Part 13 (1/2)
Of this ma.s.s of impressions, including time and s.p.a.ce, my thought, thus abstracted from my personal soul, becomes the circ.u.mference. Outside my thought there is nothing at all. Inside my thought there is all that is. The metaphysical reason insists that this all-comprehensive thought or all-embracing consciousness cannot contemplate itself as an object but is compelled to remain an universal subject whose object can only be the ma.s.s of impressions which it contains.
If it is possible to speak of this ”a priori” background of all possible perception as a ”monad” at all, it is a monad which certainly lacks the essential power of the individual monad which we know as our real self, for this latter can and does contemplate itself as an object.
But as I have hinted before, the complex vision's attribute of self-consciousness projects a second abstraction, which takes its place between this ultimate monad which is pure ”subject” and our real personal self which is so much more than subject and object together.
This second abstraction, ”thrown off” by our pure self-consciousness just as the first one is ”thrown off” by our pure reason, becomes therefore an intervening monad which exists midway between the monad which is pure ”subject”--if that can be called a monad at all--and the actual individual soul which is the living reality of both these thought-projections.
The whole question resolves itself into a critical statement of the peculiar play of thought when thought is considered in its own inherent nature apart from concrete objects of thought. This original play of thought, apart from what it may think, can result in nothing better than isolated abstractions; because thought, apart from concrete objects of thought, is itself nothing more than one attribute of the complex vision, groping about in a vacuum and finding nothing. We are, however, bound by the ”conscience of reason,” and by what might be called reason's sense of honour to articulate as clearly as we can all these movements of pure thought working in the void; but we certainly are forbidden by the original revelation of the complex vision to accept them as the starting point of our philosophical enquiry. And we cannot accept them as a starting point, because the complex vision includes much more than self-consciousness and reason. It includes indeed so much more than these, that these, when indulging in their isolated conjuring-tricks, seem like irrelevant and tiresome clowns who insist upon interrupting with their fantastic pedantry the great tragic-comedy wherein the soul of man wrestles with its fate.
As I have already indicated, it is necessary in dealing with a matter as dramatic and fatal as this whole question of ultimate reality, to risk the annoyance of repet.i.tion. It is important to go over our tracks again so that no crevice should be left in this perilous bridge hung across the gulf. Reason, then, working in isolation, provides us with the recognition of an ultimate universal ”subject” or, in metaphysical language, with an ”a priori unity of apperception.”
Simultaneously with this recognition, self-consciousness, also working in isolation, provides us with the recognition of an universal self-conscious ”monad” or ”cosmic self” which is not only able but is compelled to think of itself as its own object.
Both these recognitions imply a consciousness which is outside time and s.p.a.ce; but while the first, the outer edge of thought, can only be regarded as ”pure subject,” the second can be regarded as nothing else than the whole universe contemplating itself as its own object.
In the third place the complex vision, working with all its attributes together, provides us with the recognition of a personal or empirical self which is the real ”I am I” of our integral soul.
This personal self, or actual living soul, must be thought of as possessing some ”substratum” or ”vanis.h.i.+ng point of sensation” as the implication of its permanence and continuous ident.i.ty. This ”vanis.h.i.+ng point of sensation,” or in other words this attenuated form of ”matter” or ”energy” or ”movement,” must not be allowed to disappear from our conception of the soul. If it _were_ allowed to disappear, one of the basic attributes of the soul's complex vision, namely its attribute of sensation, would be negated and suppressed.
Directly we regarded the ”I am I” within us as independent of such a ”vanis.h.i.+ng point of sensation” and as being entirely free from any, even from the most attenuated form, of what is usually called ”matter,” then, at that very moment, the complex vision's revelation would be falsified. Then, at that very moment, the integrity of the soul would dissolve away, and we should be reduced to a stream of sensations with nothing to give them coherence and unity, or to that figment of abstract self-consciousness, ”thought-in-itself,” apart from both the thing ”thinking”
and the thing ”thought.” The soul, therefore, must be conceived if we are to be true to the original revelation of the complex vision, as having an indefinable ”something” as its substratum or implication of ident.i.ty. And this something, although impossible to be a.n.a.lysed, must be regarded as existing within that mysterious medium which is the uniting force of the universe. The soul must, in fact, be thought of as possessing some sort of ”spiritual body” which is the centre of its complex vision and which, therefore, expresses itself in reason, self-consciousness, will, sensation, instinct, intuition, memory, emotion, conscience, taste, and imagination. All this must necessarily imply that the soul is within, and not outside, time and s.p.a.ce. It must further imply that although the physical body, which the soul uses at its will, is only one portion of the objective universe which confronts it, this physical body is more immediately connected with the soul's complex vision and more directly under the influence of it than any other portion of the external universe.
The question then arises, can it be said that this ”vanis.h.i.+ng point of sensation,” this ”substratum” composed of ”something” which we are only able to define as the limit where the ultimate attenuation of what we call ”matter” or ”energy” pa.s.ses into unfathomableness, this centre of the soul, this ”spiritual body,” this invisible ”pyramid base” of the complex vision, is also, just as the physical body is, a definite portion of that objective universe which we apprehend through our senses?
The physical body is entirely and in all its aspects a portion of this objective universe. Is the substratum of the soul a portion of it also? I think the answer to this question is that it _is_ and also _is not_ a portion of this universe. This ”spiritual body,” this ”vanis.h.i.+ng point of sensation,” which is the principle of permanence and continuity and ident.i.ty in the soul, is obviously the very centre and core of reality. Being this, it must necessarily be a portion of that objective world whose reality, after the reality of the soul itself, is the most vivid reality which we know.
The complex vision demands and exacts the reality of the objective world. The whole drama of its life depends upon this.
Without this the complex vision would not exist. And just as the complex vision could not exist without the reality of the objective world, so the objective world could not exist without the reality of the complex vision. These two depend upon one another and perpetually recreate one another.
Any metaphysical system which denies the existence of the objective world, or uses the expression ”illusion” with regard to it, is a system based, not upon the complex vision in its entirety, but upon some isolated attribute of it. The ”substratum” of the soul, then, must be a portion of the objective world so as to give validity, so to speak, and a.s.surance that this objective world with its mysterious medium crowded with living bodies and inanimate objects is not a mere illusion. But the ”substratum” of the soul must be something else in addition to this. Being the essential meeting-point between what we call thought on the one hand, and what we call ”matter” or ”energy” on the other, the ”substratum” of the soul must be a point of perpetual movement where the life of thought pa.s.ses into the life of sensation.
The ”substratum” of the soul must be regarded as the ultimate attenuation of ”matter” on the one hand, and on the other as perpetually pa.s.sing into ”mind.” For since it is the centre-point of life it must be composed of a stuff woven, so to speak, out all the threads of life. That is to say it must be the very centre and vortex of all the contradictions in the universe.
Since the ”substratum” or ”spiritual body” of the soul is the most real thing in the universe it must, in its own nature, partake of every kind of reality which exists in the universe. It must therefore be, quite definitely, a portion of the objective world existing within time and s.p.a.ce. But it must also be the ultimate unity of ”the life of thought.” And since, as we have seen, it is within the power of reason and self-consciousness to isolate themselves from the other attributes of the soul and to project themselves outside of s.p.a.ce and time, it must be the perpetual fatality of the ”substratum” of the soul to recall these wanderers back to the true reality of things, which does not lie outside of s.p.a.ce and time but within s.p.a.ce and time, and which must justify time and s.p.a.ce as something very different from illusion.
But because, within time and s.p.a.ce, the universe is unfathomable, and because, also within time and s.p.a.ce, personality is unfathomable, the ”substratum” of the soul, which is the point where the known and the unknown meet, must be unfathomable also, and hence must sink away beyond the limit of our thought and beyond the limit of our sensation.
Since it does this, since it sinks away beyond the limit of our thought, it must be regarded as ”something” whose reality is partly known and partly unknown. Thus it is true to say that the ”substratum” of the soul _is_ and _is not_ a portion of the objective universe. The substratum of the soul is, in fact, the essential and ultimate reality, where all that we know loses itself in all that we do not know. Because we are compelled to admit that only one aspect of the ”substratum” of the soul is a portion of the objective universe as we know it, this does not justify us in a.s.serting that the ”substratum” of the soul is at once within s.p.a.ce and time and outside of s.p.a.ce and time.
Nothing is outside of s.p.a.ce and time. This conception of ”outside”
is, as we have seen, an abstraction evoked by the isolated activity of the logical reason. The fact that only one aspect of the ”substratum” of the soul--and even that one with the barest limit of definition--can be regarded as a portion of the objective universe does not give the soul any advantage over the universe. For the universe, like the soul, has also its unfathomable depths. That indefinable medium, for instance, which we are compelled to think of as making it possible that various souls should touch one another and communicate with one another, is in precisely the same position as regards any ultimate a.n.a.lysis as is the soul itself.
It also sinks away into unfathomableness. It also becomes a portion of that part of reality which we do _not_ know.
At this point in our enquiry it is not difficult to imagine some materialistic objector asking the question how we can conceive such a vaguely denned ent.i.ty as the soul possessing such very definite attributes as those which make up the complex vision.
Is it not, such an one might ask, a fantastic and ridiculous a.s.sumption to endow so obscure a thing as this ”soul” with such very definite powers as reason, instinct, will, intuition, imagination, and the rest? Surely, such an one might protest, it is in the physical body that these find their unity? Surely, if we must have a meeting-place where thought and the objects of thought lose themselves in one another, such a meeting-place can be nothing else than the cells of the brain?
The answer to this objection seems to me quite a final one. The physical body cannot supply us with the true meeting-place between ”the life of thought” and ”the life of sensation”
because the physical body does not _in itself_ sink away into unfathomablenesss as does the substratum of the soul. The physical body can only be regarded as unfathomable when definitely included in the whole physical universe. But the substratum of the soul is doubly unfathomable. It is unfathomable as being the quintessence or vanis.h.i.+ng-point of ”matter” or ”energy,” and it is unfathomable as being the quintessence of that personal self which confronts not only the objective universe but the physical body also as part of that universe. It is undoubtedly true that this real self which is the centre of its own universe is bound to contemplate itself as occupying a definite point in s.p.a.ce and time.
This is one of its eternal contradictions; that it should be at the same time the creator of its universe and an unfathomable portion of the very universe it creates. The answer which the philosophy of the complex vision makes to the materialistic questioner who points to the ”little cells of the brain” may be briefly be put thus.
The soul functions through the physical body and through the cells of the brain. The soul is so closely and so intimately a.s.sociated with the physical body that it is more than possible that the death of the physical body implies the annihilation of the soul. But when it comes to the question as to where we are to look for the essential self in us which is able to say ”I am I” it is found to be much more fantastic and ridiculous to look for it in the ”little cells of the brain” than in some obscure ”something,” or ”vanis.h.i.+ng point of sensation,” where mind and matter are fused together. That this ”something” which is able to say ”I am I” should possess instinct, reason, will, intuition, conscience and the rest, may be hard to imagine. But that the ”little cells of the brain” should possess these is not only hard to imagine--it is unimaginable. The mysterious relation which exists between our soul and our body lends itself to endless speculation; and much of this speculation tends to become far more fantastic and ridiculous than any a.n.a.lysis of the attributes of the soul. Experiment and experience alone can teach us how far the body is actually malleable by the soul and amenable to the soul's purpose.