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THE HUMAN EVASION by Celia Green



FOREWORD by R H Ward



Chapter I -- SANITY



Chapter II -- THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SANITY



Chapter III -- THE GENESIS OF SANITY



Chapter IV -- THE SOCIETY OF THE SANE



Chapter V -- HOW TO WRITE SANE BOOKS



Chapter VI -- THE SANE PERSON TALKS OF EXISTENCE



Chapter VII -- THE SANE PERSON TALKS OF GOD



Chapter VIII -- THE RELIGION OF EVASION



Chapter IX -- THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVASION



Chapter X -- THE SCIENCE OF EVASION



Chapter XI -- THE ALTERNATIVE TO SANITY: WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE?



Chapter XII -- CHRIST



Chapter XIII -- NIETZSCHE



Chapter XIV -- WHY THE WORLD WILL REMAIN SANE



AN OPEN LETTER TO YOUNG PEOPLE



FOREWORD



One way of seeing reality is to see the appearances we usually take

for it inside-out, back-to-front or looking-glass fashion. This is

very difficult to do, considering how habituated we are to those

appearances. It is also very difficult to be witty about vital and

essential matters, though that is one of the best hopes we have of

seeing them objectively, which is about the only hope we have of

seeing them at all. Miss Green has achieved the looking-glass vision

and the wit. Many, therefore, will call her too clever by half,

forgetting that one of the things she is saying is that we are not

half clever enough, for the very reason that we lack her witty vision

because we wear the blinkers of our belief in appearances. So anyone

who reads this book (as opposed to merely reading its words) must be

prepared to be profoundly disturbed, upset and in fact

*looking-glassed* himself; which will be greatly to his advantage, if

he can stand it. Few books, long or short, are great ones; this book

is short and among those few. One day, perhaps, it will become part of

holy writ: a gospel according to Celia Green. Which kind of "insane"

statement belongs to the book's own kind of truth.



R. H. WARD



Chapter I -- SANITY



On the face of it, there is something rather strange about human

psychology.



Human beings live in a state of mind called "sanity" on a small planet

in space. They are not quite sure whether the space around them is

infinite or not (either way it is unthinkable). If they think about

time, they find it inconceivable that it had a beginning. It is also

inconceivable that it did not have a beginning. Thoughts of this kind

are not disturbing to "sanity", which is obviously a remarkable

phenomenon and deserving more recognition.



Now sanity possesses a constellation of defining characteristics which

are at first sight unrelated. In this it resembles other, more widely

accepted, psychological syndromes. A person with an anal fixation, for

example, is likely to be obsessional, obstinate, miserly, punctilious,

and interested in small bright objects. A sane person believes firmly

in the uselessness of thinking about what he deos not understand, and

is pathologically interested in other people. These two symptoms, at

first sight independent, are actually inextricably related. In fact

they are merely different aspects of that peculiar reaction to reality

which we shall call the *human evasion*.



As I shall be using the word "reality" again I should make it plan at

once that I use it to mean "everything that exists". Tihs is, of

course, a highly idiosyncratic use of the word. I am aware that it is

commonly used by sane people to mean "everything that human beings

understand about", or even



"human beings". This illustrates the interesting habit, on the part of

the sane, of investing any potentially dangerous word with a strong

anthropocentric meaning. Let us therefore consider the use of

"reality" a little longer.



It is first necessary to consider what might be meant by the word

"reality" if it were usually used to mean "everything that exists". It

would have to include all processes and events in the Universe, and

all relationships underlying them, regardless of whether or not these

things were perceptible or even conceivable by the human mind. It

would also include the fact that anything exists at all -- i.e. that

there is something and not nothing. And it would include the reason

for the fact that anything exists at all, although it is most

improbable that this reason is cocneivable, or that "reason" is a

particularly good name for it.



In fact it is quite obvious that to most people "reality" does not

mean anything like this.



Particular attention should be drawn to the phrase "running away from

reality" in which "reality" is almost always synonymous with "human

beings and their affairs". For example: "It isn't right to spend so

much time with those stuffy old astronomy books. It's *running away

from reality*. You ought to be getting out and meeting people." (An

interest in any aspect of reality requiring concentrated attention in

solitude is considered a particularly dangerous symptom.) This usage

leads to the interesting result that if anyone does take any interest

in reality he is almost certain to be told that he is running away

from it.



Although so far we have given only one illustration, some impression

may already begin to emerge of the way in which the sane mind has

allocated to all crucial words meanings which make it virtually

impossible to state, let alone to defend, any position other than that

of sanity.



In fact by now tihs is the chief means employed by sanity to defend

itself from any possible attack. Formerly it found it necessary to

claim a certain interest in "reality" in the sense of "that which

exists". There were religions, and systems of metaphysics, you may

remember, which professed a certain interest in the creation of the

world, and the purpose of life, and the destiny of the individual.



Now no such disguises are necessary.



I am reminded of a book called *Flatland* in which an imaginary

two-dimensional world is described. Towards the end of the book a

non-dimensional being is encountered -- a point in space. The

observers listen to what it is saying (but of course, since they are

of higher dimesnionality than its own, the point being canot observe

them in any way). What it is saying to itself, in a scarcely audible

tinkling voice, is something like this: "I am alpha and omgea, the

beginning and the end. I am that which is and I am all in all to

myself. There is nothing other than me, I am everything and all of

everything is all of me and all of me is all of everything...'



The human race has taken to producing similar noises. Perhaps would

not be surprised at the sociologists murmuring to themselves from time

to time, "in society we live and move and have our being", as they

scurry from communal centre to therapeutic group, but these days

everyone is at it.



The philosophers have discarded metaphysics and have a tinkling song

of their own which says, "In the beginning was the word and the word

is mine and the word was made by me." This is rather a strong position

in its way, because if you try to criticize it they will point out

that you can only do so in words, and they have already annexed all

the words there are on behalf of humanity. (And the meaning of the

words is the meaning humanity gave them, and they shall have no

meaning beside it.)



The theologians are finding theology rather an embarrassment, and one

can only suspect they would be happier without it. Their tradition

does make it a little more difficult for them to put God in his proper

place, but all things considered, they're keeping up with the times

pretty well. Sartre said "Hell is other people'; the up-to-date

theologian says "God is other people".



It might have been thought that the "existentialists" would make some

sort of a stand for the transcendent, but it hasn't been serious. In

fact many people have found that a liberal use of existentialist

langauge, loosely applid, has been extremely helpful in stimulating an

obsessional interest in human society. (This interest is variously

known as "commitment", "involvement", and "the life of encounter".)



The questions which remain are these. *Are* people, in fact, matters

of  ultimate concern to other people? And still more, can they be

sources of "ultimate solution" to them? If they are not, what

psychological force is at work to ensure that these questi ons are so

seldom asked? Why, if you ask a question about man and the universe,

are you given an answer about "man in society'?



Chapter II -- THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SANITY



Sanity may be described as the conscientious denial of reality. That

is to say, the facts of the situation (apart from a few which are

judged to be harmless) have no emotional impact to a sane mind.



For example, it is a salient feature of our position that we are in a

state of *total uncertainty*. Possibly the universe started with a

"big bang" a few aeons ago, or perhaps something even more incredible

happened. In any case, there is no reason known to us why everything

should not stop existing at any moment. I realize that to my sane

readers I shall appear to be making an empty academic point. That is

precisely what is so remarkable about sanity.



The sane person prides himself on his ability to be unaffected by

important facts, and interested in unimportant ones. He refers to this

as having a sense of perspective, or keeping things "in proportion".



Consider the wife of the Bishop of Woolwich. She says "I have

sometimes been aske recently: "What effect has *Honest to God* and all

the reaction to it had on your children?"'[1]



That is to say, what effect has it had on her children that their

father has written a book about the nature of reality which has

attracted a great deal of attention. Have they become interested in

their father's importance as a possible influence on the course of

history? Have they started to take themselves seriously and determined

to influence their generation? Or have they begun to take a precocious

interest in theology, whether agreeing or disagreeing with their

father? The Bishop's wife assures us that none of these unpleasant

things have happened. What effect, then, *has* it had? "The simple

answer is -- practically none at all," she says. "Life goes on much as

it did before. The vital questions continue to be "Do you have to go

out tonight?", "What can I wear for the party?", and "What's for

supper?"'



This ability to keep things "in perspective", or upside down, is

beautifully exemplified by certain remarks made by the ageing Freud.



Seventy years have taught me to accept life with a cheerful

humility....



Perhaps the gods are kind to us in making life more disagreeable as we

grow older. In the end death seems less intolerable than the manifold

burdens we carry.... I do not rebel against the universal order....

(Asked whether it meant nothing to him that his name should live)

Nothing whatsoever.... I am far more interested in this blossom than

in anything that may happen to me after I am dead.... I am not a

pessimist, I permit no philosophic reflections to spoil my enjoyment

of the simple things of life.[2]



To appreciate the full force of these remarks one must realize that

Freud had already had five operations for cancer of the jaw, and was

in more or less continuous pain. (It may be held that when Freud

looked at a blossom and found it more interesting than pain and death

and fame, this was because he was overcome by the astonishing fact

that the blossom existed at all. But if this were so, I think he would

scarcely refer to it as one of the "simple" things of life.)



He was not entirely immune from reminders of his finite condition, as

is shown by other statements which he made at various times.



... there is deep inside a pessimistic conviction that the end of my

life is near. That feeds on the torments from my scar which never

cease.[3]



When you at a youthful 54 cannot avoid often thinking of death you

cannot be astonished that at the age of 80 1/2 I fret whether I shall

reach the age of my father and brother or further still into my

mother's age, tormented on



the one hand by the conflict between the wish for rest and the dread

of



fresh suffering that further life brings and on the other hand

anticipation



of the pain of separation from everything to which I am still

attached.[4] The radium has once more begun to eat in, with pain and

toxic effects, and



my world is again what it was before -- a lttle island of pain

floating on a



sea of indifference.[5]



However, in spite of all this he did ont lose interest in trivia, and

in the eyes of any sane person this establishes his claim to possess

great "emotional stability".



Seeing things in perspective usually means that you stand at a certain

distance away from the objects of observation. The "perspective" in

which a sane person lives depends on avoiding this manoeuvre. You have

to hold a flower very clsoe to your eyes if it is to blot out the sky.

The sane person holds his life in front of his face like someone with

short sight reading a newspaper with rather small print. It follows

that he cannot have emotions about the universe, because he cannot see

that it is there.



This is a salient feature of sanity -- it does not include emotions

about the universe. Some sane readers may object: "Once I was excited

about anti-particles for several hours". or "I tried out solipsism for

three whole days".



So, if it is insisted upon, we may qualify this statement as follows:

Sanity may occasionally allow tansitory emotions about the universe or

reality, but it does not allow them to exercise any perceptible

influence as motives in the life of the individual. At this stage in

our argument we must regard it as an open question whether this is an

accidental by-product of sanity, or whether it is the deliberate but

unstated objective at which all sane psychology is aimed.



I must explain what I mean by an emotion about the universe -- since

this is an unfamiliar and bizarre phenomenon -- so let me give an

example. Ludwig Wittgenstein, the founder of linguistic philospohy,

which has made so great a contribution to intellectual sanity in this

century, was himself not quite so sane as he would have liked. Indeed,

it may be argued that linguistic philosophy was itself the product of

his strenuous attempts to remain sane enough. A case of an irritated

oyster producing a pearl -- the sane may reply -which does not detract

frmo the value of the pearl. Possibly.



But it is undeniable that Wittgenstein did occasionally have emotions

about the universe. So his biographer records: "I believe that a

certain feeling of amazement that *anything should exist at all*, was

sometimes experienced by Wittgenstein.... Whether tihs feeling has

anything to do with religion is not clear to me.'[6]



Notice in passing the fastidiousness with which his biographer hastens

to disclaim any exact comprehension of this feeling. ("I believe the

lower classes eat fish and chips from newspaper. Whether this practice

has anything to do with nutrition is not clear to me.')



What more can be said of the sane person? He is ubiquitous, and so his

characteristics are invisible. There is nothing to compare him with.



But let us consider the picture given in a jolly little booklet called

"A *positive* approach to Mental Health".[7] (The cover is adorned

with a picture of a happy fakir sitting beside an abandoned bed of

nails.)



"How does the person who is enjoying good mental health think and

act?" the booklet asks, and proceeds to inform us, among other things,

that "He gets satisfaction from simple, every-day pleasures." Freud,

you see, certainly qualified.



"He has emotions", the booklet also informs us, "like anyone else."

However, they are "in proportion" and he is not "crushed" by them. I

think by now we have establishe what is meant by keeping things "in

proportion" -- i.e. you have most of your emotions about unimportant

things. The booklet does not state this explicitly, but it certainly

does not state anything  to the contrary. It might, for example, be

said that "the mature man is not unduly interested in matters of

purely local significance, such as the state of affairs on this

particular planet, because he realizes that they are of little

ultimate significance." You will observe how outlandish that sounds.



The booklet becmoes a little lightheaded when it comes to the matter

of the mentally healthy person's interest in facts. "He's open-minded

about new experiences and new ideas." A more accurate statement might

be "A m entally healthy person has made a value judgement in advance

that no idea or experience can be qualitatively more important than

those he already understands. He is able to rely on his defence

mechanisms and can listen with a bland expression to people with

unpleasant ideas.'



How does the mentally healthy person feel about his limitations? "He

feels able to deal with most situations that come his way.... He tries

for goals he thinks he can achieve through his own abilities; he

doesn't want the moon on a silver platter." That is to say, he has so

arranged his life that he doesn't try to do anything that doesn't seem

pretty easy. "If he can't change something he doesn't like, he adjusts

to it." "He knows he has shortcomings and can accept them without

getting upset." That is, he has ways of pretending he does not mind

about anything he cannot alter easily.



And how does he feel about other people? Here a slightly threatening

note of reciprocity appears. "He is tolerant of others" shortcomings

just as he is of his own. He doesn't expect others to be perfect,

either." "He expects to like and trust other people and assumes that

they will like him.... He doesn't try to push other people around and

doesn't expect to be pushed aroud himself." Let us just imagine what

might have been said instead -- I know it will sound like the wlidest

fantasy. "He regrets his own shortcomings and is always wliling to

admire pepole with greater virtues and capacities than his own. He

wishes to help other people, particularly those with higher aims and a

more intense sense of purpose than he has himself. He does not expect

to be liked in return for his help.'



We have established that the mentally healthy person isn't going to

let his life, with all its content of simple pleasures, be pushed

around by anyone.



This, if you give it a moment's thought, ensures that all his

relationships must be characterized by mutual purposelessness. If you

once admit a purpose to the situation, it may make differential

demands on different people.



Nevertheless, the sane person "is capable of loving other people and

thinking about their interests and well-being. He has friendships that

are satisfying and lasting. He can identify himself with a group, feel

that he is part of it, and has a sense of responsibility to his

neighbours and fellow men.'



Notice that a friendship should be satisfying -- i.e. it is an end in

itself, and not a means to an end. It should also be "lasting".

Obviously if the friendship depended on community of purpose, it might

be outgrown.



So it is plain that people constitute a rather large part of the

mentally healthy person's world, but that all associations of persons

have to be characterized by a mutual sacrifice of purposiveness.



I am reminded of the porcupines of Schopenhauer. They wanted to huddle

together to keep one another warm, but found that their spines pricked

one another. If they kept too far apart, they became cold again. So

they established a distance at which they could keep one another warm

without actually making contact with one another's spines. "This

distance was henceforward known as decency and good manners.'



The attitude of the mentally healthy person towards other people might

be stated as follows: "He expects to derive warmth from his proximity

to other people. He does not expect to derive anything else, and is

willing to let other pepole derive warmth from him so long as they,

too, abandon their prickly claims to possess needs of any other kind.'



Before we leave this little booklet, let us consider that brilliant

expression "mental health". It is, of course, a social euphemism of

the same genre as "rodent operative" and "cleansing official". It

saves sane people from embarrassment by permitting them to say that

their confined and extraordinary relatives are not *mad* but "mentally

ill" or even "mentally unwell". It implies that the human mind grows

*naturally* and by *biological necessity* into the image and likeness

of the Human Evasion, as the human body grows to a certain specified

kind of shape. It implies that any deviation from the Human Evasion is

the same kind of thing as a tumour or a running sore. It sanctifies

the statistical norm. "Mental disease", the booklet says, "doesn't

indicate lack of brain power but rather a malfunctioning of the brain

and emotions. The individual just doesn't respond to various

situations *the way a normal person would*" (my italics).



What can we add to this picture of the sane? One sane opinion. "... if

I could spend the course of everlasting time in a paradise of varied

loveliness, I do not fancy my felicity would be greatly impaired if

the last secret of the universe were withheld from me.'[8]



This opinion was held by a Gifford Lecturer in the 1930s. His letures

were entitled "The Human Situation", and they are a marvel of sanity

from beginning to end. But they are outdated in one respect. We do not

talk any more about "the human situation". The phrase implies that

humans can be seen in relation to something other than humans. What we

talk about now is sociology. Everyone is very proud of this fact. It

is the quintessence of sanity.



[1] John A.T. Robinson, *The New Reformation*, S.C.M. Paperback, 1965,

p.123.



[2] Ernest Jones, *Sigmund Freud: Life and Work*, Vol. III, The

Hogarth Press, 1957. p.133.



[3] Ibid., Vol. III, pp.70-71.



[4] Ibid., Vol. III, p.226.



[5] Ibid., Vol. III, p.258.



[6] Norman Malcolm, *Ludwig Wittgenstein*, Oxford University Press

Paperback, 1958, p.70.



[7] Richard Christner, Published by the National Association for

Mental Health, 1965.



[8] MacNeile Dixon, *The Human Situation*, Edward Arnold and Co.,

1937, p.14.



Chapter III -- THE GENESIS OF SANITY



It is fashionable to locate the origins of psychological attitudes

very early in life. The taste for doing so is not, perhaps, entirely

unmotivated.



It is obviously fairly agreeable to regard one's psychology as the

result of conditioning rather than of choice. It is relaxing; one has

nothing to blame oneself for; one cannot be expected to change. It is,

of course, possible



that the infant mind is capable of significant emotional decisions.

but this possibliity is never discussed.



However, a perfectly satisfactory beginning may indeed be postulated

for sanity, and this does not interfere at all with standard theories

of psycho-analysis. Psycho-analysis deals with that part of a person's

psychology which has become fixated on *other people*; so it may well

describe what happens to the child in so far as that child becomes

sane.



It is well known that the younger people are, the less sane they are

likely to be. This has lead to the heavily-loaded social usage of the

term *maturity*. It is an unquestionable pro-word. Roughly speaking,

the *mature* person is characterized by willingness to accept

substitutes, compromises, and delays, particularly if these are caused

by the structure of society.



Young people are usually *immature*, that is to say, they wish their

lives to contain excitement and purpose. It is recognized (at least

subconsciously) by sane people that the latter is much the mroe

dangerous of the two, so the young who cannot at once be made mature

are steered into the pursuit of *purposeless* excitement. This is

actually no very exciting, and is well on the way to an acceptable

kind of sanity, as it leads to the idea of "excitement" being degraded

to that of "pleasure".



Adolescents are known to think about metaphysics more  than most

people; thus thinking about metaphysics becomes associated with the

negative concept "immaturity". If someone thinks about metaphysical

problems at a later age, they are said to show signs of "delayed

adolescence".



Now let us go back to the very beginning of the "maturation" process.

It is to be presumed that a baby which is being born experiences

helplessness as helplessness. That is to say, it experiences the

painful and incomprehensible process without any of those reflections

which are such a miraculous source of comfort to the sane -- such as

"It will soon be over", or "After all, it happens to everybody", or

"It shouldn't be allowed. It's *their* fault".



Th e infant may be presumed to find its condition intolerable --

because it is out of control of it. At this point of its life, what it

minds about is that it cannot control reality, not that it cannot

control people.



Now so long as one is finite -- i.e. one's knowledge and powers are

limited -situations may always arise which one cannot control. But it

is very hard for an adult human to feel any emotion about his

limitations vis-a-vis impersonal reality. What emotion arises in you

when you think that you would be quite unable to lift Mount Everest?

On the other hand, it is probably quite easy to feel some emotion at

the thought that so-and-so is an inch taller than you are, or can

always beat you at badminton. You may also (though less probably)

still be able to feel a pang of jealousy or regret that you are not

Nijinsky or Shakespeare or Einstein.



Obviously a process of psychological development takes place which

ensures (so far as pssible) that the limitations of the individual

will be experienced *only* in comparisons with other people. Now it is

obvious that the emotion wihch accmopanies the original experience of

helplessness is very strong. If you can recall any experience of

impotent fury or horror in early childhood you may get some idea of

this. This gives semo clue to the strength of the *human evasion*. If

people are to take the force of all this displaced emotion, it is

scarcely surprising that they should be the object of such exclusive

attention.



At first very young children are not immune from a feeling of

helplessness *per se*. But it may be presumed that the part of their

environment which is most readily manipulable is soon seen to be

*other people*. The younger the child, the truer this is. Its own

physical and mental grasp of the situation is greatly exceeded by that

of adult humans -- particularly its mother -- who can affect the

situation in its favour if they feel inclined to do so.



It is very painful to try to do something and to fail. The

retrospective attempt to reject the combination of trying and faliure

is well known in social life. "I didn't really care about the game

today." "Actually I was thinking that even if I was elected it was

time I resigned to spend more time on my other interests." Therefore,

by the time it has reached adulthood, the sane person has evolved ways

of relinquishing the attempt in favour of some compensatory aim, in

any situation in which it does not feel almost certain to succeed. For

example, as a mature adult, you cannot even try (with any emotional

involvement in the act of trying) to jump over a house. By the same

taken, you cannot *try* to make a door open by willpower alone, or

*try* to arrive home quickly without traversing the intervening space

and navigating such obstacles as stairs, walls, gates, etc., in the

approved fashion. Your immediate sensation if you attempted to try,

would be an overwhelming sense of *impossibility*.



It is (philosophically or factually speaking) the case that no future

event can be demonstrated to be impossible. If something has happened

once, this may be said to show it is possible. If it has never

happened this does not show that it can never do so. But as has

pointed out, reflections of this kind although *true*, have no

emotional impact to a sane person.



As already mentioned, you may stlil (in rare circumstances) be able to

*try* to achieve exceptional things in some socially recognized and

strictly limited field. I.e. you may still be able to try and equal

Nijinsky, Shakespeare, etc.



But it is far more likely that you have acquired some compensatory

attitude towards any such symbols of outstandingness. It can give a

very pleasant sense of gentle superiority to discuss Beethoven's

deafness, and Shakespeare's Oedipus Complex, and Nietzsche's lack of

success with women, in a more or less informed manner. Thus MacNeile

Dixon:



So with the famous monarchs of the mind. They terrify you with their



authority.... How royal is their geture, how incomparable their

technique!



There is, however, no need for alarm. Pluck up your heart, approach a

little nearer, and what do you find; that they have human wishes and

weaknesses



like yourself. You may discover that Kant smoked, played billiards and

had a fancy for candied friut. The discovery at once renders him less

awe-



inspiring.[1]



This kind of approach is not only useful for eliminating a sense of

inferioirity, it also makes it much easier to ignore anything Kant,

Nietzsche, Hume, etc., may have said about reality.



Now although the ambitions of the adult are already restricted to

narrowly defined types of social recognition, even this form of

aspiration is a strictly *unstable* structure in sane psychology --

i.e. if it is displaced slightly from its equilibrium it will tend to

fall further away from that position, and ont return to it. On the

other hand, *compensation* is a *stable* psychological position in

sane psychology.



The replacement of *aspiration* by *compensation* is perhaps most

clearly seen among college students. They frequently arrive at

university with immature desires for greatness and an exceptionally

significant way of life.



Not infrequently, also, this leads to emotional conflicts and

disappointments of one kind and another. They *adjust* to their

problems with startling rapidity. The solution which occurs to nearly

all of them, and is suggested to them by psychological advisers, etc.,

if it does not occur to them spontaneously, is to *accept their

limitations*. The *acceptance of limitations* is accompanied by a

marked increase in the valuation placed on *other people*.



"I used to be quite self-sufficient and thought I wanted to be nothing

but an intellectual. I lived for my work, and of course

maths/classics/anything you like is the nearest thing there is to

heaven. But it would be selfish to live like that. I see now you've

got to take an interest in life -- I mean,



you have to live with other people. It's *difficult* to get on with

people.



Social problems *are* difficult. The other is *easy*. It's running

away from reality.'



What is usually omitted from this exposition by the patient is that

between the period at which classics (or whatever it may have been)

was "nearly heaven" and the period at which human relationships became

the central thing in life, there was usually a stage at which classics

was no longer particularly easy.



It is a simple law of human psychology, therefore, that as soon as

conflict arises, it will be eliminated by some compensatory manoeuvre

in which *other people* are the central pivot. The process of becmoing

thoroughly sane depends on repeated manoeuvres of this kind.



This process may be presumed to have started in earliest infancy, when

it was much more rewarding to aim at responses from one's mother than

at controlling the environment directly. Here began the child's

lifelong efforts to limit its trying to regions in which it could

succeed. This process, of necessity, remained imperfect in early life,

as moderate (though never disproportionate) efforts to learn things

must be sanctioned in the young.



These efforts are almost at once heavily conditioned by social

acceptability, though this is not yet the exclusive criterion. It is

possible to find people who remember, as children, having tried (or

attempted to  try) to walk away from the stairs into the air instead of

going on down them one by one. But even then they found it impossible

to try very hard.



Why is it so painful to *fail* in something you have tried to do? In

the case of the young child it is evidently because it reminds it of

its limited powers, wihch suggests the possibility of permanent

finiteness.



It is bad enough to be finite at present; it is intolerable to believe

that one wlil always be so. If one tries and fails it proves that

one's trying is insufficient. Better therefore to believe that *one

doesn't want to try* -- at least at present.



This view of the matter is not so far removed from that of orthodox

psycho-analysis, which does, after a fashion, recognize the child's

desire for omnipotence. Psycho-analysis is, however, most concerned

with what happens once hu man person's, such as the child's father,

have become partial symbols of omnipotence. There is also a tendency

to describe the child as having a muddle-headed *belief* in its own

omnipotence. This is, of course, less justifiable than a *desire* for

omnipotence. Sane people cannot distinguish very easily between

different attitudes of this kind.



Of course in the child and adolescent there are still remains of the

belief that one will, at some judiciously selected time in the future,

attempt altogether more ambitious tihngs. In tru adulthood this idea

has disappeared (or becomes transformed into some such form as "it

would make all the difference if people were only decent to me and

gave me my rights').



Thus the sane, adult person wants (or tries to want) to have what it

can have and to do what it can do, and exercises a good deal of

ingenuity in attempts to want not to have what it cannot get.



One or two points must be made in parentheses. The sane person will

not, of course, admit that the prospect of being premanently finite is

intolerable.



Even if he looks so miserable that he cannot with any conviction claim

to be happy himself, he will utter constant affirmations that "most

people are pefectly all right and quite happy as they are." "Why

should I mind about being finite? Suppose I *enjoy* it like this?'



This does not make our hypothesis about the development of the human

evasion any less probable. Our argument is that a sane person's life

has been spent in an increasingly successful attempt *not* to find

finiteness intolerable. Thus if he makes assertions of this kind, he

is telling us only that he has succeeded.



After all, it is accepted in psycho-analysis that one of the objects

of a psychological reaction to an unacceptable fact is, eventually, to

conceal the true origin and purpose of this reaction.



* * *



The sane adult will, of course, object that what happens when one

comes up against one's limitations is not that one is reminded of the

*possibility* of permanent finiteness. It is *certain* that the limits

of one's capabilities are defined by what one can and cannot achieve.



The very young child reacts emotionally as if it believed that

limitation is only potential; it does not yet identify itself with its

limitations. In this its emotions are in accordance with the most

abstract philosophy; whatever may be achieved in certain circumsatnces

on one occasion or even on a great many occasions, it may still be the

case that something quite different may be achieved on a future

occasion. In the most abstract sense, this might simply happen in the

way that everything might stop existing at any moment or start

existing according to different laws. This, I know, is the sort of

consideration that has no force at all to a sane adult. But even

within the normal world-view, it cannot be claimed that very much is

known about the psychological factors that restrict or permit

achievement, and the possibility cannot be ruled out that if someone

adopted a different kind of psychological attitude from any they had

had before, they mightfind their abilities radically changed.



Initially, then, the child is merely horrified at the prospect that a

single failure may contain some implication of permanent restriction;

some barrier set forever between him and the possibility of

omnipotence. It is a matter of social conditioning that he

increasingly learns that he is regarded by others as defined by his

failures, so that any single one comes to have the force of a

*permanent measurement of what he unchangeably is*.



This process is accompanied by a continuous shifting of the idea of

failure away from *absolute* failure (i.e. faliure to fulfil one's own

will) toward "failure by comparison with other people". To the mature

adult only the latter is of any interest.



The child is trained, then, to react to failure not only by regarding

his limitations as final, but by substituting something more readily

obtainable for what he originally wanted. The substitution is usually

eased by a shift of emphasis from what the individual himself wants,

to what other people want from him. It may be the substitution of a

*different* ambition from the first one, on the grounds that it will

be just as useful to society, or it may be the substitution of social

approval *per se* for any ambition at all.



Consider some well-known gambits. "Never mind, darling. Even if you

fail your exams, you know we'll still love you." If the person

concerned is actually worried about the exams, there is an obvious

motivation for attempting to find this comforting. "Well, we know you

did your best, and that's what counts." The latter is particularly

subtle, since it combines the idea of *finality* of failure with the

offer of social approval. What it is really saying is: "Provided you

accept that you coudln't possibly have done better, and you really are

worse than all the other boys, you may have our affection as a good

boy who tries.'



Now the child may well have an obscure feeling that in some way he

wasn't feeling *right* about the thing; or that somehow everything

felt *wrong* at school in some indefinable way that made it quite

certain that he couldn't do that kind of thing there. But his mind

must be distracted from any attempt to work out how one does ake

oneself feel right to do things. (If he does start reflecting on the

effect of circumstances upon him he will most likely be told he is

"making excuses".)



The denial of psychological reality is very importan to sanity. It

cannot afford to admit the existence of a psychology of achievement,

still less to understand it. However, one of the few pieces of

psychology that is understood by sanity is how to make young humans

with aspirations feel discredited and absurd. Any aspiration bears an

uncomfortable resemblance to a desire not to be finite at all.

Inspiration is of little interest to modern psychology; it is about as

unfashionable as witchcraft. If the subconscious mind is considered at

all, it is considered solely as a repository of associations of ideas

about parts of the body and members of one's family.



Of course there is a kind of non-aspiring psychology of success which

is understood by sanity. It is roughly as follows: the most stable,

least excitable, most normal, people will tend to be most consistently

successful.



Even if this seems to be supported by observation, it must be borne in

mind that these are the conditions for success (of a moderate kind) in

a society composed of sane people.



[1] Ibid., p.16.



Chapter IV -- THE SOCIETY OF THE SANE



Society begins to appear much less unreasonable when one realizes its

true function. It is there to help everyone to keep their minds off

reality. This follows automatically from the fact that it is an

association of sane people, and it has already been shown that sanity

arises from the continual insertion of "other people" into any space

into which a metaphysical problem might intrude.



It is therefore quite irrelevant to criticize society as though it

were there for some other purpsoe -- to keep everyone alive and

well-fed in an efficient manner, say. Some degree of inefficiency is

essential to create interesting opportunities for emotional reaction.

(Of course, criticizing society, though irrelevant, is undeniably of

value as an emotional



distraction for sane people.)



Incidentally, it should be onticed that "keeping everyone alive and

well-fed" is the highest social aim wihch the sane mind can accept

without reservation or discomfort. This is because everyone is capable

of eating -- and so are animals and plants -- so this qualifies

magnificently as a "real" piece of "real life". There are other

reasons in its favour as well, of course, such as the fact that

well-fed people do not usually become more single-minded, purposeful,

or interested in metaphysics.



It has been seen that the object of a sane upbringing is increasingly

to direct all emotion towards objects which involve *other people*.

Now basically the situation of being finite is an infinitely

frustrating one, which would be expected to arouse sensations of

desperation and aggression -- as indeed it may s ometimes be seen to

do in very young children. I am aware that I must be careful, in using

the word aggression, to state that I do not mean aggression directed

towards people. What I mean is an impersonal drive directed against

reality -- it is difficult to give examples but it may be presumed

that geniuses who are at all worthy of the name preserve a small

degree of this.



However, sicne *all* emotion must be directed towards people, it is

obvious that the only form of aggression which a sane person can

understand is aggression against people, wihch is probably better

described as sadism or cruelty.



Now it is obvious that the open expression of cruelty towards other

people would have a destructive effect upon society, apart from being

unprofitable to the human evasion in other ways. So the usual way in

which aggression is displaced onto other people is in the form of a

desire that they should *be limited*. This, after all, is very

logical. If the true source of your anger is that you are limited

yourself, and you wish to displace this anger onto some other person,

what could be more natural than that you should *wish them to be

limited as well*.



This desire is usually expressed in the form of a desire for social

justice, in one form or another. ("In this life you have to learn that

you can't have it all your own way." "Well he can't expect to be

treated as an exception



for ever." "It's time he learnt to accept his limitations." "Don't you

think you should try to think more what other people want? We all have

to do things we don't like." "Why should *they* have all the

advantages.')



This means that *society* is not only the chief source of compensation

to a sane person, but his chief instrument of revenge against other

people. It is useless to point out that there is no need to revenge

himself upon them. If he were ever to admit that they were not

responsible for his finite predicament, he would have to direct his

hatred against the finite predicament itself, and tihs would be

frustrating. It is this frustration that the human evasion exists to

evade.



Any atempt to *do* something involves the possibility of failure and

may remind you of reality. For this reason the sane society

discriminates against *purposeful* action in favour of

*pleasure-seeking* action. The only purposes readily recognized as

legitimate by the sane mind are those necessitated by the pursuit of

pleasure. E.g. pleasure seeking cannot efficiently be carried on

unless the individual is kept alive and moderately healthy. Therefore

his physical needs are regarded as important and ambulances are

provided with noisy bells. There is no corresponding necessity that he

should fill, say, his intellectual potentialities. In fact the attempt

to do so is likely to appear unduly purposeful.



It is obvious in any number of ways that a *sense of purpose* repels

rather than attracts assistance. You have only to consider the

immediate sympathy that would be aroused in a sane mind by the

complaint of some child that it was being driven to work at things far

too difficult for its capacities, compared with the distrust and

reserve with which it would view cmoplaints by the child that it was

not being allowed to work hard enough.



To the sane mind, even aggression against people is infinitely better

than aggression against infinity. And it is the chief defect of sane

society that it is boring. It is so boring that even sane people

notice it. And so, from time to time, there is a war. This is intended

to divert people's minds before they become so bored that they take to

some impersonal kind of aggressive activity -- such as rseearch, or

asceticism, or inspiration, or something discreditable of that kind.



In wartime, rather more purposeful activity than usual is permissible.

Even sane people relax their normal beliefs that nothing matters very

much, and some time next week is soon enough for anything. This is

regarded as justified because the war is always about something

connected with *other people*, and may be regarded as an assertion of

the belief that *the tihng that matters most is politics*.



And yet it might seem that war was going rather far. It does contain a

very considerable risk of contact with reality. It is difficult to

pretend that people never die, or that they only die in soothing

situations with up-to-date medical care and loving relatives to keep

their minds occupied with family news. War is full of reminders that

things happen, and that space and time are real, and that before the

bomb blows up is not the same as after, and that there are risks and

uncertainty.



How then can a sane society run the risks of allowing its population

to have experiences of this kind, even occasionally? I think if you

ask this question it is simply because you do not appreciate the

robustness of sanity. If you shut people up in a prison camp, and

torture them for a few years, they will not come out saying: "I am a

finite animal in existence and it is beyond endurance. How can I go on

living in a body that can be tormented in these ways? I demand that

human society stops all it is doing and starts attacking finiteness in

every conceivable way....'



Instead, they will come out saying: "It is terrible that other people

should let wars happen, in which it is possible to be so degraded and

reminded of one's limitations. It shouldn't happen; it is contrary to

human rights; we are *appalled* at the evil in the heart of man.

Meanwhile we demand reparation from society -- employment, and

housing, and disablement allowances...'



* * *



Society, they say, exists to safeguard the rights of the individual.

If this is so, the primary right of a human being is evidently to live

unrealistically.



It has been pointed out that by the time a person is fully mature he

will not, i normal circumstances, be made aware of his finiteness

except in comparisons with other people.



It is not possible to ensure this absolutely. But it is possible to

limit the loopholes to those of physical accident, illness and death.

Human beings regard it as a sacred duty to be particularly untruthful

about these things -particularly to the afflicted person and to any

young person who may be around. For example, the following account of

the death of Madame Curie may well seem rather touching to a sane

person.



Then began the harrowing struggle which goes by the name of "an easy

death'



- in which the body which refuses to perish asserts itself in wild



determination. Eve at her mother's side was engaged in another

struggle; in



the brain of Mme Curie, still very lucid, the great idea of death had

not



penetrated. The miracle must be preserved, to save Marie from an

immense



pain that could not be appeased by resignation. Above all, the

physical



suffering had to be attenuated; the body reassured at the same time as

the



soul. No difficult treatments, no tardy blood transfusions, impressive

and



useless. No family reunion hastily called at the bedside of a woman

who,



seeing her relatives assembled, wold be sddenly struck to the heart

with an



atrocious certainty.



I shall always cherish the names of those who helped my mother in

those



days of horror. Dr. Toben, director of the sanatorium, and Dr. Pierre

Lowsy



brought Marie all their knowledge. The life of the sanatorium seemed



suspended, stricken with immobility by the dreadful fact: Mme Curie

was



about to die. The house was all respect, silence and fervor. The two

doctors alternated in Marie's room. They supported and solaced her.

They also took



care of Eve, helped her to struggle and to tell lies, and, even

without her



asking them, they promised to lull Marie's last sufferings by

soporifics and injections.



On the morning of July third, for the last time Mme Curie could read

the



thermometer held in her shaking hand and distinguish the fall in fever

which always precedes the end. She smiled with joy. And as Eve assured

her that



this was the sign of her cure, and that she was going to be well now,

she



said, looking at the open window, turning hopefully towards the sun

and the



motionless mountains: "It wasn't the medicines that made me better. It

was



the pure air, the altitude...'[1]



It may be remarked that although the vulnerability of the human body

makes it possible even for a fully-matured human being to be reminded

of his limitations, no power on earth can remind him of the

transcendent, in any shape or form. His reactions to pain, danger and

death are limited to fear, depression, anxiety and commonsense. They

do not include liberation, elation, or an interest in infinity. That

is to say, the impact of reality has been rendered entirely negative.



* * *



In order effectively to distract people from reality, society has to



provide them with pseudo-purposes, guaranteed purposeless. (Or,

alternatively, with pseudo-frustrations, guaranteed permanent.) There

are two main kinds of pseudo-purpose or -frustration; they are known

as "earning a living" and "bringing up a family". They both provide as

person with a cast-iron alibi for ont doing anything he wants with his

life. (He does not, of course, want to be free to do what he wnats, so

this is all right.)



Sane people regard an apparently purposeful activity as disinfected by

numbers -- i.e. if a sufficiently large number of people is involved,

they feel sure that they outcome will be harmless to sanity, no matter

how frenzied the labours may seem to be. The most large-scale examples

are war and politics.



Into these activities, people allow themselves to enter with almost

single-minded devotion.



Noth war and politics have played a particularly helpful part in

retarding the march of progress. In fact, the history of the human

race is only comprehensible as the record of a species trying ont to

gain control of its environment.



[1]Eve Curie, *Madame Curie*, Garden City Publishing Co. Inc., 1900,

pp397-398.



Chapter V -- HOW TO WRITE SANE BOOKS



It will be convenient to have a name for that part of reality which is

not emotionally regarded as "real" by the sane person. We shall call

it the Outside.



The Outside consists of everything that appears inconceivable to the

human mind. In fact everything is inconceivable to the human mind (if

only because it exists) but not many people notice this.



In religious and philosophical writings it is often difficult to

eliminate all reference to the Outside. There are a number of ways of

dealing with this problem. One of the most successful is to generate a

distinctive kind of ambiguity about the meanings of crucial words.



Consider the following passage in which the words "being" and

"existence" are used. "The term "being" in this context does not

designate existence in time and space.... (It) means the whole of

human reality, the structure, the meaning and the aim of

existence.'[1]



It is tolerably clear that at least when Tillich *first* uses the word

"existence" he means by it what I also mean when I use the word. It

seems that what we both mean by "existing" is "being there".



However, Tillich then explicitly repudiates this sense and goes on to

define the word "being" in a second sense. The term "being" means the

whole of human reality, Tillich says. The meaning of this phrase is

not obvious.



Perhaps Tillich means the sum total of the mental content of all

humans -illusions and all? What humans think is real? Or that part of

reality which is accessible to the human mind?



The last seems to be the best we can do. So let us suppose that "human

reality" does mean that part of the mental content -- actual or

potential -- of humans which is actually in accordance with what

exists.



"Human reality" is then placed in apposition with "the structure, the

meaning and the aim of existence". What is to be understood by this?

The "aim of existence" seems at first sight to be clear, unless

"existence" has made an unannounced change of meaning since it was

first used. It would seem that this phrase must mean "the purpose for

which everything exists".



But this is difficult, because "the aim of existence" is in apposition

with "human reality" which certainly does not include the purpose of

existence.



This leads us to a distinct suspicion that when Tillich talks of "the

structure, meaning and aim of existence" he does not mean "existence"

at all, but "human life" instead. If he does mean this, there seems no

reason why he should say so -- except that it would rob what he is

saying of a status it does not possess. And if he does mean this, we

have arrived at the following definition of the word "being" --

"whatever happens to be realistic in the mental content of humans; the

stucture, the meaning and the aim of human life".



In fact, we may suggest this paraphrase of what Tillich is saying:

"When we talk of "being" we do not mean the Outside. We mean the

Inside.'



This example illustrates a standard procedure for appearing to take

the Outside into consideration without actually doing so. The rules

for this kind of writing are very simple and roughly as follows.



There are a number of words and phrases which may mean something about

existence or something about humans. For example: "existence",

"depth", "ground of being", "ultimate concern", "meaning", etc.

Whenever what you really mean is "human relationships" or "day-to-day

living" you should replace it by some existential-sounding

combination, such as "the depth of being". It is a good idea to use

compound phrases ("the depth of historical existence", "the ultimate

ground of meaning') as a considerable degree of obscurity can be

created by summating the nucertainty of a number of nucertain terms.



It is usual to define these terms as little as possible. But if you

wish to appear to do so, it is best to use a series of phrases in

apposition (as in the example just considered: "the whole of human

reality, the structure, the meaning and the aim of existence'). This

gives a very good effect of struggling to define something difficult

with precision while actually generating ambiguity (on the principle

of summation of uncertainty already mentioned). The device of

apposition itself introduces an additional modicum of doubt, since if

you appose two such phrases as "the depth of maning" and "the inmost

stucture of reality" on one will be sure whether the two phrases are

ways of saying the same thing, or whether they are intended to

complement one another.



Other verbal devices may be used for placing together in the closest

possible proximity "human" words and "Outside" words. Words like

"ultimate" and "reality" should be used in phrases like "human

reality" and "ultimate conern", and the word "meaning" should be

softened into "meaning and coherence". (The word "meaning" might be

regarded as informationally sufficient; however, the addition of

"coherence" contributes a useful implicit suggestion that "meaning"

must hang together in a way that is recognizable and rather agreeable

to humans.)



To illustrate these instructions, consider the typical phrase "life

and existence". Now the word "existence" may mean "human life", but if

it does it is adding onthing to the meaning of the phrase. So this

phrase would seem to mean "human living *and* the fact that things are

there" -- which seems a srtange combination to discuss in the same

breath.



Another example of the way in which abstract words such as

"transcendent", "meaning", "existence" should be combined with human

words such as "life" and "confidence':



High religions are ... distinguished by the extent of the unity and



coherence of life wihch they seek to encompass and the sense of a



transcenent source of meaning by wihch alone confidence in the



meaningfulness of life and existence can be maintained.[2]



May I suggest a paraphrase, which I think does ont reduce the

informational content. "High religions are distinguished by making the

whole of human life feel meaningful to the human being." As human life

already feels meaningful to sane human beings, tihs would appear to

let anything or nothing qualify as a "high religion".



It is true that my paraphrase reduces Niebuhr's meaning if he is using

the word "transcendent" in a transcendent sense. If so, what he is

saying becomes more complex, but questionable. Assuming "transcendent"

to mean "possessing a validity which cannot be affected by any

consideration whatever", or perha ps "directly related to the reason

for existence", it is difficult to see why a "transcendent source of

meaning" should be expected to maintain anyone's "confidence in the

meaningfulnes of life". For this to be true, we should



have to accept the psychological supposition that people can only



confidently accept transcendent meanings as meaningful.



What is more, we should also have to accept that a transcendent source

of meaning would have the characteristic of making a human being

confident about the meaning of his life. It is an interesting

sidelight on human psychology that it should be so often assumed that

a transcendent purpose *must* be one that "gives a meaning to life".

In fact, anyone sufficiently unusual to think occasionally about

transcendence finds that it makes his life feel intolerably

meaningless. (This is why people do not go on doing it.)



If we assume that Niebuhr is using the word "transcendent" in one of

the senses defined above, the most obvious characteristic of a

transcendent meaning would seem to be that it invalidates all

subordinate meanings. This, after all, is what "transcendent" means --

that which invalidates, but cannot itself be invalidated. So if

Niebuhr is really using the word "transcendent" to mean that which

transcends, what he is saying becomes: "High religions are

distinguished by making the hwole of life meaningful by reference to

something which makes the whole of life meaningless, which is the only

way in which it is possible to maintain confidence that life is

meaningful.'



As this is patently absurd, I assume that he is not in fact using the

word "transcendent" in a transcendent sense. It is much more likely

that when he talks of a "transcendent source of meaning" he means

"anything which is capable of making the whole of human life seem

meaningful to a large number



of people".



I leave the reader to appreciate the following without further

explanation: God made the world, and is never absent from it. So,

within the mind of



modern secularism there are feelings after the meaningfulness of human



existence, recognition of supreme obligations in human relations,

gropings



after an undefined "otherness".[3]



The name of this infinite and inexhaustible ground of ihstory is

*God*. That is what the word means, and it is that to which the words

*Kingdom of God*



and *Divine Providence* point. And if these words do not have much

meaning



for you, translate them, and speak of the depth of histroy, of the

ground



and aim of our social life, and of what you take seriously without



reservation in your moral and political activities. Perhaps you should

call



this depth *hope*, simply hope.[4]



[1] Paul Tillich, *Systematic Theology*, Vol. I, p.17.



[2] R. Niebuhr, *An Interpretation of Christian Ethics*, Meridian

Books,



1956, p.17.



[3] Archbishop of Canterbury, *Sunday Times*, December 20, 1964.



[4] Paul Tillich, *The Shaking of the Foundations*, Penguin Books,

1949, p.65.



Chapter VI -- THE SANE PERSON TALKS OF EXISTENCE



When the sane person talks about life he sometimes mentions the

Outside, but here a splendid confusion can be created from the simple

fact that *other people* are, in a certain sense, *outside* relative

to the individual. And so it is possible to find passages like the

following:



And what, too, would our reactions to (ESP) tell us about ourselves?

That we feel safer living in splendid isolation, *a huis clos*? Or

that we are



prepared to face the possibility of being membres of one another in a

world



which, as mathematicians already know, is first and foremost one of



relationships, and which now, as a great mathematician, Hermann Weyl,

has



dramatically put it, is being made by modern science itself "to appear

more



and mroe as an open one... pointing beyond itself.'[1]



This, incidentally, provides a particularly ostentatious example of

the use which is contantly made by sane pepole of words with two

possible meanings.



Here the word "relationship" is used to assimilate the two concepts

"human relationship" and "mathematical relationship". A little

analytical thought should convince the reader that a person may be

interested in human relationshpis without the slightest attraction

towards mathematical ones, and *vice versa*.



A distinction may be made, though it is a difficult one for a sane

mind to grasp, between the idea of a world "pointing beyond itself" to

mathematical abstractions, and one "pointing beyond itself" to human

mutuality and cohesion.



This passage also illustrates the habit of takling about human

relationships as *terrifying*, *difficult*, *dangerous*, and the like.

Conversely, any outlook not constantly preoccupied with human

interactions is -- though never described -- implied to be excessively

conducive of feelings of *safety*, *ease* and *comfort*.



There is no particular reason why these implications should correspond

with the psychological facts. As we have already mentioend, "sanity"

shows many of the characteristics of recognized psychological

syndromes. All psychological syndromes are ways of defending the

individual from intolerable stress, and can only achieve this

objective by concealing their true purpose. So one



does ont expect a high degree of objectivity in the statements of --

say -- a paranoid about his condition. In fact, one expects a

characteristic kind of *inversion* on certain crucial points. (Pride

replacing guilt, superiority concealing inferiority, and so on.)



Now if "sanity" is a device for protecting the individual from the

impact of facts, in the same way that paranoia is a device for

protecting the individual from feelings of humiliation, it is

obviously under the same kind of necessity to conceal its true terms

of reference.



So it is scarcely surprising that sane people should have an unfounded

belief that they are adpoting a difficult and strenuous attitude.



But what are the psychological facts? Is it actually the case that

when people adopt a less anthropocentri outlook they find themselves

overwhelmed by sensations of ease and self-aggrandizement? We cannot

expect to find very much evidence either way, because people do not

often adopt such an outlook, but such evidence as there is suggests

that they actually feel alone and defenceless, not to say frightened.



In general I dreaded to be left alone. I remember wondering how other

people could live, how I myself had ever lived, so unconscious of that

pit of



insecurity beneath the surface of life. My mother in particular, a

very



cheerful person, seemed to me a perfect paradox in her unconsciousness

of



danger, which you may well believe I was very careful not to disturb

by



revelations of my own state of mind.[2]



I shall never forget that night of December in which the veil that

concealed from me my own incredulity was torn. I hear again my steps

in that narrow



naked chamber where long after the hour of sleep had come I had the

habit of walking up and down. I see again that moon, half-veiled by

clouds, which now and again illuminated the frigid window-panes. The

hours of the night flowed on and I did not note their passage.

Anxiously I followed my thoughts, as



from layer to layer they descended towards the foundation of my



consciousness, and scattering one by one all the illusions which until

then



had screened its windings from my view, made them every moemnt more

clearly



visible.



Vainly I clung to these last beliefs as a shipwrecked sailor clings to

the fragments of his vessel; vainly, frightened at the unknown void in

which I



was about to float, I turned with them towards my childhood, my

family, my



country, all that was dear and sacred to me: the inflexible current of

my



thought was too strong -- parents, family, memory, beliefs, it forced

me to



let go of everything. The investigation went on more obstinate and

more



severe as it drew near its term, and did not stop until the end was



reached. I knew then that in the depth of my mind nothing was left

that



stood erect.



The  moment was a frightful one; and when towards morning I threw

myself



exhausted on my bed, I seemed to feel my earlier life, so smiling and

so



full, go out like a fire, and before me anoth er life opened, sombre

and



unpeopled, where in future I must live alone, alone with my fatal

thought



which had exiled me thither, and which I was tempted to curse. The

days



which followed this discovery were the saddest of my life.[3]



* * *



It is true that when people talk about life they do sometimes admit

that being finite is rather awful. Sometimes they cannot even manage

to say this without mentioning "other people" in every sentence. The

following passage from Erich Fromm is interesting because it

illustrates several kinds of question-begging simultaneously.



There is another element ... which makes the need to "belong" so

compelling: the fact of subjective self-consciousness ... its

existence confronts man



with a problem which is essentially human: by being aware of himself

as



distinct frmo nature and other people, by being aware -- even very

dimly -- of death, sickness, ageing, he necessarily feels his

insignificance and



smallness in comparison with the universe and all others who are not

"he".



Unless he blonged somewhere, unless his life had some meaning and

direction, he would feel like a particle of dust and be overwhelmed by

his individual



insignificance ... he would be filled with doubt, and this doubt

eventually



would paralyse his ability to act -- that is, to live.[4]



The first thing to notice is that Fromm implies (even before he has

stated the problem) that what a person *needs* is "to belong". When he

does state the problem he states two problems at once as if they were

the same. (To feel insignificant and small in comparison with the

universe is actually *different* from feeling those things in

comparison with other people.) Fromm calls this problem (or problems)

"essentially human" -- a reassuring description. He continues by

implying that it is right and proper for a person to feel that he does

"belong", and that his life does have "meaning and direction". This

will prevent him from feeling like a particle of dust: if he did, he

would be paralysed. This last is, of course, an unverified assumption.



There is no evidence that people who feel like particles of dust

*relative to the universe* become paralysed and inactive, although it

is a fact of clinical psychology that people who feel worthless

*realtive to other people* often spend a good deal of time in bed.



* * *



Virtually all categories of modern thinkers unite in chanting "There

is no Outside". The existentialists, alone, say "There *is* an

Outside". On account of their sane upbringing they feel that this is a

difficult thing to say and they say it with a kind of metaphysical

stutter, inventing new words profusely in their desperation to make

themselves understood. Of course in a sense they are right in

supposing that it is difficult; no sane person is likely to nuderstand

it. But the difficulty is emotional, not philosophical.



(Incidentally, how well the human evasion has arranged matters when

anyone who would say "There is an Outside" is driven to express

himself at enormous length, in all but unreadable books.)



Existentialists admit that there are certain states of consciousness

in which ideas about death, existence, isolation, responsibility,

urgency and so forth may have some emotional significance. But these

are rare and transitory.



The weakness of the existentialists" case is that they do not

distinguish sufficiently between a philospohical attitude and a

psychological one. A sane person may be made to admit, as a

philosophical point, that everything is fundamentally uncertain, but

this will not give it any power as a motive force in his life. Even a

person woh wished to realize the fact of uncertainty would find it

difficult to perceive it with any vividness, or to eliminate other

emotional attitudes which he saw to be incompatible with it.



Having accepted that one may, at certain times, become startlingly

aware of certain things, the existentialist argument usually goes on

to talk of "authentic" and "inauthentic" being. If what is meant by

"inauthentic being" is living without awareness of these things, then

obviously everyone is very inauthentic indeed. "Authentic being" would

mean to live in constant



awareness of these things, with all the modifications that would

entail. But tihs is a problem in psychology; it must be asked what

forces are at work to prevent this awareness, whether it is possible

to defeat them, and how. It is particularly useless to give

prescriptions for "authentic being" by involvement or commitment in

the world. If we realize that we are talking about states of

consciousness, it becomes clear that the procedure being recommended

is this: "If you shoudl chance to have a flash of awareness of things

of which you are not usually aware, you will realize that your life is

full of things which seem meaningless to you so long as you are in

this state of awareness. What are you to do to overcome your sense of

meaninglessness?" There is a simple answer. "The awareness will pass.

You can forget it easily and go on living as before. But since you

want to convince yourself that you are doing something about this

flash of awareness you have had, you are recommended to return to your

former way of life, but more thoroughly and deliberately than before.

Commit yourself to doing just the kind of thing which makes further

flashes of awareness unlikely.'



Here, of course, we are encountering one of those linguistic swerves

away from the point so characteristic of the evasive mind. "Authentic

being" may



be used to refer to a state of dishonesty towards the facts of

existence, or to a state of dishonesty towards other people. It is

even true that the two things may be to some extent interconnected,

since a person suffering from



the human evasion is clearly not able to be honest towards anyone, if

only because he is constantly trying to force them to shield him from

reality, including the reality of his own perceptions and desires.



It should come as no surprise that existentialist writers are unable

to distinguish clearly between "mauvaise foi" towards existence and

"mauvaise foi" towards people.



And so this kind of thing is written:



*Dasein*, everyday life, is destructible, and we should not even

desire its



indefinite continuation. But *Existenz*, authentic selfhood, can be

entered



into now and its meaning is imperishable. Only by facing death

realistically do we become formed, decisive, resolute, and reconciled

to finitude. The



threat pf missing true selfhood is worse than the unavoidable fatc of



physical disintegration. And the reality of the latter makes me alert

to



the former. It is because I am going to die as a biological organism

that I



may miss true self-hood. Because I do not have forever, the question

hangs



over every moment: "Are you living, feeling, realizing, choosing

yourself



or some feeble caricature of what you could be?" One who has lived for

ends-in-themselves and who has entered into existential communication

with others knows that what is important his life and in the life of

his friend cannot



be annihilated by death.[5]



What can be said of the statement that we can enter "authentic"

selfhood "now'? Existential flashes are not easily had to order. It is

not even easy, by trying, to realize vividly the fact that you are

going to die.



Even more dubious is the assertion that once you have entered this

state "its meaning is imperishable". Can this mean "you will be able

to remain in constant awareness of the unknowability of existence", or

even "once you have been fully aware of existence your psychology will

never be the same again'? Such psychological evidence we have would

seem to indicate that existential awareness is usually momentary, and

its permanent effects on a sane person



are nil.



Our existentialist now tells us that "only by facing death

realistically do we become ... reconciled to finitude". To be aware of

one's finiteness is one thing; to be reconciled to it is quite

another. Nearly everyone seems  to manage to be reconciled without

being aware; I should have thought it probable that anyone who was

fully aware of it would find it intolerable.



[1] Rosalind Heywood, *The Infinite Hive* , Chatto and Windus, 1964,

p.224.



[2] Quoted in William James, *The Varieties of Religious Experience*,

Random House, 1902, p.158.



[3] Th. Jouffroy, quoted in William James, *Varieties of Religious

Experience*, Random House, 1902, p.173.



[4] Erich Fromm, *The Fear of Freedom*, Routledge and Kegan Paul,

1942, pp.16-17.



[5] David E. Roberts (on Karl Jaspers), *Existentialism and Religious

Belief*, Oxford University Press, New York, 1957, p.248.



Chapter VII -- THE SANE PERSON TALKS OF GOD



The human race has always been unable to distinguish clearly between

metaphysics and morality. Thus the word "God" can be used to mean

"origin of existence" or it can be used to mean "intelligent being

interested in the social behaviour of humans". These two concepts are

not, however, the same, and any relationship between them would have

to be carefully established.



In the same way "religion" could mean two different things. It might

mean something like "a person's attitude to the Outside in general,

and the fact of existence in particular". As it happens, it does not

mean this, and no one expects it to. It is actually used to mean "a

person's attitude towards social interactions with other people, with

some reference to a supposed intelligent being who is interested in

these interactions". The last clause is dispensable. Most people would

have little hesitation in accepting as "religious" someone who showed

the required behaviour patterns, whether he said he believed in a God

or not.



It is usually impossible to make sense of passages in which the word

God appears at all often. Consider, for example, this description by

Erich Fromm of an up-to-date, sensible kind of religious person.



The truly religious person, if he follows the essence of the

monotheistic



idea, does not pray for anything, does not expect anything from God;

he does not love God as a child loves his father or his mother; he has

acquired the



humility of sensing his limitations, to the degree of knowing that he

knows



nothing about God. God becomes for him a symbol in which man, at an

earlier



stage of his evolution, has expressed the totality of that which man

is



striving for, the realm of the spiritual world, of love, truth and

justice.



He ... considers all of his life only valuable inasmuch as it gives

him the



chance to arrive at an ever fuller unfolding of his human powers -- as

the



only reality that matters, as the only object of "ultimate conern';

and



eventually, he does not speak about God -- nor even mention his name.

To love God, if he were going to use this word, would mean, then to

long for the



attainment of the full capacity to love, for the realization of that

which



"God" stands for in oneself.[1]



Let us see what becomes of this passage if it is rewritten with the

term "God" understood to mean "reason for existence" throughout.



"The truly religious person, if he accepts the idea of a single

overriding cause which originated all that exists, does not expect

this cause to be directly related to what goes on in his own life, and

does not expect it to do anything for him. He does not ask it for

anything and does not expect to enter into a security-giving personal

relationship with it. He realizes that he is a finite being, and that

the reason for existence is inconceivable to him. He realizes that he

is one of a certain race of animals which has evolved on a certain

planet of a certain star in a certain galaxy, and that as they evolved

these animals formulate certain ideals at which to aim. The reason for

existence becomes to him a symbol for the security and consistency

which his race of animals would like to have. He considers his life

only valuable inasmuch as he considers it valuable. He regards what

intersts him as the only reality that matters, and the only object of

any importance to the overriding cause which originated all that

exists. Eventually he does not ask any qustions about the reason for

existence -- nor even refer to it in passing. To desire the knowledge

of the reason for existence would mean to him, then, to long for the

attainment of the full capacity to have an intense interest in the

welfare of other memebers of his species. This is the realization of

that part of one's psychology for which the words "reason for

existence" stand.'



Modern thinkers are at last feeling free to divorce the ideas of "God"

and "religion" from any direct connection with the fact that things

exist. Some go further. Not only has "God" nothing in particular to do

with the origin of existence, but also it has nothing whatever to do

with anything human beings do not understand about -- that is, it has

nothing to do with the Outside.



Fromm's treatment of the idea of God depends on never defining it. A

further advance has been made by the Bishop of Woolwich, who

admittedly does not define it either, but says explicitly that it

isn't there.



What is of interest about the Bishop of Woolwich is not that he is

supposed to be a Christian (which is a matter of definiton), but that

he is human. One might say that he is *very* human. He speaks for his

time; not only for the Christianity of his time but for human

psychology as it stands facing the unknown -- or rather, with its back

to it.



I do not mean to be unduly condemnatory of human beings for standing

in this position. It is the done thing. In fact, it has always been

the done thing, although formerly some pains were taken to disguise

the fact. When peopple talked about "God" they used to pretend that

what they said had something to do with questions about the meaning of

existence and the purpose of life.



The splendid discovery made by the Bishop of Woolwich is that the

human race is completely uninterested in such questions, but now it is

all right to say so. Man has "come of age".



It is not very easy to understand what the Bishop of Woolwich is

saying, but it is easier if you start by ascribing a zero value to the

term "God". What I mean is that you need to leave a sort of blank hole

in every sentence in which the word "God" appears. It is never

defined, and so it is semantically redundant.



However, though he does not say who or what God is, the Bishop wants

most earnestly to assert that God is not Out There.



But the signs are that we are reaching the point at which the whole



conception of a God "out there" ... is itself becoming more of a

hindrance



than a help ... Suppose belief in God does not, indeed cannot, mean

being



persuaded of the "existence" of some entity, even a supremem entity,

which



might or might not be there, like life on Mars? ... Suppose that all

such



atheism does is to destroy an idol, and that we can and must go on

without a God "out there" at all?[2]



What can we make of these statements? Something (unspecified) is not

Out There. Does this mean *nothing* is Out There? Or nothing of any

significance is Out There? A little reflection convinces the questing

mind that what the Bishop really means is "There is *no* Out There.'



To make this a little more grammatical, let us rephrase it as "There

is no Outside". As we have mentioend, we define the Outside as" that

which falls outsie the comprehension of the human race". Now whatever

else God might be supposed to be, one would imagine that he, she or it

*was* unquestionably Outside.



But the Bishop has two reasons for supposing that God is not Outside.



One of them is that the Inside is getting bigger. We are better at

science than we used to be, and our expectation of life is increasing.

We can make aeroplanes and control malaria. We do not what everything

is existing for, but neither do we care.



God is an "x" in the equation whom we cannot get on without, a cause,



controller or designer whom we are bound to posit or allow room for --

this



hypothesis seems to men today more and more superfluous.[3]



Note, incidentally, a nice piece of sane writing. If you talk of "God"

impersonally as "a cause" it is difficult to reject the hypothesis

that "there is alwaysroom for a cause we do not know about." If,

however, you talk of God as a "designer", you are obviously bringing

in all those anthropomorphic associations which make the idea of God

ludicro us. This is where apposition is so useful.



But the Bishop's main reason for supposing that God is not Outside is

that we are none of us interested in an Outside, and we *are*

interested in other people.



The world is not asking "How can I find a gracious God?" It *is*

asking "How can I find a gracious neighbour?'[4]



So if "God" is to be of any interest, it must mean something about

human relationships. (Just *what* about human relationships it could

mean is never clear. The Bishop's only elucidation takes the form of

periodically intoning such words as "depth" and "ultimacy".)



Of course, the Bishop is not alone in all this. He quotes extensively

from Tillich, for example.



When Tillich speaks of God in "depth", he is not speaking of another

Being



*at all*. He is speaking of "the infinite and inexhaustible depth and

ground of all being", of our ultimate concern, of what we take

seriously without



reservation.[5]



(I leave the reader to work out how many of the techniques described

in "How to Write Sane Books" are used in those two sentences.)



Tillich maintains that God is the "ultimate concern" of every man. I

think all modern theologians would agree. However, the question is

whether you take "God" as defining "man's ultimate concern", or take

"man's ultimate concern" as defining "God". Naturally, in this

democratic age, the latter procedure is usually followed. (There is

only one of God whereas there are a number of human beings; it would

obviously be undemocratic to take God as a standard.) I am happy to

see the old opposition between God and man has all but vanished from

modern theology. There is now the most extraordinary sympathy, not to

say identity, of outlook.



We must -- even if it seems "dangerous" -- affirm that the glory of

God and



the glory of man, although different, actually coincide. There is no

other



glory of God (this is a free decision of his will) than that which

comes



about in man's existence. And there is no other glory of man than that

which he may and can have in glorifying God. Likewise God's beatitude

coincides



with man's happiness. Man's happiness is to make God's beatitude

appear in



his life, and God's beatitude consists in giving himself to man in the

form



of human happiness.[6]



So far we have only considered the modern kind of theologian, who does

not believe in God. This should not be taken to imply that the human

evasion has only just started to operate in this area.



Even when people believed in God you may rmeember that there was a

certain difficulty in driving any metaphysical argument with them

beyond a certain point. They would suddenly round on you, with or

without a sweet smile, and say, "Ah, but the important thing is that

God is a person." This effectively prevented any further discussion of

his possible existence or attributes, particularly as the concepts

"person" and "personality" appeared to defy analysis.



It is, of course, entirely compatible with the human evasion that it

should suddenly interpose the "personal" and the reason for existence

-- by whatever name it calls it. It is no less compatible with it that

the people who disbelieve in God should do so on the grounds that he

was a *personal* God.



"It is evident", they say, "that when people believed in God they were

thinking of something like a human being with whom one could have

emotional interactions. This is Freudian. It is obvious that there is

no Outside becasuse when people thought there was, they treated it

like a person. I am well-adjusted and do not need a God to have

emotional intercations with. I can have them with other people.

Consequently there is no Outside.'



[1] Erich Fromm, *The Art of Loving*, Allen and Unwin Paperback, 1957,

p.54.



[2] John A. T. Robinson, *Honest to God*, S. C. M. Paperback, 1963,

pp.15-17.



[3] John A. T. Robinson, *The New Reformation*, S.C.M. Paperback,

1965, p.108.



[4] Ibid., p.33.



[5] John A.T. Robinson, *Honest to God*, S.C.M. Paperback, 1963, p.46.



[6] Karl Barth, *The Faith of the Church*, Collins Fontana Books,

1958, p.13.



Chapter VIII -- THE RELIGION OF EVASION



The basic tenet of sane theology is that the chief barrier between man

and God is constituted by *pride* -- that is, self-sufficiency and

ambition, which prevent him from recognizing his true place in the

scheme of things. And we are enjoined to be humble -- that is, to

accept our place in the scheme of things and adopt an attitude of

unassuming trustfulness.



This is remarkably like the standard prescription for preserving the

human evasion, especially as it is usually accompanied by exhortations

to take a particularly thorough interest in our fellow humans.



Now it might actually be true that a man was prevented from perceiving

very much of reality (or from perceiving anything very interesting

about it) by



his satisfaction with himself as he is.



But if we tried to say anything about this in ordinary language the

most extraordinary results would ensue. We should have to say, for

example, that the essence of humillity was to recognize one's desire

to be God.



This follows from the fact that if you define "pride" as "what makes

people feel they can manage all right as they are", "anti-pride" or

"humility'



should be "what makes people aware that being as they are is

unsatisfactory".



The idea of anyone desiring to be God is very shocking to a sane mind

which, with its usual facility for confusing the issue, makes no

distinction between "desiring to be God" and "imagining oneself

already to be God". Now what would actually happen to someone who

desired to be God is not that he would be overwhelmed by sensations of

satisfied megalomania, but that he would find being finite

intolerable.



We know, of course, that sanity is designed to make finiteness

comfortable, so it is not in the least surprising that the religion of

evasion should contain this kind of thing:



It is possible for individuals to be saved from this sinful

pretension, not



by achieving an absolute perspective on life, but by their recognition

of



their inability to do so....



The recognition of creatureliness and finiteness ... may become the

basis



of man's reconciliation to God through his resignation to his finite



condition.[1]



So the thing to do is to accept your finiteness. Notice, as usual,

that "to accept" means "not to fight against; to settle down within".

It does not mean (as it might) "to observe the presence of". I may

accept that there is a rattlesnake in the corner without necessarily

approving of the fact.



Now although all evasively religious people are clear that finiteness

is to be treated in a spirit of peaceful coexistence, they do not like

talking about it more than is strictly necessary.



The find the ideas of "sin", "guilt", "morality", and so on far

preferable to ideas about "creation", "existence", or "non-existence",

and the idea of "helpelessness to improve" preferable to the idea of

"helpelessness". Some idea of the way these substitutions are made may

be gained from the following account of Wittgenstein's attitude to the

notions of "God" and "immortality".



... Wittgenstein did once say that he thought he could understand the



conception of God, in so far as it is involved in one's awareness of

one's



own sin and guilt. He added that he could *not* understand the

conception



of a *Creator*. I think that the ideas of Divine judgement,

forgiveness,



and redemption had some intelligibility for him, as being related in

his



mind to feelings of disgust with himself, an intense desire for

purity, and



a sense of the helplessness of human beings to make themselves better.

But



the notion of a being *making the world* had no intelligibility for

him at



all.



Wittgenstein once suggested that a way in which the notion of

immortality



can acquire a meaning is through one's feeling that one has duties

from



which one cannot be released, even by death. Wittgenstein himself

possessed



a stern sense of duty.[2]



The substitution of "guilt" for "sense of finiteness" is immediate in

most writers. So Tillich can say that the "power of nothingness" is

experienced in the "anxiety of guilt".[3]



Unlike most writers, Tillich does recognize a s ense of finiteness

*per se* as a separate object of discourse, but plainly gives "guilt"

the greater psychological importance. For example, he doubts whether

the Stoics could have reached "utter desperation" because, though they

could experience the despair of "fate and death", their philosophy did

not recognize that of "personal guilt".[4]



This is in spite of the fact that he describes the awareness of

finiteness in the following terms:



It is impossible for a finite being to stand naked anxiety for more

than a



flash of time. People who have experienced these moments, as for

instance



some mystics in their visions of the "night of the soul", or Luther

under



the despair of demonic assaults, or Nietzsche-Zarathustra in the

experience



of the "great disgust", have told of the unimaginable horror of it....

For



facing the God who is really God means facing also the absolute threat

of



non-being. The "naked absolute" (to use a phrase of Luther's) produces



"naked anxiety'; for it is the extinction of every finite



self-affirmation....[5]



In fact, the recognition of "naked anxiety" would render guilt an

untenable emotion.



Guilt in social situations arises from the assumption that you know at

least some of the rules, and know the extent of your supposed

obligations to keep them, and know also the extent of your power to do

so (or at least the extent to which your inability to keep them will

be misunderstood).



Perhaps there are cosmic rules (rules for what, rules about what?) and

perhaps you have broken them all. Perhaps you broke them all by being

born in the first place. Maybe the universe will blow up tomorrow on

account of all the rules you have broken, but there is no point in

pretending that even then you will know what the rules were.



Whoever you are, you are in an unknown situation which, rather

incredibly, exists. You do not know what your past has been (though

you do seem to have a certain supply of memory images). You do not

know the significance of what you did in the past, and you do not know

whether you could have done otherwise.



You do not know how many relevant factors there may be which you did

not know, and still do not.



But this is not what evasive religion is about. Let us return to

Tillich. He has an intellectual lucidity which not even the mannerisms

of sane writing can conceal, and he is not unaware of "the astonishing

pre-rational fact that there is something and not nothing.'[6]



But as we have already observed, he says firmly:



It is impossible for a finite being to stand naked anxiety for more

than a



flash of time.[7]



This is at once evidence that Tillich knows there is an Outside, and

proof that he is nonetheless sane. He is *sure* that no one can

perceive the fact that there is an Outside for more than a flash of

time.



He does not say how many people he thinks have tried to experience

this perception for longer. He does not say if he has tried himself.

But he is *sure* that it cannot be done.



Human beings like to accept their limitations, and this one in

particular.



Here is another example of Tillich's writing:



The state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves,



because we are estranged from the Ground of our being. because we are



estranged from the origin and aim of our life. And we do not know

where we



have come from, or where we are going.[8]



The fact that "we do not know where we have come from, or where we are

going" is stated in the second sentence, which begins with an "And".

The first sentence is a statement of a very composite kind.

Characteristically, it refers both to existence (using the ambiguous

word "being') and to "others" in the same breath. Even more

characteristically, it makes the statement about existence or "being"

*after* the one about "others".



This is the complete sequence of ideas in the passage (observe the

order of priorities): we are estranged from certain "others" and from

ourselves; because of this we observe that we are estranged from the

Ground of our being; incidentally (in a second sentence starting with

"And') we notice that we don't know anything.



Needless to say, all modern theologians are much more interested in

our estrangement from other people than in the fact that we don't know

anything.



The object of religion would seem to be to overcome the estrangement

by the "life of community". Belonging is all. In view of this, they do

not wish to demand any particular beliefs from people who wish to

belong. A community of Christians means a community of persons who

call themselves Christians, and a person who wishes to belong to such

a community is a Christian. It is presumptuous to look for any special

qualities in such a community; this is to forget our complete

dependence on the Word of God (in Jesus Christ). God declared that He

would create a spiritual community and we cannot question this decree.

The great point is that its distinguishing attributes are *spiritual*

-- i.e. imperceptible.



Linguisticism, you see, is very useful once more. When it is used in

theology it is usually associated with "the Word of God".



In general, the meaning of any part of the Word of God is spiritual,

i.e.



meaningless. We should not seek to attach any meaning, historical,

metaphysical, or psychological, to the statement "Jesus Christ was the

Son of God", but simply accept it as a valuable part of the Word of

God.



This process is known as "demythologizing".



I hope this brief analysis may help those who find modern theology

hard to understand. But perhaps it is not very hard for sane people.



[1] R. Niebuhr, *An Interpretation of Christian Ethics*, Meridian

Books Paperback, 1956, p.85.



[2] Norman Malcolm, *Ludwig Wittgenstein*, Oxford University Press

Paperback, 1958, pp.70-71.



[3] Paul Tillich, *The Courage to Be*, Collins Fontana Paperback,

1952, p.46.



[4] Ibid., pp.27-28.



[5] Ibid., p.47.



[6] Ibid., p.48.



[7] Ibid., p.47.



[8] Paul Tillich, *The Shaking of the Foundations*, Penguin Books,

1949, p.161.



Chapter IX -- THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVASION



Philosophy used to be about metaphysics, though it always siffered

from the usual human tendency to discuss politics or morality in the

same breath -- or at least, in the next chapter.



When philosophy dealt with metaphysics it revealed certain facts about

the human situation, which can all be summarized in the statement that

it is impossible to be certain of anything.



However, as a direct consequence of the human evasion, it was very

difficult for philosophers to think for too long at a time about total

uncertainty, so that various partial aspects of it were stated by

different people, and they very often combined their thoughts about

uncertainty with a good deal of their favourite kind of evasiveness.

This is why their books were so much longer than necessary -- but this

is true of almost all books by sane people.



Descartes, for example, began by placing everything in doubt.



I will suppose, then, not that there is a supremely good God, the

source of



truth; but that there is an evil spirit, who is supremely powerful and



intelligent, and does his utmost to deceive me. I will suppose that

sky,



air, earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external objects are mere



delusive dreams, by means of which he lays snares for my credulity. I

will



consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, no

senses,



but justing having a false belief that I have all these things. I will



remain firmly fixed in this meditation, and resolutely take care that,

so



far as in me lies, even if it is not in my power to know some truth, I

may



not assent to falsehood nor let myself be imposed upon by that

deceiver,



however powerful and intelligent he may be.[1]



I will reject ... whatever admits of the least doubt, just as if I had

found it was wholly false; and I will go on until I know something for

certain -



if it is only this, that there is nothing certain.[2]



Descartes proceeds from this to the famous "cogito ergo sum': even if

all his thoughts are erroneous, something must exist to think them.



And here commences the evasiveness of Descartes: in fact, he is not

really entitled to say, "I think, therefore I exist", but only "I

think, therefore something exists". Nonetheless, this is the highest

point reached by his philosophy.



After this he first reinstates his own psychology:



What then am I? A conscious being (res cogitans). What is that? A

being that doubts, understands, asserts, denies, is willing, is

unwilling; further,



that has sense and imagination. There are a good many properties -- if

only



they belong to me. But how can they fail to? Am *I* not the very

person who



is "doubting" almost everything; who "understands" something and

"asserts'



this one thing to be true, and "denies" other things; who "is willing"

to



know more, and "is unwilling" to be deceived; who "imagines" many

things,



even involuntarily, and perceives many things coming as it were from

the



"senses'? Even if I am all the while asleep; even if my creator does

all he



can to deceive me; how can any of these things be less of a fact than

my



existence? Is any of these something distinct from my consciousness



(cogitatione)? Can any of them be called a separate thing from myself?

It is so clear that it is I who doubt, understand, will, that I cannot

think how



to explain it more clearly.[3]



Having reinstated his own ideas, Descartes decides that they include

an



idea of an infinite and perfect God. Descartes might be deceived in

believing two and three to make five if a sufficiently powerful God

chose to deceive him, but God must exist because Descartes has an idea

of God, and such a God could not be a deceiver. So Decsartes may now

proceed with trustful confidence to reinstate "the whole field of

corporeal nature that is the subject-matter of pure mathematics".[4]



Before the modern atheist mocks this line (or rather convolution) of

argument too uninhibitedly, he should recall that it is Descartes's

only way of avoiding the conclusion that there is no certainty except

total uncertainty.



If you are trying to ward off uncertainty, you can believe in the

infinite reliability of God, or of common sense, or of *New Society*

-- it makes little difference. (Of the three, an infinte and perfect

God would probably be the most elasticizing to the imagination. But I

realize that that is no recommendation from a sane point of view.)



Incidentally, it is perhaps interesting to note that while

"establishing" the existence of God, Descartes shows a typically sane

desire to accept his limitations. Considering how recently he has

recovered from an attack of total uncertainty, his confidence in the

permanence of his position is remarkable: But perhaps I am something

greater than I myself understand. Perhaps all the perfections I

attribute to God are somehow in me potentially, though they



do not emerge yet and are not yet brought into actuality. For I

experience



already a gradual increase of my knowledge; I do not see what is to

prevent



its being thus increased more and more indefinitely; nor why, when my



knowledge has thus grown, I may not use it to acquire all the other



perfections of God; nor, finally, why the potentiality of such

perfections,



if it exists in me already, is not enough to produce the idea of them.



All these things are impossible. First, it is true that my knowledge



gradually increases, and I have many potentialities as yet

unactualised; but this is alien to the idea of God, which implies

absolutely no potentiality;



for the mere fact of gradual growth is a sure sign of imperfection.

Again,



even if my knowledge always grows more and more, yet i see that it

will



never be actually infinite; for it will never reach a point where it

is not



capable of still further increase.[5]



Then again, consider Hume. He saw clearly enough that "all our

reasonings concerning causes and effects are derived from nothing but

custom.'[6] And as for the continued existence of objects when out of

sight, he said: "... this conclusion beyond the impressions of our

senses can be founded only on the connection of *cause and effect*;

nor can we otherwise have any security that the object is not changed

upon us.'[7]



More critical than Descartes of the origins of his ideas, Hume saw no

way in which philosophy could save him from scepticism, and

undisguisedly fell back on human nature to do so.



I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in

the



most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest

darkness,



and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.



Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of

dispelling



these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of

this



philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of

mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which

obliterates



all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse,

and am



merry with my friends; and when, after three or four hours" amusement,

I



would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained,

and



ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any



further.[8]



However, frightened and muddled though the sceptical philosophers may

have been, once some aspect of the total uncertainty had been plainly

stated, it could never subsequently be refuted and it became a

permanent piece of philosophy.



One of the aspects of uncertainty that became firmly embedded in

philosophy was that there were no absolutes.



What was originally stated was that there was no way of finding out if

there were any absolutes. Everything could only be assessed by

reference to a specific standard, and the only available standards

were finite ones.



The human race, in its anthropocentric way, took a particular interest

in the conclusion that there was no *moral* absolute. There was no way

of saying what was "good" or "evil" except by referring to the only

standards available -- which were the opinions of human beings about

what constituted a desirable life. These were obviously very

subjective.



The human race eagerly responded to this finding by rejecting all

former sets of opinions about the desirable life and developing a new

one. The new one stated that heroic and extremist ideals were always

based on foolish beliefs and prejudices, so that the thing to do was

to seek pleasure, comfort, and security in a moderate and unheroic

way.



Moreover, this finding gave rise to a feeling that it had now been

*proved* that absolutes did not exist -- there were no standards

*other than* human ones.



This last is an interesting conclusion, if you remember that the

original statement was to the effect that *whatever might be absolute,

human standards certainly were not*.



This interesting conclusion, that human standards constituted the only

absolute, was reached emotionally before it could be formulated

intellectually. No one was in serious doubt of it, but professional

philosophers found it difficult to state explicitly. Statements about

certainty such as the assertion that solipsism was possible remained

obstinately irrefutable.



This did not prevent philosophers from engaging in strange attempts to

assess the "probability" of sceptical statements. In this they showed

an unawareness of what I can only call "logical priority" that is

typically sane.



Once you have admitted you may be dreaming, what value can you attach

to your reflections on the *likelihood* that you are dreaming? Yet

comparative statements are made; it is *more likely* that we are

deceived about this; *less likely* that we are deceived about that.



My own tentative view is that tactual perception ... justifies us in

being



practically certain that there are foreign bodies and that they do

interact



with our own bodies. It seems to me just conceivable, though extremely



unlikely, that i might have had the kinds of experience which I

describe as



"seeing" or "hearing" foreign bodies even if there had been no foreign



bodies or if they had never emitted light-waves or sound-waves to my

body.



But I find it almost impossible to believe I could *ever* have had the

kind



of experience I describe as "pushing" or "pulling" or "struggling

with'



foreign bodies unless there had been foreign bodies and they had

*quite



often* interacted dynamically with my own body through contact.[9]



It was then that linguistic philosophy arrived, the true philosophy of

evasion. It stated that it was under no necessity to refute statements

about total uncertainty, because it did not accept them as possible

statements.



("Scepticism is *not* irrefutable, but palpably senseless, if it would

doubt where a question cannot be asked.'[10]) It declared that the

only way of deciding what was an acceptable statement was by reference

to human standards.



For example, when you use the word "uncertainty" you mean that you are

not certain about something that may or may not happen. You have

learnt to use this word in connection with a number of finite

situations, suchas whether or not it will rain tomorrow. The word is

not usually used to mean "the uncertainty whether anything will go on

existing" or "the uncertainty whether anything is existing now". It is

illegitimate to use the word "uncertainty" to refer to these kinds of

uncertainty, and it is therefore impossible to formulate any

statements whatever about them.



When philosophers use a word -- "knowledge", "being", "object", "I",



"proposition", "name" -- and try to grasp the *essence* of the thing,

one



must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in

the



language-game which is its original home?



What *we* do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their



everyday use.[11]



In this simple way all discourse about the infinite and inconceivable

is eliminated, for it is evident that all human words have actually

been developed by finite beings do deal with things they are able to

conceive.



There is now no need to think about "reality" except in the sense of

"what all right-thinking humans are in verbal agreement about". So

Malcolm, discussing the idea that a person may realize he is dreaming

while he is having the dream, comments: "Surely there is something

dubious in the assumption that there can be a true judgement that

cannot be communicated to others".[12]



What clues do we have to the human evasion in the psychology of

Wittgenstein? At the end of the *Tractatus* (an earlier work), a

series of ambiguous utterances:



Not *how* the world is, is the mystical, but *that* it is.[13]



There is indeed the inexpressible. This *shows* itself; it is the



mystical.[14]



My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me

finally



recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on

them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he

has climbed



up on it.)



He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world

rightly.[15] Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.[16]



And in the *Philosophical Investigations*, on which his fame chiefly

rests, a number of utterances in which it is not difficult to see an

anguished desire for anaesthesia:



For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed *complete* clarity.

But this simply means that the philosophical problems should

*completely* disappear.



The real dicovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing



philosophy when I want to. -- The one that gives philosophy peace, so

that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring *itself* in

question. -



Instead, we now demonstrate a method, by examples; and the series of



examples can be broken off. -- Problems are solved (difficulties

eliminated), not a *single* problem.



There is not *a* philosophical method, though there are indeed

methods,



like different therapies.[17]



The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an



illness.[18]



... what is hidden ... is of no interest to us.[19]



Let us conclude this chapter by putting philosophy in its place in the

sane perspective.



Philosophical questions have no intrinsic importance. Some questions

are



important for particular men because of the way in which the questions



perplex them and deflect or obstruct them in going on with some other



activity to which they are purposefully committed in life.[20]



[1] Descartes, *Philosophical Writings*, edited by E. Anscombe and P.

T.



Geach, Nelson, 1954, p.65.



[2] Ibid., p.66.



[3] Ibid., p.70.



[4] Ibid., p.108.



[5] Ibid., pp.86-87.



[6] *British Empirical Philosophers*, edited by A.J. Ayer and R.

Winch, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952, p.445.



[7] Ibid., pp.357-8.



[8] Ibid., pp.496-7.



[9] C.D. Broad, *Religion, Philosophy and Psychical Research*,

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953, p.34.



[10] Ludwig Wittgenstein, *Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus*, Routledge

and Kegan Paul, 1922, para. 6.51.



[11] Ludwig Wittgenstein, *Philosophical Investigations*, Blackwell

and Mott, para. 116.



[12] Norman Malcolm, *Dreaming*, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959, p.9.



[13] Ludwig Wittgenstein, *Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus*, Routledge

and Kegan Paul, 1922, para. 6.44.



[14] Ibid., para. 6.522.



[15] Ibid., para. 6.54.



[16] Ibid., para. 7.



[17] Ludwig Wittgenstein, *Philosophical Investigations*, Blackwell

and Mott, 1958, para. 133.



[18] Ibid., para. 255.



[19] Ibid., para.126.



[20] W.H. Watson, *Understanding Physics Today*, Cambridge University

Press, 1963, p.15.



Chapter X -- THE SCIENCE OF EVASION



The basic tenet of modern science is "Thous shalt not think.'



Nietzsche once observed: "If there were God, how could I bear to be no

God? *Consequently* there is no God." This is not logical. Modern

science, which otherwise has no noticeable affinity with Nietzsche,

uses arguments of a similar kind. "If the universe had a beginning, we

did not observe it.



*Consequently* it had no beginning." (I do not know if any scientist

has said this yet. If not, I offer it freely to modern science as my

own humble contribution.) "If electrons are different from one

another, we cannot observe it. Consequently electrons are identical."

"If there is a reason why this event happens rather than that, we

cannot observe it. Consequently there is no reason.'



Arguments against thinking are presented with every appearance of

intellectual sophistication. They are difficult to understand, but

this makes them seem the more profound.



The prevailing spirit of science owes much to linguistic philosophy. A

generation which understands that thinking is identical with talking

finds



it easy to accept that discovery is identical with making

measurements.



The human evasion is seen at its best in theoretical physics.



In doing physics it is difficult not to notice that some things are

inconceivable. So physicists lay down special laws for not-thinking.

Just as linguistic philosophy counsels us not to ask what a word

*means*, but how we *use* it, so modern theoretical physics tells us

not to think what a concept means, but only how we measure it. We

might be tempted to ask what things like charge and mass *were*.



In a sense, the situation is similar to being asked to spell a word.

If we



were asked to spell the word cat, we would, of course, say c-a-t. If

pressed for a further explanation, we could only state that the

letters c, a, t,



were part of the alphabet and represent sounds. To explain the letter

a, for example, we would have to make the appropriate sound. There is

no other way



of conveying meaning. In a similar way, the concepts of charge and

mass are



part of the alphabet of physics. To become acquainted with charge, we

need



to experiment with it.[1]



It is pointed out that when you use concepts derived from everyday

experience they are not wholly appropriate to describing events on the

subatomic level. Therefore you must be particularly careful not to

think when you use these concepts.



We must be careful not to jump to the conclusion that because an

elementary



particle has a spin, we must think of it as turning about an axis in

itself, and that therefore it must have a finite radius, since a point

turning about itself is a meaningless idea. Such a conclusion would be

an unwarrantable



extrapolation of our macroscopic ideas. Instead, we must simply accept

the



fact that certain experiments can be explained only on the assumption

of



elementary particles having spin and magnetic moment.[2]



Our approach must be operational. We define concepts b y referring to

the manipulation of them in experiments; we only ask questions which

can be answered by performing experiments. A slight snag here is that

you might eventually think of a different *kind* of experiment if you

were worried enough about lack of information. This is not, however, a

snag to a sane person. Sane people, including physicists, have no

undue interest in reality and finding out about the universe is to be

regarded as a rather unfortunate by-product of a certain kind of human

activity. It is important to realize that physics is something

*people* do.



Physics is ... based on training and practice and on human behaviour

that



has evolved with the growth of experience in doing physics.[3]



Physicists have great humility, as the sane understand the word. They

accept, not that there is infinitely more to be discovered, but that

they can never discover more.



This acceptance is based on their belief in something called the

Uncertainty Principle. The Uncertainty Principle does not, of course,

express the uncertainty that must always prevail about what the next

theory in physics will be like. It describes a limitation in the

knowledge of the human race which, it is confidently asserted, can

never be surmounted. Young physicists find it difficult to see why it

never could be, and it is an important stage in their intellectual

maturation when they can.



The Uncertainty Principle arises from the fact that commonsense

concepts do not apply very well to subatomic particles. You can say

they are *something* like waves, or *something* like particles, but

you cannot use *both* of your ill-fitting notions at once. (Still less

may you try to have an idea of a *single* extraordinary entity that is

*exactly* like a subatomic particle.



Whether or not you succeeded, this would be likely to give you

feelings about inconceivability, and it is very important to avoid

such feelings in physics.) So physicists have evolved a complicated

and blurry way of using the concepts the human race already has. This

is known as the Quantum Theory. The fact that it is blurry is

expressed in the Uncertainty Principle, which states that so long as

you use these concepts in this way the result will be blurry.



The human race does not know what other concepts it could use, and

certainly has no intention of thinking about it. It therefore elevates

the statement about the blurriness of reality to the status of a

metaphysical absolute.



(Yes, I know the human race doesn't *usually* like metaphysical

absolutes, but this one is different.)



There is a kind of earnest astonishment made popular by linguistic

philosophers. ("This man says he thinks without words. What can we

possibly infer about the past life of a man who makes such a

statement?') This has been taken over by the theoretical physicists

for use on anyone who suggests that there might be a theory

*completely different* from Quantum Theory, even perhaps using

*different concepts*.



"What precisely is the concept we are asked to entertain...? What

picture is being painted for us...? What exactly will microphysics be

like...? What is the physicist being asked to do...?'[4] asks Norwood

Russell Hanson, boggling hard.



So we all accept that reality *is* blurry and that the laws of nature

*are* statistical. (Not -- "our descriptions of nature are

statistical", you notice.) This brings us to statistics. Emotionally,

if not indeed intellectually, statistics is no longer felt to provide

*description*, but *explanation*. It is not difficult to see why it

should be so appealing. It is, as you might say, democratic (in every

sense). It depends on counting, which is fair and equitable (why

should one electron be singled out for special attention?) -- and then

again, counting is a thing nearly everyone can do.



There used to be a philosophical error known as "reification", which

was what happened when people forgot that abstract nouns were not

*things*, and imagined Truth sitting in state in a scarlet robe, for

exmaple. This is a very, very unfashionable kind of mistake to make

today (because sometimes when people did it, it was a sign that they

were taking the Outside too seriously).



So no one has noticed the reification of statistical concepts that

goes on, and physicists talk of a thing being "caused by chance" as if

"chance" sat there pushing the right proportion of electrons to the

left. If an electron chooses to turn left, this is either caused by

*something*, which may or may not be known o the human race at

present, or it is casued by *nothing*, whihc is shockingly

inconceivable. In neither case is it caused by a cosy little homebody

figure called "Chance".



To do theoretical physics properly requires a very special kind of

thinking.



Suppose that you find that all particles of a certain kind, when

placed in a given situation, behave in one of two ways. Half of them

do one thing and half do the other. First, you do not allow yourself

to think that the particles might not be identical, or that there

might be some unknown influence, which causes half of them to do one

thing, and half to do the other. You must say "I can make a

statistical prediction. The laws of nature *are* statistical" with no

sense of being puzzled or astonished, and without falling into a state

of radical scepticism about the concept of "cause".



To perform this kind of mental manoeuvre to perfection requires years

of training and great intellectual maturity. (Einstein always found it

rather difficult. He expressed his inability in the curious,

subjective statement: God does not play dice.)



The next manoeuvre to be described is comparatively easy. It is a

technique for ironing infinity out of the universe. The technique

depends on the fact that people cannot visualize a fourth dimension.

So you say to them: "The universe is infinite *in a sense* -- you can

go wherever you like and never come to an edge. But it is also finite

*in a sense* -- if you go on long enough you will come back to the

same point." People feel that this is a difficult kind of thing which

they should pretend to understand. It also makes them fele happy,

because it is a way of saying "The universe is an Inside without an

Outside.'



If this description of the universe is expressed with fewer dimensions

it becomes clear what is really being said. The surface of a sphere is

unbounded in that you can travel all over it without coming to an

edge; it is also finite in that it has a certain definite area. *But*

-- (since we can visualize things in three dimensions, as we cannot in

four) -- it is clear that the sphere *does* have an Outside.



Or consider this exposition of a method for muddling yourself about

infinity:



To construct a hypothetical three-dimensional world which is *finite

and



unbounded*, we will assume that our bug lives with a whole family of

bugs in a space which has no physical boundaries or barriers. If we

further assume



that the bugs are very massive, then none of the bugs will be able to

leave



the group because the gravitational attraction of the group as a whole

on



each bug will prevent it. Furthermore, since the gravitational

attraction is so strong, light rays will not be able to leave the mass

of bugs either.



Thus, even if a bug looks off in the direction of space beyond the

group,



his line of sight will curve back towards the group, always producing

"bugs



in his eyes", and he will never be able to see beyond the group.

"Straight



ahead" for each bug always will mean towards the centre of the group.

The



bugs will not be conscious of any physical barrier, though; as far as

they



know, they will live in a world which is unbounded. Their world is

finite,



since the size of the group as a whole is finite and the group

constitutes



their world.[5]



Obviously the emotional force of this passage depends on the ease with

which the sane mind can accept that "they cannot see beyond the group"

is a statement precisely equivalent to "there is nothing beyond the

group".



Modern scientists have learnt their function; to make reality sound so

dull that no one will be tempted to think about it. Stephen Toulmin

gently chides Jeans and Eddington for populariz ing science in a

disturbing, thought-provoking way.



... Jeans, for instance, relied on finding a happy analogy which would

by



itself bring home to his readers the chief features of the General

Theory of Relativity. And how did he invite them to think of the

Universe? As the



three-dimensional surface of a four-dimensional balloon. The poor

layman,



who has been brought up to use the word "surface" for two-dimensional

things alone, now found himself instructed to visualise what for him

was a



self-contradiction, so it was no wonder if he agreed to Jeans" calling

the



Universe a mysterious one.[6]



Whatever else the universe may be, every sane person knows it isn't

*that*.



[1] Reuben Benumof, *Concepts in Physics*, Prentice-Hall, 1965, p.6.



[2] L.R.B. Elton, *Introductory Nuclear Theory*, Sir ISaac Pitman and

Sons, Ltd, 1959, p.4.



[3] W.H. Watson, *Understanding Physics Today*, Cambridge University

Press, 1963, p.xi.



[4] N.R. Hanson, *The Concept of the Positron*, Cambridge University

Press, 1963, pp.30-31.



[5] James A. Coleman, *Relativity for the Layman*, Penguin Books,

1961, p.108.



[6] Stephen Toulmin, *The Philosophy of Science*, Hutchinson and Co.,

1960, p.12.



Chapter XI -- THE ALTERNATIVE TO SANITY: WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE?



Let us now pause to consider what the alternative to sanity might be.



Recognized forms of mental illness do not provide an alternative; they

are plainly best regarded as subdivisions of sanity. They have the

same unawareness of reality, and the same intense focus on personal

reactions.



The average paranoid, for example, is obsessionally interested in

rights and wrongs and status and justification. These concepts are all

very meaningful to the sane.



It is true that the small selection of facts which are permitted

consideration by the paranoid mind differ a little from the selection

made by the average sane person. But it is doubtful whether the

distortion introduced by the suppression from consciousness of all the

facts which might indicate that one is not Napoleon is actually any

greater than the suppression from consciousness of all the facts that

might make one dissatisfied to be merely human.



If we suppsoe that sanity is itself a careful avoidance of some other

psychological orientation, dimly or subconsciously perceived, we may

be able to make some kind of a picture of the not-sane by inverting

the characteristics of sanity.



Obviously the first defining characteristic of the not-sane would be

that they would be more interested in reality, or the universe, than

in other people. Newton might, at first sight, appear to qualify. But

it is clear that he did not approve of his interest in reality. He

"grutched the time" spent on theoretical physics "unless it be perhaps

at idle hours sometimes for a diversion'[1]. As Master of the Mint, he

showed great initiative, intelligence and deteremination in hounding a

forger to his death. So he is not likely to exhibit the

personality-structure of the not-sane. (Though obviously he had his

not-sane moments, as when he worked obsessionally at the *Principia*

for eighteen months.)



There is a general supposition among the sane that sanity is a

particularly altruistic state, and that any deviation from it would be

marked by callousness, cruelty and vindictiveness.



This supposition need not be taken at face value. When paranoids and

manic-depressives claim to have nothing but kindly attitudes to all

mankind, this is interpreted as a cover for their repressed hostility.

Statements



about their own motivation made by sane people should be regarded with

a similar open-mindedness. It is alwys useful to try the technique of

substituting opposites throughout -- e.g. "Sanity is a particularly

sadistic state, and any deviation from it would be marked by

sensitivity, kindness and generosity.'



In so far as the sane person has chosen to focus his attention on

other people, rather than on reality, we may expect that he will

desire to limit them as painfully as he himself is limited. This

fundamental hatred of others (and particualrly of the aspirations of

others) might possibly be resolved by recognizing one's drive to the

infinite as something to do with infinity. But the sane person cannot

do this; in fact, the repressive force is so strong that he can

scarcely admit the idea of infinity to consciousness at all.



But it does not at all follow that this is what would actually be felt

by someone who was primarily interested in himself and the universe.

It may fairly confidently be asserted that he would see nothing

interesting in being cruel to people. Having accepted his won

aspirations, he would probably be unusually tolerant of the

aspirations of others. (In the same way that, according to Freudian

psychology, the person who does not reject his own id-impulses will

have a tolerant attitude towards them when they appear in his

offspring.) Finally, we may guess that the not-sane person would find

the repetitiveness of most human interactions rather dull.



Sane people are bad at psychology. This is not surprising because in

order to keep yourself and everyone else in a state of unrealism, you

have to have certain techniques for not noticing things.

(Psycho-analysts would no doubt claim to be good at understanding

psychology. But it is noteworthy that sane systems of psycho-analysis

are exclusively about people's reactions to other people.) We may

suppose that a not-sane person might not have quite the same reasons

for denying himself psychological insight. He would therefore probably

be good at psychology (but not in any way that sane people would

appreciate -they would think him unrealistic because of his interest

in reality.)



The characteristics which the sane person dislikes most are urgency,

singlemindedness, unconditionality, and self-sufficiency. I almost

used the word "independence", but this might have been misleading. In

a sane world this does not mean "doing what you yourself want,

regardless of other people". It usually means "showing your

independence *of other people* by doing something other than what they

want". Incidentally, the desire to demonstrate "independence" is

particualrly aroused in the sane person by anyone showing signs of

urgency, singlemindedness, unconditionality or self-sufficiency.



"Independence" is best demonstrated by opposing the purposes of the

urgent one. This is a useful safety valve in the sane society, and in

itself goes far to ensure that it will indeed be a self-regulating

mechanism for preventing the fulfilment of its members. (It is most

important that it should be this, in order that everyone should feel

frustrated by people and not by the universe.)



I have mentioned some unfamiliar attitudes; let me try to describe how

they might arise (even if, in practice, they never do).



A person with a sense of *urgency* might feel that because everything

was uncertain, but his death highly probable, it was desirable to do

anything he considered important with the minimum of delay.

*Single-mindedness* and *unconditionality* might well follow.



A person might arrive at a position of *self-sufficiency* by a little

reflection on his complete aloneness in the presence of the enigma of

existence. He cannot be sure if anyone else exists; even if they do,

there is every reason to suppose that they possess no information

relevant to the problem.



The question is whether anyone has ever been, in any serious way, not

sane.



I have examined the history of the human race with care. Kant gives

the impression that he liked the inconceivable, but his books are too

long; Einstein was interested in the universe, but bad at psychology;

H.G. Wells saw that research consisted of taking risks, but declined

into sociology.



My best candidates, therefore, are Nietzsche and Christ. It may be

objected that their ideas cannot possibly be of interest, since one

went mad and the other was crucified. However, I think we should not

hold this against them.



They may have felt a  trifle isolated.



[1] Letter to Robert Hooke, 1679.



Chapter XII -- CHRIST



Sane human beings are not interested in reality. This is clearly shown

by the attitudes of both Christians and sceptic s towards the origins

of Christianity. Both factions are primarily concerned to attribute

"human" emotions to its founder -- nice modest fair-minded ones or

nasty perverted abnormal ones according to taste. Neither side pauses

to consider whether the available documents are remotely adequate to

support their interpretations.



Now in fact the historical evidence is of such a kind that the

question may reasonably be asked whether Jesus lived at all. None of

the gospels can be dated much earlier than A.D. 57, and probably all

the four synoptic gospels were written around the latter half of the

first century A.D. There is every reason to suppose that the tradition

had already been subject to many influences, some identifiable, some

debatable. The is no reason to suppose that the writers of the Gospels

were any more interested in facts than most sane people are. In fact

the internal evidence clearly suggests that they had no inhibitions

about modifying their text when they wished to make it support a

particular point.



It is difficult to base any conclusions whatever on documents of this

kind.



It is certainly impossible to see how they can be made to support

statements of the kind sometimes made by Christians -- that they

derive from the Gospels an overwhelming sense of the *personality* of

Christ. Or, indeed, a statement such as this made by an intellectual

Christian in a University environment:



The discrepancy between the depth and sanity and (let me add)

*shrewdness*



of His moral teaching and the rampant megalomania which must lie

behind His



theological teaching unless He is indeed God, has never been

satisfactorily



got over.[1]



In fact. there is very little "moral teaching" in the Gospels, and

what there is is not *shrewd*. It simply makes unreasonable demands,

of the utmost generality, of a kind that any purveyor of mental health

would recommend his patients to disregard.



As for the theological teaching of Jesus, we do not know what it was.

There is quite insufficient evidence for supposing that he claimed to

be God, though we know that Christians from the fourth century onwards

liked to make this claim on his behalf.



Probably more credit should be given to St. Paul. He was clearly a

sane person -- aware of the need to make a good impression on the

neighbours. It may well be that the true reason for the survival of

Christianity lies in his having adapted it into a form admirably

compatible with sane psychology. Much confusion has been created by

reading the Epistles of Paul as if they shed light on the

interpretation of the Gospels.



Consider the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God. This is supposed to

have been central to the thought of Jesus. In fact, by all accounts,

he had a positive obsession about it. Christians claim that it shows

him to have been a warm, family-centred man and no cold metaphysician.

Non-Christians claim that it shows him to have a father-fixation,

combined with homosexual tendencies which he sought to gratify by his

dubious relationship with his disciples.



Now, on grounds of textual criticism, it can be shown that there is

little evidence that Christ himself had any particualr interest in the

Father concept -- even as a symbol -- still less in the Father-Son

combination which is so important to later claims of the divinity of

Christ. Although Jesus is credited with using the term Father

frequently in Matthew and John, this is not the case in Mark, the

earliest of the Gospels.



In Mark God is only spoken of as Father in the absolute sense,



withoutnqualification, in two passages, both of which are blieved to

be



either editorial interpolations or editorially modified.... Moreover,

the



expression my Father is never found in Mark, and your Father is found

only



in xi. 25-26.[2]



In fact, it is virtually impossible to reach any firm conclusions

about what Jesus understood by "God". Attempts have been made to

reconstruct his idea of God from the Jewish tradition of the time, but

there is no knowing what influence this actually had on his thought.

Modernman may like to believe himself the child of his environment,

and his ideas the inevitable consequence of sociological influence.

However, a few people have been known to think, and we cannot be sure

that Jesus was not one of them. (The fact that the religion originated

by him became widely accepted is not, of course, evidence for this

supposition, but against it. If, that is, he did in any sense

originate the religion which became accepted.)



If he was, he would probably have been capable of using the current

terminology and sayings of his time in a sense of his own. There is no

need to suppose him moronically unintelligent. The use of parables

would seem to imply that he udnerstood the use of metaphor.



We are not, I thinki, justified in concluding anything about the

attitudes or opinions of Jesus from the areas of omission in the

Gospels. Obviously we have only a handful of his sayings. Th tradition

had had plenty of time, before A.D. 57, to select those sayings which

were reasonably compatible with the developing tradition of the

Church, and to suppress the rest. The fact that we have only metaphor

rather than description or definition to help us decide what he meant

by "God" or "The Kingdom of Heaven" may not mean that he was a simple,

emotional person who never defined his terms. It may only mean that

his metaphors were all of his thought that could survive the

transition into the world-view of the early Church.



Having said what cannot be inferred from the existing records, we may

settle down to speculation.



There is an interesting possibility that Christ was not only not

paranoid, but that he was not sane at all, and that the expression

"the Kingdom of Heaven" refers to a state of mind not likely to be had

by sane people. Let us discuss some of his utterances in the light of

this possibility.



*Matthew* 13: 45-46



Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking

goodly



pearls;



Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all

that he



had, and bought it.



*Mark* 8: 36-37



What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and

loose his



own soul?



Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?



To suggest that one signle thing could be worth more than everything

else put together is, I feel sure, an immature attitude.



*Matthew* 7: 13-14



Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the

way,



that leadeth to detsruction, and many there be which go in thereat:



Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto

life,



and few there be that find it.



This is scarcely democratic and I do not see what a modern Christian

can make of it. But it is a realistic assessment of the number of

people likely to take up single-mindedness at all seriously.



*Matthew* 22: 37-38



Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy

heart,



and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and

great



commandment.



*Matthew* 7: 7



Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it



shall be opened unto you.



Sane people are obviously not likely to qualify for anything on these

terms.



They cannot want anything very much, or try to get anything very hard.

They accept the first compensation that comes their way.



*Luke* 6: 24-26



But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.



Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that

laugh



now! for ye shall mourn and weep.



Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their



fathers to the false prophets.



Does this *really* sound as though he was in favour of the jolly,

well-compensated man-in-society?



*Matthew* 19: 21-23



Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou

hast,



and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come

and



follow me.



But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for

he had great possessions.



Then Jesus said unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich

man



shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.



A rather more interesting reading becomes possible if it is supposed

that "riches" means "compensations".



*Matthew* 6: 31-33



Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall

we



drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these

things do



the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need

of



all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his



righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.



Modern Christians hold that the thing to do is "obviously" to feed

everybody in the world, and until we have done that, we needn't ask

what anyone is to do with their life, anyway. The question is whether

Christ would have agreed.



*Luke* 18: 16-17



But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to

come



unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.



Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God

as a



little child shall in no wise enter therein.



It has been suggested that what Christ found attractive about children

was what sane people like about them -- their uncritical trust in the

superior wisdom of adults, their plasticity, submissiveness,

suggestibility, and vulnerability. However, children have other

characteristics besides these.



They are excitable and like excitement. They are in a hurry; it seems

to them that to do a thing *now* may be altogether different from

doing it tomorrow.



They are easily bored. They ask questions. They want to grow up to be

the first Emperor of Space.



In short, they seek intensity of experience. They do not have much

experience of life and they may seek it clumsily. As they grow older

and saner they learn not to seek it at all.



*Matthew* 12: 25



Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and

every



city or house divided against itself shall not stand.



Modern enlightenment suggests that Christ was talking about the

integration of the personality. The modern idea of integrating the

personality is to accept all the bits of yourself on their own terms

-- enjoy *all* your pleasures without imposing upon them any rigid

formalism. But this may not have been exactly what Christ had in mind.

For one thing, modern people regard integration as a function of

maturity -- but Christ seemed to think children in some way eligible.



*Matthew* 6: 22-23



The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single,

the



whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole

body



shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be



darkness, how great is that drakness!



This makes it tolerably clear that if he was talking about the

integration of the personality, it was a single-minded sort of

integration.



*Matthew* 6: 24



No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and

love the



other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye

cannot



serve God and mammon.



It has been suggested that "mammon" means crude, ambitious,

materialistic commercialism. Perhaps it just means "society", or even

"other people".



*Matthew* 15: 9



But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the

commandments of



men.



*John* 5: 44



How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek no

the



honour that cometh from God only?



Would Jesus *really* have liked the idea that Christianity meant

social conformity and lots of welfare work?



*Matthew* 10: 35



For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the

daughter



against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.



Not-sane people need not expect sane people to see eye to eye with

them.



*Luke* 8: 19-21



Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and could not come at

him for



the press.



And it was told him by certain which said, Thy mother and thy brethren

stand without, desiring to see thee.



And he ansereed and said unto them, My mother and my brethren are

these



which hear the word of God, and do it.



Undemocratic.



*Matthew* 9: 16-17



No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that

which is



put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made

worse.



Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break,

and



the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they out new wine

into new bottles, and both are preserved.



Perhaps this means "You cannot be sane and not-sane at the same time."

But even supposing a sane person had a moment's excitement, would he

not try to weld it into his ordinary world-view -- to "integrate" it,

as he would say?



*John* 12: 25



He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in

this



world shall keep it unto life eternal.



*Luke* 12: 25-26



And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?

If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye

thought for



the rest?



Does this sound like settling down happily within your finiteness?



*Luke* 1: 37



For with God nothing shall be impossible.



This could be a statement about the total uncertainty. For its

philosophical status, see Chapter IX.



*John* 10: 34



Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are

gods?



A most unpopular piece of Christianity. Sane people do not *want* to

be gods; they want to be

ordinary-members-of-society-like-anybody-else.



*Mark* 11: 25



For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this

mountain, Be



thour removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in

his



heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come

to



pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.



No sane person doubts the impossibility of moving mountains by

will-power.



Philosophically, however, it cannot be shown to be impossible.



*Matthew* 13: 35



I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of

the



world.



This may sound megalomaniac. But there is no great difficulty in

keeping secrets from sane people. The incredibility of the fact of

existence retains the status of a closely-guarded secret in spite of

its accessibility to inspection.



*Mark* 13: 35-37



Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house

cometh, at



even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning:



Lest coming suddenyl he find you sleeping.



And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.



Whatever this may mean, it certainly demands a psychological attitude

which is improbable in the sane. Live as though you expected the

unexpected? As though something might happen?



However, if Christ was trying to talk people out of their adherence to

sanity, he made one fatal mistake. He said "Love your neighbour as

yourself." No one who understands the human evasion could fail to

realize that any statement which could be interpretetd as an

exhortation to pay attention to *other people*, even if among a great

many injunctions to single-mindedness and unconditional desire, would

be the only one remembered.



In fact, everyone *does* love their neighbour as themselves. They

desire that he shall accept the second-best as they have done; that

he, too, shall be made to realize his limitations and "come to terms

with himself".



The other aspect of Christ's thought that has seized upon the popular

imagination is, of course, the use of the Father-symbol. If Christ was

not sane, he may have meant something peculiar by "Father", and not

necessarily something very human. He may even have meant something

like "the Outside" or "the origin of existence".



[1] C.S. Lewis, *Miracles*, Collins Fontana Paperback, 1947, p.113.



[2] Charles Guignebert, *Jesus*, University Books, 1956, p.360.



Chapter XIII -- NIETZSCHE



It is interesting to consider the case of Nietzsche in relation to

that of Christ. In both cases, the human race has supposed that the

central feature of their thought was an injunction to human

interaction. In the case of Christ, they thought they were being

enjoined to get on nicely with their friends and relations. In the

case of Nietzsche they thought they were being enjoined to wear

jackboots and torture the slaves before breakfast.



In actual fact, it is tolerably clear that both of them were extremely

interes ted in something quite other than human beings. (Nietzsche,

for example, observed: "I love thee, O Eternity.')



Both of them glimpsed the possibility of some kind of psychological

development which was distinctly not-sane. Nietzsche called this

possibility "the Superman".



It does not pay to read the works of Nietzsche in their entirety,

unless you wish to confuse yourself. The most distinctive expression

of Nietzsche's thought is contained in *Thus Spake Zarathustra*, and

in the first few pages of it at that. Nietzsche sometimes confused his

psychological ideas with social or political ones, particularly in

books other than *Zarathustra*.



(This kind of mistake is easily made by a person who has been brought

up in a sane world.)



The idea of the Superman has nothing to do with politics. Nietzsche

may have thought it had, at least on occasion, but if so he was

mistaken. However, Nietzsche did not always make this mistake.



Where the State ceaseth, there beginneth that man which is not

superfluous:



there beginneth the song of the necessary man, the single,

irreplaceable



melody.



Where the State *ceaseth* -- I pray you look there, my brethren! Do

you not see it, the rainbow, the bridge to the Superman?[1]



Nietzsche may sometimes have thought he was liking the German

aristocracy of his time and disliking the German bourgeoisie. In fact

it is much simpler to suppose that he was disliking sanity. The "Last

Man" is recognizable as a sane person in a good state of mental

health.



Alas! the day cometh when man shall no longer shoot the arrow of his



desire beyond man, when his bowstring shall have forgotten its use!



I say unto you: a man must have chaos yet within him to be able to

give



birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: ye have chaos yet within you.



Alas! the day cometh when man shall give birth to no more stars. Alas!

the day cometh of that most contemptible man which can no longer

contemn



himself.



Behold! I show you the *Last Man*.



What is love? What is creation? What is desire? What is a star? asketh

the Last Man, and he blinketh! ...



Man still loveth his neighbour and rubbeth himself against him; for

one



must have warmth ...



A little poison now and then: for that causeth pleaant dreams. And

much



poison at the last for an easy death.



They still work, for work is a pastime.... But they take heed, lest

the



pastime harm them ..



They have little lsust for the day and little lusts for the night: but



they have regard for the health.



We have discovered happiness, say the Last Men, and they blink.[2]



There are a few things in the thought of Nietzsche which appeal to

sane people. Perhaps he over-reacted against the orthodox religion of

his time and this may have made him sound more like an ordinary

hedonist than he was. "Do not be misled by otherworldliness!" says

Nietzsche, and the modern reader, who is not in the slightest danger

of being, says approvingly, "Ah, yes. There is no Outside. I do

understand *that*." "Man must create his own values!" says Nietzsche.

"But of course", says the reader, "What other values could there be?'



Nietzsche, like Christ, used symbols freely. The human race is not

good at psychology, and does not understand symbols. When, Nietzsche,

for example, refers to "dancing" one must realize that to him it

probably meant primarily a quality of intellectual activity. Similarly

"wine" is most likely to refer to the intoxication of inspiration.



Nietzsche was certainly opposed to half-heartedness and repression;

but exhortations to full-bloodedness do not necessarily imply an

approval of physical pleasure. (Perhaps, sometimes, he thought they

did, but if so he was mistaken.) It is much simpler to suppose that

what he was primarily intending to convey was a total integration of

the personality. There is nothing in the first few pages of

*Zarathustra* to suggest that the Superman would be a hedonist (or a

sadist).



What is the greatest thing ye can experience? It is the hour of great



contempt. The hour in which even your happiness is loathsome to you,

and



your reason and your virtue likewise.



The hour in which ye say: What is my happiness worth! It is poverty

and



uncleanness and despicable ease. Yet my happiness should justify Being



itself!



The hour in which ye say: WHat is my reason worth! Desireth it

knowledge



as the lion his prey? It is poverty and uncleanness, and despicable

ease.



The hour in which ye say: What is my virtue worth! Not yet hath it

roused



me to fury. How I weary of my good and mine evil! It is all naught but



poverty and uncleanness and despicable ease! ...



Man is a rope stretched betwist beast and Superman -- a rope over an

abyss.



Perilous is the corssing, perilous the way, perilous the backward

look,



perilous all trembling and halting by the way.



Man is great in that he is a bridge and not a goal: man can be loved

in



that he is a transition and a perishing.



I love them which live not save as under-goers, for they are the



over-goers.



I love them which greatly scorn for they also greatly adore; they are



arrows of longing for the farther shore.



I love them which seek no reason beyond the stars wherefore they

should



perish, weherfore they should be sacrificed, but which sacrifice

themselves



to the earth that the earth hereafter may be the Superman's.



I love him which liveth that he may know, and which seeketh knowledge

that hereafter the Superman may live: for thus he willeth his own

down-going.



I love him which worketh and deviseth to build an house for the

Superman,



to prepare for him earth, beast and plant; for thus he willeth his own



down-going.



I love him which loveth his virtue: for virtue is the will to

down-going,



and an arrow of longing.



I love him which reserveth no share of spirit for himself, but willeth

to



be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus in spirit he crosseth the

bridge.



I love him which maketh of his virtue his inclination and his destiny:

for thus for his virtue's sake he willeth either to live on or to

cease to live.



I love him which desireth not too many virtues. One virtue is more

virtue



than two, because it is so much the more a knot on which destiny

hangs.



I love him whose soul lavisheth himself, that neither requireth nor



returneth thanks: for he giveth ever and keepeth naught for himself

...



I love all them which are as heavy rain-drops falling one by one from

the



dark cloud that lowereth over mankind: they herald the coming of the



lightning, and they perish as heralds.



Behold, I am an herald of the lightning and an heavy rain-drop from

the



clouds: but that lightning is named *Superman*.[3]



Nietzsche himself did not claim to be the Superman, so there is no

point in objecting that the idea is invalid because Nietzsche had

headaches, nor indeed because he went mad.



Never *yet* has there been a Superman. I have seen both naked -- the



greatest man and the least.



They are still far too like one another. Verily, even the greatest

found I -- all too human![4]



It is sometimes claimed that Nietzsche went mad (a) because he had

syphilis, and (b) because he thought too much. It should be pointed

out that you cannot hold both of these views simultaneously -- or at

least, if you like the humorous implications of the syphilis idea, you

cannot at the same time say, "It only proves the human mind can't

stand the strain of such extraordinary ideas.'



There is another argument about Nietzsche's madness (and I repeat, you

cannot very well hold all of these attractive ideas at once). It is

that a precipitating factor was the lack of recognition from which he

suffered. "If only," the argument runs,"he had realized that his books

were just on the verge of being *appreciated* -- it would have made

all the difference. He would have liked this social compensation very

much and become quite well-adjusted." One thing wrong with this

argument is that he already had quite a high degree of social

recognition.



It seems to be doubtful whether appreciation was exactly what he

wanted, anyway. It seems to me probable that he wanted people to be

interested in not-sanity, and perhaps underestimated the universal

hold which sanity has on the human min d.



A light hath dawned on me. I need companions -- living ones, not dead



companions and corpses which I may carry with me where I will.



But I need living companions which follow me because they desire to

follow themselves -- and to go to that place whither I wish to go.[5]



A thousand goals have there been heretofore, for there have been a



thousand peoples. But the yoke upon the thousand necks is lacking, the

one



goal is lacking. Mankind hath as yet no goal.



But tell me, I pray, my brethren: if a goal belacking to mankind, is



not mankind itself lacking?[6]



There is one final stumbling-block in the thought of Nietzsche. This

is "eternal recurrence". This is no doubt very difficult if you insist

on taking it as a metaphysical dogma. But if one is oermitted to

ask,"What was the psychological significance of this idea? What gave

it its emotional impact to Nietzsche?" one may see an answer in

*Joyful Wisdom*.



What if a demon crept after thee into thy loneliest loneliness some

day or night, and said to thee: "This life, as thou livest it at

present, and hast



lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and

there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and

every thought



and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life

must



come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence -- and

similarly



this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this

moment,



and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned

once



more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!" -- Wouldst thou not throw



thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so spake?

Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou

wouldst answer him:



"Thou art a God, and never did I hear anything so divine!" If that

thought



acquired power over thee as thou art, it would transform thee, and

perhaps



crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything: "Dost thou

want



this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the

heaviest



burden upon thy activity! Or, how wouldst thou have to become

favourably



inclined to thyself and to life, so as *to long for nothing more

ardently*



than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?[7]



Here it is plain that the idea is connected with the existential

perception that the events of your life really exist. To normal

psychology, this is a rather dull statement. But it may not have

appeared dull to Nietzsche, and he may have used the idea of eternal

recurrence to express the emotional force which it had to him.



[1] F. Nietzsche, *Thus Spake Zarathustra*, translated by A. Tille,

J.M. Dent and Sons, 1960, p.43.



[2] Ibid., p.9.



[3] Ibid., pp.6-8.



[4] Ibid., p.83.



[5] Ibid., p.13.



[6] Ibid., p.51.



[7] F. Nietzsche, *Joyful Wisdom*, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co.,

1964, pp.270-1.



Chapter XIV -- WHY THE WORLD WILL REMAIN SANE



I met a man in a place that was something like a subterranean tube

tunnel and something like a deserted railway waiting-room in the

middle of the night.



It was impossible to see whether there was an outlet concealed

anywhere behind the labyrinths of tiles and painted walls, but a

biting wind blew from somewhere. There were a few other people sitting

huddled up or pacing up and down. They looked to frozen to say much.



"Look here", I said to the man. "Why do you go on staying here?'



"Oh, it's not bad", he said, blowing on his fingers. "We keep very

warm really. You get more used to it as you get older. Young people

have crazy ideas about trying to find an exit, but they settle down."

(He nodded knowingly at some of the huddled shapes.)



"But, my dear fellow," I said, "you aren't warm at all. You're grey in

the face and one of your fingers is so frost-bitten it's about to drop

off.'



"Oh well, in a *sense*, that may be true", he said, a little

uncomfortably.



"But most people are all right and adjust to things. Maybe I find it a

little more difficult than most but that's just something to do with

my upbringing which has affected my metabolism. It's my physiology,

you see. Nothing is actually wrong with the place as such.'



"But the faces ... when you can see them through the wrappings -- can

you say you know a happy person?'



"Yes, I can. There's my daughter. She's eighteen months old. She says

"I'm happy" all the time. It was the first thing we taught her to

say.'



"You wouldn't be interested in finding an exit, then?'



"Well, obviously it would be escapism, wouldn't it? The very word

"exit" implies that.... I can't believe we're here just to give up and

get out. It's up to us to assert the warmth and richness of the here

and now.'



(Here the wind blew a little harder.)



"It might be warm outside", I said. "Things might be happening there.'



"Oh well, it's up to you to prove that if you want me to be

interested. Why should I give up what I've got here?'



"What have you got, then?'



"Interests. There are lots of things to do here. Like counting the

cracks in the walls and stamping one's feet. Good for you, that is.

Circulation.'



"There might be even more interesting things somewhere else.'



"Oh well, I don't know that, do I? Much more likely it wouldn't nearly

be so healthy and interesting.'



"But even if someone did know a way out of here, he could only prove

to you that the other place was better if you'd come and leave your

interests to find out.'



"Exactly. That's what I said.'



"Does anyone ever look for a way out?'



"Well, I don't know exactly what you mean by looking. There are a few

chaps called scientists who measure up bits of the walls sometimes,

but it's more and more a specialist job and they reckon a few yards of

wall is all one man can take on. Not that there would be any point in

trying to study the *whole* wall at once. It can't be done. Nobody

tries.'



"You could make a battering-ram", I said reflectively. "With a few of

these benches. Then you could try ramming the walls to see if they

gave way. If everyone joined in ...'



"Yes, I thought you'd suggest something like that", he said, bitterly.



"People have other things to do besides helping you in *your* pet

schemes,



you know. You can *try* to persuade them, of course. It's a free

country.



Personally, I don't care so long as I enjoy myself.'



As he did so, a clergyman emerged from a whistling tunnel at my side.

(Or perhaps he was a psychiatrist -- or, indeed, a sociologist.)



"Did I hear you mention that old idea about getting out of here?" he

said, with a visible shiver. "Symbolism, you know. We've

demythologized all that now. They used to think there was something

outside this place -- a literal outside, if you can imagine it! Of

course it's quite valid as symbolism. This *is* the outside, here and

now, if you live it to the full....'



"It's cold", I said.



"Think of others", he said reprovingly. "It's really impressive the

way modern psycho-analysis has confirmed the isights of the New

Testament. Where two or three are gathered together, you know. It is

an indisputable fact that *groups* of people, huddled as closely as

possible, do feel much warmer. This is the basis of Group Therapy. It

is also known as the Kingdom of Heaven.'



"Where do you suppose the wind comes from?" I asked him.



"I'm not at all sure that I would agree that there *is* a wind. It's

really only perverse and neurotic people who remark on it. And very

young people, of course. But if there *is*, then I'm sure it's value

depends entirely on us -it is for us to make it into a meaningful part

of the full life by refusing to notice it.'



"The full life?" I said, and added, at the risk of seeming rude, "Full

of what?'



"Of communication", he said patiently. "Of I=Thou relationships. Of

dependent interdependence.'



"Communication!" I said. "These people are so frozen they wouldn't be

able to say more than a few words to anybody.'



"That's a very narrow view, i think", he said seriously. "It's

imposing a utilitarian standard of reference on the variety and

freedom of human relationships. One must *care* about people as they

are.'



"But surely", I said, "if one *cared* about these people, one couldn't

be content to see them huddled up i n this dreadful place....'



But he looked most displeased, and murmured something into his muffler

-- it sounded like "Arrogance".



"Well, anyway", I said, "surely you can't reject the *possibility*

that this is all a dream?'



"Metaphysics", he said, coldly. "Very nasty. Denial of life. People

might lose interest in counting the cracks and spend their time trying

to wake up instead.'



"Look", I said suddenly. "I'm afraid I can't stay here. I have a very

strong feeling that this is a dream and I'm about to wake up.'



"The methods of linguistic analysis have very valuable applications to

religion. Cheifly they enable us to see the futility of making

meaningless statements about the transcendent (which is of course a

completely meaningless word). You cannot properly speak of waking

"up". When I say something is going "up" I mean that it is directed

towards a position which is located above its starting point. it is

meaningless to speak in this way about waking, because it would be a

confusion of categories to suppose that "waking" is located above

"sleeping". Consequently...'



But at this point, with a certain sense of relief, I awoke.



AN OPEN LETTER TO YOUNG PEOPLE



To be a genius has never been too easy, granted the tendency of the

human race to like frustrating them. It is no easier in this century

than any other time.



In fact, it is rather more difficult, as in this century it is

believed that an unrecognised genius is impossible.



However, I have in Oxford a place in which it is possible to carry on

the struggle for survival, and I am loooking for people to join me.

There are at present too few of us, and this makes the struggle for

survival even more difficult.



I cannot give a brief summary of my ideas; they are original, and that

means they are difficult to communicate. However, I have written a

book, *The Human Evasion*, which while containing a rather small

fraction of what I think, does give an introductory impression of my

outlook. If you find this too uncongenial, I think you should not

bother to get in touch with me to find out any more.



If, on the other hand, having read the book, you do want to know

anything more about what I think, and to see whether you would like to

join us, there is no alternative to coming to Oxford for a time.



Please write to me, in the first instance, care of the publishers of

this book.



CELIA GREEN



The address is



Institue for Psychophysical Research



118 Banbury Road



Oxford, England



but don't bother writing unless you've read every IPR book you can

find.



Casual requests for information probably won't be answered. -Mitch





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