Being and Having: Gabriel Marcel's Metaphysical Diary

<OU_1 64681
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(<i)
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 <f>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