individual has or has not been free, is equivalent to this other question: Has there really been volition (action) in that case? This question can have and has (as any one who lends an ear to such discussions as are frequently heard can verify) but two meanings. The first is, whether the case under discussion be action or event, and, there fore, if it be or be not accurate to present it as an individual act. For example: — Was Jacobinism the crime or the glory of Voltaire and Rousseau? Was the defeat of Waterloo the fault of Marshal Grouchy? The second is, if it be really a question of action, what, precisely, has that action been? For example: — What were the respective parts of Voltaire and of Rousseau in the propaganda of the revolutionary spirit and of the Jacobin mode of thought? What did Marshal Grouchy really ACTIVITY IN GENERAL 193 know and [will when, instead of listening to Exelmans and to others of his generals and marching whither the cannon was thundering, he obeyed to the letter the order he had received and attacked the Prussian army corps of Thielman?
There is a third meaning that is to be excluded: inconceiv ability of the namely, as to whether at a given moment of time absolute absence of action.
there has been any sort of action or, on the contrary, a void and total absence of action. For the only case in which the individual does not act is that in which he is dead or partially dead, be the death physiological or spiritual, that of a corpse or of a madman. The glory of putting poor madmen on a level with the guilty and the delinquent is to be left to the thinkers of the " new school of penal law." (jn every other case, man always acts, always wills, and is always responsible,. and free, because life, so long as it lasts, is nothing but a web of volitions and therefore of free acts.1) He is also responsible for the acts that contribute to put man in such conditions as amount to madness more or less transitory, and so of irresponsibility: such is the case of drunkenness and of moral dangers imprudently sought, and so on. At no point of life does the practically in different exist.
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Those actions, too, that appear to be neither willed nor free, because they have become habitual, mechanicized, instinctive, are willed and free, not indeed because (though this be true enough in itself) habitual acts were once acts of will, but because (as we have already had occasion to remark), although they have become facts almost external to the individual willing, yet it is always the will that permits them to act and can always arrest their action: they are therefore to be looked upon as conditions of fact that every new volition modifies, even when it accepts them. A machine is not the work of the arm that moves it, but of hundreds and thousands of other arms that were previously moved in order to construct it. But once constructed, that which sets in motion the machinery is always the work of one arm, an act of will, just as an act of will can stop its move ment and finally cause its disaggregation and destruction. Non-freedom But excluding the absolute absence of freedom as antithesis as antithesis of action (and of existence in so far as it is action), and on the other hand the presence of something different from it called causality having been previously excluded from the idea of freedom, it remains nevertheless indubitable that in the very bosom of freedom, there is non-freedom. Every ACTIVITY IN GENERAL 195 volition is at the same time nolition, as every affirmation is negation. Volition is love, nolition hate; and, as we know, every love is hate, and the more we love, the more we hate. Antigone was born to love intensely, and for that very reason, to hate profoundly. What can be that which we hate in love and abhor in volition? What can this internal enemy be, which does not consist either in the absence of volition or in the presence of an extraneous and indifferent element? — Since it is neither absent nor in different, it cannot be anything but the opposite or contrary of freedom, antifreedom, which constitutes the contradiction in its effective concretion.
Freedom is an indissoluble nexus of necessity Numt ~^~ arbitrariness of and freedom: the force that tends to annul it non-freedom. is antifreedom, the scission of that nexus, the analysis of that synthesis. On the one hand it aims at making liberty fall into nothing ness, by compelling it to the inertia of the fact, and on the other, to make a leap into the void, by impelling it to will, a sterile endeavour — two movements that are one-sided and absurd, and become identified through the considerations already established in relation to determinism and arbitrarism. Therefore the opposite of freedom is qualified indifferently, either ig6 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL FT.
as the passive, taken by itself, opposed to the active, the fact that resists the new creation, or as the active, taken by itself and abstract, opposed to the passive: will opposed to liberty. Anti- freedom is either the material fact or arbitrary choice, but the first is resolved into will, the second into material fact. Only by an act of will can the fact that should continue to develop be fixed as a fact and so appear as a material fact, and only by a persistence in that fact, which should be surpassed, can will give itself the appearance of a content. The undertaking is contradictory, and the solution, the absence of freedom, is a contradiction. Good as Freedom and its opposite, freedom and its freedom and reality, and internal contradiction, freedom and will, are what evil as Us opposite. is designated by the terms good and evil. With us these terms are given an altogether generic meaning, as they are taken as the representatives of all the other couples of opposites that are wont to be enunciated in the field of practical activity, as helpful and harmful, useful and useless, honest and dishonest, meritorious and blameworthy, pious and impious, lawful and sinful, and so on. All these formulae either answer to the subdistinc- tions of the practical activity (which we shall study further on), or are the same distinction, ACTIVITY IN GENERAL 197 variously formulated, with reference to psycho logical classes. But all are to be reduced to those of good and evil for the purposes of the philo sophical study of the practical activity in general, without ulterior determinations of them as moral or utilitarian good, moral or utilitarian evil, or any other form there may be, and without regard to the various empirical material, with which they may be filled.
That practical good and evil are to be conceived critique of abstract as will and anti-will, and the good, therefore, as monism and of the dualism the reality and the bad as the irreality of the will, of values. the good as something positive and the bad as something negative, — is the solution imposed by the impossibility of thinking the two others that differ from it: namely, that which considers the distinction between good and bad as inexistent (abstract monism of values), and that which considers the good as transcendent in respect of reality, which is always evil, unless the good deign to descend and modify it (abstract dualism of values). For the criticism of the abstract monistic view, it is necessary to distinguish between those doctrines that deny, not only the distinction between good and evil, but also all the analogous distinctions in every field of activity, including that of thought, and the doctrines that 198 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL PT.
allow the distinction to subsist in other fields, but deny it in that of the practical. The first, which deny the distinction between true and false, are the suicide of Philosophy, the second, which deny it only between good and evil, are the suicide of the Philosophy of the practical: that is to say, both are founded upon errors that we have already criticized and surpassed, and upon which it would therefore be otiose to insist. As to the dualistic view (still common among right-thinking pro fessors of philosophy, that is, among the lazy and the most lazy) it will be requisite to discuss this point seriously, when it has been demonstrated in what way Reality can place itself beneath the yoke of Value and of Goodness, which would be inferior to it by hypothesis, through the very fact that they were unreal'. Reality living, these others dead; Reality like " the four bedevilled " of Giusti bent upon doing so, they, like the "two hundred simpletons " of the same poet, bent upon saying no. For if Value and Goodness be real, they will be the true Reality; and that which was first called by the name will be feigned reality, altogether identical with what we have indicated as the moment of contradiction and of will, arising in the very bosom of the practical activity.
An instance that is always formidable has ACTIVITY IN GENERAL 199 certainly been cited against the thesis of evil as objections to J. the reality something negative and unreal, and of good as it- o self the only positive and real: it has actually been affirmed that this thesis offends against good sense. What? Is evil unreal? Is it nothing? Unreality and nothingness are then the knavish trick of some wicked person who starts a calumny, which, being received and believed, injures an honest man? Unreality and nothing, the passion that drags the gambler into economic ruin and moral abjection? So the world is all good, all rose-coloured, all sweet; and crimes, cowardice, foolishness, and baseness are illusions, and there is no reason to lament; so the feeling of life should be expressed with a perpetual smile, like that upon the lips of the wounded warriors in the marbles of Aegina? — But let good sense and its advocates remain tranquil. If evil be a nothing, that does not mean that it is nothing; if the vanity that seems to be a person, be vanity and not a person, that does not mean that it has not really the appearance of a person and should not be really combated and dissipated. The wise, who having defined evil, deny toothache, or like the stoical Posidonio forget the gout that transfixes them, need Giambattista Vico to remind them how no philosophy is able to save them from anxiety on 200 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL PT.
behalf of " their wives in childbirth " and of " their sons who languish in disease "! The world is precisely that mixture of good and evil, which good sense says it is, and the sweet is always tempered with the amari aliquid. It cannot be adequately expressed either with lamentations only, or only with laughter. The thesis that we have enunciated wishes to abolish, not the consciousness of evil, but the false belief that this is something substantial, and thus prevent one evil from being increased by another, evil by error, moral trouble by mental confusion. Evil -within Evil is either felt as evil, and in this case and without and without synthesis. it means that it is not realized, but that in its place is realized the good. The gambler of the example, at the moment he knows he is doing himself economic harm, does not play; his hand is held; and it is held, because to know, in the practical sense, equals to will\ and to know the harm of gambling means to know it as harm, and so to dislike gambling. If he take to dice or cards again, this arises because that knowledge is obliterated in him, that is, because he changes his mind; and in this case play is not looked upon any longer as harmful; it is willed, and so at that instant again becomes the good for him, because it satisfies one of his wants. The ACTIVITY IN GENERAL 201 calumniator, if he understand the idea that is passing through his mind, or rather the impulse that has seized him, as calumny, is for that very reason repugnant to it and does not pronounce those evil words: in that case indeed he is not a calumniator, but an honest man who resists a temptation (and no other definition of an honest man can be given). But if he pronounce them, this means that the opposing repugnance was not present or is no longer present: and there fore those words are no longer for him a wicked act of calumny, but a simple satisfaction of a desire to amuse himself, or to reject the evil that has been done to him, and therefore a good. In the same way, he who asserts what is false, he who renders himself guilty of error, if he be aware of himself as frivolous or a charlatan or disloyal, would be silent: if he talk and write and print false insinuations, this happens either because the will for truth does not exist in him, or is for the time being suppressed, and with it the desire to seek it out and to diffuse it; that is to say, for that will has been substituted the other of withdrawing from a painful labour, or of obtaining easy praise and gain; so, for one good has been substituted another. As a rule, it is admitted that we will the good and do 202 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL PT.
evil. " I do not do the good that I will, and I do the evil that I do not will " (ov jap b 0e\co iroiS) ayaOov, d\\,a b ov OeXco fca/cbv TOVTO Trpdcr&coj, said St. Paul.1 But it is a question of psycho logical confusion, owing to which a series of moments and alternatives is simplified into one single act, inexistent because contradictory. Affirmative Thus evil, when real, does not exist save in judgments of eviiasnega- the good, which opposes and conquers it, and five judgments.
therefore does not exist as a positive fact. When on the contrary it exists as a positive fact, it is not evil, but good (and in its turn has for shadow an evil, with which it strives and conquers). The judgments that we give when we judge an action to be foolish or wicked, a statement false, a work of art ugly, are all metaphorical. In delivering them we do not mean to say that there is an existence called error, ugliness, foolishness, but only that there is a given existence and that another is wanting. He who has launched a calumny, dissipated his property, soiled a canvas, printed a worth less book, does not, strictly speaking, deserve negative denominations, because to judge means to place oneself in the conditions of the person judged, and in those conditions there was ACTIVITY IN GENERAL 203 neither evil nor ugliness nor error nor folly; otherwise the acts that are the objects of the judgment would not have been accomplished, and in so far as they are accomplished they deserve positive judgment. But what is meant by the negative form of those judgments is that such an act is this and not another, that it is utilitarian and not moral, a commercial and not a literary or scientific fact, and so on.
There is a very ancient saying to the effect & of the that every one seeks his own good and that no doctrine. one deliberately wills his own evil, and, therefore, that if the practically good man be the wise, then the bad man can but be the ignorant. Now if we remove from the thesis its intellectualist veneer, and translate wisdom and ignorance into practical terms, we see that wickedness is here looked upon as a limit, as a tendency toward the good, that has failed, not as the will for an evil. The dispute as to who sins the more, he who is conscious of the evil, or he who has no consciousness of it, is also illumined by the theory that we have here exposed, which declares that both parties to the dispute are right and wrong. For instance, he who is completely without moral consciousness, is morally innocent, whereas he who is more or less possessed of one, 204 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL FT.
is also more or less of a sinner, for the law itself makes him SO (T//Z> a^apriav OVK eyva)v €i fir) Sta vopov, also said St. Paul *). But with this saying it is not desired to put the innocent above the sinner, but the contrary. That declaration of ignorance is the gravest condemnation, for it is thus recognized that the individual in question is unable to sin, and therefore unable to do right, since the possibility of sinning is all one with that of doing right. The poet inspires admiration, but he who does not know how to be anything but a poet, and is therefore unable to reason and to act, is deficient. The shrewd man is praised, but he who is only shrewd cannot be praised. The animal is a being, worthy of all esteem, but to call a man an animal, that is, to tell him that he is nothing but an animal, is to do him a great injury. In other words, while we recognize as good all that a man effectively does, we do not intend to cancel the distinction between one form and another of human activity, and between one act and another, between the utilitarian and the moral man, between fanciful and logical production, between animal and man. Nor do we mean that those emphatic expressions of negative character that we continually utter ACTIVITY IN GENERAL 205 to one another and to ourselves, and by means of which we urge ourselves and others to more lofty modes of existence, are to be abandoned.
Here occurs an opportunity of tying a thread The poles of feeling (pleathat we had left loose when discussing the theory sure and pain) J and their of feeling, or rather the distinction of feeling ^entity with 3 their practical into the two poles of pleasure and pain, under- °PP°sites- stood, not as a psychological distinction of greater or less, or of mixed states, but as a philosophical distinction of pure states, or of terms that are truly opposed. When the vague and inde terminate term of " feeling " is directed toward theoretical facts and is determined by theoretical philosophy as aesthetic activity or speculative thought, or in some other way, the terms of pleasure and pain are, strictly speaking, not applicable to it. The pure theoretic activity considered in itself, cannot be polarized, as has been seen; it will always attain to the beautiful, always to the true. Only in so far as the theoretic activity is also practical activity, by the law of the unity of the spirit, will the polarization of good and evil, which in that case are called beautiful and ugly, true and false, take place through it if not in it. If the term " feeling " be on the contrary directed to practical facts, and its synonymity with the practical activity (of which feeling would be a 206 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL PT.
distinguishing characteristic) made clear by the Philosophy of the practical, it is clear that to it belongs immediately and no longer mediately that polarity of good and evil. Good and evil then become what theoreticians of feeling call pleasure and pain. These terms are identical with the preceding, as feeling is a fact identical with the practical activity, generically considered. Doctrines This theory of pain and pleasure, as the concerning...pleasure and synonyms of the practical positive and negative, happiness: critique. helps to put an end to a long series of questions arising in connection with such concepts. Above all, the dispute as to whether pleasure be positive or negative will appear to be unfounded, and, therefore, whether pain have a positive or a negative value, or, finally, whether both be negative: unfounded, since " pleasure " means " positive" and "pain" "negative." At the most, it may be admitted that pain has also a positivity, which is however nothing but the positivity of the negative, that is the real existence of the negative pole. — The theory that man always proposes to himself pleasure as an end is, on the contrary, not only not unfounded, but of such evident truth as not to require enunciation, much less efforts to prove it. If pleasure be nothing but activity, it is natural ACTIVITY IN GENERAL 207 that man should have no other end save pleasure, that is, activity, life itself. The correction that has been suggested by others, to the effect that man wills, not indeed pleasure, but activity, of which the outcome is pleasure, has but slight exactitude, for the two terms are not distinguishable, and the result is not separable from the activity; the pleasure of travelling is not separable from travelling. That polemic has value at the most against empiricism, which limits pleasure to an arbitrarily determined group of pleasurable facts, that is to say, circum scribes activity to certain particular manifestations of activity, collected in groups or classes, and substituted for the universal concept. Finally, by means of the identification of pleasure and pain with good and evil in general which we have given, all disputes as to the concept of happiness disappear, as to whether it be or be not distinct from that of the good action, practically coherent, and if man propose to himself happiness as an end. " Happiness " is equal to " pleasure," and "pleasure" is equal to " activity." To will the good (that is, to will well and energetically), and to be happy, are the same. The objection raised by some, that man does not will happiness, but a certain happiness, that he does not will 208 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL PT.
pleasure, but a certain pleasure, not the good, but a certain good, is valid; but this only amounts to distinguishing volitional man in the act, from the theory of the will, constructed by the philosopher. If Tizio wishes at this moment to go to bed and Caio to take a moonlight walk, bed and walk are the affairs of Tizio and of Caio; for the philosopher there is no Tizio, no Caio, but man in universal; there is neither bed nor moon, but pleasure and the good. Empirical con- The practical activity, the will, which is cepts relating to good and also strife between good and evil, can be evil.
illuminated now from this side and now from that by that indivisible unity, according to the accidents of discourse and the varying situations of life. In this way arises a series of concepts which, in so far as they are unilateral, are empirical, and only become again philosophical in the thought of the unity of which they form part. Thus, to make use of a comparison, space in geometry can be analyzed and split up into a first, second, and third dimension; but as spatiality, it is a unicum, which does not possess either one or two or three dimensions; and when in measuring or constructing plans of measurement, we proceed to think one of these dimensions, we become aware that we cannot i ACTIVITY IN GENERAL 209 think them, save all three together, or not as three, but as one. The empirical, practical concepts that arise upon the antithetical and dialectical nature of the will, have had much importance, and it is fitting, therefore, that we should mention and explain at least the principal among tjiem.
If the situations of life lead to the directing Duty of being, ideal, inof the attention chiefly to the aspect of the will inbitive, and imperative striving against inaction and arbitrary choice, P°™er- it is posited in this strife, in this becoming, as something that is not but must be, not as real, but as ideal. If the greatness of the ideal that is to be and to fill the soul with joy, be set in relief in this struggle, then the ideal appears sweet and smiling, as a joy-bringing and beatific vision. If, on the other hand, the effort of its becoming be set in relief, the ideal can be made into a metaphor,,as will opposed to will, as legitimate against rebellious will; and then it assumes a sour, rough, and hard appearance, and the names of inhibitive or imperative power, in so far as it impedes the will, or promotes liberty.
There is no less opportunity and interest in EVU, remorse, etc " pood making clear that relation, from the point of satisfaction, view of the negative term, or of evil. A series of descriptive concepts then appears, which p 210 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL FT.
present the consciousness of evil, now as obstinate blindness (cor induratum), now as disquiet and scruple, which induce vigilance and circumspec tion, now as humility, which does not permit forgetting how easy it is to slip into evil. But it is worthy of note that the series of words and empirical concepts that serve to illuminate the satisfaction of the good, the victory won over oneself, tranquillity of conscience, is far less rich. Perhaps this arises precisely because there is less practical interest in celebrating the pleasure of victory than in the inculcation of the necessity for strife and the abhorrence of evil. Why draw attention to joy and to repose when man is already too much inclined to allow himself joy and repose; does not Life allow them to itself and cause other problems to follow on each solution, new perils to follow perils overpast, and the necessity for new struggles? It is therefore of importance to direct the greater sum of attention to those aspects from which the eye is most frequently turned aside. Finally, these various aspects can be placed in relation with the greater or less frequency with which each appears in individuals, thus arriving at the