clearly still when, resuming, we consider that the philosophy. spirit, when it rebels against the concept, must by this very act affirm the term which is distinct from the concept, whether it be called representa tion, intuition, or pure sensation. Hence the necessity of the form of error (in a certain sense the first), which is cestheticism, — the affirmation of truth as pure sensation. Below this stage, the spirit can descend to annul the problem in dualism; or, going further and abandoning affirmation, it may fall into scepticism; or, finally, abandoning even expression, it may fall into dumbness, or mysticism, which is the lowest degree. Above 464 LOGIC PART sestheticism it can raise itself to try to take refuge in empiricism^ in which is posited a universal, but one that is merely representative and, therefore, a false universal. It is the second step, nor can any other be conceived as second: — we must give a false value either to the pure representation (sestheticism); — or (taking the second step), to the representation and the concept together, as is the case in the form of the empirical concept (empiricism). The third step is the desperate escape from the insufficiency of the empirical concept, by means of the abstract concept, which guarantees the universality which the other lacks, but gives an empty universality (mathematicism). Finding no refuge in this emptiness from the objections of its adversaries, it is obliged finally to enter philosophy. But the erring spirit continues its work in philosophy itself and, once it has taken possession, abuses it. Now it is not possible to abuse philosophy, save by reducing it either to a concept without intuition, which is nevertheless taken as a synthesis of concept and intuition (p kilos op hisnt); or to an intuition without concept, which, in its turn, is taken as the requisite synthesis (mythologisni). The result of all this process is always the renunciation of the philo sophic problem, disguised by the admission of in ORDER OF ERRORS 465 the double method (dualism), and hence the descent below the logical form, either with the affirmation which denies itself (scepticism), or, again, with that which denies even the possibility of expression (mysticism) and returns to life, which is not a problem at all, being life lived.
The same thing occurs with the other errors, when we refer to the other concepts of the spirit or of reality, although we shall not be able to give the complete series without summarizing the whole of philosophy, which is not necessary here, and by its excessive concentration and extreme brevity would be obscure. Suffice it to say, by way of example, that the ethical problem, besides being negated by means of erroneous sensationalist, empiricist, and mytholo- gist solutions, and so on (to which, in common with all philosophic problems, it is subject), can be negated by practical intellectualism, which does not recognize a practical problem side by side with that of the theoretic spirit, and reduces virtue to knowledge. Hence ethical intellectual- ism. Since ethical intellectualism cannot resist objections, it is obliged to introduce at least the slightest practical element that can be admitted, which is that of individual utility, and resolving morality into this, it then presents itself as ethical 466 LOGIC PART utilitarianism. This in its turn, finding itself in contradiction with the peculiar character of morality, which goes beyond individual utility, arranges to recognize and to substitute for the first a super-individual utility, which is the uni versal practical value or morality. And thus, by negating the first on account of the second concept, it presents itself as moralism or ethical abstractionism. The impossibility of negating both the first and the second, and the necessity of affirming both, urge the acceptance of the final form ®t practical dualism, in which utility and morality appear as co-ordinated or juxtaposed. Each one of these arbitrary doctrines is critical of the others, and, by its internal contradictions, of itself. Hence the fall into scepticism and mysticism. The circle of error can be traversed again, but it is impossible to alter the place that each of those forms has in the circle, by placing, for instance, practical dualism before utilitarianism or intellectualism after moralism. spirit of error There is no gradual issuing from the infernal and spirit of search. circle of error, and salvation from it is not possible, save by entering at one stroke into the celestial circle of truth, in which alone the mind rests satisfied as in its kingdom. The spirit that errs or flees from the light must be converted SPIRIT OF SEARCH 467 into the spirit of search, that longs for the light; pride must yield to humility; narrow love for one's own abstract individuality become wider and elevate itself to an austere love, to an un limited devotion toward that which surpasses the individual, thus becoming an "heroic fury," the amor Dei intellectualis" In this act of love and fervour the spirit immanence of error in truth.
becomes pure thought and attains to the true, is indeed transmuted into the true. But as spirit of truth it possesses truth and also its contrary transfigured in that. The possessing of a concept is the possession of it in all its relations, and so are possessed all the modes in which that concept can be wrongly altered by error. For instance, the true concept of moral activity is also the concept of utilitarianism, of abstractionism, of practical dualism, and so on. The two series of knowledge, that of the true and that of its contrary, are, in Jtruth, inseparable, because they really constitute one single series. The concept is affirmation-negation.
It will be said that this is perhaps exact in the Erroneous distinction case of Dispossession of truth, but not in that of between possession of the search for it, where the two series may well ^d search J for truth.
appear disunited. Truth, to one who searches, is at the top of the staircase of errors, and as it 468 LOGIC PART is possible to climb a great part of the staircase without reaching what is at the top of it, so when once the desired place has been reached, it is possible not to see or not to remember the stair case that is below. But the possession of truth is never static, as in general no real fact is static. The possession of and the search for truth are the same. When it seems that a truth is possessed in a static way and almost solidified, if we observe closely we shall see that the word expressing it, the sound of it, has remained, but the spirit has flown away. That truth was, but is no longer thought, and so is not truth. It will be truth only when it is thought anew, and thinking and thinking anew are the same, since each rethinking is a new act of thought. In think ing the truth is search for truth; it is a most rapid ideal motion which, starting from the centre, runs through all the possibilities of error, and only in so far as it runs through and rejects them all does it find itself at its centre, which is the centre of motion. The search for In order to separate truth from the search for truth in the truth in the practical sense truth this latter must be understood, not as the of preparation for thought; wju for thought and so as thought in action, but and the series of errors. as j^g w^f whick lays down the conditions for thought, the will which prepares itself for thought, in SPIRIT OF SEARCH 469 but does not yet think effectually. This indeed is the usual meaning of the word "search." To search is to stimulate oneself for thinking, by employing opportune means for that purpose. And there is no more opportune means than that of confronting one with another the various forms of the spirit and the various concepts; because in the course of that confrontation there is pro duced the true combination; that is to say, thought, which is truth, is aroused. To search means therefore to run through the series of errors.
But the seeker sets to work in quite a different tion, in the spirit from that of the assertor of errors. The search thus understood, spirit of research is not the rebel erring spirit, °ferror into suggestion and therefore the path that both follow is only the same in appearance; the first was the path of errors, but the second can only be so called by metaphor. Errors are errors when there is the will for error. Where, on the other hand, there is the will to unify material and to prepare the conditions of thought, the improper combina tion of ideas is not indeed error, but suggestion or hypothesis. The hypothesis is not an act of truth, because either it is not verified and so reveals itself as without truth, or it is verified and becomes truth only at the moment in which 470 LOGIC PART it is verified. But neither is it an act of error, \ because it is affirmed, not as truth, but as simple means or aid toward the conquest of truth. In the doctrine of search, the series of errors is all redeemed, baptized, or blessed anew; the diabolic spirit abandons it precipitately, leaving it void of truth, but innocent.
Distinction The distinction between error as error and between error as error and error as suggestion, between error and hypothesis error as hypothesis. Or heuristic expedients, is of capital importance. It is found as basis of some common distinctions, such as those between mistake and error, between error committed in good faith and error committed in bad faith, and the like. These and others like them show themselves to be certainly untenable, because error as error is always in bad faith, and there is no difference between error and mistake, save an empirical difference, or a difference of verbal emphasis, for it can be said according to empirical accidents that an affirmation is either simply erroneous or altogether a mistake. But although they cannot be maintained as they are formulated, they nevertheless suggest the desir ability and the anticipation of this true and profound distinction.
On the other hand, error and suggestion, error and heuristic procedure, since they have in common the practical, extrinsic, and improper immanence of the suggestion combination of ideas, stand in this relation to in error itself as error.
one another, that the suggestion is not error, but error always contains in itself willingly or unwillingly a suggestion. The erring spirit, though without intending it, prepares the material for the search for truth. It means to evade that search or to bring it to an arbitrary end; but in doing so it breaks up the clods of earth, throws them about, ploughs and fertilizes the field where the truth will sprout. Thus it happens that many combinations of ideas, proposed and maintained through caprice and vanity with the lawyer's object of scoring his point, or of shining and astonishing with paradox, or for pastime and for other utilitarian reasons, have been adopted by more serious spirits as steps in the progress of research. The enemies of the truth not only testify to the truth but come to serve it them selves, through the unforeseen consequences of their work. A sort of gratitude comes over us at times and makes us tender toward these adversaries of the truth, because we feel that from them has come the stimulus to obtain it, as from them come the strengthening of our hold upon it and the in spiration, the clear-sightedness, and the warmth of the defence of it that we make against them.
472 LOGIC PART individuals But it is not necessary in yielding to the and error.
and error.
generous feeling for human fraternity to exagger ate in this last direction. The gratitude that we feel is not deserved by them; at the most, it is God or the universal spirit or Providence who deserves it. They did not wish to serve the truth and did not serve it, save through conse quences which are not their work. One-sided and abstract optimism has intruded here also; and perceiving in error the element of suggestion, it has altogether cancelled the category of error in favour of that of suggestion and has pronounced that man always seeks the true, as he always wills the good. Certainly; but there is the man who stops at his individual good, fruges consumere natus; and there is the man who progresses to the universal good. There is the man who combines words to give himself and others the illusion of knowing what he does not know and of being able to attend to his own pleasures without further trouble; and there is the man who combines words with anxious soul and spirit intent, venator medii, a hunter of the concept. Here, too, the truth is neither in the optimism nor in the pessimism, but in the doctrine, which conciliates and surpasses them both. Nor does it matter that owing to the defect of abstract PROBLEM OF ERROR 473 optimism that very philosopher, who did more than any other to reveal the hidden richness of the dialectical principle, was not able to look deeply into the problem of error.
The conscience of humanity well understood knows how to do justice to all men, without, on that account, confounding him who seeks with him who errs, the man of good will with the utilitarian. It does justice to them, because in every man, indeed at every instant in the life of every man, it discovers all those various spiritual moments, both inferior and superior. Error and the search for truth are continually intertwined. Sometimes a beginning is made with research, and it ends with an obstinate persistence in the suggestion that has been made, which is converted into a result and an erroneous affirmation. At others a beginning is made, with the deliberate intention of escaping difficulties by means of some sort of a combination of ideas; and that combination arouses the mind and becomes a suggestion for research, which is followed until peace is found in the truth. Each one of us is at every moment in danger of yielding to laziness and to the seduction of error and has hope of shaking off that laziness and following the attrac tion of truth. We fall and rise up again at every 474 LOGIC PART instant; we are weak and strong, cowardly and courageous. When we call another weak and cowardly, we are condemning ourselves; when we admire another as strong and courageous, we idolize the strength and courage which is active within us. When we are in the presence of a complex product, as, for example, a faith, a doctrine, a book, it would be naive and fallacious to look upon it as only error or as only suggestion. For it is both the one and the other; that is to say, it contains equally the moments of error properly so-called, and the other moments of suggestion and search; the voluntary interposition of obstacles to the truth and the voluntary removal of such obstacles; the disfigured image of the truth and the outline of the truth. Sometimes we are unable to say of ourselves whether we are erring or are seeking, whether we believe that we have found the whole truth or only discovered a ray of it. The logical criticism which implacably condemns us seems to be unjust, although we cannot contest its arguments which impose the truth upon our thought. We feel that that truth was in a way sought, seen for a moment, and almost possessed in that spiritual state of ours, which has been summarily and abruptly con demned by others as altogether erroneous.
1,1 PROBLEM OF ERROR 475 For this reason even that which has been The double aspect of aspect of rejected and blamed as false from one point of errors. view must be accepted and honoured from another as an approach to truth. Empiricism is perverse in so far as it is a construction opposed to the philosophic universal, but it is innocuous and indeed beneficial in so far as it is an attempt to rise from pure sensation and representation to the thinking of the universal. Scepticism as error annuls the theoretic life; but as suggestion it is necessary to the demonstration of the im possibility of dwelling in that desert when all false doctrines have been annulled. Mythologism presents this double aspect in a yet clearer manner; religion is the negation of thought, but it is also in another aspect a preparation for thought; the myth is both a travesty and a sketch of the concept; hence every philosophy feels itself adverse to myth and born from myth, an enemy and a daughter of religions. In what is empiri cally defined as religion or as a body of religious doctrines, for example, in Christianity, in its myths and in its theology, there is so much of truth and suggestion of truth that it is possible to affirm (always from the empirical point of view) the superiority of that religion over a well- reasoned but poor, a correct but sterile philosophy.
476 LOGIC PART 476 LOGIC PART Nevertheless, a period of reverence, of attentive barkening, of philosophic study and criticism, which is not pure scepticism, succeeds to a period of encyclopaedism, of irreligious scepticism, of enlightenment, and of Voltaireism. Those who in the nineteenth or in this twentieth century have repeated the Voltairean scepticism and have jibed at religion have with good reason been considered superficial of intellect and soul, vulgar and trivial people. The philosophy of the eighteenth century has filled and filled well the office of enemy of religion; that of the nine teenth century has disdained to give blows to the dead and has adopted towards religion the attitude of a pious daughter and diligent heir. For our part we are persuaded that the inherit ance of religion has not been well and thoroughly utilized. This inheritance is at bottom indis tinguishable from the philosophic inheritance, for is there not religion, in, for instance, the Cartesian idea of God, which unifies the two substances and guarantees with its truth the certainty of our knowledge? And is it not also philosophy, that is to say, the concept (in how ever gross a form), of the immanent Spirit which is a self-distinguishing unity and certainty of itself?
in HYPOTHESISM 477 in HYPOTHESISM 477 We have now attained to the theory of re- Last form of the search, vet we cannot abandon the survey of the methodological J error; necessary forms of error without mentioning a new form which arises precisely from the con fusion between truth and the search for the conditions preparatory to truth, between truth and hypothesis. This error, which converts Heuristic into Logic, may be called hypothesism. It asserts that in regard to truth man can do nothing more than propose hypotheses, which are said to be more or less probable, so that his fate is not dissimilar to the punishments which were assigned to Tantalus, Sisyphus, and the Danaids. But in the kingdom of the True, differently from that of Erebus: The birds do not feed, The wheels do not turn, The stone is not rolled up the high mountain, Nor water drawn with the sieve from the fountain.
The hypothesis is made, because it serves toward the attainment of the truth; did it not serve this end it would not be made. The spirit does not admit waste of time; for it time is always money. Hypothesism is sometimes restricted to the supreme principles of the real, or to what is called metaphysics, which would thus be always hypothetical; but for the reasons given in our 478 LOGIC PART in 478 LOGIC PART in discussion of agnosticism, if the principles of the real were hypothetical, the whole truth would be so, that is to say, there would not be any truth. For the rest, hypothesism, besides being in ternally contradictory, openly reveals that it is so, in its reference to the greater or lesser probability of hypotheses. It would be impossible to determine the degree of approximation to the true without presupposing a criterion of truth, a truth and consequently the truth. We should hardly have made mention of this error did it not constitute the fulcrum of some of the most celebrated and revered philosophies of our times.
VII THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ERROR AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY THE phenomenology of error, in its double sense inseparability of the of error and of suggestion, coincides therefore phenomenology of error from with the philosophic system. Both error and the philosophic system.
suggestion are improper combinations of philo sophic ideas or concepts. To determine these improper combinations is equivalent to showing the obverse of that of which the philosophic system is the face. But face and obverse are not separable, for they constitute a single thought (and single reality), which is positivity-negativity, affirmation - negation. There is, therefore, no phenomenology of error outside the philosophic system, nor a philosophic system outside the phenomenology of error; the one is conceived at the moment when the other is conceived. And since the philosophic system and the doctrine of the categories are the same, the phenomenology 480 LOGIC PART of error is inseparable and indistinguishable from the doctrine of the categories. The eternal As such the phenomenology of error is an going and coming of ideal and eternal circle, like the eternal circle of errors.
the truth. Its stages are eternally traversed and retraversed by the spirit, being the stages of the spirit itself. At every instant of the life of history and of our individual life there are represented the stages that have been surpassed and must again be surpassed: the lower stages return and announce beforehand the higher. Returns to In this lies the origin of a fact which cannot anterior.
philosophies, tail to attract attention in the history of philosophy: and their meaning. the tendency which is found there, to return to one or other of the philosophies of the past, or, more correctly, to one or other of the philosophic points of view of the past. The thirteenth century returned to Aristotle, the Renaissance to Plato; Bruno revived the philosophy of Cusanus, Gassendi that of Epicurus; Hegel wished to renew Heraclitus; Herbart, Par- menides; in recent times a return has been made to Kant, and in times yet more recent to Hegel. These are spiritual movements, which must be understood in all their seriousness. This consists wholly in the need of the philosophic spirit of a certain moment, which, struggling with in PHENOMENOLOGY OF ERROR 481 an error, discovers the true concept with which it should be corrected, or at least, the superior and more ample suggestion, to which we must pass in order to progress. And since that concept or suggestion had already been repre sented in an eminent degree in the past by one particular philosopher, or by one particular school, they speak of the necessity of again asserting the superiority of that philosopher and his school against other philosophers and other schools. In reality neither Aristotle nor Plato returns, nor Cusanus nor Epicurus, nor Heraclitus nor Par- menides, nor Kant nor Hegel; but only the mental positions of which these names are, in those cases, the symbols. The eternal Platonism, Aristotelianism, Heracliteanism, Eleaticism are in us, as they were formerly in Plato and in Aristotle, in Heraclitus and in Parmenides. Divested of those historical names, they are called transcendentalism and immanentism, evolu tionism and anti-evolutionism, and so on. To the philosophers of the past, as men of the past, no return is made, because no return is possible. The past lives in the present and the pretence of returning to it is equivalent to that of destroying the present, in which alone it lives. Those who understand ideal returns in this PART PART 482 LOGIC empirical sense, do not in truth know what they are saying. The false idea But just because the phenomenology of error philosophy as and the system of the categories are outside time, the history of the successive we must also recognize the fallacy of a history of appearances in %£°S.*** d philosophy which expounds the development of philosophic thought as a successive appearance in time of the various philosophic categories and of the various -forms of error. On this view the human race seems to begin to think truly philosophically at a definite moment of time and at a definite point of space; for example at a definite year of the seventh or sixth century before Christ, at a definite point of Asia Minor, with Thales, who surpassing mere fancy posits as a philosophic concept the empirical concept of water; or in another year and place, with Par- menides, who posits the first pure concept, that of being. And it seems further to progress in philosophic thinking with other thinkers, each of whom either discovers a concept or offers a suggestion of one. Thus each takes the other's hand and they form a chain which is prolonged to one who, more audacious and fortunate than the others, gives his hand to the first, and unites them all in a circle. After this, there would remain nothing else to do but to dance eternally, in PHENOMENOLOGY OF ERROR 483 as the stars dance in the imaginations of the poets, without any further necessity to devise suggestions and to risk falling into error. All this is brilliant but arbitrary. The categories are outside time, because they are all and singly in every instant of time, and therefore they cannot be divided and impersonated within empirical and individual limits. It is not true that each philosophic system has for its beginning a particular category or a particular suggestion. A philosophic system, in the empirical significa tion of the word, is a series of thoughts whose unity is the empirical bond of the life of a definite individual. It is therefore without beginning, since it does not constitute a true unity and refers on the one hand to its predecessors, on the other to those who continue it, and on all sides to its contemporaries. In the strict sense, in that system, in so far as it is philosophic, there is always the whole of philosophy; and therefore, as we have previously seen, all philosophic systems (including materialism and scepticism) have, whether they admit it or not, displayed or im plied the same principle, which is the pure concept, and every philosophy is idealism. Nor is it true that there is progress in the history of philosophy, in the sense of the passage from one category to