Part 14 (1/2)
By an original act of faith, towards which we are helped by the soul's attribute of imagination, we are compelled to conceive of every other soul in the world as being the centre of a universe more or less identical in character with the universe of which our own soul is the centre. These separate universes we have to conceive as being subjective impressions of the same objective reality, the beauty, truth, and goodness of which are guaranteed for us by those ”invisible companions of men” in whose eternal vision they find their synthesis.
The tragedy of our life consists in the fact that it is only in rare exalted moments, when the rhythmic harmony of the complex vision is most intense and yet most calm, that the individual soul feels the presence of those supreme companions whose real and personal existence I have attempted to indicate. These ideal and yet most real companions of humanity make their presence felt by the soul in just the same immediate, direct and equivocal way in which we feel the influence of a friend or lover whose spirit, in his bodily absence, is concentrated upon our spirit, even as ours is upon his.
To the larger vision of these ”invisible companions” we find ourselves consciously and sub-consciously turning whenever the burden of our flesh oppresses us more than we can bear. We are compelled to turn to them by reason of the profound instinct in us which recognizes that our ideas of truth, of beauty, and goodness are not mere subjective fancies but are actual objective realities.
These ideas do not spring from these ”companions” or find their origin and cause in them, any more than they spring from some imaginary ”parent” of the universe and find their origin and cause in something ”behind life.” They do not ”spring” from anything at all; but are the very stuff and texture of our own unfathomable souls, just as they are the very stuff and texture of the unfathomable souls of the immortal G.o.ds. What we are conscious of, when our complex vision gathers itself together, is the fact that the inevitable element of subjectivity in our individual feeling about these things is transcended and supplemented by an invisible pattern or standard or ideal in which these things are reconciled and fused together at a higher pitch of harmony than we individually, or even in contact with one another, are capable of attaining.
The vision of these ”invisible companions”--absolute enough in relation to our own tragic relativity--is itself relative to its own hope, its own dream, its own prophecy, its own premonition. The real evolution of the world, the real movement of life, takes therefore a double form. It takes the form of an individual _return_ to the fulness of ideas which have always been implicit and latent in our individual souls. And it takes the form of a co-operative _advance_ towards the fulness of ideas which are foreshadowed and prophesied in the vision of these immortals' companions. Thus for us, as well as for them, the eternal movement is at once an advance and a return. Thus for us, as well as for them, the eternal inspiration is at once a hope and a reminiscence.
It will be seen from what I have said that this philosophy of the complex vision finds a place for all the n.o.bler and more desperate struggles of the human race towards a solution of the mystery of life. It accepts fully the fact that the human reason playing isolated games with itself, is driven by its own nature to reduce ”all objects of all thought” to the circle of one ”synthetic unity” which is the implied ”a priori” background of all actual vision. It accepts fully the fact that human self-consciousness, playing isolated games with itself, is driven by the necessity of its own nature to reduce all separate ”selves” to one all embracing ”world self” which is the universe conscious of itself as the universe.
It accepts fully the fact that we have to regard the apparent objectivity of the external universe, with its historic process, as an essential and unalterable aspect of reality, so grounded in truth that to call it an ”illusion” is a misuse of language. But although it accepts both the extreme ”materialistic” view and the extreme ”idealistic” view as inevitable revelations of reality, it does not regard either of them as the true starting-point of enquiry, because it regards both these extremes as the result of the isolated play of one or the other of the complex vision's attributes.
The philosophy of the complex vision refuses to accept as its starting-point any ”synthetic unity” other than the synthetic unity of personality; because any other than this it is compelled to regard as abstracted from this by the isolated play of some particular attribute of the mind. The philosophy of the complex vision refuses to accept as its starting-point any attenuated materialistic hypothesis, such as may be indicated by the arbitrary words ”life” or ”movement” or ”ether” or ”force” or ”energy” or ”atoms” or ”molecules” or ”electrons” or ”vortices” or ”evolutionary progress,” because it recognizes that all these hypothetical origins of life are only projected and abstracted aspects of the central reality of life, which is, and always must be, personality.
But what is the relation of the philosophy of the complex vision to that modern tendency of thought which calls itself ”pragmatism”
and which also finds in personality its starting-point and centre?
The philosophy of the complex vision seems to detect in the pragmatic att.i.tude something which is profoundly unpleasing to its taste. Its own view of the art of life is that it is before everything else a matter of rhythm and harmony and it cannot help discerning in ”pragmatism” something piece-meal, pell-mell and ”hand-to-mouth.”
It seems conscious of a certain outrage to its aesthetic sense in the method and the att.i.tude of this philosophy. The pragmatic att.i.tude, though it would be unfair to call it superficial, does not appeal to the philosophy of the complex vision as being one of the supreme, desperate struggles of the human race to overcome the resistance of the Sphinx. The philosophy of the complex vision implies the difficult attainment of an elaborate harmony. It regards ”philosophy” as the most difficult of all ”works of art.” What it seems to be suspicious of in pragmatism is a tendency to seek mediocrity rather than beauty, and a certain humorous opportunism rather than the quiet of an eternal vision. It seems to look in vain in ”Pragmatism” for that element of the _impossible_, for that strain of Quixotic faith, in which no high work of art is found to be lacking. It seems unable to discover in the pragmatic att.i.tude that ”note of tragedy” which the fatality of human life demands.
It certainly shares with the pragmatic philosophy a tendency to lay more stress upon the freedom of the will than is usual among philosophies. But the ”will” of the complex vision moves in closer a.s.sociation with the aesthetic sense than does the ”will” of pragmatism. It is perhaps as a matter of ”taste” that pragmatism proves most unsatisfactory to it. It seems to be conscious of something in pragmatism, which, though itself perhaps not precisely ”commercial,” seems curiously well adapted to a commercial age. It is aware, in fine, that certain high and pa.s.sionate intimations are roused to unmitigated hostility by the whole pragmatic att.i.tude. And it refuses to outrage these intimations for the sake of any psychological contentment.
In regard to the particular kind of ”truth” championed by pragmatists, the ”truth” namely which gives one on the whole the greatest amount of practical efficiency, the philosophy of the complex vision remains unconvinced. The pragmatic philosophy judges the value of any ”truth” by its effective application to ordinary moments. The philosophy of the complex vision judges the value of any ”truth” by its relation to that rare and difficult harmony which can be obtained only in extraordinary moments.
To the pragmatic philosopher a shrewd, efficient and healthy-minded person, with a good ”working” religion, would seem the lucky one, while to the philosophy of the complex vision some desperate, unhappy suicidal wastrel, who by the grace of the immortals was allowed some high unutterable moment, might approach much more closely to the vision of those ”sons of the universe” who are the pattern of us all.
This comparison of the method we are endeavouring to follow with the method of ”pragmatism” helps to throw a clear light upon what the complex vision reveals about these ”ultimate ideas” in the flow of an indiscriminate ma.s.s of mental impression.
To the pa.s.sing fas.h.i.+on of modern thought there is something stiff, scholastic, archaic, rigid, and even Byzantine, about the words ”truth,” ”beauty,” ”goodness,” thus pedestalled side by side. But just as with the old-fas.h.i.+oned word ”matter” and the old-fas.h.i.+oned word ”soul,” we must not be misled by a mere ”superst.i.tion of novelty” in these things.
Modern psychology has not been able, and never can be able, to escape from the universal human experiences which these old-fas.h.i.+oned words cover; and as long as the experiences are recognized as real, it surely does not make much difference what _names_ we give to them. It seems, indeed, in a point so human and dramatic as this, far better to use words that have already acquired a clear traditional and natural connotation than to invent new words according to one's own arbitrary fancy. It would not be difficult to invent such words. In place of ”truth” one could say ”the objective reality of things” rhythmically apprehended by the complex vision. Instead of ”beauty” one could say ”the world seen under the light of a peculiar creative power in the soul which reveals a secret aspect of things otherwise concealed from us.”
Instead of ”goodness” one could say ”the power of the conscious and living _will_, when directed towards love.” And in place of ”love” itself one could say ”the projection of the essence of the soul upon the objective plane; when such an essence is directed towards life.”
But it would be futile to continue this ”fancy-work,” of definition by an individual temperament. The general traditional meaning of these words is clear and unmistakable; though there may be infinite minute shades of difference between one person's interpretation of such a meaning and another's. What it all really amounts to is this. No philosophic or scientific interpretation of life, which does not include the verdict of life's own most concentrated moments, can possibly be adequate.
Human nature can perfectly well philosophize about its normal stream of impressions in ”cold blood,” so to speak, and according to a method that discounts all emotional vision. But the resultant conclusions of such philosophizing, with their easy-going a.s.sumption that what we call ”beauty” and ”goodness” have no connection with what we call ”truth,” are conclusions so unsatisfying to more than half of our being that they carry their refutation on the face of them.
To be an ”interpretation of life” a philosophical theory cannot afford to disregard the whole turbulent desperate dramatic content of emotional experience. It cannot disregard the fact, for instance, that certain moments of our lives bring to us certain reconciliations and revelations that change the whole perspective of our days. To ”interpret life” from the material offered by the uninspired unconcentrated unrhythmical ”average” moods of the soul is like trying to interpret the play of ”Hamlet” from a version out of which every one of Hamlet's own speeches have been carefully removed. Or, to take a different metaphor, such pseudo-psychological philosophy is like an attempt to a.n.a.lyse the nature of fire by a summary of the various sorts of fuel which have been flung into the flame.
The act of faith by which these ultimate ideas are reduced to the vision of living personalities is a legitimate matter for critical scepticism. But that there are such ultimate ideas and that life cannot be interpreted without considering them is not a matter for any sort of scepticism. It is a basic a.s.sumption, without which there could be no adequate philosophy at all. It is the only intelligible a.s.sumption which covers the undeniable human experience which gathers itself together in these traditional words.
CHAPTER VII.
THE NATURE OF ART
The only adequate clue to the historic mystery of that thing which the human race has come to call ”beauty,” and that other thing--the re-creation of this through individual human minds--which we have come to call ”art”--is found, if the complex vision is to be trusted at all, in the contact of the emotion of love with the ”objective mystery,” and its consequent dispersion, as the other aspects of the soul are brought to bear upon it, into the three primordial ideas of goodness, beauty, and truth.
The reason why this one particular aspect of the soul which we call emotion is found to be the synthesis of what is discovered by all the other aspects of the soul functioning together is that the nature of emotion differs radically from reason, conscience, will, imagination, taste, and the rest, in that it is not only a clarifying, directing and discriminating activity but is also--as none of these others are--an actual mood, or temper, or state of the soul, possessing certain definite vibrations of energy and a certain sort of psychic fluidity or outflowing which seems perpetually to spring up from an unfathomable depth.
This synthetic role played by emotion in unifying the other activities of the complex vision and preparing the psychic material for the final activity of the apex-thought may perhaps be understood better if we think of emotion as being an actual outflowing of the soul itself, springing up from unfathomable depths. Thinking of it in this way we may conceive the actual size or volume of the ”soul monad” to be increased by this centrifugal expansion.
By such an increase of the soul's volume we do not mean an actual increase; because the depths of all souls are equally unfathomable when their recession inwards is considered. By such an increase we refer to the forth-flowing of the soul as it manifests itself through the physical body. Thus our theory brings us back, as all theories must if they are consonant with experience, to the traditional language of the human race. For in ordinary language there is nothing strange about the expression ”a great soul.” Such an expression simply refers to the volume of the soul's outflowing through the body. And this outflowing is the fulness, more or less, of the soul's well-spring of emotion.