The Positive Outcome of Philosophy Part 12

The conclusion of my last letter explained that the use of the term G.o.d for the universe has much to recommend it and much to disqualify it. But it is easily apparent that the universe with its absolute qualities is closely related to that infinite being of whom Jakob Bohme, the philosophical shoemaker, said: "He is neither the light nor the darkness, neither love nor anger, but the eternal One.... Hence all forces are merely one sole force."

That nothing exists outside of the universe, that everything is contained in the All, that the All, with all real and imagined beings, is everything, that it is neither sweet nor sour, neither great nor small, but just everything and all, this statement is as obvious as the often and long repeated statement of ident.i.ty: A equals A.

The All is omnipotent, omnipresent, all-wise. This last term might be questioned, since the universe is not a dummy with a monster head and giant brain. For this very reason it was considered inappropriate to apply the name of G.o.d to the universe, because that creates the impression of a personal being. The All thinks only by means of human brains, and for this reason omniscience cannot be anything but common human knowledge. Of course, you, I, and every other man, are very limited in our knowledge. But still we may indulge in the hope that the things which we do not know are known by other men or will be discovered by future generations, so that the collective human mind will know everything that is knowable. We cannot see everything that is visible; there are animals that can see even better than we can. But since even the most intelligent animal is supposed to lack the highest degree of intelligence, reason and science, there is no one who knows anything except the human race. Mankind is omniscient. But since all our science is derived only from the world, mankind is only the formal bearer of intelligence, and it belongs to the fountain of all things, to eternal nature. Our wisdom is the wisdom of nature, is world wisdom. Although there may be inhabitants of the moon and of other stars who may know things which are unknown to us, still that is in the first place a mere speculation of little value, and in the second place universal omniscience or the omniscient universe would not in the least be affected thereby. It is a reasonable use of the language to regard human wisdom as the only and omniscient wisdom, just as all natural and wet water is called water without any further modification. I believe in the statement of Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things." Whoever uses a different measure, uses a superhuman, transcendental measure.[6]

Hence, when I call the cosmic essence of all existence omnipotent, you will not think of a senseless magic power which forges knives without handles and blades, nor will you read any transcendental meaning into my use of the term omniscience.

Omniscience belongs obviously under the head of logic, because the organ of science and wisdom is the object of the study of logic. And it must now be stated that the human mind does not only exceed the animal mind by far, but is also the _non plus ultra_ of all minds. But it must be retained that this mind can only be whatever it is in connection with the divine universe which I may also be permitted to call worldly deity.

This name is fitting because it is a means of understanding that in the first place no monster mind rules the world, and in the second place the natural universe is not a mere sum of all things, but truth and life.

Of course, the identification of the universe with the religious G.o.d is only a comparison, and comparisons are lame. Still we may compare the sun with an eternal lamp or the moon with a candle, or the German prime minister with a butler.

Logic shall teach you that everything which may be distinguished by the faculty of understanding is of the same kind, everything is of common clay, but the whole is sublimely elevated above all that is commonplace.

Mere frivolous atheism, as created by the free-thinkers, is not sufficient. A bare denial of G.o.d always creates some other idol worship.

The positive understanding of the divine world truth is an indispensable requirement for the radical extermination of all idol worship.

Logic must begin with the sublime, infinite, absolute. All logical, consistent or interconnected thinking must take its departure from it.

The so-called scientific research after temporal causes, after the egg from which the chicken was hatched, after the hen from which the egg came, after the kindred organisms which developed the hen by natural selection and adaption according to Darwin, this is a very valuable research without which we can never understand the world process. But nevertheless, such research must not satisfy the thinking man. Logic demands from everybody that he or she should search for the highest, for the cause of all causes. Whoever feels the desire to bring logical order into his consciousness, must know that the finite and infinite, the relative and the absolute, the special truths and the one general truth, are contained in one another.

Logical thought as demanded by science means nothing but to be aware of the final cause, the absolute foundation of all thought. This foundation is the universe, an attribute of which is the external and internal human head. The thousand year old dispute between the materialists and the idealists turns on the question whether the spirit is material or the world spiritual. Our answer is plain and clear: They both belong together, they together make up the one thing, the thing of all things.

Mind and matter are two attributes of the same substance. They may be compared the same as fish and flesh, the former being called very appropriately by some African tribes "water flesh." In this way, matter and mind are two kinds of meat of a different and yet of the same nature.

I remember reading in a satirical paper the question: "What is a gentleman? Answer: A gentleman is a loafer with money, and a loafer is a gentleman without money." Just as these two types of men are essentially alike and differ only in the small matter of money, so you should remember that there are no essential differences, that all differences are merely matters of attributes and qualities of the same absolute world substance. To distinguish correctly and logically, that is the point which logic is aiming to teach us. To make distinctions is the function which is also called perceiving, knowing, understanding, comprehending. When you consider that this function is innate in man, and that man together with his faculty of understanding is innate in nature, then you recognize all distinctions and the distinguished objects as attributes of the undistinguished One, of the absolute, compared to which all things are only relative things, in other words, attributes.

I am endeavoring to make clear to you that logical thinking requires the awakening of the consciousness of the one supreme general nature. And you must not think of this sum of all existence in the stupid way in which people used to think of the animal kingdom before Darwin, but regard the world as a living organic unit, from which the faculty of understanding has blossomed the same as all other things. In the logic of the narrow-minded, all animal species are widely separated, without any living interconnection, while Darwin has demonstrated the uniform process, the intermingling life in multiform creation. The ill.u.s.tration of this famous zoologist of the transition from one species to another may serve as an example of the logical transitions in the world process, in which all differences are but undulations. All our cla.s.sifications must always remember the undivided basis on which they are resting.

We have shown that the intellect divides the universal nature, cla.s.sifies and a.n.a.lyzes it, and we have learned of the universal nature that it not only furnishes to the intellect the material for its work, but also that the world comprises within its general process the intellectual process, that the intellectual movement is a specialization of the natural movement.

The world is not only the object, but also the subject of understanding, it understands, it dissects its own multiplicity by means of the human intellect. Our wisdom is world wisdom in a two-fold sense: The world is that which is being understood, cla.s.sified, a.n.a.lyzed, and at the same time it is that which, by the help of our intellect, practices understanding, cla.s.sification, etc. When I call the human mind the cosmic mind, the mind of the supreme being, I wish to have it understood that there is nothing mysterious about this, that I merely intend to show that thought or intelligence can only operate in the universal cosmic interconnection, that it is not an abnormal and transcendental thing, but a thing like all other things.

You must not conceive of the spirit as the producer of truth, as a little G.o.d, but only as a means. The true G.o.d, the divine truth, has our intellect for an attribute. The latter does not produce truth, but only the understanding of truth. It produces only pictures of truth which are all more or less perfect. Of course, it is not at all immaterial whether we produce a more or less faithful, a true or a false picture of truth, but still this is, at present and for us here, a secondary matter. The main thing is to know that truth, or nature, is far above all pictures, and still consists of parts, of forms, which together const.i.tute the whole.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] Please note the additional explanation on page 77.--EDITOR.

ELEVENTH LETTER

Dear Eugene:

Johannes Scherr relates in the "Gartenlaube," a German family paper, in an article ent.i.tled "Mahomet and His Work," that insane doctrinarians are searching for people without religion. This has not succeeded, it is said, although the spark of religious feeling is glowing very dimly in peoples that are close to the animal. But nevertheless, he continues, the expressions of religious feeling mark the boundary line where the beast ceases and man begins. For just as in the higher stages of civilization religion means the consciousness of the finite of being one with the infinite, so in the lower stages of civilization the indefinite impulse is felt by man to connect his special nature with the universal nature and bring them into harmony. This is idealism, the idealistic need. It is obvious that, and why, the people have always and everywhere sought and found satisfaction for their idealistic longings in religion.

But, adds the shrewd observer, I must remark that I do not refer to the shifting population when I say "people," for sad to relate, that population is torn away from all connection with natural conditions. I refer to the "settled, the permanent, the true people."

This quotation shows that a champion of the "true people" is in conflict with true logic. In dividing a population into shifting and settled people, one should retain as a basis the logical consciousness that all cla.s.ses of people are embraced by one cla.s.s; furthermore, that human, monkey, ant, and other nations are parts of the one and the same nation; until finally man and animal, real and imaginary, with all religious and G.o.dless things, are ultimately fused in the world unit and can never be "torn away from all connection with natural conditions."

All distinctions must logically be based on the consciousness of the absolute and universal unity, of the interconnection of all things. For this reason some pious people, with their G.o.d in whom everything is living and has its being, have more logic than some freethinkers of the cla.s.s of Johannes Scherr who have no coherence in their method of thought. The faithful think more logically than the narrowly skeptical, for they begin and end with G.o.d. But still they cannot think quite logically, because they cannot establish any logical connection between their eternally perfect Lord and evil, the devil, disease, misery, sin, in short all the sufferings and vanities here below.

The unit of nature, the infinite, is the quintessence of logic. Neither natural science in the narrow sense of the word, nor metaphysics, nor formal logic, can give any clue as to the nature of this thing of things. This can be done only by a science of understanding which recognizes matter and mind and all opposites and contradictions as formalities of the universe. How can a man who is out of touch with the ma.s.s of the shifting population feel that he is one with the universe?

Whoever regards any special cla.s.s as the true people, has no understanding either of the common people or of the absolute universe.

Proletarian logic teaches not only the equality of all human beings, but universal equality. And mark well, this universal equality does not conflict with variety any more than a variety of pots and jugs conflicts with the unity of vessels, or the manifold forms of bretzels and rolls with the unity of bakery ware.

The enemies of democratic development, in attacking the idea of freedom and equality, point to the manifoldness of nature, the individual differences of men, the distinctions between weak and strong, wise and fools, men and women, and consider it tyranny to attempt to equalize that which nature has made different. They cannot understand that like things may be different and different things alike. They are blinded by their cla.s.s logic which sees only the differences, but not the unity, not the transfusion of all cla.s.ses.

Cla.s.s logic teaches that contradictory things cannot exist. According to it, a thing cannot be genuine and false at the same time. This cla.s.s logic has a narrow conception of existence. It has only observed that there are many different things in nature, but has overlooked the fact that all these things have also a general nature. We, on the other hand, recognize that every thing, every person, is a part of the infinite world and partakes of its general nature, is eternal and perishable, true and untrue, great and small, one sided and manyfold, in short contradictory.

Before and after Socrates, philosophy and religion have searched for the genuine, right, good, true, and beautiful, but have reached no harmonious results. But it cannot be denied that in the course of the centuries the problem has become clearer and clearer. The great names of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Cartesius, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, are milestones on the highway of this progress.

The evolution is apparent, but the interrelation between the intellectual and physical, and especially between intellectual and economic evolution, is much ignored. The bridge between mind and body was not found, and philosophical evolution has been regarded up to our day as a purely mental process accomplished by one or two dozen of famous brains. I wish to point out to you now, that proletarian logic is the continuation of the preceding research after the genuine, true, good, and beautiful. It teaches how to conceive of these ideals logically, and it has not so much proceeded from any one talented brain, but is rather the product of the entire cosmic process.

Philosophical brains have developed the science of logical thought only to the extent that the material development of the world has stimulated them to do so. You must regard the human brains only as secondary levers of the universal lever which is not only genuine, true, good, and beautiful, but truth, goodness, and beauty itself, or the world and the absolute.

The understanding of the absolute which is called "good Lord," and then again "the bad world," in other words the selfsufficient cosmos, is very inconvenient to the wisdom of the professors, and they are attempting to a.s.sign it to a special study which they call "metaphysics." This division of labor is not introduced for the purpose of making research more productive, but of surrounding this study by mysterious darkness.

The professors who lecture to the young people on formal logic set aside the ancient research after the true, the good, the beautiful, and try to place these ideals outside of the light of science in order to be able to preserve them unchanged in the tabernacle of faith.

This charge may seem unjust, because the learned gentlemen reserved a corner for the true, the good, and the beautiful in their metaphysical department. But there is something peculiar about this. The great Kant has asked the plain question: "Is metaphysics practicable as a science?"

Answer: No! The transcendental truth, etc., sought by metaphysics, and named G.o.d, freedom, immortality in Christian language, cannot be found by any reason. But being a child of his time, the great philosopher makes a small concession to the transcendental.

He teaches: Although transcendental truth cannot be located scientifically, still the religious faith in its existence is wholesome.

We, in our time, think more soberly about this theory of salvation and accept the elimination of all transcendentalism from science. While the spokesmen of the "true people" would like to hide their exalted truth, freedom, and immortality behind the curtains of temples, we throw the full daylight of logic on the absolute truth, goodness, and beauty of the material world.

Logic as the science of correct thought cannot be restricted to any one object, it cannot exclude any object, whether terrestrial or heavenly, from its sphere. The great lights of present day learning do not wish to subordinate the intellect as the object of the logical department, and absolute truth as the object of the metaphysical department, to one another, but to co-ordinate them side by side.

But two co-ordinated things which are not subordinated to a third higher thing lack logic, and the brain which is satisfied by such a condition suffers from disorder. Logical truth must inevitably be a part of absolute truth, and it is our duty to remove absolute truth from the field of metaphysics, of transcendentalism, and to transfer it to the sober world which forms an inseparable unit with the human mind.

So much for the proletarian duty to continue the research after the true, the good, and the beautiful which was the object of the philosophers before and after Socrates. But remember that I am referring only to the truly good, beautiful, etc., which is contained in the universal truth of all true specifications. The question of the ethically good, the esthetically beautiful and the absolutely perfect is as necessarily contained in the question of the universal truth as red, blue, and green in the rainbow, of course only in an abstract sense.

Our logic which has for its object the truth of the universe, is the science of the understanding of the universe, a science of universal understanding or conception of the world. It teaches that the interrelation of all things is truth and life, is the genuine, right, good, and beautiful. All the sublime moving the heart of man, all the sweet stirring his breast, is the universal nature or the universe. But the vexing question still remains: What about the negative, the ugly, the evil, what about error, pretense, standstill, disease, death, and the devil?

True, the world is vain, evil, ugly. But these are merely accidental phenomena, only forms and appendages of the world. Its eternity, truth, goodness, beauty, is substantial, existing, positive. Its negative is like the darkness which serves to make the light more brilliant, so that it may overcome the dark and shine so much more brightly.

The spokesmen of the ruling cla.s.ses are not open for such a sublime optimism, because they have the pessimistic duty of perpetuating misery and servitude.

TWELFTH LETTER

Logic, the science of correct thought, demands in the first place true, or in other words, reasonable thought. Logic deals with reason and truth.

These two things have been endowed with a mysterious nature, while they obviously belong to the entire universe and its tangible nature. Reason and truth are not separated from the other things, are not things in themselves. There is no such thing. Philosophers who have looked for them in the depths of the human brain with their hands over their eyes and engaged in brown study, were on the wrong road. Proletarian logic differs from conventional logic in that it does not look for reason and truth behind the curtains of temples, nor in the brains of the learned, but it discovers them in the actual interconnection of all things and processes of nature.

Preachers, professors, judges, and politicians are the leaders of "the wise men of Gotham," and since we have all pa.s.sed our youth among them, we find it difficult to get rid of their confused logic.

We owe much of our better insight to the famous philosophers. These men had many an eccentric notion, but on the whole they were reasonable fellows who followed the doctrine of the unreliability of the senses and the faith in the hidden truth and reason more in a theoretical than in a practical way. In practice they operated with open eyes and ears. Thus correct logic, although confused by queer notions, has been handed down to us from generation to generation. Preachers, professors, judges, and politicians cling to the confused notions, while we take the liberty to discard them.