An ethical philosophy of life presented in its main outlinesAdler, Felix
Religion
An ethical philosophy of life presented in its main outlines
Adler, Felix
Ethics; Philosophy, Modern
The frustration which the scientist meets with when he reflects in
thoroughgoing fashion on the business he has in hand is the inevitable
realization that _Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichniss_, that the
sphere of the finite in which he labors, though capable of indefinite
extension, is forever incapable of being rounded out to a true
infinity, and hence that the complete unification of the manifold (in
which alone the reality-producing functions of the mind can find repose
and ultimate satisfaction), can never be carried out in the manifold
of juxtaposition and sequence with which, as a physical scientist, he
deals. He will thus be led to face in thought the limits of what is
finitely attainable, not only by him as an individual scientist, but
by physical science in general. And in proportion as his spiritual
nature is energetic it will then assert itself all the more resiliently
after this defeat, and turn in a new direction, and towards another
kind of truth, the truth which is discovered in the realm of _will_,
in the sphere of intercourse with fellow human beings. The propædeutic
result of science with respect to ethical personality is the training
of the more complex mental faculties. The positive result following the
frustration is the new turn toward the spiritual, the escape from the
spell wherewith the physical world enchains the mind, the dissipating
of the widespread illusion that the truths of physical science are the
only kind of truth, the more determined setting of the face towards a
different kind of truth. The scientist, in brief, is to travel along
the paths of the finite in order to arrive and stand at the gate of the
infinite.
I have said that the boon of personality is gained in intercourse with
others, through the influence which we exert on others. How does the
scientist as a scientist spiritually affect others? The great specific
service, as I have just said, which he is to render is to destroy the
illusion that the material world is a finality. And it is just he, the
scientist, who works most successfully in the field of physical truth
who must assist the rest of us in escaping from the spell to which we
are all subject. He is the one, he who more than others succeeds in
unifying the manifold of juxtaposition and sequence, to whom we look to
liberate others as well as himself from the deceptive belief that the
reality-producing functions of the human mind can be satisfied in the
temporal and spatial manifold. Not from the tyro, not from the purveyor
of “popular science” can we hope to learn the profoundest lessons as to
the incapacity of physical nature to appease the spirit of man. It is
from the familiar friend of nature, from one more deeply read than we
are in her secrets, that we are to obtain this great instruction, to
receive this boon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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