Chapter III: Part 3

There seems to be nothing further for him to do than to reflect, or rather what he does further, flows from his reflections. Since he satisfies his bodily wants, not blindly, but consciously and through exercise of his intelligence, looking before and after, and trying to see his life from beginning to end, his reflections lead him to self-consciousness. He discovers his personality and makes the crucial distinction between his body and his soul. He speaks of _his_ world, of _his_ friends, of _his_ life. He begins then to wonder for what purpose and by what right his possessive attitude is warranted; for unless he suppresses his reflections or yields himself thoughtlessly to his instincts and emotions, he can not fail to observe that things are no more rightfully his than another's, and that to belong rightfully to any one there must be some warrant drawn from a world with which his soul could be congenial. Even his soul begins to appear as not rightfully his, for why should he have now this haunting sense of belonging to another world, and of being a visitor to this in need of introduction and credentials? Reflection thus gives birth to a new kind of life in which also progress may be made. We call it rational progress, for it involves the attempt to justify existence by discovering sanctions which reason can approve, and to which all should give assent, because each soul must, on seeing them, recognize them as its own.

Reflection may lead man to do generous things. He may comfort the distressed, help the poor, relieve pain, or reform society. The world affords him abundant opportunity for his benefactions. He may create beautiful things which he and others can enjoy perfectly in the mere beholding of them. He may worship the gods, dimly conscious that they at least lead the perfect life, and that to dwell with them is immortality. Such exercises of the spirit yield him a new kind of happiness. But his danger lies in supposing that his existence can be thus externally justified: that others will bless him for his benefactions; that Beauty lurks hidden to be gloriously seen even at the risk of destruction; or that God intended him to be happy. If, however, he is saved from thus superstitiously converting the ideal possibilities of his life into justifying reasons why he should exist at all, he may see in them the fruition of all his history. Even his material progress gives him a hint of this, for it is genuine progress and justifies itself naturally through the attainment of its ends. For he needs no sanction to warm his body when cold, or to feed it when hungry. It is sufficient that he sees the end to be reached and finds the means to reach it. The hunger of the soul may be no less efficacious. Although these cravings tend to bring uneasiness and distaste into his animal enjoyments, they find some satisfaction if these enjoyments are idealized and transformed into a vision of what they might be freed from the material grossness which clogs them. Man then begins to conceive ideal love and friendship, and an ideal society. If only he were the free partaker of such perfect things, his existence would need no justification. In acknowledging this, however, he may rediscover himself and learn more adequately what the purpose of his history is. It is so to use the materials of the world that they will be permanently used in the light of the ideal perfection they naturally suggest. Man can conceive no occupation more satisfying and no happiness more complete. In entering upon it he makes rational progress. Its measure is the degree of success he attains in making his animal life minister to ideals he can own without reserve and love without regret.

Human history is something more than the lives of great men, the rise and fall of states, the growth of institutions and customs, the vagaries of religion and philosophy, or the controlling influence of economic forces. It is also a rational enterprise. Expressed in naturalistic terms it is history conscious of what history is. To remember and to understand what has happened is not, therefore, simply an interesting and profitable study; it may be also an illustration of rational living. It may be an indication that man, in finally discovering what his history genuinely is, is at the same time making it minister constantly and consciously to its own enlargement and perfection. That intelligent beings should recover their history is no reason why they should repudiate it, even if they find many things of which to be ashamed; for they are examples of the recovery of the past with the prospect of a future. In reading their own history, they may smile at that which once they reverenced, and laugh at that which once they feared. They may have to unlearn many established lessons and renounce many cherished hopes. They may have to emancipate themselves continually from their past; but note that it is from their past that they would be emancipated and that it is freedom that they seek. It is not a new form of slavery. Into what greater slavery could they fall than into that implied by the squandering of their inheritance or by blaming their ancestors for preceding them? They will be ancestors themselves one day and others will ask what they have bequeathed. These others may not ask for Greece again or for Rome or for Christianity, but they will ask for the like of these, things which can live perennially in the imagination, even if as institutions they are past and dead. He is not freed from the past who has lost it or who regards himself simply as its product. In the one case he would have no experience to guide him and no memories to cherish. In the other he would have no enthusiasm. To be emancipated is to have recovered the past untrammeled in an enlightened pursuit of that enterprise of the mind which first begot it. It is not to renounce imagination, but to exercise it illumined and refreshed.

History is, then, not only the conserving, the remembering, and the understanding of what has happened: it is also the completing of what has happened. And since in man history is consciously lived, the completing of what has happened is also the attempt to carry it to what he calls perfection. He looks at a wilderness, but, even as he looks, beholds a garden. For him, consequently, the purpose of history is not a secret he vainly tries to find, but a kind of life his reason enables him to live. As he lives it well, the fragments of existence are completed and illumined in the visions they reveal.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Tylor, Edward B. "Primitive Culture." Henry Holt & Co., 1889. Vol. I, pages 17 ff.

[6] Cornford, Francis M. "From Religion to Philosophy." Longmans, Green & Co., 1912.

[7] See Dedekind, Richard. "Continuity and Irrational Numbers," in "Essays on the Theory of numbers." Tr. by Wooster W. Beman. Open Court Publishing Co., 1901.

[8] If space permitted, this same limitation could be abundantly illustrated from the sciences, especially the biological sciences. They have made very clear what an essential difference there is between the continuity of living forms and the origin of new forms. This difference can be readily appreciated by comparing a work on "evolution" or "natural history" with a work on "experimental biology."

[9] Santayana, George. "The Life of Reason," 1905. Vol. I, pages 3-4.