There is present a something given, an actuality, which we designate by the collective name of “world.” The untutored person and the thinker alike make use of the same expression. This latter is indifferent, acquiring a definite meaning only with reference to a particular explanation that is, with reference to a view of the world.
The impulse to explain actuality, the need of a world -theory, a world -conception, is deeply embedded in every living being endowed with consciousness.
The moment any being has so far developed as to begin to think, it finds itself involved in a huge system within which it seeks to know its way, striving the while to understand it in its various details.
This system comes before it in a twofold aspect : on the one hand, as ” something that is,” i.e. things ; and on the other hand, as ” something that happens,” i.e. the play of events among things. A ” being ” without a ” happening ” attached, is as little to be found as a “happening” without a “being.” In other words : processes only exist.
Here two questions immediately arise. First, What is the world? And second, How does the play of events come about ?
Both sides of the world-picture, and therewith both questions, blend into one question the question as to adequate causes. As well the fact that ” something is here,” as the fact that ” something happens,” requires adequate causes. The adequate cause is the thotcght-necessity given with all mental life. The entire universe in all its parts and processes, is to the thinking man a species of marionette show. He sees the puppets dance but he does not see the strings, neither does he see that which pulls the strings. The incentive to a view of the world is the craving, so to speak, to get a peep behind the scenes, to spy out Nature’s secrets, and therewith seize upon the meaning and significance of life itself. This latter is the real object of every world-theory.
Now it is quite true, that if I do not perceive the meaning and significance of life I am but little better than the donkey that drags the full sacks to the mill and the empty ones back without knowing why, in the one case as in the other. I owe it to my dignity as a man to seek out the meaning and significance of life. But this is not all.
That I am here is a given fact. Were I not here, had I never been here, not for that would any breach have yawned in the structure of the world. But now that I am here, all turns upon how I conduct myself during this my existence. Not the fact that I am here, but how I employ this existence is the all-important thing.
This question as to the ” how ” can only be answered in any natural way through the “what.” I must know what I am, and what are the things and beings outside me ; I must learn my relations to the external world, I must apprehend the meaning and significance of life before I can possess a genuine canon and standard for my behaviour, for my morality. For all morality, whether it find expression in doing or in leaving undone, issues in acts of selflessness. This, however, requires that motives be brought forward, otherwise such an act is either a perverted form of self-seeking like all asceticism, or it is mere training, bearing, indeed, the outward semblance of morality, in reality, however, having nothing at all to do with it. It is only in virtue of cognition that any act acquires moral value. One can speak of real morality there only where it is a function of cognition. Hence there can be no morality without comprehension, without a world-conception.
This is the first reason why a world-theory is necessary.
But it behoves a being worthy the name of man also to know whether this life is merely a blind adventure, or whether it has aim and goal. The thinking man demands to know what he may expect after this life. He insists upon looking beyond this life. He claims an answer to the question, “Whence? Whither?”
This demand to look out beyond life, this questioning, as to the aim and goal of life, is called religion. As with the query, ” How must I conduct myself?” which permits of being answered in natural fashion then only when I know what I am, so is it with the question, ” Whence am I, and whither am I bound ? ” Only when I know what I am, can this question also find a natural reply. A genuine religion, like a genuine morality, has its roots in cognition. Both alike must be functions of cognition.
Such are the two reasons why for every thinking being a world-theory is not only a matter of giving honourable satisfaction to his dignity as a man, but also why it is a positive necessity. In their absence genuine morality and genuine religion alike are impossible.
