III A Defence of the Ethical Principle
III
A DEFENCE OF THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE
Before we proceed further in the direction indicated, we must see whether our own convictions are capable of overcoming the opposition and impediments to morality, presented by widespread currents of contemporary thought. Were we unable to overcome them, then all further advance would be stamped by inner uncertainty.
The first objection was, that all human action must tend to the preservation and advancement of the performer, so that action apart from self-interest, as required by morality, is impossible. We are told that man cannot be inspired and moved to action by any aim outside his own personality, and that even where this appears to be the case, closer examination reveals some hidden motive of self-interest. This was the doctrine of Spinoza and is now a widespread conviction. There is undoubtedly some truth in the fundamental idea, but it is by no means certain that this truth is rightly applied. It is true that all endeavour must start from the life and being of a man and reflect back on him. Something absolutely alien would necessarily leave us cold and indifferent; by his action man must in some way grow and gain and assert his own inner self.
But we must ask ourselves whether the natural Ego, to which the opponent of morality binds all human action, represents the whole of man's life, and whether all endeavour is obliged to serve the interests of natural self-preservation. If a man recognises any kind of spiritual activity in its specific working, he will reject such limitation; and the more he sees in the spiritual life a new and independent phase of reality, the more decisively will he declare that a real self is not contained in the natural Ego, but must first be acquired by means of the spiritual life. In spite of all the subjective force and passion displayed in the self-preservation of the natural Ego, this Ego and its life are without inner significance: it plans and acts, without being absorbed and illuminated by an inner force; it remains alien and dense.
On the spiritual plane, on the other hand, man acquires an individuality, and is able to embrace a whole of reality, into the life of which he submerges himself; and in developing this life, he is able to find full satisfaction and joy. The spiritual life does indeed demand repression, subjection, and even sacrifice of the little Ego; yet the experience of humanity clearly proves that life thereby suffers neither degradation nor disintegration, but rather, that it is thus strengthened and regenerated. Life is certainly not weakened or extinguished in the efforts to gain truth and beauty, in the activity of the scholar and the artist, in social and philanthropic work. By enfranchisement from the little Ego, life has gained in expansion and strength. Man is conscious of finding his real self and of developing his innermost being in such work, not of promoting ends outside himself. All deeper religions and systems of philosophy have in common this requirement that man should give up his little Ego, and they promise that from this renunciation a new life shall be born, which is of infinitely greater meaning and value than the old life. The movement towards spirituality is not a mere negation, but leads to an assertion founded on the basis of negation. Once man has found the right plane of life, and has acquired a new individuality, the gulf between man and the universe is bridged over. Man can then come into inner relation with reality, and can take possession of the infinite. This is the meaning of Goethe's lines:
Und so lang du dies nicht hast,
Dieses "Stirb und Werde!"
Bist du nur ein trüber Gast
Auf der dunklen Erde.
(Till thou hearest the behest
Saying: "Death is Birth!"
Thou art but a dreary guest
On the gloomy earth.)
If this is the case, then all spiritual work contributes to the development of a new, real self; then no blame can be attached to morality for advocating the absolute necessity of this change, and for recognising, in all ramifications of work, the one great task of developing a new human individuality. Morality will not thereby weaken and suppress the impulse of life, but will direct it into the right channel and ennoble it. By treating man's task as a harmonious whole—which at the same time forms part of the one great entity—it will act as a stimulus on all the separate provinces of life. The gravity of this ethical task is heightened by the fact, that we must pass through a negative stage in order to reach one of positive affirmation, and that all action which denies or obscures such negation, remains one-sided and imperfect.
Closely allied to this first objection to morality is the second: the assertion of the Determinists that human action is but part of an immutable concatenation, and that the decision of the moment arises, with inevitable necessity, from what is and what has been. This is an old assertion, reaching back to the latter days of antiquity. It has frequently aroused men to passion in the domain of religion. It permeates modern philosophy, and has found classical expression in the doctrine of Spinoza. In our day, it is often confirmed by a more careful study of the universe. Favourable to Determinism is also our modern insight into such forces as heredity and social environment, and our greater knowledge of psychology. Everywhere the single atom appears as the result of some cohesion, of which it at the same time forms part. Closer observation only accentuates such dependence; we can no longer consider a separate atom or moment as something absolutely self-centred, nor can we interpret any action as really taking place suddenly. There exists, without doubt, more cohesion and more subordination than was formerly believed, or is often accepted even now.
However legitimate these considerations may be, it does not follow that they exhaust all the possibilities offered by reality. If we declare that man is completely absorbed in such concatenation, we must assume what is by no means unassailable: that man is simply part of a given order of things, of a natural mechanism, of a network of causality. Were he in reality no more than this, there would be no possibility of his own decision, no freedom of action, and consequently no morality. This would destroy, not morality alone, but much that its opponents could not well give up. If our life were merely part of a natural mechanism, it would necessarily cease to be our own life; it would be only a process realised in us without our co-operation, and our attitude to it would resemble our attitude to our bodily functions. It is difficult to see how we could then be made responsible by society, or how we could ourselves feel any responsibility,—how such conceptions as those of good and evil could come into existence and engross our attention. Neither would there be any real present, for if there is no demand for decision, and no room for original action, all action would, with inevitable necessity, grow out of the past, like a flower out of its bud, without our co-operation.
We might be able to endure such determination of our life for all time, if the various movements could easily meet and mingle in our soul, without any complications. But if our life contains great problems, grave conflicts, various and often opposed planes, then we human beings, did we submit passively and unresistingly, would be chained like Prometheus to a pitiless rock. Determinism, if followed to its logical conclusion, is nothing less than inner annihilation of life.
Such recognition necessarily brings us to the question whether the hypothesis held by the Determinists is unassailable. Do we really appertain absolutely to a given and distinctly limited existence? From the point of view of a new plane of reality manifested by the spiritual life, our reply must be a decided negative. As we have seen, this new phase does not embrace us from the beginning, but must be grasped, appropriated, and developed by us; our own decision and action are here indispensable. Our life must indeed reckon with certain given factors; we must recognise the powerful influence of heredity and environment. Our individuality is determined for us by nature; we cannot in all things remould ourselves as we would wish to do; we are on all sides encompassed by fate. But man is not entirely at the mercy of this fate. The spiritual life which can grow up in him gives him a new, spontaneous source of life; he can originate something new, something entirely his own, and can oppose his own action to fate.
Our life thus becomes a struggle between freedom and fate; and to this struggle it chiefly owes its expansion and greatness. The idea of development is therefore not applicable to the progression of human life. There is no inevitable sequence on a well established basis and in one definite direction; later results are not simply determined by what has gone before; one thing does not follow another naturally and easily, but various elements meet and clash. Time after time, we are in danger of losing what we seemed to have won; over and over again, we must climb to the summit of life. But this struggle constantly calls forth new powers. We see that there is much more in us than appeared at first sight, or than we ourselves were wont to believe. Great shocks and strong emotions often produce new convictions or set free new forces within us. It is, above all, suffering which rouses and regenerates, which teaches us to see and cultivate the deepest that is in us. What hitherto seemed to constitute our whole being, now proves to be but a single stratum, which it is quite possible to transcend.
The real man is only a part, a section of the possible man. The possibilities dormant in us are an integral part of our being; and these possibilities enable us to attain something higher and greater. On this power of inner growth rests the confidence of those who, while recognising the evils of this life, fight bravely and hopefully on the side of progress. The statesman wishing to raise his people from within, builds on such a capacity for inner growth, and believes in the realisation of new possibilities; so does the educator in his efforts to cultivate and ennoble men's souls. Art and religion are ever at work, in order to discover new possibilities and bring them home to man. Were it not for such new possibilities and the regenerative power of man, his life could retain nothing of its youthful vigour, and would lapse into stagnation and senility. The same would apply to human civilisation: it would drift away from simplicity and truth, and would become more and more artificial.
It is in our own power to maintain our vitality, and to oppose increasing inner strength to all alien and hostile forces. It is by no means certain that we shall always be victorious; it is one of the tragedies of life that a man's soul is filled with longing for something better, yet is held captive by circumstance, and is finally driven back to that from which he would fain escape. And yet it is this struggle which gives to life its vitality and its greatness; and wherever there is religious conviction, there also dwells the hope that what could not gain full victory in our life, will not be lost before God. To quote Browning:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me....
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure....
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me:
This, I was worth to God.[1]
If all this helps to prove the autonomy of man and his independent power of decision, it does not mean the dissociation of man from all inner cohesion. This freedom only becomes possible by the revelation within him of a new world. There could be no spontaneity of action in single cases, if a world of independent and spontaneous life did not exist and embrace us from within. Thus the individual appertains to the whole, even in the exercise of freedom. That of which he is capable by himself alone, is only his ability to bring his own will into accordance with higher laws. All deep thinkers have seen, in the grasp of the essence of life and the development of its possibilities by means of this individual capacity, not an achievement of man alone, but the manifestation of a higher power, a gift of grace. Life did not seem to them to be so divided between grace and freedom, that one of these factors could only be enriched by what was taken from the other; they considered both to be so indissolubly united, that freedom and the power of inner growth appeared to them to be the highest sign of grace. The most energetic natures, if possessed of any spirituality, have generally felt themselves to be instruments of a higher power and compelled by an inner necessity. This feeling gave them the strength and self-confidence indispensable for their work. In the case of achievement for the visible world, this higher power was mostly looked upon as a dark fate, which protects man as long as it needs him, and abandons him as soon as he ceases to be useful. But in the case of inner change and regeneration, this fate was superseded by a power of love and mercy, which sustains man even in the midst of the greatest dangers. In religion especially, the consciousness of complete dependence on a superior power has not led to a suspension or restriction of activity. This is clearly proved by such men as St. Paul, St. Augustine, and Calvin. They were not the soulless vessels of a truth committed to them; they grasped, by their own recognition and decision, what seemed to them to be the truth. Yet in their own consciousness, achievement was of small value compared to what they revered as a gift of grace. "Quid habemus quod non accepimus?" (St. Augustine). "What have we that we have not received?"
Hitherto we have been concerned with refuting widespread objections to the possibility of morality. We must now consider the violent opposition against the appreciation which morality demands—and must demand. It seems impossible for morality to be unquestionably superior to everything else in life, and to demand absolute obedience to its requirements, since it does not fill the whole of life, but must share men's allegiance with other obligations, and must seek some compromise with them. This objection could only be valid, if our whole life were a homogeneous structure,—if one single aim dominated all activity, and achievement in this direction could alone determine the value of our action. But the case is very different. Even the one fact that two planes unite in our life makes it impossible to apply the same standard to all the variety we encounter. The various values determined by these two planes are too different to be compared with one another. How could we judge sensuous enjoyment and outer success in the same way as we judge values like truth and honour?
Further, morality is not concerned merely with single values appertaining to the higher plane, but with the recognition and appropriation of this higher plane itself: it is a movement from a whole and to a whole. Once the conviction obtains that the spiritual phase of life is something entirely different to nature, the acquisition of it becomes the chief problem of life, and the claim of morality—which upholds the principle of such acquisition—can assert its supremacy over all other claims. Wherever this was contested, the new world revealed by the spiritual life was not fully recognised. The experience of history shows that no artistic or intellectual achievement could prevent a rapid abatement and deterioration of the spiritual life, if the ethical task was not fully recognised. Morality is like religion: neither can take a secondary or even a co-ordinate place; they must be valued more than everything else in life, or else they will inevitably come to mean less.
We have now seen that the doubts assailing morality generally proceed from a particular conception of the universe and of man's position in it. This more or less naturalistic conception, in spite of all it claims to be, by no means exhausts the resources of human life. As soon as we recognise the limitations of this conception of life and free ourselves from its tyranny, we are able to acknowledge fully the claims of morality. Nay, more: these claims must then appeal to us as being both legitimate and imperative; and what might at first appear to be unintelligible, will become absolutely clear and certain.