The Positive Outcome of Philosophy. Joseph Dietzgen 1887
We took our departure from the fact that philosophy is searching for “understanding.” The first and principal acquisition of philosophy was the perception that its object is not to be found in a transcendental generality. Whoever wishes to obtain understanding, must confine himself to something special, without, however, through this limitation losing sight of all measure and aim to such an extent that he forgets the infinite generality.
A modern psychologist who occupies himself with “Thoughts on Enlightenment,” which topic is evidently related to ours, says: “Real and genuine enlightenment can proceed only from religious motives.” Expressed in our language, this would mean: Every genuine understanding, every true conception or knowledge, must be based on the clear consciousness that the infinite universe is the arch fundament of all things.
Understanding and true enlightenment are identical. “It is true,” say the “Thoughts on Enlightenment,” “that all enlightenment takes the form of struggles on account of the nature of him who is to be enlightened and of the object about which he is to be informed. But it is a struggle for religion, not against it.” The author, Professor Lazarus, says in his preface that he does not wish the reader to base his opinion on any single detached sentence. “Every single sentence,” he says, “may be tested as to its value, but the whole of my views on religion and enlightenment cannot be recognized from any single one of them.”
As this wish is entirely justified and as our position is somewhat supported by his psychological treatment of enlightenment, we shall comply with his wish and seek to grasp the meaning of his statements on the religious nature of enlightenment in their entirety, not as isolated sentences.
We even go a step farther than Professor Lazarus, by extending to understanding what he says about enlightenment, viz., that genuine knowledge and enlightenment must, so to say, take their departure from religious motives. But we differ a little as to what motives are religious. Lazarus refers, so far as I can see, to ideas and the ideal, while we, thanks to the positive outcome of philosophy, understand the terms religion and religious to refer to the universal interdependence of things.
Obviously the dividing line between heat and cold is drawn by the human mind. The point selected for this purpose is the freezing point of water. One might just as well have selected any other point. Evidently the dividing line between that which is religious and that which is irreligious is as indeterminate as that between hot and cold. Neither any university nor any usage of language can decide that, nor is the pope a scientific authority in the matter.
It is mainly due to the so-called historical school that a thing is considered not alone by its present condition, but by its origin and decline. What, then, is religion and religious? The fetish cult, the animal cult, the cult of the ideal and spiritual creator, or the cult of the real human mind? Where are we to begin and where to end? If the ancient Germans regarded the great oak as sacred and religious, why should not art and science become religious among the modern Germans? In this sense, Lazarus is correct. The “enlightenment” which was headed in France by Voltaire and the encyclopedists, in Germany by Lessing and Kant, the “enlightenment” which came as a struggle for reason and against religion, was then in fact a struggle for religion, not against it. By this means one may make everything out of anything. But this has to be learned first in order to recognize how our mind ought to be adjusted, so that it may perceive that not only everything is everything, but that each thing also has its own place.
We wish to become clear in our minds how it is possible, and reconcilable with sound conception, that such an anti-religious struggle as that carried on during that period of “enlightenment” can nevertheless be a struggle for and in the interest of religion. We wish to find out how one may abolish religion and at the same time maintain it.
This is easily understood, if we remember the repeatedly quoted dialectic rule according to which our understanding must never exaggerate the distinctions between two things. We must not too widely separate the religious from the secular field. Of course, the religious field is in heaven, while the secular is naturally in the profane universe. Having become aware that even religious imagination, together with its heaven and spirit creator, are profane conceptions in spite of their alleged transcendentalism, we find religion in the secular field, and thus this field has in a way become religious. The religious and the profane infinite have something in common, at least this that the indefinite religious name may also be applied to the secular or profane infinity.
“All culture, every condition of humanity or of a nation, has its roots as well as its bounds in history,” says our Professor of psychology. Should not religion, which according to the words of a German emperor “must be preserved for the people,” also have its bounds in history? Or does it belong to the infinite and must it exist forever? In order to free history of its bounds, it is necessary to avail ourselves of the positive outcome of philosophy and to demonstrate that nothing is infinite but the infinite itself, which has the double nature of being infinite and inseparable from the finite phenomena of nature. The whole of nature is eternal, but none of its individual phenomena is, although even the imperishable whole is composed of perishable parts.
The relation of the constant whole of nature to its variable parts, the relation of the general to the specialties composing it, includes, if we fully grasp it, a perfect conception of the human mind as well as of the understanding and enlightenment which it acquires. This mind cannot enlighten itself as to its special nature without observing how it came to enlighten itself as to the nature of other specialties. We then find that it has likewise enlightened itself on religious phenomena by recognizing them as a part, as a variation, of the general phenomenon of the constant, eternal, natural universe. Hence secular nature, which is at the same time eternal and temporal, is the mother of religious nature. Of course, the child partakes of the nature of the mother. Religion, historically considered, arises from nature, but the determination of the date of the beginning of this specialty is left as much to the choice of man as that of the point where the cold and the warm meet. The general movement of nature, from which arise its specialties, proceeds in infinite time. Its transformations are so gradual that every determined point constitutes an arbitrary act which is at the same time arbitrary and necessary; necessary for the human being who wishes to gain a conception of it. A perfect conception of religion, therefore, goes right to the center of the question, to the point where the religious specialty reaches a characteristic stage, to its freezing point, so to say. From this standpoint, heat and cold may be sharply defined; likewise religion. If we say, for instance, that religion is the conception of a supernatural spirit who rules nature, and the reader thinks this definition somewhat appropriate, the simple demonstration of the achievements of philosophy in the field of understanding or dialectics proves that this religious conception is untenable in this world of the human mind which knows how to obtain a logical picture of its experiences.
To desire to preserve religion for the people as a sharply defined and finite thing is contrary to all logic and equivalent to swimming against the tide. On the other hand, it is equally illogical to identify religion after the manner of Lazarus with the conception of natural infinity or infinite nature, because that promotes mental haziness.
The laws of thought obtained by philosophical research give us considerable enlightenment about the infinite material process, the nature of which is sublime enough to be worthy of religious devotion, and yet special and matter-of-fact enough to wash the dim eyes with natural clearness.
We have already seen in preceding chapters that we must first define our standpoint before we can decide which is the right or left bank of a river. So it is also in the matter of abolishing and maintaining religion for the people. It can be done the moment we extend the discussion to the realm of infinity. The conception of infinity, called substance by Spinoza, monad by Leibniz, thing itself by Kant, the absolute by Hegel, is indeed necessary in order to explain anything, not only by the fourth root, but by the infinite root of the adequate reason. To that extent we are agreed that enlightenment, or understanding as we say, is not alone a struggle against religion, but also for it. In the theory of understanding acquired by philosophy, there is contained a decisive repeal of religion. Nevertheless we say with Lazarus: “The power of enlightenment and its aim are not expressed in negation, not in that which is not believed, but in that which is believed, venerated, and preserved.” And yet every enlightening perception, every understanding resulting from enlightenment, is a negation. In seeking enlightenment, for instance, on understanding, it is necessary, in order to prove that it is a natural phenomenon, to deny the religious element in so far as it assumes the existence of a divine chief spirit whose secondary copy the human spirit is supposed to be. Or, in order to gain enlightenment on the nature of the universe, in order to realize that it is a truly universal universe, we are compelled to deny the existence of every “higher” world, including the religious. But if we desire to become enlightened as to how it is that religion may not alone be denied, but also preserved, we must transfer its origin from an illogical other world into the natural and logical universe. Thus religion becomes natural and nature religious.
If worship is confined to the idolization of the sun or the cat, every one realizes the temporality of the matter. And if we restrict worship to the adoration of the great omnipotent spirit, every one realizes the temporality of this adoration who has acquired an accurate conception of the small human spirit. If, on the other hand, we extend religious worship to everything which has ever been venerated, or will ever be venerated, by human beings, in other words, if we extend the conception of religion to the entire universe, then it assumes a very far-reaching significance.
This is the essence of enlightenment on religion: That we may at will expand or contract our conceptions, that all things are alike to the extent of representing only one nature, that all fantastical ideas, all good and evil spirits and ghosts, no matter how “supernaturally” conceived, are all natural.
The essential thing in the enlightenment acquired by philosophical study is the appreciation of the fact that understanding, enlightenment, science, etc., are not cultivated for their own sake, but must serve the purpose of human development, the material interests of which demand a correct mental picture of the natural processes.
We have chosen the religious idea for discussion in this chapter so that it may serve as a means of illustrating the nature of thought in general. We regard it as the merit of philosophy to have unveiled this nature.
Professor Lazarus is quite a pleasing companion. He is a fine thinker, saturated with the teachings of the philosophers, not overfond of any particular school, and only about two hands’ breadth removed from our position. But this is just enough to demonstrate by his shortcomings the advantages of our position which proves that the part of the human soul performing the work of thinking is understood by us at least two hands’ breadth better than by this prominent psychologist.
“The function of enlightenment is to recognize that no phenomenon can be an effect which has not another phenomenon as its cause, and to search for the sole cause of every effect, noting all its parts and their consecutive divisions.”
These words describe the mental work performed by the human brain fairly well, but still they require a little addition, to the effect that the mental work is no exception from any other phenomena, all of which have not alone their special, but also one general cause. The cause of all causes, of which religion is making an idol, must be profaned, so to speak, by the cult of science, so that the above definition of Lazarus regarding enlightenment would read as follows: The sole and true cause of all effects is the universe, or the general interdependence of all things. But this is not by far the full scope of enlightenment. It is further necessary, as Lazarus well says, to note “all its parts and their consecutive divisions.” We further add: The universal cause must be understood not alone in its consecutive parts, but also in its co-ordinate parts. It is only then that understanding, enlightenment, become perfect. We then find that after all the relation between cause and effect, or the relation between the universal truth and its natural phenomena, is not a very trenchant one, but a relative one.
“Enlightenment advances in various, in all, fields of mental life. Religious enlightenment has long been recognized as the most essential, justly so, and for many reasons, the chief of them being that religious enlightenment is the most important and hence the most bitterly contested.”
Thus religious enlightenment is a part of universal, cosmic, enlightenment. It is a confusing expression to say that it is confined to “all fields of mental life.” We believe to be shedding more light on the question by saying that there is enlightenment in all fields, not alone in the mental, but also in the cosmic, which unites both the material and mental. To classify this field, that is the exhaustive task of our understanding, that its exhaustive definition.