Ultimate
Questions
The Consequences of Monism
THE
uniform explanation of the world, that is, the monism
we have described, derives the principles that it needs for
the explanation of the world from human experience. In the
same way, it looks for the sources of action within the world
of observation, that is, in that part of human nature which is
accessible to our self-knowledge, more particularly in moral
imagination. Monism refuses to infer in an abstract way that
the ultimate causes of the world that is presented to our
perceiving and thinking are to be found in a region outside
this world. For monism, the unity that thoughtful observation
— which we can experience — brings to the manifold
multiplicity of percepts is the same unity that man's need for
knowledge demands, and through which it seeks entry into
the physical and spiritual regions of the world. Whoever
seeks another unity behind this one only proves that he does
not recognize the identity of what is discovered by thinking
and what is demanded by the urge for knowledge. The single
human individual is not actually cut off from the universe.
He is a part of it, and between this part and the totality of
the cosmos there exists a real connection which is broken
only for our perception. At first we take this part of the
universe as something existing on its own, because we do
not see the belts and ropes by which the fundamental forces
of the cosmos keep the wheel of our life revolving.
Whoever remains at this standpoint sees a part of the
whole as if it were actually an independently existing thing,
a monad which receives information about the rest of the
world in some way from without. Monism, as here described,
shows that we can believe in this independence only so long
as the things we perceive are not woven by our thinking into
the network of the conceptual world. As soon as this happens,
all separate existence turns out to be mere illusion due to
perceiving. Man can find his full and complete existence in
the totality of the universe only through the experience of
intuitive thinking. Thinking destroys the illusion due to
perceiving and integrates our individual existence into the
life of the cosmos. The unity of the conceptual world, which
contains all objective percepts, also embraces the content of
our subjective personality. Thinking gives us reality in its
true form as a self-contained unity, whereas the multiplicity
of percepts is but a semblance due to the way we are organized
(see page 67). To recognize true reality, as against the
illusion due to perceiving, has at all times been the goal of
human thinking. Scientific thought has made great efforts to
recognize reality in percepts by discovering the systematic
connections between them. Where, however, it was believed
that the connections ascertained by human thinking had
only subjective validity, the true basis of unity was sought in
some entity lying beyond our world of experience (an
inferred God, will, absolute spirit, etc.). On the strength of
this belief, the attempt was made to obtain, in addition to
the knowledge accessible to experience, a second kind of
knowledge which transcends experience and shows how the
world that can be experienced is connected with the entities
that cannot (a metaphysics arrived at by inference, and not
by experience). It was thought that the reason why we can
grasp the connections of things in the world through
disciplined thinking was that a primordial being had built
the world upon logical laws, and, similarly, that the grounds
for our actions lay in the will of such a being. What was not
realized was that thinking embraces both the subjective and
the objective in one grasp, and that through the union of
percept with concept the full reality is conveyed. Only as
long as we think of the law and order that permeates and
determines the percept as having the abstract form of a
concept, are we in fact dealing with something purely
subjective. But the content of a concept, which is added to the
percept by means of thinking, is not subjective. This content
is not taken from the subject, but from reality. It is that part
of the reality that cannot be reached by the act of perceiving.
It is experience, but not experience gained through perceiving.
If someone cannot see that the concept is something
real, he is thinking of it only in the abstract form in which
he holds it in his mind. But only through our organization is
it present in such isolation, just as in the case of the percept.
After all, the tree that one perceives has no existence by
itself, in isolation. It exists only as a part of the immense
machinery of nature, and can only exist in real connection
with nature. An abstract concept taken by itself has as little
reality as a percept taken by itself. The percept is the part of
reality that is given objectively, the concept the part that is
given subjectively (through intuition — see page 73 ff.).
Our mental organization tears the reality apart into these two
factors. One factor presents itself to perception, the other to
intuition. Only the union of the two, that is, the percept
fitting systematically into the universe, constitutes the full
reality. If we take mere percepts by themselves, we have no
reality but rather a disconnected chaos; if we take by itself
the law and order connecting the percepts, then we have
nothing but abstract concepts. Reality is not contained in the
abstract concept; it is, however, contained in thoughtful
observation, which does not one-sidedly consider either
concept or percept alone, but rather the union of the two.
That we live in reality (that we are rooted in it with our
real existence) will not be denied by even the most orthodox
of subjective idealists. He will only deny that we reach the
same reality with our knowing, with our ideas, as the one we
actually live in. Monism, on the other hand, shows that
thinking is neither subjective nor objective, but is a principle
that embraces both sides of reality. When we observe with
our thinking, we carry out a process which itself belongs to
the order of real events. By means of thinking, within the
experience itself, we overcome the one-sidedness of mere
perceiving. We cannot argue out the essence of reality by
means of abstract conceptual hypotheses (through pure
conceptual reflection), but in so far as we find the ideas that
belong to the percepts, we are living in the reality. Monism
does not seek to add to experience something non-experienceable
(transcendental), but finds the full reality in
concept and percept. It does not spin a system of metaphysics
out of mere abstract concepts, because it sees in the concept
by itself only one side of the reality, namely, the side that
remains hidden from perception, and only makes sense in
connection with the percept. Monism does, however, give
man the conviction that he lives in the world of reality and
has no need to look beyond this world for a higher reality
that can never be experienced. It refrains from seeking
absolute reality anywhere else but in experience, because it is
just in the content of experience that it recognizes reality.
Monism is satisfied by this reality, because it knows that
thinking has the power to guarantee it. What dualism seeks
only beyond the observed world, monism finds in this world
itself. Monism shows that with our act of knowing we grasp
reality in its true form, and not as a subjective image that
inserts itself between man and reality. For monism, the
conceptual content of the world is the same for all human
individuals (see page 68). According to monistic principles,
one human individual regards another as akin to himself
because the same world content expresses itself in him. In
the unitary world of concepts there are not as many concepts
of the lion as there are individuals who think of a lion, but
only one. And the concept that A fits to his percept of the
lion is the same that B fits to his, only apprehended by a
different perceiving subject (see page 69). Thinking leads
all perceiving subjects to the same ideal unity in all
multiplicity. The unitary world of ideas expresses itself in them as
in a multiplicity of individuals. As long as a man apprehends
himself merely by means of self-perception, he sees himself
as this particular man; as soon as he looks at the world of
ideas that lights up within him, embracing all that is separate,
he sees within himself the absolute reality living and shining
forth. Dualism defines the divine primordial Being as that
which pervades and lives in all men. Monism finds this
divine life, common to all, in reality itself. The ideas of
another human being are in substance mine also, and I
regard them as different only as long as I perceive, but no
longer when I think. Every man embraces in his thinking
only a part of the total world of ideas, and to that extent
individuals differ even in the actual content of their thinking.
But all these contents are within a self-contained whole,
which embraces the thought contents of all men. Hence
every man, in his thinking, lays hold of the universal primordial
Being which pervades all men. To live in reality, filled
with the content of thought, is at the same time to live in
God. A world beyond, that is merely inferred and cannot be
experienced, arises from a misconception on the part of
those who believe that this world cannot have the foundation
of its existence within itself. They do not realize that through
thinking they find just what they require for the explanation
of the percept. This is the reason why no speculation has
ever brought to light any content that was not borrowed
from the reality given to us. The God that is assumed
through abstract inference is nothing but a human being
transplanted into the Beyond; Schopenhauer's Will is
human will-power made absolute; Hartmann's Unconscious,
a primordial Being made up of idea and will, is but a compound
of two abstractions drawn from experience. Exactly
the same is true of all other transcendental principles based
on thought that has not been experienced.
The truth is that the human spirit never transcends the
reality in which we live, nor has it any need to do so, seeing
that this world contains everything the human spirit requires
in order to explain it. If philosophers eventually declare
themselves satisfied with the deduction of the world from
principles they borrow from experience and transplant into
an hypothetical Beyond, then it should be just as possible to
be satisfied when the same content is allowed to remain in
this world, where for our thinking as experienced it does
belong. All attempts to transcend the world are purely
illusory, and the principles transplanted from this world into
the Beyond do not explain the world any better than those
which remain within it. If thinking understands itself it will
not ask for any such transcendence at all, since every content
of thought must look within the world and not outside it for a
perceptual content, together with which it forms something
real. The objects of imagination, too, are no more than
contents which become justified only when transformed into
mental pictures that refer to a perceptual content. Through
this perceptual content they become an integral part of reality.
A concept that is supposed to be filled with a content lying
beyond our given world is an abstraction to which no reality
corresponds. We can think out only the concepts of
reality; in order to find reality itself, we must also have
perception. A primordial world being for which we invent
a content is an impossible assumption for any thinking that
understands itself. Monism does not deny ideal elements,
in fact, it considers a perceptual content without an ideal
counterpart as not fully real; but in the whole realm of thinking
it finds nothing that could require us to step outside the
realm of our thinking's experience by denying the objective
spiritual reality of thinking itself. Monism regards a science
that limits itself to a description of percepts without penetrating
to their ideal complements as incomplete. But it
regards as equally incomplete all abstract concepts that do
not find their complements in percepts, and that fit nowhere
into the conceptual network that embraces the whole
observable world. Hence it knows no ideas that refer to
objective factors lying beyond our experience and which are
supposed to form the content of a purely hypothetical system
of metaphysics. All that mankind has produced in the way of
such ideas monism regards as abstractions borrowed from
experience, the fact of borrowing having been overlooked by
the originators.
Just as little,
according to monistic principles, can the
aims of our action be derived from an extra-human Beyond.
In so far as we think them, they must stem from human
intuition. Man does not take the purposes of an objective
(transcendental) primordial Being and make them his own,
but he pursues his own individual purposes given him by his
moral imagination. The idea that realizes itself in an action
is detached by man from the unitary world of ideas and made
the basis of his will. Therefore it is not the commandments
injected into this world from the Beyond that live in his
action, but human intuitions belonging to this world itself.
Monism knows no such world-dictator who sets our aims and
directs our actions from outside. Man finds no such primal
ground of existence whose counsels he might investigate in
order to learn from it the aims to which he has to direct his
actions. He is thrown back upon himself. It is he himself who
must give content to his action. If he looks outside the world
in which he lives for the grounds determining his will,
he will look in vain. If he is to go beyond merely satisfying
his natural instincts, for which Mother Nature has provided,
then he must seek these grounds in his own moral imagination,
unless he finds it more convenient to let himself be determined
by the moral imaginations of others; in other words, either
he must give up action altogether, or else he must act for
reasons that he gives himself out of his world of ideas or that
others select for him out of theirs. If he advances beyond
merely following his life of sensuous instincts or carrying
out the commands of others, then he will be determined by
nothing but himself. He must act out of an impulse given by
himself and determined by nothing else. It is true that this
impulse is determined ideally in the unitary world of ideas;
but in practice it is only by man that it can be taken from that
world and translated into reality. The grounds for the actual
translation of an idea into reality by man, monism can find
only in man himself. If an idea is to become action, man must
first want it, before it can happen. Such an act of will
therefore has its grounds only in man himself. Man is then the
ultimate determinant of his action. He is free.
Author's additions, 1918
- In the second part of this book the attempt has been
made to demonstrate that freedom is to be found in the
reality of human action. For this purpose it was necessary to
single out from the whole sphere of human conduct those
actions in which, on the basis of unprejudiced self-observation,
one can speak of freedom. These are actions that
represent the realization of ideal intuitions. No other actions
will be called free by an unprejudiced observer. Yet just by
observing himself in an unprejudiced way, man will have to
see that it is in his nature to progress along the road towards
ethical intuitions and their realization. But this unprejudiced
observation of the ethical nature of man cannot, by itself,
arrive at a final conclusion about freedom. For were intuitive
thinking to originate in anything other than itself, were its
essence not self-sustaining, then the consciousness of freedom
that flows from morality would prove to be a mere
illusion. But the second part of this book finds its natural
support in the first part. This presents intuitive thinking as
man's inwardly experienced spiritual activity. To understand
this nature of thinking by experiencing it amounts to a
knowledge of the freedom of intuitive thinking. And once we
know that this thinking is free, we can also see to what
region of the will freedom may be ascribed. We shall regard
man as a free agent if, on the basis of inner experience, we
may attribute a self-sustaining essence to the life of intuitive
thinking. Whoever cannot do this will never be able to
discover a path to the acceptance of freedom that cannot be
challenged in any way. This experience, to which we have
attached such importance, discovers intuitive thinking
within consciousness, although the reality of this thinking is
not confined to consciousness. And with this it discovers
freedom as the distinguishing feature of all actions proceeding
from the intuitions of consciousness.
- The argument of this book is built upon intuitive thinking
which may be experienced in a purely spiritual way and
through which, in the act of knowing, every percept is placed
in the world of reality. This book aims at presenting no more
than can be surveyed through the experience of intuitive
thinking. But we must also emphasize what kind of thought
formation this experience of thinking demands. It demands
that we shall not deny that intuitive thinking is a
self-sustaining experience within the process of knowledge. It
demands that we acknowledge that this thinking, in conjunction
with the percept, is able to experience reality instead
of having to seek it in an inferred world lying beyond
experience, compared to which the activity of human
thinking would be something purely subjective.
Thus thinking is characterized as that factor through
which man works his way spiritually into reality. (And,
actually, no one should confuse this world conception that
is based on the direct experience of thinking with mere
rationalism.) On the other hand, it should be evident from
the whole spirit of this argument that for human knowledge
the perceptual element only becomes a guarantee of reality
when it is taken hold of in thinking. Outside thinking there is
nothing to characterize reality for what it is. Hence we must
not imagine that the kind of reality guaranteed by sense
perception is the only one. Whatever comes to us by way of
percept is something that, on our journey through life, we
simply have to await. The only question is, would it be
right to expect, from the point of view that this purely
intuitively experienced thinking gives us, that man could
perceive spiritual things as well as those perceived with the
senses? It would be right to expect this. For although, on the
one hand, intuitively experienced thinking is an active
process taking place in the human spirit, on the other hand it
is also a spiritual percept grasped without a physical sense
organ. It is a percept in which the perceiver is himself
active, and a self-activity which is at the same time perceived.
In intuitively experienced thinking man is carried
into a spiritual world also as perceiver. Within this spiritual
world, whatever confronts him as percept in the same way
that the spiritual world of his own thinking does will be
recognized by him as a world of spiritual perception. This
world of spiritual perception could be seen as having the
same relationship to thinking that the world of sense perception
has on the side of the senses. Once experienced, the
world of spiritual perception cannot appear to man as
something foreign to him, because in his intuitive thinking
he already has an experience which is purely spiritual in
character. Such a world of spiritual perception is discussed in
a number of writings which I have published since this book
first appeared.
The Philosophy of Freedom
forms the philosophical
foundation for these later writings. For it tries to
show that the experience of thinking, when rightly understood,
is in fact an experience of spirit. Therefore it appears
to the author that no one who can in all seriousness adopt
the point of view of
The Philosophy of Freedom
will stop short
before entering the world of spiritual perception. It is
certainly not possible to deduce what is described in the
author's later books by logical inference from the contents
of this one. But a living comprehension of what is meant in
this book by intuitive thinking will lead quite naturally to a
living entry into the world of spiritual perception.
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