CHAPTER IV

THE IDEAL OF THE WHOLE

To recapitulate and at the same time to enlarge somewhat the points thus far covered in Book II: Kant proclaims man an end _per se_. This promises a philosophic basis for an ethical world-view. The promise is not kept. Kant takes as his point of departure absolute obligation, and attempts to deduce out of an empty formula a worthwhile object. Kant’s formula is: Treat man never merely as a means, but also as an end _per se_. But how far man may be treated as a means, and what the relation of the means to the end may be is left undetermined. An upper crust of morality is formed, as it were, upon the empirical flood of passions, desires, etc. A straight line is drawn beyond which the under world in every man may not emerge. But a truly instrumental view of the means as related to the end is not established. This is one of the great gaps in Kant’s system. Note the almost puerile reason given for culture: we should cultivate our talents _weil sie zu allerhand Zwecken nützlich sein mögen_.

Kant’s ethical order is a duplicate of the physical order. The notion of law is taken from physics, and expanded into the concept of law in general. Ethical behavior is represented as behavior motivated by the notion of lawfulness. Law is characterized by universality and necessity. Chapter II, however, shows that in physics universality is predicated on the ground of an ascertained necessary connection. In physics, necessity has its true meaning as pertaining to a relation between one thing and another. If the linkage can be established, the universality follows. In Kant’s ethics, on the contrary, necessity is taken as the consequence of the universality and the proper meaning of necessity is lost. Self-consistency takes the place of the relation to something else. The ideal society, as described, would therefore be a society of self-preserving rational intelligences, ethically solipsistic.

Next we began the investigation into the idea of worth. Why do men hold themselves and others cheap? They regard each other from the point of view of the _use_ to be made of others and of their own life, and not from the point of view of the energies deployed. The turning on of electric power was used as an illustration. Nevertheless, even exceptional men, men regarded as illustrating in the highest degree the mental energies implicit in human nature, would not possess the quality of worth, that is, of being ends _per se_, merely on the score of their scientific or their artistic activities. We cannot say that the world would be less perfect if there were no scientists to discover its laws. There is a supreme, a unique energy and it is to this that the quality of worth belongs.[26]

The ethical quality called worth is the supreme good, and must be accessible to all, even to those to whom the lesser goods are denied. Ethics is a system of thought which stands or falls with the contention that while the better may be within reach only of the exceptional few, the best is within reach of all.

In attempting to approach the task of building up a world-view based on ethical experience, it became unavoidable to consider the method by which the approach might be made, and for this purpose to contrast the methods of science and the methods of ethics. Science, as we have seen, collects its bricks and builds its house by composition. Science analyzes phenomena into units, which it then combines. The mystery is how science can achieve certainty in respect to certain phenomena of nature without previous knowledge of the whole of nature. Kant’s answer is that there is partial congruity between the mental functions and the data that come to us from the unknown. Kant’s _Critique of Pure Reason_ faces in two directions. It expels the older metaphysics which assumed that the empirical world is rational throughout, or rationalizable, and which thence argued the existence of the unconditioned as necessarily implied in the existence of the conditioned, and of a first cause as actually implied in the chain of causes and effects. Kant contends that there is an irrational element, namely, bare juxtaposition (part outside part), and bare sequence (part before and after part), while the logical or rational relation implies that the part is to be conceived as implicit in the whole. Juxtaposition and sequence, therefore, can never be completely rationalized. On the other hand, Kant undertakes to prove that whatever of reality we know is traceable to the projection of the rational factor upon the irrational. One might even say that, according to Kant, the mind itself produces the irrational factor, since the intuitions of space and time are according to him, functions of the mind itself—the mind setting up a manifold so constituted as to receive sense impressions. At any rate the capital point to which we were led up was that science puts her foot on _terra firma_ in a restricted area, without reference to what lies beyond, while if we are to proceed in ethics at all, we must begin with some ideal plan of the whole, since in ethics we are not interpreting a foreign nature, but act upon natures similar to our own; and since, in the case of conduct, there is no such partial concurrence of the rational and irrational as in physics, no one of the so-called moral modes of behavior being moral when taken separately. Hence the conclusion that there is no possibility of establishing the conception of worth unless we have some ideal of the whole in which and in relation to which the incomparable worthwhileness of a human being can be made good.

We need hardly again remind ourselves that this conception of worth, or of man as end _per se_, is not a mere abstraction, and that our interest in it is not academic. Every outcry against the oppression of man by man, or against whatsoever is morally hideous, is but the affirmation of the cardinal principle that a human being as such is not to be violated, is not to be handled like a tool, but is to be respected and revered as an end _per se_. But what do we mean by end _per se_, and how account for this notion? Does it come into our mind like a bolt from the blue, or is it revealed as prefigured in the human mind when we follow it into its intimate constitution?

Our knowledge of the world we live in is extremely limited—in its details it is confined to the planet we live on, extending to the myriads of celestial bodies beyond us only by means of scant generalizations. If we have knowledge of only so small a portion, how can we frame an ideal of the whole? At the same time we must remember that the world we actually know, this earth and yonder starry myriads, is in very truth _our_ world, the world as it exists for us, a world which with the help of data coming to us from the unknown, we ourselves have built up on certain constructive principles; and that these principles have been found, within certain limits, availing.[27] I say availing within certain limits. The defeat they meet with beyond those limits is due to the intractable elements of juxtaposition and sequence, of the time and space manifolds, which in themselves are incapable of being completely rationalized.

Now the ideal of the whole is a plan or scheme in which the constructive principles of the mind are conceived as having untrammeled course and unhindered application, and the task of world-building, or rather universe-building, is in idea carried out to completion.

The attempt to present an ideal forecast, or outline of the whole of reality, as it would satisfy a mind constituted like ours, an ideal landscape of this sort, is not at all to be confounded with the arrogation of _a priori_ knowledge. _A priori_ knowledge is supposed to be a kind of knowledge, and _knowledge_ of the whole is utterly and confessedly beyond our reach. The phrase _a priori_, too, is objectionable and unfortunate for two reasons. First, as just said, because it has been supposed to be a kind of knowledge. By some theologians men were supposed to possess _a priori_ knowledge of God.[28] Secondly, because the word _a priori_ suggests precedence in time, and our knowledge of the human mind and of its irreducible capacities comes out only in the course of experience. Much that has been called _a priori_, that is implicit in experience, did not become explicit until after prolonged experience. The Greek thinkers before Aristotle doubtless thought in terms of syllogism, but it was not until Greek science had attained a certain ripeness that Aristotle was able to dissect out the logic which had previously been employed more or less unconsciously.

Instead, therefore, of using the term _a priori_, which gives rise to the two-fold misapprehension of an _a priori_ knowledge and of temporal precedence, and instead of throwing out the child with the bath, that is, of ignoring the independent part played by our mental constitution in building up experience, and in affording us the conviction of certainty, and of reality, it is highly desirable that a new term be found to take the place of _a priori_. The term “functional finality” suggests itself to me for this purpose.[29]

My field is ethics. I am entirely desirous of sticking to my own last, that is, dealing with such concepts as the data of my subject force upon me. I do not wish to trespass, or to seem to trespass, on the domain of my neighbors. Hence in dealing with functional finalities I must deal with them primarily as they appear in the field of ethics, that is, in the domain of the actions and reactions of human beings upon one another. Irreducible _principia_ of ethics are the functional finalities, which prescribe rules for such intercourse, or better which create a scheme of ideal intercourse whereby the conduct of men shall be measured and determined.

I must, however, glance for a moment at fields outside my own, for the purpose not of controversy but of elucidation; not to deal with the subject matter of my neighbors, but to mark off my own more definitely. What then, I ask, is the most general expression by which to designate the singularities of the human mind, the principles on which it acts, its immutable modes of behavior, the invariants that recur amid all the complex varieties of its processes? The principal invariants are the positing of a manifold of some kind, and the apprehending of that manifold as coherent. The manifold is not given, but is posited by the mind. The positing is a mental function, just as much as the apprehending of the plurality as coherent is a mental function. The particular manifolds of space and time experience are said to be given, but they would not be received by the mind were not the function of manifold-positing prepared to apprehend them.

In recent physical science the notion of the manifold plays a conspicuous rôle. Subtle speculations are employed to define the kinds of manifold which the physicist finds opportune, and the kind of unity of which these manifolds are respectively capable. The two terms mentioned are themselves the most abstract conceivable, and naturally, that which is here taken to underlie all the constructive, world-building activity of the mind in every possible direction can only be expressed in the most sublimated language. But the notions themselves, or rather the acts of the mind, the functions designated, are rich and replete with concrete utility when applied to subject matter in the different fields.

Wherever we turn we find that the assurance of reality depends on the joint use of the two principles mentioned, the joint operation of the two kinds of mental action; that is to say—on the positing of a manifold and on the simultaneous apprehension of the subject matter to which it relates as coherent, as unified.

The simultaneity, the inseparableness of the two mental acts or functions in regard to the same subject-matter is the essential point on which hangs the web of the argument here submitted. Thus in geometry space must be regarded as a continuum, unbroken, uninterrupted at any point, and at the same time the same space must be treated as capable of puncture, of linear and superficial delimitations; that is to say, of division. That which is one must yet be apprehended as divided; that which is divided, or delimitated, must yet be apprehended as one. The difficulties that arise spring from the vain endeavor to separate the two inseparable acts—the act of apprehending the manifold of space _sub specie pluralitatis_, and the act of apprehending it _sub specie unitatis_. Hence arises the puzzling question: How can that which is continuous be divided, how can chasms between the parts of space, however infinitesimal, be bridged? Witness the problem of Zeno, and the pragmatist solution of it by a demonstration that satisfies us indeed as to the fact (which no one doubts), but leaves the mental puzzle as before; and also Bergson’s Method of accounting for division by a comparison of the inner and the outer flux, wherein he seems to overlook the difficulty that for the purpose of comparison two points must be fixed, one in each flux, that is to say, the division in the flux must be regarded as already existing.

In the physical sciences we are compelled to assume on the one hand the atomic or granular constitution of matter, in other words, manifoldness. On the other hand, if “action at a distance” is to be escaped, we are bound to assume a continuum of some sort like the ether. Again, in the organic world there is the manifold of structures and functions, and the unity of organism. To whatever object of inquiry we give our attention, we find ourselves not only restricted fundamentally to the two functions described, but we discover that to their insunderable co-operation we owe whatever of truth we possess.

Now the business of ethics is to define its own subject-matter, that is to say the particular kind of manifold with which it deals, and the kind of unity of which that manifold is susceptible. But as I approach this first goal of my enterprise, there is one obstacle which I must try to remove out of the way of the reader, before I can hope to win him to a hospitable consideration of my conclusions. The jointness or inseparableness of the two acts out of which certainty or reality issues has created all the difficulties. The fact that the manifold must be regarded as remaining a manifold, unaltered in its character as such, not derivative from the One (there is no such One), and that the unity does not contrariwise result from the manifold in the sense of springing from or being derived from it;—in other words that we must see the same landscape of things and events both _sub specie pluralitatis_ and _sub specie unitatis_—has been the stumbling-block. The history of philosophy might be written under the two headings: 1, monistic systems that undertake, collapsing in their futile effort, to derive the world and its plurality from the One, as if there were such an One, out of whose bosom philosophy might evoke the many (creational systems, pantheistic systems, emanation systems, evolution systems); 2, pluralistic systems that essay, with equal lack of success, to explain the unity as somehow the offspring of the plurality.

Why then have these systems flourished? Why are these vain undertakings still renewed? The reason is that we cannot understand the joint action of the two functions, and the very point where enlightenment is needed is for us to recognize that no fundamental truths can be understood by us, that we can only look at them, contemplate and accept them. The point, I say, where enlightenment is needed is that the habit of trying to understand is due to a prejudice, to what may be called the _superstition of causality_.

I shall have to explain this hardy assertion with some care to prevent misconception. Causality, it will be objected, is the one thread that leads us through the labyrinth of nature. The search for causes enables us to become at home in our world by foreseeing events. In what sense then can it be permissible to speak of the prejudice of causality, nay, of the superstition of it? With what warrant prescribe a limit to the aspirations of the human intellect to push its inquiries to the farthest limit, even so far as to understand the functional finalities themselves, if such there be?

The answer, succinctly put, is this: explaining or understanding things means tracing effects to their causes, and this is only one mode, a somewhat _disguised_ mode, of the joint functional activity of which I have spoken. The manifold in this case is that of the temporal sequence of phenomena, of differences due to change of position in time; and the unity established between them (as for instance energy, of which the sequent phenomena represent the transformations) is an ideal, fictive unity, mentally superimposed (real despite its ideal or imaginary character, because of the necessity we are under to view the sequent phenomena _sub specie unitatis_). That there is nothing in the antecedent to compel the sequent to follow has been since the days of Hume a commonplace in philosophy. That nevertheless there is such a thing as the prediction of eclipses was made by Kant the basis of his doctrine of synthesis _a priori_. Be the terms used what they may, what counts is the fact that the _joint action of two functions, which itself is inexplicable_, not to be understood, that is, not to be referred back to a preceding cause (as if there could be such a thing as a cause why we think in terms of causality) is the foundation of all so-called understanding.

Moreover causality is an incomplete example of the fundamental functional process. We never do thoroughly understand; we gain a certain relief, a certain increased ease of mind by pushing the problem back a step. And what I have called the prejudice of causality, is the unwillingness on our part to acknowledge the fact that we are face to face, in the case of causality, with the inexplicable; that that which helps us partially to understand (and serves for practical purposes well enough) is in its nature not to be understood, one of the modes in which the joint action of the functional finalities manifests itself.

An ultimate principle has been defined as one which is presupposed in every attempt to account for it. The functional finalities of which I speak bear the test of this definition. The upshot of it all is that the constitutive principles of the human mind cannot be explained or understood, but can nevertheless be verified. And verification, in the last analysis, means exemplification. If we look at these ultimate truths, whether in geometry, in physics, or, as we shall later see, in ethics and æsthetics, as enunciated abstractly, baldly, we confront them blankly, we are as it were dumbfounded in their presence. They seem arbitrarily imposed upon us. And why? Because we are endeavoring to understand them. We have acquired the habit of trying to get hold of truth by referring back to some antecedent. And therefore we are uneasy and disconcerted. But the moment we see them exemplified, as in the constructions of the geometer, in the laws or uniformities established by the physicist, etc., we are convinced. The subject-matter of ethics is different. The kind of exemplification is likewise different. But verification is exemplification in ethics as elsewhere; and this will be found to mean that the life, the ethical experience, must lead to the certainty.

And now we have reached the point where a brief discussion of the ethical manifold and its mode of unification comes up in proper order.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] To rate anyone as an end _per se_ means that in a world conceived as perfect his existence would be indispensable. The world we know may not be perfect, is not perfect, but we do conceive of an ideal world that is. And to ascribe to anyone the quality of worth, to denominate him an end _per se_, is to place him into that world, to regard him as potentially a member of it.

[27] For a creature endowed with different senses, and having a mind unlike our own, the world would be a totally different world.

[28] To deny such _a priori_ knowledge of the object called God is not to deny that the production of this object is due to constructive principles of human thinking; while, in turn, to assert the functional derivation of the God-idea is not to validate that idea itself as permanent and inexpugnable. It may have owed its origin to a permanent disposition of the mind, and yet be fallible because of the historical conditions under which it arose and the defective data in which it was expressed. By way of illustration we might apply the same reflection to the Ptolemaic astronomy. The mathematical processes by which this astronomy was constructed may be traced to permanent singularities of human thinking, yet the astronomical theory of Ptolemy is not on that account _a priori_ true.

[29] It must, however, be understood that the formula in which a finality is expressed is not itself a final formula. The business of definition is precarious, liable to error and dogmatic abuse, and the formulas of finality are to be constantly subjected to revision. Possible and even probable abuse, however, does not warrant the negative attitude at present taken; it does not justify the revulsion of feeling against _A Priorism_ which is just now general. Exasperation with absolutism does not of itself justify recourse to the opposite extreme of pragmatism.