{37} It may be asked, “Why should not a man form for himself a system which interprets his own perception, but is discrepant from the system of every one else? Should we in that case count him as awake?” Yes, he would be awake, but he would be mad. Suppose, being a common man, he interprets all his perceptions into a system which makes him out to be King of England; in such a case he cannot be set down as dreaming, because he is alleging a connection which goes beyond his present perception, and has, ostensibly, been propounded as an interpretation of it into a systematic order of things. He has in short a world, but he has broken away from the world, and therefore we pronounce him mad. A completely new vision of life may cause a man to be thought mad. [1]
[1] See Browning’s Epistle of Karshish.
The whole world, then, of our waking [1] consciousness may be treated as a single connected predicate affirmed as an enlargement of present perception. All that we take to be real is by the mere fact of being so taken, brought within an affirmative judgment.
[1] I do not mean to say that judgment and consciousness of a world can be wholly absent in dreams, and often no doubt they are distinctly present. But in those dreams, in my own experience the normal ones, which leave behind a mere impression that unrecognisable images have passed before the mind, judgment and the sense of reality must surely have all but disappeared. I am inclined to think that dreams are very much rationalised in recollection and description.
Comparison with world as Will
5. To further illustrate the relation of what, in our permanent judgment, is distinctly thought, what is dimly thought, and what is implied, let us look for a moment at what we may call “the world as will.” This is not the doctrine of Schopenhauer in his work, The World as Will and Idea, {38} although the two conceptions have something in common. His is a metaphysical doctrine, in which he says that the fundamental reality of the Universe must be conceived as Will. We have nothing to do with that. We are speaking merely of what the world is for us, and for us it is not only a system of reality but a system of purposes. Our world of will is a permanent factor of our waking consciousness, just as much as our world of knowledge. Now our will is made up of a great number of purposes, more or less connected together, just as our knowledge is made up of a great number of provinces and regions more or less connected together. And just as in our knowledge at any moment much is clear, much is dim, much is implied, and the whole forms a continuous context, so it is with our purposes.
When, for example, one stands looking at a picture, one’s immediate conscious purpose is to study the picture. One also entertains dimly or by force of habit the purpose to remain standing, which is a curious though common instance of will. We do not attend to the purpose of walking or standing, yet we only walk or stand (in normal conditions of mind) as long as we will to do so. If we go to sleep or faint, we shall fall down. Purpose, like judgment, is confined to the waking consciousness.
But further; the purpose which one entertains in standing to look at a picture is not really an isolated pin-point of will. It is uppermost in the mind at the moment in which we carry it out, but it is only the uppermost stratum, or perhaps rather the present point attained upon a definite road, within an intricate formation or network of purposes, which taken together constitute the world of will. The purpose of looking {39} at a picture shades off into the more general purpose of learning to take pleasure in what is good of its kind, which is again set in a certain place within the conception of our life and the way in which we desire to spend it, and our purposes throughout every particular day are fitted into one another, and give a particular setting and colour to each other, and to each particular day, and week, and year.
Now less or more of all this may be clearly in the mind when we are carrying out a particular momentary aim. But it is quite certain that in a human life the particular momentary aim derives its significance from this background of other purposes; and, if they were to fall away, the distinct momentary purpose would change its character and become quite a feeble and empty thing.
Thus we have, in our world of will, a parallel case which illustrates the nature of our world of knowledge. There is the clear will to look at the picture, the dim will to continue standing, and the implied will to carry out certain general aims, and follow a certain routine or course of life, which gives the momentary purpose its entire setting and background.