The Next Development in Man, page 24
These two represent the ancient and modern types, the primitive undifferentiated and the European dissociated man, as far as is possible for men who were so close to one another in time, and both pre-eminently thinkers. Why did one choose one form of thought and the other the alternative? What change in social conditions provided the stimulus to a new development in the later of the two? The unthinking acceptance of the forms of ancient life had been disturbed by an upheaval in which both the contrast between one social system and another and the instability of all such systems had been forced on man's attention in the Eastern Mediterranean and particularly in Greece. Social disturbance had unsettled men's minds and the early Greek thinkers were expressing a social need in seeking to recover stability through the discovery of a rational and universal principle of order. We have seen that in the early stages of the evolution of thought, the requirement of clarity implies the use of static ideas, and the later and more systematic and logical Greek thinkers of necessity turned to static conceptions. Heraclitus had not been intimidated by the processes of life and the mercilessness of change, but that aristocratic attitude could not be maintained. The common experience was one of discomfort and anxiety; while the old order was no longer respected, the anarchy and relativity of the offered alternatives were equally unsatisfying; a general demand for system arose, and with it the opportunity for developing static concepts.
The Socratic method is the subjective and introspective form of what later became the heuristic principle of quantity. Socrates made his life the search for truth regarding the ideal life; intellectual clarity and ethical truth were inseparable, and man should use his mind to seek the truth. Plato took on himself to fulfill this teaching, but it was not enough for him to remain, like his teacher, a humble seeker of truth. Life had disappointed him, Socrates was gone, and he required some established certainty on which he could lean. There were more general physiological and social conditions which facilitated his choice, but in the man Plato, it was the evil cruelty of men that compelled his choice. He could not remain with Heraclitus and Socrates in the world of the senses; he refused to accept the ultimate reality of a world which could condemn to death the very prophet of truth; he joined the ranks of those who sought to escape the distress of the actual world in the static harmony of thought. Parmenides had already emphasized the static character of real existence, and Anaxagoras had found this reality in a transcendental world. Socrates, in deadly earnest in his search for truth, had been more cautious. But Plato was impatient for certainty, and the Socratic road to knowledge became the Platonic view of reality: "In the beginning was the Word."
This was the response of an individual to the general social transformation in progress at the time, and it resulted in the establishment of the explicit marks of the European dissociation. But this unitary situation and its results can be identified in the different components of the process: in the physiology of the mental processes, which facilitated the prior development of static concepts; in the social instability which stimulated the compensatory development of systematic thought; and in the bitter personal experience which led Plato to reject the world of process. Platonic thought facilitated a general tendency. In Plato we find the essential form of the European attitude: the intellectual rejection of the phenomenal world of process on account of its sordid ruthlessness and the emancipation of the spirit within its own realm of permanent intellectual clarity and harmony. The ancient, aristocratic, tragic consciousness disappears; man sets out to console his spirit and protect his body by the exploitation of static ideas.
The Pythagorean view of musical harmony had not separated music from life, or number from nature. But Plato appears at some stage in his life to have revolted from sensuous and sensual pleasure; in place of the beauty of nature he came to see only the ugliness of man, and the Socratic method lent itself easily to the separation of the divine music of the soul from the sordid materiality of flesh and blood. With this division man becomes self-conscious, subjective, moralistic, analytical, and critical. Each of these characteristics expresses a static element in Platonic thought. The subjective quality expresses the emphasis on the individual as a persisting entity separated from the processes of the environment; the moralizing tendency expresses the distrust of the processes of organic vitality; and the critical and analytical intellect expresses the impulse to master nature through the application of static ideas. These complementary aspects may be brought together in one observation: the Platonic attitude represented the partial displacement of consciousness or attention from its proper role of the facilitation of development to the vain attempt to modify the real world to conform to the ideal.
The high generality of this interpretation of Plato does not imply any vagueness or speculative uncertainty. It is, I believe, merely the consequence of applying the Socratic method to the Platonic doctrine. An analysis of the logic of many of Plato's arguments, using the radical methods of mathematical logic would inevitably show that Plato's unspoken criterion of certainty, reality, and truth is always and only persistence and permanence. His arguments for immortality show this most clearly, but the same basis is fundamental to his entire thought. This is the sort of man he is; he can think in no other way.
The Socratic method can lead anywhere; it is the machine tool which can make any kind of tool. In the hands of dissociated European man it leads to dissociated theories, but applied by unitary man to the dethronement of the abstract noun it finally opens the way to proper process thought. Socrates represents the revolt of the human spirit from the relativity of the ancient world, the intellectual search for a supreme sanction in the existence of which man must believe if he is to survive. Unitary thought is the comparable revolt from modern relativity, the search by man for the form of his unity with nature, a unity which his European reason tells him must exist, since life and thought exist.
But in separating consciousness from the material world, Plato has to ascribe the formative faculty of the mind to consciousness, whereas the formative processes of the human system are largely unconscious, that is, they operate below the dominant processes of the human hierarchy and only come to attention at special moments. This confusion is inevitable in dualistic-static thought, because the formative element cannot belong to the material world, the criterion of which is mere permanence. It appears, for example, in the Platonic treatment of Eros. There is physiological and philosophical truth in the imagery of the ascent of love from particular and transient beauty to more general and lasting beauty. The nervous system itself is a hierarchy which passes the residues of particular stimuli up to the higher ganglia which respond to more general situations. So thought builds itself up from the particular to the general, and so also man grows from the immediacy of instinct to the broader human vision. Above all in love, which can move the whole man, the formative impulses pass up the hierarchy, potentially creative at every level. But in the Platonic image, Eros has no home; the god belongs neither to the flesh nor to the spirit and can only generate in beauty, somewhere between the ideal and the real. Love is no longer a process, with all the power and limitations of a process, but has become an unsubstantial idea. But in truth Eros does not belong to the Platonic system; by his existence he refutes it, and only by denying him proper fulfillment could Plato become so far-going a European. To Heraclitus and the ancient world, the experience of beauty was a component of the variety and necessity of natural processes; to Plato and the complete Europeans, beauty became a moral idea. The failure of the instinctive integration had made this necessary. Moral ideals were the compensating structures developed by the formative process to sustain a long period of differentiation and dissociation. But ideals are only temporary structures, since their static and universal character denies the diversity of individuals each on his own course of development. Ideals are thus temporary compensations for ignorance of the actual nature of man and of the form of his proper development. Plato and Europe were supreme -- during the period when man remained ignorant of the form of his unity with nature.
Plato symbolizes the intellectual, and Paul (?-A.D. 64) the religious self-consciousness. Socrates had developed an intellectual method by his personal example in using the spoken word, and Plato in recording the Socratic conversations had made this method the basis of an intellectual system. In a similar manner Paul's mission was to spread the spoken parables and personal example of Jesus as the inspiration of a widespread ethical community, which was to be developed by his missionary travels and his letters. Socrates and Jesus were lit by a completeness that was only for heroes; few could follow the simple assurance of their gospels. But Plato and Paul, each in his own way a dualistic man denying a part of life, were at once inspired by their respective leaders and touched by common mortality; it was the task of each to spread the knowledge of a noble and tragic life, and to dilute the heady gospel into a socially tolerable ethic. The parallel is valid in so far as it expresses the isolation of primary genius and the role of the inspired but dissociated teacher who alone can convey the new message to the people, but its limits are reached in the different conditions of the two cases. Plato's personal denial was further-reaching than Paul's and he deserted the Socratic ideal to develop fanciful theories; though they alike sought to fulfill their mission in the life of their community, Plato's life ended in practical failure, while Paul created the basis for a universal church and in his own person paid the full price.
From a social point of view Paul is the most characteristic of all European figures. His life and thought spring from a soil in which Semitic, Greek, and Roman elements, partly springing from earlier Egyptian sources, were again combined. While the Jewish tradition was national and separatist, Paul is universally human: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for all are one in Christ Jesus." Moreover Paul is an individual in the European sense; his mysticism was not loss of personality in a passive identification with God, but the sense of a compelling mission, driving him to an active life of preaching, strongly marked by the qualities and limitations of his own person, a form which reappears in the assertive dogmatism of Luther. This European energy sprang from an also characteristically European dichotomy; he did not accept himself, he was not at ease with himself, the necessity was laid on him, woe to him if he did not fulfill it. His combination of strength and weakness, of gentleness and anger, of intoxication and despair, of self-confidence and humility, is a typical sign of the European dissociation. This division is only partially concealed by the longing for unity and permanence symbolized in the monotheistic god of love who brings the assurance of eternal life. But the harmony is incomplete, the unsatisfactory structure of the person speaks through his words, and he is continually disturbed by the sense of failure or inadequacy which so often accompanies good works.
Before we can go deeper into the formal structure of Paul's person and thought we must consider his historical significance. For him there were four historical ages. First, the period from Adam to Abraham, when sin is unconscious, since no right and wrong are recognized. This is the period of primitive man. Second, from Abraham to Moses, when sin is recognized but standards are not defined. Third, from Moses to Christ, the period of the Law. This is the period which we have already discussed, when increasing technical skill and developing awareness enable man to satisfy his instinctive desires, not as necessities for life, but as sources of pleasure. This loss of innocence led to the exploitation not only of pleasure but also of pain, and man became bestial when uncontrolled by social standards. The Law expressed the need and desire of the community to stabilize and order the animal life of man in an ethical system which would control and limit the new lusts. The existence of the Law was thus to Paul a result and an admission of the fact of sin. The Law did not attempt to change man's nature, but only to control it through fear of the Lord.
Paul had experienced bitterly the curse of the Law: man had been innocent until the Law had arisen, the Law had produced the knowledge of sin, but man's sinful nature could not conform to the Law, and was left in a hopeless state of conflict and shame. "Nay I had not known sin, but by the Law; for I had not known lust, except the Law had said, thou shall not covet. -- Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them. -- For by the Law is the knowledge of sin." The breakdown of the modes of life of the ancient civilizations had resulted in uncertainty, license, and bestiality. In the Hebrew community this had been met by the establishment of the Law, but at the price of an inescapable dualism in man's conception of himself. The conflict which man thus forced on himself left him unable to recognize any integrating tendency which he could accept as representing his true nature. "For what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do. -- Now then it is no more that I do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. -- So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." The dualism is absolute, and man can only make one choice. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life. -- For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." There is no doubt what is implied in the choice: "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts."
But those to whom the shame of this conflict has become unbearable, and who have the advantage of the personal example of a new form of life, can be purged of their conscious sinful desires and achieve a new partial integration. This is the role of Jesus in social history. A personal example become a myth serves to transform an exhausting conflict within consciousness into a harmony. But this harmony of consciousness is achieved by a process of suppression which results from the acceptance of a new organizing conviction: the divinity of Jesus come to take the burden of sin from us. The strain of conflict is lightened by the sense of forgiveness, and a new partial co-ordination is achieved, attention being directed to religious sublimations of the instinctive desires and away from the desires themselves. Open conflict is converted into inner dissociation. This apparent victory over sin is the aim of union with the Messiah. As in all sadism, the flesh of another crucified is our own flesh crucified, and the battle is won for us: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforward we should not serve sin. -- For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. -- But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit."
Here in the accepted interpretation of the origins of Pauline Christianity we can trace one aspect of the process which led to the European dissociation. The growing complexity of life unsettles the primitive and ancient innocence; man becomes aware of the need for a new order and new standards: these standards render evident the divergence from them of his own nature, and conflict, sin, and shame are experienced; finally a new harmony is established through the relative suppression of certain components of human nature. Another aspect of the same process is seen in the development of the Platonic ethical dualism which separates the real world of ideas from the inferior realm of material phenomena.
It would appear that Paul's thought had been influenced by Platonic ideas, but the whole trend of Mediterranean thought was moving in the same direction and it is impossible to separate its different components. This essential conformity of the intellectual and religious trends becomes evident when we observe that the basic structure of Paul's thought was dualistic and static. The dualism is unmistakable. Even the grace which comes to the believer does not emancipate him from the curse of his divided nature: "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The answer is that redemption comes only with the resurrection: "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. -- O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
Yet even this vision of final redemption is disturbed by the dim knowledge of the dissociation and of the repressed and distorted components whose eruption is symbolized in Antichrist: "For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. -- Even him, whose coming is often the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. -- And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie." The instability of the dissociation was evident even then, and the emergence of Antichrist, the distorted bestial man whose lies dominate the time of transition, is foretold two millennia before he appeared.
Beneath the poetry we see the desire for a permanent static harmony. Death is the wages of sin and is the worst punishment; immortality is the reward of faith. Nature is corruption; there is no true development; a trumpet destroys the illusion of time.
A doctrine that has played so great a role cannot be damaged by honesty, if it still has anything to offer. What does this static dualism of orthodox Christianity amount to? It expresses man's failure fully to integrate his progressively differentiating capacities, his sense of frustration, and the consequent compelling demand for the promise of fulfillment in another world. This is psychologically inescapable: if continuity of development is frustrated, continuity of permanence is sought in its place; the ego separates itself from the whole and demands immortality. Those who are frustrated by life or weakened by illness tend to desire their own permanence, but those who enjoy health and fulfillment are free to accept process and to proclaim their less prejudiced view. There is no static permanence. The only lasting feature is continuity of development and when a particular system can develop no further, it can only await its end. Pauline religion was one of many variants of the static dualism of the European dissociation which for long remained the most effective partial integration that the differentiating European had achieved. But it was dualistic and static, and therefore passing.
