CHAPTER NINE

THE OBJECTIVE SYSTEM OF VALUES AS THE SPIRITUAL WORLD

IF we accept the conclusions of the last two chapters and are convinced that existing objects in their aspect of value are uniformly related in the manner described, related by their coherence of character, functional adaptability, and significant harmony, a third and final question remains.

Do these relations, inhering as they do in the qualitative differences rather than the quantitative determinations of existing objects, organize them into a system just as real as the order of physical events? If it can be shown that they do, we shall have proof of the existence of a spiritual world, an objective order, organized in accordance

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with the values of personal intelligence and personal association. And religious. faith will have gained that firm footing in the objective world, in the real universe, which it must have if it is to maintain itself in a scientific age.

Now it can be shown that the relations we have been discussing do organize existing objects into a permanent, but developing system. These three relations prove on closer examination to be different forms of one more comprehensive relation or, considered from another point of view, different stages or moments in one inclusive process.

We are now in a position to understand how this is. Coherence of character means that all existing objects are woven by identities and diversities of their constituent qualities into a unitary system of meaning. This system of meaning with all its possibilities of further analysis and explication is, as a whole,

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implied in the intrinsic nature of every object included within it. Not the “flower in the crannied wall” merely, but objects much less significant apparently, the tiniest bit of living protoplasm, the smallest grain of sand, are found, when all their relations are ,explored, to imply the whole intelligible universe. Functional adaptation means that objects because of their distinctive and permanent characteristics present various possibilities of reconstruction and are capable of exhibiting, under the requisite adjustment, new qualities and attributes. Human invention takes advantage of this outstanding feature of actual objects. When man noticed the tendency of smoke always to rise he cut a hole in the top of his tent or lodge to permit it to escape; later on, this characteristic taken in combination with the incombustibility of certain materials like stone or brick gave him the fireproof chimney with its steady draught.

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Significant harmony means that certain objects, not on account of their intellectual implications nor their practical instrumentality but by virtue of their self-contained and selfrevealing harmony, have the power of expressing the system of meaningful objects as a whole or in one of its salient aspects. The artist is successful in so far as he is able to avail himself of this capacity of sense-imagery to suggest through its own patterns and harmonies the ultimate meaning of things.

All the endless variety of objects which the world contains are organized into an enduring system by their intelligibility, their purposive adaptability, and their aesthetic significance. As intelligible, they imply one another by nature and, in their distinctive meanings, are mutually illuminating. As purposively adaptable, they effectively reinforce one another in producing results increasingly serviceable. As aesthetically significant, they

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are constantly and cumulatively revealing through their own intrinsic harmonies that inclusive unity of which they are special expressions.

Such is the organized system of valuable objects or, as it has sometimes been called to distinguish it from the system of physical or material objects, the realm of ends. The realm of ends is a developing system, a diversified unity, which is constantly revealing new possibilities of expansion and enrichment. This it does in all three types of relation by which it is organized. Suppose that an object is understood in terms of its relation to the intelligible system. This does not exhaust its intellectual interest. On the contrary, it offers to attentive thought greater and more varied possibilities of meaning to be explored and appreciated. Since the living organism has been understood by evolutionary science in its wider and cosmic

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relations its processes have become an ever more fascinating and fruitful subject of study. The same is true of the fossil as understood by the geologist, the relics of earlier civilizations as interpreted by the archaeologist, and of similar objects in every field of investigation. The evocation of new and useful properties in existing materials and forces by inventive skill has not diminished but increased their possibilities of adaptation to rational purposes. This is well illustrated by the recent remarkable progress in mechanical invention and control. The invention of the telegraph and telephone with the discovery of electromagnetic waves led to the invention of the wireless telegraph, the broadcasting of speech and music, and television. In the same way, the beauty of the sunset sky, the cultivated countryside, the surging waves, grow as we contemplate them. Because of the new intimations of meaning which a great work

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of art is constantly suggesting to our attentive scrutiny, it is a constantly increasing source of enjoyment.

Our activities of appreciation are responses to the real value of existing objects. This value consists in their possibilities or potencies of original contribution to the organized system to which all by virtue of their distinctive characteristics belong. In our appreciations we respond to, the infinitely diversified, continually growing unity of the real world, the cosmic reality and to objects in their relation to this universal system. Our responses of appreciation are not limited, however, to discovering what potencies are inherent in existing objects of contributing to the Universal System. They also seek, and find, realization in oral and written discourse, mechanical and social invention, and the creations of fine art. These fruits or products of social culture are the external signs and

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symbols, the objective expression and embodiment of the possibilities of mutual implication, functional co-operation, and reconciling harmony resident in the objects of the actual world.

The conception at which we have arrived of the objective system of values as the infinitely varied possibilities resident in actual objects of original contribution to the diversified and developing unity to which all by virtue of their distinctive characteristics belong, is true, as far as it goes, but it is not complete. We have no acquaintance with this objective value-system apart from the activity of conscious intelligence. The possibilities of functional contribution referred to, that is to say, the intelligibility, adaptability, and significant harmony, of existing objects are inherent in the nature of these objects, we have reason to believe. But judging on the basis of our human experience, we

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cannot understand how these possibilities could be defined, selected for realization, or actually realized except through the activity of conscious intelligence. Indeed, intelligence fully developed, as we know it, is just the explicit formulation, deliberate selection, and effectual realization of these possibilities. It finds expression in the pursuit and progressive attainment of the ideals of Truth, Power, Progress, and Beauty.

Our idea of the character and activity of developed or complete intelligence represents, to be sure, the ideal limit of that progressive development which human intelligence has undergone in the course of man's social history. In the less complete forms in which we directly encounter it in ourselves and other human beings, intelligence is concerned primarily and (in most cases) principally with realizing the possibilities in actual objects of contributing not to the

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objective and universal system but to the maintenance and expansion of some lesser system such as individual and family prosperity or national welfare. But as moral and social development proceeds there is no doubt that intelligence is more and more effectively constrained by the appeal of universal and objective values.

The intelligence which is involved in the discovery and realization of the objective system of values is (so far as our experience goes) not individual but social intelligence. Indeed it is hard to see how it could be otherwise under any conditions we can imagine. Of course the natural existence of the human individual is too short, the range of his perceptive faculties too small, his mental energies too limited, and the conditions and circumstances of his life too hampering, to permit him to go far with the appreciative exploration of the values of the real world.

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But apart from these limitations which might conceivably be regarded as accidental rather than essential to the individual intelligence, the possible values, intellectual, practical, and aesthetic, of the existing world are so infinitely many and varied that it is impossible to imagine how any individual, having of necessity a definite and therefore limited point of view, and choosing and acting consistently with this, could explore and realize them all. We can imagine their being realized on a scale at all extensive only by a society of intercommunicating individuals, the community of personal intelligence. In such a society each individual chooses freely in accordance with the interests dictated by his own unique outlook and realizes directly and by his own efforts certain values which appeal to him, and realizes indirectly by communication other values which have been experienced and appreciated by his fellows. In the case

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of intellectual insights and discoveries, such intercommunication takes place through articulate speech, spoken and written; in the case of practical invention, through objective example and demonstration; in the case of aesthetic through emotional experception, expression and artistic production.

Thus the values inherent in the world are realized by countless individuals of succeeding generations, each with his own unique personal outlook which renders some particular facts or features especially luminous and significant. The real world discloses countless facets of meaning and value which through intercommunication are made accessible to the experience of all individuals. Since, then, the standpoint of each individual brings to light with exceptional clearness some element of truth, utility or beauty in the world, and since these individual appreciations

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are capable of illumination and enrichment through comparison with, and interpretation by, the insights, inventions, and intuitions of all the others, the possibilities of meaning and value which the existing world contains for the associated intelligence of mankind are infinitely many and varied. The realization of these objective values by a society of intercommunicating individuals is accompanied, furthermore, by the appreciation and enjoyment of three cognate values, viz., mutual insight and understanding, co-operative endeavor, and aesthetic sympathy. These three values are both personal and objective. They are personal because they rise out of, and are realized through, personal association; they are objective because they are based upon capacities characteristic of intelligent personality under any and all conditions of its existence.

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In concluding this chapter let us summarize the conclusions which have been reached regarding the existence of a spiritual order or world, before going on to discuss their bearing upon religion. There is a spiritual order or world, i.e., an objective system organized on the basis of intrinsic meaning and value rather than physical causation. This objective system of values is constituted by three relations which hold among existing things: their intelligibility to our thought, their adaptability to our rational purpose, their significance to our aesthetic perception. In virtue of these relations, existing objects possess infinitely varied possibilities of functional contribution to the diversified and developing unity of the real world. The existence of this cosmic system of values depends, in our experience of it, upon the activities of conscious intelligence by which these possibilities are

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formulated, chosen, and realized. Their actual progressive discovery and realization associates human individuals in common insight and mutual understanding, in co-operative endeavor and imaginative sympathy.