Being And Having

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BEING

AND HAVING

BEING

AND HAVING by

GABRIEL MARCEL a translation by

KATHARINE FARRER of Eire

et

Avoir

dacre press Westminster

First published in

Printed by Robert

The

MacLebose and Company Limited

University Press}

Glasgow

PREFACE my great privilege

is

book. In a sense

It

form

its

is

to be allowed to write a preface to this

it is its

own

advertisement: yet in

The

rather unusual.

some ways

greater part consists in extracts

repetitive, from a metaphysical diary; the jottings disjointed of a thinker concerned to speak with himself rather than to an

and

audience.

Some readers would be well

the diary extracts

till

advised to postpone reading

some of the more

they have tackled

studies contained in the second half of the

But no one can fail takes

from

seriously, provided, that

it

^eading.Christian in the

to profit

existentialist'

mode! M. Marcel

M. Marcel's work, provided he he doesn't go to

is,

him

as a

whom he must read in order to* be

deprecates the label, preferring to call

himself 'a concrete philosopher' prepared to sacrifice to the

systematic

volume.

that

is

a philosopher

demands of systematic

rough edges of human life. hope that this book will be widely read, and

who

is

not

natures sensitivity

to the I

I especially

com-

mend it to four classes of persons: i.

M.

For myself I have come across nothing more important than on the problem of meta-

Marcel's writings here and elsewhere

physics. I say

the

end

The

problem advisedly:

puzzled as to strict

Thomist has

the Biblical theologian

he

knew

we

are all

of us these days in

his answer: so has the positivist: so too

who

of ontology an argument spectives*.

for

what exactly metaphysics is. is

much

too ready to find in the decay

for the authenticity

A^A^celjvaiJi^ined

of 'Biblical per-

in the tradition ofjdealism:

the influence both of Bergsen and

ofW.

and

E. Hocking. His

conversation with himself certainly betrays their influences: but is

it

of far wider significance. Professor Ayer and Dr. E. L. Mascall i

have

answer .to the question what ontology

their

is:

they have their

formulae. Marcel probes beneath these answers; Jpr is

much more

pression of the

than a body of doctrine.

ontology

human situation; what is expressed in the syllogisms

of, for instance, Pere

as

him

the intellectual ex-

It is

Garrigou-Lagrange,

is

valid only in so far

and summarises the very being of man and the that being is lived through and met with "by man in

catches

it

universe, as

his pilgrimage I find as I

through life. read M. Marcel that the

frontiers are blurrec

ethical reflection, metaphysics, spirituality.

And that is the strength

of his seemingly inconsequent method. In a way he

is

too wise to

enough in form to convince a man; they only carry conviction in a whole experience of life of which they are the ex-

suppose that the arguments ofthepbilosopbiaperennis are their abstract

relation to

pression.

The issues between the Thomist, the positivist, the idealist

are not issues simply

of doctrine but of life; and

to see

one must probe, stretching language beyond the

somehow 2.

to

convey the issues as things through

what they are,

frontiers

of poetry,

which men live.

The book should be studied closely by the moralist whether he

be philosopher or moral theologian. Where some of the most familiar ethical ideas are concerned, Marcel reminds us of their 'inside*

when we

'outside*.

so often in our discussion think simply of their

What is a promise? We have our answer pat, our formula

which permits us

to

keep the promises

go on with the discussion of our obligations to

we have made and so on. We don't wait to probe.

myself inevitably using that word 'probe* again and again in connection with M. Marcel: for what he does is to probe the unI find

suspected profundities of the familiar. ethics are morally philistine,

the 'inside*

them up 3.

Most

professional students of

men who give little time to penetrating

of the ideas they are handling.

And there Marcel pulls

short.

The book

should be widely read by the

many

Christian

'fellow-travellers'

Christian act

of today, those

way without

who follow, as it were, afar off the

themselves coming yet to the point of an

of faith in the Crucified.

Its

very incompleteness will respond to

groping anxiety, and it will enrich their vision of life. And can do because it eschews dogmatic exposition seeking rather to shew the inside of the truly Christian way of life. Fidelity, their

this

it

hope, chirity, mystery these are fundamental categories of the Christian way: and of all these Marcel has much to which is say,

in every

way

fresh

and

same time rootedjnjhe

yet at the

tradition

of Catholic Christianity.

The

reader of such a

work

as

Albert Camus' La

Peste,

with

its

preoccupation with the problem of a^^atheistic sanctity, will understand M. Marcel. In a way he challenges the of possibility

Camus' vision; and he does analysis

o

holiness

on dogmatic grounds but by an and goodness which shews indirectly their so not

from acknowledgment of the all-embracing mystery of.God. An age which has known evil as ours has and does still inseparability

know

it, is

ness, as

inevitably interested in goodness;

and

it

jsjwith goodsomething inevitably issuing out of God becausca-giftfrom

him, that Marcel's studies deal. 4.

And

lastly I

commend

this

book because

at

a time

when

minuteness and subtlety of mind are too often the prerogatives of he reminds us that a true minuteness

the light-heartedly destructive,

and a heart,

true intellectual subtlety are rooted in humility and^urity. of

and manifest the

soil

in

which they

are

nourished by

whose charm none can escape and a ^raciousness argument which none can break.

strength of

D. M. MACKINNON King's College

Old Aberdeen February,

1949

CONTENTS PART ONE: BEING AND HAVING I.

II.

A Metaphysical Diary Outlines of a Phenomenology of Having

page 9

page 154

PART TWO: FAITH AND REALITY I.

II.

Some Remarks on

the Irreligion of Today

Some Thoughts on

HI. Peter

Faith

Wust on the Nature of Piety

page 179 page 203 page 217

PART ONE BEING AND HAVING

I

A METAPHYSICAL DIARY (1928-1933)

November wtb 1928 have today made a firm resolve

I

diary, perhaps in the form

to continue

my

metaphysical

ofa series of consecutive reflections.

caught sight of an idea just now which might be important. Returning to my fundamental views on existence, I was I

whether

it is

possible to say in

any sense

that

an

wondering idea^exists; and this

how I see it. The idea, so far as it is represented on the pattern of] an object (I was thinking the other day of what we mean the by is

aspects of an idea)

of

shares with the object as such the characteristic/

non-existence, the object

the nature

of my

body,

i.e.

only existing in so

in so far as

it is

far as

k

shares in

not thought of as object.]

In the same way, must we not say that an idea can and does have existence, but only and exactly in so far as it is irreducible to the pseudo-objective

which we form of

representations

materialist interpretation,

however absurd in

imply a confused notion of

what

I

am

itself,

The

it?

does at

least

trying to get at here.

We

might say that an idea exists proportionately to its being more dr should like to find some concrete examples for illus-

less adherent. I

tration,

of my tion)

but

this is

of course very difficult to do. The starting point day was the idea of an event (X's opera-

reflections the other

which

I

have said that

had many reasons I

to

be anxious about.

revolved the idea, or that

showed me

it

One

might

revolved of itself, and

its different aspects in turn; i.e. I thought of a with three-dimensional analogy object, a die for instance.

it

by

November 22nd

An interesting point. Is responsibility, or rather the need to attri9

the need to have something or

bute responsibility

on

at the root of all 'causal

us a long way.

seems to

It

someone to

explanation'? I feel that this

fix

it

might take

me very near to Nietzchean psychology.

FOR A PAPER TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

N'OTES

1 Undated, written in 1927 or I928

When

something exists, I always mean that I consider this something as connected with my body, as able to be put in contact with it, however indirect this contact may be. But note I affirm that

must be taken that the priority the fact that objective,

I

thus ascribe to

my body depends on

my body is given to me in a way that is not exclusively

i.e.

on

mysterious and

the fact that

intimate, of the

purposely avoid the

word

my body. This character, at once bond between me and my^ body (I

it is

relation)

does in fact colour

all existential

judgments.

What it comes 10 is this. 1.

We cannot really separate:

Existence

Consciousness of self as existing 3. Consciousness of self as bound to a body, as incarnate. From this several important conclusions would seem to follow: 2.

(1) In the

cannot^ so far as

first

place, the existential point

of view about

reality

seems^be othet than that of an incatnatejgersonality. In we can imagine a pure understanding, there is, for such an

it

understanding, no possibility of considering things as existent or non-existent.

On the oae hand, the problem of the existence of the external

(2)

world

is

now changed and perhaps even loses its meaning; I cannot

in fact without contradiction think of since

it is

in connection with is

x

.defined

it

my body

(in so far as

andjphced^On

it is

my body)

that

the other hand,

This paper was never delivered.

10

as non-existent,

we

ought to ask whether there are valid reasons

for giving

my body

a

comparison with other things. permissible to ask whether die union of the

privileged metaphysical status in (3) If this

is so, it is

souljind body the soul

is,

in essence, really different from the union between existing things. In other words, does not a

and other

certain experience

of the

self,

as tied

up with

the universe, underlie

affirmation of existence?

all

(4) Inquire whether such

an

of the

interpretation

existential

leads towards subjectivism.

Shew how idealism tends inevitably to

(5) tial

eliminate all existen-

considerations in view of the fundamental unintelligibility of

existence.

Idealism versus^metaphysics.

Values detached from

existence: too real to exist.

Existential

and

personalist interests Closely, linked.

The problem

of the immortality of the soul is the pivot of metaphysic. Every existent is thought of like an obstacle by which we take our bearings like something we could collide with in certain think of this impenetracircumstances resistent, impenetrable.

We

as not completely thinkable. 1

bility,

no doubt, but we think of it

Just as

my body is thought of in so far as it is a body, but my thought

collides

To the

with the fact that it is my body.

say that something exists

is

not only to say that

it

belongs to

same system as my body (that it is bound to it by certain conwhich reason can define), it is also to say that it is in some

nections

way united to me as my body is. the central 'given* of metaphysic. Incarnation

Incarnation

the situation of a being .

1

who

This 'given*

appears to himself to be, as is

opaque

to

itself:

it

is

were,

opposition to the

The opacity of the world is in link between opacity and Meinbeit. idea is opaque to me personally in so far as it is mine. think of it as an adherence. (Note written Feb. 24th, 1929.) It is

thought

of,

but

it is

a certain sense insoluble.

never resolved.

The

We

II

My

Of this

cogito. I,

nor that

is

found

it is

to

I

body,

can neither say

be transcended from the

the opposition, treating logical sleight

experience,

as

it

nor that

it is I,

not

it is

which

start.

Inversely, if I start

from

fundamental, I shall find no trick of

of hand which

same thing)

to the

that

for me (object). The opposition of subject and object

lets

me

get

back

to the original

will inevitably be either eluded or

(which comes

We are not to object that this experience

refused.

shews a contingent character: in point of fact, all metaphysical enquiry requires a starting-point of this kind. It can only start from a situation which

is

mirrored but cannot be understood.

Inquire if incarnation 'given* starting

a fact;

is

from which a

it

does not seem so to me,

fact is possible

(which

is

it is

the

not true of

the cogito).

A fundamental predicament which cannot be in a masterecTor analysed. stated

when

It is

am my body;

quite treat myself as a term distinct from

would be in a definable connection with where, the

moment

ledge, I banish

This

is

standstill

myself to

the reason

of

that

more accurate

I treat

which

exactly this impossibility

I declare, confusedly, that I

my body

as

sense

strict

i.e.

is

I

being

cannot

body, a term which

my

As

it.

I

have said

else-

an object of scientific know-

infinity.

why

I

machine

cannot think of my (illam,

to say that I

not bane).

It

cannot anticipate

cannot ask myself what will become of me

but only of the would perhaps be

death,

my

when

death, that

the

machine

is,

is

I

no

1

longer working. 1

to shew in what sense this (idee d'un engagement) Try absolute the non-validity) of my representing impossibility (or implies death I break the rules of the game, to think of In death. my trying my

'To be involved/

it is radically illegitimate to convert this impossibility into a dogmatic negation. (Note written Feb. 24th, 1929.) It is evident that this whole train of thought is at the root ode Cower-

But

notes

nail:

the

days

after these.

first

on

the

theme of le Gowernail were composed a few

(Note written April 1 3th, 1934.) 12

February

2<)tb

Have detected, perhaps, an important fallacy involved in the idea (cf. my previous notes on incarnation) that opacity must be bound But

up with

otherness.

opacity

really arises

the self and the other,

The

surely the contrary

from the

say that

it

comes

what point

to

world has no

to the

My pletely

and

ideas are hardest for

my

ideas; that

is

party?

a function of

me

is

my own Should

intrinsic obscurity.

a result;

is

between

interposes

same thing in the end?

this interior opacity

the consequence of an act?

is

really the case. Surely

T

and intervenes as a third

obscurity of the external world

obscurity to myself; the

we

is

fact that the

We must ask up

is it

not very largely

not this act simply sin?

to grasp

where they

where they

are

most com-

are impenetrable to

me. 1 The

problem I am setting myself is to find out whether this applies to the whole of reality. Is not reality impenetrable to me just in proportion as I

am involved in it? 2

Of course different

all this is

horribly difficult to think out clearly. In a

terminology (that of the Journal Me'tapbysique) I could

my body is an absolute mediator, communication with it (in the sense that

easily say that in so far as

I so far

cease to have

I

have

communication with any objective sector of the Real). Let us say again that my body is not and cannot be given to me. For everything 'given* attracts to

and 1

that

And

is

what

I

itself

a process of indefinite qbjectification,

understand by the word 'penetrable'. 3

The im-

where they become a principle of interior darkening; to this dominate me and make me into a sort of slave-tyrant. thrown on all this by le Pbtnomtnologie de VAvoir outlined

extent, in fact, they

Light

is

in 1933.

(Note written April I3th, 1934.) anticipating what I wrote later on 'Mystery'. But passage surely implies a confusion between opacity and mystery (/i). 2

3

1

was here

Here, too, there appears to

me

to be a confusion: the object as such It is the Other, or

by definition accessible to me, but not penetrable. more exactly the Thou, which is penetrable (/A).

is

this

13

penetraomty, men, 01

of absolute mediator. But is

oeiongs to

my ooay

obvious that

it

it is

in virtue ot

my body,

myself; for I cannot distinguish myself from

to reduce

it

to

an

object,

i.e.

it

as

it

quality

in that sense,

am willing

unless I

unless I cease to treat

its

an absolute

mediator.

We must, therefore, break away once and for ail from the metaphors which depict consciousness as a luminous

which

there

contrary, the

is

nothing, to

own

its

eyes,

cilrcle

but darkness.

round

On

the

shadow is at the centre.

When I try to make clear to

myself the nature of my bond with

my body, it appears to me chiefly

something of which I have the use (as one has the use of a piano, a saw, or a razor); but all these uses are extensions of the initial use, which is simply the use of the

body. I have

real priority to

use, but none whatever

use the

is

only possible

community is

The

whereas in

the analogy of

a question of knowledge.

The

community. But say *I and my body*.

felt

cannot validly think of my relation with

fact that I

relation

my

with

my

instruments

presupposes the former.

i<)2<)

was thinking place on the 9th I

it is

the basis of a certain

from the

fact the latter

February i8tb,

my body when it is a question of active

when

indivisible; I

difficulty arises

my body on

on

as

this afternoon

(with regard to the meeting to take

at the rue Viscontf) that the

over time must have

one of its

fidelity as

only possible victory

factors.

(Cf. Nietzche's

only being who makes profound promises*.) There is no privileged state which allows us to transcend state time; and this was where Proust made his great mistake.

remark

so

'man

is

the

A

such as he describes has only the value of a foretaste. This notion of a foretaste is, I feel, likely to play a more and more central part in

my part

thinking. But one point must be noticed (and here I think I

company with Fernandez):

the

14

fidelity,

unless

it is

to be fruit-

worse, reduced to mere persistency, must spring from

less or,

9

something that true in

"absolutely given to

is

me.

(I feel this is especially

my relation to the people I love best.) From the very

begin-

ning there must be a sense of stewardship: something has been entrusted to us, so that we are not only responsible towards ourbut towards an active and superior principle and how it goes against my inclinations to use such a disgustingly abstract selves,

word!

As

I

myself.

M

was writing to But here again I

,

I at

once

feel that at the

fear

and long

to

commit was

very beginning there

something else beyond myself a commitment that I accepted after an offer had been made to the most hidden depths of my being. The question

how

is,

can

I deserve it? It

is

strange

and

yet so clear

that I shall only continue to believe if I continue to deserve faith.

Amazing interdependence between believing and

my

desert!

March $tb I

have no more doubts. This morning's happiness is miraculous. first time I have terrible thing to clearly experienced grace.

A

For the say, I

but so

it is.

1m hemmed

Happy

to

And

yet, I feel

childishly

Now,

in at last by Christianity be so! But I will write no more.

.

.

.

a kind of need to write. Feel I

this is

too, I

can

in,

indeed a birth. Everything is

see

fathoms deep.

am

stammering

different.

my way through my improvisations.

A new

metaphor, the inverse of the other a world which was there, entirely present, and at last I can touch it.

March

6tb

Notes on time;

must be important. So far as the subject pure receptivity, the problem of the relations beI feel they

is thought of as tween time and the timeless

is

comparatively simple: I can, in 15

fact,

conceive of myself as apprehending successively something which is, in a certain sense, given all at once (a metaphor from reading).

But this is merely an abstraction. The subject is not pure receptivity; or, more accurately, apprehension is itself an event (an indefinite of events

series

the story

it

it is

by a

carried

discloses).

of events inseparable from

series

In other words, the subject

is

involved qua

agent (and he has the character of receptivity only on condition of being at the same time an agent) in the content which he was

supposed merely to decipher. An extraordinarily complicated situation which I must manage to think about. I am sure I am on the right lines, but shall I

Put it formally. Given call

Ijyill

L, Ij^lljmake A stand for the reading of it, the

operations t>y

The

manage to work them out?

reading

which splits

I gradually

itself

which

the intelligible total, jth^j^www/

gain consciousness of its elements.

into Ai, A2, AS, but these steps in c6n-

up

sciousness are obviously related to acts ai 9 02, 03. These acts, ever,

appear on

(and

to the steps

steps

which,

by which

we must

appears that this

it

clearly see,

can

present

at

belong to the

now

I successively

Notice that

past).

closely

me

as

connected

an

object

case.

Suppose

I

am

an improvisatjion.(I). I Jim conscious, sj^ssskely^of |fo

disconnected to me. But

It

it is

may happen that these phases appear also possible that

unity of the improvisation, although

properly speaking, as object, since is

is

discern the parts, etc.).

imagine a more complex

phases of this improvisation.

(This

L L has been built up,

fact, viz. that^Ljrepresents itself to

(book, picture of which

We

how-

reflection to be completely exterior, indifferent to

the fact of these steps belonging to the past

with another

of

total

the counterpart of what I

connection between JFact

whole belong

A,

to the past,

to object, is *&ivcu'

it

it is

l^

may

recognise

cannot be given to me,

after all

was saying

an improvisation.

just

now

about the

that the steps in building

and

the

JFjitt,J3 t

up

the

jtha^^

me.) Tb&tt&gnition which occurs in tfa&casfi of 16

the improvisation

is

r^j^jdr^ofj^mcip^don^ that is,

already

it

can only take place if I am in some way 'on the inside*. But we can go a step further. It is not inconceivable that the

some way

participation contributes in

The more

effective this participation

involved in the improvisation it

of less pure

receptivity),

a certain sense, to treat

and

it

is,

more

I shall

be in a relation towards

will be

more

it

But

much

difficult for

me, in

this difficulty, this

less

with the actual

of the whole, than with the way in which I it.

itself.

actively shall I be

(i.e.

as a totum simul.

and personally involved in tell

the

so

quasi-impossibility, will be connected structure

to the improvisation

am

actively

My situation in the whole is not, to

the truth, of such a kind that I cannot detach myself in some

from the function there assigned

sense

out what

attitude I

am

to take

up

to

me: but

I

must

still

towards the decadhuncm

find

itself]

and this seems to me of the utmost importance.

(A) It may happen that I decidejo disregard my detachment, and turn myself into a pure spectator. But this change of front carries with it the risk that the whole may also tend to appear to me as a

pure spectacle, perhaps even a spectacle lacking in sense. Foi

the intelligible force informing the improvisation could perhaps

only be grasped by

A kind of still

more

somehow

rift

me in

so far as I

was

actively associated

then appears, either between

serious,

between

me and myself.

me and

with

the total,

it,

or,

(This will be the case if]

dissociate myself, the pure spectator,

from the immanent

by which my participation was expressed: but these actions, thus isolated and robbed of their meaning, lose all significance; and

actions

their intrinsic nothingness

may even be passed on,

like a contagious

disease, to the improvisation itself.)

(B) It may appear, on the contrary, that I really think of my detachment as an interioriscd mode ofjgarticipation. If this is so, 1 continue to be part of the system;

my place

has changed, and thai

is all.

B

17

M.B.H.

March It is

jtb

a serious error, if I

am not

of apprehension. For one order according to

can only do

which

mistaken, to

treat

time as a

then forced to consider

is

it

mode

also as the

the subject apprehends himself,

and he

by breaking away from himself, as it were, and mentally severing the fundamental engagement which makes him what he is. (I take the word 'engagement* here to rejfresent both this

'involvement*

This

when

is

and

'committal'.)

the point of what I

I reflected that

time

is

was

trying to say yesterday afternoon,

the very form of experimental activity.

And from this point of view, to take up once more the metaphor of the absolute improvisation (a metaphor

which seems

not to raise ourselves, as

me

in-

To transcend time

exhaustible) one finds oneself thinking like this. is

to

we can do at any moment, to the actually

empty idea of a totum simul

empty because

it

remains outside us

and thereby becomes in some way devitalised. By no means. It is rather to participate more and more actively in the creative intention that quickens the whole: in other words, to raise ourselves to levels

from which the succession seems

less

and

less

given, levels

from

which a 'cinematographic* representation of events looks more and more inadequate, and ceases in the long run to be even possible. I

of the utmost importance. There, and perhaps only way open from creative evolution to a religious philo-

think this

there,

is

the

is

sophy, but this

way can

of participation.

I believe also,

the basis for a

only be taken through a concrete dialectic

1

though

I

cannot

yet establish

it,

that

we

Theory of Evil, which would maintain

without denying

its

have here its

reality

contingency.

The more we treat the world as a spectacle, the more unintelligible 1

This remark, made in 1929, holds good for me even since the publication of M. Bergson's work, Les Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion (April, 1934.)

18

rhust

it

necessarily

seem from a metaphysical point of view, because and the world is an intrin-

the relation then established between us

absurd one. Perhaps this is relevant to what I was writing the other day about interior opacity. sically

an important bearing on the problem of the genesis of the universe, or the finitude of the world in time. ID proportion as I treat the universe as object (detachment

My yesterday's

in the

A -sense),

formed,

how

notes have, I think,

cannot help asking myself how

I

this 'set-up* started:

and

construction of a series of operations cessively. T]ll^^J[%cj5.jar(
this object

this implies the

was

mental

which has unfolded

re-

suc-

being thought of or treated as object

and

(b) possessing a jpast that can .be Deconstructed, are essentially connected. The simplest and clearest example is that of a person

empirically given.

But

which

once more, presupposes the initial action by separate myself from the world, as I separate myself from

this, I repeat

I

which

the object

I consider in its different aspects.

Now

this act,

while entirely legitimate or even necessary each time I consider 2 particular thing, becomes illicit and even absurd as soon as I begir to consider the universe. I verse,

cannot

really stand aside

from the

even in thought. Only by a meaningless pretence can

myself at

some vague point outside

on a small

scale the successive stages

it,

genesis, I

plaa

and from thence reproduce

of its

genesis.

myself outside myself (a revealing parallel)

upon my own

I

uni-

mean of course

Nor can

I plac<

and question mysel my non

the genesis of

The problem of the genesis of th< of the are just onejind the same prob universe genesis more exactly, one and the same insoluble, the insolubility

empirical, or metaphysical reality. I

and of the

lem, or,

being bound up with

my

very position,

my

existence,

radical metaphysical fact of that existence.

And here,

can

of eternity. The

attain to

an absolutely

as such, not being

positive notion

and

I believe,

th<

w<

universe

thought of or able to be thought of as object, ha 19

speaking no past:

strictly

it

'cinematographic* representation.

on a

what

entirely transcends

And

the

same

true

is

I called

a

of myself:

certain level I cannot fail to appear to myself as contemporary

with the universe (coaevus universe), that is, as eternal. Only, of what order is this apprehension of oneVself as eternal? That is no doubt the most difficult point.

And here,

I think,

we

get

back to what

I

was writing this morning.

At

bottom, the method

always the same; it is plumbing the depths of a given fundamental metaphysical situation of which it is inadequate to say I

'it is

is

mine', since

cannot help recording that

it

consists essentially in leinf me.

of my thought is Light. I have never

this illumination

me only the extension of the Other, the only known such happiness. for

I have been playing Brahms for a long time, piano sonatas that were new to me. They will always remind me of this unforgettable time. How can I keep this feeling of being entered, of being

absolutely safe

March

and

also of being enfolded?

8tb

am

more and more struck by the difference between the two modes of detachment: the one is that of the spectator, the other of I

the saint. The detachment of the saint springs, as one might say, from the very core of reality; it completely excludes curiosity about the universe. This detachment is the highest form of participation.

The detachment of the

spectator

not only in thought but in fatality

act.

is

just the opposite,

Herein, I think,

it is

lies

which seems to weigh on all ancient philosophy

desertion,

the kind of it is

essen-

tially the philosophy of the spectator.

But one thing must be noted: the

belief that

one can escape pure

the spectatorship by devotion to a practical science, which modifies Real by its applications, is founded on a misconception. Here I

vaguely see a very important line of thought, but confess that I

20

cannot quite clearly formulate it as yet. I should express it by saying that the modifications which such a science imposes on reality have

no other

of course) than of making that

result (metaphysically

science in

some

exactly expresses repeat these

sense a stranger to reality.

what

I

mean.

'I

The word

'alienation*

am not watching a show'

words to myself every day.

I will

A fundamental spiritual

fact.

The for

interdependence of spiritual destinies, the plan of salvation; me, that is the sublime and unique feature of Catholicism.

I

was

moment ago that the spectator-attitude form of lust; and more than that, it corresponds to

just thinking a

corresponds to a the act by

which

And I now

the .subject appropriates the

world

for himself.

perceive the deep truth of Berulle's theocentrism.

are here to serve; yes, the idea

of service, in every

sense,

We

must be

thoroughly examined.

Also perceived there

is

ously

I

this

morning, but

still

in a confused way, that

profane knowledge and sacred knowledge (whereas previ-

have wrongly tended to

fane. It isn't true, profane

on what

assert that all

knowledge was pro-

a supremely informative word). Inquire

is

conditions knowledge ceases to be profane.

Incredible

how

thronged these days are

spiritually!

My

life is

being illuminated right into the depths of the past, and not my

life

only.

Every time

we give way

to ourselves

an additional limitation on is

we may unawares

ourselves, forging our

be laying

own chain. That

the metaphysical justification for asceticism. I never understood

that

till

now.

Reality as mystery, intelligible solely as mystery. This also applies to myself.

March gtb

An important observation has just no longer accept

occurrred to

my

the idea, in any sense, of something

21

mind.

beyond

I

can

truth:

as a matter

me

of fact the idea has made

uncomfortable for some

time now. This gap between Truth and Being of

It is

moment we

the

itself,

the half-truths

fills

up, in a manner,

of God.

really experience the presence

which

name

cease to deserve the

to the eye

of

faith.

Faith, the force

and over

over

I

Also,

of invisible

to myself

but

truths. I say this illuminating sentence it

only illuminates

after the event.

become conscious more and more of the

part played in

by the will. The thing is, to keep myself in a certain state analogous, on the human level, to the state of grace. In this sense, faith

faith is essentially fidelity,

realised this at once,

have known it ever

March

and in

with shattering

the highest possible form. I clarity,

on February

25th,

and

since.

11 tb

A wholesome thought has come to me:

let me write it down. to the down beneath the critical attitude Deep Gospel stories, is the

implicit assertion

words,

we

oughtn't to have happened like

inwardly sketch the idea

sumption and I. have

'It

folly

that*.

'this

can't be true', so that of course

pick holes, find contradictions,

etc. It

In other

really paralysing pre-

of what revelation ought

to

have been

a very strong suspicion that in this criticism there

the idea

down

with

like.

is

And

always

one must be able

seems to

me

to

that this laying

of kw by the individual consciousness ought to be rejected The Gospel words, in fact: 'become as little children.'

in principle.

Glorious words, but quite unintelligible to anyone that there

and

is

subject

It is

an

it

to

intrinsic value in maturity. I

an infinitely more careful

quite certain that from the

who

must go into

believes all this

scrutiny.

moment

that miracles are said to

be impossible a priori, the arguments of a negative exegesis not only lose all their value, but I

was

become in essence suspect.

thinking, too, that the credibility of miracles

22

is

positively

demonstrated by such tain.

That

Now

these events

conversion ot Claudcl or Mari-

tacts as the

can be believed

nobody can go upon. So taking

think that these

what conditions

it is

possible,

on which

it

we must

depends. This

undeniable.

believed without adequate

their belief as

facts to

conditions

in, is absolutely

men

a base,

rise

is

we must

from the

the best

ask on

fact to the

and only way

for genuirte religious reflection to take.

March i2tb have been feeling rather poorly this morning, and have made heavy weather of the pages on baptism in the catechism of the Council of Trent. This is all still very difficult for me to accept, but I

at the

in

same time

me

have a strange feeling that a work

I

a feeling that each resistance I put

or burnt away. Is this

much

too at

looking

must

long. I it.

an

It is

illusion? I

now

up

is

have seen

is

being done

being disintegrated it

from outside

get used to quite a different

for

way of

not easy. I have a constant feeling of inward

cauterisation.

March I

21 st

have just passed through a painful, dark time; a passage full of were difficult to anticipate. The worst day, I think,

obstacles that

M

was Sunday. On Monday evening, the long talk with did me an enormous amount of good, and also my last meeting with the

Abbe

A

chism, which ally at a

time

.

I

The

have

when

real trouble

literally

had

was

the teaching of the cate-

difficulty in assimilating, especi-

the vital link with

God

was, if not broken, at

beyond description. Today I feel I am recovering in the word. The thing that most helps me is the desire of sense

least stretched

the full

not to be on the side of those blind men.

It is

inspiration in

that part

my present

who betrayed Christ,

of the Gospel which

state.

23

nor just with the is

the spring

of

March 2yd

was baptised

I

this

morning.

had dared to hope for: no and full of hope and faith.

My inward

state

was more than

transports, but peaceful,

balanced,

An idea came to me in the Luxembourg, and I will put once.

at

At

bottom, space and time are in a

temptation. Pride and

false

sing our insignificance

and

on

time, for

the

we

humility combine in

when compared with

way

I

it

down

the forms of

the act

of recogni-

the infinity of space

are then claiming to put ourselves in imagination

same plane

as this pair

of

infinites, realised as objects

of

knowledge. Our beads are turned by such an approximation to God\ Return to the here and now, which recover an unparalled dignity for later examination.

Too

tired tonight to write

we have a mass of ideas

here,

and they will be hard

and worth. This any more. April 12th I suspect that

to sort out; a tangled skein. I

want

to

make

a

new and more thorough examination of the

nature of the prejudice expressed by the words 'we have reached a

point

when we can no

longer believe that

.

.

.'

etc. It

contains a

of experience and growth (experience in the sense of growth, or growth in the sense of experience) which first needs to be drawn out. I was reflecting yesterday on the basic

certain a priori notion

ambiguity of the idea of age when applied to mankind. Is the thing that has happened last the oldest of all things or the youngest?

We

(more accurately) swing between the two views. At this present hour I see the Christian miracle, without qualification, as the absolute point at which youth is renewed. And perhaps the

vary, I think, or

eternal

and irremovable fountain of all

can be.

24

the renewal of youth there

May loth Have begun

to philosophise again this afternoon, perhaps as a

consequence of the wonderful Office for yesterday morning at the church in the Rue Monsieur, and also after my conversation with

C

who came and talked to me about my letter in which I had poured out to him all the misery I feel when I am confronted by the ,

Thomist claims.

My

thoughts turn on the ideas of salvation and

an important passage in the Journal

perdition, in connection with

Metapbysique.

Here are my main points.

Only what has a share in

which

that

is

of salvation or damnation

alive is capable

life,

or

is

treated as

having such a

incorporates in itself existence

share.

and

what

But above all,

value.

We

must,

however, go beyond these categories, and there perhaps we approximate to Aristotelian theories. That which is saved is obviously that

which keeps its form and is consequently, in a sense, withdrawn, if not from life, at least from becoming. And yet here is the diffionly that which could be

culty

and

this

cannot therefore be

form is eternally is

safe, it

of the

saved:

itself. The The essential word

worth, or the form

either the

cannot even be

'threatened': the idea

levels.

damned is capable of being

'threat*

threatened.

must be explored, and on

all

On the biological level (or ifwe consider, for instance, a work

of art, a picture or statue, from a purely material point of view) the idea of threat is comparatively clear. The gigantic ethical and metaphysical mistake of the present day

is

the refusal to recognise that

the soul can also be threatened; or rather, this refusal

comes down

and simple denial of a foul. It may be noticed that in the realm of mind, or more accurately, of intelligence, we readily agree that the notion of a threat continues to mean something to us. Thus, to the pure

we would

all

agree that certain mass-prejudices (national, social,

of our judgment. But many people would be reluctant to extend the notion of integrity to cover etc.)

can threaten the

personality

unless

integrity

they understood the

word

'personality* in

a

purely biological sense, sort

of machine.

working of a

really just considering the

i.e.

perfectly clear that, for a Christian, there

It is

could

never be any question of considering the soul in this light, and here that the idea of normal function, or even health,

it is

perhaps

ceases to be applicable.

May nth It is clear

that salvation cannot be thought of otherwise than as

directly or indirectly

connected with a certain desire (which may,

indeed, not be the desire of the person to be saved; as in the case of

a child or of the soul treated as a child).

whether

it is

It is

an important question

not the same with regard to damnation.

We are apt to think that, in the realm of

life,

loss or perdition just

would be to put of disintegration; but

implies a sort of passivity: the only positive thing

up an

effective resistance against the forces

they, for their part,

work

if we

mechanically. But

want

is this

the case?

of evil.

An

A

sort of problem, fundamental paradox seems to be written on the very heart of things, since death may be regarded either as the pure triumph of

essential

to define the nature

mechanical process, working automatically or, on the contrary, as the expression of a destructive will. This paradox appears once

more in the realm of spirit, but this realm,

it is

thing).

we

are able to clear

it

up. In

certainly possible to discover a will to destroy one's-

self (or to destroy another,

Our problem

order of nature

there

itself

which comes in a

will be to see

how

far

sense to the

we may

same

consider the

in the light of this evil will unveiled in the

heart of man.

June 12th

The question of the priority of essence in relation to existence has always interested me. I think we can really regard it as a pure illusion, which arises because we oppose something merely conceived 26

(which we think justifies us in treating it as non-existent) to something actualised. But in fact we have there simply two distinct

Thought cannot go beyond existence; it can only in some degree abstract from it, and it is of the first importance modalities of being.

that

should not be deceived by

it

to existence

really a

make

What we

sense.

The jump

of abstraction.

something quite impossible to

is

does not even

this act

call 'the

think of,

and which

to existence*

jump

kind of intra-existential transformation. That

way we can avoid

idealism.

inside existence, that it is

make

being able to

a

We

say, then, that

mode of existence which from

abstraction

strictly limited purposes.

must

It

is

the only

thought

is

privileged in

itself qua existence,

would not be untrue

involves in this sense a sort of

is

is

and

to say that

this for

thought

or rather a son of fundamental

lie,

blindness; but the blindness disappears in proportion as

it

is

accompanied by knowledge, which I take to mean the return to being. But such a return can only be made intelligible if the initial blindness has been explicitly recognised. In this regard certain

kinds of Cartesianism, and above

seem to

all

some

sorts

of Fichteanism,

me the most serious errors of which any metaphysic has been impossible to exaggerate how much better the formula

guilty. It is es

denkt in mir

ivism.

The

is

'I

than

cogito trgo

think*

actually dams the

is

sum,

which

lets

us in for pure subject-

not the spring of inspiration. Far from

it, it

flow. 1

June 26th I feel that I

in

my

am today rid I feel

philosophy.

of whatever

traces

of idealism remained

exorcised (by the influence of Father

Garrigou-Lagrange's book on God, though

it

is

very far from

satisfying me completely). I

1

tions.

my

would not today But

I

thought

it

unhesitatingly subscribe to these sweeping asserthem, as they bear on that stage of

right to record

philosophical journey

when

I

made my

every form of idealism, whatever it might

V?

greatest effort to break be. (April, 1934.)

with

The order of the problems seems to me to be as follows. Does our knowledge of particular things come to bear on the things on

themselves or

their Ideas?

Impossible not to adopt the

realist

A

Hence we

blindpass to the problem of Being in itself. of in is in all knowledge Being general implied particular knowledge. But here, take care in what sense we use the words solution.

fold

'Being in general*.

emptied of

its

Obviously there

no question of Being

is

individual characteristics. I should express myself

better if I said that since all

the Idea of the thing

knowledge concerns the thing and not an object in itself and

the Idea not being

being incapable of conversion into an object except by a subsequent thought-process of doubtful validity to Being.

it

implies that

The sense of these last words must

we

are related

be thoroughly explored.

June 28tb

The

cannot possibly deny the principle of identity, once except prevents me from denying Being and also from holding an aloof attitude tantamount to admitting that 'there may be Being, or again there may not*. And, what is more, Being fact that I

in vertis, at

cannot by definition be put into the category of mere possibles. On the one hand, it is out of the question to think it contains a logical impossibility; bility.

this

on the

Either there

experience

is

is

we

an empirical possinot and cannot be experience of Being, or else other,

cannot

treat

it

as

in fact vouchsafed to us. But

we cannot even con-

of a more privileged position than our own, in which we could affirm what our experience, as it now exists, does not let us ceive

affirm at present.

Such a

situation

would

be, at best, that

of a being

who saw, but was ipso facto beyond affirmation. The last refuge now possible for the

opponent of ontology is to deny that an uncondiof Being is possible; in short, to take up his

tional affirmation

quarters in a relativist pluralism realities,

which

asserts

beings or

but does not pronounce on their unity. But

28

lists

still,

of

either

words have no

sense, or

he

is

unity which enwraps them.

none

He

the less implicitly asserting a

will then have to take refuge in

pure nominalism; that, I think, is the only cover left to him. He will have to deny that there is even an idea, much less a reality, corresponding to the

word

From

'Being*.

of view, the

this point

of the game of radically separated from

principle of identity will be treated just as a 'rule

and thought

thought*,

itself will

be

From pure nominalism we

reality.

left

slide into

pure idealism.

It is

a

dangerously slippery path, for idealism cannot reduce an idea to a symbol; it must see in it at least an act of the mind. And that intro-

duces a

new series of difficulties.

July 17 tb

After reading Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, position clear

of God.

I

on the

I

should like to

make my

legitimacy of the classic proofs of the existence

must honestly admit

that

under the

persistent influence

of

idealism, I have been continually evading the ontological problem,

properly so called. I have always, I admit, had the deepest reluc-

tance to think according to the category of being: can

I justify this

reluctance to myself? I have really grave doubts of this. Pure agnosti-

cism,

i.e.

a completely open

today appears to

me

mind about

untenable.

the affirmation of being,

On the other hand,

refuge in the notion that the category of being validity.

Thought

is

betraying

itself,

is

I

cannot take

in itself lacking in

and ignoring its

own demands

of value for the order of being, and condemning itself to a state of most suspicious

if it claims to substitute the order at the

same time

is

ambiguity in face of the given, even where grasp and define this given. the affirmation 'Being is\

it is its

real business to

On the other hand, can I maintain that

is

despite appearances the mere formal

enunciation of a 'rule of the game* which thought must observe in order merely to

work? To put it another way,

is it

a mere hypotheti-

cal inference equivalent to saying that if I assert a certain content,

29

and consequently excludes which do not agree with it?

this assertion implies itself

tions

When I

A A is

thought, in asserting

my an

affirm that

yl-position; but

fact,

when

think

identity, for

me,

(logical or real

9

is

means in

A, commits

this version

I

this

itself in

those asser-

language that

idealist

a certain

manner

does not really represent what

I,

to

in

A

assume the identity of with itself. This really the condition of all possible structure

this is

not the place to take account of the distinc-

We could not, in fact, deny the principle of identity without denying that thought can have a bearing on anything. We should

tion).

be holding because

think anything, I cease to think thought becomes the slave of a content which inhibits

that, in

my

or even annuls

it.

proportion as

I

We could imagine a Heracleitanism or a hyper-

Bergsonism which would go as far as that. Only the question would then be, whether this thought, which was not the thought of something,

would

still

be a thought, or

in a sort of dream of itself. For the second alternative

wonder whether

I

is

my own

the true one;

whether

part, I

it

am

would be

lost

convinced that

and accordingly we may

myself can think of myself (as thinking) without

thought of, into something which is nothing, thus a mere contradiction. But here I join forces with

converting this 'me*

and which

is

Thomism

or at least with

Thought,

far

from being a

what

So

essentially a self-transcendence.

definition

of truth

is

to discover

is

that

may

it

tent',

understand to be Thomism.

with

itself, is

on

the contrary

the possibility of the realist

implied in the very nature of thought.

turns towards the Other, riddle

I

relation

it is

whether

the pursuit of the Other. this

Other

is

Thought

The whole

Being. I must here note

be important to refrain from the use of the term 'con-

because of its idealist overtones.

It is

that access to objectivity, in the sense in

abundantly clear to

which

it is

me

a stumbling-

block to a certain type of mind, must either be posited from the beginning or remain for ever unattainable. 30

i8th

July

Have been reflecting much on the difference between thinking (a thought) and thinking 0/(an object). Thinking building, or isolating) a structure: thinking of

German

different.

is

is

recognising (or

something quite

helps here: denken, an ttwas denkent andenken,

One thinks ofz being or even an event, past or to come. I am not sure if one can think of God in the same sense that we can think

Andacbt.

in any case one can only

of the incarnate Christ tion that It

one does not

would be

treat

risky, or at least premature, to

value to this order or structure

All

do

so

on condi-

God as structure. and

deny

all

ontological

may have been very more deeply. It is obvious

there I

must be thought out far that I may treat even an individual person as an object of thought (I make this transposition when I move from the Thou to the He). rash.

this

Find out

if

God as structure is implied in all particular structures.

July igtb

In

Note is

brief, thinking

docs not

come

to bear

on anything but

essences.

that depersonalisation, while perfectly allowable in this case,

impossible in the order of thinking

of.

Only a

think of* certain being or a certain thing. This

Note, on the other hand, that the more

more we

slide

from just

order to understand in

we

thinking to thinking

what

fill

of.

sense the infinite

is

certain

very important. in the context, the

This

is

is

important in

involved in the fact

of thinking (or conceiving) the individual as essence. Another point: we must try to understand how it

God

person can

is

that to pray

without any question the only way to think of God, or more accurately, a sort of equivalent raised to a higher power of the

to

action

is

which would, on a lower

plane, be thinking of someone.

When I think of a finite being, I restore, in a manner, between him myself, a community, an intimacy, a with (to put it crudely) which might seem to have been broken (I noticed this these last few

and

days in thinking ol school Inends 1

myself how I can think of God

tost

to enquire in

To

sight otj.

what

sense I

ask

can be

Him. Quite obviously there is no question of such co-existence

with

as that let

is

had

which may bind me

us forget that there

to a fellow-creature.

already, in the fact

is

And

do not

yet,

of thinking of someone, an

denying of space, that is, of the most material and also most illusory character of the 'with'. Denying of space denying of death in a the death being sense triumph, and the deepest expression, of active

such separation as can be realised in space. What is a dead man? man who is no longer even elsewhere, no longer anywhere. But

A

thought about

him

the active denial of his extinction (consider

is

the metaphysical value

of memory, or even, in a

sense,

of history).

We might here examine the strange idea, commonly held, that the absent or dead friend

bottom a

is

belief in a sort

photograph which photograph none the a

'no longer anywhere', but just 'in me'; at

of photograph which outlives the original, undeveloped, fleeting, fading but a

is

('He has gone away, but I have his photograph.') But here again, we are aware of the complete evasion of the spontaneous assertions of consciousness. When I think of

him, sort

it is

himself

I

am

less.

thinking

of,

and the 'photograph'

is

just a

of mediating element, a

point d'appui (which varies, moreover, of memory in different individuals). I powers might express this by saying that Andenken is deeply magical; that it

according to the

reaches Being itself past those intermediaries

we

call psychological

(whose ontological nature remains, anyhow, impenetrable

The

idealist, Proustian notion, that this

tion, should be treated as if it is this

it

deserves.

is

No account can be given of it

reduced to a mere imaginative synthesis. But at the same time

metaphysical act which puts

Being

Being

for us).

a pure construc-

will always

me in

touch with a being

show an aspect corresponding to the

thought taken as construction or as recognition.

with

activity

of

July jotb

Result of a morning's thought: Given a certain structure, whether spatial,

temporal, or spado-temporal

get to the

(it

is

surely very important to

bottom of the notion of temporal

me

structure,

certain life)

to

9

that

it is

which Berg-

have scamped or evaded: a certain tune, a given this structure, it is obvious that by the very fact

son seems to

such a structure,

it is

'a certain structure

and not

'a certain

9

Here the principle of identity takes on its full significance. But should we not deduce from this that in proportion as

other one

.

the structure loses

its

clear outlines,

and more

nearly approaches the

aircipov, the principle will correspondingly lose

But in

that case

its

significance?

arise.

immensely important problems with the Thomists that the principle of identity forces

Can I say me to assert

Being? I cannot do so unless I am sure that Being is distinguishable from the a7ra/xn>; in other words, in order not to be forced to admit that the principle of identity I

must be able

ancient philosophy did not

Otherwise,

is

only valid in the realm of the

to distinguish the aireipov

all I

do and even

from the

infinite,

expressly refused to do.

can say will be that the principle of identity

applicable to the arreipov for the

not thinkable: to put

it

is

in-

simple reason that the airipov

differently, the principle

ceases to apply at the point

finite,

which

is

of identity only

where thought itself can no longer work.

So there is a series of possibilities to be distinguished: (A) We can make the principle of identity the principle of the world (finite being equated with determinate), and we can

finite

admit the

possibility (to

be considered more closely) of a transcen-

dent thought which would overleap the

finite

world and not be

subject to the principle of identity.

() We could, again, deny the above possibility; this would

be

tantamount to admitting that there is no thought except in the finite order (relativism under all its shapes). This denial would imply the postulate that the indeterminate and the infinite were one. c

33

M.B.H.

(C)

Finally,

we could refuse to accept such

a hypothesis,

and

so

could separate the infinite and the indeterminate; in other 'words, conceive or even affirm the existence of an absolute structure which

would be at the same time an absolute

life,

that

is,

an ens

realissimum.

This would be equivalent to saying that the principle of identity accompanies the exercise of thought throughout, but that thought can, without leaving the determinate, infinite.

thesis

The

B,

i.e.

rise to

the notion of a positive

*

affirmation Being if

such-and-such*,

is

can only be

rejected

under hypo-

Being, considered as aTretpov, as essentially 'not is

found by

operation of a principle

this very definition to

which

is

be outside the

only valid in the realm of the

ich-and-such', the realm of the qualified. In the realm of what I

am always in the sphere of the hypoS is given me in certain conditions, which, how-

call particular structures, I thetical. Supposing

remain

be fixed (we must not forget that appearances are also given to me, and yet do not exist), I may then affirm that 'it is'; or formula which is far from clear and far from again 'if it is, it is*. ever,

to

A

satisfactory. I

can no longer see and

shall

have to

stop.

July 31 st

Can we treat Being as an element of structure, as a determination belonging or not to a certain type of structure? It seems quite obvious to me that we cannot; this was the sense in which Kant

was right to deny that Being was a predicate. But then, must we that Being is a subject must we identify Seyn and the Seyende? I

say

can get no further along those lines today, I don't know why. must rid ourselves once and for all of the notion, or pseudo-

We

notion, of a refraction of the real in passing through a certain

medium, the appearance being this refracted reality. Whatever is the proper way of conceiving the ideal (in the sense of mere ideal), we cannot picture it to ourselves as a refracting medium, if only for 9

the reason that the 'ontological status

34

of such a

medium

is

im-

possible to It is

being.

fix, it

remains, indeed, hanging between being and not-

here that the principle of the excluded middle takes

on

meaning, when it is supplemented by the idea of degrees or are involved in Being, and it is not in our spheres of reality.

its full

We

power

to leave

it:

more simply, we are, and our whole inquiry is just

how to place ourselves in relation to plenary Reality. I

think I noticed something of importance yesterday. Pure pheno-

menaliim being contradictory and even meaningless, the denial of ontology must come back to alternative B, according to which is

Being thus

the aircipov

is still

to use the

not press the point that to express

I will

language of definition.

it

The opponent of onto-

logy will say that he does not allow himself to leave the realm of the 'such-and-such*.

And that is the point on which we must manage

to take a definite line. I see

it

something

like this: fragmentation

the Real ('this exists, that exists', etc.), if it

thinkable, that

is

is

of

not to lead to the un-

to say to a sort of transposed atomism, implies as a

of the unity of thought, and we shall have to look more deeply into the nature of that unity. I think, though I cannot prove it yet, that if we admit that thought is essentially access to Being, transitus, we can no longer be content balancing factor the idealist assertion

with a piecemeal realism. Return to this later. 9

To say 'A is, B is, etc., but I cannot assert that Being is seems to me equivalent to saying 'A participates in Being, B participates in but this Being in which they participate is not, perhaps, anything of which we can say that it is\ It is obvious that such a

Being,

etc.,

hypothesis

is

in contradiction to the principle of identity, since

equivalent to the admission that perhaps (but the perhaps difference)

Being does not

exist.

But

is

not this treating Being in the

way we treat a quality such as colour, hardness, etc.? coloured, so exists.

is this,

But notice 1

ts ,

it is

makes no

This surface

is

but I cannot therefore conclude that colour

that the colour appears essentially as

or if you like, in

my

terms, of a structure.

35

an element of

But

this is

obvi-

ously inconceivable for Being;

a sort of mixture can be

we cannot suppose for a second that

made of Being and something else.

It really

looks as if we should have to be more Eleatic than Plato, and say

and cannot exist. Perhaps

that strictly speaking non-being does not this is the

same

as saying that the Aristotelian-Thomist distinction

between category and transcendental is rightly grounded, and this is important. But then 'participation' is carries

an

we must

ambiguous, and so even dangerous, for its use of starting a confusion between Being and

inevitable risk

predicates or attributes.

The

also recognise that the very term

sort

1

of mistrust aroused by ontology would, then, be due

to the fact that the ontologist seems to treat as a quality, and, I

would

add, hypostatise something which seems to us to be the supremely unqualified. It seems to follow that he

tween a truism (that which

is,

condemned

is

exists)

to

swing be-

and a paralogism which

would consist in attributing Beingto the a-rreipov (cf. my yesterday's notes). Does not the solution lie in positing the omnipresence of Being, and what I might (perhaps improperly) call the immanence

of thought in Being, that is to

say, co ipso the transcendence

of Being

over thought?

August $tb I have not yet quite managed to clear up the puzzle at the

end of my notes

thought in Being

soon as

which

true nature. gist idea

1

To

assert the

with the

immanence of

realists that

thought, as

there, refers to

This reference

is

indeed implied in the phenomenolo-

ofMcincn or Bcdeutcn. For someone whose formative

ing has been will ask

for the sist.

to recognise

sketched

something which transcends it and cannot claim to reabsorb into itself without betraying its

it is

it

is

I

idealist, this will certainly

come

train-

as a great shock.

He

how this forbidden reabsorption can be avoided, how I can

This seems

to

me today somewhat questionable. 56

(April, 1934.)

making the act of synthesis which contains in itself, and is at the same time more than, the idea and the ideatum. But I will ask in help

my turn whether this act of synthesis, supposing it is possible,

does

not overstep the very bounds of discursive thought. There

is

a

whole bag of tricks here, and we cannot be too wary ofthem. I should like to see

how

far these

remarks allow

me

to clear

up

the notion of participation in Being.

The

uneasiness I feel

on

these subjects is partly

difficulty in seeing the relation

obvious to

between being and

due

to

my

existing. It

old

seems

me that existing is a certain way of being; we shall have

whether it is the only one. Perhaps something could be without existing. 1 But I regard it as axiomatic to say that the inverse is not possible, except by an indefensible juggling with words.

to see

On

these assumptions, I shall be able to study, with a

the

few precautions,

problem of participation in Being seen in an existential example.

What

about the impossibility of a fitf-is obviously applies cannot possibly say that a certain object or a certain being, so

I said

here; I far as

it

exists, participates in the quality

participate in

it

when it ceases to exist.

of existence, and ceases

Perhaps the real origin of the mistake July I yth,

1

8th,

and

is this.

I9th.) I confuse 'thinking'

a confusion which works in favour of the

first

(See

my

notes of

and 'thinking of*

mode. Thence

I pro-

which comes under the second mode, as if it were, it would fall under the jurisdiction of the

ceed to

treat existence,

were a

quality; if it

first

to

2

mode. This is not yet quite clear in

my mind. I think 0/a thing,

o/a person, and existence is here tied to this act of thinking of it or him; I think of them as existents, even in cases where I am denying 1

The

simplest

which no longer

example of this which occurs to me is that of the past, exists, and yet I cannot say purely and simply that it

is not.

2

We

must ask ourselves whether no-longer-being is not, to a certain type of popular thought, being-lost-sight-of, and so returning to the v.

This is worth looking into.

37

that they exist. I treat

But if I isolate existence from them,

an essence or

of existence in the

idea

existence

more

rather, to be

Does not this come

essence.

no

as

it

I

think

it,

exact, as a

that

is,

pseudo-

same thing as saying that there is sense of the term? and this because

to the

strict

the limit, or, if you will, the axis of reference for thought

is

itself?

But the

difficulty is

and

existence in a certain manner,

of it, that

I

is it

unchanged:

not after

so because I

all

because

I

think

form a certain idea

can deny that this idea is possible? Antinomy.

August $tb I

do

really assert that

thought

is

made for being as the eye is made

for light (a

Thomist formula). But

talking, as

forces us to ask

it

this is

whether thought

a dangerous itself is.

way of

Here an

of

act

thought reflecting on itself may help us. I think, therefore, being is, since my thought demands being; it does not contain it analytically, but

refers to

sense in there

is

see just

it. It is

which

very difficult to get past this stage. There

I only think in so far as I

a kind of space between

what

this

(Valery?), that

being. But

it is

a

is,

difficult to

means. In any case, I do notice a close kinship

between thought and

desire.

1

'being* play equivalent parts. ate.

me and

am not

is

Clearly in the two cases 'good* and

All thought transcends the immedi-

The pure immediate excludes thought, as it also excludes desire.

But this transcendence implies a magnetisation, and even a

teleology.

No date The growing consciousness of our need for ontology is surely one of the most striking features of present-day thought; not only I 1

wonder if this should not be corrected in the light of remarks on the opposition between desire on the one hand and will and hope on the other. An analysis of thought might well make possible the discovery of an opposition or a hierarchy in it which would be offered later

completely analogous with

this.

38

in

its

on levels where

technically metaphysical expressions, but also

the idea

is

conjures

only grasped through a whole world of images, which

up but cannot ever

assimilate or master.

speaking, see in this just a simple fact

strictly

it

No doubt we can, which

lies

in the

province of purely empirical explanations, and is perhaps the business of a psycho-analysis tinged with sociology. It is extremely easy

and perhaps tempting

for a certain type

need to affirm Being springs from a mated, reacting in

There

of mind to say

vital instinct, scarcely subli-

characteristic

way to post-war pessimism. a theme, I will not say for meditation, but for

we have

its

rhetorical elaboration, the fertility essential insignificance.

The

of which

question

is

is really

point does explanation actually possess the

just this

power

thing explained, or at the very least to guarantee

perhaps even

it

me

seems to

treating

it

quite

condition of the

To

more

way of conceiving

that this

what

harmlessness?

exorcism,

starts

may

be wrong,

explanation,

i.e.

from an unhealthy

under the sway of the influence exerted by positive

return to the

these remarks;

to

human mind, a condition contracted at a compara-

tively recent date

science.

up

affirmation as such, has in the eye of

all

literally as

it

and most

to eliminate the

its

the pure rationalist a peculiarly toxic character. I

but

its

only equalled by

of our contemporaries do not even think of asking

for all belief,

that this

is it

example which was the

starting-point of

not quite evident that the judgment of value, or,

precisely, the metaphysical appreciation

which

is

called for

by cannot possibly depend in any way on the empirical conditions in which our experience, analysed the ontological

demand

itself,

more or less carefully, allows us to recognise the insistence and nature of this demand? state (a

It is perfectly

possible that

what we call the normal

term, by the way, quite void of meaning) of a

human being

implying some minimum of comfort and the most favourable for the inward alertsecurity is by no means ness which a really profound metaphysical investigation both a

state

certainly

39

and

arouses into

requires.

what might be

Whatever the

possible results of

an enquiry

of speculative thought, the belittling claims of

called the empirical diet

the barest consideration gives the

lie

psycho-pathology, whose pretensions

to

rest

almost entirely

on

a mis-

taken assumption about the content of knowledge, and about the nature of the facts

The

which enable our consciousness

excellent criticism to

which such a man

subjected the notion of mental health, with

paganism must not

that goes

with

hesitate for

it,

strikes here

all

with

to

apprehend

it.

as Chesterton has

the adulterated neo-

its full

weight.

So we

a second to recognise that the present-day

of ontology is, beyond doubt, dictated by a singularly strong obsessive sense of the threat which weighs on mankind

rebirth

and even

a threat, alas! of which

it is all

too easy to observe and record con-

examples. But this observation

crete

is

altogether lacking in really

1

fertile

inspiration.

No date

My life and I. Can these

I 'think*

is

When I come

life*, it

seems that

to grips with the sense all

of

meaning has deserted

my past: there is also the feeling of a pulsating Now. my life? My past, in so far as I consider it,

is all this really

ceases to be

1

life?

two words 'my

them. There

But

my

Or

my past.

does not yield us an argument for the belittling of the ontological hunger itself. Still, we ought to ask whether a sharp awareness of the universal threat is not really a normal thing? and by no means rather,

it

something corresponding to the accidental disturbance of an order (as some have thought). It would then follow that the ontological need is emphasised, or sharpened, when-

just

which is in principle stable or stabilised

man's circumstances show up more clearly that state of danger an integral part of his being. This would no doubt agree with the line of thought running from Kierkegaard to Heidegger. (April, ever a

which

is

I934-)

40

No date Being as the place of fidelity. How is it that this formula arising in my mind, at a given moment of time, has for me the inexhaustible inspiration of a musical theme?

Access to ontology. Betrayal as evil in

itself.

November 6th

How can I promise lem. All committal

the situation

which

this

committal, there

him

to give at the

we

is

instance, I promise to

A metaphysical prob-

shall disregard

some

is

go and

may

see

N

be present

tomorrow.

of its

(a)

my

At the basii of

desire at the is

quite possible that tomorrow,

it is

be attracted by

dreamed of when

it is

the basis of our entering the committal. For

when I fulfil my commitment, shall instead

to say,

variable elements of

pleasure; (i) the fact that nothing else

moment. But

myself to

future?

partly unconditional, that

is

essence to imply that

commit my

moment

attracting

i.e.

at the

me

time

no longer have the desire, and interest or that, which I never

I shall

this

committed myself. I can by no means commit the continued experience of the desire, or not to be I

attracted if the rival opportunity arises.

tincture

of deceit in extending

feelings

on

the subject.

In

fact, there

my commitment

That would be an

would be a

to cover

my own

affirmation, a claim, to

reality (viz. my reality) might be found to give the lie. There a supremely important distinction to be made between the com-

which is

mittal in itself

and an

affirmation not implied by

concerned with the future;

imply

it

without at the

we must

even say that

same time becoming

then become conditional: 'Suppose

I

invalid.

still feel

which

it

it

is

could not

For

it

would

a desire tomorrow

come and see you, you may depend on me.' One sees at once where the commitment is partly unconditional: 'whatever my state

to

4i

of mind, whatever

come and

I will

on

in me:

my temper

see

(up

to a point I cannot foresee them),

you tomorrow/

A kind of division takes place

^ye/xoWov which

the one side, a

across time and plays the role of the guaranteeing

asserts its identity

power; on the other

side, a conglomerate of elements of myself which the r\y^oviKov %

with which I identify myself, makes it its business to control. There is naturally an outer circle which is properly that of TOJV

OVK

TT*

For instance,

fjLoi.

going out,

I shall not

show that there was to

if

my

state

of health prevents

me from

come. Clearly a careful analysis here would

a sort of shading-offfrom

what depends on me

what does not depend on me. But I must be permitted to harden some extent. No act of committal, then, is possible

the lines to

who can be distinguished from his own momentary situation and who recognises this difference between himself and except for a being

and consequently treats himself as somehow transcendown life-process, and answers for himself. It is further

his situation

ing his

evident that in the exercise of this faculty of answering for one's less twisted and inwardly discordant the life-process have to discount, the easier will our task be. Add to this

behaviour, the

which we that if I

where

I

know

am

commit myself in a case conscious of my own instability. But be that as it may, myself, I shall less easily

a consistent phenomenalism, supposing that the ego coincided

with

its

we could think it, asserting

immediate

even the possibility of a

bind a someone

else,

present,

commitment; a someone whom, by

to

exclude

how

could I

ought

for indeed,

definition, I

cannot

know because he does not yet exist? The problem of commitment fidelity;

for in a sense I

mitment, that

is, it

cannot be

would seem,

to one's-self ? fidelity is fidelity to

mean? Surely

it

would be

commitments, in order

logically

comes before

faithful except to

to myself.

that

of

my own com-

Must we then say that

and what should we understand

all

that

possible to distinguish a hierarchy of

to elucidate this

42

problem? Are not some

commitments in a way essentially conditional, so that I cannot unconditionalise them except by making a presumption which is in

commitment which depends on an etc.). It is clear on the one hand that I

impermissible? e.g. a

itself

opinion (literary, political, cannot guarantee that my opinion (on Victor Hugo, socialism, etc.) will remain unchanged; and on the other hand it would be

commit myself to a future course of action in conformity with an opinion which may cease to be mine. Obviquite ridiculous to

ously

my human aesthetic experience in

almost unpredictable changes.

We

such realms

must

see,

may undergo whether there then,

commitments which can be recognised as transcending whatever experience may add to us. To pass on to the problem of

exist

pledged to a person:

fidelity

it is

clear that experience

not only the opinion I form of that person, but also

may influence

my knowledge

of him and the feelings I have about him. Here we are not merely talking about a desire which can cease to exist, but also of a

sympathy which can be thrown off for antipathy or hostility. But then, in what sense can I sanely pledge myself to be faithful to

him?

Is

not just as ridiculous as pledging myself to vote for the

it

Conservative candidate if I become a Socialist before polling-day?

A

a difference, where does

it lie? fundamental problem. our analysis that there can be no beginning of act of commitment unless some identity has been posited, even if it

If there

We is

is

have seen

at the

only posited implicitly. But

abstractions. it is

The

we must

not take our stand

the identity of a certain direction of will.

this will

is,

the

upon

identity in question cannot be simply abstract;

more

I

The more

abstract

become the prisoner of a form, and build a

up between myself and life. It is quite different when there is, the root of the commitment, a fundamental apprehension; but

wall at

surely I

it is

clear that this

must consider. In any

must be of a case, this

towards Being or towards a

religious kind.

is

what

apprehension must be directed

human being. 43

This

November jtb There is certainly a very serious problem here.

commit

I

commit

today? Surely not. Can I behaving tomorrow in accordance with my

myself to feeling tomorrow what myself to

Can

I feel

of today, which will not be my feelings of tomorrow? Again, surely not. But then must we admit that in swearing fidelity to a person, I am going beyond the bounds of all legitimate

feelings

commitment,

i.e.

commitment which corresponds

to

my

nature?

is, of course, one solution: to say that in any case I must honour my word and that I consequently create the motive for

There

by the very act of making the commitment. Is that an can be content with? Cannot I reply that if today I have

fulfilment

answer

I

the desire to keep infinitely

word, tomorrow that

my

weaker, and

that for a score

asserted as a constant? I treat the desire as

cannot so

desire

may be found

of reasons? By what right

assert

it,

is it

in any case, unless I

more than a simple state. So I should have to from the act of recognising obliga-

distinguish the fact of my feeling tion;

and admit

that this recognition is independent

which may or may not accompany not

feel

inclined to keep

my word,

it.

Tomorrow,

but I shall

of the

feelings

perhaps, I shall

know I am bound to

But here again we must beware of formalism and of the dangers of mere abstraction. Might not somebody point out that I

do

so.

am

simplifying the problem by giving the impression of thinking

that nothing binds

me

but myself? There

the fear of the other party's reactions to I think,

only

known

fact? I

have put

I establish that

not keeping

my failure to

The problem may be

bond (implied in the

recognise one's obligation

what it

may

my

the other party too,

my

and

word.

are within our rights in discounting this

be cases where

to myself.

nature of this

To

we

however, that

element. There

is

is

keep

restated:

my word what

is

is

the

action of swearing I will, etc.)?

to establish a fact, if you like, but

my signature to this; I am obliged to honour indeed my signature. Must we say that I am

it is

44

translating into a purely personal realm something real sense I

think

they have

we must

leave entirely aside such pseudo-explanations:

no power except am bound

to confuse the issue.

consider that I

clear, so that the is

to

worth of

honour

my

this signature

But then why do

signature? Mainly,

may be

rendered worthless by the very act of repudiating

my

instance, (whatever

exception).

have every

open

which makes no

except in the social order?

But

in a particular

desire to let this particular case stand as

after all, surely there is

interest in

an

exposing. Socially,

It

safeguarded. it

I

it is

illusion here,

no doubt,

an

which

I lay

I

myself

my commitments. But surely it is them strictly to the extent I am forced

to painful sanctions if I fail

only to

my

interest to

keep

So why not reduce the part played in my life by religh to a minimum? See what this implies (in any case it reduces the part to

do

so.

of the unconditional

Examine how far

practically to disappearing point). I

have the right

the question approached

to

bind myself:

yesterday.

A

certain

this

touches

on

'philosophy of

becoming* refuses me this right. This is the most serious problem. I have no right to enter upon a commitment which it will be materially impossible for

me

to

keep (or rather which

I

should

know to be so if I were perfectly sincere). Frivolity. frivolously entered

commitment which cannot be regarded as upon? Compare the cheque. I know what my

realisable assets are;

my commitments are only legitimate or valid in

But

is

there a single

so far as they refer to

sums which

Only here we are in apply: I made that clear

assets.

are, at the

most, equal to these

a realm where this comparison does not at the start

when

I

spoke of the un-

conditional element. I see

it

like this.

In the end there must be an absolute commitment,

whole of myself, or at least by something real in upon by myself which could not be repudiated without repudiating the whole and which would be addressed to the whole of Being and entered

the

would be made

in the presence of that whole.

Obviously, repudiation

is still

by a change in the subject or

justified

explained by

a/a//.

That

is

faith.

a possibility here, but cannot be object;

it

can only be

An idea to work out.

Another thing that I notice is this. There is no commitment purely from my own side; it always implies that the other being has a hold over me. All commitment

commitment would not only be

is

a response.

A one-sided

rash but could be

blamed

as

pride.

The

notion of pride, indeed, pkys a part of paramount impor-

tance in this discussion.

It

seems to

that pride cannot be the principle it,

and

that

it is

upon which

essential to

fidelity

rests.

show

As I see

despite appearances to the contrary, fidelity is never fidelity

to oneVself,

but

is

has over us. But I I

me

referred to

am

what

I called the

putting these points in a topsy-turvy way.

must get some order and ckrity into

examples would

help.

hold the other being

The key-point

is

my

scattered ideas.

that

Perhaps

we must take account,

when we are considering if a committal is valid, of the state of mind

who

of the person ard).

is

entering

The mind must

upon

be compos

promise of a drunkand declare itself to be such in

it

sui

(e.g. the

own judgment (without reserving to itself the possibility of afterwards alleging that it was wrong). Here then we have a judgment of the deepest importance, lying at the root of the commitment.

its

But

it

does not

over us; itself;

on

at all

discount the hold which a reality exercises

the contrary, this bold

is at

the judgment simply prolongs

the base of the

judgment and sanctions an apprehension.

November 8tb

The which

love

or respect

for truth

consists in treating

it

fidelity.

A mistake,

as the will for self-consistency (cf. the

fidelity which is only pledged to In other words, beware of defining intelligence by a sort of

connection between pride and itself).

reduced to

46

formal identity. There must be a bold on the real at the root of intelligence.

Am enormously struck by this correlation.

Perhaps we should also show how far fundamental ignorance of the future.

fidelity is

1

linked

up with a

A way of transcending time

in virtue of the very fact that fidelity to

it is

a person, I do not

absolutely real for us. In swearing

know what

future awaits us or even,

what person he will be tomorrow; the very fact of my not knowing is what gives worth and weight to my promise. There

in a sense,

no question of response to something which is, absolutely speaking, ^/W; and the essential of a being is just that not being 'given* either to another or himself. There is something essential here,

is

which

defines spirituality (as

desire, a relation

which,

if

opposed

to the relation contained in

not physical,

is at least

actual.

But we

cannot reduce ourselves to things of the moment, or at least no more than function if we are momentarily considered).

we

are

No date I

promised

C

the other day that I

would come back

to the

home where he his been dying for weeks, and see him This promise seemed to me, when I made it, to spring from again. the inmost depths of my being. promise moved by a wave of he is doomed, he knows it, he knows I know it. Several days pity: nursing

A

have gone by since

my visit. The circumstances which dictated my

promise are unchanged; I have no room for self-deception about that he still that. I should be able to say yes, I even dare assert inspires the same compassion in me. How could I justify a change in the state of my feelings, since nothing has happened since

which

could have the power to alter them? And yet I must in honesty admit that the pity I felt the other day, is today no more than a theoretical pity. I

still

judge that he

1

is

unhappy and

that

Think what it would be like to live by penny numbers! dreaming one's life away. It would be life without reality. 47

It

it is

right

would be

be sorry for him, but this is a judgment I should not have dreamed of formulating the other day. There was no need. My whole being was concentrated into an irresistible impulse towards to

him, a wild longing to help him, to show him that I was on his side, have to recognise that this impulse no

that his sufferings were mine. I

longer exists, and imitate

All that

it is

no longer in

my power to do more than me refuses to swallow.

by a pretence which some part of

it

I

can do

is

C

to observe that

is

unhappy and alone and

cannot let him down; also, I have promised to come back; my signature is at the foot of the bond and the bond is in his possession. that I

The

silence I feel within

me is

strangely different

from

that other

cry of pity from the heart; yet it docs not seem to me altogether mysterious. I can find a good enough explanation for it in myself

and the rhythm of my moods. But what is the good? Proust was right: we are not at our own disposal. There is a part of our being to

which

strange, perhaps not altogether conceivable, conditions

give us sudden access; the key

few minutes I

later the

door

is

is

in our hands for a second;

shut again and the key disappears.

must accept this fact with shame and sorrow.

But

this it

surely

commitment

rested

fluctuations

at the time,

my

shall I

and wrongly ignoring, these my states? Surely it was rather

on such-and-such a day in the same compassion which pierced me stood by the sick bed? Or did I really make no feel

such claim

visit

would

the

did

I really

mean

answer? I must not accept

down

that a certain material

take place after a certain interval? this alternative. I

myself whether the feeling that impelled to die

other day

to assert that,

when

I

upon myself the

ignoring,

interruptions in

to the heart

fact

that I took

upon my

and

presumptuous of me future, I should still

I

and a

did not ask

me towards him was going

like a fountain or the shape

of a melody.

A fortiori

could not commit myself to feeling tomorrow But suppose I leave aside whatever I was conscious of as I

48

What

did yesterday. at that

moment, and suppose I try to far as it was an act. Then I

fleeting

means in so it

contains a decree so daring that

it

discover what my promise am bound to recognise that

surprises

of exterior conditions which

for the possibility

me now. Allowing may put it out of my

keep my promise, I have admitted, however implicitly, that the state of my feelings was capable of alteration, but I decided

power

at the

I

to

same time that this eventual alteration was something ofwhich

who

should not take account. Between the being

and who has

dares to say

T

bind bimsdf(I bind power between him and the endless world of causes and effects

myself)

attributed to himself the

to

which simultaneously escape from my own jurisdiction and from all rational prevision, there is an intermediate realm, where events take place

which

are not in accordance with

my

desires or

even

my expectation; yet I reserve to myself the right and the power to abstract from these events in my actions. This power of real abstraction is at the very core of my promise: this is what gives it its peculiar weight and worth. I will make an effort to fix my

with

attention

on

threatens to feet:

in fact,

slave?

Can

this central

overwhelm me when

what I,

foreign empire

include

it,

datum, and not yield

is this

without

which

body of which

I

eludes

my

am

am and am

fluctuations; both assertions lous. I will question

at

at

my

once master and it

to the

huge

grasp? But I cannot completely

realm where

discount any of its contents.

true to say that I

which

gulf opening

folly or insincerity, relegate

either, in that subject

me the power to

I see the

to the vertigo

my own

It

decree gives

seems to

me equally

not responsible for these bodily

seem accurate to me, and both ridicu-

myself no further on this point; enough to have by a promise I have acknow-

recognised that in binding myself

ledged the presence of an inner hierarchy, consisting of a ruling principle, and a life whose details remain unpredictable, but which the principle subjects to

pledges

D

itself to

itself,

or,

still

more

accurately,

which

keep under its yoke.

49

M.B.H.

it

cannot help seeing that here I am repeating one of the commonplaces most often explored by the wisdom of antiquity; but perspecI

tive plays us strange tricks:

what seemed

self-evident

long ago takes

my eyes today, a paradoxical aspect. And what is more, I cannot help wondering if this decree will not be called a shocking act of violence by the supporters of that ethic of transparent honesty on, in

which

most commonly professed around me. Is not the very language of 'abstracting* or 'discounting* (which I have had to use several times) enough to breed considerable disquiet? How can I I hear

which

justify this dictatorship

actions, in the

I

name of some

come from, and what

authority

simplifying,

when

I distinguish

claims to go beyond

claim to exercise over

lays

from

my

future

does this

Am I not over-

it?

present a subject

in a mental dimension

it

Where

present state?

claim to

my

which

is

which

not be to

confused with duration, and which I can hardly figure out, even

To

in idea?

look more

closely, is not

my

an

present itself making

of eternity of right? But in that case falsehood is established at the very heart of my life. For this pretended 'eternity of right* no corresponding continuity of fact can be found; arbitrary claim to a

sort

am brought up against the following disconcerting alternatives. At the moment of my commitment, I either and

seems that

it

*(i) arbitrarily really in

shall

assume a constancy in

my power

case I

reflect

am

my

my

feelings

which

state

at

it is

not

advance that

to establish, or (2) I accept in

have to carry out,

no way to

I

I

a given moment, an action which will in

of mind when

I

do

carry

it

out.

In the

first

lying to myself, in the second I consent in advance to

lie

someone else.

Shall I seek reassurance by telling myself that these are just a cloud of subtleties concealing a really very simple problem, which life

I

will

make it its own business to solve?

cannot be content with such a lazy answer; the

can imagine

at this

less so,

since I

moment a dozen cases where the problem is still 50

the same, but

where

its

seriousness even to the

terms are of a kind which proclaim

most

creature, to a group, to

an

To

careless thinker.

idea,

even to

God

swear

fidelity to

in every case,

expose ourselves to the same disastrous dilemma?

this to

promise whatever rooted in a

state

of mind which

is

its

Is

is

a

not

not any

entirely

of the

moment, and whose permanence nothing can guarantee?

When I look at it like this, the very nature of fidelity seems to me suddenly covered by a thick veil; I can no longer understand what meaning the term 'commitment* has ever had for me. And now I

mind once more

call to

the

memory of all

the hatreds of myself and others

too hasty promises.

on

the disappointments, all

which were

the ordinary results of

Were they mere accidents? or must we see them,

the contrary, as the natural effects of a most inexcusable pre-

sumption? At what price are they to be avoided? If we are to remain tied by our inward bond, must we not learn to shut our eyes to the contorted but fateful life-process sight will

swear

which only a

to discern beneath the accumulations

feeble

of habit?

To

whatever the object to which the vow is taken really but committing myself to ignore the deepest part being, to learn the art of duping myself constantly with

fidelity

what of

fail

is it

my

upon myself, for my own deception? Indeed, can commitment exist that is not a betrayal?

tricks that I play

a

But

there

is

no

betrayal

which

is

not a repudiation of fidelity.

Is

there, then, such a thing as a basic fidelity, a primal bond, which I break every time I make a vow which in the least degree concerns

what

vaguely call my soul? (Obviously there is no question here of vows about mere matters of the most outward and socialised I

activity,

where

I

am as it were using a tool ready to my hand.)

This

primal bond can only be what some people have taught me to call fidelity to myself. Myself, they will say, is what I betray when I so

bind myself. Myself: not my being but my becoming; not what I am today but what I shall perhaps be tomorrow. Here the mystery

How can I be faithful, or again how can I be unfaithful,

thickens. to the

Me whom

today cannot know, and only the future will

reveal? Surely they

mean me

to understand just this; that I

must

keep myself at the disposal of the unknown Me, so that one day he can come into my place without meeting any resistance from the

Me that I still am,

me to lend

myself to the game, and not in the least to muscles and resist. The word fidelity has certainly under-

are just asking stiffen

but shall in that second have ceased to be? They

my

gone a change here!

It

now

no more than a

sketches

cence, a graceful passivity. Well, but

unknown whose yet exist?

prestige

Amazing

is

due

entirely

privilege for the

lazy acquies-

who prescribes it for me? to the fact that

unborn! But

this

he does not

at least the privi-

more I am in the dark. For the lege must be recognised, and once act by which this privilege of my future being is so consecrated is in of my present: so we admit a value in the future in so

fact part it is

a future which

is

from

nevertheless distinct

my

attached to it,

since

it

is

has control of

its

present state,

somehow

far as

but which

successor.

Shall I yield to the temptations of dialectic? Shall I admit that it is really my present state which is denied and claims to be transcended? Surely we cannot help regarding this as a manipulation to

be mistrusted, since truth its

it

which transcends

foundation. But

I allow implies, suppose

the life-process

if this is so,

there

and

is

no

is

caprices, perhaps a law. this

lead

capable of serving as

of

my moods

of them

my

of the

rules their

my business to remain faithful to

continuity. is

unity.

whether form or

principle

for this

it is

part

of

more to Terminology, however, threatens once into error. This unity is just me; it is a single unvarying

law or

me

And

sort

further question of

current lending myself unresistingly to the

moment. Something which forms no

some

it,

The

fidelity is

reality

which

insists

upon

its

own

no longer to a life-process, a 'becoming*,

meaningless, but to a king

which

I

can

see

no

possibility

of distinguishing from a

tomorrow which

Have

I at last

colour as

once?

The

solution

which

to forbid

what

in is

And

so I

am

escaped from the horns

me to be sincere and faithto me is not just a logical

To make

who contracts it and carries it

to think that this identity has a validity

brought whatever the content of my promise

itself,

a point of honour to

it

but putting an accent on the

else is this

supra-temporal identity of the subject out?

I

outlines.

describes the hidden spring of the

bind myself.

I

a commitment

fulfil

sharpens

from the mirage of

its

which occurs

word

invention; a very simple action by

so I escape it

found the way out? Have

of the dilemma which seemed ful at

And

myself.

loses its

may

be.

This identity

the one important thing to maintain, however absurd the partic-

ular

my

commitment may appear,

to the eyes

rashness or weakness in undertaking

ingly

men

shall take

Perhaps

of sense object, however often

no

my

of a

it.

spectator,

my friends

remonstrate, I

have promised and will keep

notice; I

through

However overwhelm-

my

word.

persistence will even be proportionally strengthened as

the carrying out of the promise looks to myself and others

more and

more like the fulfilment of a wager. But

if this is so, the particular object,

which sort

fidelity

of pretext.

returns

upon

binds It

its

were

it

God

himself, to

must remain a pure accident, a circle in which the will

votaries,

cannot enter the closed

herself in her effort after the demonstration

of her

own

power.

But glory

love

I

cannot

really confuse this

the most arid, strained,

with that which

be pure chance that

I

have

fidelity

attachment of the soul to

and all

irritable

my

shows

life

itself

its

own

of all the forms of self-

called Fidelity. It cannot

in

its

most unmistakable

who have, on the contrary, the least concern to garb among cut a figure in their own eyes. The face of a servant or a farmlabourer is its place of revelation for me. What can be the ground of those

so ruinous a confusion of two spiritual states,

53

when the most

super-

ficial

judgment

How can we

will assure

me

that they are forever incompatible?

help seeing that a fidelity to another

myself the ground, the spring, and the centre as this

would expose

of which

I

was

that such a fidelity

by the furtive act of substitution of that existence which it shapes?

it

yet again,

reveals, the lie at the heart

How to get out of this deadlock? I must again tackle the precise problem, the dilemma, which I stated at the beginning; especially the problem of fidelity vowed to a person. I must refuse the choice

of alternatives (continuity of the inner disposition or insincerity of action). I cannot base my argument on the effort of my own will. I

must admit, then, that something unalterable is implied in the relation itself. Must see further into the nature of this unalterable: where

do

I start if I

am to get hold

of it? Need to

start

from Being

itself

from commitment to God.

an

of transcendence having its ontological counterpart in the hold God has over me. This hold is the term in relation to It is

act

which even my freedom is ordered and defined.

The

mysterious relation between grace and faith exists wherever

there

is

fidelity;

there

is

room

and wherever a

for

imposed upon the and full of lies.

A philosophy which manifestly false

of this

sort fails to

appear,

no more than a shadow of fidelity, a mere con-

straint

thing but what

relation

it

calls

refuses

my

when we

resistible assertion

soul, although

me

'states

confront

it

may

be both culpable

the possibility of grasping any-

of consciousness' it

is

seen to be

with the spontaneous and

ir-

which forms, as it were, the ground-bass of the same way, the contention that fidelity,

human knowledge. In despite appearances,

is

never more than a

mode of pride and

regard, unquestionably robs of their distinctive character the

self-

loftiest

think they have known. The correlation which unites these two Ventures' cannot be over-stressed. I believe experiences that

I see

men

a centre of light here;

I feel I

must

54

try

to get nearer to

it.

And I

believe that if a refution

can be attempted in the one case, it should and along the same line of thought.

also be possible in the other,

When

transcends

my

knowledge it

am

unable to grasp any knowledge which of consciousness, am I not lazily opposing this

I say that I states

knowledge disappointing and even

(a

contains a claim

cannot make good) to a knowledge which

it

not actually given, but which

and, unlike the

first,

which construes

it?

ginary I

consciousness* definite if

how can

I

this axis

clear that the expression

restrictive.

mind

of reference, however ima-

'my

states

emptied of its meaning, since that meaning

is

remains

it

touches a reality independent of the

it, it is

is

at the very least ideally conceived,

is

Without

consider

may

deceptive, since

The important

is

of

only

question to ask

is:

conceive of a knowledge thus irreducible to that which

according to this hypothesis I really enjoy? or even, a deeper question, do I actually conceive of it? If I admit that perhaps I do not conceive of

it,

that is

to

enough

make

the insecure doctrine

claimed to preach fall to the ground at once. But it is scarcely in my power to understand how the idea of a real knowledge, i.e. a reference to Being, could come to birth inside a world

which

I

of pure

states

And so I

of consciousness.

begin to find a

secret

way

of escape in the outer bailey of that tall keep in which I pretended to immure myself. Shall I not be forced to recognise from now

onwards

that this very idea

another order has

The same vows

true

have

But

if

first it

is,

as

it

it is

mark which

of fidelity. Across the attachments which the

shadow of another

fidelity,

and only

me

to deny

its

conceived

it

has been given

enables

me

because I have dimly experienced Surely

were, the indelible

upon me?

to itself lies the

that I self.

is

left

no accident

to conceive it,

it

I

the fact

existence

my-

at all, surely this is

whether in myself or in others?

that I use those things

which

I affect

no

longer to believe in, as the models for my tentative picture of personal reality, even while I allege that the distinctive character of this

55

continually renewed effort of coherence

reality is the

between

two

its

and balance

aspects?

Am I not, moreover, justified in mistrusting the actual nature of the step by links

of all

which

I

claim to gather up into myself the roots or

fidelity? How can I help seeing that such a dogged and

^determined contempt of evidence cannot have ence, however

central

its

origin in experi-

and however hidden you suppose

it

to be:

it

can only originate in prejudice, in the act of fundamental negation by which I banish the Real to infinity, and then dare to usurp its place it is

and

dress myself up in

its

stolen attributes

degrading them,

true, in the process.

Can we

only rescue

thousand times

fidelity at this price? I

better if I resolved to see in

it

think

it

would be a

nothing but a survival,

a lingering shadow which melts right away under the light of thought. Better that than to

up such

set

idolatry at the centre

of my

life.

Although

I

would not venture

to assert that the connection

be observed in every case, yet I cannot Fidelity

is at

fail to

notice that

can

where

her most unmistakable, where her face shines with

clearest light, she

goes hand in hand with a character as opposed to

Pride as anything

we can

from the depths of her

imagine. Patience and Humility gaze

eyes.

Patience and Humility; virtues whose

names today are forgotten, and whose true nature is further darkened to our sight with every step forward in man's technical

very

and impersonal equipment,

his logical

and

dialectical

equipment

with the rest. t

The

alliance

of these three

virtues into a unity

the unity of a

being whose ever-changing structure psychology has no power to could not exist, could not even be thought of, in a purely

fathom

and only the self, was the centre for with reality, which uphold the commitments

personal system: where the those roots

and

links

self,

which Life may inspire us to undertake.

December

Consider non-representative musical expression. It is a sphere where the thing stated cannot be distinguished from the manner of it.

stating

In this sense and in this sense only, music has,

speaking, no meaning, but perhaps

Explore

The

just because

it

is

strictly

meaning.

this.

fact is that

we

introduce a relation into the heart of the

music, a relation between the content expressed (?) and the expression,

which is of the same type as

the execution.

But

this is

an

that

which joins

point of view the idea of objective music takes is

the expression to

From

illegitimate transference.

on

this

a meaning, but

it

a negative meaning.

But

is

the term 'expression* really one that can

regard to music?

a content distinct from the

expression itself? I think the notion of essence,

of the

might be

later

be used with

Could there really still be expression when we can

no longer speak of content expressed to define,

still

introduced here.

Beethoven, of the

later

so difficult

is

an essence of Schubert,

etc.

The expression would

There

Faure,

anyhow

then be the opening-up of the essence to itself. I believe this is the idea to be explored. Combine the idea of essence with the idea of universe.

The

universe.

It is

essence regarded as the highest point of a certain

almost impossible here to

make

abstraction

from the

metaphor of 'the summit', and this is the metaphor whose roots could usefully be laid bare. The idea of 'the summit* could perhaps be replaced by that of 'the or to put

it

9

centre

.

In both cases there

is

a periphery,

more accurately, precincts (zones of encroachment).

NOTES ON JULIEN BENDA's *LE DISCOURS COHERENT* propose to examine only the principles expounded in the first parts of the Discours Cobfrcnt, for the principles alone concern us I

here.

M.

Benda, on

his

own

admission, has tried to construct a

57

thorough-going philosophy of the Eleaticism in

which

a sort of hyper-

Infinite, or rather

the principles of Parmenides are for the

time pressed to their final conclusions. In theory, I think,

first

we may

consider an attempt of this sort in the light of an interesting intellectual experiment, perhaps a stimulating as

it

one

provokes reactions and forces the

too, at

any

critic to

rate in so far

make

his

own

position clear in his turn.

M. Benda is really working up

kind of confrontation; not a

to a

confrontation of two ideas but rather of two aspects of one and the

same constant and 'Sometimes

I

first,

is,

think of it as identical with

and sometimes

the phenomenal, itself,

central idea, that

or in the

mode of the the

it is still

I

the idea of the world. itself,

think of

it

or in the

mode of

as contradictory to

divine, but in the second case as in the

world that

am thinking of/ An Eleatic if who read this sentence, would

I

indeed there are any Eleatics certainly think at first that here was a typographical error of the worst kind; an inversion which turns the sense of the sentence

topsy-turvy; since for him, obviously, to think of the world accord-

mode is to think of it in a contradictory way. Eleatic would be wrong, and M. Benda is here

ing to the phenomenal

All the same, the saying exactly

what he means.

His contention in the

first

think of Being as infinite

Let us

see exactly

is

part of the Discours really to

is

in fact that to

think of it as contradictory.

what he understands by

that.

The demonstration

he gives us refers to temporal being, but he hints that this demonstration can and should be extended to other modes of being. 'In so far as the duration right

back

to

its

beginning,

number, however larger one. If/

which is

I assign to the

my mind by a finite admit of another still

represented in

large, this duration will

adds

world from today

M. Benda,

'I

want

to conceive

of a quantity

of being, whose duration from the present moment right back to its beginning will not admit of a larger than itself, i.e. which will be 58'

am obliged to conceive of a duration whose measure will be a number which escapes from this inherent slavery to finite number, i.e. a number n such that, if I add a unit to it, I obtain the infinite, I

number n+i, which such that

I

no way

in

is

different

from

n: a

number n

have:

p being some finite number.

From this point of view it may be said that my time is the same as Julius Caesar's.'

we must

But

formula: in

'my time

is

that there

from

not be taken in by the paradoxical look of the

no

a complete truism. I have

it is

reality

the same as Julius Caesar's', unless I just

was no beginning of the world,

I

right to say

mean 'Given

am no

further

away

beginning than Julius Caesar was'. As a Benda avoids this explicit way of speaking, so

this non-existent

matter of fact,

M.

that he leaves the reader

with a confused notion that

placed in infinity, does nevertheless exist.

To

say

'I

am

no

further

this

beginning,

,

away from the beginning of the world

than Julius Caesar was, since

this

beginning does not

exist', is

an event can only be placed by its relation another event, and since there is no event which can be called

equivalent to saying that to

'the

beginning of the world', no absolute temporal fixing of any

event

is

possible.

No absolute fixing

of an event in time

admit that the world did to think

such a

of the world as

way

think of differ. I

are

it

that

its

moving on

is

distinction to be

it

of time

is

no longer

that the differences

it

declares that

to think

of it in

exist, that

is,

is

to

contains do not

a rather serious confusion here. So long as

the level

logy, holds good,

infinite in respect

way

possible if one does not

But M. Benda

distinctions in time

in such a

think there

really begin.

is

we

where the distinction of times, or chronoquite impossible for us to consider this

removed or

liable to

59

be removed.

Ail one has the right distinctions

is

to say is, that the meaning of these temporal not ultimate, but only superficial, though within a

certain register they retain their full validity. I to illustrate

my

meaning.

A book

perfectly fixed pagination, sheets is

bound

is

here use a simile

something which admits of a

the person

to respect this single

on

perfectly clear,

and

may

and

who

has to arrange the

irreversible order.

the other hand, that this

But

it is

book admits of types of

unity which

are far deeper than the unity expressed

world, and

would be

by the order of the pages. And yet this does not mean in the least that the order of the pages is 'illusory*. Now chronology is a sort of pagination of the it

quite absurd to speak of a beginning of this

pagination which was placed at tion of terms, or rather it is

it

infinity. It

would be

to think

would be a nothing

not only permissible, but even inevitable, to

view where

contradic-

at all,

rise to

whereas

a point of

of the pages appears as the superficial expression of something infinitely deeper which can certainly be apprehended from other aspects.

From

this order

this point

of view the formula

We only have the right to say this; the difference between n

anything to us. This

is

and n + p

=

pure nonsense. that from a certain point of view

ceases to

+/>

tell

is

us anything or

mean

a completely different thing and implies no

contradiction.

And so the definition according to which infinite Being is Being in so far as

it is

self-contradictory, rests

ruled out at once. This affirmation

on a paralogism and can be

would only be

legitimate if we

could think of temporal distinctions as being at once there and, as could it were, not there. And this is just what we cannot do.

We

also

show

M. Benda

seems

with the self-contradictory. But

this is

that the confusion extends

to identify the indeterminate unjustifiable.

The

still

further.

contradiction only arises where definitions in-

compatible with each other are attributed to the same subject; and in that case we should already have left the realm of the indetcrmin-

60

ate.

The indeterminate is in fact prior to this double attribution.

We

much further yet in our criticism, and show in particular M. Benda has no grounds for considering Being as the totality

could go that

of its

from

relations, since

his point

of view (which

that

is

of in-

inconceivable that these relations could

determinate being)

it

is

form a

is

only too clear that he here swings light-

totality.

It

heartedly between two opposite ontological positions

whose opposi-

tion he has never even noticed.

The remarks I have just offered nullify in advance all the developments following on the exposition of his principles. 1

especially in Chapter

the indeterminate,

V, which

determinate of Being in

Are we

melt away. is

the place to

that is

its

tic,

that the

fulness, in

whose depths

clearly

more a being

all

oppositions

to begin with, the text

of p. 621,

sterility

of

the

whole of his dialec-

differentiates itself, the

more

it is

guaran-

God defined as initial indeterminacy. And

here one fact (and I will return to that the metaphysician

whom M.

up

should turn our thoughts? All the

clearly seen, throughout the

teed against the return to

namely

continually mixing

speaks of logical solitude or the

can be

It

quite clear,

to say that this supra-determinate, this fulness,

which we

M. Benda

Absolute.

is

only pure potentiality, and the supra-

indications are to the contrary

where

M. Benda

It is

Benda

it)

is

already clearly apparent,

the metaphysician in spite of him-

most nearly akin, is not Parmenida or Spinoza, but the Spencer of the First Principles, a Spencer whc to

self !

has read and I

must

is

made notes on Schopenhauer.

now

attack a different class of difficulties; this time w<

must consider the actual notion of Cod Coherent. God, he says in

in a certain way.

what

exists for

him is

These

it appears in the Discour. but the world thought o nothing

specifies

as

still

further by saying tha

not Divinity (noun) but the divine (adjectivi

applied to the world). 1

59,

M. Benda

is

Here a preliminary question

references are to the text published

61

arises,

by N.R.F.

which

up but which ought

will not take

namely,

is it

thing which here

just

an

have been asked,

adjective? It is perfectly clear

that

just the world: to say that the divine exists as

is

sense.

is

at least to

of existence with regard

legitimate to speak

On the other

divine'

hand

such

is

asserts itself to

be such: but

see yet another contradiction arising here. If

just the world thought of by

me

'God knows

freedom/ Should its strict

we

(or

sense?

by

neither anxiety nor serenity; he

object that the

God

as the simple

X) defined, what can be the sense in asking what God knows? 58,

this

radically excluded by M. Benda's position.

dependence But we shall

taken in

non-

cannot take refuge in saying that 'the the world thought of as divine, for in that case I make it

is

read in

is

exists

I

depend upon a subject which

is

some-

to

what

word 'know* cannot

un-

Yet

we

knows here be

As a matter of fact, M. Benda does explain

in his development of the passage that the idea of God

is

bound up

with the idea of freedom. But elsewhere, the term 'knowledge* is taken in its usual sense. In fact, M. Benda distinguishes two ways of thinking of the indeterminate.

The

first

corresponds to the condi-

arriving at the point where it changes of itself in the divine mode. The second corresponds to the condition of the world thinking of itself in the divine mode

tion of the

phenomenal world

to thinking

without having declares

(10,

known

p. 481)

the

phenomenal world. M. Benda then first way is perhaps that in which

that the

indeterminate Being thinks of itself,

knowing

itself

anew and

never

having known any other condition. This sentence is extraordinarily significant,

and it is very clear that the 'perhaps', without altering its

scope, only introduces an extra element of confusion. If we are to be * allowed to speak of a 'way of thinking of itself which belongs to in-

determinate Being, of a knowledge which

is

peculiar to

it,

then

it is

once more being conceived as a noun. This quite obvious that is a formal contradiction of the declaration in 59. it is

I

think that if we examined the

62

latter

part of his exposition,

we

should be met by a cloud of

when M. Benda

instance,

the

phenomenal world, although

relatives

(13,

embraces just

new and

now.

p. 624),

can

it is

help wondering what unity

not the subject which I spoke of

see at least the ghost

into sight at this point, a sphere neither that

For

God and the idea of

irreducibles, are nevertheless cor-

we cannot

this correlation, if

We

baffling difficulties.

says that the idea of

of a third sphere coming definition be

which would by

of the phenomenal, nor that of indeterminate Being;

M. Benda we can see, have a hope of defining. The fact is that

but a sphere whose metaphysical and ontological status cannot, as far as

in this line of country Plato

and Hegel

really carry all before

We cannot play a part in their dialectic;

them.

it is

simply imposed upon and to resist it as M. Benda does is pure and simple suicide. And no doubt that is an attitude permissible for an irrationalist. The

us,

within his rights to refuse dialectic. But if he does refuse dialectic, he a fortiori refuses indeterminate Being which is

irrationalist is

nothing but the most tenuous product of this dialectic. And here M. Benda's thought looks to me like a shamefaced irration-

itself

alism

which

is

afraid to

show

itself in its true colours,

and

routs out

of Heaven knows what old cupboard the most drab and shapeless cloak of reason that it can possibly find. This brings us to what I think

is

the most interesting

the Discours Coherent.

The

and

elusive part

really

of the problem

important question,

Benda does not ask but which we must

certainly ask,

set

by

which M. is

how

the

metaphysical primacy which he gives to indeterminate Being can possibly be justified. I want to press this point a little further.

Actually

this

point

is all

the

more important since M. Benda,

unlike the metaphysicians of the past, absolutely refuses to identify the infinite with perfection. This

is

a point

upon which he had

akeady explained himself in his study on the idea of order and the idea of God. 'Perfection is an attribute entirely foreign to the nature of God.

The

idea of something perfect, that

63

is,

finished,

accom-

is essentially incompatible with the idea of infinite Being, but rather bound up of necessity with the idea of determinate Being.' In the Essay on the Idea of Order and the Idea of God, he made an

plished,

on

explicit attack

the idea of supreme Being, absolutely refused to

place God at the apex of a hierarchy, and even went so far as to say

was foreign to God. I note in passing that there does not seem to be complete agreement between the two texts,

that this hierarchy

since

M. Benda, in the Idea of Order, might seem disposed to attri-

God

bute to

an

Him

perfection.

own,

so this

The

is

But

I

whereas

later

he

flatly

think that the second position

is

denies

really his

the one to be examined.

infinite

but not perfect culty I

infinite perfection,

God of M. Benda is a God either.

But then we

certainly not imperfect,

shall again

pointed out a minute ago; the easier

name God can be given to the position when a reality

be met by the diffito understand that

it is

the

a being defined as perfect, the harder

is

is

and not perfect, because infinite. the primacy?

M. Benda will no doubt

primacy, alleging that

he will not have

word which we certain values,

here

it is

it

which

in question

is

not existent

And I repeat my question; whence try to

exclude the very word

the hierarchy ipso facto re-establishes

which

any price. But my answer is, that God is not a have the right to use arbitrarily, for it embodies

at

and

certain feelings are crystallised

round

it

(and of perfection and supremacy reappear may well ask whether these values are compatible

clear that the notions

instantly).

But we

with the attributes of Being as M. Benda defines it. At the worst, no doubt, I should understand him if he refused to consider things

from

this angle

and

established himself in a sort of enclosed sanctu-

ary where he remained alone with his

own

particular

God, but

unfortunately he does not do this, as witness p. 475. 'Not to speak of philosophers/ says he, 'it seems to me that simple people, those

who

only seek their theology in the needs of their hearts, have

(among many

other ideas

which

contradict them)*

64

I will return

'an idea of

to this parenthesis

and particularity This in

is

God

limitation

what they seem to all

God

which

at

indicate,

remote from

God

kind enough

to

God who

this

and

justice

fostered in the

charity,

etc.

which

God

here.

But

.

.

.

and

But

surely

it is

especially those

of

constitute the conception

whom M.

minds of the humble folk

remember is

notion of the

when they express the hope that

our pride will be melted away/

these 'other* ideas, these 'contradictory ideas',

of divine

all

times causes suffering to them.

Benda

this just or charitable

is

God,

only because of His infinite justice and

nothing to do with the indeterminate Being of Benda; he cannot hope to find a single ally among the simple

charity, has clearly

M.

Then must he

folk.

not recognise, if he wants to

in the least coherent, that his

make

his position

God has no value, in the usual or even

word? But then, given that anyhow it is does not exist, it is difficult not to ask what pre-

in the technical sense of the

probable that

He

vents us from simply deleting

Him.

I

we must

think

Benda, in spite of everything, to try to take his stand value: only I here repeat

self,

question:

What

M.

expect

the line of

kind of value

is it

an indeterminate Being? It is on this question impute I should personally be most anxious to see him explain himbut as I said at the beginning, I very much doubt if he can do to

possible to that

my

on

whole thing is really a mask the mask huddled on by a will which is perfectly resolved not to be explicit

it.

In

with

fact I feel sure that the

itself.

Personally, I should have

expression of a

conscious

sterility

sterility

somewhat

there,

and

will even

E

and

its

own

presence

go

it

the

pattern, a

and

so con-

deifies itself under that aspect.

so far as to say that

it is

of M. Benda's

doubly present

theogony which the double process whereby the world is divided

instantly self-destroyed; for the curious

pictured for us,

from

Mallarme

self-deification is only too obviously at the heart

writings. I

is

hesitation in calling

after the

which cannot bear

verts itself into a will for sterility,

This

little

God in order to return to Him, all takes place in the conscious65

M.B.H.

ness of M. Benda,

God and which

who

seems to be

his universe. I

somehow

divided between his

may add in conclusion,

I personally reject, regains all

its

that idealism,

force in the presence of such

a doctrine as this; since in the final analysis, and taken

whole,

this is

perhaps the poorest

on

and most contradictory of all

the its

expressions.

But suppose we admit, for the moment, that the previous objections can be met. Suppose which I most expressly deny that this idea of God can be regarded as tenable.

we have still to ask how the passage from God to the world can take place in M. Benda's system. Here we shall be witnesses of an extraordinary drama. M. Benda thinks that he has established theirreducibility of the two fundamental ways of thinking of the world: the first a divine mode in the category of contradiction, the other a phenomenal mode in the category of identity. What does this mean? It means that there are here two ideas which do not touch at any point, so that we can no more pass from one idea to the other than, for instance, we can Even

so

But the surprising thing is, quite unconsciously from the consideration

pass from blueness to triangularity. that

M. Benda

of ideas

to that

passes

of things;

we

read immediately afterwards that the

phenomenal world cannot be conceived in relation to God except by a separation from God, and not by a continuous emanation from

God to itself. But indeed there was no question of anything of

the kind:

and

I

deny

that this separation,

which

is

given as an act

has the least connection with the (obviously a non-temporal act) irreducibility of ideas

which M. Benda thought he had previously

established. This word

far separation, already

too concrete, will not

content him: immediately afterwards he will be speaking to us of

no doubt speculating with a view to later elaborations on the emotional significance of that word. Three lines further on he

aversion,

reflection will be speaks of impiety. But the simplest metaphysical

enough

to

show

us

how

fundamentally unintelligible

66

all this is

I

un-tbougbt-out. How can determinate Being separate from indeterminate Being? It is inconceivable except in a philosophy of the neo-Platonic type, in which the absolute prin-

would even say, itself

ciple

is

not indeterminate, but rather, if I

so express

may

it,

supra-

determinate. In that case, determinacy seems to denote an im-

poverishment, but in these systems of philosophy the indeterminate, i.e.

matter,

is at

the lowest point in the

series.

Besides,

M. Benda

cannot make room for such an idea in his system, since he will not so much as hear of hierarchy. It therefore seems clear to me that M.

Benda is transposing what he

believes to be a radical hiatus

between

determinate and indeterminate being, into a sphere where this hiatus cannot help altering

its

very metaphysical categories,

begin to multiply that he

is

round

really intent

character.

At

the

which he claimed

this hiatus.

to

same time those have eliminated,

And this is all due to the fact

on constructing a system with a

sort

of

Schopenhauerian modulation. An entirely unconscious dialectic his most hidden will, compels him forthwith to

which governs

bring into his premisses, in a

way

that changes

and

shatters

them,

was characteristic of his meta-

dynamic elements which it physical position to exclude, but which he needs

just those

to justify his self-

consciously priest-like attitude.

At the point we have now reached, there is one question which we should find it difficult not to ask; why do we not just get rid of this indeterminate or infinite

Being, which looks sometimes like a

mere non-being and sometimes

of depository containing, all higgledy-piggledy, those elements which the phenomenal world has foolishly claimed to arrange in hierarchical order? Why not like a sort

simply keep the third part of the Discours Coherent, which gives us, in substance, a Spencerian picture of the universe, enriched (or complicated)

and M. perialism

by additions borrowed from Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson? Could we not build up a philosophy of im-

on

a foundation of almost traditional notions, such as

67

the will to live or the will to power?

become of the

fourth part, that

God? Remark to the fourth

moment,

But in

that case,

the return of the

is,

in passing that this fourth part

book of The World

forced to take his stand

on

a kind of pendant

as Will and Idea.

was saying

unimportant; as I

is

just

the line of value.

what would

world towards

This

is,

for the

now, M. Benda It

is

must be damned,

world of the phenomenal, that is, of particularity, of individualisation and of imperialism, or at least it must be able to be thought this

of as damned. written

Why the 'must'? Why, just because M.

Trabison des Clercs. 1 'That

La

which

the opposite

is

to bring the world

The fact

assertion. is

a reason

true.

back

is

M. Benda

to reason/

that there

is

a

absurd,' you

wrote La Trabison

But

book

Benda has

will say.

I

'It is

des Clercs

think I can uphold

called

La

my

Trahison des Clercs

why the phenomenal world must be conceivable as being

capable of damnation: but it cannot be unless it is thought of as having separated itself from something which is ... which is what?

We cannot say that We will just say that

it is

Good, or absolute intelligence. God. The existence of God hangs on the

either the

it is

existence of La Trabison des Clercs.

me 'If M. Benda wrote La

You

return to the charge,

and tell

Trahison des Clercs, he did so in the

name

of the metaphysic which is developed in Le Discours Coherent'. I do not believe a word of it. La Trabison des Clercs is a book which seems to

me

based solely upon a psychology of temperament, a

psychology, moreover, which

narrowly Jewish. But

is

realm where every assertion aspires to justify

itself;

so

La

we

are in a

Trabison des

enough brought up from the basement a whole system of protective screens which we have before our eyes today Clercs has naturally

and which

is

definite sense.

naturally called

But

it is

to function in a certain quite

human nature that the man who last man to realise where they came

just like

invented them should be the

from or what their results will 1

upon

be.

The Betrayal of the Clerks.

68

March nth, Charity thought of as presence, as absolute disposability; I have never before seen its link with poverty so clearly. To possess is almost inevitably to be possessed. Things possessed get in the way. All this needs much more thorough treatment. At the heart of charity is presence in the sense of the absolute gift

of one's-self, a far

from

it;

gift

and

so

which implies no impoverishment to the giver, we are here in a realm where the categories valid

in the world of things ries, as

we must

entirely cease to

thing. If I have four things

only have two

be applicable. These catego-

bound up with the very idea of and give two away, it is obvious that

see, are strictly

and

left,

that I

am correspondingly impoverished.

a I

But

only makes sense if I suppose a certain close relationship between myself and the things, if I consider them consubstantial, so

this

to say,

with myself,

am

if I

myself affected, in the strongest sense of

the word, by their presence or absence.

Thresh out the notion of non-disposability. to that

such.

which fundamentally

From

whole

this point

spiritual

think

it

corresponds

constitutes the creature considered as

of view,

as the

life

I

wonder

I

sum of

if

we

activities

could not define the

by which

we

try to

reduce in ourselves the part played by non-disposability. Note connection between the fact of being non-disposable and the fact of feeling or thinking

non-disposability

which

is

we

is

are indispensable.

Show,

in fact, that this

inseparable from a kind of self-adherence,

something more primitive and

still

more fundamental

than self-love.

Death

as the flat denial

of non-disposability.

To my mind, we have here For we sec here the necessity

a mine of important considerations. for distinguishing

one's-self regarded as non-disposable, as disposable, that

lawful self-love

is

is,

love of

what

illuminated by

its

69

between love of

and love of one's-self regarded

God may make

of me. This

opposite, namely, the hatred of

self which

may be

question also

contained in a certain kind of death-wish.

of the

relative non-disposability

of the

The

self for itself.

Some extremely interesting questions to work out here. Analysis of the notion of non-disposability. It

seems to

me

that

it

always implies the notion of transference.

Non-disposable capital is capital which is already partially transThis is perfectly clear in the case of material wealth. Now

ferred.

we must

see

how the

out this morning.

fortune I hear about it.

notion can be extended in the

way

I

pointed

A typical case comes into my mind. Some misdemands

Theoretically I realise that

my pity,

but

what they

I feel that I

are telling

me

cannot give is

strangely

worthy of pity, yet I feel nothing. If the wretchedness they describe were actually before my eyes, it would no doubt be otherwise. An immediate experience would unseal the springs of my compassion, would force the damned gates. strange thing! I should like to

A

feel it is

not

the emotion

normal at

which seems

to be

me

to 'impose itself* (I judge that

cases),

but

I feel

nothing;

I

am

No doubt by putting myself through my could flog myself into something resembling this if I am sincere it cannot deceive me; I shall know

my own

mental paces emotion, but

to

touched in such

disposal.

I

quite well that

it is

a worthless imitation. There are two limiting

cases, the child

and

the saint,

so difficult to define

strictly,

bound up with what may be ence. life

And

here

we

return to

where

this

does not take place:

As my

life

what

liberty,

evidently

normal growth of experiwrote about a few years ago;

I

life is

inseparable from

some

becomes more and more an established

thing, a certain division tends to be

me and what

it is

called the

cannot be played without stakes;

form of risk.

pawning of one's

made between what concerns

does not concern me, a division which appears

enough in the making. Each one of us thus becomes the of a sort of mental space, arranged in concentric zones of

rational

centre

decreasing interest

and decreasing adherence, and 70

to this decreasing

adherence there corresponds an increasing non-disposability. This

something so natural that

we forget to

any thought or any representation at all. Some of us may have happened upon an encounter which in some fashion broke up the lines of this personal

is

give

it

egocentric topography. I can understand, for I have experienced

from a

that

resisted:

stranger, casually met, all

suddenly

Such

distant

instantly closed,

disappointing,

with a

have

bitter

this

is

suddenly

experiences

and

an

at

are

infinite distance,

rigidities

what we

on which

confusion

is

would

lose

its

possibility rests.

its

gives

majesty if the

falsity to say

which thought

it

it

lacking

We what

must

see that in

I called the

normal

opposed

am my

'I

man who

laid

least

at

it.

life*.

even

lies at

The

down

his

the roots of

The drama life

did not

or must, if faith

is

total sacrifice.

presuming to break fundamentally with state of secular experience, we should be

guilty not only of rashness, but also of real error, unless

responding to some

to

will bring to light.

a part of its meaning.

find himself so placed that the sacrifice could

seem to him to be a

from one point of

state diametrically

not only inevitable, but

Above

which is there to show

state is assuredly,

doubtless a metaphysical

human drama and

have called our mental

I

in certain people,

normal

call the

statement implies a confusion

The

become sharply

inestimable benefit; they force us to

view, simply the perversion of a

the

however

and they can be so disappointing that they leave us and sense of mockery at our very hearts still

all there is sanctity, realised

It is

the

sadness

and of the

us that

and

breaches that are

fleeting,

yet I believe that these experiences

aware of the accidental character of what space,

it,

a call too strong to be

our perspectives are turned inside-out; what

seemed inseparably near near.

may come

clarion call.

All

that

we can do

is

we were

to admit, at

in thought, that these conditions imply an anomaly if we look

them from

that transcendent point

v/ithin us seems to

of view which something

demand that we should occupy.

Could we not maintain sense of the word,

is

what we

call space; in the ordinary kind of translation of the but a nothing

that

really

system of concentric zones which I described above? But, in this connection, we may ask whether the doing away with distance has not a twofold significance.

of space, but

and

the far

result, it

implies a change in our physical idea

It

same time

at the

the near

of its

thing before

which we

it is

a different value

which we consider

it,

and

is

the past, because

are powerless.

deeper: for if the materiality

on

There

qualitative value.

seems, with regard to time: but this

escapes our grasp because

takes

deprives the distinction between

it

(!)

Even

no

parallel

just because the past it is

here

of the past

is

essentially

we

immutable,

is

and colour according

some-

should go

still still

it

to the aspect

from

with our present, that

this aspect varies

is

with the changes in our action. (I quote an example man has lived a lightwhich happened to come into my mind. to say,

it

varies

A

and worked himself to death, perhaps in

less life

ously depends

upon

those

who come

after

him

despair. It obvito bring out the

consequences of his life which are capable of giving it meaning and worth a posteriori. Yet even this is not enough. Something in us

demands

who by

that those consequences should be

his

life,

must ask what

by

this

his obscure sacrifice,

demand

is

worth:

known

made them

connection of non-disposability

presence believe I

am

possible.

dejure valid?

is it

what point should we say that real fact can ignore questions to put in an intelligible way.)

The

to the

man

We

and up

it?

to

Difficult

and consequently non-

A

kind of mystery there; I with self-preoccupation. find a whole theory of the Thou within it. When

we could

with a non-disposable person,

someone

for

whom I do

not

exist,

I

and

am

conscious of being with

so I

am

thrown back upon

myself.

Can I define God as absolute presence? idea of absolute succour.

This would embrace

my

March

ijth

Being non-disposable; being occupied with self. But this 'with * can see by analysis that there is no self needs consideration.

We

from the point of view I am taking up, between being occupied with one's health, one's future, one's mistress, or one's

difference,

temporal success. Surely the conclusion follows that to be occupied with one's-self is not to be occupied with a determinate object, but

way which remains to be defined. might approach our definition by way of the idea of a spiritual

rather to be occupied in a certain

We

opaqueness or blockage. When I look at my ence, it seems to me that in every such case,

own we

being fixed within a zone or determinate scale, in But, contrary to

essentially indeterminate.

is itself

deepest experi-

are conscious

of

an anxiety which what a superficial

inquiry would seem to show,

this anxiety (even, this indeterminacy)

remains present

of the fixation;

at the heart

constantly going

here

anxiety

on

at

gives a character of

remain compatible with the agitation the centre of this limited zone. This anxiety

which causes

exasperation

it

it

to

and perhaps Kierkegaard

I

join with Heidegger

is

in time, the agony of surely the agony of a creature living

this

mercy of time. (Not that it is necessary to so called.) The bring in here the element of reflection properly agony brings with it unhope a word from one of Thomas Hardy's feeling one's-self at the

poems

and

to despair.

In

If all this the

same as

what

I

this unhope in relation to a

contrast to all this see is

well-founded,

the origins

determinate object changes

what we mean by 'not caring'.

the metaphysical origins of pessimism are

related to of non-disposability. This should be

have said about joy and hope.

We must return to my former observation, that the make-up of our universe admits of hope, and

we must

see

its

ontological

significance.

We shall also have to ask whether the Thou, regarded as worth or reality,

is

not a function of what I have called 73

my

inward

dis-

And we must study the place of hope in the theory ofthe Thou (what inputting trust in? putting your trust in the universe?).

posability.

Anxiety, as

I called

at least possible

I

can form of it

it,

seen as a radical deformity, as a

that

datum)

drawn from

is

universal.

is

The most

datum

(or

concrete image

the horrible feeling I have sometimes

had in the dark, of feeling myself at

its

mercy, with nothing to hold

onto. I

am

wondering

just

now

whether there are not grounds

for

that the various technical accomplishments are salutary

showing

weapons of defence against this state of powerlessness. They by no means imply in themselves that fixation of which I spoke. There is a healthful value in doing as such. But the idolatry It is

of technical

so important to

and

same

level,

zone,

which

is

on

to

analysed elsewhere in this book.

ability,

show

possible to pass

it is

that fear

and

desire are both

inseparable, but that hope

is

on

the

placed in another

not that of Spinozan ethics and with

which Spinoza

himself was unacquainted. (Spinoza spoke ofspes and metus correlatively;

and our

The zone of hope

natural inclination

is

also that

is

certainly to

do

the same.)

of prayer.

March i$th

On analysing the question closely, we find that the nature of hope is

very hard to define. I will take

recovery from

illness or for the

two examples:

to

hope

for the

conversion of a person dear to us,

of one's oppressed country. The hope here is for something which, according to the order of nature, does not depend upon us (it is absolutely outside the zone where stoicism

and

to

can be state

To

hope

for the liberation

practised).

At the root

of the hope

of things which invites us to despair is

is

the consciousness of a

(illness,

damnation,

to put one's trust in reality, to assert that

hope means of triumphing over

the correlative of hope

is

this

not

danger; and here

fear, far

74

from

it,

it

it

etc.).

contains the

can be seen that

but the act of making

the worst of things, a sort of pessimistic fatalism

which assumes the

impotence of reality or which will not grant that it can take account of something even if it is not Just our good, but rather, as we think, a good in the absolute sense of the word.

This evening I have apprehended the nature of hope more than I have ever done before. It its

clearly

always has to do with the restoration of a certain living order in

integrity.

But

it

with

also carries

it

the affirmation of eternity

and

eternal

goods. It is therefore

of her very essence that

when Hope

has been

deceived in the realm of the visible, she should take refuge

on a

plane where she can be disappointed no more. This links up with

my

most time-honoured meditations on the

were a groping anticipation of what I Even the integrity of the organism

of an invalid

is,

as

it

quite impossible to treat

is

no place

see clearly today.

when I hope for the recovery

hope is hope of salvation, and that it is of the one without treating of the other.

all

Spinoza, and also among the disciples of of salvation is literally stripped of all meaning.

like

Stoicism, this idea

There

which

were, the prefiguring or symbolical expression

of a supreme integrity. In this sense I say that

But in someone

unverifiable,

for salvation except in a universe

which

admits of

real injuries. It

now be shown that the object of desire is never integrity

should

as such, but that

it is

always a

mode of enjoying, just

mode of suffering. But

as the object

undoubtedly above this opposition. Yet all this is still not quite clear to me. I was thinking this morning that hope is only possible in a world

of fear

where

is

a

there

reflection is

forces

is

room

for miracles;

becoming

and

clearer to

with Kierkegaard, or

salvation

this

evening the sense of this

me. Here,

at least

75

is

too, I believe I join

with some of his continuators.

March ijth If I have discerned rightly, there

hope and a

certain affirmation

is

a close

of eternity,

bond of union between

that

is,

of a transcendent

order. I

On the other hand

as I say in

Remarks on

a world where techniques are paramount to desire

and

because every technique

fear;

desire or

some

either to

make

Hope

proper to the unarmed;

is

direct use

its

mysteriously enough,

hope

due

is

some

it is

the

lies.

power

call

it

to her aid.

weapon of the unarmed, of a weapon and in that,

Present-day scepticism about

to the essential inability to conceive that anything

be efficacious that

there to serve

of any technique or to

the very opposite

it is

is

Today

a world given over

is

perhaps characteristic of Hope to be unable

fear. It is

or (more exactly)

the Imligion of

when

it is

no

sort

can

of a power in the ordinary sense of

word.

Here

I

am afraid we come up

physical problems, terms.

against one of the hardest of meta-

and one which seems almost a contradiction in

We cannot help asking ourselves how hope can be effective;

but the very form of the question takes

it

for granted that

we

are

unconsciously comparing hope to a technique which operates in a mysterious fashion,

We

must be

let

us say magically. 1

perfectly clear that this real efficacy,

counterpart of a complete inefficacy

on

the

which

phenomenal

is

level,

the

can

when the powerlessness is in fact absolute; where no pretence or evasion (such as we find in a consciousness

only be conceived there

is

which through do nothing).

sloth or

Could we not clarify the sense

It is

falsely

persuades

we

say that a certain activity

of the word

empirical realm, that 1

cowardice

is,

later

finding

its

itself that it

should have to

way

barred in the

in the realm of action, changes

hardly necessary to point out that

metaphysical problem of prayer.

76

all this

can

its

level

and

has a bearing on the

turns into hope, but for it

all that

does not lose the efficacy with which

was in some manner endowed from

its

what happens to a obstruction. I would say

parallel to this in

dammed by an

birth? river

There

when

is

a kind of course

its

that the estuaries

of Hope

do not lie entirely within the bounds of the visible world.

we can

Hence, perhaps,

endowed with

creature are

And

yet I

know

problem, and

'

the prayers of a defenceless

why

a greater efficacy.

am

quite well that here I

that I cannot escape

myself confusedly what no-technique.

see

is

sort

We are here at

from

stating

merely skirting the it,

and from

asking

of power can belong to no-action and to the heart of die problems raised by the

essential Christian data, especially non-resistance to evil.

can just make out the following in a very disjointed way: are no longer in the realm of causes or laws, the realm of (1)

I

We

Hope not being a cause, and not acting mechanically, obvious that we cannot say, 'Every time somebody

the universal. it

is

quite

of hope, such and such a thing will come to would in fact mean that we were making hope into a

practises the virtue pass:' for this

technique, that notice

its

own

opposite (incidentally,

it

not clear that the efficacy of hope, in some cases,

disarming value? In the case of non-resistance at

intelligible. If I

oppose violence, that

as violence,

ground

it is

combat implies a sides, a

sort

is,

if I

it;

in this sense

will

its

on

it is

place;

and

up and

true to say that all

it

this state

becomes

of affairs does radically

im-

were a game, and the will to destroy will lets loose an opposite (i.e. an identical)

as if it

this

the other side.

destroy cannot be

it

of fundamental connivance between the two

not end until they reach the point where

war

in

put myself on the same

common will for the battle to go on;

possible to treat

lies

least, this is quite

quite certain that I tend to keep

thereby even to reinforce

takes

I

what a strong temptation there is to regard it in this light).

(2) Is its

to say, into

is

Could we not maintain

justified in

its

own

77

eyes unless

that the will to

an

identical will

can be presumed in the itself

resistance,

negated at once,

it is

I hasten to

from

other, that

add

is

the

is,

except as lawful defence? If

Can

enemy?

conceive

it

thenceforth meets with

it

non "

completely disarmed.

have the gravest hesitation in concluding disarmament is dejure justified.

that I

these reflections that unilateral

If we had to examine the question,

we should begin by asking why

the transition from the metaphysical to the empirical should raise

such serious

difficulties

in this province.

would seem,

then, that Hope has the unusual virtue of somehow putting in a false predicament the powers over which it claims It

to triumph, not by fighting them, them. Moreover, its efficacy seems

accompanying

when

it is

more

less liable to

it is

far

from

all

the surer

and

real

less

it,

but by transcending

when

the weakness

of a sham; in other words,

be considered as a hypocritical disguise of

cowardice.

The

spontaneous objections

we

feel against this

may seem almost irresistible. For instance, recovery from illness in that way? But then that

Hope

must be not forgotten

it

flows out to sea.

pedestrians, taken

when

Hope

the road

that

how

it is

way of thinking

can we explain a

in the invisible world

nothing like a short cut for blocked and joining the road

is

is

again on the other side of the obstacle.

No need to say that all these reflections go hand-in-hand with my remarks on non-disposability. the less

The more

room there is in him for hope.

the growing non-disposability of the I

wondered

be related

this afternoon

a

little

clearly.

man

is,

And we should here mention

whole modern world.

whether the

efficacy

of hope might not

of the grip on reality which it prethe working-out of what I was writing yesterday

to the very force

supposed (this is evening about integrity). But is

non-disposable a

dangerous.

The problem

To is

tell

this interpretation,

the truth I

still

though

do not

attractive,

see

my way

the fact that infinitely complicated by

78

hope

obviously partakes of the nature of

'gift*

out methodically, but I do not yet

sifted

or 'merit*. This

must be

know how to go about my

task.

We ought to note, without delay, the point at which hope overflows the affirmation of a

sollen. It is

really

a prophetic power.

has no bearing on what should be or even on what must be; says 'This will be*. Reflecting on hope

is

it

It

just

perhaps our most direct

means of apprehending the meaning of the word 'transcendence', for hope is a spring, it is the leaping of a gulf. implies a kind of radical refusal to reckon possibilities,

It

this is

enormously important.

It is as

though

postulate the assertion that reality overflows as

it

claimed, in virtue of some

all

it

carried with

and it

as

possible reckonings;

unknown

though touch a principle hidden in the heart of things, or

secret affinity, to

rather in the heart

of events, which mocks such reckonings. Here I might quote excellent sayings from Peguy and perhaps Claudel, which touch the very depths of my

own perceptions.

in this sense,

Hope,

is

not only a protestation inspired by love,

of call, too, a desperate appeal to an ally who is Himself also Love. The supernatural element which is the foundation of but a

sort

Hope

is

as clear here as

its

transcendent nature, for nature, un-

illuminated by hope, can only appear to us the scene of a sort of

immense and inexorable book-keeping. 1 Another point; I wonder if we do not see here some of the limitations

of Bergsonian philosophy,

for

it

room in it for what

tion

in pure freedom; to a metaphysic

1

lies

me that there To a Bergsonian,

seems to

the least

I call integrity.

which

is

is

not

salva-

Christian in

its

We

should ask ourselves what sort of science leads to despair, and of this sort damns itself. The problem of hope and science, sail more fundamental than the problem of determinism and freedom. I shall have to take up the idea of perdition again, which has

how

far a science

already attracted me at an earlier stage. See how hope, in into the invisible world. (Note written Dec. 8th, 193 1.)

79

its

essence, dives

freedom has an aim assigned

essence, I

can only repeat once more,

salvation; but

it

to

it,

and

that

aim

seems that salvation

is

salvation.

hope hope of can only be found in contem-

that the archetypal

is

do not think we can reach beyond this. The lines I wrote this afternoon on not-reckoning

the

plation. I

lead

me

to think that

we ought

to bring together

of course, the same thing as whose field of operation is in infinity?

desire). Is

(not,

possibilities

hope and will

not hope a will

A formula to be worked out

fully.

Just as there can be an evil will, so ceive a diabolical hope, a

hope which

we

is

should be able to con-

perhaps the very essence of

him whom we call the Devil. Will, hope, prophetic vision:

all this stands, all this is firmly

man, outside the range of a purely objective reason. I have to develop the notion of disillusionment, the idea of a power of automatic refutation belonging to experience as such. The soul lives by hope alone; hope is perhaps the very stuff of fixed in a

now

shall

which our

souls are

man

despair of a one's-self

March

is

not this to deny

should be worked out.

him

as a soul?

To

To

despair of

not anticipating suicide?

is

like a well

Sunday) whose shaft goes down

to death

to

my

time!

My

to

my perdition. The gulf of time: how

death

too,

22nd, 1931 (a miserable

Time death

is it

made. This,

is at its

bottom and

I

shudder to look

its

dank

breath

down on

mounts up and

chills

me.

March 2$tb must

We

finish

with the notion of divine prescience, which

dis-

and makes the problem absolutely insoluble: from the moment we assume that the divine vision is prior, in whatever

torts

everything

80

sense, to the free action to

destination.

And

speaking of God's at Berdyaev's. I

think

which

we must

yet

observation, as

it

not

sense in

we

-

cannot avoid pre-

into the opposite error of

A

Father

was doing

yesterday

God does not observe anything.

something like this. act by God cannot be posited

of my

refers,

fall

I see it

which

I

say, for

might

First

of all,

this

apprehension

an objective datum instance, that someone is

(in the

as

at this

moment picking up my words by wireless). It cannot be conceived by me unless I am myself on a certain spiritual level. I sail

cannot

see clearly

what follows from

this,

but

I feel

it

will be

important.

March Substitute co-presence for prescience.

expressed in terms of co-existence. is

not 'someone who' I

was

But co-presence cannot be

We must never forget that God

etc.

led yesterday to consider

more

closely the distinction be-

tween thinking and understanding. Is there perhaps something rather fallacious about the idea of a thought which is not understanding? Surely thinking, in that case, is just believing that one thinks?

We only understand on the basis of what we are. It seems to me can only be understood by a person placed in a position. Here again we come back to the meta-

that co-presence certain spiritual

physic of the

Thou and

more non-disposable

I

And

the notion of non-disposability.

am, the more

will

God

appear to

The

me

as

We

'someone who'.

1

should

how memory comes in here, memory considered as

try to see

that

is

just a denial

of co-presence.

an

act

of comprehension remembered but not renewable

seems to

me

that this lays bare the very roots of atheism.

fidelity (to '

at will). 1

It

The God

whom atheism denies is in fact a 'someone who* in his very essence. F

8l

M.B.H.

my earlier remarks on

Relate the notion of non-disposability with

my body*. I shall

makes

use the

word

me

impossible for

it

mean

'corporeity' to

to picture a

that property

body

:ondition of thinking of it as the 'body of.

which

as living except

on

.'.

.

between being All having defines itself somehow in terms of my body, in terms of something which, being itself an absolute 'having*

Corporeity to be regarded as the frontier

district

md having. i.e.

:eases in virtue the

of this very

word. 'Having*

over;

it

is

being able to dispose of, having a

me that this

seems clear to

be a 'possession* in any sense of

fact to

power

disposal or

power always implies of the organism, i.e. of something about which, for that very reason, I cannot say that it is at my disposal. The metaphysical mystery of non-disposability may essentially consist in the the interposal

me, of really being able to dispose of that which the disposal of things. The objection may be made that I

impossibility, for gives

me

can nevertheless dispose of my body since I have the physical power of killing myself. But it is obvious that such a disposal of my body has as

its

immediate

result the impossibility

even coincides with this impossibility in the is

something of which

the term,

by putting

it

of disposing of it, and

My body can only dispose, in the absolute sense of into such a state that I shall no longer have final analysis.

I

of it. This absolute disposal any power reality a putting out of use. to dispose

Shall

we

be tempted to object that

extent that, for instance, I change

I

my

dispose of

In

tions such

clear that I try

that I

clear that there is

power even

my body

to the

But obviously, in entrust myself to it and

it.

it is

short,

therefore in

position?

another sense, and to an equal extent, I

depend upon

is

can

with

something in

really to

all

think I dispose

make

my

to establish condi-

very nature

this relation

82

my will

of my body. But between

it is

no

which blocks

less

my my body and me

same

the

as

my relation with

other things,

and

this is

of irresistible encroachment of my body upon the basis of my state as man or creature. 1 sort

because of the

me which

is at

March jotb

morning on 'having*. It seems evident to me that 'having* always implies an obscure notion of assimilation (I only have something which has been made mine, in some way, no Reflected this

matter what),

and

the one hand,

we

1

1

think

I

it

therefore also implies reference to a past.

On

cannot help connecting having with the notion

have not made

full

enough use of these remarks. They seem

me to open perspectives, which are relatively new, upon a whole group of obscure problems centring round what may be called physical miracle,

to

which undoubtedly of a certain degree of inner perfection (sanctity) and what appears to us as the exercise of supra-normal powers. Perhaps a man is really less of a slave to his body in proportion as he makes less of a claim to have it at his disposal. May it not be that this claim, which looks like a sign of power, is really a form of slavery? throng of conclusions would follow. The problem of miraculous cures, in particular, should be considered from this point of view. It would not be out of place to ask whether the fact of self-surrender or self-abandonment might not have as a result (not, of course, a necessary result) a change in the union of the soul and body, as we so confusedly call it. It is conor

more accurately upon

exist

between the

the hidden connections

realisation

A

ceivable that the rebellious invalid, who by definition clings to the claim to dispose of his body in his own sense, but who is actually forced to

recognise at the

same time

that his claim

is ignored by 'reality', finds of non-disposability which is even physical, and which is far more radical than that experienced by the other invalid who surrenders himself to a superior power, whatever his idea of that power may be. I will do no more than call attention to this. It would be rashness, even folly, to attempt a stricter treatment of the theme, and there could be no question of actually admitting that the invalid's act of

himself

ipso facto

placed in a

putting himself in God's

state

hand automatically causes his state would lose its

for the better. If it were so, the act of surrender

to

change

character;

it would, by becoming an expedient, actually change into its opposite. Surely this is an object-lesson of the workings of the mysterious link between liberty and grace. (Note written August, 1934.)

worse,

83

we must

of containing; only haver.

The

tainer;

it is

haver

is

clearly see that the container

the subject in so far as

almost impossible to put

carries

precisely.

At

not the

is

with

it

a con-

the root of

an immediate term which causes 'something*

'having', then, there

is

to participate in

own

its

it

it

corporeity (as I called

it

immediacy. In yesterday)

fact

it

seems to

me

involved in having

is

that

just as

A

corporeity implies what we may call historicity. body is a history, or more accurately it is the outcome, the fixation of a history.

cannot therefore say that I have a body, at least not properly speaking, but the mysterious relation uniting me to my body is at I

the foundation of all I

my powers of having. much could be drawn

have a feeling that

from

this in treating

more concrete problems which have occupied

the far

my thoughts

in these latter times, because of the connection between non-disposability

and having. Having

disposability.

thing

a

sort

of signpost of possible non-

The dead man is the man who no longer has anywe take the word 'have* in those senses which we

(at least if

can make

We are tempted to think that no longer having

precise). is

anything

the same as

general trend of life

what one out.

is

But

fact that

has:

on

no longer being anything: and in

the natural level

and here

fact the

to identify one's-self with

the ontological category tends to be blotted

the reality of sacrifice

being can

is

assert its

is

there

somehow

to

prove to us in

transcendency over having. There

the deepest significance of martyrdom considered as witness:

it is

lies

the

witness.

The reflection which I have followed out this evening seems to me to be of the first importance: it gives us the most concrete possible way of understanding the ontological problem. But we must still take note that this negation of having, or rather of the correlation

between having and being, cannot be separated from an affirmation

on which it hangs. Here I will stop as I am seeing less I

am

sure of this,

clearly.

anyhow: of the hidden identity of the way 84

which

leads to holiness

to the affirmation

and the road which

of Being; also that

concrete philosophy, to realise that here I

would add

and it is

that the significance

leads the metaphysician

necessary above

it is

is

all, for

a

one and the same road.

of human

trials,

especially illness

death, and their ontological bearing, is here made plain. Only an essential character of such trials that they can be misunder-

They are an appeal to a power of interpretation tion which is identical with freedom itself. 1 stood.

or assimila-

March 3 ist being touched in point of what we have, have has become an integral part of what we

Suffering: surely this

in so far as

what we

is

are? Physical suffering to be regarded as the prototype or root

of all

suffering.

Coming back from my walk by 'having an I

idea*. I

think there

think that the process

was wondering what we mean is a difficulty here. But even here

I

may be compared

to

a graft which

is

made

upon a growing thing ('grafting upon* expresses my meaning much better than 'integration into'): that which grows tends, if not to think of itself as a vehicle,

at least to

seem

to itself to be endowed with

a vehicle.

But we might perhaps think implied in the

reality

of this 'growing* or

'absolute having* of our bodies at all) really a

above?

I

cannot

myself. Yet

it

(which

is,

is

not necessarily

'living* principle. Is

by the way,

our

no 'having*

condition of a spiritual 'having* such as I referred to yet see the

answer clearly, or rather

put the question in terms

to

that corporeity

looks as

if,

which seem

here too, I have

problem of attention, which has so

I

cannot manage

fully intelligible

come back

even to

to the basic

much occupied my mind in the

past. 1

1

think I should here point out the fundamental agreement between and those of Jaspers, which I did not know in 193 1. (Note

these views

written August, 1934.)

85

This I do sec: that the privilege or primacy which I ascribe to my mental equipment, and to what belongs to it, is conceived or imagined by analogy with the fundamental and unthinkable privilege

which

my body in so far as it is mine.

distinguishes

ideas, in so far as they are mine,

my Would it make sense to say that having and being are, essential concentrations of space and time? I am not sure.

privilege

In

this

have an indirect share. as

it

were,

April ytb I shall

One

not pursue this line of thought.

thing

is

plain to me.

Having

is

always the

give suffering a hold

upon me: but

in fact multiplicity?

A being wholly simple, that

could not be subject to 1

1

suffering.

But can

way

in

which

because having is,

I is

entirely one,

this absolute simplicity

None of the

great metaphysicians of the past was ignorant of this can disguise serious ambiguities. It is, for instance, quite that there is in fact a zone on the hither side of suffering. One can

truth: but clear

it

imagine, or rather conceive essentially undifFerentiated, to still

surely this is

be a

being? It is

a being who is too rudimentary, too be capable of suffering. But would it then

of,

obvious (to me) that the condition, to which

all

the

sages of all time and of every country urge us to raise ourselves, has nothing to do with such a unity as this. The difference is basically the same as the difference between the One and matter in Plotinus. But

words

are fundamentally unsuitable for stating this difference clearly, for

the simple reason that they belong to the realm of discursive thought, and therefore we continually run the risk of falling into a confusion here if I am completely cannot avoid asking whether this confusion does not really spoil a certain type of asceticism, at least in some have here a group of questions to be boldly attacked after degree.

which may have incalculable consequences; and

honest, I

must recognise

that I

We

wiping all the traditional formulae right off the slate. We must never lose sight of the fact that salvation can only be found in plenitude, though of course we shall admit that a certain kind of richness, under whatever forms it appears, is so far from bringing us to salvation that it even withdraws us from it. But the problem in fact is how to pass through multipliand not at all how to escape it. (Note written city so as to transcend it,

August, 1934-)

86

be realised?

It

me that there may be pseudo-mysticism here,

seems to

a source of very serious

difficulties.

April 8th

Metaphysics considered as a means of exorcising despair.

There is one philosophy which clearly claims to exorcise hope and despair at the same time; I mean that of Spinoza. I chiefly blame him for fundamentally ignoring the temporal structure of human existence. The Bergsonian position on this level seems to me impregnable. I

was thinking

the need for

to

myself this evening that

I shall

an absolute evaluation, the need

conclusion of Un

have to consider

to be judged. (Cf. the

Homme de Dieu.)

April loth I see the clear necessity, this

'Am

I

my

motion, not,

is

life?' for

my

just

and what

I

corpse.

body

it is

in

I

morning, of substituting the question my body?' My body, if deprived of

Now my corpse is essentially what I am

cannot be (and

of a dead man, 'he body,

'Am

this is

what we mean when we

no more'). But when

is

am

clear that I

really

I assert that I

say

have a

tending in fact to immobilise this

some fashion and almost

to devitalise

it.

I

wonder now

if

having qua having does not always imply in some degree a devitalisation of this kind, in exact proportion as it corresponds to an incipient thraldom.

The

difficulty is to

false to say 'I

from thence

am my

'I

have

understand

life'

my

without

life'

or

'I

how its

can be metaphysically being legitimate to conclude it

have a

of March 27th.

life'.

Here we

return, I

have only the absolute my disposal of my life (we will no longer say, of my body) if I put myself in such a condition that I can never dispose of it again; here

think, to

we

reflections

meet the irrevocable. This

is

I

strikingly obvious in the case

87

of

suicide or the sacrifice of life, but

it is

of any

really just as true

act

at all.

But the notion of irrevocability must be examined and expanded, otherwise the difference between suicide and sacrifice becomes unintelligible

and even unthinkable. This

difference entirely

depends

on hope. There is not, and there cannot be, any sacrifice without hope, and a sacrifice which excluded hope would be suicide. Here the question of disinterestedness

minds whether It is

despair.

it

is

But we must make up our identify disinterestedness and

arises.

legitimate to

true that the claim will certainly be

made

that

where

hope for myself there can be no question of disinterestedness, but only where my hope is fixed on an order or a cause for whose good I

I

give myself up. But

it is

our duty to ask

expression Tor myself* is as clear as are at

first

inclined to say.

in rather the same

way

it

if the

meaning of the

seems, or rather as clear as

we

And here we shall in fact have to proceed

as I did

on March

i5th:

to discover the nature of this hope for ones- self,

we

shall

and then

first

have

(a deeper

question) the nature of thefor ones-self which remains at the heart of sacrifice. 1

The

1

revolutionary

who

consents to die for the revolution, the party,

himself with that for which he gives his life. And accordingly the party or the revolution becomes, for him, 'more myself than I am myself/ This is the adherence, this the identification which is at the heart of his act and gives it meaning. Someone will say: 'Yes, but he makes no etc., identifies

the triumph of the cause for which he gives himself, no claim and so profit by it; and therefore he renounces all reward, all recompense. Whereas the Christian, for instance, fancies that he will

claim to

see

to enjoy

it

himself be personally associated with the victory that he helps to prepare for, and so thinks that he will be in some way able to profit by it. You

cannot therefore speak of disinterestedness in his case/

The whole question depends on discovering what precise value we may attribute to the act

by which, anticipating what

I call

my own annihila-

devote myself to preparing for a state of affairs suba state which 1 declare myself unable to enjoy. And here it to it, sequent seems that there are mistakes and illusions in plenty. 'I shall not enjoy it/ tion, I nevertheless

88

April i2th

now

I

take

up once more my

idea about the ontological hazard,

life as implying a certain hazard which does not belong to the order of life. It is obvious that there is one type of experience which is by

no means capable of confirming the notion. of this hazard that this denial

would

it

can be denied;

It is

we might

an essential element well ask what sense

have.

propose to call by the name of Soul. It is one of the essentials of the soul thus conceived that it may be saved or lost,

This hazard

I

precisely in so far as I

a hazard. This

is

worthy of notice, and

And yet in a way I do enjoy it in advance; this enjoyment is at least

say.

as

it is

the object of my anticipation as is my own destruction; what is may be that this enjoyment is the only thing I do anticipate; for destruction, as such, is just a void, and in so far as it is a void is not

much

more,

my

it

able to be anticipated. Still more, the idea that I shall no longer exist may increase my enjoyment, may clothe it in an element of pride or vanity

which

But and this is the crucial all the and at not my present thing question of whether I shall survive. My much-boasted disinterestedness seems to me, from this point of view, to contain an element of pride, or rather of defiance, which perhaps spoils it. How do I meet the hostile reality which is about to annihilate me? First I snap my fingers at it, then I claim to contribute in my own person to its shaping. Contrary to what we often think, there is no less humble attitude than this, nor any that implies a haughtier gives the enjoyment a sharper quality. this is just

state,

claim.

Our

critics will

no doubt

who

tionary, for instance, recognise ipso facto that is

unimportant. But

I

return to the charge, saying that the revolu-

does not believe in his

will call his moral centre of gravity. himself, as cause,

own

immortality, does

he himself is unimportant, and that his personality think that is really just a displacement of what I

is itself only

The

cause for which he devotes

an element of his

own personality regarded

as absolute.

will say again, 'The sacrifice which is inspired by the recompense thereby ceases to be a sacrifice/ Obviously. But

They

and how shallow

hope of a

how

false

the psychology which represents the sacrifice of a believer as the result of calculation! Such sacrifice is carried on the stream,

as

it

from

is

were, of hope and love. This does not detract from its value, far it; and the contrary can only be maintained by those who cling to a

89

connected with the

clearly

fact that the soul is not

can by no means be regarded lost or retained

being

accidental with regard

as

an

object.

an object and fact of

For an object, the

('saved* would be meaningless) remains to its own nature, which can be regarded as

unaffected by the fact that the object

is

or

is

not

lost (for instance

a

piece of jewellery).

This must be related with what

On

the one

hand

my

have written on 'having*. soul seems to me that to which the

lation (?) implied in the fact

I

of 'having* seems

least applicable;

re-

it is,

of everything in the world, the least comparable to a possession. hyper-Kantian moral formalism which would go so

far as to eliminate

And

the postulates of practical reason. anyhow everything leads us to think that where neither the love of God nor the love of one's neighbour

comes

in, the real factor is the love

of

self;

and

that

is

a fundamental

pretension to which we see no reason to grant an intrinsic value. I realise, of course, that some religious writers may have involuntarily helped to obscure the essential issues, by seeming to set up a scale of merits,

which would have

the effect of absolutely ruining the idea of

pure sense, that is to say, as consecration. I think we must begin with the idea of the consecrated soul if we are to dispose of these then see that the soul which is consecrated hoary misunderstandings.

sacrifice

taken in

its

We

an unconquerable hope; she aspires to enter into an intimacy with her God, an intimacy ever greater, ever more complete. She has no reason to think that there can be any merit quite the contrary in her fighting against this aspiration. For this very reason, that she

is

also indwelt with

knows

herself to be barren of intrinsic worth, that she

derives

from

knows

that she

God whatever is positive within her

herself she is disparaging God's gift, strous ingratitude. What worth could

and

so that in disregarding incurring the shame of mon-

we see in the fact of a son's refusing to believe that his father loves him? This mistake begins from the moment when the creature begins to assign rights to himself and to treat himself as a creditor.

It is

more than an

alteration,

it is

a radical perversion. But

let

us not forget that the unbeliever also often thinks of himself as the creditor of a God who will not pay, and this is serious in a different way. have here, I think, the elements of a criterion for judging whether

We

the belief in immortality has any religious value in it or not: the whole question is whether it looks like an act of faith and love, or like an arrogation rooted in the concern for self. (Note written August, 1934.)

90

On the other hand,

its

possible loss

is,

as

it

were, the reverse side

or disastrous counterpart of all possession.

But then be

it

would seem

that the soul

is

that

which can

least

of all

lost.

This apparent contradiction allows us to unmask an ambiguity bound up in the very notion of loss. Could we not say that there is a

loss

on the

level

of Being 1

the soul can be lost)

and

(it

same time

in this sense

also a loss

related to the actual nature

is

is

on

and on

this level that

the level of having

of objects? But

we

which

should observe

at

of prime importance) that every loss in the (this order of having constitutes athreat to what I have called the

the

is

1

Loss on the level of being is, properly speaking, perdition. Yet we must recognise that this distinction does not give a full account of the a clearer view, the reader should reality, which is curiously complex. For doubtless refer to indications already given on integrity with regard to hope. Hope (one cannot repeat too often) can only take root where perdition is a possibility, and it is the most instructive exercise imaginable to note that in this respect no distinction need be made between the order of life properly speaking, and the order of the soul. It is equally legitimate

hope for the recovery of a sick person and the return of the prodigal son. In both cases the hope is bent on the re-establishment of an order

to

accidentally upset.

We can go further; there

is

a sense in

which even

the

recovery of something lost may admit of hope. But it can clearly be seen that there is here a sort of descending scale with hope at one end of it in

most fervent form, deeply rooted in God, and, at the other end, hope most selfish and superstitious; it would be extremely interesting somehow to follow the steps of this downward scale. Following this line, we should see clearly that the more the loss is related to possession, the more the protest it inspires looks like the assertion of a right; and the atti-

its

at its

tude of the

man who makes

this protest,

who

asserts this claim,

propor-

tionally ceases to be identified with hope in its pure state as defined above. Indeed, it may be that genuine hope always consists in awaiting a certain

grace, the nature of whose power we may not clearly define to ourselves, but to whose bounty we think we can assign no end. Hope is centred in

our consciousness of

this beneficent

power; whereas standing on one's of

rights is a thing which revolves, by definition, round the consciousness self and its dues. (Note written August, 1934.)

91

soul

and runs

we return

the risk of turning into a loss

here to the problem of despair

on

the level of being:

and what

I

wrote about

death (March jotfy.

The

My life.

fact that

it

can seem

an

meaning integral part of its as pure accident. But then, what is

me

to

to be literally devoid

structure. It is

this

T which

of

me

then appears to

finds itself in-

comprehensibly dowered with this absurd existence, dowered with something which is the very reverse of a gift? It is irresistibly driven to self-negation: this reality the is

just

life

life

can have been given by nobody, it is in No doubt this thorough-going nihilism

of nobody.

an extreme

position, a position very difficult to hold

implying a kind of heroism. But here since this heroism, if

it

is

and

we are deep in contradictions,

experienced and recognised as such,

immediately re-establishes the subject, and at the same time restores to existence the meaning that was denied to it; it does at least in fact exhibit one value;

which denies it

it.

it

serves as a springboard for the consciousness

And

must not be made

so, for the initial position to

explicit,

anaesthesia which, though concrete^

yet remains in

it

be maintained,

but instead be reduced to an auto-

can take

all sorts

reality identical

with

of different forms itself as

regards

in its

essential characteristics.

Someone will is

object that the refusal to treat one's

life

as a

not necessarily the same thing as abandonment to this

anaesthesia treated as

and voluntary

an absolute

to anything else)

one's-self free

data

it

of it

(as

may

passivity.

But

just because

justification. I

at least

being

be a recognition of the right to set not realised. Here the really

not forthcoming, such a

have grounds

but destroy myself.

life is

of

if certain conditions are

a kind of plenitude, a kind of expansiveness. is

state

something which does not exist in relation

become extremely complex. Life is

or expansiveness

hazard

being identified with

When this plenitude life

loses its intrinsic

for saying that there is

What is this T? 92

It is

my life,

nothing to do

which

is

this

time

and which has the amazing privilege of selfseems to follow from this that the thought of suicide itself

ranged against negation.

It

dwells at the very heart of a

which

life

without a hazard (just as divorce arises

it

entered

is

thought of and willed always kept within call when is

from a union which implies no

upon

before anyone,

and

I

vow and

has not been

think this parallel might be

carried a long way). 1

We cannot hope to find even there the clue for a

purely logical

of the thesis upheld by the champions of suicide. Nothing will force us to conceive of the hazard; no objective reason can be refutation

found

to stop us

root of freedom

from

killing ourselves.

We are here at the common

and of faith.

December gib, 1931 I return to the

make

problem of hope.

It

seems to

me that the conditions

same as those which hope make it possible to despair. Death considered as the springboard^of an absolute hope. world where death was missing would be a world where hope only existed in the larval stage. that

it

possible to

are strictly the

A

December iothf 1931 I

was writing

to

L

yesterday after reading his remarkable

of idealism: hope is to desire what patience is to passivity. This seems to me very important. Patience: I was thinking this analysis

I

1 still

think this parallel could be carried a long way, and that it is of a on the meaning of the Christian idea of the

nature to throw greater light

one might indissolubility of marriage. While thinking of this connection be led on to make this fact clear; that for a metaphysic of freedom and fidelity,

call the

the marriage tie has a substantial reality of its own, like what we union of the body and soul. To be quite honest, however, I must

admit that this way of thinking makes me a little uneasy, and I find it hard to reconcile the lessons of experience (as I should be tempted to call them) with demands in the order of metaphysic and theology. (Note written August, 1934.)

93

open; one can even say that the world despair appears possible in

which counsel despair.

This

is

it.

is

so constructed that absolute

Things

are constantly

us, or so

one would think,

of the

importance.

first

to

drown

happening ourselves in

Fidelity considered as the recognition of something permanent.

We

are

now beyond

the opposition between understanding

and

The

feeling. recognition of Ulysses by Eumaeus, of Christ on the road to Emmaus, etc., etc. The idea of an ontological permanence

the as

permanence of that which to the

opposed

lasts,

of that which implies

history,

permanence of an essence or a formal arrange-

ment.

Witness considered perpetuated witness,

an

as the act

beginning of things

the

Church

a

of fidelity.

October 6th .

It is

an

essential characteristic

of the being to

whom

liable to be betrayed, but also in fidelity to be not only

I give

my

some manner

by my betrayal. Fidelity regarded as witness perpetuated; is of the essence of witness that it can be obliterated and

affected

but

it

wiped

out.

Must

see

think that witness

Being

is,

as

important, and

obliteration

can happen. Perhaps

outworn, and no longer corresponds to

were, attested.

it

I

is

how this

The

senses are witnesses

we

reality.

this is

think new: systematically ignored by idealism.

October ?tb

The

consideration arises: Is the object to

myself worthy of my being consecrated tive values

Fidelity

its

which

service?

I have vowed The compara-

of causes.

Consider creative creative. Is

to

its

creative

fidelity,

power

a

fidelity

only safeguarded by being

in proportion to

its

ontological worth?

can only be shown towards a person, never at all to a An absolute fidelity involves an absolute person.

notion or an ideal.

96

a creature presuppose Him fidelity to bind myself (as in the sacrament of marriage)? not enough to say that we live in a world where betrayal is

Question: docs not an absolute in

whose It is

sight I

possible at every

and of each by

moment and

in every form: betrayal of all by

himself. I repeat, this betrayal seems pressed

all

upon us

by the very shape of our world. The spectacle of death is a perpetual The essence of our world is perhaps betrayal.

invitation to deny.

But

if

still,

we

proclaim

we becoming

not

this betrayal, are

its

accomplices? 1 Memory an ontological sign. Inseparable from witness. Is it not the essence of man to be a being who can bear witness? The problem of the metaphysical foundation of witness is obvi-

ously as central as any.

was it

there/

Not

elucidated.

The whole of history

prolongs: in this sense history

While

I

My

there, I assert that I

brain

feels

amazingly

which

rooted in religion.

was walking about just now between

the Boulevard Raspail, a great

head.

was

the function of a witness

is

is

'I

many

the

other things

Pantheon and

came

into

my

fertile.

was thinking, too, of the Rite, as giving rhythm to fidelity, and of the betrayal which lurks in the very heart of religious practice I

under the form of habit. This about creative

fidelity.

Surely

relevant to

is

this

is,

my

notes this

morning

besides, the very definition of

saintliness?

begin to

I also

realise the

deeper meaning of piety towards the

dead, taken as the refusal to betray a person treating

him just

as

no longer

existing. It

is

an

who

active protest against

a kind of trick of appearances, a refusal to yield to self

you

has existed by

it

or to lend one's

wholeheartedly to the game. If you say 'they no longer are not only denying them,

you are

also

exist*

f

denying yourself and

perhaps making an absolute denial. 1

is surely in regard to space what memory is in regard to beside the point that telepathy only appears in flashes.

Telepathy time.

c

It is

97

M.B.H.

I believe that at last I

have begun to

see the

of examin-

possibility

ing the very idea of proving the existence of God, with regard to the

Thomist

proofs. It

is

a fact that they are not universally convincing.

How

can we explain their partial ineffectiveness? The arguments presuppose that we have already grounded ourselves on God, and

what they are really doing is to bring to the level of discursive thought an act of a wholly different kind. These, I believe, are not ways, but blind ways, as one can have blind windows.

Thinking of all of thought

more

is

this, I

began

to

wonder whether my instrument

a reflexive intuition, whose nature should be defined

closely.

Perhaps we are living in a specially favourable period for religion, because that betrayal whose home is the world is now shown in its

The fundamental

true light.

illusions

of the nineteenth century are

now dispelled. October 8th 'Reflexive intuition'

what

I

mean is

this. It

is

me that

seems to

am anyhow on one level of myself sense I see

it.

happy expression. But am bound to admit that I

certainly not a

In another sense

I

I

face to face with Being. In a

cannot say that

grasp myself in the act of seeing

I see it since I

The intuition is

it.

not,

cannot

and cannot

But in turning towards its object, it sheds light upon a whole world of thoughts which lie beneath it. Metaphysically speaking, I do not see how else we can be, directly reflected in consciousness.

account for

faith. It

seems to

me

being Alexandrine theology, but that an intuition of this sort lies

comes very near

must make sure of this.

at the root

always open to question. saw this, but I was mistaken*.

reality is I

that this all I

I

of

all

fidelity,

can always say 'Yes,

Am very much absorbed by the question of witness. province of witness the province of experience 98

at large?

I

to

think

but

its

I thought

Is

not the

Today we

tend to think too

little

of witness and just

to see in

accurate report of an Erlebnis. But if witness

impossible; for absolutely

it is

nothing,

it

is

the

more or

only that,

I said yesterday

unconscious), and

home of betrayal

the world the

knowing

itself to

is

nothing can guarantee that

the Erlebnis will be capable of survival or confirmation.

what

less

it

Compare

(conscious or

be so with an ever-increasing

clarity.

October ^tb It is

possible for pure reason to attack witness

tend that no valid witness can really be produced.

of particular witness that

it

and

in toto,

It is

to pre-

of the essence

should be capable of being doubted.

We are tempted to extend this suspicion to all possible witness, to witness in

Is this

itself.

justifiable if

we

proceedure really justifiable? Surely only

are capable

of defining a

which a witness should fulfil if it is

priori those

conditions

and of

to be recognised as valid

showing furthermore that such conditions are not realised or, at the very

they cannot be

least, that

shown

to be realised.

the case of doubting one's existence, the issue

is

But

here, as in

nothing

less

than

the question of a root-and-branch devaluation both of memory

of all translation into conceptual terms of this

Erlebnis,

which

and

is

in

itself inexpressible.

Surely

it is

of the essence of anything ontological

that

it

can be

no more than attested? must be the thought of itself; it can only be in the heart of Being and in reference to Being. In a world

But the justified

where

attestation

Erlebnis

is

everything, in a world of simple instants, the

attestation disappears;

tion

is

but then

how can

it

be attestation if attesta-

appearance?

October loth Attestation

is

a personal thing;

it

99

brings the personality into play,

but

by

it is

at the

this tension

And

same time turned towards Being, and is characterised between the personal and the ontological factors.

something unsatisfactory; and I still cannot manage to formulate it in my own mind. I do see clearly, however, that I am in complete opposition to such attitudes as in

yet,

all this I find

Griscbach's; I see in assertion.

memory one essential

How much

also to St.

aspect of the ontological

nearer I feel to Bergson in this regard,

Augustine!

What

is

and

witness in Bergson? surely a con-

But the very notion of consecration is an ambiguous one, and we must beware of interpreting it in a pragmatist sense. secration.

Notice that attesting means not only witnessing but also calling to witness. There is an essential triad-relation here. This in the sense

of dieJournal Me'taphysique. 1 October 22nd

THE POSITION OF THE ONTOLOGICAL MYSTERY: ITS CONCRETE APPROACHES. This

is

the proposed

phical Society.

The

title

for

my paper to the Marseilles

Philoso-

phrase 'mystery of being, ontological mystery' 9

'problem of being, ontological problem has suddenly come to me in these last few days. It has enlightened me. as against

Metaphysical thought

But

it is

an

reflection trained

essential part

on

of a mystery that

it

mystery.

should be acknow-

ledged; metaphysical reflection presupposes this

which

is

outside

its

acknowledgment,

own sphere.

Distinguish between the Mysterious and the Problematic.

problem

me

in

which

is

something met with which bars

its entirety.

myself caught up, and whose

I find

to be before

me

in

distinction between 1

my passage.

A mystery, on the other hand, its

in

entirety. It is as

is

something in therefore not

this

province the

me and before me loses its meaning.

Sec Journal Mttapbysique, p. 145. (Translator's note.)

100

A

before

is

essence

though in

It is

The

The

Natural.

province of the Natural

province of the Problematic.

is

the

same

as the

We are tempted to ttwrn mystery into

problem.

The Mysterious and Ontological are identical. There is a mystery of knowledge which belongs

to the ontological order (as Maritain

saw) but the epistemologist does not ignoring

it,

know

this,

makes a point of

and turns it into a problem.

A typical example: the 'problem of

evil*. I treat evil as

dent befalling a certain mechanism which

which

is

the universe

an

acci-

itself,

but

not suppose myself placed. Thereby only as immune to the disease or weakness, but also as someone

before

I

I treat myself,

standing outside the universe and claiming to put least in

thought) in

But what

access

of access here

is

its

it

together (at

entirety.

can

I

have to ontology as such? The very notion

obviously inapplicable.

It

only has meaning in a

problematic enquiry. If a certain place has already been plotted out, the question

is

then,

how can

I

gain access to

it.

Impossible to

treat

being in this way. Presence and mystery equivalent Predisposition for revelation. structed

probe further into

this.

Whereas in a world-picture con-

from a problematic point of view, revelation appears

to be

supererogatory. It

follows from

trained

upon

my definition of metaphysical thought as reflection

mystery, that progress in this sort of thinking

There really conceivable. It is

detail.

is

is

not

only progress in problematic thought.

a proper character of problems, moreover, to be reduced to Mystery,

reduced to

on

the other hand,

is

something which cannot be

detail.

October

A

first

question of the phenomenological order: whence comes

the almost insuperable suspicion aroused by

101

all

researches into

being in most minds, even those most inclined to metaphysic?

doubt

answer

if the right

ianism upon intellectuals: tell

to cite the persistent influence

is it

has in fact considerably diminished. To

the truth, Bergsonianism has here acted in the

Kantianism.

I

we really find

think that

I

of Kant-

could not formulate, but which

a feeling

I will try to describe

we become more and more convinced

same way

which

as a rule

as

we

that

by saying

that, strictly speaking, there

no problem of Being and no problematic approach to it: I believe that if we examined the very idea 'problem* more closely, that would is

A considerable

be enough to convince us. fact that

we have

their

is

the

acquired the execrable habit of considering the

problems in themselves, that

which

hindrance here

appearance

is,

in abstraction from the

woven

is

into the very texture of

scientist is privileged in this respect.

given point in his research,

it is

manner in

A

scientific

something the

problem

mind

life.

A

arises at

stumbles

a

upon

problem whatever implies upon the provisional breaking-offof a continuity which the mind has to as the foot stumbles

a stone.

Any

re-establish.

October 31 st

Consider Being as the principle of inexhaustibility. Joy is bound up with a feeling of something inexhaustible, as Nietzsche saw. Return to my former remark on Being, that it is resistance to critical dissolution.

This links up with

remarks on despair.

my

A knotty

point. The place of despair is where we can make an inventory (where

we can say 'I have made my reckoning, and I shall not have the means of doing',

etc.).

But Being

speak, the shock

felt

by more*. 'Whatever comes

But teristic

this principle

is

the to

above

all inventories.

mind when an end

is

Despair

is,

meets with 'There

so to is

no

too short* (St. Augustine).

of inexhaustibility

nor a series of characteristics: here

between mystery and problem which 102

it

is itself

neither a charac-

we return to the opposition

I described

above.

/

November

ist

Space and time considered

as manifestations

The universe as the dehiscence of Being? Every individual being in so infinite)

felt

stated in theoretical terms,

not stating

it

is

a closed-up thing (though

problem of Being, when the impossibility for us of

before the

and

also

on this level.

The technical lem

it is

subject to

correlated to the problematic; every genuine probits

own technique, and

every technique consists in

resolving problems of a determinate type. thetically

A notion worth trying.

a symbol or expression of the ontological mystery.

is

November jtb Start from the uneasiness it is

far as

of inexhaustibility. 1

Can we

posit

hypo-

a metaproblematic, metatechnical sphere?

November 8tb

is

on

the idea of a

problem leads us to ask if there not a touch of contradiction in the very act of posing a problem

Deeper

reflection

of being. Philosophy on

its

metacritical side

is

directed towards a meta-

problematic inquiry.

The need to

The

restore its ontological weight to

metaproblematic

human

experience.

the peace that passeth all understanding

eternity.

November gtb

Must

scrutinise the

meaning of what

I

called the ontological

weight of human experience; here Jaspers may be Analyse such a formula as: 1

useful.

But elsewhere I define them as paired modes of absence. There is a whole dialectic to be drawn from this, and it lies at the heart of both travel and history. (Note written October 8th, 1934.) 103

am

'I

am

only what I

philosophy which has

worth (but

I

issue in despair

its

am

worth nothing)/ a

and can only be disguised

by a carefully preserved illusion.

The

datum

fact that despair is possible is a central

here.

Man

is

capable of despair, capable of hugging death, of hugging his own central datum for metaphysic, but such definitions of death.

A

man as that proposed essential merit

its

up

Thomism cover it up and

of Kierkegaard and his school, to

having brought to take

by

datum

this

into full view.

And

disguise

my

mind,

it.

The

is

their

metaphysic ought

position just there, face to face with despair.

The

ontological problem cannot be separated from that of despair. (But

they are not problems.)

Must think about seems to

me

that the

the problem of the reality of other selves.

problem can be

stated in

such a

way

It

as to

exclude in advance any solution which can be accepted or even understood; that myself. If we

is,

by centring

my

begin, like Descartes,

self-consciousness, there

is

reality

on my consciousness of

by assuming

that

my

essence

is

no longer a way out.

November nth

Not only do we have

a right to assert that others exist, but I

should be inclined to contend that existence can be attributed only and in virtue of their otherness, and that I cannot think

to others,

of myself as existing except in so far as I conceive of myself as not being the others: and so as other than them. I would go so far as to say that

it is

of the essence of the Other that he

of him as other without thinking of him only

arises

when

his otherness

is,

so to say,

exists. I

cannot think

as existing.

Doubt

expunged from

my

mind. I ity

would go

so far as to ask if the cogito (whose incurable

can never be too

think, I

am

clearly

exposed) does not

standing back from myself, I

104

really

am

ambigumean: 'when I

raising myself

up

before myself as other,

conception as this

is

and

radically

opposed

the self as self-conscioihness.

Would

self in so far as

it is

exists in so far as

and

to another;

it

appear as existent/ Such a

I therefore

being

therefore in so far as

defines

be absurd to say that the

it

self-consciousness

treats itself as

which

to the idealism

only sulexistent?

is

for another, it

It

only

with reference

recognises that

eludes

it

itself.

People will say: 'These assertions are as ambiguous in their content as they are arbitrary in their form.

What

real

do you

existence

speak of? Empirical existence or metaphysical existence? Empirical

denied by none; but

it has a phenomenal character, for from being my thought of the others. And then the problem has merely shifted its ground/ But I think that it is just this position with which we should refuse to have anything

existence

is

nothing will stop the others

admit that the others are only my thought of the others; my idea of the others, it becomes utterly impossible to break the circle

to do. If I

one has begun by drawing round one's-self. If you posit the primacy of subject-object the primacy of the category subject-object or of the act by

within

which

itself,

the subject

sets

up

objects

somehow

the existence of others becomes unthinkable.

does any existence whatever; there

is

or other

And

so

no doubt of that.

and the He: the philosophy of self-consciousthe others are truly outside a sort of circle which I form

Self-consciousness ness.

In

this

with myself. From this point of view, I have no power of making contact with them; the very idea of communication is impossible. I

cannot help regarding

this intra-subjective reality

of the others

as

an absolutely mysterious and for ever impalpable have here, in a general form, the most abstract features of

the emerging of

X.

We

Proust's world, though one also finds hints in Proust

which

are not

only different from these but even contradictory. These hints be-

come more

Me and

scattered as the

itself becomes

book goes on,

as the circle

formed by the

more marked and more enclosed. At 105

Com-

bray and in everything to do with

There

exist.

develops, as the experience

Thou

elaborated, the

and

it

describes

is

circle

still

does not

book

hardened, sharpened and

banished from the

is

story.

This

is

decisively

death of the grandterribly apparent in the passage about the

mother. (I must say that

I

think

conscious knowledge which

about

either his

the

we

are here

was in

it

far

beyond the

power

to arrive at

going

Proust's

work or himself.)

People will say again, 'But

and

Combray the

a possible place for the Thou. But as the

is

He only applies to

in the most exclusive sense of the word.

Thou

between the

this distinction

mental attitudes:

it is

phenomenological you claim to give a

Do

metaphysical basis to this distinction, or a metaphysical validity to the

Thou?'

The and

sense

of the question is the really difficult thing to explain Let us try to state it more clearly, like this, for

elucidate.

example.

When

I treat

Thou and no longer as a He, me alone and my attitude by treating him as a Thou I pierce

another as a

does this difference of treatment qualify to this other, or

more deeply

can

into

I say that

him and apprehend

his being or his essence

more

directly?

Here again we must be 'apprehending his essence

by 'piercing more deeply' or directly', we mean reaching a more

careful. If

more

exact knowledge, a knowledge that

is

in

some

sense

more

objective,

we must certainly reply 'No'. In this respect, if we cling to a mode of objective definition, it will always be in our power to say that the Thou is an illusion. But nonce that the term essence is itself extremely ambiguous; by essence we can understand either a nature then

perhaps of my essence qua freedom to be able to

or a freedom. It

is

conform myself

or not to

essence to be able not to be

my

essence qua nature. It may be of

betray myself. Essence qua nature

In

fact if I treat the

Thou

my

what I am; in plain words, to be able to

as a

is

He, 106

not what I

I

reach in the

Thou.

reduce the other to being only

nature;

an animated object which works in some ways and not in on the contrary, I treat the other as Thou, I treat him and

others. If,

apprehend him qua freedom. I apprehend him qua freedom because he is also freedom, and is not only nature. What is more, I help him, in a

sense, to

be freed,

I collaborate

with his freedom.

The

formula sounds paradoxical and self-contradictory, but love is always proving it true. On the other hand, he is really other qua free-

dom;

in fact qua nature he appears to

me identical with what

I

am

On this side,

no doubt, and only on this side, I can work on him by suggestion (there is an alarming and frequent confusion between the workings of love and the workings of myself qua nature.

suggestion).

And

so light

in so far as he

him, in so

is

far as

as I cease to

is

thrown on

other, only

he

is

form a

a

this

morning's formulae.

exists for

Thou. But

circle

I

me

in so far as I

The

am

other,

open

to

am only open to him in so far

with myself, inside which

I

somehow

place the other, or rather his idea; for inside this circle the other

becomes the idea of the

other,

and the idea of the other

the other qua other, but the other qua related to tion he

is

taken to

uprooted and taken to

bits,

is

no longer

me; and in this condi-

or at least in process of being

bits.

November ijtb Everything that can be enunciated is thinkable or, more accuwe can enunciate which some of us cannot rately, there is nothing

moment. The resources of language can be compared at all points to an extremely efficient network of communications. But travelling round is in itself nothing. And discourse for the sake of discourse is less than nothing. also believe or think at a given

These observations were suggested by some sort of aesthetic pseudo-appreciations I have forgotten now what they were. But alas! they are also applicable to a great deal

107

of pseudo-metaphysics.

November i$tb

Are

there

by which the

the act

which

grounds which

I builds

posits the reality

it

how are we to

priority,

justify us in

up

own

its

of others?

understand

assuming the

of

self-hood over the act by

And

it? It

priority

if

we

are to accept this

can be conceived

either in

an empirical or a transcendental sense. Empirically my province consists of the sum of my states of consciousness; this province has the distinctive characteristic of being felt, and of being my province in so far as all clear;

it is felt.

This seems

clear

the appearance of clarity

a sort of materialist representation Instead of concentrating

is

enough, but

which

and

is

to

limited sphere

we put in its

which

'goes on* in the

which

I call

my body.

bottom of all empiricist notions of the primacy

of self-consciousness, there everything that

my opinion,

felt as felt,

place the idea of an organic event, something

I believe that at the

not really at

underlies these formulae.

on thinking of the

allegedly perfectly distinct

it is

entirely due, in

for

really lies the

me must

first

rudimentary idea that

pass through

my

body: there

is

of my body as an absolute intermediary. The supporters of theory do not dream of making an out-and-out effort to dis-

this idea

this

cover what order the body-self relationship belongs they ask the meaning of the mental act by

body

is

assert

it

which

to,

nor yet do

I assert that this

would not go so far as to my body. possible though that there is a vicious circle here, and that we cannot avoid I

It is

passing {torn feeling to a certain representation of my body, in order that

we may later explain,

of which

my body

is

my

in terms of feeling, the privilege in virtue

body. I

am

inclined to think that if one

wants to keep to the empirical point of view, there can be no question of going beyond the assertion 'this body', and that the expression 'my body* only looks like a source of unintelligibility

and

radical irrationality.

It is

quite different if

we

take

what

point of view.

108

I called the transcendental

November i6th Notice that one kind of philosophy of Life constitutes an obstacle to meditation on Being. The meditation is in danger of appearing

beyond or below the philosophy. These essential and give us the key.

to develop

notes are

first

'The hiding* I wrote 'of my being from my consciousness by something which is not and cannot be given to me.' My life cannot be given to me; and in spite of appearances, given to not,

me

either, in so far as

to myself is

ing to

me

(e.g.

my body and

an apparatus belong-

a watch). Americans have themselves 'checked up*

A revealing phrase. In practice you can go as

like in that direction,

but there

is

always something

checking-up; there are accidents, etc. As soon as distinction has been made between being, there

about

it.

be,

possible the difference between

in clinics.

cannot be

my body

incarnate in

my My body is an object in the sense that an apparatus exterior an object. There is a tendency to minimise as much as

and cannot

life is

is

an almost

and

this being,

effort to picture

it

to

irresistible

far as

you

that escapes the

my

life

and

my

temptation to set a

wonder in what

it

forces us to sketch this

problem and every

consists:

problem or pseudo-

problem.

The

question 'what

am

I?'

seems to

demand an answer

same time, every answer seems in danger of being rejected or of falling short. be conceptualised; but

But

is this

specify: the etc., the

formulate

which

it,

a legitimate question? Here

more

less

at the

I

adhere to

my

actions,

it

my

that

can

can

be,

becomes necessary

to

social surroundings,

does this question really arise for me. I can always

but

rings full

it

does not ring true.

and

The

true question, the

clear, so to say, the true

one

question presupposes

a certain detachment or separation of myself from what

from

that

I

do and

my manner of sharing in the common life of men.

Could

it

be objected that this detachment

109

is

an

illegitimate

abstraction?

But

in this sense

become

My

life

for

is

evaluates

The

I.

it?

An essential datum. But what am

Impossible to cling to the fiction of a

I that evaluates is the

must be added that

It

my life, understood common world may

fact that

object of judgment, approval or condemnation.

something I can evaluate.

transcendental

judged.

an indisputable

as participation in this

me an

which

I, this I

it is

i.e.

my

life,

same

as the I that

just in so far as I lead

is

it, is,

were, shot through by an implicit evaluation (whether adhered to or disobeyed; for I may be leading a life which something within as

it

me is

continually protesting against with a dull insistence). This

complex and in some ways contradictory as it is, I ask the question 'What am I?' But it is a

the state of things,

discovered by

me when

real situation,

and just because it

from

is

so constituted that within

see the crucial significance

permanent

of my

its

my

despair

between

is

is

my

that therefore every

nothing

it is

make

we

looks like a say, to

seen in the perspec-

in declaring myself

a collaboration (in the sense of

this obsessive picture

and

at first sight

indeed, one might almost

assertion that I

to

of that word)

a possibility. In this fact

of death. Death

There

life.

that

life offers

scrutinise the sense

at least in so far as

shapes

and of the

life

identical with betrayal)

it

invitation to despair

betrayal in all tive

can evade it and withdraw

real I

it.

Our world (some day we must is

is

of death and the feeling

hold on to beyond the moment lived,

bond, every commitment, every vow, rests on the arbitrary prolongation into eternity of a mere passing moment. All fidelity being thus rejected or uprooted,

on a lie,

since

it

rests

the betrayal itself now becomes changed in character. that

it is itself

betrayal

the true fidelity;

betrayal

in the instant. But in setting

up

of the here

and what we

instant, betrayal

we

of the

are in the realm

is

it

real

calls

Me experienced we

for

transcend

a merely dialectical refutation,

no

claims it

of the unthinkable;

the principle of fidelity to the instant,

the instant. This, however,

Now

call fidelity,

which

in

my

view

is

lacking in real

effect.

And

anyhow, an

refutation ought to be impossible here; despair there

is

only

room for

us to opt

on one

is

effective

irrefutable.

side or the other;

Here

it is

past the

can only be given

to us in

province of any dialectic. I

note in passing that absolute

fidelity

the person of certain witnesses, above all the martyrs.

And it

must

be given to something in us which itself belongs to the order of faith. Whereas experience of betrayal is everywhere; and first of all in ourselves.

November i8th

The

am

I'?

What

like, that I

The

from the problem of being to the question 'What am I, I who ask questions about being? What am I

transition

should be led to ask these questions?

transition

scale here; a

from problem

to mystery.

There

problem conceals a mystery in so

an ascending it is capable of

is

far as

awakening ontological overtones (the problem of survival, for instance).

The problem of the problem:

that

is

relation

of soul and body

is

more than a

the implicit conclusion of Existence and Objectivity. 1

Something unrepresentable yet concrete something which is more than an idea, and exceeds every idea we can form, something which is a presence. An object as such is not present. 2 November i2tb

A

was talking to the abbe yesterday about Theresa NeuI was mann. This morning thinking with exasperation of the rationalist's attitude to such facts. They would refuse to give them I

a hearing. Reflecting next 1

2

upon my own

exasperation, I thought

it

Appendix of the Journal Mttapbysique. (Ed. N.R.F.)

A

possible way towards written October loth, 1934.)

a theory of eucharistic presence. (Note

ill

was

surely to be traced to

some

residue of doubt in myself. If I were

should only experience a feeling of pure charity and pity for doubters. I think this discovery is far-reaching. It seems to me that charity is bound up with being sure. This must be

absolutely sure, I

1

developed.

November 28tb

A sentence came to my outside a shop. 'There

is

lips as I

looked

at

something called being have chosen the

else called active existence. I

thing

a dog lying

down

and some-

alive,

latter/

December $tb After the strains and

Le Mort

de

stresses

Demain on the

of the

where one no longer understands one's to say that the

word

mystery

is

last

few days (the putting of

reached the point this morning

stage) I

stuck

own thought. I was tempted

on

like a label saying, 'Please

do not touch/ In order to begin understanding again, we are always bound to refer back to the order of the problematic. Mystery is the metaproblematic.

We should also make use of the principle which I laid down last Saturday with regard to the denial

reality

and negation take on

say) density, in proportion as realities.

of other

selves: the possibility

for us a greater consistency

we mount further up

and

of

(so to

the hierarchy of

2

December 6tb I

was thinking

just

now

define this term for the 1

It

fear 2

moment

I will

not exactly

implies or requires a kind of

which must seem paradoxical; it comes down in admitting that the quality at the root of fanaticism is not certainty not even an unbalanced certainty but a mistrust of oncVsclf, a

contains an idea

fact to at all

that our condition

which one does not admit to one's-self. This

is

why

it is

so

much

easier to

(Note written October icth, 1934.)

112

deny

God

than to deny matter.

systematic sealing-off of mystery, both in ourselves

roundings. The

even an idea?

and in our

nection between the objective and the 'perfectly ordinary*.

on being

is

only possible for us

become

as

little

when we suddenly

which we have grown round

the enclosing shell ye

A grip

break through

ourselves. 'Except

Our condition can be transcended, and necessarily intermittent effort. The meta-

children

but only by a heroic

.

.*

.

physical essence of the object as such sealing-off.

sur-

done by the almost indefinable idea is it sealing of the 'perfectly ordinary*. There is a close conis

We cannot specify

it

is

perhaps simply

further than that.

power of

its

We cannot, in

the presence of any object, question ourselves about the mystery

hidden within

it.

Such a question would be no more than pseudo-

1

problematic.

Deccmkr nth I

2 morning on the subject of recollection. This is a datum upon which very little work seems to have been

have dwelt

central

done.

Not

this

I

only

strident voices

am

which

in a position to impose silence usually

fill

silence has a positive quality.

possession of myself.

It is

in

my

the

consciousness, but also, this

Within

itself a

upon

the silence, I can regain

principle of recovery. I should

be tempted to say that recollection and mystery are correlatives. Thpre is, properly speaking, no such thing as recollection in face

of a problem. On the contrary, the problem puts me in some ways into a state of mental tension. Whereas recollection is rather the

banishment of tension. Notice, however, that these terms

and 'relaxation*

are apt in

some directions to mislead

'tension*

us.

1

In this we see the metaphysical root of all genuine poetry, for the very essence of poetry lies in not questioning but asserting. There is a close link between the poetic and the prophetic. (Note written October loth, I934-) 2

In the

H

spiritual

sense. (Translator's note.)

113

M.B.H.

If we asked ourselves

what could be

of a being capable of recollection,

we

the metaphysical make-up should be a long way nearer

to a concrete ontology.

December ijtb I

The

must make one point clear at the beginning of my statement. question I have in mind is: How to define the kind of meta-

which seems

physical climate

the only favourable

for

to

me

the most favourable

perhaps developing assertions about the supra-

sensible order?

December i8tb After agonising hours of almost complete intellectual blindness, I

suddenly came to a

new and clearer comprehension while crossing

1 Monatgne Sainte-Genevieve.

the

We must see that: (1)

The

ontological need, in the effort to explain

not to be comparable with the search

after

itself, is

found

a solution.

The metaproblematic is a participation on which my reality subject is built (WE DO NOT BELONG TO OURSELVES); and

(2) as

reflection will

cannot be a

show us

solution.

in transcendent reality, into

transcendent

that such a participation, if

If it were,

it

would

it is

genuine,

cease to be a participation

and would become, instead, an interpolation

reality,

and would be degraded in the process.

We must therefore proceed to make two distinct inquiries. One of these prepares

for the other, but does not condition

in a sense, lead towards each other.

They

it,

and both,

an investigation an investigation of the

are: (a)

of the nature of the ontological need, and (V) conditions in which a participation assumed to be a participation then discover that it is just in reality could become thinkable.

We

this participation 1

which passes beyond the order of the problematic,

A

district

of Paris. (Translator's note.)

114

and beyond what can be

shown that in

fact, as

soon

But

the realm of problem.

problem. It must next be presence, we have gone beyond

stated as a

as there at the

is

same time we

shall see that the

motive power that activates all thought which proceeds by means of problems and solutions that this motive power gives a provisional character to every judgment

may it

rise to

always give

loses its

worth

we make,

problems. But

it

so that every presence

can only do so in so

far as

as presence.

December 2otb

within being, enfolded by it. The ontological can only arrive at it by a reflection at one remove, which depends upon an experience of presence.

Knowledge

is

mystery of knowledge.

We

December 22nd

Have seen clearly the connection between the problem of suffering (and no doubt of evil generally) and the problem of my body. The problem of the metaphysical justification of suffering contains a reference

which

I

(which may be disguised) to my suffering, or to a suffering make mine by assuming it. If no account is taken of this

problem becomes meaningless. Hence the curiously hollow note of Leibnitz's remarks on this subject (and even, in a

reference, the

way, of Spinoza's, by very reason of his heroism). But the difficulty have noticed so often before arises here once more with its full

we

force.

The problem,

it

would seem,

is

stated

with greater sharpness

as the suffering invades my being more completely. Yet on the other hand, the more this is so, the less can I split it off from myself, as it were, and take up my position before it. It is embodied in me; it is

me.

December 2jrd In this aspect, the problem of suffering, more deeply considered, tends to take on the same form as it does in the book of Job. But

his problem, torn out of its theological context, means that the more nearly suffering touches me, the more arbitrary is the act by

which

I consider the suffering as outside

by which

accidentally endured: the act, that

is,

underlying soundness in

(this is

cases

of bereavement or through a

see this

torn

my being

illness).

veil. I

hope

it

And

myself and (as I

it

assume a

were)

of

sort

particularly easy to see in

yet I feel that I

can

still

only

will not be long before the veil

is

away.

OUTLINE OF AN ESSAY READ TO THE SOCIETY OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES at Marseilles, on

January 2ist, 1933, on the Position of the Ontological Mystery and the Concrete Approaches to it.

(A) If we consider the

present position of philosophical thought,

of a consciousness which

as expressed in the depths

fathom

own

its

needs,

we

are led, I think, to

make

trying to

is

the following

observations:

The

(1)

traditional terms in

trying to state the

which

is

which some people

are today

still

problem of being, commonly arouse a mistrust

hard to overcome.

Its

source

lies

not so

much

in the

adherence, whether explicit or implicit, to Kantian or simply idealist theories, as in the fact that people's

of Bergsonian

would (2)

criticism.

sees this

are soaked in the results

even in those minds which

not stand by Bergsonianiam in its metaphysical aspects.

On the other hand, the complete withdrawal from the prob-

lem of being which phical systems

maintained.

can

It

characterises so

in the

is

and

a more or

this is

what

less explicit

of a hearing to the

last analysis

either

fence, hardly defensible else

One

minds

many contemporary an

attitude

be reduced to a kind of

and

generally

due to

generally happens

denial of Being,

essential

it

sitting

on

the

laziness or timidity: or really

which

comes

down

to

disguises the refusal

needs of our being. Ours

116

philoso-

which cannot be

is

a being

whose concrete

essence

to be in every

is

which

way

involved,

and

therefore

must not only undergo, but must also make its own by somehow re-creating it from within. The denial of Being could not really be the empirical demonstration

to find itself at grips with a fate

of an absence or choose to

make

make

We

lack.

it,

and we

it

can only make the denial because we can therefore just as well choose not to

it.

()

It is also

worth noticing

that I

who

ask questions about

Being do not in the first place know either if I am nor a fortiori what I am. I do not even clearly know the meaning of the question 'what am I?' though I am obsessed by it. So we fee the problem of Being here encroaching upon

who

its

own

data,

and being studied

actually

In the process, it is denied (or as and becomes transcended) metamorphosed to mystery. problem, (C) In fact, it seems very likely that there is this essential differinside the subject

states it.

ence between a problem and a mystery.

which

I

meet, which

I

A problem

find complete before me, but

is

something I can

which

and reduce. But a mystery is something in myself involved, and it can therefore only be thought

therefore lay siege to

which of as

me

I

am

a sphere where the distinction between what

loses its

ject to

meaning and

its initial

validity.

is in

me and what

A genuine problem

an appropriate technique by the

exercise

is

before

is

of which

subit

is

defined: whereas a mystery, by definition, transcends every con-

ceivable technique. It

is,

no doubt, always

possible (logically

psychologically) to degrade a mystery so as to turn

But

this is

it

and

into a problem.

a fundamentally vicious proceeding, whose springs

might perhaps be discovered in a kind of corruption of the intelligence. The problem of evil, as the philosophers have called it, supplies us with a particularly instructive example of this degradation.

(D)

Just because

it is

of the essence of mystery to be recognised

or capable of recognition,

it

may 117

also be ignored

and

actively

denied.

It

then becomes reduced to something I have 'heard talked

about*, but which

only being/or other people; and that in

of an illusion which these

virtue I

I refuse as

'others' are

deceived by, but which

myself claim to have detected.

We and

must

the

unknowable. The unknowable

case of the problematic, diction.

The

all

which cannot be

recognition of mystery,

on

in fact only the limiting

is

actualised without contra-

the contrary,

of the mind, the supremely positive

ally positive act

which

between the mysterious

carefully avoid all confusion

positivity

may

perhaps be

is

an

essenti-

act in virtue

of

defined. In this sphere strictly

if I found myself acting on an intuition without immediately knowing myself to possess it an intuition which cannot be, strictly speaking, self-conscious

everything seems to go on as

which

I possess

and which can grasp itself only through which its image is reflected, and which

in

reflected in sist

The

them.

in a reflection

essential

upon

which otherwise

modes of experience

lights

metaphysical step

this reflection (in

By means of this, thought intuition

the it

a reflection 'squared').

towards the recovery of an

stretches out

loses itself in

proportion as

Recollection, the actual possibility of which the most revealing ontological index

whose centre this (JE)

up by being thus would then con-

we

may

possess,

is

it is

exercised.

be regarded as

the real place in

recovery can be made.

The 'problem of being',

into inadequate

then, will only be the translation

knguage of a mystery which cannot be given

a creature capable of recollection a creature whose central characteristic is perhaps that he is not simply identical with except to

his

own

life.

We

can find the proof or confirmation of this nonmore or less explicitly evaluate my life. It is

identity in the fact that I

in

my power

set

an

not only to

effective

considered in

term to

condemn

it

by an abstract verdict, but to an effective term to my life

If I cannot set

which may escape from my have power over the finite and material expression

its

grasp, I at least

it.

ultimate depths,

118

to

which

I

that suicide for all

am is

at liberty to believe that this life is is,

possible

betrayal in all

its

aspects,

of being, and in so

as active denials

The

shuts itself up against the central

in so far as they appear to us

far as the soul

which

possible at every moment,

that the very constitution

not force us, to betrayal.

in

every degree,

and in

every form.

of our world recommends

The

provocation to denial and to absolute desertion.

and

that space

betrayal It

time, regarded as paired

It

seems

Us, if it does

spectacle of death as exhibited

world can, from one point of view, be regarded

added

despairs

and mysterious assurance in which

we believe we have found the principle of all positivity. (F) It is not enough to say that we live in a world where is

fact

And not only suicide: despair

genuine metaphysical thought.

in all its forms,

reduced.

in this sense, an essential point of reference

by the

as a perpetual

could also be

modes of absence,

back upon ourselves, to drive us into the beggarly instantaneity of pleasure. But it seems that at the same time, and correlatively, it is of the essence of despair, of betrayal,

tend, by throwing us

and even of death

itself,

word transcendence has more exactly,

that they

a meaning,

is

is

it

means

just this denial; or

(Uberwindung rather than Aufhebung.)

this overpassing.

For the essence of the world there

can be refused and denied. If the

perhaps betrayal,

or,

more accurately,

not a single thing in the world about which

certain that

its

spell

we can

could hold against the attacks of a

be

fearless

critical reflection.

(G)

If this

is

so,

the concrete approaches to the ontological

mystery should not be sought in the scale of logical thought, the rise to a prior question. They objective reference of which gives

should rather be sought in the elucidation of certain data which are own right, such as fidelity, hope and love, where spiritual in their

we may sion,

see

man at grips with

the temptations of denial, introver-

and hard-heartedness. Here the pure metaphysician has no

power

to decide

whether the principle of these temptations 119

lies

in

man's very nature, in the that nature, or whether it

intrinsic lies

and invariable

characteristics

rather in the corruption

of

of that same

nature as the result of a catastrophe which gave birth to history and

was not merely an incident in history. Perhaps on the ontological level it is It is

in fact the recognition

fidelity

which

matters most.

not a theoretical or verbal, but an

of an ontological permanency; a permanency which endures and by reference to which we endure, a permanency which implies or demands a history, unlike the inert or formal

actual recognition

permanency of a pure validity, a law for example. It is the perpetuation of a witness which could at any moment be wiped out or denied. It is an attestation which is creative as well as perpetual,

and more attests is

(H) tion,

creative in proportion as the ontological

worth of what

it

more outstanding.

An ontology with this orientation is plainly open to a revela-

which, however,

it

could not of course either

demand

or pre-

suppose or absorb, or even absolutely speaking understand, but the acceptance of which it can in some degree prepare for. To tell the

may only be capable of development in fact on a ground previously prepared by revelation. But on reflection we can truth, this ontology

nothing to surprise us, still less to scandalise us, in metaphysic can only grow up within a certain situation

see that there is this.

A

which stimulates it.

And in the situation which is ours, the existence

of a Christian datum renounce, once

is

an

essential factor. It surely

a system of affirmation valid for thought consciousness whatsoever. scientific

behoves us to

for all, the naively rationalist idea that

Such thought

knowledge, a subject which

is

you can have

in general,

as this

is

or for any

the subject of

an idea but nothing

else.

Whereas the ontological order can only be recognised personally by the whole of a being, involved in a drama which is his own, though

it

overflows

him

infinitely in all directions

a being to

whom the strange power has been imparted of asserting or denying 1

20

He

himself.

himself to

asserts

it:

himself in so

far as

he

asserts

Being and opens

or he denies himself by denying Being

closing himself to

In

It.

this

dilemma

lies

and thereby

the very essence of his

freedom.

EXPLANATIONS (1)

From

this point

of view, what becomes of the notion of

We

must obviously subject it to a proving the existence of God? careful revision. In my view, all proof refers to a certain datum,

which

is

here the belief in

The proof can which

I

it

in myself or in another.

only consist in a secondary reflection of the type

have defined; a reconstructive a reflection which

critical reflection;

far as

God, whether

is

remains the tributary of what

reflection grafted

upon a

a recovery, but only in so I

have called a blindfold

of the ontological mystery the motive force of this recovery through

intuition. It is clear that the apprehension as metaproblematic reflection.

is

But we must not

of the mind that

is

fail to

notice that

and not a

here in question,

proof can only confirm

for us

it is

what has

a reflexive motion

heuristic process.

really

The

been given to us in

another way.

What becomes of the notion of Divine attribute? This, on the level of philosophy, is much more obscure. At

(2)

ways of approach to the solution. And anyhow, there can only be a solution where there is a problem, and the phrase 'the problem of God* is certainly contradictory and even

present I can only see

sacrilegious.

The metaproblematic

is

above

passeth all understanding', but this Peace

Mauriac wrote in Le Noeud de a creative Peace.

It

seems to

is

all 'the

a living peace, and, as

Viperes, a Peace which

me

Peace which

that the infinity

is

somebody, and the omnipo-

tence of God, can also only be established in the reflexive way.

we

It is

cannot deny these attributes without falling back into the sphere of the problematic. This is possible for us to

understand that

121

tantamount to

is

to saying that the theology

which philosophy

leads us

an essentially negative theology.

(3)

We must question ourselves about the sense of the copula in

the light of the idea of the metaproblematic. For me, generally

being in so far as there is rootedness in the ontological mystery, and I should say from this point of view that the abstract alone as such does not exist (all its life is in the pure speaking, there

problematic). simply.

The

is

We must attach the 'being* of the copula to 'being*

latter irradiates

the 'being* of the copula (for instance,

the being of Peter irradiates the copula in Peter is good).

We must look more closely into my remarks on intuition; for not yet perfectly clear to me.

which

is,

as

of which presence

I

is

it

am really talking

were, active and purely active

it is

about an intuition

an

intuition, in fact,

could not in any manner have the disposal. But

expressed by the ontological unease

To

reflection.

I

explain this

illustration; perhaps the

we

should

demand

me. There

start

which

is

at

its

work

in

with an example or This

for purity or even for truth.

something to be discovered or invented here, if one does not wish to remain in a state of negation. intuition

is

not

What really

in

is

brings us to admit this intuition

is

the fact of reflect-

ing on the following paradox, / do not know myself what I believe; (A paradox which has held my attention for a long time; it must be scrutinised

make a

and

sort

defined.)

We instinctively assert the contrary. I can

of inventory of my objects of belief or a kind of 'valuabetween what / believe and what / do not believe.

tion* distinguishing

This implies that a difference is given me and can be felt by between what I adhere to and what I do not adhere to. Every specification

(referring to

a content in which

I assert

me that

know myself to believe)

presupposes at least the possibility of such an such an enumeration, inventory. But, on the other hand, it seems to me that the Being towards which the belief is directed is I

above every possible inventory. That 122

is

to say,

it

cannot be a thing

among

an object among

others,

others' has

no

others.

(And

'among

conversely,

rfieaning except for 'things' or 'objects'.)

Yet

this is

not absolutely clear, even to me.

(Of course we

need not here take into account the

positive Creed. In

this case the inventory is not

a whole which

is

precisely in

is

making

given as an

articles

of a

made by me. There

whole. Heresy consists

indivisible

arbitrary deductions from the body of such a

whole.) I shall certainly

be asked : 'of what belief do you speak? of what

faith?'

This again

is

asking

me to

specify. If I refuse to

do

so, I shall

be

blamed for remaining in a state of such vagueness that all discussion,

and

all

elucidation too, becomes impossible. Nevertheless this

faith, solid, entire,

and

must be upheld.

implies adherence to a

It

as

it

were prior to

never to be given piecemeal or offered

be impossible if this if

it

did not invest

me

reality

all

possible elucidation,

reality

retail.

whose

character

is

Such adherence would

were not present; perhaps

we should

say

completely.

Examine as thoroughly

as possible the fact that the most consecrated

people are the most disposable.

renounced himself. But

is it

A the

person

same

who

for a

is

consecrated has

person

who

has con-

secrated himself to a social cause?

January i$thf 1933

PHENOMENOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF DEATH Death can appear (it

as the

extreme expression of our corruptibility

that in Voyage au Bout de la Nuit)

is

or,

on the

contrary, as 'pure

emancipation'. (It can appear as the extreme of non-disposability or, on the contrary, as the elimination of non-disposability.) We

can

treat it as betrayal

only from a different and more superficial

point of view.

A

person

who

has

made himself more and more 123

disposable

cannot but regard death

F was

am thinking of what Mme. Mme. B's dtath). It is im-

as a release (I

telling us in the car about

possible to allow the least validity to the opinion that that

is

just

an

(The absurdity of 'you will see well enough that it isn't In what degree does faith in this least, you would see if .')

'illusion*.

true

at

.

release render

it

.

actually possible? is

in

all

A problem to be stated with the

other cases merely a 'hypothesis' 1

(what becoming here an unconquerable and insurmountable conviction).

greatest accuracy

I note in passing that the Christian idea

of mortification should be

understood in the light of this 'releasing death*. ship to a

a

is

more than human freedom.

way of

moments

I notice

how

accepting one's death

whereby the soul

are!

is

It is

the apprentice-

once more that there important one's

consecrated (and perhaps

last

made

made

disposable in the sense I have tried to define). Spinoza

a

radical mistake when he denied that any meditation on death was worth while. Plato, on the other hand, may have foreshadowed it all.

Consider suicide in the

of poor

To

little

N

light

of these remarks.

(I

am

thinking

whose appalling death we heard of yesterday.)

dispose of one's-self in that

way

is

the opposite of disposability

considered as self-consecration.

January i6tb

This

is

a most important question to examine.

The being who

is

absolutely disposable for others does not allow himself the right to

dispose freely of himself.

Link between suicide and

non-disposability.

January i)th-2otb Reflection tions.

am 1

on

the question

When I reflect

I?'

upon

taken as a single

'What am

I?'

and upon

its

implica-

the implications of the question

issue, I see that

The perhaps of the agnostic

is

it

means: 'What

is

'What

there in

fundamentally unacceptable to the

dedicated soul.

124

me

that

can answer

Consequently, every answer to

this question?'

this question coming from

me must be

But could not someone

else

mistrusted.

supply

me

An

with the answer?

objection immediately arises: the qualifications

which

the other

may have which enable him to answer me, the eventual validity of what he says, are observed by me; but what qualifications have I for

this observation? I can, therefore,

making

without contradiction to a judgment which is at

the

judgment as in the is worth and how it

question of what

it

inevitably be asked

afresh.

The

refer

absolute, but

my own

same time more within me than

fact, if I treat this

is

only

judgment. In

least exterior to is

question

myself

which

me, the

to be appreciated is

must

then eliminated qua

question and turns into an appeal. But perhaps in proportion as take cognizance of this appeal qua appeal,

I

am

I

led to recognise that

down in me there is something other than me, something further within me than I am myself the appeal

is

possible only because deep

and at once the appeal changes its index.

Someone

will object, 'This appeal

out a real object;

it

may,

as

it

does this objection mean? That this 'question', i.e.

here

on

may

in the

first

sense be with-

were, lose itself in the dark.'

But what

have not perceived any answer to that 'someone else has not answered it'. I remain I

the level of the observation or non-observation of facts; but

by doing so I am taking up a position in the of what is placed before me).

circle

of the problema-

tic (that is,

January 2jth

While we were walking

yesterday

on

the hills above Mentone,

I

thought once more about the mastery of our own mastery, which is obviously parallel to reflection in the second degree. It is clear that this

second mastery

perquisite

is

not of the technical order and can only be the

of some people. In

'one* thinks.

The

'one*

is

reality,

the technical

125

thought in general

man,

in the

is

same way

what as h<

is

when

the subject of cpistcmology,

knowledge

as a technic.

This

is,

on

subject of metaphysical reflection,

opposed to

'one': this subject

is

Any

not

considering

The

the

is essentially

man

in the street.

founded on thought-inof technics and of the man in

to be

leading to the glorification

is

the street (a democratisation of

is

with Kant.

the contrary,

essentially

epistemology which claims

general

that science

I think, the case

knowledge which

ruins

really

it).

must not be forgotten that technics stand on a lower than the creation which they presuppose a creation which

Furthermore, step

it

transcends the level where the

itself also

man

in the

holds

street

down; but by admitting him we

sway.

The

'one*

create

him.

We live in a world where this man of straw begins to

is

also a step

look more and more like a real

figure.

February 2nd I intend to return to the analysis of all this.

mystery

of its

a problem that encroaches

is

own possibility

(and not

upon

upon its

We

must say

that

the intrinsic conditions

data).

Freedom

is

the basic

example. How can something which cannot be reduced to a problem be actually thought? In so far as I treat the act of thinking as a way of looking, this question

would admit of no

which cannot be reduced treated as

an

of thought tion

from

difficult.

is it.

As

object,

and

to a

that

by

in fact inadequate:

We I see

must be grasped

solution.

Something

problem cannot be looked definition.

But

at or

this representation

we must manage to make

abstrac-

must recognise, however, that this is extremely it, the act of thinking cannot be represented and as such.

And

what

is

more,

it

must apprehend

every representation of itself as essentially inadequate.

diction implied in the fact of thinking of a mystery

ground of itself when we cease leading picture of thought.

to cling to

126

an

The falls

objectified

contrato the

and mis-

February 6th

my remarks oflast January

I return to

who is absolutely

i6th.

Why does the being

disposable for someone else refuse to allow him-

of himself? Simply for the reason that in thus disposing of himself (by suicide), he renders himself non-disposable for others; or at least he acts like a man who does of disposing

self the right

not give himself the

And

so the

freely

trouble to remain disposable for others.

least

whole thing hangs together. Suicide and martyrdom All this turns on the formula: the soul most

are strictly opposites.

most disposable. Such a soul wills itself to be an instrument; but suicide is the act of denying essentially dedicated is ipso facto the

one's-self as

remarks of January 24th

My to

an instrument.

me.

It is

that fiction

clear that 'one*

is

were becoming

(at

Mentone)

still

seem important

a fiction, but everything goes reality.

It is

treated as a reality. (Yet the technician

is

on

as if

more and more openly

not a pure technician; his

technics cannot be exercised except where certain

minimal condi-

tions of psycho-physiological balance are realised,

and we should

anyhow have grounds

for

these conditions themselves

asking whether a technic dealing with is

possible in the last analysis.)

of problematisation. It seems to me that problematise is conditioned by the ideal assumption every of a certain continuity of experience which is to be safeguarded

Return

to the notion

effort to

against

appearances. In this connection, from any problematic point

of view whatsoever, miracle equals nonsense. This cannot be too explicitly recognised. But cannot the very notion of this empirical

continuum be

criticised?

nection between this

We shall have to discover the exact con-

way of asking

of mystery. This will

no doubt be

the question best

and

my definition

done by making use of a

concrete problem (for instance, an encounter).

should be inclined to say that the continuity implied in all in problematisation is the continuity of a 'system for me*. Whereas I

127

it is quite different; I am carried beyond any 'system for me' am involved in concrete in an order which, by definition, can never

mystery I

.

become an

object or a system for me, but only for a thought

which

and comprehends me, and with which I cannot myself, even ideally. Here the word 'beyond* takes on its

over-reaches identify full

and true

significance.

All problematisation is relative an extension of 'my body*.

The

to

'my

system'

and 'my

egocentricity will be contested, but the truth

is

system*

that

is

any

theory whatsoever remains in the last analysis tributary to thepercipio and not at all to the plain cogito. Thepercipio remains the real centre of all problematisation whatever, however carefully it scientific

may be disguised. From another side, here

is

I

was thinking

just

now

that our business

to find a translation into speculative terms

theocentricity

This seems

to

of the practical

which adopts as its centre, 'Thy will and not mine*. me essential. But it must be seen, on the other hand,

that the theocentricity itself presupposes theoretical assertions to

which

it

is

extremely difficult to give a form. 'Thy will*

is

not

absolutely given me in the sense that my will to live and my appetite is given me. 'Thy will* is for me something to be recognised, to be

construed, whereas

imposes

my

appetite simply

makes demands, simply

itself.

February jtb

The more we is

in declaring

it

think of the past to be

immutable. The

the less

meaning there only thing which is really

in concrete,

independent of the present act and the re-creative interpretation, is a certain scheme of events; but tliis scheme is merely an abstraction.

The scrutiny of the past; the reading of the past. The interpretation of the world in terms of technics, of technics. The world

to

be construed, to be deciphered. 128

in the light

would

I

immovable

sum up my

say, to

past

due

is

to

an

observations, that the belief in

optical error

of the

spirit.

an

People will

move; what changes is our way But must we not be idealists here and say that

say 'the past taken in itself does not

of thinking about

it*.

the past cannot be separated from the consideration of the past? They will say again, 'It is an immutable fact that Peter accom-

an action at such a moment of time. Only the interpretation action can vary, and that is exterior to the reality of Peter's

plished

of the

action or of Peter himself/ But I assertion

to

is

do in

fact suspect that this last

untrue, though I cannot absolutely prove

me that Peter's realityinfinitely transcendent over

it

so. It

seems

Peter's action

remains involved in the interpretation which renews and

re-

Perhaps that is an absurd idea; we shall have to would say without demur that Peter's reality is, in a

creates the action. see.

that is

But

I

way

can hardly be

applied

specified,

after the

one with the power of scrutiny which

event to his actions, to this

claimed to be immutable. This level, in

Christology, but more

is

infinitely clear

datum which

upon

and more uncertain the

is

the highest further

one

goes down towards the insignificant. But the insignificant is no more than a limiting case. The importance of the novelist's an in its highest form

is

that

it

shows us

ing, cannot and does not

that the insignificant, strictly speak-

exist.

February 8tb

My history is not transparent to me. It is only my history in so far as

it is

my

not transparent to me. In this sense,

February

All is

it

system and perhaps it even breaks up my

cannot become part of system.

nth

this, I feel,

needs to be

drawn

out.

At

bottom, 'my history'

On the one hand, I interpret myself to myself possible biography. On the other hand, starting

not a clear notion.

as the object i

of a

129

M.B.H,

from an intimate experience of myself,

I

unmask the central illusion

in every conceivable biography; I apprehend fiction (as I hinted at the

all

biography as

end of my note on Schloezer's Gogol).

February ijtb

Must think about autonomy.

It

seems to

me that we can only talk

legitimately about autonomy in the order of administration and the the act or work of knowing can this administrate. Knowledge

be compared with administration?

February i$th

The

administration of an inheritance or

estate.

Life

com-

itself

pared to an estate, and treated as capable of being administered or managed. In all this, there is room for autonomy. But the nearer we

come

to creation, the less

can only do so the

artist

at a

lower

we can

level,

speak of autonomy, or rather we the level of exploitation; for instance,

exploiting his inspiration.

The idea of autonomous

disciplines: this, too,

in terms of administration. There exploited, constituting, as specially

earmarked

as

one

rises to

it

is.

The

for

its

it

is

of tools, or a capital sum This idea loses every sort of meaning

were, a

use.

can be interpreted

the notion of a plant to be set

the notion of philosophical thought. Yes, that

discipline

is

being treated as the

field

is

how

mode of

or

exploitation.

Bring this to bear on the very notion of truth. Shew the postulate or hidden method of representation which is taken for granted by those

who

of the

truth.

me

that

think that the

we

This

is still

always

mind must be autonomous

not absolutely clear to

start

in

me today.

from a twofold notion, of a

its

It

pursuit

seems to

field to

be

developed, and also of an equipment which will make this development possible. It is as though we would not let ourselves admit that this

equipment can be supplemented

no

a\>

extra.

We say that

it

would

be cheating; bring I

we add

that

it

would anyhow be impossible

really to

it off.

am

tempted to think that the idea of autonomy

is

bound up

with a kind of narrowing or particularisation of the subject.

more

The

an

activity with the whole of myself, the less right have we to say that I am autonomous. (In this sense, the philosopher is less autonomous than the pure scientist, and the pure I enter into

scientist

himself less so than the technician.)

up with

the existence of a sphere of activity

scribed. If this

is so,

the

which

whole of the Kantian

monstrous contradiction, a

My

Autonomy

sort

is

bound

is

strictly

ethic rests

circum-

upon

a

of speculative aberration.

considered in the totality of

its

suppose be something that can be administered (either by myself or by someone other than me). And to this extent I grasp it as unfathomable (see my note for life,

done

that this could be

the 8th of February

does not seem to

last).

implications

me to

Between the administrator and the ad-

ministered there must exist a certain proportionality,

which

is

here

lacking. In the order of (a mutilation, I grant,

which

in other cases

And

so

we

is

my life, administration implies mutilation which is in some respects unavoidable but

sacrilegious).

are led to transcend the opposition

heteronomy. For heteronomy administration;

it

is

on

the

is

autonomy-

administration by another, but

same

level.

still

In the realms of love or

inspiration, the distinction loses all meaning. At a certain depth within me, and in a zone where practical specialisations melt away,

the terms

autonomy and heteronomy become inapplicable.

February i6tb

But

am I not, in all this argument, ignoring the great sense of the

word autonomy,

the idea of a rational spontaneity

working out its purpose in the very making of the law? Here, in fact, what becomes of the idea of a reason which is legislating universally for itself? Ort 131

to

still

go

deeper,

what metaphysical dignity is it proper to give to That is really the crux of the whole

the very act of legislation?

seems to

It

problem.

of administration,

what

case,

me

and

that legislation

that therefore

beyond administration

is

simply the formal aspect does not transcend it. In that

it

is

is

by definition also beyond

legislation.

Autonomy that

it

considered as non-heteronomy. I understand by this

phenomenologically speaking, to heteronomy pre-

refers,

supposed and refused. It is the 'by myself!' of the little child who is beginning to walk and rejects the hand outstretched to him. 'I want to

run

my own

that

life*

refers essentially to action

is

the radical formula of autonomy. It

and

implies, as I noted the other day,

the notion of a certain province of activity circumscribed in space

and

time. Everything belonging to the order of interests, what-

can be

ever they are,

marked

trict

with

relative ease as a province, a dis-

off in this manner. Furthermore, I can administer, or

as something to be administered, not only

treat

my

treated

fortune, but also everything that

tantly to a fortune, or,

more

estate

and

can be compared even

dis-

my

generally, to a possession

something

I have. But where the category of having becomes inapplicable, I

can no longer in any sense

talk

about administration, whether

by another or myself, and therefore I cannot talk about autonomy either.

February 21 st

As

we

are in

Being

recollection, in so far as

why takes

and

soon as

me

it is

beyond autonomy. That is regaining contact with Being,

are

where autonomy is no longer conceivable; true of inspiration, or of any action which in-

into a realm

this is just as

volves the

whole of what

comparable to inspiration I assert

we

my

being, the

am. (The love of a person is strictly in this respect.) The more I am, the more I

less I

think myself autonomous.

132

The more

I

manage to conceive of my tion does

it

being, the

less

subject to

its

own jurisdic-

me to be. 1

appear to

February 26tb

Suppose

that

been made to

an absolute addition, an

man

-whether to some

of history, in what sense

is

unsought

entirely

men

or to

the philosopher

gift

has

in the course

all

bound, in

what

sense

has he the right or even the power, to refuse to take this gift into To invoke autonomy here (or even the principle of imma-

account?

tion,

which

comes

same thing) is to say: 'This addiwithin the dialectically regulated course of thought, constitutes

nence,

really

to the

a foreign body, a scandal: as a philosopher at

cannot recognise it/ Is this non-recognition implied in the very notion of philosophy? What is really being done here is to refuse to allow an least I

intrusion to take place in a system regarded as closed. concrete

not

what does

my thought,

this

it

mean

for

goes beyond

But

me, a philosopher? The system

that.

My thought

is

regards 1

is

merely inserted

into a certain limitless development, with which, however, itself as

in

it

co-extensive in principle. 2

These propositions have an

axial character for a

metaphysic which

inclines to assign to a kind of ontological humility the place which most traditional philosophers since Spinoza have given to freedom. This is at least true in so far as they

imply a claim nude by the subject

to identify

himself rationally with a certain Thought immanent in the Whole. It is the very possibility of such an identification which is radically denied in as the one I am trying to define here. (Note written September nth, 1934.) 2 The system goes beyond my thought, I said, and this is not untrue: but more essentially, my thought goes beyond the system. Here it is probably the notion 'in so far as' which ought to be attacked. I should be much inclined to think that the philosopher in so far as he is a philosopher, i.e. in proportion as he carries out at the heart of his own reality a discrimina-

such a metaphysic

tion

which

mutilates

it, is

really

denying himself as a philosopher; that

minds of the last century that were philosophically Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, was just this: that they

the part played by the

most

alive,

such as

133

ON HAVING

A certain subject-unit, or a

qui playing the part

of a subject-unit,

becomes a centre of inherence or apprehension for a which he relates to himself or which we treat as if he There

himself.

a relation here which

is

level

grammatical (what used in the passive, which essentially affects

muted this

is

most

related

significant).

This

is

of the subject-unit, without

its

it

to

only on the

transitive

almost never

relation,

the subject-unit, tends to pass into

into a state

it,

which

to be trans-

being possible for

transmutation or reabsorption to be completely carried out.

In order that

is

more, the verb 'to have*

is

certain quid

to have effectively,

to say, in this case, to be

is

one's-self, as

it

necessary to be in

it is

immediately

A

were, affected or modified.

some

degree,

for one's-self, to feel

mutual interdepen-

dence of having and being. I

note that there

folios

drawings by

having ideas on occasion.

shew.

is

a

strict parallel

X

this or

What

one has

It is interesting to

between having in one's port-

which one might shew to a visitor, and that subject which one will put forward on is

note

by definition something one can

really

how difficult it is to make

a substantive

of TO ov; TO ov becomes changed to *xlJL * vov as soon as ** * s treated as something that can be shewn. But there is a sense in which 'to have consciousness of 'means as such

is

'to

shew

it

treats as

goes beyond possession, but may, itself;

and

this in virtue

that the secret, as

in that

it

Consciousness

not a possession or a manner of having, but

enjoyment of something which

possession

to one's-self'.

opposed can be shewn.

after the event,

of a

sort

to the mystery,

it

may be

a possession. Every action

be treated as a

of grading down.

is

I

note

essentially a possession

We must not overlook the fact that all spiritual possession has brought to light the

sort

its

of dialectic in virtue of which the philosopher

is

led to deny himself as a 'Fachmcnsch', as a specialist. (Note written

September, 1934.)

134

springs in something that cannot be

what

am). But what

I

the fact that

There

is

shewn (my

does not belong to me,

it

ideas are rooted in

characterises this non-she wable as such,

therefore a sense in

this is exactly the sense in

which

which

I

I

it is

is

essentially uribelonging.

do not belong

to myself,

and

am absolutely not autonomous.

February 2jth

We

shew what we have; we

reveal

what we

are

(though of

course only in part).

Creadon considered

as the liberation

of what cannot be shewn.

But where philosophical creation does not

exist, philosophy does without cannot, denying or betraying itself, into results capable of being simply assimilated and

not exist either. crystallise

It

thereby possessed.

March

ist

Could we of desire?

not

make

'having* our starting-point for a definition

To desire is to have and not to have: the psychical or non-

objective element of having already exists in

but

it is

just

by

its

its

entirety in desire;

separation from the objective element that desire

becomes a gnawing pain. March

qth

My deepest and cal, so

much

the thinkers

most unshakable conviction

that the worse for

and doctors have

orthodoxy

said,

it is

is,

and

if

it is

hereti-

that whatever all

not God's will at

all to

be

loved by us against the Creation, but rather glorified through the

Creation and with the Creation as our starting-point. That I find so

many

devotional books intolerable.

against the Creation is,

to

my

and who

is

And

why

somehow jealous of his own works

mind, nothing but an

written this.

is

The God who is set up

idol. It is a relief for

me

to

I declare until further orders that I shall

135

have

be in-

sincere every time I

I

seem

to be

making an assertion

what

contrary to

have just written. I could not get over my discomfort yesterday with

X.

was

I

telling

him how

not understand, and says

I disliked

it is

pride.

denominationalism.

But the opposite is the

He

does

truth. 1

March $tb

I

What I wrote yesterday needs to be qualified. It is true of the stage am in at present, but I know that this stage is still rudimentary. heard once more the Missa Solemnis, conducted by

I

gartner,

and was

There

no work that

is

as deeply I feel is

moved

as

when

I

heard

it

Wein-

in 1918.

more in tune with my thoughts.

It is

a

luminous commentary upon them.

March 8tb

Through 1 1 8, I

a phrase from

Brahms

think) which has been in

one of the Intermezzi, op. head the whole afternoon, I

(in

my

have suddenly come to see that there is a universality which is not of the conceptual order; that is the key to the idea of music. But

how

hard

it is

to understand!

kind of spiritual gestation. 1

The

idea can only be the fruit of a

A close analogy with the living creature.

2

This, in any case, remains absolutely true for me: that every attempt claim to imagine God's attitude towards me,

at Divine psychology, every

inspires me with unconquerable mistrust. It is really quite impossible for me to allow that we can somehow ideally place ourselves in I mean put ourselves in his place so as to look at ourselves from thence.

God

I

am

far

from ignoring the

serious difficulties,

of a metaphysical and

which

theological order, certainly derive from such an impossibility, but I must confess that the use made by the greater number of theologians of the idea of analogy, for getting over this, seems to me to lie open to the

most serious objections. must admit, exposed,

My own delicate,

position on this point seems to me, I and profoundly unsatisfying. (Note

on September I3th, 1934.) This, too, must be examined and worked out. Bergson is certainly right; we are here in an order where duration is somehow incorporated with what it is working upon and bringing to its ripeness. But, on what written 2

136

March

loth

To that

At

return to suicide.

men can

be disposed

which

others can be realised.

got rid

of.

And

so I treat myself also

But here we should

as able to be disposed of.

the limits within

bottom, experience seems to show us

of,

try exactly to define

this external experience

in fact,

It is,

of the mortality of

more complete when the persons But 'being dis-

in question have never counted (existed) for me.

posed

of

who,

in so far as they have ever really counted in

loses

meaning more and more in the

its

continue to do so

'belonging to the past*

be weakened

'notion'(?) expressed

my

life,

must

by the phrase it can

not always used in the same sense;

is

indefinitely. It

where we

sense

The

still.

case of persons

are speaking

only takes on the

full

harshness of its

of an instrument thrown

aside, put out away. I shall of course be told that a radical distinction must be made between the other man as object is (for he

of use,

cast

really

got rid of),

mind

and a whole

builds

upon him;

itself survives

lucidity, this

is

really

claiming that the

monadism is

not so,

where

is

they survive the object in so far as

greatest caution. It

limiting case. It loses

question

of subjective superstructures which

its

can only be applied

to the

meaning in proportion as the person in

mingled with

my life.

This can only be denied by

word mingled is inapplicable here and that absolute

the truth. If it

is

not so, and to

we must recognise that

real

my

my mind

him. But as the Neo-Hegelians saw with admirable is really a most precarious distinction and should be

with the

treated

set

intimacy

exists.

this is

my mind it

manifestly

not a possible starting-point

Intimacy; that

is

really the

fundamental

notion.

But in

that case,

it is

be disposed of unless one might

cannot consider myself able tc myself as a perfect stranger unless,

clear that I

I treat

aspect of this order of reality, Bergson haj perhaps not thrown enough light in spite of everything. (Note writter call the structural

September 13th, 1934.)

137

indeed,

I

put aside

all

possibility

of haunting,

I

should come to the

conclusion that the more actual and profound myself, the

more

am

right I

my

intimacy with

in believing that the picture I formed

of myself as an object which it is in my power to put right out of use is one to be treated with caution, and even absurd in itself. (It

goes without saying that

when

I

speak of haunting,

I

evoke the

which may be brought upon me by a murder of which I am guilty. I do not really get rid of my victim; he remains present with results

me in the very heart of the obsession with which I saddled myself when I thought to be done with him.) Here again someone will 'But the whole point

say.

is

whether the victim

is

conscious of this

haunting which he brings about in the man who thinks he has blotted him out of his universe/ But here we must return to a close examination of the actual problem of consciousness, and first we must mint afresh the outworn terminology which we generally employ to

state

it.

It is clear

that if I stick to a sort

of psycho-physical

be tempted to declare that where the body as destroyed, the consciousness itself is no doubt annihilated.

parallelism, I shall

such

is

remains to be seen what view

It

we ought

to take

of

this parallel-

ism.

To me the arrangement of the world seems expressly to invite us to believe in the reality of death.

But

at the

up

and appreciated

may

in arms against such counterfeits;

manner of promises

reinforces another

power

allusions

it

and

so in

secret voice,

more

be nothing but a facade,

as a fa$ade.

Then freedom

springs

as she rouses

herself,

and

she discerns in the borders of experience all

of such a kind that

same time a more

subtle clues, allow us to feel that this to be treated

is

this parallelism

all

manner of

alliances,

of which one illumines and

of a deliverance, a dayspring

still

beyond our

to imagine.

With

regard to death

that, for Christians, death

and

mortification;

compared with 138

life

we must

understand

represents not

less

but

more, or

were

that

way to something more; it is an exaltation, and would have us believe, a mutilation or denial. If

at least the

not, as fatal error so,

Nietzsche would be perfectly right; but he

is

wrong,

because he clung to an entirely naturalistic view of life, and from that point of view the problem no longer has any meaning. Life so understood carries with it no beyond, no soaring power; it can no longer be transcended.

Undated

ON THE PROBLEM OF BEING The problem of being tends first of all to be 'What its

by

first,

is

of material

that the very notion

is

shew

So we

entirety; next,

we

that this material, even supposing

well not be the essential thing.

obscure, ambiguous,

its

:

An enquiry which

very nature proves disappointing. Reflection will

perhaps inapplicable to the world in all,

stated as the question

the ultimate material of the world?'

us,

and

and above

could identify

it,

might an

see that there is distance,

open gap, between the intellectual hunger (obscure even to itself] which gave birth to the problem, and the terms in which this problem is stated. Even if the problem were or could be resolved, the hunger would perhaps not be satisfied. At this point the hungei to be more directly conscious of itself. In that case there

would tend

would be room

for transition to the notion

of an

intelligible

organisation or structure.

This

But

is

one of the possible ways.

there are others.

and on

One is

reflection

on

the idea of appearance,

the implications of the bare fact that there are appearances.

Another way

is

to reflect

on the fact of assertion.

There are some appearances that can be manifestly shewn up as appearances. Hallucination in all its forms, for one. But in this class,

one never

gets further

great temptation to

run

all

than correction.

the lines

139

on

here

Still, there

and

must be a

treat the

whole of

experience as aw6iJLtvov. But a very difficult criteriological prob-

lem

will face us then, the

same

that faces us

and secondary

are distinguishing primary

when,

we

for instance,

qualities. Reflection will

show us in the end that primary qualities are not dowed with an ontological priority over secondary

necessarily enqualities.

Here

again an intellectual hunger is at work, a hunger which feels a kind of deep-seated trouble in becoming perspicuous to itself.

The problem of affirmation. All affirmation

which

is

primarily as an act, but in this region that

we

ontology centres on the act of

considered not, as a matter of fact, in its

specific intentionality.

shall find a sort

itself,

And

not

it is

in

of dangerous neighbourhood

appearing between ontology and logic in

its strict

sense.

March i2tb

At no time and 'I

affirm

of a

it

in

of the

as originator

because

reflection that

no circumstances can

reality

it is.'

of what

it

affirmation ever appear

affirms.

The formula

is

here:

And this formula is already the translation

came

before

but

it,

at this stage the

expression

seems to be outside the affirmation and prior to it; the affirmation refers back to something given. But a second reflection 'this is'

is

is

Affirmation in the act of reflecting itself led to encroach on the private and almost holy ground of

about to 9

'this

is

.

arise here.

At

9

this

point

I

presupposes an affirmation.

seems to be

infinite,

say

I

bring myself

But we

Let us admit that Being has self;

by

self I

mean

myself:

the subject

first

who

And

to

'this

regress

lay

itself

is

which

down

the

will not press this point. laid a sort affirms.

the less intervenes between the being

the role of a mediator.

but

Hence we have a

unless

affirmation itself as origin.

to

and the

then the problem

notes ofJanuary the I9th, for I

of

siege to the

This subject none affirmation, arises

which

in I

am inevitably led to

observed in

my

ask what

the ontological standing of this self in relation to the

is

140

being which besieges him. contrary have some

sort

he whelmed in

Is

of command

over

it,

or does he

If he

it?

what gives him this mastery and what exactly does

it

on

the

commands

it,

mean?

March

Are we

to say that deeper reflection will lead us to recognise that

power of positing? a power which someand hands over to it the substance of what the

affirmation presupposes a

how

foreruns

it

affirmation asserts?

can

It is

very likely that this

is

the truth, but

how

approach this truth? should be noticed, in any case, that the power of positing, by very essence, goes beyond the problematic (cf. note of last I

It its

February 6th). The agony of the present days passes all bounds. The Disarmament Conference is at the point of death. There was the incident at

Kehl, and that death

my way

terror reigns there. is

-

upon

to see

V

us

all,

At

times I live with the feeling

and upon

all that

this afternoon, I

had a

As

we

love.

sort

of light on

I

was on this,

in

Rue La Condamine just this: 'Think that dream is turning into nightmare, and when nightmare has reached its most agonithe

sing point, you will awake.

today you

call death.*

That

will be the experience

This upheld me.

It is

a

way of being

which able to

bear the haunting idea that Paris will be destroyed.

March i6th 'Mysteries are not truths that

lie

beyond

us; they are truths that

comprehend us/ (R. P. Jouve.) March jist

About N's

suicide. Is

absolute impotence?

myself in a state

Can

where

I

it

I

my power to reduce myself to an use my will in such a way as to put

in

can no longer will anything and no longer 141

do anything? Does reality lend itself to this absolute desertion (or at least would-be absolute desertion)? The least we can assert is that reality at

any

in

my mind

in

its

seems to be arranged in such a

rate

way

of such a

belief in the possibility

as to step,

keep up a belief

The whole band of appearances around me encourages me to believe that I can really get

ultimate effectiveness.

gathered

of myself. That is how

rid

which

we

should express a phenomenology of suicide how suicide must necessarily look to my

consisted in seeing

complete enfranchisement, but one in which the liberator, in freeing himself from himself, thereby eliminates himself. eyes; a

But there is room for another mode of reflection, which compared with this is hyper-phenomenological; is this conspiracy of appearances telling the truth? as to

make me think

They seem

that

my

to range themselves together so

freedom

is

here fundamental.

But

is

this absolute act perpetrated

by myself upon myself something that can really happen? If it were, I should, it seems, be right in claiming a sort of ameitas (self-causality) for myself, since I should only continue to be by a continuous permission accorded by myself to myself.

The whole

question

world whose constitution

an absolute

desertion.

is

is,

what

such that

To my

mind,

sort it

it is

of reality

what

permits clear in

is

mine, in a

I

have called

any case that such

a world excludes even the possibility of participation in the being

upon which my

reality as subject rests. I

am

here

no more than

something that happened to be. But to this happening to which I reduce myself, I still attribute the most fundamental power over itself. Is

I

there not here

an

internal contradiction? In other words,

am my life but can I still think my life?

April 11 tb

Have our

realised this

lives, the worst

is

once again; possible, or

for each

of us, every moment of is the worst. There

what we think

142

is

no objective guarantee. This must be reconciled with the idea of an all-powerful God. But does not the fact that the worst is

God

possible prove the infinite weakness of God?

weakness and

Between

this infinite

power, it seems that a mysterious junction union of seeming opposites beyond the idea of

this infinite

takes place, a causality.

July

2yd

Afterthoughts on a discussion with R. nection between suffering

and

is

to say,

it

on

the con-

sin.

My claim is that this connection is, enceable, that

C

properly speaking, inexperi-

cannot be transferred to the

particular experience. In the presence of someone

who

level

suffers, I

of

am

absolutely unable to say, 'Your suffering is the punishment for an identifiable sin, of which you may not be personally guilty any-

how.'

this is beside the

mark from

are here in the realm

of the un-

brought in heredity, but

(C

a religious point of view.)

fathomable, and this sophically clear.

is

We

something

we must manage to make

A strange thing; suffering

is,

philo-

in fact, only capable

of taking on metaphysical and spiritual meaning in so far as it implies an unfathomable mystery. But on the other hand and this is

the

paradox

whence

all suffering is

by

its

very nature

'this

tion or justification this is just

which

is

also

suffering',

an explanadetermined and particular. But

the almost irresistible temptation to find for

it

what we cannot do. The problem from

the religious

point of view consists in transforming the unfathomable into a is a whole dialectic here which I see only positive quantity. There

To give a particular explanation in terms of punishment is God is 'someone', to place him on the same level as the particular person who suffers; and by this very assumption to incite the person to discussion and revolt. ('Why me and not soin part.

to

assume that

and-so?

Why this fault

and not

that one?' etc.)

But

it is

clear that

level

this

transcend.

of comparison and discussion is just what we must This is surely the same as to say that 'this suffering*

must be apprehended as the actual participation in an universal mystery, which can be grasped as brotherhood and understood as a metaphysical bond.

We

should never

from outside

I

link between fied to carry

humble and

forget,

am

my

offers

act.

In so

part;

he

far as is

he

and

He

is

draws

my

man who

attention to the

needs to be inwardly qualimy can only be this if he is himself entirely sin,

himself as a sharer, as

he must even share in I*.

the other hand, that the

thinking of R. C.

suffering

out the

on

it

were, in

my sin.

Perhaps

my suffering. In fact, he must become 'another a pure

disqualified.

and simple

We

other, he

cannot play

might find a way from here

this

to a

1 philosophical statement about the being of Christ.

July 26tb

Having and spatiality. Having relates to taking, but it seems that no hold is offered except by things that are in space or can

there

be compared with something be closely examined.

spatial.

These two propositions must

July joth I

wanted

to

make

a note

at

Rothau

suffering certainly seems to be the point at

Being.

Perhaps we can

is this really

Just 1

yesterday that the seat of

which Having flows

into

only be hurt through our possessions. But

so?

now, during a wonderful walk above Zermatt,

I

was think-

To my mind, these remarks are extremely important in the considera-

tion of the metaphysical relationship implied in priesthood, and I do not mean priesthood regarded in a specially denominational way. By these

remarks one can, I think, sec the abyss that lies between the attitude of the that of the moralist. As soon as the priest begins to turn himself priest and into a moralist, he denies himself as a priest.

144

ing again very minutely about the essential mutability of the past. The notion that events are deposits made in the course of history is at

bottom a

no

false

one. If we look carefully,

historical deposit.

The

we

shall see that there is

past remains relative to our reading

it

in

an idea forming in my mind that there is a reciprocal tension between the past and the mode of attention that a certain way. I

is

felt

concentrated

once and

for

upon all' and

it.

If this

'plain

so, the expressions

is

'accomplished

and simply happening* would mask a

positive paralogism. I cannot help thinking that this looks like the

beginning of a road to which

have not yet really committed myself. Perhaps this will provide us with the means of throwing new lights upon death. But I do not see clearly as yet; I only have a kind of presentiment.

We

I

must look

at the

positive implications

of a

critique of the idea of historical deposit.

August ijth

Knowing as a mode of having. The possession of a secret. Keeping it, disposing of it and here we get back to what I wrote on the 'shewable*. The absolute opposition of secret and mystery mystery being that which by

its

very essence I cannot dispose

of.

Knowledge as a mode of having is essentially communicable. August i4tb

The

twofold permanence implied in having. (I the fact of having a secret as my typical case.)

am

A

still

taking

secret is itself

something that resists duration, something upon which duration cannot bite, or which is treated as such. But it must be the same for the subject, for the qui, otherwise the secret

The

would

destroy

itself.

obviously comparable with the object kept, with the content preserved in that which contains it. I think that this secret is

comparison is always possible as soon as we find ourselves in the realm of Having. But and this is worth noticing the analysis of K

145

M.B.H.

the spatial act of keeping this

reflected

is

on the

spiritual level; I noticed

a long time ago.

We should ask ourselves to what extent we have a feeling, what conditions a

can be

feeling

the social point of view, I think,

treated as a possession.

and in

so far as

I

am

under

Only from in dialogue

with myself. Consider presence as something of which I cannot dispose in any way; which I cannot possess. There is a constant temptation cither to turn it into an object, or to treat it as an aspect of myself. It is

as

though

we were

not equipped for thinking about

it.

There

ways of applying this principle. 9 Mental 'having Some people are so made that they can put their hand on a required piece of the contents of their mind as if it are numberless

.

were an object or paper that was constituted themselves

they have

on

made of their

They have classifications which

efficiently classified.

the pattern of the

objects of study.

But

may

it

also be said

conversely that these classifications are only the tangible symbols

of

the order they have inaugurated in themselves. In any case, the

correspondence between the outward and the mental order tends to be as stria as possible. The body comes in here as a principle of disturbance,

which in the

I

possibilities

we

cannot fathom.

The

order

up within me depends on something over which, analysis, I have no power.

have

last

whose set

When I am pkced in 'normal' conditions, my mental possessions conform to their nature ofbeing possessions; but the moment the conditions change, this ceases to be the case. that the conditions themselves

also to look like possessions.

To

tell

the truth,

somehow depend on me and

But

this is to

it

seems

so tend

a great extent an illusion.

August i$tb I

am again preoccupied by the question what it

qualities.

The word

'also*

seems to

146

means

to possess

me only to have meaning in the

order of Having. Perhaps the recourse to the category of Having for

thinking of qualities

an expedient, a makeshift necessary

is

arc to conceive (or persuade ourselves that

position of qualities. I that there

am

tired this

we

if

we

conceive) the juxta-

seems to

me

moment when

the

but

evening

it

here a track worth following.

is

August i6tb

What

I

am

category of

Having

trying to say

'also',

of

is this.

own minds as added

which contains

may

the

introduced, the category of

creeps imperceptibly in as well. This

we

for a single quality, in so far as

in our

From

'in addition* is

it).

would be

are unable to help

to nothing (within

valid even

imagining

it

an ideal something

important metaphysical conclusions notably with regard to the impossibility

I feel that

be drawn from

this,

of thinking of God according to the mode of Having, as possessing. In this sense any doctrine of the Attributes would tend inevitably to lead us astray.

The

I

am

that I

the most adequate formula from

Here we ought passivity. I

to ask

what

am of Scripture would be

truly

an ontological point of view.

is

the relation between

Having and

we are passive, and offer a hold, in exact we share in the order of Having. But this is no doubt

think that

proportion as

only one aspect of a deeper

reality.

Could not Having be thought of as somehow a way of being what one is not? It is clear

are

founded

that all these reflections, for

me on

which seem

to be so abstract,

a curiously immediate experience of ad-

herence to one's possessions (which are exterior without being really so).

We must keep returning to the type-case, which

cor-

is

poreity, the fact of having a body, typical having, absolute having.

And, beyond corporeity, we must grasp my relation to my life. The ontological

meaning of

already noted

this,

but

sacrifice

we must

of

life,

of martyrdom.

continually return to

H7

it.

I

have

At

the

present

moment,

I also

glimpse the need to emphasise

at

once the

apparent identity and the reafbpposition of martyrdom and

suicide:

one an affirmation of self, 1 the other a ruling out of self. The ontological foundation of Christian asceticism. But

the

detachment (poverty,

which

everything

again

at a

higher

this

chastity, etc.) must not be mere amputation; shaken off must be simultaneously found

is

level. I

think

all

the Gospel texts should be read

again in the light of these reflections.

September 2?tb I

have just re-read these

last

notes.

Must

analyse the idea of

belonging. My body belongs and does not belong to me; that is the root of the difference between suicide and martyrdom. Must lay

bare the metaphysical foundations of a study

covering the limits within

body. that

It

my body

what

in

would be absurd

to

I

which aims

at dis-

have the right to dispose of my

condemn

on the ground must ask myself the master of my

self-sacrifice

do not belong to me. my and within what limits, I am

or

sense,

which

life

I

life.

The idea of belonging at least in so far as

'within* in into

it,

here

is

it.

But

seems to presuppose the idea of organism,

organism is implied in the fact that there is a of the 'within' is not clear. If we look

this idea

we find that in fact it is not purely that

The

best

example of a house, or of anything that can be compared to a spatial.

house; for instance, a cave. I this

thought of this in the Luxemburg, from which I return with formula: 'Having is the function of an order which carries

1

This formula is clearly inadequate. What is affirmed in martyrdom is self, but the Being to which the self becomes a witness in the very act of self-renunciation. But one can conversely say that in suicide, the self affirms itself by its claim to withdraw from reality. (Note written not the

September 27th t 1934.)

148

with

it

1 references to another qua another/ It

must in

fact

be seen

hidden thing, the secret, is ipso facto something that can b$ shewn. Tomorrow I should like to try to examine the counterpart

that the

of this from the point of view of being. It is manifest to me that being really implies nothing of the kind. Perhaps even, in the order of being, the Other tends

to melt

away and be

denied.

September 28th It

should be asked whether the distinction between within and

without

is

not denied by being as such.

It is

connected with the

We must see whether, when we bring in we are not unconsciously shifting our ground to the level of having. When we ask ourselves what is the link between being and the appearances it presents, we are really asking how they can be integrated into it. And the moment the notion of integration comes up, we are back on the level of having. Being, it problem of appearance.

the idea of appearance,

seems, can never be a sum.

October jth I return to the category fact, for

of having in so

a subject, of having

make

not essential to

(i.e.

far as

it is

of carrying with

it)

implied in the predicates. It

and giving out. Having includes the possibility of this and rhythm. Examine the relation between this and consciousness. bility?

There

is

the act of

probably no fundamental difference between being

them conscious of it). The scious for myself,

The

alternation

Does not consciousness also imply this double possi-

conscious of something and manifesting

1

is

the distinction between keeping for one's-self

is

to others (i.e.

other is already there

and expression

connecting link

it

is, I

when

I

making

am

con-

suppose, only possible be-

the fact that the distinction between within

and without implies effects of perspective, which are only the distinction is drawn between the same and the other. 149

possible

where

cause this

is so.

We must pass from there to the infra-conscious and

super-conscious. correlated with

what am /?

(cf.

Could we

Can we distinguish them? Perhaps this should be

what

my

I

wrote on the implications of the question

note of March I2th).

not say that there

Having and what we

treat as

no problem except the problem of Having? This would link up with

is

my theory of the ontological mystery. In the sphere of the problematic, the difference between within and without is important; but it melts

away as soon as we enter the realm of mystery.

October

n tb

and being able. To say 'I have the power to .' means the power to is numbered among my attributes and endowments'. But that is not all. 'To have is 'to

Examine

the relations between having *

.

.

9

have power to', since it is clearly in a sense 'to have the disposal of. Here we touch on one of the most obscure and fundamental aspects

of having. October ijtb I

must

relate

my

notes of the last few days to

what

I said earlier

A

about functional behaviour.

function is, by its very essence, one but in has; proportion as my function swallows something me up, it becomes me, and substitutes itself for what I am. Function that

must be distinguished from act, since act clearly escapes from the category of having. As soon as there is creation, in whatever degree,

we arc in the realm of being; fully intelligible.

the finite sense of the word,

it is

is

what we must manage

to

make

One difficulty arises from the fact that creation,

of a kind of having. nearer

that

is

no doubt only

The more

in

possible in the midst

creation can shake this off, the

to absolute creation.

150

SUMMARY (1) It

is

history,

is

philosophers, in the course of

most part instinctively turned away from no doubt because the notion contains much

for the

Having. This that

how

instructive to see

have

is

ambiguous, obscure, and almost impossible of elucida-

tion.

(2)

The moment

that a philosopher's attention has turned to

A

can only appear to him to be unjustifiable. phenomenological analysis of Having might well be a useful introduction to a renewed analysis of Being. By 'phenomenological

Having,

this attitude

analysis' I

opposed (3)

It

mean

the analysis of an implicit content of thought, as

to a psychological analysis

of 'states'.

seems:

(a) that

we can

only speak of

Having where a

related to a certain qui, treated as a centre sion,

which

(i) that,

is

in

more

is

of inherence and apprehen-

some degree transcendent; strictly,

when we

we are

cannot express ourselves in terms of moving on a level where, in whatever

Having except manner or in however analogical a and

certain quid

within retains its

sense, the opposition

of without

meaning;

(c) that this order

is

manifested to our thought as essentially

involving the reference to another qua other. (4)

The

order of having

characterisable. is

to

what

is

the order of predication or the

But the metaphysical problem which

faces us here

extent a genuine reality, a reality as such, lends itself to

characterisation;

and

also

whether being

is

not essentially un-

though of course it will be understood uncharacterisable is not the same as the indeterminate. characterisable,

(5)

that the

The uncharacterisable is also that which cannot be possessed.

This brings us back

to presence.

tween the Thou and the He.

It is

comes under the jurisdiction of a

We return to

clear that the

the difference betreated as

He,

characterising judgment. But

it is

Thou,

no

less clear that

level.

Thou

the

Thou

treated as

stands

on

a different

Examine praise from this point of view.

The

opposition of desire to love

of the opposition of Having not having. Desire

may

a very important illustration

is

to Being. Desire

is,

in fact, having

and

be regarded as autocentric and hetero-

once (the polarity of the same and the other). But love transcends the opposition of the same to the other by planting us in ccntric at

Being.

Another

essential application: the difference

and freedom

October

between autonomy

my note of February i6th).

(cf.

2yd

I notice for the

first

time today that there

is,

in content, the idea of

can pour out, spread abroad, etc.). There is in (it content what there is in possession, a potency. Content is not purely

potential action

spatial.

October 2jtb

Must examine, more closely than

I

have done as

yet,

the nature

relative dependency of being and having: our possessions swallow us up. The metaphysical roots of the need to preserve. Perhaps this links up with what I have written elsewhere about

of the

alienation.

The

self

becomes incorporated in the thing possessed;

not only that; but perhaps the self is only there if possession too.

But the

self disappears in the full exercise

creation whatever.

It

only reappears,

it

seems,

of an

act,

is

there

of any

when there is a check

in creation.

October 2$th

must develop what I said about the uncharacterisable. We cannot think of a character without attaching it to a subject by the I

link expressed by the verb

to

belong.

152

But

this

supposes a sort of

pattern

order

whose nature we must

which

try to

essentially carries

'also'; this character is

make

with

it

We are here in an

clear.

the use of the expression

chosen among others.

We are not, however,

faced with phenomenalism would have us believe, there is always the transcendence of the qui. But is not this transcendence a function of the attitude which I take up in face of the quit a collection, as

Is

it

not a projection? All this

is still

very misty in

my mind; it is an

idea that needs bringing into focus.

To

think of somebody

else is

in a

manner

to affirm myself in

of this somebody else. To put it more accurately, the other is on the far side of a chasm, and there is no isthmus between us. But

face

this

chasm

or separation

and stand outside myself

is

something that

I

realise if I

only

stop

picture myself, if you like that better.

October jotb

Here

view.

my

is

world of the

The world of the Same and

identifiable.

In so

far as I

remain

the

its

Other

round myself with a zone of separation. Only on condition take my stand in this zone can I think of myself according category of Having.

To

identify

is

is

the

prisoner, I surthat I to the

in fact to recognise that some-

thing, or someone, has, or has not, such-and-such a character, and, conversely, such-and-such a character

is

relative

to

a possible

identification.

can only have meaning or interest if we manage to conceive of something beyond this world of the Same and the Other;

All

this

a beyond which reaches out to the ontological as such. This

where the

One thing we I?'

is

difficulties begin.

can

see

immediately; that the question

has no equivalent on the level of Having.

To

cannot, by definition, give an answer for myself (cf.

March).

153

this

'What am question I

my notes

of last

n

OUTLINES OF A PHENOMENOLOGY OF HAVING 1

I want to make this evening is that the ideas about to put before you are in my opinion nuclear ideas. They contain the germ of a whole philofirst

which

point I

The

am

sophy. I will confine myself to the mere adumbration of a great part

of

it;

for if

elaborate

its

sound, others will probably be in a position to various branches in forms which I cannot imagine in

it is

detail. It is also possible that

direction I I

hope

to indicate,

think I should

tell

you,

some of these

may first

of all,

it

on

were,

and

think

whose general

to inquiries

how it was that I came to ask

The

myself questions about Having. grafted, as

tracks,

turn out to lead nowhere.

general consideration

which were more

particular

was and

begin by referring to them. from having myself, but it will be the simplest way of sharing with you the interests which occasioned these researches, otherwise they must seem to you hopelessly abconcrete,

I

it is

I apologise for

stract.

you

(The

essential to

to quote

written

summary you have

their general sense.)

In the Journal Metapbysique

I

following problem, which seems gical order. H<>

w

we have

first

tion

is

for the

I asked, is

it

had already begun at first to

to state the

be of a purely psycholo-

possible to identify a feeling

which

time? Experience shows that such an identifica-

(Love may appear in such disprevent those who feel it from suspecting its

often extremely difficult.

concerting shapes as to 1

received will have given

Paper Delivered to the Lyons Philosophical Society in November,

1933-

154

observed that an identification of this sort can be

real nature.) I

can be compared with somehave a cold or the measles. In that

realised in proportion as the feeling

thing I have, in the sense that I it

case,

can be limited, defined and

intellectualised.

So

far as this

can form some idea of it and compare it with the previous notion I may have had about this feeling in general. (I am, of course, just giving you a skeleton at present, but never mind.) can be done,

I

On the other hand,

I

went on

to say, in proportion as

cannot be isolated, and so distinguished, able to recognise

it.

But

is

I

am

there not really a sort

less

my

feeling

sure of being

of emotional woof

running across the warp of the feeling I feat/e? and is it not consubstantial with what I am, and that to such a degree that I cannot really set

how

I

it

got

and so form a conception of it? This is glimpse of something which, though it was not

before myself

my

first

a clear-cut distinction, ences, I

was

at least a sort

an imperceptible shading-offfrom a feeling

am. Hence this note written on March 'Everything really comes

we have and what we this in

of scale of subtle

are.

down But

have to a feeling

I

i6th, 193 3

differ-

:

to the distinction

between what

extraordinarily hard to express must be possible to do so. What

it is

conceptual terms, though

it

we have obviously presents an appearance of externality to ourselves. But it is not an absolute externality. In principle, what we have arc things (or this

what can be compared

comparison

is

possible).

I

to things, precisely in so far as

can only

have, in the strict sense

of the

word, something whose existence is, up to a certain point, independent of me. In other words, what I have is added to me; and the fact that

it is

qualities, etc.,

in

possessed by

me

belonging to the thing

some manner and within

words, in so

with powers.

From

is

far as I

added I

to the other properties,

have. I only have

what

I

can

certain limits dispose of; in other

can be considered

as a force, a being

endowed

We can only transmit what we have.'

this point I

went on

to consider the extremely difficult

155

question of whether there was anything in reality which transmit and in

Here, then,

what manner it could be thought

is

one approach, but

for instance, concentrate

my

it is

attention

we cannot

of.

not the only one. I cannot,

on what

is

properly called

from the body-as-object considered by physimy body without coming once more upon this almost impeneologists trable notion of having. And yet, can I, with real accuracy, say that as distinct

is something which I have? In the first place, can my such be called a thing? If I treat it as a thing, what is this body as

my body

T

which

so treats

it?

'In the last analysis/ I wrote in the Journal Mtta-

end up with the formula: My body nothing. Idealism has one further resource:

physique (p. 252), 'we

am

object), I

declare that I

body. But

am

which

the act

posits the objective reality

not this a mere sleight-of-hand? I fear

is

so.

The

is

(an

it

can

of

my

differ-

ence between this sort of idealism and pure materialism amounts

almost to nothing/ But

we can go much

we can show

particular,

deeper than

the consequences of such a

this.

In

mode of

representation or imagination for our attitude towards death or suicide.

Surely killing ourselves

is

disposing of our bodies (or lives) as

something we have, as though they are things. And an implicit admission that we belong to ourselves? But almost unfathomable perplexities then assail us: what is the

though they

are

surely this is

self?

What is this

mysterious relation between the self and ourself ?

It is surely clear that

man who

the relation

is

quite a different thing for the

refuses to kill himself, because he does not recognise a

do

he does not belong to himself. Beneath this apparently negligible difference of formulae, may we not perceive a kind of gulf which we cannot fill in, and can only explore a step right to

at

so, since

a dme? I limit

myself to these two pointers. There

shall notice

may be others, and we

them as they arise, or at least some of them. 156

It

now becomes

necessary to

make an

analysis. I

On

that this analysis will not be a reduction.

must warn you

the contrary;

it

will

we are here in the presence of a datum which is opaque and of which we may even be unable to take full possession. But show

us that

the recognition of

an

step in philosophy,

consciousness

We

irreducible is

and

it

already

may even

effect

an extremely important a kind of change in the

which makes it.

cannot, in

fact,

conceive of this irreducible without also

conceiving of a Beyond, in which it is never resolved; and I think that the double existence of an irreducible and the Beyond goes far

towards an exact definition of man's metaphysical condition. should first notice that the philosophers seem to have always

We

shown a

sort

of implicit mistrust towards the notion of having (I we must ask whether this is a suitable expression,

say 'notion', but

and

I really

think

it is

not). It almost looks as if the philosophers

had on the whole turned away from having, as if it were an impure idea, essentially incapable of being made precise.

The essential ambiguity of having should certainly be underlined from the very beginning. But I think that we cannot, at present, exempt ourselves from going on to the enquiry I am suggesting today. I

Gunter

was prosecuting this enquiry when I first came across Hcrr book Ueber das Haben (published at Bonn by Cohen,

Stern's

1928). I will content myself with quoting these few lines:

'We have a clear

body.

We have. ... In ordinary talk we are perfectly

we mean by this. And yet nobody has thought of attention upon what, in common parlance, is intended

about what

turning his

by the word "have"; no one has attended to it as a complex of relations, and asked himself in what having consists, simply as having.'

Hcrr Stern not only

rightly observes that

mean

'I

when

I

say

am conscious of my body':

'I

have a body',

but neither do

I

I

do

mean

something exists Which can be called my body'. It seems that there must be a middle term, a third kingdom. Herr Stern then plunges 157

into

an

analysis steeped in Husserl's terminology. I will not follow

know (for he has told me so himself) that the results of his" enquiry have now ceased to satisfy him. It is now time, I think, to proceed to the most direct explanation we can manage; and we must take care not to have recourse to the language of German phenomenologists, which is so often untranslatable. him

It

there, especially as I

in these circumstances, I have myself made

may be asked why,

use of the term phenomenology. I reply that the

non-psychological character of such an enquiry

must be emphasised as strongly as possible; for it really concerns the content of the thoughts which it is trying to bring out, so

as this

that they I

may expand in the light of reflection.

should like to

having

is

start

plainly in

its

with the strongest

clearest

we

other cases where this sense (or perhaps call it this

emphasis)

limiting cases

headaches, for is

weakened almost

is

examples

and most exact

I

can, where

sense.

There

are

should more properly

to vanishing point.

Such

can and should be practically neglected (having the absence of the article instance, having need, etc.

a revealing sign here). In cases of the

in significant cases,

kinds, so long as

it

seems that

we do

we

first

type, however, that

are right to distinguish

is,

two

not forget afterwards to ask ourselves about

the relations between them. Having-as-possession can itself develop varieties that are very different,

archy. But the

possessive index

and arranged, as it were, in a hieris as clearly marked when I say, 'I

have a bicycle/ as it is when I assert, 'I have my own views on that/ or even when I say (and this takes us in a slightly different direcwill provisionally set aside tion), *I have time to do so-and-so/

We

having-as-implication. In to be a certain content.

all

That

quid relating to a certain qui

having-as-possession there does seem

is

too definite a word. Call

it

a certain

who is treated as a centre of inherence or

I purposely abstain from the use 6f the word subject, because of the special meanings, whether logical or epistemological,

apprehension.

158

which

connotes: whereas

it

reason

it is

and

our task

difficult for this

very

to try to blaze a trail for ourselves across territory outside

the realms either of logic or of the theory of knowledge.

Notice that the cendent to the difference

attempt to

when I

qui is

from the

This

say, 'I

have a bicycle/ or 'Paul has a

is all

when we built

where the

qui is

its full

The

perfectly simple.

somehow in

mean

I just

that there

is

a

of level or degree between the two of them, but I make no pronounce on the nature of that difference. It is as clear

'James has very original ideas about

cated

taken as in some degree trans-

transcendent

By

quid.

first

force,

when

bicycle', as

I say

that'.

position becomes

more compli-

observe that any assertion about having seems to be

on

model of a kind of prototypical

the

no other than

and given

its

If a 'you have' or a 'he has'

statement,

myself. It looks as if having is full

is

weight,

possible,

when it

it is

is

within

only 'I

felt

have'.

only possible in virtue

of a kind of transference, and such a transference cannot be made without losing something in the process. This can be made somewhat clearer

which

plainly joins possession to

possession

is

actual

ence by exercising

and

it

literal.

we

power,

Power

or by resisting

if

is

think of the relation

at

any

where the

something which

after all, it

it

rate

comes

I experi-

to the

same

thing. I

fact

should be told here that having is often apt to reduce itself to the of containing. But even if we admit that this is so, the im-

portant point must sail be made, that the containing itself cannot be

defined in purely spatial terms.

idea of a potentiality. prevent, to

resist,

and

To to

spreading, spilling out,

And

It

contain

is

oppose the tendency of the content towards

and escaping.

so I think that the objection, if it

examination, against the

At the

me

always to imply the to enclose; but to enclose is to

seems to

is

one, turns,

man who makes it. we can discern

heart of having, then,

159

on a

closer

a kind of suppressed

dynamic, and suppression

which

lights

cant that the

is

certainly the

key-word

here. It

is this

up what I call the transcendence of the qui. It is signifirelation embodied in having is, grammatically, found

to be intransitive.

The

verb

'to

have*

is

only used in the passive in

though we saw passing before us a kind of irreversible progress from the qui towards the quid. Let me add that we are not here concerned with a mere step taken exceptional and specialised ways.

by the subject carried out

reflecting

It is as

upon having. No,

the progress seems to be

by the qui itself: it seems to be within the qui. Here we must

pause for a moment, as

we

are

drawing

close to the central point.

We

can only express ourselves in terms of having when we are moving on a level where, in whatever manner and whatever degree of transposition, the contrast between within and without

retains a

meaning. This is completely applicable to having-as-implication, of which it is now time to say a few words. It is really perfectly clear that

when I

'Such-and-such a body has such-and-such a property,' the property appears to me to be inside, or, as it were, rooted in the say,

of the body which it characterises. I observe, on the other we cannot think of implication without also thinking of hand,

inside,

that

force,

however obscure the notion may

be. I think that

we

cannot

avoid representing the property or character as defining a certain efficacy, a certain essential energy.

But we are not

at the

end of our investigations.

Reflection will, in fact,

now

bring before our eyes the existence

of a kind of dialectic of internality. To have can certainly mean, and even chiefly mean, to havefor ones-self, to keep for one's-self, to hide. The most interesting and typical example is having a secret. But we

come back a

secret

secret

at

because

covery

once to what

because

is

I

I said

keep it; could reveal

inherent in

about content. This

but also and

I

it,

and

it.

The

at the

possibility

contributes to

160

secret is

same time,

its

it is

only

only a

of betrayal or

dis-

definition as a secret.

This

not a unique case;

is

it

can be

whenever

verified

we

are con-

fronted with having in the strongest sense of the word.

The

of a possession

characteristic

being shewablc. There

is

is

a

X

in one's portfolios, parallel between having drawings by which can be shewn to this or that visitor, and having ideas or

strict

opinion on this or that question.

This act of shewing may take place or unfold before another or before oneVself.

The

curious thing

is

that analysis will reveal to us

is far as I shew my own views to myself, I myself become someone else. That, I suppose,

devoid of meaning. In so

that this difference

is

the metaphysical basis for the possibility of expression. I can only

express myself in so far as

And now we

I

can become someone else to

see the transition take place

from the

myself.

formula

first

we can only express ourselves in terms of having, when we are moving on a level implying reference to another taken

to the second one:

There

as another.

remarks just

is

no contradiction between

now on

have*.

'I

The

statement

this 'I

formula and

my

have* can only be

made over against another which is felt to be other. In so

far as I

conceive myself as having in myself, or more exactly,

as mine, certain characteristics, certain trappings, I consider myself

from the point of view of another from this other except after having with him.

but first

I

do not

separate myself

implicitly identified myself

When I say, for instance, 'I have my own opinion about

imply, 'My opinion is not everybody's*; but I can only exclude or reject everybody's opinion if I have first, by a momentary

that,' I

fiction, assimilated

Having,

it

and made it mine.

therefore, is not

relations, far

from

it.

It

found in the

would

scale

of purely

there be meaningless. It

and

is

interior

found,

can no longer be than more and height depth of musical tone. really separated, any And here, I think, it is the tension between them that is important. rather, in a scale

We L

must

where

now

externality

internality

return to having-as-possession in

161

its

stria sense.

M.B.H.

Take

the simplest case, possession of any object whatever, say a

picture.

From one

exterior to

its

point of view

possessor.

It is

destinies are also different.

The less

permissible

is it

is

And

to harp

is

should say that

spatially distinct

on having and

upon

qui and

proper to things,

it

may

be

So

it

absolutely that this

far as this quid

subject to the changes

lost or destroyed.

is

and

the quid,

not simply an external conjunction. But in so

a thing,

their

possession, the

this externality. It

between the

and consequently

this object is

from him, and

yet this is only a superficial view.

stronger the emphasis placed

certain that there is a link

link

we

and chances

becomes, or

is

in

danger of becoming, the centre of a kind of whirlpool of fears and anxieties, thus expressing exactly the tension

part of the order of having. It may be said that I can that object in

possession It is,

is

on

easily

my possession.

which

is

be indifferent to the

But in

an

fate

essential

of this or

that case, I should say that the

only nominal, or again, residual.

the other hand, very important to notice that having

already exists, in a most profound sense, in desire or in covetousness.

To desire is in a manner to have without having. That is why

there

is

a kind of suffering or burning which

desire. It is really the expression

of a

sort

is

an

essential part

of contradiction;

it

of

ex-

from an untenable position. There presses the friction inseparable is also an absolute balance between covetousness and the pain I feel at the idea that I

am

going to

lose

what

I

have,

what

I

thought

I

had, and what I have no longer. But if this is so, then it seems (a point we had noticed before) that having in some way depends upon time. Here again we shall find ourselves confronted with a

kind of mysterious polarity. There is certainly a two-fold permanency in having: there is the permanency of the qui, and the permanency of the quid. But this

permanency is, of its very nature, threatened. It is willed, or at least wished, and it slips from our grasp. The threat is the hold exerted 162

by the other qua before

which

other, the other

which may be

am

I so painfully feel that I

the

world

itself,

hug which from and I be torn me, thing desperately try to may it in to and it into a form porate single and myself, myself

A desperate, hopeless

soluble complex.

and

to myself this

I

I.

incorindis-

struggle.

This brings us back to the body, and corporeity. The primary object with which I identify myself, but which still eludes me, is

my own

body.

We

may

well think that

we

are here at the very

The

heart of the mystery, in the very deepest recesses of having.

body is the typical possession.

Or is it?

Before pursuing this further,

let

us return once more to having -

as-implication. In this, the characteristics to

which

I

have been

drawing attention seem to disappear. Let us go right to one extreme end of the ladder which links up abstract and concrete, and consider the statement,

'A

certain geometrical figure has a certain

property'. I confess that I cannot, without recourse to pure sophistry,

find in this anything at all like that tension between external

and

internal, that polarity

of the same and the other.

proper question whether, in taking essences to

me

for

what

I

ence which

is

we

are not

in the

body or

But

possession

Having

I

species exhibiting certain

making a sort of unconscious transferThat point

last analysis unjustifiable.

not press, at any rate not now, for interest.

a

of

have just said of the geometrical figure seems

to cover also the living

characteristics

Having

It is therefore

into the very heart

it

seems to

I will

me of secondary

think that the setting-up of my body as the typical

marks an essential as such

is

stage in metaphysical thought.

essentially

something that

affects

the

qui.

It is

never reduced, except in a completely abstract and ideal way, to

something of which the qui can have the disposal. Always there is a sort of boomerang action, and nowhere is this clearer than in the case of my body, or of an instrument

which

multiplies

its

which

powers. Perhaps

163

this

is

an extension of it, or

has some analogy with

and the slave as Hegel has defined it in The Phenomenology of the Mind. This dialectic has its spring in the tension without which real having does not and cannot exist. the dialectic of the master

The

we

point

are discussing

now

lies at

the very heart

of the

world of every day, the world of daily experience with its dangers, its anxieties, and its techniques. At the heart of experience, but also at the heart

of the

unintelligible.

For the

fact

must be faced,

that

this tension, this fateful double action, may at any moment turn our lives into a kind of incomprehensible and intolerable slavery. Before going further, let us once again sum up the position in

which we

stand.

Normally, or (if you prefer it) usually, I find myself confronted with things: and some of these things have a relationship with me

which

is at

external:

it

once peculiar and mysterious. These things are not only is as though there were a connecting corridor between

them and me; they reach me, one might exact proportion as I

am

say,

underground. In

attached to these things, they are seen to

power over me which my attachment confers upon them, and which grows as the attachment grows. There is one particular thing which really stands first among them, or which enjoys an exercise a

absolute priority, in this respect, over it

exercises over

me

considerable degree,

them

my body. The tyranny

depends, by no means completely, but to a

upon

the attachment I have for

it.

But

and

most paradoxical feature of the situation I seem, in the resort, to be annihilating myself in this attachment, by sinking

this is the last

myself in this body to which I cling. It seems that my body literally devours me, and it is the same with all the other possessions which are

somehow

analysis

hung upon my body. So that in the last new point of view Having as such seems

attached or

and

this is

a

to have a tendency to destroy and lose itself in the very thing

by possessing, but which controlled

it.

It

seems that

now it is

absorbs the master

who

it

began

thought he

of the very nature of my body, or of

164

my

instruments in so far as

should tend to blot

But

if I

I treat

them

out, although

it is

as possessions, that they I

who

possess them.

think again, I shall see that this kind of dialectic

possible if it starts

And

me

from an

of desertion which makes

act

once opens up the way

this observation at

to a

it

is

only

possible.

whole new

region.

And

yet,

what

difficulties

we

objections! In particular, could

it

find!

true.

it

But

yourself and there

is

has no power over you.

it

does not react

it

array of possible

not be said, 'In so far as you

the instrument as pure instrument,

control

What an

upon you/ This

is

treat

You

perfectly

a division or interval, hardly measurable

by between or and thought, having something, using it: controlling and the danger we are speaking of lies just in this division or remarkable book he has just published on The Decisive Years and the state of the world today, someinterval. Spengler, in the very

where

notices the distinction that I

am

getting at here. In speaking

of investments or shares in companies, he emphasises the difference between pure having (das blosse Halen), and the responsible work of direction which he

insists

upon

the contrast between

in the mass (Wertmtngi)*

the difficult

explain.

'Our

objects vitally

and

treated as

abstract,

is

when we

now: and

when we

bound up with something

mediate subject-matter of a personal creative

it is

truer

of inertia in face of

are in a state

are themselves inert, but falser

actively

an

real property (Besitz), in a piece of

possessions eat us up,' I said just

of us, strangely enough,

which

and

money,

something in this to throw indirect light piece of thinking which I am now trying to

land, for example. There

upon

the head of the undertaking. Elsewhere

falls to

are

more

serving as the im-

act,

a subject-matter

perpetually renewed. (It may be the garden of the keen gardener, the farm of a farmer, the violin of a musician, or the laboratory of a scientist.)

In

all these cases,

we may

say,

having tends, not to be

destroyed, but to be sublimated and changed into being.

165

Wherever

there

is

pure creation, having as such

transcended

is

or etherialised within the creative act: the duality of possessor

possessed

is lost

we

illustration

in a living

can think

reality.

of,

and

This demands the most concrete

and not mere examples taken from

category of material possessions.

I

the

am thinking in particular of such

my ideas and opinions. In this case, the word on a meaning which is at once positive and threatening.

pseudo-possessions as 'have* takes

The more

my own

I treat

ideas, or

even

convictions, as some-

my

something I am proud of (unconsciously perhaps) as I might be proud of my greenhouse or my

me and

thing belonging to

the

stables

more

very inertia (or

so as

and opinions tend, by their towards them, which comes to the same

surely will these ideas

my

inertia

thing) to exercise a tyrannical

of fanaticism in

and in

fanatic,

all its

power over me;

shapes.

What

other cases too,

alienation of the subject

it

that

is

the principle

happens in the case of the

seems,

a sort of unjustified

is

the use of the term

is

unavoidable here

of the thing, whatever it may be. That, in my opinion, is the difference between the ideologist, on the one hand, and the

in face

thinker or

artist

dangerous of slaved to a

bound

The

the other.

human

ideologist

types, because he

pan of himself which has

seen a connexion

examination.

He

on

one of the most

is

is

mortified,

unconsciously en-

and

this slavery is

to manifest itself outwardly as tyranny. There,

may be guard

all

The

thinker,

which

on

deserves serious

the other hand,

is

by the way,

and

separate

continually

on

of his thought. and the whole of his

against this alienation, this possible fossilising

lives in

thought

is

a continual

state

of

creativity,

always being called in question from one minute to the

next.

This throws

light, I think,

on what

I

have

left

to say.

The man

who

remains on the plane of having (or of desire) is centred, either on himself or on another treated as another; the result is the same in cither case, so far as the tension or polarity goes

166

which

I

was

emphasising just now. This point needs a much more detailed development than I can give it at present. The notion of the self,

and of one's-self, should

be firmly seized upon.

really

We should

then realise that, contrary to the belief of many idealists, particularly the philosophers of consciousness, the self is always a thickening, a sclerosis,

and perhaps

who knows?

a sort of apparently spiritu-

alised expression (an expression 0/"an expression)

of the body, not

taken in the objective sense but in the sense of my body in as far as it is mine, in so far as my body is something I have. Desire is at the

same time auto-centric and appears to its

itself to

appearing so

be hetero-centric

is itself

a

neither that of the

Thou. better,

self,

say that

it

when it is really auto-centric, but

But we know very well that it is of the self and the other; it is trans-

fact.

the level possible to transcend in charity. and in love cended both is

we might

hetero-centric;

Love moves on a ground which

nor that of the other qua other;

I call

it

the

should think a more philosophical designation would be if it could be found; but at the same time I do think that I

abstract terms here

us,

might betray

and land us once more in the

the He. region of the other,

Love, in so

far as distinct

from

treated as the subordination reality

at

my deepest

the breaking to

me

think,

to

level

of the

more

truly

will say so

Along

I

am

by the way,

a

self and the other, appears

that the science it

reality,

myself love as

call the essential ontological

datum.

I

of ontology will

takes full cognisance of the

comes first.

these lines, I think,

we can

see

what

I said

transference. It seems plain to

between the thing and v

its

is

to be understood

underlying our mental picture

that, by the uncharacterisable. or as of things, subjects possessing predicates

must be a

desire, love

a superior

me than

not get out of the scholastic rut until fact that love

opposed to

self to

of the tension between the

be what one might

and

desire or as

characteristics

167

me

characteristics, there

that the distinction

cannot have any meta-

shall

it is,

physical bearing:

admits of the use of the word

from

others; but

at the

we

say, purely

can only be

too, that characteristics

phenomenal. Notice, an order which

asserted in

The characteristic is picked out we cannot say that the thing is a

'also*.

same time,

of characteristics. Characteristics cannot be juxtaposed, and we do not juxtapose them except in so far as we ignore their collection

specifying function

but that

as objects different

flavour

them as

treat

units or

homogeneous

entities;

a fiction which does not bear examination. I can,

is

an apple, a bullet, a key, and a ball of string of the same nature, and as a sum of units. But it is quite

speaking,

strictly

and

treat

with the smell of a flower and

and

digestibility

its

of a dish. In so

colour, or the consistency, far,

then, as characterisa-

tion consists in enumerating properties, placing one beside the other,

an absolutely external proceeding;

it is

it

and

misleads us,

any circumstances, gives us the least opportunity of reaching the heart of that reality which we are trying to characterise. But, never, in

speaking philosophically, the really important point to recognise is that characterisation implies a certain setting of myself in front of the other,

and

(if I

may

cutting-offof me from

it.

say so) a sort of radical banishment or I

myself bring about

myself implicitly coming to a myself (though

bounded by

I

its

limited thing that It is

probably am outlines. It I

halt,

this

banishment, by

separating myself,

and

treating

not conscious of so doing) as a thing

is

only in relation to

can pkce whatever

I

this implicitly

am trying to characterise. man who

plain that the will to characterise implies, in the

exerdng

it,

a belief

at

shows us how

inclined to think that

speaking,

is

illusory that he can make The Leibnizian idea ofcbarac-

once sincere and

abstraction from himself qua himself. teristica universalis

is

we

far this pretenthn

forget

how

the position of a thought

can go. But

of taking 168

its

am

untenable, metaphysically

which

believes that

place itself over against things in order to grasp them. certainly develop a system

I

it

It

can can

bearings by things, a system

of increasing and even

infinite

complexity: but

its

aim

is

to let the

essence of things go.

To

say that reality

is

make an ambiguous and and we must be

perhaps uncharacterisable

is

certainly to

apparently contradictory pronouncement,

careful not to interpret

it

in a

way which conforms

with the principles of present-day agnosticism. This means :-If adopt that attitude to Reality,

would presuppose, slips its

away from

ghost. I

am

my

which

all efforts

to characterise

I it

once cease to apprehend it qua Reality: it eyes, leaving me face to face with no more than I at

deceived by the inevitable coherence of this ghost,

and pride, when in fact I ought of the doubts soundness of my undertaking. by Characterisation is a certain kind of possession, or claim to

and

so sink into self-satisfaction

rather to be attacked

possession, of that

of a

little

reality

which cannot be

possessed. It

the construction

is

abstract effigy, a model as English physicists call

which

it,

of a

will not lend itself to these tricks, these deceptive

pretences, except in the most superficial way. Reality will only play this

game with

us in so far as

consequently are guilty

we

cut ourselves off from

it,

and

of self-desertion.

we raise ourselves towards Reality, and approach it more nearly, we find that it cannot be compared with an object placed before us on which we can take bearings: and we find, too, that we are ourselves actually changed in the process. If, I

think, therefore, that as

as I believe, there

is

essentially different trine,

then

an ascending scale of dialectic, in a sense not so as one might suppose from the Platonic doc-

this dialectic is two-fold,

but also to the being into the nature

of such a

that such a philosophy

doctrine, for to

myself

at

and

who apprehends

relates

not only to

reality

I

cannot, at this time, go

dialectic. I will

be content to point out

would

it.

give a totally

new

direction to the

example, of the Divine Attributes. I confess that, any rate, the attributes of God are exactly what

certain post-Kantians have called Grentzlegriff. If

169

Being

is

more

uncharacterisable

(i.e.

more unpossessable and more transcendent it has more Being, then the attri-

in proportion as

in every

way) do no more than express and translate, in terms that are completely inadequate, the fact that Absolute Being is as a whole butes can

which

rebellious to descriptions

has

less

place ourselves,

and reducing

it

fit

anything but what

an object before which we can reducing ourselves, to some extent, to its measure, to ours. God can only be given to me as Absolute will only

They

Being.

will never

fit

Presence in worship; any idea I form of Him

is

only an abstract

expression or intellectualisation of the Presence. I must never

remember

when

this,

I try to

fail to

handle such thoughts; otherwise the

thoughts will suffer distortion in

my sacrilegious hands. And so we come at last to what is for me the essential distinction

the central point of

my

essay

published in a few days

on The

Ontological Mystery, to be

the distinction between

problem and

in the paper you have just heard. mystery, already presupposed I

venture to read

now

a passage from a paper delivered

to the Marseilles Philosophical Society. It will

from

now as the appendix to a play,

'In turning

my attention

such as logical problems,

came

to

le

Monde

what one

Does Being

last

year

appear in a few days

Cassf. 1

usually thinks of as onto-

exist?

What

is

Being?

etc., I

to observe that I cannot think about these problems without

gulf open beneath my feet, namely, This I, I who ask can I be sure that I exist? What qualificaquestions about being, tions have I for pursuing these inquiries? If I do not exist, how can seeing a

I

hope

exist,

new

to bring

them

to a conclusion?

how can I be assured that I do?

comes

first

into

my head, I

Even admitting

that I

do

spite of the thought which do not think that Descartes' cogto can be

In

of any help to us here. The co&ito, as I have written elsewhere, is at the mere threshold of validity; the subject of the coyto is the epistema severance, ological subject. Cartesianism implies 1

Published by Desclfc de Brouwer.

170

which may

be

anyhow, between intellect and and an exaltation of the

fatal

tion of the one,

life; its

result is a deprecia-

other, both

arbitrary.

There

ihythm only too familiar to us, for which we an are bound explanation. It would certainly not be proper to deny the legitimacy of making distinctions of order within the unity of a living subject, who thinks and strives to think of himself. is

here an inevitable to find

But

problem can only

the ontological

tions,

and

for the living

arise

beyond such

being grasped in his

full

distinc-

unity

and

vitality.

This leads us

to ask

what conditions

are involved in the idea

of

working out a problem. Wherever a problem is found, I am working upon data placed before me; but at the same time, the general of affairs authorises

state

myself with It is, as is

this

me to carry on as if I had no need to trouble

Me who is at work:

we have just

he

is

here simply presupposed.

seen, quite a different matter

about Being. Here the ontological

status

when

the inquiry

of the questioner be-

comes of the highest importance. Could it be said, then, that I am involving myself in an infinite regress? No, for by the very act of so conceiving the regress,

whole

nising that the

which

assertion

I

placing myself above

it.

I

am

recog-

remains within a certain

reflexive process

am

am

am

I

an

rather than which I pronounce

asser-

advance into the realm of the metaproblematic, that

Thereby we is, of mystery.

A mystery

own

tion of

which

is

I

the place,

a problem

invades them, and so

is

and not

the subject.

which encroaches upon

its

data and

transcended qua problem/

We cannot now go on to make further developments, indispensible

though they

are. I will limit

give definiteness to

myself to one example in order to

my conceptions, and

that shall

be the mystery of

evil.

I

am

naturally inclined to consider evil as a disorder

look into;

and even

I try to

its

make out

hidden ends.

its

causes, the reason for

How is

it

171

that this

its

which

I

existence,

machine is so

defective

in

its

Or

functioning?

apparent but

real, in

is

this

apparent defect due to a defect, not a kind of spiritual presbyopia

my own vision,

or astigmatism? If so, the real disorder

would remain unmasked

it.

But

ceases to be evil

I

lie

in myself,

and

yet

which

simply recognised, or even contemplated, suffered, in fact I think it simply ceases to be evil. I

only really grasp

where

would

objective in relation to the mental censorship evil

it

as evil in proportion as

it

touches me; that

am involved in it in the sense that one is involved in

is,

busi-

This being involved is fundamental, and I can only discount it by an act of the mind, legitimate in some cases, but fictional, and which I must not allow to deceive me. ness.

Traditional philosophy has tended to reduce the mystery of evil to the

kind

problem of evil. That evil, love and death

is

why, when

it

so often gives the impression of being

it

touches

a game, or a kind of intellectual sleight-of-hand.

realities

The more

of this

idealist

more strong the impression; for the thinking then more deeply intoxicated with an emancipation

the philosophy, the subject

is

which is in fact

deceptive.

ought now (though there is hardly time) to go over the whole of the first part of my paper, and try to shew how light can be thrown upon it by these distinctions. It seems clear to me that the realm of I

having is identical with the realm of the problematic and at the same time, of course, with the realm where technics can be used.

The

metaproblematic

is

in fact metatechnical. Every technic pre-

supposes a group of previously condition of its working; is

it is

made

abstractions

which

are the

powerless where full-blooded Being

in question. This point might be

drawn out

in several directions.

At the root of having, as also at the root of the problem or the technic, there lies a certain specialisation or specification

self,

connected with that partial alienation of the self which mentioned earlier. And this brings us to the examination of a

and I

of the

this is

distinction which, to

me, seems extremely important and with 172

which

I will

end

tinction between It is essential

this already

overloaded lecture

to note that

autonomy

is

above

is

a heteronomy presupposed and rejected. that

'I

the radical formula of autonomy.

that tension

I

mean

the dis-

autonomy and freedom. all

the negation of

want to run my own life* here that

It is

between the Same and the Other, which

we can is

sec

the very

We

should further recognise, I think, pulse of the world of having. that autonomy bears on any realm which admits of administration,

however conceived.

It

in fact implies the idea of a certain sphere

and can be more

activity,

closely defined

circumscribed in space and

closely

interests,

whatever the

time.

interests are,

when

Anything

can be

treated

as a sphere or district with fixed boundaries.

a great extent, treat

this sphere

of

can be

in the nature of

with

relative ease

And further,

I can, to

my own life as capable of being administered by

another or by myself (myself here meaning the not-other). I can administer anything which admits the comparison, however in-

with a fortune or possession. But it is quite different when the category of having can no longer be applied, for then I can no

direct,

longer talk of administration in any sense, and so cannot speak of

autonomy. Take, talents.

To

for

example, the realm of

a certain extent a talent

literary

or artistic

may be administered, when its when his talent resides in him

possessor has taken the measure of it, as a possession.

administration

But is

for genius, properly so-called, the idea

a complete contradiction; for

genius to be always outrunning tions.

A

genius'

is

man

is

literally

nomy, whatever

itself and

it is

spilling over in all direc-

a genius, but has talent (the expression meaningless).

we may have

I really

of such

of the essence of

'to have

think that the idea of auto-

thought of it,

is

bound up with

a

particularisation of the subject. The more I enter into the whole of an activity with the whole of myself, the less

kind of reduction or

legitimate

sopher

it is

is less

to say that I

am autonomous.

autonomous than the 173

In

scientist,

this sense, the philo-

and

the scientist less

autonomous than the

mous

technician.

The man who

is

in a certain sense, most fully involved.

is,

most autono-

Only

this

non-

autonomy ofthe philosopher or the great artist is not hetcronomy any more than love is hetero-centricity. It is rooted in Being, at a point either short all

and in a sphere which transcends the sphere, indeed, which I reach in con-

of self or beyond

possible possession;

templation or worship.

self,

And,

in

my

view, this means that such

non-autonomy is very freedom. not our business here even to outline a theory of freedom, if only because we should have to begin by asking whether the idea of a theory of freedom did not imply contradiction. Here I will It is

point out just one thing: the self-evident truth that in the scale of sanctity light,

and of artistic creation, where freedom glows with its fullest never autonomy. For the saint and the artist alike, auto-

it is

and the

We

swallowed up in love. might perhaps seize this opportunity to show that most of the defects of Kant's philosophy are essentially bound up with the fact that he centricity

self are entirely

had no suspicion of

all this;

he never saw

that the self

can and

should be transcended without there being any need for heter-

onomy to replace autonomy in consequence. I

must come

return to

my

to a conclusion,

and

this is

not easy. I will simply

preliminary formula. I said then that

by the recognition of an

irreducible, but that

and

we

we

should end

should also find

such a duality something beyond seemed to me part of the very nature of man's metaphysical condithis irreducible;

I said that

What is this irreducible? I do not think that we can, properly speaking, define it, but we can in some measure locate it. It is the tion.

ontological deficiency proper to the creature, or at least to the fallen

This deficiency is essentially a kind of inertia, but apt to turn into a son of negative activity, and it cannot be eliminated. On creature.

the contrary, our certain

first

task

is

to recognise

it.

makes possible a disciplines; each of

It

number of autonomous and subordinate

them

certainly representing danger to the unity

far as

it

tends to absorb

partial justification. activities

it,

And

but each also having therefore

it

of the creature in so its

own worth, and

also necessary that these

is

and autonomous functions should be balanced and

harmonised by the central activities. In these, man is recalled into the presence of mystery, that mystery which is the foundation of his very being,

and

apart from

mystery of religion,

art

which he

and metaphysic.

175

is

nothingness: the grand

PART TWO FAITH

M

AND REALITY

M.B.H.

I

SOME REMARKS ON THE

TODAY

IRRELIGION OF shall

do

best today to define the attitude

my

1

of mind which

regards the religious question simply as obsolete. This attitude

I demands

a careful definition.

not necessarily the same thing to say that the religious question

It is

deny that a religious datum persists, provided that the datum belongs to the realm of feeling. By definition, this datum is

obsolete

and

to

could not be obsolete; but a custom or idea can be obsolete, and so

can a belief in so

far as

it

can be treated

as

an idea. There would also

be no point in denying that religion needs explanation when regarded as a fact, i.e. as a body of institutions, rites, etc.; it would even worth noticing that with a certain type of mind, the greater its separation from any kind of religious life, the greater also is its curiosity about the origin of so

indeed be absurd to

strange

and

diverse a

try.

set

(It

of phenomena, and about the reason

obviously important place in

'The

religious question

is

is

human

history.)

obsolete', they

mean

When 'there is

for

its

people say

no longer

any point in asking whether the assertions of religion correspond with anything in reality. There is no point in asking whether a having the attributes traditionally connected with the word God; nor whether salvation, as believers call it, is anything

Being

exists

but a certain form of subjective experience which they clumsily

of myth. Everybody/ they add, 'will realise why/ here quote a passage from Bertrand Russell, as it seems to me

interpret in terms I shall

1

Lecture delivered on December 4th, 1930, to the Ffdfrathn des

Associations d'tudiants cbrttiens.

179

most

significant.

'That

Man is the product of causes which

prevision of the end they were achieving; that his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs,

outcome of accidental collocations of atoms;

that

no

had no

origin, his

are but the

no hero-

fire,

ism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual

beyond the grave;

life

that all the labours

of the

ages, all the

devo-

tion, noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must in-

the inspiration,

all

all

the

evitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins

all

these things, if not quite

beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, 1 rejects them can hope to stand/ Russell's private religious beliefs do not, of course, concern us here. The interest of the passage lies rather in its being a typical that

no philosophy which

statement of the negative creed implied in the attitude

we

set

out to

examine. There are undeniably some people who claim that you can found a religion even upon this cosmic despair. I must say that I

cannot see

use of terms,

Perhaps

which to

I

how this

can be maintained without a shocking mis-

and one day I

it

will

throw a

am going

work from

will explain little

why. on the tortuous path down

light

to take you, if I

mention

three consecutive points

tions, or three steps in

a

scale.

They

at

of view

once that

I

propose

three distinct posi-

are: (i) the point

of view of

pure rationalism, or the philosophy of Enlightenment; (2) applied

of applied science; (3) the philosophy founded on the supremacy of Life, or the Vital Principle.

science, or rather, the philosophy

First, let

sort

us look at the peculiar idea of modernity involved in the

of rationalism

no longer

we

are trying to describe. 'Today,* they say,

'it is

possible to believe in miracles or the Incarnation.'

'A

man of 1930 cannot possibly accept the doctrine of the resurrection of the body/ These

arc 1

examples taken

at

random. The

Philosophical Essays, p. 60. 1

80

interesting

thing about them, to me, is their emphasis on the date, which is treated as a point of view, one might almost say a specially favourable position for seeing things

call

it,

if

you

like,

an

observatory.

They seem to be representing Time or History as a space containing fields of unequal quality; and accordingly they use epithets like *

'advanced' and retrograde* to imply approval and disapproval; such epithets are a striking feature

country.

political

psychology of our

own

will be quite ready to admit the fact that the latest

They

phase in time

of the

may show

previous stage. This

a falling-back by comparison with the

to be expected, because enlightened

is

minds

may find themselves mixed up with reactionary ones at some particular point in time. aries

may

upper hand

get the

But they

apparent setback. later the

A power-problem may

human mind

for the

will set out again

it

and

the reaction-

so that there

moment,

assure us that

towards the light. 'The light/

arise,

is

an

will not kst; sooner or

on

its

victorious

march

A word (or conception in the vaguest

of the term) whose importance cannot be over-estimated. I believe that if we really thought about it, we should find it to be the

sense

secularised

expression

and

stripped to the last

ounce of meaning

of an idea worked out by the Greeks and still more by the Fathers of the Church. will not press the point at present. Their manner of presenting this idea of progressive enlightenment is two-

We

fold:

sometimes

it is

very significant here) aspects are closely

The almost

first

word obscurantism being and sometimes technical-scientific. The two

ethical-political (the

bound up with each other.

point to notice

bound

to

make

is this.

capital

A philosophy of enlightenment

of the popular

trick

is

of comparing

humanity, considered throughout the whole of its history, with a single person passing

escence to as

an

from childhood

manhood, and

adult,

so on.

to adolescence,

from adol-

The enlightened mind regards itself

who can no longer allow himself the pleasure of repeat-

ing the nursery

stories that so

delighted his childish age. But this

181

is

an oversimplified

picture,

and open

to the gravest objections.

might well ask whether childhood has not

We

own peculiar values which the grown man

its

a happy trustfulness, a peculiar candour

he

is to land up at a dogmatism to and unable bear him by experience any fruit but jejune cynicism. Many great truths come into play in this connection, and

should preserve

at all costs, unless

dictated

have been admirably expounded by such writers as Peguy. And there is a second point, sail more important. Most people would agree without question that the progress of enlightenment cannot take place without a progressive elimination of the anthropocentric element.

They

enlist

on

and

perfectly natural to think that the Earth verse,

and

that

man

wonders of modern

their side the

astronomy, thus: 'Before Copernicus

Galileo', they say,

was

'it

the centre of the

was

Uni-

occupied a special position in what they

still

But astronomy has put the Earth and Man in their proper perspective. Now we can see that the place they occupy is almost infinitesimal compared with the immense size of the visible called Creation.

universe/ All this seems aimed at taking

down the

simple-minded

and ridiculous pride of mankind, which thought itself the supreme expression and perhaps ultimate purpose of the cosmos. But please notice satirising

mology.

human

It is

at

once that

this

pride, in spite of

in fact exalting

it.

its

philosophy only seems to be foundation of positive cos-

There is a

shift

of position, and what

an extraordinary one it is! It is true that Man regarded as an object is thrust back into the ranks, a mere object among an

of science infinite

crowd of other

But

objects.

Man

still

possesses

that claims to transcend the material world to which he

Science.

We

will not call

it

Human

one thing is

reduced

Science, for these philo-

sophers are doing their best to dehumanise and deracinate Science,

and consider it by itself in its intrinsic movement. So they will talk to us of Mind and Thought (in capitals). It would be a mistake not to take the capitals seriously, because they exactly express the

182

attempt to depersonalise

Mind and Thought. They

are

somebody's mind, or somebody's thought; they are presences. flexibility

of ideal system, with a free the philosophers will be at pains

are a sort

They

of their own,

as

out.

A writer like M. Brunschwicg

one

now

in

my

alive to build

Mind

up

this rationalism (this spirituality, as he,

such a man, I

it)

say, as

M.

very far from believing that this development of

is

or Science

is

the unfolding in

Time of an absolute Principle,

existing for itself through all Eternity, like Aristotle's

Hegel's Absolute Mind.

metaphysical

to point

who has done more than any-

opinion, quite wrongly, calls

Brunschwicg,

no longer

no longer range and

fictions.

To

Nous

him, Nous and Absolute Mind

or

are just

The Mind of his own panegyrics is still called

devoid of all attributes which can give the word any meaning. 'No doubt', he concedes at the end of his book on The Progress of Consciousness, 'No doubt a God who has no point of

God, but

it is

contact with any uniquely important event in space or time, a

who

God

has taken no initiative and assumed no responsibility for the

physical aspect of the Universe;

who

has willed neither the ice of

the poles nor the heat of the tropics;

who

cares neither for the

hugeness of the elephant nor the minuteness of the ant; neither for the destructive action of the microbe nor the constructive reaction

of the globule; a God who never dreams of punishing the sins of ourselves or our ancestors; who knows no more of perjured men than of rebellious angels;

who

grants success neither to the predic-

tion of the prophet nor to the miracle

has no dwelling-place either in Earth or Heaven, perceived at

no

special point in history,

and can be translated into none:

this

who

speaks no language

God, to the primitive mentality

or the coarse supernaturalism so clearly professed

James,

is

what he would

call

an

God who who can be

of the magician; a

abstract ideal.

But

by William for a

thought

away from its own beginnings, a subtler and more highly trained, this become has thought which which has

travelled further

183

God

is

nothing its

who

one

abstracts himself

is abstract,

pride of the

We

only what

is

for

it is

whom

through

An important passage, worthy of serious

intrinsic truth-value/

consideration.

from nothing and

since concrete reality

aware throughout of the far more terrible thanks God that he is free from the primitive

are

man who

mentality,

and

Remember

the phrases I have quoted to you already, 'In our time

it is

rejoices in his adult status

no longer permissible

.

.

.";

without misgiving.

'A man of 1930 could

not allow

.

.

/

and so on. But take

of a Christian philosopher like Saint Bonaventure, Man appeared to be the centre of the Universe, he 9 was so only as being an image of God. 'Essc imapnem Dei, he care. If, in the eyes

writes, 'non est bomini accident, sedpotius substantiate, sicut esse vestigium nulli accidit creaturae*

man

(To be an image of God

but of his essence, just as

it

is

not accidental to

cannot be an accident to a foot-

print to have been imprinted.) Plainly, the 'ridiculous anthropocentric attitude*

is

really just applied theocentrism.

To Saint Augus-

Saint Thomas and Saint Bonaventure, God is the centre, and God alone. But today it is the human mind, dehumanised, stripped

tine,

of all power,

all

presence,

and

all existence,

and then put in God's

place to act as His substitute. It is

sophy.

plainly very difficult to think one's Its initiates are

am

few. I

the religious question obsolete

way

into such a philo-

sure that most people

would not subscribe to

it,

who

think

but would

an agnosticism modelled on Spencer or a materialism such as Le Dantec's. This is, of course, worse from a speculaprefer to adopt

tive point

of view, but

in our minds.

it

What

finds

more numerous and

are the footholds

of all, and I

firmer footholds

of a doctrine

am

like

M.

not afraid to say so. I

Brunschwicg's? Pride, shall be contradicted; they will say that it is not personal pride, for the Mind they are telling us about is not the Mind of an individual. first

My first answer is, that

it is,

or

tries to

184

be, the

Mind of everybody.

And we know

very well, from Plato onwards,

democracy

flattery

simply transposed democracy.

bound

what a deal of

will allow itselfand this idealism, after

And

ail, is

The idealist is Mind and then we confront him with the (as

that is not all.

in the end to substitute himself for the

have an individual to deal with. Let us

he thinks) shocking spectacle of a Christian astronomer.

an astronomer

believe in the Incarnation or

go

to

How can

Mass? The

As an astronomer, put up this monster (or rather this amphibian) is a man of the twentieth century and the idealist can greet him as a contemporary. As a man who believes in the Incarnation, however, and goes to Mass, he is idealist's

only hope

behaving

we

is

a distinction.

to

mediaeval

like a

or a child;

and

this is

a

pity.

When

ask the philosopher to justify his extraordinary dichotomy, he

may

call

upon Reason and Mind

will not convince us; especially

till

he

is

black in the face, but he

when we

see that

he does not

and even sociological arguments to account for these survivals in the astronomer, while he absolutely forbids us turn such arguments or analyses upon himself. He is a scruple to use psychological

of 1930 from top to toe. And yet he is still invoking an Eternal Mind, but a Mind which has none the less been born;

man who

Its

next incarnation will be,

Heaven only knows. Frankly,

find all this extremely incoherent. If a Marxist, for example, to tackle the idealist

and

tell

him

plainly that his

I

were

Mind was

a

purely bourgeois product begotten of economic leisure, the idealist would have to take refuge in the realm of completely bloodless abstractions. I think myself that idealism

of this kind cannot help

being cornered, with concrete religious philosophy

on one

side,

and

impotent when is

historical materialism

just the history of a single

(what

is

on the

confronted with history life. It

any

other.

who

For

it is

real history,

in

in fact

even if it

either. Personally, I

substitute the Cartesian concept

185

it

has no feeling for tragedy, and

worse) no feeling for flesh and blood

think that people

hemming

of matter

for the richly confused idea

ofthefesh which

is

embedded

in

all

Christian philosophy are doing anything but progressing in their metaphysics. There

metaphysicians

is

an almost untouched task

would do well

here,

and pure

to focus all their attention

or so I think: the task of describing the evolution

and

upon

it,

progressive

confusion of the notions of flesh and fleshly existence in the history

of philosophical thought.

At

bottom,

idealism

this

a purely professorial doctrine, and

is

under Schopenhauer's partially unjust criticism of the academic philosophers of his day. (It was partially unjust, because there is a real feeling for concreteness and human drama in such

falls directly

writers as Schelling

and Hegel.)

In point of faq, philosophical idealism would very likely have had no appreciable effect upon the development of human thought,

had I

not found a redoubtable ally in

it

believe that the spirit

serious obstacle, for

all

of applied science

forms of applied science. is

really in itself the

many perfectly candid minds,

most

to the acceptance

of the notion of religious life, or rather religious truth.

Some rather complicated considerations arise here, and you must forgive me if my analysis seems somewhat over-subtle. I think we have reached the crux of the whole problem.

By

mean, in a general way, any branch of guarantee to man the mastery of a definite

'applied science* I

learning object.

which tends

And

so any applied science can obviously be regarded as

manipulation, as a

(The matter

to

itself

way of handling or moulding a given matter. may belong to the mind, as in the science of

history or psychology.)

Several points here arc worth considering, (i)

defined by the various handles

which

its

A science can be

object offers

it.

But con-

is only an object in virtue of the handles it versely, an object itself offers us, and this is true upon the most elementary level, of simple

external perception.

For

this reason there is a parallel 1 8(5

between

advance in science ana advance in

j\n ooject

objectivity.

is

more

of an object, more exposed if I may put it like that, when the sciences under which it falls are more numerous or more developed.

An

applied science is in its very nature perfectible. It can be brought to a higher and higher point of accuracy and always (2)

adjustment. I that

of

nowhere

would myself add else

perfectibility

that the inverse

is

but in the realm of applied science can

and

progress in an absolutely

we

strict sense.

realm alone can perfection be measured, since

and

also true,

speak In this

equivalent to

it is

output. (3)

This

last

point

is

perhaps most important of

all.

We

are

all power, in the human sense of the word, implies the use of applied science. The simple-minded optimism of the masses today is founded on this fact. No one could

becoming more and more aware that

deny that the existence of aeroplanes and wireless sets seems to the vast majority of our contemporaries to be the proof or palpable gauge of progress. But we should notice the victories.

From

live is apt to

and

at the

reverse side too

the price paid for such

the scientific point of view, the world in

look

at

one moment

like a

mere

next like a subjugated slave.

field for

which we

development,

Any

newspaper article about a disaster is full of the implicit suggestion that the monster we thought we had tamed is breaking out and taking its revenge.

This

is

the point where applied science links

now

up with

idealism.

Man

Mind but as technical power, and appears as of orderly arrangement in a world which is unworthy of him; a world which has not deserved him, and has to all appearance produced him quite haphazard or rather, he has is

treated

not as

the sole citadel

wrenched himself out of it by a violent act of emancipation. That is the full meaning of the Prometheus myth. I dare say a great many technicians

would shrug

ology kid

at their door.

their shoulders to hear so strange

But

if they are

187

a myth-

simply technicians

and

nothing more, what can they do about

immure ledge,

it?

Nothing. They can only

own

themselves in the fortress of their

and

refuse, in fact if not in

unifying the world or

reality.

words,

Some

course, be made, because the desire strong, indeed

it

specialised

know-

problem of synthesis will, of

to tackle the

attempts at

to unify is in fact irresistibly

may be the very foundation of intellectual life. But

compare these syntheses with the sciences themselves, they will always look relatively adventitious. 'They seem to be rather in the

if you

air/

we

should say; an everyday phrase which wonderfully excompared with

presses the lack of footholds offered by pure synthesis

From now onwards a shadow seems to spread and make it more and more obscure. We can now only reality

specialised science.

over

make out but the

that there are different regions; they are sail in the light,

way from one

We cannot

to another is obscured.

be fooled by words.

The

And

that

is

not the

power must belong to somebody, surely? since somebody must exercise it. But who is this 'subject'? We come back again to our former concluworst.

scientific

The subject will himself be seen as the object of possible sciences. The sciences are distinct and multiple, joined by hardly sions.

definable connections.

proves

It

and experience

naturally follows

fully

that the sciences themselves are less effective as sciences in

proportion as they

come

to bear

on realms where

compartments can no longer hold. That psychology and psychiatry

at present

is

these water-tight

why

the sciences of

show such disappointing

results.

But now we problem. phrase

it)

are faced with

an appalling and quite unavoidable

subject who lies in his turn at the mercy (if I may so of applied science cannot be a source of clarity or a centre

The

of radiation; on the contrary, he can only enjoy a reflected light, a the sciences to be applied to him light borrowed from objects, since will inevitably be constructed

on the model of the

sciences directed

upon the external world. They will therefore be the same in charac188

tcr,

although transposed and inverted. To the admirable criticism lasting part of his work, I need only allude; I

of Bergson, the most

am

sure there

is

no need

for

me to go

But

into details.

might be

it

worth making just one further observation. Where the sciences thus extend their sway in all directions, there is one part of the subject

and

of concrete

therefore

which cannot be overrun,

reality

namely, the immediate feelings of pleasure

and pain.

And

hand-

in-hand with the amazing development of science, there goes, as we should expect, an intensification of the most immediate and also

most elementary part of our 'gogd time* if you will. absolute rule or that practice

we do

I

do not mean

it

the desire for a

that this connection

can be made good in every

find that the

general observation

do

it

affective life: call

two things go

case.

together,

and thought will convince us

is

and a

that this

an

But in

is so.

little

We

find in fact that unusually high development of the applied

sciences goes with great

impoverishment of our inner

lives.

The

lack of proportion between the apparatus at the disposal of humanity

and the ends

outrageous. state

I

am

it is

called

upon

to realise seems

more and more

sure to be told that the individual in the scientific

tends to be subordinated to social ends

which go

far

beyond have often heard the sociological sophistry that the whole contains more than the sum of its parts. But the truth is that although it undoubtedly contains something

him; but

is this

really so?

We

other than they do, all the evidence seems to falls

on

the debit side

no reason

why

and

a society

show that the difference

by a minus sign. There is of dunces, whose individual ideal is the is

expressible

spasmodic jigging of the dance-hall or the thrill of the sentimental and sensational film, should be anything more than a dunce society. It is

obviously the inferior or rudimentary qualities in these

individuals

which draw them

together.

the way, between a society like this

Church;

for there the individuals

There

is

the difference, by

and a community like the do not swarm together mechani-

189

cally,

but do form a whole which transcends them. Such a

commu-

nity, however, is only possible because its members have each them managed to keep inviolate that inner citadel called the soul,

which

all sciences as

that

it

such are opposed. To my mind, the most to such a doctrine as Marxism

can be raised

serious objection that is this:

ol

to

can maintain

itself

only in the struggle for

own

its

supremacy; as soon as for

nothing

better

it is supreme, it destroys itself and makes way than coarse hedonism. That is why many of the

young people whom you see among you today, professing to be Communists, would, I am sure, go over to the Opposition at once if

Communism were to win the day. These

criticisms bring us indirectly to the definition

of an order

which stands in sharp and complete contrast to the world of applied sciences. Pure religion, religion as distinct from magic and opposed to

it, is

the exact contrary of an applied science; for

it

constitutes a

realm where the subject is confronted with something over which he can obtain no hold at all. If the word transcendence describes anything whatever,

it

which opens between us a hold.

No

must be

this

the soul

and Being whenever Being

the absolute, impassable gulf refuses

more

gesture significant than the joined hands of the believer, mutely witnessing that nothing can be done and no-

thing changed,

Whether the

is

and

gesture

say that the feeling

awe, love and is

that he

is

comes simply to give himself up. one of dedication or of worship, we can still

behind

no question here of a

imply

that the activity

elaborates,

is

it is

fear all enter into

the realisation of the Holy, it

passive state; to assert that

of the technician,

as

that

would be

to

he takes, modifies or

the only activity worthy of the name.

We

must, of course, recognise that we are in a confusion today about this point and many others. It possible for us to avoid a picture of activity

some

and

simultaneously. Notice that there

sense physical.

of

utter

almost im-

which would be

We can hardly help seeing 190

state is

it

in

as the starting-up

of a machine, a machine of which our bodies perhaps also the model. cal idea, taken

are the spring

and

We have completely lost sight of the classi-

up and enriched by

the Fathers of the

Church, that might be worth

contemplation is the highest form of activity: and it while to ask ourselves why. The moralistic point of view in all its forms, with its belief in the almost exclusive value of works, seems to be very largely responsible for discrediting the contemplative

Kantianism still more, by bringing in constructive activity formal principle of knowledge, has had the same disastrous

virtues.

as the

tendency;

it

refuses all positive reality to the contemplative virtues,

it only by the fatal separation which it made for the first time between theoretical and practical reason. I admit, of course, that no true contemplation can be practised except from within a realist

were

and

metaphysical system realism in question, St.

which

go into the nature of the of course, necessarily the same as

will not here is

not,

Thomas's.

There

is

this act is

no

reason, then, to

deny

not simple apprehension.

to define, particularly the aspect

We might say that self

that

open and

it

was

worship can be an

It is

which

act:

but

in fact extremely difficult is

not mere apprehension.

the act of simultaneously throwing one's-

offering one's-self up.

They would

grant us that as a

psychological description: but opening to what? offering to what?

Modern first

subjectivism

is at

once up in arms, and

formulation. But I think

it

is

beyond

we

are

back

at the

dispute that if pure

be considered as a standpoint attained subjectivism ought once for all by the modern mind, then the religious question would really to

indeed have to be regarded as obsolete. One contemporary example is of particular use here. It is quite obvious that religion is impossible in such a universe as Proust's;

and if, here and there, we come across

something which belongs to the religious category, this just means that cracks have appeared in the structure of Proust's universe.

But

I

think that this subjectivism cannot be for one 191

moment

regarded as an established position. general directions

of my reasons

I

have only time to indicate the

for thinking this,

and

My own position on this point that of M. Jacques Maritain, and

into details today.

completely with

with the

also

ground

German

common

has

I believe that Descartes

disciples only opposed realism because they

nodon of it.

go

agrees almost

of intentionality held by

theories

contemporary phenomenologists.

will not

had a

'Despite their claim to treat of sense

and

his

partly materialist

and

intelligence/

and Kant never came beyond the threshold, because they spoke of them in the same way as they did of other things, and had no knowledge of the realm of mind.' I should

says Maritain, 'Descartes

like to

add a

parallel observation: they

made

illegitimate

borrow-

ings from optics in their epistomology, with effects that can hardly

be exaggerated. Here

is

another example of science

ing-point for the effacement of spiritual I think, then, that

of this

sort that

one

it is

is

made

the start-

reality.

only by leaning on unfounded postulates

led to treat worship, for example, as a

mere

having no link with any reality whatever. But if we go behind them, if that is, we climb resolutely up the hill down which

attitude

modern philosophy has been then I believe

it is

slipping for

more than two

centuries,

possible for us to recover the basic idea of sacred

knowledge: and this alone can restore its reality to contemplation. I am a little ashamed to offer you superficial and hasty outlines of such very complicated and important ideas. But I cannot hope to do more than reconnoitre such an enormous territory. As Peter

Wust,

the

German

metaphysician, writes: 'If

consider the St.

Augus-

Middle Ages, and up to the present time, we feel witnessing a more and more successful process of

tine,

through the

that

we

are

we

Pkto and

evolution of the theory of knowledge from

secularisation being applied to that holy part

which can only be

9

called the intimum mentis.

we moderns have to

of the human mind

He goes on to say that

proceed by way of a metaphysic of knowledge

192

slow and painful

to the

of something which was

recovery

given in

Middle Ages through a mysticism veiled in mystery and awe. think we could put this more simply by saying that we may have

the I

lost

touch with the fundamental truth that knowledge implies

and done, knowledge in it

has

first

and

purification, in fact

previous askesis

its

fulness

And

been deserved.

progress of applied science,

is

when

that

all is said

not vouchsafed except where

more

here once

I

think that the

and the habit of considering knowledge knower wholly un-

a technical operation which leaves the

itself as

affected, has powerfully militated against a clear

The

matters.

askesis or purification

must

view of

these

lie, it is clear,

chiefly

in

from speculative thought in so far and simply the faculty of making objections.

progressively detaching ourselves as

it is

purely critical

perhaps wretched/ said Renan, and Claudel was angry with the phrase because it sums up with terse cynicism what I 'Truth

is

should like to

call the Philosophy of the But.

When

Barres in his

Notebooks speaks of 'the mournful melancholy of Truth', he

speaking from the heart of this philosophy.

kind of pessimism; and sacred knowledge negation.

A

negation which

is

It is

Here again,

I

not always a starting-point, but

we

case, the fruit

we touch on one of the most sensitive points

call

a nerve-centre, if you will. For most people,

it

the incurable imperfection of the

here

own

think,

to say that the religious question is obsolete

And

the root of every

(as I called it) is its flat

perhaps more often, and certainly in Claudel's of a heroic struggle.

of our subject

is

world

is

is

the

same

as to say that

now an established truth.

cannot overestimate the practical importance of the

kind of negative apologetics which atheists habitually use: they seize every chance to show that the universe falls below our

demands and can never expectation

which we

survival, can never be

N

them, and that the metaphysical within us, whether it be inheritance or

satisfy

feel

fulfilled

by things 193

as they are.

M.B.H.

But

and

this is surprising

their insistence

on

the imperfection

of the world goes hand in hand with a complete inability to think of evil as evil, or sin as sin. Here again we see the technical approach at

work. The world

leaves

is

treated as a

machine whose functioning

much to be desired. Man is luckily at hand to correct some of

the faults; but for the

moment, unfortunately, the whole is not in his added that these faults or defects of working

control. It should be

are nobody's fault: for there

somebody: otherwise there

even

Man

is

is

is

nobody there to blame. Only man

simply an impersonal mechanism.

quite prepared to treat himself like the rest,

is

And

by the

process of inversion or internalisation of which I spoke above; to

sink himself into this depersonalised cosmos. to see in himself certain defects

He

is

quite prepared

of working, which must be curable

by taking various measures, and applying various kinds of individual or social therapeutic action.

This presents us with a most illuminating connection: the relation between worship on the one hand and consciousness of sin on the other; for sin cannot be dealt with by any form of science, but only

by the supernatural action of grace.

I

May

the fact that the relation implied in science

only does the the

reality

human

draw your

is

attention to

here reversed? For not

involved in worship elude

all

possible control

subject, but also the subject seems, inversely, to pass

by under the control of an incomprehensible choice emanating from the mysterious depths ofBeing. This body of facts can alone give meaning to the notion of salvation. Salvation is quite meaningless in an intellectual climate

dominated by the

belief in a natural order

science to restore, wherever

it is

found

which

to

it is

the business

of

have been accidentally

upset.

The

idea of an order or natural course of life, to be re-established

if necessary

by suitable means, brings us to the third and perhaps

the most central battlefield of the debate.

194

Here the basic idea

is

neither the progress

of enlightenment nor the advancement of tech-

nical science, but the as a source

march of Life

itself,

taken, not as a value, but

of values or a basis for evaluation.

A

little while ago I heard of a characteristic remark made by one of the people most at the centre of international social work. 'I don't object to mysteries on principle/ he said, 'in fact there may be

mysteries for all I

know. But

I can't feel

of the Trinity. it can be to me.'

instance, the doctrine

with

me

what use

or

any personal

I don't see

interest in, for

what

it

has to do

Now this seems to me a most

The worthy man

could have become passionately interested in a discussion of fiscal justice, or the principles of

significant attitude.

social security, for

he would have recognised

but he thinks the Trinity

is

The word

its literal

Vital', taken in

its 'vital*

character:

merely a subject for idle speculation. sense, is

what should occupy us

Notice that there is a very obvious connection between the idea of life (or the primacy of the Vital) and my earlier remarks about

here.

the spirit of applied science. For the mastery of objects all, relative

to

life

is still, after

considered as something of intrinsic value, some-

thing which is its own justification. I will not harp on the origin of this idea, and will merely remind you that Nietzsche gave the completest expression to the will to power, precise.

But in other

therefore, I

want

it

In Nietzsche the idea of life at

first

glance

writers the idea retains

must be added,

its

its

may

slides into

appear more

rich vagueness

basic ambiguity).

The

(and

single point

To many minds it is life which is the unique beacon of all values (and some of these who so believe

to stress

criterion or

it.

an idea which

is this.

think themselves Christians; here indeed

food for thought!). For instance, take the elementary distinction between right and wrong. In their eyes, an action will be right if it tells in favour of life, is

wrong if it tells against it. Notice

at

once that from

something on pass judgment. Questions about the

this point

which we neither need nor can

195

of view

life is

value of life are no longer in order, for value.

But here an ambiguity

with inextricable

of all,

it is

rational basis,

evident.

But

difficulties.

once

life is itself the

principle of all

arises before us, presenting

What

life

are

we

us

talking about?

Or life in general?

Mine? Yours? First

at

to

clear that this doctrine,

can only be

what

is

which seems

to

have no

by being immediately

justified

the self-evidence attached if not to

self-

my own

about my own life, and the special sort of warmth I feel radiating from it? Is it not linked up with the irreducible datum of feelings

my own self-love? Unfortunately

it is

also perfectly clear that the people

to use Life as their criterion

of values,

especially

who claim

where

conflicts

by no means referring to my life qua mine, but to life in a Swiss schoolmaster friend of mine who general. For instance, believes in the primacy of Life (though he would not interpret it in

arise, are

the least like Nietzsche) will be at pains to point out to his pupils that the practice of chastity, or, in a very different sphere, the

practice of co-operation,

we

is

flout these great duties

immediately

bound up with

we are flouting

apparent here. First,

Life in a tendentious

way so

that

my

Life

friend has

it is

itself,

Life, etc.

and

that if

Two points are

begun by defining

coloured by certain spiritual

needs in himself, though he has no direct awareness of them.

Secondly, if

we

take

cannot draw from ate

though

it

life

the

we we can from the immedi-

generally, yet vaguely in the mass,

same doctrine

as

restricted intuition felt exclusively

about

my life in direct

experience.

A philosophy of Life

is

therefore destined

by its

own nature to

be

simply claims to translate certain biological truths into general terms; in which case, the field of such truths being enormous, it might be used to justify contradictory theories. of the extraordinary actions which (I need not remind you, perhaps,

ambiguous.

It either

one of our most notorious contemporary writers claims to justify by 196

parallels in the

Or

animal kingdom.)

else

it

make

will

unjustifiable projection, and, ceasing to consider

menon

or group of phenomena

which

life

a bold but

as a

pheno-

are biologically observable,

will see instead a kind of spiritual force or current; in

which

will at once lose

think, for

my own

part

something unprincipled in this attempt to

eat one's

cake

that there

is

and have

it

its

experimental

too; here

is

status. I

a doctrine

of empirical data what is

which

case

it

presents as the expression

only a free choice of the mind.

really

The more concrete our examples, the more hopeless the confusion

we

find.

axiom

If any

sophy which be

this: 'I

is

implied in the scattered and unformulated philo-

colours or underlies present-day literature,

am the same as my life. I am my life. To

will one day be spent

The

entirely spent/

means

take far

fundamental is

identity.

that

secretes spiritual

that

it is

as

it

seems to

say that

myself

my life

shall

be

body of

fictions,

pure survivals, stand between

me and

Do

The claim

not

let

they are

poisons which

the task

flow, as far as

I

day

us ask

how this

metaphysically possible, for that enquiry

out of our way.

and

on

writers suppose that only a

which should be regarded this

that

it

making

is

error or mis-

would that

take us too

life

somehow

may block its stream at any moment,

of consciousness

to dissolve these poisons

and

can, with the stream it has thus cleared.

Now these are certainly metaphors, and I am sure they originate in the philosophy of applied science of

That where

is

not important here.

we

ourselves

shall

The

which

I

spoke just now.

important thing to see here

is

be led by so understanding the relation between

and our lives

or (to put

it

more accurately) by holding this

view of intellectual honesty. I think that we here touch upon the most serious problem raised by the literature of the last few years, and especially by M. Gide. I can only approach it from one direction. It

should be noted that

this

concern

197

for perfect sincerity corre-

spends incontestably and explicitly with the desire for freedom. I refer you to such books as Les Nourrituw Ternstres an extraordinarily significant piece of evidence.

But what

is

the price of

less than a complete renunciation of all claims For mastering my life is in effect subordinating it

freedom? Nothing to master to

some

my

life.

principle.

Even supposing

sively acquired heritage,

form. This phase of

fossilised

But

present.

will

it

if I

am

still

my

that this principle

is

not a pas-

represent a phase of my past in

past has

to shake off the

no

right to

yoke of the

govern

my

past, there is only

by giving myself over to the moment and forbidding myself any form of commitment, any kind of vow. Surely you will agree with me that this liberty, in the cause of one way of doing

which it,

no

am

I

it

putting constant constraint

content; in fact

well aware that

it is

M. Gide

who is perhaps rather its

myself, has nothing in I

am

not the Gide of today, the rationalist

like Voltaire,

but the Gide of Ley Nourritum

will praise the fulness of the unclouded instant, savoured

Temstres in all

the refusal

on

of all content whatsoever.

novelty.

But it is all too

clear that dialectic has the last

word

here: it teaches us that novelty cannot be savoured except by the unconscious reference to a past with which it is contrasted; and that,

strangely

enough, there

the succession of one

they are

all

is

a satiety of novelty; one can be weary of

new thing after another for the very reason that

new.

And this brings us within sight of another fact, too important to though it is difficult to speak of it without smacking of the stale old sermons you have so often heard before. But our recent experiences have brought the old truths into terrible reliefpass over,

would

it

were not

so!

despair, the rejection

the truth that nothing

comes nearer

to

of being and suicide, than a certain way of moment. There is obviously no

extolling Life as the pure present

need for us to declare, like that young and impetuous Catholic apologist,

M. Jean Maxence,

that

'Kant

198

calls to

Gide, and Gide to

Andre

Breton, and Breton leads Jacques

Vache

to suicide.'

1

That

really way of describing the genealogies of thought: indeed, in passing from Kant to Gide, M. Maxence is making out a case which cannot be upheld. I do not think that

rather too

is

sweeping a

outcome of Gide's doctrine of the moment; but only because the soul does not lack resources and sometimes has defences of which it is itself unaware. The story of M. Gide and his despair

the necessary

is

works proves Instant

is

this well

not only a

carrying with

it

enough. In

limiting position,

literary

destined,

is

but also a

A

destined,

and

man who

will

bfc

position

literary

advantages; and on the whole

nised as such, at least implicitly.

would be

opinion, this doctrine of the

my

it is

recog-

really lived

by

it

destined to the worst of

spiritual catastrophes. I will

find

no

between

draw a

single conclusion

salvation for

mind

ovij^r^^nd

from these observations.

or soul unless

o^it life.

The

we

We can

see the difference

distinction

may be

in some

ways a mysterious one, but the mystery itself is a source of light. To say 'my being is not identical with my life* is to say two different things. First, that since I

am not

my

life,

my

given to me; in a sense unfathomable to man,

life

I

must have been

am

previous to

it;

before I live. Second, my being is something which is in the moment my life begins, and must be saved; my from jeopardy being is a stake, and therein perhaps lies the whole meaning of life. And from this second point of view, I am not before but beyond my I

am comes

life.

life

This (and

is

the only possible

if it is not

an

way

ordeal, I

here again, I hope very

much

to explain the ordeal

do not

see

that these

what

else

words

it

can

will not

of human be). stir

And up

in

our minds memories of stereotyped phrases drowsily heard in the torpor too often induced by a Sunday sermon. When Keats

meaning of the word spoke a Vale of soul-making*, and declared in the same

certainly not a Christian in the strict

of the world

as

1

Positions, p.

199

218.

letter

of April 28th, 1819

(p.

of Men are

as the Lives

256 Colvin's edition) that 'as various become their souls, and thus

so various

God make individual beings, Souls, Identical Souls, of the sparks of his own essence', he had the same idea as mine, though does

in his inimitable style

it

takes

on far greater splendour and freshness.

me to my last point.

This brings

I realise perfectly that the

words

'grace*

and

'salvation* give

some

of you a heartbreaking feeling of staleness. There is nothing new them for voice or vision. The air around them has been breathed long that

has become

it

stifling.

Now

the surrealist experiments of the day

this is at the

self-hatred

and

we

so

bottom of all

need to escape to some-

this

thing completely unknown. They contain nothing,

not partially justifiable, so long as

in

I believe, that is

eyes

from the

by the

desire for

away our

turn

devilish perversion so often cloaked

novelty.

But two observations

Grace and salvation

are necessary here.

are

no doubt commonplaces, like their peers, birth, love and death. They can none of them be tricked out anew, for they are all unique.

The

first

man falls

time a

or to die, he cannot likely feel that

feel

was

it

the

in love, or

he

is

first

child or prepared for death. life.

Sin, grace

and

that

is

not

hearing

stale

my

lie at

the

legitimate

expression.

up

may

only answer. There

this

be old

religious

stuff; as facts

is,

is

another

too, the

as far as

it

yet. I believe

need for renewal

concerns forms of

note I

and the human reverence commanded by reputation, has been

development. But

more

would end my lecture. I am sure enjoyed by some modern schools of thought,

on

that the reputation

to be a father

the very heart of our destiny.

to a point; that

And

is

He would

same with genuine

most deeply that in the sphere of religion, is

that he

news.

time anyone had ever loved or had a It is

salvation, as words,

they are not, since they

But

knows

shown

to

or corresponding to this

have a destructive

I believe that there is also

200

effect

on

spiritual

a danger in thinking

that philosophico-theological ideas such as

Aquinas,

we

find in St.

Thomas

for instance (not doctrine, for that is another story), are

our day, just as they stand. I am inclined to say that they are suited to some minds but not to all; and that the profoundly true intuitions expressed in the Thomist formulae suitable for everybody in

would gain

greatly in force

and

intelligibility if they

could be pre-

were newer, simpler, more moving, and more closely in tune with our own experience and (if you will forgive the word) our own ordeal. But this presupposes a refashioning which would only be possible after an immense sented in fresh terms; in

words

that

work of criticism and

preliminary

reconstruction.

Toc^y we

are

nearly buried under the rubble. Till the rubble has been cleared

away it is

hopeless to think of building.

lingly thankless, yet I think that religious

life

recover

its

believe,

and end

their

It is

needed by the already

otherwise sink into the lethargy

more by those who are as are feeling their way and surely longing to agonising struggle, if they would only admit

of devitalised doctrine.

who

a thankless task, appal-

must be done; only thus can

soaring power.

who would

convinced Christians,

yet unbelievers;

it

It is

It is

needed

still

it; who fear that they may be yielding to temptation if they surrender

mounting faith and hope they feel in their hearts. It is sheer madness to call this speculative labour a mere luxury. It is, I repeat,

to the

a necessity,

demanded not only by

think that those first

and above

who

all

say (in perfect

reason but also by charity.

good

I

faith) that Christianity is

a social matter, a doctrine of mutual help, a sort

of sublimated philanthropy, are making a grievous and dangerous mistake. Their use of the word 'Life* is (as we have seen before)

charged with ambiguity. I think that the man who says 'It doesn't matter what you think so long as you lead a Christian life* is committing the worst of offences against the Truth, that

we

and

should

the Life*. fight

our

The first

Him who said 'I am the Way,

Truth.

It is

on

the

battle for religion;

201

ground of Truth

on

this field

only

can

it

be

won

or

lost.

In the issue of that

fight,

man

will

show

whether he has indeed betrayed his mission and his destiny; we shall see, then, whether or no loyalty must remain the standard of a little

chosen band of saints, advancing to their certain martyrdom, as they go for those who have chosen the

and indefatigably praying shadows.

202

II

SOME THOUGHTS ON FAITH

I

1

wish to make one thing clear from the start: not the point of view from which I hope to treat the subject you can gather that for yourselves

but the personal attitude I intend to take

up, and the kind of support I hope to obtain from

my hearers.

In point of fact, it is not my desire to speak to you simply as a Catholic, but rather as a Christian philosopher. Let me put it like this. It so

and

life,

happens that

I

have come to the Christian

faith late in

a winding and intricate journey. This journey I do

after

many reasons and

not regret, for

especially because I

can

still

recall

sympathy with those who are yet on the road, following out, often with great difficulty, tracks resembling those which I stumbled along in my time. it

vividly

enough

to feel a particular

This metaphor cannot be avoided; but of course it is clumsy and in some ways even scandalous. I can in no sense boast of having arrived. I

am

'convinced* all.

convinced that

is

Perhaps

a

it

I see

more

clearly

than

I did,

though

word at once too weak and too intellectual. That would be

better to say this; the freer

is

and more

detached parts of me have struggled up into the light, but there is still much of me that lies in shadow, untouched by the almost level

of the dawning sun: much of me is still, as Claudel would put uncvangelised. This part of me can still have a fellow-feeling for

rays it,

groping souls, travellers and seekers. But even this view is superficial. For I believe that no man, however enlightened and holy he is,

can ever 1

really arrive until the others, all the others,

Lecture addressed to the Federation des

28th, 1934-

203

have

started

tudiants Chrtticns,

out

February

him. That is a great truth, and applies to philosophy as well as to religion, though philosophers have on the whole neglected to follow

it,

for reasons

can

I

which

I will

not go into at present.

now explain the general direction of the task I have set mywant to make it my business to reflect before those who

self today. I

my footsteps, and so perhaps to stretch out a helping hand climb the dark hill of Destiny, our common fate. never climb alone, though we often seem to do so; belief in

follow in

them

to

We

as they

loneliness

some

in

me

the

first

cases the

illusion to dispel, the

first

first

obstacle to overcome;

temptation to conquer. There

is

no need

to say that I chiefly address myself to the less fortunate

you;

to those

tain, or

no

is

is

and

worse) are persuaded that there

that the adventure

of Life

is

is

devour or dedicate

extinction will

no summit and

reduced to tramping

miserably about in the mists; the process will go on total

among

who despair of ever reaching the summit of the moun-

(what

ascent,

for

its

till

when

death,

incomprehensible

vacuity. First, then, I will

travellers

I

mean

put myself in the place of those wandering believe even in a goal to be attained

who have ceased to

and

a metaphysical goal, not a social one to the

ceased to attach

any meaning These wanderers are legion, and

who

have

word 'destiny'.

we must

not deceive ourselves

with the belief that they can be rallied by explanation or encouragement; yet I think there is one sort of meditation which has a rousing force. I

think there

is

something which has greater power than art con-

or poetry in the tragic state of the world's struggle today. crete metaphysic, in

experience,

tune with the deepest notes of our personal

may have a

short time allowed to

A

decisive part to play for

me,

I will try to indicate

few people may not disdain to follow.

204

souls.

In the

some roads

that a

many

THE UNBELIEVER I

want

draw out

to attempt to

IDEA OF FAITH

S

the

more or

who

formed in the minds of those

faith

implicit idea of

less

honestly believe as a cer-

we shall have to distinguish several cases to which unbelief as we know tainty that they

it

do not possess

can always be more or

neglect the case

(which

less

it.

For the sake of analysis,

accurately reduced. I shall purposely

anyhow

is

I think

very rare) of those

who

reply to

our questions, 'To me the word faith is meaningless; I do not even understand what it could denote/ The man I am thinking of would be bound, if we pressed him, to adopt one of the following positions:

(1) Either he is

themselves (2) its

would join

the ranks of those

who

think that faith

simply a weakness and a form of credulity, and congratulate

on being free of it.

Or else, far from

deriding

possessor, but that this

he will say that faith is a boon to denied to himself. The second case

it,

boon is

is ambiguous and must be further subdivided into three possibilities:

(a)

He may mean

but unfortunately

it

'Faith

is

admittedly a convenient deception,

does not deceive me*. In this case he

preening himself on a

sort

of superiority, which

admission of the painful price exacted by it. despises what he seems or pretends to envy, so he as the unbeliever

()

Faith

may

which

really

is

in the

same case

who regards faith as a mere weakness. also be regarded as a pleasant idiosyncrasy, rather

like a feeling for music.

ous. For the

is

balanced by the But fundamentally he is

But

man of faith

is

this

second alternative

in fact

the music-lover, of course,

making

is

not.

is itself

assertions

Are these

ambigu-

about

reality,

assertions valid?

we are at present considering would no for the man who makes them*. But this is equivalent to saying that they are false, for the man who makes The

unbeliever

whose

case

doubt say 'Yes, they are valid

these assertions claims that they are for everybody

himself.

205

and not only

for

Last of all comes the case, more frequent than most people imagine, of the unbeliever who regards faith as a real communion (c)

with a higher

reality for the

reality is unfortunately

believer speaks I find

it

man who

has

it,

but confesses that this

not revealed to him. In this case, the un-

of faith almost as a blind

man speaks of sight.

particularly easy to describe the last case, since for

many

was my own. I even wrote that I believed in the faith of although I had none myself. But I have realised since then

it

years

others

that this

was a contradictory attitude, and that it was anyhow a deep

delusion to think that I could really believe in the faith of others if I

had none of my own. The fact

as far as this,

we

are in

either implies faith or is faith.

period,

do not

'I

is

that

when we have already come state of mind which

an open and expectant

truly know

At any rate, I wrote during the same whether I have faith or not: I do not

know what I believe/

And

so today I

state

of the

without

am

inclined to think that the state expressed by

of uncertainty

this confession

man who

is

really,

though not consciously, the

thinks he can roundly declare himself to be

faith.

FAITH A FORM OF CREDULITY

Now let us return to the first two cases I described, and particuidea that faith is larly to the

a form of credulity. Does

it

and can

it

correspond to the believer's idea of his faith or to his experience of it? at once meet with a difficulty, a paradox. Faith is a virtue:

We

can this be squared with interpreting faith

At

first

we

sight

but credulity

is

as credulity?

should say 'Certainly

not*.

Virtue

a weakness, a relaxation ofjudgment.

that the believer

It

is

a power,

seems then

and the unbeliever are using the same word for two

unrelated things. I foresee that the unbeliever will reply something like this:

'The

believer holds that faith

a kind of humility. But to us,

it is

is

a virtue because

just this humility

206

it

implies

which seems

so

despicable, for

it

touches a part of our nature that

to humiliate,

wrong

namely our judgment.

And

we

think

it is

whence comes

need of humbling the judgment? From radical cowardice. Life in the world presents us with a terrible picture. Yes, but the truly this

wise man, whose

world in the

wisdom

face.

is

also heroism,

He knows

is

that, outside

not afraid to look the

himself and his

own

reason, he has no hope of finding any refuge from the misrule which governs the world. The believer, on the other hand, fancies that there trust

an ultimate refuge beyond the world, in which he puts his apd to which he makes his prayer. He fancies that the God he is

invokes virtue

is

pleased by his worship;

what we

unbelievers

know

and

so he

comes

to treat as a

very well to be nothing better

than escapism and voluntary blindness/

FAITH AN ESCAPE This

is

the centre of the problem.

grasp the idea of faith as belief is absolute

and

it is

We have, I think, managed to

held by the unbeliever

takes the

when

the un-

form of rejection, almost of disgust.

But we are bound to ask ourselves about the position to which such a judgment

refers.

Observe in the is

first

place that the interpretation of faith as escape

a pure construction,

the facts. that

my

For instance,

I

was born

at

faith

of moral

and in many

stability

cases does not correspond

can assure you from a time

my own

with

experience

when I was in an exceptional

state

and personal happiness. Otherwise I might have To what does this invention of the unbeliever

been suspicious of it. correspond?

We might do well here to consider the penetrating remarks made by Scheler in his book Resentful Man. The unbeliever, he said, takes it for granted that all true values must be universal, and such that

He says that something which can be neither demonstrated nor communicated, and which does not

they are admitted by everyone.

207

force itself irresistibly

may

upon

all

reasonable creatures, whoever they

no more than a purely

be, has

therefore be legitimately set aside.

concern

for

ment of the view

that

ever he

may

not

and the

due

the reason for this

to a grudge so deep-seated that

all too often

say,

whatever interpretation he

now and then,

it is

unconscious;

by the have-nots towards the haves.

which he wants

mitted that,

is

widespread universality? Why this appeal to the judgcomer, whoever he may be? Scheler inclines to the

felt

destitution

But what

and may

first

it is

the grudge

subjective significance

strives to

to call emancipation,

it

What-

put on this

must be ad-

the unbeliever will see himself as a have-

believer as a have.

UNBELIEF BASICALLY EMOTIONAL There

is,

an emotional element lurking beneath the apparand rational assertion or claim made by the un-

then,

ently objective

more, deeper thought on the matter will

believer;

and what

us that

could not be otherwise.

it

is

show

Let us examine once more the assertion of the militant unbeliever. It

comes down

to this.

'I

know

there

is

nothing there:

if you try to

it is just because you are too persuade yourself to the contrary, cowardly to face this terrible truth/ I know there is nothing there. Try

to take in the monstrosity of that assertion.

It is offered,

or at least

should normally be offered, as the conclusion of infinite research. In fact, such research is impossible. Our position in the universe does not allow us even to begin

it.

So weak is our position that we cannot

of one of our fellow-men and judge whether it if the pessimists seem to be reportrepays his trouble in living it. So the results of a research, they are just deceiving us. It is an uneven value the

life

ing conscious imposture. 'Pessimism', I wrote at the time when I was unsure whether I believed or not, 'can only be a philosophy of dis-

and the pessimist appointment. It is a purely polemical doctrine, himself or who holds it is making an attack upon upon an opponent 208

outside himself.

The

It is

the philosophy of

unbeliever, then,

who

is

really the

"Do you? Well, same

I

don't"/

as the absolute pessi-

must not be held up as the defender of objective truth. There in fact no attitude more subjective, and more insidiously subjec-

mist, is

than his own.

tive,

SCEPTICISM But

are

we not therefore driven into a kind of despairing sceptiwe not forced to say simply that certain persons have the

cism? Are

faculty of belief, as a given

after all, this leads

that

and

that

indeed be enviable, but

that,

body has a given

others have not? that this faculty

us nowhere

may

and brings us

to

property,

no conclusion, and

we cannot know whether the delusion lies with the believers or

the unbelievers?

This position seems to be quite untenable, and

why.

say clearly

What does this scepticism really imply? to saying to the believer, It finally comes down see

something

your

should like to

I

that I can't, but the mistake

No

side.

perhaps you

judgment between us

suppose that

you can

see

is

'Perhaps you can

may just

possible.

someone

as well

be on

All the same,

who

is

not really

there."

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF SCEPTICISM The whole is

question here

is

whether, in voicing this doubt, one

not unconsciously substituting, for the reality of faith, an entirely

imaginary notion which is not in the deniable experience of the believer.

When I

least like the

deep and un-

my man, 'You

thought you saw someone, but I think you were mistaken and that there was no one there,* we are both of us on the level of objective experiment, and this implies by say to

definition that there are points

o

of

209

reference, verifications,

and an

M.B.H.

impersonal (or rather depersonalised) check.

make

belief did not correspond with reality, to be

My assertion can only

means of ascertaining

sense if there are

that the other

if an observer

i.e.

man's

X, assumed

normal and endowed with a normal sensory apparatus and a

sane judgment, could be put in our place and arbitrate between us.

But

it is

here,

easy to see that such a substitution

quite inconceivable

is

and that we cannot even imagine its being made.

If we think about

only be

it,

indeed,

we shall see that the substitution can

made on a level, or on a spiritual plane, where our individu-

and momentarily reduced, for certain practical purposes, to a partial or partialised expression of itself. For instance, ality is

I

specialised,

can very well say

'Come and

someone with a more tell

someone whose

to

stand here

me what you

nevertheless only

and

me

tell

if

sight

you

subtle sense of taste,

is

see

better

than mine,

so-and-so/

Or

to

'Come and taste this and

think of it.' Even in more complex cases, which

employ some elements ofthe personality (normalis-

we might

them), I could say to somebody else, what would you do?' But I can no my place longer do it in cases where the whole of a person is involved: no one can put himself in my place. And faith, when it is most real and most

able elements

call

'Put yourself in

like itself (for

we must of course

anical expressions here)

of a

is

not consider

most sure

to issue

its

degraded or mech-

from the whole being

man and to involve him.

This

is

not

all.

We must notice that the object of faith

is

simply

not manifested with the characteristics which distinguish any empirical person. It

mands and regard

it

cannot figure in experience, since

transcends experience. If I

as outside myself,

it

appears to

essentially as being within myself,

to myself, I

between

inside, vanish as

and

external,

soon as

faith

entirely

com-

in some ways led to

my consciousness still more to me than I can be

more inward

who invoke or assert it.

internal

am

it

This means that the distinction

and the

comes on 210

categories

of outside and

to the scene.

An essential

point

this,:

ignores

it,

though the psychology of religion by its very definition since it equates faith with a simple state of the soul, a

purely internal event.

but

Much

could profitably be drawn from this, now. If I were forced to use a metaphor, I

I cannot attempt it should say that the believer thinks of himself as within a

which

at

From

new

this

meaningless. For

you think

there

point of view the sceptic's attitude becomes

if he says, 'Perhaps there is

is

somebody/ he

is

which

leave outside itself the very thing

ence.

is

assumed

We

pure nature,

is

there,

where

definition

would

in question: for the object

implied in

therefore, that as faith

is

all

experi-

revealed in

more and more over the

will triumph

it

which by

to transcend the conditions

must recognise,

nobody

appealing, either actually or by

implication, to a corrective experience

of faith

reality

once penetrates and enfolds him.

its

sceptics, who

can only question the value of faith because they begin with a picture of it which caricatures it. It

might

be said that scepticism tends to

also

belief as attitudes

treat belief and

which, although of course they

are mutually ex-

clusive, are nevertheless related to each other as

and thereby

suppositions;

mensurability.

It is

fails

it iti all

two

alternative

to appreciate their essential

incom-

not enough to say that the believer's universe

not the same as the unbeliever's. flows

un-

directions

and

We must understand that

integrates

it,

just as the

it

is

over-

world of the

seeing man overflows and integrates the world of the blind man.

UNBELIEF A REFUSAL But

there

is

something

else

no

less

important.

As

the soul

approaches more nearly to faith, and becomes more conscious of the transcendence of her object, she perceives more and more clearly that she is utterly incapable

her

own

of producing this

substance. For she

more clearly her

knows

faith,

of spinning it of

herself, she realises

more and

own weakness, impotence and instability; and thus 211

led to a discovery. This faith of hers can only be

she

is

or,

more

what?

It

which

invitation

pressure

an adherence,

exactly, a response. Adherence to what? Response to is hard to put into words. To an impalpable and silent fills

her, or, to say

it

in another way,

The

her without constraining her.

upon

irresistible: if it

would no longer be

were, faith

possible to a free creature, that

mysterious and awful

is,

a creature

which puts

pressure

is

faith. Faith is

not

only

who has been given the

power of withholding himself.

And so the problem stated at the beginning of this lecture appears under a new guise. From the point of view of faith and of the believer, unbelief, at any rate when it is explicit, begins to look like a refusal, refusal moreover I will

which can take on many

merely observe here that very often, perhaps most often,

takes the

form of inattention, of turning a deaf ear

made by an noticed that

inner voice to

modern

almost to enforce

life

all that is

deepest in us.

an

apt to

to the appeal

tends to encourage this inattention, indeed

by

become debased and

We

must add

who

is

tion, though here again

it

rests

This inattention or distraction

to look like

is

at

mere routine

am

personal encounters. tance,

which

The

ofjustifica-

any time. The inattentive radiates

like a light, transfigures the creature in

one of those

They

to

indeed a kind of sleep, from

may be awakened just by meeting somebody who dwells. I

where

on nothing but a misunderstanding.

which we can each of us awake

which,

that

thus department-

outside observer. Unbelief will this time have a shred

faith

should be

It

the

have no power of intercommunication. religious faith seems to survive in a man it is

it

way it dehumanises man and cuts him reducing him to a collection of functions which

it,

off from his centre,

alised,

different forms.

who

attach

man

genuine

whom

an inestimable value

are a spiritual fact

it

to

of the highest impor-

traditional philosophy, for reasons

though unrecognised by

are perfectly clear but irrelevant to our present discussion.

virtue of such encounters

is

to rouse the inattentive to a reflec-

212

tion or return

upon themselves,

that I don't believe'?

This

is

'Am I really sure

make them say

to

enough:

if the soul really asks herself

angry prejudices and parrot imaginings, she will be brought to recognise, not indeed that she already believes, but that she is in no case to say that she does this question in all sincerity, rejecting all

not believe. unbelief, pride,

not 'I

and to

fail

Or perhaps it would

made

just then,

be truer to say that the assertion of inevitably be tainted with

would almost

that completely honest

unmask

this pride. 'I

cannot believe* in

its

and

careful introspection could

do not

believe' ceases to

own eyes, and tends to

turn into

look like

'I

will not

believe'.

HAS HEROISM AN INTRINSIC VALUE?

Fom

point of view, the spiritual position of a

this last

Andre Malraux may be regarded as

specially significant,

man

like

one might

almost say typical. His absolute pessimism about the world as stands has, as

idea that

its

it

(no doubt originally Nietzschean) not the wretchedness of man, but his

reverse side, the

what matters most

is,

greatness, not that he must do without succour and be resigned to

doing without, but that he must not even

man

has not

has taken

grown

full

to

manhood

account of his

desire

it.

To

a Malraux,

or reached his full stature until he

own tragic

author of La Condition Humaine, this

In the eyes of the alone makes heroism possible. position.

We stand here on the backbone of a steep ridge which keeps apart some ofthe most courageous minds of our generation. But we notice something that

mean

to assign

that the value

is

an

may

intrinsic value to

But

there

What

heroism?

It

here attached to a kind of ardour

subjective feelings about ally.

well disturb us.

is

it

of the

no valid or

man who is

at once

exactly does

seems plain to

it

me

and to the entirely

striving to act heroic-

objective reason

why

heroic ardour

should be put higher on the list than any other sort, for instance, erotic ardour. You can only justify the hierarchy by bringing in an 213

new scale of considerations, which have nothing to do with heroism or ardour; for instance, social utilitarianism. But as

entirely

either

soon as

we

idea from

get

on

to that

which we

ground,

started.

we

contradict the Nietzschean

To a logical Nietzschean,

social utility

idol, one might almost say a low-grade idol. Of course I am perfectly prepared to admit that in a book like La Condition is

an

Humaine charity breaks out in two or three places; but it comes like a voice from another world. I think you can only link heroism and love together if you slur over the facts; they are irreducible except in

a single case, the heroism of the martyr. I take that strictest sense, witness.

there

is

no place

word

But in a philosophy which turns on

in

its

refusal,

for witness, since witness refers to a higher reality

acknowledged in worship.

THE DEBASEMENT OF THE WORD 'WITNESS* Like so many other important

ideas, the notion

of witness has

become considerably debased. The first thing that occurs to us when we hear the word is the witness we may be called upon to give when we have been present at some event. And so we develop a tendency to think of ourselves as recording-machines, and to witness as the mere playing-over of the record.

Hence we

treat

forget the

important point about witness; its attestation. That is the essential here. Yes, but what is attesting? Not simply establishing a really

nor simply asserting.

fact;

of my

own free

sense

it

and

bind myself, but I do it given under the yoke of con-

and would deny its own nature. In this being the closest and most mysterious union of

useless

brings into

necessity this.

will, since attestation

would be

straint

When I attest, I

liberty.

There

is

no

act

more

essentially

human

than

At the root of it there is the recognition of a certain datum:

but

something else quite different. In attesting, I really proclaim, ipso facto, that I should be going back on myself, and yes even annulling myself, were I to deny this fact, this at the

same time

there

is

214

reality

of which

have been the witness.

I

The denial, of course, may

take place, as mistake, contradiction or betrayal,

indeed.

It is

extremely important

to

show how

tion are conceivable. Its spiritual value

noticeable

not beat

where

upon

it

has to

do with

a betrayal

is

degrees in

which do

us with the immediate, strident and

dox which cannot be too

attesta-

becomes more and more

those invisible realities

obviousness of the objects of sense-experience.

which

and it

strongly insisted

irresistible

We see here a para-

upon. The

realities to

religious attestation refers are certainly transcendent: but

from another point of view they look

humble and beggarly could surely be no

as if they really

witness, the believer

better

needed that

who attests them.

There

example of the incomprehensible, or

perhaps rather supra-intelligible polarity which of faith.

lies at

the heart

FAITH AND ATTESTATION Indeed, the closeness of the link between faith and attestation

becomes

fully

apparent as soon as

we

touch upon the intermediary

idea of fidelity. There cannot be faith without is

not a

movement of

fidelity.

Faith in

the soul, a transport or ravishment:

itself it

is

attestation.

simply unceasing Yet here once more

cannot one,

resist

we must

interrupting us here with a question-

and we come up

dispute

turn back to the unbelievers.

'What about

justice they have

against

it

the people

at every stage

They

always the same

of the unending

who can

fallen prey to, the

only witness to the inmanifold suffering they have

undergone, the abuses they have seen? How can they give their witness in favour of a higher reality?* Once more the stumblingblock is the problem of evil. I have already given a partial answer to this question, but I should like to point out also that the great;

witnesses have certainly never been recruited from the fortunate of this

world, but

far

more from the 215

suffering

and the

persecuted. If

one

single conclusion forced

upon us by the spiritual history of faith is hindered, not by misgrowth fortune, but by satisfaction. There is a close kinship between satisfac-

there

is

of mankind,

and

tion

that the

it is

death. In all domains, but especially perhaps in the

domain of the

spirit,

the

man who

to

have everything he needs,

is

what

is satisfied,

already beginning to rot. Satisfaction

is

so often gives birth to the taedium

which we may

and admits himself

the secret disgust,

vitae,

felt at

times,

one of the most subtle of all the

forms of spiritual corruption. But of course this does not

mean

that a philosophy of attestation

and

faith

which pagan

is

have

need necessarily be a cult of moral pain. The quality from satisfaction is not pain, but joy. The neo-

furthest

critics

this.

They hope, and

God.

all

We

of Christianity have never had the

fail to see

the close kinship

to the thankfulness

must make a new

least

conception of

which joins joy

to faith

and

of the witnessing soul who glorifies use here of the distinction that M.

Bergson so admirably drew between the Closed and the Open. Satisfaction is something that happens within doors, in a closed

can only unfold beneath the open sky. It is radiant very nature; it is like the sun at noonday. But we must not let a spatial metaphor deceive us. The distinction between open and

creature; but joy

in

its

closed only takes

Or,

to

go deeper

on

its full

still,

meaning when we

when we

are speaking

are speaking

of the

of faith.

free act

of the

soul, as she wills or refuses to

acknowledge that higher principle her and is the cause of her being, and as

which momently creates she makes herself penetrable or impenetrable to yet inward action without which she is nothing.

216

that transcendent

Ill

WUST ON THE NATURE

PETER

OF PIETY Wust

writes,

'We

philosophy to the

Peter Astonishment/ r

rom

its

beginning

istonishment, ion.

But

1

this is

primitive

it

undamental metaphysical

Doubt

that period.

is

beginnings of called

(Uraffect)

true to say that

a point a priori to

all rational

way

specula-

in

which

were already being overthrown no more than a second a priori of

relations really

philosophical thought, if I iction, a

emotion

simply a clear indication of the

r

it

first

modern philosophy methodical in the place of doubt put

It is

tried to

and saw in

should assign the

may

so phrase

it;

a

phenomenon of re-

kind of recoil, which can only take place when our deepest somehow split by an ontological mistrust so deep-

being has been

rooted as to be almost a habitus of the soul. Mistrust or trust towards

Being; those, to Wust, are the

mind inclined

to speculation

enough; the opposition

is

two main

directions

which

must choose between. Even this

of wider importance.

It

every is

not

does not only

:oncern the metaphysician's solutions of the theoretical problem of reality,

but the whole of culture considered in all

The human mind, idea

of a

scientific

2

expressions.

since Descartes, has been familiar with the

one without presuppositions). the same reasons, a monstrous (ungebeuerlich)

philosophy

But this implies, for

its

(i.e.

1

Dialektik dcs Geistcs, p. 212. At first sight we might here be tempted to reply by reminding Wust jf the high place accorded by Descartes to Admiration in his theory of 2

he passions. But did he ever think of it as a metaphysical starting-point? x, sail more, as what we might call a sensitive zone where Being icknowlcdged as such grips the creature whom ad mi radon stirs? It would ;ecm rash to claim that he did.

217

1 upsetting of speculative balance. 'Scientific* philosophising surely just setting one's-self the almost inhuman task of

is

denying,

absolutely all

and in the very depths of the

positive

soul, all pre-eminence

hegemony of values. The philosopher has

and

to say, at the

very beginning of his enquiry, that he does not know whether there is such a thing as order or whether chaos is equally possible.

He

thought to do so that Yes and No are equally indifferent to him. In his eyes, this indifference is the bears witness

or rather

is

sacred badge of the philosopher.

But we should ask whether possible.

genuine or even

Wust thinks that an analysis which went deeper than that

of Descartes would show us basis

this indifference is

that astonishment at ourselves

the

is

of doubt.

doubt betrays my consciousness of my own contingent and still more implicitly of the hidden gravitation of own deepest being to a centre or an absolute middle point of being

My

character

my

(not indeed apprehended but surmised) where the metaphysical insecurity of the creature

may

at last find rest.

with the everlasting repose and

so strangely instability, contrasting

immutable order of Nature,

is

This insecurity and

the central mystery,

and the philo-

sophy of Wust might be said to be an exhaustive inquiry into it. Nowhere else today, I think, could we find a more resolute attempt to define the metaphysical position

the

one hand,

transcends, folds

it

on

dence that

to the order

and on

of Nature which

the other

every side, though is

of humanity; and

hand it

it

to rekte

it,

breaks through

to a supreme Reality

on

and

which en-

never violates the relative indepen-

the prerogative of the creature. For this Reality

is itself

free and freely sows the harvest of freedoms.

Astonishment, as the shaft of light

we see it, for example, in the eyes of a child, is

which breaks through the enfolding clouds of our which holds under its sway whatever is

natural sleep, that sleep

218

absolutely subject to the

sun of the

spirit

wholly with exquisite

is

the rising of 'the

the horizon of our being

supra-vital delight, as

its first

rays gild

and

and

us

filling

discover the

panorama of creation and the eternal order that rules it*.

How can we the

Law. Astonishment

blazing on

1

in this the inspiration running through

fail to see

whole work of our own Claudel? Perhaps indeed

must

it

direct

truly Catholic theories of knowledge.

all

How can I say without impiety

Wretched?

That the

truth of the things

Is a wretched truth?

His

Can I say without absurdity

That a world which wears His Is less than

Overtops

highest hand hasfashioned

likeness

and works

to

His glory

myself and my most imagination

it,

t

andfnds in

it

2 nothing to lean on?

Claudel has emphasised the i?/?/oi?, the impious pride, at the root of such doubt, and Wust himself never tires of denouncing it. Reviving the tradition of the great Doctors, so harshly broken by the 'scientific* philosophy engendered by the Cogito, he reminds us

of the great truth which Jacques Maritain has stressed in our own time and country with such force: that knowledge is in itself a mystery.

The

assumption

great mistake

that the act

of idealism perhaps

of thinking

is

lies

transparent to

in

its initial

itself,

whereas

nothing of the kind. Knowledge is in fact unable to give an account of itself. When it tries to think itself, it is led irresistibly it is

either to

which

be content with metaphorical and material expressions

caricature

it,

or to treat itself as

datum, enjoying a priority to impossible to understand as

one can

sec,

its

an absolute and

self-sufficient

object so startling that

how it can

it

becomes

be so entirely incapable, as

of creating that object in

all its

far

unimaginable rich-

ness.

But of course we can never be content just 1

Loc

.

tit.,

p. 206.

2

Lc Soulier de

219

to say that

Satin, ist day,

knowledge

Scene VI.

is

a mystery;

we must add that it is a gift,

and that is Wust's claim when he 1

matic* quality; though this

is

perhaps, in a way, a grace;

attributes to

it

a 'naturally charis-

gradually hidden from the conscious

mind by the increasing secularisation of the knowing process. Once is complete and it is going on everywhere in the

the secularisation

modern world

it

must give

rise to all

the excesses of a self-intoxi-

cated reason, cut off at once from belief and being,

regard

itself.

by

power

an exploiting power whose actions

itself as

is

And

the world, too, in

at play, is stripped

whose bosom

of all the

by those unsophisticated minds from worship.

for

and bound

are only censored

this

'Promethean*

attributes originally

whom

to

given to

knowledge was not

it

yet

distinct

must be made absolutely

It

clear that the

not to be construed as fideism.

He

philosophy of Wust

is

explains himself on this point

with perfect clarity in the Dialectic of the Spirit. 2 'The fideist*, he says, 'is at the antipodes of the simple faith of the child; his faith is really the faith of despair.*

3

But of what does he

despair, if not

of his

own

human reason? and that because he began by presuming too much upon it. It would be no paradox to maintain that the fideist

poor

is

a

describe to

(The word 'gnostic', of course, is here used to those who put an absolute value on their needs or claims

'fallen Gnostic*.

know.) Wust,

faithful to his love

reconciliations (a heritage that the

two

same

attitudes,

ficial

'Lucifer-like*

of dialectical oppositions and

from Fichte, probably), also observes point of consciousness closely unites the

however opposed their indices may appear to a super-

consideration.

But the genuine Christian keeps equally.

his distance

from both

When he witnesses to his trust in the universal

pitfalls

Order, his

witness should not be interpreted as mere surface optimism, but 1

3

Naivitat and Pietat, p.

'The

fideist',

he

says,

2

Cf. especially pp. 620 ft seq. 'makes a desperate leap into the eternal night of

1

84.

Godhead/ 220

recognised as the result of his reverence for the whole of Reality.

may

seem

easily

irrational to us, at least to

some

It

extent, but nothing

our attributing existence in itself to this irrationality. 'The mind that throws itself upon Reality like a child knows that every

justifies

personal creature

is

saved in so

far as

he surrenders without

stint

and

without despair to the inner wooing of that Love whose voice he hears unceasingly in the depths of his soul/ 1 I

think

it is

impossible to exaggerate the importance of the part

played in Wust's philosophy by this Platonic Idea of Childhood. It

would obviously be absurd

all

to set against

the Freudian case-histories.

mistrust

and cunning and

However

it

the alarming Tacts' of

precociously the spirit of

perversity arises in the

the Idea nevertheless has unbreakable validity. For Idea, one might almost say a

an absolute

Judging Idea; or

mind of a it is

better

child,

a Witnessing still,

perhaps,

human sensibility. One could quote the where Wust is asking what it is that we find

a priori of

admirable passage

missing in the Stoic sage, and the sage as Spinoza, and even

Schopenhauer conceives him, however near they come to sanctity. He replies that the lack in all of them is the lack of supreme and innocent delight in existence (Daseinsfreudi), of the idealism and

optimism so opposed

and heroic

to the tragic outlook. Despite their greatness

dignity, despite the serene smile that plays over their lips

(and what indescribable

subtlety

monks of Ling-Yang-Tsi!), tence, that

serene trust

it

has, the smile

of the Buddhist

they lack that final security in exis-

armour of proof which guards the simple child, his and innocence. The sages renowned in history are still

not innocent children in the strange and deep sense of the Gospel: 'Verily, I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom

of

God

'This

is

as a

little

child, he shall not enter therein'

the only possible

way

for the

wise

wisdom; however deeply he has drunk 1 op. at., p.

221

man

(Mark

to attain

at all the springs

622.

x. 15).

supreme of human

knowledge, however ence of the world.' 1

fully his spirit has

supped of the

bitter experi-

But someone may ask, is there any real reason why these sages, whether Buddhist or Stoic, should not recapture the soul of the

One

them, according to Wust; they have broken away from the filial relationship with the Supreme Spirit,

child?

and

fact prevents

this alone is

what enables a man

to

have a child-like attitude

of things. This relationship is automatically destroyed by the triumph of naturalistic philosophy, which depersonalised the supreme principle of the universe: for to this towards the ultimate

view

necessity

secret

can only appear

man weighed down by

as either fate or blind chance;

and a

no

regain

such a burden

and absolute

is

in

state ever to

He

can no longer cling to the deep metaphysical optimism, wherein the primal simplicity of the creature in the morning of life joins the simplicity of the sage his vanished delight

better here to call

him

trust.

the saint

who,

after

journeying through

experience, returns to the original point of the circle; the state

of childhood which

is

almost the

lost

paradise of the

happy

human

mind. 2

Of course, we may regained;

ask whether this Paradise can indeed be

how can we imagine the recovery of a state which after all

does seem related to non-experience as such? Wust's answer to this question

is

chiefly, as

principle of order

we have

and love (an

seen before, that there It,

is

an

active

an Es over against the Me, the 9

IcV) working continuously in the depth of our being.

It is

therefore

Me ever completely to break its its ontological roots. And therefore,

a metaphysical impossibility for the

moorings and sever itself from have understood him rightly, a positive conversion remains

if I

1

Naivitat und Pictat, p. 1 10.

2

Wust, of course, explicitly recognises the Fall as a fact (cf. Dial, des an example), but it is far from incompatible with the

Geistes, p. 311, for

deeper optimism here in question.

222

The

possible to the end.

self,

renouncing the 'Promethean* pride

whose only end is death, and avoiding also the opposite extreme of agnostical and desperate pessimism, at last makes confession of that docta ignorantia

described by Nicolas of Cusa at the

dawn of our age.

me

say once more that this is not the act of spiritual suicide encouraged by certain kinds of fideism, but the glad acceptance,

Let

made

in a spirit of devout humility, of the limits

Wisdom to the manner the human mind.

of knowledge with which

set It

by supreme

has

endowed

good place to observe that the theories of the Unknowable which flourished in the West during the second half of Perhaps

this is a

the nineteenth century,

which numbers of minds Tormed by sciences' still give their allegiance, are no

and

contact with the positive

to

than beggarly caricatures of this wise doctrine, so accurately based upon man's middle state. Our neglect of it brought us to the perilous chances of an overweening metaphysic. Except for a better

narrow eternal

which has kept itself perpetually in touch with the springs of knowledge and spirituality, the irreparable results circle

of the ontological insolvency of Western thought have hardly begun to make themselves felt, continuing as they have for two and a half centuries,

and

that in spheres apparently quite remote

speculation. Peter

so inveterate that that I

Wust it

is

certainly right to

blame

can no longer be consciously

it

upon

felt.

should put more emphasis than he does on

'moderns' absolutely refuse a hearing to

all

from pure

But the

I

way

the

any

is

no

surer

way to the

very denial of reality as such. This 'devaluation' of being it

into a caput mortuum, a

think

attempts to establish

connection between being and value. There

turning

a pride

mere abstract residue.

It is

means

then the

easiest thing in the world for the idealist critic to prove that it is a mere fiction of conceptual imagination, which a stroke of the pen

will abolish without

making the least difference to anything.

This point of view enables us more 223

fully to appreciate Peter

Wust's eminently reconstructive critique of the idea of piety. The idea is alive, and even worked out to an infinite degree, among all

men who have

spiritually-minded

own

considered their

deepest

experience. But contemporary philosophers, especially in France (with two or three exceptions), seem to think that the idea applies

only to an

'attitude',

and

on

Scheler is

this as

on many

Wust, who owes much

other points,

serious danger in treating piety as

this,

most only be

that the 'attitude* will at

interesting to 'behaviour* specialists.

an

saw very

to

clearly that there

attitude or state; far

from

we should see in it a real relation of the soul to its own spiritual

context,

and

also

of course to

itself.

This

is

the

to recover the

way

sense of religion as a bond (ligameri), so fundamental

and

yet so

frequently neglected.

According to Wust, there is a close correspondence between simplicity and piety on the one hand as the habitus of the soul, and surprise

and reverence on the

affections.

The

other, as

latter are related to

fundamental emotions or

the former

much

the potency in Aristotle's metaphysic. This simply

as the act

means

is

to

that the

of reverence before the harmony of the overwhelming universe presupposes that such a soul has previously been attuned sense

soul's

to this

harmony. Wust

recalls a

passage in Goethe where he speaks

of piety as 'original virtue' (Erbtugend) which therefore has its seat in a sphere unreachable by our immediate consciousness of ourselves.

As Wust rightly observes, what he calls Naivitat (the French

naivete is certainly

not quite an accurate equivalent),

piety chiefly in the degree of its actualisation. Piety

tion

and enrichment on the

which calls

many of his name ofNaivitat.

he, like

by the

But even within

piety

sides or rather aspects. it

side

re-enacts

we

In so

on a higher

of will of that

is

differs

from

the prolonga-

spiritual

candour

predecessors from Schiller onwards,

should distinguish complementary

far as piety is, properly

speaking, a

level that universal principle

224

link,

of cohesion

which governs nature and corresponds with what Ckudel calls the family-anty of all things with one another. But this very cohesion implies a certain self-affirmation in the terms gether; without this

it is

it

joins or draws to-

done away with, and disappears. This

cohesion, then, does not only draw things together but also keeps

them

at their

proper distances.

the higher level

which we

We find the same characteristic on

are considering

now. 'There

one kind

is

of piety which a person shows towards himself, where the factor of tistance appears with its essential characteristics. There is also a piety towards beings

of the same nature as ourselves, with

cultivate spiritual relations/

1

There

is

even a form of piety towards

beings of an infra-human order. But piety reaches

when

it is

Wust

its

highest point

given to the Creator Spirit (Urgcist\ since

absolute centre of all

ties

whom we

He

is

the

woven between particular beings.

very strongly emphasises the special importance to be

attached to piety towards onc's-self. 'Piety towards one's-self is the great

law of love,' he

2

says,

our nature, because each of us this

we apprehend in the depths ol this creature who has been given

'which

shape and has occupied

is

this

place in the order of creation; the

moment we have apprehended this law, it is incumbent upon us to assert

it

with

all

our might.

resisting that silent appeal

And the

bliss

of our soul

which mounts up from

lies

in never

the depths of our

being/ I feel that here,

once more, the philosopher of Cologne is stressing

a profound truth doggedly ignored by the great majority of lay philosophers. He is really distinguishing, in the clearest possible

manner, a love of selfperhaps mystical, certainly spiritual from the egoism which is just an extension of the will to live or the instinct

of self-preservation.

No

doubt

this instinct is

presupposed of specific object piety is to protect the soul against the danger of pride inseparable from the act

by piety towards oncVsclf. But the 1

P

NaivitSt un4 Putat. p. 128.

225

> Loc.

at, p. 129.

M.B.M.

of its natural 'is

deeps of

own

its

has endowed

gravity,

still

awe

mysterious reality with

it,

God

which

a holy temple of the Spirit, built by

self is

a wonderful inner universe with

more marvellous than those we can

of the external universe with

vitality

finely puts

in the self towards the metaphysical

reality, that

For our

it.

own hand,

God's

he

self-affirmation. 'Its particular aim', as

to maintain religious

its

infinity

its

own laws of

see in the full

of mechanisms.

It is

Holy of Holies into which we may not enter, though ours, without a hidden and holy fear. We may not, I said. But

a sanctuary, a it is

also

we

Holy of Holies,

cannot , in this

enter the

pkce of the

altar

with the eternal lamp of the most sacred mysteries burning before it. There is indeed a sense in which we are given to ourselves; and this is the meaning of our relative aseitas. But we are only entrusted to ourselves as

works of art from the studio of an

are not our

own masterpieces. That

is

selves as infinitely precious heirlooms,

would treat the treasure of our bliss.*

why we

eternal Master.

are only

which we must

left

We

to our-

treat as

we

1

These metaphors, at least when they are translated out of the German, may seem rather grandiloquent; but we must not be put off by this.

The

idea in

itself, I

think,

is

extremely important.

It is

only because they have lost sight of this idea that the lay philosophers

can reproach a they believe

do not

9

believer with the 'selfishness

him

to

show by working

see that the self-love enjoined

enjoined, not merely allowed duality between

what

I

am

in

is

for his

for instance,

own

which

salvation.

They

by the Christian religion

inseparable from the sense of close

my workaday

reality generally called the soul,

,

life,

and

that

hidden

which has been given to me, and of

must give an account on the last day. Could we not say, in terms a little different from Wust's, that the non-Christian philo-

which

I

sopher of today

starts,

perhaps sometimes unconsciously, from an

assumption which may have dreadful consequences, namely, l

Loc.cit.,

pp. 132-133.

226

that

/

am

the

itself is

sort

to

my life? He must then go on to say that the soul more highly wrought expression of that hidden life, a

same as

only a

of efflorescence, of which

me, since

and

its

in fact myself.

it is

we cannot strictly say that it is given Once this fatal assumption is granted

may easily be discovered in a certain type of biolo-

origins

gical philosophy prevalent in the nineteenth century

the love of self, or charity to the

extension of the

it is

clear that

must be regarded simply as an

self,

life-instinct.

But the assumption just cannot be allowed, I think, without ignoring some of the most urgent demands of genuine spiritual life all

those

translatable

demands described in Wust by the admirable but unword Distanzierung, which so well expresses the fact

am

not

deepest in

me

that I

on an equal

from harm

if

bound up with

which must be kept

we want to protect our souls from being laid open

to great dangers/

1

Such personal facts as restraint and tact are and also a reverence for the self which

this need,

may accompany this feeling

is

not of me. 'Piety towards one's-self,' he says again,

is

'surrounds the self like a delicate membrane, safe

what

footing with myself, because

the highest form of spiritual dignity. But between

and the dangerous pride which

aggerated awareness of

thin dividing line;

my

springs from

personal independence, there

is

an exonly a

we must realise that it is not easy to draw it. And

since reverence for one's-self is really conyet the distinction holds,

cerned with Values which are, as

which we

are

bound

to defend

it

were, a heavenly trust within us

whenever a

hostile

power

threatens

to profane them'.

Wust,

as

we

see,

most

explicitly repudiates the thesis that rever-

ence for one's-self is defined as a sort of egocentric formalism, giving

an out-and-out principle of freedom, divorced from all the spiritual contents in which it may be embodied. And it an absolute

is

in the

status to

name of these same 1

values,

of which

Nawitat und Pietat. p.

22?

it is

1 3 3-

in

some

sense the

guardian and keeper, that the self is bound to resist the intrusions and encroachments of other personalities lacking in the sense of piety, lest they

If this

should work

is so,

then

it

we must

harm. agree that the conceptions of contem-

porary monadism miss an important truth.

It is

generally said today,

without preliminary enquiry, that it is just a lack in us, a pure deficiency, which prevents us from being able to plunge into the spiritual being of another. Whereas in fact we should see that this inability

is

creatures.

simply the price

'Our

soul in

its

we pay

for

our

ultimate depths

which we

inner chamber of the soul

is

are,

spiritual dignity as free

a

secret,

up

and

this is th*

to a certain point,

obliged to preserve religiously. Reverence for ourselves forbids us to

and impious hand, profanation and show an unforgivable

unveil the sanctuary of our souls with a rash

and to do

so

would be a real

lack of modesty/ 1

This

Wust

is

perhaps the pkce to observe, more explicitly than even

himself,

how much

all naturalist interpretations

are at fault, whether they are

of modesty

founded on a particular view of society

A

life. modesty which is entirely of the spirit, the in such a passage as I have just quoted, the shown of soul modesty can plainly only be justified by the notion of the individuality as its

or a view of

own

treasure-house:

it

overflows

all

the categories

which modern

philosophy has taught us to use and be content with. Against this modesty, in fact, the most active and most opposite powers of our age have made alliance, and it is worth thinking for a about this surprising confederacy.

Not only does a social imperative bid so that everyone

can make his

own

moment

us share our spiritual riches

use of them

we see the now generally

here

completely material picture of invisible possessions painted and a kind of diffuse philosophy tends to identify the spiritual

and communicable: but also, rising from the other horizon, l

Loc.cit.,p. 136.

228

a call to sincerity (of which the most striking phrases were certainly invented by Nietzsche) forbids us to allow any veils between ourselves

and our

We

must recognise

sure that Peter I

'souls', lest

Wust

hypocrisy should

that there

sees

how

grow up in their shade. a problem here, and I am not

is

serious

it is.

The word

soul,

which

have just used, with such an anti-Nietzschean ring, only retains its of meaning, it seems, when one's privacy of relation with

fulness

himself has been safeguarded. I should like to describe it as linked, not with notion, at least with the consciousness of a dialogue

if

between the most active and

critical

us and a ground-bass whose value if

it

ever quite touched them.

Voices' of the orchestra within

would be changed and even lost

We

should lose and not gain by

bringing in here the notion of the unconscious: the unconscious

and even the subconscious are irrelevant in this context, and besides,

we know

the intellectual disasters following the rash use

made of

them by certain disciples of W. James. I am trying to make just two points here; first, that we can only speak of the soul where there

is

a sense of what might be called the scoring of the spiritual

and secondly,

most aggressive sense must necessarily oppose the very existence ofthe hierarchies assumed

orchestra,

that sincerity in

in such orchestration, since

prejudice or complacency, light

it

its

must regard them

as the results

of

and say that they cannot stand up to "the

of truth'. The whole question

is

really

whether

this criticism

does not presuppose the confusion of two spheres in fact irreducible to

one another. Does not

this process

of spreading out the

spiritual

view deny its most specific character, the very inwardness that makes it what it is? just as the dissection and flattening out of a

life

to

flower-head with

makes

it

all its

no longer a

organs side by side destroys the corolla and

flower?

And yet we cannot deny that

the difficulty

is still

a very serious

one; for nothing can be put to more dangerous use than this idea of * personal hierarchy valid only for the individual, whose duty to

229

himself requires

him

to

uphold

it

within him.

I

think myself that

the solution can only be found by deepening our conceptions of

and

But here a preliminary distinction must be made. Men's minds have never before been so ready as they are now

transparency

purity.

an exclusively formal process of cleaning-up its forms can take place at the surface of the soul, since

rashly to identify

which in it

has no

ent,

all

interest

in

its

structure or

life

with something quite

a manner of being which conditions

and

activity,

is

differ-

to be per-

we can perceive, for instance, the correct tuning of an instrument. But if we follow this road, I think we shall have to recognise that the problem of purity, taken in its human ceived as immediately as

and not merely formal meaning, cannot be stated without the help of those ontological categories which we thought we were rid of for

The

conception of purity generally held today in one sort of philosophy of art (and even of life perhaps) rests on the complete

ever.

separation of form

and

content.

But one has only

to turn

back

to

Wust's 'Witnessing Idea* to realise that when we take the 'purity* of a child as our standard, this is just the state of things which we cannot accept.

We shall then have no other expedient than to allege

the mythical nature of this so-called purity, 'discoveries'

and once more

the

of the psycho-analysts will be on the side of this refutaBut we cannot help asking whether these

tion of popular optimism.

would-be objective investigations are not really dedicated from the start to a kind of pseudo-Schopenhauerian and certainly atheist

dogma, which rules and directs their practice before making use of and this is just an inverted form of their results. Even suppose simplicism

that

we

consent to ascribe this 'purity* of

preconception, a milk-and-water notion held by adults

what

suspiciously romanticised:

we

shall

the criticism also applies to the holy soul learnt

(that

how

may

to safeguard or even to

be impossible),

at least

win

still

a

and some-

have to ask whether

which through trials has a purity, if not offeeling

of will and,

230

spirit to

still

more

precious,

of

vision. Here, we may be sure, the critic will be tempted to quarrel with the sheer notion of asceticism and self-improvement, as though every work done on one's-self and every labour of reform within

implied a falsehood, were indeed an incarnate falsehood.

demnation

all

more

the

he preaches

sincerity

surprising, if

itself requires

we

think of

a kind of asceticism, because

entirely directed against a willing blindness in us perhaps

with the

The last

state

it is

it is

bound up

of our nature.

idea of sincerity as

ten years, seems to

that

A con-

since the

it,

it

has raged, especially in France, for the

me to be deprived of all value by a single fact:

weapon but will not admit it, and the apparent which it vaunts is nothing but a cloak for its over-

essentially a

disinterestedness

desire for negative justification. If so,

whelming

we cannot

be too

of those dangerous and from one aspect at least positively reckless alliances between sincerity and purity which seem to have careful

been made in our time.

Where

sincerity

becomes

that indiscretion

condemned by Wust, it is explicitly turned against the only kind of purity which has a genuine spiritual against the self so rightly

Of course

value.

this

does not mean, as

I

said before, that purity

flourishes in a carefully preserved artificial twilight.

cannot be a mere coincidence that

reverse. It

seem to give out a

The

others.

those facts

light

which

shines

Quite the

men of great

on themselves

purity

as well as

halo, only discernible to the eye of the spirit,

is

one of

from which any metaphysician worthy of the name can this light which (mystics

draw almost unlimited wisdom. But

apart) the greatest of the painters have used with mysterious to

crown

writers

1

their

achievements

this light

which

painters, I think,

is life

because

1

it is

power

much more

than

Love, cannot be too

One can hardly help asking whether literary activity as such is not always in some degree except where it is purely lyrical turned against a certain fundamental purity of the soul. This is surely not the case in music or the

plastic

am. 231

sharply distinguished from the diabolical lucidity that

times be brought to bear

upon appalling

may some-

perversities,

where the

man who describes them has not the least desire to bring them to an end

a

light,

indeed,

which can

illuminate the deepest shadows

without taking away one jot of their suffocating gloom. Everything depends, I suppose, upon the hidden intention guiding the soul's vision of itself. Diabolical lucidity, I said; for

of the self is sometimes at work, but hatred of sin Hatred of the self; for the negative need of justification* tends

therein hatred never.

to blot out all difference, all dividing lines,

and

to prove that sin

docs not exist since

it is simply me, and covers the country of my from to being boundary boundary. There is a lust for sincerity which is simply an exaltation of all

the negative powers at

my command;

perhaps the most utterly its boundless

Satanic of all forms of suicide, where extreme pride, in

perversion, imitates extreme humility. If the soul thus surrenders to

the

'demon of knowledge* without

training or purification of the will, full

awareness, setting

first

it is,

submitting

up an idolatry for itself whose effects must be

faction in despair of which

Lust tion

we

and upholds the

have seen such distressing examples

of inward knowledge, perverse exaltabelittling analysis of the self these are just so

for sincerity, idolatry

many synonyms

for a single evil: the blindfolding

which makes

possible for the self to disregard that universal loving will at

everywhere, outside

be separated for a

is

the

satis-

us.

combined with a

know:

any

though not of course with

disastrous, because such idolatry encourages

around

itself to

this is

it

it

work

and within.

moment

why we can

Piety towards one's-self cannot from piety towards others, as we well

say that piety in

its

universal nature

bond which for ever unites man, the whole of nature, aqd the

whole of

the spiritual world.

spiritual, since

it is

This principle of unity

a principle of love, and

232

it

is

entirely

stands over against

die chain of pure necessity underlying the

union of merely natural

phenomena. Wust even goes so far as to speak (rather vaguely, I think) of piety as the synthetising factor of an other-worldly underlying the attraction at

chemistry,

their surroundings.

way of

Here, as elsewhere,

work between he

lets

speech too directly borrowed from

teenth-century idealism; he

is

certainly

souls

and

himself slide into a

German

going too

early nine-

towards the

far

pantheism which he will nevertheless reject at any price. And yet, however suspect we find the metaphors which he cannot help

we do

using,

find in his

work a

sense (and

it

may

be quite ac-

which brings together public coherent unity, and man's piety in the face of flourished in ancient Rome and even in the Middle

curate historically) of the relation life,

taken in

nature, as Is

Ages.

it

its

he not generally right in his contention that social relations

become less close when the peasant and the craftsman give pkce to the tradesman (and the workman), and that when man loses contact

with the

soil

and with

real things,

he

is

apt to be cut off from

the very roots of his existence, so that even his culture becomes 1

endangered?

The bound

peasant, for the very reason that he depends to

show

patience towards nature;

on

and because

nature, its

is

details

have become familiar to him, he unconsciously builds up a treasurehouse of objective experience, and so comes little by little to wel-

come

the gifts of the earth as the

wages of his labour and patience. no question of the 'crucifixion of nature*, the result of technical advancement where nothing but intellect and pure egoFor him there

is

ism arc needed, so that

we can

see the 'stigmata', so to speak,

physical and mathematical

sciences imprinted

world. Rightly or wrongly,

Wust blames upon

upon

the

of the

modern

the philosophical

doctrine of Kantianism the initial responsibility for the attitude implied

by the

sciences, 1

and

for the pillaging

of nature by

Naivitit uni Pktat, p. 133.

233

man which

begins as soon as his relation with nature ceases to be the relation

between two beings capable of mutual respect and adaptation. In the eyes of Wust, the mechanical science of nature is a son of technique of burglary.

Modern man, he

has the

says,

mark of Cain

upon him, and a 'Luciferean' character pervades the culture of those who have lost all piety towards the external world. not altogether easy to decide the worth of such an accusation;

It is it

seems to

me

that

it

contains some out-of-date sentimentality.

Remarks of this kind often seem extremely useless, anyhow, because one cannot see that there is any way of 'getting back to Nature*.

Among other objections to Wust's theory, there is nevertheless one which

not as cogent as

is

it

looks.

How,

between

it

may be

we

asked, can

man and

which

hope

to establish those relations

rested

upon an anthropomorphic interpretation now exploded?

nature

We must answer that modern thought is on this point also adopting the most questionable metaphysical hypotheses as though they were axioms. Some minds may think they are completely free of the

kind of ideology which will say, as though

it

with Auguste Comte, and yet they self-evident, that man advances from an

started

were

an adult state of knowledge, and that the characteristic the of mark higher stage, which the 'intellectual leaders' of today have reached, is simply the elimination of anthropomorphism. This infantile to

presupposes the most curious temporal realism, and perhaps especi-

most summary and simplicist picture of mental growth. Not only do they make a virtue of disregarding the positive and

ally the

irreplaceable value

they

make an

idol

of that

are telling

advanced

9 ,

9

'terminus

den

.

that

is

candour in the

of experience, by regarding

spiritual dedication,

minds

original

but they also say in so

the time

differently,

whether or not

it

as the only

many words

since

this is

soul, not only

some

admitted

way to

that

are

do

our

'more

nearer to a

And yet, by an amazing contradiction, they are forbid-

to actualise that terminus even in thought.

So

that progress

no

longer consists in drawing nearer to one's end, but

is described by a of its own; although they will not consider such as old age and creaking joints, because they no

purely intrinsic quality its

darker sides,

doubt think that they

are

moving

in a sphere where thought

is

depersonalised, so that these inevitable accidents of the flesh will be

automatically banished.

But the moment we allow, with Christian theology, that man is in some degree an image of God, not only is there no longer any question of our giving a negative verdict to anthropomorphism,

but

it is

even clear that such a condemnation would

Wust

spiritual danger. Peter

4

It

says,

entail sure

was fundamentally

false,

the

view which prevailed among modern philosophers, when they fixed their eyes upon the infinitude of the mechanical universe;

when

there

dawned upon them

the opinion that

expelled from the centre of the universe insignificant speck

That

is

true,

on

but would

The

and was no more than an

it

whole/ 1

not be more accurate to say that

which

is

universe, especially since

questioned by

it is

the

modern

Kant, does not seem to

include anything which can be treated as a centre, at theoretical sense

must be

the infinite extent of the cosmic

very idea of a 'centre of the universe*

philosophy?

Man

least

in the

of the word. But by a very strange inversion,

modern philosophy has come to substitute in the place of this real centre (now no longer conceivable) an imaginary focus existing in the mind. that the

new

One

could even maintain, without being paradoxical, 9 'Copernican revolution has resulted in the setting-up of a

anthropocentric theory; though

longer considering

man

it

differs

from the old in no

as a being, but rather as a

complex of

epistemological functions. This anthropocentric theory also ex-

cludes

all

attempts to 'picture* things in the likeness of

man

perhaps even to 'picture* them at all. The sense of analogy disappears at the same time as the sense of form. With them, the con1

Naivitat

mi Pietat,

US

p. 161

crctc itself is

because

it

swallowed up in the

actively devours.

Today

gulf of science

active

new

a

active

choice of alternatives

might be said to have arisen, between the dehumanised anthropocentric theory on the one hand, which tends to be favoured by of knowledge; and a theocentric theory on the which, though it is fully realised by the heirs of mediaeval

idealist theories

other,

philosophy, seems to be only vaguely perceived by the lay philosophers.

They have broken with all the speculation started by Kant,

but they nevertheless will not acknowledge in its fulness that oncological need which lies at the very heart of our lives, and may even

be the

final secret

of which our

dark and wearisome

lives are the

childbed.

This theocentricism Avant to see piety in 'Piety/ as Fichte

a

human

link

surely the thing to be emphasised if

we

proper place in the whole spiritual economy.

its

had already said,

'forces us to respect

countenance;' 'but here', adds Wust,

'it

whatever has

becomes the

huge and universal society of souls in a and super-terrestrial union seen wholly and simul-

which

terrestrial

is

joins the

taneously; a Civitas Dei, in the Augustinian sense, or a visible or invisible

Church of God whose members,

triumphant are linked by the

filial

suffering, militant,

relation

and

which binds them

all

all, without exception, bidden 1 to take their places at the eternal Supper of the Spirit/ Although the expression again leaves something to be desired in

together to their

the

way of strict

Heavenly Father

terminology, I think

for the universalism their

we

have nothing but praise

which stamps these declarations and gives them

pure and majestic tone. They are chiefly magnificent in their

emphasis on the absolute precedence given, in this realm, to piety 9 towards the 'Eternal Thou*. 'The paradox of the finite mind , he writes, 'is its subjection to the continued polarity brought to bear

upon him by

the I

and the Tbou. 1

He

NtMt&t und Pietat,

236

tries

to vanquish

p. 151.

it

in his

/, but he can only become a pure / with by gravitating, ever-increasing intensity, round the universal Thou of being and of all ontological community.' 1

to

compulsion

Perhaps (as

it

become a pure

would be a good plan to discount this sort of language from Fichte) and try to get at the

rather too directly derived

it is

inward and concrete significance of the notion expressed. In Wust's view, if we think that we can enter into more immediof ourselves and our proper reality by progressively cutting ourselves off from the particular communities in which we are at first involved, we are labouring under an illusion engendered ate possession

by pride. sion

He

which

follows Tonnies in clearing

up

the disastrous confu-

the sociological school of our time

by reminding us and society.

to

make

a clear distinction between

a union in which

community

a union founded

By community, Tonnies understood kinship and love

had countenanced,

members

its

upon

are joined in

an

almost organic embrace. Society, on the other hand, implied for him a type of union founded upon mere intellect divorced from

But the pessimistic philosophy of did Tonnies not give him scope to see all the by be drawn from this distinction, nor even perhaps to

love, a purely selfish calculation.

culture professed inferences to

with perfect clarity. (It was also, perhaps, a little rash of him to put such a high value on the 'ties of blood'.) There is genu-

explain

ine

it

community wherever man has kept

intact:

wherever he strongly

which

is itself love,

soul'.

and which goes down to

An atmosphere, one might call

in a bold metaphor, compares

charging, or a

the lifelines of his being

asserts 'the natural inclination to love,

pump which

it

it,

the very depths of his

but also a presence. Wust, which never needs re-

to a battery

draws up

'the eternal

powers of the

autonomous organisation of our own personalities'. Although he may sometimes seem to do so, he never really condones

spirit in die

1

Naivitat und

Picttit,

237

p. 159.

Es or Impersonal Mind; on the he to never ceases warn us contrary, against them. He even refuses, in a page which I wish I could quote entirely, to admit the existence

the excesses of the metaphysic of the

of

that nature in

God

still

found in some

perhaps in the later Schelling

which they claimed

theistic philosophies

like a survival

to have uprooted.

The term

of course, be taken here to mean essence; obviously has a nature, since whatever

of those very mistakes

is,

nature must not,

God

'in that sense,

has,

and must have, an

Wust's problem is whether there is a trans-personal sphere 1 ip the reality of the absolute Spirit, and so an 'impersonal' element, essence.*

from which would spring, activity It,

functioning on

which

Wust

as

by a natural process, the personal

the pattern of the blind principle, the pure

rules nature. In other

words,

is

Spinozan ontology valid?

objects, in terms reminiscent of Renouvier, that

'it

always of over thingpersonality necessary precedence inconceivable that any sphere in God, however small,

means ignoring the hood. It is

should be opaque to the light of Absolute Personality, a fact not so much central as unique. The Logos can be no stranger, even in the least degree, to the spirituality it

for ever in close

But

this

of the divine Person;

and unbreakable

does not

mean

that

He is one with

identity/

we can

treat

God's unfathomable

abyss of love (Uebesabgrund) as a nature (irrational this time) existing in Him as a second and irreducible principle. 'It is only to us that the Eternal

Love of the

Creator, causing

blessed self-sufficiency, seems like

may appear

an

him to go outside his own

irrational principle.

To

in an impersonal guise, at one remove from the

us It

God-

shows us a new aspect of His entirely head. But personal Essence, the spirituality of the Absolute Person of God 9 revealed along the lines of His free activity/ This being so, we can in fact It simply

see

why all finite spiritual activity whatsoever, as soon as it is turned

in a positive direction (towards order), can only be founded * 1 ikid. f Nwittt und Pietat, p. 34. p. 163.

238

upon

much an echo of God's eternal Love as a vague but answer awakened by It. In thus categorically asserting the .precedence of love over order, Wust removes even the possilove; not so irresistible

bility it

of our making an idol of the

which

And thereby he makes

make an idol of the eternal truths, an

equally impossible for us to

idolatry

intellect.

so limits the theistic affirmation as to rob

it

of its

We

should observe that Wust, all through most positive value. this part of his work, bases himself on the Augustinian theory, and

makes use of the well-known formula omnia amare in Deo, so clearly the nodal point of all his views of piety; he especially throws a flood of light upon the central fact that piety towards ourselves is really nothing but a form of the fear of God. It only degenerates into

and

selfishness

the root of all error

the highest form of piety,

when it is unduly separated from

and turns

towards the 'sphere of immanence' (i.e. towards the most deceptive kind of autonomy). It is easy to see that Wust is exhorting us to make a complete its

activity

of the whole personality, I think, the intellect as well as the will. It may be said without exaggeration that he achieved this for himself, with a kind of simple heroism, spiritual 'reconstruction*

during the

last years

of his

life.

As he expressly said at the end of the

Dialection of the Spirit, there is intellects \

despair.

He

seems to be asking of us simply

cease once for all to

which he

no question of making a

sacrificium

such an abdication of the mind would be a mere act of

make

uses as a description

we

this: that

a certain kind of demand

the

of 'absolute gnosticism

9

should

demand and

that

we should give up the idea of attaining ultimate knowledge capable of being unfolded into an organic whole, since he has shown that such knowledge is incompatible with the fundamental character of Being.

And

here (at least in

this intuition

humility,

lies

my eyes) here in this notion,

or rather

of the metaphysical value properly belonging to Wust's most original contribution to the speculative

thought of our day.

239

It is

plain that

essential

truisms that

corollary, 'Pride

lie

'library

fertility

is

for ever exhausted.

have said before, there

reconstruction to be done.

of the

an

one of those

Only

strip the

ethics to the realm

of de-

astonished to see

before our eyes.

is

an immense work of

critical

The astonishingly free-and-easy assump-

rival philosophies

constant scrutiny. first

is

that their spiritual

we might be

what unexpected horizons unfolded

As we

It is

And yet, if we did take the trouble to

commonplace of personal

this

which

a source of blindness',

buried under the dust of ages, and no one troubles

personalised thought (so-called),

tions

is

of human wisdom*.

them up again because everyone thinks

to dig

apply

its

pan of the

must be subjected

we

thus can

human mind

and powers, and then go on

to

awful prerogatives of that King have dethroned.

of

all its

endow

whom

240

to

thorough and

through those doctrines

see

it

ontological attributes

with some of the more

they fondly believe they