October 10. On this date in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote
"Strange indeed that after twenty years training in colleges and
universities man should reach such a station wherein he will deny the
existence of the ideal or that which is not perceptible to the
senses....the cow is already a professor emeritus of that university...
The cow denies everything that is not tangible, saying, "I can see! I
can eat! Therefore, I believe only in that which is tangible! Then why
should we go to the colleges? Let us go to the cow."
Talk given 10 October 1912
Talk at Open Forum
San Francisco, California
Notes by Bijou Straun
Although
I was feeling indisposed this evening, yet owing to the love I
entertain for you I have attended this meeting. For I have heard that
this is an open forum, investigating reality; that you are free from
blind imitations, desiring to arrive at the truth of things, and that
your endeavors are lofty. Therefore,
I have thought it expedient to discourse upon the subject of
philosophy, which is alike interesting to the East and the West,
enabling us to consider the analogies and differences between the
philosophical teachings of the Orient and Occident.
The
criterion of judgment in the estimation of western philosophers is
sense perception. They consider that which is tangible or perceptible to
the senses to be a reality--that there is no doubt of its existence.
For example, we prove the existence of this light through the sense of
sight; we visualize this room; we see the sun, the green fields; we use
our sense of sight to observe them. The opinion of these philosophers is
that such perception is reality, that the senses are the highest
standard of perception and judgment, in which there can neither be doubt
nor uncertainty. In the estimation of the philosophers of the Orient,
especially those of Greece and Persia, the standard of judgment is the
intellect. They are of the opinion that the criterion of the senses is
defective, and their proof is that the senses are often deceived and
mistaken. That which is liable to mistake cannot be infallible, cannot
be a true standard of judgment.
Among
the senses the most powerful and reliable is that of sight. This sense
views a mirage as a body of water and is positive as to its character,
whereas a mirage is nonexistent. The sense of vision, or sight, sees
reflected images in a mirror as verities, when reason declares them to
be nonexistent. The eye sees the sun and planets revolving around the
earth, whereas in reality the sun is stationary, central, and the earth
revolves upon its own axis. The sense of sight sees the earth as a
plane, whereas the faculty of reason discovers it to be spherical. The
eye views the heavenly bodies in boundless space as small and
insignificant, whereas reason declares them to be colossal suns. The
sense of sight beholds a whirling spark of fire as a circle of light and
is without doubt as to it, whereas such a circle is nonexistent. A man
sailing in a ship sees the banks on either side as if they were moving,
whereas the ship is moving. Briefly, there are many instances and
evidences which disprove the assertion that tangibilities and sense
impressions are certainties, for the senses are misleading and often
mistaken. How, then, can we rightly declare that they prove reality when
the standard or criterion itself is defective?
The
philosophers of the East consider the perfect criterion to be reason or
intellect, and according to that standard the realities of all objects
can be proved; for, they say, the standard of reason and intellect is
perfect, and everything provable through reason is veritable. Therefore,
those philosophers consider all philosophical deductions to be correct
when weighed according to the standard of reason, and they state that
the senses are the assistants and instruments of reason, and that
although the investigation of realities may be conducted through the
senses, the standard of knowing and judgment is reason itself. In this
way the philosophers of the East and West differ and disagree. The
materialistic philosophers of the West declare that man belongs to the
animal kingdom, whereas the philosophers of the East--such as Plato,
Aristotle and the Persians --divide the world of existence or phenomena
of life into two general categories or kingdoms: one the animal kingdom,
or world of nature, the other the human kingdom, or world of reason.
Man
is distinguished above the animals through his reason. The perceptions
of man are of two kinds: tangible, or sensible, and reasonable, whereas
the animal perceptions are limited to the senses, the tangible only. The
tangible perceptions may be likened to this candle, the reasonable
perceptions to the light. Calculations of mathematical problems and
determining the spherical form of the earth are through the reasonable
perceptions. The center of gravity is a hypothesis of reason. Reason
itself is not tangible, perceptible to the senses. Reason is an
intellectual verity or reality. All qualities are ideal realities, not
tangible realities. For instance, we say this man is a scholarly man.
Knowledge is an ideal attainment not perceptible to the senses. When you
see this scholarly man, your eye does not see his knowledge, your ear
cannot hear his science, nor can you sense it by taste. It is not a
tangible verity. Science itself is an ideal verity. It is evident,
therefore, that the perceptions of man are twofold: the reasonable and
the tangible, or sensible.
As
to the animal: It is endowed only with sense perception. It is lacking
the reasonable perception. It cannot apprehend ideal realities. The
animal cannot conceive of the earth as a sphere. The intelligence of an
animal located in Europe could never have planned the discovery of the
continent of America. The animal kingdom is incapable of discovering the
latent mysteries of nature--such as electricity--and bringing them
forth from the invisible to the plane of visibility. It is evident that
the discoveries and inventions transcend the animal intelligence. The
animal cannot penetrate the secrets of genesis and creation. Its mind is
incapable of conceiving the verity of ether. It cannot know the
mysteries of magnetism because the bestowals of abstract reason and
intellect are absent in its endowment. That is to say, the animal in its
creation is a captive of the senses. Beyond the tangibilities and
impressions of the senses it cannot accept anything. It denies
everything. It is incapable of ideal perception and, therefore, a
captive of the senses.
Virtue,
or perfection, belongs to man, who possesses both the capacity of the
senses and ideal perception. For instance, astronomical discoveries are
man's accomplishments. He has not gained this knowledge through his
senses. The greater part of it has been attained through intellect,
through the ideal senses. Man's inventions have appeared through the
avenue of his reasonable faculties. All his scientific attainments have
come through the faculty of reason. Briefly, the evidences of intellect
or reason are manifest in man. By them he is differentiated from the
animal. Therefore, the animal kingdom is distinct and inferior to the
human kingdom. Notwithstanding
this, the philosophers of the West have certain syllogisms, or
demonstrations, whereby they endeavor to prove that man had his origin
in the animal kingdom; that although he is now a vertebrate, he
originally lived in the sea; from thence he was transferred to the land
and became vertebrate; that gradually his feet and hands appeared in
his anatomical development; then he began to walk upon all fours, after
which he attained to human stature, walking erect. They find that his
anatomy has undergone successive changes, finally assuming human form,
and that these intermediate forms or changes are like links connected. Between man and the ape, however, there is one link missing,
and to the present time scientists have not been able to discover it.
Therefore, the greatest proof of this western theory of human evolution
is anatomical, reasoning that there are certain vestiges of organs found
in man which are peculiar to the ape and lower animals, and setting
forth the conclusion that man at some time in his upward progression has
possessed these organs which are no longer functioning but appear now
as mere rudiments and vestiges.
For
example, a serpent has a certain appendage which indicates that at one
time it was possessed of long limbs, but as this creature began to find
its habitation in the holes of the earth, these limbs, no longer needed,
became atrophied and shrunk, leaving but a vestige, or appendage, as an
evidence of the time when they were lengthy and serviceable. Likewise,
it is claimed man had a certain appendage which shows that there was a
time when his anatomical structure was different from his present
organism and that there has been a corresponding transformation or
change in that structure. The coccyx, or extremity of the human spinal
column, is declared to be the vestige of a tail which man formerly
possessed but which gradually disappeared when he walked erect and its
utility ceased. These statements and demonstrations express the
substance of western philosophy upon the question of human evolution.
The
philosophers of the Orient in reply to those of the western world say:
Let us suppose that the human anatomy was primordially different from
its present form, that it was gradually transformed from one stage to
another until it attained its present likeness, that at one time it was
similar to a fish, later an invertebrate and finally human. This
anatomical evolution or progression does not alter or affect the
statement that the development of man was always human in type and
biological in progression. For the human embryo when examined
microscopically is at first a mere germ or worm. Gradually as it
develops it shows certain divisions; rudiments of hands and feet
appear--that is to say, an upper and a lower part are distinguishable.
Afterward it undergoes certain distinct changes until it reaches its
actual human form and is born into this world. But at all times, even
when the embryo resembled a worm, it was human in potentiality and
character, not animal. The forms assumed by the human embryo in its
successive changes do not prove that it is animal in its essential
character. Throughout this progression there has been a transference of
type, a conservation of species or kind. Realizing this we may
acknowledge the fact that at one time man was an inmate of the sea, at
another period an invertebrate, then a vertebrate and finally a human
being standing erect. Though we admit these changes, we cannot say man
is an animal. In each one of these stages are signs and evidences of his
human existence and destination. Proof of this lies in the fact that in
the embryo man still resembles a worm. This embryo still progresses
from one state to another, assuming different forms until that which was
potential in it--namely, the human image--appears. Therefore, in the
protoplasm, man is man. Conservation of species demands it.
The
lost link of Darwinian theory is itself a proof that man is not an
animal. How is it possible to have all the links present and that
important link absent? Its absence is an indication that man has never
been an animal. It will never be found.
The
significance is this: that the world of humanity is distinct from the
animal kingdom. This is the teaching of the philosophers of the Orient.
They have a proof for it. The proof is that the animals are captives of
nature. All existence and phenomena of the lower kingdoms are
captives of nature; the mighty sun, the numberless stars, the kingdoms
of the vegetable and mineral, none of these can deviate one hair's
breadth from the limitation of nature's laws. They are, as it were,
arrested by nature's hands. But man breaks the laws of nature and makes
them subservient to his uses. For instance, man is an animate earthly
being in common with the animals. The exigency of nature demands that he
should be restricted to the earth; but he, by breaking the laws of
nature, soars in the atmosphere high above it. By the application of his
intellect he overcomes natural law and dives beneath the seas in
submarines or sails across them in ships. He arrests a mighty force of
nature such as electricity and imprisons it in an incandescent lamp.
According to the law of nature he should be able to communicate at a
distance of, say, one thousand feet; but through his inventions and
discoveries he communicates with the East and with the West in a few
moments. This is breaking the laws of nature. Man arrests the human
voice and reproduces it in a phonograph. At most his voice should be
heard only a few hundred feet away, but he invents an instrument which
transmits it one thousand miles. In brief, all the present arts and
sciences, inventions and discoveries man has brought forth were once
mysteries which nature had decreed should remain hidden and latent, but
man has taken them out of the plane of the invisible and brought them
into the plane of the visible. This is contrary to nature's laws.
Electricity should be a latent mystery, but man discovers it and makes
it his servant. He wrests the sword from nature's hand and uses it
against nature, proving that there is a power in him which is beyond
nature, for it is capable of breaking and subduing the laws of nature.
If this power were not supernatural and extraordinary, man's
accomplishments would not have been possible.
Furthermore,
it is evident that in the world of nature conscious knowledge is
absent. Nature is without knowing, whereas man is conscious. Nature is
devoid of memory; man possesses memory. Nature is without perception and
volition; man possesses both. It is evident that virtues are inherent
in man which are not present in the world of nature. This is provable
from every standpoint.
If
it be claimed that the intellectual reality of man belongs to the world
of nature--that it is a part of the whole--we ask is it possible for
the part to contain virtues which the whole does not possess? For
instance, is it possible for the drop to contain virtues of which the
aggregate body of the sea is deprived? Is it possible for a leaf to be
imbued with virtues which are lacking in the whole tree? Is it possible
that the extraordinary faculty of reason in man is animal in character
and quality? On the other hand, it is evident and true, though most
astounding, that in man there is present this supernatural force or
faculty which discovers the realities of things and which possesses the
power of idealization or intellection. It is capable of discovering
scientific laws, and science we know is not a tangible reality. Science
exists in the mind of man as an ideal reality. The mind itself, reason
itself, is an ideal reality and not tangible.
Notwithstanding
this, some of the sagacious men declare: We have attained to the
superlative degree of knowledge; we have penetrated the laboratory of
nature, studying sciences and arts; we have attained the highest station
of knowledge in the human world; we have investigated the facts as they
are and have arrived at the conclusion that nothing is rightly
acceptable except the tangible, which alone is a reality worthy of
credence; all that is not tangible is imagination and nonsense.
Strange
indeed that after twenty years training in colleges and universities
man should reach such a station wherein he will deny the existence of
the ideal or that which is not perceptible to the senses. Have you ever stopped to think that the animal already has graduated from such a university? Have you ever realized that the
cow is already a professor emeritus of that university? For the cow
without hard labor and study is already a philosopher of the superlative
degree in the school of nature. The cow denies everything that is not
tangible, saying, "I can see! I can eat! Therefore, I believe only in
that which is tangible!"
Then why should we go to the colleges? Let us go to the cow.
