“By religion I mean a set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual”
But I am certain that the converse thought occurs,
namely that, if India could be taken from us, the blow to imperialist
feeling might lead us to revolution. In either case, the two policies,
of revolution in the West and conquest (disguised as liberation of
oppressed peoples) in the East, work in together, and dovetail into a
strongly coherent whole.
Bolshevism as a social phenomenon is to be reckoned as a religion, not
as an ordinary political movement. The important and effective mental
attitudes to the world may be broadly divided into the religious and
the scientific. The scientific attitude is tentative and piecemeal,
believing what it finds evidence for, and no more. Since Galileo, the
scientific attitude has proved itself increasingly capable of
ascertaining important facts and laws, which are acknowledged by all
competent people regardless of temperament or self-interest or
political pressure. Almost all the progress in the world from the
earliest times is attributable to science and the scientific temper;
almost all the major ills are attributable to religion.
By a religion I mean a set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the
conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated
by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual. By
this definition, Bolshevism is a religion: that its dogmas go beyond
or contrary to evidence, I shall try to prove in what follows. Those
who accept Bolshevism become impervious to scientific evidence, and
commit intellectual suicide. Even if all the doctrines of Bolshevism
were true, this would still be the case, since no unbiased examination
of them is tolerated. One who believes, as I do, that the free
intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be
fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.
Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism
rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism
are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love
of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social,
unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world. Their founders
would not have resisted the third of the temptations in the
wilderness. What Mohammedanism did for the Arabs, Bolshevism may do
for the Russians.
“We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.”
The country which has succeeded best in giving information without
intelligence is the latest addition to modern civilization, Japan.
Elementary education in Japan is said to be admirable from the point of
view of instruction. But, in addition to instruction, it has another
purpose, which is to teach worship of the Mikado--a far stronger creed
now than before Japan became modernized.[3] Thus the schools have been
used simultaneously to confer knowledge and to promote superstition.
Since we are not tempted to Mikado-worship, we see clearly what is
absurd in Japanese teaching. Our own national superstitions strike us as
natural and sensible, so that we do not take such a true view of them as
we do of the superstitions of Nippon. But if a travelled Japanese were
to maintain the thesis that our schools teach superstitions just as
inimical to intelligence as belief in the divinity of the Mikado, I
suspect that he would be able to make out a very good case.
For the present I am not in search of remedies, but am only concerned
with diagnosis. We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education
has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of
thought. This is due primarily to the fact that the State claims a
monopoly; but that is by no means the sole cause.
(2) _Propaganda._--Our system of education turns young people out of the
schools able to read, but for the most part unable to weigh evidence or
to form an independent opinion. They are then assailed, throughout the
rest of their lives, by statements designed to make them believe all
sorts of absurd propositions, such as that Blank's pills cure all ills,
that Spitzbergen is warm and fertile, and that Germans eat corpses. The
art of propaganda, as practised by modern politicians and governments,
is derived from the art of advertisement. The science of psychology owes
a great deal to advertisers. In former days most psychologists would
probably have thought that a man could not convince many people of the
excellence of his own wares by merely stating emphatically that they
were excellent. Experience shows, however, that they were mistaken in
this. If I were to stand up once in a public place and state that I am
the most modest man alive, I should be laughed at; but if I could raise
enough money to make the same statement on all the busses and on
hoardings along all the principal railway lines, people would presently
become convinced that I had an abnormal shrinking from publicity.
“It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly”
The typical creative
impulse is that of the artist; the typical possessive impulse is
that of property. The best life is that in which creative impulses
play the largest part and possessive impulses the smallest. The best
institutions are those which produce the greatest possible creativeness
and the least possessiveness compatible with self-preservation.
Possessiveness may be defensive or aggressive: in the criminal law it
is defensive, and in criminals it is aggressive. It may perhaps be
admitted that the criminal law is less abominable than the criminal,
and that defensive possessiveness is unavoidable so long as aggressive
possessiveness exists. But not even the most purely defensive forms of
possessiveness are in themselves admirable; indeed, as soon as they are
strong they become hostile to the creative impulses. “Take no thought,
saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink, or Wherewithal
shall we be clothed?” Whoever has known a strong creative impulse has
known the value of this precept in its exact and literal sense: it is
preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents
men from living freely and nobly. The State and Property are the great
embodiments of possessiveness; it is for this reason that they are
against life, and that they issue in war. Possession means taking or
keeping some good thing which another is prevented from enjoying;
creation means putting into the world a good thing which otherwise
no one would be able to enjoy. Since the material goods of the world
must be divided among the population, and since some men are by nature
brigands, there must be defensive possession, which will be regulated,
in a good community, by some principle of impersonal justice. But all
this is only the preface to a good life or good political institutions,
in which creation will altogether outweigh possession, and distributive
justice will exist as an uninteresting matter of course.
The supreme principle, both in politics and in private life, should
be _to promote all that is creative, and so to diminish the impulses
and desires that center round possession_. The State at present is
very largely an embodiment of possessive impulses: internally, it
protects the rich against the poor; externally, it uses force for the
exploitation of inferior races, and for competition with other States.
“Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.”
The exhaustion and misery caused by unsuccessful
war were necessary to the success of the Bolsheviks; a prosperous
population will not embark by such methods upon a fundamental economic
reconstruction. One can imagine England becoming Bolshevik after an
unsuccessful war involving the loss of India--no improbable
contingency in the next few years. But at present the average
wage-earner in England will not risk what he has for the doubtful gain
of a revolution. A condition of widespread misery may, therefore, be
taken as indispensable to the inauguration of Communism, unless,
indeed, it were possible to establish Communism more or less
peacefully, by methods which would not, even temporarily, destroy the
economic life of the country. If the hopes which inspired Communism at
the start, and which still inspire its Western advocates, are ever to
be realized, the problem of minimizing violence in the transition must
be faced. Unfortunately, violence is in itself delightful to most
really vigorous revolutionaries, and they feel no interest in the
problem of avoiding it as far as possible. Hatred of enemies is easier
and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more
anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no
great good is to be expected.
II
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
I entered Soviet Russia on May 11th and recrossed the frontier on June
16th. The Russian authorities only admitted me on the express
condition that I should travel with the British Labour Delegation, a
condition with which I was naturally very willing to comply, and which
that Delegation kindly allowed me to fulfil. We were conveyed from the
frontier to Petrograd, as well as on subsequent journeys, in a special
_train de luxe_; covered with mottoes about the Social Revolution and
the Proletariat of all countries; we were received everywhere by
regiments of soldiers, with the Internationale being played on the
regimental band while civilians stood bare-headed and soldiers at the
salute; congratulatory orations were made by local leaders and
answered by prominent Communists who accompanied us; the entrances to
the carriages were guarded by magnificent Bashkir cavalry-men in
resplendent uniforms; in short, everything was done to make us feel
like the Prince of Wales.
“More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given”
I should, therefore, at the
age of sixteen, allow a boy or girl to specialize in science or to
specialize in mathematics, without entirely neglecting the branch not
chosen. Similar remarks apply to modern humanities.
Certain subjects, of great utilitarian importance, would have to be
taught to everybody. Among these, I should include anatomy, physiology
and hygiene, to the extent that is likely to be required in adult daily
life. But perhaps these subjects ought to come at an earlier stage,
since they are naturally connected with sex education, which ought to
be given, as far as possible, before puberty. The objection to putting
them very early is that they ought not to be forgotten before they are
needed. I think the only solution is to give them twice over, once,
very simply and in bare outline, before puberty, and again later in
connection with elementary knowledge about health and disease. I should
say that every pupil ought to know something also about Parliament and
the Constitution, but care must be taken to prevent teaching on this
subject from degenerating into political propaganda.
More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of
teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given. As to this,
the main problem is to make the work interesting without making it too
easy. Exact and detailed study should be supplemented by books and
lectures on general aspects of the studies concerned. Before sitting
down to a Greek play, I would have the students read a translation, by
Gilbert Murray or some other translator with a poetic gift. Mathematics
should be diversified by an occasional lecture on the history of
mathematical discovery, and on the influence of this or that piece of
mathematics upon science and daily life, with hints of the delightful
things to be found in higher mathematics. Similarly the detailed study
of history should be supplemented by brilliant outlines, even if they
contained questionable generalizations. The students might be told
that the generalizations are doubtful, and be invited to consider
their detailed knowledge as supporting or refuting them. In science,
it is good to read popular books which give an _aperçu_ of recent
research, in order to have some idea of the general scientific purpose
served by particular facts and laws.
“A process which led from the amoebae to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress - though whether the amoebae would agree with this opinion is not known.”
The doctrine of natural
kinds, which had rendered classification easy and definite, which was
enshrined in the Aristotelian tradition, and protected by its supposed
necessity for orthodox dogma, was suddenly swept away for ever out of
the biological world. The difference between man and the lower
animals, which to our human conceit appears enormous, was shown to be
a gradual achievement, involving intermediate being who could not with
certainty be placed either within or without the human family. The sun
and the planets had already been shown by Laplace to be very probably
derived from a primitive more or less undifferentiated nebula. Thus
the old fixed landmarks became wavering and indistinct, and all sharp
outlines were blurred. Things and species lost their boundaries, and
none could say where they began or where they ended.
But if human conceit was staggered for a moment by its kinship with
the ape, it soon found a way to reassert itself, and that way is the
"philosophy" of evolution. A process which led from the amoeba to Man
appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress--though
whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known. Hence
the cycle of changes which science had shown to be the probable
history of the past was welcomed as revealing a law of development
towards good in the universe--an evolution or unfolding of an idea
slowly embodying itself in the actual. But such a view, though it
might satisfy Spencer and those whom we may call Hegelian
evolutionists, could not be accepted as adequate by the more
whole-hearted votaries of change. An ideal to which the world
continuously approaches is, to these minds, too dead and static to be
inspiring. Not only the aspiration, but the ideal too, must change and
develop with the course of evolution: there must be no fixed goal, but
a continual fashioning of fresh needs by the impulse which is life and
which alone gives unity to the process.
Life, in this philosophy, is a continuous stream, in which all
divisions are artificial and unreal. Separate things, beginnings and
endings, are mere convenient fictions: there is only smooth unbroken
transition.
“Man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness”
Be it ours to shed sunshine on
their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give
them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing
courage, to instil faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in
grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of
their need--of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses,
that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are
fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy with
ourselves. And so, when their day is over, when their good and their
evil have become eternal by the immortality of the past, be it ours to
feel that, where they suffered, where they failed, no deed of ours was
the cause; but wherever a spark of the divine fire kindled in their
hearts, we were ready with encouragement, with sympathy, with brave
words in which high courage glowed.
Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow,
sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of
destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man,
condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass
through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the
blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining
the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that
his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to
preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward
life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a
moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary
but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned
despite the trampling march of unconscious power.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Reprinted from the _Independent Review_, December, 1903.
IV
THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS
In regard to every form of human activity it is necessary that the
question should be asked from time to time, What is its purpose and
ideal? In what way does it contribute to the beauty of human
existence? As respects those pursuits which contribute only remotely,
by providing the mechanism of life, it is well to be reminded that not
the mere fact of living is to be desired, but the art of living in the
contemplation of great things.
Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.
Except
in regard to such matters as Cantor's theory of infinity, no finality is
claimed for the theories suggested; but I believe that where they are
found to require modification, this will be discovered by substantially
the same method as that which at present makes them appear probable, and
it is on this ground that I ask the reader to be tolerant of their
incompleteness.
Cambridge,
June 1914.
CONTENTS
LECTURE PAGE
I. Current Tendencies 3
II. Logic as the Essence of Philosophy 33
III. On our Knowledge of the External World 63
IV. The World of Physics and the World of Sense 101
V. The Theory of Continuity 129
VI. The Problem of Infinity considered Historically 155
VII. The Positive Theory of Infinity 185
VIII. On the Notion of Cause, with Applications to
the Free-will Problem 211
Index 243
LECTURE I
CURRENT TENDENCIES
Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and
achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning. Ever since
Thales said that all is water, philosophers have been ready with glib
assertions about the sum-total of things; and equally glib denials have
come from other philosophers ever since Thales was contradicted by
Anaximander. I believe that the time has now arrived when this
unsatisfactory state of things can be brought to an end. In the
following course of lectures I shall try, chiefly by taking certain
special problems as examples, to indicate wherein the claims of
philosophers have been excessive, and why their achievements have not
been greater. The problems and the method of philosophy have, I believe,
been misconceived by all schools, many of its traditional problems being
insoluble with our means of knowledge, while other more neglected but
not less important problems can, by a more patient and more adequate
method, be solved with all the precision and certainty to which the most
advanced sciences have attained.
Among present-day philosophies, we may distinguish three principal
types, often combined in varying proportions by a single philosopher,
but in essence and tendency distinct.
How, in such an alien and inhuman world, can so powerless a creature as man preserve his aspirations untarnished? A strange mystery it is that nature, omnipotent but blind, in the revolutions of her secular hurryings through the abysses of space, has brought forth at last a child, subject still to her power, but gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with the capacity of judging all the works of his unthinking mother. In spite of death, the mark and seal of the parental control, man is yet free, during his brief years, to examine, to criticize, to know, and in imagination to create. To him alone, in the world with which he is aquainted, this freedom belongs; and in this lies his superiority to the resistless forces that control his outward life.
Amid such a world, if
anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the
product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were
achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves
and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of
atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling,
can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours
of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the 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 inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe
in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so
nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to
stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm
foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth
be safely built.
How, in such an alien and inhuman world, can so powerless a creature
as Man preserve his aspirations untarnished? A strange mystery it is
that Nature, omnipotent but blind, in the revolutions of her secular
hurryings through the abysses of space, has brought forth at last a
child, subject still to her power, but gifted with sight, with
knowledge of good and evil, with the capacity of judging all the works
of his unthinking Mother. In spite of Death, the mark and seal of the
parental control, Man is yet free, during his brief years, to examine,
to criticise, to know, and in imagination to create. To him alone, in
the world with which he is acquainted, this freedom belongs; and in
this lies his superiority to the resistless forces that control his
outward life.
The savage, like ourselves, feels the oppression of his impotence
before the powers of Nature; but having in himself nothing that he
respects more than Power, he is willing to prostrate himself before
his gods, without inquiring whether they are worthy of his worship.
Pathetic and very terrible is the long history of cruelty and torture,
of degradation and human sacrifice, endured in the hope of placating
the jealous gods: surely, the trembling believer thinks, when what is
most precious has been freely given, their lust for blood must be
appeased, and more will not be required. The religion of Moloch--as
such creeds may be generically called--is in essence the cringing
submission of the slave, who dare not, even in his heart, allow the
thought that his master deserves no adulation. Since the independence
of ideals is not yet acknowledged, Power may be freely worshipped, and
receive an unlimited respect, despite its wanton infliction of pain.
But gradually, as morality grows bolder, the claim of the ideal world
begins to be felt; and worship, if it is not to cease, must be given
to gods of another kind than those created by the savage.
In this lies Mans true freedom: in determination to worship only the God created by our own love of the good.
answer to this question is very momentous, and affects profoundly
our whole morality. The worship of Force, to which Carlyle and
Nietzsche and the creed of Militarism have accustomed us, is the
result of failure to maintain our own ideals against a hostile
universe: it is itself a prostrate submission to evil, a sacrifice of
our best to Moloch. If strength indeed is to be respected, let us
respect rather the strength of those who refuse that false
"recognition of facts" which fails to recognise that facts are often
bad. Let us admit that, in the world we know, there are many things
that would be better otherwise, and that the ideals to which we do and
must adhere are not realised in the realm of matter. Let us preserve
our respect for truth, for beauty, for the ideal of perfection which
life does not permit us to attain, though none of these things meet
with the approval of the unconscious universe. If Power is bad, as it
seems to be, let us reject it from our hearts. In this lies Man's true
freedom: in determination to worship only the God created by our own
love of the good, to respect only the heaven which inspires the
insight of our best moments. In action, in desire, we must submit
perpetually to the tyranny of outside forces; but in thought, in
aspiration, we are free, free from our fellow-men, free from the petty
planet on which our bodies impotently crawl, free even, while we live,
from the tyranny of death. Let us learn, then, that energy of faith
which enables us to live constantly in the vision of the good; and let
us descend, in action, into the world of fact, with that vision always
before us.
When first the opposition of fact and ideal grows fully visible, a
spirit of fiery revolt, of fierce hatred of the gods, seems necessary
to the assertion of freedom. To defy with Promethean constancy a
hostile universe, to keep its evil always in view, always actively
hated, to refuse no pain that the malice of Power can invent, appears
to be the duty of all who will not bow before the inevitable. But
indignation is still a bondage, for it compels our thoughts to be
occupied with an evil world; and in the fierceness of desire from
which rebellion springs there is a kind of self-assertion which it is
necessary for the wise to overcome.
“The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.”
“Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.”
“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”
“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge”
“Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.”
“Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?”
“There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.”
“Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.”
“We are all prone to the malady of the introvert who, with the manifold spectacle of the world spread out before him, turns away and gazes only upon the emptiness within. But let us not imagine there is anything grand about the introverts unhappiness.”
“Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”
