Part 9 (2/2)
This symbol would not have sufficed to satisfy the craving of which I speak if it were only a ”discovery” of humanity. The ”G.o.d-man” may be ”discovered” in nature; but the ”Man-G.o.d”
must be ”created” by man.
We find ourselves approaching this symbol from many points of view, but the point of view which especially concerns us is to note how it covers the whole field of human experience. In this symbol the ultimate duality receives its ”eternal form” and becomes an everlasting standard or pattern of what is most natural and most rhythmic. As I advance in my a.n.a.lysis of the relation of the ultimate duality to this symbolic figure of Christ, it becomes necessary to review once more, in clear and concise order, the various stages of thought by means of which I prove the necessity of some sort of universal symbol, and the necessity of moulding this symbol to fit the drama of One ultimate duality.
A summary of the stages of thought through which we have already pa.s.sed will thus be inevitable; but it will be a summary of the situation from the view-point of a different angle.
Philosophy then is an attempt to articulate more vividly the nature of reality than such ”reality” can get itself articulated in the confused pell-mell of ordinary experience. The unfortunate thing is that in this process of articulating reality philosophy tends to create an artificial world of its own, which in the end gets so far away from reality that its conclusions when they are confronted with the pell-mell of ordinary experience appear remote, strange, fantastic, arbitrary, and even laughable.
This philosophical tendency to create an artificial world which when confronted with the real world appears strange and remote is due to the fact that philosophers, instead of using as their instrument of research the entire complex vision, use first one and then another of its isolated attributes. But there must come moments when, in the a.n.a.lysis of so intricate and elaborate a thing as ”reality” by means of so intricate and elaborate an instrument, as the complex vision, the most genuine and the least artificial of philosophies must appear to be following a devious and serpentine path.
These moments of difficulty and obscurity are not, however--as long as such a philosophy attaches itself closely to ”reality” and flows round ”reality” like a tide flowing round submerged rocks or liquid metal flowing round the cavities of a mould--a sign that philosophy has deserted reality, but only a sign that the curves and contours and jagged edges of reality are so intricate and involved that only a very fluid element can follow their complicated shape.
But these moments of difficulty and obscurity, these vague and impalpable links in the chain, are only to be found in the _process_ by which we arrive at our conclusion. When our conclusion has been once reached it becomes suddenly manifest to us that it has been there, with us, all the while, implicit in our whole argument, the secret and hidden cause why the argument took the form it did rather than any other. The test of any philosophy is not that it should appeal immediately and directly to what is called ”common-sense,” for common-sense is no better than a crude and premature synthesis of superficial experiences; a synthesis from which the supreme and culminating experiences of a person's life have been excluded. For in our supreme and culminating experiences there is always an element of what might be called the ”impossible” or of what must be recognized as a matter of faith or imagination. It is therefore quite to be expected that the conclusions of a philosophy like the philosophy of the complex vision, which derives its authority from the exceptional and supreme experiences of all souls, should strike us in our moments of ”practical common-sense” as foolish, impossible, ridiculous and even insane. All desperate and formidable efforts towards creation have struck and will strike the mood of ”practical common-sense” as ridiculous and insane. This is true of every creative idea that has ever emanated from the soul of man.
For the mood of ”practical common-sense” is a projection of the baser instinct of self-preservation and is penetrated through and through with that power of inert malice which itself might be called the instinct of self-preservation of the enemy of life.
”Practical common-sense” is the name we give to that superficial synthesis of our baser self-preservative instincts, which, when it is reinforced and inspired by ”the will of malice” out of the evil depths of the soul, is the most deadly of all antagonists of new life.
We need suffer, therefore, no surprise or pain if we find the conclusions of the philosophy of the complex vision ridiculous and ”impossible” to our mood of practical common-sense. If on the contrary they did not seem insane and foolish to such a mood we might well be profoundly suspicious of them. For although there are very few certainties in this world, one thing at least is certain, namely that for any truth or reality to satisfy the creative spirit in us it must present itself as something dangerous, destructive, ridiculous and insane to that instinct in us which resists creation.
But although ”the appeal to common-sense” is no test of the truth of a philosophy, since common-sense is precisely the thing in us which has a malicious hostility to the creative spirit, yet no philosophy can afford to disregard an appeal to actual experience as long as actual experience includes the rare moments of our life as well as all the rest. Here is indeed a true and authentic test of philosophic validity. If we take our philosophical conclusions, so to speak, in our hands, and plunge with them into the very depths of actual experience, do they grow more organic, more palpable and more firm, or do they melt away into the flowing waters?
Who is not able to recall the distress of bitter disillusionment which has followed the collapse of some plausible system of ”sweet reasonableness” under the granite-like impact of a rock of reality which has knocked the bottom out of it and left it a derelict upon the waves? This collapse of an ordered and reasonable system under the impact of some atrocious projection of ”cra.s.s casuality” is a proof that if a philosophy has not got in it some ”iron” of its own, if it has not got in it something formidable and unfathomable, something that can destroy as well as create, it is not of much avail against the winds and storms of destiny.
For a philosophy to be a true representation of reality, for it to be that reality itself, become conscious and articulate, it is necessary that it should prove most vivid and actual at those supreme moments when the soul of man is driven to the ultimate wall and is at the breaking-point.
The truth of a philosophy is not to be tested by what we feel about it in moods of practical common-sense; for in these moods we have, for some superficial reason, suppressed more than half of the attributes of our soul. The truth of a philosophy can only be tested in those moments when the soul, driven to the wall, gathers itself together for one supreme effort. But there is, even in less stark and drastic hours, an available test of a sound and organic philosophy which must not be forgotten. I refer to its capacity for being vividly and emphatically summed up and embodied in some concrete image or symbol.
If a philosophy is so rationalistic that it refuses to lend itself to a definite and concrete expression we are justified in being more than suspicious of it.
And we are suspicious of it not because its lack of simplicity makes it intricate and elaborate, for ”reality” is intricate and elaborate; but because its inability to find expression for its intricacy in any concrete symbol is a proof that it is too simple.
For the remote conclusions of a purely logical and rationalistic philosophy are made to appear much less simple than they really are by reason of their use of remote technical terms.
What the soul demands from philosophy is not simplicity but complexity, for the soul itself is the most complex thing we know.
The thin, rigid, artificial outlines of purely rationalistic systems can never be expressed in ritual or symbol or drama, not because they are too intricate, but because they are not intricate enough.
A genuine symbol, or ritualistic image, is a concrete living organic thing carrying all manner of magical and subtle a.s.sociations. It is an expression of reality which comes much nearer to reality than any rationalistic system can possibly do. A genuine symbolic or ritualistic image is a concrete expression of the complexity of life.
It has the creative and destructive power of life. It has the formidable mysteriousness of life, and with all this it has the clear-cut directness of life's terrible and exquisite tangibility.
When suddenly confronted, then, in the mid-stream of life, by the necessity of expressing the starting-point, which is also the conclusion, of the philosophy of the complex vision, what synthetic image or symbol or ritualistic word are we to use in order to sum up its concrete reality?
The revelation of life, offered to us by the complex vision, is, as we have seen, no very simple or logical affair. We axe left with the spectacle of innumerable ”souls,” human, sub-human and super-human, held together by some indefinable ”medium” which enables them to communicate with one another. Each one of these ”souls” at once creates and discovers its own individual ”universe”
and then by an act of faith a.s.sumes that the various ”universes”
created and discovered by all other souls are identical with its own.
That they _are_ identical with its own the soul is led to a.s.sume with more and more certainty in proportion as its communion with other souls grows more and more involved. This ident.i.ty between the various ”universes” of alien souls is rendered more secure and more objective by the fact that time and s.p.a.ce are found to be essential peculiarities of all of them alike. For since time and s.p.a.ce are found to enter into the original character of all these ”universes,” it becomes a natural and legitimate conclusion that all these ”universes” are in reality the same ”universe.”
We are left, then, with the spectacle of innumerable souls confronting a ”universe” which in their interaction with one another they have half-created and half-discovered. There is no escape from the implication of this phrase ”half-discovered.” The creative activity of the complex vision perpetually modifies, clarifies and moulds the mystery which surrounds it; but that there is an objective mystery surrounding it, of which time and s.p.a.ce are permanent aspects, cannot be denied.
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