That monistic tendency of human thought, which is itself a
necessary projection of the monistic reality of the individual soul,
cannot, except by an arbitrary act of faith, resolve this ultimate
duality into unity. Such a primordial "act of faith" it can and must
make with regard to the objective reality of other souls. But such
an "act of faith" is not demanded with regard to the unutterable
mystery behind the universe. We have not, strictly speaking, even
the right to use the expression "an unutterable mystery." All we
have a right to do is just to titter the final judgment--"beyond this
limit neither thought nor imagination can pass."
What the complex vision definitely denies to us, therefore, is the
right to regard this thing, which is _no_ thing, with any emotion at
all. The expression "unutterable mystery" is a misleading one
because it appears to justify the emotions of awe and reverence.
We have no right to regard this thin simulacrum, this mathematical
formula, this stopping-place of thought, with any feelings of awe
or reverence. We have not even a right to regard it with humorous
contempt; for, being nothing at all, it is beneath contempt.
Humanity has a right to indulge in that peculiar emotional attitude
which is called "worship" towards either side of the ultimate
duality. It has a right to worship, if it pleases--though to do so
several attitudes of the complex vision must be outraged and
suppressed--the resistant power of malice. It has even a right to
worship the universe, that turbulent arena of these primal
antagonists. What it has no right to worship is the "unutterable
mystery" _behind the universe_; for the simple reason that the
universe is unfathomable.
Human thought has its stopping-place. The universe is unfathomable.
Human thought has a definite limit. The universe has no
limit. The universe is "unutterably mysterious"; and so also
is the human soul; but as far as the soul's complex vision is
concerned there can be no reality "behind the appearances of
things" except the reality of the soul itself. Thus there is no
"parent" of man and of the universe. But "the immortal companions"
of men are implied from man's most intimate experiences of life.
For if there were no invisible watchers, no arbiters, no standards,
no tests, no patterns, no ideals; our complex vision, in regard to
certain basic attributes, would be refuted and negated.
Every soul which exists must be thought of as possessing the
attribute of "emotion" with its duality of love and malice, the
attribute of "taste" with its duality of beauty and hideousness, of
conscience with its duality of good and evil, and the attribute of
"reason" with its duality of the true and the false. Every one of
these basic attributes would be reduced to a suicidal confusion of
absolute sceptical subjectivity if it could not have faith in some
objective reality to which it can appeal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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