Those kinds of knowledge which aided and came nearest to the fundamental science of the destiny and welfare of all men, stood highest in general esteem, and those least useful stood lowest. Such was the science of Confucius, Buddha, Moses, Socrates, Christ, Mohammed: such is science, and so it has been and is understood by everybody, except by our circle of so-called educated people.
Such science has always not merely occupied the first place, but has alone determined the importance of all the other sciences.
And this occurred not at all, as is supposed by the so-called learned men of to-day, because deceivers-the priests and teachers of that science gave it that importance, but
because indeed, as everyone can learn by his inner experience, without a science of man’s destiny and welfare there can be no evaluation or choice of any science or art, and therefore there can be no study of science: for the subjects for science to deal with are innumerable; I underline the word ‘innumerable’, because I use it in its literal meaning.
Without knowledge of what constitutes the destiny and welfare of all men, all other science and art becomes, as they have become among us, an idle and pernicious amusement. Mankind has lived long, but never without a science to show wherein its destiny and welfare lie. It is true that the science of the welfare of man appears on superficial observation to differ among the Buddhists, Brahminists, Jews, Christians, Confucians, and the followers of Lao-Tsze (though it is only necessary to consider these teachings, to find one and the same essence), but wherever we know of men who have emerged from the state of savagery, we find this science, and now suddenly it seems that people to-day have decided that it is just this very science-which has hitherto guided all human knowledge-which hinders everything.
People build an edifice, and one architect draws up one set of plans, another-another, and a third-a third. The plans vary somewhat, but are correct in that everyone sees that if all is carried out according to the plan the edifice will get built.
Such architects were Confucius, Buddha, Moses, and Christ.
Suddenly people come and assure us that the chief thing is not to have any plans at all, but to build anyhow, by the look of the thing. And this ‘anyhow’ these people call the most exact scientific science, as the Pope terms himself the ‘Most Holy’. People deny every science, the very essence of science-the ascertaining of the destiny and welfare of man, and this denial of science they call ‘science’. Since men first appeared, great intellects have arisen among them who in struggle with the demands of their reason and conscience have asked themselves what our destiny and welfare consist in-not mine only but every man’s.
What does that Power which produced and guides us demand of me and of every man? What must I do to satisfy the craving implanted in me for my personal welfare and that of the world in general?
They have said to themselves: ‘I am a whole, and I am a particle of something immeasurable and unending. What are my relations to other particles similar to myself-to individuals and to that whole?’
And from the voice of conscience and reason, and from consideration of what has been said by predecessors and contemporaries who set themselves those same questions, these great teachers have deduced a doctrine-plain, clear, and intelligible to all men, and always such as could be practised. There have been such men of first-rate, second-rate, third-rate, and of quite minor greatness. The world is full of them.
All living men put to themselves the question: How reconcile our desires for personal welfare with the general welfare of mankind demanded by conscience and reason? And from this general travail, new forms of life nearer to the demands of reason and conscience are slowly but unceasingly evolved.
Suddenly a new caste of men appear who say: This is all rubbish, it must all be abandoned. This is the deductive method of thought (though what the difference is
between the deductive and the inductive methods, nobody has ever been able to understand), it is the method of the theological and metaphysical periods. All that men have discovered by inner experience, and communicate to one another, concerning consciousness of the law of their life (functional activity, in the new jargon), all that from the commencement of the world has been accomplished in that direction by the greatest intellects of mankind, is rubbish and of no importance.
According to this new teaching it seems that you are a cell of an organism, and the aim of your reasonable activity is to ascertain your functional activity; and in order to do that you need only observe things outside yourself. That you are a cell that thinks, suffers, speaks, understands, and that you can therefore ask another similar speaking cell whether, like you, it suffers, rejoices, and feels, and so can verify your own experience; that you can avail yourself of what cells that lived, suffered, thought, and spoke, before you did have written about the matter; that millions of other cells confirm your observations by their agreement with those who have: recorded their thoughts; and above all, that you yourselves are living cells always by direct experience recognizing the justice or injustice of your functional activities-all this means nothing at all, it is all a bad, false method.
The true scientific method is this: if you wish to know what your functional activity consists in, that is to say, what is your vocation and welfare and those of humanity and of the whole world, you must first of all cease to listen to the voice and demands of the conscience and reason that manifest themselves within you and in your fellow-men; you must cease to believe what the great teachers of mankind have said about their reason and conscience, and must consider all these to be trifles, and begin all over again. And to begin from the beginning you must look through a microscope at the movements of amoebas and at the cells of tapeworms, or easier still, must believe everything that may be told you about them by people who have the diploma of infallibility.
And observing the movements of these amoebas and cells, or reading what others have seen, you must attribute to these cells your own human feelings and calculations as to what they desire, what they strive for, their reflections and calculations, and what they are accustomed to; and from these observations (in which every word is an error in thought or expression) you must by analogy decide what you are, what your vocation is, and wherein lies your own welfare and that of other cells similar to yourself. To understand yourself you must not only study tapeworms which you can see, but also microscopic beings you can hardly see, and the transformations from one being into another which no one has ever seen and which you will certainly never see.
It is the same with art. Wherever there has been a true science, art has always been an expression of the knowledge of man’s vocation and welfare.
Since the time that men first existed, from amid the whole activity which presents various kinds of knowledge they have selected the principal kind, that which presented man’s vocation and welfare, and the expression of the results of that knowledge has been art in the restricted sense of the word. Since men first existed there have been persons specially sensitive and responsive to the teaching of man’s welfare and vocation, who on psaltery and cymbals, by imagery and by words, have expressed their human struggle against deceptions which drew them from their vocation, expressed their sufferings in this struggle, their hopes for the triumph of goodness, their despair at the triumph of evil, and their rapture at the expectation of approaching blessedness.
Since man existed, true art which was highly esteemed has had no other purpose than to express man’s vocation and welfare. Always till recent times, art has served the teaching of life which was afterwards called ‘religion’-and only such art has been held in high esteem. But simultaneously with the appearance, in place of a science of man’s vocation and welfare, of the science of whatever comes to hand-since science has lost its meaning and purpose, and true science has come to be contemptuously called ‘religion’ from that very time art as an important human activity has disappeared.
As long as the church existed as a teaching of our vocation and welfare, art served the church and was true art, but since art left the church and began to serve science, while science served anything that came to hand, art has lost its importance and, in spite of its traditional claims and the absurd assertion that ‘art serves art’ (which only shows that it has lost its purpose), it has become a trade supplying people with what is agreeable, and has inevitably mingled with the choreographic, culinary, tonsorial, and cosmetic arts, whose producers call themselves artists with the same right as do the poets, painters, and musicians of our day.
We look back and see that during thousands of years, out of milliards of people a few dozen stand out, such as Confucius, Buddha, Solon, Socrates, Solomon, Homer, Isaiah, and David. Evidently such men were seldom to be met with, though in those days they were drawn not from a single caste but from among the whole people; evidently such true scientific and artistic producers of spiritual food were rare. And it is not for nothing that humanity so highly
