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Also by E. F Schumacher
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
E. E SCHUMACHER
A Guide for the
Perplexed
PERNNIAL LIBRY
Harper & Row, Publishers
New York, Hagertown, sn Franciso, Lndon
A hardcover edition of this bok is published by Harer & Row Pub
lishers, Inc.
A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED. Copyright @ 1977 by E.F. Schumacher.
All rights resered. Printed in the United States of Americ. No part of
this bok may b used or reproduced in any manner whatsover without
written permission except in the ce of bref quotatons embed in
critica arcles and review. For information address Haper & Row,
Publishers, Inc., 10 East 5 Street, New York, N.Y. 1022. Publshed
simultaneously in Canada by Fithenry & Whiteside Limited, Toronto.
First PERENNIAL LIBRRY editon published 1979
ISBN: (0006-7
Contents
1 On Phiosophical Maps 1
2 Lvels of Being 15
3 Progressions 27
4 "Adiequatio": I 40
5
"
Adaequatio": II 51
6 The Four Fields of Kowledge: 1 62
7 The Four Fields of Kowledge: 2 81
8 The Four Fields of Kowledge: 3 95
9 The Four Fields of Kowledge: 4 101
10 Two Types of Problems 121
Epilogue 138
Note 142
Nulla est homini cusa philoso
phandi, nisi ut btus sit.
(a ha no reaon to philosophize,
except with a view to happiess.)
SAINT AUGUSTINE
1
On Philosophical Maps
On a visit to Leningrad some yeas ago' I consulted a map to
fnd out where I wa, but I could not make it out. From where
I stood, I coud see several enorous churches, yet there wa
no trace of them on my map. When fnally a interpreter cae
to help me, he said: "We don't show churches on ou maps."
Contradicting him, I pointed to one that wa very clearly
marked. "That is a museu," he sad, "not what we call a 'lving
church.' It is only the 'living churches' we don't show."
It then occurred to me that this wa not the frst tme I had
been given a map which faed to show may things I could se
right in front of my eyes. Al through schol ad university I had
been given maps of life ad knowledge on which there wa
hardly a trace of may of the thigs that I most caed about ad
that seemed to me to b of the greatest possible importace to
the conduct of my lfe. I remembered that for may years my
perplexty had been complete; ad no interpreter had come
along to help me. It remained complete ut I ceaed to supect
the sty of my prcepton ad bga, instead, to spct the
soudnes of the maps.
The maps I wa given advisd me that vira y a my aces
tors, utl qute recently, had ben rather pathetc illusionists
2 A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
who conducted their lives on the basis of irrationa blief ad
absud suprstitions. Even ilutrious sientists, like Johanes
Kepler or Isac Newton, appaently spent most of their time
ad energy on nonsensica studies of nonexisting things. Enor
mou amounts of had-aed wealth had been squadered
throughout history to the honor ad glory of imaginary deities,
not ony by my European forebears, but by all peoples, in all
parts of the world, at aties. Everywhere thousads of seem
igly healthy men and women had subjected themselves to
utterly meaingless restricton, like voluntay fating; tor
mented themselves by celibacy; wated their time on pilgrim
ages, fatastic rtuals, reiterated prayers, ad so forth; turning
their backs on reaity-d some do it even in this enlightened
age-al for nothing, all out of ignorance and stupidity; none of
it to b taken seriously today, except of course a museum
pieces. From what a history of error we had emerged! What a
history of taking for real what every modern child knew to be
totally unreal and imaginary! Our entire pat, unti quite re
cently, wa today ft only for museums, where people could
satisfy their curiosity about the oddity and incompetence of
ealier generations. What our acestors had witten, also, wa
in the main ft only for storage in libraries, where historians ad
other specialists could study these relics and write books about
them, the knowledge of the pat being considered interesting
ad ocasionally thrilling but of no particular value for learning
to cope with the problems of the present.
All this and many other similar things I was taught at school
and university, although not in so many words, not plainly and
fany. It would not do to call a spade a spade. Ancestors had
to b treated with respect: they could not help their backward
ness; they tried hard and sometimes even got quite near the
truth in a haphazard sort of way. Their preoccupation with
religion wa jut one of their many signs of underdevelopment,
not surprising in people who had not yet come of age. Even
toay, of cours, there remained some interest in religion,
which legitimized that of earlier times. It wa still prmissible,
on suitable ocaions, to refer to G the Creator, although
ON PHI LOSOPHI CAL MAPS 3
every educated person knew that there was not really a God,
certay not one capable of creating aything, and that the
things around us had-come into exstence by a process of mind
less evoluton, that is, by chance and natural selection. Our
acestors, unfortunately, did not know about evolution, ad so
they invented al these fanciful myths.
The maps of real knowledge, designed for real life, showed
nothing except things which allegedly could be proved to exist.
The frst prnciple of the philosophical mapmakers seemed to
be "If in doubt, leave it out," or put it into a mueum. It oc
cured to me, however, that the question of what constitute
proof wa a very subtle and difcut one. Would it not be wiser
to turn the principle into its opposite ad say: "If in doubt, show
it prominently"? After all, matters that are beyond doubt are,
in a sense, dead; they consttute no challenge to the living.
To accept aything a true meas to incur the risk of eror.
If I limit myself to knowledge that I consider true beyond
doubt, I mnimize the risk of eror, but at the same time I
maxmize the rsk of missing out on what may be the subtlest,
most importat, ad most rewarding things in life. Saint
Thoma Aquina, followng Aristotle, taught that "The slender
est knowledge that may be obtaied of the highest thigs is
more desirable than the most certan knowledge obtained of
lesser thigs."2 "Slender" knowledge i here put in oppositon
to "certan" knowledge, ad indicates ucertaty. Maybe it i
necessary so that the higher thngs cannot be known with the
sae degree of certaity a ca the leser things, in which cae
it would b a very great los indeed i knowledge were lited
to thigs byond te pssibilty of doubt.
The phiosophica maps with which I wa supplied at schol
ad unversty did not merely, like the map of Lningrad, fail
to show "living churches"; they also failed to show large
"uorthodox" sectons of bth theory ad practice in medicine,
agrculte, psychology, ad the soial ad political sciences,
not to menton a ad socaled ocult or paaor
phenomena, the mere menton of whch wa consdered to b
a sign of mental deficiency. In patcul, al the most pror
4 A GUI DE FOR THE PERPLEXED
nent doctrnes shown on the "map" accepted at only a self
expression or a escape from reaity. Even in nature there wa
nothing atistic except by chace, that is to say, even the most
beautiful appearances could be fully accounted for-so we were
told-by their utility in reproduction, a afecting natural selec
tion. In fact, apart from "museums," the entire map fom rght
to left ad fom top to bottom wa drawn in utilitarian colors:
hardy aything wa shown a existing unless it could be inter
preted a proftable for man's comfort or useful in the universal
battle for survival.
Not surprisingly, the more thoroughly acquanted we be
came with the details of the map, the more we absorbed what
it showed and got used to the absence of the things it did not
show, the more perplexed, unhappy, ad cynical we becae.
Some of us, however, had experences similar to that described
by Maurce Nicoll:
Once, in the Greek New Testaent clas on Sundays, taen by the
Head Mater, I dared to ak, in spite of my stamering, what sme
paable meant. The aswer was so confused that I actually ex
prienced my frst moment of consciousnessthat is, I suddeny
realised that no one knew anything . . . and from that moment I
began to think for myself, or rather knew that I could . a .. I remem
br so clearly this clas-room, the high windows constrcted so that
we could not see out of them, the desks, the platform on which the
Head Mater sat, his scholarly, thin face, his nerous habits of twtch
ing his mouth ad jerking h had suddenly this inner revela
tion of knowing that he knew nothing,nothg, that is, about
aything that really mattered. This was my frst inner libera
tion fom the power of externa life. From that time, I knew for cer
ta-and that means aways by inner individual authentic prcep
tion which i the only source of real knowledge-that all my loathing
of religion a it was taught me wa right. 3
The maps produced by modern materalistic Scientism leave
althe questons that really matter unaswered; more than that,
they deny the validity of the questions. The situation wa de
prate enough in my youth half a century ago; it i even worse
now because the ever more rgorous application of the scientifc
ON PHI LOSOPHICAL MAPS 5
method to all subjects and disciplines ha destroyed even the
lat remnants of acient wisdom-at leat in the Western world.
It i beig loudly proclaied in the name of scientifc objetv
ity that "values ad meanings are nothng but defence meh
aisms ad reaction formations"; that man is "nothing but a
complex biochemical mechaism powered by a combustion sys
tem which energises computers with prodigious storage facili
ties for retaning encoded information. "5 Sigmund Freud even
asured u that "this alone I know with certainty, naely that
men's value judgments are guided absolutely by their desire for
happiness, and ae therefore merely a attempt to bolster up
their il usions by aguments."6
How is ayone to resist the pressure of such statements, made
in the name of objective science, unless, like Maurce Nicol, he
suddenly receives "this inner revelation of knowing" that men
who say such things, however learned they may be, know rth
ing about anything that relly matters? People are akig for
bread ad they ae being given stones. They beg for advice
about what they should do "to be saved, " ad they ae told that
the idea of salvaton ha no intelligible content ad is notg
but an iatie neuosis. They long for guidance about how to
lve a responsible human beings, ad they are told that they ae
machies, lie computers, wthout free will ad therefore with
out responsibility.
"The present dager, " says Viktor E. Frankl, a psychiatt of
ushakable sanity, "dos not really le i the loss of unversity
on the pat of the sientist, but rather i h pretence ad claim
of totaity . . . . What we have to deplore therefore i not so much
the fact that scentit are spcialing, but rather the fact that
spalist are genera/ising. " Mter may centures of theologi
ca imperialsm, we have now had three centures of a ever
more aggresive "scienti.c iprialm," ad the result i a
degree of bwilderent ad diorentaton, patculaly aong
the youg, which ca at ay moment lead to the colapse of ou
civton. "The tre n of toy," sys D. Fra "i
reductoni .... Contemprar n no longer bradihe
the word notges; toay n i caouge a rth-
6 A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
ing-but-nes. Huma phenomena ae thu tured into mere
epiphenomena . ..
Yet they remain our relity, everything we are ad every
thing we become. In this life we lnd ourselves a in a strange
country. Ortega y Gaset once remarked that "Life is fired at
us point-blank." We canot say: "Hold it! I a not quite ready.
Wait until I have sorted things out." Decisions have to b taken
that we ae not ready for; aims have to be chosen that we canot
see clearly. Tis is very strage ad, on the face of it, quite
irrational. Huma bings, it seems, are insufciently "pro
grammed." Not only are they utterly helpless when they are
born ad reman so for a long time; even when fully grow, they
do not move ad act with the sure-footedness of aas. They
hesitate, doubt, chage their minds, rn hither ad thther,
uncertan not simply of how to get what they wat but above
al of what they wat.
Questons like "What should I do?" or "What must I do to be
sved?" ae strage questions because they relate to ends, not
simply to meas. No technica aswer will do, such a "Tell me
precisely what you want and I shall tell you how to get it." The
whole poit i that I do not know what I wat. Maybe al I wat
is to be happy. But the answer "Tel me what you need for
happiness, and I shall then be able to advise you what to do"
this aswer, again, will not do, because I do not know what I
need for happines. Perhaps someone says: "For happiess you
need wisdom"-but what is wsdom? Or: "For happiness you
need the truth that makes you free"-but what is the truth that
makes us fee? Who will tell me where I can lnd it? Who ca
guide me to it or at leat point out the direction in which I have
to proceed?
In this book, we shall look at the world ad try and see it
whole. To do this is someties called to philosophize, ad phi
losophy ha been defned a the love of, ad seekig ater,
wisdom. Srates sad: "Wonder'is the feeling of a philosopher,
and philosophy begins with wonder." He aso said: "No god is
a philosopher or seeker after wisdom for he is wise aready.
Neither do the ignorat seek after widom; for herein i the evil
ON PHI LOSOPHICAL MAPS 7
of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is neverthe
less satisfed with himsel. "8
One way of looking at the world a a whole is by meas of a
map, that is to say, some sort of a plan or outline that shows
where various things are to be found-not all things, of course,
for that would make the map a big a the world, but the things
that are most prominent, most important for orientation-ut
stading landmarks, a it were, which you canot miss, or i you
do miss them, you will be left in tota perplexity.
The most importat part of any inquiry or exploration is its
beginning. As ha often been pointed out, i one makes a false
or superfcial beginning, no matter how rigorous the metho
followed during the succeeding investigation, they will never
remedy the intial error.9
Mapmaing is a empirca art that employs a high degree of
abstraction but nonetheless clngs to reality with somethig
akin to self-abadonent. Its motto, in a sense, is "Accept ev
erything; reject nothing." If something is there, i it has ay kind
of existence, if people notice it and are interested in it, it must
be indicated on the map, in its proper place. Mapmaking i not
the whole of philosophy, just as a map or guidebook is not the
whole of geography. It is siply a beginning-the very begin
ning which is at present lacking, when people ak: "What dos
it al mea?" or "What a I supposed to do with my life?"
My map or guidebook i constructed on the recognition of
four Great Truths- r landmakswhich are so prominent, so
all-pervading, that you ca see them wherever you happn to
be. If you know them well, you ca aways fnd your loaton by
them, ad i you canot recognize them, you ae lost.
The guidebok, it might b said, is about how "Ma lives i
the world." This simple statement indicates that we shal need
to study
1. "The world";
2. "Ma"-his equipmett to meet the world;
3. Hi way of leag abut the world; ad
4. What it mea to "lve" in thi world.
8 A GUI DE FOR THE PERPLEXED
The Great Truth about the world i s that i t i s a hierarchic
structure of at leat four great "Lvels of Being."
The Great Truth about man's equipment to meet the world
is the principle of "adequateness" (adaequatio).
The Great Truth about ma's learning concerns the "Four
Fields of Knowledge."
The Great Truth about living in this life, living in this world,
relates to the distinction between two types of problem, "con
vergent" ad "divergent."
A map or guidebook-let this be understood a clearly a
possibleoes not "solve" problems and does not "explain"
mysteres; it merely helps to identify them. Thereafter, every
body's tak is as defined by the lat words spoken by the Buddha:
Work out your salvation with diligence.
For this purpose, according to the precepts of the Tibetan
teachers,
A philosophy comprehensive enough to embrace the whole of
knowledge is indispenable.
A system of meditation which will produce the power of concentrat
ing the mind on anything whatsover is indispensable.
A art of living which will enable one to utilise each activity (of by,
speh and mind) a a aid on the Path is indispnsable. 1 0
II
The more recent philosophers of Europe have seldom been
faithful mapmakers. Descartes (159-1650), for instance, to
whom moern philoophy owes so much, approached h self
set tak in quite a diferent way. "Those who sek the direct
road to truth," he said, "should not bother with any objet of
which they caot have a certainty equal to the demonstration
of arthmetic and geometry." Only such objects should engage
our attention "to the sure and indubitable knowledge of which
our mental pwers sem to b adequate."11
Descates, the father of moem ratonasm, insiste that
"We should never alow ourlves to b prsuaded exceptng by
ON PHI LOSOPHICAL MAPS 9
te evidence of our Reaon," ad he stressed particularly that
he spoke "of our Reaon and not of our imagination nor of our
snes."12 The metho of reaon is to "reduce involved and
obscre proposition step by step to those that are simpler, and
then, starting with the intuitiv apprehension of all those that
ar absolutely simple, attempt to ascend to the knowlege of all
others by precisely similar steps. "13 This i a program conceived
by a mind both powerfl and fighteningly narow, whose nar
rowes i frther demontrated by the rule:
If in the matters to be examined we come to a step in the seres
of which our understading is not sufciently well able to have a
intuitve cognito, we must stop short there. We must make no
attempt to exane what follows; thu we shall spare ourselves
speriuous labour.14
Descates limits his interest to knowledge and idea that ae
precise ad certain beyond ay possibility of doubt, bcause his
primary interest i that we should become "masters and posse
sors of nture. " Nothing ca be precise unless it can be qua
ted in one way or aother. As Jacques Martain comments:
The mathematica knowlege of nature, for Descartes, is not what
it is in reaity, a certn interpretation of phenomena ... which dos
not awer questions bearing upon the frst principles of things. This
knowledge is, for h, the revelation of the very essence of things.
These ae aaysed exhautively by geometrc extension and loa
movement. The whole of physics, that is, the whole of the philoso
phy of nature, is nothing but geometry.
Thu Cartesia evidence gos straight to mechaism. It mech
aises nature; it dos violence to it; it anihilates everything which
caues thgs to sybolise with the spirit, to partake of the geniu
of the Creator, to spa to u, The universe becomes dumb.'"
There i no guaratee that the world is made in such a way
that indubitable truth is the whole truth. Whose truth, whose
uderstading, would it be? That of man. Of any ma? Are all
men "adequate" to grap all truth? A Descartes ha demon
strated, the mind of ma can doubt everything it canot grap
wth eae, ad sme men ae more prone to doubt tha others.
10 A GUI DE FOR THE PERPLEXED
Descartes broke with tradition, made a clean sweep, ad
undertook to start afresh, to fnd out everything for himself.
This kind of arrogance became the "style" of European philos
phy. "Every modern philosopher," as Maritain remarks, "is a
Cartesian in the sense that he looks upon himself as starting of
in the absolute, and as having the mission of bringing men a
new conception of the world."
1
6
The alleged fact that philosophy "had been cultivated for
many centuries by the best minds that have ever lived and that
nevertheless no single thing is to be found in it which is not a
subject of dispute and in consequence is not dubious"17 led
Descartes to what amounted to a "withdrawal from wisdom"
ad exclusive concentration on knowledge as frm ad indubita
ble as mathematics and geometry. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
had already pleaded i
n
a similar vein. Skepticism, a for of
defeatism in philosophy, became the main current of Europea
philosophy, which insisted, not without plausibility, that the
reach of the human mind was strictly limited ad that there wa
no point in taking any interest in matters beyond its capaciy.
While traditional wisdom had considered the human mind as
weak but open-ended-that is, capable of reaching beyond it
self toward higher and higher levels-the new thinking took it
a axiomatic that the mind's reach had fxed ad narrow limits,
which could be clearly determined, while within these limits it
possessed virtually unlimited powers.
From the point of view of philosophical mapmaking, this
meant a very great impoverishment: entire regions of
human interest, which had engaged the most intense eforts
of earlier generations, simply ceased to appear on the maps.
But there was an even more signi
f
cant withdrawal and im
poverishment: While traditional wisdom had always pre
sented the world as a three-dimensional structure (a symbl
ized by the cross), where it wa not only meaningful but
essential to distinguish always ad everywhere between
"higher" ad "lower" things ad Lvels of Being, the new
thinkng strove with deterination, not to say faaticism, to
ON PHILOSOPHI CAL MAPS 11
get rd of the vrticl dimension. How could one obtain
clear ad precise idea about such qualitative notions a
"higher" or "lower"? Wa it not reaon's most urgent task to
replace them with quantitative measurements?
But perhaps the "mathematicism" of Descartes had gone too
far; so Immanuel Kant (1724- 1804) set out to make a new start.
Yet a Etienne Gilson, the incomparable mater of the history
of philosophy, remarks:
Kant wa not shifting from mathematics to philosophy, but from
mathematics to physics. As Kant himself immediately concluded:
"The true method of metaphysics is fundamentally the same a
that which Newton has introduced into natural science, and
which has there yielded such fruitful results." ... Th' Critique of
Pure Reason is a masterly description of what the structure of
the huma mind should b, in order to account for the existence
of a Newtonian conception of nature, and assuming that concep
ton to be true to reality. Nothing can show more clearly the es
sential weakness of physicism a a philosophical method.' "
Neither mathematics nor physics can entrtain the qualita-
tive notion of "higher" or "lower." So the vertical dimension
disappeared from the philosophical maps, which henceforth
concentrated on somewhat farfetched problems, such as "Do
other people exist?" or "How can I know anything at all?" or
"Do other people have experiences analogous to mine?" Thus
the maps ceased to be of any help to people in the awesome task
of picking their way through life.
The proper task of philosophy was formulated by Etienne
Gilson as follows:
It is its permanent duty to order and to regulate an ever wider
area of scientifc knowledge, and to judge ever more complex prob
lems of human conduct; it is its never-ended tak to keep the old
sciences in their natural limits, to assign their places, and their limits,
to new sciences; lat, not leat, to keep all human activities, however
chaging their orcumstances, under the sway of the same reason by
which alone man remains the judge of his own works and, after God,
the master of his own destiny.' "
12 A GUI DE FOR THE PERPLEXED
III
The loss of the vertical dimension meant that it was no longer
possible to give an answer, other tha
n
a utilitarian one, to the
question "What am I to do with my life?" The answer could be
more individualistic-selfish or more social-unselfish, but it could
not help being utilitarian: either "Make yourself as comfortable
as you can" or "Work for the greatest happiness of the greatest
number." Nor was it possible to define the nature of man other
than as that of an animal. A "higher" animal? Yes, perhaps; but
only in some respects. In certain respects other animals could
be described as "higher" tha man, and so it would be best to
avoid nebulous terms like "higher" or "lower," unless one spoke
in strictly evolutionary terms. In the context of evolution,
"higher" could generally be asociated with "later," and since
man was undoubtedly a latecomer, he could be thought of a
standing at the top of the evolutionary ladder.
None of this leads to a helpful answer to the question "What
am I to do with my life?" Pacal (16231662) had said: "Man
wishes to be happy and exists only to be happy and cannot wish
not to be happy,"0 but the new thinking of the philosophers
insisted, with Kant, that man "never can say defnitely and
consistently what it is that he really wishes," nor can he "deter
mine with certainty what would make him truly happy; because
to do so he would need to be omniscient."' Traditional wisdom
had a reassuringly plain answer: Man's happiness is to move
higher, to develop his highest facilities, to gain knowledge of
the highest things and, if possible, to "see God." If he moves
lower, develops only his lower faculties, which he shares with
the animals, then he makes himself deeply unhappy, even to
the point of despair.
With imperturbable certainty Saint Thoma Aquina (1225
1274) argued:
No ma tends to do a thing by his desire ad endeavour unles it
b previously known to him. Wherefore since man is directed by
ON PHI LOSOPHICAL MAPS 13
divine provdence to a higher good than human frailty am attain
in the present life ... it wa necessary for his mind to b bidden to
something highe than those things to which our reaon ca reach
in the present life, so that he might ler to aspir, ad by his
endeavours to tend to something surpssing the whol state of the
pret life .e . . It wa with this motive that the philosophers, i
order to wean men from sensible pleaures to virtue, tok care to
show that there ae other gos of greater accunt tha those which
appa to the senses, the tate of which things afords much greater
delight to thos who devote themelves to active or contemplative
virtues.
These teachings, which are the traditional wisdom of all peoples
i al parts of the world, have become virtualy incomprehensi
ble to modern ma, although he, to, desires nothing more tha
somehow to be able to rise above "the whole state of the pre
sent life." He hopes to do so by growing rich, by moving around
at ever-increasing sped, by traveling to the moon and into
space. It is worth listening agan to Sant Thoma:
There is a desire in ma, common to him and other aimals,
namely the desire for the enjoyment of pleasure: ad this men
pursue especially by leading a voluptuous life, and through lack of
moderation become intemperate and incontinent. Now in that
vision [the divine vision] there is the most prfect pleaure, all
the more perfect tha sensuous pleaurE a the intellect is above
the senses; a the good in which we shall delight surpases all sen
sible goo, is more penetrating, ad more continuously delightful;
and as that pleaure is freer from all alloy of sorrow or trouble of
anxiety ... .
In this life there is nothing so like this ultimate and prfect happi
ness a the life of those who contemplate the truth, a far a pssible
here below. Hence the philosophers who were unable to obtan full
knowledge of that fnal batitude, placed man's ultimate happine
in that contemplation which is possible during this life. For this
reaon to, Holy Wrt commends the contemplative rather tha
other forms of life, when our Lrd said (Luke X. 42): Mar hoth
chosen the better prt, namely the contemplation of truth, which
shall not b taken frm her. For contemplatio of truth bgins in
this life, but will b consummated in the life lo come: while the
active and civic life does not transcend the limits of this life.2 3
14
A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
Most modern readers will be reluctant to believe that perfect
happiness is attainable by methods of which their modern
world knows nothing. However, belief or disbelief is not the
matter at issue here. The point is that without the qualitative
concepts of "higher" and "lower" it is impossible even to think
of guidelines for living which lead beyond individual or collec
tive utilitariaism and selfishness.
The ability to see the Great Truth of the hierarchic structure
of the world, which makes it possible to distinguish between
higher and lower Levels of Being, is one of the indispen.sable
conditions of understanding. Without it, it is not possible to fnd
out every thing's proper and legitimate place. Everything,
everywhere, can be understood only when its Level of Being is
fully taken into account. Many things which are true at a low
Level of Being become absurd at a higher level, and of course
vice versa.
We therefore now turn to a study of the hierarchic structure
of the world.
2
Levels of Being
Ou tak i to look at the world ad see it whole.
We see what our acestors have aways seen: a great Chain
of Being which seems to divide naturally into four sections
four "kingdoms," a they used to be called: minera, plat, a
mal, ad huma. This "was, in fact, unt not much more tha
a century ago, probably the most widely failiar conception of
the general scheme of things, of the constitutve patter of the
universe. "1 The Chain of Being ca be seen a extending dow
ward fom the Highest to the lowest, or it ca be seen a extend
ing upward from the lowest to the Highest. The acient view
bgns with the Divine ad sees the dowward Chain of Being
a moving a ever-increasing distance from the Center, with a
progressive loss of qualities. The modern view, lagely in
fuenced by the doctrine of evolution, tends to start with inan
imate matter ad to consider man the lat link of the chain,
a havng evolved the widest rage of useful qualities. For our
pupses here, the direction of looking-upward or down
wad-is unimportat, ad, in line wth modern habits of
thought, we shall start at the lowest level, the meral kingdom,
and consider the successive gain of qualities or pwrs a we
move to the higher levels.
16 A GUI DE FOi THE PERPLEXED
No one ha any difculty recognizing the atonishing ad
mysterious diference between a living plat ad one that ha
died ad ha thus fallen to the lowest Level of Being, inaimate
matter. What is this powr that ha been lost? We call it "life."
Scientists tell us that we must not talk of a "lfe force" becaue
no such force ha ever been found to exist. Yet the diference
between alive and dead exsts. We could call it ".," to indicate
something that is there to be noticed ad studied but that ca
not be explained. If we call the mineral level
"
m, " we can call
the plat level m + .. This factor . is obviously worthy of our
closest attention, particularly since we are able to destroy it,
although it is completely outside our ability to create it. Even
if somebody could provide us with a recipe, a set of instructions,
for creating life out of lifeless matter, the mysterious character
of . would remain, and we would never ceae to marvel that
something that could do nothing is now able to extract nourish
ment fom its environment, grow, and reprouce itself, "true
to form," a it were. There is nothing in the laws, concepts, ad
formulae of physics and chemistry to explain or even to de
scribe such powers. X is something quite new ad additional,
ad the more deeply we contemplate it, the cleaer it becomes
that we are faced here with what might be called a ontological
discontinuity or, more simply, a jump in the Lvel of Being.
From plat to animal, there is a simila jump, a similar addi
tion of powers, which enable the typical, fully developed animal
to do things that are totally outside the range of possibilities of
the typical, fully develop
.
plat. These pwers, again, ae
mysterious ad, stctly spaking, nameles. We can refer to
them by the letter "y, "which will be the safest course, bcause
ay word label we might attach to them could lead
pople to
think that such a designation wa not merely a hint as to their
nature but a adequate description. However, since we cannot
talk without words, I shall attach to these mysterious powers the
labl consciounes . It is eay to recognize consciousness in a
dog, a cat, or a horse, if only bcaue they can b knoked
uconscious: the proeses of life continue a in a plat, al
though the animal ha lost its peculiar pwers.
I the plant, in our terminology, ca b caled m + ., the
LEVELS OF BEI NG 17
animal has to be described a m + x + y. Again, the new factor
"
y
"
is worthy of our closest attention; we are able to destroy but
not to create it. Anything that we can destroy but are unable
to make is, in a sense, sacred, and all our "explanations" of it do
not really explain anything. Again we can say that y is some
thing quite new and additional when compaed with the level
"plant"-another ontological discontinuity, another jump in
the Level of Being.
Moving from the aimal to the huma level, who would
serously deny the addition, again, of new powers? What pre
cisely they are has become a matter of controversy in modern
times, but the fact that ma is able to doand is doing-innu
merable things which lie totally outside the range of possibili
ties of even the most highly developed animals cannot be dis
puted and ha never been denied. Man ha powers of life like
the plant, powers of consciousness like the animal, and evi
dently something more: the mysterious power
"
z : What is it?
How can it be defned? What can it be called? This power z
ha undoubtedly great deal to do with the fact that man is
not only able to think but is aso able to be aware of his think
ing. Consciousness and intelligence, as it were, recoil upon
themselves. There is not merely a conscious being, but a being
capable of being conscious of its consciousness; not merely a
thinker, but a thinker capable of watching and studying his
ow thinking. There is something able to say "I" and to direct
consciousness in accordance with its own purposes, a mater
or controller, a power at a higher level than consciousness it
self. This power z consciousness recoiling upon itself, opens
up unlimited possibili
t
ies of purposeful learning, investigating,
exploring, and of formulating and accumulating knowledge.
What shall we cal it? As it is necessary to have word labels, I
shall call it selawreness. We must, however, take great care
aways to remember that such a word label is merely (to use a
Buddhist phrase) "a fnger pinting to the moon." The
"moon" itself remains highly mysterious ad needs to be stud
ied with the greatest patience and perseverace if we want to
understand anything about man's positon in the Universe.
18 A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
Our initial review of the four great Lvels of Being can b
sumed up a follows:
Ma ca b written m + x + y + z
Animal ca be written m + x + y
Plat ca be written m + x
Mineral ca b written m
Only m is visible; x, y, ad z are invisible, ad they are ex
tremely difcult to grap, although their efects are matters of
everyday experence.
If, instead of taking "minerals" a our bae line and reachig
the higher Levels of Being by the additon of powers, we start
wth the highest level directly known to uman-we can
reach the lower Lvels of Being by the progressive subtraction
of powers. We ca then say:
Man can be written
Animal ca
.
be written
M
M- z
Plant ca be written M - z - y
Mineral can be written M z y - x
Such a downward scheme is eaier for us to understand than the
upward one, simply because it is closer to our practica experi
e
nce. We know that all three factorsx, y, ad z-an weaken
and die away; we ca in fact deliberately destroy them. Self
awareness can disappear while consciousness continues; con
sciousness ca disappear while life continues; and life ca disap
pear leaving a inanimate body behind. We can observe, and
in a sense feel, the proess of diminution to the point of the
apparently total disapparance of self-awareness, conscious
ness, and life. But it is outside our power to give life to inani
mate matter, to give consciousness to livig matter, and fnally
to add the power of self-awareness to conscious beings.
What we ca do ourselves, we ca, in a sense, understand;
what we cannot do at all, we canot understand-not even "i
a sense." Evolution a a rrocess of the spontaneous, accidenta
emergence of the powers of life, consciousness, and self-aware
ness, out of inaimate matter, is totaly incomprehensible.
LEVELS OF BEI NG 1 9
For our purposes, however, there is no need to enter into
such speculations at this stage. We hold fat to what we can see
and experience: the Universe is a a great hierarchic structure
of four markedly diferent Levels of Being. Each level is obvi
ously a broad bad, allowing for higher and lower beings within
each band, ad the precise determination of where a lower
band ends and a higher band begins may sometimes be a matter
of difculty and dispute. The existence of the four kingdoms,
however, is not put into question by the fact that some of the
frontiers are occaionally disputed.
Physics and chemistry deal with the lowest level, "minerals."
At this level, x, y, ad z-life, consciousness, and self-awareness
-o not exist (or, in any case, are totally inoperative and there
fore canot be noticed). Physics and chemistry can tell us noth
ing, absolutely nothing, about them. These sciences possess no
concepts relating to such powers and are incapable of describ
ing their efects. Where there is life, there is form, Gestalt,
which reproduces itself over ad over again from seed or simi
lar beginnings which do not possess this Gestalt but develop it
in the process of growth. Nothing comparable is to be found in
physics or chemistr.
To say that life is nothing but a property of certain peculia
combinations of atoms is like saying that Shakespeae's Hamlet
is nothing but a property of a peculiar combination of letters.
The truth is that the peculiar combination of letters is nothing
but a proprty of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The French or Ger
man versions of the play "ow" diferent combinations of let
ters.
The extraordinar thing about the modern "life sciences" is
that they hardly ever deal with life as sch, the factor :, but
devote infnite attenton to the study and aalysis of the
physicohemical by that is life's carrier. It may well be that
moder science ha no method for coming to grps with lie a
such. If this is so, let it be frakly admtted; there is no excuse
for the pretense that lfe is nothing but physics ad chemistry.
Nor is there ay excuse for the pretene that consciousness is
nothing but a proprty of le. To describe a aimal a a
20 A GUI DE FOR THE PERPLEXED
physicochemical system of extreme complexty i s no doubt per
fectly correct, except that it misses out on the "aimaness" of
the aima. Some zoologists, at leat, have advanced beyond this
level of erudite absurdity and have developed an ability to see
in animals more tha complex machines. Their inHuence, how
ever, is a yet deplorably smal, and with the increasing "raton
alization" of the modern life-style, more and more aa are
being treated a if they really were nothig but "aimal ma
chines." (his is a very telng exaple of how philosophca
theories, no matter how absurd and ofensive to common sense,
tend to become, after a while, "nora practice" in everday
life.)
Al the "humaities," a distinct fom the natural sciences,
deal in one way or aother with factor y-onsciousness. But a
distinction between consciousness (y) ad self-awaeness (z) is
seldom drawn. A a result, modern thinkg ha become in
creaingly uncertan whether or not there is ay "real" difer
ence between animal ad ma. A great deal of study of the
behavior of animas is being undertaen for the purpose of
understading the nature of ma. This is aaogous to studying
physics with the hope of learg something about le (:).
Naturally, since ma, as it were, contain the three lower Lev
els of Being, certain things about him can be elucidated by
studying minerals, plats, and animalsin fact, everythg ca
be learned about him excpt that which makes him human. Al
the four constitent elements of the huma person-m, :, y,
ad z-eserve study, but there ca be little doubt about their
relative importace in terms of knowledge for the conduct of
our lives.
This importance increaes in the order given above, ad so
do the difculty ad uncertainty experienced by moem hu
manity. Is there realy aything beyond the world of matter, of
molecules ad atoms a 1d electrons ad inumerable other
small partcles, the ever more complex combination of which
allegedly account for simply everything, fom the crdest to the
most sublime? Why ta abut fndaenta diferences,
"jumps" in the Chan of Being, or "ontologica discontinuities"
LEVELS OF BEI NG 21
when all we can b really sure of are diferences i n degree? It
is not necessary for us to battle over the question whether the
palpable and overwhelmingly obvious diferences between the
four great Levels of Being are better seen a diferences in kind
or diferences in degree. What ha to be fully understood is that
there are diferences in kind, and not simply in degree, be
tween the powers of life, consciousness, and self-awareness.
Traces of these powers may already exist at the lower levels,
athough not noticeable (or not yet noticed) by man. Or maybe
they are infused, so to speak, on appropriate occaions from
"aother world." It is not essential for us to have theories about
their origin, provided we recognize their quality ad, in so
doing, never fail to remember that they are beyond anything
our own intelligence enables us to create.
It is not unduly difcult to appreciate the diference between
what is aive ad what is lifeless; it is more difcult to distinguish
consciousness from life; ad to reaize, experence, and appreci
ate the diference between self-awareness and consciousness
(that is, between z and y) is hard indeed. The reaon for the
difculty is not far to seek: While the higher comprises ad
therefore in a sense nderstads the lower, no being can under
stand aything higher tha itself. A human being can indeed
strain ad stretch toward the higher and induce a process of
growth through adoration, awe, wonder, admiraton, ad imita
tion, ad by attaing a higher level expad its nnderstanding
(ad this is a subject that will ocupy us extenively later on).
But people wthin whom the pwer of self-awareness (z) i
poorly developed cannot grap it a a separate power and tend
to take it a nothing but a slight extension of consciousness (y).
Hence we are given a large numbr of defnitions of ma which
make him out to b nothing but a exceptionally intelligent
animal with a mearably larger brain, or a tol-maing aima,
or a plitical aimal, or a unfnished aimal, or simply a naked
ape.
No doubt, people who use these terms cheerflly include
themselves in their defitionsd may have some reaon for
doing so. For others, they sound merely inae, lke defing a
2 A GUI DE FOR THE PERPLEXED
dog as a barking plant or a running cabbage. Nothing is more
conducive to the brutalization of the modern world tha the
launching, in the name of science, of wrongful ad degrading
defnitions of ma, such as "the naked ape." What could one
expect of such a creature, of other "naked aps," or, indeed, of
onese1.f