<OU_1 64681 BEING AND HAVING BEING AND HAVING by GABRIEL MARCEL a translation by KATHARINE FARRER of Eire et Avoir dacre press Westminster First published in Printed by Robert The MacLebose and Company Limited University Press} Glasgow PREFACE my great privilege is book. In a sense It form its is to be allowed to write a preface to this it is its own advertisement: yet in The rather unusual. some ways greater part consists in extracts repetitive, from a metaphysical diary; the jottings disjointed of a thinker concerned to speak with himself rather than to an and audience. Some readers would be well the diary extracts till advised to postpone reading some of the more they have tackled studies contained in the second half of the But no one can fail takes from seriously, provided, that it ^eading.Christian in the to profit existentialist' mode! M. Marcel M. Marcel's work, provided he he doesn't go to is, him as a whom he must read in order to* be deprecates the label, preferring to call himself 'a concrete philosopher' prepared to sacrifice to the systematic volume. that is a philosopher demands of systematic rough edges of human life. hope that this book will be widely read, and who is not natures sensitivity to the I I especially com- mend it to four classes of persons: i. M. For myself I have come across nothing more important than on the problem of meta- Marcel's writings here and elsewhere physics. I say the end The problem advisedly: puzzled as to strict Thomist has the Biblical theologian he knew we are all of us these days in his answer: so has the positivist: so too who of ontology an argument spectives*. for what exactly metaphysics is. is much too ready to find in the decay for the authenticity A^A^celjvaiJi^ined of 'Biblical per- in the tradition ofjdealism: the influence both of Bergsen and ofW. and E. Hocking. His conversation with himself certainly betrays their influences: but is it of far wider significance. Professor Ayer and Dr. E. L. Mascall i have answer .to the question what ontology their is: they have their formulae. Marcel probes beneath these answers; Jpr is much more pression of the than a body of doctrine. ontology human situation; what is expressed in the syllogisms of, for instance, Pere as him the intellectual ex- It is Garrigou-Lagrange, is valid only in so far and summarises the very being of man and the that being is lived through and met with "by man in catches it universe, as his pilgrimage I find as I through life. read M. Marcel that the frontiers are blurrec ethical reflection, metaphysics, spirituality. And that is the strength of his seemingly inconsequent method. In a way he is too wise to enough in form to convince a man; they only carry conviction in a whole experience of life of which they are the ex- suppose that the arguments ofthepbilosopbiaperennis are their abstract relation to pression. The issues between the Thomist, the positivist, the idealist are not issues simply of doctrine but of life; and to see one must probe, stretching language beyond the somehow 2. to convey the issues as things through what they are, frontiers of poetry, which men live. The book should be studied closely by the moralist whether he be philosopher or moral theologian. Where some of the most familiar ethical ideas are concerned, Marcel reminds us of their 'inside* when we 'outside*. so often in our discussion think simply of their What is a promise? We have our answer pat, our formula which permits us to keep the promises go on with the discussion of our obligations to we have made and so on. We don't wait to probe. myself inevitably using that word 'probe* again and again in connection with M. Marcel: for what he does is to probe the unI find suspected profundities of the familiar. ethics are morally philistine, the 'inside* them up 3. Most professional students of men who give little time to penetrating of the ideas they are handling. And there Marcel pulls short. The book should be widely read by the many Christian 'fellow-travellers' Christian act of today, those way without who follow, as it were, afar off the themselves coming yet to the point of an of faith in the Crucified. Its very incompleteness will respond to groping anxiety, and it will enrich their vision of life. And can do because it eschews dogmatic exposition seeking rather to shew the inside of the truly Christian way of life. Fidelity, their this it hope, chirity, mystery these are fundamental categories of the Christian way: and of all these Marcel has much to which is say, in every way fresh and same time rootedjnjhe yet at the tradition of Catholic Christianity. The reader of such a work as Albert Camus' La Peste, with its preoccupation with the problem of a^^atheistic sanctity, will understand M. Marcel. In a way he challenges the of possibility Camus' vision; and he does analysis o holiness on dogmatic grounds but by an and goodness which shews indirectly their so not from acknowledgment of the all-embracing mystery of.God. An age which has known evil as ours has and does still inseparability know it, is ness, as inevitably interested in goodness; and it jsjwith goodsomething inevitably issuing out of God becausca-giftfrom him, that Marcel's studies deal. 4. And lastly I commend this book because at a time when minuteness and subtlety of mind are too often the prerogatives of he reminds us that a true minuteness the light-heartedly destructive, and a heart, true intellectual subtlety are rooted in humility and^urity. of and manifest the soil in which they are nourished by whose charm none can escape and a ^raciousness argument which none can break. strength of D. M. MACKINNON King's College Old Aberdeen February, 1949 CONTENTS PART ONE: BEING AND HAVING I. II. A Metaphysical Diary Outlines of a Phenomenology of Having page 9 page 154 PART TWO: FAITH AND REALITY I. II. Some Remarks on the Irreligion of Today Some Thoughts on HI. Peter Faith Wust on the Nature of Piety page 179 page 203 page 217 PART ONE BEING AND HAVING I A METAPHYSICAL DIARY (1928-1933) November wtb 1928 have today made a firm resolve I diary, perhaps in the form to continue my metaphysical ofa series of consecutive reflections. caught sight of an idea just now which might be important. Returning to my fundamental views on existence, I was I whether it is possible to say in any sense that an wondering idea^exists; and this how I see it. The idea, so far as it is represented on the pattern of] an object (I was thinking the other day of what we mean the by is aspects of an idea) of shares with the object as such the characteristic/ non-existence, the object the nature of my body, i.e. only existing in so in so far as it is far as k shares in not thought of as object.] In the same way, must we not say that an idea can and does have existence, but only and exactly in so far as it is irreducible to the pseudo-objective which we form of representations materialist interpretation, however absurd in imply a confused notion of what I am itself, The it? does at least trying to get at here. We might say that an idea exists proportionately to its being more dr should like to find some concrete examples for illus- less adherent. I tration, of my tion) but this is of course very difficult to do. The starting point day was the idea of an event (X's opera- reflections the other which I have said that had many reasons I to be anxious about. revolved the idea, or that showed me it One might revolved of itself, and its different aspects in turn; i.e. I thought of a with three-dimensional analogy object, a die for instance. it by November 22nd An interesting point. Is responsibility, or rather the need to attri9 the need to have something or bute responsibility on at the root of all 'causal us a long way. seems to It someone to explanation'? I feel that this fix it might take me very near to Nietzchean psychology. FOR A PAPER TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY N'OTES 1 Undated, written in 1927 or I928 When something exists, I always mean that I consider this something as connected with my body, as able to be put in contact with it, however indirect this contact may be. But note I affirm that must be taken that the priority the fact that objective, I thus ascribe to my body depends on my body is given to me in a way that is not exclusively i.e. on mysterious and the fact that intimate, of the purposely avoid the word my body. This character, at once bond between me and my^ body (I it is relation) does in fact colour all existential judgments. What it comes 10 is this. 1. We cannot really separate: Existence Consciousness of self as existing 3. Consciousness of self as bound to a body, as incarnate. From this several important conclusions would seem to follow: 2. (1) In the cannot^ so far as first place, the existential point of view about reality seems^be othet than that of an incatnatejgersonality. In we can imagine a pure understanding, there is, for such an it understanding, no possibility of considering things as existent or non-existent. On the oae hand, the problem of the existence of the external (2) world is now changed and perhaps even loses its meaning; I cannot in fact without contradiction think of since it is in connection with is x .defined it my body (in so far as andjphced^On it is my body) that the other hand, This paper was never delivered. 10 as non-existent, we ought to ask whether there are valid reasons for giving my body a comparison with other things. permissible to ask whether die union of the privileged metaphysical status in (3) If this is so, it is souljind body the soul is, in essence, really different from the union between existing things. In other words, does not a and other certain experience of the self, as tied up with the universe, underlie affirmation of existence? all (4) Inquire whether such an of the interpretation existential leads towards subjectivism. Shew how idealism tends inevitably to (5) tial eliminate all existen- considerations in view of the fundamental unintelligibility of existence. Idealism versus^metaphysics. Values detached from existence: too real to exist. Existential and personalist interests Closely, linked. The problem of the immortality of the soul is the pivot of metaphysic. Every existent is thought of like an obstacle by which we take our bearings like something we could collide with in certain think of this impenetracircumstances resistent, impenetrable. We as not completely thinkable. 1 bility, no doubt, but we think of it Just as my body is thought of in so far as it is a body, but my thought collides To the with the fact that it is my body. say that something exists is not only to say that it belongs to same system as my body (that it is bound to it by certain conwhich reason can define), it is also to say that it is in some nections way united to me as my body is. the central 'given* of metaphysic. Incarnation Incarnation the situation of a being . 1 who This 'given* appears to himself to be, as is opaque to itself: it is were, opposition to the The opacity of the world is in link between opacity and Meinbeit. idea is opaque to me personally in so far as it is mine. think of it as an adherence. (Note written Feb. 24th, 1929.) It is thought of, but it is a certain sense insoluble. never resolved. The We II My Of this cogito. I, nor that is found it is to I body, can neither say be transcended from the the opposition, treating logical sleight experience, as it nor that it is I, not it is which start. Inversely, if I start from fundamental, I shall find no trick of of hand which same thing) to the that for me (object). The opposition of subject and object lets me get back to the original will inevitably be either eluded or (which comes We are not to object that this experience refused. shews a contingent character: in point of fact, all metaphysical enquiry requires a starting-point of this kind. It can only start from a situation which is mirrored but cannot be understood. Inquire if incarnation 'given* starting a fact; is from which a it does not seem so to me, fact is possible (which is it is the not true of the cogito). A fundamental predicament which cannot be in a masterecTor analysed. stated when It is am my body; quite treat myself as a term distinct from would be in a definable connection with where, the moment ledge, I banish This is standstill myself to the reason of that more accurate I treat which exactly this impossibility I declare, confusedly, that I my body as sense strict i.e. is I being cannot body, a term which my As it. I have said else- an object of scientific know- infinity. why I machine cannot think of my (illam, to say that I not bane). It cannot anticipate cannot ask myself what will become of me but only of the would perhaps be death, my when death, that the machine is, is I no 1 longer working. 1 to shew in what sense this (idee d'un engagement) Try absolute the non-validity) of my representing impossibility (or implies death I break the rules of the game, to think of In death. my trying my 'To be involved/ it is radically illegitimate to convert this impossibility into a dogmatic negation. (Note written Feb. 24th, 1929.) It is evident that this whole train of thought is at the root ode Cower- But notes nail: the days after these. first on the theme of le Gowernail were composed a few (Note written April 1 3th, 1934.) 12 February 2<)tb Have detected, perhaps, an important fallacy involved in the idea (cf. my previous notes on incarnation) that opacity must be bound But up with otherness. opacity really arises the self and the other, The surely the contrary from the say that it comes what point to world has no to the My pletely and ideas are hardest for my ideas; that is party? a function of me is my own Should intrinsic obscurity. a result; is between interposes same thing in the end? this interior opacity the consequence of an act? is really the case. Surely T and intervenes as a third obscurity of the external world obscurity to myself; the we is fact that the We must ask up is it not very largely not this act simply sin? to grasp where they where they are most com- are impenetrable to me. 1 The problem I am setting myself is to find out whether this applies to the whole of reality. Is not reality impenetrable to me just in proportion as I am involved in it? 2 Of course different all this is horribly difficult to think out clearly. In a terminology (that of the Journal Me'tapbysique) I could my body is an absolute mediator, communication with it (in the sense that easily say that in so far as I so far cease to have I have communication with any objective sector of the Real). Let us say again that my body is not and cannot be given to me. For everything 'given* attracts to and 1 that And is what I itself a process of indefinite qbjectification, understand by the word 'penetrable'. 3 The im- where they become a principle of interior darkening; to this dominate me and make me into a sort of slave-tyrant. thrown on all this by le Pbtnomtnologie de VAvoir outlined extent, in fact, they Light is in 1933. (Note written April I3th, 1934.) anticipating what I wrote later on 'Mystery'. But passage surely implies a confusion between opacity and mystery (/i). 2 3 1 was here Here, too, there appears to me to be a confusion: the object as such It is the Other, or by definition accessible to me, but not penetrable. more exactly the Thou, which is penetrable (/A). is this 13 penetraomty, men, 01 of absolute mediator. But is oeiongs to my ooay obvious that it it is in virtue ot my body, myself; for I cannot distinguish myself from to reduce it to an object, i.e. it as it quality in that sense, am willing unless I unless I cease to treat its an absolute mediator. We must, therefore, break away once and for ail from the metaphors which depict consciousness as a luminous which there contrary, the is nothing, to own its eyes, cilrcle but darkness. round On the shadow is at the centre. When I try to make clear to myself the nature of my bond with my body, it appears to me chiefly something of which I have the use (as one has the use of a piano, a saw, or a razor); but all these uses are extensions of the initial use, which is simply the use of the body. I have real priority to use, but none whatever use the is only possible community is The whereas in the analogy of a question of knowledge. The community. But say *I and my body*. felt cannot validly think of my relation with fact that I relation my with my instruments presupposes the former. i<)2<) was thinking place on the 9th I it is the basis of a certain from the fact the latter February i8tb, my body when it is a question of active when indivisible; I difficulty arises my body on on as this afternoon (with regard to the meeting to take at the rue Viscontf) that the over time must have one of its fidelity as only possible victory factors. (Cf. Nietzche's only being who makes profound promises*.) There is no privileged state which allows us to transcend state time; and this was where Proust made his great mistake. remark so 'man is the A such as he describes has only the value of a foretaste. This notion of a foretaste is, I feel, likely to play a more and more central part in my part thinking. But one point must be noticed (and here I think I company with Fernandez): the 14 fidelity, unless it is to be fruit- worse, reduced to mere persistency, must spring from less or, 9 something that true in "absolutely given to is me. (I feel this is especially my relation to the people I love best.) From the very begin- ning there must be a sense of stewardship: something has been entrusted to us, so that we are not only responsible towards ourbut towards an active and superior principle and how it goes against my inclinations to use such a disgustingly abstract selves, word! As I myself. M was writing to But here again I , I at once feel that at the fear and long to commit was very beginning there something else beyond myself a commitment that I accepted after an offer had been made to the most hidden depths of my being. The question how is, can I deserve it? It is strange and yet so clear that I shall only continue to believe if I continue to deserve faith. Amazing interdependence between believing and my desert! March $tb I have no more doubts. This morning's happiness is miraculous. first time I have terrible thing to clearly experienced grace. A For the say, I but so it is. 1m hemmed Happy to And yet, I feel childishly Now, in at last by Christianity be so! But I will write no more. . . . a kind of need to write. Feel I this is too, I can in, indeed a birth. Everything is see fathoms deep. am stammering different. my way through my improvisations. A new metaphor, the inverse of the other a world which was there, entirely present, and at last I can touch it. March 6tb Notes on time; must be important. So far as the subject pure receptivity, the problem of the relations beI feel they is thought of as tween time and the timeless is comparatively simple: I can, in 15 fact, conceive of myself as apprehending successively something which is, in a certain sense, given all at once (a metaphor from reading). But this is merely an abstraction. The subject is not pure receptivity; or, more accurately, apprehension is itself an event (an indefinite of events series the story it it is by a carried discloses). of events inseparable from series In other words, the subject is involved qua agent (and he has the character of receptivity only on condition of being at the same time an agent) in the content which he was supposed merely to decipher. An extraordinarily complicated situation which I must manage to think about. I am sure I am on the right lines, but shall I Put it formally. Given call Ijyill L, Ij^lljmake A stand for the reading of it, the operations t>y The manage to work them out? reading which splits I gradually itself which the intelligible total, jth^j^www/ gain consciousness of its elements. into Ai, A2, AS, but these steps in c6n- up sciousness are obviously related to acts ai 9 02, 03. These acts, ever, appear on (and to the steps steps which, by which we must appears that this it clearly see, can present at belong to the now I successively Notice that past). closely me as connected an object case. Suppose I am an improvisatjion.(I). I Jim conscious, sj^ssskely^of |fo disconnected to me. But It it is may happen that these phases appear also possible that unity of the improvisation, although properly speaking, as object, since is is discern the parts, etc.). imagine a more complex phases of this improvisation. (This L L has been built up, fact, viz. that^Ljrepresents itself to (book, picture of which We how- reflection to be completely exterior, indifferent to the fact of these steps belonging to the past with another of total the counterpart of what I connection between JFact whole belong A, to the past, to object, is *&ivcu' it it is l^ may recognise cannot be given to me, after all was saying an improvisation. just now about the that the steps in building and the JFjitt,J3 t up the jtha^^ me.) Tb&tt&gnition which occurs in tfa&casfi of 16 the improvisation is r^j^jdr^ofj^mcip^don^ that is, already it can only take place if I am in some way 'on the inside*. But we can go a step further. It is not inconceivable that the some way participation contributes in The more effective this participation involved in the improvisation it of less pure receptivity), a certain sense, to treat and it is, more I shall be in a relation towards will be more it But much difficult for me, in this difficulty, this less with the actual of the whole, than with the way in which I it. itself. actively shall I be (i.e. as a totum simul. and personally involved in tell the so quasi-impossibility, will be connected structure to the improvisation am actively My situation in the whole is not, to the truth, of such a kind that I cannot detach myself in some from the function there assigned sense out what attitude I am to take up to me: but I must still towards the decadhuncm find itself] and this seems to me of the utmost importance. (A) It may happen that I decidejo disregard my detachment, and turn myself into a pure spectator. But this change of front carries with it the risk that the whole may also tend to appear to me as a pure spectacle, perhaps even a spectacle lacking in sense. Foi the intelligible force informing the improvisation could perhaps only be grasped by A kind of still more somehow rift me in so far as I was actively associated then appears, either between serious, between me and myself. me and with the total, it, or, (This will be the case if] dissociate myself, the pure spectator, from the immanent by which my participation was expressed: but these actions, thus isolated and robbed of their meaning, lose all significance; and actions their intrinsic nothingness may even be passed on, like a contagious disease, to the improvisation itself.) (B) It may appear, on the contrary, that I really think of my detachment as an interioriscd mode ofjgarticipation. If this is so, 1 continue to be part of the system; my place has changed, and thai is all. B 17 M.B.H. March It is jtb a serious error, if I am not of apprehension. For one order according to can only do which mistaken, to treat time as a then forced to consider is it mode also as the the subject apprehends himself, and he by breaking away from himself, as it were, and mentally severing the fundamental engagement which makes him what he is. (I take the word 'engagement* here to rejfresent both this 'involvement* This when is and 'committal'.) the point of what I I reflected that time is was trying to say yesterday afternoon, the very form of experimental activity. And from this point of view, to take up once more the metaphor of the absolute improvisation (a metaphor which seems not to raise ourselves, as me in- To transcend time exhaustible) one finds oneself thinking like this. is to we can do at any moment, to the actually empty idea of a totum simul empty because it remains outside us and thereby becomes in some way devitalised. By no means. It is rather to participate more and more actively in the creative intention that quickens the whole: in other words, to raise ourselves to levels from which the succession seems less and less given, levels from which a 'cinematographic* representation of events looks more and more inadequate, and ceases in the long run to be even possible. I of the utmost importance. There, and perhaps only way open from creative evolution to a religious philo- think this there, is the is sophy, but this way can of participation. I believe also, the basis for a only be taken through a concrete dialectic 1 though I cannot yet establish it, that we Theory of Evil, which would maintain without denying its have here its reality contingency. The more we treat the world as a spectacle, the more unintelligible 1 This remark, made in 1929, holds good for me even since the publication of M. Bergson's work, Les Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion (April, 1934.) 18 rhust it necessarily seem from a metaphysical point of view, because and the world is an intrin- the relation then established between us absurd one. Perhaps this is relevant to what I was writing the other day about interior opacity. sically an important bearing on the problem of the genesis of the universe, or the finitude of the world in time. ID proportion as I treat the universe as object (detachment My yesterday's in the A -sense), formed, how notes have, I think, cannot help asking myself how I this 'set-up* started: and construction of a series of operations cessively. T]ll^^J[%cj5.jar(<i) this object this implies the was mental which has unfolded re- suc- being thought of or treated as object and (b) possessing a jpast that can .be Deconstructed, are essentially connected. The simplest and clearest example is that of a person empirically given. But which once more, presupposes the initial action by separate myself from the world, as I separate myself from this, I repeat I which the object I consider in its different aspects. Now this act, while entirely legitimate or even necessary each time I consider 2 particular thing, becomes illicit and even absurd as soon as I begir to consider the universe. I verse, cannot really stand aside from the even in thought. Only by a meaningless pretence can myself at some vague point outside on a small scale the successive stages it, genesis, I plaa and from thence reproduce of its genesis. myself outside myself (a revealing parallel) upon my own I uni- mean of course Nor can I plac< and question mysel my non the genesis of The problem of the genesis of th< of the are just onejind the same prob universe genesis more exactly, one and the same insoluble, the insolubility empirical, or metaphysical reality. I and of the lem, or, being bound up with my very position, my existence, radical metaphysical fact of that existence. And here, can of eternity. The attain to an absolutely as such, not being positive notion and I believe, th< w< universe thought of or able to be thought of as object, ha 19 speaking no past: strictly it 'cinematographic* representation. on a what entirely transcends And the same true is I called a of myself: certain level I cannot fail to appear to myself as contemporary with the universe (coaevus universe), that is, as eternal. Only, of what order is this apprehension of oneVself as eternal? That is no doubt the most difficult point. And here, I think, we get back to what I was writing this morning. At bottom, the method always the same; it is plumbing the depths of a given fundamental metaphysical situation of which it is inadequate to say I 'it is is mine', since cannot help recording that it consists essentially in leinf me. of my thought is Light. I have never this illumination me only the extension of the Other, the only known such happiness. for I have been playing Brahms for a long time, piano sonatas that were new to me. They will always remind me of this unforgettable time. How can I keep this feeling of being entered, of being absolutely safe March and also of being enfolded? 8tb am more and more struck by the difference between the two modes of detachment: the one is that of the spectator, the other of I the saint. The detachment of the saint springs, as one might say, from the very core of reality; it completely excludes curiosity about the universe. This detachment is the highest form of participation. The detachment of the spectator not only in thought but in fatality act. is just the opposite, Herein, I think, it is lies which seems to weigh on all ancient philosophy desertion, the kind of it is essen- tially the philosophy of the spectator. But one thing must be noted: the belief that one can escape pure the spectatorship by devotion to a practical science, which modifies Real by its applications, is founded on a misconception. Here I vaguely see a very important line of thought, but confess that I 20 cannot quite clearly formulate it as yet. I should express it by saying that the modifications which such a science imposes on reality have no other of course) than of making that result (metaphysically science in some exactly expresses repeat these sense a stranger to reality. what I mean. 'I The word 'alienation* am not watching a show' words to myself every day. I will A fundamental spiritual fact. The for interdependence of spiritual destinies, the plan of salvation; me, that is the sublime and unique feature of Catholicism. I was moment ago that the spectator-attitude form of lust; and more than that, it corresponds to just thinking a corresponds to a the act by which And I now the .subject appropriates the world for himself. perceive the deep truth of Berulle's theocentrism. are here to serve; yes, the idea of service, in every sense, We must be thoroughly examined. Also perceived there is ously I this morning, but still in a confused way, that profane knowledge and sacred knowledge (whereas previ- have wrongly tended to fane. It isn't true, profane on what assert that all knowledge was pro- a supremely informative word). Inquire is conditions knowledge ceases to be profane. Incredible how thronged these days are spiritually! My life is being illuminated right into the depths of the past, and not my life only. Every time we give way to ourselves an additional limitation on is we may unawares ourselves, forging our be laying own chain. That the metaphysical justification for asceticism. I never understood that till now. Reality as mystery, intelligible solely as mystery. This also applies to myself. March gtb An important observation has just no longer accept occurrred to my the idea, in any sense, of something 21 mind. beyond I can truth: as a matter me of fact the idea has made uncomfortable for some time now. This gap between Truth and Being of It is moment we the itself, the half-truths fills up, in a manner, of God. really experience the presence which name cease to deserve the to the eye of faith. Faith, the force and over over I Also, of invisible to myself but truths. I say this illuminating sentence it only illuminates after the event. become conscious more and more of the part played in by the will. The thing is, to keep myself in a certain state analogous, on the human level, to the state of grace. In this sense, faith faith is essentially fidelity, realised this at once, have known it ever March and in with shattering the highest possible form. I clarity, on February 25th, and since. 11 tb A wholesome thought has come to me: let me write it down. to the down beneath the critical attitude Deep Gospel stories, is the implicit assertion words, we oughtn't to have happened like inwardly sketch the idea sumption and I. have 'It folly that*. 'this can't be true', so that of course pick holes, find contradictions, etc. It In other really paralysing pre- of what revelation ought to have been a very strong suspicion that in this criticism there the idea down with like. is And always one must be able seems to me to that this laying of kw by the individual consciousness ought to be rejected The Gospel words, in fact: 'become as little children.' in principle. Glorious words, but quite unintelligible to anyone that there and is subject It is an it to intrinsic value in maturity. I an infinitely more careful quite certain that from the who must go into believes all this scrutiny. moment that miracles are said to be impossible a priori, the arguments of a negative exegesis not only lose all their value, but I was become in essence suspect. thinking, too, that the credibility of miracles 22 is positively demonstrated by such tain. That Now these events conversion ot Claudcl or Mari- tacts as the can be believed nobody can go upon. So taking think that these what conditions it is possible, on which it we must depends. This undeniable. believed without adequate their belief as facts to conditions in, is absolutely men a base, rise is we must from the the best ask on fact to the and only way for genuirte religious reflection to take. March i2tb have been feeling rather poorly this morning, and have made heavy weather of the pages on baptism in the catechism of the Council of Trent. This is all still very difficult for me to accept, but I at the in same time me have a strange feeling that a work I a feeling that each resistance I put or burnt away. Is this much too at looking must long. I it. an It is illusion? I now up is have seen is being done being disintegrated it from outside get used to quite a different for way of not easy. I have a constant feeling of inward cauterisation. March I 21 st have just passed through a painful, dark time; a passage full of were difficult to anticipate. The worst day, I think, obstacles that M was Sunday. On Monday evening, the long talk with did me an enormous amount of good, and also my last meeting with the Abbe A chism, which ally at a time . I The have when real trouble literally had was the teaching of the cate- difficulty in assimilating, especi- the vital link with God was, if not broken, at beyond description. Today I feel I am recovering in the word. The thing that most helps me is the desire of sense least stretched the full not to be on the side of those blind men. It is inspiration in that part my present who betrayed Christ, of the Gospel which state. 23 nor just with the is the spring of March 2yd was baptised I this morning. had dared to hope for: no and full of hope and faith. My inward state was more than transports, but peaceful, balanced, An idea came to me in the Luxembourg, and I will put once. at At bottom, space and time are in a temptation. Pride and false sing our insignificance and on time, for the we humility combine in when compared with way I it down the forms of the act of recogni- the infinity of space are then claiming to put ourselves in imagination same plane as this pair of infinites, realised as objects of knowledge. Our beads are turned by such an approximation to God\ Return to the here and now, which recover an unparalled dignity for later examination. Too tired tonight to write we have a mass of ideas here, and they will be hard and worth. This any more. April 12th I suspect that to sort out; a tangled skein. I want to make a new and more thorough examination of the nature of the prejudice expressed by the words 'we have reached a point when we can no longer believe that . . .' etc. It contains a of experience and growth (experience in the sense of growth, or growth in the sense of experience) which first needs to be drawn out. I was reflecting yesterday on the basic certain a priori notion ambiguity of the idea of age when applied to mankind. Is the thing that has happened last the oldest of all things or the youngest? We (more accurately) swing between the two views. At this present hour I see the Christian miracle, without qualification, as the absolute point at which youth is renewed. And perhaps the vary, I think, or eternal and irremovable fountain of all can be. 24 the renewal of youth there May loth Have begun to philosophise again this afternoon, perhaps as a consequence of the wonderful Office for yesterday morning at the church in the Rue Monsieur, and also after my conversation with C who came and talked to me about my letter in which I had poured out to him all the misery I feel when I am confronted by the , Thomist claims. My thoughts turn on the ideas of salvation and an important passage in the Journal perdition, in connection with Metapbysique. Here are my main points. Only what has a share in which that is of salvation or damnation alive is capable life, or is treated as having such a incorporates in itself existence share. and what But above all, value. We must, however, go beyond these categories, and there perhaps we approximate to Aristotelian theories. That which is saved is obviously that which keeps its form and is consequently, in a sense, withdrawn, if not from life, at least from becoming. And yet here is the diffionly that which could be culty and this cannot therefore be form is eternally is safe, it of the saved: itself. The The essential word worth, or the form either the cannot even be 'threatened': the idea levels. damned is capable of being 'threat* threatened. must be explored, and on all On the biological level (or ifwe consider, for instance, a work of art, a picture or statue, from a purely material point of view) the idea of threat is comparatively clear. The gigantic ethical and metaphysical mistake of the present day is the refusal to recognise that the soul can also be threatened; or rather, this refusal comes down and simple denial of a foul. It may be noticed that in the realm of mind, or more accurately, of intelligence, we readily agree that the notion of a threat continues to mean something to us. Thus, to the pure we would all agree that certain mass-prejudices (national, social, of our judgment. But many people would be reluctant to extend the notion of integrity to cover etc.) can threaten the personality unless integrity they understood the word 'personality* in a purely biological sense, sort of machine. working of a really just considering the i.e. perfectly clear that, for a Christian, there It is could never be any question of considering the soul in this light, and here that the idea of normal function, or even health, it is perhaps ceases to be applicable. May nth It is clear that salvation cannot be thought of otherwise than as directly or indirectly connected with a certain desire (which may, indeed, not be the desire of the person to be saved; as in the case of a child or of the soul treated as a child). whether it is It is an important question not the same with regard to damnation. We are apt to think that, in the realm of life, loss or perdition just would be to put of disintegration; but implies a sort of passivity: the only positive thing up an effective resistance against the forces they, for their part, work if we mechanically. But want is this the case? of evil. An A sort of problem, fundamental paradox seems to be written on the very heart of things, since death may be regarded either as the pure triumph of essential to define the nature mechanical process, working automatically or, on the contrary, as the expression of a destructive will. This paradox appears once more in the realm of spirit, but this realm, it is thing). we are able to clear it up. In certainly possible to discover a will to destroy one's- self (or to destroy another, Our problem order of nature there itself which comes in a will be to see how far sense to the we may same consider the in the light of this evil will unveiled in the heart of man. June 12th The question of the priority of essence in relation to existence has always interested me. I think we can really regard it as a pure illusion, which arises because we oppose something merely conceived 26 (which we think justifies us in treating it as non-existent) to something actualised. But in fact we have there simply two distinct Thought cannot go beyond existence; it can only in some degree abstract from it, and it is of the first importance modalities of being. that should not be deceived by it to existence really a make What we sense. The jump of abstraction. something quite impossible to is does not even this act call 'the think of, and which to existence* jump kind of intra-existential transformation. That way we can avoid idealism. inside existence, that it is make being able to a We say, then, that mode of existence which from abstraction strictly limited purposes. must It is the only thought is privileged in itself qua existence, would not be untrue involves in this sense a sort of is is and to say that this for thought or rather a son of fundamental lie, blindness; but the blindness disappears in proportion as it is accompanied by knowledge, which I take to mean the return to being. But such a return can only be made intelligible if the initial blindness has been explicitly recognised. In this regard certain kinds of Cartesianism, and above seem to all some sorts of Fichteanism, me the most serious errors of which any metaphysic has been impossible to exaggerate how much better the formula guilty. It is es denkt in mir ivism. The is 'I than cogito trgo think* actually dams the is sum, which lets us in for pure subject- not the spring of inspiration. Far from it, it flow. 1 June 26th I feel that I in my am today rid I feel philosophy. of whatever traces of idealism remained exorcised (by the influence of Father Garrigou-Lagrange's book on God, though it is very far from satisfying me completely). I 1 tions. my would not today But I thought it unhesitatingly subscribe to these sweeping asserthem, as they bear on that stage of right to record philosophical journey when I made my every form of idealism, whatever it might V? greatest effort to break be. (April, 1934.) with The order of the problems seems to me to be as follows. Does our knowledge of particular things come to bear on the things on themselves or their Ideas? Impossible not to adopt the realist A Hence we blindpass to the problem of Being in itself. of in is in all knowledge Being general implied particular knowledge. But here, take care in what sense we use the words solution. fold 'Being in general*. emptied of its Obviously there no question of Being is individual characteristics. I should express myself better if I said that since all the Idea of the thing knowledge concerns the thing and not an object in itself and the Idea not being being incapable of conversion into an object except by a subsequent thought-process of doubtful validity to Being. it implies that The sense of these last words must we are related be thoroughly explored. June 28tb The cannot possibly deny the principle of identity, once except prevents me from denying Being and also from holding an aloof attitude tantamount to admitting that 'there may be Being, or again there may not*. And, what is more, Being fact that I in vertis, at cannot by definition be put into the category of mere possibles. On the one hand, it is out of the question to think it contains a logical impossibility; bility. this on the Either there experience is is we an empirical possinot and cannot be experience of Being, or else other, cannot treat it as in fact vouchsafed to us. But we cannot even con- of a more privileged position than our own, in which we could affirm what our experience, as it now exists, does not let us ceive affirm at present. Such a situation would be, at best, that of a being who saw, but was ipso facto beyond affirmation. The last refuge now possible for the opponent of ontology is to deny that an uncondiof Being is possible; in short, to take up his tional affirmation quarters in a relativist pluralism realities, which asserts beings or but does not pronounce on their unity. But 28 lists still, of either words have no sense, or he is unity which enwraps them. none He the less implicitly asserting a will then have to take refuge in pure nominalism; that, I think, is the only cover left to him. He will have to deny that there is even an idea, much less a reality, corresponding to the word From 'Being*. of view, the this point of the game of radically separated from principle of identity will be treated just as a 'rule and thought thought*, itself will be From pure nominalism we reality. left slide into pure idealism. It is a dangerously slippery path, for idealism cannot reduce an idea to a symbol; it must see in it at least an act of the mind. And that intro- duces a new series of difficulties. July 17 tb After reading Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, position clear of God. I on the I should like to make my legitimacy of the classic proofs of the existence must honestly admit that under the persistent influence of idealism, I have been continually evading the ontological problem, properly so called. I have always, I admit, had the deepest reluc- tance to think according to the category of being: can I justify this reluctance to myself? I have really grave doubts of this. Pure agnosti- cism, i.e. a completely open today appears to me mind about untenable. the affirmation of being, On the other hand, refuge in the notion that the category of being validity. Thought is betraying itself, is I cannot take in itself lacking in and ignoring its own demands of value for the order of being, and condemning itself to a state of most suspicious if it claims to substitute the order at the same time is ambiguity in face of the given, even where grasp and define this given. the affirmation 'Being is\ it is its real business to On the other hand, can I maintain that is despite appearances the mere formal enunciation of a 'rule of the game* which thought must observe in order merely to work? To put it another way, is it a mere hypotheti- cal inference equivalent to saying that if I assert a certain content, 29 and consequently excludes which do not agree with it? this assertion implies itself tions When I A A is thought, in asserting my an affirm that yl-position; but fact, when think identity, for me, (logical or real 9 is means in A, commits this version I this itself in those asser- language that idealist a certain manner does not really represent what I, to in A assume the identity of with itself. This really the condition of all possible structure this is not the place to take account of the distinc- We could not, in fact, deny the principle of identity without denying that thought can have a bearing on anything. We should tion). be holding because think anything, I cease to think thought becomes the slave of a content which inhibits that, in my or even annuls it. proportion as I We could imagine a Heracleitanism or a hyper- Bergsonism which would go as far as that. Only the question would then be, whether this thought, which was not the thought of something, would still be a thought, or in a sort of dream of itself. For the second alternative wonder whether I is my own the true one; whether part, I it am would be lost convinced that and accordingly we may myself can think of myself (as thinking) without thought of, into something which is nothing, thus a mere contradiction. But here I join forces with converting this 'me* and which is Thomism or at least with Thought, far from being a what So essentially a self-transcendence. definition of truth is to discover is that may it tent', understand to be Thomism. with itself, is on the contrary the possibility of the realist implied in the very nature of thought. turns towards the Other, riddle I relation it is whether the pursuit of the Other. this Other is Thought The whole Being. I must here note be important to refrain from the use of the term 'con- because of its idealist overtones. It is that access to objectivity, in the sense in abundantly clear to which it is me a stumbling- block to a certain type of mind, must either be posited from the beginning or remain for ever unattainable. 30 i8th July Have been reflecting much on the difference between thinking (a thought) and thinking 0/(an object). Thinking building, or isolating) a structure: thinking of German different. is is recognising (or something quite helps here: denken, an ttwas denkent andenken, One thinks ofz being or even an event, past or to come. I am not sure if one can think of God in the same sense that we can think Andacbt. in any case one can only of the incarnate Christ tion that It one does not would be treat risky, or at least premature, to value to this order or structure All do so on condi- God as structure. and deny all ontological may have been very more deeply. It is obvious there I must be thought out far that I may treat even an individual person as an object of thought (I make this transposition when I move from the Thou to the He). rash. this Find out if God as structure is implied in all particular structures. July igtb In Note is brief, thinking docs not come to bear on anything but essences. that depersonalisation, while perfectly allowable in this case, impossible in the order of thinking of. Only a think of* certain being or a certain thing. This Note, on the other hand, that the more more we slide from just order to understand in we thinking to thinking what fill of. sense the infinite is certain very important. in the context, the This is is important in involved in the fact of thinking (or conceiving) the individual as essence. Another point: we must try to understand how it God person can is that to pray without any question the only way to think of God, or more accurately, a sort of equivalent raised to a higher power of the to action is which would, on a lower plane, be thinking of someone. When I think of a finite being, I restore, in a manner, between him myself, a community, an intimacy, a with (to put it crudely) which might seem to have been broken (I noticed this these last few and days in thinking ol school Inends 1 myself how I can think of God tost to enquire in To sight otj. what sense I ask can be Him. Quite obviously there is no question of such co-existence with as that let is had which may bind me us forget that there to a fellow-creature. already, in the fact is And do not yet, of thinking of someone, an denying of space, that is, of the most material and also most illusory character of the 'with'. Denying of space denying of death in a the death being sense triumph, and the deepest expression, of active such separation as can be realised in space. What is a dead man? man who is no longer even elsewhere, no longer anywhere. But A thought about him the active denial of his extinction (consider is the metaphysical value of memory, or even, in a sense, of history). We might here examine the strange idea, commonly held, that the absent or dead friend bottom a is belief in a sort photograph which photograph none the a 'no longer anywhere', but just 'in me'; at of photograph which outlives the original, undeveloped, fleeting, fading but a is ('He has gone away, but I have his photograph.') But here again, we are aware of the complete evasion of the spontaneous assertions of consciousness. When I think of him, sort it is himself I am less. thinking of, and the 'photograph' is just a of mediating element, a point d'appui (which varies, moreover, of memory in different individuals). I powers might express this by saying that Andenken is deeply magical; that it according to the reaches Being itself past those intermediaries we call psychological (whose ontological nature remains, anyhow, impenetrable The idealist, Proustian notion, that this tion, should be treated as if it is this it deserves. is No account can be given of it reduced to a mere imaginative synthesis. But at the same time metaphysical act which puts Being Being for us). a pure construc- will always me in touch with a being show an aspect corresponding to the thought taken as construction or as recognition. with activity of July jotb Result of a morning's thought: Given a certain structure, whether spatial, temporal, or spado-temporal get to the (it is surely very important to bottom of the notion of temporal me structure, certain life) to 9 that it is which Berg- have scamped or evaded: a certain tune, a given this structure, it is obvious that by the very fact son seems to such a structure, it is 'a certain structure and not 'a certain 9 Here the principle of identity takes on its full significance. But should we not deduce from this that in proportion as other one . the structure loses its clear outlines, and more nearly approaches the aircipov, the principle will correspondingly lose But in that case its significance? arise. immensely important problems with the Thomists that the principle of identity forces Can I say me to assert Being? I cannot do so unless I am sure that Being is distinguishable from the a7ra/xn>; in other words, in order not to be forced to admit that the principle of identity I must be able ancient philosophy did not Otherwise, is only valid in the realm of the to distinguish the aireipov all I do and even from the infinite, expressly refused to do. can say will be that the principle of identity applicable to the arreipov for the not thinkable: to put it is in- simple reason that the airipov differently, the principle ceases to apply at the point finite, which is of identity only where thought itself can no longer work. So there is a series of possibilities to be distinguished: (A) We can make the principle of identity the principle of the world (finite being equated with determinate), and we can finite admit the possibility (to be considered more closely) of a transcen- dent thought which would overleap the finite world and not be subject to the principle of identity. () We could, again, deny the above possibility; this would be tantamount to admitting that there is no thought except in the finite order (relativism under all its shapes). This denial would imply the postulate that the indeterminate and the infinite were one. c 33 M.B.H. (C) Finally, we could refuse to accept such a hypothesis, and so could separate the infinite and the indeterminate; in other 'words, conceive or even affirm the existence of an absolute structure which would be at the same time an absolute life, that is, an ens realissimum. This would be equivalent to saying that the principle of identity accompanies the exercise of thought throughout, but that thought can, without leaving the determinate, infinite. thesis The B, i.e. rise to the notion of a positive * affirmation Being if such-and-such*, is can only be rejected under hypo- Being, considered as aTretpov, as essentially 'not is found by operation of a principle this very definition to which is be outside the only valid in the realm of the ich-and-such', the realm of the qualified. In the realm of what I am always in the sphere of the hypoS is given me in certain conditions, which, how- call particular structures, I thetical. Supposing remain be fixed (we must not forget that appearances are also given to me, and yet do not exist), I may then affirm that 'it is'; or formula which is far from clear and far from again 'if it is, it is*. ever, to A satisfactory. I can no longer see and shall have to stop. July 31 st Can we treat Being as an element of structure, as a determination belonging or not to a certain type of structure? It seems quite obvious to me that we cannot; this was the sense in which Kant was right to deny that Being was a predicate. But then, must we that Being is a subject must we identify Seyn and the Seyende? I say can get no further along those lines today, I don't know why. must rid ourselves once and for all of the notion, or pseudo- We notion, of a refraction of the real in passing through a certain medium, the appearance being this refracted reality. Whatever is the proper way of conceiving the ideal (in the sense of mere ideal), we cannot picture it to ourselves as a refracting medium, if only for 9 the reason that the 'ontological status 34 of such a medium is im- possible to It is being. fix, it remains, indeed, hanging between being and not- here that the principle of the excluded middle takes on meaning, when it is supplemented by the idea of degrees or are involved in Being, and it is not in our spheres of reality. its full We power to leave it: more simply, we are, and our whole inquiry is just how to place ourselves in relation to plenary Reality. I think I noticed something of importance yesterday. Pure pheno- menaliim being contradictory and even meaningless, the denial of ontology must come back to alternative B, according to which is Being thus the aircipov is still to use the not press the point that to express I will language of definition. it The opponent of onto- logy will say that he does not allow himself to leave the realm of the 'such-and-such*. And that is the point on which we must manage to take a definite line. I see it something like this: fragmentation the Real ('this exists, that exists', etc.), if it thinkable, that is is of not to lead to the un- to say to a sort of transposed atomism, implies as a of the unity of thought, and we shall have to look more deeply into the nature of that unity. I think, though I cannot prove it yet, that if we admit that thought is essentially access to Being, transitus, we can no longer be content balancing factor the idealist assertion with a piecemeal realism. Return to this later. 9 To say 'A is, B is, etc., but I cannot assert that Being is seems to me equivalent to saying 'A participates in Being, B participates in but this Being in which they participate is not, perhaps, anything of which we can say that it is\ It is obvious that such a Being, etc., hypothesis is in contradiction to the principle of identity, since equivalent to the admission that perhaps (but the perhaps difference) Being does not exist. But is not this treating Being in the way we treat a quality such as colour, hardness, etc.? coloured, so exists. is this, But notice 1 ts , it is makes no This surface is but I cannot therefore conclude that colour that the colour appears essentially as or if you like, in my terms, of a structure. 35 an element of But this is obvi- ously inconceivable for Being; a sort of mixture can be we cannot suppose for a second that made of Being and something else. It really looks as if we should have to be more Eleatic than Plato, and say and cannot exist. Perhaps that strictly speaking non-being does not this is the same as saying that the Aristotelian-Thomist distinction between category and transcendental is rightly grounded, and this is important. But then 'participation' is carries an we must ambiguous, and so even dangerous, for its use of starting a confusion between Being and inevitable risk predicates or attributes. The also recognise that the very term sort 1 of mistrust aroused by ontology would, then, be due to the fact that the ontologist seems to treat as a quality, and, I would add, hypostatise something which seems to us to be the supremely unqualified. It seems to follow that he tween a truism (that which is, condemned is exists) to swing be- and a paralogism which would consist in attributing Beingto the a-rreipov (cf. my yesterday's notes). Does not the solution lie in positing the omnipresence of Being, and what I might (perhaps improperly) call the immanence of thought in Being, that is to say, co ipso the transcendence of Being over thought? August $tb I have not yet quite managed to clear up the puzzle at the end of my notes thought in Being soon as which true nature. gist idea 1 To assert the with the immanence of realists that thought, as there, refers to This reference is indeed implied in the phenomenolo- ofMcincn or Bcdeutcn. For someone whose formative ing has been will ask for the sist. to recognise sketched something which transcends it and cannot claim to reabsorb into itself without betraying its it is it is I idealist, this will certainly come train- as a great shock. He how this forbidden reabsorption can be avoided, how I can This seems to me today somewhat questionable. 56 (April, 1934.) making the act of synthesis which contains in itself, and is at the same time more than, the idea and the ideatum. But I will ask in help my turn whether this act of synthesis, supposing it is possible, does not overstep the very bounds of discursive thought. There is a whole bag of tricks here, and we cannot be too wary ofthem. I should like to see how far these remarks allow me to clear up the notion of participation in Being. The uneasiness I feel on these subjects is partly difficulty in seeing the relation obvious to between being and due to my existing. It old seems me that existing is a certain way of being; we shall have whether it is the only one. Perhaps something could be without existing. 1 But I regard it as axiomatic to say that the inverse is not possible, except by an indefensible juggling with words. to see On these assumptions, I shall be able to study, with a the few precautions, problem of participation in Being seen in an existential example. What about the impossibility of a fitf-is obviously applies cannot possibly say that a certain object or a certain being, so I said here; I far as it exists, participates in the quality participate in it when it ceases to exist. of existence, and ceases Perhaps the real origin of the mistake July I yth, 1 8th, and is this. I9th.) I confuse 'thinking' a confusion which works in favour of the first (See my notes of and 'thinking of* mode. Thence I pro- which comes under the second mode, as if it were, it would fall under the jurisdiction of the ceed to treat existence, were a quality; if it first to 2 mode. This is not yet quite clear in my mind. I think 0/a thing, o/a person, and existence is here tied to this act of thinking of it or him; I think of them as existents, even in cases where I am denying 1 The simplest which no longer example of this which occurs to me is that of the past, exists, and yet I cannot say purely and simply that it is not. 2 We must ask ourselves whether no-longer-being is not, to a certain type of popular thought, being-lost-sight-of, and so returning to the v. This is worth looking into. 37 that they exist. I treat But if I isolate existence from them, an essence or of existence in the idea existence more rather, to be Does not this come essence. no as it I think it, exact, as a that is, pseudo- same thing as saying that there is sense of the term? and this because to the strict the limit, or, if you will, the axis of reference for thought is itself? But the difficulty is and existence in a certain manner, of it, that I is it unchanged: not after so because I all because I think form a certain idea can deny that this idea is possible? Antinomy. August $tb I do really assert that thought is made for being as the eye is made for light (a Thomist formula). But talking, as forces us to ask it this is whether thought a dangerous itself is. way of Here an of act thought reflecting on itself may help us. I think, therefore, being is, since my thought demands being; it does not contain it analytically, but refers to sense in there is see just it. It is which very difficult to get past this stage. There I only think in so far as I a kind of space between what this (Valery?), that being. But it is a is, difficult to means. In any case, I do notice a close kinship between thought and desire. 1 'being* play equivalent parts. ate. me and am not is Clearly in the two cases 'good* and All thought transcends the immedi- The pure immediate excludes thought, as it also excludes desire. But this transcendence implies a magnetisation, and even a teleology. No date The growing consciousness of our need for ontology is surely one of the most striking features of present-day thought; not only I 1 wonder if this should not be corrected in the light of remarks on the opposition between desire on the one hand and will and hope on the other. An analysis of thought might well make possible the discovery of an opposition or a hierarchy in it which would be offered later completely analogous with this. 38 in its on levels where technically metaphysical expressions, but also the idea is conjures only grasped through a whole world of images, which up but cannot ever assimilate or master. speaking, see in this just a simple fact strictly it No doubt we can, which lies in the province of purely empirical explanations, and is perhaps the business of a psycho-analysis tinged with sociology. It is extremely easy and perhaps tempting for a certain type need to affirm Being springs from a mated, reacting in There of mind to say vital instinct, scarcely subli- characteristic way to post-war pessimism. a theme, I will not say for meditation, but for we have its rhetorical elaboration, the fertility essential insignificance. The of which question is is really point does explanation actually possess the just this power thing explained, or at the very least to guarantee perhaps even it me seems to treating it quite condition of the To more way of conceiving that this what harmlessness? exorcism, starts may be wrong, explanation, i.e. from an unhealthy under the sway of the influence exerted by positive return to the these remarks; to human mind, a condition contracted at a compara- tively recent date science. up affirmation as such, has in the eye of all literally as it and most to eliminate the its the pure rationalist a peculiarly toxic character. I but its only equalled by of our contemporaries do not even think of asking for all belief, that this is it example which was the starting-point of not quite evident that the judgment of value, or, precisely, the metaphysical appreciation which is called for by cannot possibly depend in any way on the empirical conditions in which our experience, analysed the ontological demand itself, more or less carefully, allows us to recognise the insistence and nature of this demand? state (a It is perfectly possible that what we call the normal term, by the way, quite void of meaning) of a human being implying some minimum of comfort and the most favourable for the inward alertsecurity is by no means ness which a really profound metaphysical investigation both a state certainly 39 and arouses into requires. what might be Whatever the possible results of an enquiry of speculative thought, the belittling claims of called the empirical diet the barest consideration gives the lie psycho-pathology, whose pretensions to rest almost entirely on a mis- taken assumption about the content of knowledge, and about the nature of the facts The which enable our consciousness excellent criticism to which such a man subjected the notion of mental health, with paganism must not that goes with hesitate for it, strikes here all with to apprehend it. as Chesterton has the adulterated neo- its full weight. So we a second to recognise that the present-day of ontology is, beyond doubt, dictated by a singularly strong obsessive sense of the threat which weighs on mankind rebirth and even a threat, alas! of which it is all too easy to observe and record con- examples. But this observation crete is altogether lacking in really 1 fertile inspiration. No date My life and I. Can these I 'think* is When I come life*, it seems that to grips with the sense all of meaning has deserted my past: there is also the feeling of a pulsating Now. my life? My past, in so far as I consider it, is all this really ceases to be 1 life? two words 'my them. There But my Or my past. does not yield us an argument for the belittling of the ontological hunger itself. Still, we ought to ask whether a sharp awareness of the universal threat is not really a normal thing? and by no means rather, it something corresponding to the accidental disturbance of an order (as some have thought). It would then follow that the ontological need is emphasised, or sharpened, when- just which is in principle stable or stabilised man's circumstances show up more clearly that state of danger an integral part of his being. This would no doubt agree with the line of thought running from Kierkegaard to Heidegger. (April, ever a which is I934-) 40 No date Being as the place of fidelity. How is it that this formula arising in my mind, at a given moment of time, has for me the inexhaustible inspiration of a musical theme? Access to ontology. Betrayal as evil in itself. November 6th How can I promise lem. All committal the situation which this committal, there him to give at the we is instance, I promise to A metaphysical prob- shall disregard some is go and may see N be present tomorrow. of its (a) my At the basii of desire at the is quite possible that tomorrow, it is be attracted by dreamed of when it is the basis of our entering the committal. For when I fulfil my commitment, shall instead to say, variable elements of pleasure; (i) the fact that nothing else moment. But myself to future? partly unconditional, that is essence to imply that commit my moment attracting i.e. at the me time no longer have the desire, and interest or that, which I never I shall this committed myself. I can by no means commit the continued experience of the desire, or not to be I attracted if the rival opportunity arises. tincture of deceit in extending feelings on the subject. In fact, there my commitment That would be an would be a to cover my own affirmation, a claim, to reality (viz. my reality) might be found to give the lie. There a supremely important distinction to be made between the com- which is mittal in itself and an affirmation not implied by concerned with the future; imply it without at the we must even say that same time becoming then become conditional: 'Suppose I invalid. still feel which it it is could not For it would a desire tomorrow come and see you, you may depend on me.' One sees at once where the commitment is partly unconditional: 'whatever my state to 4i of mind, whatever come and I will on in me: my temper see (up to a point I cannot foresee them), you tomorrow/ A kind of division takes place ^ye/xoWov which the one side, a across time and plays the role of the guaranteeing asserts its identity power; on the other side, a conglomerate of elements of myself which the r\y^oviKov % with which I identify myself, makes it its business to control. There is naturally an outer circle which is properly that of TOJV OVK TT* For instance, fjLoi. going out, I shall not show that there was to if my state of health prevents me from come. Clearly a careful analysis here would a sort of shading-offfrom what depends on me what does not depend on me. But I must be permitted to harden some extent. No act of committal, then, is possible the lines to who can be distinguished from his own momentary situation and who recognises this difference between himself and except for a being and consequently treats himself as somehow transcendown life-process, and answers for himself. It is further his situation ing his evident that in the exercise of this faculty of answering for one's less twisted and inwardly discordant the life-process have to discount, the easier will our task be. Add to this behaviour, the which we that if I where I know am commit myself in a case conscious of my own instability. But be that as it may, myself, I shall less easily a consistent phenomenalism, supposing that the ego coincided with its we could think it, asserting immediate even the possibility of a bind a someone else, present, commitment; a someone whom, by to exclude how could I ought for indeed, definition, I cannot know because he does not yet exist? The problem of commitment fidelity; for in a sense I mitment, that is, it cannot be would seem, to one's-self ? fidelity is fidelity to mean? Surely it would be commitments, in order logically comes before faithful except to to myself. that of my own com- Must we then say that and what should we understand all that possible to distinguish a hierarchy of to elucidate this 42 problem? Are not some commitments in a way essentially conditional, so that I cannot unconditionalise them except by making a presumption which is in commitment which depends on an etc.). It is clear on the one hand that I impermissible? e.g. a itself opinion (literary, political, cannot guarantee that my opinion (on Victor Hugo, socialism, etc.) will remain unchanged; and on the other hand it would be commit myself to a future course of action in conformity with an opinion which may cease to be mine. Obviquite ridiculous to ously my human aesthetic experience in almost unpredictable changes. We such realms must see, may undergo whether there then, commitments which can be recognised as transcending whatever experience may add to us. To pass on to the problem of exist pledged to a person: fidelity it is clear that experience not only the opinion I form of that person, but also may influence my knowledge of him and the feelings I have about him. Here we are not merely talking about a desire which can cease to exist, but also of a sympathy which can be thrown off for antipathy or hostility. But then, in what sense can I sanely pledge myself to be faithful to him? Is not just as ridiculous as pledging myself to vote for the it Conservative candidate if I become a Socialist before polling-day? A a difference, where does it lie? fundamental problem. our analysis that there can be no beginning of act of commitment unless some identity has been posited, even if it If there We is is have seen at the only posited implicitly. But abstractions. it is The we must not take our stand the identity of a certain direction of will. this will is, the upon identity in question cannot be simply abstract; more I The more abstract become the prisoner of a form, and build a up between myself and life. It is quite different when there is, the root of the commitment, a fundamental apprehension; but wall at surely I it is clear that this must consider. In any must be of a case, this towards Being or towards a religious kind. is what apprehension must be directed human being. 43 This November jtb There is certainly a very serious problem here. commit I commit today? Surely not. Can I behaving tomorrow in accordance with my myself to feeling tomorrow what myself to Can I feel of today, which will not be my feelings of tomorrow? Again, surely not. But then must we admit that in swearing fidelity to a person, I am going beyond the bounds of all legitimate feelings commitment, i.e. commitment which corresponds to my nature? is, of course, one solution: to say that in any case I must honour my word and that I consequently create the motive for There by the very act of making the commitment. Is that an can be content with? Cannot I reply that if today I have fulfilment answer I the desire to keep infinitely word, tomorrow that my weaker, and that for a score asserted as a constant? I treat the desire as cannot so desire may be found of reasons? By what right assert it, is it in any case, unless I more than a simple state. So I should have to from the act of recognising obliga- distinguish the fact of my feeling tion; and admit that this recognition is independent which may or may not accompany not feel inclined to keep my word, it. Tomorrow, but I shall of the feelings perhaps, I shall know I am bound to But here again we must beware of formalism and of the dangers of mere abstraction. Might not somebody point out that I do so. am simplifying the problem by giving the impression of thinking that nothing binds me but myself? There the fear of the other party's reactions to I think, only known fact? I have put I establish that not keeping my failure to The problem may be bond (implied in the recognise one's obligation what it may my the other party too, my and word. are within our rights in discounting this be cases where to myself. nature of this To we however, that element. There is is keep restated: my word what is is the action of swearing I will, etc.)? to establish a fact, if you like, but my signature to this; I am obliged to honour indeed my signature. Must we say that I am it is 44 translating into a purely personal realm something real sense I think they have we must leave entirely aside such pseudo-explanations: no power except am bound to confuse the issue. consider that I clear, so that the is to worth of honour my this signature But then why do signature? Mainly, may be rendered worthless by the very act of repudiating my instance, (whatever exception). have every open which makes no except in the social order? But in a particular desire to let this particular case stand as after all, surely there is interest in an exposing. Socially, It safeguarded. it I it is illusion here, no doubt, an which I lay I myself my commitments. But surely it is them strictly to the extent I am forced to painful sanctions if I fail only to my interest to keep So why not reduce the part played in my life by religh to a minimum? See what this implies (in any case it reduces the part to do so. of the unconditional Examine how far practically to disappearing point). I have the right the question approached to bind myself: yesterday. A certain this touches on 'philosophy of becoming* refuses me this right. This is the most serious problem. I have no right to enter upon a commitment which it will be materially impossible for me to keep (or rather which I should know to be so if I were perfectly sincere). Frivolity. frivolously entered commitment which cannot be regarded as upon? Compare the cheque. I know what my realisable assets are; my commitments are only legitimate or valid in But is there a single so far as they refer to sums which Only here we are in apply: I made that clear assets. are, at the most, equal to these a realm where this comparison does not at the start when I spoke of the un- conditional element. I see it like this. In the end there must be an absolute commitment, whole of myself, or at least by something real in upon by myself which could not be repudiated without repudiating the whole and which would be addressed to the whole of Being and entered the would be made in the presence of that whole. Obviously, repudiation is still by a change in the subject or justified explained by a/a//. That is faith. a possibility here, but cannot be object; it can only be An idea to work out. Another thing that I notice is this. There is no commitment purely from my own side; it always implies that the other being has a hold over me. All commitment commitment would not only be is a response. A one-sided rash but could be blamed as pride. The notion of pride, indeed, pkys a part of paramount impor- tance in this discussion. It seems to that pride cannot be the principle it, and that it is upon which essential to fidelity rests. show As I see despite appearances to the contrary, fidelity is never fidelity to oneVself, but is has over us. But I I me referred to am what I called the putting these points in a topsy-turvy way. must get some order and ckrity into examples would help. hold the other being The key-point is my scattered ideas. that Perhaps we must take account, when we are considering if a committal is valid, of the state of mind who of the person ard). is entering The mind must upon be compos promise of a drunkand declare itself to be such in it sui (e.g. the own judgment (without reserving to itself the possibility of afterwards alleging that it was wrong). Here then we have a judgment of the deepest importance, lying at the root of the commitment. its But it does not over us; itself; on at all discount the hold which a reality exercises the contrary, this bold is at the judgment simply prolongs the base of the judgment and sanctions an apprehension. November 8tb The which love or respect for truth consists in treating it fidelity. A mistake, as the will for self-consistency (cf. the fidelity which is only pledged to In other words, beware of defining intelligence by a sort of connection between pride and itself). reduced to 46 formal identity. There must be a bold on the real at the root of intelligence. Am enormously struck by this correlation. Perhaps we should also show how far fundamental ignorance of the future. fidelity is 1 linked up with a A way of transcending time in virtue of the very fact that fidelity to it is a person, I do not absolutely real for us. In swearing know what future awaits us or even, what person he will be tomorrow; the very fact of my not knowing is what gives worth and weight to my promise. There in a sense, no question of response to something which is, absolutely speaking, ^/W; and the essential of a being is just that not being 'given* either to another or himself. There is something essential here, is which defines spirituality (as desire, a relation which, if opposed to the relation contained in not physical, is at least actual. But we cannot reduce ourselves to things of the moment, or at least no more than function if we are momentarily considered). we are No date I promised C the other day that I would come back to the home where he his been dying for weeks, and see him This promise seemed to me, when I made it, to spring from again. the inmost depths of my being. promise moved by a wave of he is doomed, he knows it, he knows I know it. Several days pity: nursing A have gone by since my visit. The circumstances which dictated my promise are unchanged; I have no room for self-deception about that he still that. I should be able to say yes, I even dare assert inspires the same compassion in me. How could I justify a change in the state of my feelings, since nothing has happened since which could have the power to alter them? And yet I must in honesty admit that the pity I felt the other day, is today no more than a theoretical pity. I still judge that he 1 is unhappy and that Think what it would be like to live by penny numbers! dreaming one's life away. It would be life without reality. 47 It it is right would be be sorry for him, but this is a judgment I should not have dreamed of formulating the other day. There was no need. My whole being was concentrated into an irresistible impulse towards to him, a wild longing to help him, to show him that I was on his side, have to recognise that this impulse no that his sufferings were mine. I longer exists, and imitate All that it is no longer in my power to do more than me refuses to swallow. by a pretence which some part of it I can do is C to observe that is unhappy and alone and cannot let him down; also, I have promised to come back; my signature is at the foot of the bond and the bond is in his possession. that I The silence I feel within me is strangely different from that other cry of pity from the heart; yet it docs not seem to me altogether mysterious. I can find a good enough explanation for it in myself and the rhythm of my moods. But what is the good? Proust was right: we are not at our own disposal. There is a part of our being to which strange, perhaps not altogether conceivable, conditions give us sudden access; the key few minutes I later the door is is in our hands for a second; shut again and the key disappears. must accept this fact with shame and sorrow. But this it surely commitment rested fluctuations at the time, my shall I and wrongly ignoring, these my states? Surely it was rather on such-and-such a day in the same compassion which pierced me stood by the sick bed? Or did I really make no feel such claim visit would the did I really mean answer? I must not accept down that a certain material take place after a certain interval? this alternative. I myself whether the feeling that impelled to die other day to assert that, when I upon myself the ignoring, interruptions in to the heart fact that I took upon my and presumptuous of me future, I should still I and a did not ask me towards him was going like a fountain or the shape of a melody. A fortiori could not commit myself to feeling tomorrow But suppose I leave aside whatever I was conscious of as I 48 What did yesterday. at that moment, and suppose I try to far as it was an act. Then I fleeting means in so it contains a decree so daring that it discover what my promise am bound to recognise that surprises of exterior conditions which for the possibility me now. Allowing may put it out of my keep my promise, I have admitted, however implicitly, that the state of my feelings was capable of alteration, but I decided power at the I to same time that this eventual alteration was something ofwhich who should not take account. Between the being and who has dares to say T bind bimsdf(I bind power between him and the endless world of causes and effects myself) attributed to himself the to which simultaneously escape from my own jurisdiction and from all rational prevision, there is an intermediate realm, where events take place which are not in accordance with my desires or even my expectation; yet I reserve to myself the right and the power to abstract from these events in my actions. This power of real abstraction is at the very core of my promise: this is what gives it its peculiar weight and worth. I will make an effort to fix my with attention on threatens to feet: in fact, slave? Can this central overwhelm me when what I, foreign empire include it, datum, and not yield is this without which body of which I eludes my am am and am fluctuations; both assertions lous. I will question at at my once master and it to the huge grasp? But I cannot completely realm where discount any of its contents. true to say that I which gulf opening folly or insincerity, relegate either, in that subject me the power to I see the to the vertigo my own It decree gives seems to me equally not responsible for these bodily seem accurate to me, and both ridicu- myself no further on this point; enough to have by a promise I have acknow- recognised that in binding myself ledged the presence of an inner hierarchy, consisting of a ruling principle, and a life whose details remain unpredictable, but which the principle subjects to pledges D itself to itself, or, still more accurately, which keep under its yoke. 49 M.B.H. it cannot help seeing that here I am repeating one of the commonplaces most often explored by the wisdom of antiquity; but perspecI tive plays us strange tricks: what seemed self-evident long ago takes my eyes today, a paradoxical aspect. And what is more, I cannot help wondering if this decree will not be called a shocking act of violence by the supporters of that ethic of transparent honesty on, in which most commonly professed around me. Is not the very language of 'abstracting* or 'discounting* (which I have had to use several times) enough to breed considerable disquiet? How can I I hear which justify this dictatorship actions, in the I name of some come from, and what authority simplifying, when I distinguish claims to go beyond claim to exercise over lays from my future does this Am I not over- it? present a subject in a mental dimension it Where present state? claim to my which is which not be to confused with duration, and which I can hardly figure out, even To in idea? look more closely, is not my an present itself making of eternity of right? But in that case falsehood is established at the very heart of my life. For this pretended 'eternity of right* no corresponding continuity of fact can be found; arbitrary claim to a sort am brought up against the following disconcerting alternatives. At the moment of my commitment, I either and seems that it *(i) arbitrarily really in shall assume a constancy in my power case I reflect am my my feelings which state at it is not advance that to establish, or (2) I accept in have to carry out, no way to I I a given moment, an action which will in of mind when I do carry it out. In the first lying to myself, in the second I consent in advance to lie someone else. Shall I seek reassurance by telling myself that these are just a cloud of subtleties concealing a really very simple problem, which life I will make it its own business to solve? cannot be content with such a lazy answer; the can imagine at this less so, since I moment a dozen cases where the problem is still 50 the same, but where its seriousness even to the terms are of a kind which proclaim most creature, to a group, to an To careless thinker. idea, even to God swear fidelity to in every case, expose ourselves to the same disastrous dilemma? this to promise whatever rooted in a state of mind which is its Is is a not not any entirely of the moment, and whose permanence nothing can guarantee? When I look at it like this, the very nature of fidelity seems to me suddenly covered by a thick veil; I can no longer understand what meaning the term 'commitment* has ever had for me. And now I mind once more call to the memory of all the hatreds of myself and others too hasty promises. on the disappointments, all which were the ordinary results of Were they mere accidents? or must we see them, the contrary, as the natural effects of a most inexcusable pre- sumption? At what price are they to be avoided? If we are to remain tied by our inward bond, must we not learn to shut our eyes to the contorted but fateful life-process sight will swear which only a to discern beneath the accumulations feeble of habit? To whatever the object to which the vow is taken really but committing myself to ignore the deepest part being, to learn the art of duping myself constantly with fidelity what of fail is it my upon myself, for my own deception? Indeed, can commitment exist that is not a betrayal? tricks that I play a But there is no betrayal which is not a repudiation of fidelity. Is there, then, such a thing as a basic fidelity, a primal bond, which I break every time I make a vow which in the least degree concerns what vaguely call my soul? (Obviously there is no question here of vows about mere matters of the most outward and socialised I activity, where I am as it were using a tool ready to my hand.) This primal bond can only be what some people have taught me to call fidelity to myself. Myself, they will say, is what I betray when I so bind myself. Myself: not my being but my becoming; not what I am today but what I shall perhaps be tomorrow. Here the mystery How can I be faithful, or again how can I be unfaithful, thickens. to the Me whom today cannot know, and only the future will reveal? Surely they mean me to understand just this; that I must keep myself at the disposal of the unknown Me, so that one day he can come into my place without meeting any resistance from the Me that I still am, me to lend myself to the game, and not in the least to muscles and resist. The word fidelity has certainly under- are just asking stiffen but shall in that second have ceased to be? They my gone a change here! It now no more than a sketches cence, a graceful passivity. Well, but unknown whose yet exist? prestige Amazing is due entirely privilege for the lazy acquies- who prescribes it for me? to the fact that unborn! But this he does not at least the privi- more I am in the dark. For the lege must be recognised, and once act by which this privilege of my future being is so consecrated is in of my present: so we admit a value in the future in so fact part it is a future which is from nevertheless distinct my attached to it, since it is has control of its present state, somehow far as but which successor. Shall I yield to the temptations of dialectic? Shall I admit that it is really my present state which is denied and claims to be transcended? Surely we cannot help regarding this as a manipulation to be mistrusted, since truth its it which transcends foundation. But I allow implies, suppose the life-process if this is so, there and is no is caprices, perhaps a law. this lead capable of serving as of my moods of them my of the rules their my business to remain faithful to continuity. is unity. whether form or principle for this it is part of more to Terminology, however, threatens once into error. This unity is just me; it is a single unvarying law or me And sort further question of current lending myself unresistingly to the moment. Something which forms no some it, The fidelity is reality which insists upon its own no longer to a life-process, a 'becoming*, meaningless, but to a king which I can see no possibility of distinguishing from a tomorrow which Have I at last colour as once? The solution which to forbid what in is And so I am escaped from the horns me to be sincere and faithto me is not just a logical To make who contracts it and carries it to think that this identity has a validity brought whatever the content of my promise itself, a point of honour to it but putting an accent on the else is this supra-temporal identity of the subject out? I outlines. describes the hidden spring of the bind myself. I a commitment fulfil sharpens from the mirage of its which occurs word invention; a very simple action by so I escape it found the way out? Have of the dilemma which seemed ful at And myself. loses its may be. This identity the one important thing to maintain, however absurd the partic- ular my commitment may appear, to the eyes rashness or weakness in undertaking ingly men shall take Perhaps of sense object, however often no my of a it. spectator, my friends remonstrate, I have promised and will keep notice; I through However overwhelm- my word. persistence will even be proportionally strengthened as the carrying out of the promise looks to myself and others more and more like the fulfilment of a wager. But if this is so, the particular object, which sort fidelity of pretext. returns upon binds It its were it God himself, to must remain a pure accident, a circle in which the will votaries, cannot enter the closed herself in her effort after the demonstration of her own power. But glory love I cannot really confuse this the most arid, strained, with that which be pure chance that I have fidelity attachment of the soul to and all irritable my shows life itself its own of all the forms of self- called Fidelity. It cannot in its most unmistakable who have, on the contrary, the least concern to garb among cut a figure in their own eyes. The face of a servant or a farmlabourer is its place of revelation for me. What can be the ground of those so ruinous a confusion of two spiritual states, 53 when the most super- ficial judgment How can we will assure me that they are forever incompatible? help seeing that a fidelity to another myself the ground, the spring, and the centre as this would expose of which I was that such a fidelity by the furtive act of substitution of that existence which it shapes? it yet again, reveals, the lie at the heart How to get out of this deadlock? I must again tackle the precise problem, the dilemma, which I stated at the beginning; especially the problem of fidelity vowed to a person. I must refuse the choice of alternatives (continuity of the inner disposition or insincerity of action). I cannot base my argument on the effort of my own will. I must admit, then, that something unalterable is implied in the relation itself. Must see further into the nature of this unalterable: where do I start if I am to get hold of it? Need to start from Being itself from commitment to God. an of transcendence having its ontological counterpart in the hold God has over me. This hold is the term in relation to It is act which even my freedom is ordered and defined. The mysterious relation between grace and faith exists wherever there is fidelity; there is room and wherever a for imposed upon the and full of lies. A philosophy which manifestly false of this sort fails to appear, no more than a shadow of fidelity, a mere con- straint thing but what relation it calls refuses my when we resistible assertion soul, although me 'states confront it may be both culpable the possibility of grasping any- of consciousness' it is seen to be with the spontaneous and ir- which forms, as it were, the ground-bass of the same way, the contention that fidelity, human knowledge. In despite appearances, is never more than a mode of pride and regard, unquestionably robs of their distinctive character the self- loftiest think they have known. The correlation which unites these two Ventures' cannot be over-stressed. I believe experiences that I see men a centre of light here; I feel I must 54 try to get nearer to it. And I believe that if a refution can be attempted in the one case, it should and along the same line of thought. also be possible in the other, When transcends my knowledge it am unable to grasp any knowledge which of consciousness, am I not lazily opposing this I say that I states knowledge disappointing and even (a contains a claim cannot make good) to a knowledge which it not actually given, but which and, unlike the first, which construes it? ginary I consciousness* definite if how can I this axis clear that the expression restrictive. mind of reference, however ima- 'my states emptied of its meaning, since that meaning is remains it touches a reality independent of the it, it is is at the very least ideally conceived, is Without consider may deceptive, since The important is of only question to ask is: conceive of a knowledge thus irreducible to that which according to this hypothesis I really enjoy? or even, a deeper question, do I actually conceive of it? If I admit that perhaps I do not conceive of it, that is to enough make the insecure doctrine claimed to preach fall to the ground at once. But it is scarcely in my power to understand how the idea of a real knowledge, i.e. a reference to Being, could come to birth inside a world which I of pure states And so I of consciousness. begin to find a secret way of escape in the outer bailey of that tall keep in which I pretended to immure myself. Shall I not be forced to recognise from now onwards that this very idea another order has The same vows true have But if first it is, as it it is mark which of fidelity. Across the attachments which the shadow of another fidelity, and only me to deny its conceived it has been given enables me because I have dimly experienced Surely were, the indelible upon me? to itself lies the that I self. is left no accident to conceive it, it I the fact existence my- at all, surely this is whether in myself or in others? that I use those things which I affect no longer to believe in, as the models for my tentative picture of personal reality, even while I allege that the distinctive character of this 55 continually renewed effort of coherence reality is the between two its and balance aspects? Am I not, moreover, justified in mistrusting the actual nature of the step by links of all which I claim to gather up into myself the roots or fidelity? How can I help seeing that such a dogged and ^determined contempt of evidence cannot have ence, however central its origin in experi- and however hidden you suppose it to be: it can only originate in prejudice, in the act of fundamental negation by which I banish the Real to infinity, and then dare to usurp its place it is and dress myself up in its stolen attributes degrading them, true, in the process. Can we only rescue thousand times fidelity at this price? I better if I resolved to see in it think it would be a nothing but a survival, a lingering shadow which melts right away under the light of thought. Better that than to up such set idolatry at the centre of my life. Although I would not venture to assert that the connection be observed in every case, yet I cannot Fidelity is at fail to notice that can where her most unmistakable, where her face shines with clearest light, she goes hand in hand with a character as opposed to Pride as anything we can from the depths of her imagine. Patience and Humility gaze eyes. Patience and Humility; virtues whose names today are forgotten, and whose true nature is further darkened to our sight with every step forward in man's technical very and impersonal equipment, his logical and dialectical equipment with the rest. t The alliance of these three virtues into a unity the unity of a being whose ever-changing structure psychology has no power to could not exist, could not even be thought of, in a purely fathom and only the self, was the centre for with reality, which uphold the commitments personal system: where the those roots and links self, which Life may inspire us to undertake. December Consider non-representative musical expression. It is a sphere where the thing stated cannot be distinguished from the manner of it. stating In this sense and in this sense only, music has, speaking, no meaning, but perhaps Explore The just because it is strictly meaning. this. fact is that we introduce a relation into the heart of the music, a relation between the content expressed (?) and the expression, which is of the same type as the execution. But this is an that which joins point of view the idea of objective music takes is the expression to From illegitimate transference. on this a meaning, but it a negative meaning. But is the term 'expression* really one that can regard to music? a content distinct from the expression itself? I think the notion of essence, of the might be later be used with Could there really still be expression when we can no longer speak of content expressed to define, still introduced here. Beethoven, of the later so difficult is an essence of Schubert, etc. The expression would There Faure, anyhow then be the opening-up of the essence to itself. I believe this is the idea to be explored. Combine the idea of essence with the idea of universe. The universe. It is essence regarded as the highest point of a certain almost impossible here to make abstraction from the metaphor of 'the summit', and this is the metaphor whose roots could usefully be laid bare. The idea of 'the summit* could perhaps be replaced by that of 'the or to put it 9 centre . In both cases there is a periphery, more accurately, precincts (zones of encroachment). NOTES ON JULIEN BENDA's *LE DISCOURS COHERENT* propose to examine only the principles expounded in the first parts of the Discours Cobfrcnt, for the principles alone concern us I here. M. Benda, on his own admission, has tried to construct a 57 thorough-going philosophy of the Eleaticism in which a sort of hyper- Infinite, or rather the principles of Parmenides are for the time pressed to their final conclusions. In theory, I think, first we may consider an attempt of this sort in the light of an interesting intellectual experiment, perhaps a stimulating as it one provokes reactions and forces the too, at any critic to rate in so far make his own position clear in his turn. M. Benda is really working up kind of confrontation; not a to a confrontation of two ideas but rather of two aspects of one and the same constant and 'Sometimes I first, is, think of it as identical with and sometimes the phenomenal, itself, central idea, that or in the mode of the the it is still I the idea of the world. itself, think of it or in the mode of as contradictory to divine, but in the second case as in the world that am thinking of/ An Eleatic if who read this sentence, would I indeed there are any Eleatics certainly think at first that here was a typographical error of the worst kind; an inversion which turns the sense of the sentence topsy-turvy; since for him, obviously, to think of the world accord- mode is to think of it in a contradictory way. Eleatic would be wrong, and M. Benda is here ing to the phenomenal All the same, the saying exactly what he means. His contention in the first think of Being as infinite Let us see exactly is part of the Discours really to is in fact that to think of it as contradictory. what he understands by that. The demonstration he gives us refers to temporal being, but he hints that this demonstration can and should be extended to other modes of being. 'In so far as the duration right back to its beginning, number, however larger one. If/ which is I assign to the my mind by a finite admit of another still represented in large, this duration will adds world from today M. Benda, 'I want to conceive of a quantity of being, whose duration from the present moment right back to its beginning will not admit of a larger than itself, i.e. which will be 58' am obliged to conceive of a duration whose measure will be a number which escapes from this inherent slavery to finite number, i.e. a number n such that, if I add a unit to it, I obtain the infinite, I number n+i, which such that I no way in is different from n: a number n have: p being some finite number. From this point of view it may be said that my time is the same as Julius Caesar's.' we must But formula: in 'my time is that there from not be taken in by the paradoxical look of the no a complete truism. I have it is reality the same as Julius Caesar's', unless I just was no beginning of the world, I right to say mean 'Given am no further away beginning than Julius Caesar was'. As a Benda avoids this explicit way of speaking, so this non-existent matter of fact, M. that he leaves the reader with a confused notion that placed in infinity, does nevertheless exist. To say 'I am no further this beginning, , away from the beginning of the world than Julius Caesar was, since this beginning does not exist', is an event can only be placed by its relation another event, and since there is no event which can be called equivalent to saying that to 'the beginning of the world', no absolute temporal fixing of any event is possible. No absolute fixing of an event in time admit that the world did to think such a of the world as way think of differ. I are it that its moving on is distinction to be it of time is no longer that the differences it declares that to think of it in exist, that is, is to contains do not a rather serious confusion here. So long as the level logy, holds good, infinite in respect way possible if one does not But M. Benda distinctions in time in such a think there really begin. is we where the distinction of times, or chronoquite impossible for us to consider this removed or liable to 59 be removed. Ail one has the right distinctions is to say is, that the meaning of these temporal not ultimate, but only superficial, though within a certain register they retain their full validity. I to illustrate my meaning. A book perfectly fixed pagination, sheets is bound is here use a simile something which admits of a the person to respect this single on perfectly clear, and may and who has to arrange the irreversible order. the other hand, that this But it is book admits of types of unity which are far deeper than the unity expressed world, and would be by the order of the pages. And yet this does not mean in the least that the order of the pages is 'illusory*. Now chronology is a sort of pagination of the it quite absurd to speak of a beginning of this pagination which was placed at tion of terms, or rather it is it infinity. It would be to think would be a nothing not only permissible, but even inevitable, to view where contradic- at all, rise to whereas a point of of the pages appears as the superficial expression of something infinitely deeper which can certainly be apprehended from other aspects. From this order this point of view the formula We only have the right to say this; the difference between n anything to us. This is and n + p = pure nonsense. that from a certain point of view ceases to +/> tell is us anything or mean a completely different thing and implies no contradiction. And so the definition according to which infinite Being is Being in so far as it is self-contradictory, rests ruled out at once. This affirmation on a paralogism and can be would only be legitimate if we could think of temporal distinctions as being at once there and, as could it were, not there. And this is just what we cannot do. We also show M. Benda seems with the self-contradictory. But this is that the confusion extends to identify the indeterminate unjustifiable. The still further. contradiction only arises where definitions in- compatible with each other are attributed to the same subject; and in that case we should already have left the realm of the indetcrmin- 60 ate. The indeterminate is in fact prior to this double attribution. We much further yet in our criticism, and show in particular M. Benda has no grounds for considering Being as the totality could go that of its from relations, since his point of view (which that is of in- inconceivable that these relations could determinate being) it is form a is only too clear that he here swings light- totality. It heartedly between two opposite ontological positions whose opposi- tion he has never even noticed. The remarks I have just offered nullify in advance all the developments following on the exposition of his principles. 1 especially in Chapter the indeterminate, V, which determinate of Being in Are we melt away. is the place to that is its tic, that the fulness, in whose depths clearly more a being all oppositions to begin with, the text of p. 621, sterility of the whole of his dialec- differentiates itself, the more it is guaran- God defined as initial indeterminacy. And here one fact (and I will return to that the metaphysician whom M. up should turn our thoughts? All the clearly seen, throughout the teed against the return to namely continually mixing speaks of logical solitude or the can be It quite clear, to say that this supra-determinate, this fulness, which we M. Benda Absolute. is only pure potentiality, and the supra- indications are to the contrary where M. Benda It is Benda it) is already clearly apparent, the metaphysician in spite of him- most nearly akin, is not Parmenida or Spinoza, but the Spencer of the First Principles, a Spencer whc to self ! has read and I must is made notes on Schopenhauer. now attack a different class of difficulties; this time w< must consider the actual notion of Cod Coherent. God, he says in in a certain way. what exists for him is These it appears in the Discour. but the world thought o nothing specifies as still further by saying tha not Divinity (noun) but the divine (adjectivi applied to the world). 1 59, M. Benda is Here a preliminary question references are to the text published 61 arises, by N.R.F. which up but which ought will not take namely, is it thing which here just an have been asked, adjective? It is perfectly clear that just the world: to say that the divine exists as is sense. is at least to of existence with regard legitimate to speak On the other divine' hand such is asserts itself to be such: but see yet another contradiction arising here. If just the world thought of by me 'God knows freedom/ Should its strict we (or sense? by neither anxiety nor serenity; he object that the God as the simple X) defined, what can be the sense in asking what God knows? 58, this radically excluded by M. Benda's position. dependence But we shall taken in non- cannot take refuge in saying that 'the the world thought of as divine, for in that case I make it is read in is exists I depend upon a subject which is some- to what word 'know* cannot un- Yet we knows here be As a matter of fact, M. Benda does explain in his development of the passage that the idea of God is bound up with the idea of freedom. But elsewhere, the term 'knowledge* is taken in its usual sense. In fact, M. Benda distinguishes two ways of thinking of the indeterminate. The first corresponds to the condi- arriving at the point where it changes of itself in the divine mode. The second corresponds to the condition of the world thinking of itself in the divine mode tion of the phenomenal world to thinking without having declares (10, known p. 481) the phenomenal world. M. Benda then first way is perhaps that in which that the indeterminate Being thinks of itself, knowing itself anew and never having known any other condition. This sentence is extraordinarily significant, and it is very clear that the 'perhaps', without altering its scope, only introduces an extra element of confusion. If we are to be * allowed to speak of a 'way of thinking of itself which belongs to in- determinate Being, of a knowledge which is peculiar to it, then it is once more being conceived as a noun. This quite obvious that is a formal contradiction of the declaration in 59. it is I think that if we examined the 62 latter part of his exposition, we should be met by a cloud of when M. Benda instance, the phenomenal world, although relatives (13, embraces just new and now. p. 624), can it is help wondering what unity not the subject which I spoke of see at least the ghost into sight at this point, a sphere neither that For God and the idea of irreducibles, are nevertheless cor- we cannot this correlation, if We baffling difficulties. says that the idea of of a third sphere coming definition be which would by of the phenomenal, nor that of indeterminate Being; M. Benda we can see, have a hope of defining. The fact is that but a sphere whose metaphysical and ontological status cannot, as far as in this line of country Plato and Hegel really carry all before We cannot play a part in their dialectic; them. it is simply imposed upon and to resist it as M. Benda does is pure and simple suicide. And no doubt that is an attitude permissible for an irrationalist. The us, within his rights to refuse dialectic. But if he does refuse dialectic, he a fortiori refuses indeterminate Being which is irrationalist is nothing but the most tenuous product of this dialectic. And here M. Benda's thought looks to me like a shamefaced irration- itself alism which is afraid to show itself in its true colours, and routs out of Heaven knows what old cupboard the most drab and shapeless cloak of reason that it can possibly find. This brings us to what I think is the most interesting the Discours Coherent. The and elusive part really of the problem important question, Benda does not ask but which we must certainly ask, set by which M. is how the metaphysical primacy which he gives to indeterminate Being can possibly be justified. I want to press this point a little further. Actually this point is all the more important since M. Benda, unlike the metaphysicians of the past, absolutely refuses to identify the infinite with perfection. This is a point upon which he had akeady explained himself in his study on the idea of order and the idea of God. 'Perfection is an attribute entirely foreign to the nature of God. The idea of something perfect, that 63 is, finished, accom- is essentially incompatible with the idea of infinite Being, but rather bound up of necessity with the idea of determinate Being.' In the Essay on the Idea of Order and the Idea of God, he made an plished, on explicit attack the idea of supreme Being, absolutely refused to place God at the apex of a hierarchy, and even went so far as to say was foreign to God. I note in passing that there does not seem to be complete agreement between the two texts, that this hierarchy since M. Benda, in the Idea of Order, might seem disposed to attri- God bute to an Him perfection. own, so this The is But I whereas later he flatly think that the second position is denies really his the one to be examined. infinite but not perfect culty I infinite perfection, God of M. Benda is a God either. But then we certainly not imperfect, shall again pointed out a minute ago; the easier name God can be given to the position when a reality be met by the diffito understand that it is the a being defined as perfect, the harder is is and not perfect, because infinite. the primacy? M. Benda will no doubt primacy, alleging that he will not have word which we certain values, here it is it which in question is not existent And I repeat my question; whence try to exclude the very word the hierarchy ipso facto re-establishes which any price. But my answer is, that God is not a have the right to use arbitrarily, for it embodies at and certain feelings are crystallised round it (and of perfection and supremacy reappear may well ask whether these values are compatible clear that the notions instantly). But we with the attributes of Being as M. Benda defines it. At the worst, no doubt, I should understand him if he refused to consider things from this angle and established himself in a sort of enclosed sanctu- ary where he remained alone with his own particular God, but unfortunately he does not do this, as witness p. 475. 'Not to speak of philosophers/ says he, 'it seems to me that simple people, those who only seek their theology in the needs of their hearts, have (among many other ideas which contradict them)* 64 I will return 'an idea of to this parenthesis and particularity This in is God limitation what they seem to all God which at indicate, remote from God kind enough to God who this and justice fostered in the charity, etc. which God here. But . . . and But surely it is especially those of constitute the conception whom M. minds of the humble folk remember is notion of the when they express the hope that our pride will be melted away/ these 'other* ideas, these 'contradictory ideas', of divine all times causes suffering to them. Benda this just or charitable is God, only because of His infinite justice and nothing to do with the indeterminate Being of Benda; he cannot hope to find a single ally among the simple charity, has clearly M. Then must he folk. not recognise, if he wants to in the least coherent, that his make his position God has no value, in the usual or even word? But then, given that anyhow it is does not exist, it is difficult not to ask what pre- in the technical sense of the probable that He vents us from simply deleting Him. I we must think Benda, in spite of everything, to try to take his stand value: only I here repeat self, question: What M. expect the line of kind of value is it an indeterminate Being? It is on this question impute I should personally be most anxious to see him explain himbut as I said at the beginning, I very much doubt if he can do to possible to that my on whole thing is really a mask the mask huddled on by a will which is perfectly resolved not to be explicit it. In with fact I feel sure that the itself. Personally, I should have expression of a conscious sterility sterility somewhat there, and will even E and its own presence go it the pattern, a and so con- deifies itself under that aspect. so far as to say that it is of M. Benda's doubly present theogony which the double process whereby the world is divided instantly self-destroyed; for the curious pictured for us, from Mallarme self-deification is only too obviously at the heart writings. I is hesitation in calling after the which cannot bear verts itself into a will for sterility, This little God in order to return to Him, all takes place in the conscious65 M.B.H. ness of M. Benda, God and which who seems to be his universe. I somehow divided between his may add in conclusion, I personally reject, regains all its that idealism, force in the presence of such a doctrine as this; since in the final analysis, and taken whole, this is perhaps the poorest on and most contradictory of all the its expressions. But suppose we admit, for the moment, that the previous objections can be met. Suppose which I most expressly deny that this idea of God can be regarded as tenable. we have still to ask how the passage from God to the world can take place in M. Benda's system. Here we shall be witnesses of an extraordinary drama. M. Benda thinks that he has established theirreducibility of the two fundamental ways of thinking of the world: the first a divine mode in the category of contradiction, the other a phenomenal mode in the category of identity. What does this mean? It means that there are here two ideas which do not touch at any point, so that we can no more pass from one idea to the other than, for instance, we can Even so But the surprising thing is, quite unconsciously from the consideration pass from blueness to triangularity. that M. Benda of ideas to that passes of things; we read immediately afterwards that the phenomenal world cannot be conceived in relation to God except by a separation from God, and not by a continuous emanation from God to itself. But indeed there was no question of anything of the kind: and I deny that this separation, which is given as an act has the least connection with the (obviously a non-temporal act) irreducibility of ideas which M. Benda thought he had previously established. This word far separation, already too concrete, will not content him: immediately afterwards he will be speaking to us of no doubt speculating with a view to later elaborations on the emotional significance of that word. Three lines further on he aversion, reflection will be speaks of impiety. But the simplest metaphysical enough to show us how fundamentally unintelligible 66 all this is I un-tbougbt-out. How can determinate Being separate from indeterminate Being? It is inconceivable except in a philosophy of the neo-Platonic type, in which the absolute prin- would even say, itself ciple is not indeterminate, but rather, if I so express may it, supra- determinate. In that case, determinacy seems to denote an im- poverishment, but in these systems of philosophy the indeterminate, i.e. matter, is at the lowest point in the series. Besides, M. Benda cannot make room for such an idea in his system, since he will not so much as hear of hierarchy. It therefore seems clear to me that M. Benda is transposing what he believes to be a radical hiatus between determinate and indeterminate being, into a sphere where this hiatus cannot help altering its very metaphysical categories, begin to multiply that he is round really intent character. At the which he claimed this hiatus. to same time those have eliminated, And this is all due to the fact on constructing a system with a sort of Schopenhauerian modulation. An entirely unconscious dialectic his most hidden will, compels him forthwith to which governs bring into his premisses, in a way that changes and shatters them, was characteristic of his meta- dynamic elements which it physical position to exclude, but which he needs just those to justify his self- consciously priest-like attitude. At the point we have now reached, there is one question which we should find it difficult not to ask; why do we not just get rid of this indeterminate or infinite Being, which looks sometimes like a mere non-being and sometimes of depository containing, all higgledy-piggledy, those elements which the phenomenal world has foolishly claimed to arrange in hierarchical order? Why not like a sort simply keep the third part of the Discours Coherent, which gives us, in substance, a Spencerian picture of the universe, enriched (or complicated) and M. perialism by additions borrowed from Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson? Could we not build up a philosophy of im- on a foundation of almost traditional notions, such as 67 the will to live or the will to power? become of the fourth part, that God? Remark to the fourth moment, But in that case, the return of the is, in passing that this fourth part book of The World forced to take his stand on a kind of pendant as Will and Idea. was saying unimportant; as I is just the line of value. what would world towards This is, for the now, M. Benda It is must be damned, world of the phenomenal, that is, of particularity, of individualisation and of imperialism, or at least it must be able to be thought this of as damned. written Why the 'must'? Why, just because M. Trabison des Clercs. 1 'That La which the opposite is to bring the world The fact assertion. is a reason true. back is M. Benda to reason/ that there is a absurd,' you wrote La Trabison But book Benda has will say. I 'It is des Clercs think I can uphold called La my Trahison des Clercs why the phenomenal world must be conceivable as being capable of damnation: but it cannot be unless it is thought of as having separated itself from something which is ... which is what? We cannot say that We will just say that it is Good, or absolute intelligence. God. The existence of God hangs on the either the it is existence of La Trabison des Clercs. me 'If M. Benda wrote La You return to the charge, and tell Trahison des Clercs, he did so in the name of the metaphysic which is developed in Le Discours Coherent'. I do not believe a word of it. La Trabison des Clercs is a book which seems to me based solely upon a psychology of temperament, a psychology, moreover, which narrowly Jewish. But is realm where every assertion aspires to justify itself; so La we are in a Trabison des enough brought up from the basement a whole system of protective screens which we have before our eyes today Clercs has naturally and which is definite sense. naturally called But it is to function in a certain quite human nature that the man who last man to realise where they came just like invented them should be the from or what their results will 1 upon be. The Betrayal of the Clerks. 68 March nth, Charity thought of as presence, as absolute disposability; I have never before seen its link with poverty so clearly. To possess is almost inevitably to be possessed. Things possessed get in the way. All this needs much more thorough treatment. At the heart of charity is presence in the sense of the absolute gift of one's-self, a far from it; gift and so which implies no impoverishment to the giver, we are here in a realm where the categories valid in the world of things ries, as we must entirely cease to thing. If I have four things only have two be applicable. These catego- bound up with the very idea of and give two away, it is obvious that see, are strictly and left, that I am correspondingly impoverished. a I But only makes sense if I suppose a certain close relationship between myself and the things, if I consider them consubstantial, so this to say, with myself, am if I myself affected, in the strongest sense of the word, by their presence or absence. Thresh out the notion of non-disposability. to that such. which fundamentally From whole this point spiritual think it corresponds constitutes the creature considered as of view, as the life I wonder I sum of if we activities could not define the by which we try to reduce in ourselves the part played by non-disposability. Note connection between the fact of being non-disposable and the fact of feeling or thinking non-disposability which is we is are indispensable. Show, in fact, that this inseparable from a kind of self-adherence, something more primitive and still more fundamental than self-love. Death as the flat denial of non-disposability. To my mind, we have here For we sec here the necessity a mine of important considerations. for distinguishing one's-self regarded as non-disposable, as disposable, that lawful self-love is is, love of what illuminated by its 69 between love of and love of one's-self regarded God may make of me. This opposite, namely, the hatred of self which may be question also contained in a certain kind of death-wish. of the relative non-disposability of the The self for itself. Some extremely interesting questions to work out here. Analysis of the notion of non-disposability. It seems to me that it always implies the notion of transference. Non-disposable capital is capital which is already partially transThis is perfectly clear in the case of material wealth. Now ferred. we must see how the out this morning. fortune I hear about it. notion can be extended in the way I pointed A typical case comes into my mind. Some misdemands Theoretically I realise that my pity, but what they I feel that I are telling me cannot give is strangely worthy of pity, yet I feel nothing. If the wretchedness they describe were actually before my eyes, it would no doubt be otherwise. An immediate experience would unseal the springs of my compassion, would force the damned gates. strange thing! I should like to A feel it is not the emotion normal at which seems to be me to 'impose itself* (I judge that cases), but I feel nothing; I am No doubt by putting myself through my could flog myself into something resembling this if I am sincere it cannot deceive me; I shall know my own mental paces emotion, but to touched in such disposal. I quite well that it is a worthless imitation. There are two limiting cases, the child and the saint, so difficult to define strictly, bound up with what may be ence. life And here we return to where this does not take place: As my life what liberty, evidently normal growth of experiwrote about a few years ago; I life is inseparable from some becomes more and more an established thing, a certain division tends to be me and what it is called the cannot be played without stakes; form of risk. pawning of one's made between what concerns does not concern me, a division which appears enough in the making. Each one of us thus becomes the of a sort of mental space, arranged in concentric zones of rational centre decreasing interest and decreasing adherence, and 70 to this decreasing adherence there corresponds an increasing non-disposability. This something so natural that we forget to any thought or any representation at all. Some of us may have happened upon an encounter which in some fashion broke up the lines of this personal is give it egocentric topography. I can understand, for I have experienced from a that resisted: stranger, casually met, all suddenly Such distant instantly closed, disappointing, with a have bitter this is suddenly experiences and an at are infinite distance, rigidities what we on which confusion is would lose its possibility rests. its gives majesty if the falsity to say which thought it it lacking We what must see that in I called the normal opposed am my 'I man who laid least at it. life*. even lies at The down his the roots of The drama life did not or must, if faith is total sacrifice. presuming to break fundamentally with state of secular experience, we should be guilty not only of rashness, but also of real error, unless responding to some to will bring to light. a part of its meaning. find himself so placed that the sacrifice could seem to him to be a from one point of state diametrically not only inevitable, but Above which is there to show state is assuredly, doubtless a metaphysical human drama and have called our mental I in certain people, normal call the statement implies a confusion The become sharply inestimable benefit; they force us to view, simply the perversion of a the however and they can be so disappointing that they leave us and sense of mockery at our very hearts still all there is sanctity, realised It is the sadness and of the us that and breaches that are fleeting, yet I believe that these experiences aware of the accidental character of what space, it, a call too strong to be our perspectives are turned inside-out; what seemed inseparably near near. may come clarion call. All that we can do is we were to admit, at in thought, that these conditions imply an anomaly if we look them from that transcendent point v/ithin us seems to of view which something demand that we should occupy. Could we not maintain sense of the word, is what we call space; in the ordinary kind of translation of the but a nothing that really system of concentric zones which I described above? But, in this connection, we may ask whether the doing away with distance has not a twofold significance. of space, but and the far result, it implies a change in our physical idea It same time at the the near of its thing before which we it is a different value which we consider it, and is the past, because are powerless. deeper: for if the materiality on There qualitative value. seems, with regard to time: but this escapes our grasp because takes deprives the distinction between it (!) Even no parallel just because the past it is here of the past is essentially we immutable, is and colour according some- should go still still it to the aspect from with our present, that this aspect varies is with the changes in our action. (I quote an example man has lived a lightwhich happened to come into my mind. to say, it varies A and worked himself to death, perhaps in less life ously depends upon those who come after him despair. It obvito bring out the consequences of his life which are capable of giving it meaning and worth a posteriori. Yet even this is not enough. Something in us demands who by that those consequences should be his life, must ask what by this his obscure sacrifice, demand is worth: known made them connection of non-disposability presence believe I am possible. dejure valid? is it what point should we say that real fact can ignore questions to put in an intelligible way.) The to the man We and up it? to Difficult and consequently non- A kind of mystery there; I with self-preoccupation. find a whole theory of the Thou within it. When we could with a non-disposable person, someone for whom I do not exist, I and am conscious of being with so I am thrown back upon myself. Can I define God as absolute presence? idea of absolute succour. This would embrace my March ijth Being non-disposable; being occupied with self. But this 'with * can see by analysis that there is no self needs consideration. We from the point of view I am taking up, between being occupied with one's health, one's future, one's mistress, or one's difference, temporal success. Surely the conclusion follows that to be occupied with one's-self is not to be occupied with a determinate object, but way which remains to be defined. might approach our definition by way of the idea of a spiritual rather to be occupied in a certain We opaqueness or blockage. When I look at my ence, it seems to me that in every such case, own we being fixed within a zone or determinate scale, in But, contrary to essentially indeterminate. is itself deepest experi- are conscious of an anxiety which what a superficial inquiry would seem to show, this anxiety (even, this indeterminacy) remains present of the fixation; at the heart constantly going here anxiety on at gives a character of remain compatible with the agitation the centre of this limited zone. This anxiety which causes exasperation it it to and perhaps Kierkegaard I join with Heidegger is in time, the agony of surely the agony of a creature living this mercy of time. (Not that it is necessary to so called.) The bring in here the element of reflection properly agony brings with it unhope a word from one of Thomas Hardy's feeling one's-self at the poems and to despair. In If all this the same as what I this unhope in relation to a contrast to all this see is well-founded, the origins determinate object changes what we mean by 'not caring'. the metaphysical origins of pessimism are related to of non-disposability. This should be have said about joy and hope. We must return to my former observation, that the make-up of our universe admits of hope, and we must see its ontological significance. We shall also have to ask whether the Thou, regarded as worth or reality, is not a function of what I have called 73 my inward dis- And we must study the place of hope in the theory ofthe Thou (what inputting trust in? putting your trust in the universe?). posability. Anxiety, as I called at least possible I can form of it it, seen as a radical deformity, as a that datum) drawn from is universal. is The most datum (or concrete image the horrible feeling I have sometimes had in the dark, of feeling myself at its mercy, with nothing to hold onto. I am wondering just now whether there are not grounds for that the various technical accomplishments are salutary showing weapons of defence against this state of powerlessness. They by no means imply in themselves that fixation of which I spoke. There is a healthful value in doing as such. But the idolatry It is of technical so important to and same level, zone, which is on to analysed elsewhere in this book. ability, show possible to pass it is that fear and desire are both inseparable, but that hope is on the placed in another not that of Spinozan ethics and with which Spinoza himself was unacquainted. (Spinoza spoke ofspes and metus correlatively; and our The zone of hope natural inclination is also that is certainly to do the same.) of prayer. March i$th On analysing the question closely, we find that the nature of hope is very hard to define. I will take recovery from illness or for the two examples: to hope for the conversion of a person dear to us, of one's oppressed country. The hope here is for something which, according to the order of nature, does not depend upon us (it is absolutely outside the zone where stoicism and to can be state To hope for the liberation practised). At the root of the hope of things which invites us to despair is is the consciousness of a (illness, damnation, to put one's trust in reality, to assert that hope means of triumphing over the correlative of hope is this not danger; and here fear, far 74 from it, it it etc.). contains the can be seen that but the act of making the worst of things, a sort of pessimistic fatalism which assumes the impotence of reality or which will not grant that it can take account of something even if it is not Just our good, but rather, as we think, a good in the absolute sense of the word. This evening I have apprehended the nature of hope more than I have ever done before. It its clearly always has to do with the restoration of a certain living order in integrity. But it with also carries it the affirmation of eternity and eternal goods. It is therefore of her very essence that when Hope has been deceived in the realm of the visible, she should take refuge on a plane where she can be disappointed no more. This links up with my most time-honoured meditations on the were a groping anticipation of what I Even the integrity of the organism of an invalid is, as it quite impossible to treat is no place see clearly today. when I hope for the recovery hope is hope of salvation, and that it is of the one without treating of the other. all Spinoza, and also among the disciples of of salvation is literally stripped of all meaning. like Stoicism, this idea There which were, the prefiguring or symbolical expression of a supreme integrity. In this sense I say that But in someone unverifiable, for salvation except in a universe which admits of real injuries. It now be shown that the object of desire is never integrity should as such, but that it is always a mode of enjoying, just mode of suffering. But as the object undoubtedly above this opposition. Yet all this is still not quite clear to me. I was thinking this morning that hope is only possible in a world of fear where is a there reflection is forces is room for miracles; becoming and clearer to with Kierkegaard, or salvation this evening the sense of this me. Here, at least 75 is too, I believe I join with some of his continuators. March ijth If I have discerned rightly, there hope and a certain affirmation is a close of eternity, bond of union between that is, of a transcendent order. I On the other hand as I say in Remarks on a world where techniques are paramount to desire and because every technique fear; desire or some either to make Hope proper to the unarmed; is direct use its mysteriously enough, hope due is some it is the lies. power call it to her aid. weapon of the unarmed, of a weapon and in that, Present-day scepticism about to the essential inability to conceive that anything be efficacious that there to serve of any technique or to the very opposite it is is Today a world given over is perhaps characteristic of Hope to be unable fear. It is or (more exactly) the Imligion of when it is no sort can of a power in the ordinary sense of word. Here I am afraid we come up physical problems, terms. against one of the hardest of meta- and one which seems almost a contradiction in We cannot help asking ourselves how hope can be effective; but the very form of the question takes it for granted that we are unconsciously comparing hope to a technique which operates in a mysterious fashion, We must be let us say magically. 1 perfectly clear that this real efficacy, counterpart of a complete inefficacy on the which phenomenal is level, the can when the powerlessness is in fact absolute; where no pretence or evasion (such as we find in a consciousness only be conceived there is which through do nothing). sloth or Could we not clarify the sense It is falsely persuades we say that a certain activity of the word empirical realm, that 1 cowardice is, later finding its itself that it should have to way barred in the in the realm of action, changes hardly necessary to point out that metaphysical problem of prayer. 76 all this can its level and has a bearing on the turns into hope, but for it all that does not lose the efficacy with which was in some manner endowed from its what happens to a obstruction. I would say parallel to this in dammed by an birth? river There when is a kind of course its that the estuaries of Hope do not lie entirely within the bounds of the visible world. we can Hence, perhaps, endowed with creature are And yet I know problem, and ' the prayers of a defenceless why a greater efficacy. am quite well that here I that I cannot escape myself confusedly what no-technique. see is sort We are here at from stating merely skirting the it, and from asking of power can belong to no-action and to the heart of die problems raised by the essential Christian data, especially non-resistance to evil. can just make out the following in a very disjointed way: are no longer in the realm of causes or laws, the realm of (1) I We Hope not being a cause, and not acting mechanically, obvious that we cannot say, 'Every time somebody the universal. it is quite of hope, such and such a thing will come to would in fact mean that we were making hope into a practises the virtue pass:' for this technique, that notice its own opposite (incidentally, it not clear that the efficacy of hope, in some cases, disarming value? In the case of non-resistance at intelligible. If I oppose violence, that as violence, ground it is combat implies a sides, a sort is, if I it; in this sense will its on it is place; and up and true to say that all it this state becomes of affairs does radically im- were a game, and the will to destroy will lets loose an opposite (i.e. an identical) as if it this the other side. destroy cannot be it of fundamental connivance between the two not end until they reach the point where war in put myself on the same common will for the battle to go on; possible to treat lies least, this is quite quite certain that I tend to keep thereby even to reinforce takes I what a strong temptation there is to regard it in this light). (2) Is its to say, into is Could we not maintain justified in its own 77 eyes unless that the will to an identical will can be presumed in the itself resistance, negated at once, it is I hasten to from other, that add is the is, except as lawful defence? If Can enemy? conceive it thenceforth meets with it non " completely disarmed. have the gravest hesitation in concluding disarmament is dejure justified. that I these reflections that unilateral If we had to examine the question, we should begin by asking why the transition from the metaphysical to the empirical should raise such serious difficulties in this province. would seem, then, that Hope has the unusual virtue of somehow putting in a false predicament the powers over which it claims It to triumph, not by fighting them, them. Moreover, its efficacy seems accompanying when it is more less liable to it is far from all the surer and real less it, but by transcending when the weakness of a sham; in other words, be considered as a hypocritical disguise of cowardice. The spontaneous objections we feel against this may seem almost irresistible. For instance, recovery from illness in that way? But then that Hope must be not forgotten it flows out to sea. pedestrians, taken when Hope the road that how it is way of thinking can we explain a in the invisible world nothing like a short cut for blocked and joining the road is is again on the other side of the obstacle. No need to say that all these reflections go hand-in-hand with my remarks on non-disposability. the less The more room there is in him for hope. the growing non-disposability of the I wondered be related this afternoon a little clearly. man is, And we should here mention whole modern world. whether the efficacy of hope might not of the grip on reality which it prethe working-out of what I was writing yesterday to the very force supposed (this is evening about integrity). But is non-disposable a dangerous. The problem To is tell this interpretation, the truth I still though do not attractive, see my way the fact that infinitely complicated by 78 hope obviously partakes of the nature of 'gift* out methodically, but I do not yet sifted or 'merit*. This must be know how to go about my task. We ought to note, without delay, the point at which hope overflows the affirmation of a sollen. It is really a prophetic power. has no bearing on what should be or even on what must be; says 'This will be*. Reflecting on hope is it It just perhaps our most direct means of apprehending the meaning of the word 'transcendence', for hope is a spring, it is the leaping of a gulf. implies a kind of radical refusal to reckon possibilities, It this is enormously important. It is as though postulate the assertion that reality overflows as it claimed, in virtue of some all it carried with and it as possible reckonings; unknown though touch a principle hidden in the heart of things, or secret affinity, to rather in the heart of events, which mocks such reckonings. Here I might quote excellent sayings from Peguy and perhaps Claudel, which touch the very depths of my own perceptions. in this sense, Hope, is not only a protestation inspired by love, of call, too, a desperate appeal to an ally who is Himself also Love. The supernatural element which is the foundation of but a sort Hope is as clear here as its transcendent nature, for nature, un- illuminated by hope, can only appear to us the scene of a sort of immense and inexorable book-keeping. 1 Another point; I wonder if we do not see here some of the limitations of Bergsonian philosophy, for it room in it for what tion in pure freedom; to a metaphysic 1 lies me that there To a Bergsonian, seems to the least I call integrity. which is is not salva- Christian in its We should ask ourselves what sort of science leads to despair, and of this sort damns itself. The problem of hope and science, sail more fundamental than the problem of determinism and freedom. I shall have to take up the idea of perdition again, which has how far a science already attracted me at an earlier stage. See how hope, in into the invisible world. (Note written Dec. 8th, 193 1.) 79 its essence, dives freedom has an aim assigned essence, I can only repeat once more, salvation; but it to it, and that aim seems that salvation is salvation. hope hope of can only be found in contem- that the archetypal is do not think we can reach beyond this. The lines I wrote this afternoon on not-reckoning the plation. I lead me to think that we ought to bring together of course, the same thing as whose field of operation is in infinity? desire). Is (not, possibilities hope and will not hope a will A formula to be worked out fully. Just as there can be an evil will, so ceive a diabolical hope, a hope which we is should be able to con- perhaps the very essence of him whom we call the Devil. Will, hope, prophetic vision: all this stands, all this is firmly man, outside the range of a purely objective reason. I have to develop the notion of disillusionment, the idea of a power of automatic refutation belonging to experience as such. The soul lives by hope alone; hope is perhaps the very stuff of fixed in a now shall which our souls are man despair of a one's-self March is not this to deny should be worked out. him as a soul? To To despair of not anticipating suicide? is like a well Sunday) whose shaft goes down to death to my time! My to my perdition. The gulf of time: how death too, 22nd, 1931 (a miserable Time death is it made. This, is at its bottom and I shudder to look its dank breath down on mounts up and chills me. March 2$tb must We finish with the notion of divine prescience, which dis- and makes the problem absolutely insoluble: from the moment we assume that the divine vision is prior, in whatever torts everything 80 sense, to the free action to destination. And speaking of God's at Berdyaev's. I think which we must yet observation, as it not sense in we - cannot avoid pre- into the opposite error of A Father was doing yesterday God does not observe anything. something like this. act by God cannot be posited of my refers, fall I see it which I say, for might First of all, this apprehension an objective datum instance, that someone is (in the as at this moment picking up my words by wireless). It cannot be conceived by me unless I am myself on a certain spiritual level. I sail cannot see clearly what follows from this, but I feel it will be important. March Substitute co-presence for prescience. expressed in terms of co-existence. is not 'someone who' I was But co-presence cannot be We must never forget that God etc. led yesterday to consider more closely the distinction be- tween thinking and understanding. Is there perhaps something rather fallacious about the idea of a thought which is not understanding? Surely thinking, in that case, is just believing that one thinks? We only understand on the basis of what we are. It seems to me can only be understood by a person placed in a position. Here again we come back to the meta- that co-presence certain spiritual physic of the Thou and more non-disposable I And the notion of non-disposability. am, the more will God appear to The me as We 'someone who'. 1 should how memory comes in here, memory considered as try to see that is just a denial of co-presence. an act of comprehension remembered but not renewable seems to me that this lays bare the very roots of atheism. fidelity (to ' at will). 1 It The God whom atheism denies is in fact a 'someone who* in his very essence. F 8l M.B.H. my earlier remarks on Relate the notion of non-disposability with my body*. I shall makes use the word me impossible for it mean 'corporeity' to to picture a that property body :ondition of thinking of it as the 'body of. which as living except on .'. . between being All having defines itself somehow in terms of my body, in terms of something which, being itself an absolute 'having* Corporeity to be regarded as the frontier district md having. i.e. :eases in virtue the of this very word. 'Having* over; it is being able to dispose of, having a me that this seems clear to be a 'possession* in any sense of fact to power disposal or power always implies of the organism, i.e. of something about which, for that very reason, I cannot say that it is at my disposal. The metaphysical mystery of non-disposability may essentially consist in the the interposal me, of really being able to dispose of that which the disposal of things. The objection may be made that I impossibility, for gives me can nevertheless dispose of my body since I have the physical power of killing myself. But it is obvious that such a disposal of my body has as its immediate result the impossibility even coincides with this impossibility in the is something of which the term, by putting it of disposing of it, and My body can only dispose, in the absolute sense of into such a state that I shall no longer have final analysis. I of it. This absolute disposal any power reality a putting out of use. to dispose Shall we be tempted to object that extent that, for instance, I change I my dispose of In tions such clear that I try that I clear that there is power even my body to the But obviously, in entrust myself to it and it. it is short, therefore in position? another sense, and to an equal extent, I depend upon is can with something in really to all think I dispose make my to establish condi- very nature this relation 82 my will of my body. But between it is no which blocks less my my body and me same the as my relation with other things, and this is of irresistible encroachment of my body upon the basis of my state as man or creature. 1 sort because of the me which is at March jotb morning on 'having*. It seems evident to me that 'having* always implies an obscure notion of assimilation (I only have something which has been made mine, in some way, no Reflected this matter what), and the one hand, we 1 1 think I it therefore also implies reference to a past. On cannot help connecting having with the notion have not made full enough use of these remarks. They seem me to open perspectives, which are relatively new, upon a whole group of obscure problems centring round what may be called physical miracle, to which undoubtedly of a certain degree of inner perfection (sanctity) and what appears to us as the exercise of supra-normal powers. Perhaps a man is really less of a slave to his body in proportion as he makes less of a claim to have it at his disposal. May it not be that this claim, which looks like a sign of power, is really a form of slavery? throng of conclusions would follow. The problem of miraculous cures, in particular, should be considered from this point of view. It would not be out of place to ask whether the fact of self-surrender or self-abandonment might not have as a result (not, of course, a necessary result) a change in the union of the soul and body, as we so confusedly call it. It is conor more accurately upon exist between the the hidden connections realisation A ceivable that the rebellious invalid, who by definition clings to the claim to dispose of his body in his own sense, but who is actually forced to recognise at the same time that his claim is ignored by 'reality', finds of non-disposability which is even physical, and which is far more radical than that experienced by the other invalid who surrenders himself to a superior power, whatever his idea of that power may be. I will do no more than call attention to this. It would be rashness, even folly, to attempt a stricter treatment of the theme, and there could be no question of actually admitting that the invalid's act of himself ipso facto placed in a putting himself in God's state hand automatically causes his state would lose its for the better. If it were so, the act of surrender to change character; it would, by becoming an expedient, actually change into its opposite. Surely this is an object-lesson of the workings of the mysterious link between liberty and grace. (Note written August, 1934.) worse, 83 we must of containing; only haver. The tainer; it is haver is clearly see that the container the subject in so far as almost impossible to put carries precisely. At not the is with it a con- the root of an immediate term which causes 'something* 'having', then, there is to participate in own its it it corporeity (as I called it immediacy. In yesterday) fact it seems to me involved in having is that just as A corporeity implies what we may call historicity. body is a history, or more accurately it is the outcome, the fixation of a history. cannot therefore say that I have a body, at least not properly speaking, but the mysterious relation uniting me to my body is at I the foundation of all I my powers of having. much could be drawn have a feeling that from this in treating more concrete problems which have occupied the far my thoughts in these latter times, because of the connection between non-disposability and having. Having disposability. thing a sort of signpost of possible non- The dead man is the man who no longer has anywe take the word 'have* in those senses which we (at least if can make We are tempted to think that no longer having precise). is anything the same as general trend of life what one out. is But fact that has: on no longer being anything: and in the natural level and here fact the to identify one's-self with the ontological category tends to be blotted the reality of sacrifice being can is assert its is there somehow to prove to us in transcendency over having. There the deepest significance of martyrdom considered as witness: it is lies the witness. The reflection which I have followed out this evening seems to me to be of the first importance: it gives us the most concrete possible way of understanding the ontological problem. But we must still take note that this negation of having, or rather of the correlation between having and being, cannot be separated from an affirmation on which it hangs. Here I will stop as I am seeing less I am sure of this, clearly. anyhow: of the hidden identity of the way 84 which leads to holiness to the affirmation and the road which of Being; also that concrete philosophy, to realise that here I would add and it is that the significance leads the metaphysician necessary above it is is all, for a one and the same road. of human trials, especially illness death, and their ontological bearing, is here made plain. Only an essential character of such trials that they can be misunder- They are an appeal to a power of interpretation tion which is identical with freedom itself. 1 stood. or assimila- March 3 ist being touched in point of what we have, have has become an integral part of what we Suffering: surely this in so far as what we is are? Physical suffering to be regarded as the prototype or root of all suffering. Coming back from my walk by 'having an I idea*. I think there think that the process was wondering what we mean is a difficulty here. But even here I may be compared to a graft which is made upon a growing thing ('grafting upon* expresses my meaning much better than 'integration into'): that which grows tends, if not to think of itself as a vehicle, at least to seem to itself to be endowed with a vehicle. But we might perhaps think implied in the reality of this 'growing* or 'absolute having* of our bodies at all) really a above? I cannot myself. Yet it (which is, is not necessarily 'living* principle. Is by the way, our no 'having* condition of a spiritual 'having* such as I referred to yet see the answer clearly, or rather put the question in terms to that corporeity looks as if, which seem here too, I have problem of attention, which has so I cannot manage fully intelligible come back even to to the basic much occupied my mind in the past. 1 1 think I should here point out the fundamental agreement between and those of Jaspers, which I did not know in 193 1. (Note these views written August, 1934.) 85 This I do sec: that the privilege or primacy which I ascribe to my mental equipment, and to what belongs to it, is conceived or imagined by analogy with the fundamental and unthinkable privilege which my body in so far as it is mine. distinguishes ideas, in so far as they are mine, my Would it make sense to say that having and being are, essential concentrations of space and time? I am not sure. privilege In this have an indirect share. as it were, April ytb I shall One not pursue this line of thought. thing is plain to me. Having is always the give suffering a hold upon me: but in fact multiplicity? A being wholly simple, that could not be subject to 1 1 suffering. But can way in which because having is, I is entirely one, this absolute simplicity None of the great metaphysicians of the past was ignorant of this can disguise serious ambiguities. It is, for instance, quite that there is in fact a zone on the hither side of suffering. One can truth: but clear it imagine, or rather conceive essentially undifFerentiated, to still surely this is be a being? It is a being who is too rudimentary, too be capable of suffering. But would it then of, obvious (to me) that the condition, to which all the sages of all time and of every country urge us to raise ourselves, has nothing to do with such a unity as this. The difference is basically the same as the difference between the One and matter in Plotinus. But words are fundamentally unsuitable for stating this difference clearly, for the simple reason that they belong to the realm of discursive thought, and therefore we continually run the risk of falling into a confusion here if I am completely cannot avoid asking whether this confusion does not really spoil a certain type of asceticism, at least in some have here a group of questions to be boldly attacked after degree. which may have incalculable consequences; and honest, I must recognise that I We wiping all the traditional formulae right off the slate. We must never lose sight of the fact that salvation can only be found in plenitude, though of course we shall admit that a certain kind of richness, under whatever forms it appears, is so far from bringing us to salvation that it even withdraws us from it. But the problem in fact is how to pass through multipliand not at all how to escape it. (Note written city so as to transcend it, August, 1934-) 86 be realised? It me that there may be pseudo-mysticism here, seems to a source of very serious difficulties. April 8th Metaphysics considered as a means of exorcising despair. There is one philosophy which clearly claims to exorcise hope and despair at the same time; I mean that of Spinoza. I chiefly blame him for fundamentally ignoring the temporal structure of human existence. The Bergsonian position on this level seems to me impregnable. I was thinking the need for to myself this evening that I shall an absolute evaluation, the need conclusion of Un have to consider to be judged. (Cf. the Homme de Dieu.) April loth I see the clear necessity, this 'Am I my motion, not, is life?' for my just and what I corpse. body it is in I morning, of substituting the question my body?' My body, if deprived of Now my corpse is essentially what I am cannot be (and of a dead man, 'he body, 'Am this is what we mean when we no more'). But when is am clear that I really I assert that I say have a tending in fact to immobilise this some fashion and almost to devitalise it. I wonder now if having qua having does not always imply in some degree a devitalisation of this kind, in exact proportion as it corresponds to an incipient thraldom. The difficulty is to false to say 'I from thence am my 'I have understand life' my without life' or 'I how its can be metaphysically being legitimate to conclude it have a of March 27th. life'. Here we return, I have only the absolute my disposal of my life (we will no longer say, of my body) if I put myself in such a condition that I can never dispose of it again; here think, to we reflections meet the irrevocable. This is I strikingly obvious in the case 87 of suicide or the sacrifice of life, but it is of any really just as true act at all. But the notion of irrevocability must be examined and expanded, otherwise the difference between suicide and sacrifice becomes unintelligible and even unthinkable. This difference entirely depends on hope. There is not, and there cannot be, any sacrifice without hope, and a sacrifice which excluded hope would be suicide. Here the question of disinterestedness minds whether It is despair. it is But we must make up our identify disinterestedness and arises. legitimate to true that the claim will certainly be made that where hope for myself there can be no question of disinterestedness, but only where my hope is fixed on an order or a cause for whose good I I give myself up. But it is our duty to ask expression Tor myself* is as clear as are at first inclined to say. in rather the same way it if the meaning of the seems, or rather as clear as we And here we shall in fact have to proceed as I did on March i5th: to discover the nature of this hope for ones- self, we shall and then first have (a deeper question) the nature of thefor ones-self which remains at the heart of sacrifice. 1 The 1 revolutionary who consents to die for the revolution, the party, himself with that for which he gives his life. And accordingly the party or the revolution becomes, for him, 'more myself than I am myself/ This is the adherence, this the identification which is at the heart of his act and gives it meaning. Someone will say: 'Yes, but he makes no etc., identifies the triumph of the cause for which he gives himself, no claim and so profit by it; and therefore he renounces all reward, all recompense. Whereas the Christian, for instance, fancies that he will claim to see to enjoy it himself be personally associated with the victory that he helps to prepare for, and so thinks that he will be in some way able to profit by it. You cannot therefore speak of disinterestedness in his case/ The whole question depends on discovering what precise value we may attribute to the act by which, anticipating what I call my own annihila- devote myself to preparing for a state of affairs suba state which 1 declare myself unable to enjoy. And here it to it, sequent seems that there are mistakes and illusions in plenty. 'I shall not enjoy it/ tion, I nevertheless 88 April i2th now I take up once more my idea about the ontological hazard, life as implying a certain hazard which does not belong to the order of life. It is obvious that there is one type of experience which is by no means capable of confirming the notion. of this hazard that this denial would it can be denied; It is we might an essential element well ask what sense have. propose to call by the name of Soul. It is one of the essentials of the soul thus conceived that it may be saved or lost, This hazard I precisely in so far as I a hazard. This is worthy of notice, and And yet in a way I do enjoy it in advance; this enjoyment is at least say. as it is the object of my anticipation as is my own destruction; what is may be that this enjoyment is the only thing I do anticipate; for destruction, as such, is just a void, and in so far as it is a void is not much more, my it able to be anticipated. Still more, the idea that I shall no longer exist may increase my enjoyment, may clothe it in an element of pride or vanity which But and this is the crucial all the and at not my present thing question of whether I shall survive. My much-boasted disinterestedness seems to me, from this point of view, to contain an element of pride, or rather of defiance, which perhaps spoils it. How do I meet the hostile reality which is about to annihilate me? First I snap my fingers at it, then I claim to contribute in my own person to its shaping. Contrary to what we often think, there is no less humble attitude than this, nor any that implies a haughtier gives the enjoyment a sharper quality. this is just state, claim. Our critics will no doubt who tionary, for instance, recognise ipso facto that is unimportant. But I return to the charge, saying that the revolu- does not believe in his will call his moral centre of gravity. himself, as cause, own immortality, does he himself is unimportant, and that his personality think that is really just a displacement of what I is itself only The cause for which he devotes an element of his own personality regarded as absolute. will say again, 'The sacrifice which is inspired by the recompense thereby ceases to be a sacrifice/ Obviously. But They and how shallow hope of a how false the psychology which represents the sacrifice of a believer as the result of calculation! Such sacrifice is carried on the stream, as it from is were, of hope and love. This does not detract from its value, far it; and the contrary can only be maintained by those who cling to a 89 connected with the clearly fact that the soul is not can by no means be regarded lost or retained being accidental with regard as an object. an object and fact of For an object, the ('saved* would be meaningless) remains to its own nature, which can be regarded as unaffected by the fact that the object is or is not lost (for instance a piece of jewellery). This must be related with what On the one hand my have written on 'having*. soul seems to me that to which the lation (?) implied in the fact I of 'having* seems least applicable; re- it is, of everything in the world, the least comparable to a possession. hyper-Kantian moral formalism which would go so far as to eliminate And the postulates of practical reason. anyhow everything leads us to think that where neither the love of God nor the love of one's neighbour comes in, the real factor is the love of self; and that is a fundamental pretension to which we see no reason to grant an intrinsic value. I realise, of course, that some religious writers may have involuntarily helped to obscure the essential issues, by seeming to set up a scale of merits, which would have the effect of absolutely ruining the idea of pure sense, that is to say, as consecration. I think we must begin with the idea of the consecrated soul if we are to dispose of these then see that the soul which is consecrated hoary misunderstandings. sacrifice taken in its We an unconquerable hope; she aspires to enter into an intimacy with her God, an intimacy ever greater, ever more complete. She has no reason to think that there can be any merit quite the contrary in her fighting against this aspiration. For this very reason, that she is also indwelt with knows herself to be barren of intrinsic worth, that she derives from knows that she God whatever is positive within her herself she is disparaging God's gift, strous ingratitude. What worth could and so that in disregarding incurring the shame of mon- we see in the fact of a son's refusing to believe that his father loves him? This mistake begins from the moment when the creature begins to assign rights to himself and to treat himself as a creditor. It is more than an alteration, it is a radical perversion. But let us not forget that the unbeliever also often thinks of himself as the creditor of a God who will not pay, and this is serious in a different way. have here, I think, the elements of a criterion for judging whether We the belief in immortality has any religious value in it or not: the whole question is whether it looks like an act of faith and love, or like an arrogation rooted in the concern for self. (Note written August, 1934.) 90 On the other hand, its possible loss is, as it were, the reverse side or disastrous counterpart of all possession. But then be it would seem that the soul is that which can least of all lost. This apparent contradiction allows us to unmask an ambiguity bound up in the very notion of loss. Could we not say that there is a loss on the level of Being 1 the soul can be lost) and (it same time in this sense also a loss related to the actual nature is is on and on this level that the level of having of objects? But we which should observe at of prime importance) that every loss in the (this order of having constitutes athreat to what I have called the the is 1 Loss on the level of being is, properly speaking, perdition. Yet we must recognise that this distinction does not give a full account of the a clearer view, the reader should reality, which is curiously complex. For doubtless refer to indications already given on integrity with regard to hope. Hope (one cannot repeat too often) can only take root where perdition is a possibility, and it is the most instructive exercise imaginable to note that in this respect no distinction need be made between the order of life properly speaking, and the order of the soul. It is equally legitimate hope for the recovery of a sick person and the return of the prodigal son. In both cases the hope is bent on the re-establishment of an order to accidentally upset. We can go further; there is a sense in which even the recovery of something lost may admit of hope. But it can clearly be seen that there is here a sort of descending scale with hope at one end of it in most fervent form, deeply rooted in God, and, at the other end, hope most selfish and superstitious; it would be extremely interesting somehow to follow the steps of this downward scale. Following this line, we should see clearly that the more the loss is related to possession, the more the protest it inspires looks like the assertion of a right; and the atti- its at its tude of the man who makes this protest, who asserts this claim, propor- tionally ceases to be identified with hope in its pure state as defined above. Indeed, it may be that genuine hope always consists in awaiting a certain grace, the nature of whose power we may not clearly define to ourselves, but to whose bounty we think we can assign no end. Hope is centred in our consciousness of this beneficent power; whereas standing on one's of rights is a thing which revolves, by definition, round the consciousness self and its dues. (Note written August, 1934.) 91 soul and runs we return the risk of turning into a loss here to the problem of despair on the level of being: and what I wrote about death (March jotfy. The My life. fact that it can seem an meaning integral part of its as pure accident. But then, what is me to to be literally devoid structure. It is this T which of me then appears to finds itself in- comprehensibly dowered with this absurd existence, dowered with something which is the very reverse of a gift? It is irresistibly driven to self-negation: this reality the is just life life can have been given by nobody, it is in No doubt this thorough-going nihilism of nobody. an extreme position, a position very difficult to hold implying a kind of heroism. But here since this heroism, if it is and we are deep in contradictions, experienced and recognised as such, immediately re-establishes the subject, and at the same time restores to existence the meaning that was denied to it; it does at least in fact exhibit one value; which denies it it. it serves as a springboard for the consciousness And must not be made so, for the initial position to explicit, anaesthesia which, though concrete^ yet remains in it be maintained, but instead be reduced to an auto- can take all sorts reality identical with of different forms itself as regards in its essential characteristics. Someone will is object that the refusal to treat one's life as a not necessarily the same thing as abandonment to this anaesthesia treated as and voluntary an absolute to anything else) one's-self free data it of it (as may passivity. But just because justification. I at least being be a recognition of the right to set not realised. Here the really not forthcoming, such a have grounds but destroy myself. life is of if certain conditions are a kind of plenitude, a kind of expansiveness. is state something which does not exist in relation become extremely complex. Life is or expansiveness hazard being identified with When this plenitude life loses its intrinsic for saying that there is What is this T? 92 It is my life, nothing to do which is this time and which has the amazing privilege of selfseems to follow from this that the thought of suicide itself ranged against negation. It dwells at the very heart of a which life without a hazard (just as divorce arises it entered is thought of and willed always kept within call when is from a union which implies no upon before anyone, and I vow and has not been think this parallel might be carried a long way). 1 We cannot hope to find even there the clue for a purely logical of the thesis upheld by the champions of suicide. Nothing will force us to conceive of the hazard; no objective reason can be refutation found to stop us root of freedom from killing ourselves. We are here at the common and of faith. December gib, 1931 I return to the make problem of hope. It seems to me that the conditions same as those which hope make it possible to despair. Death considered as the springboard^of an absolute hope. world where death was missing would be a world where hope only existed in the larval stage. that it possible to are strictly the A December iothf 1931 I was writing to L yesterday after reading his remarkable of idealism: hope is to desire what patience is to passivity. This seems to me very important. Patience: I was thinking this analysis I 1 still think this parallel could be carried a long way, and that it is of a on the meaning of the Christian idea of the nature to throw greater light one might indissolubility of marriage. While thinking of this connection be led on to make this fact clear; that for a metaphysic of freedom and fidelity, call the the marriage tie has a substantial reality of its own, like what we union of the body and soul. To be quite honest, however, I must admit that this way of thinking makes me a little uneasy, and I find it hard to reconcile the lessons of experience (as I should be tempted to call them) with demands in the order of metaphysic and theology. (Note written August, 1934.) 93 open; one can even say that the world despair appears possible in which counsel despair. This is it. is so constructed that absolute Things are constantly us, or so one would think, of the importance. first to drown happening ourselves in Fidelity considered as the recognition of something permanent. We are now beyond the opposition between understanding and The feeling. recognition of Ulysses by Eumaeus, of Christ on the road to Emmaus, etc., etc. The idea of an ontological permanence the as permanence of that which to the opposed lasts, of that which implies history, permanence of an essence or a formal arrange- ment. Witness considered perpetuated witness, an as the act beginning of things the Church a of fidelity. October 6th . It is an essential characteristic of the being to whom liable to be betrayed, but also in fidelity to be not only I give my some manner by my betrayal. Fidelity regarded as witness perpetuated; is of the essence of witness that it can be obliterated and affected but it wiped out. Must see think that witness Being is, as important, and obliteration can happen. Perhaps outworn, and no longer corresponds to were, attested. it I is how this The senses are witnesses we reality. this is think new: systematically ignored by idealism. October ?tb The consideration arises: Is the object to myself worthy of my being consecrated tive values Fidelity its which service? I have vowed The compara- of causes. Consider creative creative. Is to its creative fidelity, power a fidelity only safeguarded by being in proportion to its ontological worth? can only be shown towards a person, never at all to a An absolute fidelity involves an absolute person. notion or an ideal. 96 a creature presuppose Him fidelity to bind myself (as in the sacrament of marriage)? not enough to say that we live in a world where betrayal is Question: docs not an absolute in whose It is sight I possible at every and of each by moment and in every form: betrayal of all by himself. I repeat, this betrayal seems pressed all upon us by the very shape of our world. The spectacle of death is a perpetual The essence of our world is perhaps betrayal. invitation to deny. But if still, we proclaim we becoming not this betrayal, are its accomplices? 1 Memory an ontological sign. Inseparable from witness. Is it not the essence of man to be a being who can bear witness? The problem of the metaphysical foundation of witness is obvi- ously as central as any. was it there/ Not elucidated. The whole of history prolongs: in this sense history While I My there, I assert that I brain feels amazingly which rooted in religion. was walking about just now between the Boulevard Raspail, a great head. was the function of a witness is is 'I many the other things Pantheon and came into my fertile. was thinking, too, of the Rite, as giving rhythm to fidelity, and of the betrayal which lurks in the very heart of religious practice I under the form of habit. This about creative fidelity. Surely relevant to is this is, my notes this morning besides, the very definition of saintliness? begin to I also realise the deeper meaning of piety towards the dead, taken as the refusal to betray a person treating him just as no longer existing. It is an who active protest against a kind of trick of appearances, a refusal to yield to self you has existed by it or to lend one's wholeheartedly to the game. If you say 'they no longer are not only denying them, you are also exist* f denying yourself and perhaps making an absolute denial. 1 is surely in regard to space what memory is in regard to beside the point that telepathy only appears in flashes. Telepathy time. c It is 97 M.B.H. I believe that at last I have begun to see the of examin- possibility ing the very idea of proving the existence of God, with regard to the Thomist proofs. It is a fact that they are not universally convincing. How can we explain their partial ineffectiveness? The arguments presuppose that we have already grounded ourselves on God, and what they are really doing is to bring to the level of discursive thought an act of a wholly different kind. These, I believe, are not ways, but blind ways, as one can have blind windows. Thinking of all of thought more is this, I began to wonder whether my instrument a reflexive intuition, whose nature should be defined closely. Perhaps we are living in a specially favourable period for religion, because that betrayal whose home is the world is now shown in its The fundamental true light. illusions of the nineteenth century are now dispelled. October 8th 'Reflexive intuition' what I mean is this. It is me that seems to am anyhow on one level of myself sense I see it. happy expression. But am bound to admit that I certainly not a In another sense I I face to face with Being. In a cannot say that grasp myself in the act of seeing I see it since I The intuition is it. not, cannot and cannot But in turning towards its object, it sheds light upon a whole world of thoughts which lie beneath it. Metaphysically speaking, I do not see how else we can be, directly reflected in consciousness. account for faith. It seems to me being Alexandrine theology, but that an intuition of this sort lies comes very near must make sure of this. at the root always open to question. saw this, but I was mistaken*. reality is I that this all I I of all fidelity, can always say 'Yes, Am very much absorbed by the question of witness. province of witness the province of experience 98 at large? I to think but its I thought Is not the Today we tend to think too little of witness and just to see in accurate report of an Erlebnis. But if witness impossible; for absolutely it is nothing, it is the more or only that, I said yesterday unconscious), and home of betrayal the world the knowing itself to is nothing can guarantee that the Erlebnis will be capable of survival or confirmation. what less it Compare (conscious or be so with an ever-increasing clarity. October ^tb It is possible for pure reason to attack witness tend that no valid witness can really be produced. of particular witness that it and in toto, It is to pre- of the essence should be capable of being doubted. We are tempted to extend this suspicion to all possible witness, to witness in Is this itself. justifiable if we proceedure really justifiable? Surely only are capable of defining a which a witness should fulfil if it is priori those conditions and of to be recognised as valid showing furthermore that such conditions are not realised or, at the very they cannot be least, that shown to be realised. the case of doubting one's existence, the issue is But here, as in nothing less than the question of a root-and-branch devaluation both of memory of all translation into conceptual terms of this Erlebnis, which and is in itself inexpressible. Surely it is of the essence of anything ontological that it can be no more than attested? must be the thought of itself; it can only be in the heart of Being and in reference to Being. In a world But the justified where attestation Erlebnis is everything, in a world of simple instants, the attestation disappears; tion is but then how can it be attestation if attesta- appearance? October loth Attestation is a personal thing; it 99 brings the personality into play, but by it is at the this tension And same time turned towards Being, and is characterised between the personal and the ontological factors. something unsatisfactory; and I still cannot manage to formulate it in my own mind. I do see clearly, however, that I am in complete opposition to such attitudes as in yet, all this I find Griscbach's; I see in assertion. memory one essential How much also to St. aspect of the ontological nearer I feel to Bergson in this regard, Augustine! What is and witness in Bergson? surely a con- But the very notion of consecration is an ambiguous one, and we must beware of interpreting it in a pragmatist sense. secration. Notice that attesting means not only witnessing but also calling to witness. There is an essential triad-relation here. This in the sense of dieJournal Me'taphysique. 1 October 22nd THE POSITION OF THE ONTOLOGICAL MYSTERY: ITS CONCRETE APPROACHES. This is the proposed phical Society. The title for my paper to the Marseilles Philoso- phrase 'mystery of being, ontological mystery' 9 'problem of being, ontological problem has suddenly come to me in these last few days. It has enlightened me. as against Metaphysical thought But it is an reflection trained essential part on of a mystery that it mystery. should be acknow- ledged; metaphysical reflection presupposes this which is outside its acknowledgment, own sphere. Distinguish between the Mysterious and the Problematic. problem me in which is something met with which bars its entirety. myself caught up, and whose I find to be before me in distinction between 1 my passage. A mystery, on the other hand, its in entirety. It is as is something in therefore not this province the me and before me loses its meaning. Sec Journal Mttapbysique, p. 145. (Translator's note.) 100 A before is essence though in It is The The Natural. province of the Natural province of the Problematic. is the same as the We are tempted to ttwrn mystery into problem. The Mysterious and Ontological are identical. There is a mystery of knowledge which belongs to the ontological order (as Maritain saw) but the epistemologist does not ignoring it, know this, makes a point of and turns it into a problem. A typical example: the 'problem of evil*. I treat evil as dent befalling a certain mechanism which which is the universe an acci- itself, but not suppose myself placed. Thereby only as immune to the disease or weakness, but also as someone before I I treat myself, standing outside the universe and claiming to put least in thought) in But what access of access here is its it together (at entirety. can I have to ontology as such? The very notion obviously inapplicable. It only has meaning in a problematic enquiry. If a certain place has already been plotted out, the question is then, how can I gain access to it. Impossible to treat being in this way. Presence and mystery equivalent Predisposition for revelation. structed probe further into this. Whereas in a world-picture con- from a problematic point of view, revelation appears to be supererogatory. It follows from trained upon my definition of metaphysical thought as reflection mystery, that progress in this sort of thinking There really conceivable. It is detail. is is not only progress in problematic thought. a proper character of problems, moreover, to be reduced to Mystery, reduced to on the other hand, is something which cannot be detail. October A first question of the phenomenological order: whence comes the almost insuperable suspicion aroused by 101 all researches into being in most minds, even those most inclined to metaphysic? doubt answer if the right ianism upon intellectuals: tell to cite the persistent influence is it has in fact considerably diminished. To the truth, Bergsonianism has here acted in the Kantianism. I we really find think that I of Kant- could not formulate, but which a feeling I will try to describe we become more and more convinced same way which as a rule as we that by saying that, strictly speaking, there no problem of Being and no problematic approach to it: I believe that if we examined the very idea 'problem* more closely, that would is A considerable be enough to convince us. fact that we have their is the acquired the execrable habit of considering the problems in themselves, that which hindrance here appearance is, in abstraction from the woven is into the very texture of scientist is privileged in this respect. given point in his research, it is manner in A scientific something the problem mind life. A arises at stumbles a upon problem whatever implies upon the provisional breaking-offof a continuity which the mind has to as the foot stumbles a stone. Any re-establish. October 31 st Consider Being as the principle of inexhaustibility. Joy is bound up with a feeling of something inexhaustible, as Nietzsche saw. Return to my former remark on Being, that it is resistance to critical dissolution. This links up with remarks on despair. my A knotty point. The place of despair is where we can make an inventory (where we can say 'I have made my reckoning, and I shall not have the means of doing', etc.). But Being speak, the shock felt by more*. 'Whatever comes But teristic this principle is the to above all inventories. mind when an end is Despair is, meets with 'There so to is no too short* (St. Augustine). of inexhaustibility nor a series of characteristics: here between mystery and problem which 102 it is itself neither a charac- we return to the opposition I described above. / November ist Space and time considered as manifestations The universe as the dehiscence of Being? Every individual being in so infinite) felt stated in theoretical terms, not stating it is a closed-up thing (though problem of Being, when the impossibility for us of before the and also on this level. The technical lem it is subject to correlated to the problematic; every genuine probits own technique, and every technique consists in resolving problems of a determinate type. thetically A notion worth trying. a symbol or expression of the ontological mystery. is November jtb Start from the uneasiness it is far as of inexhaustibility. 1 Can we posit hypo- a metaproblematic, metatechnical sphere? November 8tb is on the idea of a problem leads us to ask if there not a touch of contradiction in the very act of posing a problem Deeper reflection of being. Philosophy on its metacritical side is directed towards a meta- problematic inquiry. The need to The restore its ontological weight to metaproblematic human experience. the peace that passeth all understanding eternity. November gtb Must scrutinise the meaning of what I called the ontological weight of human experience; here Jaspers may be Analyse such a formula as: 1 useful. But elsewhere I define them as paired modes of absence. There is a whole dialectic to be drawn from this, and it lies at the heart of both travel and history. (Note written October 8th, 1934.) 103 am 'I am only what I philosophy which has worth (but I issue in despair its am worth nothing)/ a and can only be disguised by a carefully preserved illusion. The datum fact that despair is possible is a central here. Man is capable of despair, capable of hugging death, of hugging his own central datum for metaphysic, but such definitions of death. A man as that proposed essential merit its up Thomism cover it up and of Kierkegaard and his school, to having brought to take by datum this into full view. And disguise my mind, it. The is their metaphysic ought position just there, face to face with despair. The ontological problem cannot be separated from that of despair. (But they are not problems.) Must think about seems to me that the the problem of the reality of other selves. problem can be stated in such a way It as to exclude in advance any solution which can be accepted or even understood; that myself. If we is, by centring my begin, like Descartes, self-consciousness, there is reality on my consciousness of by assuming that my essence is no longer a way out. November nth Not only do we have a right to assert that others exist, but I should be inclined to contend that existence can be attributed only and in virtue of their otherness, and that I cannot think to others, of myself as existing except in so far as I conceive of myself as not being the others: and so as other than them. I would go so far as to say that it is of the essence of the Other that he of him as other without thinking of him only arises when his otherness is, so to say, exists. I cannot think as existing. Doubt expunged from my mind. I ity would go so far as to ask if the cogito (whose incurable can never be too think, I am clearly exposed) does not standing back from myself, I 104 really am ambigumean: 'when I raising myself up before myself as other, conception as this is and radically opposed the self as self-conscioihness. Would self in so far as it is exists in so far as and to another; it appear as existent/ Such a I therefore being therefore in so far as defines be absurd to say that the it self-consciousness treats itself as which to the idealism only sulexistent? is for another, it It only with reference recognises that eludes it itself. People will say: 'These assertions are as ambiguous in their content as they are arbitrary in their form. What real do you existence speak of? Empirical existence or metaphysical existence? Empirical denied by none; but it has a phenomenal character, for from being my thought of the others. And then the problem has merely shifted its ground/ But I think that it is just this position with which we should refuse to have anything existence is nothing will stop the others admit that the others are only my thought of the others; my idea of the others, it becomes utterly impossible to break the circle to do. If I one has begun by drawing round one's-self. If you posit the primacy of subject-object the primacy of the category subject-object or of the act by within which itself, the subject sets up objects somehow the existence of others becomes unthinkable. does any existence whatever; there is or other And so no doubt of that. and the He: the philosophy of self-consciousthe others are truly outside a sort of circle which I form Self-consciousness ness. In this with myself. From this point of view, I have no power of making contact with them; the very idea of communication is impossible. I cannot help regarding this intra-subjective reality of the others as an absolutely mysterious and for ever impalpable have here, in a general form, the most abstract features of the emerging of X. We Proust's world, though one also finds hints in Proust which are not only different from these but even contradictory. These hints be- come more Me and scattered as the itself becomes book goes on, as the circle formed by the more marked and more enclosed. At 105 Com- bray and in everything to do with There exist. develops, as the experience Thou elaborated, the and it describes is circle still does not book hardened, sharpened and banished from the is story. This is decisively death of the grandterribly apparent in the passage about the mother. (I must say that I think conscious knowledge which about either his the we are here was in it far beyond the power to arrive at going Proust's work or himself.) People will say again, 'But and Combray the a possible place for the Thou. But as the is He only applies to in the most exclusive sense of the word. Thou between the this distinction mental attitudes: it is phenomenological you claim to give a Do metaphysical basis to this distinction, or a metaphysical validity to the Thou?' The and sense of the question is the really difficult thing to explain Let us try to state it more clearly, like this, for elucidate. example. When I treat Thou and no longer as a He, me alone and my attitude by treating him as a Thou I pierce another as a does this difference of treatment qualify to this other, or more deeply can into I say that him and apprehend his being or his essence more directly? Here again we must be 'apprehending his essence by 'piercing more deeply' or directly', we mean reaching a more careful. If more exact knowledge, a knowledge that is in some sense more objective, we must certainly reply 'No'. In this respect, if we cling to a mode of objective definition, it will always be in our power to say that the Thou is an illusion. But nonce that the term essence is itself extremely ambiguous; by essence we can understand either a nature then perhaps of my essence qua freedom to be able to or a freedom. It is conform myself or not to essence to be able not to be my essence qua nature. It may be of betray myself. Essence qua nature In fact if I treat the Thou my what I am; in plain words, to be able to as a is He, 106 not what I I reach in the Thou. reduce the other to being only nature; an animated object which works in some ways and not in on the contrary, I treat the other as Thou, I treat him and others. If, apprehend him qua freedom. I apprehend him qua freedom because he is also freedom, and is not only nature. What is more, I help him, in a sense, to be freed, I collaborate with his freedom. The formula sounds paradoxical and self-contradictory, but love is always proving it true. On the other hand, he is really other qua free- dom; in fact qua nature he appears to me identical with what I am On this side, no doubt, and only on this side, I can work on him by suggestion (there is an alarming and frequent confusion between the workings of love and the workings of myself qua nature. suggestion). And so light in so far as he him, in so is far as as I cease to is thrown on other, only he is form a a this morning's formulae. exists for Thou. But circle I me in so far as I The am other, open to am only open to him in so far with myself, inside which I somehow place the other, or rather his idea; for inside this circle the other becomes the idea of the other, and the idea of the other the other qua other, but the other qua related to tion he is taken to uprooted and taken to bits, is no longer me; and in this condi- or at least in process of being bits. November ijtb Everything that can be enunciated is thinkable or, more accuwe can enunciate which some of us cannot rately, there is nothing moment. The resources of language can be compared at all points to an extremely efficient network of communications. But travelling round is in itself nothing. And discourse for the sake of discourse is less than nothing. also believe or think at a given These observations were suggested by some sort of aesthetic pseudo-appreciations I have forgotten now what they were. But alas! they are also applicable to a great deal 107 of pseudo-metaphysics. November i$tb Are there by which the the act which grounds which I builds posits the reality it how are we to priority, justify us in up own its of others? understand assuming the of self-hood over the act by And it? It priority if we are to accept this can be conceived either in an empirical or a transcendental sense. Empirically my province consists of the sum of my states of consciousness; this province has the distinctive characteristic of being felt, and of being my province in so far as all clear; it is felt. This seems clear the appearance of clarity a sort of materialist representation Instead of concentrating is enough, but which and is to limited sphere we put in its which 'goes on* in the which I call my body. bottom of all empiricist notions of the primacy of self-consciousness, there everything that my opinion, felt as felt, place the idea of an organic event, something I believe that at the not really at underlies these formulae. on thinking of the allegedly perfectly distinct it is entirely due, in for really lies the me must first rudimentary idea that pass through my body: there is of my body as an absolute intermediary. The supporters of theory do not dream of making an out-and-out effort to dis- this idea this cover what order the body-self relationship belongs they ask the meaning of the mental act by body is assert it which to, nor yet do I assert that this would not go so far as to my body. possible though that there is a vicious circle here, and that we cannot avoid I It is passing {torn feeling to a certain representation of my body, in order that we may later explain, of which my body is my in terms of feeling, the privilege in virtue body. I am inclined to think that if one wants to keep to the empirical point of view, there can be no question of going beyond the assertion 'this body', and that the expression 'my body* only looks like a source of unintelligibility and radical irrationality. It is quite different if we take what point of view. 108 I called the transcendental November i6th Notice that one kind of philosophy of Life constitutes an obstacle to meditation on Being. The meditation is in danger of appearing beyond or below the philosophy. These essential and give us the key. to develop notes are first 'The hiding* I wrote 'of my being from my consciousness by something which is not and cannot be given to me.' My life cannot be given to me; and in spite of appearances, given to not, me either, in so far as to myself is ing to me (e.g. my body and an apparatus belong- a watch). Americans have themselves 'checked up* A revealing phrase. In practice you can go as like in that direction, but there is always something checking-up; there are accidents, etc. As soon as distinction has been made between being, there about it. be, possible the difference between in clinics. cannot be my body incarnate in my My body is an object in the sense that an apparatus exterior an object. There is a tendency to minimise as much as and cannot life is is an almost and this being, effort to picture it to irresistible far as you that escapes the my life and my temptation to set a wonder in what it forces us to sketch this problem and every consists: problem or pseudo- problem. The question 'what am I?' seems to demand an answer same time, every answer seems in danger of being rejected or of falling short. be conceptualised; but But is this specify: the etc., the formulate which it, a legitimate question? Here more less at the I adhere to my actions, it my that can can be, becomes necessary to social surroundings, does this question really arise for me. I can always but rings full it does not ring true. and The true question, the clear, so to say, the true one question presupposes a certain detachment or separation of myself from what from that I do and my manner of sharing in the common life of men. Could it be objected that this detachment 109 is an illegitimate abstraction? But in this sense become My life for is evaluates The I. it? An essential datum. But what am Impossible to cling to the fiction of a I that evaluates is the must be added that It my life, understood common world may fact that object of judgment, approval or condemnation. something I can evaluate. transcendental judged. an indisputable as participation in this me an which I, this I it is i.e. my life, same as the I that just in so far as I lead is it, is, were, shot through by an implicit evaluation (whether adhered to or disobeyed; for I may be leading a life which something within as it me is continually protesting against with a dull insistence). This complex and in some ways contradictory as it is, I ask the question 'What am I?' But it is a the state of things, discovered by me when real situation, and just because it from is so constituted that within see the crucial significance permanent of my its my despair between is is my that therefore every nothing it is make we looks like a say, to seen in the perspec- in declaring myself a collaboration (in the sense of this obsessive picture and at first sight indeed, one might almost assertion that I to of that word) a possibility. In this fact of death. Death There life. that life offers scrutinise the sense at least in so far as shapes and of the life identical with betrayal) it invitation to despair betrayal in all tive can evade it and withdraw real I it. Our world (some day we must is is of death and the feeling hold on to beyond the moment lived, bond, every commitment, every vow, rests on the arbitrary prolongation into eternity of a mere passing moment. All fidelity being thus rejected or uprooted, on a lie, since it rests the betrayal itself now becomes changed in character. that it is itself betrayal the true fidelity; betrayal in the instant. But in setting up of the here and what we instant, betrayal we of the are in the realm is it real calls Me experienced we for transcend a merely dialectical refutation, no claims it of the unthinkable; the principle of fidelity to the instant, the instant. This, however, Now call fidelity, which in my view is lacking in real effect. And anyhow, an refutation ought to be impossible here; despair there is only room for us to opt on one is effective irrefutable. side or the other; Here it is past the can only be given to us in province of any dialectic. I note in passing that absolute fidelity the person of certain witnesses, above all the martyrs. And it must be given to something in us which itself belongs to the order of faith. Whereas experience of betrayal is everywhere; and first of all in ourselves. November i8th The am I'? What like, that I The from the problem of being to the question 'What am I, I who ask questions about being? What am I transition should be led to ask these questions? transition scale here; a from problem to mystery. There problem conceals a mystery in so an ascending it is capable of is far as awakening ontological overtones (the problem of survival, for instance). The problem of the problem: that is relation of soul and body is more than a the implicit conclusion of Existence and Objectivity. 1 Something unrepresentable yet concrete something which is more than an idea, and exceeds every idea we can form, something which is a presence. An object as such is not present. 2 November i2tb A was talking to the abbe yesterday about Theresa NeuI was mann. This morning thinking with exasperation of the rationalist's attitude to such facts. They would refuse to give them I a hearing. Reflecting next 1 2 upon my own exasperation, I thought it Appendix of the Journal Mttapbysique. (Ed. N.R.F.) A possible way towards written October loth, 1934.) a theory of eucharistic presence. (Note ill was surely to be traced to some residue of doubt in myself. If I were should only experience a feeling of pure charity and pity for doubters. I think this discovery is far-reaching. It seems to me that charity is bound up with being sure. This must be absolutely sure, I 1 developed. November 28tb A sentence came to my outside a shop. 'There is lips as I looked at something called being have chosen the else called active existence. I thing a dog lying down and some- alive, latter/ December $tb After the strains and Le Mort de stresses Demain on the of the where one no longer understands one's to say that the word mystery is last few days (the putting of reached the point this morning stage) I stuck own thought. I was tempted on like a label saying, 'Please do not touch/ In order to begin understanding again, we are always bound to refer back to the order of the problematic. Mystery is the metaproblematic. We should also make use of the principle which I laid down last Saturday with regard to the denial reality and negation take on say) density, in proportion as realities. of other selves: the possibility for us a greater consistency we mount further up and of (so to the hierarchy of 2 December 6tb I was thinking just now define this term for the 1 It fear 2 moment I will not exactly implies or requires a kind of which must seem paradoxical; it comes down in admitting that the quality at the root of fanaticism is not certainty not even an unbalanced certainty but a mistrust of oncVsclf, a contains an idea fact to at all that our condition which one does not admit to one's-self. This is why it is so much easier to (Note written October icth, 1934.) 112 deny God than to deny matter. systematic sealing-off of mystery, both in ourselves roundings. The even an idea? and in our nection between the objective and the 'perfectly ordinary*. on being is only possible for us become as little when we suddenly which we have grown round the enclosing shell ye A grip break through ourselves. 'Except Our condition can be transcended, and necessarily intermittent effort. The meta- children but only by a heroic . .* . physical essence of the object as such sealing-off. sur- done by the almost indefinable idea is it sealing of the 'perfectly ordinary*. There is a close conis We cannot specify it is perhaps simply further than that. power of its We cannot, in the presence of any object, question ourselves about the mystery hidden within it. Such a question would be no more than pseudo- 1 problematic. Deccmkr nth I 2 morning on the subject of recollection. This is a datum upon which very little work seems to have been have dwelt central done. Not this I only strident voices am which in a position to impose silence usually fill silence has a positive quality. possession of myself. It is in my the consciousness, but also, this Within itself a upon the silence, I can regain principle of recovery. I should be tempted to say that recollection and mystery are correlatives. Thpre is, properly speaking, no such thing as recollection in face of a problem. On the contrary, the problem puts me in some ways into a state of mental tension. Whereas recollection is rather the banishment of tension. Notice, however, that these terms and 'relaxation* are apt in some directions to mislead 'tension* us. 1 In this we see the metaphysical root of all genuine poetry, for the very essence of poetry lies in not questioning but asserting. There is a close link between the poetic and the prophetic. (Note written October loth, I934-) 2 In the H spiritual sense. (Translator's note.) 113 M.B.H. If we asked ourselves what could be of a being capable of recollection, we the metaphysical make-up should be a long way nearer to a concrete ontology. December ijtb I The must make one point clear at the beginning of my statement. question I have in mind is: How to define the kind of meta- which seems physical climate the only favourable for to me the most favourable perhaps developing assertions about the supra- sensible order? December i8tb After agonising hours of almost complete intellectual blindness, I suddenly came to a new and clearer comprehension while crossing 1 Monatgne Sainte-Genevieve. the We must see that: (1) The ontological need, in the effort to explain not to be comparable with the search after itself, is found a solution. The metaproblematic is a participation on which my reality subject is built (WE DO NOT BELONG TO OURSELVES); and (2) as reflection will cannot be a show us solution. in transcendent reality, into transcendent that such a participation, if If it were, it would it is genuine, cease to be a participation and would become, instead, an interpolation reality, and would be degraded in the process. We must therefore proceed to make two distinct inquiries. One of these prepares for the other, but does not condition in a sense, lead towards each other. They it, and both, an investigation an investigation of the are: (a) of the nature of the ontological need, and (V) conditions in which a participation assumed to be a participation then discover that it is just in reality could become thinkable. We this participation 1 which passes beyond the order of the problematic, A district of Paris. (Translator's note.) 114 and beyond what can be shown that in fact, as soon But the realm of problem. problem. It must next be presence, we have gone beyond stated as a as there at the is same time we shall see that the motive power that activates all thought which proceeds by means of problems and solutions that this motive power gives a provisional character to every judgment may it rise to always give loses its worth we make, problems. But it so that every presence can only do so in so far as as presence. December 2otb within being, enfolded by it. The ontological can only arrive at it by a reflection at one remove, which depends upon an experience of presence. Knowledge is mystery of knowledge. We December 22nd Have seen clearly the connection between the problem of suffering (and no doubt of evil generally) and the problem of my body. The problem of the metaphysical justification of suffering contains a reference which I (which may be disguised) to my suffering, or to a suffering make mine by assuming it. If no account is taken of this problem becomes meaningless. Hence the curiously hollow note of Leibnitz's remarks on this subject (and even, in a reference, the way, of Spinoza's, by very reason of his heroism). But the difficulty have noticed so often before arises here once more with its full we force. The problem, it would seem, is stated with greater sharpness as the suffering invades my being more completely. Yet on the other hand, the more this is so, the less can I split it off from myself, as it were, and take up my position before it. It is embodied in me; it is me. December 2jrd In this aspect, the problem of suffering, more deeply considered, tends to take on the same form as it does in the book of Job. But his problem, torn out of its theological context, means that the more nearly suffering touches me, the more arbitrary is the act by which I consider the suffering as outside by which accidentally endured: the act, that is, underlying soundness in (this is cases of bereavement or through a see this torn my being illness). veil. I hope it And myself and (as I it assume a were) of sort particularly easy to see in yet I feel that I can still only will not be long before the veil is away. OUTLINE OF AN ESSAY READ TO THE SOCIETY OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES at Marseilles, on January 2ist, 1933, on the Position of the Ontological Mystery and the Concrete Approaches to it. (A) If we consider the present position of philosophical thought, of a consciousness which as expressed in the depths fathom own its needs, we are led, I think, to make trying to is the following observations: The (1) traditional terms in trying to state the which is which some people are today still problem of being, commonly arouse a mistrust hard to overcome. Its source lies not so much in the adherence, whether explicit or implicit, to Kantian or simply idealist theories, as in the fact that people's of Bergsonian would (2) criticism. sees this are soaked in the results even in those minds which not stand by Bergsonianiam in its metaphysical aspects. On the other hand, the complete withdrawal from the prob- lem of being which phical systems maintained. can It characterises so in the is and a more or this is what less explicit of a hearing to the last analysis either fence, hardly defensible else One minds many contemporary an attitude be reduced to a kind of and generally due to generally happens denial of Being, essential it sitting on the laziness or timidity: or really which comes down to disguises the refusal needs of our being. Ours 116 philoso- which cannot be is a being whose concrete essence to be in every is which way involved, and therefore must not only undergo, but must also make its own by somehow re-creating it from within. The denial of Being could not really be the empirical demonstration to find itself at grips with a fate of an absence or choose to make make We lack. it, and we it can only make the denial because we can therefore just as well choose not to it. () It is also worth noticing that I who ask questions about Being do not in the first place know either if I am nor a fortiori what I am. I do not even clearly know the meaning of the question 'what am I?' though I am obsessed by it. So we fee the problem of Being here encroaching upon who its own data, and being studied actually In the process, it is denied (or as and becomes transcended) metamorphosed to mystery. problem, (C) In fact, it seems very likely that there is this essential differinside the subject states it. ence between a problem and a mystery. which I meet, which I A problem find complete before me, but is something I can which and reduce. But a mystery is something in myself involved, and it can therefore only be thought therefore lay siege to which of as me I am a sphere where the distinction between what loses its ject to meaning and its initial validity. is in me and what A genuine problem an appropriate technique by the exercise is before is of which subit is defined: whereas a mystery, by definition, transcends every con- ceivable technique. It is, no doubt, always possible (logically psychologically) to degrade a mystery so as to turn But this is it and into a problem. a fundamentally vicious proceeding, whose springs might perhaps be discovered in a kind of corruption of the intelligence. The problem of evil, as the philosophers have called it, supplies us with a particularly instructive example of this degradation. (D) Just because it is of the essence of mystery to be recognised or capable of recognition, it may 117 also be ignored and actively denied. It then becomes reduced to something I have 'heard talked about*, but which only being/or other people; and that in of an illusion which these virtue I I refuse as 'others' are deceived by, but which myself claim to have detected. We and must the unknowable. The unknowable case of the problematic, diction. The all which cannot be recognition of mystery, on in fact only the limiting is actualised without contra- the contrary, of the mind, the supremely positive ally positive act which between the mysterious carefully avoid all confusion positivity may perhaps be is an essenti- act in virtue of defined. In this sphere strictly if I found myself acting on an intuition without immediately knowing myself to possess it an intuition which cannot be, strictly speaking, self-conscious everything seems to go on as which I possess and which can grasp itself only through which its image is reflected, and which in reflected in sist The them. in a reflection essential upon which otherwise modes of experience lights metaphysical step this reflection (in By means of this, thought intuition the it a reflection 'squared'). towards the recovery of an stretches out loses itself in proportion as Recollection, the actual possibility of which the most revealing ontological index whose centre this (JE) up by being thus would then con- we may possess, is it is exercised. be regarded as the real place in recovery can be made. The 'problem of being', into inadequate then, will only be the translation knguage of a mystery which cannot be given a creature capable of recollection a creature whose central characteristic is perhaps that he is not simply identical with except to his own life. We can find the proof or confirmation of this nonmore or less explicitly evaluate my life. It is identity in the fact that I in my power set an not only to effective considered in term to condemn it by an abstract verdict, but to an effective term to my life If I cannot set which may escape from my have power over the finite and material expression its grasp, I at least it. ultimate depths, 118 to which I that suicide for all am is at liberty to believe that this life is is, possible betrayal in all its aspects, of being, and in so as active denials The shuts itself up against the central in so far as they appear to us far as the soul which possible at every moment, that the very constitution not force us, to betrayal. in every degree, and in every form. of our world recommends The provocation to denial and to absolute desertion. and that space betrayal It time, regarded as paired It seems Us, if it does spectacle of death as exhibited world can, from one point of view, be regarded added despairs and mysterious assurance in which we believe we have found the principle of all positivity. (F) It is not enough to say that we live in a world where is fact And not only suicide: despair genuine metaphysical thought. in all its forms, reduced. in this sense, an essential point of reference by the as a perpetual could also be modes of absence, back upon ourselves, to drive us into the beggarly instantaneity of pleasure. But it seems that at the same time, and correlatively, it is of the essence of despair, of betrayal, tend, by throwing us and even of death itself, word transcendence has more exactly, that they a meaning, is is it means just this denial; or (Uberwindung rather than Aufhebung.) this overpassing. For the essence of the world there can be refused and denied. If the perhaps betrayal, or, more accurately, not a single thing in the world about which certain that its spell we can could hold against the attacks of a be fearless critical reflection. (G) If this is so, the concrete approaches to the ontological mystery should not be sought in the scale of logical thought, the rise to a prior question. They objective reference of which gives should rather be sought in the elucidation of certain data which are own right, such as fidelity, hope and love, where spiritual in their we may sion, see man at grips with the temptations of denial, introver- and hard-heartedness. Here the pure metaphysician has no power to decide whether the principle of these temptations 119 lies in man's very nature, in the that nature, or whether it intrinsic lies and invariable characteristics rather in the corruption of of that same nature as the result of a catastrophe which gave birth to history and was not merely an incident in history. Perhaps on the ontological level it is It is in fact the recognition fidelity which matters most. not a theoretical or verbal, but an of an ontological permanency; a permanency which endures and by reference to which we endure, a permanency which implies or demands a history, unlike the inert or formal actual recognition permanency of a pure validity, a law for example. It is the perpetuation of a witness which could at any moment be wiped out or denied. It is an attestation which is creative as well as perpetual, and more attests is (H) tion, creative in proportion as the ontological worth of what it more outstanding. An ontology with this orientation is plainly open to a revela- which, however, it could not of course either demand or pre- suppose or absorb, or even absolutely speaking understand, but the acceptance of which it can in some degree prepare for. To tell the may only be capable of development in fact on a ground previously prepared by revelation. But on reflection we can truth, this ontology nothing to surprise us, still less to scandalise us, in metaphysic can only grow up within a certain situation see that there is this. A which stimulates it. And in the situation which is ours, the existence of a Christian datum renounce, once is an essential factor. It surely a system of affirmation valid for thought consciousness whatsoever. scientific behoves us to for all, the naively rationalist idea that Such thought knowledge, a subject which is you can have in general, as this is or for any the subject of an idea but nothing else. Whereas the ontological order can only be recognised personally by the whole of a being, involved in a drama which is his own, though it overflows him infinitely in all directions a being to whom the strange power has been imparted of asserting or denying 1 20 He himself. himself to asserts it: himself in so far as he asserts Being and opens or he denies himself by denying Being closing himself to In It. this dilemma lies and thereby the very essence of his freedom. EXPLANATIONS (1) From this point of view, what becomes of the notion of We must obviously subject it to a proving the existence of God? careful revision. In my view, all proof refers to a certain datum, which is here the belief in The proof can which I it in myself or in another. only consist in a secondary reflection of the type have defined; a reconstructive a reflection which critical reflection; far as God, whether is remains the tributary of what reflection grafted upon a a recovery, but only in so I have called a blindfold of the ontological mystery the motive force of this recovery through intuition. It is clear that the apprehension as metaproblematic reflection. is But we must not of the mind that is fail to notice that and not a here in question, proof can only confirm for us it is what has a reflexive motion heuristic process. really The been given to us in another way. What becomes of the notion of Divine attribute? This, on the level of philosophy, is much more obscure. At (2) ways of approach to the solution. And anyhow, there can only be a solution where there is a problem, and the phrase 'the problem of God* is certainly contradictory and even present I can only see sacrilegious. The metaproblematic is above passeth all understanding', but this Peace Mauriac wrote in Le Noeud de a creative Peace. It seems to is all 'the a living peace, and, as Viperes, a Peace which me Peace which that the infinity is somebody, and the omnipo- tence of God, can also only be established in the reflexive way. we It is cannot deny these attributes without falling back into the sphere of the problematic. This is possible for us to understand that 121 tantamount to is to saying that the theology which philosophy leads us an essentially negative theology. (3) We must question ourselves about the sense of the copula in the light of the idea of the metaproblematic. For me, generally being in so far as there is rootedness in the ontological mystery, and I should say from this point of view that the abstract alone as such does not exist (all its life is in the pure speaking, there problematic). simply. The is We must attach the 'being* of the copula to 'being* latter irradiates the 'being* of the copula (for instance, the being of Peter irradiates the copula in Peter is good). We must look more closely into my remarks on intuition; for not yet perfectly clear to me. which is, as of which presence I is it am really talking were, active and purely active it is about an intuition an intuition, in fact, could not in any manner have the disposal. But expressed by the ontological unease To reflection. I explain this illustration; perhaps the we should demand me. There start which is at its work in with an example or This for purity or even for truth. something to be discovered or invented here, if one does not wish to remain in a state of negation. intuition is not What really in is brings us to admit this intuition is the fact of reflect- ing on the following paradox, / do not know myself what I believe; (A paradox which has held my attention for a long time; it must be scrutinised make a and sort defined.) We instinctively assert the contrary. I can of inventory of my objects of belief or a kind of 'valuabetween what / believe and what / do not believe. tion* distinguishing This implies that a difference is given me and can be felt by between what I adhere to and what I do not adhere to. Every specification (referring to a content in which I assert me that know myself to believe) presupposes at least the possibility of such an such an enumeration, inventory. But, on the other hand, it seems to me that the Being towards which the belief is directed is I above every possible inventory. That 122 is to say, it cannot be a thing among an object among others, others' has no others. (And 'among conversely, rfieaning except for 'things' or 'objects'.) Yet this is not absolutely clear, even to me. (Of course we need not here take into account the positive Creed. In this case the inventory is not a whole which is precisely in is making given as an articles of a made by me. There whole. Heresy consists indivisible arbitrary deductions from the body of such a whole.) I shall certainly be asked : 'of what belief do you speak? of what faith?' This again is asking me to specify. If I refuse to do so, I shall be blamed for remaining in a state of such vagueness that all discussion, and all elucidation too, becomes impossible. Nevertheless this faith, solid, entire, and must be upheld. implies adherence to a It as it were prior to never to be given piecemeal or offered be impossible if this if it did not invest me reality all possible elucidation, reality retail. whose character is Such adherence would were not present; perhaps we should say completely. Examine as thoroughly as possible the fact that the most consecrated people are the most disposable. renounced himself. But is it A the person same who for a is consecrated has person who has con- secrated himself to a social cause? January i$thf 1933 PHENOMENOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF DEATH Death can appear (it as the extreme expression of our corruptibility that in Voyage au Bout de la Nuit) is or, on the contrary, as 'pure emancipation'. (It can appear as the extreme of non-disposability or, on the contrary, as the elimination of non-disposability.) We can treat it as betrayal only from a different and more superficial point of view. A person who has made himself more and more 123 disposable cannot but regard death F was am thinking of what Mme. Mme. B's dtath). It is im- as a release (I telling us in the car about possible to allow the least validity to the opinion that that is just an (The absurdity of 'you will see well enough that it isn't In what degree does faith in this least, you would see if .') 'illusion*. true at . release render it . actually possible? is in all A problem to be stated with the other cases merely a 'hypothesis' 1 (what becoming here an unconquerable and insurmountable conviction). greatest accuracy I note in passing that the Christian idea of mortification should be understood in the light of this 'releasing death*. ship to a a is more than human freedom. way of moments I notice how accepting one's death whereby the soul are! is It is the apprentice- once more that there important one's consecrated (and perhaps last made made disposable in the sense I have tried to define). Spinoza a radical mistake when he denied that any meditation on death was worth while. Plato, on the other hand, may have foreshadowed it all. Consider suicide in the of poor To little N light of these remarks. (I am thinking whose appalling death we heard of yesterday.) dispose of one's-self in that way is the opposite of disposability considered as self-consecration. January i6tb This is a most important question to examine. The being who is absolutely disposable for others does not allow himself the right to dispose freely of himself. Link between suicide and non-disposability. January i)th-2otb Reflection tions. am 1 on the question When I reflect I?' upon taken as a single 'What am I?' and upon its implica- the implications of the question issue, I see that The perhaps of the agnostic is it means: 'What is 'What there in fundamentally unacceptable to the dedicated soul. 124 me that can answer Consequently, every answer to this question?' this question coming from me must be But could not someone else mistrusted. supply me An with the answer? objection immediately arises: the qualifications which the other may have which enable him to answer me, the eventual validity of what he says, are observed by me; but what qualifications have I for this observation? I can, therefore, making without contradiction to a judgment which is at the judgment as in the is worth and how it question of what it inevitably be asked afresh. The refer absolute, but my own same time more within me than fact, if I treat this is only judgment. In least exterior to is question myself which me, the to be appreciated is must then eliminated qua question and turns into an appeal. But perhaps in proportion as take cognizance of this appeal qua appeal, I am I led to recognise that down in me there is something other than me, something further within me than I am myself the appeal is possible only because deep and at once the appeal changes its index. Someone will object, 'This appeal out a real object; it may, as it does this objection mean? That this 'question', i.e. here on may in the first sense be with- were, lose itself in the dark.' But what have not perceived any answer to that 'someone else has not answered it'. I remain I the level of the observation or non-observation of facts; but by doing so I am taking up a position in the of what is placed before me). circle of the problema- tic (that is, January 2jth While we were walking yesterday on the hills above Mentone, I thought once more about the mastery of our own mastery, which is obviously parallel to reflection in the second degree. It is clear that this second mastery perquisite is not of the technical order and can only be the of some people. In 'one* thinks. The 'one* is reality, the technical 125 thought in general man, in the is same way what as h< is when the subject of cpistcmology, knowledge as a technic. This is, on subject of metaphysical reflection, opposed to 'one': this subject is Any not considering The the is essentially man in the street. founded on thought-inof technics and of the man in to be leading to the glorification is the street (a democratisation of is with Kant. the contrary, essentially epistemology which claims general that science I think, the case knowledge which ruins really it). must not be forgotten that technics stand on a lower than the creation which they presuppose a creation which Furthermore, step it transcends the level where the itself also man in the holds street down; but by admitting him we sway. The 'one* create him. We live in a world where this man of straw begins to is also a step look more and more like a real figure. February 2nd I intend to return to the analysis of all this. mystery of its a problem that encroaches is own possibility (and not upon upon its We must say that the intrinsic conditions data). Freedom is the basic example. How can something which cannot be reduced to a problem be actually thought? In so far as I treat the act of thinking as a way of looking, this question would admit of no which cannot be reduced treated as an of thought tion from difficult. is it. As object, and to a that by in fact inadequate: We I see must be grasped solution. Something problem cannot be looked definition. But at or this representation we must manage to make abstrac- must recognise, however, that this is extremely it, the act of thinking cannot be represented and as such. And what is more, it must apprehend every representation of itself as essentially inadequate. diction implied in the fact of thinking of a mystery ground of itself when we cease leading picture of thought. to cling to 126 an The falls objectified contrato the and mis- February 6th my remarks oflast January I return to who is absolutely i6th. Why does the being disposable for someone else refuse to allow him- of himself? Simply for the reason that in thus disposing of himself (by suicide), he renders himself non-disposable for others; or at least he acts like a man who does of disposing self the right not give himself the And so the freely trouble to remain disposable for others. least whole thing hangs together. Suicide and martyrdom All this turns on the formula: the soul most are strictly opposites. most disposable. Such a soul wills itself to be an instrument; but suicide is the act of denying essentially dedicated is ipso facto the one's-self as remarks of January 24th My to an instrument. me. It is that fiction clear that 'one* is were becoming (at Mentone) still seem important a fiction, but everything goes reality. It is treated as a reality. (Yet the technician is on as if more and more openly not a pure technician; his technics cannot be exercised except where certain minimal condi- tions of psycho-physiological balance are realised, and we should anyhow have grounds for these conditions themselves asking whether a technic dealing with is possible in the last analysis.) of problematisation. It seems to me that problematise is conditioned by the ideal assumption every of a certain continuity of experience which is to be safeguarded Return to the notion effort to against appearances. In this connection, from any problematic point of view whatsoever, miracle equals nonsense. This cannot be too explicitly recognised. But cannot the very notion of this empirical continuum be criticised? nection between this We shall have to discover the exact con- way of asking of mystery. This will no doubt be the question best and my definition done by making use of a concrete problem (for instance, an encounter). should be inclined to say that the continuity implied in all in problematisation is the continuity of a 'system for me*. Whereas I 127 it is quite different; I am carried beyond any 'system for me' am involved in concrete in an order which, by definition, can never mystery I . become an object or a system for me, but only for a thought which and comprehends me, and with which I cannot myself, even ideally. Here the word 'beyond* takes on its over-reaches identify full and true significance. All problematisation is relative an extension of 'my body*. The to 'my system' and 'my egocentricity will be contested, but the truth is system* that is any theory whatsoever remains in the last analysis tributary to thepercipio and not at all to the plain cogito. Thepercipio remains the real centre of all problematisation whatever, however carefully it scientific may be disguised. From another side, here is I was thinking just now that our business to find a translation into speculative terms theocentricity This seems to of the practical which adopts as its centre, 'Thy will and not mine*. me essential. But it must be seen, on the other hand, that the theocentricity itself presupposes theoretical assertions to which it is extremely difficult to give a form. 'Thy will* is not absolutely given me in the sense that my will to live and my appetite is given me. 'Thy will* is for me something to be recognised, to be construed, whereas imposes my appetite simply makes demands, simply itself. February jtb The more we is in declaring it think of the past to be immutable. The the less meaning there only thing which is really in concrete, independent of the present act and the re-creative interpretation, is a certain scheme of events; but tliis scheme is merely an abstraction. The scrutiny of the past; the reading of the past. The interpretation of the world in terms of technics, of technics. The world to be construed, to be deciphered. 128 in the light would I immovable sum up my say, to past due is to an observations, that the belief in optical error of the spirit. an People will move; what changes is our way But must we not be idealists here and say that say 'the past taken in itself does not of thinking about it*. the past cannot be separated from the consideration of the past? They will say again, 'It is an immutable fact that Peter accom- an action at such a moment of time. Only the interpretation action can vary, and that is exterior to the reality of Peter's plished of the action or of Peter himself/ But I assertion to is do in fact suspect that this last untrue, though I cannot absolutely prove me that Peter's realityinfinitely transcendent over it so. It seems Peter's action remains involved in the interpretation which renews and re- Perhaps that is an absurd idea; we shall have to would say without demur that Peter's reality is, in a creates the action. see. that is But I way can hardly be applied specified, after the one with the power of scrutiny which event to his actions, to this claimed to be immutable. This level, in Christology, but more is infinitely clear datum which upon and more uncertain the is the highest further one goes down towards the insignificant. But the insignificant is no more than a limiting case. The importance of the novelist's an in its highest form is that it shows us ing, cannot and does not that the insignificant, strictly speak- exist. February 8tb My history is not transparent to me. It is only my history in so far as it is my not transparent to me. In this sense, February All is it system and perhaps it even breaks up my cannot become part of system. nth this, I feel, needs to be drawn out. At bottom, 'my history' On the one hand, I interpret myself to myself possible biography. On the other hand, starting not a clear notion. as the object i of a 129 M.B.H, from an intimate experience of myself, I unmask the central illusion in every conceivable biography; I apprehend fiction (as I hinted at the all biography as end of my note on Schloezer's Gogol). February ijtb Must think about autonomy. It seems to me that we can only talk legitimately about autonomy in the order of administration and the the act or work of knowing can this administrate. Knowledge be compared with administration? February i$th The administration of an inheritance or estate. Life com- itself pared to an estate, and treated as capable of being administered or managed. In all this, there is room for autonomy. But the nearer we come to creation, the less can only do so the artist at a lower we can level, speak of autonomy, or rather we the level of exploitation; for instance, exploiting his inspiration. The idea of autonomous disciplines: this, too, in terms of administration. There exploited, constituting, as specially earmarked as one rises to it is. The for its it is of tools, or a capital sum This idea loses every sort of meaning were, a use. can be interpreted the notion of a plant to be set the notion of philosophical thought. Yes, that discipline is being treated as the field is how mode of or exploitation. Bring this to bear on the very notion of truth. Shew the postulate or hidden method of representation which is taken for granted by those who of the truth. me that think that the we This is still always mind must be autonomous not absolutely clear to start in me today. from a twofold notion, of a its It pursuit seems to field to be developed, and also of an equipment which will make this development possible. It is as though we would not let ourselves admit that this equipment can be supplemented no a\> extra. We say that it would be cheating; bring I we add that it would anyhow be impossible really to it off. am tempted to think that the idea of autonomy is bound up with a kind of narrowing or particularisation of the subject. more The an activity with the whole of myself, the less right have we to say that I am autonomous. (In this sense, the philosopher is less autonomous than the pure scientist, and the pure I enter into scientist himself less so than the technician.) up with the existence of a sphere of activity scribed. If this is so, the which whole of the Kantian monstrous contradiction, a My Autonomy sort is bound is strictly ethic rests circum- upon a of speculative aberration. considered in the totality of its suppose be something that can be administered (either by myself or by someone other than me). And to this extent I grasp it as unfathomable (see my note for life, done that this could be the 8th of February does not seem to last). implications me to Between the administrator and the ad- ministered there must exist a certain proportionality, which is here lacking. In the order of (a mutilation, I grant, which in other cases And so we is my life, administration implies mutilation which is in some respects unavoidable but sacrilegious). are led to transcend the opposition heteronomy. For heteronomy administration; it is on the is autonomy- administration by another, but same level. still In the realms of love or inspiration, the distinction loses all meaning. At a certain depth within me, and in a zone where practical specialisations melt away, the terms autonomy and heteronomy become inapplicable. February i6tb But am I not, in all this argument, ignoring the great sense of the word autonomy, the idea of a rational spontaneity working out its purpose in the very making of the law? Here, in fact, what becomes of the idea of a reason which is legislating universally for itself? Ort 131 to still go deeper, what metaphysical dignity is it proper to give to That is really the crux of the whole the very act of legislation? seems to It problem. of administration, what case, me and that legislation that therefore beyond administration is simply the formal aspect does not transcend it. In that it is is by definition also beyond legislation. Autonomy that it considered as non-heteronomy. I understand by this phenomenologically speaking, to heteronomy pre- refers, supposed and refused. It is the 'by myself!' of the little child who is beginning to walk and rejects the hand outstretched to him. 'I want to run my own that life* refers essentially to action is the radical formula of autonomy. It and implies, as I noted the other day, the notion of a certain province of activity circumscribed in space and time. Everything belonging to the order of interests, what- can be ever they are, marked trict with relative ease as a province, a dis- off in this manner. Furthermore, I can administer, or as something to be administered, not only treat my treated fortune, but also everything that tantly to a fortune, or, more estate and can be compared even dis- my generally, to a possession something I have. But where the category of having becomes inapplicable, I can no longer in any sense talk about administration, whether by another or myself, and therefore I cannot talk about autonomy either. February 21 st As we are in Being recollection, in so far as why takes and soon as me it is beyond autonomy. That is regaining contact with Being, are where autonomy is no longer conceivable; true of inspiration, or of any action which in- into a realm this is just as volves the whole of what comparable to inspiration I assert we my being, the am. (The love of a person is strictly in this respect.) The more I am, the more I less I think myself autonomous. 132 The more I manage to conceive of my tion does it being, the less subject to its own jurisdic- me to be. 1 appear to February 26tb Suppose that been made to an absolute addition, an man -whether to some of history, in what sense is unsought entirely men or to the philosopher gift has in the course all bound, in what sense has he the right or even the power, to refuse to take this gift into To invoke autonomy here (or even the principle of imma- account? tion, which comes same thing) is to say: 'This addiwithin the dialectically regulated course of thought, constitutes nence, really to the a foreign body, a scandal: as a philosopher at cannot recognise it/ Is this non-recognition implied in the very notion of philosophy? What is really being done here is to refuse to allow an least I intrusion to take place in a system regarded as closed. concrete not what does my thought, this it mean for goes beyond But me, a philosopher? The system that. My thought is regards 1 is merely inserted into a certain limitless development, with which, however, itself as in it co-extensive in principle. 2 These propositions have an axial character for a metaphysic which inclines to assign to a kind of ontological humility the place which most traditional philosophers since Spinoza have given to freedom. This is at least true in so far as they imply a claim nude by the subject to identify himself rationally with a certain Thought immanent in the Whole. It is the very possibility of such an identification which is radically denied in as the one I am trying to define here. (Note written September nth, 1934.) 2 The system goes beyond my thought, I said, and this is not untrue: but more essentially, my thought goes beyond the system. Here it is probably the notion 'in so far as' which ought to be attacked. I should be much inclined to think that the philosopher in so far as he is a philosopher, i.e. in proportion as he carries out at the heart of his own reality a discrimina- such a metaphysic tion which mutilates it, is really denying himself as a philosopher; that minds of the last century that were philosophically Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, was just this: that they the part played by the most alive, such as 133 ON HAVING A certain subject-unit, or a qui playing the part of a subject-unit, becomes a centre of inherence or apprehension for a which he relates to himself or which we treat as if he There himself. a relation here which is level grammatical (what used in the passive, which essentially affects muted this is most related significant). This is of the subject-unit, without its it to only on the transitive almost never relation, the subject-unit, tends to pass into into a state it, which to be trans- being possible for transmutation or reabsorption to be completely carried out. In order that is more, the verb 'to have* is certain quid to have effectively, to say, in this case, to be is one's-self, as it necessary to be in it is immediately A were, affected or modified. some degree, for one's-self, to feel mutual interdepen- dence of having and being. I note that there folios drawings by having ideas on occasion. shew. is a strict parallel X this or What one has It is interesting to between having in one's port- which one might shew to a visitor, and that subject which one will put forward on is note by definition something one can really how difficult it is to make a substantive of TO ov; TO ov becomes changed to *xlJL * vov as soon as ** * s treated as something that can be shewn. But there is a sense in which 'to have consciousness of 'means as such is 'to shew it treats as goes beyond possession, but may, itself; and this in virtue that the secret, as in that it Consciousness not a possession or a manner of having, but enjoyment of something which possession to one's-self'. opposed can be shewn. after the event, of a sort to the mystery, it may be a possession. Every action be treated as a of grading down. is I note essentially a possession We must not overlook the fact that all spiritual possession has brought to light the sort its of dialectic in virtue of which the philosopher is led to deny himself as a 'Fachmcnsch', as a specialist. (Note written September, 1934.) 134 springs in something that cannot be what am). But what I the fact that There is shewn (my does not belong to me, it ideas are rooted in characterises this non-she wable as such, therefore a sense in this is exactly the sense in which which I I it is is essentially uribelonging. do not belong to myself, and am absolutely not autonomous. February 2jth We shew what we have; we reveal what we are (though of course only in part). Creadon considered as the liberation of what cannot be shewn. But where philosophical creation does not exist, philosophy does without cannot, denying or betraying itself, into results capable of being simply assimilated and not exist either. crystallise It thereby possessed. March ist Could we of desire? not make 'having* our starting-point for a definition To desire is to have and not to have: the psychical or non- objective element of having already exists in but it is just by its its entirety in desire; separation from the objective element that desire becomes a gnawing pain. March qth My deepest and cal, so much the thinkers most unshakable conviction that the worse for and doctors have orthodoxy said, it is is, and if it is hereti- that whatever all not God's will at all to be loved by us against the Creation, but rather glorified through the Creation and with the Creation as our starting-point. That I find so many devotional books intolerable. against the Creation is, to my and who is And why somehow jealous of his own works mind, nothing but an written this. is The God who is set up idol. It is a relief for me to I declare until further orders that I shall 135 have be in- sincere every time I I seem to be making an assertion what contrary to have just written. I could not get over my discomfort yesterday with X. was I telling him how not understand, and says I disliked it is pride. denominationalism. But the opposite is the He does truth. 1 March $tb I What I wrote yesterday needs to be qualified. It is true of the stage am in at present, but I know that this stage is still rudimentary. heard once more the Missa Solemnis, conducted by I gartner, and was There no work that is as deeply I feel is moved as when I heard it Wein- in 1918. more in tune with my thoughts. It is a luminous commentary upon them. March 8tb Through 1 1 8, I a phrase from Brahms think) which has been in one of the Intermezzi, op. head the whole afternoon, I (in my have suddenly come to see that there is a universality which is not of the conceptual order; that is the key to the idea of music. But how hard it is to understand! kind of spiritual gestation. 1 The idea can only be the fruit of a A close analogy with the living creature. 2 This, in any case, remains absolutely true for me: that every attempt claim to imagine God's attitude towards me, at Divine psychology, every inspires me with unconquerable mistrust. It is really quite impossible for me to allow that we can somehow ideally place ourselves in I mean put ourselves in his place so as to look at ourselves from thence. God I am far from ignoring the serious difficulties, of a metaphysical and which theological order, certainly derive from such an impossibility, but I must confess that the use made by the greater number of theologians of the idea of analogy, for getting over this, seems to me to lie open to the most serious objections. must admit, exposed, My own delicate, position on this point seems to me, I and profoundly unsatisfying. (Note on September I3th, 1934.) This, too, must be examined and worked out. Bergson is certainly right; we are here in an order where duration is somehow incorporated with what it is working upon and bringing to its ripeness. But, on what written 2 136 March loth To that At return to suicide. men can be disposed which others can be realised. got rid of. And so I treat myself also But here we should as able to be disposed of. the limits within bottom, experience seems to show us of, try exactly to define this external experience in fact, It is, of the mortality of more complete when the persons But 'being dis- in question have never counted (existed) for me. posed of who, in so far as they have ever really counted in loses meaning more and more in the its continue to do so 'belonging to the past* be weakened 'notion'(?) expressed my life, must by the phrase it can not always used in the same sense; is indefinitely. It where we sense The still. case of persons are speaking only takes on the full harshness of its of an instrument thrown aside, put out away. I shall of course be told that a radical distinction must be made between the other man as object is (for he of use, cast really got rid of), mind and a whole builds upon him; itself survives lucidity, this is really claiming that the monadism is not so, where is they survive the object in so far as greatest caution. It limiting case. It loses question of subjective superstructures which its can only be applied to the meaning in proportion as the person in mingled with my life. This can only be denied by word mingled is inapplicable here and that absolute the truth. If it is not so, and to we must recognise that real my my mind him. But as the Neo-Hegelians saw with admirable is really a most precarious distinction and should be with the treated set intimacy exists. this is my mind it manifestly not a possible starting-point Intimacy; that is really the fundamental notion. But in that case, it is be disposed of unless one might cannot consider myself able tc myself as a perfect stranger unless, clear that I I treat aspect of this order of reality, Bergson haj perhaps not thrown enough light in spite of everything. (Note writter call the structural September 13th, 1934.) 137 indeed, I put aside all possibility of haunting, I should come to the conclusion that the more actual and profound myself, the more am right I my intimacy with in believing that the picture I formed of myself as an object which it is in my power to put right out of use is one to be treated with caution, and even absurd in itself. (It goes without saying that when I speak of haunting, I evoke the which may be brought upon me by a murder of which I am guilty. I do not really get rid of my victim; he remains present with results me in the very heart of the obsession with which I saddled myself when I thought to be done with him.) Here again someone will 'But the whole point say. is whether the victim is conscious of this haunting which he brings about in the man who thinks he has blotted him out of his universe/ But here we must return to a close examination of the actual problem of consciousness, and first we must mint afresh the outworn terminology which we generally employ to state it. It is clear that if I stick to a sort of psycho-physical be tempted to declare that where the body as destroyed, the consciousness itself is no doubt annihilated. parallelism, I shall such is remains to be seen what view It we ought to take of this parallel- ism. To me the arrangement of the world seems expressly to invite us to believe in the reality of death. But at the up and appreciated may in arms against such counterfeits; manner of promises reinforces another power allusions it and so in secret voice, more be nothing but a facade, as a fa$ade. Then freedom springs as she rouses herself, and she discerns in the borders of experience all of such a kind that same time a more subtle clues, allow us to feel that this to be treated is this parallelism all manner of alliances, of which one illumines and of a deliverance, a dayspring still beyond our to imagine. With regard to death that, for Christians, death and mortification; compared with 138 life we must understand represents not less but more, or were that way to something more; it is an exaltation, and would have us believe, a mutilation or denial. If at least the not, as fatal error so, Nietzsche would be perfectly right; but he is wrong, because he clung to an entirely naturalistic view of life, and from that point of view the problem no longer has any meaning. Life so understood carries with it no beyond, no soaring power; it can no longer be transcended. Undated ON THE PROBLEM OF BEING The problem of being tends first of all to be 'What its by first, is of material that the very notion is shew So we entirety; next, we that this material, even supposing well not be the essential thing. obscure, ambiguous, its : An enquiry which very nature proves disappointing. Reflection will perhaps inapplicable to the world in all, stated as the question the ultimate material of the world?' us, and and above could identify it, might an see that there is distance, open gap, between the intellectual hunger (obscure even to itself] which gave birth to the problem, and the terms in which this problem is stated. Even if the problem were or could be resolved, the hunger would perhaps not be satisfied. At this point the hungei to be more directly conscious of itself. In that case there would tend would be room for transition to the notion of an intelligible organisation or structure. This But is one of the possible ways. there are others. and on One is reflection on the idea of appearance, the implications of the bare fact that there are appearances. Another way is to reflect on the fact of assertion. There are some appearances that can be manifestly shewn up as appearances. Hallucination in all its forms, for one. But in this class, one never gets further great temptation to run all than correction. the lines 139 on here Still, there and must be a treat the whole of experience as <f>aw6iJLtvov. But a very difficult criteriological prob- lem will face us then, the same that faces us and secondary are distinguishing primary when, we for instance, qualities. Reflection will show us in the end that primary qualities are not dowed with an ontological priority over secondary necessarily enqualities. Here again an intellectual hunger is at work, a hunger which feels a kind of deep-seated trouble in becoming perspicuous to itself. The problem of affirmation. All affirmation which is primarily as an act, but in this region that we ontology centres on the act of considered not, as a matter of fact, in its specific intentionality. shall find a sort itself, And not it is in of dangerous neighbourhood appearing between ontology and logic in its strict sense. March i2tb At no time and 'I affirm of a it in of the as originator because reflection that no circumstances can reality it is.' of what it affirmation ever appear affirms. The formula is here: And this formula is already the translation came before but it, at this stage the expression seems to be outside the affirmation and prior to it; the affirmation refers back to something given. But a second reflection 'this is' is is Affirmation in the act of reflecting itself led to encroach on the private and almost holy ground of about to 9 'this is . arise here. At 9 this point I presupposes an affirmation. seems to be infinite, say I bring myself But we Let us admit that Being has self; by self I mean myself: the subject first who And to 'this regress lay itself is which down the will not press this point. laid a sort affirms. the less intervenes between the being the role of a mediator. but Hence we have a unless affirmation itself as origin. to and the then the problem notes ofJanuary the I9th, for I of siege to the This subject none affirmation, arises which in I am inevitably led to observed in my ask what the ontological standing of this self in relation to the is 140 being which besieges him. contrary have some sort he whelmed in Is of command over it, or does he If he it? what gives him this mastery and what exactly does it on the commands it, mean? March Are we to say that deeper reflection will lead us to recognise that power of positing? a power which someand hands over to it the substance of what the affirmation presupposes a how foreruns it affirmation asserts? can It is very likely that this is the truth, but how approach this truth? should be noticed, in any case, that the power of positing, by very essence, goes beyond the problematic (cf. note of last I It its February 6th). The agony of the present days passes all bounds. The Disarmament Conference is at the point of death. There was the incident at Kehl, and that death my way terror reigns there. is - upon to see V us all, At times I live with the feeling and upon all that this afternoon, I had a As we love. sort of light on I was on this, in Rue La Condamine just this: 'Think that dream is turning into nightmare, and when nightmare has reached its most agonithe sing point, you will awake. today you call death.* That will be the experience This upheld me. It is a way of being which able to bear the haunting idea that Paris will be destroyed. March i6th 'Mysteries are not truths that lie beyond us; they are truths that comprehend us/ (R. P. Jouve.) March jist About N's suicide. Is absolute impotence? myself in a state Can where I it I my power to reduce myself to an use my will in such a way as to put in can no longer will anything and no longer 141 do anything? Does reality lend itself to this absolute desertion (or at least would-be absolute desertion)? The least we can assert is that reality at any in my mind in its seems to be arranged in such a rate way of such a belief in the possibility as to step, keep up a belief The whole band of appearances around me encourages me to believe that I can really get ultimate effectiveness. gathered of myself. That is how rid which we should express a phenomenology of suicide how suicide must necessarily look to my consisted in seeing complete enfranchisement, but one in which the liberator, in freeing himself from himself, thereby eliminates himself. eyes; a But there is room for another mode of reflection, which compared with this is hyper-phenomenological; is this conspiracy of appearances telling the truth? as to make me think They seem that my to range themselves together so freedom is here fundamental. But is this absolute act perpetrated by myself upon myself something that can really happen? If it were, I should, it seems, be right in claiming a sort of ameitas (self-causality) for myself, since I should only continue to be by a continuous permission accorded by myself to myself. The whole question world whose constitution an absolute desertion. is is, what such that To my mind, sort it it is of reality what permits clear in is mine, in a I have called any case that such a world excludes even the possibility of participation in the being upon which my reality as subject rests. I am here no more than something that happened to be. But to this happening to which I reduce myself, I still attribute the most fundamental power over itself. Is I there not here an internal contradiction? In other words, am my life but can I still think my life? April 11 tb Have our realised this lives, the worst is once again; possible, or for each of us, every moment of is the worst. There what we think 142 is no objective guarantee. This must be reconciled with the idea of an all-powerful God. But does not the fact that the worst is God possible prove the infinite weakness of God? weakness and Between this infinite power, it seems that a mysterious junction union of seeming opposites beyond the idea of this infinite takes place, a causality. July 2yd Afterthoughts on a discussion with R. nection between suffering and is to say, it on the con- sin. My claim is that this connection is, enceable, that C properly speaking, inexperi- cannot be transferred to the particular experience. In the presence of someone who level suffers, I of am absolutely unable to say, 'Your suffering is the punishment for an identifiable sin, of which you may not be personally guilty any- how.' this is beside the mark from are here in the realm of the un- brought in heredity, but (C a religious point of view.) fathomable, and this sophically clear. is We something we must manage to make A strange thing; suffering is, philo- in fact, only capable of taking on metaphysical and spiritual meaning in so far as it implies an unfathomable mystery. But on the other hand and this is the paradox whence all suffering is by its very nature 'this tion or justification this is just which is also suffering', an explanadetermined and particular. But the almost irresistible temptation to find for it what we cannot do. The problem from the religious point of view consists in transforming the unfathomable into a is a whole dialectic here which I see only positive quantity. There To give a particular explanation in terms of punishment is God is 'someone', to place him on the same level as the particular person who suffers; and by this very assumption to incite the person to discussion and revolt. ('Why me and not soin part. to assume that and-so? Why this fault and not that one?' etc.) But it is clear that level this transcend. of comparison and discussion is just what we must This is surely the same as to say that 'this suffering* must be apprehended as the actual participation in an universal mystery, which can be grasped as brotherhood and understood as a metaphysical bond. We should never from outside I link between fied to carry humble and forget, am my offers act. In so part; he far as is he and He is draws my man who attention to the needs to be inwardly qualimy can only be this if he is himself entirely sin, himself as a sharer, as he must even share in I*. the other hand, that the thinking of R. C. suffering out the on it were, in my sin. Perhaps my suffering. In fact, he must become 'another a pure disqualified. and simple We other, he cannot play might find a way from here this to a 1 philosophical statement about the being of Christ. July 26tb Having and spatiality. Having relates to taking, but it seems that no hold is offered except by things that are in space or can there be compared with something be closely examined. spatial. These two propositions must July joth I wanted to make a note at Rothau suffering certainly seems to be the point at Being. Perhaps we can is this really Just 1 yesterday that the seat of which Having flows into only be hurt through our possessions. But so? now, during a wonderful walk above Zermatt, I was think- To my mind, these remarks are extremely important in the considera- tion of the metaphysical relationship implied in priesthood, and I do not mean priesthood regarded in a specially denominational way. By these remarks one can, I think, sec the abyss that lies between the attitude of the that of the moralist. As soon as the priest begins to turn himself priest and into a moralist, he denies himself as a priest. 144 ing again very minutely about the essential mutability of the past. The notion that events are deposits made in the course of history is at bottom a no false one. If we look carefully, historical deposit. The we shall see that there is past remains relative to our reading it in an idea forming in my mind that there is a reciprocal tension between the past and the mode of attention that a certain way. I is felt concentrated once and for upon all' and it. If this 'plain so, the expressions is 'accomplished and simply happening* would mask a positive paralogism. I cannot help thinking that this looks like the beginning of a road to which have not yet really committed myself. Perhaps this will provide us with the means of throwing new lights upon death. But I do not see clearly as yet; I only have a kind of presentiment. We I must look at the positive implications of a critique of the idea of historical deposit. August ijth Knowing as a mode of having. The possession of a secret. Keeping it, disposing of it and here we get back to what I wrote on the 'shewable*. The absolute opposition of secret and mystery mystery being that which by its very essence I cannot dispose of. Knowledge as a mode of having is essentially communicable. August i4tb The twofold permanence implied in having. (I the fact of having a secret as my typical case.) am A still taking secret is itself something that resists duration, something upon which duration cannot bite, or which is treated as such. But it must be the same for the subject, for the qui, otherwise the secret The would destroy itself. obviously comparable with the object kept, with the content preserved in that which contains it. I think that this secret is comparison is always possible as soon as we find ourselves in the realm of Having. But and this is worth noticing the analysis of K 145 M.B.H. the spatial act of keeping this reflected is on the spiritual level; I noticed a long time ago. We should ask ourselves to what extent we have a feeling, what conditions a can be feeling the social point of view, I think, treated as a possession. and in so far as I am under Only from in dialogue with myself. Consider presence as something of which I cannot dispose in any way; which I cannot possess. There is a constant temptation cither to turn it into an object, or to treat it as an aspect of myself. It is as though we were not equipped for thinking about it. There ways of applying this principle. 9 Mental 'having Some people are so made that they can put their hand on a required piece of the contents of their mind as if it are numberless . were an object or paper that was constituted themselves they have on made of their They have classifications which efficiently classified. the pattern of the objects of study. But may it also be said conversely that these classifications are only the tangible symbols of the order they have inaugurated in themselves. In any case, the correspondence between the outward and the mental order tends to be as stria as possible. The body comes in here as a principle of disturbance, which in the I possibilities we cannot fathom. The order up within me depends on something over which, analysis, I have no power. have last whose set When I am pkced in 'normal' conditions, my mental possessions conform to their nature ofbeing possessions; but the moment the conditions change, this ceases to be the case. that the conditions themselves also to look like possessions. To tell the truth, somehow depend on me and But this is to it seems so tend a great extent an illusion. August i$tb I am again preoccupied by the question what it qualities. The word 'also* seems to 146 means to possess me only to have meaning in the order of Having. Perhaps the recourse to the category of Having for thinking of qualities an expedient, a makeshift necessary is arc to conceive (or persuade ourselves that position of qualities. I that there am tired this we if we conceive) the juxta- seems to me moment when the but evening it here a track worth following. is August i6tb What I am category of Having trying to say 'also', of is this. own minds as added which contains may the introduced, the category of creeps imperceptibly in as well. This we for a single quality, in so far as in our From 'in addition* is it). would be are unable to help to nothing (within valid even imagining it an ideal something important metaphysical conclusions notably with regard to the impossibility I feel that be drawn from this, of thinking of God according to the mode of Having, as possessing. In this sense any doctrine of the Attributes would tend inevitably to lead us astray. The I am that I the most adequate formula from Here we ought passivity. I to ask what am of Scripture would be truly an ontological point of view. is the relation between Having and we are passive, and offer a hold, in exact we share in the order of Having. But this is no doubt think that proportion as only one aspect of a deeper reality. Could not Having be thought of as somehow a way of being what one is not? It is clear are founded that all these reflections, for me on which seem to be so abstract, a curiously immediate experience of ad- herence to one's possessions (which are exterior without being really so). We must keep returning to the type-case, which cor- is poreity, the fact of having a body, typical having, absolute having. And, beyond corporeity, we must grasp my relation to my life. The ontological meaning of already noted this, but sacrifice we must of life, of martyrdom. continually return to H7 it. I have At the present moment, I also glimpse the need to emphasise at once the apparent identity and the reafbpposition of martyrdom and suicide: one an affirmation of self, 1 the other a ruling out of self. The ontological foundation of Christian asceticism. But the detachment (poverty, which everything again at a higher this chastity, etc.) must not be mere amputation; shaken off must be simultaneously found is level. I think all the Gospel texts should be read again in the light of these reflections. September 2?tb I have just re-read these last notes. Must analyse the idea of belonging. My body belongs and does not belong to me; that is the root of the difference between suicide and martyrdom. Must lay bare the metaphysical foundations of a study covering the limits within body. that It my body what in would be absurd to I which aims at dis- have the right to dispose of my condemn on the ground must ask myself the master of my self-sacrifice do not belong to me. my and within what limits, I am or sense, which life I life. The idea of belonging at least in so far as 'within* in into it, here is it. But seems to presuppose the idea of organism, organism is implied in the fact that there is a of the 'within' is not clear. If we look this idea we find that in fact it is not purely that The best example of a house, or of anything that can be compared to a spatial. house; for instance, a cave. I this thought of this in the Luxemburg, from which I return with formula: 'Having is the function of an order which carries 1 This formula is clearly inadequate. What is affirmed in martyrdom is self, but the Being to which the self becomes a witness in the very act of self-renunciation. But one can conversely say that in suicide, the self affirms itself by its claim to withdraw from reality. (Note written not the September 27th t 1934.) 148 with it 1 references to another qua another/ It must in fact be seen hidden thing, the secret, is ipso facto something that can b$ shewn. Tomorrow I should like to try to examine the counterpart that the of this from the point of view of being. It is manifest to me that being really implies nothing of the kind. Perhaps even, in the order of being, the Other tends to melt away and be denied. September 28th It should be asked whether the distinction between within and without is not denied by being as such. It is connected with the We must see whether, when we bring in we are not unconsciously shifting our ground to the level of having. When we ask ourselves what is the link between being and the appearances it presents, we are really asking how they can be integrated into it. And the moment the notion of integration comes up, we are back on the level of having. Being, it problem of appearance. the idea of appearance, seems, can never be a sum. October jth I return to the category fact, for of having in so a subject, of having make not essential to (i.e. far as it is of carrying with it) implied in the predicates. It and giving out. Having includes the possibility of this and rhythm. Examine the relation between this and consciousness. bility? There is the act of probably no fundamental difference between being them conscious of it). The scious for myself, The alternation Does not consciousness also imply this double possi- conscious of something and manifesting 1 is the distinction between keeping for one's-self is to others (i.e. other is already there and expression connecting link it is, I when I making am con- suppose, only possible be- the fact that the distinction between within and without implies effects of perspective, which are only the distinction is drawn between the same and the other. 149 possible where cause this is so. We must pass from there to the infra-conscious and super-conscious. correlated with what am /? (cf. Could we Can we distinguish them? Perhaps this should be what my I wrote on the implications of the question note of March I2th). not say that there Having and what we treat as no problem except the problem of Having? This would link up with is my theory of the ontological mystery. In the sphere of the problematic, the difference between within and without is important; but it melts away as soon as we enter the realm of mystery. October n tb and being able. To say 'I have the power to .' means the power to is numbered among my attributes and endowments'. But that is not all. 'To have is 'to Examine the relations between having * . . 9 have power to', since it is clearly in a sense 'to have the disposal of. Here we touch on one of the most obscure and fundamental aspects of having. October ijtb I must relate my notes of the last few days to what I said earlier A about functional behaviour. function is, by its very essence, one but in has; proportion as my function swallows something me up, it becomes me, and substitutes itself for what I am. Function that must be distinguished from act, since act clearly escapes from the category of having. As soon as there is creation, in whatever degree, we arc in the realm of being; fully intelligible. the finite sense of the word, it is is what we must manage to make One difficulty arises from the fact that creation, of a kind of having. nearer that is no doubt only The more in possible in the midst creation can shake this off, the to absolute creation. 150 SUMMARY (1) It is history, is philosophers, in the course of most part instinctively turned away from no doubt because the notion contains much for the Having. This that how instructive to see have is ambiguous, obscure, and almost impossible of elucida- tion. (2) The moment that a philosopher's attention has turned to A can only appear to him to be unjustifiable. phenomenological analysis of Having might well be a useful introduction to a renewed analysis of Being. By 'phenomenological Having, this attitude analysis' I opposed (3) It mean the analysis of an implicit content of thought, as to a psychological analysis of 'states'. seems: (a) that we can only speak of Having where a related to a certain qui, treated as a centre sion, which (i) that, is in more is of inherence and apprehen- some degree transcendent; strictly, when we we are cannot express ourselves in terms of moving on a level where, in whatever Having except manner or in however analogical a and certain quid within retains its sense, the opposition of without meaning; (c) that this order is manifested to our thought as essentially involving the reference to another qua other. (4) The order of having characterisable. is to what is the order of predication or the But the metaphysical problem which faces us here extent a genuine reality, a reality as such, lends itself to characterisation; and also whether being is not essentially un- though of course it will be understood uncharacterisable is not the same as the indeterminate. characterisable, (5) that the The uncharacterisable is also that which cannot be possessed. This brings us back to presence. tween the Thou and the He. It is comes under the jurisdiction of a We return to clear that the the difference betreated as He, characterising judgment. But it is Thou, no less clear that level. Thou the Thou treated as stands on a different Examine praise from this point of view. The opposition of desire to love of the opposition of Having not having. Desire may a very important illustration is to Being. Desire is, in fact, having and be regarded as autocentric and hetero- once (the polarity of the same and the other). But love transcends the opposition of the same to the other by planting us in ccntric at Being. Another essential application: the difference and freedom October between autonomy my note of February i6th). (cf. 2yd I notice for the first time today that there is, in content, the idea of can pour out, spread abroad, etc.). There is in (it content what there is in possession, a potency. Content is not purely potential action spatial. October 2jtb Must examine, more closely than I have done as yet, the nature relative dependency of being and having: our possessions swallow us up. The metaphysical roots of the need to preserve. Perhaps this links up with what I have written elsewhere about of the alienation. The self becomes incorporated in the thing possessed; not only that; but perhaps the self is only there if possession too. But the self disappears in the full exercise creation whatever. It only reappears, it seems, of an act, is there of any when there is a check in creation. October 2$th must develop what I said about the uncharacterisable. We cannot think of a character without attaching it to a subject by the I link expressed by the verb to belong. 152 But this supposes a sort of pattern order whose nature we must which try to essentially carries 'also'; this character is make with it We are here in an clear. the use of the expression chosen among others. We are not, however, faced with phenomenalism would have us believe, there is always the transcendence of the qui. But is not this transcendence a function of the attitude which I take up in face of the quit a collection, as Is it not a projection? All this is still very misty in my mind; it is an idea that needs bringing into focus. To think of somebody else is in a manner to affirm myself in of this somebody else. To put it more accurately, the other is on the far side of a chasm, and there is no isthmus between us. But face this chasm or separation and stand outside myself is something that I realise if I only stop picture myself, if you like that better. October jotb Here view. my is world of the The world of the Same and identifiable. In so far as I remain the its Other round myself with a zone of separation. Only on condition take my stand in this zone can I think of myself according category of Having. To identify is is the prisoner, I surthat I to the in fact to recognise that some- thing, or someone, has, or has not, such-and-such a character, and, conversely, such-and-such a character is relative to a possible identification. can only have meaning or interest if we manage to conceive of something beyond this world of the Same and the Other; All this a beyond which reaches out to the ontological as such. This where the One thing we I?' is difficulties begin. can see immediately; that the question has no equivalent on the level of Having. To cannot, by definition, give an answer for myself (cf. March). 153 this 'What am question I my notes of last n OUTLINES OF A PHENOMENOLOGY OF HAVING 1 I want to make this evening is that the ideas about to put before you are in my opinion nuclear ideas. They contain the germ of a whole philofirst which point I The am sophy. I will confine myself to the mere adumbration of a great part of it; for if elaborate its sound, others will probably be in a position to various branches in forms which I cannot imagine in it is detail. It is also possible that direction I I hope to indicate, think I should tell you, some of these may first of all, it on were, and think whose general to inquiries how it was that I came to ask The myself questions about Having. grafted, as tracks, turn out to lead nowhere. general consideration which were more particular was and begin by referring to them. from having myself, but it will be the simplest way of sharing with you the interests which occasioned these researches, otherwise they must seem to you hopelessly abconcrete, I it is I apologise for stract. you (The essential to to quote written summary you have their general sense.) In the Journal Metapbysique I following problem, which seems gical order. H<> w we have first tion is for the I asked, is it had already begun at first to to state the be of a purely psycholo- possible to identify a feeling which time? Experience shows that such an identifica- (Love may appear in such disprevent those who feel it from suspecting its often extremely difficult. concerting shapes as to 1 received will have given Paper Delivered to the Lyons Philosophical Society in November, 1933- 154 observed that an identification of this sort can be real nature.) I can be compared with somehave a cold or the measles. In that realised in proportion as the feeling thing I have, in the sense that I it case, can be limited, defined and intellectualised. So far as this can form some idea of it and compare it with the previous notion I may have had about this feeling in general. (I am, of course, just giving you a skeleton at present, but never mind.) can be done, I On the other hand, I went on to say, in proportion as cannot be isolated, and so distinguished, able to recognise it. But is I am there not really a sort less my feeling sure of being of emotional woof running across the warp of the feeling I feat/e? and is it not consubstantial with what I am, and that to such a degree that I cannot really set how I it got and so form a conception of it? This is glimpse of something which, though it was not before myself my first a clear-cut distinction, ences, I was at least a sort an imperceptible shading-offfrom a feeling am. Hence this note written on March 'Everything really comes we have and what we this in of scale of subtle are. down But have to a feeling I i6th, 193 3 differ- : to the distinction between what extraordinarily hard to express must be possible to do so. What it is conceptual terms, though it we have obviously presents an appearance of externality to ourselves. But it is not an absolute externality. In principle, what we have arc things (or this what can be compared comparison is possible). I to things, precisely in so far as can only have, in the strict sense of the word, something whose existence is, up to a certain point, independent of me. In other words, what I have is added to me; and the fact that it is qualities, etc., in possessed by me belonging to the thing some manner and within words, in so with powers. From is far as I added I to the other properties, have. I only have what I can certain limits dispose of; in other can be considered as a force, a being endowed We can only transmit what we have.' this point I went on to consider the extremely difficult 155 question of whether there was anything in reality which transmit and in Here, then, what manner it could be thought is one approach, but for instance, concentrate my it is attention we cannot of. not the only one. I cannot, on what is properly called from the body-as-object considered by physimy body without coming once more upon this almost impeneologists trable notion of having. And yet, can I, with real accuracy, say that as distinct is something which I have? In the first place, can my such be called a thing? If I treat it as a thing, what is this body as my body T which so treats it? 'In the last analysis/ I wrote in the Journal Mtta- end up with the formula: My body nothing. Idealism has one further resource: physique (p. 252), 'we am object), I declare that I body. But am which the act posits the objective reality not this a mere sleight-of-hand? I fear is so. The is (an it can of my differ- ence between this sort of idealism and pure materialism amounts almost to nothing/ But we can go much we can show particular, deeper than the consequences of such a this. In mode of representation or imagination for our attitude towards death or suicide. Surely killing ourselves is disposing of our bodies (or lives) as something we have, as though they are things. And an implicit admission that we belong to ourselves? But almost unfathomable perplexities then assail us: what is the though they are surely this is self? What is this mysterious relation between the self and ourself ? It is surely clear that man who the relation is quite a different thing for the refuses to kill himself, because he does not recognise a do he does not belong to himself. Beneath this apparently negligible difference of formulae, may we not perceive a kind of gulf which we cannot fill in, and can only explore a step right to at so, since a dme? I limit myself to these two pointers. There shall notice may be others, and we them as they arise, or at least some of them. 156 It now becomes necessary to make an analysis. I On that this analysis will not be a reduction. must warn you the contrary; it will we are here in the presence of a datum which is opaque and of which we may even be unable to take full possession. But show us that the recognition of an step in philosophy, consciousness We irreducible is and it already may even effect an extremely important a kind of change in the which makes it. cannot, in fact, conceive of this irreducible without also conceiving of a Beyond, in which it is never resolved; and I think that the double existence of an irreducible and the Beyond goes far towards an exact definition of man's metaphysical condition. should first notice that the philosophers seem to have always We shown a sort of implicit mistrust towards the notion of having (I we must ask whether this is a suitable expression, say 'notion', but and I really think it is not). It almost looks as if the philosophers had on the whole turned away from having, as if it were an impure idea, essentially incapable of being made precise. The essential ambiguity of having should certainly be underlined from the very beginning. But I think that we cannot, at present, exempt ourselves from going on to the enquiry I am suggesting today. I Gunter was prosecuting this enquiry when I first came across Hcrr book Ueber das Haben (published at Bonn by Cohen, Stern's 1928). I will content myself with quoting these few lines: 'We have a clear body. We have. ... In ordinary talk we are perfectly we mean by this. And yet nobody has thought of attention upon what, in common parlance, is intended about what turning his by the word "have"; no one has attended to it as a complex of relations, and asked himself in what having consists, simply as having.' Hcrr Stern not only rightly observes that mean 'I when I say am conscious of my body': 'I have a body', but neither do I I do mean something exists Which can be called my body'. It seems that there must be a middle term, a third kingdom. Herr Stern then plunges 157 into an analysis steeped in Husserl's terminology. I will not follow know (for he has told me so himself) that the results of his" enquiry have now ceased to satisfy him. It is now time, I think, to proceed to the most direct explanation we can manage; and we must take care not to have recourse to the language of German phenomenologists, which is so often untranslatable. him It there, especially as I in these circumstances, I have myself made may be asked why, use of the term phenomenology. I reply that the non-psychological character of such an enquiry must be emphasised as strongly as possible; for it really concerns the content of the thoughts which it is trying to bring out, so as this that they I may expand in the light of reflection. should like to having is start plainly in its with the strongest clearest we other cases where this sense (or perhaps call it this emphasis) limiting cases headaches, for is weakened almost is examples and most exact I can, where sense. There are should more properly to vanishing point. Such can and should be practically neglected (having the absence of the article instance, having need, etc. a revealing sign here). In cases of the in significant cases, kinds, so long as it seems that we do we first type, however, that are right to distinguish is, two not forget afterwards to ask ourselves about the relations between them. Having-as-possession can itself develop varieties that are very different, archy. But the possessive index and arranged, as it were, in a hieris as clearly marked when I say, 'I have a bicycle/ as it is when I assert, 'I have my own views on that/ or even when I say (and this takes us in a slightly different direcwill provisionally set aside tion), *I have time to do so-and-so/ We having-as-implication. In to be a certain content. all That quid relating to a certain qui having-as-possession there does seem is too definite a word. Call it a certain who is treated as a centre of inherence or I purposely abstain from the use 6f the word subject, because of the special meanings, whether logical or epistemological, apprehension. 158 which connotes: whereas it reason it is and our task difficult for this very to try to blaze a trail for ourselves across territory outside the realms either of logic or of the theory of knowledge. Notice that the cendent to the difference attempt to when I qui is from the This say, 'I have a bicycle/ or 'Paul has a is all when we built where the qui is its full The perfectly simple. somehow in mean I just that there is a of level or degree between the two of them, but I make no pronounce on the nature of that difference. It is as clear 'James has very original ideas about cated taken as in some degree trans- transcendent By quid. first force, when bicycle', as I say that'. position becomes more compli- observe that any assertion about having seems to be on model of a kind of prototypical the no other than and given its If a 'you have' or a 'he has' statement, myself. It looks as if having is full is weight, possible, when it it is is within only 'I felt have'. only possible in virtue of a kind of transference, and such a transference cannot be made without losing something in the process. This can be made somewhat clearer which plainly joins possession to possession is actual ence by exercising and it literal. we power, Power or by resisting if is think of the relation at any where the something which after all, it it rate comes I experi- to the same thing. I fact should be told here that having is often apt to reduce itself to the of containing. But even if we admit that this is so, the im- portant point must sail be made, that the containing itself cannot be defined in purely spatial terms. idea of a potentiality. prevent, to resist, and To to spreading, spilling out, And It contain is oppose the tendency of the content towards and escaping. so I think that the objection, if it examination, against the At the me always to imply the to enclose; but to enclose is to seems to is one, turns, man who makes it. we can discern heart of having, then, 159 on a closer a kind of suppressed dynamic, and suppression which lights cant that the is certainly the key-word here. It is this up what I call the transcendence of the qui. It is signifirelation embodied in having is, grammatically, found to be intransitive. The verb 'to have* is only used in the passive in though we saw passing before us a kind of irreversible progress from the qui towards the quid. Let me add that we are not here concerned with a mere step taken exceptional and specialised ways. by the subject carried out reflecting It is as upon having. No, the progress seems to be by the qui itself: it seems to be within the qui. Here we must pause for a moment, as we are drawing close to the central point. We can only express ourselves in terms of having when we are moving on a level where, in whatever manner and whatever degree of transposition, the contrast between within and without retains a meaning. This is completely applicable to having-as-implication, of which it is now time to say a few words. It is really perfectly clear that when I 'Such-and-such a body has such-and-such a property,' the property appears to me to be inside, or, as it were, rooted in the say, of the body which it characterises. I observe, on the other we cannot think of implication without also thinking of hand, inside, that force, however obscure the notion may be. I think that we cannot avoid representing the property or character as defining a certain efficacy, a certain essential energy. But we are not at the end of our investigations. Reflection will, in fact, now bring before our eyes the existence of a kind of dialectic of internality. To have can certainly mean, and even chiefly mean, to havefor ones-self, to keep for one's-self, to hide. The most interesting and typical example is having a secret. But we come back a secret secret at because covery once to what because is I I said keep it; could reveal inherent in about content. This but also and I it, and it. The at the possibility contributes to 160 secret is same time, its it is only only a of betrayal or dis- definition as a secret. This not a unique case; is it can be whenever verified we are con- fronted with having in the strongest sense of the word. The of a possession characteristic being shewablc. There is is a X in one's portfolios, parallel between having drawings by which can be shewn to this or that visitor, and having ideas or strict opinion on this or that question. This act of shewing may take place or unfold before another or before oneVself. The curious thing is that analysis will reveal to us is far as I shew my own views to myself, I myself become someone else. That, I suppose, devoid of meaning. In so that this difference is the metaphysical basis for the possibility of expression. I can only express myself in so far as And now we I can become someone else to see the transition take place from the myself. formula first we can only express ourselves in terms of having, when we are moving on a level implying reference to another taken to the second one: There as another. remarks just is no contradiction between now on have*. 'I The statement this 'I formula and my have* can only be made over against another which is felt to be other. In so far as I conceive myself as having in myself, or more exactly, as mine, certain characteristics, certain trappings, I consider myself from the point of view of another from this other except after having with him. but first I do not separate myself implicitly identified myself When I say, for instance, 'I have my own opinion about imply, 'My opinion is not everybody's*; but I can only exclude or reject everybody's opinion if I have first, by a momentary that,' I fiction, assimilated Having, it and made it mine. therefore, is not relations, far from it. It found in the would scale of purely there be meaningless. It and is interior found, can no longer be than more and height depth of musical tone. really separated, any And here, I think, it is the tension between them that is important. rather, in a scale We L must where now externality internality return to having-as-possession in 161 its stria sense. M.B.H. Take the simplest case, possession of any object whatever, say a picture. From one exterior to its point of view possessor. It is destinies are also different. The less permissible is it is And to harp is should say that spatially distinct on having and upon qui and proper to things, it may be So it absolutely that this far as this quid subject to the changes lost or destroyed. is and the quid, not simply an external conjunction. But in so a thing, their possession, the this externality. It between the and consequently this object is from him, and yet this is only a superficial view. stronger the emphasis placed certain that there is a link link we and chances becomes, or is in danger of becoming, the centre of a kind of whirlpool of fears and anxieties, thus expressing exactly the tension part of the order of having. It may be said that I can that object in possession It is, is on easily my possession. which is be indifferent to the But in an fate essential of this or that case, I should say that the only nominal, or again, residual. the other hand, very important to notice that having already exists, in a most profound sense, in desire or in covetousness. To desire is in a manner to have without having. That is why there is a kind of suffering or burning which desire. It is really the expression of a sort is an essential part of contradiction; it of ex- from an untenable position. There presses the friction inseparable is also an absolute balance between covetousness and the pain I feel at the idea that I am going to lose what I have, what I thought I had, and what I have no longer. But if this is so, then it seems (a point we had noticed before) that having in some way depends upon time. Here again we shall find ourselves confronted with a kind of mysterious polarity. There is certainly a two-fold permanency in having: there is the permanency of the qui, and the permanency of the quid. But this permanency is, of its very nature, threatened. It is willed, or at least wished, and it slips from our grasp. The threat is the hold exerted 162 by the other qua before which other, the other which may be am I so painfully feel that I the world itself, hug which from and I be torn me, thing desperately try to may it in to and it into a form porate single and myself, myself A desperate, hopeless soluble complex. and to myself this I I. incorindis- struggle. This brings us back to the body, and corporeity. The primary object with which I identify myself, but which still eludes me, is my own body. We may well think that we are here at the very The heart of the mystery, in the very deepest recesses of having. body is the typical possession. Or is it? Before pursuing this further, let us return once more to having - as-implication. In this, the characteristics to which I have been drawing attention seem to disappear. Let us go right to one extreme end of the ladder which links up abstract and concrete, and consider the statement, 'A certain geometrical figure has a certain property'. I confess that I cannot, without recourse to pure sophistry, find in this anything at all like that tension between external and internal, that polarity of the same and the other. proper question whether, in taking essences to me for what I ence which is we are not in the body or But possession Having I species exhibiting certain making a sort of unconscious transferThat point last analysis unjustifiable. not press, at any rate not now, for interest. a of have just said of the geometrical figure seems to cover also the living characteristics Having It is therefore into the very heart it seems to I will me of secondary think that the setting-up of my body as the typical marks an essential as such is stage in metaphysical thought. essentially something that affects the qui. It is never reduced, except in a completely abstract and ideal way, to something of which the qui can have the disposal. Always there is a sort of boomerang action, and nowhere is this clearer than in the case of my body, or of an instrument which multiplies its which powers. Perhaps 163 this is an extension of it, or has some analogy with and the slave as Hegel has defined it in The Phenomenology of the Mind. This dialectic has its spring in the tension without which real having does not and cannot exist. the dialectic of the master The we point are discussing now lies at the very heart of the world of every day, the world of daily experience with its dangers, its anxieties, and its techniques. At the heart of experience, but also at the heart of the unintelligible. For the fact must be faced, that this tension, this fateful double action, may at any moment turn our lives into a kind of incomprehensible and intolerable slavery. Before going further, let us once again sum up the position in which we stand. Normally, or (if you prefer it) usually, I find myself confronted with things: and some of these things have a relationship with me which is at external: it once peculiar and mysterious. These things are not only is as though there were a connecting corridor between them and me; they reach me, one might exact proportion as I am say, underground. In attached to these things, they are seen to power over me which my attachment confers upon them, and which grows as the attachment grows. There is one particular thing which really stands first among them, or which enjoys an exercise a absolute priority, in this respect, over it exercises over me considerable degree, them my body. The tyranny depends, by no means completely, but to a upon the attachment I have for it. But and most paradoxical feature of the situation I seem, in the resort, to be annihilating myself in this attachment, by sinking this is the last myself in this body to which I cling. It seems that my body literally devours me, and it is the same with all the other possessions which are somehow analysis hung upon my body. So that in the last new point of view Having as such seems attached or and this is a to have a tendency to destroy and lose itself in the very thing by possessing, but which controlled it. It seems that now it is absorbs the master who it began thought he of the very nature of my body, or of 164 my instruments in so far as should tend to blot But if I I treat them out, although it is as possessions, that they I who possess them. think again, I shall see that this kind of dialectic possible if it starts And me from an of desertion which makes act once opens up the way this observation at to a it is only possible. whole new region. And yet, what difficulties we objections! In particular, could it find! true. it But yourself and there is has no power over you. it does not react it array of possible not be said, 'In so far as you the instrument as pure instrument, control What an upon you/ This is treat You perfectly a division or interval, hardly measurable by between or and thought, having something, using it: controlling and the danger we are speaking of lies just in this division or remarkable book he has just published on The Decisive Years and the state of the world today, someinterval. Spengler, in the very where notices the distinction that I am getting at here. In speaking of investments or shares in companies, he emphasises the difference between pure having (das blosse Halen), and the responsible work of direction which he insists upon the contrast between in the mass (Wertmtngi)* the difficult explain. 'Our objects vitally and treated as abstract, is when we now: and when we bound up with something mediate subject-matter of a personal creative it is truer of inertia in face of are in a state are themselves inert, but falser actively an real property (Besitz), in a piece of possessions eat us up,' I said just of us, strangely enough, which and money, something in this to throw indirect light piece of thinking which I am now trying to land, for example. There upon the head of the undertaking. Elsewhere falls to are more serving as the im- act, a subject-matter perpetually renewed. (It may be the garden of the keen gardener, the farm of a farmer, the violin of a musician, or the laboratory of a scientist.) In all these cases, we may say, having tends, not to be destroyed, but to be sublimated and changed into being. 165 Wherever there is pure creation, having as such transcended is or etherialised within the creative act: the duality of possessor possessed is lost we illustration in a living can think reality. of, and This demands the most concrete and not mere examples taken from category of material possessions. I the am thinking in particular of such my ideas and opinions. In this case, the word on a meaning which is at once positive and threatening. pseudo-possessions as 'have* takes The more my own I treat ideas, or even convictions, as some- my something I am proud of (unconsciously perhaps) as I might be proud of my greenhouse or my me and thing belonging to the stables more very inertia (or so as and opinions tend, by their towards them, which comes to the same surely will these ideas my inertia thing) to exercise a tyrannical of fanaticism in and in fanatic, all its power over me; shapes. What other cases too, alienation of the subject it that is the principle happens in the case of the seems, a sort of unjustified is the use of the term is unavoidable here of the thing, whatever it may be. That, in my opinion, is the difference between the ideologist, on the one hand, and the in face thinker or artist dangerous of slaved to a bound The the other. human ideologist types, because he pan of himself which has seen a connexion examination. He on one of the most is is mortified, unconsciously en- and this slavery is to manifest itself outwardly as tyranny. There, may be guard all The thinker, which on deserves serious the other hand, is by the way, and separate continually on of his thought. and the whole of his against this alienation, this possible fossilising lives in thought is a continual state of creativity, always being called in question from one minute to the next. This throws light, I think, on what I have left to say. The man who remains on the plane of having (or of desire) is centred, either on himself or on another treated as another; the result is the same in cither case, so far as the tension or polarity goes 166 which I was emphasising just now. This point needs a much more detailed development than I can give it at present. The notion of the self, and of one's-self, should be firmly seized upon. really We should then realise that, contrary to the belief of many idealists, particularly the philosophers of consciousness, the self is always a thickening, a sclerosis, and perhaps who knows? a sort of apparently spiritu- alised expression (an expression 0/"an expression) of the body, not taken in the objective sense but in the sense of my body in as far as it is mine, in so far as my body is something I have. Desire is at the same time auto-centric and appears to its itself to appearing so be hetero-centric is itself a neither that of the Thou. better, self, say that it when it is really auto-centric, but But we know very well that it is of the self and the other; it is trans- fact. the level possible to transcend in charity. and in love cended both is we might hetero-centric; Love moves on a ground which nor that of the other qua other; I call it the should think a more philosophical designation would be if it could be found; but at the same time I do think that I abstract terms here us, might betray and land us once more in the the He. region of the other, Love, in so far as distinct from treated as the subordination reality at my deepest the breaking to me think, to level of the more truly will say so Along I am by the way, a self and the other, appears that the science it reality, myself love as call the essential ontological datum. I of ontology will takes full cognisance of the comes first. these lines, I think, we can see what I said transference. It seems plain to between the thing and v its is to be understood underlying our mental picture that, by the uncharacterisable. or as of things, subjects possessing predicates must be a desire, love a superior me than not get out of the scholastic rut until fact that love opposed to self to of the tension between the be what one might and desire or as characteristics 167 me characteristics, there that the distinction cannot have any meta- shall it is, physical bearing: admits of the use of the word from others; but at the we say, purely can only be too, that characteristics phenomenal. Notice, an order which asserted in The characteristic is picked out we cannot say that the thing is a 'also*. same time, of characteristics. Characteristics cannot be juxtaposed, and we do not juxtapose them except in so far as we ignore their collection specifying function but that as objects different flavour them as treat units or homogeneous entities; a fiction which does not bear examination. I can, is an apple, a bullet, a key, and a ball of string of the same nature, and as a sum of units. But it is quite speaking, strictly and treat with the smell of a flower and and digestibility its of a dish. In so colour, or the consistency, far, then, as characterisa- tion consists in enumerating properties, placing one beside the other, an absolutely external proceeding; it is it and misleads us, any circumstances, gives us the least opportunity of reaching the heart of that reality which we are trying to characterise. But, never, in speaking philosophically, the really important point to recognise is that characterisation implies a certain setting of myself in front of the other, and (if I may cutting-offof me from it. say so) a sort of radical banishment or I myself bring about myself implicitly coming to a myself (though bounded by I its limited thing that It is probably am outlines. It I halt, this banishment, by separating myself, and treating not conscious of so doing) as a thing is only in relation to can pkce whatever I this implicitly am trying to characterise. man who plain that the will to characterise implies, in the exerdng it, a belief at shows us how inclined to think that speaking, is illusory that he can make The Leibnizian idea ofcbarac- once sincere and abstraction from himself qua himself. teristica universalis is we far this pretenthn forget how the position of a thought can go. But of taking 168 its am untenable, metaphysically which believes that place itself over against things in order to grasp them. certainly develop a system I it It can can bearings by things, a system of increasing and even infinite complexity: but its aim is to let the essence of things go. To say that reality is make an ambiguous and and we must be perhaps uncharacterisable is certainly to apparently contradictory pronouncement, careful not to interpret it in a way which conforms with the principles of present-day agnosticism. This means :-If adopt that attitude to Reality, would presuppose, slips its away from ghost. I am my which all efforts to characterise I it once cease to apprehend it qua Reality: it eyes, leaving me face to face with no more than I at deceived by the inevitable coherence of this ghost, and pride, when in fact I ought of the doubts soundness of my undertaking. by Characterisation is a certain kind of possession, or claim to and so sink into self-satisfaction rather to be attacked possession, of that of a little reality which cannot be possessed. It the construction is abstract effigy, a model as English physicists call which it, of a will not lend itself to these tricks, these deceptive pretences, except in the most superficial way. Reality will only play this game with us in so far as consequently are guilty we cut ourselves off from it, and of self-desertion. we raise ourselves towards Reality, and approach it more nearly, we find that it cannot be compared with an object placed before us on which we can take bearings: and we find, too, that we are ourselves actually changed in the process. If, I think, therefore, that as as I believe, there is essentially different trine, then an ascending scale of dialectic, in a sense not so as one might suppose from the Platonic doc- this dialectic is two-fold, but also to the being into the nature of such a that such a philosophy doctrine, for to myself at and who apprehends relates not only to reality I cannot, at this time, go dialectic. I will be content to point out would it. give a totally new direction to the example, of the Divine Attributes. I confess that, any rate, the attributes of God are exactly what certain post-Kantians have called Grentzlegriff. If 169 Being is more uncharacterisable (i.e. more unpossessable and more transcendent it has more Being, then the attri- in proportion as in every way) do no more than express and translate, in terms that are completely inadequate, the fact that Absolute Being is as a whole butes can which rebellious to descriptions has less place ourselves, and reducing it fit anything but what an object before which we can reducing ourselves, to some extent, to its measure, to ours. God can only be given to me as Absolute will only They Being. will never fit Presence in worship; any idea I form of Him is only an abstract expression or intellectualisation of the Presence. I must never remember when this, I try to fail to handle such thoughts; otherwise the thoughts will suffer distortion in my sacrilegious hands. And so we come at last to what is for me the essential distinction the central point of my essay published in a few days on The Ontological Mystery, to be the distinction between problem and in the paper you have just heard. mystery, already presupposed I venture to read now a passage from a paper delivered to the Marseilles Philosophical Society. It will from now as the appendix to a play, 'In turning my attention such as logical problems, came to le Monde what one Does Being last year appear in a few days Cassf. 1 usually thinks of as onto- exist? What is Being? etc., I to observe that I cannot think about these problems without gulf open beneath my feet, namely, This I, I who ask can I be sure that I exist? What qualificaquestions about being, tions have I for pursuing these inquiries? If I do not exist, how can seeing a I hope exist, new to bring them to a conclusion? how can I be assured that I do? comes first into my head, I Even admitting that I do spite of the thought which do not think that Descartes' cogto can be In of any help to us here. The co&ito, as I have written elsewhere, is at the mere threshold of validity; the subject of the coyto is the epistema severance, ological subject. Cartesianism implies 1 Published by Desclfc de Brouwer. 170 which may be anyhow, between intellect and and an exaltation of the fatal tion of the one, life; its result is a deprecia- other, both arbitrary. There ihythm only too familiar to us, for which we an are bound explanation. It would certainly not be proper to deny the legitimacy of making distinctions of order within the unity of a living subject, who thinks and strives to think of himself. is here an inevitable to find But problem can only the ontological tions, and for the living arise beyond such being grasped in his full distinc- unity and vitality. This leads us to ask what conditions are involved in the idea of working out a problem. Wherever a problem is found, I am working upon data placed before me; but at the same time, the general of affairs authorises state myself with It is, as is this me to carry on as if I had no need to trouble Me who is at work: we have just he is here simply presupposed. seen, quite a different matter about Being. Here the ontological status when the inquiry of the questioner be- comes of the highest importance. Could it be said, then, that I am involving myself in an infinite regress? No, for by the very act of so conceiving the regress, whole nising that the which assertion I placing myself above it. I am recog- remains within a certain reflexive process am am am I an rather than which I pronounce asser- advance into the realm of the metaproblematic, that Thereby we is, of mystery. A mystery own tion of which is I the place, a problem invades them, and so is and not the subject. which encroaches upon its data and transcended qua problem/ We cannot now go on to make further developments, indispensible though they are. I will limit give definiteness to myself to one example in order to my conceptions, and that shall be the mystery of evil. I am naturally inclined to consider evil as a disorder look into; and even I try to its make out hidden ends. its causes, the reason for How is it 171 that this its which I existence, machine is so defective in its Or functioning? apparent but real, in is this apparent defect due to a defect, not a kind of spiritual presbyopia my own vision, or astigmatism? If so, the real disorder would remain unmasked it. But ceases to be evil I lie in myself, and yet which simply recognised, or even contemplated, suffered, in fact I think it simply ceases to be evil. I only really grasp where would objective in relation to the mental censorship evil it as evil in proportion as it touches me; that am involved in it in the sense that one is involved in is, busi- This being involved is fundamental, and I can only discount it by an act of the mind, legitimate in some cases, but fictional, and which I must not allow to deceive me. ness. Traditional philosophy has tended to reduce the mystery of evil to the kind problem of evil. That evil, love and death is why, when it so often gives the impression of being it touches a game, or a kind of intellectual sleight-of-hand. realities The more of this idealist more strong the impression; for the thinking then more deeply intoxicated with an emancipation the philosophy, the subject is which is in fact deceptive. ought now (though there is hardly time) to go over the whole of the first part of my paper, and try to shew how light can be thrown upon it by these distinctions. It seems clear to me that the realm of I having is identical with the realm of the problematic and at the same time, of course, with the realm where technics can be used. The metaproblematic is in fact metatechnical. Every technic pre- supposes a group of previously condition of its working; is it is made abstractions which are the powerless where full-blooded Being in question. This point might be drawn out in several directions. At the root of having, as also at the root of the problem or the technic, there lies a certain specialisation or specification self, connected with that partial alienation of the self which mentioned earlier. And this brings us to the examination of a and I of the this is distinction which, to me, seems extremely important and with 172 which I will end tinction between It is essential this already overloaded lecture to note that autonomy is above is a heteronomy presupposed and rejected. that 'I the radical formula of autonomy. that tension I mean the dis- autonomy and freedom. all the negation of want to run my own life* here that It is between the Same and the Other, which we can is sec the very We should further recognise, I think, pulse of the world of having. that autonomy bears on any realm which admits of administration, however conceived. It in fact implies the idea of a certain sphere and can be more activity, closely defined circumscribed in space and closely interests, whatever the time. interests are, when Anything can be treated as a sphere or district with fixed boundaries. a great extent, treat this sphere of can be in the nature of with relative ease And further, I can, to my own life as capable of being administered by another or by myself (myself here meaning the not-other). I can administer anything which admits the comparison, however in- with a fortune or possession. But it is quite different when the category of having can no longer be applied, for then I can no direct, longer talk of administration in any sense, and so cannot speak of autonomy. Take, talents. To for example, the realm of a certain extent a talent literary or artistic may be administered, when its when his talent resides in him possessor has taken the measure of it, as a possession. administration But is for genius, properly so-called, the idea a complete contradiction; for genius to be always outrunning tions. A genius' is man is literally nomy, whatever itself and it is spilling over in all direc- a genius, but has talent (the expression meaningless). we may have I really of such of the essence of 'to have think that the idea of auto- thought of it, is bound up with a particularisation of the subject. The more I enter into the whole of an activity with the whole of myself, the less kind of reduction or legitimate sopher it is is less to say that I am autonomous. autonomous than the 173 In scientist, this sense, the philo- and the scientist less autonomous than the mous technician. The man who is in a certain sense, most fully involved. is, most autono- Only this non- autonomy ofthe philosopher or the great artist is not hetcronomy any more than love is hetero-centricity. It is rooted in Being, at a point either short all and in a sphere which transcends the sphere, indeed, which I reach in con- of self or beyond possible possession; templation or worship. self, And, in my view, this means that such non-autonomy is very freedom. not our business here even to outline a theory of freedom, if only because we should have to begin by asking whether the idea of a theory of freedom did not imply contradiction. Here I will It is point out just one thing: the self-evident truth that in the scale of sanctity light, and of artistic creation, where freedom glows with its fullest never autonomy. For the saint and the artist alike, auto- it is and the We swallowed up in love. might perhaps seize this opportunity to show that most of the defects of Kant's philosophy are essentially bound up with the fact that he centricity self are entirely had no suspicion of all this; he never saw that the self can and should be transcended without there being any need for heter- onomy to replace autonomy in consequence. I must come return to my to a conclusion, and this is not easy. I will simply preliminary formula. I said then that by the recognition of an irreducible, but that and we we should end should also find such a duality something beyond seemed to me part of the very nature of man's metaphysical condithis irreducible; I said that What is this irreducible? I do not think that we can, properly speaking, define it, but we can in some measure locate it. It is the tion. ontological deficiency proper to the creature, or at least to the fallen This deficiency is essentially a kind of inertia, but apt to turn into a son of negative activity, and it cannot be eliminated. On creature. the contrary, our certain first task is to recognise it. makes possible a disciplines; each of It number of autonomous and subordinate them certainly representing danger to the unity far as it tends to absorb partial justification. activities it, And but each also having therefore it of the creature in so its own worth, and also necessary that these is and autonomous functions should be balanced and harmonised by the central activities. In these, man is recalled into the presence of mystery, that mystery which is the foundation of his very being, and apart from mystery of religion, art which he and metaphysic. 175 is nothingness: the grand PART TWO FAITH M AND REALITY M.B.H. I SOME REMARKS ON THE TODAY IRRELIGION OF shall do best today to define the attitude my 1 of mind which regards the religious question simply as obsolete. This attitude I demands a careful definition. not necessarily the same thing to say that the religious question It is deny that a religious datum persists, provided that the datum belongs to the realm of feeling. By definition, this datum is obsolete and to could not be obsolete; but a custom or idea can be obsolete, and so can a belief in so far as it can be treated as an idea. There would also be no point in denying that religion needs explanation when regarded as a fact, i.e. as a body of institutions, rites, etc.; it would even worth noticing that with a certain type of mind, the greater its separation from any kind of religious life, the greater also is its curiosity about the origin of so indeed be absurd to strange and diverse a try. set (It of phenomena, and about the reason obviously important place in 'The religious question is is human history.) obsolete', they mean When 'there is for its people say no longer any point in asking whether the assertions of religion correspond with anything in reality. There is no point in asking whether a having the attributes traditionally connected with the word God; nor whether salvation, as believers call it, is anything Being exists but a certain form of subjective experience which they clumsily of myth. Everybody/ they add, 'will realise why/ here quote a passage from Bertrand Russell, as it seems to me interpret in terms I shall 1 Lecture delivered on December 4th, 1930, to the Ffdfrathn des Associations d'tudiants cbrttiens. 179 most significant. 'That Man is the product of causes which prevision of the end they were achieving; that his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no had no origin, his are but the no hero- fire, ism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual beyond the grave; life that all the labours of the ages, all the devo- tion, noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must in- the inspiration, all all the evitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, 1 rejects them can hope to stand/ Russell's private religious beliefs do not, of course, concern us here. The interest of the passage lies rather in its being a typical that no philosophy which statement of the negative creed implied in the attitude we set out to examine. There are undeniably some people who claim that you can found a religion even upon this cosmic despair. I must say that I cannot see use of terms, Perhaps which to I how this can be maintained without a shocking mis- and one day I it will throw a am going work from will explain little why. on the tortuous path down light to take you, if I mention three consecutive points tions, or three steps in a scale. They at of view once that I propose three distinct posi- are: (i) the point of view of pure rationalism, or the philosophy of Enlightenment; (2) applied of applied science; (3) the philosophy founded on the supremacy of Life, or the Vital Principle. science, or rather, the philosophy First, let sort us look at the peculiar idea of modernity involved in the of rationalism no longer we are trying to describe. 'Today,* they say, 'it is possible to believe in miracles or the Incarnation.' 'A man of 1930 cannot possibly accept the doctrine of the resurrection of the body/ These arc 1 examples taken at random. The Philosophical Essays, p. 60. 1 80 interesting thing about them, to me, is their emphasis on the date, which is treated as a point of view, one might almost say a specially favourable position for seeing things call it, if you like, an observatory. They seem to be representing Time or History as a space containing fields of unequal quality; and accordingly they use epithets like * 'advanced' and retrograde* to imply approval and disapproval; such epithets are a striking feature country. political psychology of our own will be quite ready to admit the fact that the latest They phase in time of the may show previous stage. This a falling-back by comparison with the to be expected, because enlightened is minds may find themselves mixed up with reactionary ones at some particular point in time. aries may upper hand get the But they apparent setback. later the A power-problem may human mind for the will set out again it and the reaction- so that there moment, assure us that towards the light. 'The light/ arise, is an will not kst; sooner or on its victorious march A word (or conception in the vaguest of the term) whose importance cannot be over-estimated. I believe that if we really thought about it, we should find it to be the sense secularised expression and stripped to the last ounce of meaning of an idea worked out by the Greeks and still more by the Fathers of the Church. will not press the point at present. Their manner of presenting this idea of progressive enlightenment is two- We fold: sometimes it is very significant here) aspects are closely The almost first word obscurantism being and sometimes technical-scientific. The two ethical-political (the bound up with each other. point to notice bound to make is this. capital A philosophy of enlightenment of the popular trick is of comparing humanity, considered throughout the whole of its history, with a single person passing escence to as an from childhood manhood, and adult, so on. to adolescence, from adol- The enlightened mind regards itself who can no longer allow himself the pleasure of repeat- ing the nursery stories that so delighted his childish age. But this 181 is an oversimplified picture, and open to the gravest objections. might well ask whether childhood has not We own peculiar values which the grown man its a happy trustfulness, a peculiar candour he is to land up at a dogmatism to and unable bear him by experience any fruit but jejune cynicism. Many great truths come into play in this connection, and should preserve at all costs, unless dictated have been admirably expounded by such writers as Peguy. And there is a second point, sail more important. Most people would agree without question that the progress of enlightenment cannot take place without a progressive elimination of the anthropocentric element. They enlist on and perfectly natural to think that the Earth verse, and that man wonders of modern their side the astronomy, thus: 'Before Copernicus Galileo', they say, was 'it the centre of the was Uni- occupied a special position in what they still But astronomy has put the Earth and Man in their proper perspective. Now we can see that the place they occupy is almost infinitesimal compared with the immense size of the visible called Creation. universe/ All this seems aimed at taking down the simple-minded and ridiculous pride of mankind, which thought itself the supreme expression and perhaps ultimate purpose of the cosmos. But please notice satirising mology. human It is at once that this pride, in spite of in fact exalting it. its philosophy only seems to be foundation of positive cos- There is a shift of position, and what an extraordinary one it is! It is true that Man regarded as an object is thrust back into the ranks, a mere object among an of science infinite crowd of other But objects. Man still possesses that claims to transcend the material world to which he Science. We will not call it Human one thing is reduced Science, for these philo- sophers are doing their best to dehumanise and deracinate Science, and consider it by itself in its intrinsic movement. So they will talk to us of Mind and Thought (in capitals). It would be a mistake not to take the capitals seriously, because they exactly express the 182 attempt to depersonalise Mind and Thought. They are somebody's mind, or somebody's thought; they are presences. flexibility of ideal system, with a free the philosophers will be at pains are a sort They of their own, as out. A writer like M. Brunschwicg one now in my alive to build Mind up this rationalism (this spirituality, as he, such a man, I it) say, as M. very far from believing that this development of is or Science is the unfolding in Time of an absolute Principle, existing for itself through all Eternity, like Aristotle's Hegel's Absolute Mind. metaphysical to point who has done more than any- opinion, quite wrongly, calls Brunschwicg, no longer no longer range and fictions. To Nous him, Nous and Absolute Mind or are just The Mind of his own panegyrics is still called devoid of all attributes which can give the word any meaning. 'No doubt', he concedes at the end of his book on The Progress of Consciousness, 'No doubt a God who has no point of God, but it is contact with any uniquely important event in space or time, a who God has taken no initiative and assumed no responsibility for the physical aspect of the Universe; who has willed neither the ice of the poles nor the heat of the tropics; who cares neither for the hugeness of the elephant nor the minuteness of the ant; neither for the destructive action of the microbe nor the constructive reaction of the globule; a God who never dreams of punishing the sins of ourselves or our ancestors; who knows no more of perjured men than of rebellious angels; who grants success neither to the predic- tion of the prophet nor to the miracle has no dwelling-place either in Earth or Heaven, perceived at no special point in history, and can be translated into none: this who speaks no language God, to the primitive mentality or the coarse supernaturalism so clearly professed James, is what he would call an God who who can be of the magician; a abstract ideal. But by William for a thought away from its own beginnings, a subtler and more highly trained, this become has thought which which has travelled further 183 God is nothing its who one abstracts himself is abstract, pride of the We only what is for it is whom through An important passage, worthy of serious intrinsic truth-value/ consideration. from nothing and since concrete reality aware throughout of the far more terrible thanks God that he is free from the primitive are man who mentality, and Remember the phrases I have quoted to you already, 'In our time it is rejoices in his adult status no longer permissible . . ."; without misgiving. 'A man of 1930 could not allow . . / and so on. But take of a Christian philosopher like Saint Bonaventure, Man appeared to be the centre of the Universe, he 9 was so only as being an image of God. 'Essc imapnem Dei, he care. If, in the eyes writes, 'non est bomini accident, sedpotius substantiate, sicut esse vestigium nulli accidit creaturae* man (To be an image of God but of his essence, just as it is not accidental to cannot be an accident to a foot- print to have been imprinted.) Plainly, the 'ridiculous anthropocentric attitude* is really just applied theocentrism. To Saint Augus- Saint Thomas and Saint Bonaventure, God is the centre, and God alone. But today it is the human mind, dehumanised, stripped tine, of all power, all presence, and all existence, and then put in God's place to act as His substitute. It is sophy. plainly very difficult to think one's Its initiates are am few. I the religious question obsolete way into such a philo- sure that most people would not subscribe to it, who think but would an agnosticism modelled on Spencer or a materialism such as Le Dantec's. This is, of course, worse from a speculaprefer to adopt tive point of view, but in our minds. it What finds more numerous and are the footholds of all, and I firmer footholds of a doctrine am like M. not afraid to say so. I Brunschwicg's? Pride, shall be contradicted; they will say that it is not personal pride, for the Mind they are telling us about is not the Mind of an individual. first My first answer is, that it is, or tries to 184 be, the Mind of everybody. And we know very well, from Plato onwards, democracy flattery simply transposed democracy. bound what a deal of will allow itselfand this idealism, after And ail, is The idealist is Mind and then we confront him with the (as that is not all. in the end to substitute himself for the have an individual to deal with. Let us he thinks) shocking spectacle of a Christian astronomer. an astronomer believe in the Incarnation or go to How can Mass? The As an astronomer, put up this monster (or rather this amphibian) is a man of the twentieth century and the idealist can greet him as a contemporary. As a man who believes in the Incarnation, however, and goes to Mass, he is idealist's only hope behaving we is a distinction. to mediaeval like a or a child; and this is a pity. When ask the philosopher to justify his extraordinary dichotomy, he may call upon Reason and Mind will not convince us; especially till he is black in the face, but he when we see that he does not and even sociological arguments to account for these survivals in the astronomer, while he absolutely forbids us turn such arguments or analyses upon himself. He is a scruple to use psychological of 1930 from top to toe. And yet he is still invoking an Eternal Mind, but a Mind which has none the less been born; man who Its next incarnation will be, Heaven only knows. Frankly, find all this extremely incoherent. If a Marxist, for example, to tackle the idealist and tell him plainly that his I were Mind was a purely bourgeois product begotten of economic leisure, the idealist would have to take refuge in the realm of completely bloodless abstractions. I think myself that idealism of this kind cannot help being cornered, with concrete religious philosophy on one side, and impotent when is historical materialism just the history of a single (what is on the confronted with history life. It any other. who For it is real history, in in fact even if it either. Personally, I substitute the Cartesian concept 185 it has no feeling for tragedy, and worse) no feeling for flesh and blood think that people hemming of matter for the richly confused idea ofthefesh which is embedded in all Christian philosophy are doing anything but progressing in their metaphysics. There metaphysicians is an almost untouched task would do well here, and pure to focus all their attention or so I think: the task of describing the evolution and upon it, progressive confusion of the notions of flesh and fleshly existence in the history of philosophical thought. At bottom, idealism this a purely professorial doctrine, and is under Schopenhauer's partially unjust criticism of the academic philosophers of his day. (It was partially unjust, because there is a real feeling for concreteness and human drama in such falls directly writers as Schelling and Hegel.) In point of faq, philosophical idealism would very likely have had no appreciable effect upon the development of human thought, had I not found a redoubtable ally in it believe that the spirit serious obstacle, for all of applied science forms of applied science. is really in itself the many perfectly candid minds, most to the acceptance of the notion of religious life, or rather religious truth. Some rather complicated considerations arise here, and you must forgive me if my analysis seems somewhat over-subtle. I think we have reached the crux of the whole problem. By mean, in a general way, any branch of guarantee to man the mastery of a definite 'applied science* I learning object. which tends And so any applied science can obviously be regarded as manipulation, as a (The matter to itself way of handling or moulding a given matter. may belong to the mind, as in the science of history or psychology.) Several points here arc worth considering, (i) defined by the various handles which its A science can be object offers it. But con- is only an object in virtue of the handles it versely, an object itself offers us, and this is true upon the most elementary level, of simple external perception. For this reason there is a parallel 1 8(5 between advance in science ana advance in j\n ooject objectivity. is more of an object, more exposed if I may put it like that, when the sciences under which it falls are more numerous or more developed. An applied science is in its very nature perfectible. It can be brought to a higher and higher point of accuracy and always (2) adjustment. I that of nowhere would myself add else perfectibility that the inverse is but in the realm of applied science can and progress in an absolutely we strict sense. realm alone can perfection be measured, since and also true, speak In this equivalent to it is output. (3) This last point is perhaps most important of all. We are all power, in the human sense of the word, implies the use of applied science. The simple-minded optimism of the masses today is founded on this fact. No one could becoming more and more aware that deny that the existence of aeroplanes and wireless sets seems to the vast majority of our contemporaries to be the proof or palpable gauge of progress. But we should notice the victories. From live is apt to and at the reverse side too the price paid for such the scientific point of view, the world in look at one moment like a mere next like a subjugated slave. field for which we development, Any newspaper article about a disaster is full of the implicit suggestion that the monster we thought we had tamed is breaking out and taking its revenge. This is the point where applied science links now up with idealism. Man Mind but as technical power, and appears as of orderly arrangement in a world which is unworthy of him; a world which has not deserved him, and has to all appearance produced him quite haphazard or rather, he has is treated not as the sole citadel wrenched himself out of it by a violent act of emancipation. That is the full meaning of the Prometheus myth. I dare say a great many technicians would shrug ology kid at their door. their shoulders to hear so strange But if they are 187 a myth- simply technicians and nothing more, what can they do about immure ledge, it? Nothing. They can only own themselves in the fortress of their and refuse, in fact if not in unifying the world or reality. words, Some course, be made, because the desire strong, indeed it specialised know- problem of synthesis will, of to tackle the attempts at to unify is in fact irresistibly may be the very foundation of intellectual life. But compare these syntheses with the sciences themselves, they will always look relatively adventitious. 'They seem to be rather in the if you air/ we should say; an everyday phrase which wonderfully excompared with presses the lack of footholds offered by pure synthesis From now onwards a shadow seems to spread and make it more and more obscure. We can now only reality specialised science. over make out but the that there are different regions; they are sail in the light, way from one We cannot to another is obscured. be fooled by words. The And that is not the power must belong to somebody, surely? since somebody must exercise it. But who is this 'subject'? We come back again to our former concluworst. scientific The subject will himself be seen as the object of possible sciences. The sciences are distinct and multiple, joined by hardly sions. definable connections. proves It and experience naturally follows fully that the sciences themselves are less effective as sciences in proportion as they come to bear on realms where compartments can no longer hold. That psychology and psychiatry at present is these water-tight why the sciences of show such disappointing results. But now we problem. phrase it) are faced with an appalling and quite unavoidable subject who lies in his turn at the mercy (if I may so of applied science cannot be a source of clarity or a centre The of radiation; on the contrary, he can only enjoy a reflected light, a the sciences to be applied to him light borrowed from objects, since will inevitably be constructed on the model of the sciences directed upon the external world. They will therefore be the same in charac188 tcr, although transposed and inverted. To the admirable criticism lasting part of his work, I need only allude; I of Bergson, the most am sure there is no need for me to go But into details. might be it worth making just one further observation. Where the sciences thus extend their sway in all directions, there is one part of the subject and of concrete therefore which cannot be overrun, reality namely, the immediate feelings of pleasure and pain. And hand- in-hand with the amazing development of science, there goes, as we should expect, an intensification of the most immediate and also most elementary part of our 'gogd time* if you will. absolute rule or that practice we do I do not mean it the desire for a that this connection can be made good in every find that the general observation do it affective life: call two things go case. together, and thought will convince us is and a that this an But in is so. little We find in fact that unusually high development of the applied sciences goes with great impoverishment of our inner lives. The lack of proportion between the apparatus at the disposal of humanity and the ends outrageous. state I am it is called upon to realise seems more and more sure to be told that the individual in the scientific tends to be subordinated to social ends which go far beyond have often heard the sociological sophistry that the whole contains more than the sum of its parts. But the truth is that although it undoubtedly contains something him; but is this really so? We other than they do, all the evidence seems to falls on the debit side no reason why and a society show that the difference by a minus sign. There is of dunces, whose individual ideal is the is expressible spasmodic jigging of the dance-hall or the thrill of the sentimental and sensational film, should be anything more than a dunce society. It is obviously the inferior or rudimentary qualities in these individuals which draw them together. the way, between a society like this Church; for there the individuals There is the difference, by and a community like the do not swarm together mechani- 189 cally, but do form a whole which transcends them. Such a commu- nity, however, is only possible because its members have each them managed to keep inviolate that inner citadel called the soul, which all sciences as that it such are opposed. To my mind, the most to such a doctrine as Marxism can be raised serious objection that is this: ol to can maintain itself only in the struggle for own its supremacy; as soon as for nothing better it is supreme, it destroys itself and makes way than coarse hedonism. That is why many of the young people whom you see among you today, professing to be Communists, would, I am sure, go over to the Opposition at once if Communism were to win the day. These criticisms bring us indirectly to the definition of an order which stands in sharp and complete contrast to the world of applied sciences. Pure religion, religion as distinct from magic and opposed to it, is the exact contrary of an applied science; for it constitutes a realm where the subject is confronted with something over which he can obtain no hold at all. If the word transcendence describes anything whatever, it which opens between us a hold. No must be this the soul and Being whenever Being the absolute, impassable gulf refuses more gesture significant than the joined hands of the believer, mutely witnessing that nothing can be done and no- thing changed, Whether the is and gesture say that the feeling awe, love and is that he is comes simply to give himself up. one of dedication or of worship, we can still behind no question here of a imply that the activity elaborates, is it is fear all enter into the realisation of the Holy, it passive state; to assert that of the technician, as that would be to he takes, modifies or the only activity worthy of the name. We must, of course, recognise that we are in a confusion today about this point and many others. It possible for us to avoid a picture of activity some and simultaneously. Notice that there sense physical. of utter almost im- which would be We can hardly help seeing 190 state is it in as the starting-up of a machine, a machine of which our bodies perhaps also the model. cal idea, taken are the spring and We have completely lost sight of the classi- up and enriched by the Fathers of the Church, that might be worth contemplation is the highest form of activity: and it while to ask ourselves why. The moralistic point of view in all its forms, with its belief in the almost exclusive value of works, seems to be very largely responsible for discrediting the contemplative Kantianism still more, by bringing in constructive activity formal principle of knowledge, has had the same disastrous virtues. as the tendency; it refuses all positive reality to the contemplative virtues, it only by the fatal separation which it made for the first time between theoretical and practical reason. I admit, of course, that no true contemplation can be practised except from within a realist were and metaphysical system realism in question, St. which go into the nature of the of course, necessarily the same as will not here is not, Thomas's. There is this act is no reason, then, to deny not simple apprehension. to define, particularly the aspect We might say that self that open and it was worship can be an It is which act: but in fact extremely difficult is not mere apprehension. the act of simultaneously throwing one's- offering one's-self up. They would grant us that as a psychological description: but opening to what? offering to what? Modern first subjectivism is at once up in arms, and formulation. But I think it is beyond we are back at the dispute that if pure be considered as a standpoint attained subjectivism ought once for all by the modern mind, then the religious question would really to indeed have to be regarded as obsolete. One contemporary example is of particular use here. It is quite obvious that religion is impossible in such a universe as Proust's; and if, here and there, we come across something which belongs to the religious category, this just means that cracks have appeared in the structure of Proust's universe. But I think that this subjectivism cannot be for one 191 moment regarded as an established position. general directions of my reasons I have only time to indicate the for thinking this, and My own position on this point that of M. Jacques Maritain, and into details today. completely with with the also ground German common has I believe that Descartes disciples only opposed realism because they nodon of it. go agrees almost of intentionality held by theories contemporary phenomenologists. will not had a 'Despite their claim to treat of sense and his partly materialist and intelligence/ and Kant never came beyond the threshold, because they spoke of them in the same way as they did of other things, and had no knowledge of the realm of mind.' I should says Maritain, 'Descartes like to add a parallel observation: they made illegitimate borrow- ings from optics in their epistomology, with effects that can hardly be exaggerated. Here is another example of science ing-point for the effacement of spiritual I think, then, that of this sort that one it is is made the start- reality. only by leaning on unfounded postulates led to treat worship, for example, as a mere having no link with any reality whatever. But if we go behind them, if that is, we climb resolutely up the hill down which attitude modern philosophy has been then I believe it is slipping for more than two centuries, possible for us to recover the basic idea of sacred knowledge: and this alone can restore its reality to contemplation. I am a little ashamed to offer you superficial and hasty outlines of such very complicated and important ideas. But I cannot hope to do more than reconnoitre such an enormous territory. As Peter Wust, the German metaphysician, writes: 'If consider the St. Augus- Middle Ages, and up to the present time, we feel witnessing a more and more successful process of tine, through the that we are we Pkto and evolution of the theory of knowledge from secularisation being applied to that holy part which can only be 9 called the intimum mentis. we moderns have to of the human mind He goes on to say that proceed by way of a metaphysic of knowledge 192 slow and painful to the of something which was recovery given in Middle Ages through a mysticism veiled in mystery and awe. think we could put this more simply by saying that we may have the I lost touch with the fundamental truth that knowledge implies and done, knowledge in it has first and purification, in fact previous askesis its fulness And been deserved. progress of applied science, is when that all is said not vouchsafed except where more here once I think that the and the habit of considering knowledge knower wholly un- a technical operation which leaves the itself as affected, has powerfully militated against a clear The matters. askesis or purification must view of these lie, it is clear, chiefly in from speculative thought in so far and simply the faculty of making objections. progressively detaching ourselves as it is purely critical perhaps wretched/ said Renan, and Claudel was angry with the phrase because it sums up with terse cynicism what I 'Truth is should like to call the Philosophy of the But. When Barres in his Notebooks speaks of 'the mournful melancholy of Truth', he speaking from the heart of this philosophy. kind of pessimism; and sacred knowledge negation. A negation which is It is Here again, I not always a starting-point, but we case, the fruit we touch on one of the most sensitive points call a nerve-centre, if you will. For most people, it the incurable imperfection of the here own think, to say that the religious question is obsolete And the root of every (as I called it) is its flat perhaps more often, and certainly in Claudel's of a heroic struggle. of our subject is world is is the same as to say that now an established truth. cannot overestimate the practical importance of the kind of negative apologetics which atheists habitually use: they seize every chance to show that the universe falls below our demands and can never expectation which we survival, can never be N them, and that the metaphysical within us, whether it be inheritance or satisfy feel fulfilled by things 193 as they are. M.B.H. But and this is surprising their insistence on the imperfection of the world goes hand in hand with a complete inability to think of evil as evil, or sin as sin. Here again we see the technical approach at work. The world leaves is treated as a machine whose functioning much to be desired. Man is luckily at hand to correct some of the faults; but for the moment, unfortunately, the whole is not in his added that these faults or defects of working control. It should be are nobody's fault: for there somebody: otherwise there even Man is is is nobody there to blame. Only man simply an impersonal mechanism. quite prepared to treat himself like the rest, is And by the process of inversion or internalisation of which I spoke above; to sink himself into this depersonalised cosmos. to see in himself certain defects He is quite prepared of working, which must be curable by taking various measures, and applying various kinds of individual or social therapeutic action. This presents us with a most illuminating connection: the relation between worship on the one hand and consciousness of sin on the other; for sin cannot be dealt with by any form of science, but only by the supernatural action of grace. I May the fact that the relation implied in science only does the the reality human draw your is attention to here reversed? For not involved in worship elude all possible control subject, but also the subject seems, inversely, to pass by under the control of an incomprehensible choice emanating from the mysterious depths ofBeing. This body of facts can alone give meaning to the notion of salvation. Salvation is quite meaningless in an intellectual climate dominated by the belief in a natural order science to restore, wherever it is found which to it is the business of have been accidentally upset. The idea of an order or natural course of life, to be re-established if necessary by suitable means, brings us to the third and perhaps the most central battlefield of the debate. 194 Here the basic idea is neither the progress of enlightenment nor the advancement of tech- nical science, but the as a source march of Life itself, taken, not as a value, but of values or a basis for evaluation. A little while ago I heard of a characteristic remark made by one of the people most at the centre of international social work. 'I don't object to mysteries on principle/ he said, 'in fact there may be mysteries for all I know. But I can't feel of the Trinity. it can be to me.' instance, the doctrine with me what use or any personal I don't see interest in, for what it has to do Now this seems to me a most The worthy man could have become passionately interested in a discussion of fiscal justice, or the principles of significant attitude. social security, for he would have recognised but he thinks the Trinity is The word its literal Vital', taken in its 'vital* character: merely a subject for idle speculation. sense, is what should occupy us Notice that there is a very obvious connection between the idea of life (or the primacy of the Vital) and my earlier remarks about here. the spirit of applied science. For the mastery of objects all, relative to life is still, after considered as something of intrinsic value, some- thing which is its own justification. I will not harp on the origin of this idea, and will merely remind you that Nietzsche gave the completest expression to the will to power, precise. But in other therefore, I want it In Nietzsche the idea of life at first glance writers the idea retains must be added, its its may slides into appear more rich vagueness basic ambiguity). The (and single point To many minds it is life which is the unique beacon of all values (and some of these who so believe to stress criterion or it. an idea which is this. think themselves Christians; here indeed food for thought!). For instance, take the elementary distinction between right and wrong. In their eyes, an action will be right if it tells in favour of life, is wrong if it tells against it. Notice at once that from something on pass judgment. Questions about the this point which we neither need nor can 195 of view life is value of life are no longer in order, for value. But here an ambiguity with inextricable of all, it is rational basis, evident. But difficulties. once life is itself the principle of all arises before us, presenting What life are we us talking about? Or life in general? Mine? Yours? First at to clear that this doctrine, can only be what is which seems to have no by being immediately justified the self-evidence attached if not to self- my own about my own life, and the special sort of warmth I feel radiating from it? Is it not linked up with the irreducible datum of feelings my own self-love? Unfortunately it is also perfectly clear that the people to use Life as their criterion of values, especially who claim where conflicts by no means referring to my life qua mine, but to life in a Swiss schoolmaster friend of mine who general. For instance, believes in the primacy of Life (though he would not interpret it in arise, are the least like Nietzsche) will be at pains to point out to his pupils that the practice of chastity, or, in a very different sphere, the practice of co-operation, we is flout these great duties immediately bound up with we are flouting apparent here. First, Life in a tendentious way so that my Life friend has it is itself, Life, etc. and that if Two points are begun by defining coloured by certain spiritual needs in himself, though he has no direct awareness of them. Secondly, if we take cannot draw from ate though it life the we we can from the immedi- generally, yet vaguely in the mass, same doctrine as restricted intuition felt exclusively about my life in direct experience. A philosophy of Life is therefore destined by its own nature to be simply claims to translate certain biological truths into general terms; in which case, the field of such truths being enormous, it might be used to justify contradictory theories. of the extraordinary actions which (I need not remind you, perhaps, ambiguous. It either one of our most notorious contemporary writers claims to justify by 196 parallels in the Or animal kingdom.) else it make will unjustifiable projection, and, ceasing to consider menon or group of phenomena which life a bold but as a pheno- are biologically observable, will see instead a kind of spiritual force or current; in which will at once lose think, for my own part something unprincipled in this attempt to eat one's cake that there is and have it its experimental too; here is status. I a doctrine of empirical data what is which case it presents as the expression only a free choice of the mind. really The more concrete our examples, the more hopeless the confusion we find. axiom If any sophy which be this: 'I is implied in the scattered and unformulated philo- colours or underlies present-day literature, am the same as my life. I am my life. To will one day be spent The entirely spent/ means take far fundamental is identity. that secretes spiritual that it is as it seems to say that myself my life shall be body of fictions, pure survivals, stand between me and Do The claim not let they are poisons which the task flow, as far as I day us ask how this metaphysically possible, for that enquiry out of our way. and on writers suppose that only a which should be regarded this that it making is error or mis- would that take us too life somehow may block its stream at any moment, of consciousness to dissolve these poisons and can, with the stream it has thus cleared. Now these are certainly metaphors, and I am sure they originate in the philosophy of applied science of That where is not important here. we ourselves shall The which I spoke just now. important thing to see here is be led by so understanding the relation between and our lives or (to put it more accurately) by holding this view of intellectual honesty. I think that we here touch upon the most serious problem raised by the literature of the last few years, and especially by M. Gide. I can only approach it from one direction. It should be noted that this concern 197 for perfect sincerity corre- spends incontestably and explicitly with the desire for freedom. I refer you to such books as Les Nourrituw Ternstres an extraordinarily significant piece of evidence. But what is the price of less than a complete renunciation of all claims For mastering my life is in effect subordinating it freedom? Nothing to master to some my life. principle. Even supposing sively acquired heritage, form. This phase of fossilised But present. will it if I am still my that this principle is not a pas- represent a phase of my past in past has to shake off the no right to yoke of the govern my past, there is only by giving myself over to the moment and forbidding myself any form of commitment, any kind of vow. Surely you will agree with me that this liberty, in the cause of one way of doing which it, no am I it putting constant constraint content; in fact well aware that it is M. Gide who is perhaps rather its myself, has nothing in I am not the Gide of today, the rationalist like Voltaire, but the Gide of Ley Nourritum will praise the fulness of the unclouded instant, savoured Temstres in all the refusal on of all content whatsoever. novelty. But it is all too clear that dialectic has the last word here: it teaches us that novelty cannot be savoured except by the unconscious reference to a past with which it is contrasted; and that, strangely enough, there the succession of one they are all is a satiety of novelty; one can be weary of new thing after another for the very reason that new. And this brings us within sight of another fact, too important to though it is difficult to speak of it without smacking of the stale old sermons you have so often heard before. But our recent experiences have brought the old truths into terrible reliefpass over, would it were not so! despair, the rejection the truth that nothing comes nearer to of being and suicide, than a certain way of moment. There is obviously no extolling Life as the pure present need for us to declare, like that young and impetuous Catholic apologist, M. Jean Maxence, that 'Kant 198 calls to Gide, and Gide to Andre Breton, and Breton leads Jacques Vache to suicide.' 1 That really way of describing the genealogies of thought: indeed, in passing from Kant to Gide, M. Maxence is making out a case which cannot be upheld. I do not think that rather too is sweeping a outcome of Gide's doctrine of the moment; but only because the soul does not lack resources and sometimes has defences of which it is itself unaware. The story of M. Gide and his despair the necessary is works proves Instant is this well not only a carrying with it enough. In limiting position, literary destined, is but also a A destined, and man who will bfc position literary advantages; and on the whole nised as such, at least implicitly. would be opinion, this doctrine of the my it is recog- really lived by it destined to the worst of spiritual catastrophes. I will find no between draw a single conclusion salvation for mind ovij^r^^nd from these observations. or soul unless o^it life. The we We can see the difference distinction may be in some ways a mysterious one, but the mystery itself is a source of light. To say 'my being is not identical with my life* is to say two different things. First, that since I am not my life, my given to me; in a sense unfathomable to man, life I must have been am previous to it; before I live. Second, my being is something which is in the moment my life begins, and must be saved; my from jeopardy being is a stake, and therein perhaps lies the whole meaning of life. And from this second point of view, I am not before but beyond my I am comes life. life This (and is the only possible if it is not an way ordeal, I here again, I hope very much to explain the ordeal do not see that these what else words it can will not of human be). stir And up in our minds memories of stereotyped phrases drowsily heard in the torpor too often induced by a Sunday sermon. When Keats meaning of the word spoke a Vale of soul-making*, and declared in the same certainly not a Christian in the strict of the world as 1 Positions, p. 199 218. letter of April 28th, 1819 (p. of Men are as the Lives 256 Colvin's edition) that 'as various become their souls, and thus so various God make individual beings, Souls, Identical Souls, of the sparks of his own essence', he had the same idea as mine, though does in his inimitable style it takes on far greater splendour and freshness. me to my last point. This brings I realise perfectly that the words 'grace* and 'salvation* give some of you a heartbreaking feeling of staleness. There is nothing new them for voice or vision. The air around them has been breathed long that has become it stifling. Now the surrealist experiments of the day this is at the self-hatred and we so bottom of all need to escape to some- this thing completely unknown. They contain nothing, not partially justifiable, so long as in I believe, that is eyes from the by the desire for away our turn devilish perversion so often cloaked novelty. But two observations Grace and salvation are necessary here. are no doubt commonplaces, like their peers, birth, love and death. They can none of them be tricked out anew, for they are all unique. The first man falls time a or to die, he cannot likely feel that feel was it the in love, or he is first child or prepared for death. life. Sin, grace and that is not hearing stale my lie at the legitimate expression. up may only answer. There this be old religious stuff; as facts is, is another too, the as far as it yet. I believe need for renewal concerns forms of note I and the human reverence commanded by reputation, has been development. But more would end my lecture. I am sure enjoyed by some modern schools of thought, on that the reputation to be a father the very heart of our destiny. to a point; that And is He would same with genuine most deeply that in the sphere of religion, is that he news. time anyone had ever loved or had a It is salvation, as words, they are not, since they But knows shown to or corresponding to this have a destructive I believe that there is also 200 effect on spiritual a danger in thinking that philosophico-theological ideas such as Aquinas, we find in St. Thomas for instance (not doctrine, for that is another story), are our day, just as they stand. I am inclined to say that they are suited to some minds but not to all; and that the profoundly true intuitions expressed in the Thomist formulae suitable for everybody in would gain greatly in force and intelligibility if they could be pre- were newer, simpler, more moving, and more closely in tune with our own experience and (if you will forgive the word) our own ordeal. But this presupposes a refashioning which would only be possible after an immense sented in fresh terms; in words that work of criticism and preliminary reconstruction. Toc^y we are nearly buried under the rubble. Till the rubble has been cleared away it is hopeless to think of building. lingly thankless, yet I think that religious life recover its believe, and end their It is needed by the already otherwise sink into the lethargy more by those who are as are feeling their way and surely longing to agonising struggle, if they would only admit of devitalised doctrine. who a thankless task, appal- must be done; only thus can soaring power. who would convinced Christians, yet unbelievers; it It is It is needed still it; who fear that they may be yielding to temptation if they surrender mounting faith and hope they feel in their hearts. It is sheer madness to call this speculative labour a mere luxury. It is, I repeat, to the a necessity, demanded not only by think that those first and above who all say (in perfect reason but also by charity. good I faith) that Christianity is a social matter, a doctrine of mutual help, a sort of sublimated philanthropy, are making a grievous and dangerous mistake. Their use of the word 'Life* is (as we have seen before) charged with ambiguity. I think that the man who says 'It doesn't matter what you think so long as you lead a Christian life* is committing the worst of offences against the Truth, that we and should the Life*. fight our The first Him who said 'I am the Way, Truth. It is on the battle for religion; 201 ground of Truth on this field only can it be won or lost. In the issue of that fight, man will show whether he has indeed betrayed his mission and his destiny; we shall see, then, whether or no loyalty must remain the standard of a little chosen band of saints, advancing to their certain martyrdom, as they go for those who have chosen the and indefatigably praying shadows. 202 II SOME THOUGHTS ON FAITH I 1 wish to make one thing clear from the start: not the point of view from which I hope to treat the subject you can gather that for yourselves but the personal attitude I intend to take up, and the kind of support I hope to obtain from my hearers. In point of fact, it is not my desire to speak to you simply as a Catholic, but rather as a Christian philosopher. Let me put it like this. It so and life, happens that I have come to the Christian faith late in a winding and intricate journey. This journey I do after many reasons and not regret, for especially because I can still recall sympathy with those who are yet on the road, following out, often with great difficulty, tracks resembling those which I stumbled along in my time. it vividly enough to feel a particular This metaphor cannot be avoided; but of course it is clumsy and in some ways even scandalous. I can in no sense boast of having arrived. I am 'convinced* all. convinced that is Perhaps a it I see more clearly than I did, though word at once too weak and too intellectual. That would be better to say this; the freer is and more detached parts of me have struggled up into the light, but there is still much of me that lies in shadow, untouched by the almost level of the dawning sun: much of me is still, as Claudel would put uncvangelised. This part of me can still have a fellow-feeling for rays it, groping souls, travellers and seekers. But even this view is superficial. For I believe that no man, however enlightened and holy he is, can ever 1 really arrive until the others, all the others, Lecture addressed to the Federation des 28th, 1934- 203 have started tudiants Chrtticns, out February him. That is a great truth, and applies to philosophy as well as to religion, though philosophers have on the whole neglected to follow it, for reasons can I which I will not go into at present. now explain the general direction of the task I have set mywant to make it my business to reflect before those who self today. I my footsteps, and so perhaps to stretch out a helping hand climb the dark hill of Destiny, our common fate. never climb alone, though we often seem to do so; belief in follow in them to We as they loneliness some in me the first cases the illusion to dispel, the first first obstacle to overcome; temptation to conquer. There is no need to say that I chiefly address myself to the less fortunate you; to those tain, or no is is and worse) are persuaded that there that the adventure of Life is is devour or dedicate extinction will no summit and reduced to tramping miserably about in the mists; the process will go on total among who despair of ever reaching the summit of the moun- (what ascent, for its till when death, incomprehensible vacuity. First, then, I will travellers I mean put myself in the place of those wandering believe even in a goal to be attained who have ceased to and a metaphysical goal, not a social one to the ceased to attach any meaning These wanderers are legion, and who have word 'destiny'. we must not deceive ourselves with the belief that they can be rallied by explanation or encouragement; yet I think there is one sort of meditation which has a rousing force. I think there is something which has greater power than art con- or poetry in the tragic state of the world's struggle today. crete metaphysic, in experience, tune with the deepest notes of our personal may have a short time allowed to A decisive part to play for me, I will try to indicate few people may not disdain to follow. 204 souls. In the some roads that a many THE UNBELIEVER I want draw out to attempt to IDEA OF FAITH S the more or who formed in the minds of those faith implicit idea of less honestly believe as a cer- we shall have to distinguish several cases to which unbelief as we know tainty that they it do not possess can always be more or neglect the case (which less it. For the sake of analysis, accurately reduced. I shall purposely anyhow is I think very rare) of those who reply to our questions, 'To me the word faith is meaningless; I do not even understand what it could denote/ The man I am thinking of would be bound, if we pressed him, to adopt one of the following positions: (1) Either he is themselves (2) its would join the ranks of those who think that faith simply a weakness and a form of credulity, and congratulate on being free of it. Or else, far from deriding possessor, but that this he will say that faith is a boon to denied to himself. The second case it, boon is is ambiguous and must be further subdivided into three possibilities: (a) He may mean but unfortunately it 'Faith is admittedly a convenient deception, does not deceive me*. In this case he preening himself on a sort of superiority, which admission of the painful price exacted by it. despises what he seems or pretends to envy, so he as the unbeliever () Faith may which really is in the same case who regards faith as a mere weakness. also be regarded as a pleasant idiosyncrasy, rather like a feeling for music. ous. For the is balanced by the But fundamentally he is But man of faith is this second alternative in fact the music-lover, of course, making is not. is itself assertions Are these ambigu- about reality, assertions valid? we are at present considering would no for the man who makes them*. But this is equivalent to saying that they are false, for the man who makes The unbeliever whose case doubt say 'Yes, they are valid these assertions claims that they are for everybody himself. 205 and not only for Last of all comes the case, more frequent than most people imagine, of the unbeliever who regards faith as a real communion (c) with a higher reality for the reality is unfortunately believer speaks I find it man who has it, but confesses that this not revealed to him. In this case, the un- of faith almost as a blind man speaks of sight. particularly easy to describe the last case, since for many was my own. I even wrote that I believed in the faith of although I had none myself. But I have realised since then it years others that this was a contradictory attitude, and that it was anyhow a deep delusion to think that I could really believe in the faith of others if I had none of my own. The fact as far as this, we are in either implies faith or is faith. period, do not 'I is that when we have already come state of mind which an open and expectant truly know At any rate, I wrote during the same whether I have faith or not: I do not know what I believe/ And so today I state of the without am inclined to think that the state expressed by of uncertainty this confession man who is really, though not consciously, the thinks he can roundly declare himself to be faith. FAITH A FORM OF CREDULITY Now let us return to the first two cases I described, and particuidea that faith is larly to the a form of credulity. Does it and can it correspond to the believer's idea of his faith or to his experience of it? at once meet with a difficulty, a paradox. Faith is a virtue: We can this be squared with interpreting faith At first we sight but credulity is as credulity? should say 'Certainly not*. Virtue a weakness, a relaxation ofjudgment. that the believer It is a power, seems then and the unbeliever are using the same word for two unrelated things. I foresee that the unbeliever will reply something like this: 'The believer holds that faith a kind of humility. But to us, it is is a virtue because just this humility 206 it implies which seems so despicable, for it touches a part of our nature that to humiliate, wrong namely our judgment. And we think it is whence comes need of humbling the judgment? From radical cowardice. Life in the world presents us with a terrible picture. Yes, but the truly this wise man, whose world in the wisdom face. is also heroism, He knows is that, outside not afraid to look the himself and his own reason, he has no hope of finding any refuge from the misrule which governs the world. The believer, on the other hand, fancies that there trust an ultimate refuge beyond the world, in which he puts his apd to which he makes his prayer. He fancies that the God he is invokes virtue is pleased by his worship; what we unbelievers know and so he comes to treat as a very well to be nothing better than escapism and voluntary blindness/ FAITH AN ESCAPE This is the centre of the problem. grasp the idea of faith as belief is absolute and it is We have, I think, managed to held by the unbeliever takes the when the un- form of rejection, almost of disgust. But we are bound to ask ourselves about the position to which such a judgment refers. Observe in the is first place that the interpretation of faith as escape a pure construction, the facts. that my For instance, I was born at faith of moral and in many stability cases does not correspond can assure you from a time my own with experience when I was in an exceptional state and personal happiness. Otherwise I might have To what does this invention of the unbeliever been suspicious of it. correspond? We might do well here to consider the penetrating remarks made by Scheler in his book Resentful Man. The unbeliever, he said, takes it for granted that all true values must be universal, and such that He says that something which can be neither demonstrated nor communicated, and which does not they are admitted by everyone. 207 force itself irresistibly may upon all reasonable creatures, whoever they no more than a purely be, has therefore be legitimately set aside. concern for ment of the view that ever he may not and the due the reason for this to a grudge so deep-seated that all too often say, whatever interpretation he now and then, it is unconscious; by the have-nots towards the haves. which he wants mitted that, is widespread universality? Why this appeal to the judgcomer, whoever he may be? Scheler inclines to the felt destitution But what and may first it is the grudge subjective significance strives to to call emancipation, it What- put on this must be ad- the unbeliever will see himself as a have- believer as a have. UNBELIEF BASICALLY EMOTIONAL There is, an emotional element lurking beneath the apparand rational assertion or claim made by the un- then, ently objective more, deeper thought on the matter will believer; and what us that could not be otherwise. it is show Let us examine once more the assertion of the militant unbeliever. It comes down to this. 'I know there is nothing there: if you try to it is just because you are too persuade yourself to the contrary, cowardly to face this terrible truth/ I know there is nothing there. Try to take in the monstrosity of that assertion. It is offered, or at least should normally be offered, as the conclusion of infinite research. In fact, such research is impossible. Our position in the universe does not allow us even to begin it. So weak is our position that we cannot of one of our fellow-men and judge whether it if the pessimists seem to be reportrepays his trouble in living it. So the results of a research, they are just deceiving us. It is an uneven value the life ing conscious imposture. 'Pessimism', I wrote at the time when I was unsure whether I believed or not, 'can only be a philosophy of dis- and the pessimist appointment. It is a purely polemical doctrine, himself or who holds it is making an attack upon upon an opponent 208 outside himself. The It is the philosophy of unbeliever, then, who is really the "Do you? Well, same I don't"/ as the absolute pessi- must not be held up as the defender of objective truth. There in fact no attitude more subjective, and more insidiously subjec- mist, is than his own. tive, SCEPTICISM But are we not therefore driven into a kind of despairing sceptiwe not forced to say simply that certain persons have the cism? Are faculty of belief, as a given after all, this leads that and that indeed be enviable, but that, body has a given others have not? that this faculty us nowhere may and brings us to property, no conclusion, and we cannot know whether the delusion lies with the believers or the unbelievers? This position seems to be quite untenable, and why. say clearly What does this scepticism really imply? to saying to the believer, It finally comes down see something your should like to I that I can't, but the mistake No side. perhaps you judgment between us suppose that you can see is 'Perhaps you can may just possible. someone as well be on All the same, who is not really there." THE CONTRADICTIONS OF SCEPTICISM The whole is question here is whether, in voicing this doubt, one not unconsciously substituting, for the reality of faith, an entirely imaginary notion which is not in the deniable experience of the believer. When I least like the deep and un- my man, 'You thought you saw someone, but I think you were mistaken and that there was no one there,* we are both of us on the level of objective experiment, and this implies by say to definition that there are points o of 209 reference, verifications, and an M.B.H. impersonal (or rather depersonalised) check. make belief did not correspond with reality, to be My assertion can only means of ascertaining sense if there are that the other if an observer i.e. man's X, assumed normal and endowed with a normal sensory apparatus and a sane judgment, could be put in our place and arbitrate between us. But it is here, easy to see that such a substitution quite inconceivable is and that we cannot even imagine its being made. If we think about only be it, indeed, we shall see that the substitution can made on a level, or on a spiritual plane, where our individu- and momentarily reduced, for certain practical purposes, to a partial or partialised expression of itself. For instance, ality is I specialised, can very well say 'Come and someone with a more tell someone whose to stand here me what you nevertheless only and me tell if sight you subtle sense of taste, is see better than mine, so-and-so/ Or to 'Come and taste this and think of it.' Even in more complex cases, which employ some elements ofthe personality (normalis- we might them), I could say to somebody else, what would you do?' But I can no my place longer do it in cases where the whole of a person is involved: no one can put himself in my place. And faith, when it is most real and most able elements call 'Put yourself in like itself (for we must of course anical expressions here) of a is not consider most sure to issue its degraded or mech- from the whole being man and to involve him. This is not all. We must notice that the object of faith is simply not manifested with the characteristics which distinguish any empirical person. It mands and regard it cannot figure in experience, since transcends experience. If I as outside myself, it appears to essentially as being within myself, to myself, I between inside, vanish as and external, soon as faith entirely com- in some ways led to my consciousness still more to me than I can be more inward who invoke or assert it. internal am it This means that the distinction and the comes on 210 categories of outside and to the scene. An essential point this,: ignores it, though the psychology of religion by its very definition since it equates faith with a simple state of the soul, a purely internal event. but Much could profitably be drawn from this, now. If I were forced to use a metaphor, I I cannot attempt it should say that the believer thinks of himself as within a which at From new this meaningless. For you think there point of view the sceptic's attitude becomes if he says, 'Perhaps there is is somebody/ he is which leave outside itself the very thing ence. is assumed We pure nature, is there, where definition would in question: for the object implied in therefore, that as faith is all experi- revealed in more and more over the will triumph it which by to transcend the conditions must recognise, nobody appealing, either actually or by implication, to a corrective experience of faith reality once penetrates and enfolds him. its sceptics, who can only question the value of faith because they begin with a picture of it which caricatures it. It might be said that scepticism tends to also belief as attitudes treat belief and which, although of course they are mutually ex- clusive, are nevertheless related to each other as and thereby suppositions; mensurability. It is fails it iti all two alternative to appreciate their essential incom- not enough to say that the believer's universe not the same as the unbeliever's. flows un- directions and We must understand that integrates it, just as the it is over- world of the seeing man overflows and integrates the world of the blind man. UNBELIEF A REFUSAL But there is something else no less important. As the soul approaches more nearly to faith, and becomes more conscious of the transcendence of her object, she perceives more and more clearly that she is utterly incapable her own of producing this substance. For she more clearly her knows faith, of spinning it of herself, she realises more and own weakness, impotence and instability; and thus 211 led to a discovery. This faith of hers can only be she is or, more what? It which invitation pressure an adherence, exactly, a response. Adherence to what? Response to is hard to put into words. To an impalpable and silent fills her, or, to say it in another way, The her without constraining her. upon irresistible: if it would no longer be were, faith possible to a free creature, that mysterious and awful is, a creature which puts pressure is faith. Faith is not only who has been given the power of withholding himself. And so the problem stated at the beginning of this lecture appears under a new guise. From the point of view of faith and of the believer, unbelief, at any rate when it is explicit, begins to look like a refusal, refusal moreover I will which can take on many merely observe here that very often, perhaps most often, takes the form of inattention, of turning a deaf ear made by an noticed that inner voice to modern almost to enforce life all that is deepest in us. an apt to to the appeal tends to encourage this inattention, indeed by become debased and We must add who is tion, though here again it rests This inattention or distraction to look like is at mere routine am personal encounters. tance, which The ofjustifica- any time. The inattentive radiates like a light, transfigures the creature in one of those They to indeed a kind of sleep, from may be awakened just by meeting somebody who dwells. I where on nothing but a misunderstanding. which we can each of us awake which, that thus department- outside observer. Unbelief will this time have a shred faith should be It the have no power of intercommunication. religious faith seems to survive in a man it is it way it dehumanises man and cuts him reducing him to a collection of functions which it, off from his centre, alised, different forms. who attach man genuine whom an inestimable value are a spiritual fact it to of the highest impor- traditional philosophy, for reasons though unrecognised by are perfectly clear but irrelevant to our present discussion. virtue of such encounters is to rouse the inattentive to a reflec- 212 tion or return upon themselves, that I don't believe'? This is 'Am I really sure make them say to enough: if the soul really asks herself angry prejudices and parrot imaginings, she will be brought to recognise, not indeed that she already believes, but that she is in no case to say that she does this question in all sincerity, rejecting all not believe. unbelief, pride, not 'I and to fail Or perhaps it would made just then, be truer to say that the assertion of inevitably be tainted with would almost that completely honest unmask this pride. 'I cannot believe* in its and careful introspection could do not believe' ceases to own eyes, and tends to turn into look like 'I will not believe'. HAS HEROISM AN INTRINSIC VALUE? Fom point of view, the spiritual position of a this last Andre Malraux may be regarded as specially significant, man like one might almost say typical. His absolute pessimism about the world as stands has, as idea that its it (no doubt originally Nietzschean) not the wretchedness of man, but his reverse side, the what matters most is, greatness, not that he must do without succour and be resigned to doing without, but that he must not even man has not has taken grown full to manhood account of his desire it. To a Malraux, or reached his full stature until he own tragic author of La Condition Humaine, this In the eyes of the alone makes heroism possible. position. We stand here on the backbone of a steep ridge which keeps apart some ofthe most courageous minds of our generation. But we notice something that mean to assign that the value is an may intrinsic value to But there What heroism? It here attached to a kind of ardour subjective feelings about ally. well disturb us. is it of the no valid or man who is at once exactly does seems plain to it me and to the entirely striving to act heroic- objective reason why heroic ardour should be put higher on the list than any other sort, for instance, erotic ardour. You can only justify the hierarchy by bringing in an 213 new scale of considerations, which have nothing to do with heroism or ardour; for instance, social utilitarianism. But as entirely either soon as we idea from get on to that which we ground, started. we contradict the Nietzschean To a logical Nietzschean, social utility idol, one might almost say a low-grade idol. Of course I am perfectly prepared to admit that in a book like La Condition is an Humaine charity breaks out in two or three places; but it comes like a voice from another world. I think you can only link heroism and love together if you slur over the facts; they are irreducible except in a single case, the heroism of the martyr. I take that strictest sense, witness. there is no place word But in a philosophy which turns on in its refusal, for witness, since witness refers to a higher reality acknowledged in worship. THE DEBASEMENT OF THE WORD 'WITNESS* Like so many other important ideas, the notion of witness has become considerably debased. The first thing that occurs to us when we hear the word is the witness we may be called upon to give when we have been present at some event. And so we develop a tendency to think of ourselves as recording-machines, and to witness as the mere playing-over of the record. Hence we treat forget the important point about witness; its attestation. That is the essential here. Yes, but what is attesting? Not simply establishing a really nor simply asserting. fact; of my own free sense it and bind myself, but I do it given under the yoke of con- and would deny its own nature. In this being the closest and most mysterious union of useless brings into necessity this. will, since attestation would be straint When I attest, I liberty. There is no act more essentially human than At the root of it there is the recognition of a certain datum: but something else quite different. In attesting, I really proclaim, ipso facto, that I should be going back on myself, and yes even annulling myself, were I to deny this fact, this at the same time there is 214 reality of which have been the witness. I The denial, of course, may take place, as mistake, contradiction or betrayal, indeed. It is extremely important to show how tion are conceivable. Its spiritual value noticeable not beat where upon it has to do with a betrayal is degrees in which do us with the immediate, strident and dox which cannot be too attesta- becomes more and more those invisible realities obviousness of the objects of sense-experience. which and it strongly insisted irresistible We see here a para- upon. The realities to religious attestation refers are certainly transcendent: but from another point of view they look humble and beggarly could surely be no as if they really witness, the believer better needed that who attests them. There example of the incomprehensible, or perhaps rather supra-intelligible polarity which of faith. lies at the heart FAITH AND ATTESTATION Indeed, the closeness of the link between faith and attestation becomes fully apparent as soon as we touch upon the intermediary idea of fidelity. There cannot be faith without is not a movement of fidelity. Faith in the soul, a transport or ravishment: itself it is attestation. simply unceasing Yet here once more cannot one, resist we must interrupting us here with a question- and we come up dispute turn back to the unbelievers. 'What about justice they have against it the people at every stage They always the same of the unending who can fallen prey to, the only witness to the inmanifold suffering they have undergone, the abuses they have seen? How can they give their witness in favour of a higher reality?* Once more the stumblingblock is the problem of evil. I have already given a partial answer to this question, but I should like to point out also that the great; witnesses have certainly never been recruited from the fortunate of this world, but far more from the 215 suffering and the persecuted. If one single conclusion forced upon us by the spiritual history of faith is hindered, not by misgrowth fortune, but by satisfaction. There is a close kinship between satisfac- there is of mankind, and tion that the it is death. In all domains, but especially perhaps in the domain of the spirit, the man who to have everything he needs, is what is satisfied, already beginning to rot. Satisfaction is so often gives birth to the taedium which we may and admits himself the secret disgust, vitae, felt at times, one of the most subtle of all the forms of spiritual corruption. But of course this does not mean that a philosophy of attestation and faith which pagan is have need necessarily be a cult of moral pain. The quality from satisfaction is not pain, but joy. The neo- furthest critics this. They hope, and God. all We of Christianity have never had the fail to see the close kinship to the thankfulness must make a new least conception of which joins joy to faith and of the witnessing soul who glorifies use here of the distinction that M. Bergson so admirably drew between the Closed and the Open. Satisfaction is something that happens within doors, in a closed can only unfold beneath the open sky. It is radiant very nature; it is like the sun at noonday. But we must not let a spatial metaphor deceive us. The distinction between open and creature; but joy in its closed only takes Or, to go deeper on its full still, meaning when we when we are speaking are speaking of the of faith. free act of the soul, as she wills or refuses to acknowledge that higher principle her and is the cause of her being, and as which momently creates she makes herself penetrable or impenetrable to yet inward action without which she is nothing. 216 that transcendent Ill WUST ON THE NATURE PETER OF PIETY Wust writes, 'We philosophy to the Peter Astonishment/ r rom its beginning istonishment, ion. But 1 this is primitive it undamental metaphysical Doubt that period. is beginnings of called (Uraffect) true to say that a point a priori to all rational way specula- in which were already being overthrown no more than a second a priori of relations really philosophical thought, if I iction, a emotion simply a clear indication of the r it first modern philosophy methodical in the place of doubt put It is tried to and saw in should assign the may so phrase it; a phenomenon of re- kind of recoil, which can only take place when our deepest somehow split by an ontological mistrust so deep- being has been rooted as to be almost a habitus of the soul. Mistrust or trust towards Being; those, to Wust, are the mind inclined to speculation enough; the opposition is two main directions which must choose between. Even this of wider importance. It every is not does not only :oncern the metaphysician's solutions of the theoretical problem of reality, but the whole of culture considered in all The human mind, idea of a scientific 2 expressions. since Descartes, has been familiar with the one without presuppositions). the same reasons, a monstrous (ungebeuerlich) philosophy But this implies, for its (i.e. 1 Dialektik dcs Geistcs, p. 212. At first sight we might here be tempted to reply by reminding Wust jf the high place accorded by Descartes to Admiration in his theory of 2 he passions. But did he ever think of it as a metaphysical starting-point? x, sail more, as what we might call a sensitive zone where Being icknowlcdged as such grips the creature whom ad mi radon stirs? It would ;ecm rash to claim that he did. 217 1 upsetting of speculative balance. 'Scientific* philosophising surely just setting one's-self the almost inhuman task of is denying, absolutely all and in the very depths of the positive soul, all pre-eminence hegemony of values. The philosopher has and to say, at the very beginning of his enquiry, that he does not know whether there is such a thing as order or whether chaos is equally possible. He thought to do so that Yes and No are equally indifferent to him. In his eyes, this indifference is the bears witness or rather is sacred badge of the philosopher. But we should ask whether possible. genuine or even Wust thinks that an analysis which went deeper than that of Descartes would show us basis this indifference is that astonishment at ourselves the is of doubt. doubt betrays my consciousness of my own contingent and still more implicitly of the hidden gravitation of own deepest being to a centre or an absolute middle point of being My character my (not indeed apprehended but surmised) where the metaphysical insecurity of the creature may at last find rest. with the everlasting repose and so strangely instability, contrasting immutable order of Nature, is This insecurity and the central mystery, and the philo- sophy of Wust might be said to be an exhaustive inquiry into it. Nowhere else today, I think, could we find a more resolute attempt to define the metaphysical position the one hand, transcends, folds it on dence that to the order and on of Nature which the other every side, though is of humanity; and hand it it to rekte it, breaks through to a supreme Reality on and which en- never violates the relative indepen- the prerogative of the creature. For this Reality is itself free and freely sows the harvest of freedoms. Astonishment, as the shaft of light we see it, for example, in the eyes of a child, is which breaks through the enfolding clouds of our which holds under its sway whatever is natural sleep, that sleep 218 absolutely subject to the sun of the spirit wholly with exquisite is the rising of 'the the horizon of our being supra-vital delight, as its first rays gild and and us filling discover the panorama of creation and the eternal order that rules it*. How can we the Law. Astonishment blazing on 1 in this the inspiration running through fail to see whole work of our own Claudel? Perhaps indeed must it direct truly Catholic theories of knowledge. all How can I say without impiety Wretched? That the truth of the things Is a wretched truth? His Can I say without absurdity That a world which wears His Is less than Overtops highest hand hasfashioned likeness and works to His glory myself and my most imagination it, t andfnds in it 2 nothing to lean on? Claudel has emphasised the i?/?/oi?, the impious pride, at the root of such doubt, and Wust himself never tires of denouncing it. Reviving the tradition of the great Doctors, so harshly broken by the 'scientific* philosophy engendered by the Cogito, he reminds us of the great truth which Jacques Maritain has stressed in our own time and country with such force: that knowledge is in itself a mystery. The assumption great mistake that the act of idealism perhaps of thinking is lies transparent to in its initial itself, whereas nothing of the kind. Knowledge is in fact unable to give an account of itself. When it tries to think itself, it is led irresistibly it is either to which be content with metaphorical and material expressions caricature it, or to treat itself as datum, enjoying a priority to impossible to understand as one can sec, its an absolute and self-sufficient object so startling that how it can it becomes be so entirely incapable, as of creating that object in all its far unimaginable rich- ness. But of course we can never be content just 1 Loc . tit., p. 206. 2 Lc Soulier de 219 to say that Satin, ist day, knowledge Scene VI. is a mystery; we must add that it is a gift, and that is Wust's claim when he 1 matic* quality; though this is perhaps, in a way, a grace; attributes to it a 'naturally charis- gradually hidden from the conscious mind by the increasing secularisation of the knowing process. Once is complete and it is going on everywhere in the the secularisation modern world it must give rise to all the excesses of a self-intoxi- cated reason, cut off at once from belief and being, regard itself. by power an exploiting power whose actions itself as is And the world, too, in at play, is stripped whose bosom of all the by those unsophisticated minds from worship. for and bound are only censored this 'Promethean* attributes originally whom to given to knowledge was not it yet distinct must be made absolutely It clear that the not to be construed as fideism. He philosophy of Wust is explains himself on this point with perfect clarity in the Dialectic of the Spirit. 2 'The fideist*, he says, 'is at the antipodes of the simple faith of the child; his faith is really the faith of despair.* 3 But of what does he despair, if not of his own human reason? and that because he began by presuming too much upon it. It would be no paradox to maintain that the fideist poor is a describe to (The word 'gnostic', of course, is here used to those who put an absolute value on their needs or claims 'fallen Gnostic*. know.) Wust, faithful to his love reconciliations (a heritage that the two same attitudes, ficial 'Lucifer-like* of dialectical oppositions and from Fichte, probably), also observes point of consciousness closely unites the however opposed their indices may appear to a super- consideration. But the genuine Christian keeps equally. his distance from both When he witnesses to his trust in the universal pitfalls Order, his witness should not be interpreted as mere surface optimism, but 1 3 Naivitat and Pietat, p. 'The fideist', he says, 2 Cf. especially pp. 620 ft seq. 'makes a desperate leap into the eternal night of 1 84. Godhead/ 220 recognised as the result of his reverence for the whole of Reality. may seem easily irrational to us, at least to some It extent, but nothing our attributing existence in itself to this irrationality. 'The mind that throws itself upon Reality like a child knows that every justifies personal creature is saved in so far as he surrenders without stint and without despair to the inner wooing of that Love whose voice he hears unceasingly in the depths of his soul/ 1 I think it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the part played in Wust's philosophy by this Platonic Idea of Childhood. It would obviously be absurd all to set against the Freudian case-histories. mistrust and cunning and However it the alarming Tacts' of precociously the spirit of perversity arises in the the Idea nevertheless has unbreakable validity. For Idea, one might almost say a an absolute Judging Idea; or mind of a it is better child, a Witnessing still, perhaps, human sensibility. One could quote the where Wust is asking what it is that we find a priori of admirable passage missing in the Stoic sage, and the sage as Spinoza, and even Schopenhauer conceives him, however near they come to sanctity. He replies that the lack in all of them is the lack of supreme and innocent delight in existence (Daseinsfreudi), of the idealism and optimism so opposed and heroic to the tragic outlook. Despite their greatness dignity, despite the serene smile that plays over their lips (and what indescribable subtlety monks of Ling-Yang-Tsi!), tence, that serene trust it has, the smile of the Buddhist they lack that final security in exis- armour of proof which guards the simple child, his and innocence. The sages renowned in history are still not innocent children in the strange and deep sense of the Gospel: 'Verily, I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God 'This is as a little child, he shall not enter therein' the only possible way for the wise wisdom; however deeply he has drunk 1 op. at., p. 221 man (Mark to attain at all the springs 622. x. 15). supreme of human knowledge, however ence of the world.' 1 fully his spirit has supped of the bitter experi- But someone may ask, is there any real reason why these sages, whether Buddhist or Stoic, should not recapture the soul of the One them, according to Wust; they have broken away from the filial relationship with the Supreme Spirit, child? and fact prevents this alone is what enables a man to have a child-like attitude of things. This relationship is automatically destroyed by the triumph of naturalistic philosophy, which depersonalised the supreme principle of the universe: for to this towards the ultimate view necessity secret can only appear man weighed down by as either fate or blind chance; and a no regain such a burden and absolute is in state ever to He can no longer cling to the deep metaphysical optimism, wherein the primal simplicity of the creature in the morning of life joins the simplicity of the sage his vanished delight better here to call him trust. the saint who, after journeying through experience, returns to the original point of the circle; the state of childhood which is almost the lost paradise of the happy human mind. 2 Of course, we may regained; ask whether this Paradise can indeed be how can we imagine the recovery of a state which after all does seem related to non-experience as such? Wust's answer to this question is chiefly, as principle of order we have and love (an seen before, that there It, is an active an Es over against the Me, the 9 IcV) working continuously in the depth of our being. It is therefore Me ever completely to break its its ontological roots. And therefore, a metaphysical impossibility for the moorings and sever itself from have understood him rightly, a positive conversion remains if I 1 Naivitat und Pictat, p. 1 10. 2 Wust, of course, explicitly recognises the Fall as a fact (cf. Dial, des an example), but it is far from incompatible with the Geistes, p. 311, for deeper optimism here in question. 222 The possible to the end. self, renouncing the 'Promethean* pride whose only end is death, and avoiding also the opposite extreme of agnostical and desperate pessimism, at last makes confession of that docta ignorantia described by Nicolas of Cusa at the dawn of our age. me say once more that this is not the act of spiritual suicide encouraged by certain kinds of fideism, but the glad acceptance, Let made in a spirit of devout humility, of the limits Wisdom to the manner the human mind. of knowledge with which set It by supreme has endowed good place to observe that the theories of the Unknowable which flourished in the West during the second half of Perhaps this is a the nineteenth century, which numbers of minds Tormed by sciences' still give their allegiance, are no and contact with the positive to than beggarly caricatures of this wise doctrine, so accurately based upon man's middle state. Our neglect of it brought us to the perilous chances of an overweening metaphysic. Except for a better narrow eternal which has kept itself perpetually in touch with the springs of knowledge and spirituality, the irreparable results circle of the ontological insolvency of Western thought have hardly begun to make themselves felt, continuing as they have for two and a half centuries, and that in spheres apparently quite remote speculation. Peter so inveterate that that I Wust it is certainly right to blame can no longer be consciously it upon felt. should put more emphasis than he does on 'moderns' absolutely refuse a hearing to all from pure But the I way the any is no surer way to the very denial of reality as such. This 'devaluation' of being it into a caput mortuum, a think attempts to establish connection between being and value. There turning a pride mere abstract residue. It is means then the easiest thing in the world for the idealist critic to prove that it is a mere fiction of conceptual imagination, which a stroke of the pen will abolish without making the least difference to anything. This point of view enables us more 223 fully to appreciate Peter Wust's eminently reconstructive critique of the idea of piety. The idea is alive, and even worked out to an infinite degree, among all men who have spiritually-minded own considered their deepest experience. But contemporary philosophers, especially in France (with two or three exceptions), seem to think that the idea applies only to an 'attitude', and on Scheler is this as on many Wust, who owes much other points, serious danger in treating piety as this, most only be that the 'attitude* will at interesting to 'behaviour* specialists. an saw very to clearly that there attitude or state; far from we should see in it a real relation of the soul to its own spiritual context, and also of course to itself. This is the to recover the way sense of religion as a bond (ligameri), so fundamental and yet so frequently neglected. According to Wust, there is a close correspondence between simplicity and piety on the one hand as the habitus of the soul, and surprise and reverence on the affections. The other, as latter are related to fundamental emotions or the former much the potency in Aristotle's metaphysic. This simply as the act means is to that the of reverence before the harmony of the overwhelming universe presupposes that such a soul has previously been attuned sense soul's to this harmony. Wust recalls a passage in Goethe where he speaks of piety as 'original virtue' (Erbtugend) which therefore has its seat in a sphere unreachable by our immediate consciousness of ourselves. As Wust rightly observes, what he calls Naivitat (the French naivete is certainly not quite an accurate equivalent), piety chiefly in the degree of its actualisation. Piety tion and enrichment on the which calls many of his name ofNaivitat. he, like by the But even within piety sides or rather aspects. it side re-enacts we In so on a higher of will of that is differs from the prolonga- spiritual candour predecessors from Schiller onwards, should distinguish complementary far as piety is, properly speaking, a level that universal principle 224 link, of cohesion which governs nature and corresponds with what Ckudel calls the family-anty of all things with one another. But this very cohesion implies a certain self-affirmation in the terms gether; without this it is it joins or draws to- done away with, and disappears. This cohesion, then, does not only draw things together but also keeps them at their proper distances. the higher level which we We find the same characteristic on are considering now. 'There one kind is of piety which a person shows towards himself, where the factor of tistance appears with its essential characteristics. There is also a piety towards beings of the same nature as ourselves, with cultivate spiritual relations/ 1 There is even a form of piety towards beings of an infra-human order. But piety reaches when it is Wust its highest point given to the Creator Spirit (Urgcist\ since absolute centre of all ties whom we He is the woven between particular beings. very strongly emphasises the special importance to be attached to piety towards onc's-self. 'Piety towards one's-self is the great law of love,' he 2 says, our nature, because each of us this we apprehend in the depths ol this creature who has been given 'which shape and has occupied is this place in the order of creation; the moment we have apprehended this law, it is incumbent upon us to assert it with all our might. resisting that silent appeal And the bliss of our soul which mounts up from lies in never the depths of our being/ I feel that here, once more, the philosopher of Cologne is stressing a profound truth doggedly ignored by the great majority of lay philosophers. He is really distinguishing, in the clearest possible manner, a love of selfperhaps mystical, certainly spiritual from the egoism which is just an extension of the will to live or the instinct of self-preservation. No doubt this instinct is presupposed of specific object piety is to protect the soul against the danger of pride inseparable from the act by piety towards oncVsclf. But the 1 P NaivitSt un4 Putat. p. 128. 225 > Loc. at, p. 129. M.B.M. of its natural 'is deeps of own its has endowed gravity, still awe mysterious reality with it, God which a holy temple of the Spirit, built by self is a wonderful inner universe with more marvellous than those we can of the external universe with vitality finely puts in the self towards the metaphysical reality, that For our it. own hand, God's he self-affirmation. 'Its particular aim', as to maintain religious its infinity its own laws of see in the full of mechanisms. It is Holy of Holies into which we may not enter, though ours, without a hidden and holy fear. We may not, I said. But a sanctuary, a it is also we Holy of Holies, cannot , in this enter the pkce of the altar with the eternal lamp of the most sacred mysteries burning before it. There is indeed a sense in which we are given to ourselves; and this is the meaning of our relative aseitas. But we are only entrusted to ourselves as works of art from the studio of an are not our own masterpieces. That is selves as infinitely precious heirlooms, would treat the treasure of our bliss.* why we eternal Master. are only which we must left We to our- treat as we 1 These metaphors, at least when they are translated out of the German, may seem rather grandiloquent; but we must not be put off by this. The idea in itself, I think, is extremely important. It is only because they have lost sight of this idea that the lay philosophers can reproach a they believe do not 9 believer with the 'selfishness him to show by working see that the self-love enjoined enjoined, not merely allowed duality between what I am in is for his for instance, own which salvation. They by the Christian religion inseparable from the sense of close my workaday reality generally called the soul, , life, and that hidden which has been given to me, and of must give an account on the last day. Could we not say, in terms a little different from Wust's, that the non-Christian philo- which I sopher of today starts, perhaps sometimes unconsciously, from an assumption which may have dreadful consequences, namely, l Loc.cit., pp. 132-133. 226 that / am the itself is sort to my life? He must then go on to say that the soul more highly wrought expression of that hidden life, a same as only a of efflorescence, of which me, since and its in fact myself. it is we cannot strictly say that it is given Once this fatal assumption is granted may easily be discovered in a certain type of biolo- origins gical philosophy prevalent in the nineteenth century the love of self, or charity to the extension of the it is clear that must be regarded simply as an self, life-instinct. But the assumption just cannot be allowed, I think, without ignoring some of the most urgent demands of genuine spiritual life all those translatable demands described in Wust by the admirable but unword Distanzierung, which so well expresses the fact am not deepest in me that I on an equal from harm if bound up with which must be kept we want to protect our souls from being laid open to great dangers/ 1 Such personal facts as restraint and tact are and also a reverence for the self which this need, may accompany this feeling is not of me. 'Piety towards one's-self,' he says again, is 'surrounds the self like a delicate membrane, safe what footing with myself, because the highest form of spiritual dignity. But between and the dangerous pride which aggerated awareness of thin dividing line; my springs from personal independence, there is an exonly a we must realise that it is not easy to draw it. And since reverence for one's-self is really conyet the distinction holds, cerned with Values which are, as which we are bound to defend it were, a heavenly trust within us whenever a hostile power threatens to profane them'. Wust, as we see, most explicitly repudiates the thesis that rever- ence for one's-self is defined as a sort of egocentric formalism, giving an out-and-out principle of freedom, divorced from all the spiritual contents in which it may be embodied. And it an absolute is in the status to name of these same 1 values, of which Nawitat und Pietat. p. 22? it is 1 3 3- in some sense the guardian and keeper, that the self is bound to resist the intrusions and encroachments of other personalities lacking in the sense of piety, lest they If this should work is so, then it we must harm. agree that the conceptions of contem- porary monadism miss an important truth. It is generally said today, without preliminary enquiry, that it is just a lack in us, a pure deficiency, which prevents us from being able to plunge into the spiritual being of another. Whereas in fact we should see that this inability is creatures. simply the price 'Our soul in its we pay for our ultimate depths which we inner chamber of the soul is are, spiritual dignity as free a secret, up and this is th* to a certain point, obliged to preserve religiously. Reverence for ourselves forbids us to and impious hand, profanation and show an unforgivable unveil the sanctuary of our souls with a rash and to do so would be a real lack of modesty/ 1 This Wust is perhaps the pkce to observe, more explicitly than even himself, how much all naturalist interpretations are at fault, whether they are of modesty founded on a particular view of society A life. modesty which is entirely of the spirit, the in such a passage as I have just quoted, the shown of soul modesty can plainly only be justified by the notion of the individuality as its or a view of own treasure-house: it overflows all the categories which modern philosophy has taught us to use and be content with. Against this modesty, in fact, the most active and most opposite powers of our age have made alliance, and it is worth thinking for a about this surprising confederacy. Not only does a social imperative bid so that everyone can make his own moment us share our spiritual riches use of them we see the now generally here completely material picture of invisible possessions painted and a kind of diffuse philosophy tends to identify the spiritual and communicable: but also, rising from the other horizon, l Loc.cit.,p. 136. 228 a call to sincerity (of which the most striking phrases were certainly invented by Nietzsche) forbids us to allow any veils between ourselves and our We must recognise sure that Peter I 'souls', lest Wust hypocrisy should that there sees how grow up in their shade. a problem here, and I am not is serious it is. The word soul, which have just used, with such an anti-Nietzschean ring, only retains its of meaning, it seems, when one's privacy of relation with fulness himself has been safeguarded. I should like to describe it as linked, not with notion, at least with the consciousness of a dialogue if between the most active and critical us and a ground-bass whose value if it ever quite touched them. Voices' of the orchestra within would be changed and even lost We should lose and not gain by bringing in here the notion of the unconscious: the unconscious and even the subconscious are irrelevant in this context, and besides, we know the intellectual disasters following the rash use made of them by certain disciples of W. James. I am trying to make just two points here; first, that we can only speak of the soul where there is a sense of what might be called the scoring of the spiritual and secondly, most aggressive sense must necessarily oppose the very existence ofthe hierarchies assumed orchestra, that sincerity in in such orchestration, since prejudice or complacency, light it its must regard them as the results of and say that they cannot stand up to "the of truth'. The whole question is really whether this criticism does not presuppose the confusion of two spheres in fact irreducible to one another. Does not this process of spreading out the spiritual view deny its most specific character, the very inwardness that makes it what it is? just as the dissection and flattening out of a life to flower-head with makes it all its no longer a organs side by side destroys the corolla and flower? And yet we cannot deny that the difficulty is still a very serious one; for nothing can be put to more dangerous use than this idea of * personal hierarchy valid only for the individual, whose duty to 229 himself requires him to uphold it within him. I think myself that the solution can only be found by deepening our conceptions of and But here a preliminary distinction must be made. Men's minds have never before been so ready as they are now transparency purity. an exclusively formal process of cleaning-up its forms can take place at the surface of the soul, since rashly to identify which in it has no ent, all interest in its structure or life with something quite a manner of being which conditions and activity, is differ- to be per- we can perceive, for instance, the correct tuning of an instrument. But if we follow this road, I think we shall have to recognise that the problem of purity, taken in its human ceived as immediately as and not merely formal meaning, cannot be stated without the help of those ontological categories which we thought we were rid of for The conception of purity generally held today in one sort of philosophy of art (and even of life perhaps) rests on the complete ever. separation of form and content. But one has only to turn back to Wust's 'Witnessing Idea* to realise that when we take the 'purity* of a child as our standard, this is just the state of things which we cannot accept. We shall then have no other expedient than to allege the mythical nature of this so-called purity, 'discoveries' and once more the of the psycho-analysts will be on the side of this refutaBut we cannot help asking whether these tion of popular optimism. would-be objective investigations are not really dedicated from the start to a kind of pseudo-Schopenhauerian and certainly atheist dogma, which rules and directs their practice before making use of and this is just an inverted form of their results. Even suppose simplicism that we consent to ascribe this 'purity* of preconception, a milk-and-water notion held by adults what suspiciously romanticised: we shall the criticism also applies to the holy soul learnt (that how may to safeguard or even to be impossible), at least win still a and some- have to ask whether which through trials has a purity, if not offeeling of will and, 230 spirit to still more precious, of vision. Here, we may be sure, the critic will be tempted to quarrel with the sheer notion of asceticism and self-improvement, as though every work done on one's-self and every labour of reform within implied a falsehood, were indeed an incarnate falsehood. demnation all more the he preaches sincerity surprising, if itself requires we think of a kind of asceticism, because entirely directed against a willing blindness in us perhaps with the The last state it is it is bound up of our nature. idea of sincerity as ten years, seems to that A con- since the it, it has raged, especially in France, for the me to be deprived of all value by a single fact: weapon but will not admit it, and the apparent which it vaunts is nothing but a cloak for its over- essentially a disinterestedness desire for negative justification. If so, whelming we cannot be too of those dangerous and from one aspect at least positively reckless alliances between sincerity and purity which seem to have careful been made in our time. Where sincerity becomes that indiscretion condemned by Wust, it is explicitly turned against the only kind of purity which has a genuine spiritual against the self so rightly Of course value. this does not mean, as I said before, that purity flourishes in a carefully preserved artificial twilight. cannot be a mere coincidence that reverse. It seem to give out a The others. those facts light which shines Quite the men of great on themselves purity as well as halo, only discernible to the eye of the spirit, is one of from which any metaphysician worthy of the name can this light which (mystics draw almost unlimited wisdom. But apart) the greatest of the painters have used with mysterious to crown writers 1 their achievements this light which painters, I think, is life because 1 it is power much more than Love, cannot be too One can hardly help asking whether literary activity as such is not always in some degree except where it is purely lyrical turned against a certain fundamental purity of the soul. This is surely not the case in music or the plastic am. 231 sharply distinguished from the diabolical lucidity that times be brought to bear upon appalling may some- perversities, where the man who describes them has not the least desire to bring them to an end a light, indeed, which can illuminate the deepest shadows without taking away one jot of their suffocating gloom. Everything depends, I suppose, upon the hidden intention guiding the soul's vision of itself. Diabolical lucidity, I said; for of the self is sometimes at work, but hatred of sin Hatred of the self; for the negative need of justification* tends therein hatred never. to blot out all difference, all dividing lines, and to prove that sin docs not exist since it is simply me, and covers the country of my from to being boundary boundary. There is a lust for sincerity which is simply an exaltation of all the negative powers at my command; perhaps the most utterly its boundless Satanic of all forms of suicide, where extreme pride, in perversion, imitates extreme humility. If the soul thus surrenders to the 'demon of knowledge* without training or purification of the will, full awareness, setting first it is, submitting up an idolatry for itself whose effects must be faction in despair of which Lust tion we and upholds the have seen such distressing examples of inward knowledge, perverse exaltabelittling analysis of the self these are just so for sincerity, idolatry many synonyms for a single evil: the blindfolding which makes possible for the self to disregard that universal loving will at everywhere, outside be separated for a is the satis- us. combined with a know: any though not of course with disastrous, because such idolatry encourages around itself to this is it it work and within. moment why we can Piety towards one's-self cannot from piety towards others, as we well say that piety in its universal nature bond which for ever unites man, the whole of nature, aqd the whole of the spiritual world. spiritual, since it is This principle of unity a principle of love, and 232 it is entirely stands over against die chain of pure necessity underlying the union of merely natural phenomena. Wust even goes so far as to speak (rather vaguely, I think) of piety as the synthetising factor of an other-worldly underlying the attraction at chemistry, their surroundings. way of Here, as elsewhere, work between he lets speech too directly borrowed from teenth-century idealism; he is certainly souls and himself slide into a German going too early nine- towards the far pantheism which he will nevertheless reject at any price. And yet, however suspect we find the metaphors which he cannot help we do using, find in his work a sense (and it may be quite ac- which brings together public coherent unity, and man's piety in the face of flourished in ancient Rome and even in the Middle curate historically) of the relation life, taken in nature, as Is Ages. it its he not generally right in his contention that social relations become less close when the peasant and the craftsman give pkce to the tradesman (and the workman), and that when man loses contact with the soil and with real things, he is apt to be cut off from the very roots of his existence, so that even his culture becomes 1 endangered? The bound peasant, for the very reason that he depends to show patience towards nature; on and because nature, its is details have become familiar to him, he unconsciously builds up a treasurehouse of objective experience, and so comes little by little to wel- come the gifts of the earth as the wages of his labour and patience. no question of the 'crucifixion of nature*, the result of technical advancement where nothing but intellect and pure egoFor him there is ism arc needed, so that we can see the 'stigmata', so to speak, physical and mathematical sciences imprinted world. Rightly or wrongly, Wust blames upon upon the of the modern the philosophical doctrine of Kantianism the initial responsibility for the attitude implied by the sciences, 1 and for the pillaging of nature by Naivitit uni Pktat, p. 133. 233 man which begins as soon as his relation with nature ceases to be the relation between two beings capable of mutual respect and adaptation. In the eyes of Wust, the mechanical science of nature is a son of technique of burglary. Modern man, he has the says, mark of Cain upon him, and a 'Luciferean' character pervades the culture of those who have lost all piety towards the external world. not altogether easy to decide the worth of such an accusation; It is it seems to me that it contains some out-of-date sentimentality. Remarks of this kind often seem extremely useless, anyhow, because one cannot see that there is any way of 'getting back to Nature*. Among other objections to Wust's theory, there is nevertheless one which not as cogent as is it looks. How, between it may be we asked, can man and which hope to establish those relations rested upon an anthropomorphic interpretation now exploded? nature We must answer that modern thought is on this point also adopting the most questionable metaphysical hypotheses as though they were axioms. Some minds may think they are completely free of the kind of ideology which will say, as though it with Auguste Comte, and yet they self-evident, that man advances from an started were an adult state of knowledge, and that the characteristic the of mark higher stage, which the 'intellectual leaders' of today have reached, is simply the elimination of anthropomorphism. This infantile to presupposes the most curious temporal realism, and perhaps especi- most summary and simplicist picture of mental growth. Not only do they make a virtue of disregarding the positive and ally the irreplaceable value they make an idol of that are telling advanced 9 , 9 'terminus den . that is candour in the of experience, by regarding spiritual dedication, minds original but they also say in so the time differently, whether or not it as the only many words since this is soul, not only some admitted way to that are do our 'more nearer to a And yet, by an amazing contradiction, they are forbid- to actualise that terminus even in thought. So that progress no longer consists in drawing nearer to one's end, but is described by a of its own; although they will not consider such as old age and creaking joints, because they no purely intrinsic quality its darker sides, doubt think that they are moving in a sphere where thought is depersonalised, so that these inevitable accidents of the flesh will be automatically banished. But the moment we allow, with Christian theology, that man is in some degree an image of God, not only is there no longer any question of our giving a negative verdict to anthropomorphism, but it is even clear that such a condemnation would Wust spiritual danger. Peter 4 It says, entail sure was fundamentally false, the view which prevailed among modern philosophers, when they fixed their eyes upon the infinitude of the mechanical universe; when there dawned upon them the opinion that expelled from the centre of the universe insignificant speck That is true, on but would The and was no more than an it whole/ 1 not be more accurate to say that which is universe, especially since questioned by it is the modern Kant, does not seem to include anything which can be treated as a centre, at theoretical sense must be the infinite extent of the cosmic very idea of a 'centre of the universe* philosophy? Man least in the of the word. But by a very strange inversion, modern philosophy has come to substitute in the place of this real centre (now no longer conceivable) an imaginary focus existing in the mind. that the new One could even maintain, without being paradoxical, 9 'Copernican revolution has resulted in the setting-up of a anthropocentric theory; though longer considering man it differs from the old in no as a being, but rather as a complex of epistemological functions. This anthropocentric theory also ex- cludes all attempts to 'picture* things in the likeness of man perhaps even to 'picture* them at all. The sense of analogy disappears at the same time as the sense of form. With them, the con1 Naivitat mi Pietat, US p. 161 crctc itself is because it swallowed up in the actively devours. Today gulf of science active new a active choice of alternatives might be said to have arisen, between the dehumanised anthropocentric theory on the one hand, which tends to be favoured by of knowledge; and a theocentric theory on the which, though it is fully realised by the heirs of mediaeval idealist theories other, philosophy, seems to be only vaguely perceived by the lay philosophers. They have broken with all the speculation started by Kant, but they nevertheless will not acknowledge in its fulness that oncological need which lies at the very heart of our lives, and may even be the final secret of which our dark and wearisome lives are the childbed. This theocentricism Avant to see piety in 'Piety/ as Fichte a human link surely the thing to be emphasised if we proper place in the whole spiritual economy. its had already said, 'forces us to respect countenance;' 'but here', adds Wust, 'it whatever has becomes the huge and universal society of souls in a and super-terrestrial union seen wholly and simul- which terrestrial is joins the taneously; a Civitas Dei, in the Augustinian sense, or a visible or invisible Church of God whose members, triumphant are linked by the filial suffering, militant, relation and which binds them all all, without exception, bidden 1 to take their places at the eternal Supper of the Spirit/ Although the expression again leaves something to be desired in together to their the way of strict Heavenly Father terminology, I think for the universalism their we have nothing but praise which stamps these declarations and gives them pure and majestic tone. They are chiefly magnificent in their emphasis on the absolute precedence given, in this realm, to piety 9 towards the 'Eternal Thou*. 'The paradox of the finite mind , he writes, 'is its subjection to the continued polarity brought to bear upon him by the I and the Tbou. 1 He NtMt&t und Pietat, 236 tries to vanquish p. 151. it in his /, but he can only become a pure / with by gravitating, ever-increasing intensity, round the universal Thou of being and of all ontological community.' 1 to compulsion Perhaps (as it become a pure would be a good plan to discount this sort of language from Fichte) and try to get at the rather too directly derived it is inward and concrete significance of the notion expressed. In Wust's view, if we think that we can enter into more immediof ourselves and our proper reality by progressively cutting ourselves off from the particular communities in which we are at first involved, we are labouring under an illusion engendered ate possession by pride. sion He which follows Tonnies in clearing up the disastrous confu- the sociological school of our time by reminding us and society. to make a clear distinction between a union in which community a union founded By community, Tonnies understood kinship and love had countenanced, members its upon are joined in an almost organic embrace. Society, on the other hand, implied for him a type of union founded upon mere intellect divorced from But the pessimistic philosophy of did Tonnies not give him scope to see all the by be drawn from this distinction, nor even perhaps to love, a purely selfish calculation. culture professed inferences to with perfect clarity. (It was also, perhaps, a little rash of him to put such a high value on the 'ties of blood'.) There is genu- explain ine it community wherever man has kept intact: wherever he strongly which is itself love, soul'. and which goes down to An atmosphere, one might call in a bold metaphor, compares charging, or a the lifelines of his being asserts 'the natural inclination to love, pump which it it, the very depths of his but also a presence. Wust, which never needs re- to a battery draws up 'the eternal powers of the autonomous organisation of our own personalities'. Although he may sometimes seem to do so, he never really condones spirit in die 1 Naivitat und Picttit, 237 p. 159. Es or Impersonal Mind; on the he to never ceases warn us contrary, against them. He even refuses, in a page which I wish I could quote entirely, to admit the existence the excesses of the metaphysic of the of that nature in God still found in some perhaps in the later Schelling which they claimed theistic philosophies like a survival to have uprooted. The term of course, be taken here to mean essence; obviously has a nature, since whatever of those very mistakes is, nature must not, God 'in that sense, has, and must have, an Wust's problem is whether there is a trans-personal sphere 1 ip the reality of the absolute Spirit, and so an 'impersonal' element, essence.* from which would spring, activity It, functioning on which Wust as by a natural process, the personal the pattern of the blind principle, the pure rules nature. In other words, is Spinozan ontology valid? objects, in terms reminiscent of Renouvier, that 'it always of over thingpersonality necessary precedence inconceivable that any sphere in God, however small, means ignoring the hood. It is should be opaque to the light of Absolute Personality, a fact not so much central as unique. The Logos can be no stranger, even in the least degree, to the spirituality it for ever in close But this of the divine Person; and unbreakable does not mean that He is one with identity/ we can treat God's unfathomable abyss of love (Uebesabgrund) as a nature (irrational this time) existing in Him as a second and irreducible principle. 'It is only to us that the Eternal Love of the Creator, causing blessed self-sufficiency, seems like may appear an him to go outside his own irrational principle. To in an impersonal guise, at one remove from the us It God- shows us a new aspect of His entirely head. But personal Essence, the spirituality of the Absolute Person of God 9 revealed along the lines of His free activity/ This being so, we can in fact It simply see why all finite spiritual activity whatsoever, as soon as it is turned in a positive direction (towards order), can only be founded * 1 ikid. f Nwittt und Pietat, p. 34. p. 163. 238 upon much an echo of God's eternal Love as a vague but answer awakened by It. In thus categorically asserting the .precedence of love over order, Wust removes even the possilove; not so irresistible bility it of our making an idol of the which And thereby he makes make an idol of the eternal truths, an equally impossible for us to idolatry intellect. so limits the theistic affirmation as to rob it of its We should observe that Wust, all through most positive value. this part of his work, bases himself on the Augustinian theory, and makes use of the well-known formula omnia amare in Deo, so clearly the nodal point of all his views of piety; he especially throws a flood of light upon the central fact that piety towards ourselves is really nothing but a form of the fear of God. It only degenerates into and selfishness the root of all error the highest form of piety, when it is unduly separated from and turns towards the 'sphere of immanence' (i.e. towards the most deceptive kind of autonomy). It is easy to see that Wust is exhorting us to make a complete its activity of the whole personality, I think, the intellect as well as the will. It may be said without exaggeration that he achieved this for himself, with a kind of simple heroism, spiritual 'reconstruction* during the last years of his life. As he expressly said at the end of the Dialection of the Spirit, there is intellects \ despair. He seems to be asking of us simply cease once for all to which he no question of making a sacrificium such an abdication of the mind would be a mere act of make uses as a description we this: that a certain kind of demand the of 'absolute gnosticism 9 should demand and that we should give up the idea of attaining ultimate knowledge capable of being unfolded into an organic whole, since he has shown that such knowledge is incompatible with the fundamental character of Being. And here (at least in this intuition humility, lies my eyes) here in this notion, or rather of the metaphysical value properly belonging to Wust's most original contribution to the speculative thought of our day. 239 It is plain that essential truisms that corollary, 'Pride lie 'library fertility is for ever exhausted. have said before, there reconstruction to be done. of the an one of those Only strip the ethics to the realm of de- astonished to see before our eyes. is an immense work of critical The astonishingly free-and-easy assump- rival philosophies constant scrutiny. first is that their spiritual we might be what unexpected horizons unfolded As we It is And yet, if we did take the trouble to commonplace of personal this which a source of blindness', buried under the dust of ages, and no one troubles personalised thought (so-called), tions is of human wisdom*. them up again because everyone thinks to dig apply its pan of the must be subjected we thus can human mind and powers, and then go on to awful prerogatives of that King have dethroned. of all its endow whom 240 to thorough and through those doctrines see it ontological attributes with some of the more they fondly believe they