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constituted
by the more limited forms. Not that they are the
mere sum of the more limited forms. As our mind is
not the bare sum of our sights plus our sounds plus our pains, but in adding these
terms together it also finds relations among them and weaves them into schemes and
forms and objects of which no one sense in its separate estate knows anything, so the
earth-soul traces relations between the contents of my mind and the contents of yours
of which neither of our separate minds is conscious. It has schemes, forms, and
objects proportionate to its wider field, which our mental fields are far too narrow to
cognize. By ourselves we are simply out of relation with each other, for we are both
of us there, and
different
from each other. . . . What we are without knowing, it knows
that we are. It is as if the total universe of inner life had a sort of grain of direction, a
sort of valvular structure, permitting knowledge to flow in one way only, so that the
wider might always have the narrower under observation, but never the narrower the
wider.
Fechner likens our individual persons on the earth unto so many sense-organs of
the earth-soul. We add to its perceptive life. ... It absorbs our perceptions into its
larger sphere of knowledge, and combines them with the other data there. The
memories and conceptual relations that have spun themselves round the perceptions
of a certain person remain in the larger earth-life as distinct as ever, and form new
relations. . . .
These ideas of Fechner's are expounded in his book,
Zendavesta.*
I have made such a long quotation from Professor James's book in order to show that
ideas of the world as
animated
and
intelligent
are in no way new or paradoxical. It is a
natural and logical necessity, springing from a wider view of the world than that which
we usually permit ourselves.
Logically
we must either admit different levels of life and intelligence in everything,
in all 'dead nature', or deny them altogether, even
IN OURSELVES
.
* lbid.
CHAPTER 18
Intelligence and life. Life and knowledge. Intellect and emotions. Emotion as an
instrument of knowledge. The evolution of emotions from the standpoint of
knowledge. Pure and impure emotions. Personal and super-personal emotions. The
elimination of self-element as a means of approach to true knowledge. 'Be as little
children. . . .' 'Blessed are the pure in heart. . . .' The value of morality from the
standpoint of knowledge. The defects of intellectualism. 'Dreadnoughts' as the crown
of intellectual culture. The dangers of moralism. Moral aestheticism. Religion and an
as organized forms of emotional knowledge. The knowledge of
GOD
and the
knowledge of
BEAUTY
.
The
MEANING OF LIFE
- this is the eternal subject of human speculations. All
philosophical systems, all religious teachings strive to find and give men an answer to
the question: what constitutes the meaning of life? Some say that the meaning of life
lies in our enjoyment of it 'while waiting for the final horror of death'. Others say that
the meaning of life consists in self-improvement and creating for oneself a better future
beyond the grave,
or in future lives. A third group say that the meaning is in the
approach to
non-being.
The fourth say that the meaning lies in the perfection of the
race, in the 'ordering of life on earth'. The fifth deny all possibility of looking for a
meaning, and so on.
All these explanations suffer from one defect - they all try to find the meaning of life
outside it -
either in the future of mankind, or in the problematical existence after
death, or in the evolution of the
Ego
through long successive reincarnations - always in
something
outside
the present life of man. But if, instead of speculating, men would
simply look within themselves, they would see that in actual fact the meaning of life is
not, after all, so obscure.
IT CONSISTS IN KNOWLEDGE
. All life, by all its facts, events
and accidents, agitations and attractions always leads us to the
KNOWLEDGE OF
SOMETHING
. All life experience is
KNOWLEDGE
. The strongest emotion in man is a
yearning for the unknown.
EVEN IN LOVE
, the strongest attraction to which everything
else is sacrificed, is the attraction of the unknown, the
NEW
-
curiosity.
The Persian poet-philosopher Al-Ghazzali says: 'The highest function of
man's soul is the perception of truth.'*
In the beginning of this book
INNER LIFE
and
THE OUTER WORLD
were
recognized as existing. The world is everything that exists. The function of
inner life may be defined as the
realization of existence.
Man realizes his existence and the existence of the world of which he is a
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