Part 2

Upon this, its community of nature with illusion and error, is based another essential characteristic of faith--namely, the impossibility, when once it has vanished, of its ever again coming to life. Once the rope on my path which I formerly mistook for a snake has been recognized by me for a rope, never again can I voluntarily return to my illusion. I can, indeed, by force of imagination, represent it to myself as a snake, but this representation no longer “works”; it no longer excites fear. And in just the same way I can quite successfully recall the conditions under which certain optical and acoustic delusions made their appearance, but they are illusions that are dead. The like holds good of error and, for a third, of faith.

People who call for a resuscitation of vanished faith, and by some means or other hope to see it effected, know not what it is that they hope and call for. They are calling for the restoration of a vanished ignorance--an utter inconceivability.

Now there exists one great distinction between faith, on the one hand, and illusion and error on the other; in this respect, namely, that the two latter have the physical, the material for their object, hence can be checked and set right by this--that is, by reality. Faith, however, that has for its object the non-physical, the non-material, which is just whatever the believer chooses to conceive it to be, cannot be checked and set right by reality. On the contrary, the believer interprets the entire world in accordance with his concept, devours, so to speak, the world’s entire content of reality, and sets up a view of the world that is _unreal_, seeing that he interprets the physical from the transcendental standpoint--that is, abnormally; and therefore he is never in the position to be set right by reality, since he never can knock up against contradictions. One must know that one does not know before one can let oneself be taught.

In perfect accordance with this essential feature of faith (so far as the theory of knowledge is concerned) is its morality and religion: _both are contrary to sense_.

The essence of all morality is to be found in selflessness. Every act of selflessness requires a motive. To possess a motive one must exercise cognition, comprehension.

As a matter of fact the essential nature of every faith-morality is selfish, despite all its acts of renunciation. Here one practises renunciation like a man who stints himself of a certain amount of money and invests it in a lottery. As he parts with his money that he may win back more in its place, so here the believer gives up money, goods, life--yea, honour and truth, everything, if so be he may draw the first prize above.

The essence of all religion consists in the search for the aim and goal of life. This search faith satisfies by referring life as a whole to a something transcendent. But the existence of the transcendent is nothing else but the concept of it. To refer life as a whole to a transcendent thus means nothing but to refer itself to itself, which--so to speak--is the analytical expression for ignorance.

Further development of these ideas is not essential to our task. Here we have only to bear well in mind that, as the world-theory from the standpoint of faith is one contrary to sense, so also is its morality and its religion. All three are functions of a nescience, and therefore void of actuality.

III

SCIENCE AND A WORLD-THEORY

_There is present a something given--the world._

With reference to this something given, science takes up a position that in its own way is every whit as arbitrary as again in its way is that of religion; with this difference, however, that whereas the latter, so to speak, turns the clock of mental life backward, science would fain turn it forward.

The play of world-events with equal justice may be held to declare that we comprehend adequate causes as to declare that we do not comprehend them, inasmuch as all we may have comprehended as the adequate cause of any life-phenomenon, itself on its part demands an adequate cause, and so on backwards _ad infinitum_. In short, Every adequate cause is of a secondary nature. From this science argues as follows:--

It is a fact that we comprehend adequate causes, in certain respects, up to a certain degree, consequently perfect comprehension is possible, everything depending simply on patience and correct methods.

With this claim of the _comprehensibility in principle_ of life-phenomena, science takes upon itself the proud task, of itself _working out a world-theory_ from the foundation upwards.

Comprehensibility in principle of life-phenomenon is that standpoint with reference to actuality which is given for every science without exception. On any other hypothesis science as science has no justification whatever for its existence. Science, if it is to be what its name implies, is that which furnishes knowledge. Knowledge can only be furnished where things can be completely demonstrated, made tangible to sense. That, however, is only possible if nothing lies hidden in things that is not perceptible by sense. Hence science, if she does not wish to gainsay her own right to exist, must proceed upon the arbitrary hypothesis that _there is nothing in the play of world-events that is not perceptible to the senses_. And if really there is something of the sort there, then for her it is merely the _not yet demonstrable_, which later on, with patience, with improvements in methods, will also be achieved. This is the position which science takes up with reference to the play of world-events, the foundation on which her whole superstructure is erected. Science is possible there only where there is the sensible, the demonstrable, where there is something so constituted that I can class it with others of its kind. And all science--to put it briefly--is just the endeavour to make tangible to sense the entire play of world-events.

In support of this standpoint in principle of science, I cite the following passage from W. Ostwald’s _Schule der Chemie_:--

_Pupil._ These are only properties. What I mean, however, is that which lies at the root of all properties.

_Teacher._ This then ought to remain behind when you have thought away all properties from the matter. Well, think away all its properties from a piece of sugar--colour, shape, hardness, weight, taste, and so forth--what then remains over? Nothing! For it is only through its properties that I can recognize that there is something there.... You must get rid of the notion that apart from the properties of a thing there is anything at all to be found beneath them that is higher or more real than the properties.

From this rejection of all that is not perceptible to sense, it follows that science may not recognize as adequate causes for “that which is” even as for “that which happens”--in short, for all the phenomena of life--anything else but other phenomena of life. If for faith the thought-necessity, an adequate cause, becomes an “adequate cause in itself,” _a pure absolute_, for science it becomes _a pure relative_. Anything is an adequate cause purely in its relation to another phenomenon of life, and with reference to itself another phenomenon of life again is the adequate cause. In brief, the adequate cause is here just as much an “effect” as a “cause.”

With this rejection in principle of all that is not perceptible to sense, science rejects all actual energies. For _an actual energy can never be anything perceptible to sense_, the latter ever and always necessitating the question as to its adequate cause.

In the universe as constructed for itself by science, the actuating impulse is simply the various differences that obtain in situation and tension, which are equally as countless in number as the countless processes with which they are given. The play of world-events in its entirety becomes a stupendous process of compensation, and all values become simply values of relation. Here nothing has sense and meaning by itself, but only as it first receives them from others.

The purely scientific standpoint can only be the materialistic one, along with which of necessity is given the mechanical mode of apprehending the play of world-events.

In the mechanical apprehension of things, the play of world-events becomes a “falling.” Every fall demonstrates the absence of actual forces by the fact that in its downward course it can be computed in advance.

The aim and object of all science is computation in advance. The ability to do this finds its due expression in scientific _law_.

The proof that upon this path one had arrived at a world-theory, would thus be an absolutely and universally valid law.

Such a law science does not possess. Every law, without exception, is an abstraction from experience, and may be swept away again by fresh experiences.

Now it is true modern physics lays claim to one universal law--the law of the conservation of energy.

We shall have to return to this law later on. Here in passing be it only said--

First, That the law of the conservation of energy has by no means been arrived at upon the legitimate path of science--that is, upon the path of induction--but has been found intuitively. Secondly, The law of the conservation of energy is nothing but a “reading” of the facts, on one hand, by way of definite compromise; on the other, valid only for a limited domain of nature.

The compromise is as follows:--

Were the law of the conservation of energy really a law abstracted from experiences and absolutely valid, it would be proven by the complete passing over, without any remainder, of one phenomenon of life into another; as, for instance, by the transformation of a process of heat into a process of motion; and physics would have a right to draw the conclusion of an analogy between this and other processes. The play of world-events as pure relation-values, its potential comprehensibility, would be proven by a single transformation without residue, of heat into motion and motion back into heat--that is, by a single _completely reversible process_.

But the idea of reversible processes has practical and theoretical possibility only in an absolutely closed system. Such a thing, however, is not to be had in the world of actuality. All things here, without exception, stand in relation to one another, and these mutual relations do not admit of total suspension even for a single moment of time. Thus at no time can one get anything but approximately closed systems; therefore at no time can one attain to anything but approximately correct results. Every attempt to demonstrate practically a completely reversible process works with minimum losses, which the physicist, to be sure, lays to the charge of the procedure adopted, but which the thinker is equally justified in interpreting as a _loss_ of energy. No matter what the exactitude with which the experiment is carried out, no matter how small in value the loss, it is always there; _there is no such thing as a completely reversible process!_ One can only derive a law of the conservation of energy from the facts, if for thought the same is already given. From experiments alone, inductively, it would be as impossible to arrive at a law of the conservation of energy as it would be to arrive at the concept of the circle solely from the concept of the polygon. The circle must be given beforehand as ultimate concept (_Grenzbegriff_); and in exactly the same way the law of the conservation of energy must be given beforehand as ultimate concept (_Grenzbegriff_), if the experiments are to lead up to it. Thus it was with Robert Mayer’s great intuition: it was a thing given. And this intuition was taken up by science and worked out, because here was given it a means of proving with scientific appliances the impossibility of a _perpetuum mobile_. Perpetual motion, however, is the violation of the law of adequate cause, transferred to the domain of the physical.

That is one side of the matter. The other is that the law of the conservation of energy conformable with its nature, can only possess validity in the domain of processes reversible and not dependent upon time, for in a non-reversible process there would lie no possibility whatever of its proof.

Here this is quite enough to signalize the nature of the law of the conservation of energy. In the conception of the play of world-events as yielded by this law, the physicist turns his eyes entirely away from the real, active energies of the play of world-events. He confines himself entirely to what is exhibited to sense, the motions; he takes them for the forces themselves, but is entitled to do so only so long as he keeps clear before him the fact that it is only a _reading_ that is in question, and derives therefrom what alone can be derived--_work done_. Work done, however, is not energy itself but the reaction from energies. And that which the physicist calls the “world-picture of energetics” is, in point of fact, void of all energies. The entire world-picture of energetics is no _actual_ thing but, in the strictest sense, a thing _re-actual_,--if such a word may be coined--which as such has no title whatever to be used as a world-theory. Should, nevertheless, this occur, then those consequences follow about which we shall speak later.

So long as science abides by actuality she can say nothing else but that every attempt to trace back completely one phenomenon of life to another--that is, to represent the play of world-events in the form of pure relation-values--slips into an endless series; and what is most of all worthy of remark, each member of this endless series is itself in turn the point of departure for a new endless series, so that in the last analysis the fact of this limitless comprehensibility of the phenomena of life remains as the one real problem of science. And every science that is in earnest, and does not merely seek to avail itself of technique, at the very outset must ask itself the question, This limitless onward movement which every point of departure yields, start where we may, has it or has it not a conclusion?

To be able to judge of that one must possess some firm standing-ground from which to look out and see whether this unceasing progression really is progress. On this journey upon the high seas of knowledge one must have a landmark by which to steer. Such a possibility, however, is excluded, and excluded by science itself. For, as already said, science as such has standing only where the hypothesis of potential comprehensibility, of the absence of all that is not perceptible to sense holds good; in other words, where the play of world-events admits of being resolved without remainder into relation-values. Such a landmark, however, could only be something which itself did not admit of being resolved into pure relation-values, but was a constant in itself, an unconditioned constant. Were science, however, to admit the existence of such a “something,” she would be cutting the ground from under her own feet. The whole value of science, as such, resides in its pure relativity, in the liability of its values; even as the value of faith resides in the fixity of its one value.

From all this it follows that in science itself absolutely nothing can be found that might serve it to prove whether or not there is genuine progress toward knowledge--that is, whether all these endless series, which every experiment and every piece of thought opens up, do or do not proceed toward a final conclusion. At this stage one view of the matter has precisely as much justification as the other; an _ignorabimus_ just as much and just as little value as the most flamboyant optimism. We cannot know. It is, so to speak, entirely a matter of taste as to the sense in which one chooses to interpret these endless series.

In full consonance with this is the value which science possesses in relation to morality and religion.

Whoso will give mankind morality and religion, must give it something in which it can find support. Both morality and religion at bottom are nothing but a support in the wide waste of infinitudes. Every thinking man craves for such a support. If it is lacking, then for the real thinker a condition supervenes that is all as unbearable as that physical one, when for the moment a person has lost all possibility of learning the lie of his surroundings, as, for instance, when he wakes up confused out of a deep sleep and does not know how to find his way anywhere. Here as there it is the pure anguish of thought that comes over us in such a condition, an anguish that will not let us rest until we have again constructed the mental support, again established continuity in thought with the whole.

If faith fabricates this support in a manner contrary to sense, and consequently projects in consonance with her nature a morality and religion that are contrary to sense, science as a whole on its part is nothing but the attempt to fabricate for itself a support in law. Scientific law, however, yields a support solely with reference to a theory of knowledge. Hence never under any circumstances can science project moral and religious values. It would be a contradiction of her own nature. Could she do so, she would no longer be science--_i.e._ _the_ form of mental life which _must_ comprehend the entire play of world-events in the form of relation-values. Where there exists nothing but relation-values, there can exist no support in itself, and therefore no morality or religion. Science is _a-moral_ and _a-religious_; and the layman as well as the scientist himself ought ever to keep this clearly before his mind. The efforts made in our day to carve out, so to speak, the results of science to suit religious ends as modern monism seeks to do, only go to show how necessary is such an admonition. From the continuity of life, expounded in the materialistic sense as a cell, men seek to deduce the idea that we ourselves live on in the generations to come, somewhat as the manure lives on in the plant it has manured. But these are such playthings of thought as only are possible where one is operating with what is wholly divorced from actuality, that is, with the empty concept of “life.”

To seek to derive moral and religious values from science is, as the Indian saying has it, “to milk the bull by the horns.”

Now both faith and science alike have the same starting-point--the thing given, the world. The question then arises, “How can it be possible that with reference to this given thing, each should take up such a directly opposite position? How comes it that the one apprehends the adequate cause of the play of world-events as a pure absolute, while the other apprehends it as a pure relative?”

At this point we come face to face with the Buddha-thought and its significance for mental life.

IV

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE THOUGHT WORLD OF THE BUDDHA GOTAMA

As aid towards a better understanding of that personality of the greatest significance for the mental life of mankind, there follow here some remarks upon him and the age in which he lived.

Buddhism is the teaching of _the Buddha_, or as one may equally well say--of _the Buddhas_. For “Buddha” is no private name, but the title of one endowed with certain mental capacities. The word, therefore, ought always to be accompanied by the article. It signifies, The Awakened.

According to the teaching the number of the Buddhas is endless. He whom we know by this name, for the time being the last of this beginningless series, is the Buddha Gotama. His family name was _Siddhattha_. He came of the ancient race of the Sakyas, well known for their pride, and as such belonged to the warrior caste. He is, therefore, often alluded to under the name of “Sakyaputta,” scion of the Sakyas, or as “Samaṇa Gotama,” ascetic Gotama.

He was born in _Kapilavatthu_, the capital city of a small state in Northern India, on the borders of present-day Nepal. His grave was discovered in the year 1898 near Pipravā, in the jungle-covered foothills of the Himalayas called the Terai.

The years of his birth and of his death cannot be exactly determined. Meanwhile one does not go far wrong if one places the period of his

## activity in the neighbourhood of the year 500 before the Christian era.

This would make him the elder contemporary of Heraklitus of Ephesus and somewhat younger than Lao Tse in China.

He died at the advanced age of eighty years (if one does not choose to regard the recurring statements in the texts as to age, on the part of the most different personalities, as merely an indication of old age in general), after almost fifty years of active life spent in travelling about, preaching.

The precepts, discourses, and explanations--all that which makes up the Buddhist canon--are gathered together into what is called the _Tipitaka_, or _Three Baskets_. The language of the canon is Pāḷi. Whether this was the Buddha’s own mother tongue or only related to it, is a question upon which there exist differences of opinion between native and European scholars.

The mental atmosphere in which the Buddha arose may be briefly characterized as follows: A feeling of life as suffering, fermenting throughout the entire Indian people; a firm belief in the _transmigration of the soul_ and the endless prolongation of this suffering conditioned thereby; the conviction that asceticism purifies, after the effected purification from old guilt, heaps up merit, assures re-birth in heaven, and finally procures deliverance from _Samsāra_, this terrible, ceaseless wandering from existence to existence. Once more, the fundamental theme in this Indian symphony of destiny, recurring in unending variations, was this, _Life is Suffering_, or to say the least of it, a somewhat doubtful blessing. But this statement of life as suffering was not in ancient India the hollow phrase that it is with us to-day; neither was it that cold play of thought found in many philosophical systems. It was a grim reality which men sought to escape with an energy of self-immolation, a determination, a recklessness, an ardour of which we lukewarm creatures of to-day can form no conception.

India in the days of the Buddha was full of companies of monks and schools of ascetics, all of them wrestlers with the riddle of life. But one only wrestles with life when one feels it as suffering.

The sons of noble families left their homes to search for truth either out there in the frightful solitudes of the Indian forest, or in the cloister of the monk. As in later days men went forth in search of El Dorado, so in those days did men go forth upon the search for truth. But what gives to the search for truth in ancient India a character entirely its own is this, that all search here is turned towards the _I_ itself; that the fight for truth did not as in ancient Greece exhaust itself in elegant rhetorical disputations and exercises in dialectic, but in full unmitigated rigour was lived out in one’s own _I_, without a single thought as to whether the outward form would support the heat of the friction within or not.