must
be rejected. The difficulties of Monism — it cannot explain
phenomenal plurality. § 22 Pluralism does not need to do so.
The relation of the Many to the One. The One as the
possibility of the interaction of the Many. § 23. Pluralism can
also regard the One as the ideal of a real union. Perfection.
xxiv Riddles of the Sphinx
PAGE
§§ 24-30. The nature of God. § 24. The finiteness of
God follows from the adoption of Pluralism in metaphysics.
God not = * Nature,' and hence 'Nature ' can contain an
element which resists God, /.
In order to know moreover what life is, we must inquire
into its whence and whither; we are exercised about the
past and the future, in order to know what use to make
of the present. Thus the threefold riddle of the Sphinx is
merely the articulation of the question, What is man or
what is life i* — and concerned with the relation of man to
his Cause, to his Environment, and to his Future. The
questions of man's relation to God, to the world, and to
immortality, are the three great problems of philosophy, to
which all other speculative inquiries are subsidiary ; and in a
human sense the three are one.
§ 5. This ultimate unity of life, moreover, which it is the
business of philosophy consciously to restore, was uncon-
Introductory 9
sciously foreshadowed by the origin of its problems. The
material Sphinx is perhaps the oldest of the extant monu-
ments of human labour, and was a mystery even to the
old-time builders of the pyramids. But the spiritual Sphinx,
its archetype, is older still ; it is as old as reflection, as old
as knowledge, and, we may be assured, will last as long.
And knowledge is one and indivisible, and an integral
portion of life. For in order to live we must know, and
knowledge sets us the problems of which philosophy essays
the solution. Our solutions, it is true, must be imperfect
until the end is reached ; but need we be discouraged so long
as our truths grow more and more satisfactory } If we can
bring ourselves to believe that an impulse so deeply rooted
in our nature, so intimately bound up with all our knowledge,
as that of speculation, can be an illusion, intended to mis-
guide us, and destined never to be satisfied, what must we
think of a world so ordered to delude us ? What but that it
may contain such ineradicable illusions elsewhere also?
For philosophy does not arise self-sought from idle wonder
and vain speculation. The wonder, to which Greek thinkers
were fond of attributing the beginning of philosophy, is an
essential feature of the mind, or rather, it is an inevitable
response to the action of external nature. And if, in an
age in which science loves to pry into the origins of all
things, it is led to turn its attention to its own origin, it
quickly appears that the origin of science, philosophy and
religion was to be found in one and the same fact, the fact
that the world is so constituted that we can not in thought-
less contentment acquiesce in what is given. The perplexity,
with which thought starts on its road to knowledge, is forced
upon it from without. So far from its being true, as Aristotle
said, that man naturally desires knowledge, it is rather the
case that man is originally as lazy and uninquiring as the
beasts, and that the necessity of knowledge is hardly borne
lo Riddles of the Sphinx
in upon him by the stern struggle for existence. Primitive
man could not acquiesce in the chaos of phenomena, because
its improvident and thoughtless acceptance meant death.
Then, as always, knowledge was power, and to survive, man
had to understand the world he lived in. And so the first
steps in knowledge were directly necessitated by external
pressure, and the primitive theory of life was the first reaction
of thought upon its environment.
As such it contained, in an undifferentiated whole, the
germs of activities that have since drifted far apart. Animism
is the first general theory about the world, and out of it have
differentiated science, philosophy, and religion. The single
basis of all three was the * anthropomorphic ' assumption
that all things were to be interpreted on the analogy of
what man conceived to be his own nature, and hence
supposed that volition was the cause of motion, and that
all events were to be ascribed to the action of personal
spirits, with wills as capricious as man's own.
§ 6. This theory was the basis of religion, in that men
feared and attempted to propitiate the spirits that conducted
the operations of nature, although Animism can hardly yet
be called a religion. It is not until some subordination is
introduced into the spiritual chaos, which corresponded to
the material chaos in the thought of early man, that real
religion is evolved. But as the underlying similarity in the
operations of nature came to be perceived, the numberless
spirits aggregated into gods, and a god of fire, presiding over
the whole department, took the place of individual fire-spirits
acting every time a fire burned. Thus Animism passes into
Polytheism, and, as the consciousness of the uniformity of
nature grows, into Monotheism, unless the derivative law of
causation so obscures the personal volition from which it
sprang as to make personal agency seem impossible, when
there takes place a direct transition into Pantheism.
Introdiictory \ i
§ 7. Animism is also the origin of philosophy, for the
volitional theory of causation does duty also as a theory of
the ultimate truth. about the world.
§ 8. It is likewise the origin of science, for the spirits are
also the efficient causes of phenomena, and the physical
changes of the world are explained by their volitions. Thus
while religion was rapidly differentiated from philosophy,
and science by the growth of an emotional factor, passing
through fear and propitiation into worship, philosophy and
science remained united much longer. The theories of the
physical and of the metaphysical, the working theories of the
actual appearances of the environment, and of its ultimate
nature, remained identical or closely connected. It is only
in comparatively recent times that the growth of the physical
sciences, ?>., the accumulation of facts, the validity of which
could not be affected by any metaphysical interpretation that
might be applied to them, has enabled the sciences to
establish their independence. Favoured by the anarchic
feuds of philosophic theories, it has produced the semblance
of a complete separation, and suggested the idea that science
and metaphysics are two independent and mutually irrelevant
branches of knowledge. But should we not- father- cherish
the hope of a final reconciliation of these thre^ speculative
activities, of such a harmony of all the elements of thought
as is worthy of their common parentage, and as will enable
all in the end to subserve in unison to the attainment of the
perfect life? May not the appearances of the world be
connected with its ultimate nature, ./>., science with meta-
physics, and may not the true religion be but the emotional
aspect of the true philosophy 1
To such a consummation these -discussions may perhaps in
some measure pave the way ; they may contribute some
material to bridge the Sea of Doubt, to mark a track across
the Slough of Despond, and thus to smooth the rough paths
J 2 Riddles of the Sphinx
of virtue ; nor need we be dissatisfied if our successors
trample under foot the stepping-stones we have collected,
and thus at length attain the promised goal.
§ 9. We have seen hitherto that no serious defence of the
positivist attitude could be made on the ground of its
desirability. It could not seriously be maintained that it was
better in itself for us not to know anything beyond our
present environment. It turns out to be impossible to sever
the ' positive knowledge ' of science from its metaphysical
presuppositions ; it was an undertaking justified neither by
their common origin nor by the essential solidarity of
knowledge. For in the subsequent course of its develop-
ment knowledge did not belie its origin. There has been no
age when the Sphinx could be evaded, when the answers to
her riddles were not of the utmost importance to life. To
escape these questions proves neither possible, nor, perhaps,
right. For if there is any meaning at all in life, the
philosophic impulse also cannot be devoid of its significance,
nay, of a significance proportionate to its antiquity, its
persistence, and its vital import.
To the question, therefore, of Positivism — Why should you
seek to know 1 — we may give the answer — Because we must
and ought. It is futile to bid us confine ourselves to this
present world of phenomena, and to assure us that we have
no interest to raise the question as to the nature of God and
of our future. The routine of practice and the world of
phenomena, the sphere of positive science, are not self-
supporting, self-sufficing, and self-explaining ; they point
beyond themselves to a reality which underlies them, back
to a past from which they are descended, and forward to a
future they foreshadow. Man cannot understand his own
nature and that of his existing environment, the twofold
aspect of a single fact, except by a reference to their previous
and prospective conditions. Life cannot be lived now except
Introductory 1 3
in connexion with its past and future. And this, we shall
see, is literally true, since the consistent attempt to take the
world as it is, to confine ourselves to the given, to exclude all
ulterior inquiries, inevitably leads to pessimism, i.e., to the
utter negation of life.
Positivism, therefore, i.e., the assertion that philosophy is
unnecessary and useless, cannot maintain its position : it
must either vanish or transform itself. It is merely the first
stage in negation, and negation finds no rest until it has
sunk to the lowest depth. And Positivism, especially, finds
it very easy to pass into Agnosticism, with which indeed it is
frequently combined.
§ 10. Granted, it may be said, that a knowledge of God
and of a future life would be of all things the most desirable,
of all knowledge the most precious, and that the search for
it is irresistibly suggested by the constitution of things, it
does not follow that it is also possible. It was, perhaps, a
well-meant deception to maintain that philosophy is not
needed ; but it serves to console men for the fact that it is
not possible. The rejection of metaphysics was put on the
wrong ground : the assertion that they did not exist should
have been supplemented by the proof that they could not
exist. The consoling sophism that philosophy is a matter of
indifference having been falsified by the concern men display
about it, and the simple assertion that we do not know having
proved insufficient to repress the pertinacious questionings of
the philosopher, it is now time to assert that we can not
know, and to exhibit the illusoriness of metaphysics and the
impossibility of answering the ultimate questions of phil-
osophy. This is the task which Agnosticism sets itself to
accomplish, and we shall consider its achievements in the next
chapter. It will then appear that it succeeds only by
suggesting a doubt of the competence of human knowledge,
which cannot be confined to the sphere in which it started.
1 4 Riddles of the ^Sphinx
It calls up Scepticism from the abyss of negation, and is
absorbed by a greater and more powerful spirit of evil.
Scepticism, in its turn, can establish its- case only by allying
itself with Pessimism, and in Pessimism the last disguise is
thrown off, and Chaos once more swallows up the Cosmos.
The second Book will be concerned with the rebirth and
regeneration of the world by means of a new method of
philosophizing ; the third will apply the principles laid down
to the solution of the problems of philosophy.
CHAPTER II.
AGNOSTICISM.
§ I. Under the head of Agnosticism may be included all
doctrines concerning the inherent insolubleness of certain
questions, or inherent limitations or defects of the human
mind, which, precluding men from the knowledge of certain
departments of existence, leave something unknowable be-
yond the barriers of possible knowledge.
AVherever agnostic assertions are not made in the light-
hearted contempt of ignorance, where an ignoramus is not
the real basis of the cry of ignorabivius^ we may distinguish
two species of rational Agnosticism. And looking at the
character of the philosophies which have upheld them, we /]a
may call these two forms of Agnosticism the scientific and
the epistemological. For though their general tendency is
the same, there is a difference in the method of their argu-
mentation. Scientific .Agnosticism infers a region of the
unknowable from the indefinite and seemingly infinite
expansion of knowledge : epistemological Agnosticism is
based rather on a consideration of the relativity of knowledge
to the knowing faculty, and suggests that the limits of objects
do not correspond to the limits of our knowledge of them.
As types of these two agnosticisms we may take Herbert
Spencer and Kant ; Spencer as the representative of scien-
tific and Kant of epistemological Agnosticism.) And since
somewhat different objections apply to each, it will be well
to consider first the arguments against Agnosticism generally.
1 6 Riddles of the Sphinx
before dealing with the special pleas of its chief exponents.
Thus the exposure of the flaws involved in all forms of
Agnosticism will finally drive it to seek refuge with
Scepticism.
§ 2. \The first objection which may be made to every
form of Agnosticism is, that it is impossible on practical
r\ grounds. It supposes that we can take up a position of
suspense of judgment, based on a theoretical recognition of
their unknowableness, with regard to the great principles
which underlie the practical life, and need neither affirm nor
deny them in action. This is really a re-assertion of the
positivist plea that they were immaterial to practice, without
the excuse positivism had in its ignorance of their importance.)
But such suspense of judgment is quite impossible. If we
were purely thinking beings, it might indeed be the right
attitude towards matters not known. But as we have also
to act, and as action requires practical certainty^ we must
make up our minds in one way or the other, and our acts
must belie the professions of our theory. No agnostic can
live for five minutes without indulging in acts involving a
belief or disbelief in some of the unknowables he had
solemnly forsworn. Questions such as the existence of God
and the future of the soul cannot be treated as practically
indifferent; and the life, if not the theory, of the agnostic
must practically answer them in some way or other. Just as
men arrange their lives differently according as they believe
themselves to have one year more to live or fifty, according
as they possess a powerful patron or are thrown on their own
resources, so life must be ordered either on the assumption
or on the neglect of its indefinite prolongation and divine
care.
The agnostic writers themselves provide this practical
confutation of their theories, though their idiosyncrasies
lead them to adopt different sides of the alternative. Thus
Agfiosticism i j
Spencer's Agnosticism practically denies the existence of
God and the immortality of the soul, in spite of all his
theoretical protests that he has merely referred them to the
Unknowable. Kant, on the other hand, in a manner which
would be comical, if it were not concerned with such serious
issues, and which has brought upon him much ridicule,
deliberately refutes his theoretical agnosticism. He avowedly
rehabilitates, by means of the Practical Reason, the dogmas
he had invalidated by the Theoretic Reason. Hence he
avows his personal belief in a God whose existence he had
shown to be indemonstrable, in a future life for which he had
asserted there could be no evidence, and in a freedom which
he had admitted to contradict all causation in Time. The
one thought which seems never to have suggested itself to
him is, that the Power which was capable of playing such
pranks upon its creatures, capable of devising a Theoretic
Reason, destined by the essential constitution of its nature to
irreconcilable conflict with the practical necessities of life,,
was hardly a fit object of our reverence or trust.
The fact is, that this demand for an impossible suspense
of judgment is based upon a confusion of scientific and philo-
sophic certainty. In science, certainty = great probability,,
and impossibility = an off chance; and hence in scientific
theorizing certainty is neither frequent nor necessary. But in
philosophy, which is the science of life as a whole, we require
fiom our theory practical certainty in addition to its theoretic
probability, and as we must act, we must act often on very
slight probabilities. While science, therefore, must remain
conscious of all sorts of improbable and barely possible
theories, seeing that they may suggest fruitful experiments
and so enlarge the bounds of knowledge, philosophy, when it
has once decided on the right solution, must sternly and
resolutely put aside all its rivals, even though its choice was
originally arrived at by a very slender preponderance. It
fA
1 8 Riddles of the Sphinx
must act and act without wavering and without hesitation,
so soon as its initial inquiry has been conckided, nor allow
itself to be easily dismayed by difficulties or deterred from
following its principles to their consistent conclusions.
Philosophy, at all events, cannot serve both God and
Mammon. Any inconsistency and any hesitation is bound
to lead to failure, whatever theory of life is true. Such a
thing, therefore, as a provisional theory of life would be too
dangerous. How different is the course of scientific theory :
upon all disputed and disputable points, it may, nay must,
keep any number of provisional hypotheses before its eyes,
and must be slow to decide in favour of one or the other ; it
must be for ever doubting and testing, and, if convenient,
may even adopt conflicting explanations in different branches
of its inquiries, and trust to fresh discovery to abate the
conflicts of its working hypotheses. The patient temper
^vhich does not reject the remotest possibility that may throw
light upon a subject, which, as in Darwin's case, is not
ashamed to try absurd experiments which it is ashamed to
record, is that which has led to great discovery. ^The mental
attitude in short required in scientific research, is in this
respect the very opposite to that required in the search for a
theory of life ; in philosophy there is no room for the theoretic
suspense of judgment, and there must always be assumed
certainty enough to act on.
From this point of view, then, Agnosticism is simply an
intrusion of the methods of science into philosophy, and its
practical impossibility is fatal to its claims to be a theory of
Life^
§ 3. But it is also open to grave theoretic objection.
It involves in every case an argument from the known to
the unknowable.
For unless the assumption of the unknowable is purely
gratuitous, and so refutes itself, there must be something in
Agnosticism 19
the constitution of the known to lead us to infer an unknow-
able. But such an inference from the known to the
unknowable is a contradiction. For that very inference
creates a bond between the known and the unknowable, and
to this extent renders the unknowable knowable. If we can
know nothing else about the unknowable, we can at least
know that it is the cause of the known. At the very least,
the known is its manifestation, the * phenomenon ' is the
appearance of the * Noiimenon.'
Thus the connexion between the known and the unknow-
able is in the same breath both asserted and denied. The
primary statement of Agnosticism explicitly asserts, but
implicitly denies, the impossibility of a transition from the
known to the unknowable. It is the vagary of an insane
logic which from its very nature refutes itself. It is as im-
possible to credit its initial assertion as it was to believe the
Hibernian who asserted that he was dead. If, therefore, the
assert^ion alone of the unknowable implies that it is not
wholly unknowable, what business have we to call it the
unknowable }
But this is not all. All reasoning that does not confine
itself to a formal analysis of the logical necessities of thought,
must be directly based upon some real evidence, must have
some ground from which it draws its conclusions. But if so,
that evidence must have a determinr.te character, which must
affect its conclusions, and which may, if we choose, appear in
them. The inference as to the existence of a thing may
often be so much the most important as to be the only one
we care to derive from our evidence, but in itself it says
least. An existential judgment cannot be made unless we
have grounds for asserting very much more than bare
existence. Either we have no grounds for asserting the
existence of a thing at all, or we have grounds for asserting
a certain kind of existence, an existence of a determinate
20 Riddles of the Sphinx
character. It follows from these general principles of reason-
ing, that, in this case also, the evidence on the strength of
which w^e inferred the existence of an unknowable beyond
the known, can never justify an inference merely to the bare
existence of the unknowable. That inference must to some
extent reveal the nature of the unknowable ; it must present
us with some hints of its attributes or qualities ; the character
of the unknowable must to some extent appear in its action.
And so the paradoxical result ensues, that we really find
ourselves in possession of a good deal of knowledge about
the unknowable. Indeed it has been plausibly rem.arked,
that, in the course of Spencer's philosophy, we are afforded
far more information about the Unknowable than the com-
bined efforts of revelation and theology have yet given us
concerning God.^
y § 4. Now there is no way by which Agnosticism can
escape its fundamental contradiction. Either the nature of
the known does not justify the inference to an unknowable
beyond, or, if it does, the unknowable ipso facto becomes
knowable. All that any reasoning can ever prove is the
unknown ; but no valid process of thought will carr}- us from
the unknown to the unknowable. Agnosticism has here
mistaken the unknown for the unknowable, and imagined
that because the known could suggest the unknown, it could
also suggest an unknowable beyond itself.
But this is a paralogism. The known can suggest the un
known, and there is nothing extraordinary in the existence
of the latter, because knowledge is fragmentary, and reality
points to realities beyond it : we have problems that are not
'^ The Unknowable has a high character in Spencer's philosophy. It
is orderly and considerate in its habits, and always "conserves" the
same amount of its various "manifestations" in the world. This is all
the more estimable, as if it did not do this, if e.i!^. it suddenly took to
manifesting itself as mind, instead of as matter, or vice versa^ it might
very easily make all knowledge impossible.
Agnosticism 21
solved, and facts that are not independent. But unsolved
problems are not on that account insoluble, nor are unknown
facts unknowable. Science may become conscious of some-
thing beyond the known, because the facts suggest it, but
they can never suggest that it should be unknowable.
For the fact that the unknown persists in spite of the
advance of knowledge is insufficient to prove it unknowable ;
it is a phenomenon which must persist until knowledge is
completed and the unknown is exhausted. Nor can we lay
cerious stress upon Spencer's argument that the circle of
** surrounding nescience " grows with every adv^ance of
science. Not only is the truth of this statement doubtful,
but its importance is slight. For a finite unknown can never
grow into an infinite unknowable, and even its growth is due
only to the mistaken practice of explaining the more known
by means of the less known. If we work dowm the pyramid
of knowledge, and regard the lower knowledge as the deeper,
we shall necessarily find that the lower layers are more
extensive.
^ 5. But there is no real warrant for the assertion that
either our thought or its objects display an inherent necessity
to plunge into an infinite process, the only plea which could
to some extent excuse Agnosticism.
There is no infinite process implied in the existence of
things, for existence is the highest category of the Real, and
a thing cannot be more than a fact. Prima facie^ therefore,
there is no need to go beyond the fact ; a harmonious fact is
as final to knowledge as it is to action. Its existence needs
no explanation. If, therefore, a fact is asserted to be in-
harmonious or incongruous, the burden of proof lies with
those who are not satisfied with things as they find them,
and the unknown and unsatisfactory element has to be
demonstrated in each case. In an imperfectl\'-evolved world
such thought-provoking facts must of course be common, but
p;2 ' Riddles of the Sphinx
they will not justify the assumption of an essentially un-
knowable element — unless the ideal of complete adaptation,
of a completely congruous system of facts, be renounced as
an illusion.
Neither is an unknowable infinity latent in thought. Our
search for explanations does not go on to infinity — on the
contrary, an infinite regress of reasons is no reason at all —
but only until we reach some point at which we can procure
an answer which seems to satisfy the purpose of our inquiry.
If, therefore, our principles were always satisfactory and our
facts always harmonious, there would be nothing to suggest
a mystery beyond the actual, either of knowledge or of life,
no hint of an unknown, and still less of an unknowable,
working behind the veil. If an adequate certainty of
knowledge and a self-sufficing harmony of life be the ideals of
our theoretic and practical activities, it is clear that they have
no sympathy with a restless and endless striving after the
infinite.
The infinite region of the unknowable, which is supposed
to border knowledge, is nothing, and can gain no support
from the fact that our knowledge is, like all things, limited.
For as we shall see (§ 7), a limit does not imply anything
beyond it, and the infinite is only a negation, the ideal limit
of the finite {ci. ch. ix. § 3). Hence we may console our-
selves with the reflection that even if a real limit to knowledge
existed, our thought could never discover its reality. It
would always regard it as an ideal limit, not as something
beyond the known, but as the illusion of the self-
transcendence of knowledge.
§ 6. It has been shown then that the assertion of any
unknowable is self-contradictory, and that knowledge, no
matter what its difficulties may be, can never afford any
positive ground for the assumption of an unknowable. But
if agnostics persist in their assertions as a matter of faith.
Agnosticism 25
without having any positive basis of evidence, we may
request them at least to make their theory consistent. If
they gratuitously assume an unknowable, they must at least
purify their assumption from an illusory reference to reality.
If any connexion with the known degrades the unknowable
into the known, that link must be broken. The agnostics
must pass over for good into the region of the unknowable
and unthinkable, and burn their boats. They must make the
separation between the unknowable and our real world com-
plete, and carry it out consistently. They must no longer be
allowed to base anything upon the unknowable, to make it
the ground of anything actual, the cause of anything real, the
reason of anything rational. They must no longer be allowed
to decorate their first principle with an initial capital, for to
spell it with U^ is to liken it to reality in the known world, to
attribute existence to it, to make an adjectival negation of
knowledge into a substantive fact ; in a word, to hypostasize
it. They must be prohibited from saying even that the
unknowable exists ; for existence also has reference to the
known world. Rigorously, the only statement they can be
permitted to make is, that it is unknowable, and has na
connexion with the known.
But this proposition would suggest nothing to our minds,,
just as nothing can validly suggest it to them ; if we could
hold the self-contradictory hypothesis that the unknowable
existed, we should yet have to admit that its existence could
never be discovered. And if such consequences of his
doctrine do not convince the agnostic that an unknowable,,
which is truly unknowable, truly out of relation to the known,,
is nothing, nothing ever will.
§ 7. The inherent contradictions of the agnostic position
generally having been exposed, it becomes necessary to
point out the flaws in the special arguments of Spencer
and of Kant, and to detect the weak points in the
24 Riddles of the Sphinx
'antinomies' in which they have sought to enmesh the human
reason.
^Spencer's positive arguments in favour of the assumption
of an unknowable, if indeed they should be called arguments
r{\ rather than metaphors drawn from a mistaken comparison of
knowledge and Space, have been already, to a considerable
extent, dealt withy
It is not true that science is " a gradually increasing sphere
in which every addition to its surface brings us into wider
contact with surrounding nescience." Neither is it true that
^'at the uttermost reach of discovery there arises, and must
continue to arise, the question — What lies beyond } " or that
**we cannot conceive any explanation profound enough to
exclude the question — What is the explanation of that
explanation t "
It is indeed true that "positive knowledge does not, and
can not fill the whole region of possible knowledge," if under
"possible knowledge" we include, as Spencer apparently
wishes us to include, every casual question of fools and
madmen. But no sane thought will argue on possibilities that
everything might have been different from what it is, or
trouble itself to consider the consequences of such absurd
assumptions, nor will it seek an explanation of the satis-
factory, nor, when it has reached the ultimate fact, will it
stray beyond it into the shadowy region of fiction.
But if the argument concerning the infinite process of
thought cannot be regarded as more than a mistaken
metaphor from Space, the argument which follows rises to a
positive fallacy from the same source.
Spencer says : i '' To think of the First Cause as finite
{ = limited in power) is to think of it as limited. To think of
it as limited, necessarily implies a conception of something
^ First Principles, p. 2>7'
Agnosticism 2 5
beyond its limits ; it is absolutely impossible to conceive a
thing as bounded (^^X\Ti\\\.^<\ in space), without conceiving- a
region surrounding its boundaries."
We have ventured to emphasize by the use of italics the
curious transition from fiiiite to bounded by means of the
ambiguous middle term, liinited, for it is on this that the
argument depends. Boundaries are, of course, frankly spatial,
and Space is, of course, in some sense infinite (ch. ix., § 2 ff.).
But the limited is used not merely in a spatial sense, but also,
more widely, in a sense to which spatial analogies no longer
apply. Every boundary is a limit, but not every limit is a
boundary. Limits exist in thoughts and feelings as well as
in Space. When the stupidity of a sensational novel reaches,
the limits oi his endurance, Spencer does not perceive a black
line on the paper. Or again, a process of inference is
limited by its premisses and its conclusion, but these are
neither straight lines nor crooked. Again, it is not one of the
difficulties of a limited liability company that it is necessarily
surrounded by an infinite ocean of liabilities. It is not true,
then, that in thought a limit, necessarily and as such, implies
anything beyond it : the not-known remains a merely logical
possibility, an empty figure of speech, devoid of real content :
it can lend no help to infer the real contrary of knowledge,
the unknown^ and still less does it involve the unknow-
able. 1
^ Spencer, when hard pressed for reasons in favour of a positive
unknowable, does indeed make use of another argument {First
Principles^ p. 88), which respect for his other achievements must make
his critics reluctant to dwell on. He suggests that " besides the definite
consciousness of which logic formulates the laws, there is also an
indefinite consciousness which cannot be formulated . . . and which
is yet real as being a normal affection of the intellect."
Is not this a clear confession of the extra-logical character of the
agnostic's faith in the Unknowable ? There has been nothing like
this " indefinite consciousness," invented to know the Unknowable, since
tlie days when Plato declared that Not- Being was vo^w Aoywr/xw ttTrrdv,
to be grasped only by spurious reasoning ! And the spuriousness of its
26 Riddles of the Sphinx
§ 8. But Spencer, after the fashion of agnostics, lays far
more stress on the indirect than on the direct argument for
the unknowable. And it is, of course, always possible to
produce considerable effect by parading the real difficulties of
metaphysics. But here again there are plenty of unknowns
but no unknowable, plenty of unsolved problems and some
which are doubtless insoluble if perversely stated, but none
which can be declared insoluble in themselves.
And least of all can Spencer assert that these problems are
insoluble without being false to his own principles. i\n
evolutionist must surely be the last to believe that any
problems need remain insoluble because they have not
hitherto been solved, the last to restrict by a dogmatic
prohibition, even in thought, the boundless possibilities of
future development. Indeed the raison d'etre of this essay
is to show how evolution may lead to the solution of many
of these apparently insoluble questions. A great part of
Spencer's contention may indeed be accepted without quali-
fication. The contradictions in the conceptions of Matter,
Motion, Rest, and Force are insoluble, and fraught with dire
consequences to all knowledge when manipulated by the
nature seems to affect also llic arguments in its favour, for a little
further down we find Spencer contending that " an argument . .
which assigns to a term a certain meaning, but ends in showing that his
term has no such meaning, is simply elaborate suicide. Clearly then
the very demonstration that a definite consciousness of the Absolute is
impossible unavoidably presupposes an indefinite consciousness of it."
Had Spencer never heard of the method of reductio ad absurduin^ and
did he regard the fourth proposition of the first book of Euclid as a
suicidal argument ? And did he seriously think that " the very proof
that a definite consciousness of Unicorns or Chimeras is impossible,
must necessarily involve an indefinite consciousness of them " ? And
would the proof of the fictitious character of unicorns really have destroyed
in his mind the reality of their " correlative," all two-horned animals ? It
would have been better if in matters of logic, one of the few subjects to
which he could not claim to have made any important addition, he had
followed, as in the rest of his arguments for Agnosticism, the guidance
of Mansel and of Hamilton.
Aonosticisrn
"t>
27
sceptic (ch. iii. § 5-8). They can be justified only as relative
conceptions which must be transcended by metaphysical
inquiry in the search for ultimate truth. Space and Time,
again, present real difficulties and will cause us much trouble.
The impossibility, on the other hand, of treating the Self as
an object of knowledge and of finding the ends of the thread
of consciousness^ will turn out a fortunate and serviceable
fact.
§ 9. Spencer's account of the problems oi self-existence
and causation, however, deserves closer attention.
He rightly says that wc must assume self-existence some-
where, and infers that we may as well assume it of the world
as of a transcendent deity and cause of the world. Nothing
is gained by accounting for the world by a self-existing God ;
we have merely needlessly multiplied entities. And either
theory is equally unable to satisfy our demand for a wJiy :
we can as little tell why God should exist as why the world
should : we must seek a cause of the existence of God just as
of the world.
It will be seen from this that Spencer admits that we are
prima facie entitled to ask the why of the world and the cause
of its existence, but considers our demand futile, because the
same demand may be renewed upon any answer we may get.
It will be necessary, therefore, for any one asserting the self-
existence of God, while denying that of the world, to make a
distinction between the two cases, which will justify their
different treatment.
Nor is it not perhaps as difficult to make such a dis-
tinction as it might at first appear. It was shown above (§ 5)
that our thought does not possess a futile craving after
infinite explanations, but that its inquiries must, in every
case, be suggested and provoked by something outside it.
^ First Priiiciptes^ p. 66.
28 Riddles of the Sphinx
The impetus to thought is given by the discordant aspects
of facts. We do not ask the why of a fact, unless the fact is
so constituted as to provoke us to this question. If, there-
fore, we raise the question of the why of the world, this is not
due to some gratuitous vagary of our thought, but to the
fact that the world is so constituted as irresistibly to raise
this question. Hence it does so, not in virtue of being a
world as such, but in consequence of being a world of a
certain kind, with a certain character which prompts us to ask
certain questions. It is because the world does not appear to
be self-caused, that we ask for its cause. And conceivably
the answer we gave to this question might be the vision of a
fact that would not, when reached, arouse in us the same
desire to ask the reason why. If, therefore, our conception
of the Deity as the cause of the world, substituted a
harmonious fact for a discordant one, a truly concordant
cosmos for the conflict of unintelligible chaos, we should
have succeeded, not merely in postponing, but in actually
solving the problem. But is the theory of the causation of
our world by a self-existent Deity such a solution ? This is
at least conceivable ; for while the self-existence of the world
is inferred from its character to be impossible, and its
existence is felt to require an explanation, that of God
(if we arrive at an adequate notion of the Deity) may
eventually be seen not to require explanation. At all events
the explanation is not an immediate necessity, and in the
course of evolution the question may answer itself. Thus
the question of self-existence and the conception of causation
may turn out to be relative to an imperfect world still in the
process of its development ; and together with the imperfec-
tion which drove us to seek a cause of the existent, the
category by which we sought to explain it may itself dis-
appear. The conception of causation may become simply
inapplicable and unmeaning in a state of perfect adaptation
Agnosticism 29
(ch. xii.) For it is bound up with pliysical Becoming- or
change ; and as in the case of perfect adaptation the organ-
ism and the environment would be in such complete
correspondence that each would instantaneously respond to
every change in either, and as there would hence be no
interval of imperfect adaptation, no change could be per-
ceived and no consciousness of change could arise. And
without consciousness of change there would be no occasion
for the use of the conception of causation.
It is impossible, therefore, for an evolutionist, consistently
with his principles, to maintain that any conception must
remain what it now is, and Spencer, while half admitting this,
is really trying to combine two irreconcilable views when he
says : ^ "The ideas of cause and origin, which have been
slowly changing, will change still further. But no changes in
them, even when pushed to the extreme, will expel them
from consciousness. . . . No more in this than in other
things will Evolution alter its general direction." But how,
we may reasonably ask, can Spencer tell from the general
direction of evolution in the past, that the relation of our
conception of causation to self-existence will not undergo
important and radical changes? And may not a continuous
change in degree finally amount to a change in kind } Not
only will these conceptions change, but they may be wholly
transformed or become wholly otiose, because they would
no longer apply to anything. Thus, in a state of com.plete
adaptation or * Being,' there would be no Becoming, i.e., no
change for which it was needful to discover a cause. (Ch. iv.
§ 4, xii. § 4.)
Now this is the real reason 'why our present changing
world is felt to be explained, when it is referred to a self-
Un the volume on Sociology in the International Scientific Series, p.
309-
30 Riddles of the Sphinx
existent Deity as its cause. For God is conceived as in a
state of ' Being-,' and even when not regarded as perfectly-
unchanging-, He has attributed to Him at least that amount
of permanence or Being which is implied in self-identity.
We find, therefore, that when we inquire, not into existence
in general, but only into that special portion of it which
constitutes our world, a self-existent God may explain it in
a way in which it could never explain itself.
§ lO. A similar solution may be given to the parallel
difficulty concerning the cause of the First Cause. Spencer
urges that the assumption of a first cause is futile, because
we must continue to ask for further causes of the first cause
dd infinitum, and somewhat unjustly regards the difficulty as
one in the ' metaphysical ' conception of a first cause instead
of in the ' scientific ' conception of causation generally. And
yet the conception of a first cause represents only an
attempt to escape from the difficulty of the infinite regress
which is everywhere inherent in the current interpretation of
the causal principle. Whatever, therefore, it proves, is
proved against the use of the conception of causation
generally, i.e., the drift of the argument is sceptical and
not agnostic. As a matter of fact, a First Cause, if the
meaning of the term is properly limited, is open to rather
less objection than an ordinary cause. If what is meant is an
absolute First Cause of all things, it is indeed an unthinkable
notion, because it would be an answer to a futile question
(§ 7). But this does not prove that a relative first cause of
our phenomenal world may not turn out a conception both
valid and useful.
An absolute First Cause of the universe as such (a-TrXw?), is
absurd, because it is a supposition which would explain
nothing, and would only contradict itself. It could not
explain the Becoming or cause the changes in our world.
For there could be nothino- either within or without it to
Agnosticism 31
cause it to be the cause of the world at one time rather than
at another. For if there were anything- that could thus
compel it to become a cause, that something- would itself be
the first cause. Whatever, therefore, the condition of the
First Cause happened to be, it would remain for ever, without
change, alike whether no world existed at all or whether
myriad worlds were mirrored in its dream. Since, then, the
world exists, it must always have existed. But if it has
always existed, it has not come into being, and hence it has
had no cause. And not only does this result contradict our
premiss, that a first cause of the world existed, but it does
not even appear how an absolute first cause could be a cause
at all. For, as the cause of the All would be all, the sum of
its existence could neither be increased nor diminished : it
would be equally all-embracing, whether the w^orld existed
or not. It could gain nothing then by the creation, and lose
nothing by the destruction of the world : it would contain
nothing that could determine it at one time to create, at
another to remain in motionless absorption in itself. The
changes, therefore, of our world are not in the least explained
by such a cause. {Cf. ch. x, § 11.)
If, therefore, we put the First Cause of our world = a First
Cause of all things, the result is confusion, and the collapse
of our conception. But no such consequence need follow if
we regard the First Cause as the cause merely of our universe,
not of the totality of existence. The question as to the cause
of the First Cause may then be met by the suggestion that
to a non-phenomenal First Cause the category of causation,
to which the difficulty is due, is not applicable in the same
way as to the phenomenal causes of physical science.
§11. The Kantian Agnosticism, to which we must next
direct our attention, has proved as stimulating to philosophers
as the Spencerian has been comforting to scientists, when
afflicted with doubts as to whether a rational interpretation
32 Riddles of the Sphinx
of their first principles was possible. And just as the
discovery of the Unknowable appeared to the one the crown-
ing achievement of human knowledge, so it has seemed to
the others a discovery most^important to knowledge that we
could not know certain subjects. Indeed, the whole of post-
Kantian philosophy seems to be occupied in persistent but
futile attempts to wriggle out of Kant's conclusions while
accepting their basis, or in making a livelihood by expound-
ing the meaning of an argument so subtle that only a born
metaphysician could make his way unaided through its
obscurities. And as complete success, either in establishing
the Kantian case, or in making it wholl)^ intelligible to the
world, would destroy the whole occupation of philosophers,
it is perhaps fortunate that they have not committed the
happy dispatch by doing the only thing they supposed
themselves entitled to attempt.
The difference between Spencerian and Kantian
Agnosticism may be roughly formulated as being, that while
the former declares knowledge impossible because of its
knowledge of the Unknowable, the latter does so because of
its knowledge of the impotencies of our knowledge. By
Kant, the possibility of metaphysics is denied, not because
of the infinite complexity of things, begetting an infinite
process of knowledge, but because of the faulty constitution
of our minds, and the limitations of our faculties. It is not
that things actively elude our minds, but that our knowledge
cannot reach them. Its activity cannot penetrate to the real
nature of things or disturb the serene calm of their essences,
the '' otiuin cum dignitate of the thing-in-itself." We can
know only appearances, not the ultimate (which is also the
real) nature of things. In Kantian language, our knowledge
is only of phenomena not of Noumena.
§ 12. Now, as we have already pointed out (§3-6), the
absurdity of making unknowable realities the causes of
Agnosticism 33
phenomena, it is here merely necessary to point out how this
assumption, in Kant's special form, is refuted by himself, and
contradicts his own clearly enunciated principles.
^ant himself lays great stress on the fact that all the
categories or fundamental conceptions of our knowledge have
a value and a meaning only relatively to the world of our
experience, in his own phrase, are " of immanent applica-
tion." Now chief among these categories are the conceptions
of Substance and Cause. Hence, on Kant's own showings
the unknowable Noiimena can be neither substances nor
causes. And yet, unless they are both, we can neither say
that they are, nor that they are the causes of phenomena.
They are not substances, i.e., they do not exist, they are not
causes, i.e., if they did, they would explain nothing. It
remains that they are nothing, and that Kant's doctrine of
the unknowable Noiimena is a mistake.
That this is so, has been generally admitted by nearly all
competent critics of Kant; but it is astonishing that this
result should have led so few of them to question the sound-
ness of the basis from which Kant was able to reach such
incongruous conclusions/
§ 13. Kant's great discovery, in his own estimation, was
that the inquiry into the nature of our knowing faculty
must precede actual investigation. We must discover how
we can know, before we examine what we do know. This
is the gist of the famous Criticism, and the basis of a theory
of knowledge which substituted ' epistemology ' for meta-
physics. But though this undertaking is apparently simple,
it involves several assumptions which are no longer
admissible in the present state of our knowledge.
§ 14. It involves, in the first place, the assumption
that the Form and Matter of knowledge can be separated :
that the growth of the Matter does not affect its Form,
and that hence it is possible to examine the knowing
3
K
34 Riddles of the Sphinx
faculty independently, and that any conclusion arrived
at concerning" it will hold good of all our knowledge for
all time. For, unless all possibilities of valid inference
can be determined with absolute certainty, in consequence
of an exhaustive analysis of their forms, it is evident that
the future course of knowledge cannot be predicted. And
yet, even as a matter of pure logic, it seems that no such
separation of Form and Matter is possible. The ' pure
forms ' collapse as empty abstractions when it is attempted
to treat them as independent realities. Even the * laws of
thought ' by themselves do not work nor lead to real
knowledge. Even in logic, thought turns out to be an
organism in which form and matter imply each other, so that
each grov/s with the growth of the other.
And when we go on to the principles of actual investiga-
tion, it appears still more clearly that we can never know
until we try. The process, which is fruitful of results,
cannot be predicted beforehand, but only analysed after the
event. And every such result in some way modifies the
principles from which we started, and the method by which
we reached it. Thus the application of the Historical
Method to biological science has not only been most fruitful
of results, but it has reacted profoundly upon the method
itself, and changed the whole course of sociological inquiry.
We cannot know, then, how we know, except in
dependence upon what we know. The theory of knowledge
appears only from its practice, and it is a prejudice to think
that it can be prejudged.
§ 15. '^ot only is the Kantian separation of the form
and matter of knowledge vicious on general grounds,
but the whole epistemological standpoint seems irrecon-
V' cilable with the modern conception of the world as
?.x\ evolution. The Kantian theory of knowledge is able
Ic assert that the mind can never do certain things, because
Agnosticism %c
it claims to have given an exhaustive account and a
complete classification of the powers and impotencies of the
human mind.
But how if the mind which it analyses have not the
dead fixity of an artificial machine, but be a living organism
with undetermined capacities for development ? How then, /w
can any classification of its faculties be complete or con-
clusive ? ) How can one analyse the latent germs which have ^^,
not yet reached the surface ? how foretell the future growth,
even, of what yet lacks its full development ? Why, even
the impotencies of our minds may be potentialities prescient
of future powers ! And these suggestions are so far from
being unverified analogies from other spheres of knowledge,
that we can already actually trace some startling changes in
the development of our categories. (Ch. iii., § lo.)
^It would be more to the purpose if, inste'ad of attacking
others, Kantian epistemology looked to itself, — if, instead
of interfering with metaphysics and psychology, it raised
its own stock question about itself and considered ' how,'
if at all * epistemology was possible.' ^
§ 1 6. The epistemological standpoint, then, is false,
because it makes no allowance for the growth of the faculties
of the mind which it attempts to analyse, and so it cannot
establish unknowable limits to thought, nor prove anything
against the possibility of metaphysics. But it is also so
impotent in itself, and so inherently futile that it cannot,
legitimately and in accordance with its own principles, even
attempt any attack upon metaphysics. It is not only false,
but barren. To establish a proposition which may appear
somewhat startling, let us recollect why the Kantian doctrine
of Noiimena broke down. It broke down in attempting to
pass from phenomena to things-in-themselves. And it
broke down because it attempted to transcend itself and to
ip-norc the limits of its method. It may be asserted further
(V\
36 Riddles of the Sphinx
that epistemology must break down whenever it tries to
transcend its limits, and. that it is yet under constant
temptation to attempt this, because if it does not and keeps
within its proper limits ^ it is utterly useless.
§ 17. For it professes to be nothing but an ''immanent
criticism of experience," an account of what is " impHed in
knowledge." What is implied in this attitude, however, is,
that it can neither generate nor criticize actual knowledge.
Given actual knowledge, ' Criticism ' can analyse it, can tell
us what is implied in it. It can show us what categories we
have used, and how the ' forms of thought ' are combined
with the matter. It can re-arrange the factors in knowledge
and show us the ' logical ' connexions of its elements. But
it can do no more. It can bring to the surface what is con-
cealed in the depth, it can render explicit what was implicit,
but it can create nothing new. It can neither account for the
origin nor judge of the ultimate validity of any actual bit of
knowledge. For to do so, it would have to cease to be
" immanent," to cease to deal with the logical analysis of
what is " implied in knowledge," and to reach real facts.
But if it dealt with real facts, actual instances of knowledge,
it would become a science like the rest, indeed a sort of
psychology and would cease to be the theory and criticism of
all knowledge.
\If, on the other hand, our theory of knowledge claimed
^ to deal with ultimate existences, it would, like the Platonic
theory of Ideas, become a metaphysic.^ But of course it
^T. H. Green in his Prolegomena to Ethics makes what looks like an
attempt to do this, and comes very near asserting it. He talks about a
" metaphysic of knowledge," but does not venture, like Hegel, to put
it forward definitely as absolute metaphysic. His "spiritual principle
implied in nature " is perhaps rather our means for inferring the
Absolute than the Absolute itself ; it does not attain to the dignity of a
hypostasized abstraction, although it strongly suggests one, and remains
an epistemological ambiguity. Still it is often difficult to remember
that all Green's statements ought to be taken in an epistemological
Aonosticism
'^>
would be absurd to assert that the products of logical
analysis, the ''a priori ioxvci?, of intuition and thought," such
as Space and Time, Cause, Substance, Interaction, etc.,
were actual existences, and not abstractions " implied in
reality." And so Kantian epistemology remains in the air, a
great mist, as it were, suspended between science and
metaphysics, and makes ineffectual attempts to come into
contact with both. But this is intrinsically impossible,
and all it does is to obscure the issues between science
and metaphysics, and by the fog it raises, to prevent the
combatants from meeting, and either fighting out, or, as is
more probable, composing their differences. Its contribu-
tions to the question of the relation of science and
metaphysics are always irrelev^ant and often misleading..
For whether it be its misfortune or its fault, epistemology
is in the habit of using terms in a peculiar sense of its own.")
When we are told, e.g., that " the conception of cause is a
priori and cannot be derived from experience, because it is
the presupposition of all experience," or informed that " an
eternal self is the presupposition of all knowledge," we are,
according to the bent of our sympathies, either consoled or
confounded. But the exultation of the one party and the
depression of the other are alike premature. Upon further
inquiry it appears that the priority of the epistemologists is
not in time at all and does not refer to historical events.
They are not making scientific statements about the actual
origin or metaphysical statements about the ultimate nature
of knowledge, but only speaking about the relation of certain
factors in existing knowledge. They do not mean that the
sense, especially when he ' theologizes,' and declares that individuals are
only parts of the " eternal self-consciousness," a statement that ought
not to mean anything more than that they exemplify the use of the
cate^^ory of self-consciousness, but that became for him replete with
intense spiritual emotion.
SS Riddles of the Sphinx
conception of cause is a priori in the sense that many ages
ago it existed without experience, and that, when experience
came, it was subsumed under this pre-existing category, nor
are they speaking of any experience any one ever had.
Cause, is a priori, because, if we could ehminate this factor
out of actual experience, we should be left with a fictitious
abstraction of ' mere experience ' and the whole conception
would collapse.
But it would.be equally erroneous to suppose that the
a priori forms of thought could exist without the matter
given by experience. <^ Perception without conception, as
Kant himself says, is blind ; conception without perception
is empty : the reality of knowledge lies in their combinay
tion alone. Similarly the assertion that the eternal self
\ is presupposed in all knowledge, conceals merely the
1 commonplace fact that all knowledge must be sonieones
knowledge, must be referred to some ' I.' The self is eternal
or timeless, because it is a logical abstraction (cf p. 140) and
because such abstractions do not exist either in Space or in
Time. It is eternal in precisely the same way and for
precisely the same reasons as the isosceles triangle./ There
is in fact no reason why epistemology should designate one
of the mutually-implied elements in knowledge as a priori,
and the other as a posteriori rather than vice versa^ and the
use of such a word as 'prior' merely has the misleading effect
of producing an irresistible reference to Time. It would be a
great boon if epistemologists gave up the use of both words,
even though their whole science would probably disappear
with it. Nor would this be a result one could affect to
deplore ; a science which is so sterile of truth in itself, and
yet so fruitful in engendering error in others, had better be
destroyed. It can utter only trivial truisms within the limits
of its 'immanent ciiticism. '; beyond them it gets ultra vires,
and can only suggest dangerous confusions. It can prove
Agnosticism 39
nothing, still less prove fatal to metaphysics. It is a Criticism
which can validly criticize nothing but itself, and to itself its
criticism is deadly.^
§ 18. It remains, as before, not only to exhibit the
unsoundness of the basis of epistemological Agnosticism, but
also to point out the flaws in Kant's rediictio ad absurdum
of metaphysics.
For it is in the negative polemic against metaphysic that
the chief strength of Agnosticism lies, and it is by the
skilfulness of its attack that it can most easily cover the
weakness of its own positive position. Kant's description
of the antinomies of metaphysics, of the contradictory
necessities and perplexing inadequacies which distract the
human mind in dealing with certain ultimate questions, is
deservedly famous. Their fame must be our apology for
stating them so briefly and for merely indicating here the side
in the conflict which we intend subsequently to espouse.
The difficulties of metaphysics, according to Kant, fall
under the three pseudo-sciences of Ontology, Cosmology, and
Rational Psychology, and are concerned with the conceptions
or " Ideas of the Pure Reason," i.e., of God, the world, and the
Self.
^ ^ [This criticism no longer seems to me adequately to bring out either
the central weakness of Kant's epistemology, or the permanent value of
his philosophic attitude. His central weakness lies in the ambiguity
of his conception of the a priot'i., resulting from an indecision in his aim.
He seems never to have been able to make up his mind whether he
was writing psychology or logic, nor as to how his epistemology was
related to these sciences. I have tried to trace out the fatal
consequences of this ambiguity in my Axioms as Postulates §§ 10-25, 1^
Nevertheless Kant seems to m,e to have been right in the fundamental
contention that the theory of being must depend on that of knowing.
For of every existence that can be asserted, we must somehow have
become cognizant. Hence it does not exist for us except as we know it.
By criticizing therefore the various claims to reality which present them-
selves in our experience, we ipso facto build up our whole view of
existence, nor does anything remain over at the end of this process to
form an independent science of metaphysics.] \
40 Riddles of the Sphinx
§ 19. With respect to the first, Kant asserts that no
theoretical proof of the existence of God can be given,
though three may be attempted. These he calls the
ontological, the cosmological and the physico-theological.
The ontological proof infers the existence of God from the
necessity of the conception of a being possessing all reality.
We have this conception ; and sin(!:e real existence is
included in the conception of "all reality," the being we
conceive must be conceived also to have real existence.
The cosmological proof is a form of the argument from
causation, and runs as follows : If anything exists, an
absolutely necessary being exists. Now I exist : therefore
an absolutely necessary (unconditioned) being {i.e., God as
the First Cause) exists.
The physico-theological proof is the argument from design,
and argues from the wisdom and intelligence in. the creation
to the existence of a wise and intelligent Creator.
Now, says Kant, both the cosmological and the physico-
theological proofs depend ultimately on the ontological,
and the ontological simply begs the question. It professes
to establish the existence of God, i.e., to show that a reality
corresponds to our conception. But in order to do so, it
assumes the conception of a totality of all reality, in which
it has covertly included actual existence. Mere thought,
therefore, cannot prove that a reality corresponds to its
ideas ; it would be as reasonable to suppose that we might
increase our property by thinking of vast sums. Reality
can be derived only from experience of reality, not from any
manipulation of abstract ideas.
To this argument, which has never been met, nothing need
be added ; it is a conclusive refutation of a conception of
God which has almost monopolized the attention of
philosophers.
With regard to the cosmological, it must be pointed out
Agnosticism 4 1
that, until it has been connected with the ontological proof,
it does not specify what the " absolutely necessary being " is,
nor exclude the possibility of its being the world as a whole,
or a Spencerian ' Unknowable ' instead of a God. So it
is connected with the ontological proof, on the ground that
the conception of a being possessing all reality is the only
one which can completely determine that of a necessary
being/ Thus the cosmological proof stands and falls with
the ontological.
The physico-theological proof in its turn depends on the
cosmological, and must argue from the contingent existence
of the world to an absolute First Cause, if it is to be
adequate. For in itself it is concerned wholly with the finite
and cannot properly infer anything but an adequate finite
cause of phenomena. The argument from design cannot
validly pass from the conception of a great Architect of the
world, designing and disposing his materials like a human
craftsman, to an absolute and infinite Creator.
Thus the only argument in favour of the existence of God
which has any cogency, the only one which could give us
any insight into His nature, is inadequate. It cannot prove
an infinite God. '^
This admission of Kant's w^e shall do well to store up for
^ All other conceptions would be inadequate predicates, which could
not determine their subject singly, and hence could not establish its
existence. For all real existences are subjects containing an infinity of
predicates, and the only predicate which contains an infinity of attributes
and can thus put its subject on a par with a real existence and thereby
confer reality upon it, is the conception of an e7is realissimum.
'^ Kant allows us to postulate a God on moral grounds, but not to call
this a theoretic proof. Hence he does not trouble to note that his moral
postulate demands, on his own showing, a definite conception of God.
It cannot argue to an infinite being, but only to one powerful enough
to reward virtue with happiness, which is the moral function of his
God. I.e., it involves a theoretic limitation, and this is the same as that
of the physico-theological proof.
42 Riddles of the Sphinx
subsequent use, when it will be necessary to inquire whether
infinity is a possible, or desirable, attribute of the Deity.
For should it appear {v. ch. x.) that an infinite God would
be an embarrassment rather than an advantage, the inability
of the argument from design to justify a false conception of
the Deity will have been a fortunate deficiency.
§ 20. The four antinomies involved in the attempt to
think the ultimate nature of the world are concerned with
its infinity, the infinite divisibility of substances, the conflict
of causation and free will, and its first cause. On each of
these subjects contradictory propositions may be maintained,
either that the world is infinite in Space and Time, or that
it is not, etc.
The last of these antinomies has been already discussed
in connexion with Spencer's views (§ 10), and it is here
only necessary to remark, in completion of what was
previously asserted, that what Kant proves conclusively is
only that the First Cause cannot be one in the series of caused
phenomena. Hence, if in seeking a cause of our world, we
are inquiring into the cause of existence in general, we are
doomed to disappointment. If all things are caused, then a
First Cause is impossible. If God, therefore is the cause of
all things, the All is God, and God (in the traditional sense)
is nothing.
The antinomy of causation and freedom can be profitably
discussed only when we have realized the origin and nature
of our conception of causation {v. ch. iii, §11, and App. I.).
The second antinomy is concerned with the relations of
part to whole : the thesis maintains that unless absolutely
simple substances exist, composite substances are impossible,
and hence nothing exists ; the antithesis infers the infinite
divisibility of substances from the infinite divisibility of the
Space in which they exist, and asserts that simple substances
could never be objects of perception or of any experience.
Agnosticism 43
Kant's proof in the antithesis is based on several assump-
tions. In the first place he assumes that the infinite
divisibility of our conception of Space must be applied to
the spatially-extended objects, that the ideal Space which we
conceive, and the real Space which we perceive, are one and
the same ; in short, that our conception of Space is not
an abstraction from an attribute of the Real, of a universal
mode of the interaction of the Existent, but simply an ideal
a priori form of intuition, under which things must appear
to us. Even though, therefore, metaphysically speaking,
ultimate entities may be * monads,' yet, phenomenally, their
appearances must be subject to the laws of spatial intuition
and composite. Secondly, Kant argues that the Self or
Soul is not an instance of a simple substance, because its
apparent simplicity is merely due to the fact that in declar-
ing its own substantiality, it is contemplating itself; that if
it could be externally perceived, it would probably display
its compositeness.
Now every one of these assertions may be traversed. We
need not suppose, and indeed scientific atomism has always
refused to suppose, that the mathematical infinite divisibility
of Space holds good of real objects ; nor that ideal Space,
which is conceived, but never seen, is like real Space ; nor
again that Space is an a priori form which exists in-
dependently of the interactions of the bodies that occupy it.
Further, it may be remarked that Kant here illustrates both
of the two great fallacies of his doctrine : (i) he forgets the
impotence of epistemology and allows himself to treat his
a priori Space as a condition and not as a mode of existence,
and so regards it as something which can prescribe to reality
its mode of behaviour. (2) He makes the impossible dis-
tinction between phenomena and noiimena. Lastly, we may
point out that Kant's argument against the existence of soul-
substances is bound up with his doctrine of the Self, presently
44 Riddles of the Sphinx
to be considered, and need only wonder in passing how Kant
could arrive at his extraordinary confidence that if he could
only get outside himself and see his Self, it would appear
to be a composite patchwork of various substances ! Does
he imagine that if he could see his soul it would he his
soul? And even if he could see it, and see that it was
composite, it would yet, on his own principles, be a fallacy
to infer the multiplicity of the (noiimenal) subject from that
of its (phenomenal) appearance. It may well be that our
old idea of the unity of the soul requires much modifica-
tion, but it can hardly be denied that our awareness of the
continuous oneness of our Self is \h^ prima facie basis of our
assertion of the unity of substance.
Lastly, his first antinomy deals with the limits of the world
in Space and Time. The thesis maintains that the world
must have limits in Space and in Time ; it must have had a
beginning in Time and must come to an end in Space, because
of the conflict between the conceptions of infinity and of a
whole. An infinite whole is an impossibility, because its
infinity consists just in the fact that it cannot be completed
and grasped as a whole. Time, therefore, without beginnings
is a contradiction in terms, for past Time is infinite, and yet
limited by the present. An infinite world in Space, on the
other hand, is no world at all, i.e., it can never be completed
and treated as a whole.
The antithesis argues that limits to the world in Space and
Time are unthinkable. For did they exist, they would imply
in the world a relation to empty Space and empty Time, />.>
relations to nonentities, and hence contradictions. We can
never conceive limits to Space, but our thought must ever
stray beyond any imagined limit, and inquire into its
beyond. So with Time ; even if we imagined an absolute
beginning of the world, the empty Time which preceded
the existence of the world, could neither itself have
Agnosticism 45
caused the world nor have contained anything that could
cause it.
Now, as we intend to return to the subject of the infinity
of Space and Time (ch. ix. § 2 ff.), it will here suffice to
remark that Kant understates the force of the argument in
favour of the limitation of the world in Space and Tim.e, by
stating it in metaphysical terms fnerely. The infinity of the
world is indeed in metaphysical conflict with our conception
of a whole, and, we may add, of a process and of causation,
but it is also incompatible with all scientific doctrines which
involve these conceptions. And, as we shall see, these form
no inconsiderable portion of all the sciences, but one so great
that their abandonment would ruin many important sciences
like physics, mechanics, chemistry, and biology, and bring
universal scepticism in its train. The difficulties of
the thesis, therefore, are not merely difficulties of meta-
physics, as the agnostic would make out, but also real
difficulties of all science. Those of the antithesis, on the
other hand, are purely metaphysical. They do not conflict
with the facts, but with our ideas. The infinity of Space
and Time is not, and never can be, a fact. An infinite
reality can never be perceived, infinity must always be merely
a matter of idea, merely a necessity of thought. It is not the
actual perception of Space and Time that leads us to the
conviction that they are infinite, but the conceptions we form
about them. If therefore the identity and parallelism of our
ideal conceptions of Space and Time which involve infinity,
with our real perceptions of objects in Space and Time, which
cannot involve infinity, be denied, the whole antithesis
vanishes. For infinity in thought is quite compatible with
actual finitude.
With regard to the origin of the world in Time, Kant's
difficulty, like Spencer's about the First Cause (§ io\ applies
only to an absolute beginning of all things. If nothing
46 Riddles of the Sphinx
originally existed, nothing can have come into being. Or at
least, if it did, its origin is not comprehensible. But if some-
thing existed eternally, that something may at some point
have caused the existence of our world. There is in fact a
third alternative to the infinite existence of the world and
its beginning in empty Time. For though the world cannot
have come into existence in Time, it may perfectly well have
done so witJi Time. Time and our phenomenal world may
be correlated conditions of our present dispensation. This
is a possibility which Kant should have noticed and con-
sidered, all the more that it is as old as Plato, who in the
Timceus (38 B) calls Time the moving image of Eternity,
and that it has been adopted by the majority of thinkers
who have considered the question of creation seriously, e.g.,
by St. Augustine, who says, Non est f actus mundus in tempore,
sed cum tempore}
§ 21. Lastly, we must consider Kant's attack upon the
old rational psychology, which professed to derive from the
substantiality of the Self or Soul its immateriality, in-
corruptibility, personality, immortality, etc. And with
regard to the a priori proofs of rational psychology, Kant
may be admitted to have made out his case.^ The simplicity
of the soul cannot be made a proof of its immortality : such
juggling with ideas cannot afford any real certainty of a
future life.
But Kant's own doctrine is of a more dubious character.
The question is, whether our consciousness of our own
existence can be made the basis of theoretical inferences.''
^ " The world was not made in Time, but together with Time."
^Thus he shows that the immortality cannot be inferred from the
simplicity of the soul : for though the simple cannot be dissolved mio its
component parts, it may yet be annihilated by evanescence.
' On theoretical grounds his verdict about the existence of the soul is
7ion liquet. But this, of course, does not hinder him, here as elsewhere,
Agnosticisvt 4-7
Kant puts it as = the Cogito ergo sum of Descartes, and denies
that it is the basis of any knowledge. For, he says, self-
consciousness is a mere form indifferent to its matter, the
actual contents which fill it (cf. § 14), and utterly empty in
itself. The self is a mere " synthetic unity of apperception,"
which unites and binds together " the manifold of perception "
into a whole, and thus makes experience and knowledge
possible. But it does no more ; it is a paralogism to regard
our own existence as the one certain fact and the basis of all
knowledge.
This argument depends on the (intellectualistic) sub-
stitution of the Cogito ergo sum, i.e. the explicit assertion of
existence, for the immediate assurance which we feel. It
assumes that thought can be put = consciousness, and that
that which cannot be stated in terms of thought, e.g. feeling,
is nothing.
^But as a matter of fact, the Cogito ergo sum cannot be
regarded as the ratio essendi, but only as the I'atio cognoscendi
of our existence. It is not that we are because we think, but
we are able to think because we are. Moreover we not only
think, but will and feel. And Will and Feeling are more
central to our being, and Thought does not fully express
them.\ It is true that if we desire formally to assert our
existence, we must assert it in terms of thought, i.e. as Cogito
ergo sum, but then we assert it only against a doubt, and a
doubt so sterile does not require to be refuted. So long,
therefore, as we content ourselves with our inner conscious-
ness, i.e., the feeling of our existence, we have committed
nothing which thought can lay hold of. And when it does
lay hold of our expressed conviction of our existence, and
from the reversing the agnosticism of the Theoretic Reason by means
of the Practical Reason. So he asserts that the moral consciousness
docs establish the reality of the Self ' I am, because I ought,' as it
were. Only, he says, this does not suffice for any theoretic inference.
(V^
48 Riddles of the Sphinx
attempts to show it is invalid, it only does so to cover itself
with confusion.
Kant's attack on the reality of the Self may be refuted out
of his own mouth.
He admits^ (i) that our thought can think the Self only in
the position of a subject i.e., that the ' I ' can never be the
predicate of any statement ; (2) that our thought is discursive,
i.e., all its statements are predicates. Hence (3) the Self,
cannot be a (mere) conception. Thereupon he argues that,
because the conception of the Self is empty, the Self is no
reality. This argument not merely involves the direct
contradiction of denying and asserting, almost in the same
breath, that the Self is a conception, but actually argues
from the defect of a defective conception to a defect in the
reality it designates. First he shows conclusively that if the
Self is real, our thought can never do justice to it, then he
argues that, because our thought cannot do justice to it, the
Self is not real. If it could be validly asserted that the Self
was a conception at all, it must surely be admitted that, so
far from being empty, it is the fullest of all conceptions, with
a content co-extensive with the whole world. For every
thought that was ever thought, every feeling that was ever
felt, every act that was ever willed, was contained in the
consciousness of some self, was thought, felt, or willed within
the soul of somebody. The proper inference then surely was,
that the emptiness of our conception, of our thought-symbol
of the Self, proved nothing against its reality, but much
against thought, the abstractions of which had here proved
utterly inadequate to grasp the reality.
Thus the breakdown of Kant's argument leads us on to
the important distinction of Thought and Reality, which in
the next chapter will be emphasized by scepticism to the
^Prolegomena p. 116 (Reclam,) Mahaffy's trans. § 46 p. 124.
A gnosticism 40
utmost ; it illustrates unexpectedly our contention that
Agnosticism paves the way for Scepticism.
§ 22. (Our elaborate examination of Agnosticism has been
rendered necessary, not only by the repute of the authors
criticized, but still more by the fact that the agnostic
attitude towards ultimate philosophic problems is so pre-
valent among philosophers and cultivated men generally.
But the length of the argument will have been more than
justified, if it can induce us to realize the arrogance of the ( ^
pretensions to omniscience lurking beneath the mock modesty
of the agnostic's assertion of the unknowable, and if it en-
ables us to see how inconclusive are the negations by which
he seeks to veil the weakness of his own position. ^
And yet the doubt may recur — How can we know things
as they really are ? — and will not be set at rest until we have
exposed its origin as well as its futility. We might indeed
answer it by shifting the onus probandi, and asking, — Why
should not things appear as they are } Why should not
appearances be true, or a sure basis whence to infer the truth "^
Why should not ** things as they are" be either nothing at
all, or at least irrelevant machinery intended to produce in
us the spectacle of the world ? /Is not the suggestion that
appearances are divided by an impassable gulf from the
reality of things a mere prejudice, which may be left to
flounder in its own impotence ? ^ ^ ocd
But, it is urged, is it not a fact that appearances are
deceptive } It is this that makes Agnosticism plausible.
But for this, but for the fact that appearances are but the
(
[^This at bottom is also Mr. F. H. Bradley's error in Appearance and
eality. It is only if, and in so far as, we have grasped reality in a
part of our experience, that we can declare another part to be ' appear-
ance.' Hence the notion of an inaccessible reality which serves only
to discredit ' appearances ' is invalid. Cp. the essay on Preserving
Appearances in Humanism^ ch. xi.] \
/ 4.
r
50 Riddles of the Sphinx
raw material of knowledge, there would be nothing to
suggest anything beyond what is given.
Only the fact will not bear the inference the agnostic
seeks to put upon it. It does not justify the assumption
of a world of things * as they really are ' opposed to a world
of appearances. All it involves is that the real and ultimate
nature of things must be inferred, that things do not yet
appear as they are. \The known suggests an unknown, but
not an unknowable. And what is this but the phenomenon
of the grow^th of knowledge, what but the fact that in a
world not yet fully known, the imperfection of our knowledge
must suggest its own defect, and cause things to appear at
first other than what they subsequently turn out to be }J
The feeling, therefore, from which Agnosticism draws
its force, is an illusion incident to the growth of knowledge.
In a perfectly known world things would appear as they
were, and would be what they appeared ; there would be no
occasion to correct the judgments of sense or to go beyond
the given.
Thus the same growth of knowledge which made it im-
possible to admit that agnosticism could be true, explains
also how it comes to seem true.
§ 23. The course of the argument has so far been
directed to establish that Agnosticism is an illusion and
cannot be true. It must now establish that if it is true, it
must cease to be itself, and pass into something profounder
and more consistent. Its only hope lies in its turning into
Scepticism, and internal and external necessities combine
to turn it into this.
Scepticism is the only refuge for Agnosticism from the
external pressure of reason ; thus alone can it suspend and
and reverse the condemnation pronounced on its absurdities.
The sceptic may admit that Agnosticism has failed, that its
arguments are fallacious and absurd. But, he asks, what
Agnosticism cj
does this prove ? What but the absurdity of all arguments ?
Arguments may be made to prove anything, but in the end
they prove nothing. Not only is there an Unknowable
beyond knowledge, but all around it and before its eyes.
^The mistake of Agnosticism was not in thinking that some
things were unknowable, but in implying that there is
anything not unknowable, not in clinging to demonstrable
absurdities, but in supposing that anything but absurdities
were demonstrable. Agnosticism erred in attempting to
draw a distinction between metaphysics and the rest of
knowledge, and so was surprised by their solidarity and
overwhelmed by their union. This was a mistake in (V\
principle ; for metaphysic is not only every whit as good as
any other knowledge, but indeed superior. For metaphysic
is the science of the ultimate chaos in which all knowledge
ends ; so far from being false, it is pre-eminently true, for
it alone of all the sciences is aware of its condition. All
knowledge terminates in nonsense, but metaphysic alone
confesses this fact.^
§ 24. Thus Scepticism rises superior to the question in
dispute, not only by rescuing Agnosticism from metaphysical
objections, but also by its kindly rehabilitation of meta-
physics. But it is not merely the outcome of the dispute
between Agnosticism and metaphysics, but also of the
logical self-development of Agnosticism.
Agnosticism had asserted that there exists in the world
something unknowable and that certain questions cannot
be solved. But admitting this, how can we limit the havoc
this admission works in the whole structure of knowledge .''
If any one thing is unknowable, may there not be many
■others like it t If some questions are insoluble, how do
we know that insoluble questions are confined to a single
department of thought } Nay, if the Unknowable is at the
basis of all knowledge, if all things are ' manifestations of
52 Riddles of the Sphinx
the Unknowable,' how can it manifest anything but its
unknowableness ? If all our explanations terminate in the
inconceivable, are they not all illusions ? If an unknowable
force underlies all things; if the ultim.ate constitution of
things cannot be grasped by our minds, what can our
knowledge do but laboriously lead us to the conclusion that
all our science is a fraud, hopelessly vitiated by the un-
knowable character of its basis ? Does not this fundamental
flaw falsify all the futile efforts of beings constitutionally
incapable of understanding the real nature of things ?
Agnosticism, at all events, has no strength to resist such
suggestions, and falls into the deeper but seemingly securer
abyss of Scepticism.
CHAPTER III.
SCEPTICISM.
§ I. Scepticism is, as was shown in- the last chapter, the
development of Agnosticism, which passes into it as
necessarily as Positivism passed into Agnosticism. It is
related to Agnosticism as the whole to the part ; it both
refutes and completes it ; for it is Agnosticism perfected and
purified from prejudice. By Scepticism we mean the denial
of the possibility of knowledge, based on rational grounds.
For the psychological scepticism., so frequent now-a-days,
which is distracted by doubt, not because nothing is worthy
of belief, but because the mind has lost the faculty of belief,
is indeed one of the most serious and distressing symptoms
of our times, but belongs rather to the pathology of the
human mind. ^True Scepticism does not arise from a morbid
flabbiness of the intellectual fibre, but is vigorously
aggressive and dogmatic. For though it sometimes affects
to doubt rather than to deny the possibility of knowledge,
the real intention of the doubt is yet to deny and to destroy
the practical certainty of knowledge. If Scepticism did not
succeed in producing any practical effect, if its doubt of the
possibility of knowledge were theoretically admitted but
practically ignored, it would feel that it had failed.)
§ 2. In pursuance of its object of proving the impossibility
of knowledge, Scepticism may adopt a variety of procedures.
The commonest form, perhaps, is the ancient scepticism
based on the ' relativity of knowledge,' z'.e., on the distinction
54 Riddles of the Sphinx
of phenomena and the real nature of things, which denies
that we can know aught, because we cannot know things ' as
they really are.' This scepticism is merely a reappearance
of Agnosticism, extended and enlarged, if not improved,
and directed not merely against metaphysics, but against
the whole of knowledge. As such it has been already
refuted in the last chapter ( § 22). Here it need merely be
characterized as a gratuitous prejudice, since it has no positive
ground for assuming these unknowable things-in-themselves.
If no argum.ent can directly refute it, neither can any argument
establish it. But the onus probandi surely lies on those who
attack, and not on those who assert the existence of
knowledge. Indeed, as has been shown, if such a world of
things-in-themselves existed, we could never know of its
existence (chap. ii. § 6). It is a gross abuse, therefore to
invent a transcendent world of unknowable things-in-them-
selves, merely in order to cast a slur on knowledge, to
convict it of incapacity, merely because it cannot transcend
itself
§ 3. Scepticism is on firmer ground when it becomes
immanent instead of transcendent, and asserts not that there
may be something behind appearances, but that appearances
are inherently conflicting, and despairs of knowledge, because
this conflict within consciousness and between its data can
never be resolved. If the constituent elements of conscious-
ness are essentially disparate and incongruous, Scepticism
has merely to compare the characteristics of the given factors,
and to pronounce their disagreement to be irreconcilable, in
order to prove that knowledge, i.e., systematic harmony of
the given, is impossible ; it need not perform the impossible
feat of getting help from the unknowable outside conscious-
ness. Its aim must therefore be throughout to elicit the con-
flict and incompatibility of the constituents of knowledge.
It will begin by showing that appearances are deceptive,
Scepticism 55
and in so doing it will be proving a truism. For the whole
.of science is concerned with enabling us to see through the
deceptive appearances of things, and to perceive their real
nature. But Scepticism will contend that science fails ; that
this deceptiveness is ultimate and never can be seen through ;
that in fancying that our science can correct it, we are once
more deceived. For all science is an interpretation of
phenomena by means of thought, in which we substitute
thought-symbols for the real things of which we are treating,,
and suppose that the manipulations of our symbols will
hold good of the realities we perceived, and will thus
enable us to manage and calculate their course.
But it turns out (i) that not one of the categories of our
knowledge, not one of the fundamental conceptions which
underlie all science, is adequate to describe the nature of the
Real, and that science is everywhere based upon fictitious
assumptions known to be false : (2) the reason of this is dis-
covered to lie in the radically different natures of thought and
feeling, which give us two utterly discordant aspects of
existence, and render it impossible that the real thing as
perceived should ever be symbolized by thought ; and (3) as
it appears that every utterance involves a reference ta
reality, it is both false and impossible ; false, because the
thought-symbols expressed by speech cannot be true of
reality, and because the course of inference does not correspond
to the course of nature, and impossible because we cannot
see how the transition from fact to symbol should ever have
been made. Thus Scepticism succeeds not only in ex-
hibiting the justice of its denial of knowledge, but literally
reduces its opponents to silence.
It is the course of this process which we must now follow.
§ 4. It has been said with some point, that the best cure
for the admiration of old institutions lies in the study of their
history ; and certainly our traditional faith in reason must be
56 Riddles of the Sphinx
very strong or very blind, if it can resist the doubts of the
competency of our categories suggested by the least study of
their origin and history.
We are all, thanks to the perhaps not wholly disinterested
efforts of modern science, familiar with the discredit which
their anthropomorphic character has brought on the central
conceptions of religion, and have seen the grossness of savage
superstitions traced throughout their survivals in modern
theology.
But though the Sceptic will be at one with the scientist in
reprobating the anthropomorphism of the savage, he will
hardly have the politeness to confine the inferences from his
historical studies to the single sphere of religion, or to show
any greater respect for the sacrosanctity of science. For he
finds that all our knowledge is vitiated by this fundamental
flaw of its anthropomorphic origin, that the conceptions of
our science are all direct descendants of the grossest
anthropomorphisms of primitive savages, who naively and^
uncritically ascribed whatsoever they felt, and whatsoever
seemed natural to them to the world outside them. And
grotesque as was the savage's method of explanation, grossly
erroneous as was the ascription to nature of these primitive
fancies, it was at all events better than their subsequent
treatment at the hands of science. They were not rejected
outright, but reduced into unmeaning skeletons of explanations
by the cutting away of such portions as seemed too obviously
false to be any longer retained ; they were not buried in
merciful oblivion, but permitted to linger on in a maimed
and impotent condition, starved, and stripped of the sensuous
analogies that suggested their self-evidence. But by this
brutal process of mutilation, all the advantages of the
primitive view have been lost, without countervailing gain,
and without extirpating the original taint of our knowledge :
it is as though we should attempt to change an Ethiopian's
Scepticism 57
skin by flaying him, and then discover that even his bones
were not as the bones of a white man. Our categories have
too often become mere symbols, words to which no definite
fact can be found to correspond.
Thus the animistic conception of a cause as a personal
will (chap. i. § 5, 6), was intelligible though false ; but what
possible meaning can be attached to the conception of
Cause as Identity }
So long, again, as a frankly material view was taken of
Substance, and nothing was accounted substance that could
not be touched, seen, tasted, and smelt, we were at least
secured against the hypostasizing of 'second substances,'
safe from the confusions of ideas with real existences with
which the history of philosophy teems, exempt from the
metaphysical fictions of modern science, from intangible
solids like the ether, from * vortex rings ' in * frictionless
fluids.' So too the geometrical ignorance of the savage left
him blissfully untroubled by the possibilities of pseudo-
spherical, or four-dimensional Space ; his simple theory of
causation had not yet evolved an insoluble contradiction
between free will and necessity. Happy too were the ages
of scientific faith in anthropomorphic metaphor, when a
mystic marriage of male and female elements could be
witnessed in every chemical combination, and when terms
like arsenic^ and chemical affinity f as yet conveyed a
meaning that explained their nature.
But we are burdened by the heritage of ancient thought
and ancient fancy, while we have to our loss exchanged
their vividness for modern excrescences, quite as false and
far more obscure. And our categories are not able to fit
the facts, even when they have been whittled away into
nonsense ; not even then do they succeed in being true
^ Arsenic = the male element.
^ Affinity = relationship by marriage.
58 Riddles of the Sphinx
§ 5. For not one of the principal conceptions of our
science is true, not one is able to grasp the * Becoming ' of
thingS'as it really is. All are what we call 'approximations,'
which leave an unexplained surd in everything they are
supposed to explain ; and not only are they false, but we
know that they are false, however we may choose to ignore
it. We believe in our first principles, though we know that
they involve fictions ; we believe in them because these
fictions are so transparent as no longer to excite surprise.
Is it then too much to say that the Credo qiiia absurdiun is
the basis of science as well as of theology, and that
knowledge as well as faith is reared upon the milk of
mythology ?
§ 6. If e.g. we consider the conception of Time, we find
that Time is for scientific purposes taken as discrete, and
divided into years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, and
indeed its accuracy in measuring Time is one of the chief
boasts of modern science. And yet is not this very
measurement of Time based on all sorts of fictitious
assumptions } When we ask how Time is measured, we
perceive that our measurements in the last resort are
all based on the supposed regularity of certain motions.
The measurement of these motions again depends on the
supposed accuracy of our time-pieces. And further, so far
as our observation can check their vagaries, we have every
reason to believe that not one of these motions is really
regular. So our measurements of time move in a vicious
circle : Time depends on motion and motion on Time.
Some interesting corollaries would follow from this, such
as that if the motions on which our measurement of Time
depends were uniformly accelerated the flow of Time also
would be accelerated in like proportion, and the events of
a lifetime might be crowded into what would previously
have been regarded as a few minutes. And if this ac-
Scepticism 59
celeration were conceived to go on indefinitely, any finite
series of events could be compressed into an infinitely short
time. Or conversely, supposing- that the flow of Time
could somehow be indefinitely accelerated without corre-
sponding acceleration in the flow of events, a finite series
of events would last for an infinite Time. In either case
the infinite divisibility of Time would be equivalent to
infinite duration, and the untamed subjectivity of Time
would peep through our apparently objective measurements.
And is not a further fiction involved in the measurement
of Time at all } For our measurement is, and must be,
in terms of the discrete, whereas that which we attempt to
measure is continuous, one, and indivisible by our arbitrary
partitions.
Again, Time is infinite, and yet science treats it as though
it were finite : we fancy that the past explains the present ;
Time has no beginning, and yet we search the past for the
origins of things : the world of which science is the know-
ledge cannot have existed from all time, and yet a beginning
of the world in Time is impossible.
Our real consciousness of Time conflicts at every point
with the treatment of Time required in science, and this
conflict culminates as a contradiction in terms in the
insoluble antinomy of the completed infinity of past Time.
For the original and only valid meaning of infinity is that
which can never be completed by the addition of units, and
yet we undoubtedly regard the past infinity as completed
by the present.^
§ 7. Nor do we fare any better when we compare our
conception of Space with the reality : its infinite extent and
divisibility cannot be forced into the scheme of science. An
infinite and infinitely divisible world is not an object of
knowledge ; so science postulates the atom at the one, and
^ Cf. Axioffis as Postulates § 43.
6o Riddles of the Sphinx
the ' confines of the universe ' at the other extreme, as
the Hmits of Space, in order to obtain definite quantities
which can be calculated. And yet we can conceive neither
how the atom should be incapable of further division/ nor
how the extent of the world can be limited. For it is
equally difficult to treat of ' Space ' apart from that w^hich
fills it, i.e. Matter, and to neglect this distinction. If
Space = the spatially-extended, then the infinite extent and
divisibility of Space must apply to Matter, i.e. atoms and
limits of the material universe are impossible. If, on the
other hand, Space is distinguished from that which fills it,
we not only seem to be making a false abstraction, inasmuch
as Space is never presented to us except as filled by Matter,
but to commit ourselves to the existence of the Void or
empty space, existing certainly between the interstices of
the atoms, and probably beyond the Hmits of the universe.
But empty Space, possessing no qualities by which it could
possibly be cognizable, is a thing in no way distinguishable
from nothing, i.e. a nonentity. And further, if Space be
not identified with the spatially extended, how do we know
that the properties of Space hold good of the spatially-
extended, i.e. that bodies obey the lav/s prescribed for them
by mathematics t
Even when Space has been distinguished from that which
fills it, it seems necessary to distinguish afresh between
real Space which we perceive and ideal or conceptual Space,
about which we reason in mathematics. For they differ on
the important point of infinity : real Space is not infinite, for
nothing infinite can be perceived. Infinity, on the other
hand, is the most prominent attribute of ideal Space. And
so their other properties also might be different, e.g. all the
straightest lines that could be drawn in real Space might
really be closed curves, owing to an inherent curvature of
^ Or now, similarly, the 'electron.'
Scepticism 5 j
Space, etc. If, then, ideal Space and real Space are
different, a serious difficulty arises for mathematics, for
they deal with ideally straight lines, perfect circles, etc.,
such as do not exist in real Space, and which, for all
we know, may be incapable of so existing", because real
Space is ' pseudo-spherical ' or * four-dimensional.' If
therefore, mathematical demonstrations are supposed to
apply to figures in real Space, they are not true, and if not,
to what do they apply } It seems easy to reply, to the ideal
space in our minds ; but what if there be no relation between
real and ideal Space ? And if mathematical truths exist only
in our heads, what and where are they before they are dis-
covered ? Surely the truth that the angles of a triangle are
equal to two right angles did not come into being when it
was first discovered '^.
Such considerations may justify the Sceptic in his doubt
whether the ideal certainty of mathematics is more than the
consistency of a hypothesis and is after all relevant to reality,
and in his denial of the self-evidence of the assumptions
which underlie the scientific treatment of Space.
§ 8. Motion also is feigned for scientific purposes to be
something different from what it is : it can be calculated only
on the assumption that it is disci-ete and proceeds from point
to point, and yet the ancient Zeno's famous fallacy of the
Arrow warns us that the Real moves continuously }
0,ur conception, too, of Rest is illusory; for all things
seem to be in more or less rapid motion. Yet motion is
calculated only by the assumption of fixed points, i.e. of
Rest. But these fixed points are fictitious, and so our calcula-
^ If the arrow really moved from point to point, it would be at rest at
each point, i.e. would never move at all. But of course it never is at the
points at all, but moves through them. Only unfortunately our thought
and our speech refuse to express a fact which our eyes behold, and we
must contmue to say one thing, while meaning another.
62 Riddles of the Sphinx
tions are wholly arbitrary, for in limitless Space all motion
must be relative : the bodies which from certain points of
viey^ seem to be at rest, from others seem to be in motion,
and so on alternately at rest and in motion ad iitfinitiun.
Nor is there any theoretic reason to be assigned for giving
one point of view the preference over another. If then
Motion is relative to any and every point, it is relative to
nothing, and does not admit of being objectively determined.
And even if we were content that motion should be relative,
yet energy must be real, and indeed its conservation is one of
the chief doctrines of modern physics. But energy is ever
generated out of and passing into motion, and the amount of
actual and potential energy possessed by any system of bodies
would be relative to the points which for the purpose of our
calculations were feigned to be at rest. Thus from one point
of view a system might possess three times the motive energy
it has from another, and the question arises which of these
seeming energies is the subject of the doctrine of the conserva-
tion of energy. And in whatever way we answer, that doctrine
is false. For the points relatively to which energy is conserved
do not preserve their relative positions for two moments
too"ether, and hence the case to which the doctrine refers
never arises. The doctrine of the conservation of energy is a
purely metaphysical assertion concerning a state of things
that cannot possibly arise in our experience. And the same
conviction of the entirely metempirical and hypothetical
character of the doctrine of the conservation of energy is
forced upon us when we examine the statements which our
physicists make concerning it. For they admit that it does
not hold good of any actual system ; in any system of bodies
we may choose to take, the sum of energy does not remain
the same from moment to moment. What else is it then
but to trifle with the ignorance of their hearers to talk about
demonstrating the doctrine by actual experiment t They
Scepticism 6
J
might as well prove that two parallel straight lines never met
by an assiduous use of the measuring tape. And the case
is made no better, but rather worse, when it is explained that
strictly speaking the conservation of energy holds only of an
infinite system. For an infinite system is in the very nature
of things impossible. It would be a whole which was not a
whole, a system which was not a system (Cf. ch. 9 § 8 and ch.
2 § 20). However it is put, the doctrine can be asserted only
of a fictitious case, well known to be impossible.
Of the assumptions subsidiary to that of the conserva-
tion of energy, the conception of potential energy deserves
special criticism. For it illustrates the haphazard way in
which our science accepts incompatible first principles.
Potential energy is defined as energy of position. But how
can there be position in infinite Space ? Position is determined
with reference to at least three points, and each of these with
reference to three others, and so on until we either get to
fixed points with an absolute position, or go on to infinity and
are never able to determine position at all.
Thus the reality of Motion, Rest, Energy, and Position in
every case involves metaphysical postulates which experience
does not satisfy, and we have agreed that for the present a
reduction to metaphysics shall be esteemed a reduction to
absurdity.
§ 9. The conception of Matter, which may next be
considered, though it at present seems indispensable to science,
is really a fruitful source of perplexities. For it appears that
all we know of Matter is the forces it exercises. Matter,
therefore, is said to be unknowable in itself, and this
unknowableness of matter-in-itself is quoted in support of-
the belief in the unknowable generally. Yet it is perhaps,
hardly astonishing that a baseless abstraction should be uur
knowable in itself. And matter certainly is such an abstrac-
tion. For all that appears to us is bodies, which we call-
64 Riddles of the Sphinx
material. They possess certain more or less obvious points
of resemblance, and the abstraction, ' Matter,' is promptly
invented to account for them. But this is not only a gross
instance of abstract metaphysics, but also a fiction which in
the end profits us little. Certain superficial aspects of bodies
are taken and exaggerated into primary qualities of Matter.
The hardness of bodies is explained by the hardness of the
ultimate particles of which they are composed, their divisibility
and compressibility by the empty interstices between these
ultimate atoms. So, as the final result, bodies are to be
explained by their composition out of atoms, possessing the
attributes of gravity, impenetrability, and inertia.
These attributes, however, suffer severally from the defects
of being false, insufficient, and unintelligible. No visible
material body, e.g., is impenetrable or absolutely solid : all
are more or less compressible. So the atoms of absolute
solidity have been falsely invented, in order to explain a
property of bodies, which, after all, they were unable to
explain ; viz., their relative solidity. For the supposed
solidity of the atoms is, according to modern scientific views,
utterly irrelevant to the actual solidity of bodies. The latter
is due to repellent forces acting at molecular distances, and
not due to contact with the atoms. Nor is it even true that
the complex of interacting atoms composing a body is solid
in the way the body seems to be solid, seeing that the atoms
are separated by distances vast when compared with their
own size.^ And as nothing else can come within striking
distance of them and put their internal economy to the test.
^ As the size of the interstices in the most sohd bodies is to that of the
atoms as five to one, it is clear that the soHdity we feel has not much to
do with the hardness of the atoms. [According to more recent views
the case is really much worse even than this. For 'atoms' are now
freely compared to solar systems, and have been so subdivided (or
expanded !) that they have become regular ball-rooms for 'electrons' or
'corpuscles' to gambol in.]
Scepticisin 65
it is difficult to see what it matters whether the atoms are
soUd or liquid, empty or full inside.
It follows from the atomic theory in its present shape that
the solidity which we feel is not real, that the solidity which
exists is not relevant, and that bodies are not really solid.
And the atomic theory is not only false, but feeble. It
cannot, after all, explain the behaviour of bodies, but must
call to aid the hypothesis of a luminiferous ether, inter-
penetrating all bodies, the vibrations of which are supposed
to explain the phenomena of light. The qualities of this-
ether are so extraordinary that not even the boldest scientists
venture to determine them all, such as whether it is con-
tinuous or atomic. Nor is this reluctance without eood
reason. For if the ether is continuous, it cannot vibrate ;
while if it is atomic, there must exist voids . between its
interstices, and all physical action must in the last resort be
action at a distance. The first alternative, of a vibrating
ether which cannot vibrate, is too obviously absurd to be
explicitly stated, while the second would outrage one of the
most cherished of the anthropomorphic prejudices of science.
Still, the avowed properties of the ether are sufficiently
weird. It is an adamantine solid several hundred times
more rigid than the most solid bodies, and vibrates at
the rate of from 470 to 760 billion times per second. And
this intangible solid has no gravity, and thereby lacks the
great characteristic of matter.^
For gravity has been since Newton's time regarded as the
primary attribute of matter, although its nature and operation
is, by Newton's own admission, unthinkable. For it differs
radically from all the other forces in the physical universe
^ If the ether gravitated, it would be attracted towards the larger
aggregates of matter, and hence be denser in the neighbourhood of the
stars than in interstellar space ; but if its density varied, it would not
propagate light in straight lines.
5
66 Riddles of the Sphinx
in that it does not require time for its transmission. Sound
travels at the rate of i,ioo feet per second, and light at the
rate of 186,000 miles ; but the changes in gravitative attrac-
tion seem to be instantaneous. So either Time or Space ^ do
not seem to exist for it, and it also may be said to involve
Action at a distance.
Such action our scientists persist in regarding as impossible,
although their own physics evidently require it, and although
there is no real reason why it should be more unthinkable
than anything else. The objection to it seems nothing but
the survival of the primitive prejudice that all action must be
like a band of savages in a tug-of-war. If metaphysics had
been consulted, it would have been obvious that no special
medium was required to make interaction possible between
bodies that co-exist^ seeing that their co-existence is an ample
guarantee of their connexion and of the possibility of their
interaction.
Lastly, the Inertia of matter is a prejudice inherited from a
time when the test of life was self-motion ; and its retention
now makes the origination of motion by matter impossible,
and thus forms an insuperable obstacle to any success-
ful materialistic (or rather hylozoist) explanation of the
world.
The sum total therefore of the explanation of bodies by
scientific doctrines of Matter is : —
(i) That all things are Matter.
(2) That gravitation is the characteristic quality of
Matter.
(3) That gravitation is entirely unthinkable.
^ If it can traverse any distance instantaneously ; for the fact that it
varies inversely as the square of the distance does not prove that gravity
recognizes the prior existence of space. The distances between bodies
may be only the phenomenal expression of their metaphysical attractions
and repulsions.
Scepticism 6y
(4) That ether is Matter, but does not gravitate.
(5) That Matter is solid, but that solidity is not due to
the solidity of Matter.
(6) That Matter does not explain all things because it is
inert.
It will be seen from this, that until the theory of Matter
acquires something like self-consistency it is needless for the
sceptic to inquire whether it explains the action of bodies.^
§ 10. Force is the conception which does most work in
science ; but it is only a clumsy depersonalization of our
human volition, from the sense of which it sprang, and the
sense of effort still seems indissolubly associated with it.
This fact is, of course, irresistibly suggestive of false ideas as
to the ' cause of motion,' it is subsequently defined to be.
The correlative conceptions again of Activity and Passivity,
which so long dominated human thought, are now discarded
by science. We now say that a force is one half a stress, and
substitute interaction for the distinction of active and passive;
and indeed the fact that action and reaction are equal and
opposite has become as obvious a necessity of thought as it
ever was to the Greeks that one thing must be acted upon
and the other act upon it.
And yet what business have we to speak even of interaction ?
All we see is how two bodies seem to change each other's
motions, without being able to grasp how they do so in their
action at a distance. Even so we have assumed too much ;
for what right have we to assume that one influences the
other, what justification for defining force as the cause of
^ [The extraordinary and revolutionary advances made by physics
thanks to the discovery of radioactivity have completely shattered the
old conception of ' Matter.' It now seems more scientific to hold that
gravitation is a derivative phenomenon, and that the mass of an atom
depends on the rate at which its elections are moving cf. Prof. H.
Poincare's works especially Science et Alethode, pp. 220-4.]
68 Riddles of the Sphinx
motion, for applying our conception of causation to the tilings
around us? •
§ II. Since the time of Hume the vital importance to
science of the conception of causation has been fully recog-
nized, and it would now be generally admitted that a
successful assault upon it is in itself sufficient to establish the
case of Scepticism. And fully proportionate to its importance
are the difficulties of justifying this principle. Its historical
antecedents are in themselves almost sufficient to condemn it;,
and the existing divergences as to its meaning make a con-
sistent defence almost impossible.
Originally, as has been remarked, the conception of cause
was a transference of the internal sense of volition and effort
to things outside the organism. The changes in the world
were supposed to be due to the action of immanent spirits.
In course of time these divine spirits were no longer regarded
as directly causing events, but as being the first causes which
set secondary causes in motion. It was then supposed that
cause and effect were connected by chains of necessity, which
ultimately depended from the First Cause of the All. Then
Hume remarked that necessity was subjective and falsely
anthropopathic, and that the necessary connexion between
cause and effect could never be traced. So it was suggested
that if cause and effect were merely antecedent and con-
sequent, science would suffer no hurt, and that it worked
equally well with an (ambiguously) ' invariable ' antecedent.
But the arbitrary distinction between the antecedent conditions
which were causes of the effect, and those which were not,
proved untenable ; the cry was raised that ^//the conditions
must be included. This was done, and it then appeared, as the
triumphant result of a scientific purification of the category of
causation, that the cause was identical with the effect ! And
this rediictia ad absiirdum of the whole conception was actually
hailed as the highest achievement of philosophic criticism,.
Scepticism 69
about which it was alone remarkable that the element of
temporal succession from cause to effect should somehow have
dropped out of sight ! It was simply curious that the category
which was to have explained the Becoming of nature should
finally involve no transition whatever, and thus be unable to
discern the various elements, to distinguish the different
phases, in the flow of things. The true use of the conception
was to teach us that everything was the cause or the effect of
everything else, to suggest that our failure to see this arose
from an illusion of Time, unworthy of the timelessness of our
true Self
Of course, however, it is not intended to suggest that an
extreme of epistemological fatuity like this view of causation
could ever work in practice; it is merely the legitimate outcome
of the attempt to apply the category consistently to the
explanation of things. And not only is Cause useless when
purged of its incongruities, but it is false, if taken at an earlier
stage in the process. ^ The necessary connexion of cause and
effect is not, as Hume rightly remarked, anything visible in
reruni iiatura, but a fiction of the mind. All we see in nature
is how a thing is or becomes, how one thing or phase follows
upon another. Either, therefore, the necessary connexion
is pure assumption, or all Becoming must be called necessary ;
in the latter case we simply produce useless ambiguity in a
useful term without curing the defects of causation. If, again
mere sequence is causation, night, as has often been pointed
out, would be the cause of day.
The fact is, that in applying the conception of causation to
the world we have made a gigantic assumption ; and all
these difficulties arise from the fact that our assumption
^ [Prof A. E. Taylor has since neatly formulated this difficulty in his
Elements of Metaphysics p. 182 — " any form of the principle in which it
is true is useless, and anv form in which it is useful it is untrue."]
'70 Riddles of the Sphinx
breaks down everywhere so soon as it is tested. Secondary
causes involve just as great difficulties as first causes, the
perplexities of which we have already considered (ch. ii., § lo).
It is assumed (i) that events depend on one another, and
not on' some remote agency behind the veil of illusion. But
what if the successive aspects of the world be comparable to
the continuous shuffling of a gigantic kaleidoscope, in the tube
which we were imprisoned as impotent spectators of a world
that had no meaning or intelligible connexion ? Would not
the attempt to know phenomena, to derive one set from
another by our category of causation, be inherently futile?
And (2) it is assumed that we are both entitled and able to
dismember the continuous flow of events, to dissever it into
discrete stages, to distinguish certain elements in the infinitely
complex whole of phenomena, and to connect them with
others as their causes or effects. But what if the Becoming
of things be an integral whole, which could be understood
only from the point of view of the whole ? Would not the
idea of causation be inherently invaHd, just because it isolates
certain factors? And in any case it is inherently false, if it be the
aim of truth to reproduce reality. For whether our dissection
of the continuous flux of phenomena be justifiable or not, the
separation by which we isolate certain fragments must be
false. We hear a noise and see a bird fall ; we jump to the
conclusion that it has been shot. But what right have we thus
to connect the firing of the gun and the death of the bird as
cause and effect, and to separate them from the infinite
multitude of concomitant circumstances ? Why do we neglect
all the rest as immaterial ? We cannot say, ' because all the
other circumstances remain the same,' for the world never
remains the same for two consecutive moments. How then
can we say beforehand that the remotest and occultest circum-
stances have not been essential to the result ? It was at least
a merit of astrology that it faced the difficulty, and did not
Scepticism ' n r
disdain to suppose that even the stars had an influence over
human events. The supposition of ancient divination, that
the fate of a fight might be calculated from the entrails of
chickens, the flight of rooks, or the conjunction of planets,
may thus appear a sober and sensible doctrine of causation, far
less absurd than the arbitrary and indefensible procedure of
modern science.
But even supposing that we had made good a claim to
apply our subjective category of causation to the Becoming of
things, we should only have plunged into greater difficulties.
For we are impelled by the very law of causation itself, which
forbids us to say that things have been caused by nothing, to
ask for cause after cause in an infinite regress, and can never
find rest in a first cause in an endless series of phenomena.
And even if a first cause could be reached, it would be subject
to all the difficulties discussed in the last chapter (§ lo).
What then shall we say of a principle of explanation which
cannot explain, but deludes us with its endless regress as we
pursue it ? What but that it is false, and as deceitful as it is
incapable ?
Lastly, there must be recorded against the category of
causation the crowning absurdity, that, like Time, it con-
tradicts itself For in its later stages as a ' scientific con-
ception ' it becomes forgetful of its original form, and engages
in an insoluble conflict with the freedom of the will, which it
condemns as an intolerable exception to its supremacy. It
rises in rebellion against the will which begot it, and this final
impiety adds dishonour to the damage of its fall (Cp.
Appendix I. § 5).
§ 1 2. The category of Substance presents difficulties hardly
less serious than those of causation. For if substance be the
permanent in change, where shall it be found in a world
where nought is permanent but change ? And in any case it
must be admitted that the relation we suppose to exist
72 Riddles of the Sphinx
between substance and attributes, the way in which we
imagine substances to hold plurality in unity, is certainly
false. For while we regard a substance as the unity of many
attributes, and compose a thing out of its qualities, the real
things are concrete unities. Their attributes or qualities are
nothing but the modes of their interaction, or behaviours, or,
to state the matter with still fewer assumptions, phases we
ascribe to the same substance. But this permanent identity
of things from moment to moment, this hypothesis of a
substantial substratum persisting through change, is a grave
assumption. How do we know that successive appearances
are changes of the same substance t It is, after all, an
inference that the dog who comes into my room is the same
dog who left me five minutes ago, and not, as mediaeval
scholars would have considered probable, a demon with
intent to tempt me.
And if, with Kant, we urge against this denial of Substance,
that change implies permanence, it is equally easy to answer,
with Mr. Balfour, that Kant himself admitted the possibility
oi alternation, i.e. of a kaleidoscopic wavering of appearances,
in which the sole connexion between the successive phases
was a fiction of our minds.
§ 13. Our highest and most abstract categories also, those
of Being a7td Becoming, fare no better at the sceptic's hands.
For while it soon appears that in nature nothing is, but every-
thing becojnes, Becoming turns out to be a contradiction in
terms, merely a word to designate a forcibly effected union of
Being and Not-Being. For when we say that a thing becomes,
we can describe it only by the two ends of the process, posi-
tively by what it is and negatively by what it is not. Thus
the hatching of a chicken is defined by the ^gg which it is,
but will not be, and the chicken, which it is not, but will be.
Becoming, therefore, is not properly a category of our
thought, but a fact which we symbolize by the word ; and
Scepticism y 3
that which we try to express by it appears as the unknowable,
the incomprehensible by thought, which no category of ours
can grasp. For all reality is immersed in the flux of Becoming,
which glides before our eyes in a Protean stream of change,
interminable, indeterminate, indefinite, indescribable, impene-
trable, a boundless and groundless abyss into which we
cast the frail network of our categories fruitlessly and in
vain.
Surely this revelation of the flux of things sums up the doom
of science ; surely, we must say, the goddess of wisdom could
not be born of the froth and spume of such fluctuating waves ;
our search for truth beneath the idle show of such appearances
is surely vain ; the sensuous veil that hides the truth is all
the picture.
§ 14. Thus the principles of our science all break down,
because not one is capable of expressing the Becoming of
things. Our science has turned out a patchwork raft, compiled
out of the battered fragments of ancient superstitions, that
floats idly on a sea of doubt, unable to attain to the teii'a
firina of certainty, and still more incapable of wafting the ark
of life to the distant islands of the Blest.
But this fiasco of human science does not satisfy the
sceptic : he is prepared to explain how it comes about. That
the categories of our thought should prove inadequate to the
explanation of reality will cease to surprise us, when we
have considered the complete difference of character which
seems to exist between our thoughts on the one hand and
the reality which is given to feeling in perception on the'
other.
For it is not true that perception and conception are
distinguished merely by the greater vividness of the
consciousness which accompanies the former : their difference
is an essential difference of character, and as soon as it is
realized puts an end to the ridiculous attempts to derive the
74 Riddles of the Sphinx
peculiarities of our thought from ' experience. Thought is
one long affront to ' experience ' ; ' experience ' is one per-
sistent frustration of thought. Our conceptions cannot be
derived from experience, for the simple reason that no amount
of experience can make them square with 'experience' {ik
above §§ 6-13) The character of our thought {i.e. of the ' in-
tuitive ' principles of the intuitionists) and that of our feeling
{i.e. of the experience of the empiricists) differ so radically
that no length of common employment in the use of man has
made their deliverances agree. And it is this difference
which was described by the misleading term of the ' a priori
element in knowledge ' {y. ch. 2 § 17). This does not mean,
or at least should not be taken to mean, that our thought is
prior to sense-experience in Time, that we first have thought-
categories and then classify our experiences by their aid ; it
is intended to describe the morphology of thought, the law of
its development, the intrinsic character and structure which
it displays in all its manifestations.
The intuitionists then were right in contending that there
was in thought an element that could not be derived from
* experience,' an element different from and alien to ' sensa-
tion,' a stream of consciousness v/hich sprang from the
obscurity of the same origin, and has run parallel with feeling
throughout the whole history of the human mind. But it
was the assertion of a more dubious doctrine to claim for
thought greater dignity and greater certainty, nay to represent
it as the sole ground of certainty, on the ground of this very
difference. Is it not rather a ground for the sceptical inference
that since thought and feeling are fundamentally disparate,
knowledge, which depends on a harmonious co-operation of
the two, is impossible ?
It is into the evidence for this suggestion that we must now
enter.
§ 15. The Real in perception, so far as the inadequacy of
Scepticism 75
our language allows us to describe it, is always unique and
individual. It is substantial and substantival, i.e. it is not
dependent on other things for its existence, not itself an
attribute, but a subject, to which qualities are attributed. It
exists in Time and Space, in which it continuously becomes.
It h presented w^'iih. an infinite wealth of sensuous detail, and
interacts with the other real things in continual change.
Our thought, on the other hand, does not exist either in
Space or in Time. We should not come across the happy
hunting grounds of the equilateral triangle, even on a
voyage to the moon or one of the minor planets, neither did
truth conie into existence at the time when we made its
discovery. The truth that 2x2 = 4 cannot be said to date
from the time when men first became conscious of it, or to
be localized in the heads of those who are aware of it. We
feel that the word ' exist ' is quite inadequate to describe
the peculiarities of its nature, for, like all the truths of our
thought, it is not and can not be, 2. fact which can fall under
the observation of our senses. We may try to express it
by saying that thought holds good eternally or timelessly in
the intelligible sphere (ei/ Toirt'p vorjnp), but even so it will be
doubtful whether we shall avoid misconception. For the
temptation to confuse the real existence of thought as a
psychological fact inside human heads, with its logical validity,
which is conceived as eternal, and * unbecome,' unchanging
and unlocalized, is too great for most philosophy. And
further, all thought is abstract, i.e. it expresses only a
selected extract, distilled from the infinite wealth of percep-
tion, and rejects the greater part of the sensuous context as
irrelevant. It is universal, i.e. common to individuals, and
hence incapable of representing their uniqueness. It is
discursive, i.e. it proceeds step by step, from one definite
conception to another, and hence can only state a thing
successively as a series, and not simultaneously as a v.hole.
76 Riddles of the Sphinx
So it is incapable of representing the continuous except by
the fiction of an infinity of discrete steps, and this incapacity
is the secret ground of the constant attempts to regard
Space and Time as composed of discrete atoms and
moments (§§ 6, 7), and to draw hard and fast lines of
demarcation, where reality exhibits one thing passing into
another by insensible gradations in an uninterrupted flow.
And, above all, thought is adjectival. It cannot stand by
itself, but must always be attributed to some substantive
reality. In other words, thought must always be somebody's
thought, and any statement of our thought must refer to
something : the abstractions of thought must be attached to
some real subject which they qualify. No statement we
can possibly make, can possibly be a fact, at the most it
may be true of the fact, and to forget this is to commit the
most serious of philosophic crimes, viz., that of hypostasizing
abstractions.
The objects of our thought, in short, are not to be taken
as real existences interacting in the sensible world, but as
ideal relations connected by the logical laws of an 'eternal '
validity.
Hence the logical treatment, also, our thought requires,
differs : its highest category is not actual existence, but
logical necessity. And while in the real world a fact cannot
be more than a fact, and is either a fact, or nothing at all,
a truth for thought may vary through all the gradations
of logical necessity, from possibility up to * necessary truth.'
Whenever, therefore, we set out to prove a fact, we are
trying to derive it from a totally different order of existence,
to deduce the real from the logical, and hence to reduce
reality to thought. Thus all proof is perversion : it involves
an unwarranted manipulation of the evidence on which it is
based. As soon as we are not content to take things
simply as they are, and for what they are, as soon as we
Scepticism 7 7
inquire into the reason of what is, we inevitably pass into
the totally different sphere of what must be (or may be, for
possibility indicates only the degree of confidence with which
we attribute the logical connexion, necessary in itself, to
reality), in which things do not become but are related. For
it is only as a psychological event in the life history of an
individual whose knowledge grows, that truth becomes or
changes ; in itself it possesses an ideal validity which is
eternal, and to which the analogies of Time and Space are
inapplicable. Hence there is no change or motion about
the world of Ideas : change and motion belong only to the
world of existence and exist either in the real mind which
apprehends, or in the Becoming of things which it seeks
to comprehend. Instead of changes whereby one thing
takes the place of another, the ideal world exhibits only
logically necessary connexions between its co-existent and
mutually implicated members. l"o speak therefore of a
logical process or a process of thought, is a misnomer, if
by process we mean any change in the relations of the ideas.
The ideas must co-exist in a stable system, or else there is
no relation between them ; but if they co-exist, i.e. are all
there already, there is no change and no process. There
can be no truths, but only Truth. And such truth would
be ineffable. The process therefore must always be a
psychological process in the mind, which travels over the
pre-existing system of mutually-dependent relations, and
can only render explicit the relations which were before
implicitly involved. That is to say, if our reasoning is
cogent, our conclusion ought at the end of the process to
appear a petitio principii which is involved in the premisses,
and our conclusion ought to appear nothing new, ex post
facto. And the reason is that the supra-sensible world of
Ideas is unaffected by the manipulations by which we catch
glimpses of its correlations, and that its co-existent members
yS Riddles of the Sphinx
have nothing to do with the coming into and passing out of
being of the sensible world. ^
§ 1 6. It follows from this divergence between thought
and reality, that our thought can only symbolize things, and
from the extent of this divergence, that it can only symbolize
them imperfectly, and in such a way that upon all the critical
questions the disagreement between thought and reality
is hopeless. Thought can neither grasp the individuality of
the Real, which it fails to define as particularity, nor its
Becoming, which it fails to describe by the categories of
Being and Not-Being {v. § 13), nor the exuberance of sense-
perception, which it fails to express in terms of thought-
relations, and cuts away as irrelevant to the abstractions
with which alone it can work. Thought and feeling thus
speak in different tongues, as it were, and where is the
^ Students of ancient philosophy v/ill have perceived that this account
of the contrast between reahty and thought agrees entirely with Plato's
much-maligned description of the world of Ideas. Every one of his
assertions is literally true. It is true that the Ideas form a connected
hierarchy which abides unchangeably and eternally 'beyond the
heavens.' It is true that the Idea is the universal, the one opposed
to the many which are pervaded by it, and cannot absorb it. It
is true, likewise, that the sensible is knowable only by partaking in the
Ideas, that 'matter' is the non-existent, and that the Sensible with its
Becoming contains an element of non-existence baffling to thought.
£ = The Real is knowable only in terms of thought, and in so far as it
is not so expressible, it is nothing for thought.] And Plato is no less
eloquently true in his silence than in his explanations. He does not
explain how sensible things 'partake in' the Ideas, His reason is
that this partaking is inexplicable, that the connexion of thought with
reality is just the difficulty, which Plato saw, but which his successors
m.ostly failed to see. If the Sensible and the Idea are fundamentally
different, such partaking is an assumption which our knowledge must
make, but can never justify against scepticism. And so Platonism, as-
its later history showed, is capable of developing in two directions :
it may either confess that the connexion cannot be made, and so pass
into the scepticism of the new Academy, or it must seek extralogical
certainty in the ecstasy of Neoplatonism. In the one case it sacrifices
the theory of Ideas, in the other the sensible world, but in no case does
it so solve the problem as to make knowledge possible.
Scepticism y^
interpreter that can render them intelligible to each
other ?
Yet must we not say that knowledge consists only in
their harmony, in the conformity of truth and fact, in the
correspondence of our thought-symbols, with which we
reason, with the reality which we feel ? If then such
harmony cannot be attained, our reasonings may be perfectly
valid within their own sphere, and our feelings perfectly
unquestionable within theirs, and yet knowledge will be
impossible. For we cannot bestow the title of knowledge on
an inequitable adherence to one side : neither reasoning
which can attribute no meaning to facts, nor unreasoning
acceptance of facts which have no meaning, deserves the
name of knowledge. Yet it would seem that to one or
other of these alternatives we were confined ; for the symbols
of our thought cannot interpret reality. This is not only, as
has been shown, an inevitable result of the different natures
of thought and feeling, but it is confirmed by the character
of all our knowledge. For all our knowledge, every state-
ment about the world which can possibly be made, deals
with realities in terms of thought, states facts in terms of
thought-relations. But these thought-relations are not facts,
and disaster swiftly overtakes the attempt to treat them as
such. For in the first place things cannot be analysed into
thought-relations ; one may make any number of statements
about a thing and yet never be assured that all has been
stated that could be said about the thing. In other words,
any real thing possesses an infinity of content, which no
amount of thought-relations can exhaust.
But what is this but an indirect admission that the analysis
of things in terms of thought has failed ; just as the infinite
regress of causes was an indication that the category of
causation had broken down (§ 1 1) ?
And, secondly, even if we supposed that the whole
8o Riddles of the Sphinx
meaning- of a thing could be stated by our thought, even so,
things would not be complexes of thought-relations. For
our statements would remain a series of propositions about
the thing, which would for ever fail to make or be the thing.
They would remain a series to be discursively apprehended,
unable again to coalesce into a real whole. Thus every
attempt to symbolize feeling in terms of thought is not
merely misrepresentation, but futile misrepresentation, which
does not in the end succeed in its endeavour.
§ 17. But this divorce of Truth and Fact, this disparate-
ness of Thought and Feeling, involves still further con-
sequences. Not only does it render knowledge impossible,
but it renders all reasoning invalid, formally vicious as well
as materially false, and in the end leaves it a practice
theoretically inexplicable, and practically indefensible. For
according to the most recent researches of logicians,^ all
significant judgment involves a reference of the ideal content
recognized as such — and it is this which we express in
judging — to an unexpressed reality beyond the judgment.
The real subject of judgment is the real world ; it states facts
as ideas, in terms of thought. We talk ideas, but talk about
a reality behind them. But if the ideas and the reality are
disparate, is not every judgment invalid } For is not every
judgment a deliberate confusion of things essentially
different? If every judgment that is not meaningless
involves an explicit reference of thought to reality, in which
an ideal content is substituted for a wholly different fact,
how is it not fatally unsound ?
And not only does this reference of thought to reality vitiate
all judgment, and so all inference and all knowledge ; but it
is not even possible to explain how this reference was made.
1 Reference may be made especially to Mr. F. H. Bradley's profound
and profoundly sceptical work, The Principles of Logic ^ ch. i and 2.
Scepticism 8 t
If thought and feeling are so different in character, what
suggested the attempt to interpret the one by the other ?
Why did we not acquiesce in the conviction that thought was
unreal, and that feeling was as indescribable as it is incom-
municable ? Why must we needs essay to solder together
such discordant elements into a single form ? And indeed
was this not as gratuitous as it is unavailing? If in judg-
ment we start with an explicit recognition of the essential
difference between the ideal content and reality, what enables
us to assert their implicit connexion ? If we start with the
assertion that thought and fact are not the same, how do we
proceed confidently to assert that they are the same, to the
extent of substituting the one for the other ? What frenzy
gives us the force to leap this gulf, and to pass from avowed
difference to unsuggested identity ? And this transition is
prior, both in idea and in time, to all knowledge ; for it had
to be made before knowledge could come into existence :
thought and feeling must cohere, must have become com-
mensurable, before man could become a rational animal.
Assuredly the unknown man or monkey who first discovered
that his semi-articulate utterances could mean something, i.e.^
could be made to stand for something else than what they
were^ must be considered to have made the greatest of all
discoveries. Only unfortunately this hypothetical origin of
knowledge in an obscure accident will hardly reassure the
sceptic as to its validity ; he will not readily accept its cte
facto achievement on the authority of an ancestral ape.
§ 1 8. If judgment is thus invalid, what shall be said of
the concatenation of judgments in inference t If judgment
cannot attain to truth, how far may not our inferences stray
from it ?
Certainly there is this much to be said in their favour, that
they hardly pretend to correspond with fact. They assert the
truth of their conclusions, but not that there is anything in
Si Riddles of the Sphinx
nature to correspond to their methods and processes. And
indeed it would be difficult to persuade the most credulous
that hypothetical and disjunctive premisses could be facts.
There are no ifs about facts, nor can a real man be either
dead or alive. And yet it is upon devices of this sort that
all our reasonings rest. For all inference depends on
universal propositions, and universal propositions are all
hypothetical. They do not assert the reality of any particu-
lar case, when they assert that something holds good of all
cases. The proposition ' all infinites are unknowable ' does
not assert that anything infinite exists : it means, * if anything
is infinite, it is unknowable.'
^This illustration of the superior scientific importance of
universal propositions leads us on to another peculiarity
^'^ of our science, viz., that it ascribes greater truth to more
general propositions.) It is ever aiming at generalizing ^^^
phenomena, i.e., at gathering together isolated phenomena
under general formulas common to them all, of which it •
regards the individual phenomena as instances or cases. \The
N^ more successful it is in bringing out the universal relations
of things, the more truly scientific do we esteem it^ And the ooo
higher the generalization, the more completely is it deemed
to explain the lower and less general. sNevertheless it was
admitted that the individual was the Real, and it must be
admitted also that the less general propositions come nearer
to a description of the Real, and to an expression of its
individuality, than the more general, which have obliterated
all similitude with the Real by their vague generalities. ) To oo*^
say that an individual is John Smith, is to designate him
more closely than to call him an Englishman, or an animal,
or a material substance. <\rhus the course of truth leads
^ directly away from reality. From the standpoint of thought,
^ the more universal is the more real ; from that of sense, the
less universal. If, therefore, we could attain the ideal of
Scepticism 83
science, and derive all things in the world from the action of
a single law, that law would ipso facto be most unreal, ?>.,
furthest removed from reality. How can we expect, then,
that our results should come out right, if in our inquiry we
deliberately walk away from reality ? And after this can we
be any longer astonished to find that all proof should be
perversion (§ 15), and that all science should end in
mythology (§ 5) ? )
§ i8., he need not base his
pessimism on hedonism : his denial of the pleasure-value of
life may be the consequence and not the cause of his
^ E.g. by H. Spencer : " Data of Ethics," p. 27.
Pessimism 99
pessimism. Xo doubt most pessimists have also been
hedonists, and several excellent reasons may be given for the
fact ; but this is no reason why Pessimism should be based
on hedonism. It would be possible to base Pessimism on
several non hedonistic principles ; on a despair of other
values, of the possibility of goodness, of knowledge, of
beauty, or on an aristocratic contempt for human happiness.
For it would be possible to argue that the happiness of
creatures so petty and contemptible as men was insufficient
to redeem the character of the universe: whether or not man
enjoyed a short-lived surplus of ephemeral and intrinsically
worthless pleasure, there was in this nothing great, nothing
noble, nothing worthy of being the aim of effort, nothing
capable of satisfying the aspirations of the soul.
The deepest pessimism is not hedonistic; for hedonism
implies a presumption, a confidence in the claims of man
which it cannot countenance ; it asserts, not that life is
valueless because* it is unhappy, but that it is unhappy
because it is valueless.
And that so many pessimists have been hedonists is
easily explained by the facts that so few of them had probe*^
the real depths of the abyss of Pessimism, that they, like the
majority of men, were naturally hedonists, and above all, that
the acceptance of the hedonistic basis was the surest way of
carrying the war into the enemy's country.
For hedonism is the chief stronghold of optimism : the
most obvious defence of life is on the ground of its happiness.
Indeed, if we neglect for the moment the possibilities of other
lives, life can hardly be pronounced a success from any other
point of view. Can it seriously be asserted that the present
race of men deserve to live because of their goodness, or of
their wisdom, or of their beauty ? Would not any impartial
man with a decently high standard in these respects, if he
were armed with omnipotence for an hour, destroy the whole
lOO Riddles of the Sphinx
brood with a destruction more utter than that which overtook
the Cities of the Plain, lest he should leave daughters of Lot
among the favoured few? Or shall it be said that any
present or probable satisfaction of the moral, intellectual and
.nesthetic activities of average man makes his life worth living ?
Surely if our life is not on the average good because it is
pleasant and happy, it cannot be seen to be very good
because it is virtuous, beautiful or wise.
Optimists then are well-advised to defend the value of life
on the ground of its pleasure-value, for if the defence breaks
down here, the resistance will be a mere pretence elsewhere.
The optimist and not the pessimist is the real hedonist, for
the latter's condemnation of life rests on the consciousness of
too many evils for him to base it on a single class : he is too
deeply absorbed in the endless procession of evils to have the
leisure specially to bewail the hedonistic imperfections of life,
the brevity and illusoriness of pleasure.
§ 4. We must consider then the claims of life to be happy,
and ask what happiness is and on what it depends.
Happiness may be defined from within as the fruition of
fulfilled desire, from without as complete adaptation to
environment. A complete correspondence between the soul
and its environment is required for perfect happiness ; it can
be attained only if our desires are at once realized in our
conditions of life, or if they are at once accommodated to
them. We need either a wondrous control of our environ-
ment or a wondrous plasticity of our nature. But both of
these are rendered impossible by what seems to be the
intrinsic constitution of our environment. If that envirpn-
ment were something fixed and unchanging, it is conceivable
that we might, in the course of time, come to understand it
and our nature so perfectly as to bring complete correspond-
ence within our reach. But our environment is not fixed : it
is constantly shifting and changing, and, hum.anly speaking.
Pessimism loi
it seems impossible that it should be fixed. For it appears
to be an essential feature of our world to be a world of
Becoming, and to such an ever-changing environment there
can be no adaptation. Whenever we fancy that we have
adapted ourselves to our conditions, the circumstances
change: a turn of the kaleidoscope and 4;h^ 1-abour of a life-
time is rendered unavailing. Hence it i§ thkt not one of the
activities or functions of life is ever gujte c6mti\2nsuratt^*\wlth'
its end, that our efforts are for ever disproportionate to our
objects, and for ever fail of attaining an end which is too
lofty for our means. The Ideal seems sometimes to be
within our sight, but it is never within our reach, and we can
never cross the great gulf that parts it from the Actual.
And so the ideal of perfect adaptation, harmony or
happiness is not one which has any application to the world
in which we live ; the dream of its realization is forbidden by
the constitution of things. It was not then a false instinct
that prompted men to postpone the attainment of happiness
to a heaven beyond their ken in another world ; for assuredly
it is an illusion in this world of ours.
Now what may be inferred from this 1 What but this, that
the attempt to judge life by the standard of happiness is to
judge it by a conception which is inapplicable and unmean-
ing, by a standard which is false and futile ? What but this,
that in aiming at happiness we are deliberately striving after
the impossible, and that it would be strange indeed if the
vanity of our aim did not reveal itself in the failure of our
efforts }
\ 5. But it will not perhaps suffice to assert generally
the impossibility of adaptation to environment under the
given conditions of sensible existence, and the fact will at all
events become more obvious, if we consider the question
more in detail. W'e shall find that adaptation to environment
is intrinsically impossible from whatever side we approach
I02 Riddles of the Sphmx
the question, no matter whether we consider the physical,
social, or psychological environment, the case of the in-
dividual or of the race.
The individual cannot adapt himself to his physical
environment, because in the end the strength of life must be
exhausted in the effort to keep up with the changes the
revofving seasbhs" bring-, because in the end w^aste must
:e?tcSed< repair; and .t/'te vain struggle of life be solved in death,
that the unstable compounds of his bodily frame may be
dissociated into stabler forms of lifeless matter. If the
performance of the functions of life is the aim of life, life is a
failure, for all its forms must die, and pass away.
§ 6. Nor is there adaptation to the social environment :
births, marriages, and deaths ring the changes of our social
happiness. How can there be stability in relations where all
the acting forces come and go, are attracted and divorced by
influences they can neither calculate nor govern t To set
one's heart upon the fortunes of another does but multiply
the sources of its deadly hurt, and the more expose our vitals
to the shafts of fortune. For in the end all love is loss, and
all affection breeds affliction. What does it then avail to
vow in vain a faith that fate frustrates } why should our will
weave ties that death and chance must shatter?
Does not true wisdom, then, lie in a self-centred absorption
in one's own interests } Is not a cool and calm selfishness,
which does not place its happiness in aught beyond its self,
which engages in social relations but does not engage its self
in them, the primary condition of prosperity ? Does not the
sage's soul retire into its own sphere and contemplate its
own intrinsic radiance, unbroken, untouched and unobscured
by sympathetic shadows from the lives of others t Is not
feeling with others in very truth sympatJiy, suffering with
them }
§ 7. The dream of such a self-sufficing severance from all
Pessimism
103
physical and social ties has often been admired by philo-
sophers (e.g. Aristotle, Diogenes, Spinoza). It may be an
ideal for fakirs, but it is impossible for men. And even were
it possible, happiness would be as little found in the
individual soul as in the social life.
For here too, harmony is unattainable : the discords of the
essential elements of our nature can never be composed by
beings subjected to the material world of Time and Space.
It is impossible to compromise the claims of the future with
the desires of the present, impossible also to cast off the
fetters of the past.
The life which is warped and narrowed down to limited
possibilities by the past, must sacrifice either its present or its
future, and most often sacrifices both, in vain. For how can
we, starting from the perverse and incongruous materials we
did not make, so mould our lives that we can be happy both
in youth and in old age, enjoy our lives and yet be glad at
death } How shall we not regret in age the pleasures and
the freshness of youth, or in youth struggle vainly to attain
the wisdom and the calm of age "^ And this incongruence of
the inner constitution of man's soul is invincible and
universal : his nature is a disordered jumble of misinherited
tendencies. The image of a multitude of warring and
destructive beasts which Plato regarded as the inner state of
a tyrant's soul, fails to describe the full horror of the facts :
for each man's soul contains the representatives of ancestral
savages and beasts, and has out of such discordant elements
to form a government to guide his course. Thus, in addition
to the external difficulties of life, there is constant danger of
rebellion and anarchy within. The reason has to provide not
only against attacks from without, but to curb the conflict of
the elements within ; for if it reach a certain point, the mind
is shattered and a raging maniac leaps forth into the light.
And so the lusts of the flesh, the incubus of ancestral sins.
I04 Riddles of the Sphinx
are ever at war with the aspirations of the spirit ; our feeHngs,
the deepTrooted reactions of our emotional nature upon
ancient and obsolete conditions of life, persist into a present
where they are out of harmony with the more docile and
flexible conclusions of our reason, and cannot be conformed
to them within the brief space of a life-time.
Thus, from whatever side we regard the life of the
individual, adaptation is impossible : whether we consider
its physical, social, or psychological conditions, there is war
and constant struggle, overshadowed by the certainty of
ultimate defeat. It is ill dicing with the gods, who load
the dice with death : the pursuit of happiness is an unequal
fight with fate, for us, ' the helpless pieces of a cruel game,'
whose life seems little but a series of forced moves resulting
in an inevitable checkmate.
§ 8. And if we consider the prospects of the race, they
appear equally hopeless.
Physically complete adaptation is impossible. We know
that our solar system cannot go on for ever, and that the
ultimate fate of humanity, imprisoned in a decaying planet
of a dying sun, must be to shiver and to starve to death in
ever-deepening gloom, unless a merciful collision with some
unseen nebula cremates us more expeditiously.
§ 9. Again, the possibility of social harmony depends
on the possibility of so reconciling the claims of the
individual with the requirements of society, that men would
be perfectly free to do what they pleased, and be pleased to
do what they ought. But how shall we cherish such an
illusion in face of the evidence of the infinity of the in-
dividual, of the boundless growth of selfish demands, of the
insatiable cravings of ambition, avarice, and vanity .-* Until
it has been shown how human society could rid itself of
poverty, discontent and crime, could regulate the number
and the reproduction of the race, could eradicate love and
Pessimism
105
hunger, and the competition between individuals for the
prizes of those passions, and so the envy, hatred and maHce
which that competition must engender, such hopes of social
harmony can bear no relation to the actualities of life.
§ 10. Or lastly, if we consider the psychological condi-
tions of internal harmony, we shall have again to admit its
impossibility under the present constitution of things.
The primary reflex in the rational soul of the action of
the environment, is the growth of certain convictions as to
the practical necessities of life. These convictions, when
they have sunk into the soul, generate corresponding
emotions, and ultimately become incarnate, as it were, in the
physical structure of the body (whether by direct adaptation,
or by natural selection). But this process requires much
time. And what is the result in a world of constant change ?
The conditions of life change ; the conduct required by the
new conditions is first (though often all too late) perceived
by the * reason,' and after a time the suitable emotions are
grown, prompting to the performance of that conduct ; and,
last of all, perhaps only by the action of heredity through
numberless generations, the body is moulded into fitness to
perform its new functions. But how if these changes
follow more rapidly than the capacity of the organism to
adapt itself to them ? It would tend to fall behind the
times ; and thus if A, B, C, be successive stages in the
conditions of life, requiring the adaptation of the organism
to them, it might be that our reason had adapted itself to
stage C, our feelings to B, while our body was still only
fitted to perform the duties of stage A, and there would
arise a conflict in the soul, i.e. the elements of our being
would be always more or less unadapted to their work.
Now there can be no doubt that such is everywhere and
normally the case. We can as yet hardly boast to have
discovered the solutions to the complex problem.s of modern
io6 Riddles of the Sphinx
life with our reason ; our feelings are continually harking
back irrationally to the conditions of a remote antiquity,
while our bodies, hardly adjusted yet to our upright loco-
motion, are still more unsuited to the sedentary and in-
tellectual life of civilization. To men thus impelled in
contrary directions by the conflicting constituents of their
nature, life becomes a burden ; for their faculties are not
competent to perform the functions it requires. It would be
but a slight exaggeration of our inability to keep pace with
the changes of things to say that our bodies are those of
animals, our feelings those of savages, our reason that of
men, while our destiny and duties seem those of angels.
Thus this internal discord, this conflict between the con-
victions of the head and the promptings of the heart,
between the aspirations of the will and the shackles imposed
on them by ' the body of this death ' is not, as we would
fain believe, a transitory symptom of the present age, due
to the ascetic superstitions of an effete religion, or, as
Spencer would persuade us, to the survival of military habits
in an industrial age, but a necessary and permanent feature,
which marks and stains the whole of Evolution, Internal
non-adaptation is the inevitable concomitant of life in a
changing world, and must exist until Time pass into
Eternity.
§ II. But not only does the intrinsic constitution of
things render the pursuit of happiness that of an unattainable
ideal, but even the approximations to it, as we fondly call
them, are put beyond our reach by the course of events.
Happiness can never be attained, and, for all our efforts, the
delusive phantom recedes further and further from our eyes.
The evidence in favour of Pejorisjn, i.e., of the fact that
the world has been growing more unhappy, must of necessity
be historical, and as our knowledge of history is imperfect,
it cannot in itself be conclusive. But in connexion with the
Pessiniisni
107
facts which have been mentioned, it becomes highly signifi-
cant testimony to Pessimism.
This testimony may be considered with a view to its
bearing upon the physical, material, social and psychological
effects of 'progress' upon the happiness of mankind.
§ 12. In estimating the effect of physical changes in the
organism upon happiness, it is essential to bear in mind
the fact that the physical functions of life are largely, and
probably increasingly, performed unconsciously, and only
enter into consiousness as pain, when out of order. Hence
all the improvements in the conditions of life which
merely secure the carrying on of the physical functions are
useless for the production of positive happiness. Our
ordinary life is none the happier because it is securer against
violent interruption of its functions, because we are less
liable to be butchered or burnt. The proper functioning of
our organism is doubtless a primary condition of positive
happiness, but does not in itself constitute any considerable
factor in it. Hence by far the larger part of the increased
security and protection of life is of no avail for the production
of pleasurable feeling, and its effect would, on the whole,
probably be more than counterbalanced by the diminution
of happiness arising out of the non-elimination of diseased
and unfit organisms which in former times could not have
survived to suffer much.
Secondly, the pleasures arising from the bodily organism
are, owing to the lack of adaptation between man and his
environment, particularly liable to be interfered with by the
development of the higher feelings of the mind, and hence
to be impaired by the progress of civilization (§ 9).
For it is necessary to remember that different pleasures are
either mutually exclusive, or can only be enjoyed together to
a very limited extent, while different pains admit of indefinite
intensification by combination — up to the point at which
io8 Riddles of the Sphinx
death or unconsciousness ensues. Thus the greater sensitive-
ness of a more refined nervous system is rendered unavailing
as a source of pleasure, while it is terribly efficacious as a
source of pain.
And our non-adaption to our environment is also a fruitful
source of new pains. There can be little doubt but that our
organism is not adapted to the conditions of modern life ;
our brains are not equal to the intellectual strain imposed on
them ; our nerves are disordered by the hurry and worry of
stimuli to which they cannot respond with sufficient rapidity
and delicacy ; our eyes cannot be persistently used for
reading without painful malformations, and even our
stomachs are becoming increasingly incompetent to digest
the complexities of modern cookery. In short, the physical
machine was not meant to work at such pressure, nor can it
sustain the strains where we require it.
In addition to sources of misery which seem to be, in
part at least, due to human action, there are others more
purely physical, which form the penalties nature has affixed
to Evolution. Among them may be instanced a fruitful
source of acute pain in the progressive decay of the teeth of
civilized man. It has been asserted that no philosophy was
proof against toothache, but Pessimism at any rate can
convert a toothache into a proof of its philosophy. And,
more generally, civilized man becomes far more subject to
minor ailments, which, together with his nervous sensitiveness,
probably make ' a bad cold ' as painful as a deadly disease
was to a savage. In fact, the higher races of man seem, like
the higher breeds of domestic animals, to develop an astonish-
ing aptitude for illness, a delicateness and want of stamina
which makes them suffer acutely when they have to bear
privations, even when their superior morale enables them to
bear up against them, and their superior knowledge enables
them to delay death.
Pessimism 109
Again, there is a progressive loss in the power of
recuperation under injury as we advance to the higher forms
of life. Just as a crab, on losing a limb, will grow another,
or as a snail can repair the loss even of its head, so savage
races will recover from hurts which would prove fatal to
Europeans. And if this process goes on, we may justly^ead
the time when the merest scratch will inflict an incurable
wound.
Or again, wx find several facts about the reproduction of
the race, which may w^ell occasion despondency. Births are
easier and safer among savages than among civilized men,
and most difficult among the most civilized of these.
And other facts connected with this subject seem to set a
limit to the intellectual development of man. There seems
to be a decided tendency for highly educated women to be
sterile, probably because their organism does not possess the
superabundant energy which renders reproduction possible
And, to a large extent, the explanation both of this and the
previous phenomenon lies in the fact that there is a physical
limit to the size of the head of an infant which can be
born. It would follow from this that since there is almost
certainly a relation between intellect and the size of the
brain, the bulk of our geniuses even now perish in their
birth.
Lastly, if we go back to prehuman stages in the history
of Evolution, we -find that some of the most fundamental
features of animal life are not original. Sexual reproduction,
e.g., has been evolved, and there was originally no difference
between nutrition and reproduction. One cannot help
thinking, however, that much evil and much suffering might
have been prevented if this connexion had been maintained,
if life had never been complicated by the distinction of the
sexes, if reproduction had never occurred, except as an
incident of superabundant nutrition, and if children had
1 1 o Riddles of the Sphmx
never made their appearance, except where there was an
abundance of food !
And recently it has been suggested also that death itself is
derivative, and was evolved by the amoeba from a mistaken
desire to promote the survival of the fittest/ Into the
somewhat inadequate evidence for this speculation there is no
need to enter, nor to deny that the biological and physio-
logical reasons for this unparalleled feat of Evolution are
doubtless of a highly satisfactory character. But from a
purely human point of view it seems the final condemnation
of the process. From an evolution which could invent and
cause death, man has evidently no happiness to hope ; rather
he must in fear and trembling expect it to bring forth some
new and unconjectured horror.
§ 13. Taking next the material conditions of life, it is
undeniable that many ameliorations of the lot of man have
taken place within our knowledge. But material progress is
not in itself a cure of the miseries of the soul ; on the contrary,
it alone renders possible that growth of sensitiveness and
reflection which makes men conscious pessimists. So it is
not surprising that the chief prophets of Pessimism should
have arisen amongst those who from a coarsely material
point of view had less to complain of than their fellows. Nor
is it surprising that an age pre-eminent for its material
progress should be also an age pre-eminent for its spiritual
misery. For how can railways, telegraphs and telephones
make men happy } To be deprived of their conveniences
would doubtless be pain acutely felt and indignantly resented ;
but when the first joy of novel discovery is past, their
possession is no source of positive pleasure.
§ 14. But even if it be admitted that material progress,
unlike the evolution of the bodily organism, has in itself
^ By Professor Weismann.
J^essimism 1 1 1
brought a surplus of pleasure, it cannot be considered in
abstraction, apart from its indirect effect upon social
conditions. And if these are taken into consideration, it
appears that every new luxury generates a thousand new
wants in those who possess it, a thousand ignoble ambitions
in those who may hope to do so, a thousand hateful jealousies
in those who behold it beyond their reach. The happiness
of the unsophisticated savage was not wholly created by the
vivid imaginations of eighteenth century theorists : it is a
theory, to some extent at least, born out by the customary
procedure of introducing civilization among savages. Savages
have comparatively few wants they cannot satisfy, and so
will not slave to produce things in order to satisfy the wants
of civilized man. The trader therefore must excite passions
powerful enough to overcome the natural indolence of the
savage ; and so with rum and rifles he gratifies his desire of
drink and of revenge. Thus the savage enters on the path
of money-getting, propter vitani vivendi perdere cajisas^ an
endless path whence there is no return, and where to falter
is to fall. He is demoralized and often too destroyed,
but civilization triumphs and the world * progresses,' and
though each generation be more unhappy than its pre-
decessor, each hopes that its successor will be more fortunate.
And in another way at any rate, material progress has
been the source of much misery, and a chief factor in the
increase of social discord, by widening the material gulf
between the rich and the poor, and the intellectual gulf
between the educated and uneducated, and by stimulating
the envy of the poor, nay, by making possible the education
which made them conscious of their misery. It is the fierce
lust for the material good things of life which has brought
upon modern society the great and growing danger of
revolutionary Socialism, and baffles the well-meant efforts
of those who would content it with less than the utter
1 1 2 Riddles of the Sphinx
destruction of civilization. And not the least pathetic
feature of a desperate situation is that, while the unreasoning
insistence of those who claim the good things of life is
becoming fiercer, the happiness they covet is imaginary, and
those who are supposed to possess the means to happiness
are either too blase to enjoy them, or have made them the
means to new pains. Though these progressively increas-
ing pains and claims of an ever-deepening sensitiveness
will doubtless appear morbid and ridiculous from the fact
that they differ in almost every case, they are none the less
real, none the less the bane of many lives comparatively free
from other sources of misery, none the less a cause of social
non-adaptation. xAnd while there is so much dirty work to
be done in the world, tendencies which engender in men a
distaste for dirty work are not conducive to happiness.
While, e.g., battles have to be fought, it is a distinct source of
miserv that so few of the men who fisfht them should now
delight in carnage for its own sake.
§ 15. But perhaps the most serious and disheartening
source of non-adaptation to the social environment, and one
indeed which largely underlies the symptoms to which
allusion has been made, is the over-rapid growth of the
social environment itself It is impossible for society to
harmonize the conflicting claims of its members because of
the constant addition of new claimants : adaptation to the
social environment is nullified by the ever-increasing
complexity of the social environment itself
It was comparatively feasible for political philosophers in
ancient times to theorize about ideal republics in which
social harmony was attained : the citizens for whom they
legislated formed but a small proportion even o{ the human
inhabitants of the State; their material wants were to be
supplied by the forced labour of slaves and inferior classes,
whose happiness was excluded from consideration. So, too,
Pessimism 113
the difficulties of the population question were evaded by
summary methods of infanticide, i.e., the rights of children
were not recognized, and even in the case of women that
recognition was little more than nominal. With so
restricted a body of fully-qualified citizens, i.e., with so
circumscribed an area of the social environment, it is not
astonishing that the structural perfection of ancient states
should have been far greater than of our own, and that the
ideal should have seemed far nearer : the ancient State could
represent a higher type of social organism because it made
no attempt to solve the problems which perplex us. But
we have successively admitted the claims of children, slaves,
and women, and with the growing complexity of our social
problems we have sunk out of sight even of an approximate
solution in a quagmire of perplexities, in which we are more
hopelessly involved with every step in our ' progress.' Nor
need the process stop with man ; in the laws for the prevention
of cruelty to animals there is marked a more than incipient
recognition of the rights of animals, and already there are
thousands who resent the sufferings of vivisected dogs as
keenly as the most ardent abolitionist did those of negro
slaves, and there are more convinced of the iniquity of
vivisection now than there were convinced of the iniquity of
slavery one hundred years ago.
§ 16. But not only is the prodigious growth of the social
environment removing the harmony of the social forces further
and further from our sight, but a parallel process is rendering
harmony more and more unattainable for the individual
soul.
In the earliest beginnings of life, adaptation, in so far as it
exists, is physical or nothing at all. The organism adapts
itself directly to its environment or it perishes. At a
subsequent stage it is primarily emotional and secondarily
physical ; i.e. the pressure of circumstances genera ics feelings
8
114 Riddles of the Sphinx
which subsequently guide the actions of the body. In the
amoeba there is scarcely any search for or effort after food:
it assimilates the digestible substances it comes across. And
hence there is no need of feeling. But higher animals are
capable of pursuing their prey, and hence are stimulated by
the pangs of hunger. In man, again, the conditions of life
have become so complex that the simple feelings no longer
suffice. Man cannot, as a rule, when hungry, simply put
forth his hand and eat. The means to gratify his feelings
and his physical needs require a long and far-sighted process
of calculation, and thus reason becomes the main factor in
vital adaptation. As Spencer phrases it, the more complex
and re-representative feelings gain greater authority and
become more important than the simple and presentative
feelings, and the latter must be repressed as leading to fatal
imprudences. To the consequences of this process allusion
has already been made (§ lo) ; it produces an ever-growing
discord within the individual soul. More specifically, how-
ever, a single case may be instanced of the growing non-
adaptation of the feelings to the conditions of modern life,
because it is fraught with such fatal consequences to human
welfare and because no reformer dares even to attack a
Avell-spring of evil in the soul of man which poisons the whole
of modern life.
§ 17. In animals the reproductive instinct does not do
more — such is the waste of life — than maintain the numbers
of the race. But in man that waste is so diminished that
population normally increases, and increases rapidly. And
every advance in civilization, in medicine, in material comfort,
in peaceableness and respect for human life, increases the
length and the security of life and diminishes the death-
rate. In other words, it diminishes the number of new
births required to maintain the race and the fertility which is
[politically necessary.
Pesszfmsm
115
But no corresponding change takes place in the natural
fertility of the race. What is the result ? If we suppose that
a healthy woman, marrying at the right age, could without
detriment to her health produce six children,^ and if we take
into consideration also the fact that the length of life will
soon on an average extend over two generations, i.e. that men
may reasonably expect to see their grandchildren grown up,
it is evident that population will be fully maintained
if one-fifth to one-sixth of the women in a society provide for
its continuance ; i.e. the services of four out of every five, at
least, might be dispensed with from this point of view. If,
therefore, only the one who was really wanted, wanted to
marry, while the other four were content to leave no
descendants, all would be well, and human desires would be
adapted to the requirements of the situation. But in that
case the reproductive instinct would have to be reduced, it
would be hard to sa\' to what fraction of its present strength.
This is so far from being the case that ev-en if it is not true
that its strength has not been reduced at all, it is yet obvious
that its reduction has not taken place in anything like a
degree proportionate to the reduction of the need of its
^ As a fact the average fertility of marriage (though decreasing) is four-
and-a-half. But for many reasons the actual number of children falls
far short of the possible maximum. For under the present conditions
healthy and strong women are by no means exclusively selected for
marriage, and other artificial conditions limit the number of children
produced, in most cases far below what it might be.
P When this was written over-population still seemed a (distant)
danger. It is now becoming clear that as regards the best human
stocks ' race suicide ' is a far more urgent evil. While moralists were
hesitant, priests timorous and politicians heedless, there has grown up
a social order in which the fertility of the marriages of the least valuable
portions of the population is still 7 while that of the most valuable has sunk
to 2, i.e., one half of that required to maintain the numbers of the race. Cf.
Mr. and Mrs. Whetham's remarkable book ' The Family and the
Nation.']
ii6 Riddles of the Sphinx
And this is not astonishing for many reasons. For (i)
feelings are slow to be eradicated, and their persistence is the
greater the more deep-seated and important they were.
Hence any considerable change in human nature seems in
this case to border upon the impossible, although it must be
admitted that no instinct which was acquired in the course of
Evolution can be exempted from the possibility of being
again removed by an adaptation to circumstances similar to
that which generated it. (2) Civilization, although it gives
the over-sensual manifold opportunities of killing themselves,
does not directly favour the less sensual as against the more
sensual, as it favours the gentler as against the more violent,
the more industrious as against the lazier ; on the contrary, it
perhaps makes the sensual the more likely to leave offspring.
(3) Human institutions and social forces, have, in almost all
cases, done their utmost to keep the amative instinct at its
pristine strength. Christianity alone has even attempted to
contend with human nature in this respect, and even it, in
Protestant countries at least, may now be said to have retired
baffled from the contest. Its defeat indeed will surprise no
one who considers the means it adopted in order to repress
sensuality, and reflects upon the fatuity, e.g., of condemning to
celibacy those who were presumably the most spiritually-
minded and least sensual in each generation.
And what are the present arrangements of society ? Are
they not all calculated to foster these feelings in the young ?
What else but ' love ' is the tale which is dinned into their
all-too-willing ears from every side ? Not to speak of too un-
savoury matters, what is to be thought of the effect of poetry
and literature ? What is the inexhaustible subject of lyric
poetry ? What of' the novels that form nine-tenths of the
reading of mankind ? Are they not all of them tales of love,
and do not nine-tenths of them inculcate as their sole fragment
of philosophy that love is the one redeeming feature in life?
Pessimism
117
Would it not then be a miracle if men did not accept this
doctrine and cherish their animal instincts to their own
destruction and that of others ?
For what does society do for the feelings it has thus trained
up ? Does it render satisfaction possible ? Far from it ; it
makes marriage difficult and sordid, and all other means
odious and dangerous both to body and soul. Even in
his time Kant could say that men were physically
adult fifteen years before they were economically adult, i.e.,
capable of supporting a household, and since then the age
of marriage has gone on becoming later and later. And
women in many cases never get a chance of marrying at all !
On the effect such a condition of things must have upon
morality it is unnecessary to say anything, except that it
renders all preaching a ghastly and unavailing mockery ; but
from the point of view of human misery the consequences of
immorality form too great and too growing a contribution to its
sum total to be ignored by pessimists as they are by optimists.
And let us consider whether there can be happiness in the
soul whose strongest feeling can find no vent in the only way
which can give it permanent satisfaction, and reflect upon the
myriads who are, and will be, in this condition ; and then, if we
dare, let us assert that the world is growing happier ! Is it
not certain, rather, that it must be growing both more unhappy
and more immoral ? For the strength of the instinct being
constant, and its field of action being continuously circum-
scribed, must not the internal pressure of necessity become
more painful ? must not the outbursts of passion more and
more frequently and violently burst through the limits of the
law ?
§ 18. We have seen so far how impossible is adaptation,
how ineradicable is misery, and how inevitable is the growth
of un happiness ; but it is perhaps necessary also to display
the fallaciousness of the appeal which optimism makes to the
1 1 8 Riddles of the Sphinx
law of adaptation, which may be called the evolutionist
argument against Pessimism.
It may be stated as follows : —
Other things being equal, those men will survive whose
speculative doctrines tend to make them more successful in
life. This will generate in time a strong bias in favour of
those doctrines, which may go the length of making their
opposites not only practically impossible, but even theoretically
unintelligible. Hence, quite apart from questions of their
truth or falsehood, we may rest assured that doctrines tending
to handicap those that hold them in the struggle for existence,
must in the long run vanish away. Now Pessimism is
certainly such a doctrine. It diminishes the amount of pleasure
of its votaries, and thus deprives them of its vitalizing effects ; it
depresses their energies, efforts and enterprise, by its constant
suggestion of the general futility of all things, even when it
does not settle the question of survival by the short remedy
of suicide. Hence, the optimist will survive better than the
pessimist, and pessimism will receive its final answer from the
brutal logic of facts. The king of gods and men will stop the
railing mouth of Thersites by the cold clod of earth, by the
unanswerable summons of his dread herald Death. Thus
Pessimism is hopeless, and doomed to pass away, and can
cherish no hope, even if true, of persuading men of its truth.
§ 19. Pessimists will doubtless admit this argument in
order to explain the undeniably optimistic bias of the
generality of men, but will deny several of its assumptions.
For instance, it assumed that, other things being equal, the
optimist would survive.
But how if Pessimism be casually connected with other
qualifications for survival, e.g.^ with growth of knowledge .-*
How, if increase of wisdom be truly increase of sorrow?
Might not the wiser pessimist survive better than the
ignorant optimist ? History, indeed, seems to teach that
PessimisTfi 119
this has frequently happened, and that gay savages and the
lightly-living races of the South have not been more
successful than those who have soberly and sadly borne the
burden of civilization and of science.
Thus, there is nothing absurd in the supposition that with
the attainment of a certain degree of mental development,
the conviction of the futility of life should be irresistibly
borne in upon all men, and that the forces of evolution should
for ever urge mankind towards Pessimism, even though
Pessimism meant death. Pessimists may invert the evolu-
tionist argument, and urge not that the susceptibility to
pessimistic modes of thinking will be destroyed by the
progress of the world, but that the progress of the world will
be artificially suppressed, because of the destruction which
pessimistic modes of thinking involve as soon as a certain
point is reached. Civilization, then, would be an ocean
which for ever urged its foremost waves against the
adamantine rocks of Pessimism that broke and shattered
them, and for ever pushed forward fresh breakers to carry on
a futile contest.
The evolutionist argument moreover, assumes that the
environment is constant, and that hence the law of
adaptation must produce happiness in the end. But what
if the environment is not constant, but itself evolving, and
evolving more rapidly than our powers of adaptation "^
And since the Pessimist may claim to have shown that this
is actually the case ( §§ 12--17), must not the world be
growing unhappier in spite of all the law of adaptation can
do? Will not the constant introduction of new conditions
of life, to which mankind has not yet grown adapted by
the elimination of protesters, provide a constant source of
Pessimism } May not the intrinsic perversity of things
render adaptation eternally impossible ?
And lastly, supposing the argument to be valid, would it
I20 Riddles of the Sphinx
not confirm the Pessimist in his pessimism ? Would it not
seem to him one more instance of the utter malignity of the
constitution of things, that his protest should be overborne
by the brutal tyranny of facts, that truth should be unable
to prevail, that the triumphant lust of life should lead reason
captive ?
It must be confessed, therefore, that the evolutionist
answer is not only theoretically insufficient, but also in-
adequately supported by the facts. The facts of life admit
of the pessimistic interpretation, and the difficulty is rather
to see what otJier interpretation they will admit of.
§ 20. When once the possibility of happiness has been
disproved, no possible moral value of life can save it from
condemnation. On the contrary, it would be an arrange-
ment worthy of the most fiendish ingenuity to combine
progressive growth in goodness with progressive growth in
misery. But there is no necessity to anticipate this, seeing
that the ideal of goodness is as unmeaning and impossible
as that of happiness. And for the same reasons.
Just as happiness depended on the proportion between
desires and their fulfilment, so goodness depends on the
proportion between the moral standard and moral conduct. If
our standard be high, and our conduct fall far short of it, we
shall feel more wicked than if our standard and our conduct
be alike low, and the latter approximate more closely to the
former. Virtue depends on adaptation to the moral
environment, on relation to the moral ideal. And as before
both the environment and the ideal are capable of growing,
and of growing more rapidly than the individual's adaptation
to them. Thus it may be that the more we do, the more is
given us to do ; the more duties we fulfil, the more fresh
duties are laid upon us ; the further we advance, the further
we see ourselves to be from our end.
The result, then, of the moral judgment will depend on
PessimisTn 121
the proportion between aim and achievement. Tf moral
theory develops more rapidly than moral practice, if the
refinement of our sense of sin outstrips the refinement of our
morals, there is nothing improbable or impossible in the
prospect that the heirs of a long course of moral improvement
may be the most wicked of men, utter scoundrels as judged
by their own moral standard.
Now there is some reason to think that this process has
actually been going on, to judge by the lower type of the
moral ideal in modern times as compared with ancient. The
Greeks regarded the moral man as one rejoicing in the
exercise of virtue, and finding his highest pleasure in
virtuous activities which were the congenial expression of his
nature. The conduct of a man who, in spite of sore tempta-
tion, acted rightly and controlled his evil impulses, they
regarded as an altogether inferior type, scarcely worthy of
the name of virtue.
But with us the case is different ; the unswerving perform-
ance of duty is the highest ideal to which man is considered
capable of aspiring ; to expect him not to feel temptation, to
find pleasure in doing his duty, is to expect superhuman
perfection. But duty is in itself a mark of imperfection, for
it can hardly be denied that if there were more perfect
correspondence between the internal nature and the external
environment, between the feelings and the conduct required,
the moral act would be accompanied by pleasure, and
prompted by the impulse of feeling, instead of by the coercive
sense of duty. Our ideal of morality then represents a lowei'
stage of moral adjustment than that of the Greeks. Are we
then so far inferior to them in moral development }
Assuredly not ; there can be no doubt that though we are
further from the attainment of our moral ideal than the
Greeks were from theirs, we have advanced immensely
beyond the Greeks in this very matter of morality, and that
122 Riddles of the Sphinx
if they could be measured on an absolute scale our conduct
and our ideal would rank far higher than theirs. Thus, if
there is an absolute scale, we are objectively better, though
subjectively worse.
But is there such an absolute scale ? To assert this would
be to assert that there is a definite limit to the growth of the
moral environment, to the expansion of the moral ideal. It
would be to assert the existence of a permanent and un-
changing environment somewhere, even though it were in the
heaven of heavens, the existence of an eternal Ideal, of an
unalterable standard of Right. And what is there in the
character of our sensible world of change to justify such an
assumption .''
Thus goodness is as unattainable as happiness, and like it
an ideal for which the Real has no room. It is indeed in one
wayeven more unmeaning, for the perfection of goodness would
destroy its own moral character. If all our duties became
pleasures, they would ipso facto cease to be duties, and the virtue
which is no longer tempted to do wrong ceases to be virtue.
And so must not the pessimist's judgment be that in aiming
at goodness we are but pursuing the fleeting image of a
mirage that with its delusive promise of the waters of eternal
life, and the green palms of victorious virtue, lures us ever
deeper into the wilderness of Sin ; that mankind will do well
to abandon the wild-goose chase of such a winged phantom
as insane folly ; and that goodness, so far from being an
alternative to happiness, is not even an end which can be
rationally aimed at ?
§ 21. By way of contrast with the otherwise unredeemed
gloom of their pictures of life, pessimist writers have been
wont to assert that whatever gratification could be got out of
life must be derived from the aesthetic emotions and activities ;
hence it is incumbent upon us to examine whether their
assertions are well founded.
Pessimism 123
In the first place, there is clearly a subtle irony in fixing-
upon the rarest and most capricious of our sensibilities as the
redeeming feature in life. For as disputes about taste show,
our sense of beauty hardly yet gives rise to objectively valid
judgments. It is still in so rudimentary a state of develop-
ment that we are in most cases quite unable to justify its
judgments, and to say how and why anything is beautiful.
We may indeed conjecture that in the end aesthetic emotion
would be found to be the crowning approval of a perfect
harmony, of a complete adaptation of means to ends, of an
exact fitness of things. But if so, a developed sense of the
beautiful would find little to admire in a world like ours,
in which all things are more or less discordant and un-
adapted. What wonder, then, that of true beauty we should
have no perception and no understanding?
But even the imperfect sense of beauty we have developed
is a bane rather than a blessing. For even by its standard
the vast majority of things in the world are ugly, and the
longing for the beautiful can be gratified only at the cost of
much subservience to the hideous and the loathsome.
The pursuit of the beautiful, moreover, brings us into
frequent conflict with the good ; for though we may come to
perceive in some cases that the good is beautiful, it is yet
far from being the case that the beautiful is always good. The
antagonism, too, between the useful and the ornamental is
too well known to require comment.
But the most fatal effect of the development of the aesthetic
sense is its influence upon our feelings. It renders us
sensitive to evils which we had not had the refinement to
perceive before, and it causes us to shrink in disgust from
evils we had thought it our duty to face, and to grapple with.
The aesthetic temperament is naturally impelled to avoid
what is coarse and ugly, low and common-place, and so loses
sympathy with nine-tenths of human life. It is not merely
124 Riddles of the Sphinx
that duties and functions like those of hospital nurses or
butchers, however necessary and morally admirable they
may be, must continue to be aesthetically repulsive, but that
the meanness and ugliness of the greater part of life seems
too irremediable to admit of the hope of improvement. It is
not from the resignation and retirement of the aesthetically-
minded that the great ' reforms ' of history have received
their impulse, but from the moral enthusiasm or party spirit
of men whose every step was marked by brutal utili-
tarianism or unbeautiful fanaticism/ It is well, then, that the
world is still so Philistine ; for if once the hideous and un-
alterable sordidness of life were fully realized, it might come
to pass that few would care to survive to feel it long.
Thus the enthusiasm for beauty does but complicate our
already all too complex lives, does but add one more warring
aim to those which we can never realize.
§ 22. Lastly, the claim of the intellectual activities to
provide an aim for life has really been already disposed of by
Scepticism. If knowledge cannot lull asleep the discordant
strife of the elements of our being, if it cannot discover the
road to harmony and to bliss, then knowledge fails in
practice, and then its theoretical defects stamp it as an
illusion (cf. ch. iii., § 20, 21). It is an illusion for the
same reason as the other activities of life, because in order
^ The history of the Renaissance may seem to refute the view that
culture and artistic sense have not been the moving forces of the world.
But the Renaissance was a revival of learning quite as much as of art,
prompted as much by the desire for knowledge as for beauty. And,
after all, in the end it effected little. It was soon absorbed or swept
away by the Reformation, and it is well known that, after a little
hesitation, most of the chiefs of the Renaissance condoned the abuses
of the old order of things and remained Catholics. The intellectual
hberty (such as it is) we have since attained, we owe, not to the
Renaissance, but rather to the conflict of equally intolerant and ecjually
powerful orthodoxies, and the progress of science has been stimulated
far more by the hope of its material advantages than by the desire of
pure knowledge.
Pe
ssimism
125
to be true it requires an ideal, fixed, permanent and definite,
as the standard whereby to measure the passing- and in-
determinate flux of things. And such an ideal it can no-
where find in a world of Becoming.
The Becoming of the world is the rock upon which the ark
of life is shattered : to know, to be good, to be happy, we
require a fixed standard of Being, but the ideal which our
reason and our heart demand our eyes can nowhere see.
Thus all reason can do is to render us sensible of the
hopelessness of our position ; it is the fire kindled by the
collision of discordant elements, which consumes the soul of
man, and by the lurid light it throws upon our gloomy lot we
can just discover that our doom is irrevocable, that we are
the helpless victims of a gigantic auto da /e\ of which
Evolution is the celebration. For since every advance does
but widen the chasm between the ideal and the actual, our
only hope would be to retrace the course of Evolution, and
to simplify life by a return to the primitive contentment of
the amoeba. But though the amoeba is far more perfectly
adapted to its environment than any of its descendants, it
may well be doubted whether even the amoeba is happy : in
any case, it suffices that such an escape from misery by a
return to unconsciousness is impossible.
^Thus we must resign ourselves to our fate, and, to adapt a
famous image of Plato's, allow the immortal steeds of
Progress and of Reason to drag the chariot of the Soul with
reckless speed adown the race-course of life, while the
reluctant mortal charioteer makes vain essays to break the
rush, and succeeds only in racking and rending his car
asunder. And so the mad course will go on, until terj-enum
equitem gravatusl the Pegasus of Progress kicks over the
traces, wrecks the chariot, and leaves the blanched bones of
^ ' Spurning his earth-born rider.'
/
126 Riddles of the Sphinx
the charioteer to mark the melancholy track for successors
neither wiser nor more fortunate.
§ 23. Thus ruin, final and irretrievable, has overtaken the
attempt to deal with life, such as it is, or rather, to regard the
present appearances of things as self-sufficing and ultimate :
there remains only the poor consolation of knowing that we
have brought this ruin upon ourselves.
For perhaps the reflection may obtrude that we are our-
selves responsible for the disaster, in that we insisted on
ignoring the heavenly nature of our ideals. If we must needs
drag the chariot of the soul through the mire of earth, and
feed our Pegasus on the sordid fare most alien from the
ambrosia that formed his proper nourishment ; if we deny
him the use of his wings, and keep him down to the dusty
track that dimmed his sight, and if thus we fail, is it so sure
that we may rightly blame the divine steeds of Reason and
of Evolution }
To this question the following section of this essay will
attempt to give an answer.
BOOK 11.
CHAPTER V.
RECONSTRUCTION.^
§ I. The avowed object of the preceding- chapters has been
to trace out the consequences of the refusal to permit a
systematic examination of ultimate questions, and of its
bearing upon the conduct of life. But incidentally far more
serious results followed. Not merely did Positivism lead on
to Agnosticism, Agnosticism to Scepticism, and Scepticism
to Pessimism, but the two latter strengthened themselves
with arguments which it seems well-nigh impossible to
refute. And so what advance has been made towards a
solution of the problem of life .'' What has it availed to show
the dire consequences of the anti-philosophical view, if in so
doing we have destroyed also the basis of all philosophies i^
Have we not enmeshed ourselves also in a deadly snare and
been beguiled into a position from which there is no escape ?
Have we not ourselves destroyed all the hopes or illusions
that make life valuable ?
Yet it may be that this apparent loss will prove real gain ;
even now it is possible to see countervailing advantages.
In the first place, we may consider ourselves to have faced
the worst that can be said against the scheme of things, and
so may hope to have disposed of all suspicions that weakness
or disingenuousness has prompted us to understate or over-
look the difficulties that beset the attempt to discover any
^ [This chapter has been largely re-written].
130 Riddles of the Sphinx
meaning in life. Our thoroughness in stating the negative
position may also justify the assurance that whatever germs
of higher hopes have survived such ruthless destruction,
must surely be immortal, and fraught with no humble
destiny.
Secondly, the wholesale havoc Pessimism has wrought has
effectually cleared the ground : Pessimism has played the
part of a Samson, and in its fall has crushed alike philosopher
and Philistine. Not only has it enabled us to see the real
drift and final outcome of popular theories which would
otherwise be continually delaying our progress, but it has also
swept away the mass of philosophic constructions, of which
none have answered, and very few can even be said to have
cared to consider the questions which have been brought
forward. So, whenever we encounter doctrines based upon
the veiled assumptions of agnosticism, scepticism, and
pessimism, or such as are impotent to cope with the
possibilities on which they are grounded, we shall be able to
reduce them to their simplest terms, to refer them to their
types, and thus to remove their obstructions. We shall give
such opponents the choice between yielding or confessing to
the latent pessimism of their views. "CWe shall thus use a
reduction to pessimism as a sort of provisional reductio ad
absurdum, and consider ourselves justified in rejecting any
\V doctrine which ultimately leads to pessimism.
Whether this procedure is really justifiable, whether, that is,
Pessimism can logically be treated as a doctrine to be avoided
at all costs, is perhaps the most difficult question in philosophyN
We shall have to consider it further in § 5 and ch. xii. § 13-4.
Meanwhile, our assumption has at least this psychological
warrant that no one is willing to be a pessimist, if he can
possibly help it. And for the philosopher at least the
seriousness of the situation has this advantage, that he needs
to evoke the proverbial willingness of drowning men to catch
^
Reconstruction 131
at straws to render any of his nostrums palatable to the
stolidity of inveterate prejudice.
Thirdly, we have raised, in an acute form, the question of
the method of pliilosophy^ by showing- that the attempt to
philosophize without a method, and to speculate at random
about the problems of life, leads to irremediable disaster.
The toil and trouble of probing- to its utmost depths the
abyss of Pessimism will not have been in vain, if it can bring
home to us this conviction, that a new method must be found
to rescue philosophy or all is lost.
§ 2. But in addition to these, other advantages may
indirectly result from close attention to what has been proved
by Scepticism and Pessimism, and to the way of proving it.
The demonstration of Scepticism depended in part on
the impossibility of giving an intelligible meaning to the
notion of Truth (ch. iii. § \%a-b), in part on the discrepancy
between thought and reality, between things as we think
them, and as they appear to us, on the difference of thought
and feeling, on the impossibility of representing the whole
by the part (ch. iii. § 15-8). Thus it was implied that truth
was a correspondence of thought with reality ; but as the
correspondence of the elements which should constitute know-
ledge was denied, the inference was scepticism. It seemed
merely a confirmation of this result, when it turned out that the
whole conception of truth as correspondence was unthinkable.
A refutation, therefore, of this scepticism must take one
(or both) of two forms. It may be refuted (i) directly,
by devising a new theory of Truth, capable of repelling all
the assaults of scepticism ; or (2) indirectly, by dwelling on
its practical absurdity and the practical necessity of acting
on beliefs which we profess to doubt. This latter objection
has been already considered. It seemed to be transcended
by Pessimism, which admits that the assumptions of our
knowledge work, in a certain sense, but onl}' up to a certain
132 Riddles of the Sphinx
point, and work only in order to plunge us into a more
irredeemable chaos. For in the end it was contended that
they fail, and fail us just at the critical point : they imply
intellectual ideals to which the Becoming of sensible things
will not conform.
§ 3. The first device also seems to be no more successful,
for though it is easy to vanquish Scepticism by means of the
new conception of truth, yet its nature is such that it must
triumph over Pessimism also in order to maintain itself as a
conception of truth. A brief account of the Humanist
conception of truth will explain this curious situation.^
It is an undeniable fact that no truth can be propounded for
human belief, unless some One has taken upon himself the
responsibility of enunciating it. And it is equally un-
deniable that there are, in abstract logic, an infinity of alterna-
tives to the enunciation of any truth. Every judgment
may be taken as an answer to a question, and an infinity of
questions may be asked. Instead of judging 5 is P, its
author might have judged S is ?iot P, or P is g, or X is V &c.
Why then did he prefer to assert 5 is P ? Unless he was
acting without a motive and a meaning, he must have judged
that vS is P was deUer than any of the alternatives he had in
mind. 'Better' here means always 'consonant with his
purpose ' and usually 'consonant with his logical purpose,' i.e.
' truer.'
Every 'truth,' therefore, is launched upon the world as
a * good ' in the eyes of its maker. Truths, in virtue of the
manner of their birth, are essentially values, and akin to the
other values per se, beauty, duty and pleasure. Like the
other values also the career of a truth is profoundly influenced
by man's social nature ; it has not merely to commend itself
to its maker for the nonce, but to continue to give him
^ For fuller accounts see my other writings, especially Humanis7n
and St7idies in Humanism.
Reconstructio ri
133
satisfaction and to continue to seem the right remark for the
occasion. Now this it will hardly do, unless it succeeds in
winning recognition also from others, and is judged valuable,
' good ' and ' true ' by them. Should it fail to do so, the
penalty is in every case the same, viz. condemnation as ' false,'
rejection and supersession by a better * truth.' Hence so long
as it lasts it is being tested, and, it may be, contested. Its
life is a struggle ; and herein lies the guarantee of its efficiency,
yt will easily be perceived what an enormous simplification
this account introduces into the disputes about the nature of
truth on which Scepticism flourished. Nothing more is
required of a truth than that it should be relevant to a specific
situation, valuable for a purpose, and the m.ost satisfactory
answer to a question. This seems little enough, until we
realize how much more it is than could be extracted from any
of the other views, (i) To renounce the pretension to be
absolute, final and eternal relieves truth of the burden of
incorrigibility, and enables it to progress freely and without
limits. (2) Truth is easily differentiated from error by
possessing superior value for the purposes for which it is used.
Should its claim to such value prove to be illusory, it grace-
fully retires into the obscurity of * error,' and transfers its
title to the truth which supersedes it. (3) It is absolved from
the duty of proving itself a copy or reproduction of reality
and of construing the * correspondence ' of thought with
reality, in any literal way. All that a truth has to do is to be
an instrument in man's manipulation of his experience, and it
is not requisite that the processes of his thought should in
any way imitate or copy those of nature.^ The boldest
guesses, the most arbitrary * mutilations,' the most palpable,
abstractions and selections, the most personal demands, all
' come true ' if they show themselves capable of guiding
aright the action in which, sooner or later, all sane specula-
tion rationally ends, y Correspondence,' therefore, does not
r
A\
.\
134 Riddles of the Sphinx
mean more than ' harmony,' and if our knowledge works it is
true in the only sense which ' truth ' can bear.
(4) It is literally unthihkable, therefore, that any truth
actually functioning- as such, and not merely decorated
with an honorary title in memory of past services,
should fail to be useful, good and satisfactory. If an alleged
truth is none of these things, this only means that it has out-
y \ lived its right to be, and that the time has come for its rejec-
tion. The assumptions of our knowledge must work ; or else
we have not knowledge. If they did not work, we should treat
them as false, and look out for others.
It is not true, therefore, (ch. iii § 20) that knowledge takes
refuge in practice merely in order to escape theoretic refuta-
tion. Its relation to practice, to human actions, purposes and
satisfactions, is the very core of its being. It forms the
inexpugnable stronghold whence it sallies forth to overwhelm
the sceptic.^ For all action is incompatible with^ complete •«>
suspense of judgment, and implies a cessation of paralysing
doubt. All action implies belief in at least the i^elative truth
of one interpretation (that acted upon) as against another, and
so, in acting, the sceptic admits that one view is truer than
another. Complete scepticism is a theory no man can act on
and live, and to admit this is really a sufficient refutation of
Scepticism. i^The sceptic has to admit, and does admit, our
human truth, whatever the doubts and denials with which he
>^^ continues to affront the claims of absolute truth. He does
^ admit, and must admit, that it is more probable that bread
will nourish, and prussic acid poison, him than conversely.
He acts on, and lives by, the m6re probable opinion, like
every one else./ He cannot therefore dispense with the
humanist notion of truth, though alongside of it he is pleased
to retain the empty ideal of an absolute truth which no actual
truth can realize.
§ 4. To dispose of Scepticism, however, is by no means to
Reconstruction 135
have got rid of Pessimism. For the pessimist can accept
the humanist test of truth, and deny that in point of fact our
actual truth works sufficiently well to pass for true (cp. ch. iii.
§ 20). Nor need he in so doing commit himself to the absurdity
of denying that some propositions work much better than
others ; he need only contend that their success will always
turn out to be worthless and illusory. In short, he may
simply decline to admit that the amount and character of
this working convinces him of the human reason's competence
to deal with the vital problems of human life, and confutes the
suggestion that always in the end we are the victims and
playthings of an unknowable, unmanageable and inexorable
perversity of things. The succes.ses, therefore, of our know-
ledge will not hinder him from constructing for the recreant
outcasts from the light a gloomy shadow-world in which all
good is an illusion existing only to add by its poignant
contrast to the intensity of evil.
He will continue to insist then that life is miserable, and
not worth living, because its values will nowhere bear inspec-
tion. Everywhere life is dominated by the ultimate perversity
of the constitution of things, as a consequence of which all
problems are intrinsically insoluble, all questions inherently
meaningless, and all methods incurably impracticable. It is
no use asking questions, because no answer can be given ; it
is futile to make any sort of effort, for we are ever baffled
in the end, and the greater the effort the more bitter the
disappointment : the cup of life must be drained to the
dregs, and however we struggle, the dregs are bitter with
death. Theoretically life is a puzzle which has no solution ;,
practically it is a Barmecide feast at which the wretched
dupes, the victims of an inscrutable fate, make believe to
enjoy delights as unreal and fleeting as the shadow of a
dream. In short, it is all a ghastly, senseless striving after
the impossible.
136 Riddles of the Sphinx
§ 5. Our comment on this may run as follows. It
is true that our knowledge does not work perfectly, and
that we have no truth which is adequate to every human
purpose, and so worthy of the name of absolute. The
humanist cannot deny this, for it is part of his case against
the old notion of absolute truth. Now so long as our know-
ledge does not work perfectly, there may always arise a demand
that it should work much better than it does, and a suspicion
that its success is illusory.
Nor is the least terrible point about this view its
plausibility. It can claim greater simplicity, greater prima
Jade probability, than any other. It may not be the
only possible explanation of the facts considered in the last
two chapters, but it is by no means the least obvious ex-
planation.
It is clear therefore that the position is too strong to be
carried by a direct assault. The pessimist interpretation is
too deeply rooted in the nature of our world to be overthrown
by a breath of breezy optimism. The actual facts of life are
at present too ambiguous to confute it. Neither of course
do they prove it, when eyed with an optimist bias. As for
the future, it lies equally open to the prophets of both parties,
and exacts faith from both.
Under the circumstances, though we need not capitulate,"
we must negotiate. A sort of bargain may perhaps be
struck with Pessimism. We may admit that only complete
success can vindicate either knowledge or life, just as only
utter failure can discredit them. As yet neither the hour of
such success nor that of such failure has arrived, and we must
all, therefore, forecast the future. But if a reasonable prospect
can be shown that our knowledge points the way to a solution
of all the problems that beset us, and that our power may
grovV equal to the satisfaction of every reasonable need, we
may stipulate that the authenticity of human knowledge
Reconstruction 137
should no longer be disputed, because so soon as it is possible
to accept the better alternative it becomes reasonable to
prefer it.
This alternative no doubt will have to explain avi^ay
many things which it is exceedingly difficult to explain
away. It will have to account for evil and imperfection ;
and even when it has shown the possibility of a final
reconciliation, it will have to show why this could not have
been attained without the long agony of the world's develop-
ment in time.
So in theoretical matters it will have to show not merely
that the Becoming of things is ultimately knowable, but
also to explain how it was conducive to the end to be
attained.
In short, in order to have an alternative to Pessimism,
we must undertake to account for Imperfection, Becoming
and Time — the three chief and most obvious characteristics
of our world. In this stupendous task the only favourable
omen at the start is that no sane human being will resign
himself to Pessimism if he can possibly help it, that the
merest possibility of an alternative must be hailed with
delight by every one who has become conscious of the
difficulty.
The search, then, for an alternative to Pessimism is a
desperate undertaking, which can be justified only by
success ; for success alone can save us from despair. And
it must be admitted that appearances are against us, and
that our only hope is to penetrate beyond them : the
very principles of our reasoning, conceded ad hoc by
Scepticism, are emotional assumptions, thinly disguised
under the contention that a scheme of things which mocked
our reason with insoluble puzzles would not be rational ; the
end at which we aim, if attained, would revolutionize the
character of the world, and nothing short of complete
138 Riddles of the Sphinx
success will deliver us from the monstrous spectre of
Pessimism.
We set out, then, under sentence of death, like Sir
Walter Raleigh, to discover Eldorado, and the penalty of
failure will be inexorably exacted if we fail.
§ 6. Under such circumstances we shall do well to
begin by taking stock of our resources, by seeing what
salvage may be fished up out of the shipwreck of our
hopes.
We may begin by noticing that there is one principle
which Scepticism did not deny, and indeed could not deny,
without manifestly cutting away the basis of its own argu-
ment, viz. the reality of the Self or Soul.
Our Scepticism did not deny it, because it was immanent
and did not stray beyond the limits of consciousness
(cf. iii. § 3) : it was concerned only to establish the existence
of an irreconcilable discord within the soul.
Nor does Pessimism care to deny the reality of the soul,
for suffering could hardly be the supreme reality, if the
soul which suffered w^ere not real. The only thing that
Scepticism and Pessimism would protest against would be
an attempt to derive from the admission of the reality of
the Self an admission of its existence as a simple and
immortal substance, after the fashion of the ' rational
psychology ' of old ; but this we have no intention of doing.
The existence of the Self is at present asserted only as an
implication of all knowledge and all action, and in this sense
it cannot validly be doubted. Accordingly it has been denied
by Agnosticism rather than by Scepticism, i.e. by a doctrine
which turned out inadequate on its own presuppositions.
Among these denials of the existence of the Self or soul,
Hume's argument is by far the most effective.
He contends that the soul does not exist because he never
finds it existing without some particular content, never
Reconstrtiction
139
catches himself without some * impression or idea,' nor finds
in himself anything persistent and unchanging. This
argument may be regarded both as an ingenious extension
of Berkeley's denial of matter-substance, and as a reductio ad
absurduni of the notion of Substance generally accepted in
Hume's day.
Berkeley had argued that it was needless to assume the
existence of an (unknowable) material substance in order to
account for our experiences of bodies. Hume similarly
contended that it was superfluous to postulate a soul-substance
in order that psychical experiences might inhere in it. The
succession of ' impressions and ideas ' was all that existed.
But on his own showing the two cases were not parallel.
Not only did his faculty psychology, by regarding every
impression and idea as a discrete and distinct existence,
render the existence of psychic continuity inexplicable,^ but
it is clear that we have no direct experience of the continuous
existence of matter as we have of soul. But it is also clear
that Hume was right in rejecting the current conceptions of
soul-substance : neither an unchanging content in conscious-
ness nor an inaccessible substratum of consciousness could be
the soul in any significant sense. For the only soul worth
having would be one capable both of revealing and of reforming
itself in the course of its life.
The conditions, moreover, upon which Hume would
admit the existence of the soul would seem to be of
a ridiculous severity. So long as consciousness is
consciousness of something, or something more than mere
existence, we cannot, says Hume, infer from it our own
existence. Reality could not, apparently, be attributed to
any soul that was not capable of being reduced to the
^ As Hume very candidly admitted in the Appendix to the Treatise^
and J. S. Mill in ch. xii of his Examinatioii of Sir W. Hamilton's
Philosophy.
140 Riddles of the Sphinx
absolute blankness of a mere substratum. But this implies,
in the first place, the fallacy that mere existence is possible,
undistinguished by any particular content, that a mere fact
can be found, which is not determined by a certain character
(cp. ch. ii. § 3). And secondly, one must wonder who could
be supposed to be in the least concerned to assert the
existence of such a perfectly void soul, or who need be
dismayed at the discovery that his soul could never be caught
in such a condition of fatuous nudity. The existence of the
soul surely does not depend on its capacity to dispense with
all content, nor is any slur cast upon it by the fact that the
contents of consciousness vary. The ideal to which the
variations of consciousness point is not a soul which has been
annihilated by the loss of all its contents, but one of which
the contents have attained to stability and perfection.^
§ 7. Kant's objection to the reality of the soul is similar
to Hume's. But, like many of his doctrines, it is a com-
promise, not altogether successful, between Hume and the
old metaphysics, and so rejects a good deal of Hume's
argument. Kant recognizes the necessity of admitting at
least an epistemological reality of the soul, as the principle on
which the possibility of consciousness and the unity of
knowledge depend. As such, it is the soul which forms the
fleeting series of impressions, thoughts, etc., into a continuous
system, and thus makes a connected consciousness possible.
Yet Kant strenuously maintains that the soul is only an
epistemological and not a metaphysical (or ultimate) principle,
and that it must not be treated as existing outside of the
context of knowledge, nor supposed to exist as a * thing-in-
itself And he does this on the same grounds as Hume,
viz., because the ' I think ' impartially accompanies all the
contents of consciousness and never exists apart from them :
^ \Cf. the essay on "Activity and Substance " in Huina7iisin.'\
Reconstruction 141
so it must be a mere/tr;;/ of knowledge and not a substantive
reality.
But this objection either proves too little or too much. If
there were any truth in Kant's insinuation that any dignity
or power could -bemadded to the self by proving it a meta-
physical soul-substance, Kant's account would fall woefully
short of vindicating in philosophy v/hat in practice is an
indispensable assumption. If on the other hand we follow
Kant in rejecting the old uncritical metaphysic and insist
that epistemology has the priority over metaphysics, it is
difficult to see why its epistemological function should not
fully guarantee the reality of the self ' For there will then
remain no need for a metaphysical proof of its existence to cast
a slur on that of epistemology. If the Self is necessary to the
existence of knowledge and the reality of consciousness, it is as
real as anything can be. The reality of its function attests
the reality of its being. For there is no other or better
proof of a thing's existence than the evidence of its operation.
But there is no occasion for either of the interpretations
between which Kant wavers ; the Self need neither be regarded
as a transcendental mystery nor as a mere form. It is not
unamenable to psychological description. It is not otherwise
unheard of, seeing that it is also a practical principle of the
utmost importance to ethics. And the different ways in
which different selves unify their respective experiences
certainly show that the Self is neither a mere form in.-
distinguishably uniform in all men nor insusceptible of
psychological study. \The concrete Self is always personal,
and Kant's abstract separation of form and matter, appear- a/n
ance and thing-in-itself, which we have already rejected,
(ch. ii. § 14, § 12) is as mischievous here as elsewhere. '^
It is not necessary, therefore, to linger any longer over
Kant's objections to the reality of the Self: we may refer for
a further exposure of their fallaciousness to the criticism of
(VA
142 Riddles of the Sphinx
Kant's agnosticism (ch. ii. § 21), and accept the reality of the
Self as the fundamental assumption of all life, knowledge and
proof/ As the most indispensable of all postulates, it is the
Alpha, the starting-point, and it would not be surprising if it
turned out also the Omega, the goal of philosophy.
§ 8. < The Self then is to be taken quite seriously as a real
agent and not as a mere form. All experience is relative to a
self, all acts of knowledge are performed by selves, the whole
of our cognitive machinery, principles, axioms, postulates and
categories, are invented by and modelled upon selves. The
Self is the meeting-place of all antitheses and ambitions, the
battleground of all theories and impulses, and their arbiter.
It is in short a concrete fact./
Nor was the new view of Truth, which was expounded in
§ 3, anything but a consequence of such a recognition of the
concrete reality of the Self. It was an appeal from the
abstractions of a logic which has lost sight of the immediacy
of experience to the psychology of the concrete self It
argued seriously from the fact that the thinking self is implicit
in all knowing and that there is no thought without a
thinker. /Kant had been content to leave the Self a mere'
form ; he had made no attempt to show how the personality
of each thinker moulded and pervaded his knowing. The
t humanist theory of knowledge, on the other hand, devotes
itself specially to this task. It brings truths into connexion
with the minds which formulate them. It brings the various
attitudes of various minds towards them into connexion with
^ It is not necessary here to explain how the Self may be conceived
to be related to its passing states, otherwise than as an otiose 'sub-
stratum,' but I agree with Mr. Rutgers Marshall in seeking for the
solution of the mystery of the 'I' and the 'Me' {alias the self as subject
and as object) in the fact that consciousness always exhibits a 'margin'
or 'background' from which its contents emerge, and into which they
pass. Hence the ' I ' is consubstantial with the 'Me,' and merely the
momentary ' field of inattention.' Cf. also Hmnaiiism ch. xii. § 8.
A
Reconstruction 143
the personal character of the various thinkers. Tt brings their
cognitive activities into connexion with their powers of f\
feeHng and acting. It emphasizes the unity and all-
pervasiveness of personality. >
By so doing it explains numerous puzzles as to how and
why different people think so differently. It thrusts aside
the enormous masses of make-believe and false pretences,
by which men are wont to deceive themselves and others as
to the real psychical motives of their beliefs and actions.
Once we fully grasp the fact that our ' reason ' never operates
in vacuo, but always in co-operation with our other functions,
and in the presence of our fellow men, we can perceive that a
mind free from all personal bias is an impossibility, and that
the only way of minimizing its dangers is to become aware
of the bias which we have. And if we were really desirous
of understanding ourselves, this ought to be a great en-
couragement to us to be honest with ourselves and frank
with others.
^Yet, strange to say, the enunciation of these obvious and
salutary truths has aroused no little indignation in philosophic
circles. They have been decried as demoralizing and
destructive of the nature of truth — perhaps because they
have been interpreted as hortatory and not as explanatory.^
Yet it is plain that we must describe the symptoms of the
malady before we proceed to prescribe a regimen for its cure.
The variety of human opinions, the pervasiveness of human
bias, the enormous possibilities of self-deception, are all facts
which demand recognition and explanation. Nor is to say
that 'people generally manage to believe what they wish,'
'they believe differently because they are different,' and 'all
have a bias though all do not know it,' equivalent to saying
that they ought to persist in all these practices. The distinc-
tion is so clear that it is hard to resist a suspicion that the
people who raised the outcry found the new truths a little
144 Riddles of the Sphinx
too true to be pleasant. For of course it is equally
offensive to be told that you must philosophize with
your whole nature when you either think you have good
reason to distrust a good deal of it, or were blissfully
unaware that your pet dogmas were merely creatures of
your idiosyncrasy.
But however hard some philosophers may have been hit
by the recognition of personality, there can be no doubt that
it has come to stay. And philosophy has been the gainer.
The enormous variety of philosophic beliefs is thereby in
principle accounted for, and ceases to count in favour of the
sceptic. The antithesis between * theory ' and * practice,'
fades before the perception that both are the outcome of
personal, purposive activity. And finally it becomes possible
to bear with equanimity and tolerance the deep-seated
discrepancies in beliefs which ultimately rest on discrepancies
of character. It is no longer necessary to contend, in
the face of the most manifest facts, that the same truths must
be acceptable to all, seeing that for different natures in
different circumstances different assumptions may work
better ; and it stands to reason that both science and society
must gain enormously from the theoretic justification of the
freedom of thought and of the abandonment of a vain and
irritating intolerance which are deducible from this humanist
recognition of personality.
§ 9. F'rom the reality of the Self follows also a corollary
hardly less important. We are now in a position to rebut
the ridiculous charge of * anthropomorphism ' which is so
frequently used to discredit human thinking. The sceptic
might indeed have dispensed with a device which more
properly belongs to the agnostic, but it was too handy not to
be utilized when thrown in his way. He used it fairly and
impartially against all knowledge, and not like the agnostic,
against a selected portion (ch. iii. § 4) ; but he could not raise
Reconstruction 1 4 5
it to the dignity of a vital argument. But even though it
benefited the sceptic little, its refutation will benefit us much.
We shall rightly seize the opportunity of exposing a wide-
spread superstition, which should really by this time have
ceased to figure in any serious philosophic argument, ^or
what can the reproach that a conception is anthropomorphic
conceivably mean ? Anthropomorphic means partaking of
the nature of man, and what human reasoning can fail to
render the peculiarities of the human reason .? Thus the
prohibition of anthropomorphic reasoning is the pro- v^
hibition of all reasoning in the supposed interests of a
fiction of un-anthropomorphic thought (probably of the
Unknowable ?) which can never be known to exist, and
which, if it existed, would be utterly inconceivable to us.
Surely it is too plain for words that all our thought and all
our feeling must be anthroponiorphic.y The proposal to avoid
anthropomorphism is as absurd as the suggestion that we
should take an unbiassed outside view of ourselves by
jumping out of our skin.
§ 10. If, then, everything we think is of necessity
anthropomorphic, the only possible distinction which can
be made is not between thought which is anthropomorphic
and thought which is not, but between good and bad
anthropomorphism. Let us henceforth call this unavoidable
and salutary anthropomorphism humanism. Bad anthropo-
morphism is of several sorts, and we may distinguish between
the false and the confused. By false anthropomorphism is
meant the ascription to beings other than ourselves of
qualities or attributes which we know they cannot possess
because of their difference from ourselves. This is exemplified
by the attribution of specifically human qualities to the
animals below, and to God above us. When, e.g., I assert
that my dog worships me as a god, my anthropomorphism is
false, because I have no reason to ascribe religious emotions
10
146 Riddles of the Sphinx
to dogs. Similarly, when I expect my God to eat the flesh
of sacrificial victims, my anthropomorphism is false, for I
hold that God is a spirit and not a being in the phenomenal
world.
§ II. By confused anthropomorphism is meant that which
arises when, starting from some obvious human analogy,
our principle of explanation is chopped and chipped, in
deference to the apparent exigencies of the facts, until its
elements may at last become mutually contradictory, and
the original points of analogy may entirely disappear. We
have already had occasion to criticize such confused anthropo-
morphisms from a sceptical point of view (ch. iii. § 4), and
shall have further occasion to do so from that of a consistent
and conscious humanism. And yet it is in the interests of
these weatherbeaten old anthropomorphisms, whose original
shape is often scarce recognizable, that protests are generally
raised against a humanism which keeps closer to the primary
principles of explanation. This confused anthropomorphism,
though not often wholly wrong, is generally ridiculous, and
its claims to superiority over the rest are simply monstrous.
For even where the mutilations it has suffered in the course
of its chequered career have not rendered it unfit for service,
even where its modifications have brought it nearer to the
facts, it is a lam.entable truth that just in proportion as it
departs from the analogy of human action its value as an
explanation diminishes, and the process it attempts to
describe becomes as unintelligible as it was before explana-
tion was essayed at all. The absolute Infinite, e.g. may be
the full and final explanation of all things, only unfortunately
it is a conception which has exalted itself so far beyond our
grasp that it appears to the human reason a mere bundle of
contradictions. Again, when a soporific virtue is assigned
as a reason why poppies put us to sleep, and a universal
force of gravitation as the reason why bodies attract one
Reconstruction 147
another, there is a danger that the explanatory value of these
phrases has been attenuated to a nullity.
§ 12. /The ideal of true humanism, and the ideal also of
true science, would be realized when all our explanations
made use of no principles which were not self-evident to
human minds, self-explanatory to human feelings. Such
ideals are, it is true, remote/ from the present state of our
knowledge, but we may lay it down as a canon of inquiry. / \
that a principle is the better, other things being equal, the
more closely it clings to the analogy of human agency, the
more completely parallel its course runs to the course of the
human mind.\
When by the master-key of the Self all problems have
been undone, when all things have been shown to be of like
nature with the mind that knows them, then at length will
knowledge be perfect and perfectly humanized.
Our care, then, must be, not to avoid anthropomorphism,
but to avoid bad anthropomorphism, not to allow the inevit-
able humanism of our explanations to become confused or
inconsistent, or to lag behind the conceptions of our highest
aspirations.
We start, then, with the certainty of our own existence,
on the basis and analogy of which the world must be
interpreted.
CHAPTER VI.
THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY.
§ I. Much has been written by philosophers about the
method of philosophy, but to little purpose. For not only
have their recommendations failed to command the universal
assent of mankind, but even to commend themselves ex-
tensively to their fellow philosophers. Under these circum-
stances it is the part of prudence to abstain from dogmatism.
/rhe first position we shall have to encounter is a blunt
^A denial that philosophy has a method, that metaphysics is a
I science, and that it has any bearing on the problems of life.
To this position we may assign the name Naturalism, and
attribute not a little value.^ It has at least the merit of
challenging the vague and inconclusive thinking which so
often goes under the name of Philosophy. And it is right in
insisting that philosophy shall not be cut adrift from the
solid ground of the sciences and go astray in the mists of the
unharvested seas of speculation.
Nevertheless the affirmations of Naturalism would seem to
go too far. ^letaphysics may never yet have become a
science, but it is at least a problem. After 'each science has
had its say and put on record its contribution to the stock of
/v^ human knowledge, there remains the problem of fitting in
these various contributions with each other, "and also with the
demands of practical life and the aspirations of individual
souls') (both of which ought perhaps to have been taken into,^^
account by the science of ethics, but have probably found
1 he Method of Philosophy 149
little satisfaction in the academic treatment of the matter),
vnto an intelHgible view of the whole of life. If this be
admitted to be a legitimate undertaking, and if metaphysics (^
be the name given to it, then metaphysics is clearly a possible
science, which may some day be realized./ If this be what ce^a
metaphysics mean, then metaphysics are harmless, and even
necessary.
For it is clear that neither can any of the special sciences
alone undertake the task of expounding the whole meaning
of the universe, nor can it decide cases of conflict between
the assumptions and results of the special sciences, as e.g.^
the assumption of the theory of gravitation that all matter
gravitates, and that of the undulatory theory that luminiferous
ether does not (ch. iii. § 9). ^It is necessary to establish a
higher court of appeal for the adjudication of such cases. ^\
Metaphysics, therefore, must exist as the science of ultimate
problems, if not of ultimate solutions./
§ 2. In the second place, though in point of right every
science could put in a claim to explain the whole, in point of
fact this claim is only urged on behalf of the physical sciences
in the narrower sense, and the contributions of the higher
normative sciences (ethics, aesthetics, and logic;, and even
of psychology, are mostly set aside. This excludes all the
specifically human sciences, and implies a definition of ' nature '
which excludes man from ' nature.' The result is that
Naturalism is forced to explain the higher by the lower,
and to disparage or suppress whatever portion of the facts
does not lend itself to this procedure. Only so can it get
all its facts on to one and the same plane and establish a
connexion between the higher and the lower. The establish-
ment of such a (Connexion is indeed of primary importance,
and favourably distinguishes the Naturalistic method from
that of abstract metaphysics to be presently considered (§ 5) ;
but it is arbitrafy and disadvantageous to interpret this
r
1 50 Riddles of the Sphinx
connexion merely as justifying the reduction of the higher
to the lower. For it will often be found that we can only
understand the lower in the light of its higher develop-
ments, and it ought always to be viewed in its relation to
these. For example, man is after all a part of nature, and
it is an important fact about nature that it should culminate
in man. And philosophic method should take account of
this.
§ 3. {(Hence Naturalism is sooner or later doomed to failure.
It leaves out the higher aspects of things and in the end
these cannot be omitted. For the objects of the physical
sciences forming the lower orders in the hierarchy of
existence, though more extensive, are less significant.) The
atoms of the physicists may indeed be implied in the
organization of conscious beings, but in a subordinate
capacity : a living organism exhibits actions which cannot
be formulated by the laws of physics alone ; man is
material, but he is also a great deal more, to wit, alive,
psychical, and moral. Again, all bodies gravitate, but
the activities of living, to say nothing of rational, bodies
cannot be explained by the action of gravitation alone. So
chemical affinities are presupposed in biological actions, but
yet life is something more than and beyond chemical affinity.
Thus it is the same inherent flaw of the method which is
displayed, not only in the palpable inadequacy of explaining
biological facts by chemical or mechanical facts, but also in
that of explaining the rational or moral by mere biology.
The naturalistic method therefore, in trying to explain the
higher by the lower, constantly fails to include the whole of
the higher, and is constantly driven to deny what it cannot
explain, and to reduce the higher to the lower. But though at
first it seems plausible to explain the higher and fuller by
something which seems simpler because it is less significant,
by dint of leaving out its surplus meaning, this process
The Method of Philosophy 151
becomes more and more difficult the further it is carried, and
if it were carried to its consistent conclusion, it would be
seen to refute itself. It would end by explaining all things
by that which is nothing in itself, and has meaning only in
relation to the things it is supposed to explain. The further
we carry our researches into the lower, the more it appears
that it is not really simple, but only vaguer and more in
definite, and that the lack of differentiation indicates, not that
we have got down to the fundamental principles of the
complex, but that it arises from a confounding of all the
distinctions which enable us to comprehend the thing.
To take only the one example of protoplasm, which is the
starting-point of biology (itself one of the higher sciences).
For biology protoplasm is ultimate : it can no longer be
derived from any lower and ' simpler ' form of life. It can be
defined only in terms of what it becomes or develops into.
Yet this ' simple ' protoplasm performs all the functions
which in its differentiated developments fall to the share of
the most various structures and the most various faculties.
It sees and hears and smells and tastes and feels, thinks and
wills and moves, it absorbs and excretes, it grows and
reproduces itself, and all without any discoverable difference
of structure. What then have we gained by deriving differ-
ences we can see and partly understand from hypothetical
differences which are invisible and incomprehensible ? Is the
mystery lessened by being relegated to the mythical region
of the unknowable and imperceptible, and is it not in very
deed an explanation ignoti per ignotius ?
But we shall have abundant illustration of this defect of
the method hereafter (ch. vii. §§ 4-14). At present it is more
pleasant to turn from the intrinsic weakness of the method to
its intrinsic strength.
Its great merit is the emphasis it lays on the law of
continuity. It refuses to draw hard and fast divisions any-
(N-N
152 Riddles of the Sphinx
where. It does not sever the connexions at the articulations
of the cosmos. It does not regard the higher as toto coelo
different from the lower ; it never loses its grasp of the
essential unity of things, even though it may sometimes drag
what is lofty in the mire. But even in its errors it is not
unprofitable. The connexions it establishes between the
higher and the lower serve to bridge the moats which dissever
the continuity of the universe, and will stand firm, even
though their architects were mistaken in their ulterior aims.
The scientific truths it discovers are so much permanently
gained ; for even if philosophy succeeds in putting a different
complexion on the facts of the sciences by including them in
a wider context, yet in some sense they stand, and must be
accepted by philosophy. We may say then, that the
Naturalist method is not so much false as insufficient.
§ 4. A truly philosophic method, then, is still to seek.
Ideally the best method would perhaps be to subject all
the important and current beliefs about ultimate reality
to a rigorous epistemological criticism which traced their
genesis, history and relation to the psychical idiosyncrasies
of their authors and eras. Such a criticism would
enormously facilitate progress, by clearing away obstacles
and rubbish-heaps and making an inventory of the ideas
which had really shown themselves fruitful and useful in
the past. It would also preserve the central truth in the
Kantian epistemology, viz., that it is futile to assert the
existence of anything until it can also be shown how that
thing can be known, without encumbering itself with the
technicalities of the Kantian system, the defects of which
we have already considered (ch. ii. § 11 -21). However, it
is clear that this method would be very lengthy, and that
it might easily stop short with negative results. ^
false. If an assertion evades this test of application, it
becomes useless and unmeaning. It escapes the risk of being
proved false, but it forfeits the chance of being proved true. \ »(,<,
For example, if a logician takes the principle of contradiction
in a purely abstract and hypothetical sense, and does not
assert that cases of contradictory assertions actually occur, it
becomes clear that no dispute about conflicting opinions can
ever be settled by an appeal to the principle of contradiction.
Or again, to take a couple of historic cases : Kant establishes
the unconditional absoluteness of the law of duty simply by
rendering it inapplicable. His 'categorical imperative' never
declares what any one's duty is under any concrete circum-
stances ; it only makes a formal demand that duty (whatever
it is) shall be done, and leaves it to the moral agent to formu-
late what he conceives to be his duty. Now as every
concrete situation has an infinity of aspects, each of which
may (or must not) be ' universalized ' in abstraction, there is
no limit to the extent of conscientious divergence of opinion
as to Vv^hat ought to be done ; and in fact we find in the same
country divergences as great as those between the Thug, who
thinks it his duty to kill as many of his fellow-men as possible,
and the Jain, who thinks it wrong to kill even a worm.
Furthermore as in its concrete integrity every situation is
unique, the ' universality ' of the ' moral law ' remains strictly
hypothetical. It only asserts that it would apply un-
conditionally to every like case, but there is no answer to the
question — when are two cases like enough to argue from one
to the other. And in fact every one knows perfectly well that
an exact repetition of the case never will occur, and that the
slightest difference may become a reason for varying the
C'A
15^ Riddles of the Sphinx
conduct which is called moral. These grotesque results of
any attempt to appl)/ the moral law to any problem of
conduct only mean that, in order to evade the empirical
difficulties of conflicts of duties, Kant has made it utterly
inapplicable. NOur second example may be drawn from Mr.
F. H. Bradley\'s metaphysic, which rests entirely on the self-
evident principle that Reality cannot contradict itself, and
that therefore whatever does contradict itself must be
* appearance' and not 'reality.' The satisfactoriness of this
fundamental principle, however, vanishes at once, so soon as
it is noted that the ' contradiction ' involved, to be a real
proof that a thing is appearance and not reality, must first of
all be shown to be real and not apparent. But as it may
always be ascribed to insufficient knowledge or inadequate
conceptions, this proof is never forthcoming. Hence Mr.
Bradley's principle is never able to pronounce that in any
particular case we are face to face with a real contradiction.
In other words, it too is inapplicable. )
Thus a method which abstracts from application and
disclaims usefulness, abstracts from meaning. And a method
which proclaims itself a p7'iori abstracts from the only test
which could prove its truth. Yet the highest truths, as
metaphysicians conceive them, involve the second, if not also
the first of these abstractions. Surely we shall be within our
rights to call this method the absU^actionist, and to deny that
theories which not merely reject verification by experience,
but even dispense with any definite meaning, can possibly
reveal the meaning of the universe. In claiming universality,
therefore, they are only disclaiming the duty of meaning any-
thing in particular, and their lack of meaning would be at
once detected, if they did not prudently disclaim also all appli-
cability to concrete facts.
§ 6. It is hardly necessary to look further afield for the
explanation of the failure of abstract a priori metaphysics
The Method of Philosophy 157
throughout the history of philosophy, and the magnitude of
their pretensions only sets their failure in a stronger light.
No method has promised more, or accomplished less.
Indeed we are constantly tempted to assert that it has
accomplished nothing, and to say that science has never
been assisted, but often been perverted by metaphysics.
Nevertheless we must not overlook the far-reaching suggestions
which the whole intellectual and emotional life of men has
sometimes received from metaphysical doctrines. But the
suggestiveness of the abstractionist method hardly atones for its
unsoundness. It produces artificial constructions which charm
us by the harmonious interdependence of their parts, but which
are fatally unstable. The demolition of a single part drags the
whole edifice to the ground, and in the common ruin all the
outworks perish. So metaphysical systems have seemed like
a succession of beauteous bubbles blown from the reflective
pipe of genius, which delighted us for a season and then were
dissipated into thin air. Where are the metaphysical systems
of the earlier Greeks or later Germans ? Their multitudinous
shades are buried in the bulky tomes of our histories of
philosophy, and but rarely stalk about the earth in the
eccentricities of living representatives.
The fatal flaw in almost all these metaphysics of the past
was their abstractness, their inability to come down to con-
crete fact. <^For what does it avail that the abstractionist
method should profess reverence for ideals and protest against j^''^
the explanation of the higher by the lower, if it confines itself
to a mere protest, to a mere assertion of their difference ?^ c-t.*
To tell us, e.g., that the spiritual is not natural, that soul is
not body, that God is not man, that appearance is not reality,
is to tell us nothing. All this does is to constitute a difference
in kind between the higher and the lower, to break in two the
unity of the universe, to open an impassable abyss between
here and hereafter, so that they that would pass from earth
158 Riddles of the Sphinx
to heaven cannot pass from facts to metaphysics, while those
who breathe the unsubstantial air of metaphysical meditation
can never reach the gross but solid fact. \To assert the
N\ difference between the higher and the lower is not enough ;
we require a method which will also bring out their connexion^
§ 7. After this breach in the law of continuity, and the
assertion of the utter difference of higher and lower, the
abstractionist method may develop in two ways.
If it retains any consciousness of the lower earthly
plane at all, the difference between the higher and the
lower becomes accentuated into antagonism. The spiritual
becomes the supernatural, the phenomenal becomes the
unreal, the body is opposed to the soul in everlasting
conflict, man to God and earth to heaven. There results,
first, an irreconcilable dualism of the higher and lower, and in
the end the lower or physical plane is regarded as the sphere
of the principle of evil. It is well known how near many
Manichaean heresies, as well as certain forms of orthodoxy,
come to making the Devil the ruler of the world, from whose
dominion the individual can only escape by special miraculous
grace, and the whole ascetic view of life, once so widely
prevalent, really results from the same tendency. And that
these consequences are not due to the bias of individuals, but
inherent in the method, is shown also in the history of pre-
Christian philosophy. In their asceticism and contempt for
the material the Neo-Platonists yielded not a whit to the
most enthusiastic monk. Yet they might justly trace their
intellectual descent from the most Hellenic of Hellenic
philosophers, .and are connected by an unbroken chain of
logical necessity with the doctrine of Plato. Indeed we can *
find in Plato both the source and the reason of Neo-Platonic
asceticism. For the Platonic system is perhaps the most
purely metaphysical the world has ever seen. To Plato
metaphysical ' Ideas ' abstracted from phenomena were the
The Method of Philosophy 159
only true reality, while the phenomena of sense were real
only as partaking in them. The result is that the connexion
of the Ideas with the Sensible becomes entirely unintelligible
{cf. ch. iii. § 15, note) : the contrast has become so sharp that
union becomes inconceivable, and Plato himself admits that
he cannot explain how sensible things partake in the Ideas.
As might have been expected, this metaphysical dualism
spreads from the theoretic to the practical sphere, and in
his latest and maturest work we find him seriously pro-
pounding the theory of an evil World-Soul, the action of
which is to differentiate the character of the imperfect world
of Becoming from the perfection of the world of Ideas.^ But
from the admission of an evil and irrational principle in the
physical world at war with the principle of Good and Reason,
to that of its supremacy in the visible world, is only a small
step, easily forced upon the mind by the evils of life, and
hence we find it constantly and consistently taken in the
Gnostic and Neo- Platonic speculations. Thus we find the
abstractionist method, in one of its developments, passing
from the dualism of the Ideal and the Real to their inherent
conflict and to final pessimism. The separation of the
physical and the metaphysical, the x««Jpfo'/>t«V which the acute
^ Laws X. 896D, 898c. It seems hopeless to deny this antithesis of
the phenomenal and the real on the a priori ground that Plato was too
great a philosopher to be a dualist, and for this reason to assume that a
reconciliation of the Ideas and the Sensible must be found soynewhere
in his system. For it is no disparagement of Plato's genius to say that he
failed to achieve what no philosopher has succeeded in achieving, viz.,
the impossible task of reconciling the higher and the lower by abstract
metaphysics. And at all events Plato showed more discernment than
his critics in seeing where the real crux lay, and in perceiving that its
solution was, on his principles and by his method, impossible. And if a
way out of the difficulty had been discovered by Plato, is it not
astonishing that all his successors should not only have failed to discover
it in Plato, but have themselves one and all come to grief over this same
difficulty .^
i6o Riddles of the Sphinx
criticism of Plato's great disciple, Aristotle, detected as the
central flaw of the Platonic system, has avenged itself by a
fearful penalty.
§ 8. But abstractionism may essay to rid itself of the
contrast of higher and lower by a still more heroic remedy.
Just as the Naturalist method yielded to the temptation of
denying the higher, so conversely the metaphysical method
may yield to the temptation of ignoring the lower. The
metaphysician wings in his flight to the invisible, and loses
sight of earth altogether. He closes his eyes and hardens his
heart to the facts of life. He declares unreal whatever does
not fit into the narrow limits of his theories, on the ground
that whatever is real is rational, and leaving to his disciples a
glittering legacy of magniloquent but unmeaning phrases, he
vanishes into the air before he can be caught and questioned
about the meaning of his enchantments. But even he cannot
outsoar the atmosphere which supports him : in the end the
irresistible attractioa of earth brings him down with a fall
more dire than that of Icarus : stripped of the false plumes
in which he had counterfeited the divine bird of Zeus, and
pursued by the imprecations of those who discovered too late
the cheat which had deceived him, and at length perceived
that a haughty scorn of the phenomenal does not satisfy the
demands of reality, and that empty abstractions are not the
staff of life, he perishes miserably, and leaves lasting discredit
on a subject which seems composed of a series of splendid
failures.
Of this type of metaphysics we may take as examples
Eleaticism in ancient, and Hegelism in modern times. The
Eleatic philosophy seems to have simply ignored the
phenomenal, and to have consisted in an emphatic assertion
of the abstract unity of the universe. Its ingenious polemic
against the possibility of Becoming has been preserved in
Zeno's famous fallacies about motion, and ' Achilles and the
The Method of Philosophy i6i
Tortoise ' and ' The Arrow ' will ever retain their charm — '
even though a coarsely practical world has long ago replied
to the system which they illustrated and defended by a
solvitur ainbulando.
/The same praise of ingenuity may be bestowed also upon
the Hegelian system, which is doubtless the most ingenious
system oi false pretences that adorns the history of philosophy. Of\
For even its metaphysical character is largely a pretence. It
pretends to give us metaphysics where its Kantian pedigree
does not entitle it to more than epistemology.\ We fancy
it is speaking of metaphysical realities when it is really
dealing with logical categories. It pretends to give us a
thought-process incarnate in reality, but the thought remains
motionless, and its transitions are really effected by the
surreptitious introduction of phenomenal Becoming. It
pretends to deal with the realities of life, but it talks of
abstractions throughout and never raises the problem of the
application of its categories to concrete cases. It pretends
to explain all things, and then ascribes inconvenient f^icts to
the * contingency of matter,' i.e. it pretends to be a rational
explanation of the world, and then admits an element of
irrationality. It pretends to solve all practical problems, but
finally turns out to be necessarily incapable of solving a
single one. It professes to give categorical answers to
disputed questions, but its most definite assertions are
rendered worthless by the taint of a subtle ambiguity. It
seems a hard saying, but it is no more than what is strictly
demonstrable, that Flegelism never anywhere gets within
sight of a fact, or within touch of reality. And the reason is
simple : you cannot, without paying the penalty, substitute
abstractions for realities ; the verbal symbol cannot do duty
for the thing symbolized ; the development of a logical
category is not the same as the evolution of a real individual.
The ' dialectical process,' if we admit the phrase, is logical
1 62 Riddles of the Sphinx
and not in Time, and has nothing to do with the world
process in Time. Hegelism is the greatest of abstractionist
systems because it starts from the highest abstraction and
makes the most persistent effort to work down to reahty
from it, because its abstractions are carried out most
ruthlessly, because its confusions are concealed most artfully,
and because it hence seems to come closer to reality than
systems which stopped short of such perfect illusion.
But for these very reasons it is also the falsest of abstract
metaphysical systems, if degrees be admitted, where all are
fundamentally false.
§ 9. For the truth is that any theory which puts
forward an abstraction as the ultimate explanation of
all things is impotent. It is no matter what we call it,
whether it is dubbed the Absolute, or the Unknowable, or
the Idea, or the Will, or the Unconscious, or Matter, or
Reason, the Good or the Infinite. It matters little whether
the fundamental principle be picked up out of the sphere of
material or of immaterial things, and whether v/e pronounce
that the All is the One, or Number, or a material ' element,'
like Fire, Water, or Air. For all these first principles are
abstractions ; they may give partial interpretations of aspects
of things, more or less successful according to the importance
of the element denoted by the abstraction, and according to
the care with which it has been selected. But not one of
them can ever be wholly successful, for each of them is a part
which cannot include the whole. The efforts, therefore, of
such theories may present to the astounded spectator the
most surprising feats of mental acrobatism, but they must be
as fruitless as a man's attempt to put himself into his own
pocket.
§ 10. Further difficulties arise out of the random and hap-
hazard way in which philosophies arrive at their first principles.
They are, for the most part, generated by reflection upon the
The Method of Philosophy 163
difficulties of the theories of the past, and so work on from
age to age in the same old narrow and vicious groove. Hence
the history of philosophy presents a series of unprofitable con-
troversies, like that as to the nature of universals, as to the
origin of knowledge, as to the existence of an * external '
world, etc., which would either never have been raised or
would rapidly have been adjusted, if philosophy had kept in
closer contact with the real problems of life, and shown itself
more sensitive to outside influences.
Now it is manifest that this sectarian adherence to the
traditional formulation of philosophic questions affords but
the slenderest guarantee that the first principles of philosophy
will be such as to be applicable to any other subject. Such
principles have no organic connexion with the positive
sciences, and very often must be incapable of utilizing
scientific facts. Hence t^ie general attitude of abstract meta-
physics is anii-scientific, and hence the antagonism of science
and philosophy, which in the present day is so detrimental
to the best interests of both.
/Thus each of the two methods on which men have hitherto
placed their chief reliance in order to achieve the Herculean
task of silencing the Sphinx, is vitiated by its peculiar dis-
abilities. The naturalist method may be compared to an
earth-born Antaeus, whose strength fails as soon as he is
raised above the ground ; the abstractionist to a flighty
Icarus, who reaches the ground only in his death. The one
is of use only on the earth, and the other only in the air,
whereas the winged Sphinx is equally at home in either
element.^
§ II. We require, then, a method which combines the
excellences of both the naturalist and the abstractionist. It
must be metaphysical, and yet not abstract nor contemptuous
of experience ; it must agree with the metaphysical in
■explaining the lower by the higher, and with the naturalist
164 Riddles of the Sphinx
in admitting their intrinsic likeness and the continuity of all
existence. Thus it must avoid the weaknesses of the others.
Unlike the first, it must explain the less known and less in-
telligible lower, />., the more remote from human nature, by
the more known and more intelligible, />., that which is
nearer to human nature. Unlike the second, it must avoid
the divorce of phenomenal and real, the abstract opposi-
tion of ideal and actual. It must have a real and verifiable
meaning, and submit to the verdict of experience. Unlike
the second, too, its principles must be organically connected
with the sciences, aided by them, and reciprocating their
assistance.
How can all this be .'' Simply by recognizing unreservedly
the central position which we ourselves occupy in the
philosophic problem, and acting on our faith that this
position is not devoid of meaning. After all, the world to
be explained is the world as it appears to us ; the life to
be justified is ours ; the sciences to be synthesized are
human products called into being by our interests and
needs. Man, moreover, is the highest of the beings he knows,
though not the highest of those he conjectures and postulates.
He has, therefore, no other and no better key to the mystery
of being. To interpret humanly is to interpret the lower by
the higher, to interpret by a concrete reality and not by an
abstraction, to interpret progressively and verifiably because
in accordance with the progress of man's knowledge and the
growth of his experience.
Such a method well deserves the name o{ Hinnanist ; for it
conceives nothing as alien and unrelated to man. But it will
not be humanist in any exclusive sense; it will neither
conceive man as a non-natural being, nor deny the value of
applicable abstractions ; it insists only on bringing the truth
contained in the rival methods into relation to human ends,,
and judging them by their application to human purposes.
The Method of Philosophy 165
In particular, the humanist method of philosophizing will
not listen to any idea of a final and irreconcilable antagonism
between science and life, and science and metaphysics.
It will insist that both are activities of the human spirit,
and neither can stand aloof from life. Our metaphysic,
therefore, may safely be based on our science. Thus will our
metaphysics be concrete^ and not abstract, an inquiry into the
ultimate nature of concrete realities, and not of thought-
abstractions. In other words, they will proceed from the
phenomenally real to the tiltimately real, from science to
metaphysics. The method of philosophy will utilize the
results of science ; metaphysical theories will be suggested by
scientific researches, and will approve themselves by in their
turn suggesting scientific advances. Their principles of
explanation will be systematically based on the sciences, and
not picked up at random, and their function will be to
systematize the fundamental principles of the various
sciences.
§ 12. But is such a reconciliation of science and meta-
physics possible as yet }
It is certainly not easy.
In the first place, because of the scarcity of philosophical
predecessors. With the mention of Berkeley's * spirits ' and
Leibniz's ' monads ' we have almost exhausted the list of
philosophical principles which are not liable to the charge of
being abstractions, or of explaining the higher by the lower.
Aristotle also regarded the concrete individual as the primary
reality {irpwrv] ovfrla), though it must be confessed that he by
no means makes it clear how he can also be compounded out
of two such undifferentiated universals as his * form ' and
^ matter '.
§ 13. Our diflficulty then arises from two main causes.
(i) Our imperfect knowledge of the lower.
{2) Our imperfect attainment of the higher. '^ - '
1 66 Riddles of the Sphinx
These two causes conspire to make most of the facts in
the world unintelligible. We have to accept them as facts
for which we can give no reason. Why does gravity vary
inversely as the square of the distance t A simple fact like
this will defy explanation for many an age, for it is the lowest
and most general of physical facts, and therefore the last to
be rendered intelligible from the point of view of the higher.
For just as in ascending a mountain the higher peaks are the
first to be perceived, the first whose groupings can be under-
stood, just -as it is not until we reach the summit that we rise
to a free purview of the whole, and that the interconnexion
of the lowlands and the direction of the valleys can be made
out ; so in philosophy we can only catch partial and mis-
leading views of what is below, while we toil through the
dense forest of prejudice, and can only gain mysterious hints
of what lies beyond, while what is above is shrouded in the
mists of early morning.
§ 14. And not only are we hampered by our avowed
ignorance of the lower, but in view of the slight deference
which the scheme of things pays to man and his desires,
we must admit also that little progress has been made in
the attainment of the higher. We are after all far nearer
to the beast than to the angel, far closer to hell than to
heaven. We can feel the throb of brutal instincts, we can
conceive the anguish of undying torment ; but the calm
of superhuman virtue leaves us cold, and visions of eternal
bliss seem empty and unmeaning.
Yet this is in the nature of things inevitable. The
higher can in a way understand the lower, by tracing in it
the germs the higher has developed. But the lower cannot
in the same way anticipate the higher. In the case of
existences higher than ourselves, we can ascribe to them
the possession of certain qualities seftsii eniineniiori, or the
perfection of our highest activities. But how, if our
The Method of Philosophy 167
activities seem essentially imperfect, bound up with im-
perfect conditions, relative to imperfect stages of develop-
ment ? In such cases perfection means destruction. One
human activity after another must be excluded from the
ideal life, and we can imagine nothing which can take
their place ; and owing to this progressive elimination of
the lower activities, it is a great achievement if we can
retain any aspect of human life as a permanent ideal, and
in any case the ideals of perfection become mere forms,
the whole content of which has been eviscerated. And
so the higher life seems dull and empty. We are able to
describe it only by negatives, by the negation of the
lower attributes unworthy of it. This is the real explanation
of the eternal emptiness of happiness, of the enmii of bliss
which is so marked in the popular representations of heaven.
It is the explanation also of the irrepressible tendency to
describe God by negations, as the ineffable, infinite, im-
mutable, incomprehensible and unknowable, which is con-
tinually making religion the half-way house to agnosticism.
But in reality this is a mere prejudice, though a very
pardonable one. To overcome it, we should consider, as
a parallel, the relation of the infra-human to the human
from the point of view of the former. How unable would
an amoeba be to realize the higher activities of man,
how inevitably would the dim forecasts of its knowledge
deny to man the activities, whatever they are, that make
up the life of the amoeba ! To a less degree, the same
incapacity is displayed also among men. The unthinking
masses also condemn the life of the thinker as dull, empty,
and uneventful, simply because they cannot imagine how
much fuller his heightened consciousness makes it, how
much more intense are the pleasures and pains of the
sage than those of coarser minds that cannot react upon
the subtler stimuli. From such examples we begin to
1 68 Riddles of the Sphinx
perceive that the higher is not a negation, because the
lower cannot determine its positive attributes. Every
step in advance does indeed mean a dropping away of
some lower activities, until all have disappeared. But
each step in advance also opens up new activities, and
fuller realizations of old activities, which progressively
increase the total content of life, and make the higher life
richer and fuller than the lower. But these, of course,
are not visible from the standpoint of the lower. The
lament, therefore, over the emptiness of the higher life,
is as though one were to lament in the ascent of a mountain
that the advance was pure loss, because the scenery at the
foot must be more and more obscured, oblivious of the
fact that the ascent would bring new features into view
of which we could not have dreamt below. Or to illustrate
by a mathematical parallel : the higher can understand the
lower just as we can abstract one and two dimensions
from three dimensional space ; the lower cannot understand
the higher, just as we cannot add a fourth dimension to
Space.
§ 15. These defects in the humanist method are in-
superable ; and though they do not impair its correctness,
they sadly limit its achievements. They render it impossible
for philosophy to solve all questions, to be more than
fragmentary, to be complete and final. Philosophy must
be content if it can make out the general drift of life, if
it can determine its main features, if it can approximately
decipher its chief enigmas, if not with perfect certainty
and in full detail, yet with reasonable probability. Its
function is to form a temporary roofing-in of the pyramid
of knowledge, which anticipates the completion of the
structure, and enables the workers to work secured against
the inclemency of the skies, but which from time to time
must be renewed and modified and expanded, so as to
The Method of Philosophy 169
satisfy the requirements of its growing bulk. ^A philo-
sophical system will share the characteristics of the sciences
on which it is based. It will consist of a series of happy,
but not random, guesses, more or less probable, and /\' ]
deriving a certain amount of support from their connexion,
able to explain the broad outlines of the constitution of
things to a greater or less extent, but leaving much as yet
unexplained ; like scientific theories also it will be ratified
by the way it works and stands the test of experience.^
Finality, completeness, and perfection are as impossible
at present in a true system of philosophy as in any of the
sciences, and if this lack is censured by the admirers of
spick and span systems which profess to have a glib
response for every question, w^e must admit that as yet
philosophy can do little more than keep alive the sacred
fire of hope, and throw a light upon the path of progress.
But we may be more than consoled by the reflection that
such philosophy, though it is imperfect, is at least alive,
and that its potentialities of progress render it immensely
superior to the most artful and artificial system, the
symmetry of which forbids the slightest change. ^
§ 16. But little as philosophy can as yet achieve, it
could nevertheless have achieved far more than it has
done if it had kept in touch with science. Ought it not
to have profited immensely by the unparalleled advance
of the sciences in the course of the present century }
Ought it not to have gathered from this advance data of
primary interest and principles of surpassing importance t
But the traditional metaphysics have known so little to
profit by the teaching of science that, even in purely
metaphysical matters, scientific theories are now often far
^ [This phrase, which I have left unaltered, sufficiently attests the
continuity of my original views with my present Humanism.]
lyo Riddles of the Sphinx
in advance of philosophical ones, and involve metaphysical
principles which philosophy has either not yet realized
at all, or only grudgingly recognized, and failed to apply
generally to the solution of its own problems/ Yet it is the
conviction that metaphysical principles can be extracted
from the great scientific progress of our age, and may afford
the key to the solution of the chief problems of philosophy,
that can embolden philosophy to refuse to surrender to
pessimistic and sceptical despair.
But as the actual discussion of the metaphysical principles
involved in modern scientific conceptions will demonstrate far
more clearly than any general argument can do, not only that
the humanist method of concrete metaphysics is possible, but
that it works, and yields philosophic results of supreme
importance, we must delay no longer to consider the
Metaphysics of Evolution. We shall see in the next chapter
how what was at first a sciefttific doctrine, originating in the
single science of biology, from the suggestion of an obscure
sociological analogy, has pursued its triumphant march
through all the sciences, until with all the accumulated wealth
of the data it has collected, it has developed into a principle
of ultimate significance.
^ Like the metaphysical principles of Evokition (ch. vii.) and the
impossibility of infinity (ch. vii. § 20 ; ch. ix. §§ 2-1 1), and of Interaction
{ch. xii. § 10; ch. vii. § i) respectively.
CHAPTER VII.
THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION.
§ I. The discussion of the metaphysics of Evolution may
come with the shock of seeming paradox on those who pride
themselves on their complete exemption from metaphysical
views and metaphysical knowledge. But in reality their
surprise is quite uncalled for ; if they knew what meta-
physics were, they would perceive that it was as difficult to
avoid talking metaphysics as it is to avoid talking prose.
It requires a real poet to avoid prose, and it requires
a real metaphysician to avoid metaphysical assumptions.
For ordinary men the choice is only between good and bad
metaphysics, as between good and bad prose.
Spor metaphysics is simply the science of the fundamental
assumptions of all knowing and being as they appear at any
given stage of knowledge. ) It is impossible to act or think ooo
without assuming and implying some such principles however
provisionally and with whatever willingness to modify them
if required. Aletaphysics is the science of the borderland of
knowledge ; it marks the progress men have made in analys-
ing out the assumptions of their knowing. It is impossible A^
to carry on life without metaphysical assumptions, simply
because our knowledge always stops somewhere and has to
treat some assumptions as final.") The only real question is ^o c
whether our various metaphysical assumptions are to be
consistent with one another and capable of being combined
into a connected whole or not ; and it is highly probable that,
172 Riddles of the Sphinx
unless great care is taken, they will not be so consistent. ., a considerable command over nature. But
both the sources of this command over nature, alike division
of labour and knowledge of the properties of things, require
a highly developed social organization, and this again,
to be stable, must possess a very considerable power over
nature. Unless the amount of leisure in a society is
relatively considerable and well-employed, i.e., unless the
wealthy classes are comparatively numerous, strenuous and
benevolent, the constitution of society will hardly be
permanent. There is much latent or explicit social amity
and good feeling involved in the very existence of a
complex and highly organized society. Thus much social
sympathy is necessary to the existence and security of
highly developed individuals, nor ought we perhaps to
regard those individuals as highly developed in whom that
sympathy is wanting.
§ 9. This mutual implication of individual and social
development is seen not only in industrial progress, but
even more obviously in the methods of social competition,
e.g., warfare. For it is clear that social combination and
co-operation are of primary importance in warfare. No
individual fighting for his own hand, however strong he
may be, can possibly maintain himself against combinations
of many individuals. Society, therefore, is based upon
the simple physical fact that in the long run two are
stronger than one, and that hence the limitation of the
struggle of all against all by social restraints is a more
effective method of survival than unrestricted competition-
Thus socialism conquers the atomism of individuals in
the interests of the individuals themselves. And so the
least military efficiency implies some limitations on the
aggressions of individuals on one another ; for evidently
Formulas of the Law of EvoliUicn 219
no man will fight, if he is liable to be treacherously
attacked by his comrades. And as it was, so it still is :
discipline, superior knowledge, organization and equipment,
all of them implying a superior capacity to subordinate
oneself to social aims and to co-operate with others, are
ever growing more important factors in military success
than individual courage and mere numbers. Yet even
numbers are in a way a test of social virtue. For they
indicate at least a capacity to act together on a large scale.
And while military efficiency thus implies a growth of
social co-operation, social development need not in the
long run involve a deterioration in the military prowess
of the individual. It is true that in ancient times
civilization had an unfavourable effect on the military
virtues. But this was perhaps due to the want of firmness
in the moral texture of the social tissue, which caused
wealth to lead merely to luxurious self-indulgence, rather
than to any intrinsic effect of civilization. It is also true
that owing to the different directions which the de-
velopment of the individual has taken* in modern
societies, the superiority of the civilized individual over
the savage is less marked in military than in other
matters. But even on this score it is not true that the
average civilized European soldier is inferior in physique,
courage and endurance to the average savage warrior,
while our picked and trained men will challenge
comparison with the most warlike savages.
§ 10. \rhere is, in fact, no aspect of life in which the
intensity of social action does not depend on the develop-
ment of its component individualsA Even in the case of
social intercourse it appears that its pleasantness is largely
dependent on the personal distinction of the individuals
who take part in it : social ' lions ' are individuals dis-
tinguished for some quality in which they differ from
AA
2 20 Riddles of the Sphinx
and surpass other individuals, and individuals are interesting-
in proportion as their individuality is more marked.
Thus civilization, even though it destroys the spurious
individuality which is bestowed by varieties of costume,
and the vagaries of barbarous customs, is everywhere
aiming at developing the intrinsic individuality of its
possessors, and at developing it in harmony with the
social environment.
§ II, But it is not enough to show that our formula
is an adequate description of the actual condition of
the world. We must show also both that the same
tendency may be traced in the lower stages of the process
beneath civilization and beneath man, and that it may
be anticipated for the higher stages, and will afford an
adequate end and ideal of cosmic evolution.
Now with regard to the lower stages of Evolution, it
will not be difficult to show this while the lower stages
are still human. It is clear that under barbarous and
savage conditions of life both the individual and the
society are only imperfectly developed ; it is a common-
place that even physically one savage looks almost exactly
like another. The individual has as yet hardly emerged
from the type, and a horde of savages are as like as a
herd of sheep, or, as we say, by a comparison with still
lower grades of individuality, as one pea is to another.
And even the apparent exceptions in history only serve
to confirm our theory, while at the same time it throws
fresh light on the historical facts.
§ 12. Thus it seems at first sight anomalous that in
an early civilization like the Greek, individuality and
sociality should have been more perfectly developed than
in any modern society, and that at the dawn of history
States with highly developed structure and highly complex
organizations, like the caste-states of Egypt, India and China
Formulas of the Lazu of Evohition 221
should lead the van of civilization, while after a time they
were overwhelmed and outstripped by barbarous tribes with
comparatively little social coherence. Why did civilization
arise in the despotic East? why did Greece remain free, to
become the mother and model of science, art and philosophy?
why, again, did Greece succumb to Rome, and Rome to the
rude vigour of the Teutons ? At first sight the course of
civilization does not seem to have always run smooth.
Now in order to understand these facts, we must
remember the rhythm of progress, which may be likened to
the billows of an ever-growing tide which never recedes.
But as it deepens, disturbances of its surface waves bear an
ever-diminishing proportion to its total bulk. While
civilization was young, its temporary vicissitudes and its
transient eclipses, which accompanied the decay of the
nations that represented it, might well seem alarming, and
if we confine our view to sufficiently narrow limits, we may
find ages of almost unmitigated retrogression. But for all
that civilization advances, and the rate of its advance is ever
accelerated with the growing momentum of its growing bulk.
Secondly, we may admit that in some respects the early
civilizations were more perfect, not only than the societies
which supplanted them, but even than our own {cf. ch. iv. §
15). A society which is articulated into castes does possess
a higher structure and a higher formal perfection of
organization than one in which functions are not yet
differentiated, and every one is a jack-of-all-trades. So, too,,
the highest insects are more highly organized than the lowest
fishes. And a system of castes is not only a high form of
social organization, but also one particularly valuable in the
beginnings of civilization, and conducive to the progress of
tribes which adopted it. As is so well shown by
Bagehot,^ the chief diflficulty of early societies was that they-
^ Physics and Politics.
222 Riddles of the Sphinx
had to bring wild men with rudimentary social instincts to
live together in States. The caste-system effected this
admirably and hence the early civilizations were all dis-
tinguished by the rigid and rigorous character of the social
organization. But subsequently, as the structure con-
solidated and ossified, it became incompatible with the
mobility requisite : the ancient civilizations were, as it were,
stifled in the armour which had protected them : their
institutions became too rigid to be adapted to the changing
conditions of life. Above all, the system depressed
individuality too completely. The time came when there
was need for it, when the individual's energy and sense of
responsibility alone could save the State, and when they w^ere
not forthcoming. What wonder then that the earliest
civilizations decayed and perished, and that their cumbrous
-organizations collapsed for the same reasons as the State of
the Incas collapsed when Pizarro had seized its ruler } So,
too, the Persians could not conquer Greece ; because the
blind onset of slaves was no match for the voluntary
■combination of intelligent men who knew the value of
individual effort. Again, Greek civilization was in some
ways more perfect than ours ; their ideas of the formal
perfection of science, of ethics, and of a * beautiful ' and noble
life generally, were higher than any to which we dare to
aspire. But the basis of Greek civilization was extremely
narrow, and so it was fatally unstable. It developed the
individual to an unequalled perfection, but at a heavy cost.
The economic basis of the * beautiful ' life of social leisure
was slavery. The Greek ideal of life was one for a select
and privileged class. Nor were the relations of the individual
to the State really satisfactory. In theory, no doubt, the
JState was supreme ; but in practice the individual was con-
stantly recalcitrant, and generally succeeded in doing pretty
much as he pleased — at least to judge by the complaints of
Formulas of the Lazv of Evolution 223
Greek thinkers. There were only very few Greek States
which were not chronically in danger of subversion by the
lawless ambition of their own citizens. And such practical
control ov^er the individual as the State did attain was only
gained by the almost complete sacrifice of the institution
which is the primary source of the individual's altruism, viz.,
the family. The State crushed the family life in Greece, in
the supposed interests of the social life : but it did not there-
by tame the exuberance of the individual. The Greeks dis-
covered no antidote to the excessive ambition and vanity of
the individual Greek. Not only Athens, but every Greek
city, was ruined by its Alcibiades. Indeed the political
failure of the Greeks as a nation also was due to an extension
of the characteristic which ruined the different Greek cities.
The ineradicable particularism and mutual jealousies of the
Greek cities, which rendered any lasting combination or
joint action impossible, is only one more instance of their
irrepressible vanity and self-conceit. The individual Greek
and the individual city alike preferred to let the common
cause perish rather than tolerate a policy in which they
should have no opportunity of playing a leading part. And
just as the minor actors in the melodrama of Greek history
were incapable of self-subordination, so the leading States
were equally incapable of self-control, and consequently
sacrificed a just and generous policy to short-sighted whims
that prompted them to abuse their power.
The secret of Rome's success, on the other hand, lay in
her political virtue. The Romans were justly proud of the
sternness of Roman discipline, and rightly reckoned among
their heroes the men who were capable of sacrificing their
lives and the lives of their dearest for the letter of the law.
The cruel rigour of Brutus and Manlius was but the extreme
manifestation of a spirit of strict legality, unquestioning
obedience, and unflinching adherence to. duty, which made
22 4- Riddles of the Sphinx
Rome great. This self-control and respect for legality was
displayed in a marvellous way during the struggle between
the plebeians and patricians ; and it may be safely asserted
that in no other State would the Licinian and Sextian laws
have been rejected for eight years without causing a revolu-
tion. But respect for law was a quality the Greeks could never
learn ; general principles of policy and respect for the forms
of legal procedure were always powerless against the impulse
of the moment ; the Athenians sacrificed their empire rather
than postpone the trial of Alcibiades on a domestic charge
until his return from active service. With the Romans, on
the other hand, the immunity of magistrates from accusation
during their year of office was a cardinal principle of state-
craft. They yielded implicit obedience to their magistrates,
however arbitrary and incapable they might be, and with
w^hatever severity they might call them to account when they
had laid down their functions. Now the reason why the
Roman was able to practise a self-control as wise as it was
difficult was that from his youth he had been trained to obey
as well as to command, and that the discipline of the army
was but the continuation of the discipline exercised by the
father of each family. For absolute as was the devotion
which the State required of its citizens in military matters, it
yet did not crush the individual, because the State never
thought of interfering with the relations of a Roman to his
family and his household. Hence the ambassadors of
Pyrrhus might well, report that the Roman Senators were
300 kings ; and we may add, a truth no less incomprehensible
to Greek ears, that not one of them would have been capable
of playing the tyrant. The Roman training produced a
succession of ' golden mediocrities,' who carried out their
task with unhesitating devotion and unyielding pertinacity.
But it was too narrow to cope with the problems which arose
out of the growth of the city by the Tiber into a world-wide
Formulas of the Law of Evolution 225
empire, too narrow to reconcile the spirit of old Roman
morality with the claims of Hellenic culture. It could
neither produce a man who could solve the political problem
of combining- empire with freedom, nor one to solve the
intellectual problem of combining reason with virtue. And
so the Romans lost first their virtue and then their freedom,
and in the end their empire.
Thus we may learn from the history of Greece and Egypt
how necessary it is to keep the proper balance between the
development of society and of the individual ; from that of
Rome how necessary it is to advance, if one desires to avoid
failure due not to any intrinsic deterioration, but to inability
to cope with new and uncalculated conditions. It is from
excess of conservatism and self-satisfaction, from unwilling-
ness to adopt new methods for dealing with new difficulties,
and not from any ineluctable law of natural mortality, that
civilizations have decayed, and that backward races, who have
not been too conceited to modify the traditional methods that
did good service in the past, have outstripped the leaders of
civilization who had handicapped themselves by their previous
successes. So we may say that the keenness of the struggle
for existence between European nations at present, enormous
as are the sacrifices and the waste it entails, and irrational as
is the theory of nationality in many respects, is the most
effective guarantee of progress, the best security that no
physical, intellectual or moral element of success will be
neglected.
§ 13. When from the earlier stages of human development
we pass to the higher stages of animal development, we find
that among animals, if we except the case of the social animals
already considered, both individuality and sociality have been
little developed. The chief exceptions to this statement are
to be found among domesticated animals. Dogs, e.g., have
very distinctly ^iiarked individual characters, so much so that
15
2 26 Riddles of the Sphinx
we may be tempted to rank their individuality above that of
many savages. But what is the reason of this development
of individual character? What but the nature of the social
medium in which their domestication places them ? They
are the slaves of man, but their slavery to superior beings
raises them above the level they could have reached unaided,
and develops their souls to a degree not justified by their
position in the hierarchy of existence.
But though in general the development both of individuality
and of sociality is slight, neither of them disappears entirely
among the animals sexually reproduced. There must always
be among them at least that amount of social connexion which
is implied in the relation of male and female and of parents
and offspring.
§ 14. But when we go still lower, the lines of demarcation
between one individual and another seem to grow faint, and
perplexities beset us. Is each segment of a tapeworm an
individual, and which is the original individual when a jelly-
fish is cut up into equal pieces, each of which develops into a
perfect animal } Shall we say that each leaf of a tree is an
individual, or confine that term to the whole tree .'' And if
each leaf is a true individual, why not each cell 1 While if it
is not, what shall we say of cuttings and leaves, each of which
is able to develop into a perfect tree } What, again, of the
colonies of zoophytes ? Are they one or many 1 Is a coral
reef one animal or a multitude .? Shall we regard rather the
individual polypes or their common organization ?
. of Space and Time is to give up all hope of transcending
^^ V Pessimism, and it is necessary to subject this doctrine to
careful criticism./
§ 2. It is necessary, in the first place, to determine the
proper sense of infinity.
First of all we must reject the popular and poetical use in
which infinity is vaguely used as the equivalent of any
extremely large quantity, and indicates merely the point at
which the intelligent appreciation of magnitude ceases. This
limit, of course, varies immensely with times and seasons and
stages of civilization. Thus the Greeks, as their language
shows, at one time regarded 10,000 as an infinitely large
number ; the Romans contented themselves with 600, while
to many savages everything above two or three is ' many,'
and 'infinity' begins before five has been reached. So too,
the sands 9f the seashore, the hairs of the head, and even the
stars of heaven, have all been popular representatives of
infinity. Yet an exact computation shows that a luxuriant
head of hair does not contain much over 100,000, and that
the stars visible to the naked eye at any one time am^ount to
less than 3,000. And the number of grains of sand on a
definite piece of shore, though it may be very large, is not
infinite.
The popular usage, in short, means very little : infinity is
merely a big word which impresses people because they do
not understand it. And how little they understand its proper
meaning is shown by the history of allied words like ' endless,'
* immense,' 'incalculable/ immeasurable,' 'innumerable,' etc.,
all of which originally implied infinity. {From this point
of view infinity is the last straggler of a whole host of words,
/Y^ which under the persuasive influence of popular usage have
long come to mean nothing more than a great multitude, and
is distinguished from them merely by the precarious
Man and the Woidd 241
allegiance it still owes to the technical terminology of the /u
learned.
§ 3. From this wholly improper ^x\d positive use of infinity
we may pass to one wholly proper, when used in its strictness,
but negative. This is the interpretation of the mathematical
use, which asserts that thei-e can be no end to the successive
synthesis of U7iity in measuring a quantity. We can never in
our thought arrive at a point when the addition of unity to a
quantity, however large, is impossible.
Now as to this, it is noticeable (i) that the definition is
pm^ely negative^ and makes the conception of infinity the
conception of a limits and (2) that it is purely human. The
definition makes no reference to any non-human reality, but
merely asserts that 'we cannot help thinking . . . / /
We seem thus to receive a hint that the idea of infinity
may indicate a defect, imperfection or limitation of our
thought, to which reality is only subjected in so far as it is
interpreted by our thought.
§ 3a. It cannot be denied however that in the world of
thought there apparently exist infinites such that once we are
committed to a line of thought we are compelled to go on
without end, whether we wish to or not. The infinite regress,
which is involved in the usual interpretation of causation, is
perhaps the clearest case of this. We may term it the infinity
of impotence, because it rests essentially on an inability to
stop the infinite process.
But the mathematical infinites are certainly not all of this
kind, nor perhaps is it the best explanation of any of them.
The infinity of number, for example, is not rightly conceived
as an inability to stop counting and to complete the number-
system. It should be conceived rather as the ability to form
as large a number as ever we may need, and it rests ultimately
on our power, once we have framed the conception of
abstract number and mastered the process of addition, to
16
242 Riddles of the Sphinx
repeat this process as often as we please. It implies in short
complete insight into and control of the laws of number, and
should be called an infinity of power. It means not that we
must go on, but only that we can.
The thought naturally suggests itself that other infinites
also are susceptible of this interpretation. Even the causal
demand, in its proper and scientific use,"^ may be construed
humanistically, as meaning that every event can be referred
to another, by knowing which it is possible to satisfy the
purpose for the sake of which the former event was called in
question. I.e. it does not mean that we can never find an
absolute 'cause,' but does mean that we can always find a
relevant ' cause.'
Lastly, it is worth nothing that though such infinites are
not negative but positive, they are not things, but names for
processes, and more or less obviously contain references to
human knowing and its postulates. They are, therefore,
unavailing for the purposes of those who are seeking for a
non-human infinite. And in any case, it is no way of
vindicating infinity for a non-humanist philosophy.
§ 4. From the mathematical conception 6i infinity, are
derived the further uses of the doctrine e.g. that since infinity
contains a number of given units greater than all number, all
finite quantities may be neglected in comparison with it.
This reasoning is an extension of the original meaning and
involves a subtle transition from the negative to a positive
conception, which finally results in infinity becoming an
actual thing, or place, a kind of mathematical topsyturvydom,
where two parallel straight lines meet and enclose spaces, and
two circles intersect at four points, etc. And, of course, so
long as these symbols are recognized as paradoxical expres-
* We have seen that the current 'philosophic' criticism renders it
useless, ch. iii 8 1 1.
Man and the World
243
sions for certain analogies, or as fictions convenient, and even
necessary, for the technical purposes of mathematicians,
nobody need complain {cp. ch. vi § 3) ; but unfortunately
mathematicians, like other mortals, are apt to forget this, and
frequently require a gentle reminder of their logical defects.
When e.g., they say that two parallel straight lines meet at
infinity, they really mean that they do not meet at all, or that
we can continue to conceive ourselves as prolonging them,
without their approaching. Or, again, the doctrine that one
infinity can be greater than another, is, to say the least,
inaccurate. For if infinity be taken as the name of a thing
it must mean something out of relation to quantity, and
different in kind, to which, therefore, phrases like 'greater
and less than' are totally inapplicable. If, e.g.^ one of two
straight lines may be produced indefinitely in one direction
and the other in both, the mathematical doctrine is that the
second infinity is greater than the first. But the question
-whether one will at any time be greater or less than the other
will depend on the rate at which they are produced and the
size of the 'successive syntheses,' and not on their being
infinite in one or two directions. But in order to measure
them at all, and so to be able to speak of greater or less with
respect to them, they must both be limited first, which is ex
hypothesi impossible. Hence the category of quantity is
inapplicable to the case, and this positive conception of in-
finity is absurd, an infinite quantum being a contradiction in
terms. For being infinite, no measure can exhaust it, while a
quantity is that which is composed of units of measurement.
§ 5. Now does the infinity of Space most resemble the
infinity of impotence, the infinity of power, or the invalid
•conception of infinity as an actual thing?
There is no need to regard it as anything but one or other
of the former. We need not mean by the infinity of Space
anything more than that we cannot think a limit to Space,
244 Riddles of the Sphinx
can conceive no space which is not bounded by spaces ; and
similarly in the case of Time; we can conceive no time which
was not preceded by an earlier time. Or again we may
observe that we have formed the notion of Space by thinking
away the delimitations of extended bodies, and so have made
it ' infinite ' ourselves.
It is evident that in either case this infinity is purely
conceptual. No man has ever found by actual experience
that Space and Time have no limits. The infinity of Space
and Time could never be given as an actual fact. We can never,
except in poetry, get to the limits of the universe, and gaze
into the Void beyond, if only because of the prosaic attraction
of the bodies behind us. But, unfortunately, we seem since
the days of Aristotle to have forgotten the obvious fact that
infinity can never be anything real, nor anything more than a
potential infinity in onr thought.
But can we argue from this potential infinity of our con-
ceptions to the infinity of the spatially extended world, and
of the Becoming in Time? This would seem to be an
argument based upon hazardous assumptions and resulting in
inextricable difficulties.
§ 6. It involves, in the first place, a relapse into the
illegitimate conception of infinity as a positive and actual
thing, if it is to state facts about the real world and not to
make correct but useless statements about our subjective
frame of mind. For while we adhere to the admissible
definitions of infinity, the proposition that the world is infinite
in Space and Time must resolve itself into the assertion that
we cannot think Space and Time exhausted and limited by
successive additions of spaces and times, or else mean that
our thought may think them as extensive as ever it pleases.
But neither view tells us anything as to whether the real
world is infinite, and in the second case the assertion of the.
infinity of the real world would even become unmeaning..
Man and the World
'45
The first case on the other hand brings out the robust
assumption on which the inference of the infinity of the world
from the infinity of our conceptions is based. It assumes a
complete agreement between reality and thought, in virtue
of which an infinity, which is true primarily of our ideas, may
be safely transferred to the real world. But our experience in
dealing with Scepticism (ch. iii) ought to have left us very
sceptical as to the ease with which such a correspondence can
be effected. And even if we hope and believe that concord
between thought and reality will be ultimately attained, this
faith will afford but one more reason for regarding the asser-
tion of their present correspondence with grave suspicion.
The infinity contained in our conceptions of Space and
Time, therefore, so far from leading on to the infinity of the
real world as a matter of course, militates rather in favour of
the conclusion that the real world is limited in Space and had
a beginning in Time.
And this presumption is confirmed by the strongest positive
reasons. The doctrine of the infinity of Space and Time turns
out, in the first place, to be vicious in its origin and based upon
an abuse of the faculty of abstraction. And further, it cannot
even claim the undivided support of the necessities of thought.
On the contrary, it is in the sharpest conflict with some of the
strongest necessities of our thought. The infinity of Space
and Time contradicts some of the chief conceptions of our
thought, and that of Time even contradicts itself (ch. iii § 6).
The infinity of Space conflicts with the conception of the
world as a whole, the infinity of Time with that of the world
as a process, and as has been already shown (ch. vii §§ 3, 20),
all evolutionist or historic methods imply that Time is limited
and that the world had a beginning. Lastly, the infinity of
the world involves a Yeductio ad absurduT7i of the category of
causation.
And, of course, these metaphysical difficulties about the
246 Riddles of the Sphinx
infinity of Space and Tinne reappear in science, and generate
conflicts between the principal and most approved scientific
doctrines and this alleged infinity. It is not merely that
science knows nothing of anything infinite, but that it is in
various ways compelled to assert that infinity is directly
incompatible with verified knowledge. It is necessary,
therefore, to give a sketch of these objections.
§ 7. We are too apt, in the first place, to forget that
* Space ' and ' Time ' are really abstractions. We speak as
though things were plunged in Space and Time, and as if
Space and Time could exist without them. But as a m.atter
of fact Space and Time are constituted by things, and are only
two prominent aspects of their interaction. It is as the
result of the attractions and repulsions of things that they
occupy space and constitute certain spaces between one
another. Empty Space and empty Time are bogies which
we have no business to conjure up out of the limbo of vain
imaginings. Hence there is no real difficulty in conceiving
(with Aristotle) that the space of the real world should be
limited by the spatially-extended, i.e. bodies, seeing that the
conception has no meaning except in connexion with bodies :
where bodies cease, there Space would cease also, and the
question as to what is beyond is unanswerable, because
unmeaning and invalid. If, then, ' pure ' Space is a con-
ceptual abstraction from the spatially-extended reality, and
if ?r<■^/ Space is actually delimited by that which fills it, viz.
bodies, the resulting position of affairs is, that the infinity
of conceptual Space is merely a trick of abstraction, which
imposes upon us by dint of its very simplicity. For it ceases
to be surprising that if we abstract from that which really
limits Space, the remaining abstraction, viz., conceptual 01
ideal ' Space,' should have to be regarded as unlimited — in
idea. Only of course this vice of our thought proves less than
nothing as to the infinity of the physical world. A sim/iar
Man and the IVorld lAtT]
argument would dispose of the question as to the infinity of
real Time and as to what existed before the beginning of the
world ; and thus the whole difficulty would be shown to rest
upon a misconception.
§ 8. The metaphysical difficulties of the infinity of Time
amount to a self-contradiction, i.e., to a conflict with the
supreme postulate of stable meaning. For the infinity of the
past is regarded as limited by the present, i.e., it is a completed
infinity. But a completed infinity is a contradiction of the
v-ery conception of infinity, if it consists in the impossibility
of completing the infinite by successive syntheses.
Again, the infinity of the world in Space involves a hopeles>"
contradiction of the conception of a whole. For when we
speak of the world or universe, we mean the totality of
existing things. But in order to attain to such a whole, it
would be necessary to grasp things together as a totality, and
to define off the existent against the non-existent. But this
condition cannot be satisfied in the case of an infinite, which
can never be completed by successive synthesis, and never
therefore be grasped together as a whole We may generalize
the case of the infinite quantity (§ 4), and say that an infinite
whole is, like a bottomless pit, a contradiction in terms, in
which the infinity negates the whole and the whole excludes
infinity. We must abandon, therefore, either the conception
of a totality or that of the infinity of the world. If the world
is a whole, it is not infinite, if it is infinite, it is not a whole, i.e^
not a world at all.
There is a parallel contradiction between the concep-
tions of infinity and cf process. It was shown in chapter
vii § 20 that a process is necessarily and essentially finite,
and limited by the two points between which the process
lies. Unless it were finite, it would be a mere wavering and
fluctuating Becoming, void of Being, and as such unknowable.
The Becoming, therefore, of reality must be enclosed within
248 • Riddles of the Sphinx
the limits of a conception, which enables us to define it as
having Being relatively to one point and Not-Being relatively
to another. To apply to the world the conception of a
process is to imply that its Becoming is definite and finite.
If, therefore, we wish to assert that the world has a real
history, that its Evolution is a fact and that our formulas of
Evolution are true, we must think the world as finite in
Space and Time.
Lastly, the belief in infinity conflicts with the most
indispensable organon of all knowledge and all science,
the conception of causation {cp. ch. iii § 11 s.f.). For a chain
of causation depends on the strength of its initial member,
and if the series of causes be infinite, if there be no such
thing as a first cause, the whole series dangles uselessly in
the air or falls asunder, inasmuch as each of the relative
causes receives no necessity to transmit to the next beneath
it, and hence the ultimate effect also is not necessary.
§ 9. And, as might have been expected, these meta-
physical contradictions reappear in science in the shape of
conflicts between the supposed infinity of the physical world
and some of the most valuable scientific principles.
Thus the impossibility of thinking a world infinite in Space
as a whole nullifies the principle of the conservation of
energy, makes it impossible to regard the universe as a
conservative system, and thus brings upon physics a terrible
Nemesis in the shape of the dissipation of energy. For if
we duly take successively increasing spheres in Space, it is
easily apparent that there is uncompensated los/? of energy
in each, and that the greater part of the energy radiated out
by the bodies within it is lost, not being arrested by bodies
on which it can impinge. Hence the larger the concentric
spheres become, the greater the loss of energy, until finally
the amount of energy would become infinitesimal. Now at
first it might seem possible to reply to this by the mathe-
Man and the World 249
matical argument that the universe being infinite, the energy
radiated out in any direction is certain sooner or later to hit
upon some body and thus to avoid being lost. But to this
it might be similarly answered, that as in an infinite number
of these cases the body absorbing the energy would be at an
infinite distance, the energy protected would be infinitely
small i.e., nothing. And besides the argument presupposes
an impossibility, and tacitly assumes that it is possible to
speak of the universe as an infinite whole possessing infinite
energy. Hence our present physics cannot evade the
inference that the energy of any finite part of the world must
be undergoing gradual dissipation, and would have been
entirely dissipated, if it had existed infinitely in the past.
But as this has not as a matter of fact happened, the
conclusion is that the world with its store of energy, which is
now being dissipated, came into being at some definite point
in the past.^ In order, therefore, to assert the real infinity
of Space, the facts of the world and the principles of science
compel us to deny its infinity in Time, and to infer both a
beginning of the existence of energy and an end, in its
inevitable dissipation. Science, in short, must be consistent
and treat the infinite extension of Space as it has already
treated its infinite divisibility. In idea Space is not only
infinite but infinitely divisible; in reality science posits the
atom'^ as the indivisible minimum of spatially-extended
reality. If therefore science is entitled to assume a minimiun
of material reality and to reject the reality of the infinitesimal,
it is by a parity of reasoning entitled to postulate also a
^ [This argument is of course considerably strengthened by the
discovery that the atoms of uranium, thorium and perhaps all the
chemical ' elements ' have a definite term of life, at the expiry of which
they are dissociated.]
^ [Or, now, the electron.]
250 Riddles of the Sphinx
maximum extent of the world and to reject the reality of the
infinite.
Further, it was shown in ch. iii § 8 that the infinity of
Space contradicted the reality of motion and hence of energy,
and scepticism inferred from this the illusoriness of the
latter. But we may equally well infer the illusoriness of
infinit\% and when science is reduced to a choice between the
reality of energy and the reality of infinity, it cannot for a
moment hesitate to reject the latter.
But if science must reject the infinity of Space, it cannot
maintain that of Time. Just as the infinity of Space,
combined with the finiteness of Time, resulted in the
destruction of energy by dissipation, so conversely, the
finitude of Space, combined with the infinity of Time, results
in the destruction of energy by equilibration. For in infinite
Time a finite world must have gone through all possible
changes already, and thus have arrived at a condition of
equilibrium and a changeless state of Being sharply
contrasted with its actual Becoming.
As to the infinity of Time, it contradicts, under any
circumstances, the conception of the world as a process, i.e.
as a whole in Time. This contradiction gives us no choice
between denying the infinity of Time and admitting that
the search for a beginning is comparable to the labour of
the Danaids, that common sense, which inquires into the
* whence' of things in order to discover their nature, is but
the crude basis of subtler error, that the Historical Method
is futile, that all our theories of Evolution are false, and that
the nature of things is really unknowable. Yet science is
surely entitled to struggle hard against the relinquishment
of such approved principles, against the demolition of the
whole fabric of knowledge, in deference to what cannot but
appear to it a mere metaphysical prejudice.
And not onlv is the finiteness of Time essential to
Ma7i and the World 251
knowledge, but it also carries with it that of Space. For a
world finite in Time but infinite in Space cannot be included
under a finite process, and hence bafiPles all attempts at
grasping it by an intelligible conception. A spatially infinite
w^orld cannot be said to be evolving or engaged in a process
at all, i.e., to be passing from state A to state B. For it
could never wholly get to A, and hence could never wholly
be becoming B.
The converse supposition of a world finite in Space
and infinite in Time, which from the point of view of a whole
has been already shown to be absurd, is equally impossible
from that of the conception of a process. Its absurdity may
be illustrated by the fact that if it were engaged in a
process, it would require an infinite Time to reach any
given point in the process, and an infinite number of infinities
to reach the present, i.e. would never reach the present at
all.
§ 10. To set against the cumulative force of all these
metaphysical and scientific contradictions, nothing can be
urged in favour of the infinity of Space and Time, except a
disability of our imperfect thought, a disability, moreover^
which does not even profess to warrant the assertion of a
positive infinity of real Space and Time. We cannot think
empty Space and Time as limited, and cannot from lack of
physical knowledge, conceive how the world is limited in
Space and Time. But can we assert this ideal infinity of
the real world } Assuredly we can not : nothing compels us
to go behind the incongruity. At the utmost all it proves is
that there is a lack of correspondence between the constitu-
tion of our minds and that of the world and there is no need
to regard this conflict as likely to be permanent. If, there-
fore, we are not satisfied with saying that the world must
be finite, though we cannot, while our intuition of Space and
our knowledge of physics remain what they are, see precisely
252 Riddles of the Sphinx
how, a solution is yet possible through a change in that
intuition. ^
The idea of infinity need not be suggested by an intuition of
Space different from ours, and after all, our intuition is only
subjective. Subjective not only as existing in consciousness
like the whole world of phenomena(^/. § 13), but subjective
also as being a characteristic of thought unconfirmed by
perception. There is nothing, therefore, impossible in the
notion that in the progress of Evolution the suggestion of
the infinity of Space should disappear either with or before
the intuition of Space itself It might thus turn out to be
nothing more than a transitory phase or condition of our minds')
incidental to our present imperfect development, which would
cease to lay claim to ultimate reality when the upward
struggle of Evolution had raised us to a more harmonious
state of being. Indeed there would be nothing inadmissible
even in the idea of a non-spatial and non-material existence
as the goal of the development of the spatial and material, if
our examination of the nature of the material should justify a
doubt of the permanence of Matter as a mode of our con-
sciousness {cp. §§ 17-32).
Our attitude, therefore, towards Space will be twofold •
speaking as scientists and accepting the phenomenal reality
of Space and ot the sensible world for what it is worth, we
shall protest against the confounding of conceptual and per-
ceptual space, distinguish between our idea of geometrical
Space and real Space, deny that real, physical, or perceptual
Space is infinite, and contend that the sensible world should
be conceived as finite.
But if this scientific postulate should not be thought so
^ The word 'intuition' here is used merely as a translation of the
preciser German term ' Anschauung,' and has no reference to any con-
trast with ' experience.'
Man and the Wo7dd
253
much to solve as to brush aside the metaphysical perplexity,
an alternative solution may be commended to meta-
physicians. If the conflict between the conceptual and
the sensible be regarded as real and not as due to a mere
ambiguity in the term * Space/ their reconciliation in a non-
spatial intelligible world may be suggested. After all it is
merely a fact of experience that our world appears to us as
extended in ' Space,' and that in such a way as to lend itself
to the conceptual postulates of Euclidean geometry. With
regard to this intelligible world, two misconstructions, by
which Kant sought to damage the conception, must however
be avoided. It need not be unknowable, and has nothing to
do with what Kant strangely called Noumena (objects of
thought), because they were unthinkable. And, secondly, it
is not the abstract conception of a world in general. If it is a
real existence, it must be legitimately inferred from the
discords of the phenomenal world. And though our data
may not at first enable us to postulate more than its bare
existence, we should expect further inferences eventually to
give us more definite information as to the nature of that
existence.
If we allow ourselves to conceive the nature of ' Space ' more
psychologically, there will not perhaps be any insuperable
difficulty in interpreting as an illusion the suggestion of
infinit}- contained in the perception of spatial extension.
For all our perceptions similarly suggest their own infinity, and
yet we can show in all the other cases that this is a delusion.
The}' all have definite limits, above and below which the
perception ceases or changes its quality. Thus tones get
higher and higher as the air vibrations on which they depend
get faster. But not indefinitely; for at a definite point they
become inaudible. This is why many are unable to hear the
shrill squeaking of bats and the chirping of grasshoppers.
Similarly it is only quite a limited stretch of (? ether)
254 Riddles of the Sphinx
vibrations which produce upon us sensations of light, viz.
those whose wave-length lies between the lower (red) and the
higher (violet) end of the spectrum. But we have much
indirect experimental evidence of the existence of infra-red
and ultra-violet radiations. The like is true of intensities of
perception. Within a certain range, the brighter the liglit,
the better the seeing. Beyond that it becomes dazzling and
blinding, and we no longer see, but only feel pain.
On the analogy of these perceptions, therefore, we might
suggest that since spatiality is just as much a perceptual
quality of bodies as their colour, weight and sound, there are
probably limits to their production of this sensory quality.
If, therefore, we could reach these limits, the spatial quality
would not persist as such, and some other quality or mode of
being might take its place. What this would be, we could
not, of course, conjecture before experiencing it, any more
than we could have anticipated that mere continuous increase
in the rate of vibrations would change the perception of ' red '
into those of ' orange,' of 'yellow,' of ' green,' of ' blue,' of.
'violet,' and finally of blank. Thus either by subdividing the
minimum (whatever it is), or by transcending the .maximum
{wherever it is), of spatial existence, it is conceivable that we
might pass out of space altogether, and (without doing
violence to the best psychological analogies) come to
experience what it would be to pass into what metaphysicians
have called an ' intelligible world.'
The final solution, therefore, may be briefly stated as being
that the subjectivity of Space, or at least of that feature in our
perception which suggests the conception of geometrical space
as infinite may well be brought out in the future evolution of
the world ; and this solution ha"s the advantage of harmonizing
with two such famous doctrines as those of Evolution and of
Idealism : and Idealism would surely be a still more futile
and useless doctrine than its worst enemies or wildest
Man and the World
255
champions would assert, if it cannot even be used to rescue
philosophy from a perplexity of this sort.
§ II. The infinity of Time, however, can not be disposed
of so easily by a decree of subjectivity. For the reality of
Time is involved in the reality of the world-process. Now a
process need not be in Space (as, e.g., a process of thought),
and the world-process may therefore retain its meaning, even
though the spatiality of the ' external ' world be nothing more
than a passing phase of that process in our consciousness ;
but the subjectivity of Time would destroy the whole meaning
and reality of the world-process, and negate the idea of the
world as an evolution. Plence theories which have regarded
Time as an illusion, as the phenomenal distortion of the
Eternal, have ultimately had to confess their inability to
assign any meaning to the course of events in Time, and so
arrived at despair, practical and theoretical, with regard to
the phenomenal world. For it is evident that a process is
necessarily in Time, ^ and involves a temporal connexion
between its successive phases. Our dilemma then is this,
that if the reality of Time is denied, the whole meaning and
rationality of the world is destroyed at one blow ; if it is
admitted, we do not rid ourselves of its infinity and its con-
tradiction of itself and of science.
A clue out of the labyrinth may be found by observing
with Aristotle (Physics IV. 223a) that our consciousness of
Time depends on the perception of motion (KLvria-i^), i.e., on
the changes, and the regularity of the changes, in short, on
the Becoming of the world. Time, as the consciousness of
succession, is not indeed, as we feel at first sight tempted to
assert, bound up with the permanence of physical motions,
by which we at present measure it, and regulate the subjective
1 Every ' logical process ' is really a psychological one : the process is
only in the mind which traces the co-existing links of the logical system
Cp. ch. iii § 15 s.f.
256 Riddles of the Sphinx
times of our several consciousnesses (ch. iii § 6) ; but it does
seem to depend upon our consciousness of Change or
Becoming in the wider sense, of which physical motion is but
a single example. If, therefore, there were no change, Time
would not exist for us, i.e.^ would not exist at all.
The question therefore arises whether we can form a con-
ception of a state in which change is transcended, and to this
question we must answer yes. The ideal of perfect adapta-
tion is such a conception, and in a state of perfect adaptation
there would be no consciousness of change {cp. ch. ii § 9,
ch. iv § 4). Unless, therefore, happiness and harmony
are the illusions the Pessimist asserts them to be, we must
conclude that in such a state of perfection Time would be
transcended.
But transcended by what ? It is easy to answer that its
place will be taken by Eternity, but less easy to explain the
meaning of that very ambiguous word, and its relation- to
Time. For nothing would be gained if Eternity were
regarded merely as the negation of Time : this would neither
save the meaning of the world-process nor correspond to the
positive character of happiness. Eternity must be regarded
as positive, and its relation to Time must be conceived
as analogous to the relation of Being to Becoming. The
parallelism of the two is indeed surprising. The idea of Time
involves an inherent contradiction, and so also does Becom-
ing. For though Becoming is a fact of daily experience, it
remains a contradiction to thought, and cannot be^ defined
except as a union of Being and Not-Being (ch. iii § 13). In
this union Being is the positive element, the standard to
which all Becoming is referred. That which becomes, is only
in so far as it has Being, and in so far as it is not, it is nothing.
Construed on this analogy, Time would be real only as the
presage of Eternity, and Eternity would be the ultimate
standard by which its contradictions would be measured and
Man and the World
57
harmonized. Time and Becoming are, moreover, not only
analogous, but inseparably connected. For not only does all
Becoming take place in Time, but without Becoming there
would be no Time. May we not then say that what
Becoming is without Being, that Time would be without
Eternity, viz., self-contradictory and unmeaning.?
Thus we begin to perceive the nature of the limits of Time.
The beginning of Time and the birth of our present universe
{cp. ch. ii § 20 s.f.) must have been a coincident transition
from equable and unchanging Being, from the harmonious
Now of Eternity into the unrest, struggle and discord of
Becoming, and the self-contradictory flow of Time. Thus
Time must be called a Corruption of Eternity, just as Becoming
is a Corruption of Being. For in either case the change must
be conceived as one of decadence, and Being and Eternity as
the positive conceptions from which Becoming and Time
represent a partial falling away.
Moreover both Time and Becoming may be called corrup-
tions of Eternal Being also with reference to their intimate
connexion with Evil and Imperfection. For in the ever-
changing world of Time complete adaptation and adjustment,
a perfect harmiOny between a thing and its environment does
not and can not exist, and it is just certain aspects of this
non-adaptation, non-equilibrium and discord, that we
denominate evil (ch. iv § 4). Thus Time, Becoming, and
Evil form part of the same problem {cp. ch. v § 5 s.f.), and to
recognize that the question as to the origin of each is a
question as to the origin of all, is the first great step towards
the solution of this triune perplexity of philosophy, x^nd the
mystery of time is in a fair way of solution when we can
express it in terms of the others, and say that Time is but the
measure of the iinpennanence of the imperfect, and that the
reason why we fail to attain to the ideal of Eternity is that we
fail equally to attain to the cognate ideals of Being and
17
258 Riddles of the Sphmx
Adaptation. The question thereby resolves itself into the
old difficulty of why the Real is not yet adequate to the
perfection of our ideals. But if it could be, is it not evident
that there would be an end of Time, as of Change and of
Evil, and would not Time pass into Eternity .''
Regarding Eternity, therefore, as the Ideal^ and not as the
negation of Time, as that into which Time tends to pass in
the process of Evolution, as that into which it will pass at
the end of that process, it is possible to resolve the difficulty
of the dependence of the world-process on the reality of
Time. If Time is the corruption of Eternity, if it is but the
imperfect shadow cast by Eternity on the prescient soul of
man, then what is true of Time holds of Eternity sensic
eminentiori^ and in becoming a process in Eternity the
world-process does not have its meaning annihilated. On the
'contrary, it for the first time attains to its full plenitude of
import.
We may conclude therefore, for the present, that the
solution of the problem of Time lies in its re-attainment of
Eternity.
§. 12. The next subject which awaits discussion in our
relations to our environment is that of man's relation to the
material world. But before entering into a discussion of the
relations and functions of Matter and Spirit, it will be
necessary to allude as briefly as may be to the question of
Idealism and the external world.
Idealism is popularly supposed to consist in a denial of the
existence of an external world, and idealist philosophers have
been obscure and vague enough about their doctrines to excuse
almost any amount of misconception. But this accusation is
really a corollary from the fundamental fact of Idealism,
which idealists have been by no means anxious to draw. On
the contrary, they have made every effort to evade it,
although their opponents may uncharitably think that their
Man and the World 259
efforts were either unsuccessful, or succeeded only at a dis-
proportionate cost of further absurdities. But that idealists
should strain every nerve to escape from the most obvious
corollary of their doctrine was but natural. No serious
philosopher can really hold a doctrine which would hardly be
credible even at an advanced stage of insanity, viz., that
nothing exists beside himself. Or rather, if he is all that
exists, he is certainly beside himself.^ Subjective idealists^
therefore do not exist outside lunatic asylums and certain
histories of philosophy.
Into the various devices of idealists to avoid subjective
idealism, it is not necessary to enter, as they mostly consist
in appeals to a deus ex niachina, a * divine mind in which
the world exists.' But even if it should not be considered
derogatory to the divine majesty that a God should be
invented to help philosophers out of a difficulty of their own
creation, the difficulties that beset the relation of the
individual and the * universal ' mind neither fall short of nor
alleviate those of Idealism.
It will be more profitable, therefore, to analyse the basis
■of all idealism, and to consider what it proves, and whether it
necessitates the inferences of Idealism.
§ 13. The primary fact of Idealism is that all things- exist
in (or in relation to) our consciousness — exist as objects of our
thoughts, feelings and perceptions; that whatever does not and
can not enter into our consciousness in one of these ways is
unknowable and imperceptible, and therefore nothing. It is
thus the positive converse of the proposition that the un-
^ Co:npare the remnrk Goethe attributes to the idealist : —
" Fiirwahr, wenn ich dies alles bin,
So bin ich heute niirrisch."
Faust I : Walpurgisnachtsfraitni.
[Technically cnlle-^l solipsists. Cp. an article in Mitid No. 70, and
Studies in Humanism^ ch. xx.]
2 6o Riddles of the Sphinx
knowable is nothing (ch. ii § 6). But this fact is just as
^ unimportant, controversially, as it is scientifically irrefragable.
4^ nujyr Thinkers of all parties, who know what they are about, are
z^vvM^ agreed that it is undeniable, and that it is impossible to
I/jO^*^ acquiesce in it as final. Idealists and realists alike perceive
/ iJ/- the necessity of so interpreting it as to render it compatible
-rrPtJL^ with an ' objective ' existence of the phenomenal world : their
J^ / only difference is about the means.
j5r^ ' J jij^vdealists mostly seek to preserve the verbal statement of
^j^^^^ the primary fact of idealism by saying that though all
things exist in consciousness, it is in a divine conscious-.
v\ ness that they inhere. They appear to a divine ' I ', and
V hence are subjective to the Absolute, but objective to
us, and independent of our thoughts and feelings. But in
so doing they forget that they have transmuted a fact
into a theory, if not into a fiction. ' My ' consciousness
assures me that all things appear to 7;ie, exist * in ' ;;/j con-
sciousness, but it carries with it no such reference to a divine
consciousness. There is only a verbal and illusory identity
between my own * I ' and that of God. My consciousness
tells me nothing directly about the way in which things
appear to God. The transition, therefore, from my con-
sciousness to God's is an extremely hazardous one, and
does not of itself imply any similarity between the contents
of my consciousness and of God's. Indeed, upon reflection,
it will seem probable that things would appear widely
different to a divine being, and one would be sorry to think
that they should appear no better. But the ' objective
world ' is a world which appears to me, and no appearances
to some one else will explain it^ For the pantheistic
proposition that in appearing to me the world really appears
to God, and that my own * I ' is but a section of the divine
* I,' is not one capable of being thought out. For the
universal * I ' either has another consciousness beside mine,.
Man and the World 261
or it has not. If it has, the objective reality of things
will be thing-s as they appear to that consciousness, and
things as they appear to mine will be reduced to a subjective
illusion, i.e., w^e fall back into the subjective idealism from
w^hich we are seeking to escape. If it has not, why should
the reality of things be constituted by i)iy consciousness,
rather than by that of any other self-conscious * I ' which
is also a * fragment ' of the divine self-consciousness ? Things
appear differently to me and to others, but to whom do
they appear as they really are t It matters not what answer
is given to this question, the result will be the same; the
world, as it appears to every consciousness but one, will be
an illusion.
§ 14. But if Idealism cannot extricate itself from the
toils of illnsionism, let us see whether Realism is more
successful in getting over the primary subjectivity of the
world.
Realism is commonly conceived by philosophers just as
vaguely and ambiguously as Idealism. Realists as a rule
prefer to define their doctrine negatively, as meaning the
assertion that the existence of reality does not depend on us,
that things exist when they are not perceived, and that our
perceiving them does not affect them. But not one of these
assertions can possibly be inferred from the behaviour of any
object of knowledge. /For while the Real is an object of
knowledge, it is obviously perceived (or thought) by us, and
so is in relation to us. Nothing, therefore, can be inferred from
its actual behaviour, when in relation to u^, about its hypo-
thetical behaviour, when not in this relation. All the realist
assertions, therefore, are from their very nature unverifiable.
They are also devoid of all human interest. For why should
any one wish to make unverifiable assertions about the un-
knowable? What does it matter what is done or suffered by
a Real which is out of relation to us ?^ Even if these assertions
^
262 Riddles of the Sphinx
could intelligibly be called true, how could they possibly con-
cern us ? For what interests us is the behaviour of the Real in
its relation to us, and the realist's affirmations seem gratuitous
and unmeaning.
It may be conjectured, therefore, that the real meaning of
Realism is something different, and capable of being ex-
pressed more positively. ^Vhat we are all interested in
asserting is something about the Real in perception, the
reality perceived. We wish to emphasize its commonness to
a plurality of percipients, its persistence, stability and general
r\ trustworthiness, which distinguish the Real from the creations
of individual fancy, thought, or hallucination. Now these
are all very positive qualities, which we all experience, and
are what the realist, too, desires to lay stress on. But they
do not take the Real out of the context of knowledge, out of
relation to man, out of the world of human experience.\
They are immanent and not transcendent properties of the
Real. If, therefore, the realist will be sensible, and admit
that the Real he means is real in our world, and not in a
transcendent world, and that we need not trouble about what
utterly transcends our world, we may agree with him, and
follow with sympathetic attention his exposure of the tricks
of Idealism.
Realism will naturally seek to draw a distinction between
existing in consciousness and existing solely in conscious-
ness. It does not follow that because the world exists in
my consciousness, it exists only in my consciousness. It
may exist in my consciousness in such a way that I prefer
to believe it exists for others also. We may cheerfully
admit even that the world cannot exist out of my conscious-
ness. For it may be that ultimately the independence,
either of the world or of the ' I,' will be seen to involve the
same fallacy of false abstraction and that in the end ' I ' can
no more exist without the world than the world can exist
Man and the World 263
without me {cp. ch. x § 20). Indeed, even now the content
of the Self is given only by interaction and contrast with the
world or Not-Self.
But as yet this is a mere suggestion, and we must con-
tent ourselves with showing that the fact will bear the
interpretation Realism puts upon it. It is a mistake to
suppose that the only inference from the existence of the
world in consciousness is that it exists only in consciousness,
and that its existence is therefore dependent on the subject's
consciousness. The subject is no more independent of the
world than is the world of the subject.
Moreover, granting the self-existence of a world not solely
dependent on my consciousness, it would yet exist /br me only
as reflected in my consciousness. In other words, the fact of
its existence in my consciousness would be the same, whether
or not the world were self-existent. Both interpretations
being thus possible, there can be no doubt as to which is
preferable. Sense and science alike require us to believe
that the existence of the world is not solely dependent on its
appearance in any one's consciousness. This assumption
is made for practical purposes by all of us, and works so
well that we have no occasion to doubt its truth. yThe
phenomenal world and the phenomenal self, to whom it
appears, are mutually implicated facts, and we have no
business to assume the existence of either out of their
given context. But this mutual implication of the self and
the world is equally fatal to both the extremes, both to
subjective Idealism and to Materialism. \ We have as little
ground for asserting that consciousness is merely a
phenomenon of Matter, as for asserting that the material
world is merely a phenomenon of any one's consciousness.
But a choice is still left between transcendental, or ultimate^
and phenomenal, or immediate, realism.
This choice is decided in favour of the former, not only
^
264 Riddles of the Sphinx
by the contradictions which the assumption of the ultimate
reality of the phenomenal world involves {cp. ch. iii §§ 2—12,
and § 21), but also by the fact that one of the factors in the
phenomenal world lays claim to ultimate reality. For each
of us is strongly persuaded of the absolute existence of his
own self. And the proper inference from this is not that
the phenomenal world exists in an absolute Self, but that
when the self is fully realized it will realize also the nature
of ultimate reality.
Of this existence of ultimate realities outside ourselves
we can have no present proof; there can be no present
disproof of subjective idealism, just as there can be no
present disproof of pessimism. It should suffice to show
that subjective idealism is practically repugnant and theoreti-
cally unnecessary, and that its competitor can give an
alternative interpretation of the facts, which gives a rational
and harmonious solution. Indeed it is a mistake to suppose
that all things require to be proved [cp. ch. ii § 5) ; for
ultimate assumptions in philosophy intellectual proof is
perhaps never attainable. They can only be tried by their
vital value. But in this way a truth may be as surely attested
by feeling or will, as by the most rigorous demonstration, and
ultimately all demonstrations rest on such vital postulates.
YThe existence of a reality outside ourselves is clearly such an
assumption, irresistibly demanded by feeling, and confirmed
by experience. In this respect it is exactly on a par with
rNr\ the existence of one's self. No man can prove his own
^ existence ; and, we may add, no sane man wants to. The
correlative facts of the existence of Self and Not-Self are
certified by the same evidence, the irresistible affirmation
of feeling, and their supreme certainty cannot be touched,
and much less shaken, by any idealist argument. \
§ 15. Was Idealism, then, merely an unprofitable sophism
— merely a troublesome quibble which obstructed our path }
Mail and the World 265
By no means : we may learn much from the difficulty to
which it drew attention. In the first place, it brought out
clearly the important distinction, which we had already
anticipated in our account of Space and Time, of phenomenal
and ultimate reality, and our answer depended on the
distinction between them. What was reasserted against
subjective idealism was the existence of ultimate reality, but
we refrained from identif\'ing this with phenomenal reality.
We did not commit ourselves to the assertion of the absolute
reality of every stick and every stone exactly as we now
behold it. The world, as it now appears to us, may be but
the subjective reflexion of the ultimate reality that will some
time appear, and thus idealism would be true, at least of our
phenomenal world.
Secondly, Idealism cannot but impress even the unre-
flective, with the enormous precariousness even of our most
solid and best authenticated ' facts.' Once we realize that it
is beyond the resources of sciepice to refute the suggestion that
the whole of our present experience may be but an enormous
■dream which seems real because we have not yet awakened
from it, we must acknowledge that Idealism is a formidable
foe to the unimaginative matter-of-factness which so limits our
■exploration of the possibilities of existence. It thus supplies
the antidote to the materialism which regards consciousness
as an accident without which the world is quite capable 01
€xisting.\
Idealism and Materialism, starting from opposite stand-
points, are impelled by the force of all but insuperable
reasonings towards contrary conclusions, and as they meet
midway, the shock of their collision threatens to shatter the
authority of human reason. For just as Idealism concluded
from the fact that the world exists in consciousness, that it
existed only in the individual's consciousness, so Materialism
concludes from the fact that the world dispenses with every
(h
266 Riddles of the Sphinx
individual, that all may be dispensed with. The exaggeration
and the flaw is the same in both. Materialism overlooks
that the world it speaks of is phenomenal, that the individual-
dispensed with is phenomenal also ; and that what appears
need not be all that ultimately is. But as the individual finds
in himself direct evidence that his being transcends
phenomenal materiality, its arguments do not touch his
conviction of his ultimate reality. Similarly, Idealism cannot
affect the individual's conviction that there must be somethinsr
o
beside himself to account for the appearances to him. If,
however, we recognize the distinction of the phenomenal and
ultimate reality, the contradiction between Materialism and
Idealism ceases to be insoluble.
§ !6. To say nothing of other difficulties which it alone
can solve, this fact is in itself sufficient reason for making the
distinction between phenomenal and ultimate reality, which
may at first sight appear somewhat needless. It is certainly
more satisfactory thus to reconcile the contending parties
than for each to go on reasserting the untenableness of its
opponent's position from its own point of view. Students of
philosophy must be well-nigh sick by this time of hearing
the well-worn philosophic argument against Materialism, that
is 'a gigantic hysteron-proteron ' and a logical contradiction.
The sm.all impression this mode of argument has hitherto
produced, might well arouse the most supine of philosophers
to abandon the method of sterile and captious criticism, and
to bethink himself of an alternative explanation of the
phenomenal world. What is needed to overcome Materialism
is a more positive conception of the meaning and function
of materiality. If Materialism is bad metaphysics, pray, what
is the true metaphysical explanation of Matter? If self-
consciousness is the primary fact of knowledge, what part
does it play in the explanation of the phenomenal world ?
What is the relation of Matter and Spirit? what is the
Man and the World 267
meaning of the distinction of Body and Soul ? and what is
the function and purpose of the arrangement of the material
cosmos ?
If we remember the primary subjectivity of the phenomenal
world, and proceed by the right method, we shall be enabled
to give substantially sufficient answers to these questions.
The right method will here as elsewhere be one wiiich
derives its metaphysical conclusions from scientific data,
and justifies them by parallels from acknowledged scientific
facts.
§ 17. In analysing the conception of Matter, the first ^"^
thing to remark is that Matter is an abstraction from material
bodies or things. Things are all individual and no one thing
is exactly like any other. Nevertheless we detect in them ,
certain resemblances, in virtue of which we call them material, ;
and regard them as composed of abstract ' Matter.' fatter, 1
therefore, like all abstractions, is an adjective but not a \
substantive fact {cp. ch. iii § 15,) and it is this which (^
justifies the philosophic protest against the materialistic
annihilation of the mind by means of one of its own
abstractions./
This abstract Matter, moreover, stands in a curious relation
to the equally abstract conception of Force. According to
the ordinary scientific doctrine, which ignores the meta-
physical character of Matter, forgets that it is an abstraction,
and treats it as a reality. Matter is the substratum or vehicle
of P^orce. All the sensible qualities of Matter are due to
forces, gravitative, cohesive, repulsive, chemical, electrical, or
to motions (like heat, sound, light, etc.), or ' motive forces.'
Matter itself, therefore, is left as the unknown and un-
knowable substratum of Force. There is no reason why the
term Matter should appear from one end of a scientific
account of the world to the other. It is not required to
explain the appearance of anything we can experience, and is
268 Riddles of the Sphinx
merely a metaphysical fiction designed to provide forces with
a vehicle/
Hence the idea easily suggested itself to scientists to drop
out the totally otiose conception of Matter, and to regard the
' atoms ' of physics as Force-centres. But though physics
could perfectly well employ such force-centres, their nature
requires further elucidation. It is impossible, in the first
place, to regard them, with Faraday, as material points^
devoid of magnitude. For this would not only stultify the
whole aim of the theory by reintroducing Matter, but involve
the further difficulty that as the material points would be
infinitely small, the velocity which any force, however small,
would impart to them, would be infinite, and they would rush
about the universe with infinite velocities, and never remain
long enough anywhere for their existence to become known.
If, on the other hand, the force-centres were really points, i.e.^
mathematical points ' without parts and without magnitude,'
it is difficult to see how real forces could be attached to ideal
points. Again, unless each of these atomic forces were
attached to some real substratum, what would keep them
separate or prevent them from combining into one gigantic
resultant Force, which uould sweep the universe headlong
into Chaos ?
In short, the whole conception of independent force-centres
rests upon insufficient metaphysical analysis. A force which
has no substratum, which acting from nothing, is the force
of nothing, but as it were in the air, seems hard to grasp.
(But is this any reason for reverting to unknowable
* Matter ' as the substratum., in order that our forces may
inhere in it, and not stray about helplessly ? It would be a
great mistake to suppose this. Our * forces ' may require a
substratum, but there is no reason why that substratum should
^[In modern science the 'energetics' of Ostwald recognize this.]
Man and the World 269
be material . It is, as J. S. Mill says, a coarse prejudice of
popular thought, to which science has needlessly deferred, to
suppose that the cause must be like the effect, that a night-
mare, e.g., must resemble the plum-pudding which caused it.
So there is no need to suppose that an unknowable 'Matter *
is an ultimate reality, merely because phenomenal things have
the attribute of materiality. Matter is not the only conceiva.ble
substratum of Force.
§ 18. We found just now that force-centres, in order to
be a satisfactory scientific explanation of things, required
some agency to prevent the individual atomic forces from
coalescing into one. This postulate is realized if the force- ■-^■
atoms be endowed with something like intelligence, and thus -^
enabled to keep their positions with respect to one another, J^t^ f^
i.e., to keep their positions in space. We shall then say that ' ^
they act at or from the points where they appear, and shall
have substituted a known and knowable substratum, viz.^ .
intelligence, for unknowable 'Matter.' Our 'force-atoms' ^^^^"^^I^JV^
will have developed into * monads^ spiritual entities akin to ^^^''^■'^^^'^^
ourselves. Thus the dualism of Matter and Spirit would ^ ^^
have been transcended, and the lower, viz., Matter, would ^^\T7
have been interpreted as a phenomenal ^appearance of the ^-'^i^^^'^
higher, viz. Spirit.
f § 19. A similar result follows from the analysis of the
' conception of Force. Just as Matter was ajconception which
could not be applied to ultimate reality ^at-all,--so Force is a
conception which inevitably implies the spirituaPcharacter of
the ultimate reality. Historically it is undeniable that Force
is depersonalized Will, that the prototype of Force is Will,
which even now is the Force par excellence and the only one
we know directly. The sense of Effort also, which is a
distinctive element in the conception of Force, is irresistibly
suggestive of the action of a spiritual being. For how can.
there be eftbrt without intelligence and will }
rl
270 Riddles of the Sphinx
It is this closer reference to our own consciousness which
makes Force a more satisfactory explanation of things than
Matter : it is nearer to the higher, and hence more capable of
really explaining than the lower. We see this also by the
issue of the attempt to interpret Force in terms of lower
conceptions. Force is frequently defined as the cause of
motion {cp. ch. iii § 10), and if this definition were
metaphysically true, the sooner Force w^ere obliterated
from the vocabulary of science the better. Its association
with the sense of effort would lead to groundless suggestions
of similarity to the action of our wills, which could only be
misleading. But, as we saw (ch. iii § 11, 8), the conceptions
of cause and motion are even more replete with contradiction
and perplexity, and to explain Force in terms of cause and
motion is to explain what is imperfectly known in terms of
what is still less known. When we assert that the Becoming
of things is due to the action of forces, we can form some
sort of inadequate idea of how the process works, but we
have not the least idea of what causation consists in so soon
as we rigidly exclude all human analogies. To use causation
without a reference to our own wills is to use a category which
has been reduced to a mere word without meaning, a category,
moreover, the ordinary use of which involves us in the
inextricable difficulties of an infinite regress.
§ 20. /if, on the other hand, we admit that matter may be
resolved into forces, and that the only possible substratum of
Force is intelligence, the way is open for a reconciliation of
the metaphysics of Idealism with the requirements of science.
Idealism can admit the phenomenal reality of the ' material '
world, and science can recognize that it has neither need nor
// right to assert its ultimate reality. The unity of philosophy
and of the universe is vindicated by the discovery of a
fundamental identity of Matter and Spirit, and by an ultimate
reduction of the former to the latter. |
Man and the World 271
And not only has science no need to assert the ultimate
reality of Matter, but it actually benefits, in a hardly less
degree than metaphysics, from the interpretation of the
phenomena of Matter we have propounded. If Matter is not
and can not be an ultimate mode of being, it iollows that the
pseudo-metaphysical speculations as to its ultimate consti-
tution lead only to a loss of time and temper. The concep-
tions of atoms, ether, space, etc., are not capable of being
cleared of their contradictions, because they have only a
relative validity in the phenomenal world, and the phenomenal
world taken by itself is full of contradictions. Science there-
fore need not concern itself to pursue its assumptions beyond
the point at which they are most useful practically, nor
attempt the hopeless task of solving the perplexities which
arise when it is essayed to give them an ontological validity.
And this is the true answer to the sceptical criticism of the
first principles of science (ch. iii §§ 6-1 1). Scientific con-
ceptions are true because, and so long as, they yield convenient
ways of handling phenomena for the purposes of each science.
The correlation of these conceptions and their combination
into a consistent scheme is the business of metaphysics, which
can reinterpret as it finds convenient, so long as it does not
impair the scientific usefulness of the conceptions in question.
Hence it will be sufficient to assume as many undulating
agencies as are requisite to explain the phenomena of light
and electricity, without troubling whether the assumption of
the ultimate reality of a luminiferous ether would not involve
impossibilities. The difficulties inherent in the conceptions of
Matter, Motion, and Infinity, puzzles like that of the infinitude
of the material universe, of the infinite divisibility of Matter
and the relativity of Motion, lose their sting, when we cease
to imagine that the facts with which they are concerned are
ultimate. It is enough to know that we shall never get to
the end of the world, nor come to a particle we cannot divide.
272 Riddles of the Sphinx
But though Matter ultimately be but a form of the Evolu-
tion of Spirit, difficulties remain in plenty. Before the
reconciliation can be considered complete, e.g.y it is necessary
to determine the nature of the intelligence which matter is
divined to conceal, and to discover what is the function of
this disguise of Spirit.
§ 2 1. After the dispersion of the doubts which Scepticism
had cast on the first principles of science, we must consider
the nature of the intelligence of the force-atoms. It is
possible either to regard each atom, with Leibniz and Lotze,
as a metaphysical entity or monad, and to regard their inter-
actions as constituting the material universe, or to ascribe
them to the direct action of divine force. Nor is it a question
of vital importance which we prefer. For, on the one hand,
we cannot dispense with the divine force in trying to under-
stand the arrangement of the world and the aim of its process,
and, on the other, it is not very much more difficult to
conceive of an atom as possessing rudimentary consciousness
and individuality than to do this in the case of an amoeba.
But perhaps it is better, in the present state of our knowledge,
and until Sir W. Crookes' theories of the individualities of
atoms (ch. vii § 11) have received fuller confirmation, to recog-
nize the distinction between organic and inorganic being, and
to ascribe consciousness only to living beings, out of which it
is historically probable that our highly evolved consciousness
has directly developed.
An atom, then, may be defined as a constant manifestation
of divine Force or Will, exercised at a definite point. In this
definition, which moreover can easily be adapted to new
requirements, should the old conceptions of atoms cease to be
serviceable expressions for the scientific facts,^ the constancy"
^ [The rise of the ' electron ' has already shown that this caution was
not superfluous.]
Man and the World 2J2
of the divine Will excludes the association of caprice, while
the localization prevents the fusion and confusion of the
force-atoms. It must not, however, be supposed that there
is any intrinsic connexion between the forces and the
mathematical points at which they act. It is merely that
at these points we come under the influence of a certain
intensity of divine Force. That this intensity is a constant
and definite one, and that we can therefore measure it in
numbers of force units, and speak of the conservation of
mass and energy, is a fact given only by experience, and one
which need hold good only in so far as it subserves to the
idea of the whole. And if it be objected that a thing can not
act where it is not, it may be replied that the divine Force
is omnipresent, or its action in matter may be compared to a
piece of machinery which remained in action in the absence of
its constructor, which affected us on reaching certain spots,
and might fairly be said to represent a constant will of its
constructor. But if we penetrate a little deeper, the difficulty
will appear gratuitous. For we have seen (§ lo) that Space
need not be an ultimate reality but may be regarded as a
creation of the divine Force on precisely the same footing as
Matter, and need not appear real to us except in our present
condition.
Thus the ' objective ' world in Space and Time would be
the direct creation in our consciousness of the Divine Force,
and represent merely a state or condition of our mind, which
need not exist at all, except for a being in that condition.
Yet it would be the only reality and the primary object of
knowledge for such a consciousness.
§ 22. We have spoken hitherto of the world as a
manifestation of Divine Force, and treated the physical
forces from the point of view of the subject of which they
were forces. But Force, to be real, requires at least two
factors, and cannot act upon nothing, any more than it can
2 74 Riddles of the Sphinx
be the force ^ nothing. We must consider, then, the objects
also upon which the Divine Force acts. It must be a
manifestation to (something or ) somebody, it must act upon
(something or) somebody. Upon whom } Upon us, surely,
for it is to us that the world appears. But that it should
appear to us implies a certain independence and distinction
from the Deity. For Force implies resistance, and there
would be nothing for the divine Force to act upon, if we were
not distinct and resisting entities. Or rather, we should
remember that the conception of Force is imperfect, if we
regard only the force which acts, and not that which it acts
upon, and which calls it out by its resistance, that every
action implies reaction, and that to speak of forces is
but a convenient but inaccurate way of speaking of a
Stress or Inter-action between two factors. Of these factors
each must be real in order to make possible the existence
of the force exercised by either. When, therefore, we call
the universe a manifestation of divine Force, we are
not speaking with perfect precision, but leaving out of
account the other half of the Stress, viz., the Reaction of the
Ego upon that force. The cosmos of our experience is a
stress or inter-action between God and ourselves.
Now in such interaction both sides are affected. If God
appears to us as the world, if the splendour of perfection can
be thus distorted in the dross of the material, the Self also,
which is a factor in that interaction, cannot be supposed to
appear in its fulness.
We may distinguish therefore between the Self as it
ultimately is, and as it appears to itself in its interaction with
the Deity. The latter self may be conceived as a partial or
incomplete manifestation of the former, which contains
further possibilities beyond those actualized in any particular
human life. This distinction may be marked by calling the
self as it appears, the phenomenal self, and the self as the
Man and the World
275
ultimate reality, the Transcendental Ego. By the latter name
it is intended to suggest its extension beyond the limits
of our ordinary consciousness and of our phenomenal world,
and yet to emphasize its fundamental kinship with our
normal self. In agreement with Kant's phraseology, it may
be called 'transcendentrt-/,' because its existence is not directly
presented, but inferred, based upon a metaphysical inference
from the phenomenal to the transcendent} On the other
hand, our ordinary selves 2ir^ phenomenal , just as phenomenal
as the phenomenal world. We can discover our character
only from our thoughts, feelings, and actions, and introspective
psychology is a science of observation. It is by experience
and experiment that we arrive at a knowledge of ourselves,
by an examination of the varying flow of consciousness. But
the fact that we are conscious of the connexion of the
flow of phenomena in consciousness, and convinced that
*■ my ' feelings to-day and yesterday Ijoth belong to * me,'
inevitably suggests that there should be something permanent
which connects them {cp. ch. v § 6). This permanent being,
which holds together the Becoming of the phenomenal selves,
need not be more than what can gradually be realized in
the gradual development of a self, (ch. v § 7), but it is more
than any actual self, and from the latter's standpoint appears
a bigger and more inclusive thing. We may express this
relation by calling the Transcendental Ego, as it were, the
form containing as its content the whole of our psychic life.
But the form cannot be separated from its content (ch. ii §
' There is, however, this difference: in Kant ' transcendental ' = that
Avhich is reached by an epistemological argument, a truth impHed in the
nature of our knowledge. Having, however, rejected his epistemology,
we must modify the meaning of a 'transcendental proof into being 'a
proof of the transcendent,' viz., that which transcends — not experience
generally, as in Kant — but our actual presentations, i.e., which is based
on metaphysical inference::.
276 Riddles of the Sphinx
14), and hence the Ego cannot be reduced to an empty form,
nor regarded as different from the Self They must be in
some way one, and their unity must correspond to our
conviction that we change and yet are the same. What, then,
is the relation of the Ego to the Self? For it seems that
the Transcendental Ego can neither be separate from, nor
equivalent to, the phenomenal self ( = the content of
consciousness). If it were separate, the ' I ' would be divided,
would be not one but two ; if it were equivalent, the self
vv'hich interacts with the Deity would be equivalent to the
self which is the result of that interaction.
To understand then this relation it be must be remembered
that the ordinary phenomenal ' I ' is essentially changing,
and displays different sides of its nature at different times.
Hence its actual consciousness at no time represents the
whole capacity of the self What ' I ' think, feel, etc., is
only a small portion at any tim.e of what I am capable of
thinking and feeling, and its amount is very different when I
am intensely active and half asleep. But do not the latent
capacities of feeling, etc., truly belong to my self, or does its
reality admit of degrees corresponding to the intensities of
consciousness? Am 'I' annihilated when I fall asleep, and
resurrected when I awake? Assuredly this would be a
strange doctrine, and one from which the acceptance of the
Transcendental Ego may deliver us. Let us conceive the
Transcendental Ego as the 'I' with all its powers and latent
capacities of development, as the ultimate plenitude of reality
which we have not yet actually reached. The phenomenal
self would then be that portion of the Transcendental Ego
which is at any time actual (exists euepyela) or consciously
experienced. It will form but a feeble and partial excerpt
of the Ego, but the Self is as yet alone real, though as in the
progress of its development it unfolds all its hidden powers,,
it will approximate more and more to the Ego, until at last.
Man and the World 277
the actual and the potential would become co-extensive, the
Self and the Ego would coincide, and in the attainment of
perfection we should be all we are capable of being.
§ 23. This account of the relation of the Ego to the Self is,
moreover, not only metaphysically probable, but supported also
by the direct scientific evidence of experimental psychology.
For it seems to provide an explanation of the exceedingly
perplexing phenomena of double or multifold and alternating
consciousness, multiple personality and 'secondary' selves.
These curious phenomena forcibly bring home to us what a
partial and imperfect thing our ordinary consciousness is,
how much goes on within us of which we know nothing, how-
far the phenomenal falls short of being co-extensive with our
whole nature. And yet we must either include these changes
of personality within the limits of our own 'self,' or ascribe
them to possession by 'spirits.' And there can be little
doubt that the former theory is in most cases obviously
preferable. The secondary selves show such close relations
to the primary, display such complications of inclusive and
exclusive memories, betray such constant tendencies to merge
into or to absorb their primaries, that it seems arbitrary to
exclude them from our 'selves.' Indeed, it is often difficult
to decide which of several personalities is to be regarded as
the primary self. What, e.g., is the real self of personages
like Felida X. or Madame B. ?^ Is it the Leonie of waking
life, the dull uneducated peasant woman, who know\s nothing
of the higher faculties she is capable of displaying when the
habitual grouping of the elements of her being has been
^ Compare Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. iv
p. 129. The case of Felida X., given fully in Hypnotisme et Double
Conscience, par le Dr. Asain, Paris, 1887. [Still more striking- and
instructive are two American cases, that of the 'Rev. -Mr. Hanna' in
Sidis and Goodhart's Multiple Personality and that of ' Miss
Beauchamp ' in Dr. Morton Prince's Dissociation of a Personality\
278 Riddles of the Sphinx
resifted by hypnotization ? Or is it the bright and lively
Leontine of the hypnotic condition, who knows all that
Leonie does, but speaks of her in the third person ? Or is it
not rather the Leonore of a still deeper stage, with her higher
intellect and perfect memory of all that she, Leontine and
Leonie have done ?
By the theory suggested all these difficulties may be solved.
They merely illustrate the contention that our ordinary
selves are neither our whole selves nor our true selves. They
are, as Frederic Myers phrased it, merely that portion of our
self which has happened to come to the surface, or which it
has paid to develop into actual consciousness in the course of
Evolution. They are our habitual or normal selves, more or
less on a par with the secondary selves, and like them,
phenomenal. But the Ego would include them all, and this
inclusion would justify us in reckoning these phenomena
part of ourselves. In it the phenomenal selves would unite
and combine, and as a beginning of this fusion it is interest-
ing to find traces of coalescence in the higher stages of
personalities which at lower stages had seemed exclusive and
antagonistic.^
§ 24. The way in which the world arises may now be
represented as follows. If there are two beings, God and an
Ego, capable of interacting, and if thereupon interaction
takes place, there will be a reflexion of that interaction
presented to or conceived by the Ego. And if, for reasons
to be subsequently elucidated (ch. x §§ 25, 26), there is an
element of non-Adaptation and imperfection in this inter-
action, both factors will appear to the Ego in a distorted
shape. Its image of the interaction will not correspond
to the reality. Such a distorted image our universe might
^ Compare Proceedings of the Psychical Society^ vol. iv p. 529 s.f.
[Both 'Mr. Hanna' and 'Miss Beauchamp' were cured by being
artificially reunited, the one in six weeks, the other in six years.]
Man and the World 279
be, and hence the divine half of the stress {cp. § 22) would be
represented by the material world, and that of the Ego by
our present phenomenal selves. But just as the development
of ourselves reveals more and more our full nature, so it must
be supposed that the development of the world will reveal
more and more fully the nature of God, so that in the course
of Evolution, our conception of the interaction between us
and the Deity would become more and more adequate to the
reality, until at the completion of the process, the last thin
veil would be rent asunder, and the perfected spirits would
behold the undimmed splendour of truth in the light of the
countenance of God.
§ 25. But many difficulties remain. Granting that Matter
is the product of an interaction between the Deity and the
Ego, we have not yet fully accounted for the objective
world. The objective world includes not only things but
persons, i.e., spiritual beings. Are these then also subjective
hallucinations of each man's Ego?
It is not as imperative to deny the ultimate reality of
spiritual beings as it was to deny that of unknowable and
lifeless Matter. But it is undeniable that the admission of
their reality creates some difficulty. For how can others
share in the subjective cosmos arising out of the interaction
between the Deity and the Ego of each of us ? Metaphysics
alone might long have failed to find an answer to this
question, and the idea of a 'pre-established harmony' between
the phenomenal worlds of several spirits might long have
continued to seem a strange flight of fancy, if the progress
of science had not enabled us to conceive the process on
scientific analogies.
The problem, in the first place, has much affinity with
what we see in dreams. In a dream also we have a sensuous
presentation laying claim to reality, and yet possessing only
subjective validity. A dream is a hallucination, and yet not
V
2 8o Riddles of the Sphinx
a random hallucination : each feature in the wildest dream is
causally connected with a reality transcending the dream
state (in this case our ordinary ' waking ' life), and when we
awake we can generally account even for its greatest
absurdities. And yet these absurdities do not, as a rule,
strike us while we dream. We live for the nonce in
topsyturvydom, and are surprised at nothing. While it lasts,
therefore, a dream has all the characteristics of reality. So
with our present life : it seems real and rational, because we
are yet asleep, because the eyes of the soul are not yet
opened to pierce the veil of illusion. But if the rough touch
of death awoke us from the lethargy of life, and withdrew the
veil that shrouded from our sight the true nature of the
cosmos, would not our earth-life appear a dream, the
hallucination of an evil nightmare?
>pertainly the analogy holds very exactly. The w^orld of
dreams is moulded, although with strange distortions, upon
that of our waking life ; so might our present world be on
that of ultimate reality. It is real while it lasts ; so is our
world ; when we awake, both cease to be true, but not to
be significant. And both, moreover, may be seen through
by reflection. Just as we are sometimes so struck by the
monstrous incongruity of our dreams that, even as we
dream, we are conscious that we dream, so philosophy
arouses us to a consciousness that the phenomenal is
not the realy
But yet the parallel would not be complete unless
different people had parallel and corresponding dreams
or hallucinations. Exceptionally this correspondence has
been recorded even in the case of dreams,^ but for a frequent
and normal occurrence of such parallelism we must go
to the nascent science of hypnotism.
^ Vide Phantasms of the Livutg, vol. ii p. 380. ff., 590 ff.
Man and the World 281
Not only are hypnotized subjects easily subjected to
hallucinations at the will of their operator, both while
hypnotized and when they have apparently returned to
their normal condition, but it is quite possible to make
several subjects share in the same hallucination.
Now as yet our knowledge of these phenomena is too
rudimentary for us to assign limits to the extent and
complexity of the hallucinations which may be in this
way induced, but even now their consistency is quite as-
tounding. The subject to whom it has been suggested
that he will at such and such a time have audience of the
President of the French Republic, is not disillusioned by
any incongruity in the appearance and demeanour of his
phantom president : a hallucinatory photograph on a
spotless piece of paper obeys all the laws of optics ; it is
reflected in a mirror, doubled by a prism, magnified by a
lens, etc.^
And if such effects are possible to us, if we can ex-
perimentally create subjective worlds of objective reality {i.e.
valid for several persons), even though of comparatively
limited extent and variety, in a human consciousness, what
may not be achieved by an operator of vastly greater
knowledge and power ? Shall we assert that this hallucin-
atory cosmos would fall short even of the almost infinite
complexity and variety of our world ?
We may put, then, the analogy in terms of a continuous
proportion, and say that the hypnotic or dream-conscious-
ness is to the normal, as the normal is to the ultimate. In
each case the lower is related to the higher as the actual
to the potential : while we sleep our dream-consciousness
is all that is actual and our waking self exists only
potentially; while we live on earth our normal consciousness
^ Proceedings of the Psychical Society^ vol. iv p. 11, vol. iii p. 167.
2 82 Riddles of the Sphinx
alone is actual and our true selves are the ideals of unrealized
aspirations.
Thus to philosophy, as to religion, its reproach has
become its glory. Just as the Cross has become the
symbol of religious hope, so philosophy has answered
the taunts that truth is a dream and God a hallucination,
by gathering truth from dreams, and by tracing the
method of God's working through hallucinations.
§ 26. But though the ' objective world ' be a hallucination,
subjective in its mode of genesis, it need not on this account
be without a meaning, without a purpose. Not even our
own casual and disconnected hallucinations are without
connexion with the real world, without the most direct
significance for our real life. Still less can this be the case
with the material world : it must be possible to determine
the teleological significance of Matter, and of the phenomenal
selves incarnated in it. For it is necessary, on metaphysical
grounds, to endorse the protest which is generally made in
the interests of Materialism, against the separation of Body
and Soul, the dualism of Matter and Spirit, and to welcome
the accumulating proofs of their complete correspondence
and interdependence.
For the universe is one \ Body and Soul, Matter and Spirit
are but different aspects, the outside and the inside of the
same fact : the material is but the outward and visible sign
of the inward and spiritual state. No other theory of their
relations can possibly be drawn from' our premisses : for if
the phenomenal world is a stress between the Deity and
the Ego, the soul is but the reaction of the Ego upon the
divine action which encases it as the body. But this very
analysis of a stress, this very distinction between force and
resistance, action and reaction is a logical and not a real
one, and so it is not surprising that they should be dis-
tinguishable in thought but inseparable in reality.
Man and the World 283
§ 27. This close connexion of the material and the
spiritual will enable us to understand why the single
process of Evolution is a correlated development of bothy
why the development of a spirit is naturally accompanied
by a growth in the complexity of its material reflex.
Of this fact Materialism gives an explanation which
is not only plausible in itself, but persuasive by its favourable
contrast with all the other metaphysical explanations
hitherto offered. It is all very well, a materialist may urge,
to give metaphysical explanations of Matter in the lofty
region of vague generalities, but when we come down to
humble but solid facts, and require a specific explanation of
this or that, the courage and the metaphysics of the oppo-
nents of Materialism evaporate, and shedding around them
a 'divine mist' of mystical verbiage they hasten to regain
the cloudy peaks of metaphysics. Granted, therefore, that
it is hard to conceive the constitution of Matter as an
ultimate fact, that Matter may qiiite well be an immediate
activity of the Divine Energy, that the conception of the
universe as a stress between the Deity and the Ego is
a possible explanation of the interaction and close
connexion of Matter and Spirit, — granted all this, the
question may yet be asked why the growth of the
complexity of material organization should be the invariable
accompaniment of the growth of consciousness. Is it not
the easiest and most reasonable explanation of this fact
to suppose that spirit is a kind of harmony, resulting from
the proper collocation of material particles? Indeed, do
not the facts of the evolution of life directly negative the
supposition that Matter is an instrument of the Deity?
For if the world-process were the realization of a Divine
purpose, the lower forms of material organisms would
necessarily be less harmonious with that purpose, and hence
should require a more powerful and complicated machinery
284 Riddles of the Sphinx
of Matter than the higher and more harmonized Instead
of which, material organization rises in complexity and
power pai'i passit, with the development of consciousness,
and the obvious inference is that it is the cause of the
development of consciousness.
That such a materialistic explanation of the facts is the
most obvious to the vulgar, it is needless to dispute, that it is
also the soundest, it is imperative to deny. We may boldly
accept the challenge of Materialism, and if we succeed, we
may reasonably expect that a defeat of Materialism on the
ground of its own choice will not mean merely a passing foray
of the metaphysical mountaineers, but a final conquest of the
rich lowlands of science from the materialists who have
terrorised over them so long.
For the greater complexity of material organization in the
development of the world several reasons may be given. In
the first place, we may appeal to the fact that growth of com-
plexity seems to be the law of Evolution in all things, and
might parallel the greater complexity and delicacy of the in-
dividual organism by the growing complexity and delicacy
of the higher social organism {cp. ch. viii § 7). For if growth
of complexity is a universal law of Evolution, there need be
no interdependence between the manifestations of this law,
i.e., no causal relation between the greater complexity of
material organization and the development of consciousness.
Secondly, we may say quite generally, that if the world-
process represents a gradual harmonizing of the Deity and
the Ego, it must bring with it an increase in the intercourse
and interaction between them. Hence the reflex of that in-
teraction in the consciousness of the Ego, viz., the world-
would show a parallel development. The greater intensity
and the greater number of relations between the Ego and the
Deity would generate an intenser consciousness on the one
.side and a more complex organization on the other. Thus
Man and the World 285
the materialist explanation of the fact would in both these
cases be a fallacy of ciini hoc a^go proptei^ hoc, and confuse a
parallelism due to a common origin with causal dependence.
These considerations, however, are perhaps insufficient to
explain the whole function of Matter in the Evolution of the
world, and we must examine rather the part material organiza-
tion plays in the different organisms.
In the lowest and simplest forms of life, e.g.^ protoplasm,
consciousness is reduced to a minimum, and it has no organiza-
tion to speak of. The protoplasm has to do all its work
itself ; the amoeba catches its food consciously and digests it
consciously. When it feels, its consciousness has to be all
there, and on the spot where the stimulation is.
Now let us suppose that it differentiates itself and sets up
a rudimentary organization, say a stomach. It no longer
requires to supervise the digestion of its food in its proper
person and with its whole consciousness, but only gets called
in b}' the structure it has set up when something has gone
wrong, and it has dyspepsia. It is a familiar observation
that we know and feel nothing of our bodily functioning until
it is out of order. In health our nerves and our digestion do
not demand the attention of our consciousness. And the
conjecture may be hazarded that this is precisely the reason
why we have grown nerves and a digestive apparatus. For
the establishment of a nervous system makes it possible for
consciousness to be concentrated at the centre of affairs and
quietly to receive reports and send orders through the nerves^
instead of rushing about all over the body.
There is thus a considerable economy of consciousness in-
volved in every piece of material organization. Its raison
d'etre is that it liberates a certain amount of consciousness.
That is to say, consciousness, instead of being bound down
to the performance of lower and mechanical functions, is set
free to pursue higher aims or to perfect its attainment of the
2 86 Riddles of the Sphinx
lower, and thus the total of intelligence is increased. E.g.^
our original protoplasm, when it has got a stomach, can
devote the attention it formerly bestowed upon digesting its
breakfast to improved methods of catching its dinner, and so
its descendants, as they increase the complexity and efficiency
of their organic machinery, may rise to the contemplation of
the highest problems of life.
Thus organization is not a primary fact in the history of
life. Function generates structure and not vice versa. The
unconscious material organization is simply the ex-conscious.
Our unconsciousness of how we (our wills) control our bodies,
gives no support to the view that body and soul are different :
we have merely /orgoUen how we grew our bodies in the long
process of Evolution. But as the process still goes on we
•can retrace the steps of our past development. Our acts still
form our bodies for good and ill. First, they generate habits,
and habits gradually become mechanical and unconscious.
Habits, again, gradually produce organic changes, at first
slight changes, it may be, in the development of muscles
and the expression of countenance. But in the course of
generations these are summed up into hereditary organization.
The only reason why this production of physical changes as
the expression of psychical nature is not more obvious is, in
the first place, that for reasons already stated (ch. iv §§ lo,
1 6), our faculties have not been harmoniously developed, and
that the correspondence between the different elements of
our being is very far from perfect. Moreover, by far the
greater part of our nature is given us, and in the course of a
single life-time comparatively little can be done towards
•changing the outer into conformity with the inner man.
Nevertheless, it may perhaps be suspected that our direct
control of our bodily organism, though an obscured, is not an
extinct power, that under favourable circumstances we possess
-what appears to be a supernatural and is certainly a super-
Mmi and the World 287
normal power over our bodies, and that this is the true source
of the perennial accounts of miracles of healing and extra-
ordinary faculties.
The essential meaning, then, of material organization in 1/
the evolution of the individual is Mechanism, and structure is
essentially a labour- saving apparatus which sets free con-
sciousness.
This estimate of the function of Matter and the meaning
of complexity of organization in the individual is con-
firmed by its applicability to the organization of society.
For both the complex structure of higher societies {cp. ch.
viii § 7) and their elaborate material machinery are essentially
contrivances for liberating force, and enabling them to produce
a higher intelligence, which shall be competent to deal with
higher problems.
§ 28. Nor is it only from the point of view of the
individual organism that Mi\tter seems to be mechanism, but
no less from that of the Deity. It is not merely that atoms
have the appearance of being 'manufactured articles,' from
their equality, regularity and similarity ; for they may not be
of divine manufacture, and we may be compelled to deny their
uniformity (r/. ch. vii 11). But if we think out the relation
which on our theory must exist between the Deity and the
Egos, we shall perceive that matter is an admirably calculated
machinery for regulating, limiting, and restraining the con-
sciousness which it encases. Its impersonal character gives
it the superiority which Aristotle ascribed to the law over
personal rule.^ It does not cause hatred, and escapes "the
detestation which men feel for those who thwart their
impulses, even when they do it rightly." Even children and
savages cannot long be angry with sticks and stones. The
dull resistance with which it meets and checks the outbursts
*Eth. Nic. X. 9, 12.
288 Riddles of the Sphinx
of unreasoning passion, is more subduing than the most
active display of power. The irresponsive and impassive
inertia, against which we dash ourselves in vain, binds us
with more rigid and yet securer bonds than any our fancy
could have imagined. Matter constrains us by a necessity
we can neither resist nor resent, and to dispute its sway
would not only be a waste of time and strength, but display
a ludicrous lack of the sense of the ridiculous.
But if Matter be a controlling mechanism, we can see also
why the lower beings possess a less complex organization.
A simpler and coarser machinery depresses their conscious-
ness to a very low point, and so they have not the intelligence
seriously to affect the course of events. On the other hand,
in order to permit of the higher manifestations of conscious-
ness, admitting of greater spontaneity, of greater powers for
good and for evil, a more complex, elaborate and delicate
mechanism of Matter is required, to secure the necessary
control of the resultant action. Slaves may be driven by the
lash, governed by simple and violent means, but free men
require to be guided by subtler and more complicated modes
of suasion. Or, to vary the metaphor, if the material
encasement be coarse and simple, as in the lower organisms,
it permits only a little intelligence to permeate through it ; if
it is delicate and complex, it leaves more pores and exits, as
it were, for the manifestations of consciousness. Or, to
appeal to the analogy already found so serviceable (§ 24),
it is far easier for the operator to put his hypnotized subject
asleep than to produce the higher manifestations in which the
consciousness of the subject is called forth, but guided by the
will of the operator ; and these require far more elaborate
and delicate preparations. On this analogy, then, we may
say that the lower animals are still entranced in the lower
stage of brute lethargy^ while we have passed into the higher
phase of soinnambulisni, which already pernn'ts us strange.
^
Man and the World 289
glimpses of a lucidity that divines the reaHties of a transcen-
dent world.
\ Herein lies the final answer to Materialism : it consists in
showing in detail what was asserted at the outset (§ 16), viz.,
that Materialism is a hysteron proteron, a putting of the cart
before the horse, which may be rectified by just inverting the
connexion between Matter and consciousness. Matter is not
that which produces consciousness, but that which limits it
and confines its intensity within certain limits : material
organization docs not construct consciousness out of arrange-
ments of atoms, but contracts its manifestation within the
sphere which it permits.^ y ^*^
This explanation does not involve the denial either of the
facts or of the principle involved in Materialism, viz. the
unity of all life and the continuity of all existence. It admits
the connexion of Matter and consciousness, but contends
that the course of interpretation must proceed in the contrary
direction. Thus it will fit the facts alleged in favour of
Materialism equally well, besides enabling us to understand
facts which Materialism rejected as ' supernatural.' It
explains the lower by the higher, Matter by Spirit, instead of
vice versa, and thereby attains to an explanation which is
ultimately tenable instead of one which is ultimately absurd.
And it is an explanation the possibility of which no evidence
in favour of Materialism can possibly affect. For if, e.g., a
man loses consciousness so soon as his brain is injured, it is
clearly as good an explanation to say the injury to the brain
destroyed the mechjanism by which the manifestation of con-
sciousness was rendered possible, as to say that it destroyed
the seat of consciousness. On the other hand, there are facts
which the former theory suits far better. If, e.g., as
4 [William James in his Hu7nan Iviifwrtality has distinguished the /^
two theories as the production and the transmission theories of the
function of body with regard to soul.] ^
290 Riddles of the Sphinx
sometimes happens, the man after a time more or less
recovers the faculties of which the injury to his brain had
deprived him, and that not in consequence of a renewal of the
injured part, but in consequence of the inhibited functions
being performed by the vicarious action of other parts, the
easiest explanation certainly is that after a time consciousness
reconstitutes the remaining parts into a mechanism capable
of acting as a substitute for the lost parts.
Again, if the body is a mechanism for inhibiting conscious-
ness, for preventing the full powers of the Ego from being
prematurely actualized, it will be necessary to invert also our
ordinary ideas on the subject of memory, and to account for
forgetfulness instead of for memory. It will be during life
that we drink the bitter cup of Lethe, it will be with our
brain that we are enabled to forget. And this will serve
to explain not only the extraordinary memories of the
drowning and the dying generally, but also the curious
hints which experimental psychology occasionally affords
us that nothing is ever forgotten wholly and be\ond
recall.^
§ 29. That Matter is ultimately divine force and
^ And yet this is a fact which to rnaterialism is utterly inexplicable.
For on a materialist hypothesis the memory of anything must ultimately
consist of and depend on a certain arrangement of certain particles of
brain tissue, and in the case of complex facts, the memory would
evidently require a very complex system of particles. Now as the
contents of the brain are limited, it is clear that there can only be a
limited number of such systems of particles, and hence a limited number
of facts remembered. It would be physically impossible that the brain
could be charged with memories beyond a certain point. And if we con-
sider the number of impressions and ideas which daily enter into our
consciousness, it is clear that even in youth the brain must soon reach
the saturation point of memory, and that the struggle for existence in
our memory must be very severe. If therefore we receive unexpected
poofs of the survival in memory of the facts most unlikely to be
remembered, we have evidently reached a phenomenon which it is
exceedingly difficult for materialism to explain.
Man and the World 291
divine mechanism, is shown also by the development it
undergoes. For coincidently with the spiritual development
of spiritual beings, Matter also undergoes a process of
spiritualization. And of spiritualization in two senses, (i).
The gulf between its (apparent) properties and those of
Spirit diminishes. We discover that it possesses more and
more analogies with Spirit. And curiously enough this is
one of the chief reasons why the advance of science has
seemed favourable to Materialism. For as the spiritual
character of Matter became better known, it became less
absurd to explain all things by Matter. But such successes
of Materialism have been gained only by absorbing alien
elements, and have hopelessly impaired its metaphysical
value. In this sense Materialism has, since the da\s of
Demokritos and Lucretius, been fighting a losing battle.
Its seeming victories have been won by the absorption of
spiritualistic elements which have corrupted the simplicity
of its original conception of Matter, andi caused it to diverge
further and further from the 'clear and definitely intelligible'
motions of solid particles. The connexion of the scientific
■conception of Matter with the hard Matter of common
experience has become fainter and fainter, as science is
•compelled to multiply invisible, impalpable and imponderable
substances in the ' unseen universe,' by which it explains the
visible. The ignorance of Lucretius permitted him to give
to his Atomism a far greater formal perfection than the
fuller knowledge of modern physicists admits of, and every
far-sighted materialist must lament that science should have
been driven to give metaphysicians such openings for
•crushing tii qiioqiies as it has by asserting the existence of
supva-seiisible substances like the ether and of timeless forces
like gravitation {cp. ch. iii § 9). For with what face after this
•can science protest against the admission of a supra-sensible
'world of eternal lacing, as involved in the ^c*;////^/^ explanation
292 Riddles of the Sphinx
of the physical universe, when precisely similar assumptions
have already been used by science for the purposes of a
partial explanation ? Metaphysicians, on the other hand,
will regard these facts as indications that the development of
Matter and Spirit proceeds along converging lines, and that
by the time the supra-sensible is reached a single reality may
be seen to embrace the manifestations of both.
§ 30. (2) The spiritualization of Matter is displayed
also in its relations to spiritual beings. As in the course of
Evolution these become more harmonized with the Divine
Will, Matter, the expression of that Will, becomes more and
more harmonized with the desires of spiritual beings. The
chains that bound us are gradually relaxed, the restrictions
that fettered us are one by one removed, as intelligent
insight grows strong enough to take the place of physical
compulsion. We obtain command of Nature by knowledge
of her laws, and it is by our obedience to the laws of the
material that we win our way to spiritual freedom. Hence
there is deep symbolic truth in the myth of Prometheus the
Firebearer, which connects the discovery of fire with man's
advance to a higher spiritual condition. For it is difficult to
realize, and impossible to over-estimate, the importance of
this step in the spiritualization of Matter, whereby what had
seemed hopelessly unmanageable and immovable vanished
and volatilized at the magic touch of flame. And in the
spiritualization of man the discovery of fire was no less
essential, as the foundation of all subsequent spiritual
progress.
It is still true moreover that spiritual progress in the long
run depends on material progress, and this is equally true
of the development of the individual and of the race. Indeed^
it is even more obviously true in the case of the race, when
the process takes place on a larger scale and our survey
extends over a longer history. Historically it is true that
Man and the World 293
the higher has developed out of the lower, the moral and
intellectual life out of the material, and ultimately it can
only rise pari passu with the improvement of the material
It is a fact to which our vulgar Theodicy loves to blind itself,
that a great, and perhaps the greater, part of the evil in the
world is not due to the perversity of men and institutions, to
the tyranny of priests and princes, but to the material
conditions of life, and cannot therefore be removed by the
mere progress of intelligence or morality. These evils are
but the reaction of ordinary human nature upon the
ineluctable pressure of material conditions, and can be
eradicated only by a completer command of those conditions,
by the knowledge which is power. On the other hand, the
growth of knowledge brings with it a slow but sure remedy
for these evils : every extension of our knowledge of the
nature of Matter affords the material basis for a higher
spiritual condition ; ultimately material progress means
spiritual progress. Thus it is true of social, as of
metaphysical, problems, that many which at present seem
insoluble are slowly ripening to their solution. Hence it is
our business to take care that a due balance of functions, a»
proper harmony, is preserved of the material, intellectual and 1
moral elements of progress. For a one-sided development
is in the end fatal to all. MateriaJ progress_alone, if it
neglects the spiritual elements of life, will in the end bring
about moral and intellectual decay, and a condition of society
not only unfavourable to further material progress, but
incapable of maintaining the prosperity it has acquired.
Power over Matter which does not rest on an assured basis
of intelligence and morality is certain to be lost in the
ignorance and violence of a society which does not make a
proper use of the knowledge it possesses. And the limits of
spiritual progress in the absence of a material basis are
equally obvious. When ' plain living ' becomes a euphemism
294 Riddles of I he Sphinx
for starvation, ' high thinking ' is no longer possible, and
fakirism is a caricature of spirituality.
So it is in the case of the individual. Psychical progress
is evolved on a physical basis. The intellectual and moral
qualities are developed subsequently to the physical, and
developed out of them. And though this does not of
course explain them away — for the lower cannot explain
away the higher — it yet shows that the distinction of body
and soul must not be exaggerated into an irreconcilable
difference. For just as Matter approximates to Spirit in
the course of Evolution, so the body approximates to the
soul. In neither case, indeed, does the lower become
absorbed into the higher, but it becomes more distinctly
subordinated to it. As we progress, the higher intellectual
and moral qualities play a more and more important part
in life, and tend to predominate in consciousness over the
physical functions. For the physical processes tend to
become unconscious. Consciousness, therefore, is less en-
grossed by the mechanism of life. Hence the body itself
becomes more and more fitted to be the body of a spiritual
being, better and better adapted as the vehicle of a life
which is more than physical. It develops higher physical
powers, and becomes less of an obstacle to spiritual progress.
And when the individual development is allowed to proceed
normally and harmoniously, there does not arise any
conflict between the higher and the lower stages : the lower
are the potentialities of which the higher are the realization,
the promise of which the higher are the fulfilment, the
foundation upon which the higher rear the edifice, the stem
of which the higher are the flowers. Hence the higher does
not destroy or supersede the lower, but transforms it, and
includes it in what is its realization also. The intellectual
and the moral life is higher than and more than the physical,,
and also its perfection.
Man and the World 295
Wherever, therefore, there appears an antagonism between
the higher and the lower, we may rest assured that there the
higher also has not been fully attained, and that whether
the blame fall on the individual, or, as is more frequently
the case, on the society, a higher life which involves the
mortification and neglect of the physical is both wrong and
foolish, i.e., both morally and intellectually defective. Ethical
systems, therefore, which inculcate such a neglect of the
material are fundamentally false: for just because the physical
duties are the lower, they take precedence over the higher :
the physical necessities of life {to ^fjv) precede both in Time
and in urgency the moral necessities of living we// (to ev ^rjv).
On the other hand, the true meaning and function of the
lower activities is to be sought in their relation to the higher,
which they prepare and promote. The natural shows its
spiritual nature by supplying the machinery of spiritual
progress and by promoting it in spite of the unavailing
protests of spiritual beings. For though human stupidity
has hitherto resisted rather than assisted the steady pressure
of ' natural ' causes, we may trace, even within the narrow
limits of human history, an irresistible secular progress,
which has strengthened the intellectual and moral elements
in human nature at the expense of the purely animal. And
even if we do not always approve of the methods employed,
who are we that we should pit our insight against that of
the power that works in Evolution ?
Thus this view enables us fully to appreciate the social
value of a materialism which calls attention to the im-
portance of our foundations ; and while it is no less
powerful in dispelling the Utopias of our fancies, dissipating
our castles in the air and compelling us to uprear the
structure of the higher life, stone by stone, by unremitting
toil, it yet solaces us with loftier prospects based on the
surer foundation of scientific retrospect.
296
Riddles of the Sphinx
§ 31. Yet there is an element of truth even in the ascetic
view of Matter. We might indeed have gathered this from the
frequency and persistency at all times and under all conditions
of the theory which makes Matter the principle of Evil ; for
it would be contrary to all belief in the rationality of Evolution
to suppose that even error, when persistent, is wholly grat-
uitous. Accordingly we find that though Matter, being
nothing in itself, cannot be the principle of Evil, and is not
in itself evil, it is yet characteristic of an essentially imperfect
order of things : it is, as it were, the outward indication and
visible reflexion of Evil. For Evil is, like all things, ulti-
mately psychical, and what is evil about Matter is the
condition of the spirits which require the restraint of Matter.
If, therefore, as Plato says, the body is the grave of the soul,
and Matter is the prison of the Spirit, it must yet be admitted
that it is not the existence of prisons which is to be deplored,
ut of those whom it is necessary to imprison.
Matter is connected with Evil in its double aspect, both
as the engine of progress and the mechanism of the divine
education of spirits, and also as the check upon conscious-
ness. For if evil, i.e. inharmonious, spirits were permitted
the full realization of their conscious powers, they would be
able to thwart and to delay, if not to prevent, the attainment
of the divine purpose of the world-process. But if they are
permitted intelligence only when they are ready to recognize
the cosmic order and in proportion as they are ready to do so,
the aptness of the contrivance of Matter becomes manifest.
The lower existences, i.e., the less harmonized, have their
consciousness limited and repressed by material organization,
in order that their power for evil may be , practically
neutralized, and that in the impotence of their stupidity
they may have little influence on the course of events. On
the other hand the higher existences who have learnt the
necessity of social order and harmony, are thereby enabled to
^X^-^K-J^ -^^f^^
Man and the World k^j
acquire that knowledge which gives them power over Matter.
Thus there is a correspondence, on" the whole, between
the spiritual condition of an individual and a race and their
material resources. We are too apt to chafe against the
material limits of our being, too hasty in resenting the
physical obstacles to our higher aspirations : it is possible
that the real obstacle lies in the condition of our own souls,
and that God knows us better than we know ourselves.
What man, at all events, could claim to be entrusted with
higher knowledge, and confidently assert that he would use
the Ring of Gyges, the Philosopher's Stone, or the Elixir
of Life, so as to further the highest spiritual interests of
himself and of the world .'' And so with societies. Let us
suppose the realization of what many of our social
philosophers regard as the proper goal of human ambition.
Suppose a humorous fairy revealed to us a secret by which
we might satisfy all the material wants of life without labour.
What would be the result on a society at the present level
of intelligence and morality } Would it not convert it in
very deed into a * city of pigs,' intent only on making
merry and making love, and totally forgetful of any higher
destiny of man } The truth and the true justification of the
divine government of the universe is that we are not fit to
be better off than we are, and that the whole gigantic
mechanism of the material world is designed to further the
attainment of the purpose of the world.
But we need not fear that this mechanism will be found
too rigid and mechanical, that in the ripeness of time it will
put an absolute limit upon spiritual evolution. The time
may come when Matter will have been so completely mastered
as no longer to offer any obstacles to our wishes, and when
in sober truth Man will, with a word or a signal, precipitate
a mountain into the sea. Or can it be that a completer
harmony of the human with the Divine Will can anticipate
298 Riddles of the Sphinx
the course of social evolution, and give to saints and sages a
power over Matter which transcends that of ordinary men,
and even now enables their faith to move mountains ? Might
not their power over Matter already rise to the level to be
attained in far-distant ages, just as their intellectual and
moral development towers above that of the societies in
which they dwell ? But whether a belief which has found
strong favour at all times and in all countries be well
founded, is not a question for a philosopher to decide : it is
enough for him to assert that there is nothing inherently
absurd in the supposition, and that a will completely
congruous with the Divine would needs have a complete
control of the material.
§ 32. With this suggestion we must leave the subject and
close a chapter which has already been unduly prolonged,
by a brief explanation of a difficulty which has often been
felt to be an insuperable obstacle in the way of any view of
the material world that savours of idealism.
Granted, it may be said, that Matter is in itself unknow-
able, that a satisfactory philosophic account of the world
must always explain it in terms of Spirit ; yet how is it
that the material world existed, apparently, long before
spiritual beings came into existence } Is not this a conclusive
proof that the world does not in any way depend on the
consciousness of spirits, nor exist as an ' objective hallucina-
tion.'
The objection sounds miore serious than it is, and the
humanist at least will have no difficulty in answering it. For
in the first place, what does the previous existence of the
world prove } What but that the world-process was proceed-
ing at a time when, to judge by the knowledge which we,
immersed in a certain stage of this process, at present
possess, there ware no beings in that phase of the process
represented by physical existence on our earth. But this
Man mid the World 299
asserts nothing as to the ultimate significance of the terms
* physical existence,' ' earth ' and * matter ' and so falls very
far short of being a refutation of our theory and of proving
that the material world is not devised as a phenomenon for the
consciousness of spirits.
For (i), as we saw in chapter viii, material evolution is an
integral part of the world-process, and obeys the same law
as spiritual evolution, viz., that of the development of the
individual in association. Hence it is not true that the
material existed outside of, and before, the spiritual process.
We may not be in the habit of calling the formation of
atoms an evolution of spiritual beings, but the process which
developed the material world and developed spiritual beings
is one and the same, and the material may fairly be viewed
in the light of the spiritual development to which it has r^ ^
conduced. After all the forests of the carboniferous age had ^ ^^-^ '^
to perish unregarded and unrecorded in order that many rh^^^y^^
millions of years afterwards we might have the coal and the iicry^^
power we are using so badly. '^^ OlmAJ^
(2) It is at the utmost true only from our present point of '^'C^.^^Vm^*
view that in its earlier stages the universe contained no ^^^ jH^
spiritual beings for whom it existed. For there might '^^-^^
have existed, and still exist in the world, myriads of
beings of a different order from ourselves, the denizens
of stellar fires or interstellar space, whose constitution
and mode of life concealed them from our sight. Or
again, there may be phase upon phase of existence, forming
worlds upon worlds impenetrable to our knowledge in our
present phase, the existence of which may be indicated by
the pre-human evolution of our world.
And, lastly (3), the objection shows how slowly scientific
discoveries find their way into philosophy. Philosophers
still argue as if our earth were the universe, as if spiritual
existence must be conceived to be confined to a single planet
300 Riddles of the Sphinx
of a tenth-rate sun. Because 100,000,000 years ago no
conscious beings inhabited our earth, it is forsooth impossible
that other heavenly bodies were more populous ! But if
spiritual beings in our phase of physical existence existed
in other worlds, it is surely as probable that our solar system
existed to adorn their skies, as that we are now the sole
intelligent beings in the universe, and that the uncounted
hosts of suns and planets exist either for no purpose at all
or merely to provide employment for our astronomers.
Thus it is (i) highly improbable that the phenomenal
world ever existed without spiritual beings in many, if not
in all, the heavenly bodies. (2) It is highly probable that
there are many other phases or stages of Evolution, different
from that which constitutes our present physical world, and
that of these the existence of the world before that of spiritual
beings would be a symbol, a piece of salutary scene-painting,
which would produce an illusion in lieu of a reality we were
not yet fitted to grasp. Or (3), it may be directly denied
that the material world existed without spirit, seeing that it
already represented the lower stages of the evolution of
spirits. And whichever of these explanations be preferred,
they are one and all competent to account for the prehuman
existence of the material world and in harmony with the
account of the spiritual nature of Matter given above
The result, then, of this chapter has been to show that the
difficulties presented by the nature of our environment admit
of solution only if we refer the phenomenal world to the
transcendent or ultimate reality. By this reference we were
enabled to transcend the infinities of Space and Time, the
conflict of Idealism and the facts of life, to give a rough
sketch of the nature and function of Matter in the economy
of the universe, and so to suggest a solution of the old
puzzles as to the relation of Matter and Spirit, of body and
soul. But in so doing, two further subjects were also intro-
Mail and the Wor/d 301
duced, those of the nature of God and of Evil. These
subjects will have to be investigated in the following
chapters, in which it will be necessary to make good the
assumptions that God and Good and Evil exist in any
intelligible sense, and so that they can make intelligible
anything else about the world.
CHAPTER X.
MAN AND GOD.
§ I. The subject of this chapter is the relation of man
to his cause, or his past, and if we denominate the
supposed First Cause of the world God, it will possess two
main connexions with the preceding- inquiries. In the first
place, the conception of a first cause of the world requires to
be vindicated against the criticism stated in chapter ii (§ lo).
In the second place, we were led in the last chapter to conceive
the material cosmos as an interaction between God and the
Ego, and to suggest positions which require further elucida-
tion.
It was shown by an examination of the contradiction of
causation in chapter ii that a first cause of existence in
general is an irrational conception, in chapter iii (§ ii) that
causation is a thoroughly human conception, derived from,
and applicable to, the phenomenal world. On both these
g-rounds, therefore, to say that God is the First Cause of the
world is to say that God is the First Cause of the phenomenal
world, i.e., the cause of the world-process. For the category
•of causation does not carry beyond the process of Evolution or
the phenomenal world {cp. ch. ii § 9). But if it is so interpreted,
there is no absurdity in the conception of a First Cause. Our
reason impels us to ask for a cause of the changes we see,
and desire to control, and at the same time forbids us to say
that they arise out of nothing, i.e. causelessly. But if we
applied these postulates of our reason to <2// things, to existence
Man and God
303
as such, they would lead us into the absurdity that all things
having- been caused, they must ultimately have been caused
by nothing. But if this is impossible, if we cannot derive all
existence out of nothing, must we not assume at least one
existence which has never come into existence ? Such an
existence would be an ultimate fact, and the question as to
its cause would be unmeaning. For being non-phenomenal,
the idea of coming into existence, or Becoming, which is a
conception applying only to the facts of the phenomenal
world, would not here be applicable. If, then, God is such
an existence, such a conception of God satisfies both the
requirements of our demand for causation and solves the
difficulty which the conception of a First Cause presents, if
taken in an absolute sense.
Thus God is, (i) the unbecome and non-phenomenal
Cause of the world-process — its Initiator.
(2) We saw in the last chapter that God was also the
Sustainer, as being a factor in the interaction of the Ego and
the Deity.
(3) It has been implicitly asserted in our discussions of
method in chapters v and viii, that the Deity should be
conceived as an intelligent and personal Spirit. For Cause
is a category which is valid only if used by persons and of
persons {cp. ch. iii § 11), while personality is the conception
expressive of the highest fact we know icp. ch. viii § 18);
hence it is only by ascribing personality to God that He can
be regarded either as the Cause or as the Perfector of the
world-process. ^ Lastly, Evolution is meaningless if it is not
^ Personality being avowedly an Ideal (ch. viii § 19), the attribution of
personality asserts merely that God is the perfection of the process
whereby personal beings have arisen out of the lowest individualities of
atoms. There is no objection, however, to the use of terms like supra-
personal or ultra-personal, if we mean by them something including and
transcending, rather than excluding, personality. For doubtless the
personality of God would transcend that of man as far as that of the
hig-hest man transcends that of the atom.
304 Riddles of the Sphinx
teleological {cp. ch. vii §§ 20, 21), and we cannot conceive a
purpose except in the intelligence of a personal being. And
we are forbidden by the principle of not multiplying entities
needlessly to invent gratuitous fictions like an impersonal
intelligence or unconscious purpose.
It follows (4) that God \s finite, or rather that to God, as
to all realities, infinite is an unmeaning epithet. This con-
clusion also has already been foreshadowed in many ways.
Thus {a) it followed from Kant's criticism of the proofs of the
existence of God, that only a finite God could sanction the
moral idea or be inferred from the nature of the world
{cp. ch. ii § 19 s.f.). No evidence can prove an infinite
cause of the world, for no evidence can prove anything
but a cause adequate to the production of the woidd, but
not infinite. To infer the infinite from the 'finite is a
fallacy like inferring the unknowable from the known, and
all arguments in favour of an infinite God must commit
it. We argue with finite minds from finite data, and
our conclusions must be of a like nature. {b) It follows
from the conception of God as Force {cp. ch. ix § 21) ; for
Force implies resistance, and if God is to enforce His will
upon the world, He cannot just for that reason be all — unless
indeed Fie is by some inexplicable madness divided against"
Himself. And so, too (r), just because God is a factor in all
things, He cannot be all things. F'or to interact implies a
not-God to react upon God. Lastly id), finiteness follows
from the whole account given in the last chapter of the
divine economy of the world.
§ 2. But these conclusions conflict sharply with the ordinary
doctrines both of theology and of philosophy. In theology
we are wont to hear God called the infinite, omnipotent.
Creator of all things, while in philosophy we hear of the all-
embracing Absolute and Infinite, in which all things are and
have their being. And as this conflict can be no longer dis-
Man and God
305
sembled or postponed, we must now either make good our
defiance of the united forces of theology and philosophy, or
be crushed by the overwhelming weight of their authority.
In so unequal a contest our only hope lies in the divisions
and hesitations of our adversaries. For it may be that their
agreement is not so perfect as we had feared, that the bearing
of some of their chief objections is ambiguous, and that with
a little skill we can find efficient support in the very citadels
of our opponents. srsona/ spirits, and so, by an easily intelligible reaction, the
ultimate reality of the universe is conceived to be both one
and ivipersonal.
^n other words, polytheism passes directly into pantheism,
without traversing any monotheistic phase, and this process
may be traced in the religions of Egypt, Greece, India, China,
etc. ^ Thus the vulgar are permitted to retain their personal cj«»<>
g-ods, while the educated regard them as being all mani-
festations or epithets of the One and All, of Brahma,
Isis, etc.
^Now the interesting point about Jewish monotheism is that
it seems to stop in the middle of this process. The tribal
God of the Hebrew^s was indeed exalted into the absolute
A
314 Riddles of the Sphinx
Creator of all things/ but, either from lack of philosophy, or
from the intensity of their conception of personality, they yet
illogically retained the attributes of personality, goodness/
wisdom, consciousness, etc. Hence there was from the first
an irreconcilable conflict between the -discordant elements of
personality and of pantheism, which could be palliated by
various expedients, but never transcended, and which has
been passed on from Judaism to Christianity and Mo-
hammedanism.
And while, with the aid of a personal Devil and a personal
Redeemer, the personal element in our monotheism has
received more popular emphasis, the more philosophic
theologians have shown a constant tendency to lapse into
pantheism. And so religious philosophy has varied through
all shades of opinion, from Pantheism and the confines of
Atheism to those of Dualism and Manichseism, without ever
arriving at consistency.^ Nor was it possible to arrive at con-
sistency without sacrificing elements which seemed indispens-
able. To have renounced the pantheistic side of monotheism
would have been to defy, not so much philosophy— which at that
time at least was largely dualistic, and subsequently accepted
its doctrine of the Infinite largely from religion— but the
popular prejudice which regarded infinity as the ideal of
magnitude {cp. ch. ix § 2), and could not distinguish between
creation out of Aristotle's ' formless matter ' and creation out
of nothing. To have abandoned the personal elements would
have been still more fatal. It was by finiteness and limita-
tion that God was brought near to the religious conscious-
ness ; it was the personality of God which supplied the real
motive force of the religious emotions. For whereas many
^ [Though not apparently until the days of Philo of Alexandria. The
doctrine was then imported into the Scriptures by mistranslating the
Hebrew of the first two verses of Genesis^ and thereby turning a creation
out of the chaotic ' waters ' into a creation out of nothing. Cp. Mr. C.
M. Walsh's Doctrine of Ci'eation^ 1910.]
Man and God 315
religions have failed because they did not render God human
enough^ the success of our own is an eloquent example that
no religion can ever make God too Jiuiumi. Accordingly, it
was felt that if the personality of God were lost, all would be
lost, nothing would be left that would be able or desirable to
explain the world. So it was felt to be better to assert the
personality of God as an irrational and incomprehensible
dogma of faith than to annihilate religion in the abyss of
Pantheism. We may trace in this the working also of the
feeling that the personality of God embodied a truth which
could not as yet be stated in set terms, the working of the
faith which preserves the truth until it grows great and prevails.
Thus the contradictions of monotheism in the past have pre-
served the doctrine of the divine personality, which would
otherwise have been merged in pantheism, have preserved a
truth which the earliest stage in the development of religious
consciousness instinctively grasped, but which the spiral of
the line of progress subsequently obscured.
But the merits of monotheism in the past are no reason
why we should for evfer acquiesce in its failure to find a solu-
tion : it is neither' J^rudent nor reasonable to regard the
contradictions as final. "And least of all is it feasible in a
crisis like the present. The incomprehensible has passed
from the language of religion to that of irreligion, and by a
Nemesis not wholly undeserved, theology is now being
devoured by a phantom of its own engendering — the Unknow-
able. The traditional monotheism has lost most of its hold
over thinking minds, and has been expelled by the very
Agnosticism it had fostered for its own protection. The
world no longer seeks to escape from the perplexities of the
human reason by an appeal to the Bible : the appeal lies to
* the exact methods of verified knowledge,' which by their very
nature are bound to treat the Book of the Revelation of an
(unknowable) God as one of the most curious of the re-
3 1 6 Riddles of the Sphinx
.positories of primitive superstition. Thus do the eternal laws
of retribution avenge the truth upon those who wittingly or
unwittingly use bad arguments, and cause them to recoil upon
their authors. Even, therefore, if acquiescence in a contradic-
tion ever really profited the cause of religion, it can now do
so no longer. Religion is lost if it sinks into the morass of
the unknowable Infinite, in which it can find no foothold.
In pressing this advice upon the religious guides of mankind,
it is impossible not to feel painfully that the jDatient to whom
the advice is tendered has already suffered much advice from
every quarter. But though a sick man receives much advice,
it does not follow that it is all bad. And in this case the
advice is at least new. For it has at last become possible for
religion to save itself by the other alternative. It has become
possible to purify Theism of its contradiction without dis-
solving it in Pantheism. The accumulation of the data en-
abling us to estimate the drift of the world-process enables us
for the first time to construe the course of events upon the
analogy of the realization of a human purpose, and thus to
develop consistently the finite and personal elements in
Theism ; and following out this train of thought we shall come
to realize that religion, philosophy and science alike demand
a belief in a personal and limited God.
§ 8. But before we can engage upon this task it will be
necessary to wage a lengthy war with philosophic Pantheism,
in order to demonstrate that the grounds on which it claimed
to be rationally unassailable are without exception illusory.
The philosophic conception of God is that of the unity of
the universe, the all-embracing, all-sustaining whole of which
all things are parts, the underlying reality of which all
things are manifestations. All is God, even where it is
attempted to deny that God ^ the All, and there is attributed
to him an existence for himself. But by God, through God,
for God, and in God all things are.
Man and God
317
5 9 This conception of God, which in the more con-
sciously anti-theistic systems is also called that of the
Absolute or Infinite, occurs more or less explicitly in
nearly all modern philosophers. An honourable exception
must be made in favour of J. S. ^lill, who alone in modern
times has pleaded in favour of a limited God.' Such
limitation, moreover, is really required by consistency in all
individualistic systems, notably in those of Berkeley and
Leibniz. Greek philosophy, on the other hand, is almost
exclusively dualistic, and hence, though the Deity is hardly
conceived as personal, he is never - the All, i.e.y is never
infinite. But down to the latest times of Neoplatonism,
Matter is conceived as a principle which contests the
supremacy of the Good. And though of course this dualism
of Matter and Reason, of the unknowable and knowable, is
objectionable on several grounds — and not least because
Matter is not able to explain itself, much less the world and
the limitation of the Deity — it maybe thought a moot point
whether a false distinction was not preferable to an unjustifi-
able confusion. It seems doubtful whether an assertion of
the unity of things which left no room for the recognition of
their difference was a change for the better. Certainly
philosophy has since had occasion to repent of its hasty
identification of the Deity with the unity of the universe, and
to lament the failure of every system which attempted to
understand the world on this assumption. Bitter experience
alone of the impotence of philosophy, of the stagnation and
retrogression of metaphysics, which have now dropped as
far behind the physical sciences as they were ahead of them
2,000 years ago, might have raised doubts as to the correct-
ness of this fundamental assumption of philosophy. And
these doubts our examination will fully confirm.
Mn his Essays on Religion (3rd ed.), p. 36 ff., p. 176 ff. Ai^
M
318 Riddles of the Sphinx
§ lO.'^The conception of the Deity adopted by philosophic
pantheism is from every point of view a mistake. Emotion-
ally it is a mistake, because the philosophic Infinite is not
God, and cannot satisfy the religious emotions. Scientifically
it is a mistake, because it is not a principle which is capable
of explaining- anything in or about the world. Logically it
is a mistake, because it is grounded upon fallacies and
paralogisms./
Emotionally Pantheism is disastrous, because it has
destroyed the soil on which alone human emotions can
develop. Religious emotion is destroyed by the fact that
the god of Pantheism is, to all intents and purposes, nothing.
Like the atmosphere he env^elops us equally on every side,
and so is not felt at all. Moral activity is destroyed by the
fact that the distinctions of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong,
what is and what ought to be, must to Pantheism be ever
and entirely unmeaning.
Scientific activity is destroyed by the fact that the world,
in whatever way we look at it, must of necessity be meaning-
less and purpose-less. In short, it is in vain that Pantheism
tries to avoid the confession that our life is a senseless
illusion : it cannot vindicate the reality of our partial life
against the all-absorbing claims of the whole.
In the first place Pantheism is Atheism, and only a lack
of courage or of logic can distinguish between them. For if
all is God and all is one, all distinctions vanish. All is
right and all is well, for all things exist but by the favour
and support of the Infinite: to decry the perfection of any
■existing thing is to blaspheme against God. flence all
appeal to God is futile : it is for God to appeal to God
against God. So being equally in all, God is not a factor in
the course of life: God is a qnajitite negligeable, because
-equally shared by all things. To suppose that Pantheism
leaves more room for religion than Atheism is as
Man and God 319
absurd as though we thought to diminish the inequalities of
wealth by multiplying every man's property a thousandfold.
So for practical purposes Pantheism and Atheism are the
same, except that the latter has the frankness to call things
by their true names. In the mouth of a Pantheist the
accusation of Atheism is indeed ridiculous. For just as
King Charles II. wittily declared during the Popish Plot,
that he feared to be dethroned for his complicity in the plot
against his own life, so the Atheist may plead against the
Pantheist that in his impiety he offends against no one but
himself, and that no one need interfere if it pleases God to
blaspheme himself.
In the second place, Pantheism is no less fatal to the
moral than to the religious sentiments. For it must regard
all good and evil as relative to the standpoint of an unreal
humanity and therefore as illusory. It is only from our per-
verted standpoint that the distinction of Good and Right and
Evil and Wrong and imperfection exists ; from that of the
Infinite, that which is, is what it ought to be, and everything
occupies just the position it should. The ' God ' of
Pantheism is not only impotent to alleviate our sufferings —
sufferings which he himself inflicts upon himself — but he is
actually indifferent to them ; the physical and mental tortures
of myriad beings are actually seen to be * very good ' in the
eyes of * God.'
Of this diabolical indifference he can only be acquitted
if we reflect that it must evidently proceed from ignorance.
For God cannot be in any way aware of our woes,
not only because an infinite God cannot be in any way
conscious (§ 3), but because, from the standpoint of the
Infinite, our whole phenomenal world must be nought, unfelt,
uncared for, and unknown. Our ' real ' world is as relative
as good and evil, and like them, would vanish sub specie
(Bternitatis. For the all-embracing Infinite admits of change
320 Riddles of the Sphinx
as little as it does of imperfection or of Time. It is all
things and has all things, and therefore no change could add
to or subtract from its substance. If, therefore, change
appears to exist, it must be an illusion of our deluded sight,
which does not penetrate to the Infinite. The world would
be an inexplicable illusion, an unmeaning, incoherent
pageant, dreamt by the grotesque creatures of the Absolute's
unconscious dream, an unreal chase of shadows across the
dark background of the Absolute, a phantasmagoria
existing only in the fancy of the phantoms that behold it.
And so its fleeting shadows would not affect the Absolute,
nor it them : not though we cry aloud shall we awake the
sleeping ' god ' of whom we are the dream. Heaven is as
dumb and irresponsive to the prophesyings of the philosophers
of the Absolute as it ever was to the priests of Baal.
§ II. And earth also: for the Absolute is no less
incompatible with the methods of human science. An infinite
God is as much out of relation to human knowledge as to
human feeling. \ Pantheism explains nothing, just because it
professes to explain everything. For a principle which may
be regarded as the ultimate ground of all things cannot be
used as the explanation of anything in particular. Hence we
arrive at the paradox that the ultimate ground of all things,
and cause of their existence, is the cause of nothing in the
nature of that existence. In other words, for the purposes of
science as well as for sentiment. Pantheism resolves itself into
Atheism./
It follows that there is an irreconcilable conflict between
Pantheism and all the finite methods by which men have
sought to understand the world. The evolutionist method
especially, regarding the world as a process, is pledged to
deny the Infinite in every form {cp. ch. vii § 20). For
nothing infinite can be in process, or if it is in process, the
process must be unintelligible.
- .; Man and God 321
The vulgar hear and admire such explanations of things
as that ' the Absolute can realize itself only in the world/
that ' it becomes self-conscious only in man,' and even
that * the history of the world is the process whereby the
Absolute returns into itself enriched.' But if such phrases
can, upon reflection, satisfy philosophic minds, the whilom
adversaries of anthropomorphism must have come to content
themselves with the flimsiest metaphors of a very sorry
anthropomorphism.
If, e.g.^ the Absolute is realized in the world, then either
the existence of the world is necessary to that of the Absolute,
or it is not. If it is, the world must either have existed for
ever, for the Absolute to be real, and it is absurd to speak of
the Absolute as the First Cause (ch. ii § 10), or the world
and the Absolute have come into existence together. But if
the Absolute has come into existence, it must have become
either out of something or else out of nothing, for it cannot
have originated out of itself before it existed itself. If out of
nothing, cadit qiicestio ; it is admitted that nothing is the
ultimate ground of existence, and that existence is ultimately
irrational. If out of something else, then that something and
not the Absolute is the real ground of existence ultimately,
and the same question must be raised about it, and so on to
infinity.
If, on the other hand, the world was not necessary, to the
existence of the Absolute, then why was it generated? If it
was generated for any reason, then why did that reason
impel the Absolute to generate the world at the time it did,
rather than at any other 1 Did the Infinite begin to find
infinite time hang heavily on its hands, and if so, why did it
begin to do so } Or if the world was generated for no
reason, if we are driven to admit that the Absolute cannot be
moved by reasons, is not this the most absolute indeterminism
{cp. Appendix i § 4), the most complete confession of the
322 Riddles of the Sphinx
irrationality of the world ? For what explanation is it of the
world to derive it from an uncaused, unprovoked, and (as we
shall see in § 12) impossible change in the Absolute ?
And even supposing that in some utterly inscrutable way
the Absolute somehow had something to do with the
generation of the world, what could it possibly have effected
thereby ? What difference could creation make to it ? What
could it realize by creation that was not already real ? It
must be supposed to have created all things out of itself,
seeing that it could create them neither out of nothing nor out
of something outside it But it already was all things, and
contained all things ; and so could neither realize itself nor
anything else any more than it was realized already.
The idea moreover that the Absolute attains to self-
consciousness in man is equally untenable, when analysed.
The Absolute either contains self-consciousness already, and
then it is nothing new, or it does not, and then the same
question arises as to how anything can come into being
within the circle of an all-embracing being. For the paltry
excuse that all things exist potentially in the Absolute
before the creation, but not actually until the world is created,
will not help us out of the difficulty. Potential existence, as
we saw, is nothing (ch. vii § 18), unless it is taken as a
reference to a higher actuality. And in this case there is no
higher actuality to refer to ; for it would have to be an
actuality that could dispose the all-including Absolute to
realize its potentialities. We require something to explain
how in the Absolute potentiality can be something and
something different from actuality, to explain how the
difference between them could arise. If the world was ever
potential, then why did it become actual }
And besides, the idea that our consciousness is of any value
to the Infinite surely displays the most extreme extravagance
of human arrogance. Why should the Absolute become self-
Man and God
323
conscious in man ? Because he happens to be the highest
being with which our Hmited knowledge is acquainted ? But
why should not the unnumbered stars contain myriads of
beings incomparably loftier than the obscure denizens of a
paltry planet ? What, then, is the use of man, and the use,
in any case, of countless beings ? Why should the Absolute
strive to become imperfectly self-conscious in the lower stages
of spiritual existence, when it might do so perfectly in the
highest ? What sense is there in attaining by a long,
laborious process, what might have been attained with
instantaneous ease ? Assuredly, neither the human nor any
other reason can ever discover the meaning of a world-process,
which takes means to an end which might have been attained
without them. To our * finite ' minds such a process must
always appear an absurdity ; it is a process which can reveal
nothing but the ultimate insanity of all things.
And if the means of the world-process are thus absurd and
irrational, its end is no less unmeaning. For how can it
'■ enrich the Absolute } ' Can any process which takes place
within the infinite All add one feather's weight to its sub-
stance, diminish or increase by one jot or tittle the being of
that which is all things and has all things } Will it not be what
it is alike amid the crash of worlds and amid the throes of
their birth } It would be paying the utter absurdity of this
conception of the Infinite concerned in a process, an unmerited
compliment to liken it to a spider spinning elaborate cobwebs
out of its own substance, and then, finding that there was
nothing else to catch in them, proceeding to enmesh itself
in its own web, and after infinite labour succeeding in re-
absorbing its own production. And yet such melancholy
absurdities are put forward not by one or two philosophies,
but by nearly all who attempt these ultimate questions at all
as the deepest truth about the nature of things ! It is perhaps
fortunate that the obscurity of their language conceals this
324 Riddles of the Sphinx
final void frorq the generality of men, but it exists in
all philosophies -which make an infinite God their first
principle.^
§ 12. Pantheism, then, destroys the reality of the world-
proeess. But we may go further and say that it is for similar
reasons equally incompatible with all Change or Becoming.
This is not, it is true, a consequence Pantheists have been
willing to admit, since the days of the Eleatics, but all this^
proves is the ' pitiful inferiority and inconsistency of
subsequent Pantheists. For the impossibility of Becoming
follows incontestably from the reality of the All.
For let us suppose that the world has a content or meaning
A, i.e.^ A of the quality or attribute in which its meaning
consists. Now let us suppose that a change takes place, and
1 It is sufficient to show this in one case, for exempio ab tmo disce
omnes, and we shall choose for that purpose one who is as certainly the
frankest and clearest as he is one of the ablest of modern metaphysicians.
E. von Hartmann is strongly and sincerely convinced that the world
is a process, and that, too, a process of redemption. A redem.ption of
what ? Of the Absolute ! For the Absolute is now no longer absolute,,
but a mere ci-devant Absolute, and requires to be redeemed from the
deplorable consequences of a youthful faux pas. It created the world,
or entered upon the world-process, in a fit of temporary insanity. Or,
as von Hartmann puts it more politely, when the absolute Unconscious
is quiescent, its Reason is non-existent, and its will is potential. Only,,
unfortunately, the Will is not in this condition guided by Reason, and so
the Unconscious commits an irrational act of willing, and becomes
actual. But by the nature of things (superior to the Absolute-Uncon-
scious ?) to will is to be miserable, and the Unconscious is supremely
miserable. So it stirs up its Reason, and the Reason devises the world-
process as a sort of homoeopathic cure of the misery of the Absolute,
the end of which is to bring the Unconscious back into the quiescence
from which it so rashly and irrationally departed. It is interesting to
note in this, (i) the frank admission that the ultimate cause of the
world's existence is the irrational, in this case an irrational act of Will ;
(2) that even when this has been assumed, it must be supposed also that
for practical purposes of explaining the world, the Infinite has ceased to be
infinite. Not even when we have been told that the ultimate reason of
things is something for which no reason can be given, can anything be
made of the world except on the supposition that somehow this irrational
Absolute has ceased to be infinite.
■ Mail and God 325
its content becomes a. Now whether the change of A into a
be an increase or a diminution, the amount of its Being- has
changed. Its content or meaning has increased or diminished.
But the Absolute can neither increase nor diminish the
amount of its Being, for it already is and has all. Its
content, therefore, must be expressed by the equation A =
A ^ A to all eternity, i.e., it is unchangeable. 1 .'
If, therefore, changes take place in the phenomenal world,
the inference is either that this world is not the absolute All,
or that the absolute All is a delusion. If, however, we
identify or connect the changing world with the Absolute
we must necessarily hold that its changes are merely
phenomenal, illusions of our senses which do not affect the
Absolute, that properly speaking, i.e., from the true stand-
point of the Absolute, change is impossible. Now this is
precisely what the Eleatics did : they showed that the con-
ceptions of the changes and motions which appeared to our
senses involved contradictions to our reason {cp, ch. iii § 8j,
and inferred from this that the sensible world was an illusion^
And, we may add, an inexplicable and impracticable illusion.
For what theory or practice is possible of life, if change,
the fundamental characteristic of the world, is to b^ treated
as nought } To us change is real, and change of content is
real ; to us there is a meaning in saying the world is poorer
^ Cp. ch. vii § 24. It may, perhaps, be objected to this illustration
that to assume a content A is to assume the finiteness of that content.
And this is true, but the assumption is really first made when the world
is supposed to have a meaning, i.e., a content expressible in terms of the
All. For (owing to the finiteness of our minds ? ) all the conceptions of
our thought imply finitude, and an infinite meaning is a meaning which
means both this and that, i.e., is indeterminate, and so means nothing
at all. If, therefore, we are to reason about the Infinite at all, we can
only do so in terms constantly implying finiteness, a fact which is
significant enough to those who deny the reality of the Infinite, though
it may well drive its champions to despair.
326 Riddles of the Sphmx
in virtue and in wisdom when a good and wise man dies.
Does it not then sound like a derision of our whole life
to say the All is as rich as before, and all our changes and
our losses are illusions ? A view of the Deity which leads to
such conclusions has nothing to do with human life ; it
must be banished from all minds that wish to retain their
sanity.
For the examination shows that if the Absolute is real, the
relative is absolutely unreal, and that the philosophic account
of the real world thus leads to the curious conclusion that it
is supposed to be explained by a principle which reduces it
to absolute unreality. The pantheistic conception of the
Deity absorbs the world into God, and then discovers that
the latter cannot assimilate it : so it is compelled to reject it
as an illusion, and arrives at the self-contradictory reditctio
ad absiirdum, that from the standpoint of the finite, God is
nothing, while from the standpoint of the Infinite, the world
is nothing, whereas from the standpoint of Practice they both
agree in the corollary that the world is irrational and in-
expliqable, and that nothing can be done.
§ 13. But here we may fitly introduce the hackneyed plea
which may long have seemed the only refuge of the belief in
the Infinite. These difficulties, it may be said, only show
that our finite minds cannot grasp the Infinite, and that the
Infinite, therefore, must appear a mass of contradictions from
the standpoint of the Finite. The abstractions of our finite
reasoning produce a show of contradiction in what is perfectly
consistent from the standpoint of the Infinite. The true
attitude of the human mind in such matters is a reverent
confession of weakness, which admits as a faith, and bases
upon feeling, a mystery which is insoluble to our finite
reason.
Such has ever been the language of hard-pressed
absurdities, when driven into a corner. They envelop them-
Man and God
327
selves in a cap of darkness, and seek to escape under the
protecting gloom of our ignorance.
But in reality this pseudo-religious agnosticism has as
little to do with religion as it has with reason. Agnostic-
ism is a superstition equally baleful and hateful, whether it
masquerades in the vestments of religion or of science (as in
ch. ii), and the worship of the Infinite is an idolatry precisely
on a par with the reverence for the Unknowable. They are
both self-contradictory phantoms which the human mind has
conjured up out of the boundless maze of error, and
hypostasized and materialized by parallel paralogisms. And
if we look at the magnitude of the issues involved, it must
surely be admitted that the worst of all idolatries is that
which requires the human mind to sacrifice its faith in the
rationality of things, in its own competency to solve the
problems of its life, in order that it may fall down and
worship the contradictions it has itself set up.
The argument from the ' finiteness ' of our minds will not
bear the light of day. Its very statement is involved in all
sorts of insuperable difficulties. It declares, e.g.^ that our
minds cannot grasp the Infinite, and yet, in the same breath,
goes on to assert what it had asserted to be impossible. Just
as the very assertion of the Unknowable involved its knovv-
ableness (ch. ii § 3), so the very assertion of the Infinite
involves either its finiteness or the infinity of the mind which
somehow claims to be conscious of its existence. For if the
Finite could not really grasp the Infinite, it could not so
much as become aware of its existence. We must dismiss,
then, the absurd contention that our minds cannot grasp the
Infinite. If it had been true, they would assuredly never
have formed so troublesome a conception as that of the
Infinite. But the inquiry into how the human mind arrives
at the idea of the Infinite is no less perplexing. We may
suppose the mind itself to be either finite or infinite. Now if
328 Riddles of the Sphinx
the mind is finite, and if the whole phenomenal world is finite
also, there can be no ground either in thought or in things
for assuming an infinite, and the saying that the Finite cannot
understand the Infinite is true merely because there is nothing
to understand, because the Infinite is an utterly gratuitous
fiction. In order, therefore, to infer the existence of a real
Infinite, either thought or things must in a way be infinite.
Now, as has-been shown (ch. ix § 5), the infinity cannot lie
in things, for if Space and Time are ultimately infinite, the
world is unknowable. It remains that the mind is infinite,
that the so-called Finite is of like nature with the ' Infinite,'
and that there is no difference in kind between them. But if
the mind forms the conception of the Infinite in virtue of its
infinitude, that conception also must follow the laws of the
mind's thought, and can as little contradict the laws of logic
as its thought upon the most trivial of finite things. As,
therefore, no matter whether we call the mind finite or infinite,
there can be no such thing as a real difference in kind between
the Finite and the Infinite, but only a difference in degree, the
Infinite is not exempted from the sway of logic and of sane
thinking, and hence no indulgence can be shown to the
attempt to combine contradictory attributes in the same
conception. The Infinite must be judged by the logical
rules applicable to all things, and in dealing with the Infinite,
as with everything else, a contradiction must be taken as
an indication that something has gone wrong with our
meaning.
§ 14. But perhaps it will be admitted that the belief in
the Infinite is not a matter of reason, nor susceptible of logical
statement. It is a matter of feeling, and not even of all
feeling (for it is hot a matter of perception, ch. ix § 5), but of
subjective emotion. Now this plea may be admitted in so far
as it seems to recognize that the belief in the Infinite is
reached by an unprovoked and ungrounded leap into the
Man dnd God
329
Void, which can be justified neither by reasoning nor by
sense-perception. But the feeHng to which it appeals must
Assuredly be of the most curious description. It affords an
intuitive and immediate consciousness of the Infinite, which is
superior to all argument. It assures men not only of the
existence of the Infinite, but also of its infinity. Its percep-
tion is so delicate that, even in the most ignorant and
unthinking, it can distinguish with absolute certitude between
real and practical infiniteness. So when it asserts that God's
power is infinite rather than incalculably great, we are bound
to credit it against all the opposition of our reason and of our
senses. Such an emotion would truly be the most fearful and
wonderful thing in our mental furniture, and we should have
to contemplate it with unceasing amazement if there were
any ground for supposing that it existed.
As a matter of fact it has already been shown that our
feelings not only do not require the assumption of an Infinite,
but vehemently repudiate it (§ 10). A deity which is un-
knowable, inactive and indifferent to all that happens in the
world, is not one which ' finite minds ' can either grasp or
cling to.
§ 15. We have been considering hitherto the inferences to
be drawn from Pantheism in its bearing upon life and science,
and shown how unacceptable it is from every emotional and
scientific point of view. But the real root of the doctrine, the
real reason of its persistence, in spite of its more or less
obviously unsatisfactory consequences, is to be found in
certain supposed requirements of logic and metaphysics.
Hence it is necessary to subject the logical validity of the
philosophic conception of the Absolute or Infinite to a careful
scrutiny. As the result of that scrutiny, it will appear that
the logical arguments for Pantheism are either fallacious or
inconclusive.
§ 16. It must be observed, in the first place, that the con-
33^ Riddles of the Sphinx
ception of a whole or totality, which is used in the arguments
concerning the infinity of the Deity, is ambiguous.
When, e.g.^ we speak of the attribute of omnipotence, we
may mean two very different things. To say that the Deity
possesses 'all' power may mean either that he has all the
power there is, and can do all that can be done, or that he can
do anything and everything. We may assert by ' all ' either
perfection with respect to the attributes in question (power,,
goodness, wisdom, etc.), or an unlimited maximum. But the
first of these conceptions is really that of a finite whole. To-
say that God can do all that can be done, is to imply that
there are things impossible even to God, is to assert that He
is limited by an ultimate constitution of things. And, as we
shall see (§ 17), this is the true conception of a totality or
whole ; the true interpretation of the ' all ' in ' almighty,' the
true reconciliation of ' omnipotence,' with the finiteness, which
is the condition of reality. But on the other hand, the
generality of men do not realize that a whole or ' all ' is
necessarily finite, and that an infinite whole is a contradiction
{cp. ch. ii § 20; ch. ix § 8), and imagining that an infinite
maximum can be a whole, they attribute infinity to God.
But in reality an infinite whole is impossible, and the infinite
is only the negative limit of the finite, which can exist only in
idea, and can never be actual.
§ 17. Now it is evident that if we can make good what
has been asserted above, viz., that a whole is necessarily finite,
the assumption of an infinite Deity becomes logically
inadmissible. It will follow not only that the All must be
finite, but that the Infinite is an absurd and misleading appela-
tion of the All of Pantheism. But we must go further and
assert that not even as a finite whole can the All be real, and
thereby destroy the whole logical basis of Pantheism. For
the infinite or absolute ' God ' of Pantheism is nothing but the
hypostasization of the conception of the world as a whole,
Man and God 331
nothing but the abstract conception of a totality of things^
nothing but the logical form of a universe as such. Now as
every world, irrespective of its content and character, may be
equally conceived as a whole, it was inevitable that the Deity
of Pantheism should be absolutely indifferent to the world
(§§ II, 12) and to everything happening within it. For the
inference from the worst world, and the most discordant
content to such an Absolute would be just as valid and just
as cogent as from the most perfect. God would in any case
and under all circumstances be the totality of existence.
But this reasoning contains flaws which thoroughly vitiate
it. In the first place, a whole is necessarily finite, for two
reasons, (i) Because all our thought deals only with con-
ceptions, and conceptions are necessarily finite {cp. § 12
note) : hence, in applying to a thing any conception of our
thought, in this case the conception of a whole, we necbssarily
determine it and imply that the reality is as finite as our con-
ception. (2) Because, according to its only possible defini-
tion, ^ infinity consists just in^he impossibility oi completing a
whole by successive synthesis {cp. ch. ix § 3). If, therefore,
the world is a real whole, it is for that very reason not infinite.
But this proof of the necessary firiitude of wholes may be said
to show not so much that Pantheism is mistaken in deifying
the universe as a whole, as that the expression of ' the
Infinite ' is ill-suited to describe the totality of things. Yet
even granting this, it would be no slight help to the cause of
clear thought, if the Infinite could be finally banished from
the vocabulary of philosophy.
§ 18. Secondly, even permitting Pantheism to regard its
deity, the absolute whole, as finite, it is yet impossible to
regard it, in the way Pantheism does, as a real and all-
^[For the 'infinite of power' (ch. ix § 3^) is dearly inapplicable to a
whole which is not supposed to be of our making.]
23'^ Riddles of the Sphinx
embracing existence. For such a view would involve a-
mistaken conception of the relation of a Whole to its parts.
For the conception of a whole is finite also in this, that it
is modelled upon the wholes given in our experience, and
that we have no business to extend the analogy offhand to a
whole in which the relation to its parts would be fundamen-
tally different from anything with which we are acquainted.
The wholes which fall within the range of our experience
may be conceived in two ways, and in two ways alone. They
must either be regarded from without, and given as wholes
•external to the spectator, or regarded from within, as the
sum of their parts. In the first case alone, however, are the
parts at once given as parts by direct inspection, and is the
whole a reality which includes the parts. In the second, the
whole has to be constituted by the successive synthesis of the
parts, and hence it is always ideal and exists for thought
alone.
Now the universe, as the totality of things, is necessarily a
whole of the second kind, since it is evident that there cannot
be any existence outside it, which could regard it from
without. But if so, it follows that the x^ll is not a real
whole, but literally ' the sum of things ' ; the universe, as a
whole, is simply a collective expression for the sum of its
* parts.' In other words, the whole is simply the ideal limit
of its parts, and not anything which has real existence apart
from them. The individual existences in the universe alone
then would possess reality, and be the ' first substances,' and
their inclusion in a supposed Absolute would be simply an
unpardonable repetition of the old Platonic fallacy of a
transcendent universal, apart from and superior to the real
individual. But the All is nothing beside the individual
substances who compose and define it, just as the British
nation is nothing real by the side of the individual Britons.
For though it may be claimed that such a whole is in a sense
Mafif{[and_ God 333
real, it is not real in the sense in which Pantheism asserts
the reality of the Absolute. The' reality of a nation depends
on the existence of its individual members, and simply
expresses the fact that they are in the habit of acting- together
in certain ways. Hence such a whole might be destroyed
without the destruction of a single real individual, if, ^.^., all
the members of a nation joined other communities.
It follows, therefore, from the analysis of the relation of a \/
whole to its parts that our experience of the real world affords
us no analogy for the existence of a real whole, which should
be both all-embracing and more real than its parts : the
universe is not anything to which this our human conception
of a whole can be applied. Thus Pantheism, in deifying the
All, is proceeding upon a mistaken logical analogy, and we
have here traced to its logical source the practical equivalence
of Pantheism and Atheism. For if ' the sum of things '
cannot be a real being, it can have no real effect upon life,
' § 19. Thus Pantheism must resign itself to the conclusion
that no valid meaning can be given to the assertion that God
is the All, unless we frankly depart from the facts of the
phenomenal world. For it is possible to conceive the ideal
of a third way of relating a whole to its parts. It is possible
to conceive parts which should be logically implied in the
whole, and incapable of existing except as parts of the whole.
In such a case the whole would be as real as the parts, by
which it was irresistibly and certainly suggested, so that in
stating the part we should ipso facto state the whole, and in
asserting the existence of the part we should also assert the
existence of the whole. In this way, and in this way alone,,
we could argue from the given reality of the parts, to the
reality of the whole of which they were parts.
Now at first sight it would seem as if this conception of a
whole was not only logically thinkable, but also actually
reaUzable. But this would be an over-hasty inference. For
realise
*^
334 Riddles of the Sphinx
•owing to the discrepancy between thought and reality which
at present exists {cp. ch. iii § 14), we cannot argue from the
mere existence of an ideal in our thought to a corresponding
reality. The Real is ' contingent,' things cannot be deduced,
and facts cannot be demonstrated. At the best, reality is
only realizing our ideals, and will not attain to them until the
world-process is completed.
So it is not surprising that the apparent examples of such
a relation of parts to wholes, with which reality as yet
presents us, turn out upon closer inspection to be delusive.
All real things are more or less capable of being parts of
many wholes, of being wholes that can vary their parts.
There is never any necessity to regard a thing as the part of
any particular whole, and hence we can never conclude by a
sure and single inference from the given existence of the
parts to that of any particular w^hole. The inference from
the part to the whole is always precarious and probable, and
never attains to strict and absolute certitude. We can find
no examples even in the ideal regions of mathematics.
There is nothing in an angle to compel us to regard it as the
angle of a triangle, or in a semi-circle to prevent us from
treating it as a simple curve, without reference to the circle
of which it may form part. Nor do the relations of a body
to its members realise this ideal. The mutual implication of
members of bodies is in all cases more or less transitor}^ and
impermanent. The parts of all bodies are more or less
•capable of existing independently of their wholes, while all
bodies have the power more or less of repairing the loss of
their parts. In the lower organisms especially, the mutual
independence of whole and parts reaches an astonishing
height. To say nothing of leaves and cuttings capable of
•developing into complete plants, of the grafting of one plant
upon another of a totally different order, we find that crabs
will repair the loss of their legs, claws and eyes, that a lizard
Man and God - 335
will part with its tail with the greatest equanimity, and that
the arms of a male cuttle fish can sever themselves from their
body and embark upon the romance of life on their own
account. ^ Even in man operations like the transfusion of
the blood of one organism into another, and the transplanta-
tion of skin from one body to another, are perfectly easy.
Hence we cannot from the mere sight of a member infer the
existence of the body of which it was a membier, although,
as knowledge grows, we can define within gradually narrower
limits the sort of body it must belong to. But the mere
sight of an arm will not enable us to assert positively whose
arm it is, nor even establish its connexion with a body ; for
it may have been cut off from its body, nor will it tell us
whether the body is alive or dead. Everywhere we find
wholes which can dispense with their individual members
with disgusting facility, and parts capable of standing related
to many and various wholes. The connexion is never
permanent and unconditionally valid.
But perhaps it may be answered that in the case of an all-
embracing whole^ like the universe, the source of error arising
out of the multiplicity of wholes to which the parts may be
related is eliminated by the fact that there is only one whole
of which the individual existences can form part. There
can be no misinterpretation of the parts of the universal
whole, for everything that exists must form part of the
Absolute.
This rejoinder, however, would rest upon an illusion. It
appears correct only while we treat * the universe ' as an
abstract conception, and only because the real question has
already been begged in the mode of statement. In speaking
of 'the universe,' i.e., of an empty category, its unity has
^The hectocotylus. It matters not that this independence of the
parts endures only for a limited period, for the wholes also which
dispense with their parts are equally impermanent.
33^ Riddles of the Sphinx
already been covertly assumed, i.e., it has been assumed thart
• fiQ misinterpretation of the parts was, possible, that they could
only be related to a single whole. But it is a delusion to-
'suppose that when things have been shown to form part of a
.whole, they have also been shown to form part of any
partictdar whole, Accordingly, so soon as ever it is attempted
to apply and qualitatively to determine our category, i.e., to
infer that the individual existences must form part, not of a
universe as such, but of a real universe of a certain character^.
the old difficulty recurs, and it appears that they might form
part of all sorts of qualitatively different cosmical construc-
tions, and hence are not logically implied in any one of them.
\i Taking, that is to say, the individual existences as our data,,
we can so arrange them as to construct ' the universe ' in many
different ways, and so our data do not compel us to assume
any particular kind of universe. For instance, we are
attempting to interpret the facts of life upon the assumption
of the ultimate rationality of existence, but we were in Book
I. forced to admit that they might also be interpreted con-
sistently with its ultimate irrationality. But which of these
two theories about our data is right, is just what we want to^
know, and what Pantheism does not enable us to decide. To-
tell us that things may be regarded as a universe by means
of the conception of a totality, is to tell us nothing of the
least importance, and to offer us this trivial truism in lieu of
a God, is to mock our demand for a reality with the un-
substantial shadow of a logical distinction. Pantheism,,
therefore, has elucidated and explained nothing by applying
to the world the abstract conception of a whole ; its Deity is
indifferent to the world, because an abstract conception,
carries with it no reference to any definite content ; its Deity
is not real, because it is merely an irrelevant play with
logical counters ; its Deity is not valid, because it requires
an unwarranted manipulation of its data.
Man and God 337
§ 20. The conception, then, of a whole necessarily inferred
from its parts is an ideal and not a reality, and as such
cannot guarantee the reality of the pantheist's All, nor affect
our belief in the substantial reality of the individual exis-
tences. Yet it is interesting to observe that, even if it eould
be realized, it would after all vindicate the reality of the whole
only at a cost of concession to the parts which would more
than compensate them for the loss of their logical self-existence.
For though it would have to be admitted that the whole
possessed a sort of honorary priority, the necessary implica-
tion of the whole and the parts would yet have to be really
recipi'ocal. For in order to secure the certainty of the
inference from the part to the whole, the part must be in-
capable of being anything but the part of tJiat whole, and as
essential to the whole as the whole is to it. The parts could
not escape from the whole, but neither could the whole
destroy its parts. If the whole is necessary, the parts would
also have to be necessary. There could be no such thing as
coming into or passing out of existence in the relation of the
parts to such a whole, no possibility therefore of regarding
their relation under the category of cause and effect. And
even the most self-assertive individual might well endure to
be called a section of the Absolute, if this relation guaranteed
to him eternal and changeless existence.
In this reciprocity of mutual dependence doubtless lies the
true solution of the difficulty, and the true reconciliation of
the conflicting claims of the individual and the whole of
which he is a part, a reconciliation equally remote from
either extreme, from an intractable self-assertion of the parts
no less than from an all-absorbing encroachment of the
whole. And though it is an ideal which as yet finds no exact
counterpart amid the imperfections of the real world, we
have yet some reason to believe that the world may be
approximating towards it. The individual seems to be
22
33 S Riddles of the Sphinx
fcecoming- more valuable to the whole as certainly as he is
becoming- less able to dispense with it. As the intrinsic
worth of the individual rises, so does his social value. The
greater a man, the greater the void his loss leaves, the more
keenly is it felt by the society in which he has been a factor.
And it is one of the crudest necessities of our imperfect state
that we are not able to mourn our dead as we ought, that
love and grief are transient, and, like ourselves, are swept
away in the rushing flood of life. But even so, we may, in
this approximation to a mutual dependence of part and
whole, catch another view of the ideal we first caught sight
of at the end of chapter viii, that of an eternal and har-
monious interaction of individuals, who could not exist except
as members of a perfect society, in a society which could not
dispense with the services of a single member. But though
such a whole would be heavenly, it would not be God, for it
would be merely a hypostasization of the interaction of the
existent. And still less would it explain what after all
needs explanation most, viz., the why of the world-process,
w^hy the world of which we form ' parts ' at present falls
so far short of the purity of our ideals. If, therefore, we
choose to hypostasize the Interaction of the Existent under
the name of the Absolute, we must do so with a full
consciousness that it is out of relation to the world as it
•actually exists, and can explain nothing in it.
But there is no real need to hypostasize it ; no, reason to
assume an ' Infinite ' to envelop and sustain the ' Finite.*
To make the Infinite the metaphysical support of reality only
involves us in superstitions as endless and as groundless as
those which supported the physical world on an elephant, and
the elephant on a tortoise, etc., etc. But just as little as the
physical world requires an Atlas to bear it up, as little does
the spiritual world require an infinite Absolute to confer
reality upon it. And just as the celestial bodies main-
Man and God 339
tain their positions by their mutual attractions and
repulsions, so the Finite suffices to limit itself, and the
individuals are real and are also limited in virtue of their
actions and reactions upon one another. All things are finite
and relative, and the relative is relative to itself, and not to
an absolute and unlimited nonentity, which must needs be
out of all relation to the Real.
§ 21. The preceding sections have shown that the logical
grounds on which Pantheism was based are fallacious and
unnecessary, and as it had already been shown to be equally
valueless for religious, moral and scientific purposes, every
possible basis and motive for asserting its validity has really
been disposed of. Nevertheless there remains a strong
metaphysical prejudice in favour of Pantheism, which cannot
be uprooted without an inquiry into what is perhaps the
most fundamental question of pure metaphysics, to wit,
whether existence is ultimately one or many.
To maintain the ultimate oneness of all existence is
Monis7n ; to assert that existence is ultimately of two kinds,
e.g., Matter and Spirit, is Dualisin ; to assert plurality to be
ultimate, is Pluralism.
Of these, Monism has maintained a sort of preponderance,
because it appeared simpler and more satisfactory to ' the
philosophic craving for unity.' On the other hand, it is
incurably pantheistic, and disposed to dissolve away all the
distinctions between things.
Dualism, again, though it seems able to preserve the all-
important distinction between good and evil, for which
Monism had left no room, harmonizes neither with the
apparent plurality of the world nor gratifies the philosophic
demand for unity.
Pluralism, lastly, though it has the advantage of departing
least from the phenomena of the real world, seems difficult
±0 carry out consistently.
(A
340 Riddles of the Sphinx
Of these theories- of ultimate existence, the intermediate
theory of Dualism, which falls between two stools, may perhaps
be rejected. It can hardly be maintained after the rejection
of the ultimate difference between Matter and Spirit (ch. ix
§ 16).
The real battle has to be fought out between the champions
of the One and of the Many, between Monism and Pluralism.
And contrary to the opinions of most previous philosophers,
we are inclined to hold that the Many is a far more valuable
principle than the One, and that Pluralism, consistently
interpreted and properly explained, is the best answer to the
ultimate question of ontology.
For Monism, in the last resort, really has nothing
to recommend it. \It might indeed be possible to applaud
the statement that philosophy aims at the unification
of the universe, if it were not promptly made a pretext for
asserting the reality of this unity, in the face of facts which
deprive thfs so-called unity of all practical value, and reduce
it from an assertion of a real oneness to that of a merely
formal and abstract unity. It would be more to the point
if Monism could show a little more tmanimity in the world,,
even at the expense of a little unity. Perhaps, if more
attention had been paid to the aiming at unity, the results
would have been somewhat more satisfactory, and Monism
might have recognized that a unity aimed at, and worth
aiming at, is for that very reason not yet attained. If
they had taken the trouble to interpret their theory strictly,
Monists might have realized that though Monism would be
an excellent theory when the world-process was ended, it is
for this very reason quite inapplicable and extremely
mischievous while it is still going on.)
Then again, the supposed simplicity of Monism is a great
delusion. It does not simplify the understanding of the
world to deny plurality, in order to assert its abstract unity..
Man and God 34 1
Or if the One of Monism be taken as the unit of number, it
certainly requires an astonishing amount of simpHcity to see
any difficulty in passing from one to as many as are wanted.
For how is it more difficult to assume many ultimate existences
than one ? One would hav^e thought that when one was given,
it was easy to count a thousand. If, therefore, the One of
Monism is the unit of number, the unity of ultimate existence
is no simpler than its plurality, while if it is an abstract One,
Monism is unable to explain plurality at all.
Now unfortunately, Monism has no choice of evils ; it is
forced to interpret the One as an abstraction which excludes
all plurality. No Monism can explain the existence
of plurality : how the One became the Many, or how, having
become, the Many can be distinguished from the One. For
the One, being the sum total of existence, could generate
the Many only out of itself, and however generated, their
generation could not serve any purpose, nor could the Many
really be independent of or distinct from the One. In
whatever way we put it, the existence of the Many must be
illusory : they are of the substance of the One, and can neither
disown their parentage nor dissever themselves from the One
which was and is and will be all things. The Many can
have no real existence from the standpoint of the One, and
no raison d'etre. For supposing even that the One found the
single blessedness of eternity tiresome in the long run, and
created a diversion by mysteriously ' pouring itself out ' into
the world, there was yet no reason why a plurality of types
should not have sufficed, and this in no wise explains what
is after all the real crux of plurality, viz., its indefinite
multiplication of imperfect individuals under the same ty^pes,
the lavish prodigality and meaningless repetition of the Many.
Why were so many millions of fleas essential to the happiness
or comfort of the Absolute? Would not a single specimen
nicely got up, have sufficed to show what absolute wisdoiti
342 Riddles of the Sphinx
combined with absolute power could effect in the region of the
infinitely. little and infinitely disagreeable ? Et mutato nomine
de te^ oh monistic philosopher, fabula narratm^ I
It appears here again that monistic Pantheism has to deny
the reality of our world of Becoming and plurality. All
systems which profess to explain the Avorld from monistic
principles have to make this transition from the One to the
Many, and not one of them can make it intelligible.
They labour in vain to describe it by inexplicable and un-
intelligible processes, which severely tax their resources in the
way of obscure metaphor. But in reality the gulf between the
One and the Many can be bridged by no fair or valid means :
nor has the self-sacrifice of monistic philosophers, who have
discarded all restraints of prudence and consistency in order
to precipitate themselves into it with a reckless devotion
worthy of Mettius Curtius, availed to close the gulf.^
§ 22. We may reasonably conclude, then, that Monism is
a failure, that by assuming unity at the outset it incapacitates
itself for the task of explaining phenomenal pliLrality, and a
fortiori for the still higher task of really uniting the Many in
a significant union.
But is Pluralism any better off? Pluralism, by assuming
the ultimateness of plurality, does indeed avoid the difficulty
which is so fatal to Monism. It starts with an immense
advantage over Monism : it has no need to explain away the
appearance of plurality. But unless its position is very
carefully stated, with more precision and consistency than^
pluralist philosophers have hitherto bestowed upon it, it has
considerable difficulty in explaining the possibility, not of the
abstract unity whose claim to be a real explanation it rejects^
but of real union.
1 [For further discussion of the value of Monism see HuinaniS7n
ch. \\.^ Studies in Humanism ch. ii and I2, and the Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society 1908-9 pp. 193-201, 221-25.]
Man and God 343
, This difficulty may be elucidated by the example of the
greatest of pluralist systems, that of Leibniz, and the criticism
upon it. Leibniz asserted that the world was ultimately
composed of spiritual beings, ' windowless monads,' each of
whom ideally included, but really excluded, all others. And
this statement in its natural sense might have been taken as
a forcible expression of the fact that the mutually impenetrable
consciousnesses of spiritual beings yet somehow communicate
through the * common ' world of thought. But an un-
appreciative criticism could easily discover obscurities and
flaws in Leibniz's expressions. It was observed that if the
monads were absolutely exclusive, they could not communi-
cate at all, and hence no world could exist, nor plurality in it,
and that Pluralism thus supplied its own refutation. If, on
the other hand, the Leibnizian conception of God as the
Central Monad, including all the rest, was to be taken
seriously, there was an end to the substantiality of the others,
and here again Pluralism was abandoned.
Such criticism, though it disregards the spirit, if not the
letter, of Pluralism, may serve at least to bring out the subtle
way in which Pluralism includes and involves the unity of
things.
It is absurd, in the first place, to suppose that Pluralism
asserts the existence of the Many in a sense and under
conditions which would destroy the very fact it is most anxious
to explain. The exclusiveness and self-existence of the
Many must not be so interpreted as to make nonsense of the
whole position and to stultify the whole solution of the
problem of plurality. For it is clear that if the Many were
absolutely exclusive and incapable of having any connexion
or communion with one another, there would be no Many,
and no Plurality could exist. Each monad would form a
world by itself, would be a One as impervious to criticism
and as unconscious of all outside influence as the One of
/ .
344 Riddles of the Sphinx
Monism itself. Pluralism would be no better than Monism.
When, therefore, Pluralism asserts that the Many as a
matter of fact exist, it must be taken to have thereby
implied that they are also capable of existing as many, i.e.,
the possibility of the interaction of the Many is implied
in their very existence, and does not require any special
proof.
And Leibniz might well take for granted that as the Many
do interact, they must also be capable of interacting, and that
it was unnecessary to demonstrate that what actually existed
was also capable of existing. He himself was far too well
versed in Aristotelian philosophy to suspect that his critics
would require him to justify the possibility of the potentiality,
where the actuality was obviously given. To such criticism,
from the Leibnizian as from the Aristotelian standpoint,
there could be but one answer ; viz., that the potentiality was
nothing without the actuality (ch. vii § 17), and consequently
that the One, as the possibility of their interaction, was
nothing without the Many, and that the real reason of things
must be sought in the Many.
Yet as this possibility of the interaction of the Many is the
One, Pluralism is in a way based upon a monism : the Many
presuppose the One. But not in any sense which can affect
the substantiality of the Many. The One which is pre-
supposed by Pluralism is the most meaningless of all things ;
it is a mere possibility of the interaction or co-existence of
the Many ; it is a mere potentiality which has no actual
existence except as an ideal factor in a real plurality. It is
the actual interaction of the Many that gives a meaning to
the One ; Monism becomes possible only when it has been
included and absorbed in Pluralism. For if each of the many
individual existences had never actually achieved interaction
with the others, no world would have existed. The terms
'one' and 'many' would have had no meaning, and there
Ma7i and God 345
would have been no occasion for Monism to be invented in
■order to explain how the many could be one.
Monism is thus essentially parasitic in its nature ; it is a 1/
theory which becomes requisite and possible only on the basis
of the real fact of plurality. And it is equally dependent
upon Pluralism for its further development. It is a theory
parasitic also in this, that it construes the One on the analogy
of the Many and after a fashion derived from its knowledge
of the phenomenal world with its many substances ; in other
v^ords, it hypostasizes it. But by this hypostasization it
refutes itself; by treating as a real and transcendent substance
this co-existence and possibility of the interaction of the
Many, this immanent and impersonal ultimate nature of
-existence, it reduces the real world of existences, which it set
•out to explain, to absolute unreality. And all this in order
to be able to assert the reality of a unity which, on its own
showing, lies beyond all human thought and feeling! It
should be a sufficient justification for Pluralism that it protects
us against such absurdities.
§ 23. But Pluralism can do more than this : it not only
vindicates the actual plurality of things, and explains how
the unity implied in plurality may be treated without dis-
solving all reality in an unmeaning One, but it can assert
unity in a higher sense, which no Monism can reach.
To assert the unity of the universe at present is to assert
what is either trivial or false. If by unity is meant the abstract
unity of the category of oneness, if ' unity ' merely makes
explicit what we have implicitly thought in the notion of ' the
universe ' and affirms oneness as a postulate ; or, again, if it
means the possibility of the interaction of the Many, the
statement is the most trivial and unimportant that can
possibly be made. If by unity is meant something incom-
patible with plurality, it is false. If, again, a real tcnity is
meant, it is false ; for a real and complete union of the
34^ Riddles of the Sphinx
elements of the world does not exist. The interactions of
things are not harmonious ; they are not at one but at war.
But Pluralism can hold out to us a hope that such a real
union may yet be achieved. The Many, who at present
interact discordantly, may come not only to interact, but also
to act together ; and their perfect and harmonious interaction
would realize the ideal of a true union, of a real unitedness,
as far superior to the imperfect union of our present cosmos
as the latter is to the abstract unity of the underlying One.
Thus, in a way, the One is Alpha and Omega : as the
basis of the Many, it is the lowest and least of things ; as their
perfection and final harmony, it is the highest and last of
things ; but it is Pluralism alone that can distinguish between
these two senses of unity, which Monism inextricably con-
founds.
Thus satisfaction is given to the legitimate claims alike of
the One and of the Many, in a higher synthesis which
transcends the extremes both of Pantheism and of individual-
ism. Unity (in the sense of union) is admitted to be a higher
ideal than plurality, but for that very reason it cannot be
treated as real in an imperfect world. For the explanation
of our existing world the first sense of the One is irrelevant,
as being included in the mere fact of the world's existence,,
whereas the second is inapplicable, as being not yet attained.
In the interpretation, therefore, of our world Pluralism is
supreme ; it seems the only possible and relevant answer to
the last question of ontology. It is only by asserting
existences to be ultimately many that we can satisfy the,
demands either of the Real or of the Ideal.
It is moreover a mere prejudice to suppose that there is any
intrinsic difficulty in the ultimate existence of many
individuals ; for the conception of ultimate existence is no
more difficult in the case of many than of one. All thought
starts from, and therefore must admit, the ultimateness of
Man and God 347
some existence, must admit a limit to the question of the
origin or cause of existence ; for otherwise it would have to
confess to the absurdity that the ultimate cause of everything-
is nothing or unknowable (§1). But as we saw in chapters ii
(§ 5) and ix (§ 3a), our thinking, when rightly interrogated,
does not necessitate such an infinite regress of reasons, but
readily stops where relevance to a real problem ceases, and
perceives that the question as to the cause of existence as such
is idle and invalid. Our inquiry must stop where its relevance
to any intelligible question stops, and at this limit, the ultimate
ground of existence must either be conceived as irrational
or as self-explanatory. Now of these alternatives, it has
been made abundantly evident that monistic Pantheism
adopts the former, and reduces the world to the irrational, to
'the delirium of an insane God,' whereas Pluralism, by
forecasting the union of the Many in an eternal harmony,
necessarily arrives at the latter, at a state in which the ever-
present reality of perfection permits no question into what
lies beyond and before the actual.
But though this reconciliation of the One and the Many
affords us once again a view of the Ideal we have already
twice caught sight of, once in discussing the relation of the
individual to society (ch. viii § 19), and once in analysing
that of the part to the whole (§ 19), we must leave its elucida-
tion to a later period (ch. xii), and content ourselves for the
present with settling the comparative merits of Monism and
Pluralism. Irrespective of the hopes Pluralism holds out for
the future, it is enough that it is superior in the present. It
is literally impossible, not only for any scientific or practical
purpose, but even for the working out in detail of any
philosophic speculation, to treat the world as effectively one.
Whatever the difficulties that beset the question of ultimate
existence, they are the same for both, the same whether
existence be ultimately one or many. And we are clearly
n\
348 Riddles of the Sphinx
bound in our inquiry to draw the line at a point where the
■conception of ultimate existence will throw light upon the
phenomenal existence of our world. /The world exists, and
its existences have to be treated as many ; Pluralism admits
these facts, and thereby affords a valid theory of the world ;
Monism can not admit the facts, does not explain the world,
and therefore does not yield a valid theory of ultimate
■existence or ontology .y
§ 24. An elaborate investigation of the doctrine of the
infinity of the Deity has been found necessary, but it was fully
warranted by the magnitude of the issues involved, and of the
results attained. For it ought to have resulted in a firm con-
viction that neither religion nor science nor philosophy has
anything to gain rather than everything to lose \^y the asser-
tion of this doctrine. It ought to be at length clear that the
Pantheism which is arrived at by deifying the abstract
category of the unity of the universe arises out of paralogisms
and confusions, is unable to explain the interaction of
existences which do not require it, and, were it conceivable,
would plunge all speculative and practical philosophy .into
irredeemable chaos.
The assertion, therefore, of the finiteness of God is
primarily the assertion of the knowableness of the world, of
the commensurateness of the Deity with our intelligence. By
becoming finite God becomes once more possible as a real
principle in the understanding of the world, a real motive in
the conduct of life, a real factor in the existence of things, a
factor none the less real for being unseen and inferred. For
it is much that the Deity can once more be made the subject
of inferences, that intelligible reasons can once more be given
for the existence of God, and that the Kantian criticism of
the ' physico-theological proof (ch. ii. § 19) falls to the ground.
And is it not a sufficient concession to the instinctive humility
of religious feeling to admit that the Deity is unknown to
Man and God 349
us as yet, that he is a God who ' wears a fold of heaven and
earth across his face ' ; must we not forbid it to ascribe to
Him the suicidal attribute of unknow^ableness ?
Our discussion moreover of the relations of Monism and
Pluralism should have largely brought out also the nature of
God's finiteness. The finiteness of God must be held to
depend on the very attributes that make Him really God,
on His personality, on His being, like all real beings, an
individual existence. God is one among the Many, their
supreme ruler and aim, if He is not the One underlying the
Many. The latter theory makes the Many inexplicable and
the One indifferent. God therefore must not be identified
with Nature. For if by Nature we mean the All of things,
then Nature is the possibility of the interaction of the
ultimate existences, and of these God is one. If by Nature
we mean the actual constitution of our world, then Nature is a
product of the interaction of these ultimate existences. And
the existence of these ultimate existences would explain also
how God can be finite ; He is limited by the co-existence of
other individuals. From His relations moreover to these
other existences, which we have called spirits (ch. ix § 31),
would arise all the features of our world which were so
insoluble a puzzle to Monism — its Becoming, its process, and
its Evil — and in them also must be sought the explanation
of the arrangement of the world down to its minutest detail.
For if the existence of these spirits is an ultimate fact,
God need have no power to annihilate them ; the most that
can be done might be to bring them into harmony with the
Divine Will. Now this might be just what the world-process
was designed to effect, just the reason why the world is in
process. For if the divine power were infinite, it would be
unnecessary to produce the harmony with the divine will by
a long and arduous process. If it is not infinite, occasion
arises for the display of intelligence and economy, for that
350 Riddles of the Sphinx
adaptation of means to ends which has always been justly
esteemed the surest ground of a belief in God.
This same limitation further would contain also the
general explanation of Evil ; the world is evil because it is
imperfectly harmonized with the divine will. And yet as
God is not all things, He can be an 'eternal {i.e. unceasing)
tendency making for righteousness,' and need not be, as on
all other theories He must be, the responsible Author of
Evil. For when once the identification of God with .the
whole of Nature is given up, the evil in the world may be
due to that element in it which is not God, to the resistance
of existences God cannot destroy and has not yet reconciled.
And there are many points about the specific character of
evil which bear out this interpretation.
§ 25. For let us compare the deductions from such a
theory of the nature of Evil with the facts we find. We
start with a number of spiritual beings struggling against and
opposing the Divine Power, which may overpower, but cannot
destroy them. What' is to be done? To leave them in the
full possession of their powers and intelligence would be to
give them the power to do evil, to reduce the spiritual order
to a chaotic play of wild antagonisms. To destroy them we
have taken to be impossible. But it is possible to do the
next best thing, viz., to lower their consciousness to the verge
of non-existence. In such a state of torpor it would be
possible to induce them to give an all but unconscious assent
to the laws of the cosmos, and gradually to accustom them
to the order which the divine wisdom had seen to be the
best, and the best means to attain a perfectly harmonious
co-operation of all existences. But as they grow more
harmonized, a higher development of consciousness and a
higher phase of life become permissible. Nevertheless every
advance in consciousness will render possible a correspond-
ingly intense relapse into antagonism or Evil, nor will such
Man and God 351
relapses cease to be possible until a complete harmony of all
existences has been attained.
Now do not the facts pretty accurately correspond to this
scheme? The history of the world begins with beings to
whom we can hardly attribute any consciousness or spiritual
character. This obliteration of consciousness is effected by
the aid of Matter, which has been recognized in the last
chapter (ix §§ 27, 28) as a mechanism for depressing
consciousness. Out of these lowest and hardly conscious
beings there are gradually evolved, in periods which to us
appear almost ' infinite,' higher beings with a higher
consciousness and higher powers. i\nd on the whole they
display progressively higher phases of association and social
harmony. The abuse of their higher powers for evil
purposes, on the other hand, though possible, seems to be
confined to very narrow limits. For the physical and social
laws of life form an effectual system of checks upon the
selfish lawlessness of individuals, and prevent evil-doing
beyond a certain point. However evil may be the intentions
of a refractory spirit, his actions must involve some degree of
submission to the cosmic order. No one can revolt against
all the laws of nature. A large measure of assent to most of
them is a sine qua non, not only of effective action, but also
of existence in the world. Moreover not only is he forced to
recognize this order, but in proportion as he fails to mould
himself in accordance with itj he tends to lose his power of
disturbing it, by reverting to a lower and less dangerous
type.
To say that an evil-doer makes a beast of himself is true
in more senses than one ; for by his indulgence in his evil
passions he tends to lose the higher consciousness which raises
men above the beasts. His vices destroy his moral and
intellectual perceptions even more surely than they do his
body. For the lowest depth, alike of ignorance and of
2S'2- Riddles of the Sphinx
wickedness, is unconscious : the utterly degraded criminal
has lost the moral and intellectual insight, the conscience
and the intelligence, which the beast has not yet acquired.
Even physically, could his life be prolonged, he would revert
into an animal state. For as evil is anti-social, the extreme
evil-doer would be outcast from society, and so become
unable to secure the manifold appliances of civilization. He
would have to depend for his livelihood on his own unaided
resources, on his strength of hand and fleetness of foot. His
expression would be coarsened and animalized by his life.
The higher mental activities would find no scope for their
exercise, and the part of the brain by which they were
expressed would be atrophied by disuse. For lack of the
means of making clothing, he would have to grow a thicker
covering of hair ; for the lack of tools, he would have tO'
develop his nails into claws.
Nor is it inconsistent with this view that more intelligent
and cold-blooded wickedness maintains itself in society, and
often too in honour. For it is just by its obedience to the
laws, divine and human, by the moderation which, from
self-regarding prudence, avoids offences which a superior
power w^ould surely punish, that such wickedness is possible.
Most of the criminality is confined to intentions, and not
permitted to issue in overt acts. A bad man in a modern
society is probably worse than a bad man 10,000 years ago,
because his intelligence is higher. But his instincts will not
be as brutal, nor his actions as outrageous as those of his
predecessor. He will be more consciously selfish in the
choice of his ends, but he will not be as ruthless and
barbarous in the choice of his means. Pie will, e.g., beware
of a free indulgence in manslaughter, for the conditions of
civilized life render murder too dangerous a pastime.
Physically, also, his conduct will be more, prudent, for he
will find that the more complex dissipations of modern life
Man and God i^i^y
are more exhausting to his physLcal powers than the simpler
debaucheries of the savage.
Thus Evil spells infra-human impotence, in our world at
least, rather than superhuman power. And such a character
of Evil serves to further the world-process indirectly also.
It makes the attitude of resistance to the Divine Purpose
ridiculous, contemptible, and aesthetically disgusting, as well
as futile. The adversary of God is not a glorious and defiant
fiend, armed with archangelic powers and irreconcilable in
the intense consciousness of his undying hate, not the
Demon we had been wont to fear, but the beast we had
been wont to despise, a sordid swine, whose narrow outlook
over the nature of things is limited by the barriers of his
garbage, and the boundaries of his sty. And so the nature
of our world confirms what we ought to have conjectured
beforehand, viz., that the divine wisdom does not permit the
world to be made a playground for devils, but imposes
upon Evil disabilities which minimize its power to thwart
the purposes of God and to affect the course of history.
§ 26. And so we find that Evil is that which resists the
Evolution of the world, and fights a losing battle against
the tendencies of things. It owes its persistence simply to
this, that the end is not yet, that the purpose of the world-
process is still being achieved, that the discordant elements
are still being harmonized, and that hence what is cannot
yet realize what ought to be.
But though on this account Evil is an inseparable element
in our world, an ineradicable element in all existing things,
yet from the beginning Af09 S eTeXelero /SovX)},^ and con-
strained chaotic wills into the scheme of cosmic order. But
since this cosmic order of perfect harmony is as yet un-
attained, the world contains a negative element of the
^ "And the plan of Zeus was working out its fulfilment." — Iliad i. 5.
23
354 Riddles of the Sphinx
unknowable, impersonal ('Matter'), indeterminate ('Be-
coming'), impermanent ('Time'), indefinite ('ignorance'),
and imperfect (pain) — in short, of Evil ; it is a world of
Becoming and of Time, and not a true cosmos. But yet
it is ever progressing towards perfection ; Evil and Im-
perfection is that which is ever vanishing away. It is
impermanent itself and the cause of impermanence in the
imperfect, the lawless and acosmic factor, which must be
continually transcended and ultimately eliminated, if the
process is to attain perfect Being. Now of that process all
phenomenal things are transitory phases, that bear within
them the curse of change and the seed of death, and there-
fore we also must pass away. We are imperfect phases in
the interaction between God and the Egos, the reflexes of
relations that are not satisfactory or harmonious, and hence
endure but for a season. Hard then as is our lot, and bitter
as are the pangs the flow of Time and the impermanence of
life inflict, it is yet not ill that the all-receiving gate of Death
should open up to us a prospect of promotion into a more
abiding state of being.
§ 27. Thus the complete account of man's relation to
God would be that our actual selves, and the world in which
we live, are correlated results of an interaction between the
Deity and ultimate spiritual beings or Egos, of whom we
form the conscious part (ch. ix §§ 22, 24). The imperfection
and transitoriness of this world of ours is conditioned by the
unsatisfactory and unstable nature of the relations between
the Deity and the Ego, and to this also must be ascribed
the all-pervading element of Evil.
But as the Deity is one factor in this interaction, i.e., in
all things, there is within and throughout the world also an
element of good, that makes for a more perfect harmony
between God and the Egos, ourselves and the world. Thus
God can be immanent in all things, a constant, all-inspiring.
Man and God
355
•ever-active Force. And yet God is not dissolved in the All,
which was the heavy price paid by Pantheism for the
immanence of its * God,' but has also a real personality, a
a truer and transcendent existence for Himself. In this way
we may solve the old controversy as to the transcendence or
immanence of the Deity, by showing how God is in different
ways both immanent and transcendent, and oppose to the
pantheistic Monism, which could not explain the world, a
pluralistic Theism, which can.
§ 28. And if this doctrine seem at first somewhat to
detract from the effective supremacy of God, and to shock
the ears accustomed to an unthinking worship of the
* Infinite,' and if the ascription of Evil to the limitation
•of God may even seem to reduce His power to a shadow,
let us reflect, and realize that omnipotence becomes im-
potence in the absence of resistance, that resistance also is
the measure of power. Hence, though it may seem a task
unworthy of the divine power to overcome the resistance of
fools and beasts, it does not follow that the apparent is a
true measure of the real resistance. For to impress on fools
and beasts even a dim sense of the rationality of the scheme
of things is a task more diflficult by far than to prevail over
the dissent of superhuman intelligences. And besides, how
•do we know that this very contemptibleness in appearance
of the obstacles to the world's progress {cp. § 25 s.f.) is not
in itself an effective method of the divine guidance of the
process, that it does not form part of the humorous element
in things, of that subtle * irony of fate ' and that covert
cynicism of nature's ways which we so often fancy we can
trace in the course of the world ? We have hardly yet got
the data for estimating the strength of the spiritual resist-
ances to the divine purpose. It is only when we see how
slowly the vast and incalculable power which is displayed
in the order of the physical universe grinds small the
3 5 6 Riddles of the Sphinx
obstacles to its purpose, how many millions of years were
required to evolve man, how many thousands of years
to civilize him, and how slow even now the stubborn
obstinacy of unreason makes the ever-accelerating progress
of the world — it is only when we observe and ponder on all
this, that we may form some faint image of the strength
of the spiritual resistances to the world-process, and obtain
an idea of the grandeur of the Divine Purpose immensely
more vivid and impressive than the vague hyperboles of an
uncritical and immoral adulation of the Infinite. The
conception of the Divine Power as finite exalts the Deity^
actually and morally, as far above an unintelligible Infinite
as modern astronomy has exalted our sense of the grandeur
of the universe, as compared with the ancient fancies that
the stars were set in the firmament to adorn our skies, or
that the sun w^as ' about the size of Peloponnese/ and was
put out every night in the ' baths of Ocean.'
The moral stimulus and emotional relief also of such a
conception of the world-process ought to be immense. It
represents us no longer as the helpless playthings of an
infinite and infamous Deity, the victims of a senseless
tyranny of an Omnipotence we can neither resist nor assist^
purposely condemned to some idle task-work or equally
unmeaning idleness in a purposeless world, that could achieve
nothing the Infinite might not have achieved without our
sufferings and without our sorrows. We are now ourselves
the subjects of the world's redemption ; we can ourselves
assist in our own salvation ; we can ourselves co-operate
with God in hastening the achievement of the world-process^
co-operate in the inspiriting assurance that no effort will be
rejected as too petty or too vain, that no struggle will lack
divine support. It is beyond the scope of an essay like this
to draw out in detail the practical consequences of theoretic
principles, and to proceed to the exhortations of practical
Man and God 357
religion ; but it is evident that it would be difficult indeed to
imagine a creed more apt than this to fortify the best
elements in the human soul, or one to appeal more strongly
to all the higher instincts of our nature.
§ 29. But perhaps it may be asked, if God is not identical
with Nature, and if the interacting Many constitute the
ultimate nature of things, why need we go beyond the
phenomenal Many at all, and why complicate our scheme
■of things by a reference to a transcendent God and ultimate
realities ? /Granted that the sum of things cannot fitly be
called God, why do we require a God besides ? Why should
our Pluralism be theistic ? Should we not/ do just as well
by regarding the world as it appears as the world of ultimate
reality, composed of interacting material beings, and admit-
ting of no God that is not, like it, phenomenal ?
The raising of this question is in reality merely one form
of asking why we need go behind the phenomenal. And
the ultimate answer to it is that all science and all know-
ledge, every intelligible view of life, must go behind the [ \
phenomenal. Even the most materialistic and unspeculative
science does this to some extent, and forms theories of the
unseen and imperceptible, in order to account for appearances
{cp. ch. iii § 3). So the philosophic ground for the existence
of a God is of a precisely similar character to the scientific
ground for assuming the existence of atoms or undiscovered
planets. It is an inference to account for the actions of the
apparent : we infer the existence of the unseen reality, God,
just as the astronomer inferred the existence of the unknown
planet Neptune from the motions of the known planet
Uranus. We infer it because there is no other reasonable
way of accounting for the motions of the world^^,
That this is the case will easily appear, if we consider
what are the characteristics of the world which directly
necessitate the inference to the existence of a God.
2S^ Riddles of the Sphinx
It is agreed, in the first place, that if the phenomenal
world is ultimate, the individual existences in it are alone
real, and that it is a superstition to hypostasize their inter-
action as * Nature ' or ' the All.' Nature is not a reality
superior to the individuals and capable of controlling their
destinies, but simply the conceived sum total of their habits
. and their interactions, and all the operations of nature
must be explained by the capacities of the known indivi-
duals. Hence all the intelligence, reason, or purpose we
discover in the world must be conscious intelligence, in some
or other of its real existences. Even, therefore, if we could
think such things as unconscious purpose or impersonal
reason, even if all canons of valid thinking did not forbid
us thus gratuitously to multiply entities, which no experience
can suggest or support, there would be no room for them in
our world. Whatever intelligence, therefore, is found to be
active in the world must be due to the action of some real
being.
Now we do seem to find in the world manifold traces of
an intelligent purpose which is not that of any known in-
telligence. Intelligent observation of the course of events
strongly suggests that there is ' a Providence that shapes
our ends, rough hew them how we will.' And even strict
science is forced to recognize this in the Evolution of the
world. Here we have all things tending persistently and
constantly in a single and definite direction. This tendency
of things goes on while as yet no one had discovered it,
it goes on although no one consciously aims at it, nay,
in spite of the constant opposition of a large portion of
the conscious intelligence in the world. But the idea that
this constant tendency is due to any of the known in-
telligences of the world refutes itself as soon as it is stated ;
to suppose that atoms and amoebas could, at the time when
they were the highest individuals in the world, direct its
■ Man and God 359
process towards the development of individuals in associa-
tion (ch. viii) is absurd. We seem to have, therefore, in
the world-process the working of an intelligence which
not only guides the actions of the unconscious material ,
existences, but overrules those of the conscious intelligences.
^The only plausible inference from the fact of the constant
and definite tendency of the world-process is that it is
purposed by a real intelligence, by a God, who, though not
seen, may yet be known by His action on the phenomenal
world. And when it becomes possible thus to formulate
the tendency of the world's Evolution in terms which appeal
to our own intelligence, this inference to the existence
of God becomes as certain as any of our inferences can be.^
A similar conclusion follows from the elimination of evil
and the contemplation of the moral aspects of the world-
process. If we admit — and unless we are pessimists we must
admit — that Good is gradually prevailing over Evil, that
the world-process tends towards harmony, we must admit
also that this improvement is neither inherent in the natural
constitution of things nor yet due to the efforts of the known
existences. It is not inherent in the constitution of things,
for the present condition of the world sufficiently shows
that in itself this constitution is perfectly compatible with
the existence of disorder, conflict, and Evil, that the mere
existence of the world is just as possible with a discordant
as with a harmonious interaction of its parts. If then the
mere existence of the world is compatible with its being
evil, it does not suggest any intrinsic reason why it should
grow any better. The constitution of things, being equally
consistent with a good and with a bad world, cannot be
regarded as the cause of the world's improvement. Nor
can we ascribe it to the efforts of the known existences, in
face of their ignorance of the good, and their frequent and
lamentable failures to discover the conduct which really
m
360 Riddles of ike Sphinx
benefits them. The progress, therefore, of the world directly
points to a supernatural author. ■
Thus a personal and finite, but non-phenomenal, God
may legitimately be postulated to account for the existence
and character of the world-process, and our belief in God's
existence is intimately bound up with the belief in the
reality of the world-process. s^Hence the method also of
our proof of God's existence stands in the sharpest contrast
with that of Pantheism. It is not based on a supposed
necessity of hypostasizing the abstract formula of a logical
unity of a universe, a unity indifferent to every content
and intrinsically empty. It does not yield a God who
is equally implicated in every sort of world, without regard
to its nature and its character, a God indifferent to the
course of things, and without influence upon it, a God
unknowable and unprovable. On the contrary, it proves
His existence in the only way in which it has been evident,
since Kant, that it could be proved (ch. ii § 19), viz., not
a priori, from the consideration of a world as such, or of an
abstract totality of reality, but- a posteriori, from the
particular nature of this particular world of ours. And
being an inference from real data, it will permit the proof of
something beyond mere existence {cp. ch. ii § 3). The
character and nature of God and of His purpose may be
hard to discern in the gloom of our ignorance and degrada-
tion, but they are not intrinsically unknowable.y And the
divine education of the human race lies just in this, that in
studying the nature and history of our world, we are progres-
sively spelling out the elements of God's revelation to men.
§ 30. It will be necessary to touch upon one more
objection to the principles laid down in the preceding
sections, not because it is very important in itself, but
because it contains a certain amount of truth. The question
may be asked, how does this view assure us that the source
Man and God 361
of progression, which we have called God, is one and not
many? In answer it would probably have to be admitted,
that the unity of the divine person was not a matter of
philosophic principle. If there are other reasons for holding
that God is three, our theory offers no obstacle. For we
cannot infer from the unity of the world's plan and working
anything more than unanimity or harmonious co-operation
in its cause. But if the guidance of the world-process dis-
plays, as it surely does, flawless unity alike in its conception
and its execution, there can certainly be no philosophic
reason either for assuming a plurality of guiding intelligences.
Still less would our experience of combined action in our
world warrant such a hasty belief in its efficiency as would
justify us in substituting a heavenly democracy for the
monarchical rule of a single God. So it will doubtless
appear preferable to most minds to retain the unity of the
Godhead, to which their feelings have grown accustomed, in
a case where the assumption of plurality would be more
complex, and could not possibly serve any practical purpose.
It should suffice that the conception of the Deity sketched in
this chapter should not afford any support to any real
polytheism, with its discordant interferences and jealous
animosities of conflicting deities ; beyond that it is needless
to dogmatize prematurely upon a subject which possesses
no human importance.
§ 31. We have completed the second great stage of our
journey by the investigation of man's relations to his cause,
and of the whence of life. We have also traced the nature
and origin of his present environment, and discovered that
we may regard ourselves as spiritual beings living in a
spiritual universe; but the final question of the ^ whither V
of life yet remains to be solved consonantly with the results
already attained, before we can claim to have formulated our
answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx.
CHAPTER XI.
iMMORTALITY}
§ I. At length we have come to the last of the great
questions of life, viz., that of our Future. And in a way
this is the most important of all questions. For the Past is
irrevocable, the Present more or less calculable and pro-
vided for, but the whither of man is a mystery which each
one of us will have to solve in his own proper person.
Death must be experienced by all, and experienced alone,
and may\i2M^ to be experienced at any moment. It requires,
therefore, unusual strength of soul or recklessness to ignore
this ever-present problem of our future. Hence the question
of how to live in order to die well, has always seemed a
question of primary importance to all who had any care of
their future.
And yet mankind has always displayed a curious dread of
really coming to close quarters with this question. It has
always been hedged round with unreasoning awe and vague
obscurities of mystic language. Whether it was believed
that life continued or passed away, both parties have always
shrunk from saying so in plain words^ and treating their
^ [The theories of this chapter have elicited singularly little criticism,
probably because the great majority of technical philosophers have ^^
ceased to be interested in the subject. But one resultant advantage ^^^
has been that I have found little to modify in the original treatment. ^ j,
I have however discussed further aspects of the subject in Humanism
ch. xiii-xv, Studies in Huviatiism ch. xvii and the Proceedings of the "
Society for Psychical Research Part xlix.] ^^i^^ i
Immortality 363
beliefs as facts. To this day the question of our future life
or annihilation has remained a subject for violent prejudices
and fierce animosities, for insensate hopes and fears, for
declamations and denunciations, for confident assertions on
either side of meaningless or ambiguous sophisms — for
anything, in fact, rather than for calm consideration and
scientific inquiry, v^othing, indeed, presents a more curious
study in human psychology than the reckless violence with
which both the adherents and the opponents of traditional
doctrines concerning man's future have resented any attempts
to approach the subject in the serious spirit of scientific
philosophy. \ In times now happily past orthodoxy has been
equally severe upon those who believed too little and too
much, and burnt all misbelievers, whether atheists or
magicians, at the same stake. In the future it seems
possible that the lunatic asylums will be charged with the
function of preventing inquiry into this question. But just
at present the conflicting orthodoxies of science and religion
are, by a rare felicity of the times, so nearly balanced that
a philosophical investigation seems corpparatively safe.
Perhaps the first point such an investigation would have to
consider is the reason for such an irrational attitude of men.
The majority of men profess to believe in a highly sensational
and stimulating account of their future life. But its effect
upon their conduct is disproportionately small. Insanity,,
due to the fear of Hell, contributes only a comparatively
small quota to our madhouses. The hope of Heaven does
not inspire to superhuman virtue. Of most cultivated
Christians it may 'be safely said that their belief in Hell is
practically a very faint and unimportant factor in their life,
and that in Heaven fainter still. And they shrink with
genuine reluctance, not fully accounted for by their latent
consciousness of the difficulties of their beliefs, from all
reasoning calculated to make their beliefs feel real to them.
364 Riddles of the Sphinx
A large minority, which is rapidly increasing and is pro-
bably a large majority in academic circles; is convinced that
a future life is unprovable, if not impossible, and often
prepared to argue this thesis at length. But it is even more
reluctant to bring its a priori arguments to the test of
practical experiment. Now why should both parties agree
in objecting to treat the subject like any other, as a question
of supreme practical interest, to be settled by reasoning and
investigation? Such conduct naturally raises doubts about
the sincerity of men's professions of interest in the subject.
In fact, it would not, in spite of the apparent paradox, ^
perhaps be too much to say that a final establishment of the
reality of a future life would prove highly inconvenient to
all parties, and this inconvenience is the real reason of men's
dislike to its investigation. The generality of men do not
care enough about their future to welcome a belief which
would make it really necessary to look far ahead, and they
do not want to care about it.^ So it is extremely convenient
to leave the future life in the realm of vague speculation, to
be believed when desired, and to be disregarded when belief
would suggest unpleasant reflections, in order to avoid
regarding it as a fact to be steadily and consistently kept in
view. For a matter of fact is something which must be
faced, even though it may be very unpleasant to do so,
whereas a matter of opinion may be manipulated so as to
suit the exigencies of every occasion.
§ 2. But this disregard of the future is often not only
admitted but defended, on the ground that over-anxiety
about the future is by no means to be recommended, and
^ It is gratifying to find this view as to the comparative rarity of
real interest in this question, supported by the high authority of Frederic
Myers, whose unrivalled experience caused him to come to substantially
the same conclusions about the real feelings of men. (Cp. Proceedings of
the Psychical Soc, pt. xvi. p. 339, and also pt. xlix, for the results of an
inquiry into the actual state of human sentiment).
Ivimortality 365"
that too vivid a belief in another life would be apt to lead
to a neglect of this. Now, though it must be admitted
that such excess of concern is possible, it is by no means
probable that it will ever constitute a serious danger. The
immediate pressure of the present makes such over-
powering demands upon our attention that there is no
real ground for the fear that men can ever to any extent
become oblivious of the importance of this world, and
least of all are they likely to do so after they have rationally
investigated the question of a future life. It is the fancy
eschatologies which are uncritically accepted that do
the mischief, and no rational doctrine which regards the
future life as a natural continuation of the present is
in the least likely to lead to an antagonism between the
claims of the present and the future, different in kind, or
much greater in degree, than that which already exists
between the different sections of our life on earth {cp. ch. iv
§7).
Hence, although it is not possible that the question of
a future life should ever be an absorbing and permanent
occupation of the mind in the heyday of youth and in
the vigour of life, while death still seems a distant cloud
on the horizon of reality, it must yet be regarded as a
salutary and appropriate occupation in the leisure of
declining years. For it seems to be the only interest
which can prevent the degeneration of the moral and
intellectual nature in old age. Without it, when the active
work of life is done, men become slothful. If they have
nothing further to look forward to, there is no reason
for employing their activities : the game is played out,.,
and they lag superfluous on the stage; the battle of life is
over so far as they are concerned, and they must leave its
conduct to more vigorous hands. They have become
useless and intrinsically unimportant, unprofitable burdens
366 Riddles of the Sphinx
•of the ground at the best, or obstacles that obstruct the
path of fitter men. And this feeling is both bitter and
•embittering ; they relax too soon their efforts to preserve
their powers of mind, and cling with demoralizing tenacity
to whatever fragments of their former glories they can
lay hold of. And so they become both intellectually torpid
and morally exacting, and frequently cynical, with a
cynicism which has lost even the consciousness of the
ideals it controverts.
All these demoralizing effects of a disbelief in their future
are, it should be observed, quite independent of the
• emotional stimuli of hopes and fears. If men believed in
a future life from which they neither hoped nor feared
anything sensational, it would yet be a most salutary belief.
For it would provide old age with an aim, and redeem
it from the undignified futility it so often displays at
present. Hence it would be of the greatest service not only
to the individual but also to society, as tending to raise
its moral and intellectual tone. Nothing would act as a
more powerful tonic to raise the whole moral and spiritual
condition of mankind than a belief which would induce
men to realize more vividly the solemnity of the issues
involved in human life.
Thus there are two advantages, at the very least, in
the belief in a future life, which no other doctrine can
offer ; the motive it alone supplies for continuing the
activity of life to the last, and the sense it engenders
that life is not a fleeting, senseless, play of feverish appetites,
to be hastily glutted with whatsoever pleasures each passing
moment can afford, but must be consecrated to higher
and more permanent aims, to activities which, it may be,
will enrich us with a serener contentment even here, and
certainly will prove an inexhaustible source of abiding
bliss hereafter. These advantages are a sufficient reason,
Immortality 367
alike on personal and on social grounds, for inclining
favourably towards this belief. But there are other reasons,
no less forcible and more obvious.
One need not necessarily be violently enamoured of
one's own life, or cherish any abject desire for personal
continuance, in order to feel that if the chapter of life is
definitely closed by death, despair is the end of all its
glories. For to assert that death is the end of all beings,
is to renounce the ideal of happiness (ch. iv §§ 5— 17), to
admit that adaptation is impossible, and that the end of
effort must be failure. And it is to poison the whole of
life with this bitter consciousness. Furthermore it is
finally to renounce the faith in the rationality of things,
which could hardly be re-asserted against so wanton a
waste of energy as would be involved in the destruction
of characters and attainments it required so much patient
toil and effort to acquire. A good and wise man dies,
and his goodness and his wisdom, his incalculable powers
to shape the course of things for good, are wasted and
destroyed. In the light of such a fact, we should have
to put the worst construction alike upon the waste and
the parsimony of nature elsewhere. They will both
appear inexplicable freaks of a senseless constitution of
things.
Hence we must reject the extremes on either side ; we
must refuse, not only to be terrified by maddening fears,
to be intoxicated by unwarranted hopes, but also to be
cajoled by a disingenuous rhetoric, which would persuade
us of the superior dignity of unqualified negation. But
if we preserve an attitude of critical moderation, there is
little fear that reason will so far play us false as to commit
us to any extravagant or unacceptable conclusions.
§ 3. But before we consider what reasons may be urged
for or against the belief in immortality, v/e must examine
j68 Riddles of the Sphinx
with what reason that belief is sometimes based upon facts,
which would render all argument superfluous by directly
establishing the existence of a future life.
It is one of the chief logical advantages of the assertors of
a future life that they can bring forward direct evidence in its;
favour, whereas the doubts of their opponents must be -
inferential, and there can be no such thing as direct evidence
against it. The ghost of Lord Lyttelton, in the famous
story, might admonish his friend that his doubts were
unfounded, but not even an Irishman could return to us
with the assurance that there was no future life. If, therefore,
the allegations that the dead do return are worthy of belief, if
we can regard the tales of ghosts and spirits as scientifically
adequate, they evidently settle the question.
Nor is there anything intrinsically absurd or impossible
about this conception, or any reason to reject such stories
because of our preconceived notions about the sort of ex-
istence we should consider desirable or dignified, or on the
ground of a misuse of the word supernatural. It is useless to
assert that the supernatural is impossible, for if these stories
are true, the facts to which they testify ipso facto cease to be
supernatural. The inference to be drawn from these pheno-
mena would simply be that we were mistaken in thinking
that the change of death produced an absolute severance
between us and the dead, and that there was no connexion at
all between our world and theirs. But if such intercourse
is a fact, it is also possible and natural, and the laws and
conditions thereof would be as capable of being deter-
mined as anything else. And it would surely be the most
ridiculous of prejudices, or the most indefensible of lingering
superstitions, to refuse to investigate scientifically so-
interesting a subject, on the ground that the evidence did
not accord with our preconceptions as to what was appro-
priate and permissible conduct for the departed. What shall
Immo7^tality 369
be said of the mental condition of those who assure us with
one breath that they do not beheve in the existence of spirits,
but are quite sure that spiritism is false because spirits would
never behave in the manner represented ?
And yet this evidence, probably the vastest body of
unsystematized testimony in the world, varying in value from
the merest hearsay to the carefully recorded experience of
the ablest and most competent men, is persistently put
beyond the pale of science, and the isolated attempts to
investigate it systematically have met with nothing but
discouragement from the general public. The experience,
e.g., of the Society for Psychical Research would afford a
most curious commentary on the sincerity of men's supposed
interest in a future life. Surely, if men had cared to have
the question settled, they would not have allowed these
phenomena to remain in doubt and perplexity from age to
age, as a standing challenge to science and a standing
reflection upon their desire for truth. We spend thousands
of pounds on discovering the colour of the mud at the
bottom of the sea, and do not grudge even the lives of brave
men in exploring the North Pole — although there is obviously
not the remotest prospect of establishing a trade in Man-
chester calicos with the Eskimos and polar bears — but we
would not pay a penny, nor sacrifice the silliest scruple of a
selfish reticence, to determine whether it is true that our
dead do not pass wholly beyond our ken. And yet, with
a tithe of the attention and study that has often been
devoted to far more trivial and unworthy objects, the real
nature of these ' psychical ' phenomena might have been
explored — had it suited men to arrive at certainty on the
subject
But in any case ojir course is clear : as men of science we
may deplore the apathy of mankind, as philosophers we must
recognize that the present condition of the subject prevents
24
370 Riddles of the Sphinx
us from treating these phenomena as admitted facts, on
which it is possible to base inferences.
And from a philosophic point of view they possess in any
case two defects. The first is that they are presented to us
as mere facts. {iNIow facts, we are apt to think, are mighty
thinsfs, and able to force their wav into all minds bv sheer
A weight. But nothing could be more mistaken : a mere fact
y is a very feeble thing, and the minds of most men are
fortresses which cannot be captured by a single assault,
fortresses impenetrable to the most obvious fact, unless it
can open up a correspondence with some of the prejudices
within, and enter by a gate which their treasonable support
betrays to the besieger. Or, to drop metaphor, the mind will
either not receive, or gradually eject and obliterate elements
which it cannot assimilate, which it cannot harmonize with
the rest of the mental furniture, be they facts ten times over,
and the occupation of the mind by facts is extremely
precarious until reasons for them have been given which will
reconcile them with the other constituents of the m.ind.y
Now the facts alleged are of a very startling character and
run sharply counter to many old-established prejudices of
most men, who are simply upset by them, shocked and
perplexed, but quite unable to believe ' facts ' which do not
seem to fit into any reasonable scheme of things. Hence the
assertion of facts does not dispense with the necessity of
giving reasons.
And secondly, the facts though important are not in
themselves adequate : they prove a future life, indeed, but no
immortality.^
^ Hence it has been suggested by several authors that ghosts are a
sort of semi-material 'shells,' containing a few relics of the intelligence
of the living, which gradually decay and fade away. And there is
something in their recorded conduct which justifies such theories. But
of course we have no business as yet to dogmatize in any way upon the
Immortality 3-71
5 4- ^* would be impossible, therefore, to avoid making
the question of immortality one of reasoning, even if the
reasoning should be as insufficient as that of the ordinary
arguments on either side. x-\nd certainly we shall soon
discover that most of these ar^guments are worthy of their
origins in the prejudices of men, i.e., inconclusive and of little
value. We must not expect then to find that the arguments
in favour of a future life, whether based on authority or on
reason, are either conclusive or secure.
To take, first, the most popular of these arguments, that
which claims to base itself on the Christian religion. We
shall find that though the traditions of the Christian Church
apparently support the doctrine of a future life, its assurances
are anything but explicit, and we must be easy to satisfy if
we are content to accept them as conclusive. For it would
be difficult to devise any eschatology more obscure, fragmen-
tary and ambiguous than that of the traditional religion, or
one which so ingeniously combines the defects of raising
insoluble difficulties, and of yet leaving us without answer
upon the most critical points.
The end and the origin of the soul are alike shrouded in
perplexities which religious dogma makes no serious attempt
to dispel. For instance, w^hat happens to the soul after
death .'' Does it sleep or is it judged ? If it sleeps, — and to
judge from the inscriptions of our graveyards this may claim
to be the accepted view, — is not this to admit the possibility
of its annihilation at least for a season ? And if for a time,
-why not for ever } Or if it is judged, what are the relations
of this preliminary judgment to the Last Judgment?
subject, and the futility of g^hosts, which is certainly sometimes very
marked, is explicable in many ways, e.g.., if we suppose that their
appearance in our world involves what to them also are abnormal
conditions, or that they are 'dead men's dreams,' i.e.., effects on our
minds produced in states analogous to dreaming in our world.
372 Riddles of the Sphinx
Or, again, whence does the soul come ? Does it exist
before the body, is it derived from the souls or the bodies of
its parents, or created ad hoc by the Deity ? Is Pre-existence
Traducianism, or Creationism the orthodox doctrine ? The
first theory, although we shall see that it is the only one on
which any rational eschatology can be or has been based, is
difficult, and has not figured largely in religious thought ;
but the other two are alike impossible and offensive. Indeed
it would be difficult to decide which supposition was more
offensive, whether that the manufacture of immiortal spirits
should be a privilege directly delegated to the chance
passions of a male and a female, or that they should have the
power at their pleasure to call forth the creative energy of
God. And however well the former theory may have agreed
with the speculative views of the early Church, it would be
well-nigh impossible nowadays to distinguish it from
materialism. But if the progress of science has rendered
Traducianism untenable, has not the progress of moral
insight done the same for Creationism } For it surely
cannot explain the different dispositions and faculties of
different souls by the varying excellence of the Creator's
work, nor make the creation of souls with unequal endow-
ments compatible with divine justice, even if it be supposed
that the naturally inferior souls are judged by a more lenient
standard. For how can a soul that has led the best life
possible under very unfavourable conditions, has been, e.g.^
a good Fuegian, be adjudged worthy of heaven } If our life
on earth has any educational value as a preparation for
heaven, the Fuegian would be utterly unfitted for any
heavenly life, which could only make him supremely
miserable ; if it has not, he (and every one else) would have
to be fitted for it by a miraculous fiat of the Deity. But in
this case, what is the use of earth-life, and why should not
everybody be at once transmuted into an angel or devil,.
Im mortality 373
according as it pleased God to predestinate him ? Does it
convey an ennobling view of God's action to call in the aid
•of needless miracle in order to make good the original
injustice of an unjustifiable inequality, and is it well to save
the divine justice at the expense of the spiritual value of
life ?
From these and similar difficulties it will be seen that it is
not merely the mania for making ' concessions to science '
that has more than once prompted 'liberal' divines to under-
take the proof that a belief in a future life was not an
essential part of Christianity. Indeed, they may be admitted
to have established that there is no logical necessity for this
doctrine within the system of the traditional religion, nor
even any explicit affirmation of the continuance of all
individuals. On the contrary, the Scriptures contain many
passages which implicitly and explicitly deny it, and
compare man to ' the beasts that perish.' And the positive
assertions of Scripture are all inconclusive. Thus, e.g., no
conclusion evidently can be drawn from the resurrection of
Christ. For it is impossible to argue from the bodily
resurrection of a divine being to the survival of the soul of
ordinary men. If there is one thing certain, it is that our
future life can not be similar to the resurrection and
ascension into a super-terrestrial sphere of the terrestrial
body of Christ. Whatever else we may do when we die, we
leave our bodies in our sepulchres. Nor need the specific
promises of Heaven or Hell made to individuals in special
cases be held to establish a universal rule.
Thus it appears that the traditional religion not only does
not give us any serviceable information concerning any future
life, but does not even secure us our fancied heritage of
Heaven or of Hell. And once this is realized, it surely
becomes evident that it cannot be accepted in any sense as
closing the discussion.
374 Riddles of the Sphinx
' § 5. We may consider next two closely allied grounds for
the belief in a future life, viz., its assertion on the ground of
its practical or moral necessity, or of its being a postulate of
feeling. These are probably the favourite grounds for the
hope of immortality among those who cherish it ; but neither
of them is at all conclusive.
It does indeed at first sound a persuasive and attractive
line of argument to say that there can be no retribution of
good and evil if there is no future life, and that the belief in
it is therefore a practical necessity, if there is to be any
reason or justice in the order of things.
But what if the constitution of things admit neither of
reason nor of justice, and hence be unable to recognize any
such moral necessity .'' What if things be inherently
irrational and perverse ? That all should come right in the
end is an assumption we can by no means make as a matter
of course, but only with the utmost difficulty {cp. ch. v § 2)^
and until it is established the argument from moral necessity
is simply arguing in a circle. And even when it is admitted^
as in a sense we have admitted it ( § 2, s.f.), it can never be
admitted as an independent and substantive argument. It
must always result from a general view of the world, which
has previously established its rationality. Now this is
precisely what most of those who make use of this plea
neglect to do. They make an appeal to moral necessity,,
although their systems have left no room for morality, for
the distinction of Good and Evil. If, as is the case in the
pantheism of the Infinite (ch. x § 10), or in the atheism of
Buddhism, the distinction of Good and Evil is merely
phenomenal and really unmeaning, we have no business to
expect from the All any perception of the ' moral necessity '
of bestowing a future life upon us.
Again, the assertion of a future life as a postulate of feeling
seems to require something like universality in the feeling.
Immortality 37 j
But not only have we been led to observe phenomena (§§ 2
and 3), which throw considerable doubt on the genuineness
of the alleged desire for immortality, but the history of
Hinduism shows that under certain circumstances the prospect
of the continuation of life may actually come to be pretty
universally regarded with horror and detestation, and that the
loss of personal existence by absorption into the Absolute may
become the highest object of desire. Nor can human nature
be utterly different in the West ; and if among us the desire
for annihilation is less prominent, it is not because it is there
less reasonable. For surely it must indicate a deplorable lack
either of imagination or of real belief, if men who admit that
if there is a future life they have merited the severest punish-
ment — and there must be many such — can prefer the torments
of eternal damnation to the cessation of life. Not only,,
therefore, does the argument from feeling involve the some-
what dubious thesis that men desire continuance at any price
but it also has first to posit the rationality of things. The
constitution of things must not be so wantonly perverse as
to baulk us of the satisfaction of our desires.
But even granting this, and granting, as we may perhaps
do, that the desire for immortality has played an important
and beneficial part in furthering the progress of the world, we
are not yet assured of a personal immortality. It may be that
our feelings are not destined to utter disappointment in their
ultimate form, but that we were yet mistaken as to the real
drift of our present desires, it may be that what would really
satisfy them will be attained, and yet prove something
considerably different from what we now desire.
Yet we may concede to this plea a modicum of truth. It
would truly be an outrage upon our conviction of the
rationality of things if a feeling so deep-seated should prove
groundless, if a feeling which has played so important and
increasingly important a part in the Evolution of the world,
376 Riddles of the Sphinx
should not stand in some essential relation to the aim of the
world-process.
§ 6. And lastly, all arguments drawn from the simplicity
and unity of the soul are dangerous and fallacious {cp. ch. ii
§§ 20, 21). They rest upon an untenable dualism which
inevitably raises insoluble questions as to the relations of
body and soul, and the nature of the bond which connects
them. For such dualism lends countenance to the idea that
the connexion between body and soul is extraneous and
mechanical, that each might exist without the other, and yet
be what it is. It is incompatible with the view which we have
seen to be the only intelligible account of matter, and the
only adequate reply to materialism {cp. ch. ix §§ 26 — 28),
viz., that matter exists only for spirits, and that the soul is
the soul of a particular body, the internal reflex of a spiritual
interaction of which the body is the external expression.
And as in this dualism the body is the obvious and visible
partner, whereas the soul is neither, there is an easy transition
to a denial of the invisible soul and the crassest materialism.
And the dualism of body and soul is not only physically
incompetent to account for the facts, but also, to a hardly
less degree, psychologically. The conditioning of certain
activities of the soul by the body is so manifest and
irresistible, that a distinction between the ' bodily feelings,
engendered in the soul by its connection with the body, and'
its own proper feelings, has often been made, even though
the unity and simplicity of the soul was thereby sacrificed.
The bodily feelings are then regarded as transitory, and
produce the distinction between the mortal and immortal
* parts of the soul,' and this distinction seems to destroy the
human personality. For, with any strictness and consistency,
more and more of our psychical activities must be extruded
from the immortal part of the soul, until it is suddenly dis-
covered that all our activities are indelibly stamped with the
Immortality 377
impress of mortality, and the ' immortal part ' is left as an
empty shell from which all content has been extracted, which
has no feeling- that any one ever feels or is capable of feeling-,
and is nothing the continuance of which human feeling can
possible desire. And then the last step is inevitable : as all
the attributes which express the individuality of the soul have
been abstracted from, nothing remains to distinguish one
person's soul from that of another ; and so the immortal part
is declared to be the Universal Soul, in which all the individual
souls partake and which is one and the same for all. And
whereas the personal individual souls are transitory, the
impersonal Universal Soul is eternal : as a principle of
metaphysics the immortality of Soul is after a fashion main-
tained, even while personal immortality is declared a delusion.
Such is the doctrine of immortality which is the genuine and
logical outcome of every dualistic view of the relations of body
and soul, and the history of philosophy shows that it may
be read into, or developed out of, every dualistic system.^ But
whatever its philosophic merits, and as to these what has been
said about Pantheism will mutatis mutandis be applicable, it
^ With and wi thout the leave of their authors. Thus A verroes developed
his impersonal immortality of the Active Reason {vovs TroirjTLKos) out of
Aristotle's dualism, with, it must be confessed, considerable support from
the vagueness and obscurity of Aristotle's language, who in this matter
was unsuccessfully trying to reconcile conflicting views. Similarly
Spinoza's doctrine does but draw conclusions implied in the dualism of
Descartes. And as for Plato, the founder of the philosophic doctrine of
immortality, there has been no lack of commentators ready to show that
if he had understood his principles as well as they did, he could never
have asserted a doctrine so contrary to them as that of a personal
immortality, and that his very explicit assertions must be interpreted as
figurative expressions designed to mislead the vulgar. And though we
may doubt whether deliberately ambiguous language upon so vital an
issue is not rather a modern refinement of professional philosophy, alien
to the frankness and freedom of the ancients, it must yet be confessed
that, owing to his dualism, Plato's theory of the soul, with its mortal and
immortal parts, does not admit of being combined into a consistent and
tenable whole.
378 Riddles of the Sphinx
is pretty clear that the eternity of Universal Soul is not what
men bargained for, nor anything that men desire, or perhaps
ought to desire ; it may or may not be an excellent doctrine
philosophically, but it will hardly do duty instead of a personal
immortality.
§ 7. The arguments against the possibility of a future are
at least equally inconclusive.
The most popular of these is also the most worthless ; for
the different forms of materialism are fatal only to the
mistaken dualism which regards body and soul as separable
entities. They do not touch the idealist view which refutes
the materialist inference from the facts by the reply that the
connexion of ' body ' and * soul ' is at least as well explained
by regarding Matter as a phase of the content of Spirit as vice
versa ( cp. ch. ix § 28).
§ 8. Idealistic criticism also enables us to see the incon-
clusiveness of the phenomena of death, which form a silent
but continual protest against the belief in a future life, all the
more forcible because it appeals to some of our deepest feel-
ings at times when our powers to resist the impression are
weakest.
He would indeed be a strangely constituted man who did
not in the presence of his beloved dead feel the unanswerable
impressiveness of death, the utter and irretrievable severance
which its agency effected. i\nd no argument or consolation
can get over the fact that whether or not the dead continue
to exist, they are lost to the survivors, and that the ties which
bound them to their earthly environment are broken. For
whatever mysteries the future may hold in store, no future
meeting, no recognition even, can be trusted to resume the
thread or to restore the sweetness of the human relations
death has severed, nor assure us that under conditions so
wholly different the charm of human relationships will be
renewed.
Immortality 3791
Though, therefore, we must thus renounce whatever hopes
we may have based on impure and imperfect relations rather
than upon the highest and purest of spiritual sympathies, we
must yet resist the impression of this spurious self-evidence
of the finality of death, and reassert against the impulses of
agonized feeling that the apparent need not be the real. We
may thus come to realize that our view of death is necessarily^
imperfect and one-sided. For we contemplate it only from
the point of view of the survivors, never from that of the
dying. We have not the least idea of what death means to
those that die. To iis it is a catastrophic change, whereby a
complex of phenomenal appearances, which we call the body
of the dead, ceases to suggest to us the presence of the
ulterior existence which we call his spirit. But seeing that
the existence of his spirit was never an object of direct
perception by us, but always an inference, albeit a natural
and irresistible inference, from the behaviour of his body, this
does not prove, nor even tend to prove, that the spirit of the
dead has ceased to exist. It merely shows that he has ceased
to form part of our littte ivorld, to interact, at least in the
way to which we had been accustomed, with our spirits. But
it is at least as probable that this result is to be ascribed
to his having been promoted or removed, as to his having
been destroyed.
For such suppositions nature offers us manifold analogies.
It would be a change similar to that whereby a being which
had lived the earlier stages of its life in the water, by a sudden
change in its organization, took to living in the air, as is
known to be the case with many insects. Hence it was not
by a mistaken fancy that the butterfly was at all times
regarded as the type of immortality. For the analogy is
really fairly complete : in both cases there occurs an ap-
parently catastrophic change in the mode of life, a breach in
the continuity of existence, a passing into a new environment
380 Riddles of the Sphinx
with very different functions and conditions. And in both
cases also there is left behind an empty shell to deride the
fears of those who cannot understand that identity can be
preserved through all the transformations of metamorphosis.
To judge by the first appearance of the cast-off slough, we
should deem the change, of which we see the symbol, to have
been that of death, and yet we now know that it indicates a
fresh phase of life. Is it then so bold a conjecture that by
the time when we know as much of the spiritual aspects of
existence as we now do of the physical, the dead body may
seem a shell as empty as the chrysalis from which the butter-
fly has flown, and as sure a token of release into a wider
sphere of life ?
But, it may be urged, is there not the great difficulty that
the chrysalis is empty, while the organization of the dead
body remains intact, and that we can trace the development
of the butterfly in the chrysalis, while we cannot see how the
spirit is prepared for its new life, as its old body gets worn
out with age : the change in the one case only seems
catastrophic, in the other it really is.
Such objections owe their undeniable plausibility to the
deficiencies of our knowledge and the grossness of our
perceptions. But for these there might be some hope of our
understanding that from a spiritual point of view the dead
body is really just as empty as the chrysalis, a meaningless
pnass of machinery, from which the motive force has been
withdrawn ; but as its emptiness is spiritual, and not visible
and palpable, we fail to see the parallelism.
So again it might be, if we lived more wisely, that the
body would not be outworn before the spirit wearied of its
life on earth, or before it had prepared for itself a spiritual
tenement, with which, at the summons of the angel of death,
it would soar aloft as gladly as the butterfly.
But yet again, it may be asked, if death is but change, why
Immortality 381
should the complex of phenomena we call the body be left
behind to decay, and to pollute a world from which the spirit
has departed ? But what would such critics have ? Would
they prefer that men at death should silently vanish away,
and be dissolved into air like ghosts ? Would this be a more
satisfactory mode of effecting one's exit? And does not,
after all, the objection on the ground of the decay of the body
rest upon a misconception ? There is no reason why the
body should not be preserved : death, as we now know, has
nothing to do with the decay of the body. For decay is a
phenomenon of life, not of death, of the life of the micro-
organisms that live upon the bodies of the dead. And is
there not a certain symbolic fitness in the persistence for a
season of the body in the phenomenal world in which the
spifit worked, and which its action will affect as long as that
world remains } It forms, as it were, a symbol of a spiritual
agency whose spiritual development has taken other forms,
and left this shell behind in its advance to higher phases of
existence.
There is no reason, therefore, why we should take the
phenomenon of death as conclusive of the matter, or regard it
as inconsistent with the conception of a spiritual process of
purification by means of the gradations of existence. For if
such be the essential meaning of the world-process, it is
evident that no indefinite stay can be made in any one stage,
and indeed none could permanently meet the spiritual
requirements. It is, moreover, pretty obvious in our case
that long life is by no means an unmixed blessing : for by an
intelligent mind the lessons of life are soon learnt, and while
the social environment remains what it is, the experience of a
protracted life is apt only to engender a conviction that all is
humbug, a cynical disbelief in all ideals and the possibility of
realizing them.
§ 9. Such considerations may tend to counteract the over-
382 Riddles of the Sphinx
whelming impressiveness of the fact of death, but they only
demonstrate the possibility of a future life. And moreover,
though death makes the strongest appeal to our feelings, the
doctrine of a future life involves a difficulty far more serious
in the eyes of reason. This difficulty arises out of the
impossibility of fixing the point at which immortality begins,
either in the beginning of the individual's life or in that of
the race. It seems so utterly impossible to attribute an
immortal, or indeed any sort of consciousness, to the material
rudiments of our individual existence; and the modern doctrine
of the descent of man makes it almost as impossible to do so
in the case of the race. The union of two minute particles
of matter is the historical origin, at all events, ol all conscious
beings ; and at what point in the historical development can
we introduce a transition from the material existence of the
germs, which exists only for consciousness, to the spiritual
existence of an immortal consciousness.?^ Or again, if all
living beings have been propagated from living protoplasm,
and if man is but the highest of the animals, but does not
differ from them in kind, how can we, in the infinite
gradations of spiritual evolution, draw a line anywhere to
separate men or animals who possess immortal souls from
those that do not? It would seem that they must all be
treated alike ; either all animals are immortal or none. And
yet, while some might welcome a belief in the immortality of
the higher animals, e.g. of dogs, how could any one admit
the immortality of an amoeba? And even if our generosity
rose to the absurd pitch of admitting it, how could we carry
this belief into practice? how should we discern the
immortality of beings which possess so little individuality?
Is every leaf or cell of a tree, and every segment of a
zoophyte — in short, every part of an organism which under
^ Cp. Mr. F. H. Bradley's Logic^ p. 466, for a forcible and frank
•discussion of this difficulty.
Immortality 383
favourable conditions is capable of independent existence —
an immortal individual? If so, can we multiply immortal
souls by dividing a jelly-fish ? Surely, when once the
question is definitely raised that we must be just as immortal
as the germs and protoplasms from which we sprang, the
answer our reason must give is that immortality is a
foolish dream.
§ 10. It is to be feared that reflections like these present
almost insuperable obstacles to the belief in a future life in
modern minds. But if they can be answered, their very
difficulty would make the answer the more satisfactory. Yet
no attempt at answering the difficulty can be successful
which does not realize where its real point lies. Its essence
lies in the fact that whereas consciousness and the conscious
life of spiritual beings is a matter of degree, it seems
impossible to admit degrees of immortality. It seems as
though a being must either have a future life or not, must
either be immortal or perish utterly. But if the lowest
passes into the highest forms of consciousness by a continu-
ous development, it is nowhere possible to draw a line of
demarcation, and to assert the immortality of man without
admitting that of the amoeba.
To assert the continuance of spiritual beings, therefore, it
would be requisite to assert gradations of immortality. We
must somehow distinguish between the case of the embryo
and the adult, between the highest man and the lowest
animal. We must, in short, discover degrees in a spiritual
evolution corresponding to the degrees of the physical
evolution.
§ II. Now, though these postulates may at first sight
appear strange and impossible, yet if we discard ancient
prejudices, they will not perhaps prove incapable of fulfilment.
We require, in the first place, a careful analysis of the
conditions on which a future life depends.
384 Riddles of the Sphinx
To have a real meaning, immortality must be personal
immortality ; i.e., it must involve in some sort the persistence
of the * I ' which in this life thinks, and feels, and wills. It
must preserve our personal identity, i.e., there must be
continuity of consciousness between the Self of this life and
of the next. The Buddhist doctrine of ' Kar-tna^ of a person
who is the resultant of one's actions, but does not share any
part of one's consciousness, is a miserable compromise
between the desires to deny the eternity of personal suffering
(for to Buddhism to exist is to suffer), and to retain the
moral stimulus of a belief in a future life. But it falls
between two stools, and does not satisfy the conditions of a
genuine future life. For it is impossible to regard the person
who inherits one's Karma as identical with oneself, or to feel
a responsible interest in his fate. His connexion with the
man whose Karma moulds his character and predestines his
circumstances seems purely arbitrary, and due to a tyrannous
constitution of things whose procedures we are not called
upon to endorse.
To a less degree, the same defect of failing adequately to
preserve the sense of personal identity in its doctrines of the
future life, is observable also in the current religious
eschatology, and is probably one of the chief reasons of its
practical ineffectiveness. We are led to think of the breach
in continuity as too absolute, and feel little real concern in
the angel or demon whom the catastrophe of our death
produces in another world.
If, then, a future life without self-identity is a meaningless
mockery, let us inquire on what self-identity depends. And
the answer seems plain that it primarily depends on nothing
else than memory. It is only by means of memory that we
can identify ourselves with our past ; it is only by memory
that we can hope to enjoy the fruits of present efforts in the
future. If every morning on awaking we had forgotten all
Immortality 385
that we ever did, if all the feelings, thoughts, hopes, fears and
aspirations of yesterday's self had perished overnight, we
should soon cease to regard to-morrow's self as a personage
in whom it was possible to take any rational interest, or for
whose future it was necessary or possible to provide. We
take an interest in our own future, because we believe that
we can forecast the feelings of the future self, because we
believe that the future self which enjoys the fruits of our
labours will be conscious of its past, because in a word
its welfare is organically connected with that of our present
self Thus, to all intents and purposes, self-identity, and
with it immortality, depend on memory.
§ 12, But ineuiory is a matter of degree. Here, then, we
have the key to a theory of immortality which will admit of
graduation. If we can conceive a future life, the reality of
which depends on memory, it will admit of less or more.
And if, as seems natural, the extent to which the events of
life are remembered depends largely on the intensity of
spiritual activity they implied, it follows that the higher and
intenser consciousness was during life, the greater the intensity
of future consciousness. Hence the amceba or the embryo,
with their infinitesimal consciousness, will possess only an in-
finitesimal memory of their past after death. And this for a
twofold reason : not only must the impress life produces upon
so rudimentary a consciousness generate only a very faint
memory, but the contents also of life will present little that is
capable of persisting and worthy of being retained. Thus
the lowest phases of spiritual existence will have nothing to
remember, and hardly any means of remembering it. We
cannot, therefore, ascribe to them any vivid or enduring
consciousness of their past lives, and yet need not deny it
altogether. They may have a future life, but it must be
rudimentary.
This view will open up to us an alternative to utter
-5
386 Riddles of the Sphinx
extinction or fully conscious immortality, and we shall no
longer be haunted with that nightmare of orthodoxy, the
vision of 'little children, a span long, crawling in hell' But
by a self-acting arrangement the condition of consciousness
hereafter will accurately correspond to its attainments here.
Just in proportion as we have developed our spiritual powers
here will be our spiritual future. Those who have lived the
life of beasts here, a dull and brutish life that was redeemed
by no effort to illuminate the soul by spiritual enlightenment,
will be rewarded as ' the beasts that perish.' They will
retain little of what they were, their future life will be brief
and faint. On the other hand, we need not hesitate to
attribute to the faithful dog, whom the strength of pure affec-
tion for his master has lifted far above the spiritual level of
his race, at least as much immortality as to the brutal savage,
whose life has been ennobled by no high thoughts and
redeemed by no elevating feeling.^ Those, again, whose
activities have been devoted to the commission of evil deeds,
that burn their impress on the soul, may well be haunted by
their torturing memory. Those who have trained and
habituated themselves to high and noble activities, who have
disposed their thoughts towards truths which are permanent
and their affections towards relations which are enduring,
may rise to life everlasting, because they will have actions
worthy of memory to look back upon. The cup of Circe, the
For, as Goethe well says {Faust, Pt. 2, Act 3 s.f.) : —
' Wer keinen Namen sich erwarb noch Edles will
Gehort den Elementen an : so fahret hin —
Mit meiner Konigin zu sein verlangt mich heiss :
Nicht nur Verdienst, auch Treue, wahrt uns die Person.'
[They that have won no name, nor willed the right,
Dissolve into the elements — so pass away !
But / to follow on my queen do ardently desire ;
Not merit only, but attachment, keeps our personality.]
Im77tortality 387
debasing draught of forgetful ness, which turns men into
beasts, and renders them oblivious of their divine destiny, will
pass from them. They will be capable of remembering their
past life, glad to retrace the record of great and noble deeds
and lofty aspirations, the promise of a spiritual progress they
have since nobly fulfilled. Nor will the memory of the past
fade until it pleases them to forget it in the ecstasy of still
sublimer activities. Thus each of us will be the master and
maker of his own self and of his own immortality, and his
future life will be such as he has deserved.
§ 13. But it may be objected that memory does not last
for ever, and that hence a future life depending on it would
endure but for a season. The fact that this and several other
objections might be brought against the views we have hinted
at, should admonish us of the necessity of dropping the
negative method of criticizing inconclusive arguments, and
of proceeding at length to a connected account of a positive
doctrine. It may be a salutary and necessary discipline to
begin at the beginning as it appears to us, to start with the
•obvious difficulties which a subject presents to our first attack ;
but after such efforts have cleared the ground, we must
penetrate to the real root of the matter. Hence it is necessary
to supplement the results of critical discussion of perplexities
by a systematic exposition, and may begin by suggesting
an ultimate positive ground for the belief in immortality.
§ 14. The only decisive ground either for asserting or for
denying so final a belief as that in immortality would seem to
be metaphysical. It is only the all-devouring One of Monism
which can make the permanent existence of the Many
impossible ; it is only the plurality of ultimate existences
which can finally make it possible. The belief in the
ultimate self-existence of spirits, uncreated, uncaused, that are
and ever have been and can never cease to be, seems to be
the only adequate ground for asserting the immortality of the
38 B Riddles of the Sphinx
individual. And this ground has been secured by the prefer-
ence given to Pluralism over Monism (ch. x §§ 21-23), ^"d hy
our account of the Transcendental Ego as the reconciliation
of idealism and science and as the explanation of the material
world (ch. ix §§ 22, 24, 26-31.)
How then does our doctrine bear on the question before us >
It seems to follow necessarily and at once from the pluralistic
answer given to the ultimate question of ontology that the
ultimate existences are eternal and immortal. This implication
however would apply primarily to the Transcendental Egos
that underlie our phenomenal selves. Only to the extent
therefore to which we are to be identified with ultimate
existences and transcendental Egos — would it follow that we
are immortal. But, as the whole world-process was taken to
be a process occurring in the interaction between the Egos
and the Deity, the various stages of material evolution would
correspond to different phases of that spiritual interaction.
Parallel, therefore, to the physical evolution, there would run
a spiritual evolution, related to it as meaning and motive to
outward and visible manifestation. There would be, however,
no reason why this process should not be the development,
not of Spirit in general, but of particular spirits, nor why a
single Ego should not pass through the succession of organ-
isms and developments of consciousness, from the amoeba to
man, and from man to perfection. This would give, as it
were, the spiritual interpretation of the descent of man from
the beasts, and at the same time assure him of his due and
proportionate share in the immortality of the ultimate
spirit.
§ 15. But though the plurality of ultimate existence would
afford the only adequate guarantee of immortality, it seems too
remote from the phenomena of our world to be at once appealed
to in settling the nature oi our future life. The postulates of
this ultimate philosophy seem to lack connexion with the
Immortality 389
facts of the physical order, and it is clear that as to this
connexion a considerable variety of doctrine mif^ht prevail.
We may admit without derogating from the substantial truth
of our suggestion, that our data are not yet adequate for us to
regard speculations concerning the connexion of our present
selves with the ultimate spirits as more than probable guesses,
to be ratified or modified by the course of future discovery.
Hence, though it may be laid down generally that the ultimate
spirits manifest themselves in the phenomenal, it is yet
necessary to ask what is the relation of such an eternal spirit
to its successive phases, which form our phenomenal exist-
ences, and in what sense can these be said to have a future
h'fe ? Upon the answer to this question it will depend whether
we can continue to speak of our future life in any ordinary
sense.
Now, that the insufficiency of our data renders the question
a difficult one, it would be affectation to deny. And the
reflection that with a little more knowledge the greatest
obscurities would become plain fails also to assist our fainting
imagination. But some idea of the facts may perhaps be
conveyed by the aid of a simile.
If the world-process aims at impressing the divine image
upon the hard metal of the Ego and conforming it to a higher
purpose, then each phenomenal life may be supposed to stamp
some faint impression on its substance. As the impressions
are multiplied, they gradually mould the Ego into the required
shape, and each successive impress, working upon materia]
already more completely fitted into shape, produces a more
definite impression of itself, and also fashions more definitely
that which it impresses. As the material comes nearer to its
final shape its resistance becomes less, and each impress
produces fewer features which must be erased as divergent
from the ideal. Or, in other words, the spiritual value of the
lower stages of consciousness is small ; they produce their
390 Riddles of the Sphmx
effect only by their repetition and multiplication. But as
the higher grades of individuality are reached, the spiritual
significance of a single phenomenal life is intensified, and it
leaves a more enduring mark upon the nature of the spirit.
If, therefore, it is asked in what sense the phenomenal phases
of the spirit's development persist and continue, we must
answer generally, that they persist as factors in the develop-
■ment. The future lives of the spirit are the resultant of its
past. But the individual impress of a single life persists only
in so far as it has coincided with the course of spiritual
development. So, too, the impressions produced by single
blows upon a coin persist only in so far as their shape coin-
cided with that to be ultimately produced ; the individual
divergences and eccentricities of a single impress are obli-
terated by their multiplication. Thus in away, the good, i.e.y
the action in the line of upward development, would be im-
mortal, however humble the sphere in which it was enacted :
the good character would persist even when it was absorbed
and included in a higher stage of development, for such
development would only be the natural and necessary develop-
ment of the highest aspirations of the lower life.
This mode of spiritual progression moreover is not an
arbitrary conjecture of our fancy concerning a transcendent
sphere of which we know nothing ; it is the law of all life
even now. It is the law whereby all organisms take up and
assimilate what they can utilize, i.e., what serves their purposes^
and reject what they cannot ; it is the law whereby the world-
process preserves what promotes its purpose, viz., the good,,
and dissolves the rest away. And this law may be traced
throughout all individual and social progress. To be im-
pressed by any experience requires the previous attainment of
a certain correspondence between the agent and the patient ;
to be persistent, the impression must be not only congenial
to the nature impressed, but consonant with the line of its
l7nmortality 391
development. A lasting impression, in other words, is one
which is important to us, not only for a moment but for the
course of our history ; if it runs counter to our nature and
our history, its influence is rapidly obliterated. And so with
events that had little intrinsic importance, i.e., little spiritual
significance ; they are forgotten and their effect is evanescent.
For memory is not indiscriminate : it selects what is significant
and thus preserves it : and yet again all the experience that
moulds the character, though it may be forgotten, has not
wholly perished, for it persists in the resultant habits. More-
over what is true of impressions is true also of persons and of
actions ; in social progress also it is emphatically not true
that 'the evil that men do lives after them.' Like a polluted
stream, the course of history runs itself clear of the errors and
crimes of the unconscious or unwilling human instruments of
the divine purpose : the blindness and perversity of its
champions cannot stop the progress of a good cause. On the
other hand, it is vain to struggle against the spirit of the ages
and the necessities of evolution ; neither virtue nor genius can
prop a falling cause. Christianity triumphed in spite of the
murder of Hypatia ; but Demosthenes could not save Athens,
nor Hannibal Carthage, and Cato could not recall the ghost
of Roman freedom by the blood of his self-sacrifice. Force
may effect reactions that run counter to the course of things,
but they soon pass away, and leave no trace behind. How
much remained of the constitution of Sulla, or of the restored
rule of the Bourbons, twenty years after its institution .'*
Thus all the elements of the lower phases of life that are
capable of development may be transformed into the higher,
and the continuous thread of consciousness need not be
broken. Such a continuity of the phases of consciousness is
really sufficient to secure also the identity of the self, for
though self-identity depend on memory, it is not necessary
that the memory should be perfect. It is not necessary that
392 Riddles of the Sphinx
we should remember all we did ten years ago in order to feel
ourselves the same persons now as then, nor need we expect
to remember all we feel now, in order to identify ourselves
with ourselves ten years hence. The continuity of the chain
of consciousness suffices at present to constitute the identity,
even though from any given point the remoter links have
passed out of sight ; and hence it is not impossible to ascribe
a future life in a sense to all conscious beings in so far as they
possess a continuous memory.
Nevertheless it would not be until the higher stages of
individuality and spiritual development are reached that the
phenomenal self of any single life, i.e., the memory of its
past, can be supposed to form a predominant, or even an
important, factor in the total or final consciousness of the
Ego, or one that can display any great permanence. The
lower phases of Evolution would not generate sufficient
psychical energy to attain to any considerable degree of im-
mortality. For as we saw (§ 12), the continuance of life
depends on memory, and memory on the intensity of the
impression thoughts and feelings make upon the soul, and on
the whole the capacity to retain impressions corresponds to
the degree of spiritual development.
But how does all this apply to man } Shall we assert that
man has reached a sufficient height of spiritual evolution so
that the human soul, the phenomenal self of our earth-life,
persists as human? Certainly man seems in many cases to
show such capacity for thoughts more than human, for a
' love that is stronger than death,' that it would seem
monstrous to deny him the intensity of consciousness which
substantially preserves his personality. And yet, when we
look upon the sordid lives of others, whose outlook is
limited to the grossest features of this world, we cannot but
feel that the persistence of their personalities would be only
an obstacle to the development of their spirit. And so it will
Immortality 393
perhaps seem a probable compromise to make the aspirations
of the soul, i.e., the fitness and willingness of the phenomenal
self to adapt itself to the conditions of a higher spiritual life,
the test of immortality, and to suppose that the desire of con-
tinuance, whether widely or exceptionally felt, affords a fairly
adequate measure of personal survival. We need not suppose
that personal immortality will be forced on those whose phe-
nomenal self has not desired it nor prepared itself to survive
death, and who make no effort to preserve the memory of
their past, nor yet that those should be baulked who have
really and intensely desired it. And for these latter the
practical outcome of this doctrine cannot be formulated more
truly and more concisely than in the maxim of Aristotle, oaca
juLaXia-Ta dOavarl^eiv, ^ bidding them * as far as possible to
lead the life of immortality,' on earth, i.e., to live constantly
in communion with the ideal, and in co-operation with the
aim of the world's evolution.
§ 16. Such are the outlines of a theory of immortality
which would liieet the main difficulties of the subject, and
explain how a future life can admit of gradations pro-
portioned to the grades and conditions of consciousness.
But our account would be incomplete if it did nothing to
elucidate several points not yet touched upon. The easiest
misconception, e.o^., to fall into would be that of regarding the
Ego as a reality wholly different from the self. It has
already been remarked, and must here be emphasized again,
that the Ego is not to be conceived as a second and alien
■consciousness concurrent with and distinct from the selves
{cp. ch. ix § 22). The self or selves (ch. ix § 2^) are simply
the actually conscious part of the Ego, which represents the
potentialities of their development on the one hand and their
primary and pre-cosmic condition on the other. The Ego
^ Et/i. Nic. X. 7, 8.
foX
394 Riddles of the Sphinx
is both the basis of the development and its end, but within
the process the selves alone are real. For as will be shown
in the next chapter, both the pre-cosmic basis and the post-
cosmic end, though necessarily implied in and inferred from
the cosmic process, belong- to a radically different order of
things from our present world of Becoming, and the Ego
does not as such enter into the cosmos. Even if, therefore,
we adopted a supposition which may perhaps commend
itself from a moral point of view, that after death, in the
intervals, as it were, of its incarnations, the Ego recovered a
fuller consciousness and the memory of some or all of its
past lives, these lucid intervals, though they might produce
great moral effects, would not in themselves form part of the
phenomenal development, and the latter would appear to be
continuous from phase to phase of phenomenal consciousness.
§ 17. Secondly, we must consider some of the objections
likely to be made to a doctrine involving the pre-existence of
the soul, although no apology should really be needed. For
no rational argument in favour of immortality can be devised
that will not tell as strongly in favour of the pre-existence as
of the post-existence of the soul, and this has been fully
recognized by all rational defenders of immortality from, the
time of Plato downwards. It would in fact, as we saw in § 4,
be hard to defend the only alternative theories of
Traducianism and Creationism without a high degree of
either moral obliquity or intellectual obtuseness.
In addition to the somewhat negative merit, of being the
only possible theory, it is one which has been becoming
progressively more credible. In early times, while our
earth was regarded as the centre of the universe and the only
abode of intelligent beings, the theory of pre-existence and
transmigration was liable to be discredited by very homely
objections. The limitation of the total number of available
souls would either limit, or be refuted by, the increase of
Innnortality 395
population, while their confinement to a single world pre-
cluded the idea of anything like a real or rapid progress of
the individual souls. They had to be reincarnated in our
world, until, as the history of Hinduism and Buddhism showed,,
the doctrine of transmigration, with its endless round of
purposeless re-births, became a terror such that men eagerly
grasped at the idea of annihilation as a release from the
vicissitudes of life. But now the knowledge of the plurality
of worlds has relieved the doctrine of the first difficulty,
while the theory of the ascent which is strangely nick-named
that of the descefit of man, and of the transformations of
animals into men, shows that the process of transmigration
need not be devoid of the elements of progress. Is it not
curious, again, that whereas nothing formerly brought more
ridicule upon the belief in metempsychosis than its inference
that the souls of men had previously animated the bodies of
animals, this very pedigree of the human soul should have
been rendered credible and probable by the discoveries of ^y^^^«^
modern science "^ If the Darwinian theory of descent compels xj/^T^^l
us to assert that the soul of man has been developed out ^'^^U^
of the souls of animals, what difficulty remains in the '^V--l^3(
supposition that each individual soul has passed through the a^^'^m^
stages of this same development .^ "^^^txX/ju,
Again, the objection to pre-existence, on the ^ground of '^'v^^^
our failure to remember anything about • our past lives, -^^^^^y^
has distinctly diminished in cogency. / We have learnt too ''^^^-i^
well what a curiously uncertain thing memory is to attach
much weight to its disabilities. For, in the first place, the
absence of memory may be perfectly accounted for
teleologically on grounds of adaptation. The memory of
such a past as we should probably have had would have
been a most troublesome equipment, a most disabling ,
burden, in the battle of life. For the recollection of our
past faults and past failures would, in the present state of
39^ Riddles of the Sphinx
our spiritual development, be a most fatal obstacle to the
freshness and hopefulness with which we should encounter
life's present problems. Whatever, therefore, may be the
•case hereafter, it seems clear that the cultivation of a wise
forgetfulness was the condition of spiritual progress in the
past ; a short memory was necessary, if the burden of
unbearable knowledge was not to crush our spirit. Oblivion
is the only forgiveness of sins that nature sanctions.
Secondly, in the face of the growing evidence of how the
right manipulations may revive the memory of what seemed
to have perished beyond recovery {cp. ch. ix § 28 s.f.), it
would be rash indeed to assert that the progress of
psychological experiment should not, by some as yet un-
discovered process, enable us actually to remember our past.
And lastly, it should be observed that whatever the
evidential value of our obliviousness of our past lives, it
applies equally to very large, especially the earlier, portions
of our present life. No one has any but second-hand QYid^ncQ
of the earlier stages of his existence on earth ; our belief
in our birth rests upon testimony, and is confirmed by in-
ference ; we believe the tales of our entry into the world,
because we infer that we must have come into it somehow.
And the inference as to our pre-existence is of a precisely
similar kind, though, it may be, of inferior cogency {cp. ch. x
§ 29). Why then should we not believe the testimony of
our reason as to our past existence, because there is no other
mode of accounting for our present existence, and believe in
pre-existence, because it is the only reasonable inference from
the observed facts "i
§ 18. But there remains one very real and serious
objection to our eschatology, as to all theories of pre-
existence, and indeed to all belief in a future life. This is
the apparent conflict between it and the conception of
heredity. If our parents fashion our bodies for us, and if our
Immortality 397
souls are the souls of our particular bodies, how can
a pre-existing spirit enter them from without ? If our
character and circumstances are the inherited results of the
past action of our parents, how can they be the result of the
past action of our Ego, and the reward of conduct in a
previous life ?
The difficulty is serious and must not be trifled with or
evaded. It will not do to deny the fact of heredity, and
still less to limit its scope by distinguishing that part of the
soul which is inherited from that which pre-exists. The one
device would display only our scientific ignorance, the other
our metaphysical incompetence {cp. \ 6).
But perhaps, we may say, the dilemma in which the
objection seeks to place us is a false one, and the alterna-
tives of ' either fashioned by our parents or by our spirit ' are
not so exclusive as they might at first sight appear. For
why should we not be fashioned Iwth by our parents and by "/p^^^^
our own past, in different ways } The possibility of this '^^^^"'^
solution appears at first somewhat of a mystery, but we
ought by this time to have acquired a sufficient distrust of
pseudo-mysteries not to jump at the conclusion that any
difficulty we can formulate is beyond the bounds of the
human reason.
For, admitting the general doctrine that the character of
the offspring is inherited from the parents, we may raise the
question of what determines the particular mixture which
constitutes a particular character. The parents possess an
indefinite number of potentialities that may possibly be
inherited, and these, again, may be commingled in an
indefinite number of ways. But the character actually in-
herited is a definite combination of these potential qualities,
and what determines the way in which it is actually
combined .'* It is not enough to know generally that the
parents supply the materials of the new combination ; we
39 8 Riddles of the Sphinx
must know also by what selection the materials are arranged
in a definite order.
Now if we supposed that this proportion in which the
various dispositions of the parents entered into the character
of the offspring was really determined by the character of the
spiritual entity which the parents were capable of providing
with a suitable organism, we should at all events have devised
a method which rendered pre-existence compatible with
heredity. For there is no apparent break in the chain of
natural causes : the whole character of the offspring is in-
herited from the parents. But as the limits within which
heredity is possible are very wide, the spiritual selection is
supposed to work within them. And as no direct evidence
.can ever prove^that an indefinite number of other combin-
ations would not have equally well satisfied all the known or
knowable conditions of all the physical factors, it is clear that
our theory can never be disproved by the facts of heredity.
On the contrary, it might perhaps serve to explain some of its
most perplexing physical aspects, such as the origination of
the so-called * accidental variations ' which play so important
a part in biological history. At present the variations which
produce a man of genius or generate a new species, are to
science utterly inexplicable ; for that is the meaning of
* accidental.' The constitution of the parents no doubt
renders them possible, for else they would not occur ; but it
in no wise explains them. For they are cases which border
upon the impossible, and what is wanted is some explanation
of how and why these exceptional possibilities are
occasionally realized, and how the forces which resist any
divergence from the normal combinations are occasionally
overcome. And we delude ourselves if we suppose that we
have cast any light upon the subject by adducing the parallel
of exceptional combinations in the realm of mathematical
probabilities. For in throwing dice, e.g., no one combination
Immortality 399
is in itself any more probable than any other, nor is there
any force acting so as to make the succession of i, 2, 5 any
easier than three sixes. It is only because there are possible
so many more of the combinations we call ordinary,
that they occur more frequently, and no greater energy is
required to throw ten sixes in succession than to throw any
other series.
But a case of heredity is totally different. The forces
tending to reproduce in the offspring something like the
average character of the race must preponderate so
enormously, that the resistance to any marked divergence
from it must be incalculably great, and increase in
geometrical proportion the more marked the divergence
becomes. That is to say, it is immensely more difficult to
throw the rare combination, not merely because there are so
many more of the ordinary ones, but because far more force
is required, because the dice are so cogged as to make it
nearly impossible. Hence it is useless to appeal to the
calculus of probabilities as to a deus ex machiria to help us
out of the difficulty : we must recognize that every case of
variation requires a definite and relatively very powerful force
to produce it. But where is this force to come from ?
Surely not from the physical conditions of generation "i For
these do not vary greatly in the generation of a genius and
of a duffer. And besides, how should minute differences of
times and seasons and temperature and manner, etc., have
such disproportionate psychical effects t
But let us indulge science in these a priori prejudices, and
admit that in some way, not to be further explained, the
physical circumstances at the time of generation determine
with which out of an indefinite number of possible characters
the offspring is to be provided. Even so the question we
have raised will only recur in another form, and we must ask
what determines generation to take place at the particular
400 Riddles of the Sphinx
moment when it will result in a particular character of the
offspring. For here again the field of selection is extremely
wide, and it would surely be an immensely impressive fact
that a moment's delay or precipitation may make all the
difference, for good and for evil, in the natural endowment
of the offspring.
So we must, from the strictly physical point of view,
answer, that the circumstances, which determine at which
out of all possible moments generation shall, take place^
depend on another set of ulterior circumstances. And if the
questioner pertinaciously inquires again on what these circum-
stances in their turn depend, he must be told, on another set
of circumstances, and these again on another, and so on
indefinitely, until he realizes that he has unwittingly
launched forth into an infinite regress of causes, which
deludes him with a semblance of explanation, but baffles
all attempts to arrive at a real and final answer. And then,,
if we have the courage really to think out the question, and
do not give up the pursuit of truth faintheartedly so soon
as our imagination wearies and our attention is relaxed, the
perception may begin to dawn upon us that physical
causation in the phenomenal sphere is not, perhaps, the
only, nor ultimately the most satisfactory, mode of ex-
plaining a fact.
§ 19. It is quite possible for the same event to be
conditioned in two different ways, teleologically and
historically, by a reason as w^ell as by what we somewhat
ambiguously call a cause. And it is only human incon-
sistency which sees any difficulty in this. For it is nothing
but inconsistency, to limit teleological causation by reasons
to conscious human action, and to refuse to extend it to-
all things, i.e., to deny the complete parallelism of the
processes of nature and of our minds, while we yet assert
their partial parallelism by asserting the existence of physical
Immortality 401
causation. For the assertion of the reality of causation
assumes this similarity of mind and nature to some extent ;
and if we must assume it in so7ne form to make science
possible, why should we not assume it in its complete form,
and thereby do away with the difficulties in which our
inconsistent assumptions involve us ? If cause is a postulate
which we do right to attribute to nature, why should we not,
while we are about it, attribute it in its complete form as the
final cause^ in which it is no longer a category which
refutes itself? There may be some ground for objecting
to final causes from a thoroughly sceptical point of view,
which does not admit that the world of appearances can
validly be interpreted by us {cp. ch. iii § 11) ; but from the
standpoint of science, which admits this assumption, such
an objection surely strains at gnats while swallowing camels
{cp. ch. vii § 6).
§ 20. It would be, moreover, ridiculous affectation to
assert that we are not perfectly familiar with several such
instances of double causation. Our daily life supplies
abundant examples of actions which are physically caused
by one set of persons and teleologically by another. The
man who publishes a report of the discovery of fabulously
rich gold mines, with the purpose of attracting immigrants,
is at least as truly the cause of the resulting 'rush' as the
leg-muscles of the gold diggers. So everything in the
nature of a plan, plot, or device for influencing the action
of others implies agents who consciously or unconsciously
give effect to the purposes of others. But the phenomenon
can be studied most clearly and unmistakably in post-
hypnotic suggestions. It is suggested to a hypnotized
subject that he is to do a certain action on awaking : when
he awakes he has no memory of the suggestion, but executes
the order, if it be not one palpably absurd and repugnant
to his habits, without the slightest suspicion that it has been
26
402 Riddles of the Sphinx
in any way determined by any extraneous cause: on the
contrary, if inquiries are made, he will even proceed to
give reasons for doing what he did, which would satisfy
every one who was not aware of the real cause of the action
in the hypnotic suggestion/ Such examples should make
us realize, however much we may struggle against the
admission, that our causes are always reasons and must be
so from the constitution of our minds, and that with a
moderate amount of ingenuity a great variety of reasons can
be given for any action. It is therefore a mere superstition
to suppose that we ever arrive at the knowledge of a
physical cause so absolute that it does not admit of an
alternative. The so-called 'cause' is simply the antecedent
selected as most convenient and relevant for the particular
purpose of the inquiry. Hence, so soon as any considerable
interests are involved, it will always be possible to support
each of them with a show of reason, and the only error of
such reasonings often is that they are deemed mutually
exclusive.
Nor is it merely in the phenomena of daily life and of
psychical science that we are familiar with the reality of
double causation, but no less in the religious doctrine of an
over-ruling Providence, i.e.^ of an agency which shapes the
course of natural causation in accordance with a pre-
conceived purpose.
^ The evidence for this is not very abundant, but sufficient. To
test the range of suggestion, what is suggested should be congenial
with the subject's nature. But unfortunately experiments have hitherto
aimed chiefly at establishing the fact of suggestion, and hence the
actions suggested have been intentionally made repugnant to the
subjects, and such as they clearly would not perform of their own
accord. But even though the experiments were specially calculated
to arouse in the subject's mind suspicion as to their source, the
absurdity of the suggested action may reach an alarming height
without arousing any suspicion of an extraneous origin. Cp. Proc,
Psychical Soc.^ vol. III. p. i.
Immortality 403
But the philosophic truth which underlies all these facts
and all these beliefs is one and the same — that of the
naltimate supremacy of the final cause. It is this superiority
of the final cause which preserves the conception of causa-
tion from self-refutation, and which can alone give a real
explanation of the world-process. For it is only as the
gradual realization of some pre-existent purpose that the
process has any real meaning.
§ 21. These considerations open up several ways in which
pre-existence is compatible with heredity.
In the first place, as the ultimate explanation of every-
thing is teleological, i.e., relative to the end of the world-
process, it may be argued that the parents must be in the
last resort held to transmit (pertain qualities to their offspring
in order to further the development of the pre-existent spirits.
For the parents are such as they are, their parents are such
as they are, and so on, everything is such as it is, until the
metaphysical or first cause of the world-process is reached
which is also its final cause, and acts in a certain way in
order to promote that process.
And secondly, it is possible to conceive that just as the
hypnotic operator can affect the will of his subjects without
their knowledge, so the spiritual entity influences the
parents so to fashion the organism of the offspring as is
required by its nature and its needs.
Thus the assertions that we are descended from angels and
ascended from beasts, that we are, {a) phases in the develop- ,
ment of ultimate spiritual entities, {b) the resultants of the
historical development of our ancestors, do not clash ; for
they formulate the process from different points of view.
And not only do they not clash, but they supplement each
other : they are both of them in their own way, valid and
indispensable. The second statement will continue to be
Ihe most serviceable for most of the ordinary purposes of
J
404 Riddles of the Sphinx
life, and in the view of a physical science which is not
concerned to raise the question of the ultimate nature of
things and the final meaning of its own assertions. But
the first will be the truest and completest statement, and
that most expressive of the highest aspirations of our moral
nature. It will enable us not merely to accept heredity
as a fact but also to understand it, to give a rational
interpretation of the part it plays in the scheme of things..
§ 22. For when heredity is considered, not in abstract
isolation as a scientific fact, but in its connexion with
the totality of things, it will be found to be only an extreme
manifestation or illustration of the solidarity of things.
This principle, of which the highest generalization of
physics, the all-sustaining forc^ of gravity, forms one of
the lowest instances, may be traced in its manifold applica-
tions throughout the sphere of sociology. The present
throughout depends on the past, alike in the case of the
social organism collectively and of its members individually.
We inherit the institutions, the material and intellectual
products of the labours of our ancestors collectively, just
as surely as we inherit their bodies individually, and
posterity in its turn will inherit the conditions of life such
as we have made them. And perhaps the spiritual in-
heritance of the social environment is hardly less important
than the .physical heritage which is directly transmitted.
Thus the significance and raison d'etre of heredity would
lie in its emphasizing in the most impressive way, in a way
that none can fail to feel, this solidarity of all living beings,
this continuity of the world-process, and in forcing us to
realize what we saw in chapter viii is the great law of that
process, viz., that the individual must be developed in and by
a social medium, and is in every way dependent on it, depen-
dent on it for his very existence in the world. But though we
regard the teleological significance of .heredity to be its asser-
Immortality 405
tion of the solidarity of the spiritual universe, this is no reason
why we should deny that there may also be spiritual affinities
of a special and personal nature, underlying and inspiring
the physical fact of relationship. For why should the
grouping of men in their social environment be any more
accidental and devoid of spiritual significance than the whole
process of that environment ? If so, our relationship to our
family, nation, race, etc., might point to more intimate
spiritual connexions than those which exist with beings
who are excluded from these ties. The ties of kindred and
our whole position in the social world, we may surely take
to result from the hidden action of spiritual affinities, and
be as little the work of lawless chance as the grouping of
the stellar spheres in obedience to the attractions of the
physical universe.
§ 23. This hint of closer and more exclusive spiritual
connexions may serve to introduce the last difficulty in
the relation of the Ego to the phenomenal self which it
will be necessary to discuss. We recognized in chapter
viii (§ 14) that the idea of individuality was scarce dis-
tinguishable in the lowest grades of being, and that even
in man it was far from being completely realized (ch. viii §
18). We admitted further, in § 9 of this chapter, that the
indistinctness of individuality, especially in the lower
organisms, was a serious obstacle to the attribution of
immortality to them. Hence the question presents itself
whether a single Ego corresponds to each ^//^j-/-individual,
or whether several phenomenal organisms may not be the
concurrent manifestations of the same Ego .''
The answer given to this question is not of course a
matter that affects our ultimate principles, and it would be
quite admissible to answer it by a non liquet from a scientific
point of view, but it yet seems preferable on cesthetic grounds
to deny that in beings with a scarcely developed conscious-
4o6 Riddles of the Sphinx
ness an ultimate spirit need correspond to each phenomenal.
quasi-\n^\Vvdi\X2\. And the analogy of the * secondary selves *
within ourselves {cp. ch. viii § i8) will enable us to under-
stand how several relatively-separate streams of conscious-
ness can co-exist within the same entity, and how unsafe
it is to argue from temporary exclusiveness to ultimate
distinctness. We may hold, then, that the individual cells
of a tree or the individual polypes of a zoophyte are the
' secondary selves ' of the lower organisms ; nor need the
fact that they possess distinct physical organizations and
are under the proper conditions capable of spatially separate
existence, perplex us when we reflect that spatiality had not.
on analysis to be taken as an ultimate form of reality (ch..
ix § lo).
It is more interesting to consider to what extent this
equivalence of a plurality of phenomenal existence to a
single ultimate existence may be traced in human beings.
That it affords a plausible explanation of the perplexing
phenomena of multiplex personality has been already
mentioned (ch. viii § i8, ix § 23).
§ 24. And perhaps we may discover indications tending
towards the same conclusion in the deepest and most
momentous distinction of the social life, the distinction of
Sex.
Sex may be taken as a mark of imperfect individuation,,
for neither men nor women are sufficient for themselves or
complete representatives, either physically or spiritually, of
humanity. A distinction, therefore, whereby the unity of the
human spirit is rent in twain by the antithesis of contrary
polarities, presents a problem well worthy of the deepest
philosophic thought, and one which physiological explanations
do little to elucidate. Historically, Sex seems to be a
differentiation of digestion {cp. ch. iv § 12), but even a
biologist will sometimes find it hard to regard it historicaJJy.
Immortality 407
Hence it has, at all times and from the most various principles,
seemed to men, from Plato down to the late Laurence Oliphant,
that in the fact of Sex they were face to face with the traces
of a disruption of the original unity of the human spirit,,
or, as we might perhaps amend it, of a unity not yet
attained.
But the significance of Sex and the metaphysics of Love
form a subject too large and too contentious for an essay like
ours, and we need merely consider it in its relations to the
doctrines we have propounded, without attempting a full and
scientific account of the matter. It may be that the distinc-
tion of sex will pass away in a higher stage in the evolution
of spirit than the present, even as it came into being at
a lower, and that in the kingdom of heaven there will be no
marrying or giving in marriage. It may be that the feelings
themselves afford the surest evidence of the lack of unity in
their longing for union, and that the desire of perfect love of
transcending its self and * at one with that it loves in one
undivided Being blending ' ^ formulates a metaphysical ideal
of which vulgar passion is but a feeble reflexion and
caricature. It may be that this desire for the merging
of one personality in another ( Verschmelzungs-sehnsucJity
as V. Hartmann calls it) is the specific differentia which,
by the consentaneous testimony of poets and philosophers, ^^x*^x^
distinguishes love from other forms of affection, though by <^^^yv*J^
the testimony of mystics and monists, it is also the feeling
with which the universe inspires them. Possibly, however,
this emotional impulse foreshadows the formation of
coalesced existences of a higher order than our present
partial and imperfect selves. It may be that there is truth
in such speculations, and even that they explain points
^ Fitzgerald's translation of J ami's Salaimm and Absal. We have
quoted from an Oriental, because he is perhaps the least likely to be
suspected of taking too idealist a view.
4o8 Riddles of the Sphinx
which would otherwise have remained obscure, such as, e.g.^
the great development of romantic love at the very time
when the growth of reason might be supposed to render its
stimulus even more unnecessary than it is among animals
and savages for the maintenance of the race, and to make
its essential illusion, the fusion of two spirits into one, seem
more of an impossibility. On all these points there will be
great differences of opinion, arising largely from the facts
that most people feel even more confusedly than they think,
that they mean very different things by the term love, and
that love is generally, and perhaps necessarily, a very mixed
feeling (including very often, e.g., an element of that aesthetic
feeling which in its purity manifests itself as the worship of
the Beautiful) ; but it will hardly be profitable here to combat
the objections which easily suggest themselves, and which
make up by their obviousness for what they may be lacking
in profundity. Thus to dismiss the philosophy of love by
saying that * they shall be one fleshy and that this is the
whole meaning of the desire to be one spirit, is to appeal
to a coarsely physical method of explanation, which is as
good as explanations of the higher by the lower usually are
{cp. ch. vi § 3) ; but it should at this point be unnecessary
to show in detail why it is misleading.
The essential points for which one might well contend are
that such a metaphysic of love need not in any wise affect
either the practical value of our doctrine of immortality nor
the philosophic principles on which it rests. It need not
affect its emotional value, because ex hypothesi the basis of
the evidence for the explanation suggested is emotional, and
it is our desire for the coalescence of imperfect personalities
which suggests its possibility. Hence there would be for the
individual no loss, but gain : whatever may be lost of
individual immortality is lost because it is the soul's desire,
is lost because what is gained in return is a higher good which
Immortality 409
^s desired more intensely than what is sacrificed, ^o that it
would not be true that the self is lost by being absorbed and /^ y
growing one with what it loves ; it would be lost as little as ^'
our earth-life would be lost by emerging into a higher phase
of being (§ 15).) 000
Nor again would this speculation contain anything that
need modify our view of the world-process ; it rather
confirms it. Despite a more or less genuine craving of
certain mystics to dissolve all distinctions in undiscriminating
ecstasy, one cannot argue from a possible fusion of imperfect
into perfect persons to an impossible confusion of all things
in the absolute One. We need not therefore abandon our
view of the personality or individuality of ultimate existence ;
indeed, the very fact that human personality is still ioiperfect
is the best testimonial to the value of personality as the ideal
{cp. ch. viii § 19). "^It is only at first sight that this meta- ,^
physic of love seems to conflict with the universal principle *
of the development of individuality ; for it also aims at com-
pleting a personality.^
But though such an apparent exception ultimately proves
the rule, it must yet be admitted to do so by exceptional
means, forming a certain antithesis to the other aspects of the
evolution of perfect individuals in a perfect society. For it
is undeniable that love in its higher developments is to some
extent an anti-social force, because its exclusive attraction
contradicts the ideal of a universal harmony of all spirits.
Whatever services this passion may have originally rendered
in bringing men together, and forming the basis of the social
life, it is now antagonistic to the social ideal. A society of
lovers would be a ludicrous impossibility ; for it is the chief
symptom of their condition that they are entirely wrapped up
in each other, and that the rest of the world does not exist
for them. So from the social point of view there is something
awe-inspiring and terrible in the madness of a passion which
41 o Riddles of the Sphinx
teaches men to forget all other ties, the claims of country^
friendship, duty, reason.
^This exclusiveness of the attraction which holds together
the human atoms of the sexual dyad seems particularly queer
when we compare love with friendship ; i.e., with the feeling
which forms the bond of the social union. The charm ot
friendship lies in the play of difference, in the free intercourse
of spirits who preserve their own centres of activity, in agree-
I \ ment amid diversity, in the sympathy of kindred souls which
^ is desired just because it is the sympathy of others ; it aims
not at union in the sense of an effacement of individuals, but
in the sense of harmony ; it respects the individuality of the
friend, and values it because of its very distinctness. In love,
on the other hand, if we have interpreted aright the indications
of feelings which dimly prognosticate its inner essence, there
is none of this : the union it desires is absolute, and requires
a complete sacrifice of self.^
Again, considering them with respect to their attitude
towards extraneous influences, the harmony of friendship
resents the intrusion of uncongenial elements, but is not in
itself hostile to any widening of its sphere ; on the contrary,
the natural impulse of a sociable nature is ' to be friends with
all men,' the idea of social harmony is all-embracing. Nor
is it as such prone to jealousy : we wish that our friends
should also be friends of one another, and labour to effect
this. Love, on the other hand, seems to be distinguished
from all the other forms of affection by its exclusiveness ;
jealousy is part of its essence, and is the repulsion which
will not brook the intrusion of any foreign force upon the
intimate attraction of the human molecule. A pair of lovers
would like to be sufficient for each other ; they require no
one else, and will not admit others into the intensity of their
mutual feelings. Would it not be the height of absurdity to
suggest to lovers what is the desire of friends, viz., that they
Immortality 411
should love the largest possible number and be loved by
them ? For does not love desire wholly and solely to possess
that which it loves, and resent the intrusion of the most
solemn social obligations as a desecration of its sacred rights ?
From the social point of view (as from the cynical) it is well
that the passion is commonly short-lived.
§ 25. The above discussion of the metaphysic of love may
be taken as in some sort the supplement of the physical
treatment which was so conducive to Pessimism (ch. iv § 17);
but whether we regard the subject in its highest or in its
lowest aspects, the result is the same. From either point of
view it is a momentous fact ; from neither point of view does
it appear as the road to happiness or the ideal of life.
It is not fitted to be the ideal of life because it cannot
be made to include all existences, because a pair of lovers as
the culmination of the world-process would be a conclusion
equally bizarre and impossible. We can hardly abandon for
such amorous fancies the ideal which has been our lode-star
in the pursuit of truth, the ideal which first revealed itself to
us in the search for an adequate formulation of the world's
process, the ideal of a harmonious interaction of individual
existences ; for it is an ideal which all our subsequent
progress has only confirmed and deepened. The conception
of a community of perfect persons was the efficient cause of
the wondrous evolution of individual existence (ch. viii §§ 6-
19), the final cause of the material universe (ch. ix §§ 26-31),
and the formal ground of our pluralistic answer to the
ultimate questions of ontology (ch. x § 23). And now it
has survived the severest of its tests : in spite of the most
powerful objections, it has been shown that there is nothing
impossible in the continuance of personality ; in spite of our
strongest feeling, it has been shown that friendship is a more
universal principle than love, that the concord of harmony is
a better ideal than the ecstasy of love.
412 Riddles of the Sphinx
Thus we have at length reached an eminence whence the
eye of faith can clearly discern the features of the Promised
Land which this ideal holds out to us ; and though we may
not enter until the far-distant end of the world's process, we
may be able already to some extent to- grasp its nature and
•describe its character. It is therefore to this completion of
our task that the following chapter must be devoted.
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION.
§ I. We have arrived at the end of our inquiry, and at a
point where it seems merely necessary to gather together the
converging clues that resulted from our discussion of the
problems of man's past, present, and future environment, into
a single and connected solution of the Riddle of the Sphinx.
And though the principle which guided our steps throughout
was one and the same, viz., faith in the world-process and
the metaphysics of Evolution, we have yet to answer ex-
plicitly the question, which so far we have answered only by
implication, as to what is the final meaning and end of the
world-process, the nature of that ' far-off divine event to
which the whole creation moves,' and in what sense the
world can be said to have a beginning and an end. And
this is in some ways the most crucial and difficult of all
questions ; for our speculations will have availed us nothing
if we ultimately fail to prove how the conception of a world-
process can be attributed to ultimate reality. We must
consider then, how to conceive, {a) the ultimate meaning of
the world-process, {b) its beginning and previous or pre-cosrnic
conditions, {c) its end or post-cosmic state, and id) we must
inquire whether such an end is possible, i.e., capable of actual
realization.
§ 2. The answer to the first question follows almost at
once from the formula of the world's evolution. In chapter
viii Evolution was found to be the development of the
414 Riddles of the Sphinx
individual in society, and it is possible to interpret by this
formula of what Evolution actually is, what it must be
intended to be. <(lf Evolution is the process of the gradual
perfecting of the individual in society, its purpose and its
meaning must be the adaptation of the individual to the
. [\ social environment. And in the light of chapters ix and x
i'l the individuals to be adapted or perfected by social harmony
are the ultimate spiritual existences or Egos which underlie
our phenomenal selves. The ultimate aim, therefore, of the
world-process is a harmonious society of perfect individuals, a
kingdom of Heaven of perfected spirits, in which all friction
■will have disappeared from their interaction with God and
with one another^ --un:^^^*!, ^ -W*^ {fiy^ oM ^z^ia^^^ 2
§ 3. But if this be the ultimate end or aim of the world-
process, light is at once thrown on its starting-point. If the
individuals are as yet imperfectly harmonized, but tending
towards harmony, the process must have begun with a
minimum of harmony. That is to say, at the beginning of
the world-process lies a state in which the individual spirits
•formed no world or society, and did not interact with one
another. Their interaction was as yet a mere possibility
(r/». ch. X § 23), and each existed for and by himself in a
timeless solitude. But as this spiritual chaos would form a
complete antithesis to the world or cosmos, it may be called
-a pre-cosmic condition of the world-process. It is pre-cosmic
because a world or cosmos could not come into existence
until some sort of connexion and interaction had been
established among the ultimate existences, even though of
the most imperfect and rudimentary kind. Thus the pre-
cosmic conditions of the world-process lie beyond and
outside the process, and form a limit to the world and our
thought about it, a parte ante. For when our thought travels
back to this point, the subject and the means of our inquiries
_alike disappear. We cannot ask what the world was before
Conchiszoft 415
a world was, nor what was before Time was. For without an
interaction of the Many there could be no world to explain,
and as neither Time nor Causation apply to the changeless
{cp. § 4), there would be no means of explaining it. We
cannot answer questions as to what the pre-cosmic is in itself,
because they cannot be validly asked, i.e., formulated without
a reference to cosmic conditions which are ex hypothesi
inapplicable to the pre-cosmic. Our thought is silenced
because all its questions hold good only for the world-
process, and become unmeaning in face of the pre-cosmic.
Yet the pre-cosmic is the presupposition of the world-process
(ch. xi § 16); hence we have already had occasion to
anticipate it in several ways. Thus it was foreshadowed by
the hypothetical state of the absolute independence of the
individual atoms, which was implied as the logical ideal in
the theory of the development of matter (ch. viii § 17).
Again it formed the conditions which limited the Deity
(ch. X § 2). the ultimate nature of things which was not
identical with God (ch. x § 24), the resisting Egos whose con-
sciousness could not be destroyed but only depressed (ch. ix
§ 27-28), the immortal spirits of the development of which all
living beings were to be regarded as phases (ch. xi § 14).
But though the conception of a pre-cosmic state is a logical
inference from that of a real world-process, it must be admitted
that our imagination has no little difficulty in picturing it, and
that it can claim little support from previous philosophy. But
then we recognized that for various reasons the conception of
a time-process and of a real history of things was alien to
philosophy,^ until the scientific doctrine of Evolution boldly
^Ancient philosophy lacked the evidences of progress (ch. vii § 16);
modern philosophy rested on an epistemological basis, and so was con-
genitally incapacitated from asserting the reaHty of the process (ch. ii
17; iii § 15), ahhough Hegel made a bold effort to transcend the
limitations of his standpoint — by confusing the logical with the real pro-
cess and identifying the connexions of logical categories with the
development of real existences.
41 6 Riddles of the Sphinx
affirmed the reality of history (ch. vii § 2). On the other
hand, it is interesting to find that our account of the pre-
cosmic receives substantial confirmation from religious tradi-
tion, which in preserving its memory has shown no less
superiority over profane thought than when it was the first to
assert the reality of the world's beginning.
A For only the preconceptions of a mistaken exegesis
can blind us to the fact that though the first chapter of
the Book of Genesis professes to give an account of
the creation of the world, it does not assert its creation
out of nothing. It does not profess to give the origin
of all existence, but only of our material and pheno-
menal world. It clearly recognises the pre- existence of
good and evil and of spiritual beings, which were presumably
uncj^eated, and certainly pre-cosmic, like our ultimate spirits.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil demonstrates that
even before the Fall evil was potentially existent in the world,.
and the obvious inference is that the world was created in
order to remedy this pre-existent and pre-cosmic defect. And
the nature of this defect is further elucidated by the religious
tradition of the fall of Satan and his angels. Their fall, we
are told, was due \.o pride, a term which would describe not
unaptly the defiant resistance of ultimate spirits to the
attempt to induce them to submit their selfish and intractable
wills to the harmony of cosmic order. All this agrees
excellently well with the conclusions we have independently
reached ; we also were led to ascribe Evil to the agency of
superhuman forces, viz., the Egos (ch. x § 25), and to find
the source of its all-pervading taint in the region of the pre-
cosmic ; in short, to regard the nature of the world as
conditioned by what existed before its production and before
the beginning of its process. On the other hand, th^ fall of
the angels must not be interpreted as a lapse from an initial
harmony, in view of the fact that harmony, once attained,.
^ Conchision 417
would necessarily be eternal and unchangeable (§ 10), and it
seems preferable to regard ourselves as angels in course of
development out of isolated and unsociable spirits.
Thus the beginning of the vi'orld-process, i.e.^ of what we
call the world, may be conceived as taking place in con-
sequence of the union of the individual spirits into some
sort of whole, under the influence of the Divine Spirit, and
the object of the process will be attained when that spiritual
whole or commonwealth can be rendered completely
harmonious.
§ 4. But though the pre-cosmic conditions of the world-
process enable us to understand much that would otherwise
remain mysterious, they are not of such direct interest as the
question of the post-cosmic condition and end of the world-
process.
If our speculations have not entirely missed their mark, the
world-process can only come to an end when all the spirits
whom it was designed to harmonize have been united in a
perfect society. Or, to put it in the language of chapter viii,
when the individual has become a perfect individual, and has
been developed to the utmost of his powers, and is in perfect
harmony with, and completely adapted to, the whole of his
environment.
This attainment of the end of the world-process may be
described by the most various formulas, for it would represent
the perfection of all the varied activities of the process. We
may call it in the language of physics a state of perfect
equilibrium, or in that of biology, a perfect life or adapta-
tion to environment, or in that of sociology, the perfection of
the individual in the perfection of society ; or again, we may
describe it psychologically as perfect happiness, goodness,
knowledge, and beauty.
But though it is the perfection and aim of all the activities
of life, it is yet contrasted with them by its metaphysical
27
41 8 Riddles of the Sphinx
character. For it would be opposed to the changing- Becom-
ing of our world of Time as a changeless and eternal state of
Being. In it Becoming would be no longer possible, for all
would be all they could be ; the actual and the potential
would be co-extensive, for all would have realized their
highest ideals. Moreover, as all would be in perfect
equilibrium, perfectly adapted to their environment, and in
perfect correspondence with it, there could be no more
change : neither within nor without the universe would there
be left a cause of disturbance or change.
Nor would there be any more Time, for Time, as we saw
(ch. ix § ii), was but the measure of the impermanence of
the imperfectly-adjusted, and so it would pass away together
with the changes by which alone it could be estimated. For
without consciousness of change there can be no conscious-
ness of Time, and the sceptical objections to a Time
independent of our measurements of Time (ch. iii § 6) should
have cured us of the fancy that absolute Time could exist,
which was not relative to change of some sort. And so the
case we anticipated in an earlier chapter (ix § ii) would have
been realised, and Time would have passed into Eternity.
In such a state all difficulties would be solved, and all
discords harmonized. There would be in it no change,
Becoming, or death, but life eternal. The problems of our
imperfect life would have been either answered or seen to be
unmeaning. Pain and Evil would have ceased to be actual,
and their past actuality would be condoned and approved of
as necessary means to perfect harmony, or perhaps forgotten.
The infinity of Time and the infinity of Becoming would have
ceased to perplex beings who would see how the absence of
the perfect equipoise of Being would dissever the union of
Eternity into the discordant trinity of Time. The dis-
crepancy between thought and feeling (ch. iii §§ 13 — 17)
would have disappeared ; our interpretation of Becoming by
Conclusion 4 1 9
means of Being- would have been justified when all beings had
become perfect. For all would appear as they really were,
we should think them such as they were, think them as we
perceived them, and perceive them as w^e thought them ;
reality would have realized the ideals of our thought, and so
our ideals would no longer be unreal, and our thought would
no longer need to idealize realities with which it was
in perfect correspondence. But whereas the pre-cosmic put
an end to further inquiry by destroying the meaning of
the questions asked, the post-cosmic would put an end to
inquiry by making it impossible to ask them. For how could
the endless regress of the causal demand in its meaningless
abstraction perturb a spirit conscious of the self-evident and
self-sufficing order of the All in the fruition of a self-supported
harmony that suggested no question and admitted of no
doubt, of a life of light that could not be born until the last
dark shadow had vanished from the soul }
. § 5. But from the ecstatic contemplation of such a
state of Being we should be apt to be rudely recalled by
the objection that it was inconceivable and impossible,
and incompatible with conscious existence. There would
be quoted against us a psychological * law ' of Hobbes,
that sentire semper idem et nil sentire ad idem recidunt, that
a consciousness in which there was no change was no con-
sciousness at all. And doubtless there would be some truth
in this objection, if by being * always conscious ' of a feeling
consciousness in Time were indicated. Our present
nature cannot react indefinitely upon the same stimuli.
Or rather, the stimuli being the resultant of constantly-
changing factors, cannot remain the same. The nature
and the stimulus are both changing from moment to
moment, and can generate only an imperfect and im-
permanent consciousness. But it is only on account of
the imperfection of our nature that our activity cannot
420 Riddles of the Sphinx
endure. God, as Aristotle says/ eternally rejoices in a
single and simple pleasure, and our nature also would be
very different if we also had attained to perfect harmony
and eternal Being-. For, as all Time and change would
have been transcended, whatever ecstasy of bliss accom-
panied the first consciousness of the attainment of perfect
adaptation, w^ould persist unimpaired, timelessly and
without change.^
It is true, however, that though perfect Being would be
conscious^ it would not be self-conscious, if by self-
consciousness is meant the power of consciously dis-
tinguishing oneself from one's state, of contrasting wiiat
one was with what one is, of proving one's happiness to
the satisfaction of others or of oneself, in short, of arguing
about it.'^ For all such operations and states of conscious-
ness are indelibly stamped with the mark of change and
imperfection.
But why should any one wish to be self-conscious in this
way .'' For though argument and philosophic self-
consciousness may be a salutary and even a necessary
discipline for imperfect spirits, Milton is surely right in
regarding them as permanent occupations appropriate
only to devils.^ For while they might assuage the lot of
lost spirits, whose anguish they might charm for a while
with a pleasing sorcery, they would only fruitlessly disturb
the blessed denizens of Heaven. Even now self-conscious-
•ness is a necessary evil rather than a positive good and is
a fatal alloy to unreflecting enjoyment. It is possible to
feel without consciousness of a contrast, and it is only to
^ Eth. Nic. vii. 14, 8.
■^ For a fuller elaboration of this line of thought see Humcmisni ch..
xii.
■^cp. Studies in Hinnaiiis7ii ch. xx s.f.
^ Paradise Lost II 566.
Conclusion 421
a dialectically-corrupted thought that everything- suggests
its logical contrary. But pure feeling, too entirely absorbed
in its present reality to point to anything beyond itself,
is far from being less real and vivid than feeling which
is accompanied by the uneasy reflections of self-conscious-
nes5. On the contrary, we can see even now that the
happiness that reflects is lost, that comparisons are odious,
and creep into the soul upon the wings of the Harpy Doubt
when it has sullied the unsuspecting transparency of its
virgin feelings.
What need then of self-consciousness in Heaven } What
defect could induce it in a state of perfection? What
could there be doubtful to dispute t Who would raise a
question about the reality of bliss such that it could arouse
self-consciousness to refute its absurdity ? Would happiness
be any the more real for being re-asserted against denial,
or would not such assertion ipso facto destroy its
perfection } And if all were blessed, how could there be
a tempter to raise the question ?
The idea that consciousness is impossible without self-
consciousness is merely a pernicious example of the
fallacious tendency to suppose that all reality must be
capable of being expressed in terms of discursive thought,
and this idea it was found necessary to reject long ago
(ch. ii § 21, and iii § 14-19).
§ 6. There is, however, a kindred error more deep-rooted
even than that of regarding consciousness as dependent
on change, and even more fatal to a proper appreciation
of the nature of perfection ; the idea, to wit, that a state
of Being is a state of Rest.
Our ideas of activities are so moulded upon activities
involving motion and change that Rest is regarded as the
natural antithesis to change, and so we are wont to speak
of Heaven as a changeless state of Rest. Or if the ethical
422 Riddles of the Sphinx
inadequacy of this treatment strikes us, we sometimes rush
into the opposite extreme, and still more absurdly regard
perfection as a state of work, i.e., of imperfect activity, which
is not its own end. In either case the effects upon the
conception of Perfection are disastrous, and the failure to
grasp the true alternative to work has gone far to banish
it from philosophy and to render it ridiculous in religion.
And yet nothing could be more erroneous, or more fatal
to all true philosophy, than the idea that Rest is the only
possible alternative to work.
The conception of Rest stands, it is true, in antithesis to
Becoming, as much as the conception of Being. But its
analogue is Not-Being rather than Being ; it is beneath^
rather than above, Becoming.
This becomes evident if we suppose that, one by one^
a being rests or ceases from all its activities. As it ceased
to affect the rays of light, it would become invisible ; as it
ceased to resist penetration, it would become intangible ;
as it ceased to produce vibrations in the air, it would
become inaudible ; as it ceased to attract other bodies,
it would cease to be material, etc., until, v/ith the cessation
of its last activity, the last quality that distinguished it
from nothing, would pass away, and it would vanish utterly/
Thus we see that qualities are activities, and that existence
without qualities is impossible, and so that existence
depends on activity, and that non-activity is tantamount
to non-existence.
Rest, therefore, is non-existence, it is the negation of
motion or activity, it is not: Being is the perfection of
motion, it is more than motion. And, whereas Rest in
our world is an illusion, that which seems to exist but does
not, Being is the Ideal, that which ought to exist, but
does not yet. Being, as perfect activity, is at the opposite
pole to Rest or Not-Being ; they are separated by the
Conclusion 423
whole extent of Becoming-, />., of the world with its
imperfect activities. The question therefore arises at which
of these the world is aiming, whether at an absorption
into Nothingness, or at the constitution of an eternally
active and adjusted whole. Which of these diametrically
opposed ideals is being realized by our world of Becoming- "i
is it tending towards Being or Not-Being, towards Rest
or Perfect Activity ? According as we decide for the one
or the other of these, we shall arrive at radically different
theories about the world-process, resulting in totally different
views of life.
The one, which is the view which Pantheism can escape
only by a sacrifice of consistency, regards the world- process
as ultimately and essentially illusory : the fitful struggles
of the individual and of the race alike are in the end
absorbed again into the restful quietude of non-existence :
the Absolute that was before the world began, and will be
after it has ceased, is All and Nought, unchangeable and
untouched by the phantom world which an inexplicable
fate produces, and inexorably sweeps away. So Quietism
becomes the ideal of life, and Nirvana its end : the highest
and the only good is reabsorption into the Absolute, in
which life and suffering cease together. Such is the ideal
of Rest, the ideal which from time immemorial has lurked
beneath the whole life of the East, for all its creeds and all
its mysticism ; but a strange and doleful ideal to put before
us as the end of all the activities of life !
The other ideal is an ideal of Activity, enhanced and
intensified until it becomes perfect and constant and eternal,
and transcends the motion and change of imperfect effort.
It asserts that life is essentially activity ; that perfect life and
perfect bliss are but the consciousness of the harmonious
exercise of an activity that meets no check, and is broken by
no obstacle. And so it is an ideal not of Nirvana but of
424 Riddles of the Sphinx
Heaven, not of non-existence but of harmonious existence,
of individuals who are not annihilated but united. And if
the one ideal has the support of common prejudice, of the
more or less avowed consequences of the majority of
philosophic systems, and of the dreamy despair of the East,
the other may appeal to the religious tradition of Heaven,
and confidently rely on all the healthier instincts, on whatever
hope and strength remain in man.
It is moreover not without support even in past philosophy;
indeed, its clearest description is found in the writings of one
of the greatest of thinkers. Aristotle, in a passage all too brief
for the correct guidance of his successors, speaks of the divine
activity as being one and changeless and invariable, because
it is an activity that involves no motion.^ And it is such an
evepyeia ciKLvrja-lag that we must conceive the perfect activity
of Being, i.e., as an activity which has become so perfectly
adjusted that no anomalies or variations exist in it to
produce a consciousness of change, and to serve to measure
Time. And if the activities of life are ever tending
towards more perfect adaptation and adjustment, such must
be the ideal to which they point, and to which they will
approximate until the goal is reached, and Becoming is
merged in the equable and harmonious but changeless
activity of Being.
§ 7. The case of perfect activity may perhaps be
illustrated by that of perfect motion. Perfect, i.e. unimpeded,
motion is, according to Newton's second law of motion,
unchanging, undeviating, and eternal motion in a straight
line. But is such motion ever realized? ^^^.nd what are the
conditions of its realization ? It is never realized because
n\^^ the mutual attraction of bodies produce deviations from the
''jUK, rectilinear motion. It could be realized, therefore, only by the
LiA-#^
^>^
1 'Ej'^P7eia aKivrjcrias {Et/l. Nic. VII. xiv. 8).
Conclusion 425
union of all the bodies in the universe. Supposing this to
have been accomplished, the motion would go on with
equable velocity to all eternity. But though the body thus
formed would be in motion to the highest and most perfect
degree, it woidd yet be impossible foi' tis to detect this fact
unless we knew it beforehand. It would be an impossibility
for one not in the secret to discover any trace of this motion.
For there would be no inequality or distinction in Space, by
which it would be possible to determine its motion, and
hence to an outsider it would appeal- to be at rest. Yet it
would be in motion, regarded from inside. Now supposing
it were conscious ; it would be conscious of being in motion,
and conscious also that its motion was perfectly equable
and rectilinear.
Now the case of the perfect activity of a state of Being
would be precisely analogous. It would be an activity so
perfect that the ordinary modes of measuring activities
would be no longer applicable to it. And yet there would
be an internal consciousness and fruition of activity. But,
again, as in the case of physical motion, this consciousness
could not be transferred to an outsider. We saw above (§5)
that the consciousness of perfection did not involve self-
consciousness, that it was neither capable nor in need of
reasserting itself against outside criticism : this would be as
impossible in the case of perfect activity as it would be to
prove that the body was in motion.
We may look forward, then, to a future in which activity,
i.e.^ life, would become ever more intense, more sustained,
and more harmonious, and would finally culminate in a
perfect activity, which would sum up and include all the
activities of life, and realize in actuality all the powers of
which we were capable.
§ 8. The claims of the Being, which is the end of the
world-process, to be regarded as perfect activity having been
426 Riddles of the Sphinx
vindicated, the question naturally arises, of what this activity
consists, whether, e.g., it takes the form of a perpetual
oratorio, or of eternal buffalo-hunting ; whether eternity is
spent in the society of Houris, or in the fighting and feasting
of Valhalla. The question is a natural one, but the mistaken-
mode of answering it has perhaps done more to discredit
the conception it was intended to elucidate than all the
attacks of its adversaries. ¥ox nothing is in the long run more
fatal to the interests of an ideal than the attempt to commit
it to the inadequacy of our sensuous imagery. Such a
procedure confuses the mental image with the conception,
and leads to the rejection of the latter so soon as men become
conscious of the absurdity of the former. Now it follows
from the very nature of the conception of perfect activity
that we can imagine no adequate content for it in terms of
imperfect activities. For that activity would be immeasur-
ably exalted above our present state of existence, and, as we
saw (ch. vi § 12), the lower can never anticipate the actual
content of the higher life ; it can at the most determine
it as the perfection of the forms in which the lower is
cast.
Moreover the demand that we should determine the
content of the ideal of perfect activity involves a forgetfulness
of the method whereby we framed that ideal. If it is an ideal
of our thought, it cannot for that very reason be already
realized in the sensible world, and the attempts to imagine it
in terms of the sensible are not only fruitless, but wrong in.
principle.
We must avoid, therefore, with equal care the contrary
errors of regarding the conception of perfect activity either
as unthinkable or as imaginable. It is not imaginable,
because the real world presents us only with activities which
are essentially imperfect. It is pre-eminently thinkable,
because it is the ideal towards which the Real tends, the
Conclusion 427
standard to which it is referred, the conception by which it
becomes intelh'gible.
This conceivability of Perfection, in spite of the inadequacy
of the sensuous content our imagination essays to give it, is a
point of such importance as to warrant a brief digression in
order to reah'ze precisely the cardinal affirmation on which
the possibility of Being rested. It affirmed that if we were
right in interpreting Reality by our thought, i.e., if kn.owledge
is a reality and not an elaborate illusion, then reality must
realize the ideals of that thought. Now in all knowing we
use the category of Being, we describe all things as being or
not being, and assert that everything must either be or not
be. Without the standard of Being to refer to, the Becoming
of the world would be utterly indescribable and unknowable
(ch. iii § 13; iv § 22). But if we miean to assert that our
standard is a true one, that the real world is really subject to
the laws of our thinking, we may assert also all that is
implied in the meaning of that standard. If we know that
the real world aspires, and as yet aspires unsuccessfully, to be
in the strictest sense of the word, if as yet reality only becomes
and contains an element of Not-Being, we may assert that
eventually it will really be, and really realize the ideal
whereby we know it. We may assert in other words, the
reality of perfect Being in order to justify the assertion of the
reality of knowledge. So the conditions and nature of such
Being, which may be determined by our thought (for Being is
a category of our thought), must be binding on all reality.
Being, then, will be an ideal which the world-process must
realize, but as one of our ideals and like all our ideals, it must
as yet be a mere form, the real content of which can be filled
in only by the consummation of the process of Evolution. It
must be experienced to be understood, and we can determine
at most the formal aspects to which it must conform. Per-
fect activity can be described only as the perfection of the
?
42 8- Riddles of the Sphinx
activities of life, and most of these are so imperfect that their
attainment of their ideal and their reahzation of perfection
would absorb them in something more divine but different
§ 9. Thus, though we may describe the perfect activity of
•complete adjustment as the supreme End of the process of
Evolution, as the all-embracing culmination of all the
activities and ideals of life, we must yet not overlook the fact
that, strictly speaking, it would transcend them. If we regard
Knowledge, Goodness, Beauty and Happiness as the supreme
ideals of life, as the ideals respectively of intellectual, moral,
aesthetic, and emotional value, we must say that the perfect
activity of Being would include all these, and yet be some-
thing more. It is perfect knowledge, perfect goodness, perfect
beauty and perfect happiness, because it is that into which
they would all pass and be fused into one. They would be
so absorbed in it that they would no longer exist in isolation
and in opposition to one another. They would be fused in a
whole which would reconcile, unite and transcend them.
And so it would inadequately represent the reality to say that
perfect activity was either knowledge, or goodness, or beauty,
or happiness.
It could not, strictly speaking, be knowledge. For perfect
knowledge, the knowledge of all that is to be knowm, the
highest activity of reason in which reason were fully master
of its subject-matter, would be a state radically different from
anything we now know or could call thought. To a perfect
reason, to which all knowledge would be an ever-present
actuality, any exercise of thinking would seem needless and
degrading. For all our thinking involves change and
transition from thought to thought, and therefore time ; in
the case supposed, moreover, it could discover nothing that
was not already known.
So with perfect goodness. The perfection of the moral
consciousness would issue in the supra-moral. Goodness
Conclusion 429
which had become so perfect, so ingrained in nature, that the
suggestion of evil could no longer strike a responsive chord,
that wrong-doing could no longer offer any temptation, would
be no longer goodness in any human sense. Moreover, not
only does wrong action become 'a moral impossibility' in
the perfecting of the moral consciousness, but the occasion for
m^oral action would gradually vanish as the moral environ-
ment approached perfection. As Spencer so well says,
self-sacrifice becomes an impossibility where each is animated
by an equal and altruistic zeal to prevent the other's sacrific-
ing himself to him.^
So with perfect beauty : what sphere would remain for the
exercise of the ctsthetic consciousness in a state in which,
material form had perhaps long been transcended, and where
no ugliness remained to set off beauty by its contrast? And
if we sa\% and say rightly, that our sense of the beautiful ma}-
rise above the appreciation of the physical points which at
present almost engross it, and that beauty would remain as
the reflexion in consciousness of the perfect order and
harmony of Being, and the perfect adjustment and corres-
pondence of its factors, this would yet be a use of the ideal of
Beauty in a superhuman sense.
The ideal of happiness is perhaps less inadequate to describe
the activity of Perfect Being than any other, but the reason
lies in its very vagueness. It does not directly suggest to us
any -mode of being perfectly happy, it defines nothing as to
the activities which are to make us happy, and rather
insinuates that the means of attaining happiness would be
indifferent so long as the aim was attained. Now this is pro-
foundly true, in the sense that no one can be more than
^ It is to such a metaphysical ideal of a supra-moral state that
Spencer's 'absolute ethics' refer, and they are justly obnoxious only to
the criticism that he does not seem to realize what a radical difference
from the conditions of our present world they would invoh^e.
43 o Riddles of the Sphinx
happy, and that the perfect attainment of any of the other
ideals, e.g., either of goodness or of knowledge, would neces-
sarily draw perfect happiness in its train.
But even the ideal of happiness is liable to objection as
■suggesting an exclusion of the other activities rather than the
culminating crown and final perfection of an all-inclusive
adjustment of all the activities of life. It is only if we take care
to regard perfect happiness as the resultant harmony of per-
fect goodness and perfect wisdom that it will serve as an
unobjectionable popular statement of the formal nature of
Perfection.
§ lo. As the attainment of Perfection depends on the
attainment of a complete harmony of the whole environment,
it must include all beings. The happiness of each is bound
up with that of all. For if there remained any portion of the
environment, however humble and however remote, excluded
from the harmonious adjustment of perfection, there could
never be any security that it might not enter into active
interaction with the rest and so destroy the harmony and
changeless eternity of the perfected elements.
From this necessity not even God could be exempted.
To deny this is equally impossible on philosophic and on
religious grounds.
Philosophically its denial involves a denial of the category
of Interaction ; for if there is any interaction between the
Deity and the world, the former also must be affected. If
God acts upon the world, the world must react upon God : if
God is conscious of the Time-process, then God also is not
eternal (in the sense of out of time) while the process lasts ; if
God realizes His purpose in the world, then its attainment
involves a change in God. Now God must be conscious of the
existence of the world, if the world is to be conscious of His
existence ; for it is only by His action upon us that we are
led to infer the existence of a God. The Aristotelian account
Conclusion 43 1
of a Deity totally unconscious of the world's existence and
unaffected by it, who yet is its prime mover, by a magical
attraction he exercises upon it, is utterly impossible. Yet it
implies a perception of the difficulty which is lacking to those
who glibly repeat their belief in the eternity and immutability
of God. Aristotle clearly saw that any connexion with the
imperfect must involve a sympathetic imperfection in the
Deity, and to avoid what he considered a degradation of the
divine nature, he denied that God could be conscious of
anything less perfect than himself And then, lest this
denial of the sympathy of the perfect with the imperfect should
cut away the ratio cognoscendi of the perfect, he devised his
extraordinary doctrine of the Deity as unconsciously the
object of the world's desire ; i.e., as he could not deny the
connexion of the perfect with the imperfect, without denying
the existence of the former, he denied that the connexion was
reciprocal ; just as though one could build a bridge over
which men could not pass in either direction. But the revival
of such a denial of the necessary implication of action and
reaction, by modern Pantheism, is impossible: an unrespon-
sive Absolute, as we saw in chapter x (§ 10), which is
unaffected by the world-process, is nothing, and is certainly
not God.
From the standpoint of religious emotion, moreover,
it is equally certain that the struggle of the imperfect
must be reflected in the consciousness of God. God also
cannot be happy while there is misery in the world,
God cannot be perfect while evil endures, nor eternal or
changeless, while the aim of the world-process is unrealized.
If we suffer, He must suffer ; if we sin, He must expiate
our sins.
The conception of a Deity absorbed in perfect, unchanging
and eternal bliss is a blasphemy upon the Divine energy which
might be permitted to the heathen ignorance of Aristotle, but
^
432 Riddles of the Sphinx
which should be abhorred by all who have learnt the lesson of
the Crucifixion. A theology which denies that the imperfection
of the world must be reflected in the sorrows of the Deity,
simply shows itself blind to the deepest and truest meaning
of the figure of Him that was ' a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief,' and deaf to the gospel of Divine sympathy with
the world.
^hus the w^orld-process is the process of the redemption
alike of God, of the world, and of our own selves. To promote
the attainment of Perfection, therefore, must be the supreme
motive and paramount obligation of conduct, the supreme
principle of life, in comparison with which all others sink into
insignificance. And to have risen to the consciousness of the
fact that they can, and ought ^ and must co-operate with the
Divine Purpose in order to accelerate the attainment of
Perfection, must surely be equivalent to doing so with all
the strength and insight they possess, in all beings worthy of
the name of rational. J
§ 1 1. But can the purpose of the world be realized, not
merely as reasonable theory, but in practice ? What if the
world-process prove a failure } What if the constitution of
things be such as to make a complete harmony of all existences
impossible ?
To such doubts the most obvious answer is that it is not
likely that the divine wisdom should attempt the -impossible,
and that therefore the fact that the world is in process
contains an assurance that the end of its process may be
achieved.
But the objection may also take the form that though the
end of the world-process is finite, yet the approximations
to it are infinite, and hence it will never be reached. Progress
may be compared to an asymptote, always approaching the
state of Perfect Being and never attaining it.
But here again oUr fears would be unfounded. In thought.
Conclusion
433
indeed, any process is infinitely divisible into infinite gradations,
but in reality this is not the case. It is a natural error to
suppose that because the infinitesimal can be conceived it can
also be experienced, but were it true, all sorts of absurdities
would follow.
Thus, e.g., Zeno would be right in asserting that Achilles
could never catch up the Tortoise, if the Tortoise had a start.
The demonstration of this most ancient and ingenious fallacy
is quite irresistible, if we admit that the endless divisibility of
conceptual Space and Time can be applied also to the
experience of Space and Time. If Achilles could run first ten
yards, then one, then one-tenth, then one-hundredth, and so
on indefinitely, and be conscious of each step and each
moment he required to traverse it, he really would require
an infinite time to catch the Tortoise. For he would have to
be conscious of an infinite series of events before he caught it,
subjectively at least he would never complete the infinity of
infinitesimal steps required (cp. ii § 6). Really, of course, real
Space and Time are not infinitely divisible (ix § 9), Achilles
would soon come to a minimum step no longer capable of
subdivision, and he would require a minimum time to traverse
it.
And so in the case proposed ; the approximations to
perfection could not go on indefinitely : they would sooner or
later approach so nearly to perfection, that the discrepancy
between the real and the ideal would be too minute to aftect
consciousness. A precisely similar instance, moreover, of this
impossibility of endless approximation in reality, occurs daily
in the case of motion. In theory the gradations between
velocity i and velocity o, i.e. rest, are infinite, and so bodies
ought to pass through them all before arriving at velocity o.
And as they are infinite, a body ought to require an infinite
Time in arriving at rest. But as a matter of fact, nothing
of the sort happens. The motion gradually diminishes, and
28
434 Riddles of the Sphinx
finally ceases entirely, at least with respect to the body
relatively to which it exists. ^
Hence we may rest assured that just as real bodies can
return to a state of rest in a finite time, so the real
world-process can, in a finite time, attain to., the perfect
adjustment of Being, the eternity of which delimits
Time.
§^I2. And with this defence of Eternal Being, which the
Becoming of the cosmos slowly evolves out of the timeless
Not-Being of acosmic apathy and isolation, with this vision
of a Heaven and a Peace surpassing all imaginatio7t, which
for ever obliterates the last traces of the pre-cosmic discord
of which the struggle of life is but an attenuated survival,
we may close. We may close with the assurance that the
ideas of which we have essayed a vindication do contain a
real and complete answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx, an
answer which is rational and capable of realization. We have
thus achieved the undertaking we proposed to ourselves (ch. v
§ 5), and vindicated life and knowledge by showing that
after all it was possible so to manipulate our data as to supply
a conceivable answer to our problems. If however this answer
be thought unsatisfactory because it is too dependent on ideas,
and is true only if our ideas are realizable, we may reply that
according to the terms of our bond, this is all we undertook to
prove./ We did not undertake absolutely to predict the facts,
but only to discover what would happen if our ideas were valid.
Yet it may perhaps afford some consolation to such objectors
to be assured that the realization of our ideas by reality is
by no means a rare or unheard-of fact, inasmuch as every
1 The argument, of course, is vitiated by its use of infinity in a false,
mathematical sense (cp. ix § 4), and supposes that rest is a reality
(cp. iii § 8). But it does so only to accept the basis of the objection
it controverts ; for the whole difficulty arises out of the mistaken
application of the mathematical doctrine of infinity to reality.
Conclusion 435
judgment asserts and every advance of knowledge proves,
an idea to be a fact.^
§ 13. It is not, therefore, any failure to ful fil his promise
nor any defect human science could avoid, that fills the
philosopher's heart with apprehension, as he goes forth to his
last dread encounter with the Sphinx. ,
imperfect development. For how could there be any t^ -^6^-71^
alternative of action for an intellect which infallibly per-
ceived the wisest, and for a will which unswervingly
pursued the best course .'' For the best course is one and
29
450 Riddles of the Sphinx
single, and admits no competition from a pis aller. Or
would it not be ludicrous to represent a being whose whole
nature was attracted towards the best, as obeying a law of
necessity ?
There can be no change then or wavering in the action
or the purpose of the Deity, in the conduct which is as
completely determined by reason from within, as that of
the unconscious seems to be determined by external law
from without. But change and doubt, hesitation and incon-
sistency, struggle, victory and defeat befit the intermediate
phases of existence : the consciousness of freedom and
necessity marks the lives of beings capable of rational
action, and yet not wholly rational. We can perceive,
more or less clearly, what conduct is required by the pro-
gress of the world, and yet we have continually to struggle
against the survivals of lower habits {i.e., adaptations to
earlier stages in the process, cp. ch. iv § lo) within us and
around us. And it is this consciousness of ill-adjusted
elements which generates the consciousness alike of freedom
and of necessity. But as the consciousness of freedom
accompanies the victory over the obstacles to progress,
over the foully-decaying corpses of the dead selves of the
individual and of the race, freedom is a higher ethical
principle than necessity, and is rightly brought into in-
timate connexion with morality. The phrase ' I can
because 1 ought ' may not express the connexion of both
freedom and morality with the essential character of the
world-process in the clearest way, but it at least bears
witness to their kinship.^
^ For a further investigation of the notion of Freedom see
Studies in Hmnanism, ch. xviii.
APPENDIX II.
CHOICE/
On almost every question the discussions of philosophers
have become a byword. The most diametrically opposed
views are advocated with conviction and enthusiasm as the
only rational interpretation of the facts. As to the explana-
tion of this extraordinary phenomenon, which radically dis-
tinguishes the results of philosophy from those of all the
other sciences, opinions differ. But without exploring all
the ramifications of the problem, we may suggest that the
psychology of philosophers has a good deal to do with it.
k^s a class, they^^seem to be constitutionally incapable of
seeing both sides of a problem at once. Or rather, having
seen one side of it, this perception forms a distorting haze
through which they interpret everything else into agreement f\f
with it. They are, moreover, invincibly averse from defining
all their terms ; and all their terms are incurably ambiguous.
Each party therefore reaffirms its own convictions in the
sense congenial to it, and attributes to its opponents a sense
of the terms at issue which makes it into nonsense.^
All these characteristics of philosophy are displayed most
perfectly in the venerable controversy about Freedom and
Responsibility, and exemplified by Mr. Bertrlnd Russell's
brilliant but one-sided paper on ' Determinism and Morals '
in last October's Hibbert Joiu^nal (vii. i, pp. 113-121).
^A paper which was published in the Hibbert Journal for July 1909.
452 Riddles of the Sphinx '
This famous controversy originally grew up on the soil of
ethics. It was started by the reply of Greek ingenuity to the
Socratic attempt to make a science of morality. Socrates
had contended that virtue was an * art ' (which was not yet
differentiated from a ' science '), and that, therefore, what
was virtuous must be a matter of knowledge. The analogy
(like all such analogies) was good, but not perfect. If
pressed beyond the limits of its applicability, it defeated
its own purpose. Strictly interpreted, it implied an extreme
intellectualism, which might be made to reduce it to
absurdity. If all virtue was knowledge, i.e. if knowledge
alone sufficed to determine virtue, then vice would be nothing
but ignorance. Hence it followed both that it was impossible
to know an act to be bad and yet do it, and that no one
was to blame for doing what was bad, because he clearly
did not know it was bad when he did it, and if he had known,,
would not have done it. Ignorance, however, was no sin ;
the criminal ought not to be blamed and punished, but to
be pitied and instructed.
The logic of this reasoning is beautiful and unanswerable ;:
but it denies two of the great primary facts of moral
psychology, viz., that men do what they know to be wrong,
and that they know themselves to be reponsible for such
deeds. We see from Aristotle ^ that the Socratic school had
no answer to give. They ought either to have questioned
the intellectualistic assumption underlying their whole
position, viz., that human action is always determined by .
reason alone, and never by deeper-lying instincts, or to
have anticipated the audacious consistency of Samuel Butler
of ' Ei^ewhon ' fame, and to have developed a conception
of culpable ignorance which would justify the punishment ;of
disease and stupidity, and the medical treatment of vice.
^ Nicomachecm Ethics^ iii, 5 § i8 foil.
Choice 453
Instead of this, we find Aristotle lamely arguing that though
the wilful wrongdoer appears to know what he does, he
cannot be really conscious of the nature of his act ; while
as for the suggestion that the bad man cannot help himself,
because he cannot help being ignorant, it is really too
extreme, because it would render virtue just as involuntary
as vice.
The corollary, then, that the two cases really were alike,
that virtue and vice were both involuntary, had not yet been
drawn in Aristotle's time. But we can see at once that it
was bound to be the next move in the dialectical game, and
that with it full-blown Determinism would be sprung upon
the moral world, which has been haunted by it ever since.
But Determinism has also had another, later and more
reputable, parentage in the needs of science and the
legitimate desire to forecast events, and it is probably as a
methodological principle of scientific calculation that it now-
a-days inspires affection in most of its adherents.
But they cannot thereby disavow its anti-moral origin, nor
lay the spectre of the conflict between ethics and
Determinism ; and they do their cause no good by the
tactics they pursue towards the ethical implications of their
doctrine. It would be far more prudent and satisfactory to
try to dissociate the scientific postulate from the exculpation
of the bad man. The difficulty is a real one and must be
faced. It is not met by setting up a counter-bogey to
terrify the plain man on either side, and to dilate on the
horrors of an indeterminate world in which events have no
connexions and nobody can be held responsible for anything
he does. For it is not true that these are the legitimate
implications of the plain man's working faith in his
* freedom ' and responsibility, nor is it true that (at any rate
for the past thirty years) libertarian philosophers have held
a doctrine that could fairly be said to lead to such absurdities.
454 Riddles of the Sphinx
An adroit conspiracy of silence may contrive to prevent the
skeleton of Determinism from rattling in its cupboard, and to
ignore the real case for libertarianism, while parading a
bogus bogey to frighten children and old women ; but the
very reiteration of old arguments betrays the fact that they
continue to be unconvincing to the common sense of men.
All that such tactics can achieve is to render it periodically
necessary to re-state the ancient and unsolved difficulty into
which Determinism plunges ethics. Mr. Russell has not
stated it, and has thereby reduced his whole argument to an
ingenious piece of special pleading.
Like many great things, the difficulty is extremely simple.
If the world is fully determined, there cannot be any
alternatives in it. All events are inevitable and necessitated,
and could not conceivably be otherwise. This is as true of
human actions as of anything else. The crime is inevitable ;
and so also is the punishment and the illusion that both or
either could have been altered by human agency. It is really
meaningless, therefore, to speculate whether either could
have been different. That we do so is merely a sign of our
(inevitable) stupidity. For no man can help doing what
he does.
But does he, after all, do what he does 1 How can he^
meaning thereby a distinct centre whence actions radiate
into the world, do anything at all } Has not the very notion
of such a centre, of such agency, become a sheer illusion ^
For consider : every act of every man is unambiguously and
unalterably conditioned by its antecedents ; and if we trace
them back, we can nowhere cut short the causal chains in
which all things are caught and fixed. Our thought, there-
fore, about the antecedents of human action cannot arrest
itself at a point where a human being still exists ; it passes
inevitably on from the human and the moral to the natural
and non-moral. Unless each agent is himself eternal — and
Choice
455
this hypothesis neither science nor ordinary Determinism
would tolerate — he is the helpless product of an inexorable
fate, bound to an inevitable past by unbreakable chains, and
dangling more impotently on the hook of Time than a worm
that is free at least to choose the manner of his wriggle.
This then, is the real difficulty. Determinism has never
answered it. It is vain to protest against the plain proof of
the coincidence of Determinism and Fatalism ; it is vain to
plead that ' self-determination ' leaves us * free ' to do what
we will. For it does not give us an alternative ; and the
'self which is said to determine our acts must always be
traced back on its predestined course to its vanishing point
To imagine, therefore, that Determinism, after annihilating
the moral agent, remains compatible with morality, simply
means that the logical implications of the doctrine have not
been fully explored.
That so acute a logician as Mr. Russell should have failed
to see this, and should have been beguiled into attempting
futile distinctions between actions right 'objectively' and
' subjectively,' and the kinds of ' possibility ' attaching to an
illusory choice between unreal alternatives (pp. 116-8), is
indeed astonishing. Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact
that his language is ambiguous. " There certainly is a sense,"
he tells us, " in which it is possible to choose any one of a
number of different actions which we think of" ; and again^
" w^hen several alternative actions present themselves, it is
certain that we can both do which we choose and choose
which we will" (p. 118). Does the word 'choose' here
designate the function of a determined or of an undetermined
will ? If the former, it leaves the alternatives illusory and
does not remove the difficulty ; if the latter, it is a covert
repudiation of Determinism. There is little doubt that the
latter is the way in which common sense would naturally
understand Mr. Russell's phrases ; but can Determinism do
\
456 Riddles of the Sphinx
so? Must it not deny that 'choices' mean alternatives;
must it not contend that the structure of the universe has
from all time determined that we shall be deluded with
feelings of free choices, although simultaneously it is
impossible not to think that the alternatives are unreal, and
that the only possible issue of our ' choice ' is predestined
and inevitable ?
Determinists., then, who think their creed compatible with
morality, have not realized how far it carries them. The
charge against it is not merely that it fails to do full justice
to the ethical fact of responsibility, but that it utterly
annihilates the moral agent, ^he notions of agency, power,
choice and possibility, and of all the beliefs, words and deeds
into which these notions enter, lose all meaning. It is not,
indeed, quite true that a consistent Determinism must be
speechless, but it is clear that its vocabulary must be very
seriously curtailed. Words like 'if,' 'perhaps,' 'can,' 'may,*
* ought,' 'might have been,' 'either . . .or,' and their
equivalents, would have to be conscientiously expunged
from it, and a monotonous ' must ' would have to take their
place. And if, in addition, one reflects that, though all this
testimony to the reality of alternatives in life and language
would be known to be illusory, we should yet be unable to
escape from the illusion, one begins to wonder where the
superior ' rationality ' of the deterministic universe comes
in. Rationalistic notions of ' reason ' are among the curiosities
of human psychology ; but this deterministic notion of a
determined world, suffering from an ineluctable illusion that
it was free, would seem to reduce the world to a vast lunatic
asylum, in which the patients were not only victims of
incurable delusions, but also excruciated by a knowledge of
the fact.\
Determinism, therefore, cannot be said to make good its
claim to rationality and morality. But it does not, of course,
Choice 457
follow that Indeterminism is any better. The true lesson of
the situation might be that of Scepticism. The alternative
views might both be invincible in attack and impotent in
•defence, and might thus conspire to prove the weakness of
human reason. Still this, too, would be a conclusion to be
avoided if we can. It would be better to get the human
reason out of the pitfall into which it has fallen. Is it not
possible to effect a compromise between the conflicting
claims ?
^Determinism, clearly, cannot and ought not to give up its
status as a scientific principle. We cannot renounce the
right of looking for a determinate connexion between events,
for that is the deepest postulate of scientific method. But we
need not claim for it absolute and ultimate validity. It is
enough if we are entitled always to treat events as if they
were determined, and if that treatment is true enough to the i^
facts to be useful. ,
Ethics similarly cannot surrender the belief that alternatives
to the evil-doing it condemns were really possible. But it
need not contend that habit is no force, that the acts of
moral beings are incalculable, and that every one is eternally
free to stultify his past life and present character. \
Beyond this point our progress will depend on a closer
analysis of the conception of choice. This conception, we
have seen, does not mean the same for the libertarian as for
the determinist. For the libertarian, choice is really what it
seems to be and what it is experienced as. That is to say, it
is real, and really decides between alternatives that are really
possible until the decision is taken. For the determinist the
alternatives are only apparent. One of them (only we do
not know which) is predestined to be taken. The 'choice'
is only the adoption of that one. Both views, however, give
a consistent and intelligible account of 'choice,' and to decide
between them would be to decide the question.
45 8 Riddles of the Sphinx
If we decide in favour of the libertarian view, no serious
obstacles remain in the path of a philosophy of freedom. For
if choice is real, if there really are alternatives, it follows that
in choosing between them we are exhibiting our power as
real agents, real causes and initiators of new departures in
the flow of cosmic change. We thereby prove the existence
of free causes. For neither the objection that our doctrine
involves a negation of ' causes,' nor the assumption that
' causes ' must be fully determined, can any longer be
sustained. The conception of cause has entered the world
of science from nowhere but from our own direct experience ;
and if we are free causes that are not incalculable, then free
causes may be assumed elsewhere without subverting science.
If, on the other hand, we decide that the alternatives in
choice are mere illusion, we cut away the root of the whole
belief in freedom ; we shall find nothing else in the world that
will force upon us so preposterous a notion.
But before we decide, we should at least attempt an un-
prejudiced consideration of the psychology of choice. Acts
of choice are surely about the most vivid, real and important
experiences of our lives ; and as from their very nature it seems
to be impossible that we should fail to attend to them, the
verdict of consciousness as to their nature seems particularly
worthy of credence. What, then, do we find ? It will hardly
be disputed that the alternatives in choice /^^/ real ; that we
feel 'free' in choosing, in a way distinct from the feeling
which accompanies all our other actions, voluntary and
involuntary. Why, then, should not the determinist be called
upon to give some good and sufficient reason for his belief
that these choices are not really free? Surely the burden of
proof lies on those who allege that what seems to be real is
not really so.
The determinist, however, at this point seems singularly
lacking in resource. Instead of adducing independent reasons.
Choice 459
he simply recoils upon his a priori prejudice. To choose
freely is to choose without a motive, and therefore irrationally
and incalculably. And as this would reinstate chaos, the
alternatives cannot be real.
This whole argument is extremely abstract. It takes no
account of the psychical experiences, and overlooks an impor-
tant logical alternative. For it assumes that indeterminate
choice is the same as motiveless choice. But this is neither
logically nor psychologically correct. It may be hard to
choose, not from lack of motives, but from excess ; the sus-
pense of the will may be due not to apathy and lack of interest,
but to the clash of conflicting desires. It is surely a strange
confusion which lumps together two such different cases. To
have no cogent motive for deciding for either, and to be dis-
tracted by strong but contrary impulses, are surely different
as conceptions, different as experiences, and different in their
results. No real ass would starve, like Buridan's, between two
equal bales of hay ; but even an American reporter would
hardly induce him to express a preference as between two
equal pictures of the hay. Psychologically, too, the experi-
ences are different. The mind of the man who has no motive
is a blank ; that of the man who has conflicting motives is a
tumult. The act of the former seems capricious and incal-
culable; that of the latter seems reasonable and perfectly
calculable. Whichever way his decision falls, his friends (who
think they know him) will say it was just like him; that it
might have been foreseen, and, in short, was thoroughly
rational and calculable. And herein they will not be wholly
wrong ; for the alternatives between which the choice decides
in such a case are plainly rooted in his nature, and consonant
therewith.
All of this possibly the determinist will have to admit ;
but he will persist in asking — What decides between the alter-
natives ? Is not the answer 'nothing'? Hence, is not the
460 Riddles of the Sphinx
choice indeterminate, and therefore irrational ? Has not the
irrationality been sublimated, and not eliminated ?
The reply again must take the form of beseeching the
determinist to look at the facts and to distinguish different
cases. Is the kind of indetermination to which the facts point
such a very terrible affair? Does it amount to a total sub-
version of the cosmic order? Does it imply an irruption of
unbridled and unlimited forces? Is it effectively the same
as the total indetermination which would make a mock of
Science ?
Surely it is nothing of the kind. It is an indetermination
of a very definite and specific kind ; and to declaim against it
because it has formidable congeners is like alleging that it is
perilous to keep a domestic cat because a pet tiger would .be
sure to devastate the household ; and Mr. Russell's argument
that one per cent, of indetermination would do one per cent,
of the mischief of total indetermination is like arguing that
because the tiger would kill ten men in one day, the cat would
kill one man in ten days. Surely the determinist should deign
to note that the essence of the indetermination is, that it is
taken to subsist between alternatives which are separately
calculable and individually rational. When they are combined
and become relevant to the same situation, it is intelligible
that more calculation will be needed ; but this is not to say
that no calculation will be passible. The calculating instinct
of Science, therefore, is not thwarted, but satisfied with an
abundance of opportunity. The practical inconvenience to
Science, therefore, of this sort of indetermination is nil, as Mr.
Russell himself has finally to admit (p. 121).
Science, of course, always makes the simplest assumptions
first. Hence it will always first try to calculate the behaviour
of things on the assumption that they have no alternatives.
But, after all, if that assumption does not work — and in dealing
with ourselves it seems to fail — why should not Science con-
Choice 461
template a more complex possibility, and enquire what must
be the nature of a reality which contains real alternatives and
a modicum of calculable indetermination ?
The question is not unanswerable, nor is the answer un-
intelligible. It is merely needful to introduce a slight
modification into the conception of reality. The assumption
of a rigid ' block ' universe, as William James calls it,
incapable of the slightest free play of its parts, must be
abandoned. In its stead we may conceive a reality that is still t^UWx^y
plastic and not yet set, with reactions that have not yet grown T^j^^^yw^
rigid and unalterable. If this plasticity be real, the future of --^-Mm^^^/c^
the world will not be quite determined, but, within the limits "^^ ^<^^^^Li^
of its plasticity it will be capable of new and alternative^ '^^^A'w,
developments. At various points there will occur reactions "^^^
which are variable, because the nature of the real has not yet ^ v ^^
finally settled down into one of the alternatives ; and where ^\JlPi^^-.
such reals are conscious of their nature, they will feel that it -tc^^^pt^
leaves them partly indeterminate and free. ^^^^*^^^*^
That such a conception of reality is not unreasonable may '^^o(t^J
be inferred from this that it would seem to be demanded *
by the fact of individual variation and by any belief in the
ultimate reality of evolution. For if the evolution is to be
real, and not merely illusory, it must mean a real growth in
that in respect to which the world is said to be evolving. And
such growth would be impossible if reality were really rigid.
There are, moreover, a good many facts which would bear
this interpretation. The habits of things do not seem to be
quite fixed. This is particularly evident in organic nature,
and may be directly experienced by us in the formation of
human habits. Incompletely formed habits act variably, and
their reactions cannot be predicted with exactitude. Now,
from their very nature, moral habits must always in general
be found among the incompletely formed habits. For in
proportion as they grow fixed and automatic, they tend to pass
462 Riddles of the Sphinx
out of the sphere of moral valuation. A being whose nature
is so firmly set upon doing the right thing that no temptation
to do wrong ever troubles him is no longer, per se, a moral
being. His virtue has become an irresistible instinct, and he
can no longer help doing right. He is supra-moral, that is,
moral only as an exemplar of the possibilities of moral pro-
gress, to be emulated by those whose moral nature still feels
temptation's sting. Conversely, a being for whom the
possibility of doing right has been atrophied by the growth of
evil habits is really infra-moral. For moral suasion is w^asted
on him, and no longer strikes a responsive chord. But it is
in a being in whom the lower instincts and moral principles
are still contending for the mastery that there is real plasticity
of habit, real contingency of conduct. In such a being alone
are choices real, and not foregone conclusions. For his nature
is such that each of the" moral alternatives makes a real appeal
to him, though to different sides of him. But in such a being
the reality of choice and of freedom are one thing and the
same, viz., an incident in the development of his moral nature.
Hence the existence of moral beings is a standing protest
against the assumption of a rigid reality out of which the
fallacy of Determinism naturally grows.
-1
APPENDIX III.
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. ^
The relations of Science and Religion have undergone a
startling transformation in recent years. For among the
great discoveries of Science in the latter part of the nine-
teenth century was that of the existence of Religion. Of its
existence, that is, as a fact in the world of human experience
and so as a scientific subject, to be studied with all the
reverence with which Science welcomes such facts as it has
consented to recognize. Religion thus ceases to be for
Science an obstacle to natural knowledge and the jealous
guardian of mysteries which cannot bear its inquiring eye: it
has itself become a source of natural knowledge, and
something from which it is possible to learn new facts about
the nature of the universe.
This implies the deepest and most thorough reconciliation
of Science and Religion which it is possible to conceive. It
puts an end in principle to the unworthy bickerings between
them about the territories of each, and the futile attempts at
the delimitation of their borders, which even if it could be
carried through, would result only in cleaving in two the
realm of human experience. For it permits each to claim the
whole of experience — in its own fashion — while nevertheless
neither can oust or contradict the other. Thus it places their
difference not in the objects which they severally contemplate,
^This paper was written for the Pan- Anglican Church Congress, 1908.
464 Riddles of the Sphinx
but in the subjective attitudes which man assumes towards
his experience, and regards both these attitudes as indis-
pensable for the prosperous conduct of life. Science may
justly deal with all things ; for the whole of Reality may
provide food for scientific reflection. So may Religion ; for
the whole of Science may support and nourish the religious
attitude. Both are means of transmuting the crude ' matter '
of ' appearance ' into forms better, truer, more beautiful and
more real.
But within the unity of their ultimate end in the common
good of man, there is abundant scope for recognizing
differences of purpose and of method between Science and
Religion. The religious attitude is not primarily intended to
augment our practical control of things; the scientific attitude
is not primarily intended to augment our spiritual strength.
The fact that secondarily each may do the other's work, as
human interest shifts from the one to the other, tells as
strongly in favour of distinguishing their nature as it does in
favour of harmonizing their services.
The science which must be credited with the leading part
in the discovery of the vital function of Religion is psychology.
Psychology has itself been relatively slow to grow up to its
full scientific stature (and even yet has not quite outgrown
servile imitations of physical methods and concessions to a
materialistic metaphysic, which its weakness at first de-
manded). Even now it is still far from being generally
recognized that psychological facts are facts as real and hard
and undeniable as those of any other science, and that
humanly they are often far more insistent. But once a
philosopher has nerved himself to reckon with the reality of
psychological facts, the whole drama of human history is
marvellously changed. He begins to grasp a unity of plot
pervading the multiform vicissitudes of its evolution and
subduing the antagonism of its protagonists. He begins to-
Science and Religion 465
see how always and everywhere * rational ' activity has been
directed upon a remoulding of human experience into
consonance with human ideals. He traces both Science and
Religion to their common root in the heart of man. He
traces them with unblenching eye through the crudities and
atrocities of their pedigrees, and dissects with remorseless
sympathy the ' errors ' that gave birth to ' truth.'
For both Science and Religion owe their birth to human
sin and weakness. Had the world been from the first
amenable to all man's demands, he would never have
adopted either the scientific or the religious attitude. But
such was not the way of the world in which man's spirit has
grown strong.' To primitive man the world is a very terrible
affair, replete with incalculable horrors, whose burden was
alleviated only by the limitations of his imagining. It is still
so beset with dangers that Science may legitimately wonder
whence man draws the strength to sustain the unequal
struggle with the cosmic forces, and Religion may legitimately
argue from his continued success to some hidden source of
divine assistance. In either case we do but formulate, but
not reveal, the mystery of man's success, when we ascribe it
to his adoption of the religious and the scientific attitude.
Both were sorely needed. Man had to watch, with inex-
haustible credulity and patience, but undaunted courage, the
ways of men and animals and things. And then, blindly at
first and unintelligently, he imitated and interfered and
attempted to control. So Magic grew up, and out of Magic
Science, the Magic which works.
But it was a fight of course in which Man was, and is, and
long will continue to be, overmatched. He must often,
therefore, have been terrified. Where control ceases, terror
reigns. When terror is humanized and deified, superstition
begins. Primus in orbe Timor fecit deos. True; the early
gods are largely devils — devils, however, who can be pro-
30
466 Riddles of the Sphinx
pitiated. Suffering, fear and sin, are feelings which early
religions evoke as well as control. But if religion had been
based on fear alone, it could never have grown rational.
Man was prompted (how ?) to imagine other gods than the
powers of nature that appalled him. He beheld the vision of
a Divine Helper who could assuage terror and control the
inhuman powers, and so inspire human progress. From the
depths of despair there rose before the eyes of faith the figure
of the Saviour, and sublimated Superstition into Religion, the
superstition which comforts and uplifts. Thus, by a com-
bination of the scientific and the religious attitude, man has
contrived to survive.
Such, stripped of all theologic pedantry, is the psychologist's
vision of the vital function of Religion and of the nature of
man as a religious animal. He does not hesitate in con-
sequence to speak of a religious sense, none the less real
for being restricted to no special organ, and interfused
throughout man's way of taking his experience. He
regards its existence, function and value, as definite facts for
scientific study, as definitely correlated with man's success in
life, and with the functioning of his whole intelligence, and
even as illumining the latter.
For it appears that certain, characteristics of man's
procedure in aiming at the control of his experience stand
out more clearly in his religious than in his scientific attitude.
For example, the fact that faith everywhere precedes know-
ledge. No doubt it is true that Science also ultimately rests
on acts of faith, that the assumptions, which encourage us to
control and understand the world must be risked before
experience can confirm them. Thus no order of events,
however regular, could ever prove the existence of ' laws of
nature' to an intelligence which held this sequence of
events to be fortuitous. For such an intelligence would
not connect them, and so would see no reason why the
Science and Religion 467
sequence should not stop, or go on, at any point and in
any way.
The unity of Space and Time, the indestructibility of
■* Matter ' and the conservation of Energy, nay, the very
unity of the 'universe' itself, are similarly postulates.
Science, therefore, indubitably starts from postulates which
are envisaged by Faith before they are proved by experience.
It is mere verbalism (as well as sheer negation of Science) to
■claim to have removed the risk of postulates by calling them
a priori. For even a priori necessities of thought do but
conceal the risk, and cannot dispense with an act of Faith
which believes in their continuance. But it is true that, until
recently, Science was not so keenly conscious of its acts of
Faith, and (when misguided by philosophers) even imagined
that pure reason or unaided experience could establish its
foundations. No religion has ever made such a pretence of
dispensing with Faith, or of laying claim to a purely rational
'demonstration.
Again, Religion has never committed the folly of allowing
itself to be dehumanized, while Science, though essentially as
human as Religion, has often seemed oblivious of the fact.
Engrossed by a multitude of useful abstractions and conven-
tions, it has often seemed to eliminate the very person whose
interest and interests had set on foot the whole inquiry.
There is here nothing but a difference of purpose: in Science
man at first seems passive ; he restrains himself and watches,
that he may the better intervene : in Religion he is conscious
that he must be active and implore, in order to have
consolation and to rest from the troubles which oppress him.
Still there is no doubt that the personal venture, which
^very act of Faith always contains, comes out much better in
Religion.
Religion, on thr. other hand, has been much less sedulous
to emphasize the technique of verification, which confirms
u:
468 Riddles of the Sphinx
such ventures. It has often been suspected of doing-
without it altogether. It has been accused of taking the will
for the deed, for accepting Faith without works, of deluding
itself with airy shadows of its own desires.
But this is a complete mistake. Religious postulates need
confirmation as much as those of Science. The true claim of
religious experience is that they receive it after their kind,
that e.g. prayer 'works,' that it really uplifts and consoles.
This, of course, the rationalist is most unwilling to concede.
He puts the whole effect down to ' imagination.' But his
position is logically quite untenable. He has not made the
religious assumptions ; he has not put himself into the
religious attitude ; he has not put himself in the way of the
religious experiences ; he is not qualified to judge how and
how far they constitute a verification of the religious attitude.
His only means of recognizing its value ab extra is to record
its bearing on the survival of those who have ventured on it,
and in this respect he may contend that the truth of Religion
is still sub judice. But for this very reason his denial of its
value now is a purely dogmatic expression of his own will to-
disbelieve. Scientifically his attitude is that of one who denies
the reality of phenomena he has refused to experiment with.
This attitude is not unknown, even in Science ; for dogmatism
and intolerance are common human] failings ; but it is
profoundly unscientific, and men are growing more ashamed
of it. \Once, therefore, we admit the psychological reality of
Religion, nine-tenths of the current rationalism is put out of
court. It is swept away by the suspicion that its objections
are analogous to those of the colour-blind to the existence of
colour./
But, it is urged, these psychological verifications prove too
much. They would be just as efficacious if they were merely
subjective. Just because Religion is such a spiritual need, it
is a methodological necessity, whether or not it is true. It is
Science and Religion 469
enough to act as if it were true, to obtain its spiritual benefits
Psychologically all religions work, whatever the nature of the
objects they allege, whether or not anything objective cor-
responds to the ideals they postulate. Pragmatically, there
can be no distinction between a true religion and a false.
Now there is not a little in this argument. It contains the
explanation of the immense variety of religious opinion, and
of the multifarious developments of religious history. It
should be welcomed, therefore, by all those whose faith has
been distressed and shaken by these facts. And philo-
sophically, also, it may mean a great advance, if it leads to
a perception that the existing plurality of truths must not
be ignored for the sake of an unattained ideal of the unity
of truth.
But on the whole this view is an exaggeration, and even
its logic is at fault. It does not draw^ the right inference
from its own premisses. If all religions work, all are true,
and what is false is the rigidity of an idea of truth which
cannot tolerate such plural truth. It is not true, however,
that there is no pragmatic difference between a theory which
is true and one which is merely thought to be true. Though
all theories which are current must work in some degree,
the true theory works better, and this is precisely the reason
why, once thought of, it is accepted and supplants the
theories which were merely thought to be true. Moreover,
for any theory to work it must be believed in, i.e., believed
to be true. It is impossible, e.g. to practice prayer merely
as a piece of spiritual hygiene, and in order to get the
strengthening which is said to result from the practice.
The practice need not of course start with a firm belief in
the reality of its object. But unless it engenders a real
belief, it will become inefficacious. Hence to conceive
Pragmatism as ultimately sanctioning an 'act-as-if attitude
of religious make-believe is a misapprehension ; it is to
4-7 o Riddles of the Sphinx-
confound it "with the discredited and ineffectual dualism
of Kant's antithesis of practical and theoretic 'reason.'
Lastly,, it should be noted that any theory which works
niust evoke some response from the objective nature of
things. If there were no * God,' i.e. nothing- that could
afford any satisfaction to any religious emotion, the whole
religious attitude w^ould be futile. If it is not, it must
contain essential truth, though it may remain to be deter-
mined what is the objective fact corresponding to the
postulate.
The parallel case of Science will serve as illustration.
The postulate of uniformity would be made as a subjective
necessity, as a method of control, upon the slightest hints in
nature. But it would not be persisted in and believed to
be true (and even axiomatic!), unless it showed itself to be
extensively applicable. There is, therefore, something
'objective' to correspond with it — which in this case we
know. The objective factor is the fact that all things have
habits, and change them (if at all), so slowly that for most
scientific purposes we may assume them to be constant.
It is clear, therefore, that the truth of Religion has both
a subjective and an objective aspect, and that the two are
connected. The way to the latter, lies through the former.
Both are capable and worthy of far more scientific study
than they have yet received. It behoves Science, therefore,
to be cautious. It is dealing with subtleties and com-
plications not to be unravelled by the a priori affirmations
of a rationalistic dogmatism. Its attitude towards the facts
of the religious life should be that of the student and the
learner. It need not pretend as yet to pronounce what is
the precise vital value of religious experiences and of the
institutions founded on them, what is their cognitive value,
and what are the objective facts to which they 'correspond.*
If it could answer these questions fully, it would supersede
Science and Religion 471
dogma and turn the theoretic aspect of Religion into a
science. But intrinsically these questions are not un-
answerable, if men are interested enough to try, and honest
enough to learn, from the results of trial.
About the subjective side of Religion, Science can already
speak more positively. That it exists, embodied in a
thousand forms, and has had a long and wondrous history,
are patent facts. What it wants is also pretty clear from
history. Experience, therefore, already throws such light
on the psychology of Religion that there is not much scope
for dispute about the constitution of most men's subjective
demands. History exhibits a significant convergence upon
the main outlines of the ' God ' who satisfies the normal
religious instinct. A 'god' who is a mere principle of
unity pervading a universe which furnishes equal accommo-
dation to the just and to the unjust, and is equally indifferent
to both, is a postulate which has unceasingly been urged
upon mankind as the most truly philosophic deity. But it
has never won acceptance, and has never become widely
functional. It has had, therefore, to be stowed away in the
darker corners of theological systems. To human feeling
unity is precious only as a guarantee of union, and the unity
of a common life and a common purpose is more important
than that of a common substance and a common basis. For
the latter guarantees the former, about as well as a common
battlefield is a guarantee of concord. Again, the god of the
religious sentiment must be good, and, if need be, his power
must be limited by his goodness. He must also be active :
a ' God ' to whose agency nothing in particular can be
referred, because he inertly sanctions whatever happens,
is an otiose hypothesis ; nor do the banquetings of Epicurean
deities evoke religious feelings.
But above all, God must sympathize with man. This is
the first and most enduring postulate of the religious attitude.
472 Riddles of the Sphinx
God to be really worthy of our worship must be man's
Helper, nay, his Saviour, his ideal refuge, from the grinding
pressure of the cosmic mechanism.
/ Now this loftiest ideal no religion has embodied with
anything like the perfection of the Christian. For Chris-
tianity alone takes it quite seriously, in the full splendour
of its poignant paradox. Buddhism comes second. But
though Gotama, the Enlightened One, also took pity on
men and taught them, and showed them the way of
salvation, he taught them how to save themselves by
discovering the way of salvation for himself. He did not
yield up his share of any good from sympathy with man.^
Christianity, on the other hand, has chosen this directest
way to the human heart. It conceives the Divine as
lowering itself to the human, nay, to quite an inconspicuous
form thereof, in order to save it by betokening its love.
It has thus transformed the historic Jesus into the Eternal
Symbol of God's sympathy with man, and through man
with all that struggles and suffers in the scheme of being.
For it is only a suffering world that needs to be saved.
And it is only a suffering God that can save a suffering
world. For sympathy means suffering with others. This
is why the Crucifixion is the greatest and divinest of all
symbols, which cannot lose its meaning so long as suffering
endures.
Not that Religion stands alone in recognizing the signifi-
cance of suffering. Science also has its sacred symbol of
suffering, more ancient and as solemn. Prometheus,
1 It is only in its much later, and according to philosophic standards
* corrupter,' form of Northern (Tibetan) Buddhism that the Buddha
{probably under Christian influence) renounces his right to enter
Nirvana, and consents to enlighten the world by his continued re-
incarnations. This mitigates, but does not quite obliterate, the taint
of individualistic selfishness which clings to the Buddhistic scheme of
salvation.
Science and Religion 473
chained to the icy rocks of Caucasus in awful loneliness
and lacerated day by day by the savage bird of cruel Zeus
for the sublime crime of stealing from the nature-gods the
secrets whereby man wins the power to control them, is no
unworthy symbol of the unceasing martyrdom of Science,
of the hideous vivisections, of the unseen and unrequited
sacrifices, which cement together fragmentary facts into the
growing fabric of our knowledge.
When, however, we compare the Prometheus-symbol with
that of the Christ, the differences are striking. Its emotional
appeal is much less powerful. Its triumph and its tragedy
are enacted in regions unapproachable save to those specially
prepared. The Caucasus is not, like Calvary, a spectacle for
anxious crowds. Its sacrifice is consummated far from the
thronging haunts of men in the solemn silence of the highest
human thought, a silence which is barely broken when from
time to time some overweighted system topples over in an
avalanche.
Lastly Prometheus is nothing but a symbol, which lacks
(for us at least) the support of history. Now the value of
this support may easily be overrated. Neither Science nor
Religion are dependent on mere history. For Science no
fact can be assured by history alone ; it is not effective fact
until history can be made to repeat itself at pleasure. By
Religion history is valued as the vehicle of an eternal
meaning. Hence in both the symbolic meaning tends to
obscure the literal. Without it, fact can have no meaning
and no value. For Science, the facts of history are the play
of nature's abiding ' laws ' ; for Religion, they are the
growing fulfilment of a divine purpose. Still, we should
not forget that history alone can infuse the abstractness of
our symbols with the warmth of immediate experience, and
prove that the ideal can be realized. So our human
weakness craves for history to incarnate the ' eternal ' truths
474 Riddles of the Sphinx
in : even though it recognizes that history may, nay must,
mean myth, and that whatever has happened once and
irrevocably may be doubted, nay will be doubted, the more-
tenaciously, the more important its achievement. Hence the
chief difficulties of Religion are the historical, and Science
shows its wisdom in dwelling as little as may be on the
records of its past.
Such, approximately, are the claims which Science and
Religion seem to make on man's allegiance ; and it will be
seen how little need there is to construe them as incompatible.
Both are the expression of human needs, and their (partial)
satisfaction. Both should be directed towards further and
loftier achievements. And it is safe to hazard the prediction
that the form of Religion which realizes this most clearly
will be the religion of the future.
INDEX
Absolute, 260, 317, 320-4, 338, 375,
423, 435-.
Abstractionism, 156-163.
Action at a distance, 66.
Activity, 67, 172, 419-28.
Achilles and Tortoise, 160, 433.
Adaptation, 101-6, 118, 424.
Agnosticism, 13, ch. ii, 96, 138,
Animism, lo-i i.
Anthropomorphism, 56, 144-7,321,
443, 447-
Appearance, 49-50, 157.
Application, necessary to meaning,
156.
A prion, 37-9, 74, 1546, 467.
Arisfotlc, 9, 85, 86, 103, 165, 172,
173, 192, 195, 246, 255, 287, 308,
377, 393, 420, 424, 431, 452-3-
Atheism 314, 318-9.
Atom 64-5, 67n, 187-91, 2o6n,
229-31, 249n, 272-3.
A7'erroes, 277-
Angus tine 46.
Azam,, Dr., 277n.
Bacon, Roger, 196.
Balfour, A. J., 72.
Bagehoi, W., 221.
Beauty, 123-4, 429.
Becoming, 29, 30, 58, 69-73, 72>,
125, 137, 206, 208, 247-8, 256-7,
434, 449.
Being, 29, 72, 206, 291, 325, 418-
29, 434-
Belief, 437.
Berkeley, 139, 165, 317.
Bradley, F. H., 49, 80,85, 156, 382.
Buddhism, 374, 384, 395, 472.
Buridan, 459.
Butler, S., 452.
Cause, 29-31, 37, 38, 57, 68-71,
242, 248, 302, 440-3, 458, final,
400-3, infinite regress of, 241 ;
400, 442, 448.
Change, 256, 324-5, 424.
Choice, 445, 4^1-62.
Christianity, 116, 314, 371-3,432,
472.
Consciousness, I42n, 285-9, 294,
419-20.
Contingency, 161, 448.
Confradiction, 155-6.
Creation, 314, 322, 416-7.
Creationism, 372.
Criticism, 33,36, 39, 152.
Crookes, Sir W., 185-92, 196, 229,
272.
Cycle Theory, 206-7.
Dariuin, C, 18, 177, 185.
Darwinism, 177, 395.
Death, 362, 378-82, 436.
Degrees of immortality, 383-7.
Democritus, 291.
Descartes, 47, 377.
Determinism, 439-42, 453-62.
Dialectical Process, 161.
Diogenes, 103.
Discovery, 153.
Dissolution, 206.
Dream, 279-80.
Dualism, 158, 314, 339*40, 378.
Duty, 121, 132, 155,447,450.
Ego, 274-9, 283, 287, 354, 388-94.
Eleatics, 324-5.
Enipedocles, 193.
Ei'e/)7eta aKivqaias^ 424.
Energy, 62-3.
Environment, 100-13.
Error, 83, 84, 88, 465.
476
Index
Eternity, 256-8, 418.
Ether, 65, 188, 191,
Evil, 135, 257, 296, 307-8, 310-1,
350-5, 357, 416, 418.
Evolution, 29, 109, 125, 283-4,
304, 359» 413 ; chemical, 185-92,
205 ; and evil, 353 ; and infinity,
248-50; and Pessimism, 105-20;
law of, ch. 7nii \ Spencer's, 209-
11; V. Hartmann's, 211-2;
metaphysics of, ch. vii.
Fact, 166, 265, 370, 473.
Faith, 3, 25, 209, 436-7, 453, 466-7.
Faraday^ 268.
Fatalism, 455.
Finite, 326-8, 338-9.
First Cause, 24, 30-1, 40-2, 68,
197, 302, 321, 441.
Force, 26, 67, 26'/-'j4.
Form, 33-4.
Freedom, 42, 71, 439-50, 453-^2,
Friendship, 410.
Ghosts, 37on.
God, 3, 8, 13, 16, 17, 20, 27-8, 30,
40, 41, 42, 197, 260, 278-9, 287,
430-2, 470-2.
and man, ch. x ;
finite, 304, 349 ; a postulate, 360.
Goethe., 259, 386.
Goodness, 122, 307-8, 428-9.
Greek morals, 121.
Gree?t, T. H., 36.
Habit, 286, 457, 461-2, 470.
Hallucination, 281-2.
Hamilton., Sir W., 26.
Happiness, 98-119, 167,421, 429-
30; defined, 100.
Hartmatin., E. von, 21 1-2, 324, 407.
Heaven, 167, 233, 363, 421, 424.
Hedonism, 98-9.
Hegel, -^6, 415.
Hegelism, 161 -2.
Hell, 363.
Hej-akleitos, 235.
Heredity, 396-9, 403-4.
Herschel, Sir J., 187.
Hinduism, 375, 395.
Historical Method, 34, 173-80.
History, 174-80, 298-300, 391, 416,
473-4.
H abbes., 419.
Hudson., W. H., 2i3n.
Humanism, v, 145-7, 164-70, 177.
Hiune., 68-9, 138-40.
Hypnotism, 280-1, 403.
Ideal World, 77-8, 159, 188.
Idealism, 254, 2^8-66, 270, 298,
300, 378.
Immortality, ch. xi.
Imperfection, 137, 257, 320, 431.
Independence of truth, 89.
Indeterminism, 321, 439-42, 457-
62.
Individualism, 188, 214.
Individuality, 82, 226-8, 230-3,
405.
Inference, 81.
Infinite, as unknowable, 3, 22, 146 ;
as feeling, 329-30 ; as useless,
331 ; and God, 41-2, 307, 311,
319, 321-2, 325-8.
Infinity, 22, 59, 240-53, 331 ; as
mental, 244, 327-8 ; of God,
311-2; of impotence, 241 ; of
mathematics, 241 ; of power,
242 ; of space, 243-6, 433 ; of
time, 175, 247, 255, 271, 418,.
433 5 paradoxes of, 242-3 ;
popular sense of, 240.
Intellectualism, 452.
Interaction, 67, 172, 231, 274, 343-
6, 354,. 430-
Intuitionism, 85-6.
J antes, W., 289, 461.
J ami, 407.
Joachim, H. H., 84.
Judaism, 314.
Judgment, 80-1.
Ka?it, 15, 17, 23, 31,/, 72, 117,
140-2, 155-6, 275, 304, 360, 470.
Karma, 384.
Knowledge, 9, 90-2, 428.
Law, 287, 309.
Leibniz, 165, 272, 308, 317, 343-4.
Life, 9, 150, 165,437.
Index
Ml
Lotze, ^'ji.
Love, 1 1 6, 407-11.
Lucretius, 291.
Magic, 465.
Manse I, 26.
Marriage, 1 17.
Marshall, H. R., 142.
Materialism, 263, 265-6, 282-91,
376, 37^-
Matter, 25, 26, 33-4, 60, 63-7, 263,
266-73, 279, 282-300, 317, 378.
Maxwell, Clerk, 187.
Meaning, 156.
Mechanism, 202, 287-8, 296-7.
Meliorism, 98.
Memory, 290, 384-7, 391, 395-6.
Metaphysics, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, 51,
148-9, 154, 156-8, 165; of
evolution, c/i. vii.
Method of philosophy, ch. vi.
Mill, J. S., 139, 269, 317.
Milton, 420.
Monism, 339-48, 387-8.
Monotheism, 312-3, 315.
Motion, 26, 58, 61-2, 271, 424-5*
433-
Motive, 459.
Myers, F. W. H., 278, 364.
Natm-alism, 148-52, 163, 194.
Nature, 357-8.
Necessity, 373, 439-50.
Newton, 65, 172.
Nirvana, 423.
Nothing, 184, 193.
Noumena, 32-3, 35, 43.
Number, 241.
Oliphattt, L., 407.
Omnipotence, 306, 330, 356.
Ontological proof, 40-1.
Optimism, 97-100, 117, 136.
Origin, 174-7, 183-4, 192-3.
Ostwald, W., 268n.
Pantheism, 314-6, 31S-20, 324,
329-33, VI'
Pejorism, 98, 106.
Perception, 74, 81.
Perfection, 167, 422, 427-30, 433.
Periodic Law, 185.
PersonaHty, 142-4, 232, 303, 306;
of God, 314-5 ; multiplex, 232-3,
406, 411.
Pessimism, 93-4, ch. iv., 130-1^
135-7, 436.
Philo, 3i4n.
Philosophy, 6, 8, 9, 316, 451,
Plato, viii, 25, 46, 78, 88, 103,.
158-9, oil. 394-
Pluralism, 339-48.
Poittcare, H., 67.
Polytheism, 10, 312-3, 361.
Population question, 113, 115.
Positivism, 7, 12-3, 16.
Postcosmic State, 417-9.
Postulates, 467.
Potentiality, 195-7.
Practice, 7, 16, 91-2, 134.
Pragmatism, v, 469.
Prayer, 468-9.
Precosmic State, 413-7, 419.
Pre-existence, 394-403.
Prince, Dr. Morton, 277n.
Probability, 398-9.
Process, 198-9, 201, 206, 320.
Progress, iio-i, 121, 358-60, 450.
Protoplasm, 151, 182-4, 285.
Protyle, 185-94, 204, 299.
Psychical Research, 278, 281, 362,.
364, 369-
Psychology, 35, 36, 142, 149, 290,.
464.
Quietism, 423.
Rationalism, 456, 468.
Realism, 261-3.
Reality, 48, 80, 83, 461.
Reason, 47, 105, 106, 125, 456.
Religion, 5, 305, 316, 463-74.
Responsibility, 451-2.
Rest, 26, 61, 421-3.
Revelation, 312.
Russell, Hon. B. A. W., 450, 454-5-
Scepticism, 14, 48, ch. Hi, 96, 124,
131-2, 134, 137, 245, 250, 272,.
,457.,
Sc he I ling, viii.
478
Index
Science, ii, 17, 18, -^-j^ 55-6, 165,
172-3, 246, 248-50, 271, 320,
398, 460, 4^3-74'
Selection, 398.
Self, 37, 38, 44, 46-52, 138-44, 264,
214-g ; as phenomenal, 274, 405 ;
as secondary, 277-8, 406.
Self-consciousness, 420-1.
Sex, 406-7.
Sidis, B., 277n.
Socialism, 112, 213-4.
Society, 212-4, 214-26.
Socrates, 452.
Solidarity, 404.
Soul, 46, 289, ch. xi.
Space, 25, 27, 42-5, 57, 59-61, 168,
243-^4, 433 ; infinite divisibility
of, 43 ; infinity of, 45, 243-6,
248-51 ; limitation of, 189, 246.
Spejicer, H,, 15, 17, 20-9, 42, 98,
106, 114, 177, 179, 184, 206,
209-10, 212, 429.
Spinoza, 37? 103 •
Spirit, 165, 269, 272, 279, 282-3,
289, 291-300, 313, 349-5o> 369^
378, 387-8.
Spiritism, 369.
Stojtey, J. G., 189.
Substance, 33, 57, 71-2.
Superstition, 466.
Taylor, A. E., 69.
Teleology, 180-1, r
Theodicy, 293, 308.
Theology, 304-5
Thought, 47, 73-80.
Time, 27, 44-6, 58-9, 137, 162, 204,
247-51, 253-8, 415, 418, 430,
433- .
Traducianism, 372.
Truth, 75, -j^, 80, 83-go, 13 1-3,
142, 154-5, 435, 469; humanist
notion of, 132-4.
Unconscious, 211, 286, 324.
Universal Soul, 377.
Universe, 335-6,461.
Unity of Soul, 376-7.
Unknowable, 20-3, 25, 32, 50-2, 54,
Values, 132, 135.
Verification, 467-8.
Vice, 452-3.
Virtue, 120, 452-3, 462.
Walsh, C. M., 3i4n.
Weisma?in, A., no.
Whetham, W. C. D., 1 1 5.
Whole, 33, 331-8.
Will, 269, 272, 292, 443/
World-process, 162, 180, 198, 234,
31 1, 413-7, 432, 434, 450-
Zejio, 61, 160, 433.
201-3.
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