Chapter XVIII (part 3)

In exactly the same way, our separate lives are manifestations of some great rational entity. We find the proof of this in the fact that our lives have no other meaning at all aside from that process of acquiring knowledge performed by us. A thoughtful man ceases to feel painfully the absence of meaning in life only when he realizes this, and begins to strive consciously for that for which he strove unconsciously before. This process of acquiring knowledge, representing our function in the world , is performed not by the intellect only, but by our entire organism, by all the body, by all the life, and by all the life of human society, its organizations, its institutions, by all culture and all civilization; by that which we know of humanity and, still more, by that which we do not know. And we acquire the knowledge of that which we deserve to know. ______ If we declare in regard to the intellectual side of man that its purpose is knowledge this will evoke no doubts. All agree that the human intellect together with everything subjected to its functions is for the purpose of knowledge—although often the faculty of knowledge is considered as serving only utilitarian ends. But concerning the emotions: joy, sorrow, rage, fear, love, hatred, pride, compassion, jealousy; concerning the sense of beauty, esthetic pleasure and artistic creation; concerning the moral sense; concerning all religious emotions: faith, hope, veneration, etc., etc.,—concerning all human activity—things are not so clear. We usually do not see that all emotions, and all human activity serve knowledge. How do fear , or love , or work serve knowledge? It seems p. 217 to us that by emotions we feel; by work—create. Feeling and creation seem to us as something different from knowledge . Concerning work, creative power, creation, we are rather inclined to think that they demand knowledge, and if they serve it, do so only indirectly. In the same way it is incomprehensible how religious emotions serve knowledge. Usually the emotional is opposed to the intellectual —"heart" to "mind." Some place "cold reason" or intellect over against feelings, emotions, esthetic pleasure; and from these they separate the moral sense, the religious sense, and "spirituality." The misunderstanding here lies in the interpretation of the words intellect and emotion . Between intellect and emotion there is no sharp distinction. Intellect, considered as a whole, is also emotion. But in every-day language, and in " conversational psychology" reason is contrasted with feeling ; will is considered as a separate and independent faculty; moralists consider moral feeling as entirely distinct from all these; religionists consider spirituality separately from faith . One often hears such expressions as: reason mastered feeling; will mastered desire; the sense of duty mastered passion; spirituality mastered intellectuality; faith conquered reason. But all these are merely the incorrect expressions of conversational psychology; just as incorrect as are the expressions "sunrise" and "sunset." In reality in the soul of man nothing exists save emotions. And the soul life of man is either a struggle or a harmonious adjustment between different emotions. Spinoza saw this quite clearly when he said that emotion can be mastered only by another more powerful emotion, and by nothing else . Reason, will, feeling, duty, faith, spirituality, mastering some other emotion, can conquer only by force of the emotional element contained in them. The ascetic who kills all desires and passions in himself, kills them by the desire for salvation. A man renouncing all the pleasures of the world, renounces them because of the delight of sacrifice, of renunciation. A soldier dying at his post through his sense of duty or habit of obedience, does so because the emotion of devotion , or faithfulness , is more powerful in him than all other things.