There are only two strictly logical views of life: one, the false view, by which life is understood as those visible phenomena which take place in my body from birth to death, and the other, the true view, by which life is understood as that invisible consciousness of life which I bear in myself. One view is false, the other true, but both are logical, and men may have the one or the other, but with neither is the dread of death possible.
The first, the false view, which understands life as the visible phenomena in the body from birth until death, is as old as the world. It is not, as many think, a view of life which has been worked out by the materialistic science and philosophy of our time: the science and philosophy of our time have only carried this conception to its farthest limits, where it has become more obvious than ever that this view is not compatible with the fundamental demands of human nature; this is an old, primitive view of those people who stood on a lower level of development: it is expressed by the Chinese, by the Buddhists, by the Jews, in the book of Job, and in the expression, “Dust thou art, and to dust returnest.”
This view, in its present expression, is as follows: life is an accidental play of forces in matter, as manifested in time and space. But that which we call our consciousness is not life: it is a certain deception of the sensations, which makes us believe that life consists in this consciousness. Consciousness is a spark which under certain conditions bursts into fire on the matter. This spark bursts into fire, flames up, goes out, and finally is no more. This spark, that is, consciousness, which is experienced by matter in the course of a definite period of time between two infinities, is nothing. And although consciousness sees itself and all the infinite world and all the play of accidents of this world, and, what is most important, in contradistinction to something not accidental, calls this game accidental, this consciousness is in itself nothing but the product of dead matter, a phantom, which rises and disappears without any residue or meaning. Everything is the product of endlessly changing matter, and what is called life is only a certain condition of dead matter.
Such is one view of life. This view is quite logical. According to this view, man’s rational consciousness is only an accident which is concomitant with a certain condition of matter; and so that which in our consciousness we call life is a phantom. There exists nothing but what is dead. What we call life is the play of death. With such a view of life, it is not death that ought to be terrible, but life, as something unnatural and irrational, as is the case with the Buddhists and the modern pessimists, Schopenhauer and Hartmann.
The other view of life is as follows: life is only what I am conscious of in myself. Now, I do not cognize my life as that I was or shall be (thus I reflect on life), but as that I am, — never beginning anywhere and never ending anywhere. With the consciousness of my life the concept of time and space is not compatible. My life is manifested in time and space, but that is only its manifestation. Life itself, as cognized by me, is cognized by me outside time and space. Thus, with this view it turns out, on the contrary, that it is not the consciousness of life which is a phantom, but that everything spatial and temporal is phantasmal. Consequently, the temporal and spatial cessation of bodily existence has with this view nothing that is real, and so cannot cut off, nor even impair, my true life.
The first, the false view, which understands life as the visible phenomena in the body from birth until death, is as old as the world. It is not, as many think, a view of life which has been worked out by the materialistic science and philosophy of our time: the science and philosophy of our time have only carried this conception to its farthest limits, where it has become more obvious than ever that this view is not compatible with the fundamental demands of human nature; this is an old, primitive view of those people who stood on a lower level of development: it is expressed by the Chinese, by the Buddhists, by the Jews, in the book of Job, and in the expression, “Dust thou art, and to dust returnest.”
This view, in its present expression, is as follows: life is an accidental play of forces in matter, as manifested in time and space. But that which we call our consciousness is not life: it is a certain deception of the sensations, which makes us believe that life consists in this consciousness. Consciousness is a spark which under certain conditions bursts into fire on the matter. This spark bursts into fire, flames up, goes out, and finally is no more. This spark, that is, consciousness, which is experienced by matter in the course of a definite period of time between two infinities, is nothing. And although consciousness sees itself and all the infinite world and all the play of accidents of this world, and, what is most important, in contradistinction to something not accidental, calls this game accidental, this consciousness is in itself nothing but the product of dead matter, a phantom, which rises and disappears without any residue or meaning. Everything is the product of endlessly changing matter, and what is called life is only a certain condition of dead matter.
Such is one view of life. This view is quite logical. According to this view, man’s rational consciousness is only an accident which is concomitant with a certain condition of matter; and so that which in our consciousness we call life is a phantom. There exists nothing but what is dead. What we call life is the play of death. With such a view of life, it is not death that ought to be terrible, but life, as something unnatural and irrational, as is the case with the Buddhists and the modern pessimists, Schopenhauer and Hartmann.
The other view of life is as follows: life is only what I am conscious of in myself. Now, I do not cognize my life as that I was or shall be (thus I reflect on life), but as that I am, — never beginning anywhere and never ending anywhere. With the consciousness of my life the concept of time and space is not compatible. My life is manifested in time and space, but that is only its manifestation. Life itself, as cognized by me, is cognized by me outside time and space. Thus, with this view it turns out, on the contrary, that it is not the consciousness of life which is a phantom, but that everything spatial and temporal is phantasmal. Consequently, the temporal and spatial cessation of bodily existence has with this view nothing that is real, and so cannot cut off, nor even impair, my true life.
