The ground and goal of human life

Front matter

Glass ±1X7 4^3 I Book u> L

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

THE GROUND AND GOAL

Preface

THE work contained in the following pages expresses, as it were, a treaty of peace between the forces of Individualism here and those of scientifico-social thought there. To one who has followed the parallel histories of egoism militant on the one side and naturalism triumphant on the other, the present situation appears full of promise for a future understanding between man and the things and persons around him. For the comprehension of this situation, one can do no better than to conduct an analytical review of the way in which the effort toward selfhood has expressed itself; just such a progressive delineation of individualism has engrossed the first two parts of the present work. The third, which is the progressive portion of the book, seeks to show in just what way man may re-relate his mind to nature, in what corresponding manner the individual may seek new repose in the social order. New years bring new problems with them ; and, when the times are as suggestive as those of the new peace, it becomes imperative that one should cast about for new ideals. To the restricted number of individuals who are tempted to persist in the old anarchism of individualism in its ante-bellum days, it may be suggested that newer, deeper types of nationalism may offer to such liberals something like the social environment which their nature seems to demand. Those who before the war felt themselves ' superfluous ' may come to the realization that even the most delicious, the most dissatisfied personality may find his place in the political world-order.

While the present attempt to arrive at the ground of human existence and the goal of man's striving may seem to call upon the old-time ego to be less of a non-conformist, it does not fail to point out that the viii THE GROUND AND GOAL OF HUMAN LIFE

opposing forces known familiarly as science and social philosophy should not continue in the assumption that they have uttered the last word for man's nature or given the supreme command to his will. These objective principles are none the less due for appropriate revision in order that they may make room for every one who strives after the joy, worth, and truth of his own precious life. A new view of the individual demands a new view of the world. The scientific and social critics of subjectivity and personality have been prone to set aside man's belief in himself in the same way that Moliere's Doctor in Spite of Himself sought to explain to the patient that the heart was no longer to the left or the liver to the right ; for, said the ' doctor,' " we have changed all that — nous avons change tout cela." It is needless to point out that the location of the individual in his own private life is far less mutable than scientific rumor might suggest.

In printing this work, it is both the desire and the duty of the author to make most generous acknowledgement of the assistance given by Professor Arthur Huntington Nason, Ph.D., who, as Director of New York University Press, has edited the manuscript, corrected the proofs, and made the index. For his patience he must be praised and for his furtherance thanked. Moreover, it may be stated that the material here written out in extenso has been used already as the basis for a 'course in Ethics in the Graduate School of New York University, so that students in that course deserve some thanks for the way in which they have co-operated with the writer in developing a principle of ethical thought.

C. G. S.

University Heights New York September 1919

Contents

The Problem 4

1. Selfhood, Scientism, and Sociality 5

2. The Anti-Scientific and Anti-social 29

3. The Higher Synthesis 12

BOOK ONE THE GROUND OF LIFE IN NATURE 17 Part One

I. The Transmutation of Mind and World 19

1. The Self as Thinker 21

2. The Empirical Ego 25

II. The Actual Naturalisation of Life 33

1. The Surrender to Naturalism 34

2. The Ambiguous Elevation of the Physical 40

(1) The— Naturalistic and Flumanistic ,11

(2) The Objective and Subjective 47

3. The Elevation of the Biological 52

(1) Positivism and Humanism 53

(2) Biology and Psychology 57

III. The Insufficiency of Scientism 62

1. The Sensational Inadequacy of Scientism 63

2. The Volitional Impotence of Scientism 70

3. The Intellectual Disappointment of Scientism. ... 75

Part Two The Struggle for Selfhood

I. The Struggle for the Joy of Life 87

1. The Inward Enjoyment of Life 38

2. The Independence of Soul-States 97

3. The Rights of Aestheticism 107

(1) The Aesthetic and Analytic 108 x THE GROUND AND GOAL OF HUMAN LIFE

(2) Aestheticism as Individualism 116

II. The Struggle for the Worth of Life 121

1. Selfhood in Worth 122

2. The Individualistic Initiative 133

3. The Demands of Immoralism 145

III. The Struggle for the Truth of Life 163

1. The Truth of Selfhood 164

(1) The Passion for Predication 165

(2) Humanistic Criteria of Truth 170

2. The Affirmation of the Self 175

3. The Claims of Irreligion i85

BOOK TWO THE GOAL OF LIFE IN SOCIETY 205 Part One

I. The Transvaluation of Self and Society 20S

1. Selfhood in Selfishness 209

2. Selfhood in Strength 220

II. The Practical Socialization of Life 225

1. The Socialization of Work 226

2. The Socialization of Morality 234

(1) The Social Source of Morality 235

(2) The Social Sanction of Morality 243

III. The Inadequacy of the Social 252

1. Lack of Life-Content in Sociality 253

2. Lack of Life-Character in Sociality 263

Part Two

I. Life the Place of Joys 274

1. Humanity and Happiness 275

( 1 ) Happiness as Willed 277

(2) The Consciousness of Plappiness 287

2. The Individual as Decadent 292

(1) The Aesthetic Form of Decadence 293

(2) The Anti-Social Character of Decadence. . 297 II. Life the Place of Values 304

1. The Humanistic Nature of Value 304

(1) Value and Desire 305

(2) Values as Volitional 311

CONTENTS xi

2. The Individual as Pessimist 318

(1) Pessimism as Nihilism 318

(2) The Pessimism of Will 324

III. Life the Place of Truths 330

1. Truth and Life 331

( 1 ) Sociality and Truth 332

(2) Humanity and Truth 338

2. The Individual as Skeptic 342

(1) Skepticism as Dilettantism 343

(2) Social Skepticism 349

BOOK THREE THE HIGHER SYNTHESIS 363 Part One

The Joy of Life in the World-Whole 366

I. One's Own Life 367

1. Egoism and Individualism 368

2. Naturistic Possibilities of Selfhood 374

3. Social Possibilities of Selfhood 383

II. The Enjoyment of Existence 391

1. Joy and Pleasure 392

2. The Aesthetic Nature of Enjoyment 400

3. Enjoyment as Vision 410

III. The Aesthetic Synthesis 416

1. The Aesthetic Synthesis with Nature 417

2. The Aesthetic Synthesis with Humanity 426

Part Two The Worth of Life in the World-Whole 437

I. One's Own Work 438

1. The Truth of Work in Nature 439

(1) Work as Creative 439

(2) Work as Intelligible 444

2. The Worth of Work 447

(1) The Eudaemonistic Element in Work 448

(2) The Characteristic Element in Work 452

II. The Character of World-Work 458

1. The Freedom of Work 459

2. The Value of Work 470 xii THE GROUND AND GOAL OF HUMAN LIFE

III. The Practical Synthesis 480

1. The Hedonic Synthesis 480

( 1 ) Naturalism and Nihilism 481

(2) Sociality and Humanity 486

2. Value as Synthetic Principle 494

(1) Man as Valuer ,.. 496

(2) Humanity a World of Values 501

Part Three The Truth of Life in the World- Whole 509

I. One's Own Self 510

1. The Self as Knower 512

2. Selfhood and Solipsism 520

3. Individualism and Nominalism 528

II. Knowledge as Intellectual Life 536

1. The Understanding as Human 537

2. The Origin and Ground of Knowledge 542

3. The Object of Knowledge 551

III. The Intellectual Synthesis 555

1. Knowledge as Interpretation 556

2. The Essence of Subjectivity 564

3. The Character of Objectivity 572

Introduction

OF all the problems which confront the philosophic mind, none is superior to or more important than a form of inquiry which seeks to relate the individual to the world. The special form which this problem assumes expresses itself in terms of " subjectivity " and " objectivity," although these conventional methods of speech may fail to convey to the reflective mind the significance of the problem and the severity of the situation in connection with which that problem must be discussed. The subjective includes the human self with its perpetual tendency to say, " I think " and " I will," while the objective has direct reference to the organized realms of the physical and political, the scientific and the social. To the individualistic " I think," the physical order may not respond ; to the subjective " I will," the social order may pay no heed. As a result, the thinker may feel forced to resort to a sharp subjectivism which declares, " le monde n'existe pas pour moi," or he may relapse into a sullen objectivism which feels no sense of responsibility for that which is unique in human life. The form of philosophy which seeks to meet this problem of human life in the world, may, for want of a more adequate term, be called Philosophy of Life; that which is peculiar to such a method of speculation is its attempted combination of the metaphysical and the moral. It might seem as though one could examine the forms of the world without taking into account the leading species which that world has produced, just as it might appear plausible when one asserts that he may pursue his ethics without asking questions concerning the nature of the world in which the ethical subject is to exhibit its ideals.

Indeed, traditional metaphysics here and traditional ethics there have agreed to divide the twin fields between; hence moralist and metaphysician separated much after the manner of Lot and Abraham. Now philosophy of life proceeds upon the assumption that such separation is injurious.

THE PROBLEM

Can man be himself? Has he a right to attempt a passage outward from the subjective " I think " to an objective "I am"? This is the question which philosophy of life feels constrained to propose, even when it realizes that the self-satisfied thought of the day is inclined to assume that the self is all that it may hope to be. Nothing in the realm of contemporary culture is more confusing than the fact that those who have the least interest in the human self, the scientific and social thinkers, have persisted in assuming that that self exists, while those who have the most interest in the self, the aesthetical, ethical, and religious individualists, are never guilty of taking the self for granted. The objective thinker should say, " the self does not exist," and should go his scientifico-social way rejoicing; the subjective thinker should say, " the self does exist " and no longer seek to affirm the ego. The actual situation is the very reverse of this which would seem to be the expected one. Individualism feels called upon to regard the self, not as a physical fact, but as that which can come into being only after due self -affirmation. If there were no world of things, individualism might rejoice in sheer selfhood; but the world of things does exist, so that the human self, instead of silhouetting itself against the blue of spiritual life, must strive to shine through the opaqueness of an alien world-order. Man is everything else but himself, while his most natural tendency is to elaborate forms of thought which ever tend to eliminate himself from the world.

Can man do his work; or, has man a work which he may call his own? If it is hard to say, "I am," it is no less difficult to assert, " I do " ; for the inner life is usually marked by a decided nescio and non facio. Were there no social order, and did the ego feel free to act upon his own initiative, self-activity and the joy of self-expression would take their place in the inner consciousness of the self-propelled individual; but, with the actual conditions of social life hemming the individual about, pervading his nature within, it is evident that self-expression must be impelled from within outward in opposition to the alien forces of the larger human order. Man does everything but his own work; his most natural motive is to will himself out of the world of work. To the metaphysical doubt concerning the existence of the self in the natural order, there is thus added a moral compunction as to the right one has to express himself in the social world; apparently, it were vain for the individual to think of self -existence, while it were vicious for him to pretend to do that which he calls " his own work." As metaphysics has surrendered its forms to impersonal nature, morality has loaned its forces to the selfless social order ; hence, there is no true " I am," no just " I do."

1. Selfhood, Scientism and Sociality

The fact of an introvertive, introactive selfhood seems, then, both dubious and dangerous; the individual may think all things save his own being, may do all works except his own. Under what circumstances has this extraordinary condition of non-egoism arisen, and to what degree is our modern thought responsible for the plight into which the human self is now plunged ?

The thought of selfhood did not arise until the inception of modern philosophy, even when the actual " I am " had long rejoiced in its interior and unconscious existence ; and, with the coming of individualism, there arose the tendencies which were conspiring to effect its banishment. Modern thought has divided itself into two periods, one rationalistic the other positivistic, in which the fate of the human self has been, first, that of a confident self-assertion, then, that of a deliberate self-negation. Where modern thought began with a system of reason and rights which did not flinch from solipsism and egoism, it has turned to a scheme of the scientific and the social in which a perfect subjectivism gives way before a complete objectivism. In such a world as our contemporary one, the individual says, " I am not," " I do nothing."

The egoism of the Enlightenment, imperfect as it appears in the eyes of the contemporary individualist, had the will and the power to negate a mediaeval traditio and affirm a resolute ratio; in place of the one-time auctoritas, it did not hesitate to insert a bold jus; thus arose the ." I think " and the " I do " of our modern thought; thus arose a characteristic irreligion of reason, an equally original immoralism of rights. In the midst of this plain and deliberate individualism, the conflict between the ideas of establishment and egoism was such as to result in an immediate victory for the forces which made for an inner life of independent initiatives, and it was only because the forces of self-assertion were so thoroughly taken up with resistance and defence that the failure to attribute content and character to the self led to the defeat of that self. The fortifications were strong enough, but the supplies were insufficient; hence the individualism of the Enlightenment failed from lack of nourishment. At the same time, this earlier form of individualism may have suffered from the want of that stimulus which comes from strong opposition; at any rate, the mechanical metaphysics and altruistic morality of the period failed to penetrate the surface of the confident " I am " and " I do," and the egoism of that time simply lapsed.

A more thorough analysis of the Enlightenment's egoism reveals more perfectly the secret of the problem as it was then proposed, as it was subsequently resumed. What is individualism? Who is the self? What is its work? To these questions, the Enlightenment made no sufficient answer. The self of that time, so far as it assumed a speculative form, was felt to consist in nothing more than self-consciousness; to be one's self is to feel one's self. This individualistic premise failed to produce its just conclusion, because it did not evoke the sterner soul-stuff out of which selfhood must come; it did not affirm the self. On the ethical side of the argument, the question, " What is my work ? " failed from an utterance equally feeble. The hedonistic moralist could find in the ego nothing more characteristic than the sense of self-love, whereby the self was felt, but not willed. Now self-consciousness and self-love are attributes which are singularly inadequate to express and exploit the essense and power of the ego, as this ego now conceives of itself.

The resumption of individualism in the age of positivism, having no system of reason and rights to further it, was called upon to affirm its being and assert its character in the face of opposition, as this came from an unfriendly science and an equally inimical sociality. In the light of these twin tendencies, man was conceived of as a thing among others in a world which was strangely indifferent to the inner character of human life, just as he was further viewed as a subject having no other place or meaning than that which could be attributed to him by a social philosophy.

Now science holds out to the self none of the promises once offered by reason, while society is calculated to afford none of the forfeited advantages of the philosophy of rights. Both the scientific and the social are by nature anti-individualistic; so that that which is unique can find no place in the physical and political thinking of the day. For a century, we have accustomed ourselves to consider the " scientific " as a final authority, just as we have accepted the verdict of the " social " as the decision of the highest human court. What is error? That which is unscientific. What is sin? That which is unsocial.

At the present time, when science has advanced far beyond the mind which originally produced it, we find mankind somewhat disconcerted at the outlook which the world presents to his philosophic vision. In the midst of this perplexity, where man is not quite sure of this world, there has arisen the feeling that, perhaps, science has not fulfilled its prophecies, that evolution has not kept its word with the species. In the same skeptical spirit, we are beginning to distrust the social alignment of ideals; so that both organic and social evolution are deemed less and less authentic. The individual, whose peculiar interests have so long been flouted, seems to be more and more discontented with the thought that, as an " I think," he is but an interloper in the exterior world, while, as an " I do," he is considered superfluous, if not vicious. Suppose one is unscientific; does it follow that he thus loses the truth of life? Suppose he is unsocial; shall we assume that he likewise loses the worth of life? The fruits of the world and of humanity have ripened on the tree of life, but they refuse to fall into the basket of the individual; the individual must shake the tree. If the scientifico-social order now refuses to make room for the individual, the individual will need to elbow his way through the crowd of impersonal facts and forces as they gather about him. Now this reaction of the individual is nothing new; the history of the egoistic revolt is contemporary with the course of the scientific and the social.

2. The; Anti-Scientific and Anti-Social,

The individualistic repudiation of the scientific conception of the world and of the social estimate of man has been based almost exclusively upon the ideas and impulses peculiar to the aesthetic consciousness of the nineteenth century. The more complete analysis of the individualistic situation may show that, even in the Enlightenment, there were traces of anti-scientific irrationalism, anti-social immoralism; but it should appear that it was Romanticism and its dark shadow, Decadence, which placed the individual upon his feet, and that for the first time in the whole history of humanity. Romanticism differed from rationalism at points which have been the most critical for the development of individualism ; Romanticism was impressed with the idea that the individualism triumphant, as this was celebrated in the Enlightenment, could not come to man as his kingdom until there had been an individualism militant; so that it is the polemical in individualism which will be found to afford the most essential and most influential element in the individualism of the present.

In particular, Romantic individualism differs from its prototype in that, where the earlier period was content to premise a selfhood in self-consciousness, the later one insisted upon an active " I am," which refused to abandon its program even when it was confronted by the irrational. In the same manner, where the preliminary individualism sought to settle accounts with the ethical and social by means of naive self-love, the

IO THE GROUND AND GOAL OF HUMAN LIFE

more perfect formulation of the doctrine found the egoist in a position where he defied the social and willed the self. In this manner, self-existence arose as an ideal superior to that of scientific " truth," while self-expression was carried on, even when it seemed to threaten the ideal of social " duty." It will sound both strange and strident when we say that, having taken its stand upon the ideal of aesthetic personality, having made beauty supreme, romantic individualism felt free to receive or to reject the principles of the true and the good; nevertheless, such was the case, and by such means the individual was emancipated.

This vigorous doctrine of individualism, which thus issued its challenge to scientific metaphysics and social morality, far from exhausting itself in revolt — as a debater grows so weary in getting the floor that he has no strength left for his speech — was able to give definite expression to its doctrine, was able to answer that questions, "Who am I?" "What shall I do?" Romantic individualism finds expression in joy, in action, in truth; in the pursuit of these ideals, it produced an aestheticism, an immoralism, an irrationalism ; and from the original intuition of joyous selfhood, it proceeded to think its own thoughts, perform its own deeds. From the earlier ideal of selfhood in self-love, no such happy result had followed; so that it was first in the nineteenth century that individualism became a doctrine as such.

The progress of the anti-scientific and anti-social, as our subsequent analysis of it will show, consisted in opposing the inherent sense of the joy of life to a view of nature which refused to credit the inner life, in an initiative equally in opposition to a science which refused to authenticate human strivings, in a culture which found nothing credible in the prosaic intellectualism with its anti-mystical tendencies. On the social

INTRODUCTION II

side, the conflict will be found to have renewed itself in a defiant Decadence, assumed in contrast to the inferior enjoyments of the established state, in a pessimism which neutralized the half-values of social life, in a skepticism which saw nothing true in social ideas. In the midst of this triple negation of both science and society, individualism developed a more positive character, when it maintained that the inner life was a joyous, valuable, and veritable one, just as it intimated that the scientific view of nature was not large or rich enough to contain the self, the social estimate of humanity equally incapable of contenting the selfaffirming individual.

The shortcomings of the Romantic revolt appear at once in the persistently polemical attitude; for the elaboration of a concrete, humanistic content for the individual's life was often tainted by the unsound arguments and imperfect motives which the egoist advanced. Man must be himself; failing to find in either science or society the sense of joy which he seeks, has he the philosophic right to resort to the aesthetically decadent? Can we justify him, when, dismayed at the discovery that exterior life has no genuine values for him, he seeks relief in pessimistic immoralism? Is true individualism advanced by one who, finding no truth in the scientjfico-social world, feels free to further his egoistic ideals by indulging in irrationalistic skepticism? This question, of supreme importance to the individualism of the future, may be answered in the following manner. When threats of the scientific and the social were so severe that all sense of selfhood seemed to be in vain, the decadent egoist was, for the time, justified in assuming the attitude of aestheticism, immoralism, irrationalism; nevertheless, this morbid method of formulating the individualistic argument can never be accepted as anything more than a means to a superior end. When, as in contemporary thought, the battle for individualism has been won, it becomes necessary to restate the ideas of joy, worth, and truth, in such a way as shall make them more authentic, more healthful. Furthermore, it is incumbent upon the individualist, who complains that the natural and social world do not contain or express the meaning of his interior life, to describe what kind of exterior order would thus afford him the true place of the self.

3. The Higher Synthesis

That which the individualist is expected to abandon is the extreme of a doctrine which vitiated the power of its contention when it resorted to the decadent, the immoralistic, the irrationalistic ; that which he may be allowed to keep as his egoistic own is the inherent sense of the inner life as one of joy, worth, and truth. What, we may ask, should be the features of an external world of nature and humanity, in which the eudaemonistic, the ethical, and the religious world obtain? The career of individualism cannot fail to show that science does not give us Nature, that social thinking does not present Humanity; the scientific has drawn a small circle about an extensive subject, the social has been equally narrow in circumscribing its chosen field; nature is more than science, humanity more than society. If the individual cannot exist, in the Nature of science, if he cannot express himself in the Humanity of social thinking, it does not follow that he is homeless, worldless ; for the trans-scientific conception of the world and the trans-social estimate of man may still be able to evince the august fact that the world does exist for the self.

There must be a new heavens and a new earth, a renewed and advanced conception of the natural order which environs us, of the social order which we have built in strange neglect of the fact that it was meant for humanity. When individualism assumes the responsibilities of restating the essential meaning of a world whose forms have been so dominated by scientism that life has become all but impossible, it will find that the intellectual life of man is capable of furnishing such a view as shall evince the truth of life as such; when this individualism attempts to align a new ideal of human work, it will find that humanity is worthy of something superior to the social. Then, the individual may be said to live within, to work from within, while the content and character of the self will possess attributes free from the distressing features of Decadence. The determination of the inner life of the individual, which was so empty and resultless with Rationalism, so vicious and forbidding with Romanticism, will appear with greater clearness, with increased value. That which individualism is really required to show is that life has both truth and worth. When the problem of life-truth is taken up, it will appear that it is in culture, rather than in aestheticism, that the true inwardness of the individual's life is to be found; and when the question of life-worth is isolated, it should be apparent that it is in work that the ego may best express its inner nature. Furthermore, individualism may expect to be cheered by the truth that the world, when surveyed in a trans-scientific manner, does not forbid culture ; that humanity, when emancipated from the domination of the secular social ideal, makes it possible and desirable for the individual to do that which may justly be called his own work. But these desired truths and ideals cannot be appropriated gratuitously; to advance them with sincerity and confidence, we must first bring ourselves to the realization of the inferiorities of the scientifico-social and the superiorities of the cultural and individualistic. Then perhaps the crass objectivity of the one and the strident subjectivity of the other, which now lead to an annoying dualism, may give way before the higher synthesis of the individual with nature and humanity.

Book One The Ground Of Life In Nature

THUS far in the history of humanity there has never been any mutual understanding between the mind and the world. With both antiquity and mediaevalism, where the world had not been subjected to the analysis of physical science and where the mind had not been treated psychologically, there was no apparent need for the adjustment of the feeble Inner with the indefinite Outer. In modern thought, both mind and world have been so emphasized and so thoroughly intensified that mutual adjustment has become necessary. If the Enlightenment did not always say, " There is no world," it did persist in making the mind too great; if Positivism has not always asserted, " There is no mind," it has been guilty of making the world too great. In the midst of these contrasted views, individualism has suffered from the exaggeration of the mind here and the world there; whence the present need of mutual adjustment. In the earlier period of modern thought, it was the habit of the thinker to indulge in a naive self-consciousness which caused the ego to lose sight of the world; in the later period, in whose midst we are still enveloped, individualism found it expedient to exchange self-consciousness for self-assertion. Then, the ego was a mere " I think " ; now, egoism is based upon a vigorous " I will." At first, the world was a system of ideas over which the thinking self was able to gain ascendancy; finally the world became an order of things which has caused the ego to come into being as something asserted with all the violence of irrationalism. When rationalism was in complete possession of the world, it failed to appreciate its good fortune; now that such rationalism has passed away, the egoist is forced to avail himself of irrationalism in order to assert selfhood in opposition to scientism.