The ultimate belief

Preface

V17HEN I began this little book I * * meant it for teachers. My object was to state very simply certain beliefs about the nature of man and of the universe, which, as it seems to me, children ought to be taught, so that their minds may be protected against sophistries old and new. But, as I wrote, I found that I was trying to make these beliefs more clear to myself. The task was more difficult than I had expected, and I could not write a simple text-book about matters still in dispute and about an issue that takes a new form in every generation. So I cannot call the book a text-book. It is controversial, and on one important point it attacks our whole English system of education. Still, I hope that it may be of use

PREFACE

to teachers, though little of it could be taught directly to children. But there are things which we need to teach ourselves in one form before we can teach them to our children in another; and this war, among other things, has convinced me that we in England need to teach ourselves first, and then our children, a true and coherent philosophy, if we are to withstand that false and coherent philosophy which now possesses the mind of Germany and to which she owes her fanatical power. Such a philosophy I have tried to state as shortly and clearly as I could in this book. It is not addressed to philosophers, but to everyone who believes that it is important to think rightly about first principles; and surely the present war

proves that it is important.

A. Clutton-Brock.

Farncombe, Surrey.

March 2nd, 1916.

Contents

Introduction 11

I. — The Need of Philosophy for All . 20

II. — The Philosophy of the Spirit . . 31

Introduction

A LTHOUGH this little book might ■*■*■ have been written at any time, yet I was provoked to write it by the present war. The Germans teach in their schools a certain body of doctrine, which the great mass of them accept, and upon which they are now acting. It has given them unity and a great and fanatical strength ; but it has also led them into the crimes that we know of. We, on the other hand, are taught no body of doctrine in our schools, at least none that can be called philosophical, and we are rather proud of the fact. If philosophy leads the Germans into such wickedness, we are better without it, we think. But the German doctrine has produced its evil effects

because it is bad philosophy, bad intellectually no less than morally; and the fact that some thinking is bad is not a reason why we should not think at all. The Germans have been encouraged by their bad thinking to exercise certain virtues perversely and to bad ends, but still to exercise them in a manner which has astonished the world ; while we have been little encouraged by thinking, good or bad, to exercise any virtues. We have our education, but it is not based upon any philosophical principles, upon any theory of the nature of man or of the universe. We have our religion also ; but that, again, has little philosophy in it ; and a religion without philosophy is a religion without consciousness. It may preserve its dogmas, but it does not know what those dogmas mean. A boy, for instance, is told that there is a God and that he ought to love God; but behind that is the philosophical question: Why ought he to love God? And un-

INTRODUCTION 13

less that is rightly answered, he will try to love God for the wrong reason, and will not succeed in loving Him at all. He may deceive himself and believe that he is loving God when he is only loving himself. That is what happens to people who think that they must love God so that they may go to Heaven. For it is self-interest that makes them wish to go to Heaven ; and you cannot love God, or anyone or anything else, from self-interest.

Philosophy alone can teach you why you should love God or anyone else, and what is the nature of love ; and therefore we cannot do without philosophy, however religious we may be. Indeed, the more religious we are, the more we see the need of philosophy, and the need of teaching it to the young from the very first. We cannot be good, we cannot teach others how to be good, unless we have clear ideas about the nature of goodness and the reasons why men should be good. To tell a child that he should do this or that, without making any attempt to tell him why, is to teach him that life is a game with arbitrary rules ; and if it is that, it is not worth living.

On that point the Germans have at least taught a clear doctrine. They have taught their children that they must be good, that they must do everything, for the good of Germany; and their children have believed this and have been astonishingly good according to the German notion of goodness. They have been industrious, obedient, and self-sacrificing. They have made their country the tidiest, the most efficient, the most powerful in the world, and an intolerable nuisance to all mankind. Clearly, then, their notion of goodness is not our notion ; but we need to know what our notion is if we are to keep our minds free from the contagion of

INTRODUCTION 15

theirs. And we have made little effort to know what our notion is or to teach it to our children. We cannot teach it to them unless we know what it is, unless we know what we believe about the mind of man, about the purpose of his life, and about the nature of the universe. Without this knowledge our teaching must be dull and incoherent and unconvincing, and our children will rebel against it, as, indeed, they often do. There is in England a great deal of blind rebellion and wasteful reaction among the young. We are rather proud of that; but we have no reason to be. If we taught them what is true, it would be well for them to learn it and believe it. If we have not taught them what is true, we had better not have taught them at all. Rebellion always means error, either in the rebel or in that against which he rebels; and it is therefore at best a pis alter. The test of good teaching is that it shall be believed and shall benefit those who believe it. German teaching is good in that it is believed, but bad in that it does not benefit those who believe it. Our teaching is bad in that it commonly appears incredible to the more intelligent of the young; and it appears incredible to them because there is no coherence or consistency in it.

I am not myself a teacher; but I have been taught myself, and I remember my own blind reactions against what I was taught. Looking back at them, it seems to me that I rebelled because I was never told, no effort was made to tell me, why I should love knowledge or beauty or righteousness. I was merely told that I must learn my lessons and obey certain rules of conduct, and I concluded that I must do so for the convenience of my teachers and because they would make it unpleasant for me if I did not. This, no doubt, was partly my fault.

INTRODUCTION 17i

I might have seen the connection between their teaching and my own spiritual desires ; but they also might have made this connection plain to me. As it was, I had to discover for myself, slowly, clumsily, and painfully, what I now believe about the mind of man, about the purpose of his life, and about the nature of the universe.

In this book I have tried to state these beliefs shortly and clearly. I do not pretend that they are original; I hope rather that they are what most men believe and what most teachers would wish to teach. Only they are so seldom stated or taught that few, I think, can be fully conscious of them. The war and the crimes of the German people have made me wish to be fully conscious of my beliefs, and I have noticed the same wish in many others, young and old. We all know that there is a philosophy behind the German conduct, a false philosophy which

!l8 THE ULTIMATE BELIEF

they have been taught for national ends. What philosophy are we to believe and to teach, so that we may not fall into their error, and so that we may escape from the errors and weaknesses peculiar to ourselves? We in England, for the last generation and more, have been neither learners nor teachers to much effect. This evil has come upon the world without our having much share in it or against it. We have hid our talent in a napkin, and neither led nor misled mankind. Now we see that we cannot remain in this negative state. We must believe either what the Germans believe or something positively and splendidly contrary to it. We must have a philosophy of our own and one that we can teach to our children.

Such a philosophy I have tried to state, not as it can be taught to children, but as it can be clearly understood by teachers, who will know, better than I can, how to teach

INTRODUCTION 19

it. If they believe it, and act upon it, it must affect their method of teaching as well as what they teach; but method is a matter for them, not for me who have no experience in teaching.

Those who know the ^Esthetic of Benedetto Croce will see that I have learnt much from him about aesthetics. They will also see, perhaps, that at one point I depart from his teaching. But of this I am not quite sure myself. It may be that I am only drawing conclusions that he would draw. In any case, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to him.

THE NEED OF PHILOSOPHY FOR ALL

"V/fOST people in England think of a «*-*-*• philosopher as one who talks in a difficult language about matters which are of interest only to philosophers. But Philosophy is concerned with what must interest every human being, with the nature of man and the nature of the universe. Every man is born a philosopher, but often the philosopher is suppressed in him by the hand-tomouth thinking needed for the struggle for life. So boys are often more philosophical than men, pupils than their teachers; and what they miss in their lessons, without knowing it, is philosophy. It is the lack of philosophy which makes education uninteresting to them and which causes them to rebel against it. They want to know why they should be good, why they should love knowledge; and no one tells them why. They may not actually ask philosophical questions either of their teachers or of themselves ; but there is a philosophical curiosity unsatisfied in their minds which causes them to be unsatisfied with all that they are taught. Just as they learn Latin grammar without knowing why, so they learn conduct without knowing why ; and always they want to know why. They seek a reason why they should do what they are told to do, and it is not given to them.

If you ask the teacher why he does not give a reason, he will answer, perhaps, either that there is no need to give a reason, since every human being knows that he ought to do what is right, or else that it would be impossible to make boys or girls understand philosophy. But both of these answers really mean the same thing, namely, that he himself has lost his natural interest in philosophy and with it his power of teaching philosophy. He cannot teach philosophy if he has none ; he cannot make that plain to others which is not plain to himself; and he is naturally tempted to think that there is no need to teach that which he cannot teach.

But the example of Germany proves that there is a need to teach philosophy. The German boy is given a reason why he should be good and why he should love knowledge. He is told that he must do everything to increase the glory and power of Germany. That is bad philosophy, but it is philosophy. It gives him the wrong reason, but it does give him a reason; and the consequence is that he does learn far more willingly and thoroughly than the English boy learns. The world is to him intelligible, even if he understands it wrongly, whereas to the English boy it is unintelligible. The German philosophy has had such evil results that there is a danger lest we should be confirmed in our neglect of all philosophy. But the remedy for bad philosophy is not no philosophy at all, but good philosophy. Men and boys are of such a nature that they need reasons for doing whatever they are told to do ; and if they fail to find the right reasons they find the wrong ones.

We think that we can go through life without any philosophy at all; but there we are in error. By the very process of living and acting we come to hold certain beliefs about our own nature and the nature of the universe, although we may never state these beliefs to ourselves. Thus, if a man's main object in life is to get money, he will come to believe that nothing is so well worth having as money, and all his other beliefs will become consistent with that belief. We are

M THE ULTIMATE BELIEF

generally agreed that a man's main object should not be to get money; but how many of our teachers could explain clearly and convincingly to their pupils what object he should have in life and why? The German teacher would tell his pupils that their main object in life should be to make Germany strong, and he seems able to convince his pupils of that. The Germans despise our education because our teachers seem unable to convince their pupils of anything; and they have some reason for their contempt. We may not teach a false philosophy as they do, but we teach no philosophy at all; and the consequence is that many of us acquire a false philosophy without knowing it. If the great evil in Germany is the conscious worship of Germany, the great evil in England is the unconscious worship of money, and against that our boys and girls have no philosophical protection whatever.

They have, it may be said, a religious protection; but religion itself is at the mercy of a false philosophy. Often the moneygrubber believes himself to be a religious man; and his religion may be, theologically, much the same as the religion of St. Francis. Yet, because his philosophy is different, his idea of God and his reasons for obeying God will be different. Obedience to him will be, what it was not to St. Francis, a sound investment.

I was once present at a service for City clerks held by an American evangelist. He prayed that many of those present might, that day, lay the basis of a successful commercial career by finding Christ. He differed from St. Francis philosophically rather than theologically, and he had managed to make his religion quite consistent with his philosophy. If he did not think that Mammon could give men an introduction to God, he did think that God could give men an introduction to Mammon. The virtues to him were all paying virtues; and what paid in this world would pay in the next.

There is always a consistency between our ideas of this world and of another ; and it is philosophy, not theology, which determines our ideas of both. Therefore we need philosophy as well as religion ; or rather philosophy is a part of religion, and our religion cannot be right unless our philosophy is right, as that American evangelist proved. To teach a boy religion without philosophy is to teach him mere mythology which he can do what he likes with. You tell him that there is a God and that he must obey the will of God; but, unless you tell him why, he may think that he must obey the will of God so that he may go to Heaven. It is philosophy which tells him why, and you must have a philosophy before you can tell him why.

But in the love of God is implied a love of other things, not himself, and philosophy tells him why he should love these also. Its effort, indeed, the great effort of philosophy for the last 2,000 years and more, is to explain why we should love things other than ourselves and what things we should love, and this effort has not been in vain. There is a philosophy which does explain this so that we can understand it, which appeals to our experience like any other science. For philosophy is science or it is nothing; it is, indeed, the one science which everybody needs and without which we are ignorant of essential knowledge.

And yet philosophy does not seem to have established any truth as surely as some truths have been established by the natural sciences. No man is listened to who tells us that the earth is flat, but we do listen to those who tell us that we can really love nothing and value nothing but ourselves. The great effort of philosophy is still opposed by men called philosophers, and, what is more, the mass of men do not know what this effort has accomplished. To them philosophical questions are all open questions; and they believe that this is so because of the failure of philosophy to prove anything. But it is not philosophy that has failed; rather it is men who have failed to do that by which alone they can be convinced. Philosophy is a science, and its truths can only be confirmed by experiment. But, whereas to confirm a truth of botany it is necessary only to make experiments upon plants, to confirm a truth of philosophy we must make experiments upon ourselves. Thus, if philosophy tells us what we ought to value, we can only test the truth of it by valuing that which it tells us to value. We must make an experiment in valuing; and we must make it in action as well as in thought or feeling. If, for instance, a man values money more than anything else, he will act in accordance with his values; his one object in life will be to get money. So, when philosophy tells him that there are other things more valuable than money, he must alter his whole way of living, if he is to test the truth of that philosophy by experiment ; and this he will often refuse to do. That is why certain truths of philosophy, though they may have been confirmed by experiment in the lives of all good and wise men, are not universally accepted. There is a philosophy which might say of itself: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice." We know what answer Pilate made to these words. He asked: "What is truth?" and, as Bacon says,

SO THE ULTIMATE BELIEF

would not stay for an answer. If he had listened to the answer and believed it, he would have been forced to alter his whole way of life. Rather than do that he believed that truth was not to be found. But truth remains truth, even though men ask what it is and will not stay for an answer; and to those who hear it and act upon it, it proves itself to be truth.

II

THERE is a truth about the nature of man and the nature of the universe which philosophy has established with the thought of centuries, and which philosophy alone can state clearly. This truth can be taught to all and should be known by all. It can be taught gradually to children from their earliest years; and they will be convinced by it the more they are taught it and the more they act upon it. It makes education intelligible because it makes life intelligible; and it is welcomed by every unperverted mind because it answers to the desires of that mind, to the desires of what we call the spirit.

Spirit is a name given by philosophy to that part of us which has certain desires that are not desires of the flesh. Spirit is known by its desires, which are different from those of the flesh and can only be satisfied by different means. So there is a philosophy of the spirit which asserts the supremacy of the spirit and which has established the truth about the nature of man and the nature of the universe, a truth which every man can confirm for himself by his own experiments. The philosophy of the spirit tells us that the spirit desires three things and desires these for their own sake and not for any further aim beyond them. It desires to do what is right for the sake of doing what is right ; to know the truth for the sake of knowing the truth; and it has a third desire which is not so easily stated, but which I will now call the desire for beauty without giving any further explanation of it ( an attempt at an explanation will be found on p. 84 seq. . These three desires, and these alone, are the desires of the spirit; and they differ from all our other desires in that they are to be pursued for their own sake, and can, indeed, only be pursued for their own sake. If they are pursued for some ulterior end, they change their nature. If, for instance, I aim at goodness, so that I may profit by it, it is no longer goodness that I aim at, but profit. I may do what is right, but I do it for the sake of something else which I value more than doing what is right. I might do what is wrong for the sake of this something else, if it seemed to me that I could better achieve my purpose so. So if I try to discover the truth that I may profit by it, I am really aiming, not at the truth, but at my own profit. And my aim would lead me to believe what is untrue, if I thought that I should profit by that belief.

In fact, the only way to discover truth is to seek it for its own sake, and the only way to do what is right is to do it for its own sake.

So the spirit has three activities, and three alone, as it has three desires; namely, the moral, the intellectual, and the aesthetic activities. And man lives so that he may exercise these three activities of the spirit, and for no other reason. Every other theory of life, however it may be presented, amounts to this — that man lives so that he may live — and is incessantly contradicted by all the higher values and activities of man. It cannot be explained why these values and activities seem to man higher, if they are really subsidiary to the mere business of living. But the philosophy of the spirit says that the business of living is subsidiary to them, and that man can only satisfy himself in his life if he lives so that he may exercise the activities of the spirit and not so that he may go on living.

This is not a mere theological dogma pretending to be philosophy. It is the result of experience and it appeals to experience. It has been discovered by experiment that men can be good, can understand the nature of goodness, only if they aim at goodness for its own sake. There is in them a desire for goodness which can be satisfied only by the pursuit of goodness for its own sake. And so it is with truth. But experience also shows that the opposite is true of those activities which are not spiritual. They must always be means and not ends, and means to our spiritual activities; and we only pursue them well or get what we want from them if we pursue them as means. Thus if we live for the sake of living, we do not live well and are not satisfied with our lives. To live for the sake of living will not teach us how to live. A man should take care of his health that he may the better exercise his spiritual activities. If he takes care of his health for the sake of his health, he will think so much about it that he will become unhealthy. So, too, he should eat that he may the better exercise his spiritual activities. If he eats for the sake of eating, he will eat too much, and so injure both his body and his mind and become incapable even of the pleasure of eating.

All this, perhaps, will seem commonplace to the reader. But I would ask him, especially if he is a teacher, to note the fact that there are three activities of the spirit ; all of them, because they are activities of the spirit, to be exercised equally for their own sake. This is the fact which is commonly ignored in our education and in our philosophy, so far as we have one ; and because it is ignored our education fails to satisfy those who are taught, and our philosophy fails to satisfy ourselves. The common belief of most teachers and moralists in England is that there is only one activity of the spirit, the moral — that we must do good for the sake of doing good and for no other reason — but that the intellectual and aesthetic activities are subsidiary to the moral, and not really spiritual at all. It is implied, if not actually taught, in most of our education that truth is to be sought because it is useful, and that beauty is to be produced or experienced because it gives pleasure. The moralist, if he is really a moralist, rightly assumes both utility and pleasure to be subsidiary to righteousness; but he is wrong when he tests truth by its usefulness, or beauty by the pleasure which it gives. The intellectual activity often is useful, and so is the moral; but neither can be rightly exercised if utility is their aim. The aesthetic activity often does give pleasure, but so does the intellectual; yet neither can be rightly exercised if pleasure is their aim. Not one of the three spiritual activities is itself, unless it is exercised for its own sake. And unless we understand this fact we cannot exercise the spiritual activities nor teach others to exercise them.

The great defect of English thought, which is a result of our lack of philosophy, is that we are always apt to think of everything in terms of something else, and to believe that we have explained it when we have thought of it in terms of something else. Thus, when we say that honesty is the best policy, we are thinking of it in terms of something else, commending it, not as honesty, but as expediency. But honesty is not expediency ; it is a moral quality, simply itself, and to be desired for itself ; and if you think of it as expediency, you cease to know what it is. So if you tell a boy that honesty is the best policy, you tell him what is often untrue. He finds out for himself soon enough that it is not always the best policy; and he may prefer policy to honesty, because he has never been taught what honesty is, nor why he should prefer it to dishonesty. What he needs to be taught is that there is in him a spirit which desires honesty for its own sake and not for any other reason whatever. This is a fact about his own nature of which education should make him fully conscious, and which he can prove to himself by experiment. If he will try to be honest for the sake of honesty, he will find that the spirit in him is satisfied ; but it never will be satisfied by any kind of morality pursued for any other reason. If he thinks of morality in terms of something else, it will cease to be morality to him, and his spirit will not be satisfied with it.

We know that it is immoral to think of morals in terms of something else, although we constantly tend to do so; but we shall never escape from that tendency until we recognise the other activities of the spirit, and understand that, because they are activities of the spirit, they cannot be subordinate even to each other. We must realise, and teach, that the value of truth is absolute no less than the value of goodness, and that the value of beauty is as absolute as the value of the other two. This is not a mere theory to be argued about by philosophers. It is a plain fact of immediate importance to everyone, and therefore to be taught in all education. Unless I value truth for its own sake I cannot discover truth. Unless I value beauty for its own sake I cannot see or hear or in any way experience beauty. The moralist may wish that it should be otherwise; but he cannot alter the nature of the universe or the mind of man to suit his own purposes. It is part of his moral problem to face the facts of life, and if he teaches others that the facts are what they are not, he is behaving immorally for the sake of morals ; which means that he is ceasing to understand the nature of morals.