Our duality, on the contrary, which has behind it, not monism, but
pluralism, may be denned as conscious creation, or conscious love,
confronted by conscious resistance to creation, or conscious inert
malice. Thus while Bergson finds his ultimate axiomatic "data" in
philosophical abstractions, we find our ultimate axiomatic "data"
in the realities of human experiences. Bergson seeks to interpret
human life in terms of the universe. We seek to interpret the
universe in terms of human life. And we contend that we are
justified in doing this since what we call "the universe," as soon as
it is submitted to analysis, turns out to be nothing but an act of
faith according to which an immense plurality of separate personal
universes find a single universe of inspiration and hope in the
vision of the immortal gods.
The ultimate duality revealed by the complex vision is a
duality on both sides of which we have unfathomable abysses of
consciousness. On the one side this consciousness is eternally
creative. On the other side this consciousness is eternally
malicious, in its deliberate inert resistance to creation. It is
natural enough, therefore, that while Bergson's "creative evolution"
resolves itself into a series of forward-movements which are as
easy and organic as the growth of leaves on a tree, our advance
toward the real future which is also a return to the ideal past,
resolves itself in a series of supremely difficult rhythms, wherein
eternally conscious "good" overcomes eternally conscious "evil."
Our philosophy, therefore, may, in the strictest sense, be called
a "human" philosophy in contra-distinction to a "cosmic"
philosophy; or, if you please, it may be called a "dramatic"
philosophy in contra-distinction to a "lyric" philosophy. From all
this it will be clearly seen that it would be impossible for us to
hypostasize a super-moral or sub-moral universe in complete
disregard of the primordial conscience of the human soul. It will
be equally clearly seen that it would be impossible for us to project
a theoretical universe made up of "cosmic streams of tendency,"
whether "spiritual" or "material," in complete disregard of the
soul's primordial aesthetic sense.
The logical scrupulosity and rationalistic passion which drive a
cosmic philosopher forward, in his attempt to construct a universe
in disregard of the human conscience and the human aesthetic
sense, are themselves evidence that while he has suppressed in
himself the first two of the three primordial ideas of which we
speak, he has become an all-or-nothing slave of the last of these
three ideas--namely, the idea of truth. He has sacrificed his
conscience and his taste to this isolated and abstracted "truth," the
quest of pure reason alone, and, as a result of this fanaticism, the
real "true truth," that is to say the complete rhythmic vision of the
totality of man's nature, has been suppressed and destroyed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account