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An Essay on Man A Ill AN CHOR 75c IN CANA D A 90 c AN ESSAY ON MAN An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture BY ERNST CASSIRER DOUBLEDAY ANCHOR BOOKS DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC., GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK, 1953 Preface PART I W HAT IS MAN? 1 The Crisis in Man's Knowledge of Himself 15 2 A Clue to the ature of Man: the Symbol 41 3 From Animal Reactions to IIuman Responses 44 4 The Human World of Space and Time 62 5 Facts and Ideals 79 PART II MAN AND CULTURE 6 The Definition of Man in Terms of Human Culture 87 7 Myth and Religion 97 8 Language 142 9 Art 176 10 History 217 11 Science 261 12 Summary and Conclusion 278 Index 287 26 THE CRISIS IN MAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSELF 27 been obscured. And reason alone, when left to itself and its event in the history of ideas that it was one of the greatest own faculties, never can find the way back. It cannot recon­ and profoundest geometers who became the belated champion struct itself; it cannot, by its own efforts, return to its former of the philosophical anthropology of the Middle Ages. When pure essence. If such a reformation is ever possible, it is only sixteen years old, Pascal wrote tl1e treatise on conic section by supernatural aid, by the power of divine grace. Such is the that opened a new and a very rich and fertile field of geometri­ new anthropology, as it is understood by Augustine, and main­ cal thought. But he was not only a great geometer, he was a tained in all the great systems of medieval thought. Even philosopher; and as a philosopher he was not merely absorbed Thomas Aquinas, the disciple of Aristotle, who goes back to in geometrical problems but he wished to understand the true the sources of Greek philosophy, does not venture to deviate use, the extent, and the limits of geometry. He was thus led from this fundamental dogma. He concedes to human reason to make that fundamental distinction between the "geometri­ a much higher power than ugustine did; but he is convinced cal spirit ana l1e 'acute or subtle spirit." The geometrical that reason cannot make the right use of these powers unless spint excels in all these subjects that are capable of a perfect it is guided and illuminated by the grace of God. Here we analysis-that may be divided into their first elements.15 It have come to a complete reversal of all the values upheld by starts with certain axioms and from them it draws inferences Greek philosophy. What once seemed to be the highest privi­ the truth of which can be demonstrated by universal logical lege of man proves to be his peril and his temptation; what rules. The advantage of this spirit consists in the clarity of its appeared as his pride becomes his deepest humiliation. The principles and in the necessity of its deductions. ~ut not .an Stoic precept that man has to obey and revere his inner prin­ objects are capable of such treatment. There are tlnngs wh1ch ciple, the "demon" within himself, is now regarded a because of their subtl ety and their infinite variety defy every dangerous idolatry. attempt at logical analysis. And if there is anything in the It is not practicable here to describe further the character world that we have to treat in this second way, it is the mind of this new anthropology to analyze its fundamental motives of man. What characterizes man is the richness and subtlety, and to follow up its development. But in order to understand the variety and versatility of his nature. l-Ienee mathematic its purport we may choose a different and shorter way. At the can never become the instrument of a true doctrine of man, of beginning of modern times there appeared a tl1 inker who gave a philosophical anthropology. It is ridiculous to speak of man to this antluopology a new vigor and a new splendor. In the as if he were a geometrical proposition. A moral philosophy in work of Pa c it found its last and perhaps most impressive terms of a system of geometry-an Ethica more geometrico expression. Pascal was prepared for this task as no other writer demonstrata-is to the mind of Pascal an absurdity, a phil­ had been. He possessed an incomparable gift for elucidating osophical dream. Traditional logic and metaphysics are them­ the most obscure questions and condensing and concentrating selves in no better position to understand and solve the riddle complex and sca ttered systems of thought. othing seems to be impermeable to the keenness of his thought and the lucid­ of man. Their first and supreme law is the law of contradic­ ity of his style. In him are united all the advantages of modern tion. Rational tl10ught, logical and metaphysical thought can literature and modern philosophy. But he uses them as weap­ comprehend only those objects which are free from contradic­ ons against tl1e modern spirit, the spirit of Descartes and his tion, and which have a consistent nature and truth. It is, philosophy. At first sight Pascal seems to accept all the pro­ 15. For the distinction behveen /'esprit geom ~trique and /'esprit de suppositions of Cartesianism and of modern science. There is finesse compare Pascal's treatise "De l'esl?rit geometrique" and Pas­ nothing in nature that can resist the effort of scientific reason; cal's Pens~es, ed. by Charles Louandre {Paris, 1858), chap. ix, p. for tl1ere is nothing that can resist geometry. It is a curioui 231. In the passages which follow I quote the English translation of 0. W. Wight ( ew York, 1861). STEVENSON LIBRARY BARD COLLEGE Annandale-on-Hudson N Y 12504 :18 THE CRI SIS IN MAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSEL F however, just this homogeneity which we never find in ma n. by any natural cau e. or can we account for man' salvation; The philosopher is not permitted to construct an artificial for this salvation depend on an in crutable act of divine man; he must describe a real one. All the so-called definitions grace. It is freely given and fre ly denied; there is no human of man are nothing but airy speculation so long as they are action and no human merit that can deserve it. Religion, there­ not based upon and confirmed by our experience of man. fore, never pretends to clarify the mystery of man. It confirms There is no other way to know man t han to understand h is life and deepens this mystery. The God of whom it speaks is a and conduct. But what we find here defies every attempt at Deus absconditus, a hidden od. lienee even hi image, man, inclusion within a single and simple formula. Contradiction cannot be other than mysterious. Man also remains a homo is the very element of human existence. Man has no "nature" absconditus. Religion is no "theory" of God and man and of -no simple or homogeneous being. lie is a strange mixture of their mutual relation. The only answer that we receive from being and nonbeing. His place is between t hese two opposite religion is that it is the will of God to conceal himself. "TilU , 1 poles. God being concealed, every religion that does not say that God There is, therefore, only one approach t o the secret of is concealed is not true; and every religion which docs not human nature: that of religion. Religion shows us that there is render a rea on for thi , is not in tructive. Ours docs all this: a double man- the man before and after the fall. '!an was des­ Vere tu es Deus absconditus.'7 ... For nature is such, tha t tined for the highest goal, but h e forfeited his position. By the it everywhere indicate a God lost, both in man and out of fall he lost his power, and his reason and will were perverted. man." 1 Religion is, therefore, so to speak, a logic of ab­ The classical maxim, "Know thyself," when understood in its surdity; for only thus can it grasp the absurdity, the inner philosophic sense, in the sense of ocrates, Epictetus, or contradiction, the chimerical being of man. "Certainly, noth­ Marcus Aurelius, is therefore not only ineffectual, it is mis­ ing strikes us more rudely than this doctrine; and yet, without leading and erroneous. Man cannot confide in himself and this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incom­ listen to himself. He has to silence himself in order to hear a prehensible to ourselvc . T he knot of our condition takes its higher and truer voice. "What shall become of you, then, 0 twists and turns in this abyss; so that man is more inconceiYa­ man! you who search out what is your true condi tion by your ble without this mystery, than th is mystery is inconceivable natural reason? ... Know, then, haughty man, what a para­ to man." 19 dox you are to yourself. Humble yourself, impotent reason; be silent, imbecile nature; learn that man infinitely surpasses 3 What we learn from Pascal's example is that at the man, and hear from your master your true condition, which beginning of modern times the old problem wa5 still felt in you arc ignorant of. Listen to God." 10 its full strength. Even after the appearance of Descartes' Dis­ What is given here is not meant to be a theoretical solution cours de la methode the modern mind was still wrestling wi tl1 of the problem of man.
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