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How did it happen that philosophy, and precisely that philosophy which pretended so stubbornly to sublimity and which indeed seems to have wished to be sublime, nothing but sublime, glorified the ideal of the caveman and even the invertebrate animals? Is this atavism, or is there some other mystery here? Why is it that Aristotle triumphed in history and not Plato? Why did Christianity itself allow itself to be led into temptation by the logos? Why could not modern thought free itself from the spell of Hegel's philosophy, and why could even those who have faith believe only in a "general" God, only in a God-concept, and why are they convinced that every other faith is reprehensible and even impossible for an educated man? Is it truly impossible to accept? Or have we the right finally to demand, as far as the heritage we have received from the Greeks is concerned, the beneficium inventarii [benefit of a listing, i.e., the help of a catalogue] of which our fathers did not dream? But how and of whom demand it? Who will tell us with certainty if the first verse of the Fourth Gospel is a revelation or an interpolation dating from the time when Holy Scripture was no longer in the hands of the poor in spirit, for whom it had been destined, but in the hands of a Roman aristocracy instructed by Greek masters? And who will help us to resolve this question: where must we seek the true Plato - in his mythology or in his theory of ideas scientifically developed by Aristotle?
European philosophy is today conducting, as is known, a bitter struggle against "psychologism." The problem is certainly not new. Psychologism has always existed, and idealistic philosophy has always struggled against it. In modern times, none among the philosophers was a more relentless and irreconcilable enemy of psychologism than Hegel: this follows clearly from what I have already said of him. In Hegel himself, however, we find the following argumentation: "Every man says without hesitation: 'It is obvious that the objects I see exist.' But it is not true that he believes in their reality. He assumes rather the contrary, for he eats and drinks them; that is, he is persuaded that these things do not exist in themselves, that their being has no stability, no essence. The ordinary intelligence is better in its acts than it thinks, for its acting being is the complete spirit."
Let us leave Hegel's explanation aside for, like every explanation, it is debatable. But one fact is indisputable: the man who believes that things exist knows at the same time that they do not exist; and this knowledge is expressed not in words but quite otherwise, in action, but in such a way that others - Hegel, for example, and following him, his readers - can become acquainted with it.
Let us take now another fact of the same order, relating no longer to the ordinary man but to the philosophers. All the philosophers have always considered the psychological point of view false, and particularly Hegel. Just as ordinary men believe that the things they see exist, the philosophers assume that the truths they think also exist, and all therefore declare themselves anti-psychologists. But read Husserl's Logische Untersuchungen and his other works, and you will become convinced that if the philosophers openly pronounced against psychologism and did not keep silent, their acts did not at all agree with their words: just like ordinary men, they ate and drank the very truths they proclaimed eternal. What then should be our attitude toward the philosophers: must we consider that they had the "truth" when they "acted," that is, impose on them the same demands as on the man in the street, or must we accord them the privilege, in view of their high station, of not being subject to general laws?
This is all the more important in that Hegel himself, according to Husserl, did not avoid the common fate; he also said certain things but did, in his philosophy and through his philosophy, others. But if one accepts my testimony, it appears that Husserl finds himself in the same situation as Hegel. He also eats and drinks his eternal truths, and he eats and drinks them in even greater measure than any other philosopher. One could say that in him the destruction of the truths is directly proportional to his conviction of their indestructibility. And so I raise the question: Of what must we take account - the words of the philosophers or their acts? Their words tell us that their truths are eternal, but their acts show us that their truths are quite as transitory as the sensible things which appear existent to ordinary men but which for "reason" are only pure phantoms that vanish at the first contact with logic. To put it differently: should we be instructed by the philosophers through studying the theories they have invented, or through observing their lives in all their manifestations, that is, not only their words but also their acts, their attitudes, etc.?
It may be assumed, however, that one would probably not succeed in giving this question a single, complete answer that is valid for every case, as the reader, and particularly the specialist in philosophy who loves the general and appreciates only the unchanging, would wish. For the complete spirit (der ganze Geist), to employ Hegel's terminology, sometimes manifests itself in acts and sometimes also in words. At times it produces such a complexio oppositorum that the contradiction between words and acts cannot be avoided by the poor two-legged animal. So, for example, the ordinary man is obliged to affirm that bread and water exist, and at the same time to eat bread and drink water for, as experience has proved to him, he cannot eat or drink what does not exist (even though, if he could, he would often prefer the non-existent to the existent). Thus the question appears extremely complex, and we can neither avoid it nor simplify it. Furthermore, in general, the desire to simplify what is complex never leads to anything good. We can introduce into our heads a certain harmony and apparent order, but reality remains what it was and does not conform either to idealist or materialist conceptions. Whatever be the systems of thought that we build, the ordinary man will not find there sufficient place to bring in all that seeks a refuge.
I repeat, materialism is finally not at all distinguished from idealism even though, to judge from their external aspect, these two conceptions differ completely from each other. In both cases one tries, and with equally small success, to force life under a roof, into a cellar, into a subterranean room. But life leaps over the thickest walls, the most solid vaults. Sooner or later philosophy becomes philosophy en plein air, whatever minds attached to traditions and old ideas may do. Men will finally understand that in the "word," in the general idea, one can shut up tired human souls for the night so that they may sleep and rest but that, when day comes, their freedom must be returned to them: God did not create the sun and the heaven, the sea and the mountains, that man should turn his gaze away from them. The fathers of the Vatican Council were right: Si quis mundum ad Dei gloriam conditum esse negaverit, anathema sit [if anyone denies that the universe has been founded for the glory of God, let him be anathema]. And it is the Platonic mythology which Hegel under various pretexts drove with such relentlessness from philosophy - and not only Hegel but almost all his predecessors and successors - that tells us that the world was created for the glory of God. And if we do not permit the philosopher to speak of this, what will remain of philosophy?
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