Thus, as to the comedy of life, we need only to reflect that where extremes always meet, where there is always conflict, but conflict of such a nature that the parties to it not only may change sides, but also in a genuine sense are always on both sides, in such a life politics cannot be alone in making strange bedfellows, but the opportunity for comic situations must be unlimited. A life in which reality has no residence, and truth no place where to lay its head, in which fools may utter wisdom and the wise may speak folly, in which reformers are easily confused with transgressors and death itself is said to be life, is bound to be richly and deeply humorous. Of such a life there can be no understanding, into it there can be no insight, without the keenest sense of humour. To say no more, that doubter and believer are companions as well as opponents, is cause for a deal of merriment—at least among the gods.
But life's comedy is also a poem, and no one save a poet can truly comprehend it. Even a metaphysician must be not merely a humorist, but also a poet; perhaps he must be more the poet than any other. Poetry is the portrayal of life through suggestion of harmony, or poise, among its conflicting elements. Nor can life be seen, or known, in any more direct way; only the balance of opposites, which always makes the poem, can possibly present it to our ken. Commonly men feel this when they insist that all portrayal of life, or of reality in general, must be dualistic. Dualism, be it the theologian's or the moralist's or the metaphysician's, the statesman's or the scientist's, never is and never can be anything but so much poetry; richly and deeply significant always, and always alive with what is real, but always poetry, never prose. Can a reality, that is real only if, to the forms of experience, it is always a tertium quid, can such a reality ever be present to any other than a poet's consciousness? Reality is not knowable face to face; it is beyond the reach of positive knowledge; though dwelling in, and informing all knowledge, it can never come to the surface of knowledge; for so, to its own betrayal, it would take sides and get a habitation and a name. True, by analogies one may conceive it, as the religious man thinks of God's personality, or as the philosopher thinks of the unity of his world, or as the scientist thinks of nature's law; but the analogies are always so many tethers, and are accordingly necessarily partial, whereas no whole can ever be quite in kind with any of its parts. We may conceive reality, then, by the use of analogy—that is, by projecting what we do know of one or another side of life beyond its natural sphere; but such projection, at least for him who has both insight and humour, who feels the limits of his knowledge and the grandly transcendent way in which he has used his knowledge for the crossing of some chasm, and the solution of some conflict in his life, is poetry. For him who is lacking in both insight and humour, who sees just what he sees and no more, who insists on making reality accord literally with his own formal experience, it is only prose. Prose is simply formally consistent experience, experience that is wholly bound to some determined standpoint, and, being this, in what it presents—that is, in its subject-matter—it is always, not adequate and inclusive, but partial and narrow and one-sided to reality. Prose, in short, sacrifices wholeness, that is to say, depth and breadth of view, to mere formal consistency. Poetry, at least in its subject-matter, is above formal consistency and above partiality. Through its very license poetry bears the message of what is real and whole. Poetry forever prefers reality to prosaic peace.
So life is a comedy, rich and deep, and it is a poem, realistic and inclusive. It is, finally, a serious duty. To many, stern and oracular in their moral sense, the character of duty will seem not to fit at all well into a life that is always humorous, and that is never real and complete without being also poetic. But it does fit. Duty, they hold, is quite too sober ever to be mingled with humour or comedy, and quite too precise and explicit, too plainly prescribed, and in its spirit, when not in its letter, too legal ever to appeal to a poet or to be in any way associated with what appeals to him. But tell me, is the Puritan's notion of duty an accurate one? Is it the highest notion? Is it even profoundly moral? Has duty no chance at all on any other plan? In a word, are humour and poetry truly fatal to real duty? Why, even such questions must make the stern rigorists among us hope just a little, though also these good men may still fear, for the relief that the questions seem to promise. Perhaps they mingle their hope with fear, only because, as I feel quite sure, they forget that comedy and poetry always bring more than mere relief. The real comedy and the true poetry of life are altogether too deep to do only that. They do indeed bring relief from the rigour and prosaic consistency of any specific programme or uniform, and so to any man they are always welcome, though he continue to suspect them of being wrong; but they bring also a responsibility that is fuller and larger and harder than the formal precept or prescription. Should the rigorist ever love his enemies? Not if he would be consistent. Should he ever find hope in what he fears? Should he ever laugh at his own manifest smallness? Yet these are real duties; they are great, transcendent duties; and, richly humorous as they are, only a poetic consciousness can ever appreciate them and truly feel their living obligation.
For this, our life of comedy and poetry, which is real only as it is both, no principle can come nearer to the very foundation of duty than just the principle, deeply true: Whatever is, is right. Men have laughed and men have wept over this truth. Was ever more perfect mingling of doubt and belief? Was ever greater jest? Or more tragic fact? But truth it is; the truth of all duty; and it is life's eternal comedy—the alpha and the omega, too, of life's own poem.
[1] As a positive event in history, belonging to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Machiavellism was symptomatic of the great change of the period. Cherished institutes, whether of politics or economics, of art or morals, of the spiritual life or the intellectual life, were becoming instruments. Thus, democracy was supplanting monarchy, Protestantism Catholicism, modern science scholasticism, etc.
[2] The late Professor C.C. Everett, of Harvard University.
INDEX
A
Abstraction, of science, [58], [107]; and duplicity, [61]
Agnosticism, [75], [106]; special dangers of, [111], [117]; dogmatic and
instrumental, [120]; as call for action, [125]; as passion for real
life, [128]
Analogy, among the sciences, [97]; of individual self to environment, [155];
of universal to particular, [33], [220]
Anaxagoras, [94]
Anaximander, [34], [94], [147]
Anti-vitalism, [147]
Aristotle, [155], [156]
Atomism, [97], [102]
B
Babylonians, [106]
Bacon, [176]
Baldwin, [15]
Belief, as unquestioning, [8], 194; and doubt, [53], [105], [107], [130], [133],
[192], [248]
Biology, [88], [90], [104], [110]
Boehme, [177]
Body, and soul, [227], [237]; immortality of, [141], [234]
Bradley, [153] n.
Burns, [94]
C
Candour, of the English, [270]
Carlyle, [126]
Catholicism, [175]
Causation, [39], [82], [83], [109], [205]
Change, and habit, [15]; as motive, [17]; of purpose, [11]
Charron, [177], [180]
Chemistry, [34], [36], [88], [90], [91], [110]
Christ, [51], [246], [263]
Christianity, and immortality, [240]; preparation for, [266]; different
views of history of, [266]
Christian Science, [2], [32] n.
Class, the social, [62], [126], [162]; relation of, to doubt and belief, [171]
Comedy, [275]
Companionship, with nature, [21], [71]; with man, [24]; with God, [26]
Contradiction, in ordinary views, [30]; in idea of reality, [30];
of unity, [33]; of space and time, [38]; of causation, [39]; of
knowledge, [41]; of morality, [44]; of law, [49]; as of value in
experience, [4], [37], [131]; and dualism, [101]; as corrective of
narrowness, [100], [116], [143]; as meaning action, [136]; as realizing
unity, [137]; as securing reality and practicality, [145]; as
requiring society, [147]; as not to be cultivated for its own
sake, [151]; as related to person and class, [170]
Conventionalism, [66], [260]
Creationalism, [82], [202]
Crusades, [267]
D
Death, [141], [151], [239]
Deduction, [97]
Democritus, [65]
Development, special, transferable, [165]
Descartes, [6], [172], [196], [251], [254]
Dichotomy, [101]
Dogmatism, and fear, [9]; and belief, [194]
Doubt, as widespread, [1], [7]; actual, if possible, [6]; as essential to
consciousness, [9]; and habit, [14]; as making life real, [18]; and
feeling of dependence, [21]; as Basking company, [21], [255]; as mediator
between old and now, [25]; and atheism, [27]; and belief, [55], [105], [130],
[133], [192], [248], [273]; as investment for gain, [259]; and candour, [270]
Dualism, [64], [101], [147], [209]
Duplicity, of science, [61]; of life, [118]
Duty, [47], [278]
E
Education, and interest, [18] n.
Emerson, [144]
Energism, [147]
England, peculiar scepticism in, [269]
Environment, as source of conduct, [46]; social environment and personal
individual, [169], [231]
Epicureanism, [116], [265]
Epistemology, [92]
Evil, and good, [45], [133], [150], [276]
Evolution, [78], [202], [246]
Experience, unity of, [160]
Experimentalism, [68]
F
Fatalism, [49]
Fear, and dogmatism, [9]
France, peculiar scepticism in, [271]
Freedom, of will, [47]; of thought, [211], [227]
G
Galilei, [177]
Genius, [168], [196], [263]
God, Descartes' proof of, [181]; fallacy in D.'s proof of, [189];
D.'s idea of, [186], [190]; sceptic's idea of, [26], [187], [190], [203];
death of, [237]; birth of, [269]
H
Habit, and doubt, [14]
Hebrews, [25], [264]
Hedonism, [64], [147], [265]
Hegel, [20], [147]
Heraclitus, [147], [152]
Hering, [147]
Hero-worship, [243]
History, standpoint of, [79]; of Christianity, different views of, [266]
Hope, even in doubt, [13], [19], [37], [48], [53], [105]
Horace, [21]
Hypotheses, working, [89], [93], [258]
I
Idealism, [65], [147]
Illusions, [2], [23] n., [254]
Immortality, [141], [234]
Impostor, the, [253]
Individualism, [72], [116]
Individuality, [155], [165], [224]
Induction, [72], [97]
Industrialism, [222]
Infinity, [52], [102], [142]
Institutions and institutionalism, [16], [59], [260]
Interest theory, in education, [18] n.
J
Jesuits, [172]
Jesus, [51], [246], [263]
Jews, [25], [264]
Jurisprudence, standpoint of, [13], [47]
K
Kant, [110], [147]
Knowledge, contradictory views of, [41]; of law, and freedom, [51], [212];
and the unknowable, [106]
L
Labour, division of, in special relation of person and class, [163];
division of, in experience, [232]
Law, standpoint of, [13]; courts of, [47]; contradiction in idea of, [49];
and nature, [51], [218]
Lawlessness, [51], [141], [261]
Leadership, [168], [196], [263]
Leibnitz, [133], [154], [210]
Lessing, [19]
Louis XIV, [172]
Luther, [174]
M
Macaulay, [270]
Machiavelli, [66], [261], [263]
Malebranche, [198]
Materialism, [65], [147], [175]
Mathematics, [88], [91], [96], [133], [177], [215]
Mechanic, the, as social type, [228]; peculiar death of, [238]
Mechanicalism, [82], [218]
Method, Socratic, [71]; historical, [95]; experimental, [84], [95];
mathematical, [96]
Miracles, [53], [246]
Monism, [147]
Montaigne, [172], [176], [184]
Münsterberg, [109] n., [112], [119]
Mysticism, [176]
N
Nast, [97]
Nativism, [196]
Nature, return to, [22]; relation of science to, [23], [56], [74]; and
God, [26], [203], [271]; sympathy of, [23], [203]; and law, [51], [220];
as mechanical, [217]; English and French views of, [271];
knowledge of law of, and freedom, [49], [212]
Necessity, in conduct, [47]; superstition of, [49], [212]
Negativity, [3], [20], [37], [83], [85], [94], [101], [125], [133], [147]
Newton, [97]
O
Oratory of Jesus, [176]
P
Paradoxes, in ordinary consciousness, [30]; in science, [75], [98]; in
religion, [103]
Parallelism, [204]
Paris, [172], [192], [251]
Parmenides, [94]
Pascal, [180]
Person, nature of, [155], [165]; relation to reality, [170], [184];
relation to doubt and belief, [171]; part in society, [169], [231]
Pharisees, [262]
Physics, [87], [90]; epistemological, [94]
Pillsbury, [212] n.
Plato, [65], [155], [156]
Poetry, [276]
Positivism, [73], [106], [122]
Practice, and theory, [113]
Principle, and programme, [183], [191], [194]
Programme, and principle, [183], [191], [194]
Protagoras, [264]
Protestants and Protestantism, [174], [268]
Psychology, [10], [87], [91], [210], [212] n.; physical, [92]
Purpose, [11], [83], [84]
Q
Question of fact, in science, [83]
R
Radicalism, [66]
Realism, of doubter, [193]; of believer, [193]; in contradiction, [143]
Reality, double views of, [30]
Reformation, [173], [266], [267]
Relative, the, [10], [136], [199], [200]
Relativity, law of, [10], [136]
Religion, and scepticism, [27], [184], [189], [268]; as paradoxical, [103]
Renaissance, [173], [268], [267]
Rome, [267]
Rousseau, [23], [271]
S
Scepticism, [176], [265], [269]
Science, as a return to nature, [23]; like ordinary consciousness, [57];
as confessing to limitations, [56]; defined, [58]; as abstract, [58];
as a "looking before leaping," [58]; and duplicity, [61], [129]; method
of, and environment, [71]; specialism of, [71], [84]; as inductive, [72];
objectivism of, [75]; technique of, [76]; and real life, [80], [125], [128];
as conservative, [81]; and question of fact, [83]; as negative and
destructive, [83]; specialism of, [71], [86]; "mergers" in, [91];
physical, as self-consciousness, 94; as paradoxical, [75], [98];
agnosticism of, [106]; aloofness of, in ideas of space and time and
causation, [108], [109]; application of, [114]; scepticism of, [23], [258]
Sin, original, [131]
Skill, special, as transferable, [165]
Smith, Adam, [257]
Socialism, [116]
Society, as sought by sceptic, [21]; as related to individual, [42], [165],
[171], [231]; and science, [23], [60]; division of experience in, [60];
as real to lower organisms, [84]; as medium of conflict, [147]
Society of Jesus, [174]
Sociology, [88]
Socrates, [20], [70], [147], [263]
Soldier, the, [228], [238]
Sophists, [66], [262]
Soul, contradiction in idea of, [35]; and body, [227], [237]; immortality
of, [141], [234]
Space, [37], [38], [108]
Specialism, blindness of, [87]; in social organization, [71]; of science,
[71], [86]; dreams of, [87]; artificiality of, [87], [97]; contradictions
due to, [63], [98]; passing of, [128]
Spinoza, [24], [147], [179], [198]
Spirit, reality, or truth, as a, [152]; of veracity, [105], [133], [170], [214]
Stoicism, [116], [265]
Supernaturalism, [32], [52], [147]
Superstition, [49], [218]
T
Technique, [76], [119]; special, as transferable, [165]
Tennyson, [89]
Thales, [34]
Theology, [26], [131]
Time, [37], [38], [108]
Training, special, as transferable, [165]
Truth, spirit of, [105], [133], [170], [214]
U
Unity, contradiction in idea of, [31]; as expressed through
contradiction, [137]; of experience, [160]
Universality, of doubt, [1], [7]; of human characters in general, [161]
Utilitarianism, [66], [261], [263]
V
Validity, spirit of, [105], [133], [153], [214]
Vanini, [176], [180]
Vitalism, [147]
W
Will, nature of, [11]; freedom of, [47]; to believe, [193]; in relation
to agnosticism, [121], [125]
Z
Zeno, [109], [147]