Part 28

Here we have wind, the waters of the seas, the rays of the sun, chemical and physical forces, forces of nature. These are specimens of the universal force of nature. These specimens were regarded with sober enough eyes by the Greeks, but the general nature sat high upon Olympus in the form of Zeus. In the same way, the Greeks were familiar with beautiful things, but beauty was an unapproachable goddess, Aphrodite. True, the philosopher no longer believed in the gods, but he was nevertheless still under the influence of transcendental concepts and thus he mystified the general under the name of the "idea." The Platonic ideas, like the gods of the heathen, are mystifications of the general. Plato furthermore shows himself as a descendant of polytheism in this: Although he clearly distinguished between virtue and virtuous things, between beauty and beautiful things, between truth and true things, yet he did not rise to the understanding that all generalities are amalgamated and unified in the absolute generality, that, in so far, the good, the true, and the beautiful are identical. The research for the absolute did not become monistic until Christian monotheism lent a hand. You will see from this that religion and philosophy form a common chapter which has the genus of all genera for its object. Faith is distinguished from science in that the latter no longer bows to the dictates of imagination and of its organs, the priests, but seeks to fathom the object of its studies by the exact use of the intellect. A partial amalgamation of the two is, therefore, quite natural.

"When a woman is strong, isn't she strong after the same conception and the same strength? By the term same," says the Platonic Socrates, "I mean that it makes no difference whether the strength is in the man or in the woman."

This quotation, taken from Plato's "Menon," shows that Platonic research deals with the general, in this case the general concept of strength which is the same in man or woman, ox or mule, Tom and Jerry. It is the genus by means of which black and white horses are known as horses, dogs and monkeys as animals, animals and plants as organisms, and finally the variations of the whole world as the universe, as the same. Plato has grasped this same-ness in a limited way, for instance in regard to strength, reason, virtue, etc. But that in an infinite sense everything is the same, that things as well as ideas, bodies, and souls, are the same, remained for radical proletarian logic to discover.

Hand in hand with the narrow Platonic conception of the general went a narrow theory of understanding or science, a wrong conception of the intellect and its functions. The Socratic Plato and the Platonic Socrates both call understanding by the name of "remembering." By praising understanding, they teach us that we must not believe the priests, but study by the help of our senses. But, nevertheless, they still teach a wrong method, a narrow art of thought.

In "Menon," the object of study is virtue. Socrates does not exactly pose as a schoolmaster. He knows that he is called the wisest of men, but explains that this is so, because others have a conceited opinion of their wisdom, while his wisdom consists in humbly knowing that he knows nothing. He does not so much try to teach what virtue is, as to stimulate his disciples to search for it. But his idea of research is distorted.

Among the immortal things which he transcendentally separates from mortal things, he also classifies the soul, "the immortal soul" which dies and lives again, and has always lived, knows everything, but must "remember." Thus his research becomes a cudgeling of the brain, an introspective speculation. He is not looking for understanding by way of natural science, through the interrelations of the world, but speculatively through the inside of the human skull.

In order to make his theory of memory plain, Socrates in "Menon" calls an ignorant slave and instructs him in the fundamentals of geometry. He quickly succeeds in getting from the ignorant fellow, who at first gives wrong answers, the correct statements by recalling the connections of thought by clever questioning. He thus demonstrates to his satisfaction that man has wisdom a priori in his head. But the Socratic-Platonic art of logic has overlooked that such wisdom requires concepts which are fixed in memory by internal and external interrelations. The socalled immortal soul with its innate wisdom has troubled the world a good while thereafter.

You must not think that I have a poor opinion of Plato, because I criticize him in this way. On the contrary, I am highly delighted with his divine and immortal writings. "Honor to Socrates, honor to Plato, but still more honor to truth." I also assure you that I am a great admirer of natural science, but nevertheless I should like to show you that it indulges in narrow reasoning.

Robert Mayer, the talented discoverer of the equivalent of heat, has proven that the force of gravitation, of electricity, of steam, of heat, etc., represents different modes of expression of the same force, of the force of nature in general. But no, not quite so! He has ascertained the numerical relation by which the transformations of one force into another is accomplished. Thus a logical understanding sees that the various forces and force in general are distinguished in detail but identical in general. Darwin in his "Origin of Species" has accomplished a similar demonstration. But neither Mayer nor Darwin have given that general expression to world unity which is required by the art of logic. In order to become an adept at this art, you must rise to the understanding that all forces are various modes of expression of the one force, all animals and species transformations of animaldom, that on the moon a part is smaller than the whole, the same as on earth, that there as well as here fire burns, and that as surely as you have no doubt of your being, just as surely is there only one being, the infinite, divine universe which has no other gods beside it, but contains all forces, materials, and transformations.

This is an innate science which is the cause of all other science, an innate science which, indeed, must first be awakened in you by "memory."

Hence our proletarian logic instructs you not to rack your brain by mere introspection, as the ancient philosophers used to do, not to call the senses impostors nor to search for truth without eyes, nose, and ears, nor on the other hand to start out with the idea of certain natural scientists who try to see, hear, and smell understanding without the help of the intellect.

The mistake committed in making a wrong use of the intellect is a "sin against the holy ghost." The Socratic-Platonic doctrine of memory is one extreme side of this sin; the other extreme side is represented by that modern science which tries to find truth by mere external means and rejects everything as untrue which is not ponderable or tangible.

As this letter is more intimately connected with the following one than is ordinarily the case, I take the liberty to unite them under the same number and mark them with the letters A and B.

(B)

We are still the guests of Plato today, my son, and I should like to show you that this philosopher, in whose time natural science had barely developed its first downy feathers, already suspected its stubborn narrowness, although in a certain sense the Platonic logic was no less narrow than that of the so-called exact sciences still is to-day, at least in part. Still Platonic logic had at least the advantage of its outlook toward the Supreme Being, the absolute, while modern naturalism is still stuck in the narrow land of specialties. Therefore, I hope that you will find it interesting to note with me the way in which universal truth is peeping forth beneath the wings of Platonic speculation.

"Listen, then, to what I am going to say," remarks Socrates in "Phaedo," paragraph 45. "In my youth, O Cebes, I had a great interest in natural science, for it seemed to me a magnificent thing to know the cause of everything, to learn how everything begins, exists, and passes. A hundred times I turned to one thing and then to another, reflecting about these matters by myself. Do animals arise when the hot and the cold begin to disintegrate, as some claim? Is it the blood, which enables us to think, or the air or the fire? Or is it none of these, but rather the brain which produces all perceptions, such as seeing, hearing, smelling, and does memory and thought then arise by these, and from thought and memory, when they become adjusted, understanding? And again, when I considered that all this passes away, and the changes in heaven and on earth, I finally felt myself poorly qualified for this whole investigation. Let this be sufficient proof to you: In the things which formerly were familiar and known to me, I became so doubtful by this investigation, that I forgot even that which I thought I knew of many other things, as for instance the question as to how man grows. I thought that everybody knew that this was caused by eating and drinking. For when through the food flesh comes to flesh and bone to bone, and in the same way that which is akin to all the rest of the things which constitute man, it seemed natural that a small mass would become larger, and thus a small man grow tall. Does not this appear reasonable to you?... Consider furthermore this. It seemed enough to me that a man appeared large when standing by the side of something small, that he looked taller by one head, and in the same way one horse by the side of another; or what is still plainer, ten seemed to me more than eight, because it is more by two, and a thing of two feet longer than that which measures only one foot, because it exceeds it by one."

Thereupon Cebes asks: "Well, and what do you think of this now?"

"I think, by Zeus," says Socrates, "that I am far removed from knowing the cause of any of these things. I do not even admit that by adding one to one I obtain two, by such an addition. For I wonder how it is that each was supposed to be one when by itself, while now, that they have been added to one another, they have become two. Neither can I convince myself that if one thing divides a thing in two, that this division is the cause of it becoming two. For this would be the opposite way of making two. But when I heard somebody reading something from a book, written by Anaxagoras as he said, to the effect that it is reason which had arranged everything and was the cause of everything, I rejoiced at this cause.... Now if one were to search for the cause of all things, of their origin, existence and passing, he should only find out what is the best way to maintain their existence.... Hence it is not meet that man should care for anything else in regard to himself as well as to all other things, but for that which is best and most excellent, and then he would also know the worst about things, for the understanding of both is the same. Considering this, I was glad to have found a teacher who knows about the cause of all things, who suited me, I mean Anaxagoras, and who would now tell me, first whether the earth is round or flat, and after telling me that, would also explain to me the necessity for it and the cause, by pointing to the fact that it was better that it should be so. And when he claimed that the earth was the center of things, I hoped he would explain why it was better that it should be the center, and when he had explained that, I was resolved that I would not ask for any other cause. In the same way I was going to inquire after the cause of the sun, the moon, and the other stars, etc.... For I did not believe that after claiming all this to have been arranged by reason, he would be dragging in any other cause than that of being best to have it just so. And this wonderful hope I had to abandon, my friends, when I continued to read and saw that the man accomplished nothing by reason and adduces no other reasons relating to the arrangement of things, but quotes air, and water, and ether, and many other astonishing things.

"And it seemed that it was as if some one said Socrates accomplishes all things by reason, and then, when he began to enumerate the cause of everything I do, were to say first that I am sitting here because my body consists of bones and sinews, and that the bones are hard and are differentiated by joints, and the sinews so constructed that they can be extended and shortened, etc. And further, if he tried to name the causes of our discussion, he would refer to other similar things, such as sound, and air and hearing, and a thousand and one other things, quite neglecting the true cause, viz., that it suited the Athenians better to condemn me, and that it suited me for this reason to stay here and seemed more just to me to bear patiently the punishment which they have ordered. For I believe that my bones and sinews would have gone long ago to the dogs or been carried to the Boeotians, had I not considered it more just and beautiful to atone to the state than to flee.

"It is very illogical, then, to name such causes. But if any one were to say that I should not be able to do what I please without these things (sinews and bones, and whatever else I may have), he would be right. But it would be a very thoughtless contention to say that these things are the cause of my actions, instead of my free choice to do the best. That would show an inability to distinguish the fact that in all things the cause is one thing, and another thing that without which the cause could not be cause. And it seems to me that it is precisely this which some call by a wrong name in considering it as the cause. For this reason some put a whirlwind from heaven round the earth and others rest it on air as they would a wide trough on a footstool."

So far Socrates, whose words I ask you to read repeatedly and carefully, though they may look a little old-fashioned. This quotation is somewhat lengthy, but I thought best not to cut it too short and to present it in its main outlines.

This quotation says on the whole the same thing which I have said in my proceeding letters. According to Socrates, all our thoughts and actions have a wider and more general purpose, which he calls the "good," so that we even do evil for the sake of good. A crime always aims at some particular good. Evil is misunderstood good. Applied to natural science, this means that it misunderstands the interrelation of all its fine discoveries. And this charge is true even to-day. Although the natural interrelations are more and more recognized from day to day, still the understanding of the absolute inter-connection continues to be overlooked, especially that of the intellect with material things, or of the ideal with the real. Natural science teaches after the manner of the gospel of John: Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob. But it forgets to teach that all these genitors were not genitors in the last analysis, but begotten by old Jehovah himself. The uncultivated condition of Grecian natural sciences may have been ground enough for Socrates to think little of it. We, on the other hand, have to-day good reasons for thinking highly of natural science, and for this very reason I take pains to illustrate by its prominent example in what respect the neglect of the universal world thought results in a narrow conception of the world.

We may well rejoice more lastingly than Socrates when natural science teaches us how it happens that everything has its origin, life, and end, because the knowledge of natural science has been far more enriched by modern experiences than it was at the time of Anaxagoras. Nevertheless you must not stop learning furthermore from logic that all growing, coming into existence, living, and passing away is but a change of form. The causes of natural science are indeed not causes, but effects of the universe. They are reasonable effects of reason in so far as the latter is not an isolated part, but interconnected with the universe. To repeat: Our intellect is not ours, it does not belong to man, but it together with man belongs to the universe. Reason and the world, the true, the good, and the beautiful, together with Godhood which you shall not idolize but understand in the spirit and in the world, in truth and in reality, are all one thing, one being, and everywhere eternal and the same.

Socrates shows that he has as yet only a narrow anthropomorphic, not a cosmic conception of the "best and good" and of reason. He was dominated by the prejudice which still holds sway over the uncultured believers in God, that reason is older than all the rest of the world, that it is the ruling and antecedent creator. Our conception of logic, on the other hand, teaches that the spirit which we have in our brain is but the emanation of the world spirit. And this latter must not be conceived as a nebulous world monster, not as an enormous spirit, but as the actual universe, which in spite of all change and all variation is eternally one, true, good, reasonable, real, and supreme.

TWENTY-FOURTH LETTER

The art of thought, my son, for which we are striving, is not pure and abstract, but connected with practice, a practical theory, a theoretical practice. It is not a separate and isolated thing, not a "thing in itself," but is connected with all things; it has a universal interrelation. Hence our logic, as we have repeatedly stated, is a philosophy, world wisdom, and metaphysics. I include the latter, because our logic excludes nothing, not even the transcendental. It teaches that everything, even transcendentalism, if practiced with consciousness and the necessary moderation, and at the right time and place, for instance at the carnival, is a reasonable and sublime pleasure.

All prominent philosophers were explorers and users of the same art of thought, of living, of viewing the world, although many of them retired to the solitude and were ascetics. Can the world be understood in a hermitage? Yes and no. After you have been traveling and seeing many lands, it is well to retire and classify the impressions received, and thus to reflect about a true philosophy of life. In this way, secluded thought, in the relative meaning of the word, that is, in connection with observation and experience, with enjoyment and life, is a veritable savior. Body and soul belong together, and if they are separated, it must be remembered that such a separation is a mere matter of form, that they are in fact one thing, attributes of the same being which is infinitely great, so great that all other beings are but its fringes.

The art of distinction distinguishes the infinite infinitely with the consciousness that in reality everything is interrelated without distinction and is one.