Chapter III: Relation of the Practical to the Theoretic Activity

[Sidenote: _Precedence of the theoretical activity._]

Freed from the equivocal third term, which is feeling, and now passing to the problem of the relation between the theoretical and the practical activity enunciated, we must in the first place declare the thesis that _the practical activity presupposes the theoretical._ Will is impossible without knowledge; as is knowledge, so is will.

[Sidenote: _The unity of the spirit and the co-presence of the practical._]

In recognizing this precedence of knowledge to will, we do not wish to posit as thinkable a theoretical man or a theoretical moment altogether deprived of will. This would be an unreal abstraction, inadmissible in philosophy, which operates solely with real abstractions, that is, with universal concretes. The forms of the spirit are distinct and not separate, rand when the spirit is found in one of its forms, or is _explicit_ in it, the other forms are also in it, but _implicit,_ or, as is also said, _concomitant._ If theoretical and cognoscitive man were not at the same time volitional, he would not even be able to stand on his feet and look at the sky, and, literally speaking, if he were not alive, he would not be able to think (and thinking is both an act of life and an act of will, which is called _attention)._ Were he not to will, he would be unable to pass from waking to sleep and from sleep to waking. Thus in order to be purely theoretical, it is necessary to be at the same time in some degree practical; the energy of pure fancy and of pure thought springs from the trunk of volition. Hence the importance of the will for the æsthetic and intellectual life; the will is not theory, nor is it the force that makes grain to grow or guides the course of rivers, but as it assists the culture of grain or restrains the destructive impetus of rivers, so it assists and restrains the force of fancy and of thought, causing them to act in the best way, that is, to be as they really ought to be, namely, fancy and thought in their purest manifestation. The practical activity, therefore, acts in this way, and as it drags the man of science from his study and the artist from his studio, if it be necessary to defend his country or to watch at the bedside of his sick father, so it commands the artist and the man of science to fulfil their special mission and to be themselves in an eminent degree.

[Sidenote: _Critique of pragmatism._]

All the arguments that have been used in the past and that are used in the present, to maintain the dependence of the theoretical upon the practical activity, are of value for what of truth they contain, that is, only to demonstrate this unity of the spiritual functions that we have recognized, and the indispensability of the volitional force for the health of the cognoscitive spirit. But the passage from this thesis to the other, that the true is the production of the will, is nothing but a sophism, founded on the double signification of the word "production." It should be clear that to _assist_ the work of thought with the will is one thing and that to _substitute_ the will for the work of thought is another. To claim to substitute the will for the work of thought, is equivalent to the negation of that force that should be assisted; it is the most open proclamation of scepticism, the most complete distrust of the true and of the possibility of attaining to it. This attempt is now called _pragmatism,_ or is at any rate one of the meanings of the word, with which the school of the greatest confusion that has ever appeared in philosophy adorns itself in our day. This school mixes together the most divergent theses--that of the stimulating effect that the will has upon thought, that other of the volitional or arbitrary moment, by means of which perceptions and historical data are reduced to abstract types in the natural disciplines, or postulates laid down for the construction of mathematical classes. The third form, which might be called the Baconian prejudice, maintains the exclusive utility of the natural sciences and mathematics for the well-being of life. The fourth thesis is positivistic: here it is maintained that we cannot know anything save what we ourselves arbitrarily compress into the formula and classes of mathematics and of naturalism. The fifth thesis is a romantic exaggeration of the principle of creative power in man, substituting the caprice of the individual for the universal spirit. The sixth, something between silliness and Jesuistry, recommends the utility of making one's illusions and believing them to be true. The seventh is superstitious, occultist and spiritistic--and there are others that we omit. If pragmatism has had and preserves any attraction, it owes this to the truth of its first and second theses and to the half truth of the fifth. All the three are however heterogeneous in themselves and unreconcilable with the others, which are most fallacious. But we repeat with the old philosophers that whoever in thinking says, "Thus I will it," is lost for truth.

[Sidenote: _Critique of psychological objections._]

Certain reservations that are made to the above truth from the point of view of that philosophy, which we have called psychological, are scarcely deserving of brief mention. We find in treatises of Psychology that knowledge does precede the practical act, but only in the higher forms of volition, whereas in its lower forms are found only impulses, tendencies, appetites, altogether blind of any knowledge. Thus they are able to talk of involuntary forms of the practical activity, of a will that is not a will, when once the true will has been defined, as precisely appetition illumined by previous knowledge. The _blind will_ of certain metaphysicians is derived from such excogitations of psychologists, who make of it a practical act without intelligence. They have here attributed the value of reality to a crude concept of class, a thing that happens not infrequently. A blind will is however unthinkable. Every form of the practical activity, be it as poor and rudimentary as you like (and let as many classes and gradations as you will be formed), presupposes knowledge of some sort. In animals too? will be asked. In animals too, provided they be, and in so far as they are centres of life, and so of perceptions and of will. This is also true of vegetables and of minerals, always with the above hypothesis. We must banish every form of _aristocracy_ from the Philosophy of the practical, as we have banished it from Æsthetic, from Logic, from Historic, esteeming it most harmful to the proper understanding of those activities. The aristocratic illusion is closely allied to that one which makes us believe that we, shut up in the egotism of our empirical individuality, are alone aware of the truth, that we alone feel the beautiful, that we alone know how to love, and so on. But reality is democratic.

From the psychological point of view yet another objection has been raised. Knowledge (it is affirmed) cannot be the indispensable base of the will, if, as is the case, the ignorant are often far more effective than many learned men and philosophers. These latter, they say, although possessing very great knowledge, and no less a stock of good intentions, yet do not know how to direct their lives successfully. But it is evident that in these cases the so-called ignorant possess just that knowledge which is necessary for the purpose and is lacking to the learned and to the philosopher, who would themselves be the ignorant in such a case. Nicholas Macchiavelli was ignorant as compared with Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, when he kept the spectators waiting two hours in the sun, while he was attempting to dispose three thousand infantry according to the directions that he had written. This he would never have succeeded in doing, had not Signor Giovanni, with the help of drummers and in the twinkling of an eye caused them to execute the various manœuvres and afterwards carried Master Nicholas to dine, who, save for him, would not have dined at all that day.[1]

[Sidenote: _Nature of the theoretical precedence of the practical: historical knowledge._]

The knowledge required for the practical act is not that of the artist, nor of the philosopher, or rather, it is these two also, but only in so far as both are to be found as elements co-operating in that ultimate and complete knowledge which is _historical._ If the first be called intuition, the second concept, and the third perception, and the third be looked upon as the result of the two preceding, it will be said that the knowledge required for the practical act is _perceptive._ Hence the common saying that praises the sure eye of the practical man; hence, too, the close bond between historical sense and practical and political sense; hence, too, the justifiable diffidence of those who, unable to grasp effectual reality, hope to attain to it by force of mere syllogisms and abstractions, or believe that they have attained to it, when they have erected an imaginary edifice. They prove by so doing that they can never be practical men, at least in the sphere of action at which they are then aiming.

Such knowledge is not of itself the practical act. The historian as such is a contemplative, not a practical man or politician. If that spark which is volition, do not spring forth, the material of knowledge does not catch fire and is not transformed into the material of the practical. But that knowledge is the condition, and if the condition be not the conditioned, yet one cannot have the conditioned without the condition. In this last signification, it is true that action is knowledge, will, and wisdom, that is to say, in the sense that willing and acting presuppose knowledge and wisdom. In this sense, and considered solely in the stage of the cognoscitive investigation which will form the base of action, the deliberation is a theoretical fact. The customary expressions of logical, rational, judicious actions, are metaphors, because action may be weak or energetic, coherent or incoherent; but it will not have those predicates which are proper to theoretical acts that precede actions, on which the metaphors aforesaid are founded. As are these acts, so originate the practical act, will, and action. We can act in so far as we have knowledge. Volition is not the surrounding world which the spirit perceives; it is a beginning, a new fact. But this fact has its roots in the surrounding world, this beginning is irradiated with the colours of things that man has perceived as a theoretical spirit, before he took action as a practical spirit.

[Sidenote: _Its continual changeability._]

It is important to observe, as much to prevent an equivoke into which many fall, as because of the consequences that will follow from holding it, that we must not look upon the perceptive knowledge of reality that surrounds us as a firm basis, upon which we act, by translating the formed volition into act. For were this so, we should have to assume that the surrounding world, perceived by the spirit, stops after the perceptive act, which is not the case. That world changes every second, the perceptive act perceives the new and the different, and the volitional act changes according to that real and perceived change. Perception and volition alternate every instant; in order to will, we must touch the earth at every instant, in order to resume force and direction.

[Sidenote: _No other theoretic precedent._]

Continuous perception and continuous change, that is the necessary theoretic condition of volition. It is necessary and unique. No other theoretical element is needed, because every other is contained in it, and beyond it no other is thinkable.

[Sidenote: _Critique of concepts and practical judgments._]

But if this be true and no other theoretic element save that precede the volition, then we find in the aforesaid theory the criticism of a series of other theories, generally admitted in the Philosophy of the practical, not less than in ordinary thought, none of which can be retained without alterations and corrections.

Or better, there are not so many various theories to criticize; there is rather one theory, which presents itself under different aspects and assumes various names. This theory consists substantially in affirming that with the complex of cognitions, of which we have hitherto treated (all of which are summed up in the historical judgment), we do not yet possess that one which is necessary, before we can proceed to volition and action. A special form of concepts and judgments which can be called _practical,_ must, it is said, appear; these render the will possible, by interposing themselves between the previous merely historical judgment and the will. Is it not indubitable that we possess practical concepts, that is, concepts of classes of action or of supreme guides to action, concepts of things _good, of ideals, of ends,_ and that we effect _judgments_ of value by the application of those concepts to the image of given actions? Is it not indubitable that those judgments and those concepts refer, not to the simple present fact, but to the future? How could we will, if we did not know what is good to will, and that a given possible action corresponds to that concept of good?

[Sidenote: _Posteriority of judgments to the practical act._]

Now it is undeniable that we in fact possess the above-mentioned concepts and judgments. But what we must absolutely deny is that they differ in any respect from other concepts and theoretical judgments, and that they deserve to be distinguished from these as practical and that they have the future for their object. The future, that which is not, is not an object of knowledge; the material of the judgment, whether it concern actions or thoughts, does not alter its logical and theoretical character; the concepts of modes of action are concepts neither more nor less than those of modes of thought. With this negation we at the same time deny the possibility of their interposing themselves between knowledge and will. Those judgments, far from being anterior to the will, are posterior to it.

Let us state a simple case and observe the course of analysis on the lines of the theory here criticized. It is winter-time; I am cold; there is a wood close by, and I know that by cutting wood one can light a fire and that fire gives heat: I therefore resolve to cut wood. According to that theory, the spiritual process would be expressed in the following chain of propositions: I know the actual situation, that is to say, that I am cold, that wood gives fire and fire heat, and that there exists wood that can be cut; I possess the concept that it is a good thing to provide for the health of the body; I judge that with heat I shall procure health during the winter, and that in consequence heat is a good thing and the cutting of wood, without which I cannot procure heat, is also good. Having made all these constatations, I set in motion the spring of my will, and I _will_ to cut the wood.--The process as above described seems real and controllable by every one; but it is, on the contrary, illusory. The practical judgment: "I shall act well in cutting the wood" really means, "I will to cut the wood;" "this is a good thing" really means, "I will this." I may change my will a moment after, substituting for this volition one that is different or contrary, that does not matter. At the moment that I formed that judgment, I must have seen myself in the volitional attitude of a man cutting wood; the will must have come first. Otherwise the judgment would never have existed. Given the first actual situation and its complete expression in the judgment, no other judgment can arise, if the actual situation do not change and nothing new supervene. This new thing is always my will, which, when the situation changes (as in the example, if I walk from the house to the tree, or if I simply move my body in an imperceptible, manner in the direction of the action willed), by adding to the actual reality something that was not there before, provides material for a new judgment. This judgment is called practical, but it is theoretical, like the others that precede it; a judgment believed to precede the volition, whereas in reality it follows it; a judgment believed to condition a future act of will, whereas it is in reality the past act of will looking at itself in the glass; a judgment that is not really practical but _historical._

The illusion that things happen differently is caused by the fact that we possess judgments concerning our past volitions, which are afterwards collected into abstract formulæ, such as that "it is well to cut wood." But, on the one hand, those formulæ and judgments are in their turn formed from previous volitions, and on the other, those formulæ do not possess any absolute value in the single and concrete situation, so that they can be modified and substituted for others that affirm the opposite. The question is not whether cutting wood has been as a rule a good thing for me in the past, nor whether I have generally willed it in the past: the question is to will it at this moment, that is, to posit the cutting of wood at this moment as a good thing.

[Sidenote: _Posteriority of the practical concepts._]

As is the case with the pretended practical judgments and concepts of classes formed upon them, so the concepts that they imply, of _things good, of ideals, of ends, of actions worthy of being willed,_ and so on, do not precede, but follow the volition that has taken place. These concepts are the incipient reflection, scientific and philosophical, upon the spontaneous acts of the will, and we cannot practise science nor philosophize save about facts that have already taken place: if the fact do not precede, there can be no theory. Certainly theory does not do other than seek out the already created and give the real principles of actions in the form of thought principles, in the same manner as Logic discovers those principles that live and operate in logical thought. But since the formula of the principle of contradiction is not necessary for thinking without contradiction, but presupposes it, so the concepts of ends, of things good, and of ideals are not necessary for volitions, but presuppose them.

[Sidenote: _Origin of intellectualist and sentimentalist doctrines._]

The thesis of the will as knowledge draws support from the mistaken belief in the practical principles and judgments that precede volition, as also does the proposition that he who knows what is good for him also wishes it, and that he who does not wish it does not know it. This thesis is to be inverted, because to know what is good for one means that one has willed it. From the opposite point of view, the other thesis, of the impossibility of volition unless _feeling_ be interposed between what is known and the will, is to be attributed to a like mistaken belief. Feeling is held to give, as it were, a particular value to facts, and to cause them to be felt as they should be felt, or to be changed. The customary merit possessed by theories of feeling is to be recognized in this thesis: that is to say, it has awakened or reawakened consciousness of the peculiarity of the practical act in respect to intellectualistic reductions and identifications. This merit is not altogether lacking to the general theory of practical judgments itself. These, although called judgments, were classified differently to all the others, precisely because they were _practical._

[Sidenote: _The concepts of end and means._]

Having thus shown that it is not true that man first knows the end and then wills it, it is possible to establish with greater precision what is to be understood by _end._ The end, then, in universal, is the concept itself of will. Considered in the single act, as this or that end, it is nothing but this or that determinate volition. Hence is also to be derived a better definition of its relation to the _means,_ which it is usual to conceive empirically and erroneously as a part of volition and action at the service of another part. An act of will is an infrangible unity and can be taken as divided only for practical convenience. In the volitional act, all is volition; nothing is means, and all is end. The means is nothing but the actual situation, from which the volitional act takes its start, and is in that way really distinguished from the end. Distinction and unification take place together, because, as has been remarked, the volition is not the situation, yet, on the other hand, as the volition, so the situation: the one varies as a function of the other. Hence the absurdity of the maxim, that _the end justifies the means._ This maxim is of an empirical character and has sometimes been employed to justify actions erroneously held to be unjustifiable, and more often to make pass as just actions that were unjustifiable. As the end, so the means, but the means is what is given and has no need of justification. The end is what has been willed and must be justified in itself.

[Sidenote: _Critique of the end as flan or as fixed design._]

The idea that we generally have of finality is to be eliminated, owing to the continual changeability of the means, that is, of the actual situation, which would posit the end as something fixed, as a _plan_ to be carried out. The difference between the finality of man and that of nature has recently been made to reside in nature: which has seemed to act upon a plan which she changes, remakes, and accommodates at every moment, according to contingencies, so that the point of arrival is not for her predetermined or predeterminable. But the same can be said of the human will and of its finality. The will too changes at every moment, as the movement of a swimmer or of an athlete changes at every moment, according to the motion of the sea or of the rival athlete, and according to the varying measure or quality of his own strength in the course of the volitional process. Man acts, case for case and from instant to instant, realizing his will of every instant, not that abstract conception which is called a plan. Hence also arises the confirmation of the belief that there do not exist fixed types and models of actions. He who seeks and awaits such models and types does not know how to will. He is without that initiative, that creativeness, that genius, which is not less indispensable to the practical activity than to art and philosophy.

[Sidenote: _The will and the unknown._]

It will seem that the will thus becomes will of the unknown and is at variance in too paradoxical a manner with the sayings, so clearly evident, that _voluntas quae non fertur in incognitum_ and _ignoti nulla cupido._ But those sayings are true only so far as they confirm the fact that without the precedence of the theoretical act, the practical act does not take place. Apart from this signification, it should rather be maintained that _noti nulla cupido_ and that _voluntas non fertur in cognitum._ What is known exists, and it is not possible to _will the existence_ of what _exists_: the past is not a content of volition. The will is the will of the unknown, that is to say, is itself, which, in so far as it wills, does not know itself, and knows itself only when it has ceased to will. Our surprise when we come to understand the actions that we have accomplished, is often not small; we realize that we have not done what we thought we had done, and have on the contrary done what we had not foreseen. Hence also the fallacy of the explanations that present volitional man as surrounded with things that he does or does not will; whereas things, or rather facts are the mere object of knowledge and cannot be willed or not willed, as it is unthinkable to will that Alexander the Great had not existed, or that Babylon had not been conquered. That which is willed is not _things_ but _changes_ in things, that is to say, the volitions themselves. This fallacious conception also arises from the substitution of abstractions and classes of volitions for the real will.

[Sidenote: _Critique of the concept of practical sciences and of a practical philosophy._]

It is to be observed, finally, that the erroneous concept of a form of science called the _practical_ or _normative_ has its roots in the concept of _the end, of the good, of concepts and judgments of value_ as original facts. When practical concepts and judgments, as a special category of concepts and judgments, have been destroyed, the idea of a practical and normative science has also been destroyed. For this reason, the _Philosophy of the practical_ cannot be _practical philosophy,_ and if it has appeared to constitute an exception among all philosophies and that above all others it should preserve a practical and normative function, this has arisen from a verbal misunderstanding that is most ingenuous and most destructive. For our part we have striven to dissipate it, even in the title of our treatise, which, contrary to the usual custom, we have-entitled not _practical,_ but _of the practical._

[1] Bandello, _Novelle,_ i. 40, intro.