Modern psychology has not been able, and never can be able, to
escape from the universal human experiences which these
old-fashioned words cover; and as long as the experiences are
recognized as real, it surely does not make much difference what
_names_ we give to them. It seems, indeed, in a point so human
and dramatic as this, far better to use words that have already
acquired a clear traditional and natural connotation than to invent
new words according to one's own arbitrary fancy. It would not be
difficult to invent such words. In place of "truth" one could say
"the objective reality of things" rhythmically apprehended by the
complex vision. Instead of "beauty" one could say "the world seen
under the light of a peculiar creative power in the soul which
reveals a secret aspect of things otherwise concealed from us."
Instead of "goodness" one could say "the power of the conscious
and living _will_, when directed towards love." And in place of
"love" itself one could say "the projection of the essence of the
soul upon the objective plane; when such an essence is directed
towards life."
But it would be futile to continue this "fancy-work," of definition
by an individual temperament. The general traditional meaning of
these words is clear and unmistakable; though there may be
infinite minute shades of difference between one person's
interpretation of such a meaning and another's. What it all really
amounts to is this. No philosophic or scientific interpretation of
life, which does not include the verdict of life's own most
concentrated moments, can possibly be adequate.
Human nature can perfectly well philosophize about its normal
stream of impressions in "cold blood," so to speak, and according
to a method that discounts all emotional vision. But the resultant
conclusions of such philosophizing, with their easy-going
assumption that what we call "beauty" and "goodness" have no
connection with what we call "truth," are conclusions so
unsatisfying to more than half of our being that they carry their
refutation on the face of them.
To be an "interpretation of life" a philosophical theory cannot
afford to disregard the whole turbulent desperate dramatic content
of emotional experience. It cannot disregard the fact, for instance,
that certain moments of our lives bring to us certain reconciliations
and revelations that change the whole perspective of our days. To
"interpret life" from the material offered by the uninspired
unconcentrated unrhythmical "average" moods of the soul is like
trying to interpret the play of "Hamlet" from a version out of
which every one of Hamlet's own speeches have been carefully
removed. Or, to take a different metaphor, such pseudo-psychological
philosophy is like an attempt to analyse the nature of fire
by a summary of the various sorts of fuel which have been
flung into the flame.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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