Part 7

498.

To what extent is our intellect also a result of the conditions of life?--We should not have it did we not need to have it, and we should not have it as we have it, if we did not need it as we need it--that is to say, if we could live otherwise.

499.

Thinking in a primitive (inorganic) state is to persevere in forms, as in the case of the crystal.--In our thought, the essential factor is the harmonising of the new material with the old schemes (= Procrustes' bed), the assimilation of the unfamiliar.

500.

The perception of the senses projected outwards: "inwards" and "outwards"--does the body command here?

The same equalising and ordering power which rules in the idioplasma, also rules in the incorporation of the outer world: our sensual perceptions are already the result of this process of adaptation and harmonisation in regard to all the past in us; they do not follow directly upon the "impression."

501.

All thought, judgment, perception, regarded as an act of comparing has as a first condition the act of equalising, and earlier still the act of "making equal." The process of making equal is the same as the assimilation by the amœba of the nutritive matter it appropriates.

"Memory" late, in so far as the equalising instinct appears to have been subdued: the difference is preserved. Memory--a process of classification and collocation; active--who?

502.

In regard to the memory, we must unlearn a great deal: here we meet with the greatest temptation to assume the existence of a "soul," which, irrespective of time, reproduces and recognises again and again, etc. What I have experienced, however, continues to live "in the memory"; I have nothing to do with it when memory "comes," my will is inactive in regard to it, as in the case of the coming and going of a thought. Something happens, of which I become conscious: now something similar comes--who has called it forth? Who has awakened it?

503.

The whole apparatus of knowledge is an abstracting and simplifying apparatus--not directed at knowledge, but at the appropriation of things: "end" and "means" are as remote from the essence of this apparatus as "concepts" are. By the "end" and the "means" a process is appropriated (--a process is invented which may be grasped), but by "concepts" one appropriates the "things" which constitute the process.

504.

Consciousness begins outwardly as co-ordination and knowledge of impressions,--at first it is at the point which is remotest from the biological centre of the individual; but it is a process which deepens and which tends to become more and more an inner function, continually approaching nearer to the centre.

505.

Our perceptions, as we understand them--that is to say, the sum of all those perceptions the consciousness whereof was useful and essential to us and to the whole organic processes which preceded us: therefore they do not include all perceptions (for instance, not the electrical ones);--that is to say, we have senses only for a definite selection of perceptions--such perceptions as concern us with a view to our self-preservation. Consciousness extends so far only as it is useful. There can be no doubt that all our sense-perceptions are entirely permeated by valuations (useful or harmful--consequently, pleasant or painful). Every particular colour; besides being a colour, expresses a value to us (although we seldom admit it, or do so only after it has affected us exclusively for a long time, as in the case of convicts in gaol or lunatics). Insects likewise react in different ways to different colours: some like this shade, the others that. Ants are a case in point.

506.

In the beginning images how images originate in the mind must be explained. Then words, applied to images. Finally concepts, possible only when there are words--the assembling of several pictures into a whole which is not for the eye but for the ear (word). The small amount of emotion which the "word" generates,--that is, then, which the view of the similar pictures generates, for which one word is used,--this simple emotion is the common factor, the basis of a concept. That weak feelings should all be regarded as alike, as the same, is the fundamental fact. There is therefore a confusion of two very intimately associated feelings in the ascertainment of these feelings;--but who is it that ascertains? Faith is the very first step in every sensual impression: a sort of yea-saying is the first intellectual activity! A "holding-a-thing-to-be-true" is the beginning. It were our business, therefore, to explain how the "holding-of-a-thing-to-be-true" arose! What sensation lies beneath the comment "true"?

507.

The valuation, "I believe that this and that is so," is the essence of "truth." In all valuations, the conditions of preservation and of growth find expression. All our organs and senses of knowledge have been developed only in view of the conditions of preservation and growth. The trust in reason and its categories, the trust in dialectics, and also the valuation of logic, prove only that experience has taught the usefulness of these things to life: not their "truth." The prerequisites of all living things and of their lives is: that there should be a large amount of faith, that it should be possible to pass definite judgments on things, and that there should be no doubt at all concerning all essential values. Thus it is necessary that something should be assumed to be true, not that it is true.

"The real world and the world of appearance"-- I trace this contrast to the relation of values. We have posited our conditions of existence as the attributes of being in general. Owing to the fact that, in order to prosper, we must be stable in our belief, we developed the idea that the real world was neither a changing nor an evolving one, but a world of being.

(e) The Origin of Reason and Logic.

508.

Originally there was chaos among our ideas. Those ideas which were able to stand side by side remained over, the greater number perished--and are still perishing.

509.

The kingdom of desires out of which logic grew: the gregarious instinct in the background. The assumption of similar facts is the first condition for "similar souls." For the purpose of mutual understanding and government.