Part 27

Since then, religion is identical with myth, and since myth is not distinguishable from philosophy by any positive character, but only as false philosophy from true philosophy and as error from the truth which rectifies and contains it, we must affirm that religion, in so far as it is truth, is identical with philosophy, or as can also be said, _that philosophy_ is the _true religion._ All ancient and modern thought about religions, which have always been dissolved in philosophies, leads to this result. And since philosophy coincides with history, and religion and the history of religion are the same, and myth and religion are strictly speaking indistinguishable, we can see very well the vanity of the attempt that is being made beneath our eyes to preserve a religion or mythological truth side by side with a history of religions, which on the contrary is supposed to be practised with complete mental freedom and with an entirely critical method. This, which is one of the tendencies of so-called _modernism,_ is condemned as contradictory and illogical, by philosophy not less than by the Catholic Church.[1] The history of religions is an integral part of the history of philosophy, and as inseparable from it as error from the history of truth.

[Sidenote: _Conversion of errors into one another. Conversion of mythologism into philosophism (theology) and of philosophism into mythologism (mythology of nature, historical apocalypses, etc.)._]

When religion does not dissolve into philosophy and wishes to persist together with it, or to substitute itself for philosophy, it reveals itself as effective error; that is to say, as an arbitrary attempt against truth, due to habit, feelings and individual passions. But the destiny of every form of error is to be unable to persist before the light of truth. Hence the constant change of tactics and the passage of every error into the error from which it had at first wished to disassociate itself, or into which it did not mean to fall. Thus æstheticism, dislodged from its positions, takes refuge in those of empiricism; and empiricism either descends again into pure sensationalism and æstheticism, or becomes volatilized in mysticism. Thus (to stop at the case we have before us) mythologism, which intends to be the opposite of philosophism and to work with blind fancy instead of with empty concepts, is obliged in order to save itself from the attacks of criticism to have recourse to philosophism; and religion is then called _theology._ Theology is philosophism, because it works with concepts which are empty of all historical and empirical content. Myth becomes _dogma_; the myth of the expulsion from Paradise becomes the dogma of original sin; the myth of the son of God becomes the dogma of the incarnation and of the Trinity. Nor must it be thought that for its part philosophism does not accomplish the opposite transition. Every philosophy of nature ends by appearing as a _mythology of nature,_ every philosophy of history as an _apocalypse._ Sometimes even a sort of revelation occurs in them, and we often find that the unthinkable connections of concepts constituting those pseudo-philosophies are obtained and comprehended in virtue of second sight, as the result of a mental illumination, which is the prerogative of but a few privileged persons. Finally, philosophism and mythologism embrace one another and fall embracing into empiricism and into the other forms of error previously described.

[Sidenote: _Scepsis._]

This perpetual transition from one form of error to another gives rise to a _scepsis,_ which promotes the reciprocal dissolution of errors, and scorning illusions and confusions, throws their _mental vacuity_ into clear light. Such a scepsis fulfils an important function. The lies of æstheticism, mathematicism, philosophism, mythologism, cannot resist it. Their little wordy strongholds are broken into; the shadows are dispersed. Especially against mythologism, which in a certain sense may be called the most complete negation of thought, a scepsis is helpful; and owing to the resistance offered here more than elsewhere, by passions and interests, it often takes the form of violent satire. The last great epoch of this strife is what is called the _Aufklärung,_ Encyclopedism or Voltaireism, and was directed against Christianity, especially in its Catholic form. We must make so many reservations in what follows concerning the enlightened Encyclopedist and Voltairean attitude, that here we feel obliged to indicate explicitly its serious and fruitful side.

[Footnote 1: See with reference to this G. Gentile, _Il modernismo e l'enciclica, Critica,_ vi. pp. 208-229.]

V

DUALISM, SCEPTICISM AND MYSTICISM

[Sidenote: _Dualism._]

Total scepticism can be reached only through _dualism,_ which, in addition to being a particular error in a given philosophic problem, is a logical error, consisting in the attempt to affirm two methods of truth at the same time--the philosophic method and the non-philosophic method, however the second of these be afterwards determined. Such an error would not be error but supreme truth, if the various methods were given each its due post (which is what has been attempted in this Logic); but it becomes error when the various methods are made philosophical and placed _alongside_ the philosophical. This is the error of those conciliatory people, who, unwilling to seek out where reason stands, admit that reason is operative in all of them, and divide the kingdom of truth amongst all in equal parts. Thus arise those logical doctrines which demand for the solution of philosophic problems, the successive or contemporaneous application of the naturalistic method, of mathematics, of historical research, and so on. At the least they demand the combination of the naturalistic method (empiricism) with the speculative and the use of what they call the double criterion of _teleology_ and _causality,_ or of _double_ causality. To the question, what is reality, they reply with two methods and consequently offer two concurrent and parallel realities. Beneath the appearance of treatment and solution, they abandon the philosophic problem. Instead of conceiving, they describe, and description is given as concept, and concept as description: hence the justifiable intervention of the scepsis.

[Sidenote: _Scepsis and scepticism._]

But the scepsis, which clears the ground of all forms of erroneous logical affirmation, is the negation of error and consequently the negativity of negativity. The negativity of negativity is affirmation, and for this reason, the true scepsis, like every true negation, always contains a positive content in the negative verbal form, which can be also verbally developed as such. If this positive content, instead of being developed, is choked in the bud, if instead of negation, which is also affirmation, a mere negation is given,--an abstract negation, which destroys without constructing, and if this negation claims to pass as truth, the final form of error is obtained, which is no longer called scepsis, but _scepticism._

[Sidenote: _Mystery._]

Scepticism is the proclamation of mystery made in the name of thought;--a definition the contradictoriness of which leaps to the eye. It is mortally wounded both by the ancient dilemma against scepticism and by the _cogito_ of Descartes. Nevertheless, since a singular tenderness for the idea of mystery seems to have invaded the contemporary world, it is desirable to leave open no loophole whatever for misunderstanding. The _mystery_ is _life itself,_ which is an eternal _problem_ for thought; but this problem would not even be a problem, if thought did not eternally solve it. For this reason, both those who consider mystery to be definitely penetrated by thought and those who consider it impenetrable are equally wrong. The first we already know: they are the philosophists who reduce reality to pure terms of abstract thought, by breaking up the _a priori_ synthesis and by neglecting the historical element, which is ever new and ever assuming forms not determinable _a priori._ Thus, they claim to shut up the world for ever in one single act (maybe in some particular philosophic system). Through their excessive love of the infinite they make it finite; the sun and the earth and all the stars, the historical forms of life, and what is called human life, which has been known for some thousands of years, are transformed by them into categories of thought, solidified and made eternal. This conception, which appears (at least as a tendency) in certain parts of the Hegelian philosophy, is narrow and suffocating. The spirit is superior to all its manifestations hitherto known, and its power is infinite. It will never be able to surpass itself, that is to say, its eternal categories, just as God (according to the best theological doctrines) could destroy heaven and earth, but not the true and the good, which are his very essence; yet the spirit is able to surpass, and actually does surpass, its every contingent incarnation. The world, which is abstractly assumed to be more or less constant, is all in movement and becoming. Those who will be raised up to think it will know what worlds will issue from this world of ours. That we cannot know, for we must think this world which exists at our moment, and must act on the basis of it.

[Sidenote: _Critique of the affirmations of mystery in philosophy._]

But if the philosophers incur the guilt of arrogance, the sceptics, who affirm a mystery, that is to say, that reality is impenetrable to thought, fall under the accusation of cowardice. These, when faced with the problems of the real (soluble, we repeat, by the very fact that they are problems), avoid the hard work of dominating and penetrating them, and think it convenient to wrap themselves in abstract negation and to affirm that _mystery is._ There is mystery, without doubt; and this means that there is a problem, something that invokes the light of thought. And it is a beautiful solution which these mysterious ones and sceptics offer, for it consists in stating the problem and leaving it untouched. In the same way, when a man asks for help, we might claim to have given it to him when we had noticed his request. Charity consists in hastening to render effective aid, not in noting that aid has been asked for and then turning the back. To think is to break up the mystery and to solve the problem, not simply to recognize that there is a problem and a mystery, and to renounce seeking the solution as though it had already been given and the matter settled by that recognition.

It seems strange that it should be necessary to explain these elementary concepts; yet in our time it is necessary, so much have those concepts been darkened for historical reasons, which it would take long to expound here, and which can all of them be summarized as due to a certain moral weakening. And it may be opportune here to give a warning (since we are dealing with a theme that belongs to the elementary school of philosophy) that to inculcate the courage to confront and to solve the problem and to conquer the mystery, is not to counsel the neglect of difficulties, or superficiality and arrogance. Mysteries are covered and must continually be covered by their own shadows; problems torment and must torment, yet it is only through these shadows and by means of those torments that we attain to momentary repose in the true; and only thus does repose not become sloth, but the restoration of our forces to resume the eternal journey. Superficiality, arrogance, neglect of difficulties, belong to the sceptics who deafen themselves with words and contrive to live at their ease in their abstract negation. True thinkers suffer, but do not flee from pain. "_Et iterum ecce turbatio_ (groans St. Anselm amid the anxious vicissitudes of his meditations), _ecce iterum obviat maeror et luctus quaerenti gaudium et laetitiam. Sperabat jam anima mea satietatem, et ecce iterum obruitur egestate. Conabar assurgere ad lucem Dei, et recidi in tenebras meas: immo non modo cecidi in eas, sed sentio me involutum in eis...."_[1] Such words as these are the pessimistic lyric of the thinker. Sceptics create no such lyric, because they have cut the desire at the root. They are as a rule blissfully calm and smiling.

[Sidenote: _Agnosticism as a particular form of scepticism._]

There is a form of scepticism which would like to appear critical and refined and which takes the name of _agnosticism._ It is a scepticism limited to ultimate things, to profound reality, to the essence of the world, which amounts to saying that it is limited to the supreme principles of philosophy. Now, since the principles of philosophy are all equally supreme, such agnostic scepticism extends its affirmation of mystery over neither more nor less than the whole of philosophy and consequently over the whole of human knowledge. Its limits would be nothing less than the boundaries of knowledge. Indeed, agnosticism is the spiritual fulfilment sought by all those who negate philosophy, such as æstheticists, mathematicians, and especially empiricists; and agnostics and empiricists are ordinarily so closely connected that the one name is almost synonymous with the other.

[Sidenote: _Mysticism._]

The sceptical error, which consists in stating the problem as solution and mystery as truth, can give way to another mode of error, in which the very affirmation of scepticism is denied and it is recognized that thought cannot explicitly state mystery. But this recognition, which would imply that of the authority of thought, is strangely combined with the most precise negation of such authority. Thought being excluded, either affirmatively or negatively, as in the self-contradiction of scepticism, what remains is life, no longer a problem, or a solution of a problem, but just life, life lived. To affirm that truth is life lived, reality directly felt in us as part of us and we part of it, is the pretension of _mysticism._ This is the last general form of error that can be thought; and its self-contradiction is evident from the genetic process which we have already expounded. Mysticism affirms, when no affirmation is permitted to it; and it is yet more gravely contradictory than scepticism, which, though forbidding to itself logical affirmation, does not forbid itself speech, that is to say, æsthetic expression. To mysticism not even words can be permissible, because mysticism, being life and not contemplation, practice and not theory, is by definition _dumbness._ But we shall say no more of mysticism, having had occasion to refer to it, as also to æstheticism and empiricism, at the beginning of this treatise on Logic.

[Sidenote: _Errors in the other parts of philosophy._]

When we consider these errors more closely, it is easy to see that dualism, scepticism, and mysticism manifest themselves not only in the forms of thought, in philosophy as Logic, but also in all the other particular philosophic problems, distinct from those that are peculiar to Logic, and in the errors due to them. The complete enumeration of these and their concrete determination would (as has already been said) require the development of the whole philosophic system, and therefore cannot all be contained in the present treatise. Indeed, they take their name, not from the forms of the spirit, with which the logical form is confused, or from the internal mutilation of the logical form, but from the confusion and mutilation of the remaining spiritual forms. They are no longer called æstheticism, mathematicism, or philosophism, but ethical utilitarianism, moral abstractionism, æsthetic logicism, sensationalism and hedonism, practical intellectualism, metaphysical dualism or pluralism, optimism and pessimism, and so on. It is not those who, as in the previous instances, deny philosophy itself, that fall into such errors, but those who admit it and carry it out more or less badly in its other parts. Without the admission of the method of philosophic thought, and without the assertion of a concept, it is impossible to conceive logical usurpations in the domain of another concept, which is not less necessary than the first to the fulness and unity of the real.

_Ethical utilitarianism,_ for instance, thinks the concept of utilitarian practical activity; but its fallacy consists in arbitrarily maintaining that the concept of utility altogether exhausts that of the practical activity, thus negating the other concept distinct from it, the practical moral activity. _Moral abstractionism_ commits the opposite error, affirming the moral activity, but negating the utilitarian. _Æsthetic logicism_ rightly affirms the reality of the logical mental form, but is wrong in not recognizing the intuitive mental form and in considering it to be resolved in the logical form. Æsthetic _sensationalism,_ directing its attention to crude and unexpressed sensation, emphasises the necessary precedent of the æsthetic activity, but then makes of the condition the conditioned, defining art as sensation. Æsthetic _hedonism, utilitarianism or practicism,_ is true in so far as it notes the practical and hedonistic envelope of the æsthetic activity; but it becomes false in so far as it takes the envelope for the content, and treats art as a mere fact of pleasure and pain. _Practical intellectualism_ perceives that the will is not possible without a cognitive basis, but by exaggerating this, it ends by destroying the originality of the practical spiritual form, and reduces it to a complex of concepts and reasonings. In like manner, _metaphysical dualism_ avails itself of the difference between the concept of reality as spirit and that of reality as nature, the one arising from logical thought, the other from an empirical and naturalistic method of treatment, in order to transmute them into concepts of two distinct forms of reality itself, as spirit and matter, internal and external world, and so on. _Pluralism_ or monadism, confounding the individuality of acts with the substantiality which belongs to the universal subject, makes entities of single acts and turns them into a multiplicity of simple substances. _Pessimism_ and _optimism,_ each one availing itself of an abstract element of reality, which is the unity of opposites, maintain that reality is all evil and suffering, or all goodness and joy. This process of exemplification could be carried much further, and would become, as we see, a deduction of all philosophical concepts and errors.

[Sidenote: _Conversion of these errors with one another and with logical errors._]

Now, each one of those false solutions, obeying the law of errors, is obliged, in order to maintain itself, to pass into that from which it was distinguished, and then to pass back again from that to this. Thus utilitarianism becomes abstract morality and abstract morality utilitarianism. Hence the work of scepsis and the consequent appearance of a _particular scepticism of this or that concept._ Ethics having vainly struggled with the alternate negations, of utility and of morality, ends in _ethical scepticism;_ Æsthetic torn between sensationalism and utilitarianism and logicism, and other errors, and destroying them all with its scepsis, ends in _Æsthetic scepticism_; Metaphysics, torn between materialism, abstract spiritualism, dualism, pluralism, pessimism, optimism, and other erroneous views, ends in _metaphysical scepticism._ And to these errors of particular scepticism, errors of _particular mysticism_ soon succeed. Thus we hear it said that there is no concept of the beautiful, as there is of the true or the good, but that it is only felt and lived; or, again, that there is no possible definition of what is good, since it concerns a thing that must be left to sentiment and to life; or, finally, that thought has value within the limits that abstraction has value, but that it is impotent before complete reality, because life alone is capable of comprehending reality, by receiving it into its very bosom.

On the other hand, it is not possible that any æstheticism, empiricism, mathematicism, philosophism, mythologism, or logicism whatever, should remain limited to a determinate philosophic concept without coming in contact with others, because those forms of error strike at the logical form of thought itself, and therefore equally at all other philosophic concepts. The ethical or æsthetic empiricist, for instance, must logically affirm a general philosophic empiricism if he does not wish to correct himself by contradicting himself (an hypothesis which must be neglected and left to be understood in this consideration of the simple, elementary, fundamental, or _necessary_ forms of error). He who in a particular philosophic problem has committed a confusion of concepts, and has thence arrived at a particular scepticism and mysticism, is led by the systematic and unitary character of philosophy to widen that mysticism and scepticism from particular to general. From this general mysticism and scepticism, he is led to return gradually to mythologism, philosophism, empiricism, and to the other negations of the logical form of philosophy. Everything is connected in philosophy and everything is connected in error, which is the negation of philosophy.

[Footnote 1: _Proslog.,_ c. 18.]

VI

THE ORDER OF ERRORS AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

[Sidenote: _Necessary character of the forms of errors. Their definite number._]

Everything is connected in errors; error has its necessary forms. This implies, in the first place, that the possible forms of errors, the logical forms of the illogical, are _so many_ and _no more._ Indeed, the forms of the spirit or concepts of reality, which can be arbitrarily combined, can be stated as a finite number (where the process of numbering can be applied to them). Consequently, the arbitrary combinations or errors which arise from them can also be similarly numbered. Only the individual forms of error are infinite, and that for the same reason which we have already given, as the individual forms of truth are infinite. Problems are always historically conditioned, and the solutions are conditioned in the same way; even false solutions, which are determined by feelings, passions, and interests, also vary according to historical conditions.

[Sidenote: Their logical order.]

In the second place, and as corollary to the preceding thesis, the possible forms of errors present a necessary order; and this, because the forms of the spirit or the concepts of reality stand in a necessary order to one another. They cannot be placed after or before one another nor changed at will. This necessary order is, as we know, a genetic order of degrees, and consequently the possible forms of errors constitute a series of degrees. It is commonly said that _error has its logic,_ and we must say more correctly, that it cannot constitute itself as error, save by borrowing logical character from truth.

[Sidenote: _Examples of this order in the various parts of philosophy._]