A Philosophy of Sceptical Culture

(Mysore University)

I seek to bring together, in these, perhaps oft-quoted verses, certain familiar ideas, which gave expression to a mood recurrent in poetry. I name it ‘Sceptical Culture’: not merely to distinguish it from what anthropologists call ‘Primitive Culture’, but to recognise the truth enunciated by Plato, in the dialogue, Protagoras, that, “the most extreme opposites have some qualities in common”. Between its different shades, there may not be visible, the smoothness of a logical transition; but there is, I believe, a transcendental fluidity. The phrase, Sceptical Culture, somewhat arbitrarily chosen and ascetic in the brevity of its exposition, seems to me to indicate, very well indeed, the temper of our minds, as we find ourselves in the present crisis of our civilisation, as well as, our aspiration in Religion.

“A book of verses underneath the Bough
A jug of wine, a loaf of Bread–and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness–
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise now.”
–(Omar Khayyam)

To seek happiness is man’s perpetual search, but where, or how shall he come by it is the eternal question. He shall find it, seems to say the Poet, in the elemental things of life; in the things of his body and mind, but in a noble contempt for the grandeur of things. He shall find it in a culture of the mind; but, in a sceptical culture in a philosophic contempt alike for the grandeur of things and the vanity of self inflicted tortures, which, deaden emotion and lead not to illumination. The good of life is in the simple and common things of life; indeed, in discovering it in them; a jug of wine, a loaf of bread; and in the music those two souls can make. This may not come from Heaven, as the Music of the spheres did, which, the Greek Ear heard but, it can transform a wilderness into a paradise–not a far off event, this, but a rapture caught here and now, on this bank and shoal of time’. ‘Oh, wilderness were Paradise now!’

“O most wine of living ecstasy!
“O intimate essence of eternity!”
–(Sarojini Naidu)

Now, an essential ingredient of what I call Sceptical Culture, is a habit of mind and an outlook on things, not, perhaps, instinctive or ingrained in the soul, but cultivated; which, somehow has become a conviction, and is perhaps, unconscious, and yet acts on the mind even as the rays of the sun do, slowly and imperceptibly, bringing it to enlightenment that:

“The worldly hopes men set their hearts upon
Turns ashes–or it prospers; and anon
Like snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face,
Lightning a little hour or two is gone”
–(Omar Khayyam)

How could man find freedom from greed and possession, otherwise? Not through a philosophy born of mere bitterness and misfortune, but, in a good and courageous recognition, that, ‘worldly hopes’ light ‘a little hour or two’, and then, are gone, will man find his true freedom. This is not, I think, pessimism; for, this should  make  man less selfish and more truly religious. How else he could that peace which passeth understanding, come into mans’s soul?

Yet, the philosophy of what I call Sceptical Culture, is not , to me, merely the lower wisdom of the impermanence of material possession. There is, in it, a vision and reality. Impermanence of things material, may be the beginning of it: there being, however, a more ultimate stage of this frame of mind which reaches its proper altitude in a vision, in which, ‘all is change, yet all is law’
“The wind of change for ever blows
Across the tumult of our way,
Tomorrow’s unborn griefs depose
The sorrows of our yesterday,
Dream yields to dream, strife follows strife,
And Death unweaves the web of Life.”

So sings Sarojini Naidu.

It is this gnawing and hunger of Existence–the Fire: –each moment swallowing up the next, each hour abiding its ‘destined hour’ but, neither more nor less, the is and is-not of things. This, is the true uniformity of Nature: a grand bridge which snaps the living and the lifeless, the great and the small. In this relativity of existence, there is rule of conduct for man:

‘Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend.’
“Think then you are today what yesterday
You were–Tomorrow you shall not be less.”
–(Omar Khayyam)

Seek always to get the best out of present hour, then you shall never know that it is past. This, a double-faced vision: one of change, another of law, (and both is one–The Wheel of Karma), – difficult for language to describe, and for speech to say. Thus does, what I call Sceptical Culture, pass into the Mystical; that, is its destiny indeed!

“All forms of all faces
All works of all hands
In unreachable places
Of time-striken lands,
All death and all life, and all reign’s and
All ruins, drop through me as sands.”
(Swinburne: Hertha)

Yet, this cannot merely frighten the human sprit into submission. It cannot take away its resoluteness and the true quality of its courage, which the true foundation of its culture. ‘Sceptal Culture’ is not a worship of Terrible, or, the Mighty; and because it is not that, that it is sceptical. Sceptical Culture cannot worship what it cannot understand, nor, what is not akin to it in sprit. Amidst a crumbling universe the human spirit has to build its home is true, but, that cannot bring despair to its heart; for it lays the foundation of its Immortality, in the immortal faith in itself. That, is its culture, which is its very life, and therefore, a perception of its changing forms. To be new, to be ever new is its design, and there is no other design here or anywhere; and, this not any thing else, is the unity of purpose, of Life and Death, of the Self and the Absolute. In substance, in form, in end, one is like the other; and because of this identity, the centre of this mystery is the human sprit itself. Man’s quest starts from there, and returns to it, like the prodigal son, in chastened sprit, seeking release from its quest: –

“I sent my soul through the invisible,
Some letter of that After- life to spell:
And by and by my soul return’d to me,
And answered “I myself am Heaven and Hell.”
–(Omar Khayyam)

The discovery of truth is but the re-discovery of man’s own self, a search-light that returneth upon itself:

They said, she dwelleth in some place apart,
Immortal Truth…………….
I sought her in loud caverns underground,
On heights where lightnings flashed and fell;
I scaled high Heaven; I stromed the gates of Hell
But Her I never found.
Till thro’ the tumults of my quest I caught
A whisper; ‘Here within Thy heart,
I dwell: for I am thou; behold thou art
The seeker–and the sought’ ”.
–(James H. Cousins)

There are many things alas! Besides things of the flesh which enmesh our personality and hold it in bondage, there are greater vanities than the pomp and splendor of materials possessions, and, a greater conceit than the self-conscious pride of a self-inflicted torture. It is the vanity of Learning, its dogmatism, its pettiness; and its many illusions. Discussing the nature of the philosopher and the evil days on which philosophy has fallen, says Plato, in the Republic: “O my friend, I said, do not have such a bad opinion mankind: they will surely be of another mind, if gently and with a view of soothing them and removing the evil name of too much learning, you show them the philosopher: as just now described, according to his true character and profession”………for, what mankind see now, is, says Plato in another passage, “a conventional imitation of philosophy, which consisted of words artificially brought together.” Culture is a possession entire and whole, an all round taste of the things of body and mind; a keenness of mind alive to influences, and, to every scent in the atmosphere; an undefined ability to fathom things so as not to be deceived by them. To debate and define, is part of its exercise; without it, it is not healthy, nor vigorous, nor broad in outlook. Logic frees the mind, no doubt, from its primitive fears, hopes and superstitions. And, to have ‘loved no darkness, sophisticated no truth, nursed no delusion, allowed no fear’, is a virtue indeed; but, does not the intellect re-create the very delusions which it destroys? Logic defines, but cannot put faith into its definitions; the intellect ‘constructs’, but, will destroy, tomorrow, what it built today, for, it can build, another, equally grand or grander in conception. Construction and destruction: this, is the fault of Heaven and Earth, and this, also, is the story of Philosophy through the ages. The successes of Logic in removing the primitive fears and hopes of the human mind, revives the delusion that Logic will lead the soul to the heart of Reality. This delusion is the greatest veil–transport perhaps,–but still a veil. One last effort must the human mind make to shake off these coils; and, to him, who wills in that direction, Reason also brings succor. For, its eventual destiny is to ‘commit suicide’, but, a heroic one, like that of Empedocles. So may Reason say, before Reality, as did the philosopher, Empedocles, before he threw himself alive into the crater of Mount Etna:

“………………it hath been granted me
Not to die wholly, not to be all enslav’d.
Is it but for a moment?
Ah, boil up, ye vapours!
Leap and roar, thou sea of fire!
My soul glows to meet you
Ere it flag, ere the mists
Of despondency and gloom
Rush-over it again,
Receive me! Save me!
(Matthew Arnold: Empedocles on Etna)

Yet, by Sceptical Culture, I do not understand, or mean, a mere theory of life; its contemplation, or a dream, or, a passive renunciation of life. Septical Culture, is a way of life: it is altering life, it is transforming ‘a wilderness into a paradise’. It is neither a slave of sense nor of thought; nor a dream beautiful, but making life beautiful. It is ‘sceptical’ because it is a judgment upon the world: ‘this weary, stale, flat and unprofitable world’; but to be content merely to pronounce upon it, cannot bring it satisfaction. So it is an urge for a violent change in the condition of man: a rebellion within, an ‘open conspiracy’ without. Its object is to re-make man, to re-build the world, but, by weapon strange and new; forged amidst the sufferings of this world, yet stronger than the world, and, fearless of ‘lightnings above or death-worms below’, –Love, which, is Nonviolence:

“Ah! love could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits, and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire?”
–(Omar Khayyam)