Part 3 (2/2)
And precisely as the fact of self-consciousness implies the primordial duality and contradiction of being at once the whole universe and something inside the universe, so the original fact of our thinking at all, implies the activity of the will.
We think because we are ”thinking animals” and we will because we are ”willing animals.” The presence of what we call motive is something that comes and goes intermittently and which may or may not be present from the first awakening of consciousness. We _may_ think ”I am I” at the very dawn of consciousness under the pressure of a vague motive of clearing up a confused situation. We _may_ use our reason at the very dawn of consciousness under the pressure of a vague motive of alleviating the distress of disorder with the comfort of order. But, on the other hand, self-consciousness may play its part, reason may play its part and the will may play its part in the complete absence of any definite motive. There is such a thing--and this is the point I am anxious to make--as _motiveless_ will. Certain thinkers have sought to eliminate the will altogether by subst.i.tuting for it the direct impact or pressure of some motive or motive-force. But if the will can be proved to be a primordial energy of the complex vision and if the conception of a motiveless exertion of the will is a legitimate conception, then, although we must admit the intermittent appearance and disappearance of all manner of motives, we have no right to subst.i.tute motive for will. If we do make such a subst.i.tution, all we really achieve is simply a change of _name_; and our new motive is the old will ”writ small.”
Motives undoubtedly may come and go from the beginning of consciousness and the beginning of will. They may flutter like b.u.t.terflies round both the consciousness and the will. For instance it is clear that I am not _always_ articulating to myself the notable or troublesome thought ”I am I.” I may be sometimes so lost and absorbed in sensation that I quite forget this interesting fact. But it may easily happen at such times that I definitely experience the _sensation of choice_; of choice between an intensification of self-consciousness and a continued blind enjoyment of this external preoccupation. And it is from this _sensation of choice_ that we gather weight for our contention that the will is a basic attribute of the human soul.
It is certainly true that we are often able to detach ourselves from ourselves and to watch the struggle going on between two opposite motive-forces, quite unaware, it might seem, and almost indifferent, as to how the contest will end.
But this struggle between opposite motives does not obliterate our sensation of choice. It sometimes intensifies it to an extreme point of quite painful suspension. The opposite motives may be engaged in a struggle. But the field of the struggle is what we call the will.
And it may even sometimes happen that the will intervenes between a weaker and stronger motive and, out of arbitrary pride and the pleasure of exertion for the sake of exertion, throws its weight on the weaker side.
It is a well-known psychological fact that the complex vision can energize, with vigorous spontaneity, through the will alone, just as it can energize through sensation alone. The will can, so to speak, stretch its muscles and gather itself together for attack or defence at a moment when there is no particular necessity for its use.
Some degree of self-consciousness is bound to accompany this ”motiveless stretching” of the will, for the simple reason that it is not ”will in the abstract” which makes such a movement but the totality of the complex vision, though in this case all other attributes of the complex vision, including self-consciousness and reason, are held in subordination to the will.
Man is a philosophical animal; and he philosophizes as inevitably as he breathes. He is also an animal possessed of will; and he uses his will as inevitably as, in the process of breathing, he uses his lungs or his throat. Around him, from the beginning, all manner of motives may flutter like birds on the wing. They may be completely different motives in the case of different personalities. But in all personalities there is consciousness, to grasp these motives; and in all personalities there is will, to accept or to reject these motives.
The question of the freedom of the will is a question which necessarily enters into our discussion.
The will feels itself--or rather consciousness feels the will to be--at once free and limited. The soul does not feel it is free to do anything it pleases. That at least is certain. For without some limitation, without something resistant to exert itself upon, the will could not be known. An absolutely free will is unthinkable. The very nature of the will implies a struggle with some sort of resistance.
The will is, therefore, by the terms of its original definition and by the original feeling which the soul experiences in regard to it, limited in its freedom. The problem resolves itself, therefore, if once we grant the existence of the will, into the question of how much freedom the will has or how far it is limited. Is it, for instance, when we know all the conditions of its activity, entirely limited? Is the freedom of the will an illusion?
It is just at this point that the logical reason makes a savage attempt to dominate the situation. The logical reason arrives step by step at the inevitable conclusion that the will has no freedom at all but is absolutely limited.
On the other hand emotion, instinct, imagination, intuition, and conscience, all a.s.sume that the limitation of the will is not absolute but that within certain boundaries, which themselves are by no means fixed or permanent, the will is free.
Consciousness itself must be added to this list. For whatever arguments may be used in the realm of thought, when the moment of choice arrives in the realm of action, we are always conscious of the will as free. If the reason is justified in regarding the freedom of the will as an illusion, we are justified in denying the existence of the will altogether. For a will with only an illusion of freedom is not a will at all. In that ease it were better to eliminate the will and regard the soul as a thing which acts and reacts under the stimuli of motives like a helpless automaton endowed with consciousness.
But the wiser course is to experiment with the will and let it prove its freedom to the sceptical reason by helping that same reason to retire into its proper place and a.s.sociate itself with the apex-thought of the complex vision.
Leaving the will then, as a thing limited and yet free, let us pa.s.s to a consideration of what I call ”taste.” This is the aesthetic sense, an original activity of the human soul, a.s.sociated with that universal tendency in life and nature which we name the beautiful. I use the word ”taste” at this moment in preference to ”aesthetic sense,”
because I feel that this particular original activity of the complex vision has a wider field than is commonly supposed. I regard it, in fact, as including much more than the mere sense of beauty. I regard it as a direct organ of research, comparable to instinct or intuition, but covering a different ground. I regard it as a mysterious clairvoyance of the soul, capable of discriminating between certain everlasting opposites, which together make up an eternal duality in the very depths of existence.
These opposites imply larger and more complicated issues than are implied in the words beautiful and ugly. The real and the unreal, the interesting and the uninteresting, the significant and the insignificant, the suggestive and the meaningless, the arresting and the commonplace, the exciting and the dull, the organic and the affected, the dramatic and the undramatic, are only some of the differences implied.
The fact that art is constantly using what we call the ugly as well as what we call the commonplace, and turning both these into new forms of beauty, is a fact that considerably complicates the situation. And what art, the culminating creative energy of the aesthetic sense, can do, the aesthetic sense itself can do with its critical and receptive power.
So that in the aesthetic sense, or in what I call ”taste,” we have an energy which is at once receptive and creative; at once capable of responding to this eternal duality, and of creating new forms of beauty and interest _out of_ the ugly and uninteresting. A new name is really required for this thing. A name is required for it that conveys a more creative implication than the word ”taste,” a word which has an irresponsible, arbitrary, and even flippant sound, and a more pa.s.sionate, religious, and ecstatic implication than the word ”aesthetic,” a word which suggests something calculated, cold, learned, and a little tame. I use the word ”taste” at this particular moment because this word implies a certain challenge to both reason and conscience, and some such challenge it is necessary to insist upon, if this particular energy of the soul is to defend its basic integrity.
This ultimate attribute of personality, then, which I call ”taste”
reveals to us an aspect of the system of things quite different from those revealed by the other activities of the human soul. This aspect of the universe, or this ”open secret” of the universe, loses itself, as all the others do in unfathomable abysses. It descends to the very roots of life. It springs from the original reservoirs of life. It has depths which no mental logic can sound; and it has horizons in the presence of which the mind stops baffled. When we use the term ”the beautiful” to indicate the nature of what it reveals, we are easily misled; because in current superficial speech--and unless the word is used by a great artist--the term ”beautiful” has a narrow and limited meaning. Dropping the term ”taste” then, as having served its purpose, and reverting to the more academic phrase ”aesthetic sense” we must note that the unfathomable duality revealed by this aesthetic sense covers, as I have hinted, much more ground than is covered by the narrow terms ”beauty” and ”ugliness.”
It must be understood, moreover, that what is revealed by the aesthetic sense is a struggle, a conflict, a war, a contradiction, going on in the heart of things. The aesthetic sense does not only reveal loveliness and distinction; it also reveals the grotesque, the bizarre, the outrageous, the indecent and the diabolic. If we prefer to use the term ”beauty” in a sense so comprehensive and vast as to include _both sides_ of this eternal duality, then we shall be driven to regard as ”beautiful” the entire panorama of life, with its ghastly contrasts, with its appalling evil, with its bitter pain, and with its intolerable dreariness.
The ”beautiful” will then become nothing less than the whole dramatic vortex regarded from the aesthetic point of view. Life with all its contradictions, considered as an aesthetic spectacle, will become ”beautiful” to us. This is undoubtedly one form which the aesthetic sense a.s.sumes; the form of justifying existence, in all its horror and loathsomeness as well as in all its magical attraction.
Another form the aesthetic sense may a.s.sume is the form of ”taking sides” in this eternal struggle; of using its inspiration to destroy, or to make us forget, the brutality of things, by concentrating our attention upon what in the narrow sense we call the beautiful or the distinguished or the lovely. But there is yet a third form the aesthetic sense may a.s.sume. Not only can it visualize the whole chaotic struggle between beauty and hideousness as itself a beautiful drama; not only can it so concentrate upon beauty that we forget the hideousness; it is also able to see the world as a humorous spectacle.
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