A CONFESSION [11]
consisting of people such as himself who do not understand one
another.
I have to confess that there was a time when I believed this.
It was the time when I had my own favourite ideals justifying my
own caprices, and I was trying to devise a theory which would allow
one to consider my caprices as the law of humanity. But as soon as
the question of life arose in my soul in full clearness that reply
at once few to dust. And I understood that as in the experimental
sciences there are real sciences, and semi-sciences which try to
give answers to questions beyond their competence, so in this
sphere there is a whole series of most diffused sciences which try
to reply to irrelevant questions. Semi-sciences of that kind, the
juridical and the social-historical, endeavour to solve the
questions of a man's life by pretending to decide each in its own
way, the question of the life of all humanity.
But as in the sphere of man's experimental knowledge one who
sincerely inquires how he is to live cannot be satisfied with the
reply -- "Study in endless space the mutations, infinite in time
and in complexity, of innumerable atoms, and then you will
understand your life" -- so also a sincere man cannot be satisfied
with the reply: "Study the whole life of humanity of which we
cannot know either the beginning or the end, of which we do not
even know a small part, and then you will understand your own
life." And like the experimental semi-sciences, so these other
semi-sciences are the more filled with obscurities, inexactitudes,
stupidities, and contradictions, the further they diverge from the
real problems. The problem of experimental science is the sequence
of cause and effect in material phenomena. It is only necessary
for experimental science to introduce the question of a final cause
for it to become nonsensical. The problem of abstract science is
the recognition of the primordial essence of life. It is only
necessary to introduce the investigation of consequential phenomena
(such as social and historical phenomena) and it also becomes
nonsensical.
Experimental science only then gives positive knowledge and
displays the greatness of the human mind when it does not introduce
into its investigations the question of an ultimate cause. And, on
the contrary, abstract science is only then science and displays
the greatness of the human mind when it puts quite aside questions
relating to the consequential causes of phenomena and regards man
solely in relation to an ultimate cause. Such in this realm of
science -- forming the pole of the sphere -- is metaphysics or
philosophy. That science states the question clearly: "What am I,
and what is the universe? And why do I exist, and why does the
universe exist?" And since it has existed it has always replied in
the same way. Whether the philosopher calls the essence of life
existing within me, and in all that exists, by the name of "idea",
or "substance", or "spirit", or "will", he says one and the same
thing: that this essence exists and that I am of that same
essence; but why it is he does not know, and does not say, if he is
an exact thinker. I ask: "Why should this essence exist? What
results from the fact that it is and will be?" ... And philosophy
not merely does not reply, but is itself only asking that question.
And if it is real philosophy all its labour lies merely in trying
to put that question clearly. And if it keeps firmly to its task
it cannot reply to the question otherwise than thus: "What am I,
and what is the universe?" "All and nothing"; and to the question
"Why?" by "I do not know".
So that however I may turn these replies of philosophy, I can
never obtain anything like an answer -- and not because, as in the
clear experimental sphere, the reply does not relate to my
question, but because here, though all the mental work is directed
just to my question, there is no answer, but instead of an answer
one gets the same question,