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a period has arrived when, gorged with facts, First, what do we mean by a fact of a
she has sunk into a lethargy of reflection different order? Let me take and example; the
accompanied by appalling nightmares in the most impossible being the best for our purpose.
shape of impossible theories. Such a night- The Spiritualists, let us suppose, go mad and
mare now rides us ; once again philosophy begin to talk sense. (I can only imagine that
has said its last word, and arrived at a dead- such would be the result.) All their facts are
lock. Aristotle, in reducing to the fundamental proved. We prove a world of spirits, the
contradictions-in-terms which they involve the existence of God, the immortality of the soul,
figments of the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, the etc. But, with all that, we are not really one
Platonists, the Pyrrhonists ; Kant, in his step advanced into the heart of the inquiry
reductio ad absurdam of the Thomists, the which lies at the heart of philosophy, What is
Scotists, the Wolffians, all the warring brood, anything?
alike only in the inability to reconcile the I see a cat.
ultimate antimonies of a cosmogony only Dr. Johnson says it is a cat.
grosser for its pinchbeck spirituality ; have, Berkeley says it is a group of sensations.
I take it, found their modern parallel in the Cankaracharya says it is an illusion, an
ghastly laughter of Herbert Spencer, as fleshed incarnation, or God, according to the hat he has
upon the corpses of Berkeley and the Idealists got on, and is talking through.
from Fichte and Hartman to Lotze and Tren- Spencer says it is a mode of the Unknow-
delenburg he drives the reeking fangs of his im- able.
agination into the palpitating vitals of his own But none of them seriously doubt the fact
grim masterpiece of reconcilement, self-deluded that I exist; that a cat exists; that one sees the
and yet self-conscious of its own delusion. other, All bar Johnson hint but oh! how
History affirms that such a deadlock is dimly! at what I now know to be true?
invariably the prelude to a new enlightenment: no, not necesarily true, but nearer the truth.
by such steps we have advanced, by such we Huxley goes deeper in his demolition of Des-
shall advance. The horror of great darkness cartes. With him, I see a cat, proves some-
which is scepticism must ever be broken by
*
some heroic master-soul, intolerant of the
Horace, Odes, I. 3.
cosmic agony.
Scott, The Lady of the Lake.
66
THE SWORD OF SONG
thing called consciousness exists. He denies More, though the establishment of this new
the assertion of duality: he has no datum to estate of consciousness seems to open the door
assert the denial of duality. I have. to a new world, a world where the axioms of
Consciousness, as we know it, has one Euclid may be absurd, and the propositions of
essential quality: the opposition of subject and Keynes* untenable, let us not fall into the error
object. Reason has attacked this and secured of the mystics, by supposin that in this world is
that complete and barren victory of convincing necessarily a final truth, or even a certain and
without producing conviction.* It has one definite gain of knowledge.
quality apparently not essential, that of ex- But that a field for research is opened up no
ceeding impermanence. If we examine what sane man may doubt. Nor may one question
we call steady thought, we shall find that its that the very first fact is of a nature disruptive
rate of change is in reality inconceivably swift. of difficulty philosophical and reasonable ;
To consider it, to watch it, is beweildering, and since the phenomenon does not invoke the
to some people becomes intensely terrifying. assent of the reasoning faculty. The argu-
It is as if the solid earth were suddenly swept ments which reason may bring to bear against
away from under one, and there were some it are self-destructive; reason has given con-
dread awakening in outer space amid the rush sciousness the lie, but consciousness survives
of incessant meteors lost in the void. and smiles. Reason is a part of consciousness
All this is old knowledge; but who has taken and can never be greater than the whole ; this
steps to alter it ? The answer is forbidding: truth Spencer sees; but reason is not even any part of
compels me to say, the mystics of all lands. this new consciousness (which I, and many
Their endeavour has been to slow the rate others, have too rarely achieved) and therefore
of change ; their methods perfect quietude of can never touch it: this I see, and this will I
body and mind, produce in varied and too often hope be patent to those ardent and spiritually-
vicious ways. Regularisation of the breathing minded agnostics of whom Huxley and Tyndall
is the best known formula. Their results are are for all history-time the prototypes. Know
contemptible, we must admit ; but only so or doubt! is the alternative of the highwayman
because empirical. An unwarranted reverence Huxley ; Believe is not to be admitted ;
has overlaid the watchfulness which science this is fundamental; in this agnosticism can
would have enjoined, and the result is muck never change ; this must ever command our
and misery, the wreck of a noble study. moral as well as our intellectual assent.
But what is the one fact on which all agree? But I assert my strong conviction that ere
The one fact whose knowledge has been since long we shall have done enough of what is
reliigon began the all-sufficient passport to after all the schoolmaster work of correcting
their doubtfully-desirable company? the inky and ill-spelt exercises of the theologi-
This: that I see a cat is not only an cal dunces in that great class-room, the world;
unwarrantable assumption but a lie ; that the and found a little peace while they play in
duality of consciousness ceases suddenly, once the intimate solitude of the laboratory and the
the rate of change has been sufficiently slowed passionless rapture of research research into
down, so that, even for a few seconds, the rela- those very mysteries of nature which our
tion of subject and object remains impregnable. dunces have solved by a rule of thumb;
It is a circumstance of little interest to the determining the nature of a bee by stamping on
present essayist that this annihilation of duality it, and shouting bee ; while we patiently set to
is associated with intense and passionless work with microscopes, and say nothing till be
peace and delight; the fact has been a bribe to know, nor more than need be when we do.
the unwary, a bait for the charlatan, a But I am myself found guilty of this rôle of
hindrance to the philosopher; let us discard it. schoolmaster : I will now therefore shut the
doors and retire again into the laboratory
* Hume, and Kant in the Prolegomena,
where my true life lies.
discuss this phenomenon unsatisfactorily. A. C.
It is this rapture which has ever been the bond 403, 405. Reason and concentration.45 The
between mystics of all shades; and the obstacle to results of reasoning are always assailable : [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl fopke.keep.pl
a period has arrived when, gorged with facts, First, what do we mean by a fact of a
she has sunk into a lethargy of reflection different order? Let me take and example; the
accompanied by appalling nightmares in the most impossible being the best for our purpose.
shape of impossible theories. Such a night- The Spiritualists, let us suppose, go mad and
mare now rides us ; once again philosophy begin to talk sense. (I can only imagine that
has said its last word, and arrived at a dead- such would be the result.) All their facts are
lock. Aristotle, in reducing to the fundamental proved. We prove a world of spirits, the
contradictions-in-terms which they involve the existence of God, the immortality of the soul,
figments of the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, the etc. But, with all that, we are not really one
Platonists, the Pyrrhonists ; Kant, in his step advanced into the heart of the inquiry
reductio ad absurdam of the Thomists, the which lies at the heart of philosophy, What is
Scotists, the Wolffians, all the warring brood, anything?
alike only in the inability to reconcile the I see a cat.
ultimate antimonies of a cosmogony only Dr. Johnson says it is a cat.
grosser for its pinchbeck spirituality ; have, Berkeley says it is a group of sensations.
I take it, found their modern parallel in the Cankaracharya says it is an illusion, an
ghastly laughter of Herbert Spencer, as fleshed incarnation, or God, according to the hat he has
upon the corpses of Berkeley and the Idealists got on, and is talking through.
from Fichte and Hartman to Lotze and Tren- Spencer says it is a mode of the Unknow-
delenburg he drives the reeking fangs of his im- able.
agination into the palpitating vitals of his own But none of them seriously doubt the fact
grim masterpiece of reconcilement, self-deluded that I exist; that a cat exists; that one sees the
and yet self-conscious of its own delusion. other, All bar Johnson hint but oh! how
History affirms that such a deadlock is dimly! at what I now know to be true?
invariably the prelude to a new enlightenment: no, not necesarily true, but nearer the truth.
by such steps we have advanced, by such we Huxley goes deeper in his demolition of Des-
shall advance. The horror of great darkness cartes. With him, I see a cat, proves some-
which is scepticism must ever be broken by
*
some heroic master-soul, intolerant of the
Horace, Odes, I. 3.
cosmic agony.
Scott, The Lady of the Lake.
66
THE SWORD OF SONG
thing called consciousness exists. He denies More, though the establishment of this new
the assertion of duality: he has no datum to estate of consciousness seems to open the door
assert the denial of duality. I have. to a new world, a world where the axioms of
Consciousness, as we know it, has one Euclid may be absurd, and the propositions of
essential quality: the opposition of subject and Keynes* untenable, let us not fall into the error
object. Reason has attacked this and secured of the mystics, by supposin that in this world is
that complete and barren victory of convincing necessarily a final truth, or even a certain and
without producing conviction.* It has one definite gain of knowledge.
quality apparently not essential, that of ex- But that a field for research is opened up no
ceeding impermanence. If we examine what sane man may doubt. Nor may one question
we call steady thought, we shall find that its that the very first fact is of a nature disruptive
rate of change is in reality inconceivably swift. of difficulty philosophical and reasonable ;
To consider it, to watch it, is beweildering, and since the phenomenon does not invoke the
to some people becomes intensely terrifying. assent of the reasoning faculty. The argu-
It is as if the solid earth were suddenly swept ments which reason may bring to bear against
away from under one, and there were some it are self-destructive; reason has given con-
dread awakening in outer space amid the rush sciousness the lie, but consciousness survives
of incessant meteors lost in the void. and smiles. Reason is a part of consciousness
All this is old knowledge; but who has taken and can never be greater than the whole ; this
steps to alter it ? The answer is forbidding: truth Spencer sees; but reason is not even any part of
compels me to say, the mystics of all lands. this new consciousness (which I, and many
Their endeavour has been to slow the rate others, have too rarely achieved) and therefore
of change ; their methods perfect quietude of can never touch it: this I see, and this will I
body and mind, produce in varied and too often hope be patent to those ardent and spiritually-
vicious ways. Regularisation of the breathing minded agnostics of whom Huxley and Tyndall
is the best known formula. Their results are are for all history-time the prototypes. Know
contemptible, we must admit ; but only so or doubt! is the alternative of the highwayman
because empirical. An unwarranted reverence Huxley ; Believe is not to be admitted ;
has overlaid the watchfulness which science this is fundamental; in this agnosticism can
would have enjoined, and the result is muck never change ; this must ever command our
and misery, the wreck of a noble study. moral as well as our intellectual assent.
But what is the one fact on which all agree? But I assert my strong conviction that ere
The one fact whose knowledge has been since long we shall have done enough of what is
reliigon began the all-sufficient passport to after all the schoolmaster work of correcting
their doubtfully-desirable company? the inky and ill-spelt exercises of the theologi-
This: that I see a cat is not only an cal dunces in that great class-room, the world;
unwarrantable assumption but a lie ; that the and found a little peace while they play in
duality of consciousness ceases suddenly, once the intimate solitude of the laboratory and the
the rate of change has been sufficiently slowed passionless rapture of research research into
down, so that, even for a few seconds, the rela- those very mysteries of nature which our
tion of subject and object remains impregnable. dunces have solved by a rule of thumb;
It is a circumstance of little interest to the determining the nature of a bee by stamping on
present essayist that this annihilation of duality it, and shouting bee ; while we patiently set to
is associated with intense and passionless work with microscopes, and say nothing till be
peace and delight; the fact has been a bribe to know, nor more than need be when we do.
the unwary, a bait for the charlatan, a But I am myself found guilty of this rôle of
hindrance to the philosopher; let us discard it. schoolmaster : I will now therefore shut the
doors and retire again into the laboratory
* Hume, and Kant in the Prolegomena,
where my true life lies.
discuss this phenomenon unsatisfactorily. A. C.
It is this rapture which has ever been the bond 403, 405. Reason and concentration.45 The
between mystics of all shades; and the obstacle to results of reasoning are always assailable : [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]