In the course of time all that fills our dictionaries and our grammars was developed and achieved, and nothing remained for poets and philosophers to do but to add to and deduce from the materials which they had inherited or had themselves acquired as the result of their own efforts; and however powerful the imagination of poets may be, and however subtle the reasoning of philosophers, the materials which both use to form their monuments are exactly the same, and these are nothing but the words derived from roots and collected in dictionaries. Most decidedly Michael Angelo was something more than a mason or bricklayer, but yet the basilica of St Peter’s is made only of stones and bricks and a little cement, which, when brought down to its final constituents, is nothing but pulverised stone. Most decidedly one of Shakespeare’s plays is possessed of other qualities than a mere assemblage of the letters of the alphabet arranged in a certain order, but the materials of which the plays are formed were drawn from the inexhaustible supply of words accumulated during thousands of years, and which contain no single particle of gold or silver that is not found in the thousand roots of our language and the 121 concepts conceived in our minds.
Amongst the men who know how to think, many are astonished that the so-called civilised portion of humanity should have advanced so little, there is nothing astonishing in this; let us consider the point, and remember that we are only now on the morrow of the day when we were still immature humanity, and in which the human character, with its germs of language and of thought, only began to be visible in us. The universe obeys the unchangeable law which we name Divine Providence; an irresistible law which compels matter to make certain predetermined movements, and the mind to tend towards perfection; man knows that he is morally free, and not necessarily subject to animal impulses.
Man’s moral liberty being conceded, he uses it as he will; at times he seeks and finds opportunities for resisting the moral law; man, even the nominal Christian, stifles the spirit’s higher voice and compels himself to listen to the lower voice of the flesh. Pascal said plainly: “According to the carnal Christian the Messiah has come to dispense us from the necessity of loving God by providing sacraments which act as charms apart from our co-operation,” and our hatred and our injustice continue—under cover of a scrupulous observance of rites—to infect the world as well as ourselves. He spoke truly, and saw clearly, who first said: “Every being tends to preserve its existence.” With regard to the man of whom Pascal speaks, this means to follow incessantly his evil practices. But, happily, there exist other men who feel that, besides oxygen and pleasure, they must also absorb science and true prosperity for their well-being.
We read in the book of Ecclesiasticus: “In every good work trust thine own soul” (Ecclesiasticus xxxii. 23). Yes, let us believe in our own soul, which is the true Ego, and it will bid us live. I am far from sharing Pascal’s opinion, which is, that the Ego always merits contempt.
Science, after having noted and counted the exact number of vibrations of all kinds which from all parts affect us, at a certain point ceases to have the power to calculate further, and recognises that beyond and above all vibrations there exists that which can neither be named nor counted. In my opinion that which is the best part of science is that it knows its limitations; with some people it is a well known experience that when they have once grasped the fact that their inability rightly to comprehend something they desire to know arises from an immutable decree, they become at once imbued with a profound quiescence, closely allied to certainty.
After which there is but one step left to human reason, to forsake that reason which is but temporary, and to lose oneself in that which has neither beginning nor end. This last step is an act of faith. Someone, who does not think sufficiently, calls this a leap in the dark, but for him who accomplishes it this darkness becomes transparent as crystal.
“Yes,” these persons exclaim, “and such was Kant’s last act.” It would be more correct to say Kant ended as he began, by an act of reason, since he drew the logical conclusion of what he had learnt.
Résumé
The evolution of the human race will not become clear to us unless we remember that a time existed when man was without language and without reason.
During this obscure period which we name the dawn of humanity, the material wants and their satisfaction, comprised the whole being of man, as it does that of the animal. With man commenced the line of individuals leading to the higher order of social life. It is possible that the feeling of being one of many was one of the first to awake in man, since it was owing to the support afforded him by his fellows that he obtained what he needed; he was also conscious of family ties, this emotion and sentiment was the cradle of all his best qualities; afterwards would come the attractions of race; this feeling might so dominate the individual as to cause him to forget that he was a separate entity; then by a concurrence of circumstances difficult to define, national feelings were developed from the salient features of the race, and national languages separated themselves from the central source. The knowledge of being a portion of humanity arrived at a much later period; he is still at this present time a part of a feeble few, and he can be summed up in the well-known sentence, of which the first words are, “Homo sum.” If we consider the meaning of this classical quotation it is very striking.