The march of humanity is an uncertain one because it is free. The philosophy of history thus reiterates the central importance of freedom. The actual end or purpose of this freedom is not simply, says Renouvier, the attainment of perfection, but rather the possibility of progress. It was this thought which led him on in his reflections further than any of the thinkers of our period, or at least more deliberately than any, to indicate his views on the doctrine of a future life for humanity. So far from this being a purely religious problem, Renouvier rightly looks upon it as merely a carrying further afield of the conception of progress.
For him, and this is the significant point for us here, any notion of a future life for humanity, in the accepted sense of immortality, is bound up with, and indeed based upon, the conception of progressive development. It is true that Renouvier, like Kant, looks upon the problems of “God, Freedom and Immortality” as the central ones in philosophy, true also that he recognises the significance of this belief in a Future Life as an extremely important one for religious teaching; but his main attitude to the question is merely a continuation of his general doctrine of progress, coupled with his appreciation of personality. It is in this light only that Renouvier reflects upon the problem of Immortality. He makes no appeal to a world beyond our experience—a fact which follows from his rejection of the Kantian world of “noumena”; nor does he wish the discussion to be based on the assertions of religious faith. He admits that belief in a Future Life involves faith, in a sense, but it is a rational belief, a philosophical hypothesis and, more particularly, according to Renouvier, a moral hypothesis. He asserts against critics that the undertaking of such a discussion is a necessary part of any Critical Philosophy, which would be incomplete without it, as its omission would involve an inadequate account of human experience.
Renouvier claims that, in the first instance, the question of a future existence arises naturally in the human mind from the discrepancy which is manifest in our experience between nature on the one hand and conscience on the other. The course of events is not in accord with what we feel to be morally right, and the demands of the moral law are, to Renouvier’s mind, supreme. He realises how acutely this discrepancy is sometimes felt by the human mind, and his remarks on this point recall those of the sensitive soul, who, feeling this acutely, cried out:
“Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits—and then
Re-mould it nearer to the heart’s desire.”
These lines well express the sharpness of Renouvier’s own feelings, and he claims that, such a conspiracy being impossible, the belief in Immortality becomes a necessary moral postulate or probability.
The grounds for such a postulate are to be found, he claims, even in the processes of nature itself. The law of finality or teleology manifests itself throughout the universe: purpose is to be seen at work in the Cosmos. It is true that in the lower stages of existence it seems obscure and uncertain, but an observer cannot fail to see “ends” being achieved in the biological realm. The functions of organisms, more particularly those of the animal world, show us a realm of ends and means at work for achieving those ends. This development in the direction of an end, this teleology, implies, says Renouvier, a destiny. The whole of existence is a gradual procession of beings at higher and higher levels of development, ends and means to each other, and all inheriting an immense past, which is itself a means to their existence as ends in themselves. May one not then, suggests Renouvier, make a valid induction from the destiny thus recognised and partially fulfilled of certain individual creatures, to a destiny common to all these creatures indefinitely prolonged?[[11]]
[11] Psychologic rationnelle, vol. 2, pp. 220-221.
The objection is here made that Nature does not concern herself with individuals; for her the individual is merely a means for the carrying on and propagation of the species. Individuals come into being, live for a time and pass away, the species lives on perpetually; only species are in the plan of the universe, individuals are of little or no worth. To this Renouvier replies that species live long but are not perpetual; whole species have been wiped out by happenings on our planet, many now are dying out. The insinuation about the worthlessness of individuals rouses his wrath, for it strikes at the very root of his philosophy, of which personality is the keynote. This, he says, is to lapse into Pantheism, into doctrines of Buddhists and of Spinoza. Pantheism and all kindred views are to be rejected. It is not in the indefinable, All-existing, the eternal and infinite One, that we find help with regard to the significance of ends in nature. Ends are to be sought in the individuals or the species. But while it behoves us to look upon the world as existing for the species and not the species for the sake of the world, we must remember that the species exists for the sake of the individuals in it. It is false to look upon the individuals as existing merely for the sake of the species.
If we subordinate the individual to the species, sacrificing his inherent worth and unique value, and then subordinate species to genus and all genera to the All, we lose ourselves in the Infinite substance in which everything is swallowed up. Again, Pantheism tends to speak of the perfection of individuals, and speaks loudly of progress from one generation to another. But it tells only of a future which involves the entire sacrifice of all that has worth or value in the past. It shows endless sacrifice, improvement too, but all for naught. “What does it matter to say that the best is yet to be, if the best must perish as the good, to give place to a yet better ‘best’ which will not have the virtue of enduring any more than the others? Do we offer any real consolation to Sisyphus,” asks Renouvier, “by promising him annihilation, which is coupled with the promise of successors capable of lifting his old rock higher and still higher up the fatal slope, by offering him the eternal falling of this rock and successors who will continually be annihilated and endlessly be replaced by others?” The rock is the personal life. On this theory, however high the rock be pushed, it always is destined to fall back to the same depth, as low as if it had never been pushed up hill at all. We refuse to reconcile a world containing real ends and purposes within it with such a game, vast and miserable, in which no actor plays for his own sake, and all the false winners lose all their gains by being obliged to leave the party while the play goes on for ever. This is to throw away all individual worth, the value of all personal work and effort, to declare individuality a sham, and to embrace fatality. It is this mischievous Pantheism which is the curse of many religions and many philosophies. Against it Renouvier wages a ceaseless warfare. The individuals, he asserts exist both for their own sake and worth, also for the sake and welfare of others. In the person, the law of finality finds its highest expression. Personality is of supreme and unique value.
This being so, it becomes a necessary postulate of our philosophy, if we really believe in the significance of personalities and in progress (which Renouvier considers to have no meaning apart from them), to conclude that death is but an event in the career of these personalities. They are perpetuated beyond death.