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diff --git a/77146-0.txt b/77146-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6260dcf --- /dev/null +++ b/77146-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7480 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77146 *** + + + BUDDHISM & SCIENCE + + + BY + PAUL DAHLKE + + + TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN + BY + THE BHIKKHU SĪLĀCĀRA + + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON + 1913 + + + COPYRIGHT + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + Introduction vii + + 1. What is a World-Theory and is it necessary? 1 + + 2. Faith and a World-Theory 8 + + 3. Science and a World-Theory 13 + + 4. An Introduction to the Thought-World of the Buddha Gotama 23 + + 5. The Doctrine of the Buddha 35 + + 6. Buddhism as a Working Hypothesis 81 + + 7. Buddhism and the Problem of Physics 110 + + 8. Buddhism and the Problem of Physiology 126 + + 9. Buddhism and the Problem of Biology 140 + + 10. Buddhism and the Cosmological Problem 194 + + 11. Buddhism and the Problem of Thought 206 + + Conclusion 254 + + + + + INTRODUCTION + + The Purpose of the Book + + +Three kinds of books there are. First, those that give nothing and from +which we demand nothing. These constitute the greater portion of the +book-world; empty entertainment for the idle. Secondly, those books +that give the unfamiliar and are unfamiliar to us--that is, demand only +our memory. These are manuals of instruction presenting facts. And +thirdly, those books that give themselves and demand ourselves. These +are the books that are mental nutriment in the real sense of the words, +and impart to the entire process of mental development a stimulus +which, like the stimulus imparted to a growing tree, never again can +be lost. The present book makes claim to belong to the last category. +As something experienced by myself, it is meant to become such an +experience to others. + +The mental poverty of our time finds its most accurate expression in +the prevalent lack of individual experience. We are not impressed where +we ought to be impressed, because we allow ourselves to be impressed +where in truth there is nothing impressive. We mistake our true +interests. The interesting is something in which we have an interest, +in which we have a share. But there has been such a derangement of +positions that in presence of our true interests we stand stupid +spectators, whilst for the interesting in the banal sense, we are +ready to go through fire and flood. To the average man of to-day it is +far more interesting to read hair-splitting investigations into the +question as to whether Christianity is a branch of Buddhism or Buddhism +of Christianity, than to think out and live that which both have taught +and continue to teach. + +All this is inherent in the conditions under which we live at the +present time. + +Thought is ever confronted by life as by a question--a question that +of necessity becomes actual in me, the thinker. For as a candle +illuminates a certain portion of space and thereby first calls forth +question-raising objects, so does thought itself illuminate these +stellar spaces and thereby first calls forth question-raising objects. +The _I_ is the natural point of departure of every view of the world, +being the objective as well as the subjective point of departure. Now +that philosophy, in the endeavour to construct a world-conception out +of pure thought alone, has come to ruin on her own nothingness, natural +science has constituted itself the emissary of the world-conception +idea, and in contradistinction to philosophy has sought to realize it +over the head of the _I_, so to speak--an attempt which, despite all +its grandeur, is forever doomed to failure, seeing that, as the last to +include the _I_ itself in this world-theory, the problem is insoluble. +Hence the fact that we no longer possess a philosophy such as the +ancients and the schoolmen possessed; and do not yet possess a natural +science that can give us any genuine aid. + +Every thinker, every seeker--and every thinker is a seeker--is to-day +in a state of mental interregnum. And it is the hope of this book +that, as masses of atmosphere in labile equilibrium frequently at the +slightest impulse break into whirling motion, so also the minds of our +time that are in this state of labile equilibrium may prove themselves +still more susceptible to stimuli, and respond, if not exactly with a +mental typhoon, at least with a gentle zephyr. + + * * * * * + +Three kinds of men there are. First, the indifferent, comparable to the +inert bodies of chemistry. To them applies the saying of Confucius, +“Rotten wood cannot be turned.” Secondly, the believers, comparable +to those chemical bodies whose affinities are satisfied. In so far as +their faith is genuine, to these applies already during their lifetime, +the parable of beggar Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom. And thirdly there +is the thinking class, destitute of faith, corresponding to chemical +bodies in the nascent state. To them applies that word of the Buddha, +“Painful is all life.” + +Our book has value only for this third, last kind. The indifferent, +however highly educated he may be, will never give himself the +trouble to think it out; and with the believer it will only provoke +contradiction. + +A thinker destitute of faith I call him who at the idea of endlessness, +which none who thinks at all can escape, reacts with that psychic +uneasiness which may be compared with the purely intellectual +uneasiness one experiences in presence of the irrational in +mathematics, both, as a matter of fact, being also analogues. + +The circle of readers of this book is thus circumscribed in advance. +But the few for whom it is written, they are the few that count. + + * * * * * + +Three questions there are that before all else occupy every thinking +man, and always have occupied him. The question, “What am I?” The +question, “How must I comport myself?” The question, “To what end am +I here?” This “what,” this “how,” this “to what end,”--these are the +subjects of contention in all mental life. It is not every one who, +like Emperor Augustus of old, can withdraw from this scene of things +with a _plaudite amici_. There _are_ minds to whom life is more than a +play, and all that is transient more than a symbol. + +It is the negative task of this book to show that neither faith nor +science supply such an answer to these questions as can satisfy the +thinking man. It is the positive task of this book to show that a +solution of these three questions is furnished in the Buddha-thought, +but in a form so strange at first sight, that until now it has +achieved no practical importance. Trained one-sidedly to inductive +attempts at concepts, we know not how to translate into modern prose +these enigmatic formulas of thought. We know not what to make of a +Nirvana--the epitome of all blessedness and yet no heaven. We know not +what to make of a Karma that from beginninglessness binds existence +to existence and yet is no soul. And so the truest of all teachings, +uncomprehended by philosophy, unheeded by natural science, is lost to +us and to the needs of our time. + +The question arises, How comes it that Buddhism has always remained +essentially alien to us, a sort of mental curiosity? + +To this I give the answer, brief and blunt, It is not understood. That +is only too painfully evident from the literature published about +it. Here I do not at all refer to those commonplace compilations +that simply swarm with misconceptions. It is just the best books on +the subject which reveal how far removed it is beyond our powers of +apprehension. + +I am prepared to have reproach brought against me; first, that in +many places I have become polemical, and secondly, that I have not +sufficiently studied that tone of affected diffidence such as has +become the fashion in our books, just in so far as they deal with the +theme of a world-conception. + +As to the first point, I can bear witness that nowhere have I indulged +in polemics for polemics’ sake. It is with the Buddha-thought as with +many a colossal edifice, whereof the greatness only becomes apparent +by comparison with ordinary erections. As in the case of the pyramids +of Gizeh, the endless background of the desert offers no fitting +standard of measurement for their greatness, so the Buddha-thought, +when projected upon beginninglessness alone, offers nothing by which +its greatness can be measured. One must place by its side other mental +structures if one is ever to be able to reveal it in all its stupendous +proportions. It is easy to understand that in this case simple +comparison must already amount to polemics. + +As to the second point, my opinion is this: Either one has something +useful to contribute, in which case one does not need to practise this +affected diffidence, or else one has nothing useful to contribute, +in which case one does not need to write at all. I dare speak thus +because I bring _nothing of my own_, but only speak in the place of a +Greater. “We do not know, but there is no sound reason for doubting +that so-and-so,” and all such phrases, howsoever couched, by means of +which an endlessly considerable probability is intended to be smuggled +into the ranks of truth, are quite uncalled for in a teaching like that +of the Buddha. Whoso knows, “Thus it is,” simply says, “Thus it is.” + + + + + I + + WHAT IS A WORLD-THEORY AND IS IT NECESSARY? + + +There is present a something given, an actuality, which we designate by +the collective name of “world.” The untutored person and the thinker +alike make use of the same expression. This latter is indifferent, +acquiring a definite meaning only with reference to a particular +explanation--that is, with reference to a view of the world. + +The impulse to explain actuality, the need of a world-theory, a +world-conception, is deeply embedded in every living being endowed with +consciousness. + +The moment any being has so far developed as to begin to think, it +finds itself involved in a huge system within which it seeks to know +its way, striving the while to understand it in its various details. + +This system comes before it in a twofold aspect: on the one hand, +as “something that is,” _i.e._ things; and on the other hand, as +“something that happens,” _i.e._ the play of events among things. A +“being” without a “happening” attached, is as little to be found as a +“happening” without a “being.” In other words: processes only exist. + +Here two questions immediately arise. First, _What is the world?_ And +second, _How does the play of events come about?_ + +Both sides of the world-picture, and therewith both questions, blend +into one question--the question as to adequate causes. As well the +fact that “something is here,” as the fact that “something happens,” +requires adequate causes. _The adequate cause is the thought-necessity +given with all mental life._ The entire universe in all its parts and +processes, is to the thinking man a species of marionette show. He sees +the puppets dance but he does not see the strings, neither does he see +that which pulls the strings. The incentive to a view of the world is +the craving, so to speak, to get a peep behind the scenes, to spy out +Nature’s secrets, and therewith seize upon the meaning and significance +of life itself. This latter is the real object of every world-theory. + +Now it is quite true, that if I do not perceive the meaning and +significance of life I am but little better than the donkey that drags +the full sacks to the mill and the empty ones back without knowing why, +in the one case as in the other. I owe it to my dignity as a man to +seek out the meaning and significance of life. But this is not all. + +That I am here is a given fact. Were I not here, had I never been here, +not for that would any breach have yawned in the structure of the +world. But now that I am here, all turns upon _how I conduct myself +during this my existence_. Not the fact _that_ I am here, but _how_ I +employ this existence is the all-important thing. + +This question as to the “_how_” can only be answered in any natural +way through the “_what_.” I must know what I am, and what are the +things and beings outside me; I must learn my relations to the external +world, I must apprehend the meaning and significance of life before +I can possess a genuine canon and standard for my behaviour, for my +morality. For all morality, whether it find expression in doing or +in leaving undone, issues in acts of selflessness. This, however, +requires that motives be brought forward, otherwise such an act is +either a perverted form of self-seeking like all asceticism, or it is +mere training, bearing, indeed, the outward semblance of morality, in +reality, however, having nothing at all to do with it. It is only in +virtue of cognition that any act acquires moral value. One can speak +of real morality there only where it is a function of cognition. +Hence there can be no morality without comprehension, without a +world-conception. + +This is the first reason why a world-theory is necessary. + +But it behoves a being worthy the name of man also to know whether +this life is merely a blind adventure, or whether it has aim and goal. +The thinking man demands to know what he may expect after this life. +He insists upon looking beyond this life. He claims an answer to the +question, “Whence? Whither?” + +This demand to look out beyond life, this questioning, as to _the aim +and goal of life_, is called _religion_. As with the query, “How must +I conduct myself?” which permits of being answered in natural fashion +then only when I know what I am, so is it with the question, “Whence +am I, and whither am I bound?” Only when I know what I am, can this +question also find a natural reply. A genuine religion, like a genuine +morality, has its roots in cognition. _Both alike must be functions of +cognition._ + +Such are the two reasons why for every thinking being a world-theory is +not only a matter of giving honourable satisfaction to his dignity as a +man, but also why it is a positive necessity. _In their absence genuine +morality and genuine religion alike are impossible._ + +Now every backward glance into time, _i.e._ universal history, as +well as every look round us in space, _i.e._ ethnology, reveals the +fact that there never has been, and also that there is not, a people +destitute of every trace, every touch of morality and religion. The +only question is, Is this natural capacity of mankind for morality and +religion a veritable function of cognition? + +The essence of all cognition is the individual. Every act of cognition +is always something individual, personal, pertaining to me alone. Were +all men to cognize alike, the content of this cognition would still be +the individual possession of each and every single person. _Cognition +separates._ + +Opposite to it stands another function of human nature--emotion. +_Emotion unites._ If things cognizable are the affair of the +individual, things emotional have to do with the mass. Every natural +capacity of mankind for morality and religion consists altogether +of what pertains to the emotions. Here all morality is founded upon +an instinctive feeling of correlation which finds expression in the +well-known saying:-- + + What you would not men did to you, + See that you do not them unto! + +or in the maxim, “So conduct thyself towards others as thou wouldst +wish that they should conduct themselves towards thee!” + +The unifying quality of emotion is made manifest in every form of +compassion, which latter frequently rises to the pitch of an actual +vegetative suffering with the afflicted person. Such facts, open to +every one’s observation, awaken in all the instinctive feeling of an +inner connection of beings, and yield a natural morality that is purely +a function of emotion. + +It may be asked, “Could such a morality of emotion suffice humanity?” + +It would suffice a humanity whose development had only reached so far +as the capacity for emotion. So soon, however, as a being passes from +the stage of the emotional and enters upon the stage of the cognitive, +the morality of emotion no longer suffices, as little so as the reasons +one is accustomed to give to children suffice the grown man. + +The emotional holds sway as long as an individual is not yet fully +conscious of himself, not yet come to pure reflection. So soon as he is +fully conscious, there arises also the need to understand ourselves as +well as our morality and religion. Then only may I say that I _have_ +morality and religion when I have understood them, when both have +become functions of my cognition. So long as this is not the case, +so long are religion and morality things of emotion, and these are +subject to every conceivable variation. Hence the endless diversity +of moralities as well as of religions in the stage of the emotional. +Here both--to use the language of current speech--are mere matters of +taste, lacking in all inner foundation. Hence also comes all that is +unintelligible in the manners and customs connected with morality and +religion among foreign peoples of ancient and of modern times. This +is not the place to go into details. Every historical record, every +account of civilization, furnishes abundant examples. + +Whether upon our globe a state of affairs has ever prevailed in which +morality and religion have been exclusively things of emotion, it is +impossible to say. The fact remains that at the point where, in our +glance backward over the history of the world, man first emerges, +the purity of emotional morality and religion is no longer intact. +Historical man, as first presented to us in the states of Egypt and +Babylonia, already exhibits a morality and religion which are no longer +pure functions of emotion, but have now become functions of reflection. + +This necessity for reflection is given with the essential being of all +that is real. + +As already said, all that is, on the one hand, presents itself as +“_something that is_,” _i.e._ a being; and, on the other hand, as +“something that happens,” _i.e._ a becoming; that is, as a process. +Wherever something happens, an adequate cause must be present. And +the world by its simple existence, by reason of its very nature as a +process, is the standing incitement to comprehension, to reflection, +inasmuch as the mind hankers after an adequate cause for all that +occurs. “The apparent changes in organic being all about me,” +says Goethe in his _Morphologie_, “took a strong hold of my mind. +Imagination and nature seemed to strive with one another which of the +two should stride forward with the bolder and firmer step.” + +The search after adequate causes is everywhere given as a necessity of +thought wherever mental life is found. An adequate cause is required +for “that which is,” just as much as for “that which happens”; it is +that which both presume. _To possess a world-theory and therewith a +world-conception means to comprehend adequate causes._ + +According to the attitude assumed by mental life toward the question +of adequate causes, does it separate off in two main directions: the +direction of faith and the direction of science. + + + + + II + + FAITH AND A WORLD-THEORY + + +_There is present a something given--the world._ + +It presents itself as an endlessly vast sum of processes. Where there +is a process there is happening. Where something happens, there +adequate causes are demanded. + +Every attempt to comprehend adequate causes leads backwards in endless +series, since each cause comprehended is something which itself in +turn demands an adequate cause, and so on backwards without ever a +conclusion. + +_Faith_ is that particular form of mental life which from this fact +draws the inference that for the human mind a real comprehension +is impossible, since behind the physical there stands a something +transcendent, a force, with reference to which all life-phenomena +become that which their name expresses: _phenomena of a “life”_ which +faith for the most part designates by the word “_god_.” + +This force stationed behind the physical, to which faith traces +back all that happens, must be an “adequate cause in itself,” hence +something contrary to sense in the fullest meaning of the words. +For all that is, without exception, requires an adequate cause. An +“adequate cause in itself” would thus be that something which by +its simple existence would give the lie to this thought-necessity, +inasmuch as itself would be that which would have no adequate cause. +When the thought-necessity of an adequate cause is thus satisfied with +an “adequate cause in itself,” this just means: it is satisfied _in a +fashion contrary to sense_. + +The essence of all that is contrary to sense consists in this, that +when followed out in thought, it deprives itself of the possibility of +existence. A mistake in an arithmetical sum is the most familiar form +of what is contrary to sense. It is something that in correct thinking +is by itself deprived of all possibility of existence; it is something +that makes its appearance only that it may appear no more. + +In like case stands faith. Does it essay to think that in which it +believes, then must that present itself to it in one or other relation +or form--that is, conceptually. A transcendent, however, that presents +itself conceptually is transcendent no longer, but, on the contrary, +the one completely conceptualized thing there is in the world, inasmuch +as its whole existence just consists of the concept of it. Accordingly, +when faith ventures to think, it deprives itself of the possibility of +existence; when it does not think, it has no existence _as faith_, and +therefore no existence at all. + +When, as in these days frequently happens, people complain of the +ever-increasing decay of faith, the reason mostly given is, that +faith does not contain a sufficiency of what is of value to the +understanding. The believer must know what, how, and why he believes, +and not have his faith based simply upon feeling. But this is somewhat +the same as if one should reproach darkness with not containing a +sufficiency of light among its ingredients. Is light present, then +there can be no darkness; is understanding present, then there can be +no faith. _Credo ut intelligam_ is the most vain of all wishes. + +_Pantheism_ in its noblest form, that of the Indian _Vedanta_, +endeavours to avoid this dilemma by conceiving of its divine in purely +negative terms. But the famous “neti, neti”--“not this, not this”--of +the Upanishads, is a definition too, and so a limitation. + +Through this its essential characteristic, of itself in being thought +out, depriving itself of the possibility of existence, faith takes its +place--as third in the trio--along with illusion and error. + +_Illusion_ is what I call a mistaken view; _error_, what I call a +mistaken experience. When I mistake a rope for a snake, a train of ants +for a crack in the ground, these are illusions. When I hold infusoria +to have their origin in the infusion of hay, or look upon the evening +and the morning star as two different orbs, these are errors. + +Upon this, its community of nature with illusion and error, is based +another essential characteristic of faith--namely, the impossibility, +when once it has vanished, of its ever again coming to life. Once +the rope on my path which I formerly mistook for a snake has been +recognized by me for a rope, never again can I voluntarily return to +my illusion. I can, indeed, by force of imagination, represent it to +myself as a snake, but this representation no longer “works”; it no +longer excites fear. And in just the same way I can quite successfully +recall the conditions under which certain optical and acoustic +delusions made their appearance, but they are illusions that are dead. +The like holds good of error and, for a third, of faith. + +People who call for a resuscitation of vanished faith, and by some +means or other hope to see it effected, know not what it is that they +hope and call for. They are calling for the restoration of a vanished +ignorance--an utter inconceivability. + +Now there exists one great distinction between faith, on the one hand, +and illusion and error on the other; in this respect, namely, that the +two latter have the physical, the material for their object, hence can +be checked and set right by this--that is, by reality. Faith, however, +that has for its object the non-physical, the non-material, which +is just whatever the believer chooses to conceive it to be, cannot +be checked and set right by reality. On the contrary, the believer +interprets the entire world in accordance with his concept, devours, so +to speak, the world’s entire content of reality, and sets up a view of +the world that is _unreal_, seeing that he interprets the physical from +the transcendental standpoint--that is, abnormally; and therefore he is +never in the position to be set right by reality, since he never can +knock up against contradictions. One must know that one does not know +before one can let oneself be taught. + +In perfect accordance with this essential feature of faith (so far as +the theory of knowledge is concerned) is its morality and religion: +_both are contrary to sense_. + +The essence of all morality is to be found in selflessness. Every +act of selflessness requires a motive. To possess a motive one must +exercise cognition, comprehension. + +As a matter of fact the essential nature of every faith-morality is +selfish, despite all its acts of renunciation. Here one practises +renunciation like a man who stints himself of a certain amount of money +and invests it in a lottery. As he parts with his money that he may win +back more in its place, so here the believer gives up money, goods, +life--yea, honour and truth, everything, if so be he may draw the first +prize above. + +The essence of all religion consists in the search for the aim and +goal of life. This search faith satisfies by referring life as a whole +to a something transcendent. But the existence of the transcendent +is nothing else but the concept of it. To refer life as a whole to +a transcendent thus means nothing but to refer itself to itself, +which--so to speak--is the analytical expression for ignorance. + +Further development of these ideas is not essential to our task. Here +we have only to bear well in mind that, as the world-theory from the +standpoint of faith is one contrary to sense, so also is its morality +and its religion. All three are functions of a nescience, and therefore +void of actuality. + + + + + III + + SCIENCE AND A WORLD-THEORY + + +_There is present a something given--the world._ + +With reference to this something given, science takes up a position +that in its own way is every whit as arbitrary as again in its way +is that of religion; with this difference, however, that whereas the +latter, so to speak, turns the clock of mental life backward, science +would fain turn it forward. + +The play of world-events with equal justice may be held to declare that +we comprehend adequate causes as to declare that we do not comprehend +them, inasmuch as all we may have comprehended as the adequate cause of +any life-phenomenon, itself on its part demands an adequate cause, and +so on backwards _ad infinitum_. In short, Every adequate cause is of a +secondary nature. From this science argues as follows:-- + +It is a fact that we comprehend adequate causes, in certain respects, +up to a certain degree, consequently perfect comprehension is possible, +everything depending simply on patience and correct methods. + +With this claim of the _comprehensibility in principle_ of +life-phenomena, science takes upon itself the proud task, of itself +_working out a world-theory_ from the foundation upwards. + +Comprehensibility in principle of life-phenomenon is that standpoint +with reference to actuality which is given for every science without +exception. On any other hypothesis science as science has no +justification whatever for its existence. Science, if it is to be what +its name implies, is that which furnishes knowledge. Knowledge can only +be furnished where things can be completely demonstrated, made tangible +to sense. That, however, is only possible if nothing lies hidden in +things that is not perceptible by sense. Hence science, if she does not +wish to gainsay her own right to exist, must proceed upon the arbitrary +hypothesis that _there is nothing in the play of world-events that is +not perceptible to the senses_. And if really there is something of +the sort there, then for her it is merely the _not yet demonstrable_, +which later on, with patience, with improvements in methods, will +also be achieved. This is the position which science takes up with +reference to the play of world-events, the foundation on which her +whole superstructure is erected. Science is possible there only where +there is the sensible, the demonstrable, where there is something +so constituted that I can class it with others of its kind. And all +science--to put it briefly--is just the endeavour to make tangible to +sense the entire play of world-events. + +In support of this standpoint in principle of science, I cite the +following passage from W. Ostwald’s _Schule der Chemie_:-- + + _Pupil._ These are only properties. What I mean, however, is that + which lies at the root of all properties. + + _Teacher._ This then ought to remain behind when you have thought + away all properties from the matter. Well, think away all its + properties from a piece of sugar--colour, shape, hardness, weight, + taste, and so forth--what then remains over? Nothing! For it is + only through its properties that I can recognize that there is + something there.... You must get rid of the notion that apart from + the properties of a thing there is anything at all to be found + beneath them that is higher or more real than the properties. + +From this rejection of all that is not perceptible to sense, it follows +that science may not recognize as adequate causes for “that which is” +even as for “that which happens”--in short, for all the phenomena of +life--anything else but other phenomena of life. If for faith the +thought-necessity, an adequate cause, becomes an “adequate cause in +itself,” _a pure absolute_, for science it becomes _a pure relative_. +Anything is an adequate cause purely in its relation to another +phenomenon of life, and with reference to itself another phenomenon of +life again is the adequate cause. In brief, the adequate cause is here +just as much an “effect” as a “cause.” + +With this rejection in principle of all that is not perceptible to +sense, science rejects all actual energies. For _an actual energy can +never be anything perceptible to sense_, the latter ever and always +necessitating the question as to its adequate cause. + +In the universe as constructed for itself by science, the actuating +impulse is simply the various differences that obtain in situation and +tension, which are equally as countless in number as the countless +processes with which they are given. The play of world-events in its +entirety becomes a stupendous process of compensation, and all values +become simply values of relation. Here nothing has sense and meaning by +itself, but only as it first receives them from others. + +The purely scientific standpoint can only be the materialistic +one, along with which of necessity is given the mechanical mode of +apprehending the play of world-events. + +In the mechanical apprehension of things, the play of world-events +becomes a “falling.” Every fall demonstrates the absence of actual +forces by the fact that in its downward course it can be computed in +advance. + +The aim and object of all science is computation in advance. The +ability to do this finds its due expression in scientific _law_. + +The proof that upon this path one had arrived at a world-theory, would +thus be an absolutely and universally valid law. + +Such a law science does not possess. Every law, without exception, is +an abstraction from experience, and may be swept away again by fresh +experiences. + +Now it is true modern physics lays claim to one universal law--the law +of the conservation of energy. + +We shall have to return to this law later on. Here in passing be it +only said-- + +First, That the law of the conservation of energy has by no means been +arrived at upon the legitimate path of science--that is, upon the path +of induction--but has been found intuitively. Secondly, The law of the +conservation of energy is nothing but a “reading” of the facts, on one +hand, by way of definite compromise; on the other, valid only for a +limited domain of nature. + +The compromise is as follows:-- + +Were the law of the conservation of energy really a law abstracted from +experiences and absolutely valid, it would be proven by the complete +passing over, without any remainder, of one phenomenon of life into +another; as, for instance, by the transformation of a process of heat +into a process of motion; and physics would have a right to draw the +conclusion of an analogy between this and other processes. The play of +world-events as pure relation-values, its potential comprehensibility, +would be proven by a single transformation without residue, of heat +into motion and motion back into heat--that is, by a single _completely +reversible process_. + +But the idea of reversible processes has practical and theoretical +possibility only in an absolutely closed system. Such a thing, however, +is not to be had in the world of actuality. All things here, without +exception, stand in relation to one another, and these mutual relations +do not admit of total suspension even for a single moment of time. +Thus at no time can one get anything but approximately closed systems; +therefore at no time can one attain to anything but approximately +correct results. Every attempt to demonstrate practically a completely +reversible process works with minimum losses, which the physicist, to +be sure, lays to the charge of the procedure adopted, but which the +thinker is equally justified in interpreting as a _loss_ of energy. +No matter what the exactitude with which the experiment is carried +out, no matter how small in value the loss, it is always there; _there +is no such thing as a completely reversible process!_ One can only +derive a law of the conservation of energy from the facts, if for +thought the same is already given. From experiments alone, inductively, +it would be as impossible to arrive at a law of the conservation of +energy as it would be to arrive at the concept of the circle solely +from the concept of the polygon. The circle must be given beforehand +as ultimate concept (_Grenzbegriff_); and in exactly the same way the +law of the conservation of energy must be given beforehand as ultimate +concept (_Grenzbegriff_), if the experiments are to lead up to it. +Thus it was with Robert Mayer’s great intuition: it was a thing given. +And this intuition was taken up by science and worked out, because +here was given it a means of proving with scientific appliances the +impossibility of a _perpetuum mobile_. Perpetual motion, however, is +the violation of the law of adequate cause, transferred to the domain +of the physical. + +That is one side of the matter. The other is that the law of the +conservation of energy conformable with its nature, can only possess +validity in the domain of processes reversible and not dependent upon +time, for in a non-reversible process there would lie no possibility +whatever of its proof. + +Here this is quite enough to signalize the nature of the law of the +conservation of energy. In the conception of the play of world-events +as yielded by this law, the physicist turns his eyes entirely away from +the real, active energies of the play of world-events. He confines +himself entirely to what is exhibited to sense, the motions; he takes +them for the forces themselves, but is entitled to do so only so long +as he keeps clear before him the fact that it is only a _reading_ that +is in question, and derives therefrom what alone can be derived--_work +done_. Work done, however, is not energy itself but the reaction from +energies. And that which the physicist calls the “world-picture of +energetics” is, in point of fact, void of all energies. The entire +world-picture of energetics is no _actual_ thing but, in the strictest +sense, a thing _re-actual_,--if such a word may be coined--which as +such has no title whatever to be used as a world-theory. Should, +nevertheless, this occur, then those consequences follow about which we +shall speak later. + +So long as science abides by actuality she can say nothing else but +that every attempt to trace back completely one phenomenon of life to +another--that is, to represent the play of world-events in the form of +pure relation-values--slips into an endless series; and what is most +of all worthy of remark, each member of this endless series is itself +in turn the point of departure for a new endless series, so that in +the last analysis the fact of this limitless comprehensibility of the +phenomena of life remains as the one real problem of science. And every +science that is in earnest, and does not merely seek to avail itself +of technique, at the very outset must ask itself the question, This +limitless onward movement which every point of departure yields, start +where we may, has it or has it not a conclusion? + +To be able to judge of that one must possess some firm standing-ground +from which to look out and see whether this unceasing progression +really is progress. On this journey upon the high seas of knowledge +one must have a landmark by which to steer. Such a possibility, +however, is excluded, and excluded by science itself. For, as +already said, science as such has standing only where the hypothesis +of potential comprehensibility, of the absence of all that is not +perceptible to sense holds good; in other words, where the play +of world-events admits of being resolved without remainder into +relation-values. Such a landmark, however, could only be something +which itself did not admit of being resolved into pure relation-values, +but was a constant in itself, an unconditioned constant. Were science, +however, to admit the existence of such a “something,” she would be +cutting the ground from under her own feet. The whole value of science, +as such, resides in its pure relativity, in the liability of its +values; even as the value of faith resides in the fixity of its one +value. + +From all this it follows that in science itself absolutely nothing +can be found that might serve it to prove whether or not there is +genuine progress toward knowledge--that is, whether all these endless +series, which every experiment and every piece of thought opens up, +do or do not proceed toward a final conclusion. At this stage one +view of the matter has precisely as much justification as the other; +an _ignorabimus_ just as much and just as little value as the most +flamboyant optimism. We cannot know. It is, so to speak, entirely a +matter of taste as to the sense in which one chooses to interpret these +endless series. + +In full consonance with this is the value which science possesses in +relation to morality and religion. + +Whoso will give mankind morality and religion, must give it something +in which it can find support. Both morality and religion at bottom +are nothing but a support in the wide waste of infinitudes. Every +thinking man craves for such a support. If it is lacking, then for the +real thinker a condition supervenes that is all as unbearable as that +physical one, when for the moment a person has lost all possibility of +learning the lie of his surroundings, as, for instance, when he wakes +up confused out of a deep sleep and does not know how to find his way +anywhere. Here as there it is the pure anguish of thought that comes +over us in such a condition, an anguish that will not let us rest +until we have again constructed the mental support, again established +continuity in thought with the whole. + +If faith fabricates this support in a manner contrary to sense, and +consequently projects in consonance with her nature a morality and +religion that are contrary to sense, science as a whole on its part +is nothing but the attempt to fabricate for itself a support in law. +Scientific law, however, yields a support solely with reference to a +theory of knowledge. Hence never under any circumstances can science +project moral and religious values. It would be a contradiction of her +own nature. Could she do so, she would no longer be science--_i.e._ +_the_ form of mental life which _must_ comprehend the entire play +of world-events in the form of relation-values. Where there exists +nothing but relation-values, there can exist no support in itself, +and therefore no morality or religion. Science is _a-moral_ and +_a-religious_; and the layman as well as the scientist himself ought +ever to keep this clearly before his mind. The efforts made in our day +to carve out, so to speak, the results of science to suit religious +ends as modern monism seeks to do, only go to show how necessary is +such an admonition. From the continuity of life, expounded in the +materialistic sense as a cell, men seek to deduce the idea that we +ourselves live on in the generations to come, somewhat as the manure +lives on in the plant it has manured. But these are such playthings of +thought as only are possible where one is operating with what is wholly +divorced from actuality, that is, with the empty concept of “life.” + +To seek to derive moral and religious values from science is, as the +Indian saying has it, “to milk the bull by the horns.” + +Now both faith and science alike have the same starting-point--the +thing given, the world. The question then arises, “How can it be +possible that with reference to this given thing, each should take up +such a directly opposite position? How comes it that the one apprehends +the adequate cause of the play of world-events as a pure absolute, +while the other apprehends it as a pure relative?” + +At this point we come face to face with the Buddha-thought and its +significance for mental life. + + + + + IV + + AN INTRODUCTION TO THE THOUGHT WORLD OF THE BUDDHA GOTAMA + + +As aid towards a better understanding of that personality of the +greatest significance for the mental life of mankind, there follow here +some remarks upon him and the age in which he lived. + +Buddhism is the teaching of _the Buddha_, or as one may equally well +say--of _the Buddhas_. For “Buddha” is no private name, but the title +of one endowed with certain mental capacities. The word, therefore, +ought always to be accompanied by the article. It signifies, The +Awakened. + +According to the teaching the number of the Buddhas is endless. He whom +we know by this name, for the time being the last of this beginningless +series, is the Buddha Gotama. His family name was _Siddhattha_. He came +of the ancient race of the Sakyas, well known for their pride, and as +such belonged to the warrior caste. He is, therefore, often alluded +to under the name of “Sakyaputta,” scion of the Sakyas, or as “Samaṇa +Gotama,” ascetic Gotama. + +He was born in _Kapilavatthu_, the capital city of a small state +in Northern India, on the borders of present-day Nepal. His grave +was discovered in the year 1898 near Pipravā, in the jungle-covered +foothills of the Himalayas called the Terai. + +The years of his birth and of his death cannot be exactly determined. +Meanwhile one does not go far wrong if one places the period of his +activity in the neighbourhood of the year 500 before the Christian era. +This would make him the elder contemporary of Heraklitus of Ephesus and +somewhat younger than Lao Tse in China. + +He died at the advanced age of eighty years (if one does not choose to +regard the recurring statements in the texts as to age, on the part of +the most different personalities, as merely an indication of old age in +general), after almost fifty years of active life spent in travelling +about, preaching. + +The precepts, discourses, and explanations--all that which makes up +the Buddhist canon--are gathered together into what is called the +_Tipitaka_, or _Three Baskets_. The language of the canon is Pāḷi. +Whether this was the Buddha’s own mother tongue or only related to it, +is a question upon which there exist differences of opinion between +native and European scholars. + +The mental atmosphere in which the Buddha arose may be briefly +characterized as follows: A feeling of life as suffering, fermenting +throughout the entire Indian people; a firm belief in the +_transmigration of the soul_ and the endless prolongation of this +suffering conditioned thereby; the conviction that asceticism purifies, +after the effected purification from old guilt, heaps up merit, assures +re-birth in heaven, and finally procures deliverance from _Samsāra_, +this terrible, ceaseless wandering from existence to existence. Once +more, the fundamental theme in this Indian symphony of destiny, +recurring in unending variations, was this, _Life is Suffering_, or to +say the least of it, a somewhat doubtful blessing. But this statement +of life as suffering was not in ancient India the hollow phrase that +it is with us to-day; neither was it that cold play of thought found +in many philosophical systems. It was a grim reality which men sought +to escape with an energy of self-immolation, a determination, a +recklessness, an ardour of which we lukewarm creatures of to-day can +form no conception. + +India in the days of the Buddha was full of companies of monks and +schools of ascetics, all of them wrestlers with the riddle of life. But +one only wrestles with life when one feels it as suffering. + +The sons of noble families left their homes to search for truth either +out there in the frightful solitudes of the Indian forest, or in the +cloister of the monk. As in later days men went forth in search of El +Dorado, so in those days did men go forth upon the search for truth. +But what gives to the search for truth in ancient India a character +entirely its own is this, that all search here is turned towards the +_I_ itself; that the fight for truth did not as in ancient Greece +exhaust itself in elegant rhetorical disputations and exercises in +dialectic, but in full unmitigated rigour was lived out in one’s own +_I_, without a single thought as to whether the outward form would +support the heat of the friction within or not. + +Amid this swarm of searchers for truth the young Siddhattha also made +his appearance. “Black-haired, in the bloom of manhood,” in spite of +weeping and wailing parents, in spite of a loved and loving wife, in +spite of a dear young son, he left his father’s halls where he had +led a life of rarest pomp and pleasure to enter shaven of head and +garbed in yellow, upon the inclement life-path of the penitent. It +was the force of thought that drove him forth. He gazed face to face +on the transiency of all that lives, and troubled, tormented by this +irresistible, unseizable flood of appearances, he turned his mental +eye inwards, resolved to find there in the depths of his own _I_ that +hold and stay which the outer world everywhere denied to him, the +weary. Truthfulness toward oneself, seriousness of search regardless of +consequences, an unfailing sense of reality, that was the foundation +upon which that most banal of all phrases, adapted as is no other to +coquetting with itself--the phrase, “All is transient,”--became for him +that unique teaching of which he himself could say with ample right, +“It is the teaching which is founded upon itself.” + +In one of the Buddhist monk’s chants there occurs the phrase, “One +single thing--he thinks it out!” This, in few words, is what the +Buddha did. He thought out to an end, _one_ thought--the thought of +transiency. I will not call his teaching the grandest or the deepest +of all teachings. Grand, likewise, is Heraklitus’s teaching of the +All-becoming; deep, likewise, is the Vedanta teaching of the All-one +in Brahman; but the teaching of the Buddha is more than this--_it is +actual_. Through this it obtains that really compelling character +such as is possessed by actuality alone. For there is only one +thing that is compelling--truth; and there is only one thing that is +true--actuality. + +Through this its truthfulness, his teaching has conquered half a world; +not by fire and sword but even as truth conquers, by demonstration, by +teaching. And so it now stands, old by two thousand years, before the +portals of western culture, and claims entrance not into the cloudy +domain of a vague mysticism or a crude pantheism, but into the realm +of clear, clean thinking, as fulfilment of that which never can be +attained by the means at the disposal of science. Comprehension, a +world-conception, this goal of all mental life, made impossible by +science in its false apprehension of the task--this the Buddha resolves +in the limitation that reveals the genius. + +Whoso, if only from afar, has scented the import of the Buddha and +his teaching, must feel that here he has to do with something wholly +unique. One can place on one side not only all the religions of the +world but also all the philosophical and scientific systems, and +upon the other Buddhism will take its place alone. Yet not as their +antithesis. Buddhism is the teaching of actuality, and actuality has +no antitheses, because itself the union of antitheses. The Buddha laid +hold of actuality there where alone it can be laid hold of--in one’s +own _I_. Here he found the secret law, the sacred riddle that the +chorus outside there mockingly sings us, like to some oracle of Delphi +at one and the same time revealing and concealing. + +All religions founded upon revelation are of a decidedly revolutionary +nature. Buddhism is a pure evolution, a process of mental development +in which thought, so to speak, passes a culminating point and works on +with reversed signs. This reversal of all life-values has set in with +a new point of view, from which the _struggle for no more existence_, +so unintelligible for us, follows as a logical necessity. Henceforth +truth is no more the servitor of life, but life of truth. As a candle +manifests itself through itself, by consuming itself in burning, so +does the _I_ manifest itself through itself in expending itself in +thinking. In this teaching he is not great who loves most, but he who +thinks most. + +The full scope of this can only be understood later; for the moment it +may serve the reader as preparation for what is to follow. Let him know +then, at the very outset, that here he enters the realm of a man who +seeks not life but truth--a man for whom life has no value in itself +but only as an instrument of truth. Him I call a sorry seeker for truth +who in his investigation of the riddle of life, sets life itself as +sacrosanct in a place of security, making that which is to be measured +into the measure itself. + +To unite in passion, to contrive clever arrangements that insure the +success of the business of propagation and the rearing of the young +generation, these the animals also can do; their arrangements for +living together in herds are by far more ingenious than those of men; +but the capacity to doubt, to question, to seek--of these even the most +highly developed animals possess only faint suggestions. + +To doubt is the duty of man, and the Buddha is the representative +type of humanity, because _the_ doubter. We common men, we do indeed +doubt of this and of that, and pique ourselves in no small measure +upon our powers of judgment; but we none of us get any further than +the symptoms. He alone seized at one grasp the entire, ever-changing +host of doubts and questions by the root, with the daring of genius +demanding to know the right to exist of life itself. This the reader +ought well to bear in mind, otherwise for him the Buddha-thought +must always retain something strange and forbidding, even as for the +honest townsman we all know, a man who dares go up to High Authority +Itself--whether established in heaven or on earth--and ask for its +identification papers, ever remains in some sort a fear-inspiring +figure. + +I now pass on to a point more external, but one, none the less, that +has its own importance in an introduction to the thought-world of the +Buddha. + +Buddhism is not only the oldest of the three world-religions, but also +the only one of the three that is of Aryan origin. + +The significance of this fact lies for me not in the racial question, +but in the matter of language. The tongue in which the Buddha preached, +taught, and thought, whether it was the Pāḷi itself or some dialect +related to it, belongs to the Indo-Germanic stem. The root-words, +the grammatical constructions, are akin to those found in European +languages. Without any more said, we see how deep is the tie that binds +us to the Buddha. Mental life can mix and blend with mental life only +through the medium of language. If no congruity exists between one +language and another, neither can there be any congruity of thought. We +know what enormous difficulties block the way of any European scholar +who would force an entrance into the thought-world of the Chinese. So +much so, that even at this late day it is still possible to argue the +point as to whether the Chinese have any conception of deity at all. +To this day it remains open to every translator to interpret Lao Tse, +for example, either as a “god-inspired man”--to quote a good Christian +translator--or as a free-lance in the fields of thought. + +Something similar, if in somewhat less positive terms, may be advanced +concerning the Semitic stem. Who can say whether the Indo-German has +ever rightly understood Semitism as the deserts of Judea and Arabia +have hatched it out. The absurdities and confusions of thought in which +Indo-German peoples find themselves entangled the moment they make the +attempt to understand and think it out leave it fairly open to doubt. +It may be, that pure Semitism, that is to say, that flat contradiction +to sound sense, a personal god, can only be perfectly digested with the +help of the Semitic root language. The thinking of the Indo-Germanic +peoples, or rather of the Indo-Germanic root language, has set itself +against this bald crudity from the very beginning. At the idea of +predestination, over which the Semite Paul balances his way with +considerable natural agility, the half-Aryan Augustine only comes to +grief. For the brutality with which the latter champions this dogma is +nothing else but the expression of the brutality with which he forcibly +squeezed his own mind beneath its yoke. For us the Aryan speaking and +thinking, a religion that in its natural logical consequences conducts +to such an anomaly as predestination, is either at bottom a moral +monstrosity, and so incapable of becoming religion, or else it is a +thing misunderstood. + +On the other hand, I should refer the intellectual derailment which the +Buddha-thought has undergone in Tibet, China, and Japan, in no small +measure to the lack of congruity that exists between the Indo-German +and the Mongolian languages. The tongue of the Mongol is simply +incapable of rendering exactly the content of the Pāḷi syllables. + +_Buddhism is the teaching of actuality_, and its language also--the +Pāḷi--as regards content of actuality, takes a leading place among +languages. + +As upon one hand one may look upon the phenomena of life as processes, +actualities, things alive, and upon the other as things rounded off in +themselves, rigid, strictly defined, realities, according as, following +mental disposition, here the one there the other mode of comprehension +predominates, so in one language does the thrust of the actual +predominate, and in the other the thrust of the real, the objective. In +the one the _dynamic_ predominates, in the other the _static_. + +A language of an eminently static character is the Latin; whence the +impossibility of finding another equally good to take its place in a +well-ordered _corpus juris_, with which latter capacity for definition +counts above everything. What jurisprudence requires is the complete, +the bounded (objectively as well as conceptually) realities. It lops +away everything actual, which at all times and places is a _processive +motion_, a species of _status nascens_, until comprehended it can be +grasped, pretty much as out of the actual surface of the earth in a +state of constant transformation the land-surveyor cuts out a piece, +settles it as something real and seizable, so that as such its owner +at will can exchange it, till the time when the millenium hand on the +horologe of the world indicates an advance and renders necessary a new +settlement, a new definition. This method is quite sufficient where +it is only a question of arriving at definite ends. It corresponds to +that which in another place was styled the _re-actual_ comprehension +of things, and the Latin word _res_, considered etymologically, points +directly to this “re-actual” feature. + +In complete opposition to Latin the Pāḷi is a language of an eminently +actual character. The seeming offences against logic, that with more +or less good nature have been laid to the charge of the Buddha by +western scholars, have their rise in this content of actuality that +distinguishes the language on one hand and its thinking on the other. +In actuality there is nothing defined or definable to be found--nothing +but a relentless processive movement. Every definition is a compromise +with actuality, and is always to be held, as such, by every genuine +thinker. + +It is owing to this content of actuality in Buddhism and its language +that so many expressions are found in it for which a fitting +translation is scarcely or not at all to be found. In language, also, +a gradual stiffening process is taking place amongst us which renders +us ever more capable in definition, and ever more incapable in the +comprehension of actuality. Here quite evidently we are caught in a +vicious circle. We are proud of this our ability in defining, and +imagine we have comprehended the thing itself when we have succeeded in +decorating it with a definition. In such cases, however, all we have +really done is to fling bridges of thought, as it were, high up over +things, which permit us to hop from one conceptual “place” to another +without once wetting even our toes in actuality. On the Rhine near Bonn +there stands hewn in stone these words: “Caesar primus flumini pontem +imposuit.” There are not a few minds associated with the lecture-room +and laboratory who take themselves for Cæsars when they “impose” new +definitions upon things, upon actuality. The riddles of life in this +wise are neatly and perfectly resolved in definitions; which, after +all, is nothing very much to wonder at with riddles of life that for +the most part only exist in the form of definitions. + +All things in the world are so constituted that with them concept and +object are separable: the concept admits of being “manipulated” apart +from the object. And all mental life in a certain sense just amounts +to the attempt to get concept and object to coincide--an attempt that +eternally fails, because eternally losing itself in unending series. +One thing only in all the world is so constituted that in regard to +it no separation of concept and object is found--I myself! For that +which I conceive myself as, that even I myself am; and every attempt to +form a concept is just a form of myself. Here the concept of myself is +experience, actuality itself. I myself am the unique, to me accessible, +pure actuality of the world. _Buddhism is the teaching of actuality._ +It starts out with the only pure actuality of the world, and from +this point proceeds to suck the entire play of world-events without +exception into the whirlpool of its thinking. And with this we find +ourselves in the presence of the Buddha-thought itself. + + + + + V + + THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA + + +I begin with the question that concludes the third essay: “How can it +be possible for faith and science to possess opposed conceptions when +both actually start out from one and the same given thing, the world?” + +All that exists presents itself on one hand as “something that is,” and +on the other as “something that happens”--that is to say, as something +found in a state of perpetual change, as processes. + +Where something happens, there adequate causes must be present. These +adequate causes must be forces. + +All processes--_i.e._ the entire play of world-events--fall into two +great classes: those _that are maintained_, dead processes, and those +_that maintain themselves_, living processes; the latter presenting +themselves, on the one hand, as processes of combustion, as flame, and +on the other as processes of alimentation, as living beings. + +All dead processes can be interpreted or read as falls. Their type is +the falling stone. A stone does not fall because of an indwelling force +that causes its falling; it only falls because it has previously been +raised, because between it and the surface of the earth there exists +a difference of tension. Its fall thus signifies that force must have +been present, in the sense that it must _previously_ have been active; +for otherwise the difference in position of stone and surface of the +earth could never have come about. When physics interprets the fall +of the stone in differing fashion--namely, by having it caused by the +attractive force of the earth’s surface in action during the fall--this +is purely a working hypothesis, advanced solely in the interest of a +uniform physical world-theory. + +To much the same effect as the falling stone, every physical happening +without exception is to be interpreted or read, whether it concern +mechanical, chemical, thermal, electrical, magnetic, or any other +such-like phenomena. All alike are to be taken as falls from places of +higher to places of lower tension. The import of each and all is only +that forces, actuating impulsions, _must once have been present_. In +each case we really have to do not with actions but with reactions. + +The proof that no actual forces are here at work is to be found in the +fact that the process ceases so soon as the differences of tension are +adjusted. + +This world of reactions is the given province of all science. + +Science, because bent upon furnishing demonstration, has a title to +existence only where there is nothing that is not perceptible to sense. +Where there are actual living processes, there _actual forces must be +present_. A force, however, can never be perceptible to sense; for +everything perceptible to sense necessitates the question as to its +adequate cause--that is, as to the force in virtue of which it exists. +Where there are dead, re-actual processes, there forces are not in +action themselves, and hence force is not a real but only a conceptual +necessity, a mere logical presumption. Hence also in the interpretation +of this re-actual world, it is always possible to slur over, to +eliminate the question as to actual forces, and to replace these latter +by the various differences of tension, of potentiality, and thus remain +wholly within the domain of the sensible. + +Such a position is quite permissible to a science that devotes itself +exclusively to technique, _i.e._ aims at nothing more than to measure +and calculate in advance, for it is only re-actual proceedings that +admit of being measured and calculated in advance. When such and such a +planet will occupy such and such a position in the heavens, this admits +of being calculated beforehand with the most perfect accuracy. But +whether this next moment I shall twirl my thumb to the right or to the +left, that no science, no academy in the world can compute in advance. + +The position which science takes up towards the world--a rejection +in principle of all that is not perceptible to sense--of necessity +involves restriction to the re-actual world, and therewith the +mechanical conception of the play of world-events. + +Yet once more. This conception is perfectly legitimate so long as it +confines itself to the re-actual world. But it becomes an anomaly the +moment it seeks to pass beyond this re-actual world--the moment a man +tries to read the actual world, the living processes, according to +the same scheme--that of a falling. For here it is actual forces that +are at work; here the question as to actual forces declines to be +eliminated or exempted by acts of intellectual violence that by their +repugnancy to common sense bring about their own downfall. Later on we +shall have to revert to these attempts to interpret physically living +beings, the entire man as a falling, a mere process of adjustment, +and to explain consciousness in purely mechanical fashion. Though one +should be able to “read” the animal organism after physical formulas +in never so far-reaching a manner, though one should be able to +co-ordinate the whole process of alimentation, the housekeeping of +life, in never so perfect a fashion with the law of the conservation of +energy, nothing has been gained withal that might settle the question +as to what exactly that is which keeps this mechanism going: such +a question is never once touched on at all; nay, by this method of +procedure it is deliberately pushed on one side, as much and as long +as ever is possible, until straightforward, natural thinking rises +in revolt against such behaviour as a learned pastime and demands +actuality. + +Hence:-- + +That particular form of mental life which rejects in principle what +is not perceptible to sense, thereby of necessity is confined to +the re-actual world. If it seeks to encroach upon actual processes, +it must arbitrarily leave out of consideration that in them which +is _essential_, the forces at work in them,--whereby it falls into +absurdities that speedily take their revenge by raising problems that +are insoluble. + +This form of mental life is universally called “_science_,” whereby, +it must be admitted, the more or less active counter-currents--those +of the teleological conception of things--are passed over unnoticed. +Science, properly speaking, is always _materialistic_, and its +conception of the play of world-events always strictly _mechanical_. +For it the adequate cause of each occurrence is simply another +occurrence. Adequate causes remain perceptible to sense. + +Opposite to it stands faith. + +Faith is that particular form of mental life which recognizes an +“imperceptible to sense in itself,” _i.e._ _believes_, and so doing, +assumes a universal “adequate cause in itself” for the entire play of +world-events. From this it follows that the living processes are the +true province of all faith. In them alone are actual forces, _i.e._ +that which is imperceptible to sense, actively at work. + +As soon as faith seeks to make use of its intuition, _i.e._ seeks +to supply a world-view, it finds itself in the same predicament as +science. Just as this latter, as world-theory, is obliged to read the +actual processes according to the scheme of the re-actual, so faith as +world-theory is obliged to read the re-actual processes according to +the scheme of the actual; in other words, it must represent the world, +even to the extent that it represents itself as purely a falling, as +guided by a divine force. Here not a hair can drop from my head, not +a stone fall to the ground, without a divine decree having taken an +active part therein as adequate cause, an idea which, thought out, +leads to the absurdity of the doctrine of predestination, with which +doctrine faith robs herself of the possibility of her own existence. +For, where there is predestination, there is no free will; where there +is no free will there is no soul; and where there is no soul there is +no God. + +That which, in being thought out, deprives itself of the possibility of +existence is contrary to sense, and as such, a nescience, like illusion +and error. + +Between and raised above both these opposed positions stands the Buddha. + +This is his teaching:-- + +All that is, all processes whatsoever, whether they be re-actual or +whether they be actual, all is Sankhāra. This is the epistemological +key-word of Buddhism. Its meaning is, All is of a compounded, of a +conditioned nature. The Buddha concurs with modern science in so far +as it rejects an uncompounded, an unconditioned, a unity in itself, a +soul-substance, or whatever else one chooses to style it. As already +shown, for science one event is entirely conditioned by other events; +she makes the adequate cause of one phenomenon of life simply other +phenomena of life, and thereby frankly remains always in the realm of +the sensible, the demonstrable--thereby limits herself, however, to +the re-actual side of the world. Among the actual, self-sustaining +processes, this position has no foothold whatever; for in these actual +forces _must_ be present, and as such never by any means can be +perceptible to sense, thus also can never be the subject of science. + +One can only speak of an actual view of the world where the _actual_ +world is concerned. I comprehend it when I discern the adequate causes +of the actual processes, that is, the forces actively at work in them. + +Now the word _Sankhāra_ signifies not only “the compounded,” “the +conditioned,” but also “the compounding,” “the conditioning,” somewhat +the same as the German word _Wirkung_ may equally well be held to +signify the result effected by the cause as the actual effecting of +that result itself. In the former case it signifies that forces have +been present; it has reference to the re-actual world. In the latter +case it means that forces _are_ present; it refers to the actual world. +Like the word _Wirkung_, the word _Sankhāra_ embraces both these +aspects. + +With reference to the self-sustaining, actual processes, the teaching +of the Buddha proceeds:-- + +All living beings exist by reason of forces. Accordingly the Buddha +here agrees with faith, inasmuch as he recognizes the presence in +living beings of what is imperceptible to sense; for a force can never +be perceptible to sense. + +But whilst faith makes every living being exist in virtue of a +universal force, and thereby assumes an “adequate cause in itself”--as +a transcendent, an absolute, a god--which means “believing,” thus +landing itself in the predicament of having to interpret the re-actual +side of the world also by this “force”; the Buddha on his part +teaches:-- + +_Every living being is here in virtue of individual force peculiar +to him alone._ This force hereby in quite a literal sense becomes an +_in-force_, an _en-ergy_. The Buddha teaches the existence of _actual +energies_, in contradistinction to faith’s universal force. + +This _in-force_ peculiar to every living being, and thereby _unique_, +is called by the Buddha _the Kamma_ (Sanskrit, Karma) of such a living +being. + +Kamma means nothing but “_the working_.” Kamma is that in virtue +of which a living being manifests activity after its own unique +fashion--in its own unique way reacts upon the external world; it is +that which makes a living being to be an individuality, a personality. + +Every living being is a thing unique, and as such incapable of being +compared, incapable of being repeated, as re-actual processes are not, +since in them no actual forces are active. Though I see, hear, smell, +taste, touch, and think the same thing, it is yet my own, a something +unique that I see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and think. + +I am a thing unique, a personality in virtue of my _in-force_, of my +Kamma. + +The distinction between an _in-force_ and a universal force is this:-- + +The latter is a something existing of itself, a something existing of +its own authority, _i.e._ a creation of faith; _whilst an in-force has +being solely in dependence upon its material_, only with the help of +the material worked up by it. As “heat,” “light,” “electricity,” and so +forth, are words of no meaning in the absence of a material in which to +manifest themselves, so _in-force_ Kamma, is a word of no meaning in +the absence of its material. + +This material of Kamma is by the Buddha called the _Khandhas_. + +They are five in number, these namely:-- + +Corporeality, Sensation, Perception, Discriminations, and Consciousness. + +The word Khandha may be variously translated as group, aggregation, +coagulation, formation. + +The Khandhas do not represent _parts, pieces_ of the _I_-process, but +_phases, forms of development_, something like the shape, colour and +odour in a flower. An actual process, a proceeding of the nature of +combustion or alimentation, never can have any parts. It is only in +connection with dead products like a table, a chair, and so forth, that +one can speak of such; as also where one intentionally conceives of +things after this fashion with a definite end in view. From the purely +anatomical standpoint, the eye, the brain, the lungs, the liver, and so +forth in a corpse, are parts of the body. Truly speaking, in the living +person they are forms of development, since all have come forth from +one common root. One must keep firm hold of this if one makes claim to +think in terms of _actuality_. + +“_Material_,” in contradistinction to matter, is that which is +specially worked up by an energy. “Matter in itself” is all as hollow +a figment of thought, projecting like a blind end out of actuality, as +is “force in itself.” Both are products of faith: the one pertaining +to science, the other to religions. _Actuality has no “substance,” no +“matter,” but only material_, _i.e._ matter worked up by energies; +it has no “force,” but only energies, _i.e._ forces apparelled, +substantialized, so to speak. Actuality always and everywhere is only +the unity of opposites--a process. + +To allow one’s thought to occupy itself with a “force by itself,” or a +“substance by itself,” means to work with half actualities possessing +as much content of actuality as one side of a sheet of paper imagined +by itself. I assert that to think thus is an intellectual _breach of +discipline_. + +Now the manner in which I represent myself corporeally, receive +sensations, acquire perceptions, exercise discriminations, become +conscious of things, is one peculiar to me and to me alone, a thing +unique. This means:-- + +_In every motion, corporeal as mental, physical as psychical, I am the +form of Kamma itself._ + +This fact, that every living being is wholly and entirely the +embodiment of his Kamma, is expressed by the Buddha in the word +“anattā,” not-self. All beings are “anattā,” but this does not in +any way mean, as science would fain make out, that they are all of a +purely re-actual nature. It only means that they do not conceal within +them a “force in itself,” a “constant in itself,” but are _out and out +processes of combustion, of alimentation_, such as cannot conceal any +“constant in itself,” since at every moment of their existence they +represent a fresh biological value, and hence hold nothing that could +possibly justify the notion of an _I_-identity, a genuine self. + +“The body, O monks, is ‘anattā.’ If the body were the self (_attā_), +then this corporeal frame could not go to decay, and in this corporeal +frame, this wish of mine would find fulfilment: ‘Let my corporeal part +be thus! Let not my corporeal part be so!’ But, O monks, because the +corporeal is anattā, therefore does the corporeal go to decay, and the +wish, ‘Let my corporeal part be thus! Let not my corporeal part be so!’ +does not find fulfilment.”[1] + +Following the like scheme, the remaining four Khandhas are then dealt +with; and so, step by step, the idea of an _I_-identity is banished. + +The Buddha conceives of the entire _actual_ world, _i.e._ the world of +self-sustaining processes as an infinitely large number of combustion +processes. Every being burns in virtue of a purely individual +_in-force_, Kamma. + +This his world-conception is given by the Buddha in that famous +“Fire Sermon” which, shortly after the inauguration of his career of +activity as a teacher, he delivered to his followers on a hill in the +neighbourhood of Gayā. It is the “Sermon on the Mount” of Buddhism. + +“All things, O monks, is a burning. And why, O monks, is all a burning? +The eye, O monks, is a burning. Visual consciousness [that is, the +conscious representation that results in virtue of visual impressions] +is a burning. Visual contact [_i.e._ the act of the encountering of +eye and objects] is a burning. That which arises in virtue of visual +contact, be it a pleasant, be it an unpleasant sensation, be it a +neither pleasant nor unpleasant sensation, is a burning.”[2] + +Following the like scheme, the ear and the audible, the nose and the +olfactory, the tongue and the gustatory, the body and the tangible, +thought and concepts are then dealt with. + +The place of the Buddha between and above the opposites, faith and +science, may be briefly formulated as follows:-- + +Faith says, “_Everything stands_,”--namely, in the place in which it +has been set by that “force in itself,” God. Science says, “_Everything +falls_,” which means that she neglects actual forces in general. The +_Buddha_ says, “_Everything burns_,” meaning that every process exists +in virtue of a single _in-force_, peculiar to itself. + +And now as a consequence there follows this question:-- + +“If through and through, without residue, I am a form of Kamma, where +is to be found the position from which I can comprehend myself _as +such_?” For every position, without exception, of sheer necessity must +itself again be a form of Kamma. + +Kamma, the _in-force_, is that which gives to the process concerned, to +the living being, _foothold, coherence, continuity_. + +As such it presents itself to me the individual _immediately as +consciousness_. In consciousness I comprehend myself as a something +existing in virtue of an _in-force_, inasmuch as consciousness on one +hand is that which gives continuity to the _I_-process; on the other +hand, however, at every moment presents a fresh biological, Kammic +value, even as cannot be otherwise in any combustion process. + +Be it well noted, however, Consciousness is not the Kamma. That +would give us Kamma as an identity. But Kamma in the course of its +self-acting development _becomes_ consciousness. Consciousness is +the _ultimate value_ (_Grenzwert_), in which at every moment of its +existence the form of the energy and the energy itself merge and +mingle, and consequently that which gives to the _I_-process not only +_conceptual_, but also _actual_ continuity. + +Faith adopts as adequate cause a transcendent force, an imperceptible +to sense in itself. Science rejects all that is imperceptible to sense +and adopts as the adequate cause of one occurrence other occurrences. +The Buddha teaches that the actual processes have being in virtue of an +_in-force_, _i.e._ an imperceptible to sense; but this imperceptible +to sense is so, _not “in itself,”_ as a transcendent in itself, but in +the course of its automatic development, _for the individual becomes +perceptible to sense as consciousness_. + +It is in this sense that we are to understand the matter when the +Buddha, having specified consciousness as one of the five Khandhas, +thus making it a _form_ of Kamma, upon another occasion says, “_It +is Cetana (thinking) that I call Kamma._” In a Burmese school I once +listened to the following questions and answers: _Teacher_, “What +is Kamma?” _Pupil_, “Cetana.” _Teacher_, “What is Cetana?” _Pupil_, +“Kamma.” + +In this sense is to be understood the frequently recurring formula: +“In dependence upon individuality (_nāma-rūpa_) arises consciousness +(_viññāṇa_); in dependence upon consciousness arises individuality.” +For _in-force_, in contradistinction to a transcendent universal force, +is something that only exists in dependence upon its material. + +The understanding of this point will be rendered much easier by a +comparison with a flame. + +In a flame each moment of its existence represents a specific degree +of heat which, as such, _is the power_ to set up a succeeding moment +of ignition. This power is actualized wherever and for as long as +inflammable matter, fuel, is present. The inflammable matter, so +to say, is the liberating provocation that causes this power, this +potential energy which the flame every moment represents in virtue of +its heat to enter into life, and shows it the way into living energy. + +But with this conversion into living energy, _i.e._ with the fact that +a new ignition moment is called into life, a new degree of heat, a new +value in potential energy also is produced, which, as the succeeding +ignition moment, anew passes over into living energy, thus forming +a repetition of the whole proceeding. It is a process which may be +briefly designated as a self-charging. The self-discharging, the act +of the passage of potential into living energy, is simultaneously the +charging anew with potential energy. Precisely in this consists the +nature of the self-active. The self-active is that which possesses the +faculty, the power to sustain itself; and this self-sustaining, when +analyzed, exhibits itself in the form of self-charging. If potential +energy has passed over into living energy, there is here no need of an +accession of foreign energy to fashion a new store of potential energy. +This new store is implied in the discharge itself. Energy, actual +energy, is not something that must receive an impetus from without in +order to come into activity, it is activity, action itself, and proves +itself such by itself; and all that is necessary is to comprehend, to +comprise it in this its characteristic quality. + +That this perfectly natural conception to us has become so unnatural, +must be laid to the charge of our habits of thought, trained +one-sidedly as we have been, along the lines of mechanical views. Where +something happens, we look for some impulse from without; but we ought +never to forget that science does not give the actual world at all, +but only a re-actual world; in which world, to be sure, impulses must +be given if anything is to happen at all. The mechanical world-theory +is simply a “reading” of the play of world-events in order to give +computation and determination in advance; never under any circumstances +does it furnish an insight into actuality itself. Actuality is action +out of itself; it is the self-active. And all the insoluble problems +in which science loses her way when she seeks to carry the mechanical +comprehension of the play of world-events from the reversible processes +where it is possible and legitimate, over to the non-reversible +processes, all in the last analysis amount to this, that one is trying +to demonstrate something--_i.e._ the biological process--from external +preconditions, which along such lines can never be demonstrated, +not because in itself incapable of demonstration, but because it is +demonstrating itself through itself. + +This the genuine thinker must absolutely hold to. Actuality is action +itself, not something that first must be acted upon. Everything +re-actual is thinkable only as the sequel of a push requires a push for +its explanation. Everything that is actual burns. + +After this, what takes place in the _I_-process becomes comprehensible. + +Here the passing over from potential to living energy has its +counterpart in the _volitional movements_. At every moment of its +existence the _I_-process represents a specific value in potential +energy which there where the external world enters with its +“liberating” provocations, ever and again passes over into living +energy as volitional movement. Every discharge in the form of a +volitional movement is a charging afresh with potential energy. It +is a self-sustaining proceeding in the fullest sense of the words. +The volitional movements are the ever repeated new foothold which the +_I_ fashions for itself, the ever repeated “sustenance” wherewith it +provides itself afresh. + +The all-important point about this conception is that one should +clearly see that Kamma _does not, like a cord of some sort of solid +material_, thread itself through the _I_-process, as would be bound to +be the case with an _I_-force, whether dubbed soul, or life-force, or +whatever else; but that in every volitional movement it ever and again +springs up anew out of a material to which it itself, in the first +place, ever and again lends the power to this end. The material has +to be _Kammatized_ so as to be able to give Kamma the opportunity to +spring up anew. As in the friction of one piece of wood with another, +heat springs up, and ever and again springs up with each repetition of +the friction, so in the friction of the _I_-process with the external +world, with things, ever and again new volitional movements spring up. +“Somewhat, O monk, as when two pieces of wood are laid one upon the +other, are rubbed one against the other, heat arises, fire springs up; +and when these two pieces of wood are parted, are separated, the heat +that has arisen, disappears, ceases; even so, O monk, by reason of a +contact of a pleasurable nature, a pleasurable sensation springs up.”[3] + +This the reply, the reaction peculiar to itself of the _I_-process +to the external world, a reply, a reaction that takes the form of +volitional movements, this is Kamma, the action of this _I_-process. +That which as regards all the rest of the world is imperceptible to +sense, here in the self-acting, the spontaneous development of the +individual, _becomes_ perceptible to sense. Nothing else whatever is +concealed within the _I_-process: itself has disclosed itself. As in a +flame there is nothing hidden and concealed, its activity constituting +its entire being, so in the _I_-process there is nothing hidden and +concealed. Its activity constitutes its entire being, and this activity +_in full entirety_ is disclosed in consciousness to the individual +himself, and to him only. And nothing more is needed than to comprehend +actuality simply as that which it is. + +This insight into the _I_ as a pure combustion process places the whole +problem of existence upon an entirely new foundation. + +In a combustion process every moment of its existence is a +_setting-up-of-life_ just as much as an _entering-into-life_. The +_I_-process in all its activities, whether of the corporeal or of the +mental variety, is a constant growing up of life itself, an arising, +a perpetual refashioning, setting up anew, inasmuch as the energy +perpetually works up, assimilates fresh material. Here is no _I_ that +experiences; no _I_ that thinks, speaks, does. I do not _have_ all this +as my functions, but this doing, speaking, thinking--this itself I +_am_. In all this I ever and again am being built anew, just as in the +assimilating of the nourishment of which I partake, I ever and again am +built anew,--it is all the one same process of combustion, differing +only in the surrounding circumstances and antecedent conditions. + +“What, O monks, is the arising of the world? By reason of the eye +and of forms there arises visual consciousness. The conjunction of +the three constitutes contact. In dependence upon contact arises +sensation. In dependence upon sensation arises the thirst for life. In +dependence upon the thirst for life arises clinging. In dependence upon +clinging arises becoming. In dependence upon becoming arises birth (as +the birth of a fresh biological impulsion). In dependence upon birth +arises old age and death.” + +This passage recurs with great frequency in the Scriptures. Following +the same scheme there are next dealt with--hearing and sounds, smell +and odours, taste and flavours, the body and contacts, thinking and +concepts. + +In every one of its activities, at every moment of its existence, the +_I_-process is not something that possesses arising as a function, +but it _is_ the arising itself, as the flame _is_ the arising itself. +And it _is_ the arising itself because it burns, because it exists +in virtue of an individual energy. It is the thirst for life, the +impulsion towards life, which _upholds life_, causes it ever and again +to spring up anew, and _is life itself_; in exactly the same way +that the heat of a flame upholds the flame and is the flame itself. +We do not _have_ the impulse to life--that calls for a _conscious_ +impulse--but we _are_ the life-impulse itself. + +A lay adherent upon one occasion inquires of the nun Dhammadinna:-- + +“Personality, personality, they say, O venerable One. But what does the +Exalted One say is the personality?” + +To which the nun replies:-- + +“The five forms of clinging (_upādānakkhandhā_) is the personality, the +Exalted One has said; these namely: the form of clinging that refers +to body, the form of clinging that refers to sensation, the form of +clinging that refers to perception, the form of clinging that refers to +discriminations, the form of clinging that refers to consciousness....” + +“The arising of personality, the arising of personality, they say, O +venerable One. But what, O venerable One, does the Exalted One say is +the arising of personality?” + +“This thirst for life (_taṇhā_) that leads to re-birth, bound up with +lust and craving, now here, now there, revelling in delight--namely, +the impulse towards sensuality, the impulse towards existence, the +impulse towards present well-being (without regard to any possible +future). This, friend, so the Exalted One has said, is the arising of +personality.”[4] + +The distinction between faith and science on the one hand and the +Buddha on the other, may be formulated thus:-- + +According to faith, living beings all possess as adequate cause for +their existence a transcendent force, usually called “soul.” According +to science, living beings as well as all re-actual processes, have +their adequate cause entirely in what is perceptible to sense; which +means that science derives living beings simply and solely from their +begetters--mother and father--thus entangling herself in her insoluble +problem of heredity. The Buddha on his part teaches _that every being +is adequate cause to itself_. As a flame maintains itself by its own +heat, so every _I_-process maintains itself by its volitional movements. + +Now it is an incontestable biological fact that man, and along with +him a considerable proportion of the animal world, originate in the +union of a maternal ovum-cell with a paternal sperm-cell. How can the +teaching of the Buddha that beings are their own adequate causes be +brought into line with this fact? + +It is just here that the Buddha breaks with vulgar thinking in a manner +that at first sight seems out of all reason. + +He teaches that that which mother and father furnish in the act of +union is only, so to speak, the material of the new living being, only +represents the _possibility_ of a new individuality; that this material +is developed into an individuality only through the advent of an +individual energy. “By the conjunction of three things, O monks, does +the formation of a germ of life come about. If mother and father come +together, but it is not the mother’s proper period, and the exciting +impulse does not present itself, a germ of life is not planted. If +mother and father come together and it is the mother’s proper period, +but the exciting impulse does not present itself, a germ of life is +not planted. If, however, O monks, mother and father come together and +it is the mother’s proper period, and the exciting impulse presents +itself, then a germ of life is there planted.”[5] + +As the igniting spark catches, breaks in, and, taking the kindling wood +and the oxygen of the atmosphere which, but for its advent, would have +lain beside one another for long enough without any reaction, fuses +them together into the individuality, “flame,” so does the individual +energy joining up with the material of procreation, fuse ovum- and +sperm-cell together into the new personality. + +This “in-breaking” energy that joins up with the raw material of +procreation,--this is the Kamma of some other existence which has been +unable any longer to maintain its form against the pressure of the +external world, an occurrence which we usually denominate “death.” The +Kamma of the disintegrating existence--so the Buddha teaches--at the +moment of death passes over into a new abode, plants itself, breaks in +here in new inflammable material, kindles a new _I_-process, fashions +a new _I_-sayer. And as the igniting spark _becomes_ the flame by +developing itself, growing, unfolding along with the material of which +it has taken hold, so does Kamma _become_ the new form of existence by +developing itself, growing, unfolding along with the material of which +it has taken hold. In other words, _I am the form of my Kamma. I am my +Kamma corporealised._ + +This Kamma series it is which constitutes the _actual_ genealogical +tree of a living being. As the genealogical tree of a fire does not +lead in the direction of the forest or the coal-mine whence its +material was derived, but back to the flame from out of which the +kindling spark took hold, so the genealogical tree of living beings +does not run back in the direction of progenitors but in the direction +of the Kamma, the direction of a disintegrating existence. “Heirs of +deeds,” therefore, the Buddha calls living beings, not heirs of mother +and father; and, “springing from the womb of Kamma (_kammayonī_).” The +Kamma, in virtue of which I now say “_I_,” derives from a previous +existence; the “_I_-sayer” of this previous existence, on his part +again, derives from a previous existence, and so on further and further +back in a series that never has had a beginning. _At every moment +of my existence I am the final member of a beginningless series of +“I-sayers.”_ The Kamma at this moment active in me--it has never not +existed, never not been active. This is what means a self-sustaining +process. Such a process can never have had a beginning; for then it +would be no self-sustaining thing, it would have been created, either +by a god, or by external circumstances and antecedent conditions. It +would be no actual process but a product. As soon as clear cognition +brings me the insight that I am a pure process of combustion, _i.e._ +sustain myself, along with that insight is given as a logical necessity +beginninglessness. + +_Individual beginninglessness is the key-word, the guiding clue +to the Buddha-thought._ In it is exhausted the teaching of Kamma. +The _I_-process has its _in-force_, its Kamma from out a previous +existence. Otherwise expressed: The _I_-process is not the result of +an impact, has not been set going, but burns on from beginninglessness +down to this present moment, itself ever and again _perpetuating +itself_. Whenever an existence disintegrates, the Kamma in virtue +of which it has been burning takes hold anew in a new location and +there sets alight a new _I_-process that unfolds itself into a new +personality. _The Buddha teaches re-births._ + +The self-perpetuation of the individual energies, the Kammas, in +the formation of ever new individualities, is by the Buddha called +“Samsāra.” + +This word is most frequently translated, “the circling round of +re-births,”--a rendering that may easily lead to a false conception. +Where the entire universe is nothing but a huge summation of single +combustion processes, there no circling round can be; there each moment +of existence always and everywhere is something that never before has +been and never again will be. With the translation “circling round of +re-births,” one only works with physics and its reversible processes; +one is in danger of apprehending life mechanically. As a matter of +fact, “Samsāra” means nothing but the “together-wandering,” the ascent +and descent of the beings in the universe, that ever and again, now +here now there, come into manifestation anew, according as their Kamma +here or there takes hold. + +“Without beginning, without end is this Samsāra. A beginning of beings +encompassed by nescience who, fettered by the thirst for life, pass on +to ever new births, verily is not to be perceived.” + +The thinking man naturally asks, “Is there any proof of such a +teaching? or must it simply be believed?” In the latter case it were as +worthless to the genuine thinker as is every religion of faith. Whether +I call that on which I believe, force or energy, god or Kamma, makes no +essential difference. + +But to this question there are two answers--an answer of a real, and an +answer of an abstract nature. + +The answer of real nature is supplied by the Buddha when he +affirms of himself that simultaneously with the attainment of his +Buddha-knowledge, he acquired the faculty of remembering his previous +forms of existence back into eras of time the most stupendously remote. +He teaches, however, that every one who, like himself, has wrestled +his way to the same knowledge, obtains this same capacity of calling to +remembrance his previous states of existence. + +Now the Buddha-knowledge is no supernatural illumination, but consists +simply of a clear insight into the nature of my own existence--or +rather, in the removal of a false conception as to myself, the +conception of the “_I_” as an identity. To attain to this insight, +all that is needed is reflection and instruction. This seemingly +supernatural character of the faculty of remembering previous +existences is thus “supernatural” only in the sense that the telephone +or the Röntgen ray or wireless telegraphy is supernatural to untutored +savages. We are merely lacking in the prerequisite conditions as +respects cognition, and in the intellectual technique. + +This much safely may be said, that the biological possibility of memory +of the distant past can only be brought to bear upon the several +existences in so far as these themselves have run their course in +touch with the power of memory, in touch with consciousness. To try +to make this faculty extend over the embryonal periods also, would +be absurd, since here the organic possibilities of such memory--the +sense-organs, namely--are not developed, and so there is nothing there +for one to remember. Hence, when he speaks of his previous existences +the Buddha says, not, “I remember having left such and such a womb,” +but, “I remember having been of such a name, such a family, such a +rank, such a calling; having experienced such and such weal and woe, +and such a departure from life.” Here what is meant by the constantly +recurring phrase “_evam āyupariyanto_”--“thus was the term, the end +of my life”--is not physical death, but the ending of that section of +the individuality which runs its course self-illuminated, under the +designation of consciousness. This end may indeed synchronize with the +physical end, death, but it may also precede it by a longer or shorter +period of time. + +In corresponding terms the Buddha goes on to say, “Departing thence, +elsewhere I appeared anew. There now I was, bore such a name,” and so +on. The memories of the past adhere only to those phases of existence +that are illumined by consciousness. + +It may be asked, “By what means is it possible to acquire such a +faculty of remembering the distant past?” + +I reply, “I do not know.” I can only suggest an analogy. One must +extinguish one’s own light in order to see the light that shines +through the chink in a neighbouring room. In somewhat the same +fashion, a man must have extinguished his own light--the notion of an +_I_-identity--and won to the Buddha-knowledge, in order to see himself +emerge recurrently as a something luminous in consciousness further and +yet further away in the “dark backward and abysm of time,”--one lucent +phase, ever and again revealing itself, anterior to the other, until +the last faint glimmer is lost in the dim dusk teeming with life, of +the beginningless infinitudes. + +The Buddha himself instances a definite limit to the capacity to recall +to memory past existences, up to which limit he himself attained. +Here we have the best possible proof that we have to do, not with +a supernatural enlightenment, a species of omniscience, but simply +with an intellectual technique which as being purely intellectual, +presupposes a certain grade of cognition. If we may put any confidence +in the texts, there were in the days of the Buddha, and in those days +of which the “Chants of the monks and nuns” tell us, quite a large +number of persons who had acquired this faculty. If some one here +interjects, “Such a thing is impossible!” he resembles a man at the +foot of a hill to whom another standing on the top has described what +he sees from that point of vantage, and who retorts, “It is quite +impossible that you should see all this. I have eyes in my head as well +as you. I look upon the same world as you do and I perceive nothing +whatever of all this. Consequently your imagination must be playing +tricks with you.” + +So much for the real answer. The abstract answer presents itself in the +light of an intellectual necessity. + +Kamma is that which gives continuity to the _I_-process. As such it +presents itself to me the individual immediately as consciousness. +Consciousness, rightly comprehended, tells me that the _I_-process +gives to itself its own coherence; which means that it is self-acting; +which in turn means that it is beginningless. I experience the +self-perpetuation, the burning of the _I_-process in consciousness. But +just as Kamma conducts from one moment of existence to the next, so +does it conduct from one existence to the next. + +Should one wish to render this procedure in comprehensible language, +one can come at it no otherwise than simply by saying, “Consciousness +passes over from existence to existence.” “Kamma” in itself conveys +no more meaning than, for example, the word _I_, which indicates +anybody and everybody without distinction, and only acquires _actual_ +significance with reference to myself. In exactly the same way “Kamma,” +the force in virtue of which every single living creature has being, +acquires _actual_ significance only as my own consciousness. Kamma _as +such_ has being only as consciousness. + +It is in this sense that those passages are to be understood, so +obscure to our scholars, in which the Buddha speaks of _viññāṇa_ +(consciousness) as that which plants itself in the new womb. Addressing +his disciple Ānanda, he says, “If, Ānanda, consciousness did not pass +into the womb, would it then be possible for the (new) individuality to +differentiate itself?”[6] + +Among the Theras of Ceylon the established expression for the Kamma +that passes over from one existence to the next is _paṭisandhiviññāṇa_, +a word which means “the again-linking-up consciousness,” the +consciousness that ever and again supplies the bond between existence +and existence. + +That there is here no thought of consciousness as “something in +itself,” as soul, as an identity, is made abundantly clear in the +following passage:-- + +A monk named Sati, as the outcome of his own cogitations, arrives at +the conclusion that “consciousness” is something that in the progress +of re-births passes over as _anaññaŋ_, as “not-other”--that is, +as an identity, as a spiritual substance. He is reprimanded by the +Buddha in these words: “Have not I in many and diverse ways expounded +consciousness as something arising always in dependence upon somewhat? +Without adequate cause there is no coming to be of consciousness.”[7] + +To much the same effect runs a passage in the _Visuddhi Magga_:-- + +“But it is to be understood that this latter consciousness (that of the +new existence is meant) did not come to the present existence from the +previous one, and also that it is only to causes contained in the old +existence that its present appearance is due.”[8] + +Only when one understands that _Viññāṇa_ (consciousness) is Kamma +itself, does a “consciousness” that passes over from existence to +existence become divested of its seeming senselessness. + +When, for example, I say, “The American heat-wave has passed over to +Europe,” this does not mean that an absolutely definite something +called “heat-wave” has set out on a journey. It only means that certain +pulses of energy which manifest themselves to sense under the form of a +wave of heat are making their presence known in a new locality. In just +the same way, when I say, “Consciousness passes over from one existence +to another,” this does not mean that an absolutely definite something +called “consciousness” goes forth upon its travels, but that the pulse +of energy of the _I_-process which, wherever it is present at all _as +such_ manifests itself as consciousness, makes its presence known in a +new location. Should any one insist upon conceiving of the heat-wave +as a something travelling, he would rightly become the butt of +ridicule. In similar wise, the scholars of the west with their profound +researches into this “consciousness” that passes over from existence to +existence, make fair marks for jest and laughter. Here, of course, they +are only working further along in the tracks of physiology and biology, +both of which so long as they seek for a “seat” of consciousness, +labour under a like tragi-comic misconception. + +No good purpose is to be served by instancing here in detail all the +crass misconceptions of which our western scholars are guilty in the +interpretation of this point. That would only be to burden this book on +its way with quite unnecessary ballast. Wherever the reader meets with +such misconceptions, he can correct them for himself on the lines of +the foregoing explanations. In passing, however, it may be mentioned +that he will meet with such misconceptions in pretty nearly every book +about Buddhism. + +And now we stand confronted by the question:-- + +“After what fashion is one to picture to oneself the passing over of +Kamma from one existence to another?” + +To us in the West who have been reared in the mechanistic views of +science and admit of the inductive method alone in argument, this +seems the point most obscure among all the obscurities we find in the +Buddha-thought. In the Buddha’s days, however, this point seems to have +been so completely free from anything savouring of the problematical +that the Buddha himself would seem never to have found it necessary to +express himself categorically upon it. + +If to-day one asks the Theras in Ceylon or Burma how one ought to think +of this passing over, one receives the unfailing reply, “It is not the +case that ‘something’ passes over.” + +Here one must fall back upon the works of the commentators for fuller +information. + +In the _Milinda Pañha_ (the _Questions of King Milinda_), a work that +in Ceylon is held in the highest esteem, there occurs the following +passage:-- + +(The King says): “Bhante (Reverend Sir) Nagasena, does the connection +(with the next existence) take place without anything passing over?” +(The Monk Nagasena replies): “Yes, great King, the connection takes +place without anything passing over.” “Give me an example of connection +taking place without anything passing over!” “Suppose a man to light +one lamp at another, does one light here pass over to the other?” “No, +bhante.” “In just the same way the connection takes place without +anything passing over.”[9] + +Hereupon the question arises:-- + +“This previous existence of which I am the immediate continuation--am I +this itself or am I another?” + +A further passage in the same book, the _Milinda Pañha_, runs:-- + +“He who is born--is he the same or is he another?” “Neither the same, +neither another.” + +“Give me an illustration!” “Suppose a man to light a lamp: would it +burn the whole night through?” “Yes, it would burn the whole night +through.” “Now, is the flame of the first watch the same with the +flame of the middle watch?” “No, indeed!” “Or is the flame of the +middle watch the same with the flame of the last watch?” “No, indeed!” +“Then is the lamp of the first watch one, the lamp of the middle watch +another, and the lamp of the last watch yet another?” “No, indeed! In +dependence upon one and the same (lamp) the light burns all the night +through.” “Even so does the continuity of men and things come about. +One arises, another passes away. On the instant, as it were, without +before or after, the linking up is effected. Thus it is not oneself, +nor yet is it another, that passes on (and constitutes) each last +present phase of consciousness.” + +With this we arrive at the crucial point. _The passing over ensues on +the instant, immediately, not in space and time._ + +Buddhism, if it is to satisfy the thinker, here will have to come to an +understanding with modern physics. In a succeeding essay this will be +attempted. For the present, as preliminary, we hold fast only to the +fact. + +The _I_-process as being the form of an _in-force_, at every moment of +its existence represents a certain value in potential energy, a certain +unique state of tension, an individual tendency. This tendency it is +which at the breaking up of the old form immediately establishes itself +in the new location. + +But where? Is this new location always ready waiting to take up the new +Kamma? + +A universe that consists of nothing but a huge summation of combustion +processes, finds itself, so to speak, in a perpetual _status nascens_. +Here every fresh moment represents a new, unique, biological, Kammic +value, which as such never before has been and never again will be. + +Now all actual happenings come to pass in virtue of peculiar +attunements--in the language of chemistry, specific affinities. A +body, a process, acts upon another because in virtue of its peculiar +attunement it can and must act on that other. But where the entire +universe is a something existing in a perpetual _status nascens_, there +is, strictly speaking, no such thing as a _being attuned_, but only +an _each-after-other self-attuning_, taking place anew with each new +moment. The entire actual happenings of a world from this point of view +become something that does not _have laws_, but _is law itself_; a +thought as sublime as it is terrible. The significance of Buddhism for +a morality is completely dominated by it. + +Hence, where the actual play of world-events alone is in question, +the same is indicated by the word “Dhamma” (law or norm). All beings, +even as they are Sankhāra, are also Dhamma.[10] Kamma, the individual +_in-force_, at the break up of the form, will “take hold” anew there +where in the beginningless each-after-other self-attunement of the +play of world-events, it can take hold--indeed, _must_ take hold. This +“taking hold” anew is not something that _has_ law, that runs its +appointed course according to definite laws, but it _is_ law itself. + +Now Kamma, as individual _in-force_, is a something unique. It is +_itself_ and nothing else besides, as it manifests itself in me the +individual; for my consciousness tells me that I am a something unique, +that I am myself and nothing else besides. + +As a something unique, it must also be uniquely attuned to its +new location. There will be one single location which, out of the +endless host of world-events, will correspond to the Kamma of the +disintegrating existence, will answer to it. _We all eat out of the one +dish--every one eater for himself._ + +_This unique attunement, however, implies immediate passing over as +a logical necessity._ If Kamma passed over in space and time, this +passing over would be a new self-attunement at innumerable points. +Immediate passing over and unique attunement are two different +expressions for one and the same event. + +We shall have to dwell upon this idea at greater length in another +place. Here I conclude with the caution that the Kamma-teaching +of the Buddha is not to be confounded with the teaching of the +transmigration of the soul found in pantheistic systems. The two have +nothing, absolutely nothing, in common with one another except the +words “Samsāra” and “re-births.” Language is no more than a servant. It +serves one master just as well as another. To seek to deduce community +of essence from similarities in terminology is a piece of idle trifling +of which many an expositor of Buddhism is most unwarrantably guilty. +It is no very difficult matter to “support” the words of the Buddha +with quite a host of sayings culled from the works of mystics and +pantheists--and scientists also, if one so chooses. But in good sooth, +to him who understands, all this only makes needless ballast, and to +him who does not understand, needless perplexity. + +A transmigration of the soul requires something persistent, something +eternal, a unity in itself. “As the worm from leaf to leaf”--runs the +illustration in the Upanishads--“so goes the soul (the Atman, the true +Self) from existence to existence.” + +For the Buddha there is no such “something in itself.” For the real, +genuine thinker life is a thing that at every moment wholly and +completely arises anew. Life is this arising itself, just as a flame +is the arising itself. _Any kind of persisting something here is not +to be found._ Every moment of existence is a new, biological, Kammic +value, whereof the prerequisite condition, the adequate cause, resides +solely in the previous moment, while itself is prerequisite condition, +adequate cause to the moment succeeding. _No continuity_ is present, +as a Being, as a true _I_, a something identical with itself, _but +with each new moment the continuity is formed anew_; every moment is +the last link in a beginningless series; every _now_ the final result +of an individual combustion process that, hither descended from past +beginninglessness, continues to burn on through future endlessness; the +Kamma whereof, as oft as one form falls to pieces, without break seizes +hold of a new raw-material. It is no persisting something in itself +that passes over; it is the individual tendency, the predispositions, +the character, the consciousness, or whatever else one has a mind to +call the value in potential energy represented by the _I_-process at +its disintegration, that passes over, by _immediately_ taking effect, +striking in, imparting the new impulse to the material to which it is +uniquely attuned--the material that appeals to it alone of all that is +present, and to which it alone of all that is present, answers. + +Yet once more:-- + +Kamma is no cord binding the existences together--as little so as the +lightning of the firmament is a cord. The notion of a persisting “self” +or “soul” is repeatedly and emphatically repudiated. + +“Further, one may entertain the notion: ‘This identical self of mine, +I maintain, is veritably to be found now here, now there, reaping the +fruits of its good and of its evil deeds; and this my self is a thing +permanent, constant, eternal, not subject to change, and so abides for +ever.’ But this, monks, is a walking in mere opinion, a resorting to +mere notions, a barren waste of views, an empty display of views; this +is merely to writhe, caught in the toils of views”; runs a passage in +the second Sutta of the _Majjhima Nikāya_. While we find Buddhaghosa’s +great commentary, the _Visuddhi Magga_, saying: “There is no entity, +no living principle, no elements of being, transmigrated from the last +existence into the present one.” + + * * * * * + +I sum up in brief what has gone before. + +The Buddha teaches:-- + +All actual processes are combustion processes. + +They burn in virtue of purely individual _in-forces_ (Kammas). + +As such they are self-sustaining processes. + +As such they are beginningless. + +They have sustained themselves from beginninglessness down to the +present by volitional activities. + +With the Kamma-teaching the significance of Buddhism for a +world-conception is given in all its amplitude. + +To possess a world-conception means to comprehend the play of +world-events. + +To comprehend means to comprehend adequate causes. + +Adequate causes must be forces. + +Forces of necessity must be something imperceptible to sense. + +As such they must lie beyond the reach of all comprehension. + +An exception to this is constituted by one single process--the _I_, the +individual himself; inasmuch as the _in-force_, in virtue of which I +have my being, _becomes_ perceptible to sense in consciousness. + +This given, the whole problem here focuses itself, as it were +automatically, into one point, forth from which every genuine view of +the world must necessarily proceed--_one’s own I_. + +Whilst faith conceives of the _I_ from a transcendental standpoint, +_i.e._ believes; whilst science strains itself to conceive of the +_I_ from the standpoint of the material world, _i.e._ inductively; +_the Buddha conceives of it from the standpoint of itself_, i.e. +_intuitively_. + +Along with my comprehension of myself is comprehended the entire +residue of the world. If I myself have being in virtue of a purely +individual _in-force_, then all remaining actual processes also have +being in virtue of purely individual _in-forces_, and I comprehend +them all--_i.e._ the world--as thereby beyond being comprehended; not +as being incomprehensible in themselves--that were a self-evident +contradiction--but as so fashioned that each of them can only +comprehend itself. + +Here it may be objected:-- + +A world-conception that teaches me to comprehend the world as being +incomprehensible--is it not just as much of the nature of a paradox as +the world-conception of faith? + +To this the answer is:-- + +The demand for a view of the world is not to be taken literally +as such. If a freezing man says, “I much need a coat,” it is not +the coat in itself of which he has need, but the warmth that the +coat will procure him. In the selfsame way, when an uninstructed +person says, “I much need a view of the world,” what he would fain +comprehend is not the world in itself, but that which furnishes +internal support, coherence, to the play of world-events. In reality, +every world-conception means nothing else but a comprehension of the +something that persists throughout the play of world-events, that +remains constant through all vicissitude,--hence, a satisfaction _of +the idea of conservation_. + +This idea of conservation religious faith endeavours to satisfy with +its “force in itself,” God. Scientific faith endeavours to satisfy it +with “matter,” which is just as much a thing of faith as is “force.” +Actuality knows neither force by itself nor matter by itself; it only +knows the unity of both: processes. One is just “believing” when one +operates abstractly with either of these two opposites; and to operate +with them other than abstractly is quite impossible. + +Out of itself does science provide satisfaction for the idea of +conservation in the cosmogony of energetics; this it does, however, by +furnishing not _actual_ energies but only the _reactions_ of energies. + +An _actual_ conservation, and therewith an _actual_ world-view is +furnished by the Buddha alone when he points out that every living +being is a something self-sustaining; in other words, that there is no +such thing as an “_I_,” considered as identical with itself, as a unity +in itself. + +The same, to be sure, is said by every school of criticism. Hume and +modern psychology say so with unequivocal clearness, but none of them +go beyond negation. They confine themselves to Socratic knowledge. +Alone the Buddha says, “I not only am aware that I am no true _I_, +as a unity in itself, but I also know what it is that I am. And that +this has really been comprehended by me,--this I prove _in my own +person_. For, from the moment that I comprehended myself as a process +sustaining itself from beginninglessness down to the present hour by +its own volitional activities, all volitional activities have wholly +ceased in me. A new up-welling of _in-force_, any further self-charging +of the _I_-process, has no more place in me. I know; this is my last +existence. When it breaks up, there is no more Kamma there to take +fresh hold in any new location, be it in heavenly, be it in earthly +worlds. The beginningless process of combustion is expiring, is coming +to an end of itself, like the flame that is fed by no more oil.” + +This thought which finds expression in the four propositions concerning +suffering and the Nibbāna teaching, sums up the significance of +Buddhism for morality and religion, and its amplification, therefore, +belongs to the successor to this volume. Here it is only interesting +to us from the epistemological point of view, _i.e._ in so far as _it +makes ignorance as to oneself the antecedent condition of all life_. +For-- + +I sustain my own existence through the perpetually renewed up-welling +of volitional activities. It is possible for these to spring up +again and again only so long as an object for my willing is present, +_i.e._ so long as the delusion of identity is not put an end to. The +moment any being arrives at the insight that there are in truth no +identities--that there are nothing but flickering, flaring processes of +combustion, which are one thing when I crave for them, another when I +stretch forth my hand to seize them, and yet again another when I have +seized them and hold them fast, he stops short, begins to reflect; and +in reflection the blind impulse to live is sapped and weakened. The +knowledge is borne in upon him: “It is not worth the seizing.” + +So long as I take a glittering object in the grass for a diamond, I +will clutch at it, scuffle for it--mayhap enter on a life-and-death +struggle to obtain it. But the moment I perceive, “It is a dewdrop in +which a sunbeam is reflected,” I trouble myself no more about it. I +know “A shake, a gust of wind--and all is over!” + +So is it with the genuine thinker in face of the world and its values, +whether they be called wife or child, money or possessions, fame or +honour, family or home. One clear, piercing, scrutinizing glance is +more than they will bear. To the penetrating mind, the wretchedness of +transiency is everywhere manifest--he turns away--it is not worth while! + +To Sakka, the king of the gods, the Buddha imparts the following +instruction:-- + +“Then, chief of the gods, a monk hears: ‘All that is, when clung to, +falls short.’ And when, chief of the gods, a monk has heard: ‘All that +is, when clung to, falls short,’ he closely observes each and every +thing. In the close observation of each and every thing he sees into +each and every thing. And seeing into each and every thing, whatsoever +sensation he experiences, whether pleasurable or unpleasurable, or +neither pleasurable nor unpleasurable, in all these sensations he +abides in the insight that they are transient, so that he cares naught +for them, ceases from them, renounces them. And abiding as respects +these sensations in such insight, he clings to nothing whatsoever in +all the world. Clinging to nothing in the world, he is free from fear. +Free from fear he attains to his own extinction of delusion.”[11] + +This insight that ignorance as to one’s own self is the antecedent +condition of all existence, is formulated by the Buddha in the +so-called “Causal Chain.”[12] + +It is not the intention of this book to furnish a fully rounded +statement of Buddhism, and so I am at liberty here to confine myself +to what is necessary for our immediate purpose. To attempt to deal in +detail with all the many mistakes that have here been made by western +expositors would require a whole book to itself. + +The Causal Chain consists of twelve links, on which account it is also +alluded to under the name of the “Twelve Nidānas.” + +The twelve links of the chain are: 1. Ignorance (Avijjā); 2. +Predispositions, Tendencies (Sankhāra); 3. Consciousness (Viññāṇa); +4. Individuality (Nāma-rūpa); 5. The seat of sense; 6. Contact; 7. +Sensation; 8. Thirst of life (Taṇhā); 9. Clinging (Upādāna); 10. +Becoming (Bhava); 11. Birth (Jāti); 12. A Complex consisting of the +essential ingredients of all existence--namely, old age, death, misery, +lamentation, sorrow, grief, and despair. + +This “Chain” is translated by the great majority of occidental +expositors of Buddhism thus: “Out of Ignorance arise the +Predispositions. Out of the Predispositions arises Consciousness,” and +so forth. + +Such a translation is at one and the same time incorrect as regards +the wording and misleading as regards the meaning. For here the +separate links of the chain are placed with regard to each other in +the relationship of cause and effect, in the purely physical sense in +which the two represent a following after one another. But in order +to have a pure following after one another of cause and effect, there +are needed artificial preconditions such as physics puts for herself +when she works with “bodies,”--that is, with fixed magnitudes complete +in themselves. Actuality, however, knows nothing of any such things. +Actuality knows only processes which at every moment of their existence +represent a new biological value. + +Only where “bodies” in this purely physical sense are presumed to +exist, can one speak of a following after one another of cause and +effect;--a mode of representing matters that is ridiculed by men of +insight among physicists themselves. E. Mach, for example, makes fun of +it in the humorous phrase: “Upon a dose of cause there follows a dose +of effect”; whereby, to be sure, himself, and with him the whole of +modern positivism whose mouthpiece he is,[13] falls into the opposite +extreme, inasmuch as he seeks to substitute for the conception of +causality of scholasticism--the following after one another of cause +and effect--dependence outside of time, as represented by the concept +of mathematical function. + +In sooth, one position is as far removed from actuality as the other. +Every causal relation existing in actuality runs its course on the +lines--to take an example--of seed and tree, where the causal relation +is neither a pure, unmixed following after one another, nor yet a lying +alongside one another outside of time, but a combination of following +after and lying alongside one another. + +This combination of succession and juxtaposition is implied, moreover, +in the Pāḷi word, _paccayā_, used to express the connecting together +of the separate links. Verbally correct and true to the meaning, the +Causal Chain would be translated as follows:-- + +“Ignorance must be present in order that Tendencies may come to +pass. Tendencies must be present in order that Viññāṇa may come to +pass;--which latter here signifies Consciousness as passing-over Kamma; +for this passing-over Kamma does not admit being spoken of otherwise +than in the form of consciousness. This passing-over Kamma must be +present in order that the fashioning of a new Individuality may come +to pass. This latter must be present in order that a referring back +of all the Six Kinds of Sense-Impressions to myself may come to pass. +This must be present in order that Contact, an approaching on my part +to things whether physical or mental, may come to pass. Contact must +be present in order that Sensation, this in order that Craving, this +in order that Clinging, this in order that the perpetually repeated, +new upspringing of the _I_-process may come about which here is +disintegrated in the stage of Passing-over (Bhava) and the final result +(Jāti),[14] the Coming-into-manifestation of a new Kammic impulsion +_within_ this my personality; whereupon the last link follows as a +natural consequence.” + +The Causal Chain is the best touchstone by which to test whether a +person is really capable of following the Buddha-thought or not. If he +is incapable of doing so, he comes by a sad fall at the “violation” of +the law of contradictories which follows from _Jāti_ being taken as +_Birth_ in the grossly vulgar acceptation of the word; and cannot make +out how an individual who has long since been active as such, should +only subsequently be “born.” + +The other absurdity which necessarily arises when one interprets the +links in the vulgar sense as a following after one another of cause and +effect, is this: that in this case Ignorance is installed as a sort of +blind end, and so the way is opened for the introduction of all sorts +of cosmological speculations to which our men of learning are only the +more inclined that they generally come from Sanskrit to Pāḷi, or, what +in substance amounts to the same thing, from the Upanishads to the +Suttas. + +In the Vedanta, “Ignorance” is a given thing in itself, an +incomprehensible; it is the point on which, for the genuine thinker, +the whole system comes to grief. In Buddhism Ignorance is not anything +that is given in itself. Its presence in everything that lives has +no other basis than that all that lives, by the mere fact of its +existence shows that it must have been compounded with Ignorance, +since otherwise the _I_-process concerned would have been bound to +have collapsed, just in the same way that everything that has being, +by its very existence shows that up to now it must have been fertile, +capable of propagation, since otherwise it could not be here. As little +as on that account “fertility” is a given in itself, just as little is +Ignorance a given in itself. + +When the Buddha in the formula of causality places “Ignorance” at the +head of his world-system, makes it the antecedent condition of all +individual existence, he does nothing but formulate _abstractly_ what +in the Kamma-teaching he gives _actually_--the beginninglessness of the +_I_-process. To the question, “What is the adequate cause of living +beings? How is it ever possible for the _I_ to come about?” he gives in +the Kamma-teaching, the answer, “through willing,” and in the Causal +Chain the answer, “through ignorance as to one’s self.” Both answers +bear the one import,--this, namely, that anterior to the present _I_ +ever and again stands the _I_, running backward in a series that knows +no beginning, and never has known a beginning. Whether I say, “A being +is here in virtue of his volitional activities, of his Kamma,” or, “He +is here in virtue of his Ignorance,” there exists no other distinction +between these two expressions than between the two phrases: “light is +present,” and, “shadow is present.” Shadow in itself means nothing +save only that light is present. Shadow is light itself, but in empty +abstract form. In the selfsame way Ignorance of itself means nothing +save only that will is present. Ignorance is will itself, but in empty +abstract form. + +In the intuition of the beginninglessness of the individual, both +series--the actual as the Kamma-teaching, and the abstract as the +teaching concerning ignorance--merge into one. + +Buddhism is the teaching of actuality. The actual is only what I myself +experience--I, the _I_-process. + +The Buddha teaches me to comprehend myself, and only as a function +of this self-comprehension does there follow a comprehension of the +external world. + +A view of the world based solely upon a comprehension of one’s self +perforce lies beyond reach of any inductive procedure; the question, +therefore, arises:-- + +By what means and method is such a doctrine to be brought within reach +of others? + + + + + VI + + BUDDHISM AS A WORKING HYPOTHESIS + + +Each with its own world-conception, faith and science alike, are +representatives of a knowledge. + +_Faith_ stands for a “knowledge in itself,”--the knowledge, in fact, +of a something divine. _Science_ seeks to work her way to a knowledge +placed in “law”; a labour, to be sure, with which she remains for +ever “on the way.” The _Buddha_, on the contrary, obtains his +world-conception, not by the creation of any new knowledge _but by +bringing to an end a beginningless ignorance_. + +Now we moderns are accustomed to look upon science as the mediator +betwixt us and truth,--as the high-priest of truth, so to speak, +from whose hands we receive the sacred host. With the position which +every science takes up towards nature--a rejection in principle of +everything not perceptible to sense, implying thereby the potential +comprehensibility of the phenomena of life--its methods also are +definitely determined; they are the methods of _induction_ and +_deduction_. Both amount to comprehending an occurrence by roundabout +ways through other occurrences; or, what is the same thing, to finding +the adequate cause of one phenomenon of life in other phenomena of +life. + +Now there is one unique thing in the world with reference to which +this possibility is absent--something that I never can approach by +roundabout paths; it is my own consciousness. For, this I myself am; +and where I am, thither it is impossible for me to go, though I seek so +to do by the cunningest and craftiest of psycho-physiological by-ways. + +The whole Buddha-thought has its roots in discernment as to the +essential nature of consciousness. This discernment, however, is itself +a form of consciousness, thus, cannot be come at by any kind of path, +by any kind of method; _it cannot be mediate_. + +Here the scientist will say, “If a discernment be not mediate--that is, +derived from experience--then it must be immediate. But that means it +is an illumination, a matter of faith. And thus the whole of Buddhism, +with its teaching of Kamma, differs only in name not in nature from +religions founded upon revelations.” + +Such a conclusion, however, would be false. There offers a third +alternative. + +Science conceals within herself a domain in regard to which it is with +her much as it is with us all in regard to the sexual commerce of daily +life. We are proud of our children but we are shame-faced over the act +that has brought them into the world. Even so is it with science in +respect of those of her children that have not originated as homunculi +in the reagent tube, but have really been begotten--_her intuitions_. +One is proud of them, but one never rests until one has methodized +them, put the inductive smock-frock on them, and brought them into tune +with the tone of conversation of science. + +Galileo’s law of falling bodies, the Newtonian law, Robert Mayer’s law +of the conservation of energy, are all intuitions. But many another +flash of insight to which science has denied the status of legitimate +child, contemning them instead for bastards, are like intuitions--such +as the phrenology of Gall, Hahnemann’s idea of _similia similibus +curantur_, which has blossomed into the methods of treatment so fraught +with blessing to humanity, of homœopathy, and many others. + +All these intuitions have this in common that they have not been +abstracted from a duly defined number of experiments. They are each +an _experience_ in the domain of cognition that has come to pass by +reason of a unique impulse. They are each a process of mental growth, +mental development that has been evoked by an impulse of a special +character. As all vegetable growth demands an impulsion, a provocation, +so also does that mental growth which science names “intuition.” One +does not arrive at an intuition by the paths of induction-deduction; +one _grows_ into it. Were the power of comprehending things so +fashioned that it could lay hold of, work up, and assimilate a definite +impulsion, as result there would blossom forth such a sequence as could +never be reached by the path of experiment. A single impulsion, the +lighter coloured blood of the venous circulation in the tropics, gave +Robert Mayer his intuition. A single impulsion, a remark in Cullen’s +_Materia Medica_, about China and its characteristic of giving rise +to intermittent fever, supplied Hahnemann with his intuition. A single +impulse--so it is said--a falling apple, furnished Newton with his +intuition; and so on through many examples. + +Such an intuition is the Buddha-thought also. The sight of an aged man, +a sick person, a corpse--so says the legend--gave rise in the Buddha +to that impulsion which, worked up by him, and proceeding to bud and +bloom, drove him forth from the home of his fathers, forced him into +asceticism, eventuating finally the ripe fruit of the Buddha-teaching. + +The Buddha-teaching is a pure intuition, is _the_ intuition, and proves +itself such in that any attempt to treat of it after the methods of +science, to master it inductively, is impossible. + +Though I lay the Buddha-teaching before the ablest scientific man that +ever lived, it must always remain for him an entirely insipid thing +if his intellectual faculty is not in such a condition as to vibrate +in harmony with it, react to the “provocation” offered, work it up, +assimilate it. + +As little as it can be proven that a given food is nourishing for +me--it can only be offered, and I myself must eat, whereupon the food +of itself proves its own nutritive quality or its worthlessness--just +as little can the truth of the Buddha-thought be proven: it can only +be offered, and I myself must try it, whereupon the thought is either +worked up as nourishing stimulus or rejected as entirely worthless. +Here holds good the old saying: “_Sapere aude!_” + +The Buddha-thought is powerless in respect of a mind to which it is +not assimilable, as also is that mind in respect of the Buddha-thought. + +In respect of the teaching it is with such minds as it is with many +desert regions of the torrid zone in regard to rain: their overheated +soil prevents the rain-clouds that pass over them year after year from +discharging their burden. They receive no rain, not because they are +soaking with water, but because they are too parched and dry. They come +under the law of the _circulus vitiosus_. Because they are rainless no +vegetation can come; and because they are without vegetation no rain +can come. Here there is nothing to be done but wait patiently until +some time in the course of the beginningless, incalculable play of +world-events a seed sprouts, a drop of water falls, and so a happier +circle sets in which, with the increasing vegetation, increases the +capacity for drawing down rain, and with the increasing rain-fall +increases the capacity for bringing forth vegetation. In the selfsame +way, in the case of those minds that are overheated with theories, +there is nothing to be done but wait patiently, point out and point +out again and again, until one day in the course of the beginningless, +incalculable play of world-events some first grain of the teaching +sprouts, some first drop of genuine insight falls. + +Strictly speaking, no intuition, whether appertaining to the Buddha +or to science, can be proven. All so-called proofs are surreptitious +proofs, as is most clearly to be seen in the case of the scientific +proof of the law of the conservation of energy. The value of an +intuition admits of being measured only by its usefulness as a working +hypothesis. + +And so with respect to the Buddha-thought, the only thing to be done is +to ask: “Of what use, of what service is it as a working hypothesis?” + +If here it is of any service, a man will place confidence in it. If a +man places confidence in it, he will reflect upon it. If he reflects +upon it, he allows his thoughts to dwell upon it. If he allows his +thoughts to dwell upon it, the more readily will the possibility occur +of the mind leaping to the truth of the teaching and recognizing, “It +is so!” + +All mental life is based upon the thought-necessity of adequate cause. +To it faith and science alike are subject. But no science is able to +furnish any explanation as to what it is that this necessity is founded +on. + +The Buddha furnishes this explanation by showing that +_consciousness--as Kamma--is this adequate cause itself_. Hence the +necessity that wheresoever life runs its course under the configuration +of consciousness, this question as to adequate causes is given along +with it. So long as one fails to grasp the fact that consciousness is +force, _i.e._ adequate cause, one seeks in phenomena that which one is +oneself, that which is accessible nowhere else save only in oneself. + +This it is which makes possible that scepticism--as found in Hume, for +example--which denies that there is any _actual_ causality at all. +For the adequate causes of happenings can never _be proved_, since +as forces they can never be perceptible to sense. From this there +follows the possibility of unravelling a process to any extent one +chooses without once coming upon anything to justify the conception of +causality. One must first have understood that my consciousness, the +consciousness of the investigator, is this causality itself, if one is +to understand wherein lies the necessity of seeing a causal relation +everywhere--_without seeing it!_ + +To arrive at the conception of causality by way of experience is quite +impossible. This has been shown by Hume in masterly fashion. But his +escape from the difficulty by declaring this conception to be a product +of habit is all as mistaken as the other device of declaring it to +be a something given _a priori_ to all experience. There is a third +alternative, lying between and above these two opposites. + +As from the polygon one could never arrive at the conception of the +circle, though one carried the duplication of the angles never so +far--one would still be left with the concept of the polygon,--so +from the simple data, from the following upon one another of two +occurrences, one can never arrive at the conception of causality though +one should multiply one’s observations even to infinitude. One can +only comprehend the circle from the polygon, when the former is given +as ultimate concept (_Grenzbegriff_). In the selfsame way one can only +comprehend the causal relation from the succession of events, when the +former is given as ultimate value (_Grenzwert_). This, however, does +not mean that it is a something given _a priori_; it only means that +_consciousness itself is this ultimate value_. Towards this it is that +all unwittingly one is striving when one sees in events the causal +relation and yet is unable to furnish any explanation of it. + +Such is the riddle of the _logical necessity of the law of adequate +cause_ as solved by the Buddha. + +Again: All mental life splits itself up into these two divisions--faith +and science. + +Faith says, “There _must_ be present a something imperceptible to +sense.” Science says, “We are unable to find anything imperceptible to +sense and therefore reject in principle any such conception.” + +At this point the Master interposes and points out that they are both +of them right, because they are both of them wrong, since neither +of them knows how to interpret “consciousness,” _i.e._ oneself. +Consciousness, as Kamma, is the something imperceptible to sense, +is the _in-force_, but it _becomes_ perceptible to sense for me, +the individual, in the course of its beginningless, self-acting +development. Such is the interpretation supplied by the Buddha as +to how it is possible for mental life to manifest itself in the two +contradictories, faith and science. + +Again: Science makes shipwreck on the boundlessness, so to speak, of +her results. Make a beginning where she will, everywhere there opens +before her a new, unending series of facts, each one of which in turn +is the starting-point of another unending series. And in science +herself no point of departure is to be found, proceeding from which she +might be able to account for this fact. She is unable to say whether +these series, converging, move on towards a conclusion, or the reverse. + +Here again the Buddha-thought proves its value as a working hypothesis. + +The entire world of actuality consists of an endless number of +self-sustaining processes. + +The _in-forces_ in virtue of which these processes subsist are +imperceptible to sense, save where they become sense-perceptible to the +individual himself as consciousness. + +This amounts to saying that I can comprehend nothing but myself--that I +can do nothing in regard to the external world but _react to it after a +fashion altogether inexhaustible_--that, however, despite the endless +diversity of the symptoms necessarily bound up with the same, a genuine +comprehension ever remains equally near and equally far. + +Whence, then, the fact of scientific law? For that science is in +possession of genuine laws is proven by her faculty of calculating in +advance. If, however, I can calculate in advance, this must mean that I +not only react but also really comprehend. + +It is precisely upon scientific law that a peculiar flood of light is +thrown by the interpretation of the play of world-events yielded by the +Buddha-thought. + +Where the universe is nothing but an endless number of combustion +processes, there the whole play of world-events is just the passage +from one process to the next, the self-adaptation of process to process. + +_The play of world-events is law itself._ + +This, however, for the observing mind, also implies the possibility +of apprehending the play of world-events as something that _has_ +law. As the flame _has_ light and heat because it _is_ light and +heat--these themselves, so the play of world-events _has_ laws because +it _is_ law itself. The laws of science are simply the outcome of an +act of self-adaptation, self-accommodation to actuality. To use an +illustration: Science in its relations to nature resembles an old +body-servant who has studied his master’s ways long enough to be able +to prophesy with tolerable accuracy what his master will do then and +then under this or other circumstances--provided only that he does not +do something else! + +Such is the position of science towards the inexhaustible play of +world-events. The longer she observes, with all the more probability of +being correct, she can tell beforehand what her master, Nature, will +do at this or the other moment under such and such conditions--always +supposing that he does not go away and do something else quite +different! + +All laws, even those that would appear to be most surely established, +in every case hold good only up to the “now”; they may at any +time be overthrown by the succeeding “now.” Even the forecasts of +astronomy--that pride of science--hold good always only under the +proviso that the entire system within which the forecast applies, up +till then has not suffered a collision; vulgarly put, that up till then +the world has not come to an end. In fine, the forecasts of astronomy +only hold good if something else does not happen, to say nothing at all +of predictions in the field of biology, therapeutics, and so forth. + +And so science hobbles along at the tail of the play of world-events, +ever and again conforming herself to it anew, as she tinkers and +patches up her “laws.” And when she would fain have us believe that in +the end man may soar to the position of lord of this world-process, she +only resembles the fool in the Indian saying, who shakes his stick at +the setting sun and then assumes great airs as if its going down was +all his doing. + +If one has comprehended the Buddha, one comprehends that the human mind +can do naught save react in a manner that is altogether inexhaustible. +As through and through a process of combustion, in every motion whether +physical or psychical, I am this reaction itself. I am positively +nothing else but just this reaction. The whole universe is nothing but +an eternal self-adaptation of process to process. + +Science in all its forms, without exception, is nothing but a +methodical description of occurrences. All its “explanations,” without +exception, are only so many skilful forms of description. + +When in hours of despair she now and then admits this herself, as +Kirchhoff, for instance, has done in his well-known saying, this only +means that she is making a virtue of necessity. And when E. Mach also, +in his _Analyse der Empfindungen_, says: “One might imagine that the +concern of physics is the atoms, forces, laws, that to a certain extent +constitute the kernel of the sensible facts. Nothing of the kind! All +practical and intellectual requirements are met so soon as our thoughts +are able completely to counterfeit the sensible facts,” he assumes with +regard to nature the purely disinterested attitude of description, and +in effect says the same as Kirchhoff. + +It may be said:-- + +“Provided only that it were sufficiently abundant, might it not be +possible through description also at last to attain to a genuine +knowledge?” + +To this the answer is:-- + +By description, even though carried on to all eternity, I attain +nothing but the cognizing again and again of a certain occurrence as +such, even under altered conditions, and in a state of disguise. But +this act of recognition has nothing whatever to do with a genuine +knowledge. I may meet a man year after year on the street, recognize +him in every imaginable costume, be able to describe him with the +fullest detail, all without knowing the man himself. And, to adapt this +similitude to the Buddha-thought: Even if some day this man of himself +should make himself known and say to me, “My name is so-and-so; I am +such-and-such a person,” this would still mean nothing but an extension +of the process of description. Really to know and comprehend means to +know the energies at work in things. These, however, can be got at +only in one single case: there where the individual comprehends them, +_i.e._ in himself, in consciousness. Every other kind of intercourse +betwixt me and the external world is all of it, positively all, nothing +but a reaction. I can describe but I cannot explain, though I set +myself to it never so scientifically. Though the intercourse betwixt +myself and another be never so intimate the two _I_-worlds are for ever +divided, the one from the other. Self-luminous and illuminating only +oneself, each goes his own way through the beginningless infinitudes--a +terrible thought when grasped in all its fullness. But it is verily so: +actuality _is_ terrible, and whoso fails to recognize it as such does +not know it. + +Here it may be interposed:-- + +“If each single person can do naught save react to the external world +after his own individual fashion, how is it ever possible to arrive at +uniformity in impressions, ideas, concepts?” + +The answer is:-- + +By means of language such a thing becomes possible. Again and again +language misleads us into thinking that solid bridges of thought +stretch from _I_ to _I_. But when I say, “That is green,” “That is a +tree,” and so forth, and another person says the same, in strict truth +we both agree only as regards the form of words. Each reacts in his +own individual fashion, perceives his own “green,” his own “tree.” The +Buddha instructs us that this individual perception and sensation also +are merely forms of the individual combustion- or alimentation-process. +These, too, are nourishment, a tasting, just like that of the tongue. +_We all eat out of the one dish--every one eater for himself._ + +“Whence, then, springs the uniformity found in our terms of speech?” + +The answer is:-- + +Sounds are simply token-values. When I say, “That is green,” the +statement conveys no definite positive content of knowledge; in making +it I only say, “That is not red, yellow, blue, and so forth.” And if I +say, “That is red,” by such a statement I only say, “That is not green, +yellow, blue, and so forth.” Thus, just as in an algebraical equation, +one sign repeatedly serves as the fellow-determinant of another, and +none possesses any positive content of its own. Each merely announces +that I react, _i.e._ that I burn. I do not recognize a cherry tree in +itself, but only to the extent that it is not a plum or an apple or +a pear tree, and so forth. And I recognize a plum tree just in so far +as it is not a cherry or an apple or a pear tree, and so forth. It is +a General Reciprocity Company, each member of which gives the other +credit without a single member in the whole company possessing a penny +of solid capital; in fine, a fraudulent concern which the honest, +upright thinker must keep a sharp eye on if he would not be swindled. + +“But whence comes language at all then?” + +To this question the reply is: Thence whence I myself am come, whence +thou thyself art come--out of beginninglessness. + +The miracle of language is as little to be explained as the miracle of +the _I_-process. There is present a given beginningless something--the +world. And this thing given represents not only a mere _possibility_, +as science would have us believe--whereby she lands herself in the +predicament of being obliged to explain how all our faculties could +have come to be--but it represents a _power_ in itself, in which the +power of speech is just as much implied, as a beginningless faculty, as +the power to see, to hear, to think, and so forth. + +I turn back to our main subject. + +All the seeming explanations furnished by science are nothing else but +more or less ingenious and special forms of description founded solely +upon skilful adaptation. They assume the semblance of explanations +from the fact that an impression of continuity is produced by an +ever more closely packed accumulation of momentary forms. Such +continuity, however, resembles the continuity of a circumference +made up of a number of the smallest possible single parts: the +greater the appearance of continuity, all the greater in reality, the +discontinuity. The impulsion which furnishes the actual connection +between events--the energies at work in occurrences, the real laws of +formation--are thus never touched on at all, nay, they are deliberately +ignored. + +These eternally repeated attempts at adaptation on the part of science +may very well be likened to the voyage of a vessel up stream through +locks. When one has come to a stand-still in a lock--that is, when +one has completed one act of adaptation--one waits until sufficient +water--that is, sufficient new material in the shape of facts--has +accumulated to enable one to reach a new lock--that is, a new act of +adaptation. + +This process of adaptation displays itself in its most characteristic +shape when it assumes that epochal form known as “inversion of point of +view.” + +An example of such an epochal form of adaptation to new factual +material is to be found in the inversion that took place in the +astronomical idea of the world when Copernicus displaced Ptolemy. A +similar inversion, but in the epistemological domain, was effected by +Kant, in terms of which the conformity to law observed in phenomena was +lifted out of the occurrences and placed in the mind observing them. +Another such inversion, but in the realm of biology, is the transition +from the old teleological view which said, “The eye leads _to_ seeing,” +to the modern mechanistic view which says, “The eye results _from_ +seeing.” + +It is one of the most striking proofs of how little science is +acquainted with her own nature that she extols these inversions as +the greatest of her achievements. Far from that, they are nothing but +the clearest possible expression of the fact that the human mind can +do nothing but limp along in the wake of events; and as it does so, +the incongruity, the lack of consonance, ofttimes becomes so very +pronounced that nothing short of a complete revolution--some such +inversion to wit--is needed every little while to relieve the situation? + +Even the most successful of these inversions ever remains but an effort +at adjustment. The Copernican inversion also is nothing but a useful +“reading” of the facts of the astronomical world. When a sufficiency of +new factual material has accumulated, then just as men perforce were +swept away out of the Ptolemaic system, so in turn will they be swept +away perforce out of the Copernican. + +That whereby science finds herself constrained to make ever fresh +adjustments, is experiment. With reference to this latter she resembles +the neophyte in magic of Goethe’s poem, with his broom. One is in +danger of drowning in the superabundance of material, and knows not the +magic word wherewith to bring the irresistible inflow of results to a +stand-still. + +Were the fresh facts which science is continually bringing forward real +stages on the way to knowledge, then in the hour of death we could not +help but feel like the expiring caravan animal in the desert, as with +dying eyes it gazes after the caravan that wends its way there before +it towards the longed-for goal now to itself for ever lost. Death to +the thinker would be a most terrible occurrence, the hugest of all +catastrophes. But science does not wend its way towards any goal at +all. That question which science from her own resources can never +answer, as to whether her endless series, converging, tend towards any +goal, finds answer thus in the Buddha-thought: We can do naught save +react, inexhaustibly react to the external world, and so doing we alike +remain eternally near and eternally far from knowledge. + +Science occupies herself with problems in variation and permutation. +How were it possible for us to know so terribly much if we actually +knew anything? Exact science has to do only with relations. She does +not wish to know anything at all about things themselves. Any such +knowledge would be as inconvenient to her as would be to an advocate a +too far-reaching confession on the part of his clients. It is only this +utter absence of misgiving as to things themselves which really makes +possible scientific methods of procedure. + +It is men of science themselves who are responsible--partly +intentionally and partly unintentionally--for the mistaken, exaggerated +ideas as to the nature and value of science current among the laity. +One does not quite like to let people peep into pots. One much prefers +to appear before an astounded public with results imposing by reason +of their completeness. With a certain kind of diffidence--intelligible +enough, by the way, to him who can see behind the scenes--which, +however, with no little skill is so managed that along with the simple +keynote quite half a dozen overtones vibrate in unison,--hopes, +allusions to the future--one tenders one’s gift to the world, but +does not at all care about acquainting that world with the fact that +at bottom this gift is the simple product of a scientific game of +blind-man’s buff, and “shut-your-eyes-and-hit-the-pot!” If it does not +suit one way perhaps it will the other. Every theory is the outcome +of trying, of testing. It was thus that Galileo himself adjusted his +intuition with respect to the law of falling bodies. Thus did Kepler +all his life “play” against nature and finally--once for all--win the +game; and so to all eternity will this playing against, and these +efforts at adjustment, go on. So to all eternity will descriptions +in the form of explanations be brought forward--descriptions which, +strictly speaking, will convey no more than Reuter’s _bon mot_ about +destitution to the effect that it is the result of “poverty.” + +I can describe with increasing exactitude the fall of a body and +formulate the laws that govern the same. But all these descriptive +details only assume the character of an explanation through men in each +case interpolating as adequate cause the attractive force of the earth. +This latter, however, is purely the creature of thought, a working +hypothesis pure and simple, advanced with the sole object of making +possible the comprehension of all single instances of falling. From the +purely epistemological point of view, I am equally entitled to say that +the force of attraction results from the falling; for it is only from +this, from a definite number of single instances of the same, that the +theory of the “attractive force of the earth” is obtained. + +With her working hypotheses science acts like a man who, in order +to relieve himself of troublesome daily disbursements, pays out one +lump sum of money for the settlement of all these petty claims. So +science, in the place of countless daily, hourly--yea, in the amplest +sense of the words--continuous incomprehensibilities of life, pays out +one single, great incomprehensibility in the shape of central forces, +atoms, ethers, out of which all the trifling requirements of the +day--the running expenses, so to say--can now be met. The knowledge +which science supplies us is the most pregnant possible expression for +our ignorance. Were a genuine comprehension in question, one would make +a speculation of it like a man who should buy up all the tickets in a +lottery in order to make sure of the first prize. + +From the position which science takes up towards the play of +world-events--that of potential comprehensibility--she is obliged +to combat everything that would militate against this potential +comprehensibility. Hence the embittered fight over the axioms of +mathematics. Science, if she would remain science, may tolerate only +what springs from experience. But what springs from experience can +also be swept away again by experience. As the god Kronos devours +his own offspring, so, in reverse wise, does each young experience +devour its genitor. But it is just this mobility, this, the complete +relativity of her results, which lends to science her security. Were +she anywhere to strike against solid ground, against anything not +springing from experience, it would be with her as with a deep-sea +vessel gone ashore: she would be dashed to pieces by the crashing waves +of actuality. Of course there is no danger of any such thing happening +so long as science keeps to _her own domain_, the re-actual world. As +biology, however, where she must encounter life itself, face the fact +_consciousness_, she is such a stranded ship as long since must have +gone to wreck under the assaults of actuality did not physics time and +again come to her aid and support. + +This is the interpretation of the fact “science” in the Buddha-thought: +We can do nothing but inexhaustibly react to a world which in its +every motion _is law itself_, and therefore offers the possibility of +a _reading in accordance with law_, but in regard to its own essential +nature for ever and ever remains utterly beyond our reach. + +Whence then the possibility of the human mind ever and again adjusting +itself anew to this inexhaustible play of world-events? + +Because thinking itself is energy, therefore it does not _have_ the +faculty, the power of adjustment, but _is_ this power itself. Thinking +in every form, even in the most vulgar, is a self-adjustment, and the +scientific form is distinguished from the lay form only in this, that +it is _directed_, set in play towards definite ends; hence, whatever is +troublesome is here dropped with more skill, and on the doing of this, +in the last resort, all scientific adjustment is founded. Rightly does +E. Mach say, in his _Erhaltung der Arbeit_: “Science has almost made +greater progress through that which she has known how to ignore than by +that which she has taken into account.” + +Here for a first occasion I would bring that reproach against science +which in what follows in treating of her problems will be frequently +repeated: She deprives us of the sense of actuality_; or_, rather, +places it in a false object, the re-actual, whereby she does just +as much harm to honest thinking as faith does by placing it in a +non-actual, in the transcendental. + +There is only _one_ actuality in the world--that which I experience as +such. To deprive us of this pure actuality, to direct our attention +towards a world that can be “read” in the form of work done--this I +call a turning of genuine thinkers into tradesmen whose one and only +concern is the establishing of advantageous relations with the external +world. + +Gradually to win back the lost sense of actuality, gradually again to +arouse the feeling that there is a given something present which as +such cannot be proven, not because unprovable in itself but because +proving itself by itself--a given something representing no mere +_possibility_ but a _power_--this will be the first task of a time +which itself feels in every nerve and fibre that there’s something +rotten. It is this blind running against all the facts of life, this +courage of pure folly ever and again excited and supported by an +overheated scientific imagination lacking in all self-control--it is +this that we must leave behind would we make good our claim to be +mentally adult. + +That science can furnish no real explanations she herself admits with +her calculation of probabilities on the one hand and her philosophy of +probabilities on the other. Both require compromises with actuality, +the ignoring of minimum values, the equating of an endlessly great +probability with truth itself: in fine, an intellectual act of +violence. Whoever has his need of a world-theory satisfied by Herbert +Spencer’s deductions, I should imagine he might also find it relieved +by those of Thomas Aquinas. And if any one maintains with particular +pride that his world-theory is based on strictly scientific axioms, he +perpetrates an involuntary joke, inasmuch as he thereby says that his +world-theory is based upon an exact calculation of probabilities; for, +when all is said and done, the only exact thing about science is her +calculation of probability--that is, the freedom she takes to herself +to be inexact. + +“What of mathematics?” it may be asked. + +But the higher mathematics which, in the consideration of the world +from the physical point of view, comes into question before everything +else, is just the calculation of probabilities itself. And it is with +no actualities that geometry and algebra deal, but with ultimate +values--that is, values that are neither actual nor non-actual, but +are given with actuality, as for example, the horizon and the ideal +plane betwixt the air of the atmosphere and the surface of a sheet of +water are neither actual nor non-actual, but merely things given with +actuality. + +This is a point of the highest epistemological importance which, so far +as my knowledge goes, has nowhere been taken into consideration; to go +into it more fully, however, would here be out of place. The Euclidean +instruments--point, line, superficies--are simply, ultimate values of +like kind; hence, neither actual nor non-actual. To operate with such +ultimate values where the problem of life, actuality, is concerned, and +in such operations to set out from mathematical truths, as does the +Kantian philosophy for instance--this just means that one has failed +to understand actuality. + +Mathematics is only possible where there are identities. These, +however, are to be found only in the realm of ultimate values. +Actuality has no identities. Where there are nothing but combustion +processes, there each moment of existence is a thing unique that never +before has been and never again will be. + +Whoso has comprehended the play of world-events after the manner of +the Buddha, to such an one it becomes ever more clear that science, +with her pretensions to furnish us at some future date with a genuine +world-conception, resembles that penniless wag who affixed a notice +outside his door bearing the inscription: “To-morrow I will pay my +debts.” Science, to the question as to when she finally means to pay +what she owes to humanity, a genuine world-conception, has always but +this _one_ answer, “To-morrow!” + +Science might easily obtain a clear idea of her own nature if only she +would venture to think out to a conclusion her own trains of thought. + +The nature of every scientific world-conception consists in +comprehending the play of world-events in its entirety, without +residue, as relation values. Herewith she remains stuck fast in what +may be called conclusionless comprehension. The Buddha explains +this fact in the manner already shown; science confronts this fact +all uncomprehending of its import, and therefore with some show of +justification can argue in this strain:-- + +“We are undoubtedly making progress in comprehension, as is shown by +our increasing capacity for determination in advance. Hence we are +justified in presuming the final link in our train of thought--the +entire play of world-events as a summation of pure relation values--and +in building up for ourselves already the world-conception which we are +sure to reach in practice some time in the future.” + +This is the world-conception which modern physics calls her cosmogony +of energetics--that is, that ideal world which is wholly subject to +the law of the conservation of energy, and thus is conceived of as +consisting entirely of reversible processes not dependent upon time. + +Of course, the more discerning among modern physicists now clearly +perceive that the law of the conservation of energy merely represents +from the limited standpoint of physics a _reading_ of the play of +world-events. If one forgets that, if one attempts to make it cover +actual processes, tries to work it up into a world-theory, then not +only does the real nature of the law of the conservation of energy come +to light, but also the real nature of the whole of science. For-- + +The law of the conservation of energy has sense and meaning only in +a closed system. In this fact alone its purely hypothetical nature +already stands revealed; for never under any conditions whatsoever can +actuality have a closed system. Thus at the very outset one has to make +a compromise with actuality, a proceeding that is justified only where +it is a question of achieving some practical result. + +If now one makes the law of the conservation of energy into a universal +law and on this erects a world-theory, one is bound to posit the +universe itself as a closed system; otherwise, to speak of a universe +in which the sum of all existent energies remains constant were +altogether meaningless. + +With this, however, science puts herself in such a position that, so +soon as she ventures to think things out to a conclusion, she robs +herself of the possibility of her own existence, as the following +considerations will make evident. + +A universe such as this, consisting entirely of relation values without +residue, would be one huge process of compensation, an endlessly +diversified fall from positions of higher to positions of lower +tension. It is just this mode of representation which makes it possible +for the physicist to calculate, to determine in advance. He cannot set +about this his work at all until first after such a fashion he has +given a new interpretation to the play of world-events. He must also, +in similar wise, mechanise the invisible matter of the molecules, +before he can master, so far as calculation goes, what takes place +internally. In thought, one must loosen the existing connection between +the molecules in order to be able to establish the internal falls. It +is here as it is in a minuet: one takes a step backward in order to be +able to take a step forward! + +But this is what the physicist dares to do. All he is concerned about +is to calculate, measure, determine in advance. As a general rule he +not only says, “_Après nous le déluge_,” but also “_Avant nous le +déluge_.” He rejoices in his power of being able to interpret and make +use of the re-actual play of world-events to suit his own ends, and for +the rest does not care a straw whence this power comes or whither in +the future it may go. _He does not think: he only works._ + +Now, so long as he preserves as physicist an attitude of strict +impartiality towards this universe, the attitude of simple spectator, +he may reach by calculation, by technique, whatever so is reachable. +He stands before his universe as before an open piece of clock-work in +which with increasing accuracy he observes the style and manner of its +running and formulates the laws of the same. If, however, he allows +himself to be led away into working at a world-view, into putting the +question “Where will this clock-work run to?” he cuts the ground from +under his own feet. + +For in such a universe there remains as actuating impulsion nothing but +the distinctions given with the separate processes. It is just like a +pendulum ever hastening on towards a condition of rest. + +Now, since under the assumption in question--a universe as a closed +system--an influx of force from without is excluded, what we have here +is a process of mutual borrowing, so to speak, and cosmic bankruptcy is +only a question of time. + +This logical necessity is taken account of by science in her entropy +concept--the concept of the whole universe as a process hastening +towards equilibrium, though that consummation be distant by millions of +years. + +Therewith, however--presuming that she is honest--science stands +confronted by the following question:-- + +Every difference of tension demands a something that has established +this difference. Where there is a swinging pendulum it must originally +have received a push. If, however, the entire universe is one single +mass of differences in tension, the impelling force can only lie +outside the universe. In other words: this force could only have +been the finger of a god. He it was, the Father-god, who put all his +capital of force into this universe, upon which capital everything now +feeds and will continue to feed until at length all is consumed, and +the great world-death comes which “He” alone again can bid depart in +communicating a fresh impulsion of motion--_if He should happen to feel +so disposed_. + +Of course science does not say, “Energy disappears.” Instead she says, +“Energy only becomes inert; _as such_, however, remains conserved.” +This, however, is about as sensible as if one should say, “Heat does +not disappear, it only becomes cold; _as such_, however, it remains +conserved”--an absurdity rightly denounced by thinking minds among +physicists, such as E. Mach, for example. + +And the conclusion of the whole matter? + +The colossal achievements of science upon which is erected her +cosmogony of energetics, have served no other purpose but to look after +those interests of faith which faith itself dare not look after if it +wishes to retain its vitality. In her audacious attempt to make light +of the “imperceptible in itself,” the god-idea, as a mere rudiment of +atavism, science has made a pitiable shipwreck. By such an attempt she +only shows that she herself is an apostate from the god-idea; and to be +honourable, nothing is left her but to return as contrite vassal to +the ancient and sovereign race of those that are “of Jehovah.” + +Should she, however, attempt to interpret the play of world-events not +as a fall, but try instead to interpolate forces, then of necessity +she must resort to the hypothesis of central forces; and, as above +she plays into the hands of the extra-cosmic deity of monotheism, so +here she plays into the hands of the intra-cosmic deity of pantheism; +for this central force, if really believed in and not a mere working +hypothesis, would be nothing else but the world-spirit of pantheism +translated into physical terms. + +These two, faith and science, at their deepest roots, share in one +common nature, since both in truth represent that grandest form of +symbiosis in which is made manifest the instinct of self-preservation +on the part of the universe--the universe considered as the totality of +all living beings. When faith thinks things out it falls back into the +lap of science. When science thinks things out it falls back into the +lap of faith. And both by their simple existence demonstrate the truth +of the Buddha-teaching that all mental life perforce operates under the +encumbrance of ignorance. For let science, or rather the scientist in +person, place himself, if only temporarily and for a specific purpose, +at the artificial standpoint of the mechanistic world-view, and so soon +as he really begins to think he gives the lie to his own scientific +view, inasmuch as he everywhere works with the concept of identity. +Nay, he is never even in a position to maintain a clear distinction +between the two points of view. This is proven by the problems of +science, which, without exception, are of a purely dialectical nature, +inasmuch as they all presuppose the erroneous concept of things as +_identities_. + +Our task here is to throw the light of the Buddha-thought upon these +problems, and to this task we now proceed to address ourselves. + + + + + VII + + BUDDHISM AND THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICS + + +Were one to lay the Kamma teaching of the Buddha before a physicist, in +all likelihood he would dismiss it with this objection:-- + +“Immediate passing over that cannot be put to the proof in space and +time is telekinesis. Telekinesis is a fact only for faith. Accordingly, +Buddhism too, like every other religion, is a religion of faith.” + +The scientifically-educated man would probably concur in this train of +thought. Hence, if Buddhism is to have any prospect whatever of playing +a part in our intellectual life, it must offer a reply to such a line +of argument. + +That reply would run somewhat as follows:-- + +Actuality, when, where, and howsoever it makes itself manifest, really +means nothing more than this--action is present. For actuality is +action, doing, the power to do itself. It tells us, however, nothing at +all as to how this action is bound to take place. Whence comes it then +that science has the presumption to dictate to actuality a definite +kind of action--would have it, so to speak, run along fixed rails? + +The one-sided requirement of science that all action must be mediate, +demonstrable in space and time, follows perforce from the position she +takes up towards nature. + +Science is only possible where there is the perceptible to sense--where +there is what can be compared. + +Comparison is only possible where things are so arranged that the +actual energies can be neglected. For every energy is something unique, +strictly individual, not comparable, as my consciousness immediately +proves to me. + +This leaving out of account of the actual energies is only possible +in the world of reactions. Here it is possible, and therefore also +legitimate, to regard any kind of process as a something constant and +complete, as a product, and correspondingly to treat it as such. Every +physicist knows that the grocer’s pound weight, as well as the grain +of his own scales, rigorously tested, to-morrow are no longer the same +as they were to-day. Nevertheless we make a compromise with actuality +and act as though they were the same. It suffices for all practical +purposes, and so is permissible. Here one is not at all aiming at a +world-theory; one only seeks to measure and weigh, and satisfy certain +needs. + +This compromise with actuality--the looking upon things as finished, +completed--is forced upon us by the idea of identity, with which +all mental life, without exception, operates. And the physicist +accommodates himself to this idea with his concept of “body.” + +Body, in the physical acceptation of the word, is nowhere to be found +in actuality; none the less the physicist is justified in making use +of this idea so long as, in the pursuit of his aims, he can do so +with advantage--that is, so long as it is a question of measuring and +determining in advance. + +The re-actual point of view of science involves as logical correlate +the merging in one, of “motion” as manifesting itself to sense, and +“energy.” Aught else corresponding to energy besides motion itself is +not to be found in the re-actual world of the physicist. Here motion is +energy itself. + +Under these two preliminary conditions--the regarding of things as +“bodies,” and their motions as energies themselves--the play of +world-events displays itself in its entirety to perception by the +senses; and every effect is something mediate, possible of being +followed up in space and time. + +But the movements that are perceptible to sense are just as little the +energies themselves as “bodies,” in the physical acceptation of the +word, are actuality. + +The sensible motion is not the energy; it is only the evidence that +energies are present. + +When two electro-magnets, placed in a certain position with reference +to each other, go through circular movements, this does not mean that +these circular movements are the energies themselves; it only means +that energies are there present, and of themselves prove themselves +such by producing effects. + +When a geyser discharges water every hour, it does not mean that this +kind of action is energy itself; it means nothing more than that +energies _are there present_, and as such are at work. + +The earth’s course round the sun does not represent energy itself; it +means nothing more than that energies are there present, and as such +are at work. + +_Motion is not energy itself, but the by-product yielded by two systems +of energies acting on each other._ This by-product will manifest +itself, according to circumstances and antecedent conditions, at +one time as circular, at another time as elliptical, at another as +rhythmical motion, and so forth. + +In its essential nature this by-product--the movement perceptible to +sense--corresponds wholly and completely to a shadow. As a shadow means +nothing save that light is present--it is nothing but the by-product +of two systems of energies, one giving, the other receiving, light--so +“movement” means nothing save that energy is there present. It is +nothing but the by-product of two systems of energies. + +It is absolutely essential that the genuine thinker should make this +idea as to the intrinsic nature of all motion his own. As little as +it is possible ever to draw from shadows any conclusion as to light +itself--saving the one conclusion that it _must be present_--just as +little is it possible ever to draw from movements any conclusion as to +the energies themselves, saving only that they must be present. The +energies themselves withal remain wholly inaccessible. As to whether +these are transmitted mediately or immediately, the fact “movement” +supplies no information whatever. + +Here the physicist will say, “That the movements are transmitted +mediately is proved to me by experiment, since I can intercept an +energy on its way at as many intermediate stations as I choose; hence, +as mediate, can track its path.” + +But this is a grossly erroneous conclusion. + +To be sure, if I have a magnet here and a needle there, I can intercept +the magnetic energy at as many intermediate stations as I choose, and +so construct for myself a “path” for the energy. But such a “path” is +nothing but a dead line artificially made up of momentary reactions +whose continuity is nothing actual and vital, but founded solely upon +the minuteness and multiplicity of the moments of section. + +Again the physicist may object:-- + +“We can measure exactly the speed with which the energies propagate +themselves, as, for example, the time required for light to reach us +from the moons of Jupiter.” + +But this also is an erroneous conclusion. + +Of course, the fact itself is beyond dispute. But the time here +mentioned does not represent the transmission-speed of the energies +themselves; it only informs us as to how much delay these have +encountered on their way; whether the halting-places have been very +numerous and the stay at each a long one. This time which the physicist +measures does not give the speed of transmission of the energies, but +only the time of their non-transmission. + +In accord with this is the incorrectness of ordinary physical +terminology. The physicist calls light, heat, and so forth, energies +themselves. But light is not energy itself, but only a designation for +energies that lie for ever beyond our reach. + +But once more I would call attention to the fact that this entire +manner of conceiving of things as “bodies,” and of movements as +energies themselves, is quite legitimate on the part of the physicist +so long as he remains a physicist. It only becomes illegitimate when, +reaching out beyond the field of reactions, it seeks to get itself +recognized as a world-theory--that is, when it would have actual +processes “read” in accordance with the like scheme. For now there +follows the claim one makes upon nature that all her action shall +manifest itself mediately, as possible of being followed up in time and +space. + +The illegitimate feature about this conception arises from the fact +that it poses itself with an insoluble problem--the problem of +telekinesis. + +If one regards things as “bodies” in the physical sense, and if upon +this conception one insists on erecting a world-theory, then one has +to solve the question: How can it ever be possible for action to take +place between separate bodies?--a question which involves the idea +that every effect produced by contact, even the very slightest, always +presents itself to thought as a form of telekinesis. In other words: +Everywhere effects are being produced, and yet one is unable to explain +how they can ever be brought about. + +The insolubility of this problem is attributable not to things but +to thinking; that is to say, it is a problem of a purely dialectical +nature. + +In starting out from the conception “body” as a thing complete +in itself, identical with itself, one cuts oneself off from the +possibility of ever being able to explain how one thing can act +upon another. In thought one has torn things out of their natural +connection, and holds them fast conceptually in this artificial +isolation. Once I make a thing a “body,” no power in the world can move +it so as to bring it into contact with some other thing; as little so +as any power in the world can impart movement to a reflected image, +taken by itself. Just as such movement can only be brought about +through movement of the object reflected, only from this can proceed, +so contact between things can only take place, proceeding forth from +the beholder, when he lets drop his false notions and comprehends +actuality unmodified as that which it is--namely, _perpetual coming +together into contact itself_. Actuality is verily nothing but the +passing over from thing to thing--that is to say, process. Actuality +is not, as science would fain have us believe, mere _possibility_--if +so, it would always be necessary first to have explained how these +possibilities could ever arrive at realization--but actuality is a +_potency_, and so, at every moment of existence, self-realization +itself. + +If only actuality is rightly conceived of, the question as to how +action betwixt thing and thing can take place simply loses all meaning. +Actuality is seen to be nothing but this action itself. Where one is, +thither one cannot go; and what one is, that none can become. + +When physics, and with it science as a whole, puts forward the claim +that all action must be capable of being tracked mediately in space and +time, it excludes itself from this requirement. For, without exception, +every case of action in its own domain is to be read as a special +instance of telekinesis. But be it well noted, the concepts, action by +contact and telekinesis, are not something existent in themselves; they +are merely intellectually-conceived functions of the purely artificial +concept “body.” Where this concept is absent, there is neither action +by contact nor yet telekinesis; there the whole universe, as a totality +of combustion-processes, is action itself, but tells us nothing +whatever as to how action can come about, or as to whether this action +is mediate or immediate. + +_How_ action proceeds can never be comprehended from the observation +of reactions, though one should track these with never so much +perseverance and accuracy; that can only be ascertained where one is +acquainted with the energies themselves. + +In all the world there is but _one single_ energy that is open to +approach--my own _in-force_ which _becomes_ perceptible to me in +consciousness. Thus the question as to how action itself proceeds +can never be answered on the lines of induction: it can only be +_experienced_. + +When one asks the Theras of Ceylon for an illustration of how Kamma +passes over from one existence to the new location, the example of +teacher and pupil is that most frequently given. As instruction, +stimulation, pass over from teacher to pupil, with effects that last +throughout the latter’s entire lifetime, even so does Kamma pass over. + +And just here we come upon something that lies too close at hand for +the ordinary person to give much heed to it. Nothing is more strange to +us than actuality--that is, than we ourselves! + +As a matter of fact, life in its entirety, as it runs its course among +human beings, is such an instance of immediate effectuation. All +actuality is immediate: it is only _re-actuality_ that is mediate. +Wherever I actually am alive, I stand in the midst of such immediate +effectuations as mock at all scientific calculations. + +When two pairs of eyes encounter one another and that springs up +which we call love or hate, as the case may be, this is an instance +of immediate passing over between two systems of energies. All forms +of mental excitement, all our numberless sympathies and antipathies; +the mutual understanding between man and man, between man and animal; +the unspoken self-revelation, self-discovery between man and wife; +the communion between mother and child;--all these are immediate +effectuations. Each possibility of one giving an order to another, of +one obeying another; all possibility of life in communities, animal +or human; every possibility of education, has its roots in such +immediate effectuations. But the very attempt to enumerate them tends +to beget the fallacious idea that they are the exceptions. It is not +so! All beings communicate with one another immediately. In immediate +effectuations we live, move, and have our being. But through the +re-actual apprehension of things inculcated by science our sense of +actuality has become so dwarfed and stunted that we no longer dare to +take actuality as itself; nay, we do not even know how to do so, but +are disposed to recognize it as such only when we can have it handed us +by some system of grains, feet, and seconds. + +All unspoiled, natural thinking and feeling proceeds by way of +immediate effectuation. The never wholly-eradicable idea of magic, as +it still survives to-day--one last little remnant of it--in the form +of “_Sympathiekuren_,” is nothing else but the instinctive idea of the +necessity for such effectuation. How the nobleman of Capernaum would +have laughed if Professor X. had said to him, “When you say to your +servant, ‘Do this!’ and he does it, that seems to you quite a natural +thing. But in strict truth this fact simply bristles with insuperable +difficulties from the point of view of exact scientific explanation.” +It is the high privilege of our age to listen with becoming awe to +such-like profound absurdities just because the sense of actuality is +lost to us, because through the insistence and authority wherewith +science has been able to make her re-actual views prevail, we have +finally come to the point of believing in all seriousness that in the +actual, in things like eating and drinking, a proceeding indispensable +to their proper performance is carefully to count one, two, three! + +Science dubs all immediate effectuations “mystical,” and refuses to +rest until she has extirpated all such-like ideas. But the mystical is +not that which science understands by the term; for to her the mystical +is nothing but the non-scientific. It is actuality itself that is +mystical. Apart from actuality there is nothing mystical whatever; for +it is only the actual, no matter where one lays hold of it, that rolls +back into the twilight of beginninglessness. Beginninglessness is what +is mystical, and my consciousness _the_ mystical itself. A miracle is +nothing mystical. For, if it happens, then it is law; and if it does +not happen--why, then it simply is not! + +This immediate action of man upon man--this it is that reveals to me +how energies operate. When a glance from my eye produces a “stir” in +another human being, this energical impulse is not obliged to pass +through all the media lying between, but operates _immediately_. To +be sure, an attempt is made to read mechanically this fact also--to +interpret it in the form of psychic vibrations, subtlest etheric waves; +and science and theosophic, spiritistic, and all sorts of mysticism +here go hand in hand. But there is not the least necessity that it +should be a glance, a sound, or anything else of a positive nature +which moves another. A silence, a failure to look may ofttimes be that +which produces the most striking psychic convulsions. To interpret +this, however, as a case of transmigrating vibrations, were scarcely +possible even for the boldest of hypothesis-makers. + +It is even so! That which is most natural is most strange to us. Here +too, as with “consciousness,” it is a case of _sapere aude!_ We simply +must learn again to dare to take actuality for that which it is--for +that which acts there where it can and must act. + +When love springs up between two beings, this means that unique +attunement prevails. This, however, signifies that energy passes +over immediately. It has no need first to wrestle with air and ether +molecules: _it exists there only where it acts, and it acts there only +where it is uniquely attuned_. + +This is the way in which actual energies operate. This way cannot be +proven inductively: it can only be experienced intuitively. And it is +this experience which supplies us with our parallel, our point of +support, in comprehending how Kamma works. And only because we have +lapsed out of this actual life into the re-actual life of science, has +the Kamma-teaching become strange and unnatural to us. + +The value of an intuition to him who has not himself experienced it, is +only measurable by the extent to which it is of service as a working +hypothesis. + +Of what service is the Buddha-thought here? + +In the first place, it makes it possible to “read” both kinds of +motion, the inorganic as well as the organic, the falling as well as +the proceeding, from one common point of view. + +Where the whole _actual_ play of world-events is a summation of +self-sustaining processes, existence is action itself; and the simple +existence of an energical, of a Kammic system, purports that it makes +itself felt with regard to other systems of energies--sustains itself +in opposition to them. Actuality is devouring: man in his very nature +an eater. + +Where there are a number of energical systems, they act against one +another. Where there is action, the corresponding reactions are present +in the shape of motions perceptible to sense. + +These latter, here also, signify nothing save that energies are +present, and as such are at work according to circumstances and +antecedent conditions. + +When two men, in wrestling with each other, fall into a whirling +movement, this by no means implies that there resides in these men +an energy of this particular variety; it means nothing more than +that energies are present, even as the circular movement of two +electro-magnets intimates nothing more than that energies are present. +Here also motion is only a by-product, the equivalent of the shadow in +the case of light--nothing in and of itself. When the flower unfolds +itself to the sun, when the creeper draws itself up towards the light, +when the caterpillar crawls along the leaf, when the wild geese cleave +the air like a wedge, when the dog snaps at the tit-bit, when I lift +my arm, lie down, get up, do this or the other thing--in each case it +is the same. All this only intimates that energies are present, and +in the course of their action against other systems of energies yield +by-products. In this mode of apprehending the fact “motion” as the +_shadow of energy_ the entire play of world-events, organic as well as +inorganic nature, the dead as the living, the re-actual as the actual, +admits of one uniform reading. + +Secondly:-- + +In her fight against “telekinesis,” it is with science as with one who +in public discourses eloquently on enlightenment, but whose own house +is haunted by a ghost. + +This hobgoblin of exact science is _gravitation_; and it bids fair +to scatter all exactitude to the winds, since the physicist, too, is +unable to represent it to himself otherwise than as acting independent +of time. + +In the Buddha-thought this independence of time permits of being +“read” without the least difficulty, since here it is nothing but the +by-product which two systems of energies acting upon one another yield +with every alteration of energy-value on one side or the other. When I +shift the light with reference to the object illumined, the movement +of the shadow takes place as a by-product independent of time. In the +selfsame way, what we call gravitation is nothing but the by-product +independent of time which informs us that a change is taking place in +the energical relation of two world-systems. + +Thirdly:-- + +The Buddha-thought furnishes a reading of the concept of time and space. + +Time and space as something existent in themselves are only possible +where one is working with “bodies” in the physical sense, where one is +operating with identities. Such bodies have need of a space existent +in itself in order to perform movements; and, as a matter of fact, +physics so completely objectifies the conception of space that it does +not hesitate to make the attempt to determine the curvature-measurement +of space. Such bodies, further, require time as something objective in +order to traverse this space. An objective time and an objective space +represent, so to speak, the ordinate and abscissa of the artificial +system “body” as conceived of by the physicist. If one does not work +with such “bodies,” but, as a philosopher, with things regarded as +mere “appearances”--like Kant, for instance--then time and space, from +being things purely objective, must become just as much things purely +subjective--forms of perception given _a priori_; the one view as +erring as the other! + +“Avoiding both extremes, the Buddha points to the truth in the mean.” +This continually-recurrent phrase applies, as everywhere, so also here +in the strife of opposites. Actuality has no opposites. It is the +union of opposites itself. And wherever contention reigns of or about +opposites, it only shows that both parties alike have become entangled +in pseudo-problems of a purely dialectical nature. This the seeker for +truth may depend on, as a rule that has no exceptions: Where there +are opposites, there is nescience! Whence it follows that there is no +solution from the side of things, but only from the side of thinking, +in the rectification of our mental assumptions. + +So also is it here. + +Where the actual play of world-events is comprehended as a summation +of individual combustion-processes, time and space are things neither +purely objective nor purely subjective, but belonging equally to +both--a _Becoming_, like everything else. They arise, spring up, in +the effectuation of the _I_-process with respect to the external world +wheresoever the preliminary conditions are such that they can and must +unfold themselves; in just the same way that consciousness arises in +the effectuation of the _I_-process with respect to the external world +wheresoever the preliminary conditions are so regulated that it can and +must unfold itself. + +So much for the Kamma-teaching, and its bearing upon the claims of +modern physics. + +Immediate passing over does not contradict actuality, but only the +artificial premises of science. All that is actual is immediate. For +this reason a passing over of the actual in time and space is an +absurdity, since time and space are, first and foremost, functions of +the actual, forms of experience, hence never can be made to serve as +measure of this experience. + + + + + VIII + + BUDDHISM AND THE PROBLEM OF PHYSIOLOGY + + +In the position it assumes towards actuality science resembles a man +who has reduced all language to mere grammar and now finds himself hard +put to it to explain how purely grammatical signs and formulæ could +ever have given rise to actual speech. As grammar presupposes actual +speech--is secondary, derived from it--so the mechanical, re-actual +view presupposes actuality--is secondary, derived from it--and it +is against all common-sense to seek now to turn the tables with an +endeavour to prove the possibility of the living language “actuality,” +assess its title to existence, by the “grammar” of the scientific +conception of things. From this position, the fact that anything ever +happens at all, remains an eternally unfathomable mystery. + +The first claim upon the genuine thinker is that he should understand +clearly that a something given is present, whose simple existence +represents also the _power to exist_; whose activity has no need of +being proven, since proving itself by itself. The endeavours of science +from its re-actual position, to govern and administer actuality itself +also, betray a limitedness and crudity of thought at which later +generations will stand amazed. So long as science fails to understand +and respect her natural limitations, so long as she keeps trying to +interpret the actual mechanically, so long is she as serious a danger +to the world as faith. + +In the treatment of the problem of physiology that follows I can be +brief, because all the details here relate to a technical domain to +which the majority of my readers are unlikely to bring either interest +or ability to understand. + +Just as physics--in the widest sense of the word--may be briefly +designated as the teaching that informs us of the relations existing +between “bodies,” so physiology may be succinctly termed the teaching +that instructs us as to the relations existent between living beings +and the external world. + +Where living beings are comprehended as processes of combustion pure +and simple, every relationship betwixt them and their environment +becomes a _form of alimentation_. The intellectual as the vegetative, +the psychic as the physical life, are here comprised under the one +common, all-inclusive concept of alimentation. Whether I appropriate, +assimilate something to myself through the organs of sense and thought +or through the tongue and the digestive apparatus, both proceedings are +the same--forms of alimentation. + +Accordingly we find the Buddha calling living beings “āhāraṭṭhitikā,” +_i.e._ “existing through alimentation,” and placing this expression--as +synonymous--alongside “sañkhāraṭṭhitikā,” _i.e._ “existing through +Sankhāra,” compounded, conditioned. + +Here in their every movement the entire existence of living beings +becomes a _laying hold of the external world_--a gross laying hold with +hands and teeth as well as that subtle _mental_ laying hold which we +generally denominate “comprehension.” As the whole existence of a flame +is a laying hold of the external world, as it subsists solely by reason +of this prehensile activity, even so is it with the _I_-process. + +Buddhist psychology distinguishes between four varieties of aliment. +First, there is aliment in the common, vulgar sense of the word, be it +in gross growth-promoting form as solid or liquid food, be it in fine +growth-promoting form as respiration. Second, contact, as the mutual +encounter of the senses and their corresponding objects. Third, mental +apprehension; and fourth, consciousness; these two latter being the +working up, the assimilating of what issues from contact. + +From the commanding height of the position which Buddhist thinking +takes up towards the process of life, it cannot possibly encounter +that “problem” with which scientific physiology finds itself forced to +wrestle. + +Briefly stated, that problem runs as follows:-- + +“How can it ever be possible for a living being to appropriate +something to itself, assimilate something, take up something into +itself, whether this ‘something’ be of the gross growth-promoting +variety--nourishment in the vulgar sense of the word--or of +the intellectual sort, as sense impressions and the content of +consciousness?” + +There was a time in the history of natural science, more particularly +in the history of the healing art--and that time is hardly past yet; +we still stand within its fringes--when to work at all with the concept +of a “vital energy” was regarded as synonymous with being unscientific, +indeed, was esteemed mere blind faith. At every opportunity, seasonable +and unseasonable, it was declared that “to-day” we had no longer any +need of a “vital energy,” that the mechanical view explained all that +very much better; yet, in actual truth, one only showed how wanting one +was in the sense of actuality when one could accept as satisfactory a +“reading” of life which presented it under the figure of endosmotic and +diosmotic processes, and such like. + +Here, however, is abundantly proved true that saying of Horace that +nature is something which man cannot drag out even with a pitchfork; +and it was with a pitchfork of the biggest sort that the mechanists +took the field against actual life. To-day the antithesis of the +mechanical view--the teleological--has found its way back into medical +thought, and begins again to move about naturally and without restraint +in the domain of therapeutics. + +Beyond all else, it was the progress made in physiological chemistry, +the peculiar, seemingly inexplicable facts here observed, which +perforce impelled towards this inversion of positions. + +Here in the domain of physiological chemistry there come to light +processes, reactions, which make a mock of all the rules and laws got +from reagent tubes. Here in the living organism it is found that the +“strongest” acid--sulphuric acid--is crowded out of its combinations +by the “weakest”--carbonic acid; which means nothing else but that the +concept of “strength” as it has been taken over from inorganic nature +does not apply here at all. By reason of such experiences it has been +found necessary to introduce a new concept, that of “avidity”; in other +words, here as everywhere, one hobbles along at the heels of the facts +of actuality, being obliged ever and again to adapt oneself to them +anew as best one may. + +Here in the living organism, albumen, fats, and carbohydrates are +worked up at temperatures at which they undergo no change under the +action of the oxygen of the atmosphere. The most marvellous thing of +all, however, is the action of the glands, which, in taking up the +material to be elaborated, display a power of choice that, so far as +our ideas go, defies all explanation. Not the least regard is here paid +to chemical and physical laws as abstracted by science from inorganic +nature. Complete arbitrariness prevails. The epithelium of the stomach, +for example, possesses the power of always despatching the hydric +chloride set free from sodium chloride in one direction--namely, into +the excretory ducts of the rennet glands, and of always sending the +sodium carbonate formed in another direction, back into the lymph and +blood circulation. + +Examples such as this might be multiplied to almost any extent, did we +here aim at completeness. + +The key-word to it all, as revealed to us by the latest researches in +physiological chemistry, is--arbitrariness! + + +Of course, as everywhere so also here, only give her time enough and +science will come round to adjustments in thought, and with that to the +formulation of all such facts into laws. In respect of such facts, +however, it must clearly be understood that the purely mechanical view +is no longer able to hold the field; that the teleological view has +broken through the artificial embankments of the mechanical view and +again poured forth over the level lands of scientific thinking. + +That which has hitherto given such weight to the mechanical view in +physiology is the possibility, up to a certain degree, of reading the +physiological facts mechanically. One can “read” the eye so far as its +external apparatus is concerned, according to the laws of catoptrics +and dioptrics; but the bearing of this upon the faculty of seeing or +upon an explanation of that faculty is simply nothing. This is not the +fitting place to deal with the revolting outrage upon sound thinking of +which the scientific theory of vision is guilty in its interpretation +of the reversed retinal image: that demands a chapter to itself. + +One may “read” the heart and the vascular system as a pumping +contrivance, and the osseous system and its joints as an arrangement +of levers. One may reckon in heat-units the nutrition-values taken in +and given off, and equilibrate them with tolerable success, as can also +be done with a calorimeter; that is to say, one can “read” the living +organism in accordance with the formula of the law of the conservation +of energy. But nothing thereby is gained that is of the slightest +assistance towards a comprehension of the _actual_ energies at work in +all these functions, except in so far as to the genuine thinker all +this makes more vital and pressing the question as to what precisely +that wonderful something is which pulls the strings. And if one +school of science would like to make us believe that on the basis of +an ever-increasing facility in “reading” the organism mechanically the +question as to actuating energies may in the end be completely disposed +of, as referring to quantities so minute as to be negligible, it need +not be taken seriously; it only resembles a man who would account for +the revolution of a wheel solely from the shape and texture of the wood. + +That which along with the results of physiological chemistry helped +towards the overthrow of the mechanical view, was the new tendency in +therapeutics--serum therapeutics, to wit--which, put briefly, amounts +to a working out of specific affinities between the living organism and +certain organic substances. + +As the physiological chemist was forced to note that he had fallen +out of the realm of crude but easily-handled quantities into the +realm of unaccountable qualities--that is, out of re-actuality +into actuality--so was it with the experimenter in these specific +remedies. One was obliged to take note that in this field the grossly +quantitative according to mass and weight no longer went for anything. +Ehrlich calls the antitoxins “magic bullets” which hit their mark +_immediately_. Here it is no longer a question of the mere more or less +by which one has hitherto been accustomed to gauge effects, but of an +attunement more or less fine and delicate. In short, one has forced +one’s way into the domain of actual energies and seeks gropingly after +one or another method of accommodation. For the quantitative position +may not be abandoned entirely if one would remain scientific. One +must be able to measure. Actual energies, however, do not admit of +being measured by dead material. They are only to be measured through +themselves, _i.e._ through their working. + +Already more than a hundred years ago, Hahnemann, the founder of the +homœopathic method of treating disease, consciously and completely +abandoned the crude quantitative position in the field of medical +science. He had freed himself entirely from the quantitative conception +of curative effect. He called his remedies “potencies,” and this +potency was determined not according to mass but according to the +fineness, the delicacy of the mutual accord between the organism and +the remedy. This mutual accord, however, grows subtler, more acute, +with progressive dematerialization, with the freeing of the active +energies resident in the remedies from the burden of their ballast +of material. Hence the apparently paradoxical idea that the curative +effect augmented with the diminution of the dose--an idea which has +given the doctors of the orthodox schools such abundant occasion +for misunderstanding and barbed raillery. The effectiveness is not +increased with the lessening of the dose, but with the subtilization +of the unique accords concerned. Hahnemann had the courage to bring +his thinking into line with the actual energies and their manner of +working--a courage which modern serum therapeutics does not possess, +and quite likely never will possess, so that we may look to see the +wave of actuality which here has burst upon therapeutic life again +crushed under by re-actual tendencies. + +Wherever opposites are found, there mere dialectical problems form +the subject of contention. The contradictions between the mechanical +and the teleological views with respect to the living organism are +also of a purely dialectical nature. Both take up the position +that the organism is an identity, and accordingly a something so +constituted that it can take nutriment _into itself_. Both alike, +teleology as mechanism, looking upon the cell as life itself, make it +their endeavour to master the miracle of that life; the former, as a +result of its efforts, coming to the conclusion that a vital force, +an incomprehensible something in itself, must somewhere lie concealed +in this wonderful machinery; whilst the latter pushes on unswervingly +towards the goal it has set before itself--that of becoming, by ever +closer and closer description, master at length of the great riddle. + +As everywhere, so also here, the Buddha stands between and above these +two opposites, inasmuch as he teaches:-- + +A living being so constituted that it must and can take up something +_into itself_ simply does not exist. Such a living being is only to +be found where one is dealing with the concept of identities. But +identities are nowhere to be found within the domain of actuality. Here +are only processes of combustion. If one sets out with the concept +of identities, one creates for oneself a problem whose insolubility +proceeds as much from its purely dialectical nature as the problem of +telekinesis in physics. If one abides by the _actual_, if one holds +strictly to the insight that living beings are individual processes +of combustion, then there exist nothing but energies which for a +certain period of time put a body of material specifically belonging to +themselves in a specific condition of tension, for a time maintain it +so, and then after a time again abandon it. Here the cell is not life +itself, but simply the most primitive structural expression of the fact +that certain materials find themselves in a certain state of tension, +in the same way that the ridges and furrows in a Chladni’s sound-figure +are a structural expression of the fact that a certain material--some +sand on a glass plate--finds itself in a certain state of tension. + +This whole body of phenomena is by physiology termed the “circulation +of matter.” But there is here no “_I_” as an identity that takes +up matter into itself, melts it down, and--so to speak--gives it +forth again as new coinage. Nowhere in the universe are there any +unstamped values, nowhere is there any raw material of substance, but +always and everywhere only a recoining: a continuous change in the +individual conditions of tension which as little warrants the idea of +“resorption”--taken literally--as the flame, or the wind that for a +certain space of time whirls up and holds a certain particle of sand in +a certain form. An appropriation, a taking up into oneself, can only +take place where there is a proprietor able to take something into his +house. But actuality does not permit of any such comfortable ideas. +Here are nothing but energies that continuously lay hold, pull to +themselves, and maintain what has thus been pulled, under the influence +of their individual tendency, until such time as other energies make +their presence felt in superior force, whereupon the tension is +dissolved here, only to assert itself anew elsewhere. + +Whatever may be manifest as form in the living being, from the gross +forms of the limbs down to the cell, to its protoplasm, to its nucleus, +to the ever-new marvels of the structure of its body--it is all alike +one material, maintained by one individual energy in an individual +state of tension. + +I do not _have_ the marvel of alimentation as my function, but I _am_ +all this itself; and beyond this, nothing! That, however, I am this +individual, unique being--of this the antecedent conditions lie buried +deep in beginninglessness. + +Kamma is an individual energy: as such it is a thing unique: as +unique it seizes hold of Kammic, _i.e._ unique material, whereof the +uniqueness is proven in the fact that Kamma evolves therefrom a unique +being, an individual. If all this marvel of alimentation, this marvel +of sight, hearing, and so forth, were obliged to come about as a +something entirely new only through external preconditions, never could +it come about at all. I learn to see, hear, taste, and so forth, as the +flame learns to burn, the flower to blow. All this, down even to the +minutest detail, lies ready, prepared beforehand, in the material; and +it needs but the stimulator--which, just because it is a question of +a unique material, must also be a thing unique--in order to have all +these properties brought into play, have them set in full activity. + +The material lineage of the living being is perforce as beginningless +as the Kamma lineage; but whilst the beginninglessness of the +latter manifests itself only immediately in consciousness, the +beginninglessness of the former admits of being comprehended only +mediately as a logical deduction. + +“Suppose, O monks, that a man were to cut down all the grass and +leaves in this Jambudīpa [India], and, gathering them together, take +one handful after another and say (at each handful), ‘This is my +mother; this is my mother’s mother,’ there would never be any end to +the mother’s mother of such a man; but all the grass and leaves in +Jambudīpa well might run out, well might come to an end.”[15] + +Both lineages, the material as the Kammic, are a beginningless, +reciprocal, each-to-other self-attunement, in a universe that in its +every motion is law itself. + +To this we shall have to return in the succeeding essay, in treating of +the problem of heredity. + +The man of science will say, “It is no very difficult matter to explain +everything if one simply refers everything back to beginninglessness, +and assigns as reason for the fact that everything is as it is, that in +accordance with the natural conditions of growth it has been _obliged_ +to come about thus and not otherwise.” + +To this it may be said in reply that the Buddha-“reading” of the play +of world-events is productive of but little for science, being that +reading which is actuality itself--which takes and leaves actuality +as that which it is, thereby shutting off the very possibility of +all those learned and profound researches which accrue to science in +such abundant measure through its endeavours to have actuality become +actuality only under its own hands, so to speak; in somewhat the same +way that I, the living being, exist to a magistrate, not as myself, but +only in virtue of certain identification papers. + +Besides, the Buddha-thought is an intuition. And the value of an +intuition is made manifest solely in its use as a working hypothesis. + +As a working hypothesis, then, of what service is the Buddha-thought in +the domain of physiology? + +The answer is:-- + +It alone explains the possibility alike of disease and of cure. + +Neither for science--that is, in the purely mechanical manner of +regarding the living being--nor for faith--that is, where living beings +are represented as endowed with soul--is disease--and therewith cure--a +conceivability. As well to a thing divine as to a purely mechanical +fall, disease were an unattainable capability. _Man_ only can fall +ill--the man whom the Buddha points out to us, the man who through +and through is a combustion, an alimentation-process, with whom at +every moment of his existence energy and material stand in mutual +functional dependence each upon the other. Correspondingly, it is only +in a process thus constituted that the fact of cure is capable of +explanation. + +By the term _cure_ I understand the fact that a single incitation +develops a reaction which no longer stands in any kind of working +relationship to the original impulse, but goes on developing itself +as a self-acting increase. Such a proceeding is possible neither with +a purely mechanical process of compensation nor yet with a “force in +itself.” It is only possible there where an energy and its material +stand in a relation of mutual functional dependence. + +The fact also that diseases permit of being affected by the power +of the mind, by thought, is possible of explanation only where an +individual energy and its material stand in a relationship of mutual +dependence. + +All the numberless instances of the influence of the mind over +the body, of the body over the mind; all our “moods” of good and +ill-humour; further, the _acquisition of habits_ and the physical +necessity of sleep, are explicable only in the Buddha-thought. + +It may be interposed:-- + +“We have not the least need of the Buddha in order to see that. We +have long since recognized the mutual dependence of mind and body as a +necessity.” + +Very good! But if you have really recognized that, you must also draw +the conclusions unavoidably consequent upon the same, and these consist +in the intellectual necessity of individual beginninglessness. If you +have not understood that, then you have understood neither the Buddha, +nor actuality, nor yourselves. You have not understood the truth; you +only meet it, as two cross-roads meet one another and then pass on in +opposite directions. Individual beginninglessness is the key-word, the +guiding clue to the Buddha-thought. + +And with this we come to that most important of all problems, the +problem of heredity. + + + + + IX + + BUDDHISM AND THE PROBLEM OF BIOLOGY + + +To the question, “Whence have I sprung?” faith answers, “From God,” +while science answers, “From your parents.” Faith calls men the +children of their Father in heaven; science calls them the children of +their begetter. + +Meanwhile this discrepancy means no more than that the answer of +science, couched in such a form, despite its apparent accuracy yields +men no satisfaction. For that I am descended from my parents, on this +no rational being can cast a doubt; and if the believer says that +beings have sprung from God, he can only mean this in some particular +respect. + +Upon what foundation rests the necessity for this peculiar +interpretation of facts patent to all eyes--the facts concerned with +procreation? + +All things in the world may be divided up into two great +classes--things that admit of being generalized, and things that do +not admit of being generalized. Of these, the former alone lie within +reach of science, for science comes into play only where comparison and +repetition are possible, comparison being a generalization in regard to +what is presented simultaneously, and repetition a generalization in +respect of what is presented in succession. Living beings do not admit +of being either compared or repeated, hence cannot become a subject of +science. + +In one particular regard, it is true, living beings may be conceived +of as open to comparison and repetition; but this, as pointed out, +has to do only with that in the individual which precisely in a +certain specific elaboration can be rendered capable of comparison and +repetition--namely, that in me which is re-actual, not the actual, not +that which says, “_I_ am.”[16] As this latter I can neither be compared +nor repeated. As a being endowed with consciousness, I am a something +unique, a unity--more correctly, a non-duality; and here is to be found +the reason why the answer given by science never satisfies and never +can satisfy. Heredity requires the single-branched tracing back of one +being to another. I bestow no theory of heredity upon a flame when, on +the one hand, I trace it back to the kindling wood, and on the other +to the oxygen of the atmosphere. The answer of science, however, would +have me, the unity, arise out of two other unities, father and mother, +each of whom in their turn would spring from two other unities, and +so on in geometrical progression; thus, in place of a single-branched +tracing back, one infinite in its ramifications. Hence the answer of +science is lacking in that which it is bound to supply if it is to +satisfy the thinker. As a something unique I am a something singly +determined. If, however, I were nothing but the product of the union +of an ovum-cell and a sperm-cell, there would positively be nothing +present to make it necessary that precisely _I_ should spring from +this ovum-cell and this sperm-cell. I could just as well have sprung +from the cell material out of which, as a matter of fact, my brother +has come forth; while he, on his part, could just as well have come +from the cell material from which in the actual event I have come. The +uniquely determined goes by the board. But that that which “_I_” now +am, might just as well have been some other _I_,--such an idea is a +self-evident absurdity. It is not the cell matter alone that does make +up the “_I_.” The cell matter is only so much working material of a +particular kind, and a something uniquely determining this material +must appear on the scene, otherwise there would offer no possibility +whatever of the fact, “_I_.” To think to explain me by the cell matter +alone were somewhat the same as thinking to explain the flame by the +kindling wood and the oxygen of the atmosphere, exclusively. + +Of such an _Hebraic_ conception of the matter--to speak like +Humboldt--no physicist would ever be guilty; but the biologist is. The +manner in which he deals with the problem of heredity is Hebraic in the +fullest sense of the word, and so fashioned that it cannot help but +tumble to the ground simply of its own weight. Assuming beforehand the +identity of “life” and “cell,” endeavour is made to solve the riddle of +life by means of description alone, the way leading from the material +of generation to the new living being plotted out with ever increasing +exactitude until finally an apparently uninterrupted succession stands +before us; where, to be sure, it is conveniently forgotten that its +seeming continuity is solely due to the fineness, the delicacy, of +the isolated momentary images. As little as I can fabricate actual, +living movement out of a series of stereoscopic pictures, though making +never so slight the duration of each separate picture, just as little +is the process of generation to be comprehended by mere description, +even though it bring before us a simply endless number of phases of +development. Still, I can lull myself with the delusion that by this +method I am drawing ever nearer to my goal, and that salvation lies +simply in the fineness of the lenses, the delicacy and ingenuity of the +modes of colouring, and in patience. But far other powers than these +are required for the solving of the riddle of life. For upon this line +of inquiry one remains ever and always concerned with reactions. Let +the discoveries thus made, the new demonstrations of the entire process +supplied, be never so novel, never so interesting, withal they remain +reactions, and tell us nothing save that energies _must_ be present; +never a word do they say bearing on these latter themselves. + +This is not the place to go more closely into the details which +physiology and embryology have brought to the light of day in the +course of their increasingly accurate demonstration of the germination +process. It must suffice to point out that all these results without +exception have to do with reactions, and say nothing--absolutely +nothing--about the _essential nature_ of what takes place--a fact +which sufficiently indicates the extent of their value. The question +as to how it is possible that a man, a living being, can be developed +out of a cell, is one that is never even broached upon this line +of inquiry. The question as to _actual energies_ is here set aside +unintentionally, as in the mechanical world-theory of the physicist it +is excluded deliberately. + +The reading which the Buddha-thought supplies on this question already, +in what has gone before,[17] has been sufficiently worked out, and so +need only be briefly summarized here. It runs as follows:-- + +The whole insoluble problem of heredity only arises, as with the +problem of the effecting of contact and the problem of nutrition, +through working with fixed quantities, with identities. As in physics +one asks, “How can two bodies come into contact?” thus putting a +question the answering of which is already estopped with the simple +putting of the question, since in the physical sense there are no such +things as “bodies”; and as in physiology one does the like when one +asks, “How can the living being assimilate nutriment into itself?” +where there is not anything at all present of such sort that it can +assimilate something _to itself_; so in the matter of procreation the +question is asked, “How is it possible that out of two biological +identities a new identity can arise?” But it is not an identity at +all that rises new in procreation; that truly would mean carrying out +the arithmetical sum _one plus one equals one_ into actual practice. +Nothing happens save that material of a peculiar character, for a +longer or shorter period, is subjected to a new state of strain of a +peculiar character--has a fresh tendency imparted to it. And this new +tendency, this impulsion it is, which, as Kamma coming from a previous +existence, now takes hold. It takes hold where it does take hold, just +because it _must_ take hold there; because this location answers to it, +the individual, the unique, as the only one in the universe; and all it +does here is merely to stimulate, to develop that which already lies +prefigured in the material, extending even to what is most singular, +most individual. Were the material nothing individual, certainly no +individual energy could take hold of it. But just because there is +an _individual_ material, therefore does it call for _individual_ +energy. Because the energy is _individual_, therefore does it call for +_individual_ material, and nowhere else can it take hold save just +there where it does. + +The question as to how it is possible that I can see, hear, smell, +taste, feel, think, take nourishment, and so forth, here rolls back +into beginninglessness, into a double question--that concerning the +succession of Kamma, representing endlessness in time; and that +concerning the material, representing the corresponding endlessness +in space. I learn to see, hear, think, and so forth, as the flame +learns to burn. Had I to learn this in the vulgar sense of the word, +never in life could I compass it. As pure process of alimentation I +_have_ not all these powers; I _am_ this potency itself. I do not +_have_ functions; I _am_ functioning itself, as a genuine, self-acting +process which burns in virtue of a genuine energy that never can _be +demonstrated_, that only _demonstrates itself_ in consciousness. + +When _science_ teaches that I am descended wholly and entirely from my +parents, it teaches that the _I_-process is not kindled at all, but +propels itself hither from parents, grandparents, and so forth--does +not burn, but rolls--so making necessary the question as to the +first beginning of this motion; for everything set in motion, urged +onward--in short, every reaction--must have a first moment of beginning. + +In contradistinction to science, _faith_ teaches that the parents +provide the material, while God sets all alight by endowing me with an +immortal soul--an idea, indeed, demanding faith. + +_The Buddha_ teaches: The parents provide the material, the groundwork, +and the _I_-energy of some disintegrating _I_-process corresponding +uniquely to these potentialities, sets all alight. Here I take rise +in my parents as the fountain takes its rise in the hill. That the +fountain does so, is beyond all cavil, is patent to any eye; yet it is +but as an alien guest. + +Thus of the three, the Buddha is the only one to abide by actuality, +the only one with whom the entire miracle of propagation takes its +place among mundane events, conforming likewise to the laws of mundane +occurrences. For faith, the miracle of propagation lies outside the +jurisdiction of these latter; for science, it is true it remains within +their jurisdiction, but only as a barren possibility. + +It is here where the true thinker must clutch and claw his way in, +that I would confront him, as the highwayman the traveller, with a +“Sta viator!” For the simple fact that I am here, a single moment of +the “_I_,” yields the entire cosmogony of the Buddha. Every _I_-moment +is possible, is thinkable, only as the point of intersection of the +lines of Kamma and of the material, hence as the form of a world that +_has_ not law but itself _is_ law. I am here, means, I am here as +self-conscious. I am here as self-conscious, means, I am determined as +one and single. I am determined as one and single, means, The twofold +material of generation must be made one through some energy. That, +however, means, I am without beginning. + +Of what service is this idea as a working hypothesis? + +The answer is: It alone makes possible a reading of the fact, +“_consciousness_”--that is to say, a reading of myself which, as +already shown, can never be of an inductive, but only of an intuitive +nature. That which in the mode of apprehending it peculiar to science, +invests the problem of heredity with a specific gravity such that of +itself it must necessarily tumble to the ground, is the fact that in +this apprehension of the problem consciousness falls to be included as +part of that which is to furnish the demonstration. + +From the standpoint physiology adopts, consciousness must reside in +the groundwork, in the cell material; so that now it is a question of +carrying the demonstration right on into this groundwork. + +As their trump card against the materialistic and mechanistic +wing of science, the idealistic and teleological wing play this: +“Consciousness, thought, psychic faculty, or whatever else one chooses +to name it, does not admit of being explained under the image of a +motion, thus cannot be explained mechanically.” And materialism yields +the point with a grinding of the teeth behind which is concealed a +sort of inward satisfaction that would say something to this effect: +“It is quite true what you say there. We can account for everything, +only not for this last little remainder, consciousness. The extent of +our knowledge is best shown by this our helplessness; but the day will +yet come when this holy Ilion also, this stronghold of nature and her +secrets--consciousness--shall fall before our giant strokes.” + +With the adoption of such an attitude, science finds herself in the +difficult position of having to account for consciousness from its +antecedent conditions. These antecedent conditions may be followed +up along two lines of inquiry; on the one hand, along the line of +anatomical, physiological conditions, sense organs and brain; and +on the other hand, along the line of functional conditions, of the +perceptions in their varying degrees and qualities--two tasks which +physiology and psychology share between them. + +To the former task it is that we are indebted for the existence of +one of the most splendid departments--perhaps, indeed, the most +splendid department--of the physiological sciences: the physiology +of the sense-organs. One may say that this line of research reveals +most impressively of all the splendid poverty of science--a dazzling +altogether astounding wealth of the most interesting details, which, +however, instead of converging to draw nearer to the sought-for goal, +lose themselves in the boundless. + +That which the physiology of the sense-organs aims at is to make +functioning--with what one might call suggestive violence--follow as +a logical necessity from the anatomical and physiological details. +The delicate intricacies of the retina, of the cortical organ, of +the papillæ of smell and taste, have been laid bare with such a +completeness that it seems to need but one more breath, the last and +lightest of all, to wake in this wondrous instrument the melody of +life. But it is just this last lightest breath that remains lacking, +and is not to be secured by any mere dexterity in method however +highly developed. Set to where one will, whether at the first turning +over of the ovum, whether upon the heights of the evolution of sense, +everywhere the miracle stands before us complete. It is entirely owing +to the vast numbers and continuous relays of workers in the realm of +science that the conviction that upon this path, a description becoming +ever more minute and exact, there is nothing real to be achieved has +not already gained much more ground than is the case. As oft as pen +and scalpel fall from a trembling hand, into the breach leaps youthful +vigour, and begins the battle anew with fresh courage. + +The like holds good of the latest branch of psychology, the working +out of prerequisite conditions of function. On all hands a similar +scene meets the eye. Each new result, each fresh-won eminence avails +nothing but to open out in yet more impressive fashion the vista of +endless, towering mountains beyond. Here it would almost seem as if +men intentionally slurred over the patent fact that the explanation of +consciousness, of the power to think, already in every case presupposes +this itself, and that every sensation, if at all present as such, +already possesses also a certain content of consciousness. It is the +chase after the horizon,--the attempt by a vigorous and decided advance +to see over on the other side of one’s own limit of vision,--perpetual +progression without progress! + +The best illustration of this is furnished by what I might call the +naïve disunion prevailing within psychology’s own camp. The various +movements are not infrequently to be found fighting against one +another, like different divisions of the same army in the darkness +of night. One party says: “In the analysis of the sensations lies +all our salvation. Out of them only can we have consciousness arise +synthetically, and, all said and done, up to our time science +has achieved nothing just because she has neglected this natural +prerequisite to all possibilities of knowledge.” The which {sic}, it +maybe remarked in passing, is somewhat cold comfort after more than two +thousand years of labour! Then suddenly a counter-movement interjects: +“The sensations are what one may not seek to analyse.”[18] Well, that +is what I should call plagiarizing the words of the _bon dieu_ in the +Garden of Eden: “Of the tree of knowledge thou shalt not eat.” If I may +not lay finger upon the fount of my existence, what boots to me the +never so broad but turbid stream of the lower levels? + +If one compares with this utter lack of success the indubitable honesty +of the effort, the entire phenomenon “science” assumes something +of an air of sublime absurdity, of melancholy enthusiasm, such as +ever and again recalls to one’s mind the immortal hero of Cervantes’ +romance--vigorous, single-hearted effort from a mistaken standpoint, +directed towards a mistaken end. + +As a matter of fact, however, in these latter days the impossibility +of the old path with reference to the problem of consciousness seems +to be perceived. But the new path upon which in their need men have +entered is an utterly paradoxical one; it is the modern theory of the +cell endowed with consciousness in the shape of the faculty of memory. +Seeing no possibility whatever of explaining consciousness into the +cell material without more ado they have recourse to the device of +making the cell set out on its campaign, so to speak, with the faculty +of memory in its knapsack.[19] In this manner they rid themselves once +for all of the mischief-maker, “consciousness”; and with astounding +simplicity change ground to a position whence they can fight out the +battle about a world-theory after the fashion of army manœuvres, all +according to programme upon any lines that may be desired. “Give +me a chaos and out of it I will make you a world,” says Kant in his +_Prolegomena_. “Give me a cell and out of it I will make you a Goethe +or a Newton,” says the modern biologist. The necessary arrangements are +all made, the “stern wrestle with the problems of life” can begin in +the shape of fantasies drawn from the _Ratskeller_ of the Alma Mater. +If one hews out the building stones to one’s own fancy, one may indeed +erect systems--a mechanics, a thermo-dynamics, but never a genuine +world-conception. + +The possibility of ideas such as these is to be found in what I might +call the mechanizing of biological values. Thinking is represented, +along with heat, as a molecular vibration; the psychic act, under the +figure of an impress, of an “Engramm,”[20] thus of work accomplished; +and therewith we get the possibility of that rolling back of the +_I_-process from the individual to his begetters, and from these in +turn to their begetters, and so on backwards _ad infinitum_--in short, +the possibility of remaining upon the lines of the purely material, +which partakes of the nature of a reaction precisely as much as the +lines upon which the physicist works in the cosmogony peculiar to +energetics. Just as there, from the outset, the real energies are +left out of consideration and only their reactions dealt with, looked +upon as work done; so in the treatment of the problem of heredity by +science the whole process of life is looked upon simply as work done, +in biological guise, a mode of apprehending it to which scientific +thought itself, as represented by the teleological school, is entirely +opposed.[21] + +With the mechanistic representation of things is necessarily involved +the question as to the seat of consciousness. Modern physiology vaunts +itself not a little upon having got beyond the follies of the centuries +that are past, when this seat was sought for in all sorts of hidden +nooks. But sooth to say, its own position nowise differs; the change +is only in the means of defence employed. Now, as formerly, endeavour +is made to localize consciousness in certain regions; there is a +search for the “seat” of consciousness. Whether as a pure hypothesis I +transfer this seat to the pineal gland, or whether, from the results +of experiments upon animals, I seek by a process of exclusion, as it +were, to find it in the cerebral cortex--all this makes no essential +difference. The mistake, the Hebraism, lies in seeking for a “seat” of +consciousness at all. To such an idea only a few exceptionally clear +minds oppose a front of resistance. As an example, I cite in a footnote +a passage from E. Mach’s _Analyse der Empfindungen_.[22] + +Singular reflections are provoked when one contrasts with these +extravagant profundities the conception of things presented by the +Indian thinker six hundred years before the Christian era began. In the +Buddha-thought there is no something called “consciousness,” as equally +there is no something called “life.” There is only an experience of +the unfolding of consciousness--a constant _becoming conscious_. I do +not _have_ consciousness as I might have a half-crown in my pocket, +but I _am_ consciousness objectified, as I am will objectified. +As long as I think in terms of actuality, there is just but _one_ +consciousness in the world--I myself. As long as I think in terms of +actuality, consciousness means just this and no more--to experience +myself. But this is possible only as an intuition, and a specific +impulsion, instruction, is needed in order to arrive at this intuition. +Consciousness, just like all the remainder of the _I_-process, is a +form of the individual process of nutrition; the only difference is +this, that it is the last, the highest phase, as the fruit is the +last, the highest phase of the vegetative process. To speak of a +“seat” of consciousness has about as much meaning as to speak of a +“seat” of bodily heat. All this falls under the one inclusive concept, +“nutrition.” What modern physicist would ever be so childish as in +some hot body to search for the “seat” of heat? But physiologist and +biologist stagger along exhausted under the load of their learnedness +on the subject of the “seat” of consciousness. There is just as much +reason, and no more, for holding the brain-cells of the cerebral cortex +to be the seat of consciousness as there is for regarding the electric +cells in its central telegraph office as the seat of the intelligence +of a great city. + +The teaching of Buddhist physiology is as follows:-- + +Where the eye and forms encounter one another, and the antecedent +conditions are such that each acts upon the other, there arises +visual consciousness. Where the ear and sounds encounter one another, +there arises aural consciousness. Where nose and odours encounter +one another, there arises olfactory consciousness. Where tongue and +flavours encounter one another, there arises gustatory consciousness. +Where bodies and objects come in contact with one another, there arises +tactile consciousness. Where thinking and things (known abstractly) +encounter one another, there arises thought-consciousness. + +“If the inward eye is undamaged, and external objects do not come +within the range of vision, and (as a consequence) no corresponding +interaction takes place, then a corresponding moment of consciousness +does not result. If the inward eye is undamaged, and external +objects come within the range of vision, and (nevertheless) no +corresponding interaction takes place, then also a corresponding +moment of consciousness does not result. If, however, the inward eye +is undamaged, and external objects come within the range of vision, +and the corresponding interaction takes place, then there results the +corresponding moment of consciousness.”[23] + +Thus my entire individuality, the totality of individual experience is +a _becoming conscious_ at every moment of existence. Consciousness is +a Sankhāra, like all else, distinguished therefrom only in this, that +in it Kamma itself becomes perceptible to sense. + +Were teleology and mechanistics to come before the Buddha and say, +“Decide thou! Which of us two is right? Is the eye born of seeing, +or is seeing born of the eye? Is the brain born of thinking, or is +thinking born of the brain?” the Buddha would reply with a smile:-- + +“My young friends, you are both right because you are both wrong. +Your question is not correctly put. There are no such things as ‘eye’ +and ‘brain’ in the sense in which you use the words. There is only an +_I_-process, that unfolds itself by way of certain differentiations +which in themselves run their course at a pace sufficiently slow to +justify such separate verbal designations as the ‘eye,’ the ‘brain,’ +and so forth. Your question, ‘Is the eye born of seeing, or is seeing +born of the eye? Is the brain born of thinking, or is thinking born +of the brain?’ would have sense and meaning only if the eye and the +brain were in themselves organs all finished and complete, to which in +that case a specific function also would have to correspond. All this, +however, is nothing but a phase, nothing but the form of development +assumed by a single process. It is not the eye that sees: _you_ see. +The eye is neither born of seeing, nor yet is seeing born of the eye; +the eye is simply _the form under which seeing exists_. You do not +see _with_ the eye but in virtue of the fact of eye-evolution, the +same as you think in virtue of the fact of brain-evolution, which is +only another way of saying that you are the form assumed by individual +energies.” + +Here the physiologist breaks in: “That consciousness has its seat in +certain regions of the cerebral cortex may be proven by experiments +on animals.” But this is a conclusion as grossly mistaken as that of +the physicist when he imagines he can follow up energy throughout all +its ramifications.[24] What can be got at by experimental methods is +merely negative phenomena, and these furnish no warrant for coming to +conclusions as to the seat of consciousness. If I cut through the wire +connected with an electric light at any point at all in the circuit, +the negative phenomenon “darkness” assuredly supervenes; but to say on +that account, “The point of section must be the seat of the electric +energy; here is ocular demonstration,” would be sheer foolishness. Yet +the physiologist is guilty of just such foolishness, and at its behest +does not stick at the perpetration of all those cruelties such as are +scarcely to be avoided in experiments upon animals. If only the time +would come when true ideas about life would take possession of science, +the laboratories of physiologists would no longer be those places where +every day sacrifice is made to error as in the temples of blood-stained +idols. + +All these researches on the subject of the seat of consciousness are +only possible where one is working with empty concepts. If one thinks +in terms of actuality consciousness is just that with regard to which +a reading, a working hypothesis of an inductive nature, is utterly +impossible; for here the reading is precisely the form assumed by the +consciousness, by that which is to do the reading, by the problem +itself, and thus itself again requires a reading, and so on _ad +infinitum_. + +But there is another point involved in this problem of “consciousness” +which, so far as I know, has never been taken account of, and yet is of +the utmost significance. + +As the Darwinian idea does not embrace in its purview the case +of hybrid formations--it does not react upon it at all--so the +scientific mode of envisaging things does not take in the case of the +physiological negative phenomena of consciousness, does not at all +react upon it. With the apparatus of science there is no possibility +whatever of getting at such facts as “faith,” “illusion,” “error,” +“forgetting.” Science requires something sensible and objective, +something so constituted that I can rank it along with other things. +In no respect, however, are any of these negative phenomena objective +things. Here no possible point of entry offers for science with its +instrument, induction. + +I may indeed _read_ consciousness under the figure of associative +occurrences, but only in the form of recollection. Applied to the +corresponding dissociative event, forgetting, this explanation is +as impossible as that a molecular mixture which has once come to +equilibrium within itself should again spontaneously return to +dissolution, to dissociation. As the natural adjustment of differences +of molecular tension may be explained or read as a fall, so in its +associative activities consciousness may be explained or read as a +fall, but never so in its dissociative activities. This, however, +involves the utter worthlessness of the former explanation; for every +mixture, every association, presupposes separation, dissociation, and, +called upon to indicate the _essence_ of consciousness, what I should +point to is not so much the associative as the dissociative, not so +much recollection, conjunction, as forgetting, disjunction. Once the +stone is raised from the earth’s surface its return fall forthwith +ensues. But it is the separation from the earth’s surface for which +effective causes must be found. In like manner, it is dissociation, +forgetting, that really demands elucidation; association, recollection +can as easily be read mechanistically as the fall of a stone once it +has been raised. Dissociation is the physiological miracle, in presence +of which science stands altogether helpless. + +The like holds good of faith, illusion, error. The purely mechanistic +conception of things, the view which regards the _I_-process simply +as an instance of the phenomenon of the compensation of tensile +differences, can never be accommodated to the possibility of such +things as faith, illusion, and error. But a similar impossibility also +exists for the teleological apprehension of the world. How should a +“force” ever acquire the faculty of deceiving itself or of falling +into error? To a compensation-phenomenon pure and simple, as to God, +illusion and error are wholly unattainable potentialities; they belong +to mankind alone, to the man whom the Buddha points out to us. + +If I am nothing but an unceasing reaction to the outer world, if I +constantly adapt myself to things and things adapt themselves to me, +not as a mere adjustment but in virtue of specific energies, only then +are faith, illusion, error, and all other negative phenomena equally +possible with all positive phenomena. Beginningless process furnishes +the possibility of both. + +Such things as actual illusion, actual error, science may nowise +recognize, for in so doing she would be recognizing something for +which there is absolutely no room in her cosmogony. One would thereby +introduce functions for which one could furnish no organized basis. +Only in the cosmogony of the Buddha, only in the concept of individual +beginninglessness does each find its necessary place. Here they are +the necessary preconditions of all existence. Science is powerless to +defend herself against them otherwise than by an attempt to “explain +away” such occurrences out of the order of world-events. Upon this +point E. Mach, in his _Analyse der Empfindungen_, expresses himself +as follows: “The phrase, ‘illusion of the senses,’ shows that man has +not yet rightly come to a consciousness, or at least has not yet found +it necessary to express such consciousness in fitting terminology, +that the senses indicate neither false nor true. The only ‘true’ of +which one can speak in connection with the sense organs is that under +different conditions they yield different sensations and perceptions. +Since these conditions are so extremely manifold in their variety ... +it may very well seem ... as if the organ acts dissimilarly under +similar conditions. Results out of the usual order are what men are +accustomed to call illusions.” This is to make illusion merely truth in +an infinitesimal form, to “read” it as a special form of truth, and so +be rid of it. + +But the value of the Buddha-thought in this domain does not end here. +Over and above, it explains to begin with, the every-day fact of +experience, that not every pairing evolves a new embryo. This fact is +alike incapable of explanation whether from the standpoint of faith or +from that of science. + +Faith, which sees a divine soul breathed into the material of +generation, permits of no standpoint at all, since for it everything +takes place according to God’s good pleasure. From the standpoint +of science, however, with every conjunction of ovum and sperm-cell, +conception also must be granted, since here both are already the form +of the new life, already contain in themselves all the ingredients +of this new life. It is only the Buddha-thought that explains why, +meanwhile, despite the union of ovum and sperm, conception does not +take place: it has not “struck in.” At the moment when both were +open to the inflow of the energy, the latter was not ready. In the +ceaseless, unbroken attunement, each to the other, of the happenings of +a world, the proper moment was let slip.[25] + +The Buddha-thought further explains the else inexplicable fact of the +simultaneous resemblance and lack of resemblance between parents and +children. The view of the matter taken by faith supplies no argument in +favour of any kind of resemblance whatever between the two. The soul +is inbreathed by God whithersoever it pleaseth him. In the view of +science, on the contrary, there is found no argument for any failure +in resemblance betwixt progenitors and offspring. Ever and always +the characteristics of the latter can only be a combination of the +characteristics of both the parents. In the Buddha-thought _alone_ are +similarity and dissimilarity alike accounted for. I may have inherited +my father’s nose, his manner of blowing it indeed, since all lay +foreshadowed in the material, and was obliged so to evolve itself: +but the evolver is a stranger, hence one common starting-point yields +an independent evolving series. Here conception means no more than +that two paths, two lines, that of the material and that of energy, +intersect one another. We are as at some cross-road, where two highways +meet, only to lead further and further away from each other the further +we pursue them. + +The third item that finds an explanation in the Buddha-thought is the +fact of innate aptitudes. Where the act of learning is envisaged from a +purely empirical point of view these are a standing, incomprehensible +miracle. Opposed to this, the defectiveness of the nativistic theory +resides in the fact that according to it every being must make his +appearance fitted out all complete with fixed, inborn abilities. Midway +removed from both extremes stands the Buddha. With equal ease he +explains the possibility of gradual development and that of appearance +all ready and complete, inasmuch as with him all depends upon the +_tempo_ at which the energy closing with the material enters upon its +unfolding process. Is the _tempo_ so fast that the organic recipients +are already developed upon leaving the womb, then the innate abilities +are there present; the organs can set to forthwith, the external world +acts immediately as liberating lure, and the nativists have the last +word. Is the _tempo_ slow, then there set in processes that admit +of being empirically interpreted or read as a gradual attainment of +faculty by experience. + +Apart, however, from the biological facts, the Buddha-thought also +explains those lofty speculations that have haunted the minds of men +from the earliest times, such as “previous existence,” Plato’s idea +of learning as “reminiscence,” and so forth. “Many a time it has +seemed to me as if I must have been in existence once already,” says +such a clear, keen mind as Lichtenberg. Indeed here, if one likes, +even the Kantian “_a priori_ of all experience,” this pure _ens_ of +scholasticism, acquires sense and meaning. That which with Kant stands +out from reality as a blind end, destitute of any real foothold, like +the spirit moving upon the face of the waters, here balls itself +together into the _I myself_. My Kamma is the “_a priori_”; in a +sense, such as Kant never suspected, it is true. All these minds +lack guidance, lack light. In dim fashion they feel, but they do not +see. During my latest sojourn at Anuradhapura, in the course of a +conversation with the abbot of Ruanwelli, he said to me, “Every one who +is without the Teaching is like the blind elephant in the jungle: he +feels at every twig”--to find out if it is eatable. Here we have an apt +illustration of inquiring ignorance. + +With this solution of the problem of procreation as furnished by the +Buddha are involved a few necessary questions which might have been +disposed of in our fifth essay, but may more fitly be dealt with here. + +The first is this:-- + +“If, as said above, the uniquely appropriate energy is not always +ready for the material, if contact can be missed, must then a quota of +material always stand ready for the Kamma that is set free at every +death?” + +To which the answer is: “That a faggot should miss the kindling spark; +this may very well happen, but that the kindling spark should find +nothing upon which to act, such is never the case.” Its very being is +just its taking hold, the actuity itself. The _I_-energy takes hold +there precisely where it can take hold. + +But will it always take hold just there where legitimately it ought to +take hold? Will it take hold rightly? + +To put such a question is the same as if one should ask: “Will the +sun indicate mid-day correctly and unfailingly every day? Or: Will +the ocean maintain itself unceasingly at sea-level?” Where the entire +universe _has_ not but _is_ law there, “to take hold” is as much as +to say “to take hold legitimately”: “to take hold legitimately” is +as much as to say “to take hold rightly.” All such questions were +justified only if we had to do with a reciprocal being attuned; but +all things are found to be a series of ever new self-attunings, each +after other--no working into one another like cog and groove, no +pre-established harmony, no psycho-physical parallelism. The whole +universe is a thing that finds itself in a state of perpetual nascency. +If a jest may be ventured in face of the monster, one might say that +the whole world is constantly in a state of bringing forth, yet never +is there born a “something” that stands ideally fast, so as to be +fitted to serve as a standard for true and untrue. + +The fact that a chemical compound decomposes, that its constituent +elements are set free, always implies that from another direction +forces more powerful are coming into play. Decomposition is nothing +but the form of a new combination. In similar wise Kamma does not +become free just for the sake of becoming free, just in order to +be free. Not in any arbitrary fashion does it leap out of its old +location; it does so only because its material falls away from under +it. That it can take fresh hold and always can take hold, of this the +guarantee is the simple fact that there is a world at all, for the +latter is just the series of self-attunings each after other, itself. +Were the world obliged to _come_ to this self-attuning first, never by +any means could there be a world. What we find present is precisely +something given--actuality, and this stands for no mere set of +_possibilities_; it represents a _power_--its own power to exist; and +the expression of this power to exist is just this eternal ability to +take fresh hold. + +To change the simile: For every falling stone there is always ready +the spot on which it can fall. For along with the fact “falling stone” +are also given all the prerequisite conditions in which such questions +as, “Where can it fall? Will it find its spot?” are already met and +answered. Its fall is nothing motiveless; it does not fall blindly, by +pure accident. Neither is its fall any previously determined affair; +it does not fall towards any given goal. Its fall is an attuning of +itself, an accommodating of itself to its goal. In the act of falling +it finds its goal. In the same way this my whole existence is simply my +finding my way, my accommodating of myself to the new goal. Kamma does +not _go_ to its new place as a spontaneous force, nor does it _fall_, +as a mere reaction, but it advances itself as a flame advances itself. +In the beginningless happenings of a world, living at every moment +accommodates itself to living. It is like a universal round dance, this +Samsāra. Kamma has seized his partner, and with her whirls through the +infinitudes until she collapses with fatigue, is worn out, or, become +clumsy and heavy, slips from him because she no longer suits him. She +no longer suits him, however, because there is another whom she suits +better. Thus does the material pass from hand to hand, because one +lender snatches it away from the other. + + Indeed ’twas only borrowed--the lenders are so many! + +And thus is disposed of that other question: “Once set alight, could +not an _I_-process burn for ever?” + +Science, because it never can be actual science, makes an effort at +least not to be of the laity, and endeavours to make good this its +distinctive characteristic by the striking, one might almost say the +sensational, manner in which it formulates its problems. Thus it tries +to signalize the commanding nature of its standpoint with respect to +the problems of life by telling the dumbfounded layman of a death +that is purely a phenomenon of adaptation--yea more, of a death that +is nothing but a bad habit. Upon this point, Weismann in his _Dauer +des Lebens_ says: “From a purely physiological standpoint there is no +perceivable reason why it should not be possible for the fission of the +cells to proceed _ad infinitum_, _i.e._ for the organism to function +eternally. To me the necessity for death is intelligible only from +the standpoint of utility.... An individual that lived for ever would +always become infirm and useless to the species. Death is merely a +utilitarian arrangement; it is no necessity, grounded in the essential +nature of life.” This is about as sensible as if one said, relying upon +the facts of kitchen routine, “The going out of the fire is merely a +utilitarian arrangement: it is no necessity grounded in the essential +nature of fire.” To speak of death as a phenomenon of adaptation is +to juggle with death as with some empty concept. In truth it is not +as some think, death that accommodates itself to life, but simply +thinking to the facts. The crass absurdity only becomes evident when +out of this mere “reading” of the facts one seeks to evolve a truth of +practical application, as Metchnikoff does in his “daring” surmises. +I assert that science ought to be ashamed of herself for filling the +nursery room of mankind with such fabulous tales of the future, when +already the air is thick enough with the fables of the past. The old +Salernitanian school of medicine used to ask: “_Cur moritur homo, cui +crescit salvia in hortis?_” In much the same way the new--nay, the very +newest--school of medicine demands: “Why does man die, for whom in the +laboratory grows the Maya Yoghurt?” thereby showing that in the depths +below the surface she grows on the same stock as the so much contemned +“blind faith.” + +Like a grown man among children stands the Buddha towards such +fictions. With him death is nothing but living in a new environment. +The distaff keeps ceaselessly turning; it is only that a new clump +of wool has been placed on it. The discernment that life is of the +nature of a process involves of necessity the discernment that life +can persist only so long as the active affinities concerned are not +overmastered by other affinities. Here again, to be sure, I can +interpret death as a phenomenon of accommodation, but equally as +well can I so interpret life, for here I am just the beginningless +self-accommodating, self-attuning itself. However varied the length of +time during which the attuning may last, however it may be prolonged by +the use of specific contrivances, to speak of a potential immortality +is to do away with the process-like nature of life, to make the +never-resting actuality stiffen into a childish counterfeit. With the +fact that I am born, the fact of dying is _guaranteed_ me. For beings +can only be born if previously they have died; they must buy themselves +their birth with their own death. Were we not born, then, to be sure, +we need not die either. But to be born and yet not to see in death +a necessity grounded in the very nature of life, this demands place +alongside that passage in the book of Joshua: “Sun, stand thou still +upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.” What a different +ring has this word of the Master: “That that which has life should not +meet with death--such a thing is not!” And yet it is so! We demand +life-values at any cost; and, are the udders milked dry, then must +death itself make good the lack! + +If science and the Buddha-thought be placed alongside one another +for mutual and unbiassed comparison, perforce the superiority of the +latter must be acknowledged, since by it is neatly resolved in one +single conception that which science with two distinct concepts makes +an inextricable tangle of. From the point of view of science, dying is +every whit as much of a miracle as being born, since in birth a new +identity appears on the scene all entire, and in death all as entire +vanishes; in the same way that to a child’s idea a thunderstorm as +such, _i.e._ taken purely as a symptom, is something that arises all +entire, and all entire passes away again. The simple fact is: despite +all the technical skill with which she handles the problem of heredity, +and notwithstanding all the suggestions made to the understanding to +recognize as uninterrupted the passage from life to life, science +has her abode in the realm of the miraculous. The technique of her +descriptions, to which she gives the misleading title, “doctrine of +evolution,” leave the actual problem of evolution entirely untouched. +In face of the miracles of birth and death, science strongly resembles +a boy making his first observations in natural history. Finding in +his glass-case the caterpillar dead and the butterfly born, he will +say, “Two miracles! The old has died and something new has made its +appearance.” Instead of both facts merging into one another in a true +conception of what has taken place, to his mistaken notion they fall +apart from one another, and become problems defying solution. Even so +is it with science. Through her failure to recognize that the facts of +birth here and death there are forms of one and the same experience +instead of a single comprehension of both under the one aspect, two +miracles are found by her to be present. The noose of life has become +a knot, and every attempt to undo it by continued pulling only makes +worse the tangle. On this point the physicist has already left the +stage of childhood behind. To-day he no longer says, “Two miracles! +Heat is gone and motion is present.” He has found the clue, albeit, +it is true, only in form of reaction. The biologist, however, still +remains incapable of replacing two miracles with a true and genuine +conception. He is still unaware that it is with dying that being born +must be purchased. Hence he treats birth as a fact by itself, and +death as a fact by itself, and so remains confronting both problems +internally insoluble. + +So much for that point. A further question that suggests itself is: +“Could not a Kamma be simultaneously attuned in two or more places?” + +To this the answer would be: “Theoretically, so long as one +confronts the problem from the mechanistic standpoint, that is, +from the standpoint that deals only with reactions, it is attuned +in places innumerable.” In exactly the same way a drop of water, as +it trickles downward, theoretically can have innumerable points as +its resting-place; practically, however, it will have one single +resting-place, and this latter will prove itself the resting-place and +the one single resting-place among countless possibilities simply and +solely by the fact that the drop comes to a halt just at this spot. +Actuality is simple as singly determined. It only becomes complex in +the mechanistic mode of apprehending it; that is, where reactions alone +are dealt with. + +Again, it may be asked: “Could not two Kammas attune themselves to one +and the same body of material?” + +But this question has just as much meaning as if one asked, “Could not +two men appropriate to themselves, assimilate, and be nourished by, +the same loaf of bread?” So long as one treats of “bread” in purely +theoretical fashion, eats concepts, well and good! But if one eats in +actuality, the absurdity becomes obvious. + +Again: “Might it not happen for once that the ovum should conduct the +lightning without the assistance of the sperm-cell?” + +So far as mankind is concerned, the only reply is that here both +factors are required. It simply is so! Why are certain reactions +brought about only when certain catalytic agents or ferments are +introduced? How weighty the above objection has always been to the mind +of mankind is shown by the important rôle which “immaculate conception” +has played from the earliest times. That in itself it is not impossible +the animal kingdom sufficiently attests. With man, however, the +conditions are so disposed that both, ovum- and sperm-cell, are +required in order to conduct the Kamma and cause it to take hold. + +If one asks: “But could not this also happen outside a maternal womb?” +I reply: “I do not know.” It certainly does not happen with man. It +happens with cold-blooded creatures, with dogs, and so forth. In the +botanical gardens at Peradeniya, Ceylon, in the climate the most +perfect in the world for vegetation, there are several trees--the +_Bertholetia excelsa_ of Brazil, for example--which, despite the +similarity of the climate to that of their native haunts, as yet have +resisted all attempts to propagate them. It simply is so! Actuality +lays down its own laws because it is itself law. Science can do nothing +but hobble along as best she may in the wake of all these facts, and +endeavour to accommodate herself to them. But what bears witness in +favour of the Buddha-thought is precisely the impossibility of getting +fecundation to take place outside a womb, or of bringing it about by +introducing sperm into the uterus by artificial means, of which latter +proceeding a single, not altogether unequivocal instance is reported +by an American gynæcologist. What is needed is the living energy which +for a limited period vibrates in the material like the energy in the +plucked string of a lute. It is just this vibrating energy in it which +first makes the material to be material, _i.e._ the thing that is +capable of a unique attunement. + +And here we come to the most important question of all:-- + +“Is a human Kamma always obliged to take fresh hold precisely of human +_I_-material? Would it not be possible for once, that human Kamma +should be attuned to animal material or reverse wise, animal Kamma +to human material?” To this the answer is: Kamma can take hold only +where there is material that itself is the form of a Kamma. How far +down in the kingdom of living creatures this material extends cannot +be said any more than in the case of a flame can be indicated exactly +how far the circle of its radiance extends, the precise limit stated +at which it gives place to darkness. And just as, despite this, the +flame has a definite circle of radiance, so Kamma has a definite sphere +of operation, albeit no science--such as zoology or anthropology and +so forth--is in a position to establish this thesis. Kamma takes hold +where it can take hold--that is to say, where in the material of +procreation there vibrate energies to which it is uniquely attuned; and +in the scale of living creatures it reaches just as far as it is able +to reach. + +In the Jatakas, the birth-stories of the Buddha, we see him in Samsāra +ranging this whole scale through from the lowest stages of the animal +kingdom right up to the worlds of the gods, ever and again planting +foot there where the Kamma was attuned at the moment of collapse. + +It is a fact of experience that between living beings there exist +peculiar consonances. To a stone or a tree no tie of compassion binds +us. Compassion only begins at the animal world, and its limits are +individual, and vary according to bringing up. With many compassion +is entirely confined to human beings; more especially is this the +case with those brought up in the shadow of monotheistic beliefs. In +pantheism, on the contrary, as it has prevailed in India from the +earliest days, the boundary line of compassion runs right down into the +lowest animal kingdom. Meanwhile, among us, too, those incapable of +feeling compassion for a dog, a horse, a cow, a cage-bird, are very few. + +In the last analysis the capacity for compassion consists in the +peculiar attunement, consonance existing between one _I_-energy and +other _I_-energies. Where, as in the case of the stone, there are no +_I_-energies, there can likewise be no compassion. + +In the Buddha-thought the classification of the phenomena of life +adopted is one peculiar to itself alone. The usual crude divisions +into stone, plant, animal, and man, or into inorganic and organic, +count for nothing here. All these are based upon the assumption +that things are fixed quantities, identities; hence they prescribe +artificial preconditions, and consequently have no value in themselves +but only with reference to some such determined end as increased +facility of comprehension. In the Buddha-thought all life-phenomena +divide themselves into these two classes--those that have power to act +upon me, stimulate or excite me, set me in sympathetic vibration and +correspondingly be set in sympathetic vibration by me, and those with +which this is not more or not yet the case. + +We are bound to admit--and all physiological phenomena bear witness to +it--that the ovum- and sperm-cell are those forms of development of +the _I_-process in which the _I_-energy of the individuals concerned +reveals itself in its purest and most intimate, because most intrinsic +form. If they are torn apart from the whole in the act of generation, +yet are they able to furnish the new _I_-material, because they keep +the _I_-energy vibrating sufficiently long in themselves to be able to +answer to the Kamma peculiarly attuned to them. + +Such an apprehension of things would seem like a slap in the face +for biology and the whole history of evolution, and here the task of +the Buddha-thought is to come to an understanding with the theory of +descent if it is to prove satisfactory to the man of education. + +To begin with, one must be quite clear on this point--that the whole +theory of descent is nothing but a form of reading the biological +facts, a theory in the strictest sense of the word. As a consequence +it has value only with reference to certain ends. First, in order +to group together under one main heading the enormous miscellany of +facts--thus, for didactic ends. And secondly, read from below upwards +instead of from above downwards, that is, apprehended as a theory of +evolution instead of as a theory of descent, it suggests a life-value +of such inspiring power as in this respect might also be set alongside +the ideas of God and of the state--the idea of a development of mankind +that progresses ever further and further. This idea, of course, is much +older than Darwin, but it was only in his teaching that for the first +time it assumed requisite reality. + +The evolution theory is far removed from Darwin’s original teaching +upon natural selection and the survival of the fittest. It has +only been read into it by this age of ours ever hungering after +life-values. Man must have something to which to cling in the dread +wastes of endlessness; he must have something that points beyond this +life--something to which he can relate this life as a whole. To an age +whose belief in God more and more dwindles away, the evolution theory +is an invaluable substitute. Even if it yields no real nourishment, +yet does it point in emblem beyond this life of the individual, and +soothes like the sight of a beautiful picture. That in reality one can +only speak of evolution where one has at hand a standard one can apply +to it, to the progress made--in other words, where one can measure it; +this men forget and willingly forget, for this single consideration +perforce flings the whole idea of progressive evolution into the +category of illusions. We must have an absolute point of departure if +we are to speak of evolution in itself. This we no more possess than +we possess an absolute space to which we can relate its motion. Where +an absolute point of departure is lacking, the idea of evolution is +as meaningless as the idea of absolute motion. The evolutional is +“interpreted into” the facts by main force. To declare man to be more +evolved than the monads, savours of a limited despotism. The directly +opposite view were every whit as possible. Since the monads achieve +life with an infinitely much simpler apparatus than man, they therefore +stand higher in evolution; for “it is in limitation that the master is +revealed.” A great many animals can do very much more than man with his +organ of thought, the main purpose of which, when all is said and done, +would appear to consist in putting obstacles between him and actual +life, and subjecting him to the tyranny of concepts. In point of fact, +however, the miracle of the cells is everywhere the same, in the monads +as in the brain-cells, and one position is all as futile as the other. + +In the fact that science as represented by biology is particularly +qualified to adopt the development-idea in the form of the theory +of evolution, and to make use of it, she shows her deep-lying and +essential fellowship with faith. For where in this sense there is +development, there is beginning; where there is beginning, there is an +absolute; and where there is an absolute, there is faith. To honest, +genuine thinking, every thing, every moment of beginning, whether of a +real or of a conceptual nature, leads back to a beginninglessness. In +the simple existence of life, that is, of anything that is alive, its +beginninglessness is already implied. With this the evolution idea is +deprived of all possibility. Here development signifies nothing but the +unfolding of the characteristics involved in the material laid hold +of. Actual development proceeds just as much from seed to blossom as +from blossom to seed. A moment of _evolution_ is as little to be found +in the happenings of the world as in a burning flame. To hold one +world-period as more developed than another is a childish position. +Every moment demonstrates, simply by its existence, that it is _the_ +form of adaptation which just at that moment is the only possible and +therefore necessary one. The world of the cosmic nebula--as being the +blossom of earlier worlds, the seed of later ones--is as developed as +the world of the ichthyosaurus, as the world of the _homo sapiens_. +All are forms of the series of self-attunings, each after other. To +call the world of the _now_ more developed than the world of the Coal +Age were somewhat the same as to call the descent of a stone after +it has been falling for five seconds more developed than when it has +been falling for one second. The downward velocity after one second is +_the_ adaptation just as much as is the downward velocity after five +seconds. It only shows the childishness of the biological apprehension +of things that it should still continue to find satisfaction in such +trivialities, based wholly as these are upon concepts of its own +fabrication. + +But as already said, in the original teaching of Darwin nothing is to +be found of such conceptions. He was a good Christian who had not the +remotest idea of setting up a primordial cell as competitor against +the _bon dieu_, or of aping him with such like theories. And when he +happens to meet him on his way, he humbly pulls off his hat like Hodge +in presence of “squire.” + +The essence of Darwinism is contained in the theory of selection. +Against this theory reproach has been brought that it embraces in its +scope only the transformations, not the arising of living creatures. +Rarely has theory encountered reproach more childish and mistaken. That +is found fault with, which precisely constitutes the very greatness of +the thought. + +Darwin’s thesis is as follows:-- + +“Given the existence of organic matter, given its tendencies to +transmit its characteristics. Given, finally, the life conditions of +the organic matter--these things in their totality are the causes of +the present and past conditions of organic nature.” + +The greatness of this statement lies in its truly scientific +exactitude, in its purely mechanistic apprehension of things. Just +as the physicist, when he speaks of force and mass, intentionally +eliminates everything of the actual--he simply cannot work until +first all that is actual is eliminated, and pure relation-values +established--so Darwin eliminates everything actual and sets to work +with pure relation-values. Otherwise put: His teaching is nothing but +a new system of measurement for actuality; and his greatness consists +in this, that he was the first to take biology and apply to it the +methods of the physicist. He it was who first approached the biological +facts from the standpoint of differences of tension, differences of +potentiality. His doctrine of the survival of the fittest is simply +a kind of biological measure of force. What would one say of a man +who made it a matter of reproach in connection with a yard-stick that +it did not also at the same time indicate the nature and origin of +the object measured by it? Only when it is independent of all such +questions can anything serve as a standard of measurement. Where would +the physicist find himself were he to say, “I will not concern myself +with forces until I really know what force is?” He does not wish to +know what force is. Were one to tell him he would stop his ears. He +wants to make use of force, to be able to measure it; nothing more. +In the same way Darwin does not in the least want to know and tell +what living beings are. Should one say, “They are from God,” another, +“They are from the devil,” he, Darwin, happens to be of the former +opinion; but that has nothing to do with the problem before him. As the +physicist lays hold of the pendulum in its swing and says, “If now I +let it go, such and such phenomena must occur,” so Darwin--figuratively +speaking of course--lays hold of the biological pendulum and says, +“If now I let it go, this and this must happen.” The physicist so +arranges his preliminary conditions that he can measure what occurs, +and so also does Darwin. As the physical resultant is measured in the +form of work, so Darwin measures the biological resultant in the form +of the law of the survival of the fittest. Previous to him, biology +stood much on the same level as the Ptolemaic universe which is based +solely upon observation. Observation indeed permits of measurements of +mass but not of measurements of force. At one bound Darwin leaps to +an apprehension and treatment of biology strictly after the fashion +of energetics, and thereby makes good his claim to rank with Robert +Mayer and his successors. Comprehension, science, can only be carried +on where there is flux, where there is change. It is the glory of the +Darwinian theory that it sufficiently fluidized for thought, the world +of living beings, broke up the rigid conception of species, the belief +in single acts of creation, as to render them accessible to a physical +mode of apprehension; the which always amounts to a mechanistic mode, +to a falling, even where it calls itself the mode of energetics. His +theory of natural selection is, in the strictest sense of the words, a +liquidation of the inventory of antiquated ideas. But be it well noted: +like the greatness of every mechanistic view, the greatness of the +Darwinian thought resides in its purely re-active quality, in the fact +that it only furnishes biological relation-values. + +I incline to look upon the reception and interpretation which the +Darwinian teaching has received at the hands of science as one of the +hugest jokes world-history--taken in the biological, not the historical +sense--has ever indulged in at the expense of the human mind. It +is more than a joke; it is a stroke of wit! In all seriousness men +wrangle as to whether Darwin’s doctrine is true or false; which is +the same as if they disputed, for example, about the truth or falsity +of the decimal system. Men find that the longer the theory of natural +selection is tested, the more frequently does it fail them; which is +the same as if a man bent upon measuring everything regardless of +distinctions with a yard-stick, should find, the longer he proceeds, an +ever increasing number of things that do not admit of being measured +by such a scale. In fine, men so comport themselves, that oftentimes +one could almost wish to live sufficiently long to hear the helpless +laughter of posterity. And, with it all, what erudition! + +It is unfailingly interesting and instructive to observe the +difference between biology and physics. In the latter is found a sort +of well-bred _savoir vivre_, a clear perception of the relativity of +all knowledge-values--Pontius Pilate’s query translated with all the +refinements of mechanistics into physicist phraseology. In the former, +in modern monism, is heard the droning, “A mighty stronghold is our +God,” sung in unison by shepherd and sheep; wherein, to be sure, by +the word “God” one does not mean that jealous God who visits the sins +of the fathers upon the children, but that abstract creature of air, +“the law of evolution” which in retrospective wise, seeks to avenge the +follies of the children upon the fathers. + +Yet once more be it said, The doctrine of the evolution of life out +of one primordial form to forms that mount by degrees ever higher and +higher, is of purely symbolical significance, as indeed every law is +of purely symbolical significance, inasmuch as it furnishes nothing +save the possibility of grouping together in one definite connection a +large, nay, a limitless number of phenomena. + +Of course men point to the fact that modern biology is able to bring +about actual and genuine modifications in living creatures. Nothing is +further from my intention than to call in question the facts connected +with breeding. Daily life sufficiently proves them, and the laboratory +demonstrates them under a variety of elegant and surprising forms. But +what does one breed? One breeds peculiar conditions under which some +life-process or other runs its course--never by any means the process +itself--in the selfsame way that the physicist “breeds” the sunbeam as +a spectrum, as a polarised ray, as interference, and so forth. Never +yet has breeding brought about the transmutation of one life-form into +another higher in the scale of being. + +Now comes the moment when the evolution theorist plays out his last and +highest trump. “Very good!” he says. “Let it be that in consequence of +our hitherto still defective technique we have not yet succeeded in +transmuting one species into a higher, nevertheless, in the facts that +have been grouped together under the name of the fundamental biogenetic +law and in rudimentary formations, Nature shows us that she herself has +actually come this way.” + +Of a surety the Buddha knew of no fundamental biogenetic law, probably +also had no idea of so-called rudimentary formations; but I simply +cannot imagine anything that more conclusively proves the truth of +his thought than these same facts. For, to him who has learned of +the Buddha, these facts do not say that which the modern biologist +imputes to them; they testify to the existence of _actual_ associations +between living beings right down into what we call the lowest stages. +They bring immediately before our eyes the competency of human Kamma +to find foothold outside the human kingdom also. As a traveller bears +about with him this and the other trace of the dirt of the roads along +which he has journeyed, so does the embryo in the various stages of +its development exhibit the traces of Samsāra, demonstrate its power +to take hold in the heights and in the deeps, exactly according as its +Kamma is attuned, and demonstrate also that it _has taken_ hold in the +heights and deeps, exactly according as its Kamma _was_ attuned. The +embryonal forms show--to use the language of physics--the tremendous +amplitude of vibration of the _I_-process. They show _that we all eat +out of the one dish_. + +I am quite prepared to find interpretations such as these evoke nothing +but merriment among orthodox men of science. But I address myself as +little to the slaves of science as to the slaves outside it. I address +myself to men who think with sufficient independence and possess +sufficient sense of actuality to allow facts to have unbiassed weight +with them. + +The following is also worthy of consideration:-- + +The fundamental biogenetic law, as interpreted by Haeckel is a complete +contradiction of the very nature of the theory of Natural Selection. +Like every purely scientific mode of envisaging things, the latter +comes in on an unaccented beat, so to speak. It starts out with a given +difference of potentiality, with respect to which one does nothing +but observe the symptoms furnished by the process of compensation; +refraining, however, from every interpretation of how these differences +could ever have arisen. In the interpretation of the evolutionist, on +the other hand, the facts upon which the fundamental biogenetic law +is based of necessity point in the direction of a first beginning; +they converge upon the idea of the “setting in of life.” Hence they +constrain to a scientific form of faith, which necessitates acrimonious +warfare against the church-form of the same, if one cannot agree that +the primordial cell, existing all complete, and the “In the beginning +God created the heaven and the earth,” may be regarded simply as +different attempts at the definition of one and the same occurrence. +It is the feud betwixt dog and wolf. In the dusk they might pass for +mates, were it not that each is busy trying to take a bite out of the +other’s throat. But, like all atheists from the most ancient times, +modern monism, too, forgets that to challenge the _bon dieu_ to single +combat is, as politicians would say, to “recognize him in principle,” +and that at bottom this duel can be nothing but a _modus vivendi_ for +both parties. + +Darwin’s original position entirely obviates such a strait as this. It +is, as all science should be, strictly a-moral. With disconcerting--or +if one likes, refreshing--coolness, the biological pieces are set up on +the cosmic chess-board, and a game begun. The first move of the opening +is already made, and now move after move follows of simple necessity. +Where, for example, Darwin speaks of the cuckoo’s instinct, he makes no +attempt to account for the same by itself. He rather begins, “Now let +us suppose that the ancient progenitor of our European cuckoo had the +habits of the American cuckoo, and that she occasionally laid an egg in +another bird’s nest ...” and so on;[26] which simply means: the game is +already in full swing, and so one move follows from the other. + +Darwin might be called the grand master of the art of biological +chess. Nothing was further from his mind--originally at least--than +turning the game to earnest; from the fact that a biological game is +in progress, to seek to deduce an answer to the question as to _how_ +such a thing could ever have come about. That would only mean spoiling +the whole game. And as a matter of fact, by none has it been more +completely spoiled for him than by his own followers. To them it is +that Bunge’s words are directed: “The Darwinians teach that everything +is cleared up, that only the riddle of heredity yet remains to be +solved. But it is precisely this riddle of heredity which makes up +the riddle the Darwinians imagine they have explained. What, then, is +inherited? In the case of man there is inherited the capacity to evolve +a man out of a cell. For as long as one remains unable to solve this +riddle--the riddle of ontogeny--one remains still less able to solve +the riddle of phylogeny.”[27] + +Darwin himself so chose his position that at all times he could look +his God in the face. The unalleviated insipidity of his position is +precisely the proof of the exact scientific form in which he--the +first to do so--laid hold of the biological problem. But in this mode +of laying hold of it, the fundamental biogenetic law with its various +perspectives has no place whatever. + +But neither do the rudimentary formations admit of being read by the +Darwinian formula. They must have arisen through persistent disuse. In +the mechanistic world-view, however, an arising through disuse is a +sheer contradiction. Every disuse implies the presence of an arbitrary +impulsion. In the strictly mechanistic apprehension of things, the +whole universe in each of its impulsions is to be apprehended as the +relapse of some other impulsion, that is, as process of compensation; +and every deficiency of activity in this never-resting process of +compensation, practically as well as theoretically, would be a +miracle. As in the mechanical cosmogony of the physicist, so also in +the Darwinian cosmogony, the single active impulsion in the whole +mechanism remains the diversity given with the various forms of life; +and as above the physical, so also here the biological event becomes +simply the compensation of these countless single diversities. Hence +every theory of disuse is synonymous with the introduction of a +foreign, non-mechanical impulsion. + +The Darwinian formula lays hold of the phenomena of life only in a +certain medial tract. Somewhat as a scale of temperature-measurement +lays hold of the phenomena of heat only in a certain medial tract, and +above and below that tract is of no service, so the theory of natural +selection is of no service as regards the fundamental biogenetic law on +the one hand, and the rudimentary formations on the other. + +The third and weightiest consideration, however, is this, that the +fact of the formation of hybrids lies neither above nor below the +scale, but altogether outside of it; following our metaphor, to apply +the Darwinian idea to them would mean to seek somehow to apply the +heat-scale to electric or magnetic phenomena. So soon as the evolution +theory attempts to bring the fact of the formation of hybrids within +its sphere of operation, it annihilates the possibility of its own +existence. Natural selection is only possible in self-copulation. +A self-copulation to the point of sterility is a contradiction in +itself; hence Darwin himself is here obliged to have recourse to +unknown impulsions. “The general sterility of crossed species may +safely be looked at, not as a special acquirement or endowment, +but as incidental on changes of an unknown nature in their sexual +elements.”[28] Again, “The extinction of species has been involved in +the most gratuitous mystery.... We need not wonder at extinction; if +we must marvel, let it be at our own presumption in imagining for a +moment that we understand the many complex contingencies on which the +existence of each species depends.”[29] This, however, means nothing +but putting the question, “Who says we have a right to inquire into +everything?” And that, again, means nothing but to be a good Christian. + +That, of course, is not the slightest disparagement to the teaching, so +long as one takes it for what it really is--a standard of measurement +for the facts, a formula by means of which one may more easily express +them. It would be passing sentence of death upon it, as also upon the +law of the conservation of energy, if, apprehending it in childish +wise, one interpreted it as a genuine world-conception, as a law that +should not merely supply a _reading_ of the facts, but account for +these facts themselves. + +When modern biology inclines to set aside the Darwinian teaching in +favour of the more novel theories of mutation, it is acting like that +countryman who bought himself a pair of spectacles, expecting them not +only to make print clear to his eyes but also teach him how to read, +and who then made complaint that the glasses did not do their duty. +The theory of natural selection, as well as every other theory, may +be likened to reading-glasses. It reveals the facts in such a way as +to lighten the labour for weakly eyes, but it does not teach one to +understand the facts themselves. And as with glasses, so with theories; +one has to change them, on an average, every five years. + +But let us return to our subject proper. + +Here also the Buddha supplies a single concept in the place of two +miracles. That to which science gives the name of rudimentary organs +are here not the results of continuous disuse--once more I ask, how +in a purely mechanical apprehension of things disuse can ever set +in at all--but, precisely the same as the facts of the fundamental +biogenetic law, they are witnesses to a beginningless journey up and +down throughout the entire domain of living creatures. In the place of +the double miracle--a threatened absolute beginning in the facts of +the fundamental biogenetic law, and a threatened absolute end in the +fact of rudimentary organs--one single concept! And the formation of +hybrids is here robbed of all its danger. Beings are neither heirs of +their progenitors nor bequeathers to their posterity; they are heirs of +themselves. + +In such a mode of apprehending life, that which we basely and vulgarly +call co-ition acquires a meaning of its own. Again there is that +delicate irony that comes only of commanding height of position. +The intercourse of the sexes is only the _attempt_ at co-ition, at +coming together. In plain truth, both man and woman are nothing but +the surrogates of nature, which makes use of them in order to render +possible the real co-ition, the conflux of Kamma and its material. +Hence, species and sub-species count for nothing. Such a “something” as +species is nowhere to be found in actuality. It is nothing but a way +of apprehending the phenomena of life. + +It may be rejoined, “But as a matter of fact beings are so constituted +as to admit of their being grouped together into species. This is +so in the scientific apprehension of things, where the new being is +exclusively derived from the material of the parents, in accordance +with nature. But in the Buddhistic apprehension of things, there is no +reason whatever why two living beings, so far as form is concerned, +should be like one another at all.” + +To this, reply may be made, Two living beings exactly alike as to form +are not to be found. Groupings, of no matter what kind, are always +matters of accommodation; which means that they are only made possible +by the neglecting of trifling divergencies. The fool in _King Lear_, +informing us why the Pleiades has seven stars, says, “Because there are +not eight of them.” There are not eight of them, however, not because +an eighth is not there, but just because we leave out the remainder, do +not count them in. So also is it with species. Of course, I am never +in any doubt as to what it is that I name man, dog, cow, and so forth, +for these concepts have first been settled by myself. But as that which +I comprehend with my horizon changes content at every step I take, so +also do the concepts man, dog, and so forth. Everything is comprehended +in an uninterrupted self-accommodation, self-attunement, each after +other, that only runs its course with sufficient sluggishness, +provisionally to render possible and justify the groupings of natural +science in order to better understanding. To ask why precisely +there are the forms that there are, is to ask why in general there +is anything given at all. It simply is so! The question would have +some meaning were stationary forms here present from eternity and to +eternity. But all these forms are nothing but a perpetual forming +itself into itself from beginninglessness down to the present moment. +To say that there is a world, a reality at all, is to say that there +_must_ be resemblances. Otherwise a self-attunement of energy and +material were utterly impossible. The resemblances, and therewith in +the second place the possibility of classific syntheses are real and +conceptual _preliminary condition_ of all actuality--yea, actuality +itself. + +Another objection which every thinking man must make is one that out of +prudence is raised by the theory of descent itself. It is this: “How +can the theory of a gradual unbroken ascent in the evolutional series +be reconciled with the simultaneous existence of the lowest alongside +of the highest forms?” Here the theory of descent is unable even to +make an attempt at a satisfactory explanation. Darwin himself on this +point says, “Such objections as the above would be fatal to my view, +if it included advance in organization as a necessary contingent.”[30] +This declaration throws a flood of clearest light upon Darwin’s whole +attitude towards the theory of evolution, and at the same time upon the +arbitrariness with which he has been interpreted by his followers. + +Now let us consider the other side. The Buddha-thought, regarded from +the physiological position, is based upon the insight that every +living being is a singly determined existence. The question is, Are +there facts in nature which would contradict this one and single +determination? + +I confine myself to the most promising instance, that of the amœba +multiplying themselves by fission. This fact, interpreted according to +science, would mean that here energy divides itself, exists alongside +itself, since Weismann says that at the moment of partition neither +of the two cells, if “endowed with self-consciousness,” could say +which was mother and which daughter. “I have no doubt that each half +would look upon the other as the daughter, and itself as the original +individual,” he says in his _Dauer des Lebens_. + +Were there any real necessity to compel such an interpretation, +then the single determination of energies would be riddled through +and through. But there is no compelling necessity, nay, nor even +possibility, of interpreting what happens after such a fashion. One +is equally entitled to say that in the sundered sections a new energy +lays hold. That this daughter-section continues its movements without a +break is no proof of the orthodox conception of what takes place. The +human sperm-cell, after its expulsion from the old organism, also for +a longer time retains its own particular movements. It works itself +towards the ovum against the vibratory movements of the epithelium; +thus, so to speak, against the stream. + +Incidentally it may be remarked that this fact alone, interpreted +according to physiology, would give rise to a difficulty that must +render insoluble the entire problem of fecundation. For this movement +of the sperm-cell renders necessary the question, “When precisely does +the actual moment of fecundation occur? Is it at the first signs of +conception? or at the moment when the sperm-cell penetrates the sheath +of the ovum? or at the moment of their first mutual contact? or has +not fecundation already virtually set in with this endeavour of the +sperm-cell to get to the ovum-cell?” One might then inquire, after the +fashion of jurists: “At what moment precisely is the deed born? Is it +when I carry it out? or when I get ready to carry it out? or when I +form the resolve to carry it out?” Such are the difficulties that arise +when one seizes the problem of procreation in a purely materialistic +way. And one is bound to seize it in a purely materialistic way if one +would seize it scientifically. + +A single fact which contradicts the unique determination of a living +being is not to be found, and never can be found. For this, it would +be necessary that energy itself should be accessible, seizable by +sense; and that is a contradiction in itself. One energy only is +accessible--my consciousness. And this is _the_ uniquely determined. + +So much for the attitude of the Buddha-thought to the biological +problem. To procure acceptance for such views, a broad high-way would +first need to be driven through the jungle of scientific opinions. +Science divides consciousness and life, making the former merely +an accident of the latter, and seeking and seeing it only in the +line of matter. The processes of fission in unicellular organisms +call up visions of an “eternal life.” Thereupon men halt and say +with full conviction--and justification also, “The continuity of +consciousness is apparently interrupted; the continuity of life is +never interrupted”;[31] or else, “It is no cell-complex that dies, +but a concept”;[32] in saying which, so far as the form of the words +goes, they entirely agree with the Buddha, and yet in meaning stand so +desperately far from him that every hope of an understanding between +them is out of the question. + +This inward divergence reveals itself here and there in the _sequelæ_: +All the facts connected with the doctrine of generation and the +history of evolution, which in the scientific mode of envisaging them +become insoluble problems, with the Buddha are all resolved in _one_ +thought--that of individual beginninglessness represented by the line +of Kamma, and so become _the evangel of a new world-conception_. + + + + + X + + BUDDHISM AND THE COSMOLOGICAL PROBLEM + + +This problem treats of the question as to the arising of the world +in general and life in particular--thus, has its foundation in the +methodical play against one another of two absurdities; as indeed +follows from the possibility of reversing the positions. If the +materialist asks, “How has life come into the world?” the idealist +equally inquires, “How has the world entered into life, _i.e._ into +me, into my consciousness?” From the outset, it is obvious that here +both are provided with unlimited scope for the performance of mental +feats worthy to rank on equal terms with the derring-do of a “raging +Roland.” And as the Duke of Florence asked of the worthy Ariosto, +“Messer Ludovico, where ever did you learn all those tricks?” so here, +in similar wise, one might ask, “Master of the lecture-room, master of +the crucible and the retort, where ever did you learn all those tricks?” + +For biologist and physicist the train of reasoning here runs as +follows:-- + +“Life is present! Proof: I, the thinker!” The first rule of play in the +cosmic game, according to scientific principles, is: “God” does not +count--just as in a vaulting contest the stick does not count. This +granted, the whole problem embodies itself in these two possibilities:-- + +(_a_) Has life arisen through spontaneous generation? (_b_) Has it +descended hither from beginninglessness? + +The question of spontaneous generation has undergone manifold +vicissitudes. Aristotle made use of spontaneous generation with perfect +ingenuousness, not to say unstinted lavishness. The more, however, +continued experiment taught that where one had hitherto imagined one +beheld the arising of new life, serious mistakes had been made--that +germs of life had found their way into the medium, all the more did men +turn away from the idea of a _generatio spontanea_. The experiments of +Pasteur seemed to give the decisive blow. Wherever life is present, +life is presupposed. + +To-day men give their opinion on the subject of the possibility of +spontaneous generation with that cautious reserve which has been learnt +from the calculation of probabilities. + +A modern physiologist expresses himself as follows:-- + +“The question as to whether out of dead substance a living cell can be +produced, whether so-called spontaneous generation is a possibility, +does not in the present condition of our knowledge permit of being +answered in a decided negative. We are bound to admit the possibility, +even though all experiments yield a negative result.”[33] + +The necessity which, despite all negative results, compels one to +cling to the possibility of spontaneous generation, is the truly heroic +violence with which biology identifies “life” and “cell.” + +The entire sum of biological wisdom comes to a point in the saying, +_Omnis cellula e cellula_--against which as little objection is to be +urged as against the statement of the fact that every living being +arises from another living being. + +At this point, however, geology steps in and plays the spoil-sport +by producing indubitable proofs of the one-time molten condition of +our globe, thereby setting an insurmountable limit to “life” in the +biological acceptation of the word. + +This fact served as spur to all sorts of attempts at imparting a more +scientific character to the belief in spontaneous generation. + +In these endeavours the main support received came from organic +chemistry. + +The first achievement on the road to the chemical “synthesis” of life +was Wöhler’s demonstration of artificial urea. But this event has been +so far outstripped that to-day one only looks back at it in order to +bring visibly before the eye the progress that has been made in a +comparatively short space of time. To-day one is already beginning to +talk of the possibility of producing living albumen. + +The following passage from Huxley’s _On our knowledge of the causes +of the phenomena of organic nature_ may serve as a sample of the +“scientific circumspection” with which one sets to work upon this most +difficult of tasks also. + +After laying it down that there are two possible proofs of the origin +of life: first, the historical one as found in geology; and second, +that derived from experiment--of which the former is unsatisfactory and +the latter not carried out, the writer proceeds:-- + +“To enable us to say that we know anything about the experimental +origination of organization and life, the investigator ought to be able +to take inorganic matters, such as carbonic acid, ammonia, water, and +salines, in any sort of inorganic combination, and be able to build +them up into protein matter, and then that protein matter ought to +begin to live in an organic form. That nobody has done as yet, and I +suspect it will be a long while before anybody does do it. But the +thing is by no means so impossible as it looks; for the researches of +modern chemistry have shown us--I won’t say the road towards it, but, +if I may so say, they have shown the finger-post pointing to the road +that may lead to it.” + +_O agnus dei!_ lend me but a little of thy lamb’s patience, that so +I may be able to smile at this tangle of profound absurdities, this +_docta ignorantia_. And this they call weighing a difficult problem +with “scientific circumspection”! It is not difficult, God wot, to be +circumspect when it is the purely imaginary that is in question. For +the famous Monsieur “Life” of whose organization and structure mention +is made above has precisely as much actuality as that Mr. Table d’Hôte +for whom the farmer from the country inquired. Such a being is the +most effective of subjects for science, for it admits of being solved +without remainder in learnedness. _Quousque tandem professores!_ + +No physicist would be so irrational as to say, “I see the wind--in the +swaying bough of a tree and so forth; I hear, smell, feel, measure it; +but where now is he--this Mr. Wind himself?” The biologist, however, +manages to say, “I see, hear, smell, taste, touch, think life; but +where now is that unknown god ‘Life’ himself?” Once for all, Man, know +that thy seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking--even +were they biological tricks such as thine--are life itself; other life +there is not. To seek to have it issue like some homunculus from the +retort or the incubator--this oughtest thou rather to leave to the +other poets--the genuine ones! + +It is far from my intention to embark upon polemics; but it is +well-nigh impossible to pass anywhere near folly when it masquerades in +the black of the most profound seriousness and resist the temptation to +give it a good push, so that the public, by the fluttering of the rags, +may recognize the hollow scarecrow. But after all, there is some sense +in everything, even if this “sense” is oftentimes “non-sense!” + +This is one of the attempts made to bring life--as “cell”--and the +facts of geology into harmony. The other runs as follows:-- + +Force and matter are imperishable: it is only the form that changes. +The world of astronomy displays this beginninglessness in the form of +the ceaseless mutation of the heavenly bodies. Accordingly, organic +life also must be beginningless, not as a sort of mystic primeval slime +but as a something formed, as a cell or group of cells. Consequently it +is only a question of explaining how life could find its way over from +a worn-out world into a youthful one just solidifying from the molten +state. + +This theory presents a good example of how similarity of sound may +conceal complete difference in sense. + +Like the Buddha, this theory, too, teaches the beginninglessness of +organized life. But whilst with the Buddha there is an actual new +arising as flames arise new, by an energy encountering the material, +“striking in,” here there is only an inept pushing back of the facts +perceptible to sense; in which latter procedure meteorites are made +to serve as a sort of cosmic jam-jar, the precious stuff “life,” in a +conserved condition, so to speak, being passed over therein from one +world to another. + +A variation of this problem is the question as to whether “life” +has arisen on the earth in one single place, or in several places +simultaneously. + +In the Buddha-thought all such questions are reduced to impotence. + +The Buddha teaches:-- + +There are countless worlds; and as here on our world things may be +destroyed by fire or water, or otherwise, so also with the worlds in +space. + +But as the disintegration of anything here on the Earth only means its +reintegration anew in some other place, so also is it with the worlds. +Nothing is destroyed, nothing perishes: it is only that a change +takes place in the centres of tension--nothing more. An Earth, a Sun, +a Jupiter, a Sirius, and so forth, as identities, as corporealities +complete in themselves--these as little exist as there exist identities +as personalities. Even as here, so also in the infinitudes of space, +there are condensations having their foundation in definite energical +tensions which, for the sake of easier comprehension and because +the process runs its course at a rate of speed sufficiently low, we +designate by the names of Earth, Sun, Jupiter Sirius, and so forth. +Like every _I_-process that presents itself to my senses, they possess +significance only as symptoms; they are nothing but forms in which +certain definite energies make themselves manifest. + +In the Buddha’s system there are no such things as worlds in +themselves. A world is nothing but the summation of the single +processes of which it is made up, just as a banquet is nothing but the +summation of the guests and the ingredients of the feast. As birds +flock together because there is something present that attracts them +in large numbers; as crows gather round a mango-stone; as a saline +solution from the centre of shock outwards proceeds to crystallize; so +does this unitary experience, whether it manifest itself in organic or +non-organic shape, conglobate into cosmic groups, burst into systems +of worlds. Here one must hold to it firm and fast that “non-organic” +is not the converse of “organic,” but is simply the not organic, and +an indication that energies are here concerned upon which we ourselves +even by analogy can say nothing.[34] For the rest, however, all is +the same--all is the self-interweaving of energy and material--all is +Sankhāra. Whether the processes are of such a nature as in the course +of their development to permit of flowering forth into consciousness +or whether they are not--this makes no essential difference. When +the Buddha says: “The arising of the world will I teach you,” and +then proceeds with his sequence of thought: “Where the eye and forms +are, there arises visual consciousness; the conjunction of the three +results is contact; contact yields feeling,” and so on; or when he +says: “The world is where the six senses are”--this is not meant in the +philosophical idealistic sense. There is no arising of the world other +than that experienced at every moment as a self-interweaving of energy +and material in me, in every being, in every process in the world. +_The summation of this individual experience--that is the world._ +Other world there is not. This moment that now says “_I_”--this is the +arising of the world, and never and nowhere in all the universe does it +take place otherwise. As eater, as self-nourisher, I am _world-maker_ +in the strictest sense of the word. In this actual world nothing +new arises. Centres of tension, tendencies, shift about hither and +thither, heave up and down like mist-wreaths over the dark depths of +unfathomable abysses--a beginningless coming together, a beginningless +falling asunder, in which nothing persists save the never-sated thirst, +the ever-sleepless lust for food. It is the terrible game “law” +that here is played. Worlds, the arena; fates, the players; and the +prize--nothing! + +In connection with such a beginningless integration and disintegration, +to speak of a condition of greater or lesser development is the +notion of a child. As little as the clenched fist is more developed +than the five fingers outspread, just as little is a world in space +peopled with thinking, living beings more developed than one spread +out in masses of nebula; all things are only phases in a beginningless +proceeding here presenting itself to me symptomatically, but of which +I obtain a direct comprehension in consciousness. To ask whether suns +and Milky Ways are without beginning is meaningless; for they are +positively nothing else but the expression of the hither and thither +movement of energies; but that which I now experience in consciousness, +that is--rightly considered--beginninglessness itself; and the +self-integration and self-disintegration of worlds is nothing but the +functional concomitant phenomenon of the beginninglessness of the _I_. + +If now such a Lokadhātu (world-system) goes to decay, this, conformable +to its nature, is nothing but a summation of single dyings. The Kamma +of the single things takes fresh hold in the universe there where it +can take hold--and therefore _must_ take hold. Actual energies take +hold immediately, independent of space and time. There is no need to +trace their course from meteorites and cosmic nebulæ, from one heavenly +body to another, somewhat as one might trace a letter from its place +of postage to its destination; but even as our thoughts are immediate, +independent of time and space, as our loves are able to “lay hold” in +the remotest ends of the earth, so do the Kammas lay hold immediately, +independent of time and space, in the most distant abysses of +infinitude, even to where no light-year any more can measure--lay hold +there, whither, in virtue of their propensities, their tendencies, they +reach out. + +From the commanding position of such a conception it follows that +Buddhist cosmogony does not fit in with our crude astronomical +ideas. As it is not always the case that “birds of a feather flock +together”--there are solitary denizens of air, noble creatures that +wing their way through the ether alone--so Buddhist cosmogony makes +mention of solitary beings who segregate themselves at the initial +beginnings of a new world. + +When, after the break-up of a system of worlds, here and there worlds +again begin to form, to sprout; when again here and there energies take +hold even because they can take hold, then these beings appear as pure +creatures of light, self-luminous, wheeling through boundless space, +through boundless epochs of time, compact all of light, compact all of +bliss, yet even as we, belonging to the world, differing only in the +circumstances and antecedent conditions of their “taking hold.” + +One reads of this in the colossal thought-symphony of the Brahmajāla +Sutta of the _Dīgha Nikāya_. It is thus that a spirit speaks who has +burst through the barriers of self-imposed conceptions and unimpeded +launches out into the infinitudes where thought finds never a bound +save that itself enjoins, nor any halt save that it sets itself. + +In conclusion I recapitulate:-- + +Like all the other problems of science, this too is of a dialectical +nature. One is operating with one identity “world” and another +identity “life,” and afterwards strives in vain to bring the two into +comprehensible association. In the simple entertaining of such ideas +one has cut oneself off from every possibility of a solution. There +is no identity “world,” no identity “life.” There are nothing but +self-sustaining, _i.e._ beginningless processes which here and there +group themselves into systems of worlds. If one has comprehended the +whole world as Sankhāra, there is no cosmological problem. World and +life are there as the beginningless unity of “processioning.” + +As a working hypothesis, what service is here rendered by the +Buddha-thought? + +The Buddha-thought explains how it comes to seem as if life had a +first beginning upon a world. For as a matter of fact there is such +a first beginning, and it permits of being proven historically and +geologically. All this is beyond possibility of dispute: it is only +the interpretation that is mistaken. This first beginning is such, +much in the same way that the spring welling from the rock is the +first beginning of the river. It is the first beginning only where +one objectifies the river as an identity. If science seeks to explain +the first beginning of life by spontaneous generation, she resembles +a man who should derive the spring from the rock itself. If she seeks +to derive the first beginning of life from other worlds, she then is +like a man who would fain derive the spring as such, as an abstract +objectified something, from one or another of various localities. Only +in the Buddha-thought is the first beginning of life conceived of in +a genuinely cosmogonical manner, as form of the play of world-events. +It is no migration of duly shaped and formed “spring”-elements, which +out of atmospherical vapour and the waters of the sea fashion a spring, +but a self-displacement of centres of energy. In the selfsame way +it is no migration of life-elements hither out of other worlds, but +a self-displacement of centres of energy, which makes it that life +“sprouts” anew upon a world. Here, to speak about a first beginning as +such, and consequently of a condition of greater or lesser development, +has about as much meaning as if one should speak of a condition of +greater or lesser development in the case of the waters of the ocean, +the vapour of the atmosphere, the fountain on the hill. What is true +with reference to science’s problem of heredity is even more true of +her cosmological problem: it is wholly Hebraic. + + + + + XI + + BUDDHISM AND THE PROBLEM OF THOUGHT + + +The fact that a world exists simultaneously involves its existence _as +such_, _i.e._ as our idea. + +All speculations and theories about the world are thus of a secondary +nature. Their existence were a sheer impossibility if the world, apart +from its being in existence at all, were not also existent _as such_, +as idea, conceptually. + +In the foreword to his _Kritik der reinen Erfahrung_, R. Avenarius +says:-- + +“This work makes the attempt to comprehend all theoretical relations +whatsoever ... as consequences of one single, simple postulate.” + +This “single, simple postulate for all theoretical relations” is the +_possibility_ of such a thing, _i.e._ the fact that conscious ideas, +concepts, exist. _The concept is the problem of all thought_; and to +seek to master the world epistemologically before one has mastered the +concept, is sheer waste of time. + +Now, in the matter of concept thought is in this awkward plight, that +the former offers nothing objective that can be made to serve as a +point of departure in any possible attempt at comprehension. + +This simple consideration alone implies that every attempt to come at +the fact “concept” inductively, _i.e._ with the implements of science, +is hopeless, indeed absurd. And each fresh attempt in that direction +only supplies another proof of the truth of the Buddha’s teaching that +all mental life perforce is bound up with ignorance as to itself. + +In what follows I shall endeavour very briefly to sketch the various +mistaken paths that here have been traversed. + +As everywhere, so also with regard to the fact “concept,” the two +antitheses faith and science stand ranged over against each other. As +everywhere, so also here, the fact “concept” presents no problem to +faith. Just because I am endowed with a soul, a “force in itself,” I +possess the power, the ability to form concepts. As everywhere, so +also here, the paradoxical character of faith makes itself palpably +manifest: the fact of the formation of concepts is by it accepted as +proof that an inconceivable in itself must be present. + +Opposed to it stands science, which seeks to explain and is bound +to explain how such an occurrence as the formation of concepts has +ever been able to come about. Her task falls into two main divisions. +On the one hand, there is the demonstrating of the subjective, +antecedent conditions of the concept; this is done in the physiology +of the different organs of sense. On the other hand, there is +the demonstrating of the objective, antecedent conditions of the +concept--objects, the external world. + +Of this task the subjective part, and the entire fruitlessness of the +same, have already been dealt with in another place. The objective +division comprehends philosophy in the broadest sense of the word. For +every theory and speculation as to the world may without exception be +traced back to this one question: “How must the world be fashioned to +render possible the fact that consciousness-contents, conscious ideals, +concepts, exist--in fine, that the world exists _as such_?” In this +question is comprehended all philosophy, as the tree is comprehended in +the root. + +All the theories as to the constitution of the world that have ever +been advanced or that will ever be advanced, branch into these two +fundamental views:-- + +First: the view that at the foundation of things there exists a +constant in itself, an unconditioned constant, an identical with +itself, or whatever else one has a mind to name it. + +Second: the view that there exists no such unconditioned constant +at the foundation of things, but that all that exists is merely a +relation-value, and that the one single constant in the universe is the +constant of relations formulated abstractly in scientific law. + +Now, to the impartial observer the world presents itself in a twofold +aspect: on one hand as “something that is,” and on the other as +“something that happens.” In the former of these two fundamental views, +things would be something that _has_ happening, something that has +this happening proceed forth from it. In the latter view, things would +_be_ the happening itself, would resolve themselves completely into +happening. + +As already set forth at length in what has gone before, this latter +conception is that given for science as the mechanical world-theory. +Science, if she would justify her title to the name, dare not accord +recognition to anything concealed behind things, anything imperceptible +to sense. If this be granted, “that which is” then becomes purely a +form of “that which happens,” and the universe in its entirety one +huge mass of relation-values. For a thing is perceptible to sense and +therewith apprehensible only in so far as it enters into relations with +other things, which includes, with my senses. + +Any third view is impossible, for, from the strictly epistemological +standpoint, opposites, between them, always comprehend the whole. +From the standpoint of strict epistemology, with any kind of thing as +a concept--with the concept “tree” for example--all the rest of the +world is given as “not-tree”--so completely given with it that the +interpolation of any third concept is an utter impossibility. + +It may be asked, “In what do these two opposed fundamental views find +their justification?” + +All things exist for us only in so far as they are perceptible to us. +They exist as appearances, as the sum of their properties. If now +the thinking mind would have anything made wholly manifest, wholly +perceptible to sense--would seek to have something made wholly and +entirely _appearance_, there always remains a residue that refuses to +be made manifest, refuses to be made perceptible to sense. Speaking +generally, one may say: Applied thought seems to conduct to a something +lying at the foundation of things, to a constant in itself, of which +all properties, all in things that is perceptible to sense, are only +so many different expressions. The idea that all that exists does so +in virtue of a constant in itself, presents itself as a _necessity of +thought_, which science must oppose by every means if she would retain +her title to the name of science. + +Since this constant in itself is of necessity an imperceptible to +sense, it imposes no restrictions upon apprehension. One is perfectly +at liberty to conceive of it in quite contrary forms--as matter or +substance, equally as well as under the form of force. If one holds +by the former mode of conceiving it, then, whatever the guise its +elaboration in thought may assume, one belongs to the school _of +materialism_. If, on the contrary, one holds by the latter mode of +apprehension, one then belongs, quite independent of the form its +detailed elaboration in thought may assume, to the _idealistic_ school. +For the correct appraisement of our whole mental life, however, it is +important clearly to understand that the opposition is only an apparent +one. Both alike have one common root in the idea of an _unconditioned +constant_ lying at the foundation of things, which, summed up, may be +designated as _the substans_ (_das Substans_) of all appearances. _The +substance_, accordingly, results purely as the material form of this +_substans_, while the force represents its immaterial form: the one +being as well--and as ill--authenticated as the other, since one knows +nothing of either, nor ever can know anything. + +If now one follows up the various transformations that have taken +place in this domain within historical times, one finds that, as is +also the case in the domain of natural science, they occur following +the law of the _inversion of positions_. Does the one school, whether +it be the materialistic or the idealistic, force its way into such a +preponderating position as to become intolerable to sound common-sense, +it is forced to give place to its opponent, which then for a season +takes the lead, only, after a longer or shorter period, to undergo +a like fate. It is like a game of see-saw. All the acuteness, all +the profundity, all the mental florescence which the one school has +manifested in the course of centuries of labour perhaps, in this period +of decline are brought to destruction, and only by ardent collectors +can be rescued and preserved as a palæontological form of mental life. +At bottom, the whole of philosophy up to each new “now” is nothing +but a more or less tastefully-arranged palæontological collection of +thought-values. + +Above and alongside this play of inversions betwixt idealism +and materialism--which I might call the inversion of the _lower +order_--there takes place another inversion of a _higher order_. + +In certain intervals the human understanding begins to offer serious +resistance to both the worldviews that base themselves on the +concept of _substans_ in its two possible forms--that of substance +and that of force--by hastening over to one that is the contrary of +both, a world-conception from which _substans_ is wholly absent, a +world consisting entirely of a mass of relation-values. This latter +form of world-conception alone has the right to the designation of +“scientific.” For there can be no science, properly so-called, where +the subject dealt with is any shape or form of an imperceptible to +sense. + +Now, the first inversion of the higher order with which we in our +Western circles of culture are acquainted has, to be sure, a slight +enough scientific cast. It is the inversion that set in with Protagoras +the Sophist. With his thesis, “Man is the measure of all things--of +those that are, that they are; of those that are not, that they +are not”--he places himself in an attitude of opposition to both +world-conceptions founded on the concept of _substans_; for in both +these conceptions things, as existing in virtue of an unconditioned +constant, must also be the measure of man. + +The appearance of Protagoras was a naturally-resulting protest against +the absurdities to which materialism and idealism had mutually driven +each other. The former found its culminating point in Democritus of +Abdera, who left nothing in the world but matter in the shape of atoms. +The latter reached its corresponding culmination in Plato, who left +nothing in the world but the immaterial _substans_, ideas, to whom +thereby matter became the non-existent. + +The whole procedure of Protagoras conveys the impression that his +inversion was of a purely dialectical nature. For the style and manner +in which he formulates his new point of view leaves to humanity for +all its mental life nothing but mere opinion. His dictum as to man +being the measure of all things takes no account of a natural order of +things. To this perhaps may be attributed the fact that his philosophy, +however arresting it may have been in his own day and time, set forth +personally by this gifted mind, has yet proved itself to be but little +permanent. + +After the see-saw between idealism and materialism had proceeded +for some two thousand years more, the new inversion of the higher +order set in with a mighty whirlwind, the most powerful, the most +systematically-delivered attack upon the notion of _substans_ that +Western philosophy had ever experienced--the philosophy of Hume. + +Hume’s philosophy, briefly stated, consists in the investigation of +what exhibits itself to sense-perception considered as based on a +possible content of _substans_--in unravelling it to the last thread +and pointing out to his contemporaries with irrefutable clearness and +acuteness, “See there, you people! a constant in itself is nowhere to +be found!” + +Hume is frequently alluded to as a sceptic. I consider, on the +contrary, that his philosophy is the purest criticism precisely where +in philosophy criticism may be practised at all--namely, upon the +concept of _substans_, whether in material or immaterial form. + +Every criticism of _substans_ culminates naturally in criticism of +the notion of an _I_. For Hume, the _I_, the self, became a bundle, a +collection of separate mental representations “that follow one another +with inconceivable rapidity and are in a state of perpetual flow, +continual motion.” + +But a criticism of the notion of _substans_ is incomplete without a +criticism of the concept of cause; for the intuition that all that +exists must have an adequate cause is likewise a necessity of thought. +Now, where there is a constant in itself, a _substans_ in things, +causality is an actual _following after one another_ of cause and +effect, this “constant in itself” being also “cause in itself” of +that which happens, the latter therefore, as “effect in itself,” +representing a simple following upon that cause in itself, in such sort +that between the two there exists a necessary--I might almost say--a +rigid dependence; whereupon the question, “How is a relation between +the two possible?” becomes a problem that defies solution. + +Hence it follows that one is bound to hold the problem of causality as +a correlate of _substans_. If the latter falls, the former falls along +with it. + +As the notion of a constant in itself becomes in the criticism of +Hume a simple product of imagination, so for him does the concept of +causality become the simple outcome of use and wont. Because in our +representation of things we frequently observe two things to follow one +upon the other, we assume that a necessary dependence exists between +the two. Hume solves both these problems by declaring them, without a +moment’s hesitation, to have no existence at all. + +After Hume, the see-saw game of the lower order went on for a time. +Upon the intellectual materialism of the eighteenth century--especially +as it prevailed in France, where it was represented by such men as +La Mettrie and Von Holbach--there followed the idealism of Fichte, +Schelling, and Hegel. After this had exploded of its own gaseousness, +the scientific materialism of the nineteenth century set in, and up to +our day has continued to hold the upper hand, though now it seems to be +swinging back in a new idealistic movement. + +Alongside of this a new inversion of the higher order has managed to +prepare itself, making its appearance in two distinct forms, of which +one is the direct successor of the criticism of Hume, while the other +derives from physics. + +The former is modern positivism, as developed in particular by Ernst +Mach and R. Avenarius. The latter is the so-called world-theory of +energetics, as represented more especially by Ostwald the physicist. + +Both schools partake of a purely scientific character in so far as +they aim at furnishing world-theories from which a _substans_ is ruled +out--seek to frame a world consisting solely of relation-values, a +world in which the one thing constant is the constancy of the relations. + +A third school, modern monism, as represented especially by Haeckel, is +not scientific at all. + +As already said, it is of the essence of every scientific view +that it should apprehend the entire play of world-events purely as +relation-values. Such a world-conception is bound always to set out +from the midst of the play of events, with things already in full +swing. Modern monism, with its teaching of primordial life in the form +of a primordial cell or some other primordial form, is science only in +outward appearance; at the core it is unmitigated superstition, and +ought to be regarded as such by every thinking man, for it betrays +itself such by its uncritical abuse of ecclesiastical dogma. + +After this historical review, given with the utmost possible brevity, +we have to inquire:-- + +What is the reason then for this insufficiency of the _substans_-views, +whether it refer to a material or to an ideal _substans_ in things? Why +are materialism and idealism alike devoid of any kind of demonstrative +ability? + +The answer to this is:-- + +Because both alike are hampered by a contradiction within themselves. +This contradiction becomes manifest in the fact that such a world as +would be yielded by the concept of _substans_ would be so constituted +that in it the fact “concept,” _i.e._ the fact that a world exists as +idea, would be bound to remain an eternally insoluble problem. + +This necessarily results from the following considerations:-- + +If there is any _substans_ lying at the foundation of things, it must +be a “constant in itself”; as such, however, it must be something +possessing no possibility whatever of entering into relations with +other things, in any kind of way. If it cannot do this, neither can +it become perceptible to sense. If it does not become perceptible to +sense, it cannot become a content of consciousness. + +Here it may be said: “But it is not _substans_ itself, but its +expressions, _i.e._ things, in so far as they are properties, +functions, that enter into relations, whether with other things or with +the organs of sense of living beings.” But from this we could never get +anything else but a summation of disconnected sense-impressions. The +thread, so to speak, needed to string the sense-impressions together +into a complete, coherent, mental representation would be missing. +Everything, so far as it exists for me as a concept, would have to +be the expression precisely of a _substans_ lying at its foundation. +But to possess a conscious mental representation of this as an +unconditioned constant is a contradiction in itself. Hence the fact +that there are concepts, _i.e._ that a world as such exists, _i.e._ +that there is a world at all, is a direct contradiction of the idea of +a _substans_ in virtue of which things are supposed to have existence. +With the admission of this idea, every possibility of understanding how +such a thing as a content of consciousness ever could come to be, is +wholly excluded. + +In point of fact, all life, within the boundaries of materialism and +idealism, exhausts itself in fruitless attempts to furnish more or +less ingenious explanations to account for the connection between the +physical and the psychical. Hence the perpetual game of see-saw between +both, and the utter inadequacy of either to the genuine thinker, +however much ability may be displayed within the limits of the position +chosen. All becomes valueless, because the outcome of a presupposition +that is a standing contradiction of itself. + +And now, how stands it here with the view of the world from which +_substans_ is absent? + +As already said: Where the idea of _substans_ is torn out of the play +of world-events, nothing remains but a world of pure relation-values +wherein the one thing constant is the constancy of the relations. + +Now, every relation is precisely the inconstant, the unstable, in +itself. The heat that springs up with the friction of two objects +may--nay, _must_ be looked upon as a relation-value springing up anew +with each new moment. Every moment may be represented as consisting +of an infinite number of fractions of a moment; in short, it is the +unstable in itself. + +If now one apprehends the whole play of world-events as +relation-values, thereby not only do the phenomena resulting from the +play of things upon one another, but also the things themselves, become +simple relation-values, and so also examples of the unstable in itself. + +Into anything by nature an unstable, connection can only enter through +me, the beholder, introducing it in my comprehension of the same. Here +the binding thread is lacking in things themselves; with the idea “pure +relation-values” one has pulled it out oneself, as is proven by modern +positivism itself, even if unwittingly, when it seeks to replace the +old succession of cause and effect by the timeless function-concept +of mathematics--a thing possible only where the actual cohesion is +absent.[35] + +With this, however, one stands in a position of contradiction to +oneself, _i.e._ to actuality. For if the whole play of world-events, +without any exception, is only a relation-value, then I myself am a +relation-value also. But if that were so, “memory” would be impossible. +In “memory” I _experience_ the cohesion of myself, and through myself +prove to myself that I am not a mere relation-value. As such--as Hering +rightly remarks in his lecture _Das Gedächtnis_--our consciousness +would consist of just as many splinters as one could count moments; +which is simply an analytical mode of expression for the fact that +there would be no consciousness at all. This in turn would mean that +there could be no world _as such_, as our mental representation. And +this in its turn would mean that there could be no world at all. For it +is absurd to speak of a world where there is no consciousness in which +it is represented as such. Without consciousness, however it might run +its course, experience would know nothing of itself. + +The conception of a world-theory devoid of _substans_ thus also +terminates in a contradiction in itself, even as those world-theories +which operate with the conception of a _substans_. + +As a matter of fact, every scientific view of the world demonstrates +its inadequacy in respect of this first question in that it answers it +in a manner against all common-sense without itself observing that this +is so. + +According to the view of science, concepts have their origin in +experience and come to be through the discarding, the letting drop, of +the unessential. But in order that a concept may come into existence +after such a fashion, it is necessary that it exist beforehand as a +thing given, in the same way that a statue can only come forth from out +the block of marble through the discarding of the unessential, when it +is already given ideally in the mind of the artist.[36] + +As already remarked, all attempts to frame a view of the world upon +purely scientific lines, to comprehend the play of world-events as +simple relation-values, present themselves in a twofold form. Making +physics its point of departure and from thence working its way forward, +one view endeavours to prove the law of the conservation of energy +valid also for non-reversible processes; this is the world-theory of +energetics. The other view follows the results of criticism; this is +modern positivism. + +The entire value of the world-theory of energetics is distinguished by +the following consideration:-- + +Its axis, its thorough bass--so to speak--is the law of the +conservation of energy; once this gives way, no energical world-theory +is possible. + +As, however, has been explained in another place, nowhere in actuality +do conditions obtain corresponding to this law. Its existence +merely as a possibility demands an artificial premiss--a completely +closed system; but this exists only as an ideal ultimate concept +(_Grenzbegriff_)--nowhere in actuality. + +If it is desired to make use of the law of the conservation of energy +with a view to erecting a world-theory thereupon, one must set up +the entire universe hypothetically as a closed system in itself. The +logical consequences that necessarily follow from this supposition are +detailed at the close of Essay VI. + +The purely ideal nature of the point of view occupied by science in +this whole picture of the world is at once evident from the simple fact +that, in order to maintain the constancy of the sum of energy in the +universe, she here finds herself in the predicament of still having to +“handle” as energy heat that no longer permits of being transformed +into mechanical work--that is, heat that exists only as an empty +concept. + +At this stage I wish once more to insist that this entire world-theory +does not at all operate with actual energies, but only with the +_expression_ of actual energies, with their _reaction_ as presented in +_work done_. It assumes work and energy to be synonymous; which is +about the same as if one assumed shadow and light to be synonymous. As +shadow attests nothing save that light is present, but attests this of +necessity, so work attests nothing save that energy is present. Ostwald +in his _Naturphilosophie_, after expressly assuming work and energy to +be alike, proceeds thus:-- + +“With the exception of energy, all the other concepts whose importance +comes second to that of the law of the conservation of energy, find +their application only within a limited field of natural phenomena. +Energy alone finds itself again, without exception, in all natural +phenomena; that is to say, all natural phenomena permit of being ranged +under the concept of energy.” Further on he says: “All that we know +of the external world we can represent in the form of propositions +concerning actually-existing energies; hence the concept of energy +proves itself in every way the most universal that science has yet +framed. It comprehends not only the problem of substance, but also that +of causality.” + +Taken literally, word for word, all this is quite correct, and yet +as a whole is founded in a total misunderstanding of actuality. +That all natural phenomena should admit of being ranged under the +concept of energy, _i.e._ of _work done_, is due solely to the +fact that _everywhere actual energies_ are in activity; of these +energies, however, we know nothing, absolutely nothing; and their +universal presence is proven solely by the universal presence of +work. And that work is only the reaction of actual energies is made +evident by the fact that the one single _actual_ energy we can get +at--consciousness--is the one single value in the universe which never +under any circumstances admits of being “read” as work. + +When further on in the same volume it is said:-- + +“As regards the inverse endeavour to comprehend energies apart from +matter, for long one dared not attempt such a thing, albeit it was +soon perceived that as a matter of fact all we ever learn about the +world consists solely of a knowledge of its energical relations.... +We will, therefore, venture the attempt to build up a view of the +world from which the concept of matter will be absent, a view composed +exclusively of energical materials (_i.e._ of the fact _work_),” this +has about as much meaning as if some one should say, “I will endeavour, +out of shadows and their innumerable modifications alone, to furnish +a complete theory of light.” Here we have to do simply with the +occurrence designated in another place as the “inversion of positions.” +From an extreme materialistic position one leaps at a bound into an +equally extreme energical position--each position as purely dialectical +as the other. If only one held by _actuality_, one would of oneself +repudiate as a profitless mental diversion the very _attempt_ to erect +a world-theory upon such premisses. On such one may build up physical +systems, achieve technical successes, measure, compute in advance--in +fine, carry on scientific studies; but one thing one can never do--out +of them build up a view of the world. For a view of the world in which +consciousness excludes itself from that which is to be comprehended, +has precisely as much value as a numerator without a denominator. + +The law of the conservation of energy is purely a reading of the +physical facts, _i.e._ of the play of world-events in so far as +it manifests itself in the form of reversible processes--thus, +as re-actual; and as such is also recognized by physicists of +intelligence.[37] + +At this point, however, the biologist enters and plays the part of the +countryman at the theatre by taking the picture for the reality itself. +He argues with that logical acuteness such as is only possible where no +actuality stands in its way: “If the law of the conservation of energy +is really a universal law, the life of the brain must be just as much +subject to it as the reversible processes that are not dependent on +time.” Thus, Hering says in his lecture on “Memory” already alluded to: +“(The facts of mind, consciousness, and so forth) cannot make the human +body to be anything else but that which it is--a complex of matter +subject to laws not to be turned aside by anything,--laws followed by +the material of the stone, by the substance of the plant.” + +With this, however, the biologist is put in a difficult position. He +is all unaware that the reversible processes are “subject” to the law +of the conservation of energy, _i.e._ may be read by it, only because +it is possible here to be satisfied with reactions, only because here +one does not need to know anything about the energies themselves, +because here there is no “_I_”-sayer who might raise objections to +such a mode of apprehending things. The greatness, the exactitude of +physics consist precisely in this, that she confines herself strictly +to the realm of reactions. In the life of the brain, so far as directly +manifested--as consciousness--there are no reactions. The fact +“consciousness” in others is not accessible to me; and as for myself, +here action and reaction always merge into one another, though I go to +work with never so elaborate psycho-physiological precautions. + +Hence the necessity of ever and again laying out fresh frontier +domains, such as bio-chemistry, bio-kinetics, and so forth and so on, +so as to be able to say with Lady Macbeth, “We are yet young in deeds!” +Thus, patience! Let us but once get these new courses drawn up and +then--how the results will come flowing in! + +But the only new thing about these courses is the name! In truth, here +as everywhere, we have to do with the old, original problem “life”--at +once our hope and our despair. And to all these new courses, by means +of which men hope to master the old problem, applies that answer of +Pompey’s favourite cook when his master marvelled at the host of +different dishes, “All one meat: only the sauces are different.” For it +is even the same here, “All one thing: only the names are different.” + +After all our vain attempts to subject consciousness also to law, this +remains as our final wisdom, that the mutual dependence between the +mental and the material is a thing subject to law; that is, we assume +as axiom to begin with, that which we are going to prove, whereby we +produce nothing but a paraphrase of the Buddha-thought, nothing but +a lifeless formula of the actuality itself--that the _I_-process is +subordinate to no laws, can _have_ no laws because it _is_ law itself. +And the worth of the Baconian maxim that truth may more easily come +forth from error than from confusion, is here put to a severe test, for +here are combined both error and confusion. + +I now proceed to a brief account of the other school--that of modern +positivism. + +What makes this system so interesting for us is the originality of its +point of departure. Despite the fact that for the most part it has been +developed by a physicist, it starts with the idea, unheard-of previous +to perhaps twenty-five years ago, that the next step in the progress +of science is to be looked for not from physics and its methods, +_i.e._ the non-personal, but from the personal, from the study of +sense-perceptions.[38] + +Since positivism, like every scientific world-theory, must apprehend +the play of world-events purely as a sum of relation-values, one of its +tasks is to come to an understanding with the concept of substance. +As the direct successor of the criticism of Hume, its position +with respect to the concept of substance remains the same as with +Hume: the existence of such a concept is ascribed to the faculty of +imagination. Because one can remove any single constituent part of a +thing without the image thereof ceasing to represent the total whole +and to be recognized again as such, it is assumed that all may be taken +away and that something will still remain behind. “Thus arises the +monstrous idea of a thing in itself, different from its appearance and +unknowable. The thing, the body, the matter, and so on, is nothing else +but the complex of colours, sounds, and so forth, nothing more than the +so-called characteristics.”[39] + +And now it is a question of formulating a new view with respect to a +world thus stripped of the concept of substance. + +All previous attempts at world-theories have made shipwreck on the +fact that it was impossible for them in any wise to comprehend the +connection between the physical and the psychical. What is original +about the onset of positivism is this, that it starts out with +psycho-physical units as world-elements. + +“Hence perceptions and conceptions, the will, the feelings--in brief, +the entire inner and outer world--are made up of a limited number +of homogeneous elements now in volatile, now in rigid combination. +These elements are usually called sensations; since, however, this +name already implies a one-sided theory, we prefer to speak simply +of elements.”[40] Again: “It is not the bodies that beget sensation +but the complex of sensations (complex of elements) that fashion +the bodies. If to the physicist, bodies appear to be that which is +permanent, real, and sensations, on the contrary, their fleeting, +transitory appearance, he forgets that all bodies are only mental +symbols for complexes of sensation.... Thus the world for us does +not consist of so many problematic beings, which through action and +reaction with another equally problematic being, the _I_, beget the +sensations alone accessible to us. Colours, sounds, spaces, times ... +for us are the ultimate elements whose given connection we have to +investigate.”[41] + +This I call supplying a world-theory from the entire, completed play of +world-events. The only question is, “From a mental starting-point such +as this, how stands it with the fact of all facts--_I_?” + +Well, it goes badly, very badly indeed, with the poor fellow! Like a +lump of sugar in a big tub of water it melts away incontinent into the +all. On this point one should read pages eight and nine of the _Analyse +der Sinnesempfindungen_. To cite them here in full would take up too +much space. The train of thought there developed concludes with the +words: “Accordingly the _I_ may be so extended as finally to cover and +embrace the whole world.” + +It may be asked, “How out of this cosmic _I_-solution does the yet +actually existing _I_-deposit come about?” The answer is, “Through +accommodation.” The _I_-concept is a convention adapted to a certain +end, a procedure pertaining to the economy of thought. + +“The gathering together of the elements being connected with pleasure +and pain, into an ideal unit of the economy of thought, the _I_, is of +the utmost significance to the intellect standing at the service of the +pain-shunning, pleasure-seeking will.”[42] + +What attitude shall one adopt towards a structure of thought which is +nothing but an ingenious description, a picture of the fact “life,” +whose wealth of ingenuity, however, is purchased at the cost of a +downright, deadly indifference in respect of this same fact, _i.e._ in +respect of actuality? + +Epistemologically the world is as free as a bird. Any one who chooses +may exercise his intellectual faculties upon it. The above view, +moreover, is expressly put forward as a theory, a reading. But after +all there is one requirement every theory must fulfil, and that is that +it shall not contradict itself. And that this theory does in the most +flagrant fashion. + +Modern positivism may be briefly characterized as the application +of the definition of the “concept” in general to the _I_-concept in +particular. As the concept in general can be represented, “read” as a +procedure appertaining to the economy of thought, so here in a frankly +unexampled dis-actualizing of actuality, the _I_-concept is to be +“read” as a procedure appertaining to the economy of thought. But here +even the slightest attempt to think _in terms of actuality_, forthwith +conducts into the absurd. For an _I_-unity must first be given in order +that it may comprehend itself as an _I_-unity. On the other hand, were +the _I_-concept purely a procedure in the economy of thought, what is +there to prevent the thought-economy once in a while from demanding +to read me as an _I_-duality? a thing that has so far never been +entertained in the brains of thinking men, but only in the cells of +lunatic asylums. + +Positivism is overtaken by the same fate that overtakes every +criticism, as, for example, that of Hume,--commonly and incorrectly +called scepticism,--it finds no substratum for the _I_-concept. And the +keener its search, the more critical its procedure, the more thorough +its unravelling, the more is it strengthened in this its mental +representation. + +With this, pure criticism has no more that it can do. It must even +content itself with this negative result. Positivism, however, seeks to +round out this negative result into a world-theory and so obtain its +world consisting of elements of sensation--a world in which there is no +clearly outlined, definitely determined _I_ at all. + +From a starting-point of this peculiar kind there follows, on one hand, +such a similarity of expression on the part of both, as to produce an +almost uncanny effect. On the other hand, however, there is such a +difference in essence as could scarcely be more pronounced. In brief: +modern positivism is the faithful mirror-image of the Buddha-thought, +and thereby accomplishes in the dis-actualizing of actuality what only +thought can accomplish at all. + +In the Saŋyutta Nikāya a monk asks the Buddha, “Who has contact? +who has sensation?” To whom the Buddha replies, “The question is +not admissible. I do not say, ‘He has contact.’ Did I say, ‘He has +contact,’ then the question, ‘Who has contact, Reverend Sir?’ would be +admissible. Since, however, I do not say so, then of me that do not +speak thus, it is only admissible to ask, ‘From what, Reverend Sir, +does contact proceed?’” + +In close correspondence with this, one reads in E. Mach’s _Analyse +der Empfindungen_, “If a knowledge of the continuity of the elements +(sensations) leaves us unsatisfied and we ask, ‘_Who_ has this +continuity of the sensations? _who_ experiences sensation?’ we are +dominated by the old habit of classifying each element (sensation) as +an item in an unanalysed complex, and thereby unwittingly descend to +the older, lower, more limited point of view.” + +But whilst with positivism this mode of expression proceeds from the +notion of an _I_ that can be “read” from the play of world-events +as a unity pertaining purely to the economy of thought,--a coldly +contemplative point of view--with the Buddha it issues from the idea +of a beginningless, burning actuality that asserts its individual +tendencies regardless of the external world. Man by his nature is an +eater. To seek to dispose of him as a simple spectator is to play with +concepts. All that is actual by its very nature is aliment. + +Herewith, as regards the problem of the concept, we stand in presence +of the Buddha-thought. Before I pass to it, however, I consider it +incumbent upon me, with respect to the criticism of positivism, yet +once more in this place to emphasise the fact that nothing is further +from my desire than to engage in polemical discussion. As a physicist, +Ernst Mach is in my opinion one of the most original, nay, perhaps the +most original of the thinkers of our day and time. His _Mechanik_ and +_Wärmelehre_ are genuine products of intellect, works of fermentative +value, and in this regard rank high above the smooth classicism of an +H. von Helmholtz. One only marvels the more that a mind of such calibre +should be able to find pleasure in such like mental diversions.[43] + +When positivism says, “There is no substratum to the _I_-concept, +consequently the _I_-concept is the product of fancy and ‘actually’ +admits of being extended to cover the whole world,” it is unaware that +between and above the two extremes--the _I_-concept as the expression +of an unconditioned constant, as a soul substance, and the _I_-concept +as the expression of a fancy--there is a third alternative, the +actuality itself, as pointed out and taught us by the Buddha, that +_concepts do not exist at all but only the conceiving_, and that the +_I_-process, albeit no unconditioned constant, dwells therein, is +not on that account something dissolving over the whole world, _but +is something conceiving itself at every moment of its existence_, +even as the flame is a thing conceiving itself at every moment of +its existence. By no inductive method can the limit of a flame be +defined with regard to its environment, and yet there is such a limit, +because the flame at every moment of its existence limits itself. Its +very existence is just this self-limitation. In the very same way no +inductive method can define the limits of the _I_-process: so far +the positivists are right. But this fact by no means imports what +positivism understands by it, that the _I_-process can now be dilated, +spread out to any extent one chooses: it only intimates that the _I_ +conceives itself and _alone_ conceives itself, and therefore cannot +_be conceived_ inductively. When a blow swishes down, even the most +correct-thinking of positivists can tell whether it has struck him or +not. He “conceives” himself at every moment. + +Where the _I_-process is cognized as a pure process of alimentation, +“conceiving” perforce receives a physo-psychical double meaning,--or +rather, that unitary meaning which comprehends in itself both the +physical and the psychical. All existence, whether manifesting itself +objectively or subjectively, is here a “conceiving,” and this unitary +“conceiving,” in which is comprehended the essence of all life, alike +devours both--concept as thing conceived. + +Where there is nothing save “conceiving,” grasping the external world, +there are neither concepts nor anything fixed and stable, anything +corresponding to these concepts; and the purely dialectical nature of +the whole problem of the “concept” at once stands revealed. Such a +problem can only have being while one is working with the notion of a +“conceived,” which latter must always be also a “grasped,” a defined, a +complete in itself--in brief, an identity. Where there is nothing save +processes of combustion, of alimentation, each moment of the play of +world-events represents a new, unique, biological or _Kammic_ value, +which never before has been and never again will be. In such a universe +there are no identities. Where there are no identities there are no +things conceived. Where there are no things conceived there are no +concepts; there is found nothing save a beginningless reaction to the +outer world. And the problem “concept” presents itself as the negative +of all other problems, so to speak, the latter in their totality being +founded upon the idea of a something conceived, be it as a physical, be +it as a physiological, biological, cosmological identity. + +This is one of the points where the genuine thinker must make good his +hold. It is like a rift in the clouds, through which the searching eye +penetrates into a new world, passes out of a world of error in which +we all see under the form of conceiving and conceived, of subject and +object, into a world wherein all oppositions blazing, melt and dissolve +in the beginningless glow of Becoming. + +_There are no concepts as there is no conceived._ This idea one must +thoroughly have thought out if one would understand the Buddha, his +teaching, and his attitude towards certain questions. + +All commonplace thinking, of scientist as of layman, takes its stand +on concepts, _i.e._ operates with the notion of a conceived, with the +notion of identities. + +In formal logic this fact finds its due expression in the laws of +identity and of contradictories. For both these laws existence is only +possible where and for so long as there are things conceived, things +confined, identities; they have simply no meaning with reference to an +_actual_ universe, a universe that is naught save a sum of combustion +processes. This is the intellectual measuring-rod by which to test +whether any one is thinking _in terms of actuality_ or not: Do or do +not the laws of identity and of contradictories hold good for his world? + +Just as Aristotle reproached Heraclitus with violations of the law +of contradictories,--for this really limited mind knew not, never +even suspected that actuality in its entirety is nothing else but one +huge violation of the law of contradictories,--just as the sun is a +violation of an absolutely correct-running chronometer, so do western +scholars repeatedly reproach the Buddha with violations of the law of +contradictories; whereby they only prove but that they understand +neither the Buddha nor actuality. + +In Oldenburg’s _Buddha_ one reads:-- + +“The art of definition was something which the era of the Buddha did +not possess; that of demonstration was only evolved as far as the +first rudiments. An especially characteristic feature of this mode of +thinking ... is a decided antipathy to pursuing the consideration of +things back to their ultimate principles.” + +Misericordia! What shall one say of the herd when the leading bull +points in such paths! A teaching whose greatness resides in the fact +that it shows how all definitions are only essays which owe their +existence to the faulty formulation of the question, is reproached with +its lack of definitions! A teaching which points out that the fact +“_I_” of necessity implies life and the beginninglessness of life, +is reproached that it does not involve itself in the blind alley of +contraries called in the language of logic, “principles.” The Buddha’s +one and only concern is to teach, to point out that there is nothing in +the world to be defined; hence, also, no instruments for this purpose: +principles. That herewith the whole of science goes by the board--what +matters that to the seeker for truth! Hearken, good people! Here goes +by the board a great deal more than science! + +To see how the Buddha bore himself with reference to this question of +principles, one ought to read the magnificent Kevaddha Sutta--Sutta +XI. of the _Dīgha Nikāya_--where a monk craves information as to the +behaviour of the primal elements of matter. The Buddha meets the +question as the genuine thinker alone can, with the weapon of humour. +For absurdities cannot be dealt with at all otherwise, if one would not +drown in them past hope of help. The scene in the court of Mahā Brahmā, +the great Brahma, is perhaps the most gigantic that human humour has +ever conceived. Here music alone, the humour of Beethoven’s symphonies, +perhaps may risk comparison. + +To the Buddha naught exists save actualities, eternally fermenting, +seething, simmering actualities that melt and dissolve all drosses of +definitions in their fiery glow or ever they are able to come to birth. + +“The art of demonstration was only evolved as far as the first +rudiments.” I maintain that every single word in this sentence is +false or incorrect. The art of demonstration in the philosophical +systems that surged all about the Buddha, was developed to a height +it never can reach among us for the simple reason that our speech and +our brains have lost the necessary flexibility. One has only to read +those great Suttas that I might call the transcendental Suttas, such +as the Brahmajāla Sutta of the _Dīgha Nikāya_, in order to see that as +well speech as brain with us have become so stiff in mechanical views +as to be no longer capable of following up and thinking out all these +possibilities, all these species and sub-species of idealistic and +materialistic views. But it is just for this reason that the Buddha +is called the “Master-guide.” Like the guide in the catacombs, where +at every step the unacquainted are threatened with irretrievable +errors, calmly and surely he takes his way through this wild tangle +of method, through this rigid logic of the absurd. Serene and clear +he recognizes, perceives, “It is altogether conditioned; it is all of +the mind’s own devising.” Again we have the delicate irony that comes +of commanding insight, when in another discourse he says, “There are +wise men who call day night, and night day.” How could one hit off more +aptly certain tendencies of modern science--that astounding faculty it +displays for interpreting actuality in accordance with preconceived +ideas? All those imposing definitions that for our minds and for the +human mind in all ages, have possessed such an intoxicating quality, +are only possible where one fabricates artificial cores around which +dialectical processes can crystallize, and crystallize out all the more +splendidly the more carefully one protects them from the rude shocks of +actuality. The loftiness and subtlety of our conceptual constructions +is nothing but the water-mark that indicates the height of our +ignorance. There is certainly much that is confusing for our thought, +brought up as that has been under the sway of Aristotelian logic, to +see concepts merge and blend upon whose clear differentiation the +logical possibility of the entire system seems to rest--such concepts, +for example, as _kamma_ and _sankhāra_, _kamma_ and _viññāṇa_, _kamma_ +and _taṇhā_, and so forth. It may easily happen that the seeker for +truth may suffer shipwreck on such apparent contradictions. But in +such case it is with him as with one who is stranded on the lighthouse +itself--blinded by its very light! + +To be able to follow the Buddha here, one must have understood him. +What Jesus said of himself in terms of emotion, that, but in terms +of understanding, the Buddha also can say, “Blessed is he that is not +offended in me.” + +So long as one continues to take the concepts with which he is +operating for positive, firmly established realities, so long is it +quite impossible to avoid all these violations of exact thinking. It +is said, “If Sankhāra is the process, it cannot be the energy itself, +and _vice versa_.” One insists, like the countryman, upon getting one’s +bill, and has the feeling of intellectual superiority into the bargain. + +But there is this to be considered: When, for instance, I wish to +define a combustion process, I am at liberty to do so just as it +happens to occur to me, either as light, or as heat, or as chemical +action, and so forth. On each such occasion I include the whole +combustion process in its entirety, and yet none will say, “If the +combustion process is at any one time light, it cannot also be heat, +for in that case light and heat would be just the same thing. That +would be a violation of the law of contradictories,” “argal” ... as +the grave-digger in _Hamlet_ says. But such grave-digger’s logic is +followed out in every particular by exact thought when it deals with +actuality. It is the pure content of actuality in the Buddha’s teaching +that renders it irreconcilable with logic. That teaching is not +illogical, but simply a-logical. The model of the syllogism does not +apply to it at all. For even thus are things in actuality: What at one +moment one thinks to have grasped, comprehended, that, next moment, is +swept away in the never resting flow of Becoming. Actuality does not +play a game that complies with the established rules and regulations +called logic: one game only does it play--the grim game of necessity. +And this game may be won, not by him who with abstract fences and walls +and dykes for a brief space fashions to himself a little world-garden +of his own, but only by him who dares to vibrate in unison with the +iron rhythm of a beginningless necessity. + +It is the indispensable task of every earnest thinker who would +really follow the Buddha, experience him in himself, to make clear to +himself, and ever and again make clear, that our whole mental life, +our concept-world is based upon artificial premisses, in which, in +the strictest sense of the words, not life must serve truth but truth +life. As the spider itself flings forth its web over the abyss, so from +out ourselves we fling forth in the form of concepts an inextricable +network of airy roots. As the ape from bough to bough, so springs the +human mind from concept to concept, and has itself borne aloft by the +entire network, where any single thread would rend beneath him, each +individual bough snap under him and precipitate him into the bottomless +gulfs of an endless infinitude. All that circulates in daily life in +the way of mental values are pure concept-values, bills of exchange +upon actuality. But in the hurry and bustle of traffic no one has +time or inclination to go and get these bills turned into actual +currency. Just as they stand they are passed along “like a basket +from hand to hand.” Hence the terrible predominance of ideals, the +tyranny they exercise over our minds, and so over genuine education and +culture. Whoso has experienced in himself the collapse of ideals, the +taking up of the bills of current concept-values at the counter of +actuality,--he well understands why the Buddha calls his intuition an +“awakening.” It is the awakening out of the dream-world of concepts. + +A Buddha, in short, is a man who dares to _live_ this his insight that +there are no concepts and accordingly nothing conceived, but only a +“conceiving.” Hence his attitude towards many questions, and above all +to that question as to how one ought to picture to oneself a Buddha, or +one who after this life is re-born no more. + +The scheme of the questions runs thus: 1. Where is he re-born? 2. Is he +not re-born? 3. Is he re-born as well as not re-born? 4. Is he neither +re-born nor yet not re-born? + +To all these sophistical questions the stereotyped answer of the Buddha +is, “That does not apply”--an answer, naturally, which gives plenty of +scope for the profoundest conjectures and hypotheses, but which only +means that the question is wrongly put and therefore renders impossible +any answer at all. A being that with this as his last existence, is +proceeding towards extinction, that will never again be re-born _is no +longer existent_, even in the form of concept; hence the whole question +is meaningless. + +Here, again, it is impossible to do anything like justice to the +whole problem with the chess-moves of a profound play of thought: +only a witticism meets the case. All this ingenious logic that would +fain take the measure of actuality with the laws of identity and +contradictories as with some yard-stick, which advances against truth +with the apparently irresistible demonstrating force of its “aut ... +aut,” resembles nothing so much as those ingenious questions with +which the child is wont to tease the grown-up person as to the nature +and dwelling-place of Santa Claus. Another child would be able to +answer these questions with an equal ingenuity; the grown-up person +is powerless to meet them. In the same way the scholars of the west +would be perfectly capable of meeting and satisfying the questions of +a Vacchagotta with equal “acuteness of logic.” The Buddha cannot do +it. All he can do is to try to sweep away the accumulated rubbish of +misunderstood concepts, and on the thus cleared foundation, cause a new +clean structure of thought to arise, the essence whereof resides in +comprehending that such a thing as the foregoing question refers to has +no existence, neither abstractly nor actually; hence, that the question +is in itself devoid of meaning. + +This is the whole secret here lying hidden. The interpretation given +by Oldenburg to the words of the nun Khemā, are based upon a complete +misunderstanding of the entire Buddha-thought, as is everything else he +says concerning the final goal of Buddhism. But that pertains properly +to the Nibbāna teaching. + +Buddhism is the doctrine of actuality, and its value as a view of the +world from the standpoint of epistemology, lies in the fact that it +teaches us to accept actuality as actuality. To this idea it is itself +a martyr, inasmuch as its own teaching here is nothing ideally fixed +and fast, but only an incitation to experience it in one’s own self; it +is “a raft, designed for escape; not designed for retention.” Hence, +is it said in the powerful Dhātuvibhañga Sutta--Sutta CXL., _Majjhima +Nikāya_--“‘I am,’ monk, is a believing. ‘Such am I,’ is a believing. ‘I +shall be,’ is a believing. ‘I shall not be,’ is a believing. ‘I shall +have a form,’ is a believing. ‘I shall be formless,’ is a believing. +‘I shall have perception,’ is a believing. ‘I shall be devoid of +perception,’ is a believing. To entertain believings is to be ill. To +entertain believings is to be infirm. To entertain believings is to be +sick. When, however, all entertaining of believings is overcome, then +is one called a right thinker.” + + * * * * * + +And now it may be objected:-- + +“If there are no concepts, _i.e._ things conceived, at all, but only +an individual conceiving, an external, self-renewing reaction to the +external world, how is the possibility of our various experiences to be +explained?” + +To this the reply is:-- + +Experiences, as understood in the vulgar sense, there are none +whatever. Our perceptions are purely token-values out of which +experiences may be derived in the same way that practical results may +be derived out of a sum of algebraical token-values by cancelling out +one against the other. Here must be borne in mind what was treated +of in our sixth Essay. With the perception “green” I get no positive +content of knowledge, but merely the fact “not-red, not-yellow, +not-blue,” and so forth. + +At this point we are confronted by the so-called epistemological +problem, to the which, therefore, we now must devote some little +attention. + +The question which forms the subject-matter of this problem is this: +How is it possible from bare perceptions, mere sense-impressions, ever +to arrive at conscious ideas, concepts, experiences? + +This problem is associated above all with the name of Kant. + +Starting with the idea that the sense-impressions received from +without, contain no element out of which experience, _i.e._ an inner +connection of individual impressions, could ever be developed, he +taught that in the subject there was contained a business capital, so +to speak, which, given _a priori_ to all experience, upon the occasion +of the activity of the organs of sense, came to fruition. This business +capital he called the given _a priori_ faculty of cognition. + +The practical significance of this teaching lies not so much in itself +as in the fact that in contrast to it the position of the natural +sciences is formulated all the more clearly and distinctly: the passage +from bare perceptions to experience is of a purely empirical nature. + +The erroneous features in such ideas find some support in certain +misunderstood physiological and pathological facts. + +Physiology teaches that the human infant does not “see” but only +“looks,” _i.e._ he is the percipient of impressions from without in +virtue of the existence of sense organs, but he attaches no meaning +to these impressions. It is the same with the grown-up person after +certain lesions of the cerebral cortex, in animals from which the brain +has been artificially removed, and so forth. From this the conclusion +is drawn that bare perceptions may be transmuted into experiences and +that the condition of experience can again sink back into a condition +of bare perception. + +Such ideas are supported by the teachings of many philosophers who +make the young living being to enter the world as a _tabula rasa_, so +to speak--as an empty pot which only now is to be filled with material +from this world. + +All such ideas of the existence of bare perceptions, apart from +any content of experience, are based upon a misuse of the word +“perception.” The infant has no “perceptions.” He “experiences” under +the circumstances and antecedent conditions proper to himself. It is +only we, the adult, who, looking back, can speak of the existence +of bare perceptions at this stage, somewhat as, looking back, we +can record of Cæsar’s Commentaries: “Written in the year so and so +before Christ.” Wherever there are perceptions, a certain content of +experience also is always present, were it only this, that with respect +to any definite perception one has no experience at all! To separate +perception from experience and then pose the question: “How can pure +perceptions pass into experience?” is the same as to separate shell +from kernel and then ask, “How can the kernel ever get into the shell?” + +The truth is this: The kernel cannot get into the shell at all; both +alike are the outcome of a single process of growth. And in the +selfsame way experience cannot get into the perceptions at all; both +alike are the outcome of a single process of growth. We learn to +experience as the flame learns to burn, the flower to blow. We can do +nothing save “conceive,” lay hold of the outer world. Experiences, as +imagined in vulgar thought, there are not. Such would be “concepts,” +and where there are “concepts” there must be “things conceived.” Where +these are, there must be identities. Where there are identities, there +can be no processes. Where there are no processes, there can be no +actuality. + +All that we call experience is, so to speak, of the nature of a +parallax. Otherwise put: All our knowledge is only the expression +of our ignorance. I can say of anything that I know it, only as set +off against the total mass of all that I do not know. An _actual_ +experience would require that I should be able to prognosticate +something with _unconditioned_ exactitude. + +It may further be objected:-- + +If there are no actual experiences, how can I ever come to have this +experience--that there are no experiences? For if it also is no actual +experience it has no value. If, on the other hand, it is an actual +experience, how is such a thing possible? + +The answer is:-- + +Through an intuitive comprehension of my own self, whereto I receive +the inciting impulse from the Buddha-teaching. + +With this, we come to the final objection:-- + +“If there are no concepts, what then is that as which I conceive +myself?” In plain words, we are now confronted by that pivot and pole +of all thinking--What is self-consciousness? + +On the problem of self-consciousness, a teaching is compelled to show +whether it is actual or not. For nothing in the world has sense and +meaning in itself, but acquires such only through its relation to me, +only from out of self-consciousness. + +To the question, “What is self-consciousness?” the answer given is, +“Consciousness of oneself.” That, however, is an answer which in +subtlety and ambiguity outdoes every utterance of the Pythian oracle. +For it may just as well mean, “The consciousness of a self in me”--the +expression of a pure absolute--as, “The consciousness conscious of +itself”--the expression of a pure relative. Self-consciousness is the +oracle of nature. Faith interprets this oracle in the former sense; +science in the latter. + +Therewith, however, both are at odds with themselves. For a pure +absolute that becomes conscious of itself, that enters into relation +with itself, is an absolute no longer. And a pure relative that enters +into relations with itself is equally no longer a pure relative. + +“Transcending these two opposites the Tathāgata points out the Truth in +the Mean.” + +Is there any mean here betwixt these opposites? + +A wandering monk asks the Buddha:-- + +“How is it, Gotama? Is there an _I_?”--an Atta, self, as identical with +itself. + +The Buddha remains silent. The other continues his question:-- + +“How is it, Gotama? Is there not an _I_?” + +The Buddha still maintains silence, and the other goes his way. + +If one does not understand the Buddha, it is impossible to interpret +this colloquy other than does Oldenburg, for example, in his _Buddha_. +But the meaning is quite otherwise than as there given. We here stand +before that which from the standpoint of epistemology constitutes the +keystone of the whole Buddha-thought. To understand it fully, we must +take a plunge into the heart of modern physics. + +One of the most important forward steps taken by physics--if +not technically, perhaps, yet easily the most important +epistemologically--is its insight in the domain of interference +phenomena, especially in the examples of the same afforded by light. +A ray of light reflected back upon itself interferes with itself, +_i.e._ it forms in itself “stationary waves” which present light as +“non-light.” + +To this paradoxical mode of expression, however, one is only compelled +so long as one identifies light with the energy itself. For the site +of interference, the nodal point of the vibrations, is just as much +“energy” as is the trough of the vibration. And so if one assumes +light itself to be the energy, one here has a light without light. In +truth, however, light is nothing but an expression of the energy in +virtue of which it exists, and it is a stroke of genius on the part +of modern physics--one, to be sure, which it has perpetrated unknown +to itself--that in interference it has lighted on the one single +possibility of making energies perceptible to sense in that one form +in which alone they are capable of being made sense-perceptible--_as +a pure negative_, a pure _privation_ in the sense-activity of me the +observer. As all languages become alike in silence, so all energies +become alike in interferences. As silence only means that there are +languages, so interference only means that there are energies. + +With the fact “interference,” accordingly, science bears witness +against herself, inasmuch as thereby she brings before our eyes the +existence of actual energies in the form of the negative itself. That +is why I have just called the phenomena of interference the most +important step epistemologically that modern physics has yet taken. For +if science would but recognize this fact for that which it really is, +she would find herself obliged to remodel her whole scheme of thought +from the foundation upward. + +The--for the beholder--purely negative character of the interference +has its basis in the entry of the energy into itself. With this we +stand in presence of the Buddha-thought. + +Here the fact “self-consciousness” becomes a pure interference +phenomenon of _I_-energy. As such it is a pure entering of the +_I_-energy into itself. As such, again, it is, on the one hand, a +pure negative for the whole external world; on the other hand, to the +individual himself, it is a something _immediately_ given, where it +is simply a matter for correct interpretation, and that, here, in an +immediately given, perforce can only be intuitive. + +In this insight into the nature of self-consciousness, the _I_, more +sharply than anywhere else, defines itself as a something that only +comprehends itself, while at the same time comprehending the world as +being incomprehensible. In this insight the silence of the Buddha in +the face of Vacchagotta’s questions explains itself. For, as long as +the _terminus technicus_ “interference” is not formulated, the question +is unanswerable. An interference at once is and is not. It is the +immediately given for the individual himself--the not given at all for +others, for beholders. + +The acceptance and elaboration of this thought is facilitated by the +data of physiology and psychology. + +The entire course of man’s development is to be apprehended as a +surging back by degrees upon himself, a “re-flecting” in the most +literal sense of the word. Man is the “reflecting” living being, the +word being understood as well in its physical as in its psychical +sense. The whole process of development from infant to adult is a +gradual becoming acquainted with himself. Disgust, shame, are as +yet unknown to the infant. These are evolved only as phenomena of +“reflection,” as a wave of experience running back upon the individual +himself, and finding its conclusion in the matured self-consciousness. +This self, however, is the stationary wave; at every moment the same +and yet another; the--for me--_immediately certain_, as which it +presents itself in consciousness; the--for others--not present at all. + +In the foregoing it has been shown that both these varieties of +attempts at world-conceptions, as well that based upon the concept +of _substans_ as that which takes the whole play of world-events +for pure relation-values, thereby deprive their own selves of the +possibility of existence, since from both points of view a world of +concepts never could come to be. The Buddha solves the problem by +pointing out that there is no such thing as a world of concepts; in the +_I_-world, however, the world itself and the world _as such_--the real +world and the world of ideation--merge into one in the interference +“self-consciousness.” And this is the answer to the question, “How +must the world be fashioned to render possible the fact that it is +present _as such_?” + + * * * * * + +The insight into the essential nature of self-consciousness is _the_ +intuition. + +The value of an intuition is to be judged by what it accomplishes as a +working hypothesis. + +What does the Buddha-thought accomplish here? + +The answer is:-- + +It clears up the whole relationship of mental life towards the concept +of _substans_. + +Every consistent application of the laws of thought seems perforce to +conduct to an “unconditioned constant” situated at the root of things, +lying, however, beyond all possibility of demonstration. + +In this matter three positions are conceivable:-- + +1. The position of faith which sees in this the proof of an +imperceptible to sense in itself--an absolute. + +2. The position of science which sees in this a consequence of the +imaginative faculty. Its ally is philosophical scepticism--or rather, +criticism, chiefly as represented by Hume. + +3. That position formulated by Kant with his “thing in itself,” which +may be briefly characterized as a position of the most resolute +indifference towards this most important of all epistemological +phenomena. When in his _History of Materialism_, Lange, in agreement +with Kant, says: “What right have we to occupy ourselves with ‘things +in themselves’ at all?” this simply means, “What right have we to think +at all?” By this stroke, which Kant carried out by the formulation of +his “thing in itself,” he has proved himself one of the most hurtful of +all noxious creatures found on the tree of the mental life of humanity. +Here he has done as much harm as scholastic obtuseness only can do +when it steps forth in the polished, mirror-clear armour of a complete +logic. But this is not the place to enter any further into that matter. + +Upon all these three possibilities the Buddha sheds a simultaneous +flood of light, illuminating sceptical criticism especially, in the +most exceptional manner. + +This latter proves in entirely incontestable fashion that a _substans_ +seated at the root of things has no existence, yet all its proving +possesses not the slightest conclusiveness. Hume, with all his +acuteness, falls completely under that paradigm given by R. Avenarius +in his _Kritik der reinen Erfahrung_, where a savage contends with a +missionary as to whether or no a spirit inhabits in all things. The +(unbelieving) missionary is made to say, “I have investigated all these +things and never anywhere have I found the spirit.” To which the savage +counters, “I have investigated them all too, and never anywhere have +I failed to find the spirit.” Indeed, this example admits of being +extended thus far in that the savage must feel himself reinforced +in his notion of an immaterial _substans_ by the very fact that the +other, despite all his search, has found nothing. He would say, “Just +_because_ you have found nothing, therefore I am right!” + +Like the two opposing views of the world, criticism also operates with +a contradiction of itself. To be consistent, the criticism of Hume, as +every criticism, ought to run somewhat as follows:-- + +“A _substans_ in things is not demonstrable; these present themselves +to me only as a bundle of relation-values. If there is no _substans_ +in things, how comes it that the idea of a _substans_ finds a place in +me? Through experience? That, here, were a contradiction in itself; +for this idea exists in me, the critic, only in so far as I deny its +existence. Consequently there must be something given in me which +supplies the foundation for this idea. But I can unravel myself also, +to the very last thread and here, too, find nothing but a bundle of +relation-values. The one thing in this bundle which I cannot embrace in +my comprehension, is this my own capacity of unravelling myself, _i.e._ +my consciousness. On this, consequently, I must in fairness withhold +myself from passing any judgment.” + +With this, thought would have so prepared itself--so far as such a +thing is possible from its own resources--as to be able to take up and +work out the Buddha-thought as inciting impulsion. + +From this point the Buddha-teaching, put briefly, would continue:-- + +All human thinking, without exception, operates with the concept of a +_substans_ lying at the root of things. Thou also, the critic, must +conform thyself to the rule. It is a _necessity of thought_. The ground +of this is, that in point of fact a _substans_ does lurk in things; not +as a “constant in itself,” however,--such a thing, to be sure, thou +canst through thy rigid analysis exclude--but solely as _that which +gives the continuity of the process_, its maintenance, as an _actual_ +law of formation. This law of formation _becomes_ accessible to thee, +the individual, in consciousness. To see into that, however, thou +must be taught. So long as that does not come to pass, it is a matter +of taste or of natural inclination as to whether thou wilt interpret +the facts accessible to sense as significant of _substans_, or of the +absence of _substans_. For in the facts themselves there lies nothing +that impels either in the one direction or the other. The decision lies +solely with that unique something _by means of which_ you bring all +these facts before yourself--namely, with consciousness. To bring this +itself before you, however, as a “fact,” this is as impossible as that +any one should be able to bring his back before him though he should +turn himself about never so swiftly and dexterously. To comprehend this +unique something--for this, instruction is needed; and following upon +this instruction, _growing insight_ (intuition). If, however, thou wilt +permit thyself to be instructed, then shalt thou learn that both these +thought-necessities--that of adequate cause as that of _substans_--here +merge into one. _The idea of “substans”_ here becomes a form of the law +of adequate cause. Both necessities of thought--that of adequate cause +and that of _substans_--merge and blend into one in the Kamma teaching +of the Buddha. + +With this the circle is closed; the end interlocks with the +beginning. We have discharged our self-imposed task of assigning the +Buddha-thought its place in the life of the mind. + +Nothing has been said touching the problem of the freedom of the will, +nor on the problem of deity which involves that of immortality. + +The former of these is the problem of morality; the latter, the problem +of religion. Their due place is in the successor to this volume. + + + + + CONCLUSION + + +It is clear, without further need of demonstration, that with the Kamma +teaching of the Buddha there is given the ferment of an actual morality +as of an actual religion. A morality and a religion are _actual_ when +they are functions of cognition. + +All morality rests upon selflessness. If selflessness is not to be +blind asceticism or equally blind training, it must have a motive. + +This is supplied by the Kamma teaching. + +For where I apprehend myself as a process that sustains itself through +itself, _i.e._ through its volitions, I know that in every moment I +myself fashion the next moment, and with this present life, the life +that shall follow it. In correct insight I become in the most literal +sense the architect of my fate. + +From this, selflessness follows as an evident necessity. + +All religion consists in the need of looking beyond this life, of +relating it to another, a higher. The Kamma teaching reveals to me that +it is the succeeding life to which this life “is related.” + +From this, morality and religion follow as functions of cognition. + +One perceives that such a teaching as this perforce involves profound +changes in the appraisement of life-values, and along with this, +changes in the relations of the individual to his environment, which +includes changes in his social relationships. + +The perfumed brutality of our civilization has its root in false ideas +of the meaning and significance of life, from which results a false +appraisement of life-values. We take the symptoms for the things +themselves, and are drowned in their inexhaustibility without once +being able to win through to ourselves. That we are all steering a +wrong course must be finally clear to every thinking man. But since +none knows of any remedy this is sought _practically_ in a combat +with the symptoms--that is, one bails the water out of the sinking +craft and forgets to stop the leak; and _theoretically_ it is sought +in the setting up of all sorts of artificial ideals--that is, in +emotion-values. + +Neither of these makeshifts is of any avail. Help can only come from +thinking, through the acquiring of a correct idea as to the worth of +our so-called life-values. + +It is just here that the Buddha-thought comes in as teacher, as +educator, as revolutioniser of values--in fine, as the _gospel of +thought_, and gives a new turn to that terrible, blind “struggle for +existence,” to which as to some dread mania, we all are subject. + +Buddhism is the doctrine of actuality, the Kamma teaching, the +outcome of thinking in terms of actuality. To render it accessible to +the thinking of the modern man, to make it possible for him to let +his glance rove free from out the mole-like existence of aims and +objects himself has turned up, away past the overthrown barriers of +a cramping ignorance--for this it is necessary that the non-actual +and the re-actual forms of world-theory, which, as faith and science +respectively, everywhere obstruct free outlook, should be swept clean +away, or at the very least confined strictly to their own proper +domain. Room must be made for actuality and for thinking in terms of +actuality. + +That was the main task of this book. + +But of such sort is truth that it will not suffer that way be made for +it by violent measures of any kind. One thing only here is permissible: +to point it out, patiently and repeatedly point it out. Its way it +makes of its own self. + +“Over all gifts victorious is the gift of the truth.” + + + THE END + + _Printed by_ R. & R. Clark, Limited, _Edinburgh._ + + + + + [ Footnotes ] + + +[1] _Mahāvagga_, i. 6, and many other passages. + +[2] _Mahāvagga_, i. 21. + +[3] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 140. + +[4] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 44. + +[5] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 38. + +[6] “Differentiate itself” is meant to equate _samucchissatha_, a word +for which it is difficult to find an adequate equivalent. It signifies +the self-integration of the new being simultaneously with its severance +from the maternal organism. + +[7] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 38. + +[8] _Buddhism in Translations_, by H. C. Warren, p. 239. + +[9] _Pāḷi Text_, P.T.S. edition, p. 71. + +[10] These two words are not, as most western scholars aver, +altogether synonymous, for “Dhamma” embraces everything--actual as +well as re-actual processes. When, on the other hand, it is desired +particularly to specify the re-actual processes, the word “Sankhāra” +serves the purpose. The stereotyped formula: “All Sankhāras are +transient; all Sankhāras are painful; all _Dhammas_ are non-self,” +is not based upon any caprice nor yet upon metrical considerations +(as Oldenburg asserts in his _Buddha_, 1897 edition, p. 291), for the +prose versions render the three phrases in exactly the same form, +as may be seen by a reference to the _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 35. +On the contrary, the formula is founded upon a clearly understood +distinction between Sankhāra and Dhamma. The native scholars express +this distinction by saying that the Dhammas take in, embrace, the +element of Nibbāna. Which means nothing more than that they refer to +_actual_ processes, to living beings. Western scholars would do well +to sit at the feet of the native scholars somewhat more than they at +present incline to do. Many a misconception might thereby be removed, +or prevented from ever arising, indeed. An admonition such as this is +needed in every nook and corner of our literature upon Buddhism. + +[11] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 37. + +[12] In Pāḷi, _paṭiccasamuppāda_, which may be rendered as “The +together-arising in dependence upon.” + +[13] Cf. Essay XI. + +[14] The texts give the true meaning of _Jāti_ with sufficient +frequency, as, for instance, in the ninth Sutta of the _Majjhima +Nikāya_, as follows:-- + +“Khandhānaŋ pātubhāvo, āyatanānaŋ paṭilābho, ayaŋ vuccat’ āvuso +jāti.” Which means: “The coming into manifestation of the Khandhas +(that is, the arising anew of corporeality, sensations, perceptions, +discriminations, and cognition-acts, such as at every moment are +exhibited in every individual combustion process, every alimentation +process), the ever repeated seizing of the Ayatanas (that is, of the +objects of sense, or of that, supported by which--in the objective +as in the subjective sense--the senses are able to come into +activity),--this, friend, is called birth.” + +I embrace the opportunity of calling attention to the equally +misleading rendering of Nāma-rūpa by “name and form.” The native +pandits laugh at such a rendering. Here Nāma is “that which bends” +(nāmeti), _i.e._ that which conglobates the material (rūpa) into +that specific form through which even it becomes an individual. It +is not merely name, but the totality precisely of what most is worth +naming. As a matter of fact, the pandits of Ceylon explain it as the +evolutional form of Viññāṇa. + +In harmony with this, in the above cited Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta, Sāriputta +gives the following explanation: “Sensation, perception, volition, +thought-contact, cogitation, this is called _nāma_.” And in the Milinda +Pañha it is said: “What is gross, that is _rūpa_; what is of fine, +mind-like constitution, that is _nāma_.” In the Abhidhamma exegesis, +the so-called Nāma-series is directly identified with Viññāṇa. + +[15] _Samyutta Nikāya_, ii. 15, 3. + +[16] When a modern writer, like T. Loeb in his _Dynamik der +Lebenserscheinungen_, declares living beings to be machines “which +consist _essentially_ of colloidal matter possessing the property of +automatic alimentation and reproduction,” the statement has about as +much value as if one should think to explain the arc-light as something +that consists _essentially_ of a stick of carbon possessing the +property of automatically lighting itself every evening and burning +throughout the night. + +[17] Cf. Essay V., “The Teaching of Kamma.” + +[18] E. Mach, _Erkenntnis und Irrtum_. + +[19] Thus, Hering writes in _Das Gedächtniss als Funktion der belebten +Materie_: “The central sections of the nervous system must retain some +memory of that which they formerly have done.... In like manner the +motor system must possess memory, albeit unknown to us it is true.” +Further on he says: “The reappearance in the daughter organism of the +characteristics of the mother organism is a reproduction on the matter +side, of such a process as the former already once before has shared +in, if only as germ in the ovary, which process it remembers, inasmuch +as to like stimuli it reacts exactly as that organism of which it once +formed a part”; from which the fact of the hereditary transmission of +characteristic qualities would work out as a specimen merely of the +“memory of unconscious matter.” Hering adds: “Thus every organic being +of the present day stands before us ultimately as a product of the +unconscious memory of organized matter.” + +All such ideas are nothing but ingenious paraphrases of actuality; +and in the last analysis amount to nothing but an audacious juggle +with the word _memory_. And when it is further said: “If memory be +attributed to the species the same as to the individual, instinct +immediately becomes comprehensible”; and in conclusion: “The conscious +memory of man is extinguished at death, but the unconscious memory of +nature is indestructible,” I can only call this dealing in poetry, not +science, a possibility only to be arrived at by the _dis_-actualizing +of actuality. In reality memory exists solely where something is +remembered, just as a flame exists there only where it is burning. Of +this kind of memory, however, but one example is to be found in all the +world--I myself! It is just this lack of the sense of actuality--as +displayed in physics--which to such a large extent constitutes the +greatness of science, while it also no less constitutes its weakness, +as in biology. E. Mach in his _Erkenntnis und Irrtum_, p. 49, expresses +himself to the selfsame effect: “Heredity, instinct, may then be +depicted as memory stretching out beyond the individual,” a sentence +that possesses about as much content of actuality as the “songs unsung” +of a dead poet. + +[20] Cf. R. Semon, _Die Mneme_. + +[21] “They (the materialists) teach that in the central nervous system +also all is only the oscillation of atoms, only reflex motion, only +mechanics. In one part of the brain only, there in the grey substance +of a portion of the cerebral cortex, something takes place which as yet +we are unable to explain. But it is only a question of time. Sooner or +later it will certainly be demonstrated that this also is nothing but +mechanics, nothing more than a complicated species of reflex action” +(Bunge, _Physiologie_, i. p. 164). + +[22] “The practice of treating the unanalysed _I_-complex as an +indivisible unity frequently finds scientific expression in singular +fashion. First of all, the nervous system is set apart from the body as +being the seat of sensation. In the nervous system, again, the brain +is picked out as likeliest to be such a seat. And, finally, in order +to save the supposed psychic unity, search is made in the brain for +a _point_ as the seat of the soul. Views so crude as these, however, +are but ill adapted to indicate beforehand even in roughest outline +the path of future investigation as to the connection between the +physical and the psychical.” Comparison should also be made with the +introductory remarks to the chapter on “Der Sitz des Bewusstseins” in +Bunge’s _Physiologie_. + +[23] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 28. + +[24] Cf. Essay VII. + +[25] Cf. Essay V., the citation from the _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 38. + +[26] _Origin of Species_, p. 212. John Murray, London, 1884. + +[27] _Physiologie_, i. p. 402. + +[28] _Origin of Species_, p. 259. John Murray, London, 1884. + +[29] _Ibid._ p. 297. + +[30] _Origin of Species_, p. 308. + +[31] Bunge’s _Physiologie_. + +[32] Weismann’s _Leben und Tod_. + +[33] G. v. Bunge, _Physiologie_, i. p. 361. + +[34] Cf. Essay IX. + +[35] Cf. Essay V., remarks on the causal sequence. + +[36] It is to this effect that E. Mach expresses himself on the +subject of the concept in various passages in his works--for example, +in the _Wärmelehre_ and _Erkenntnis und Irrtum_. Ostwald defines the +concept “as a rule in accordance with which we take note of definite +characteristics of the phenomenon” (_Naturphilosophie_). + +[37] For a correct appreciation of the law of the conservation of +energy and the value of scientific laws and data in general, one should +read among others Poincaré’s two works: _The Value of Science_, and +_Science and Hypothesis_. + +[38] Cf. Foreword to E. Mach’s _Analyse der Sinnesempfindungen_. + +[39] E. Mach’s _Analyse der Sinnesempfindungen_, p. 4. + +[40] _Analyse der Empfindungen_, page 15. + +[41] _Analyse der Empfindungen_, p. 20. + +[42] _Ibid._ + +[43] Positivism itself calls attention to this quality of non-actuality +in its system. In the Foreword to the second volume of R. Avenarius’s +_Kritik der reinen Erfahrung_, J. Petzold says, “Modern psychology +is ... characterized by the elimination from the psychic machinery +of every spring of activity.” Here it is as with Roland’s mare in +Chamisso’s poem: Perfect--but dead! + + + + + [ Transcriber’s notes ] + + +Non-English words are rendered as in the original, and may not be +consistent or correct. Exceptions: 1) “tanhā” and “taḥha” have been +rendered as the text’s preferred “taṇhā”; 2) “Sankhāra” was printed +numerous ways and has been standardized as quoted. + +The “{sic}” in the text is the transcriber’s. + +The quote beginning “Ignorance must be present” (p. 77) is not closed +in the original; the transcriber closed it at the end of the paragraph. + +The cover image is a modified version of the book’s title page and is +placed in the public domain. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77146 *** |