"But a second and worse defect in a philosophy than that of contradicting our active propensities is to give them no Object whatever to press against.A philosophy whose principle is so incommensurate with our most intimate powers as to deny them all relevancy in universal affairs, as to annihilate their motives at one blow, will be even more unpopular than pessimism.Better face the enemy than the eternal Void! This is why materialism will always fail of universal adoption, however well it may fuse things into an atomistic unity, however clearly it may prophesy the future eternity.For materialism denies reality to the objects of almost all the impulses which we most cherish.The real meaning of the impulses, it says, is something which has no emotional interest for us whatever.But what is called extradition is quite as characteristic of our emotions as of our sense.Both point to an object as the cause of the present feeling.What an intensely objective reference lies in fear I In like manner an enraptured man, a dreary-feeling man, are not simply aware of their subjective states; if they were, the force of their feelings would evaporate.Both believe there is outward cause why they should feel as they do: either 'It is a glad world! 'how good is life!' or 'What a loathsome tedium is existence!' Any philosophy which annihilates the validity of the reference by explaining away its objects or translating them into terms of no emotional pertinency leaves the mind with little to care or act for.
This is the opposite condition from that of nightmare, but when acutely brought home to consciousness it produces a kindred horror.In nightmare we have motives to act, hut no power: here we have powers, but no motives.
A nameless Unheimlichkeit comes over us at the thought of there being nothing eternal in our final purposes, in the objects of those loves and aspirations which are our deepest energies.The monstrously lopsided equation of the universe and its knower, which we postulate as the ideal of cognition, is perfectly paralleled by the no less lopsided equation of the universe and the doer.We demand in it a character for which our emotions and active propensities shall be a match.Small as we are, minute as is the point by which the Cosmos impinges upon each one of us, each one desires to feel that his reaction at that point is congruous with the demands of the vast whole, that balances the latter, so to speak, and is able to do what it expects of him.But as his abilities to 'do' lie wholly in the line of his natural propensities; as he enjoys reaction with such emotions as fortitude, hope, rapture, admiration, earnestness, and the like; and as he very unwillingly reacts with fear, disgust, despair, or doubt, -- a philosophy which should legitimate only emotions of the latter sort would be sure to leave the mind a prey to discontent and craving.
"It is far too little recognized how entirely the intellect is built up of practical interests.The theory of Evolution is beginning to do very good service by its reduction of all mentality to the type of reflex action.
Cognition, in this view, is but a fleeting moment, a cross-section at a certain point of what in its totality Is a motor phenomenon.In the lower forms of life no one will pretend that cognition is anything more than a guide to appropriate action.The germinal question concerning
things brought for the first time before consciousness is not the theoretic 'What is that?' but the practical 'Who goes there?' or rather, as Horwicz has admirably put it, 'What is to be done?' -- ' Was fang' ich an?' In all our discussions about the intelligence of lower animals the only test we use is that of their activity as if for a purpose.Cognition, in short, is incomplete until discharged in act.And although it is true that the later mental development, which attains its maximum through the hypertrophied cerebrum of man, gives birth to a vast amount of theoretic activity over and above that which is immediately ministerial to practice, Set the earlier claim is only postponed, not effaced, and the active nature asserts its rights to the end.
"If there be any truth at all in this view, it follows that however vaguely a philosopher may define the ultimate universal datum, he cannot be said to leave it unknown to us so long as he in the slightest degree pretends that our emotional or active attitude towards it should be of one sort rather than another.He who says, 'Life is real, life is earnest,'
however much he may speak of the fundamental mysteriousness of things, gives a distinct definition to that mysteriousness by ascribing to it the right to claim from us the particular mood called seriousness, which means the unwillingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain.The same is true of him who says that all is vanity.Indefinable as the predicate vanity may be in se , it is clearly enough something which permits anæsthesia, mere escape from suffering, to be our rule of life.There is no more ludicrous incongruity than for agnostics to proclaim with one breath that the substance of things is unknowable, and with the next that the thought of it should inspire us with admiration of its glory, reverence, and a willingness to add our cooperative push in the direction towards which its manifestations seem to be drifting.The unknowable may be unfathomed, but if it make such distinct demands upon our activity, we surely are not ignorant of its essential quality.
