Reinhold Friedrich Alfred Hoernlé

R. F. A.  Hoernlé (1880-1943)

The following excerpt from Matter, life, mind, and God (1923) by Reinhold Friedrich Alfred Hoernlé was summarized by Iqbal in the second lecture of The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930-34).

Now, the theory of “matter”—the “materialism” of common parlance—which we have to discuss and which we shall find reason to reject as untenable, is a particular theory of the nature of sense-objects and of their relation, on the one side, to the percipient’s mind, and, on the other, to “scientific objects.”

The essence of this theory is to be found in the following propositions:

(1)   Sense-objects (colours, sounds, etc.) are “sensations” and, as such, states of the perceiver’s mind. They are “subjective.”

(2)   By this classification of sense-objects as “mental states,” or “mental impressions,” they are, at once, excluded from Nature as “physical” (“material,” “objective”).

(3)   Hence, they cannot be in any proper sense qualities of physical things (theory of “secondary qualities”: strictly, we should not say, “the sky is blue,” but, “it produces a blue sensation in our minds”).

(4)   As mental states they are effects produced in us.

(5)   The cause of these effects is matter, or material things, acting through our sense-organs, nerves, and brain on our minds.

(6)   The manner of this causation is mechanical, i.e., by contact, or impact; hence the physical cause must possess the “primary qualities” of shape, size, solidity, resistance.

Two points, especially, stand out in this materialistic theory. The first is that the world of Nature is stripped of all sense-objects, of all colour, sound, smell, temperature, etc., which are all denied to Nature by being classed under the heading of “mind,” with the twofold result that (a) our ordinary way of speaking of perceptual objects and their qualities involves a complete illusion, and (b) that what remains of Nature must be conceived as consisting only of imperceptible entities, possessing only the primary qualities. The second point is a causal theory of perception: the sense-objects which we perceive are the effects produced in our minds by the action of the imperceptible entities on our sense-organs. In short, it is a theory, not merely of what Nature is, or is known to be, but also of what Nature does to the mind of the percipient.

The net result is that Nature is split in two. What we directly perceive (the tissue of sense-objects) is divorced from the realm of scientific objects, which latter now figure precariously as the hypothetical and unverifiable causes of the impressions in our minds.

Some physicists, straying into the field of philosophy of Nature, have endorsed this materialistic theory under the impression that it is at least in harmony with, if not actually implied by, the science of physics itself. But these adventurers are misguided. For, closely considered, nothing could well be less in harmony with this theory than the actual method of scientific investigation. As observer and experimenter, the physicist gets his evidence of what Nature is, and does, in the first instance through his senses. Yet, on the theory, this evidence consists of nothing but subjective impressions in his mind, and he is still separated from Nature by a gap which he can bridge only by means of a precarious hypothesis concerning the imperceptible Somewhat which may caused his sensations. In fact, were his practice not better than this theory, he could hardly move a step. Fortunately, in actual practice he forgets all about the theory and accepts all he observes as bona fide disclosures of Nature. He does not hamper himself by labelling “mental” whatever he perceives, and then guessing at the “physical” world “behind the veil.” He never thinks of sensations, but only of phenomena, and of what may be needed to explain them.

Iqbal Studies: a New Beginning

Did you find it difficult to download 2017: The Battle for Marghdeen from Smashwords? Just email me, and I shall send you the PDF. However, the advantage of registering with Smashwords is that you can review the book on their website and enjoy other privileges of membership.

Soon after reading the book, my senior friend and veteran educationist Dr. Irfan Hyder wrote to me: 

"This may be a summary or a prologue to a much more voluminous undertaking or multiple volumes effort."

Actually, this is true. 2017 is a summary of key points which are being elaborated in some 6000 pages in the series of six books of Iqbal's biography in Urdu (the third book was recently published, as you may remember).

It all started with the awareness that Iqbal Studies cannot be and should not be the study of Iqbal in the light of existing paradigms. Unfortunately, that has been generally the case. Some Iqbal scholars may disagree with me but it is my honest and humble opinion that we have only seen Iqbal through the eyes of the world and never seen the world through the eyes of Iqbal.

This problem was pointed out by Iqbal himself and his earliest friends and followers as early as the 1920s. I have offered substantial evidence in the recently published third book of Iqbal's biography, Iqbal Darmiani Daur. See, for instance, my account of A Voice from the East, the first full-length monograph about Iqbal written and published by his associate Sir Zulfiqar Ali Khan in 1922. Many of the reviews published in Urdu after the English translation of 'Asrar-i-Khudi' have also been excerpted in my book, and they voice the same concern. The concern was voiced most boldly by Waheed Ahmad Masud, whose excellent article has been included in entirety as appendix in my book, for this very reason.

The major concern voiced by all these writers, headed by Iqbal himself, was that it is not sufficient to see Iqbal from the perspective of the existing knowledge, whether Eastern or Western. In fact, it could be dangerous and misleading. Instead of seeing Iqbal through the eyes of the world (or at least in addition to doing so), we must also see the world through the eyes of Iqbal.

This was the line of thinking that led to the creation of Pakistan. Unfortunately, it was abandoned almost completely soon after the birth of Pakistan. 

If we look at the aims and objectives listed in the journals of Iqbal Studies started in Pakistan in the 1950s,  we see a list of subjects in which Iqbal was interested or which had been touched upon in his writings, such as history, literature, social sciences, religion, education and so on. There is no mention that these subjects need to be studied in the light of Iqbal's views.

Quite the contrary, an unwritten convention soon developed that Iqbal's views on all the subjects must be regarded as "dated" (actually, as "outdated"). Since Iqbal had died in 1938, the views and theories which had emerged in social sciences and humanities after that time should be followed and the works of Iqbal should only be interpreted in the light of these new theories.

This is the convention which I want to challenge, and challenge it boldly. I understand that I shall end up offending many Iqbal scholars (some of them very well-meaning), but it is my humble and honest opinion that the name "Iqbal Studies" can only be given to the study of things from the perspective of Iqbal, and not to anything else.

• To study the philosophical ideas of Iqbal in the light of existing conventions of philosophy is not Iqbal Studies. It is just the subject of Philosophy, with Iqbal added to the syllabus.
• To study the poetry of Iqbal in the light of existing conventions of literary criticism is not Iqbal Studies. It is just Urdu Literature, or Persian Literature, and so on.
• So on with history, religion, science and education.

This is not just an academic debate. It is a matter of life and death (in my opinion, and I do not mean any disrespect to those who may think that I am exaggerating).

I say this because in every field of study - in every area of human perception and understanding - the results change drastically when the principles of Iqbal are applied independently. In some areas, what we consider medicine is poison according to Iqbal and what we usually shun as poison is the necessary food according to him, without which we may die.

For Pakistan, the major implication is that we find a clearly defined list of options from which we can choose in order to solve our present problems and, perhaps, turn Pakistan into a world leader with least resistance and minimum effort. For the world, it holds a promise of peace, happiness and self-discovery on an unimaginable scale.

This is what I have tried to describe in 2017, and the supporting evidence is coming out in thousands of pages in the six-book series of Iqbal's biography.

The Meaning of God in Human Experience

[The following is a passage from The Meaning of God in Human Experience: A Philosophic Study of Religion (1912) by William Ernest Hocking. A smaller excerpt from this passage was quoted by Iqbal in the first lecture of The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930-34).]

Religious passion, at length, is the best illustration of all this: for this is the mark of religious passion, that a specific view of the whole makes conscious connection with one's practical ultimata. The “deepest of all inborn impulses,” says Professor Pratt, “is the ‘instinct for self-preservation’”: and what is to set that impulse trembling? “a belief in the impossibility of real annihilation.” Belief founded on what? founded back on the instinct itself? doomed then to death and silence. Founded on vision perhaps? If ever upon the stupid day-length time-span of any self, or saint either, some vision breaks to roll his life and ours into new channels, it can only be because that vision admits into his soul some trooping invasion of the concrete fulness of eternity. Such vision doubtless means sub- conscious readiness, and subconscious resonance too, but the expansion of unused air-cells does not argue that we have ceased now to breathe the outer air: the very opposite!

No. The so-called wisdom of feeling is of the same stuff and substance with other wisdom, positive, objective, belonging to our world of ideas. The religious vista is large and open: in integral continuity with the field-lines of our overt existence (not narrowly caught by peering up back-chimney-flues of consciousness). Whatever is thus continuous with the real known in idea is itself known in idea, not otherwise. There are vague ideas, and unfinished ideas, uncertain predicates, qualities only dimly divined known most certainly by their difference from others, their negative bearing but none of this haze and floating outline affects the intent and category of the scene-contents. Whatever is, or can be, predicate of idea is itself idea-stuff, whether or not yet successfully defined and connected.

The General Will

Whether the General Will is Fallible

from The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

...The general will is always right and tends to the public advantage; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people are always equally correct. Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is; the people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived, and on such occasions only does it seem to will what is bad.

There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter considers only the common interest, while the former takes private interest into account, and is no more than a sum of particular wills: but take away from these same wills the pluses and minuses that cancel one another,7 and the general will remains as the sum of the differences.

If, when the people, being furnished with adequate information, held its deliberations, the citizens had no communication one with another, the grand total of the small differences would always give the general will, and the decision would always be good. But when factions arise, and partial associations are formed at the expense of the great association, the will of each of these associations becomes general in relation to its members, while it remains particular in relation to the State: it may then be said that there are no longer as many votes as there are men, but only as many as there are associations. The differences become less numerous and give a less general result. Lastly, when one of these associations is so great as to prevail over all the rest, the result is no longer a sum of small differences, but a single difference; in this case there is no longer a general will, and the opinion which prevails is purely particular.

It is therefore essential, if the general will is to be able to express itself, that there should be no partial society within the State, and that each citizen should think only his own thoughts:8 which was indeed the sublime and unique system established by the great Lycurgus. But if there are partial societies, it is best to have as many as possible and to prevent them from being unequal, as was done by Solon, Numa and Servius. These precautions are the only ones that can guarantee that the general will shall be always enlightened, and that the people shall in no way deceive itself.

Postscript from the blog-master: "The truth is that Islam is not a church. It is state, conceived as a contractual organism long before Rousseau ever thought of such a thing, and animated by an ethical ideal which regards man not as an earth-rooted creature, defined by this or that portion of the earth, but as a spiritual being understood in terms of a social mechanism, and possessing rights and duties as a living factor in that mechanism." (Iqbal, in the Allahabad Address; 1930)

If Christ Came to Chicago!

W.T. Stead (1849-1912)

"The lesson to be learned from Mr. Stead's book is that the great evils from which humanity is suffering today, are evils that can be handled only by religious sentiments; that the handling of those evils has been in the great part surrendered to the State; that the State has itself been delivered over to corrupt political machines; that such machines are not only unwilling, but unable, to deal with those evils; and that nothing but a religious awakening of the citizens to their public duties can save countless millions from misery and the State itself from degradation."

This excerpt from an American review of the book was quoted by Iqbal in his article 'Islam and Ahmadism' (1936). The complete title the book by William T. Stead  was If Christ Came to Chicago! - a plea for the union of all who love in the service of all who suffer. It was first published in Chicago in 1894 and was an instant hit: 70000 copies were ordered before the first copy even came out of the press. The author died 28 years later while travelling on Titanic: after helping several women and children get into lifeboats he was last seen sitting in the 1st Class Smoking Room reading a book. Further: see the W.T. Resource Site

KEYSERLING: Peshawar

"And to think that here...
lay the very centre of Buddhistic culture!"

Peshawar

a chapter from

The Travel Diary of a Philosopher (1925)

by Count Hermann Keyserling.

The author was quoted by Iqbal in 1925.

See bottom of this post for details. 

I have really strayed beyond India. Leafless trees, the cold, clear air of winter - broad, dusty high roads on which men wander about, whose physical type is familiar to me. Curious: between Afghanistan and Russia there lies a whole world. Every district of Central Asia is inhabited by different tribes, possessing differing histories and cultures, with different customs and manners; and yet to-day one psychic atmosphere is spread from the Khyber Pass to the Ural Mountains. In this atmosphere all significance disappears. In Peshawar murders take place daily,and gaily coloured Indian shawls are for sale what does it matter? Everything might just as well not happen at all, or happen differently. The meaning of life here is not changed by one event more or less, by one event of this or of another kind. The camels march one behind the other in long, endless rows. Century follows century in one long, unending sequence. Millions of similar people die rhythmically one after another, sometimes violently, sometimes naturally, all with the stereotyped expression of a shrug of the shoulders.

I am seized by that infinite melancholy for which only the Russians possess the right word: Urrynie. I want nothing, lack nothing, I have no demonstrable reason for it, I am just melancholy. My soul is hollowed out, as it were. This Asia knows no vibrations of a mental kind. The rays which I radiate myself disappear in endless space, but I lack the inner power to arrest them. The result is a feeling of emptiness which makes me profoundly miserable. And then, alien, brutal forces enter into me the thoughts and desires which may dwell in the wild hearts of Afghan cattle-thieves. I can hardly resist them, so suddenly do they assail me. And then I recognise in horror that they are not at all as alien to my inner self as I had thought: in me too there is somewhere, deep down, a crude Central Asiatic, and I curse the air which has let him be wakened from his slumber.

Yet this world contains possibilities for unique greatness. When the storm is let loose over the desert, whole mountains of sand are piled up which roll on like waves. Such storm forces have several times been embodied in men. They were beings without souls or sense, without inward aim or feeling for values; they hardly possessed any human consciousness. But on the other hand, the elemental force of the desert storm was in them. Like grains of sand they drove nations before them, burying cultures under mountains of sand. But if these did not remain, then everything was once more as if nothing had happened, as if their invasion had been an evil dream. These conquerors represent intrinsically non-spiritual powers. But greatness, yes, superhuman greatness, cannot be denied to Attila and Jenghiz Khan.

*

And to think that here, and not even at such an immeasurable distance of time, lay the very centre of Buddhistic culture! That the Valley of Kabul was the holy land of Mahayana doctrine, longed for by every searcher from the land of the five streams to the Japanese sea, the scene of the blending of the Hellenic and Indian spirits in art, culture and religion, to which all the later developments of the Far East can originally be traced! Central Asia was, for thousands of years, the source of all spiritual influences on earth. But as the waters dried up and the gardens withered to the dust of the desert, the spirit vanished irretrievably from this parched atmosphere, and the extremest forms of barbarism became the heir to the extreme of culture. - My thoughts wander back to my geological days and the way in which I then regarded the world; in the Alps, I beheld the ocean, liquid lava in basalt, and life itself in the rigidity of stone. The archaeologist beholds Central Asia with a similar vision. But, it seems to me, both overlook the really significant factor. This is the change in itself. Anyone who has ever been a farmer knows what 'history' means: one year of culture more or less represents cosmically an absolute entity; it cannot be taken away nor retrieved; such time is real before eternity. For such time creates change. Where growth is guided by conscious volition, development takes place; everything progresses, marches onward, further and further, and no end is in sight. If, for any reason, volition fails, all events change their being. Development diverges, branches off, or even ceases, and the casual takes the place of the rational. Thus the desert follows upon the garden, the wilderness upon culture, lack of all spirit upon spirit, eternal death upon brief life. What folly to believe in a Providence which guides life on earth from outside! Life could, of course, progress in accordance with a high purpose, no principle is opposed to such a course; we men will perhaps one day bring about such a state of affairs. But what happens on earth seems a matter of complete indifference to God. Spirit yesterday, none to-day, to-morrow perhaps spirit again; sometimes garden, sometimes desert, sometimes the primeval forest, sometimes the sea: I dare say He delights in aimless change, as the tired Maharajah delights in the Nautch, so that eternity should not become too tedious for Him.

*

None the less, it is stimulating to live for a while among such wild fellows as the Afridis. They are magnificent -  like beasts of prey in their primitiveness, their instinctive irresponsibility. The Government does not like to see people going unprotected and without a guide through the bazaars: suddenly one of these gentlemen might dig a dagger between one's ribs, the Government would have to interfere, which, in its wisdom it prefers not to do, because murdering means nothing worse to them than the polite expression of a differing opinion does among us. Could I bear the Afridi a grudge who sought my life? Hardly. At any rate, no more than a tiger. And as I wend my way through the narrow streets, I look out whether I cannot spy the beginnings of a quarrel. These men must look magnificent when fighting. As long as peace reigns, the best in them is asleep, in the same way in which the best sleeps in the Spanish fighting bull while he chews the cud.

All at once I must laugh: the Afridis are the very embodiment of that ideal of supermen to which a fair proportion of our young poets cling! Great men who are cruel because they must be so, who fulfil their destiny although it ruins them whose passion knows no limit who are never led astray by reasonable considerations: yes, indeed, the description befits them. It is droll to think to what manifestations the need for hero-worship leads over-civilised townsmen. Undoubtedly originality is necessary: but is it not possible to conceive a higher kind than that of the animals? It is hardly conceivable that the Athenians who surrounded Plato looked up to Achilles and Diogenes as ideals; it needed the modern decadents to lower the ideal of humanity so much to the animal level; even Nietzsche, the gentle pastor's son, never intended anything of this sort, no matter what he may have said. But to-day we have really reached the stage at which originality and primitiveness in the animal sense appear identified. I am quite prepared, and why not, to honour the candour of the cow; only, I stipulate that she shall not write; this form of expression is only suited to cultured human beings. I refuse in the same way to honour savages as heroes. The Afridis are really the supermen worshipped by our modern literary youth. It amuses me to examine them from this point of view. Formerly it used to be said: he who controls himself is strong. To-day: he who must let himself go. Of course, to anyone who has no passion at all, its mere existence implies an ideal. But it is not true that all modern men are emasculated; only those who write are for the most part in this state, the canaille ecrivante, cabalante el comwlsionnaire of Voltaire, the most unreal people of all, and to-day, it is more fatal than ever that they have so much power. The ideal of the emaciated, the impotent, the weakling, drives healthy individuals into barbarism. Literary cows are magnified, savage churls are honoured as heroes: thus more and more cows begin to write, and more and more men capable of culture become savage. How good it would be for the young men of to-day to imbibe a little Indian wisdom ! To learn that it is a sign of weakness and not of strength if a man has to be cruel, if he succumbs to his fate, if he is not master of his passion, if he is impervious to the considerations of reason, and that not only the superman of the newest, but also the tragic hero of the classical pattern, embodies a barbaric condition! No doubt the modern condition of humanity is not worth much; but the ideal which we should strive after lies in the direction of transfusing life with spirit, not with animality. Not only the cow, but God also, is natural, and we should simulate the latter, not the former. All the more so as we are already much nearer to Him. As I regard these Afridis, I realise very clearly how far their nature is removed from ours. Perhaps it is due to this change of perspective, as opposed to the conditions of antiquity, that the animal seems to us above everything worthy of reverence, just as God seemed to the ancients. . . .

Hermann Alexander Graf Keyserling
 (1880–1946)

The excerpt is from the chapter 'Peshawar' in The Travel Diary of a Philosopher by Count Hermann Keyserling (published in 1925 and available in English translation online: Volume One and Volume Two). 

In his 1925 essay 'Self in the Light of Relativity', Iqbal quoted an excerpt from this book: "The impulse which drives me into the wide world is precisely the same as that which drives so many into monastries - the desire for self-realization... I want to let the climate of the Tropics, the Indian modes of consciousness, the Chinese code of life, and many other factors which I cannot envisage in advance, to work their spell on me, one  after the other, and then watch what will become of me." Iqbal regarded this view of self-realization as one-sided: "The intellectual self is only one aspect of the activity of our total self." 

About the author, the official website of the School of Wisdom founded by him tells us: "Count Keyserling is the first Western thinker to conceive of and promote a planetary culture, beyond nationalism and cultural ethnocentrism, based on recognition of the equal value and validity of non-western cultures and philosophies. He founded the School of Wisdom in Darmstadt, Germany in 1920, based on the original Schools of Wisdom which prospered over two thousand years ago in Northern India under Buddhist rule. Unlike other spiritual leaders of the day, he did not set himself up as a guru, or establish any kind of personality cult. Instead, he encouraged the equal participation of many others." (This last proposition has been  questioned in the light of the private assertions of Rabindranath Tagore, one of the chief beneficiaries of the Count's generosity; for instance. see  the paper by Martin Kämpchen in Asiatic).

GIBBON: Toleration

There is the toleration of the philosopher to whom all religions are equally true; of the historian to whom all are equally false; and of the politician to whom all are equally useful. There is the toleration of the man who tolerates other modes of thought and behaviour because he has himself grown absolutely indifferent to all modes of thought and behaviour. There is the toleration of the weak man who, on account of sheer weakness, must pocket all kinds of insults heaped on things or persons that he holds dear.

Edward Gibbon is best known for his multi-volume book The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published from 1776 to 1788). I have not been able to check his writings for tracing this excerpt but  it was quoted by Iqbal with attribution to Gibbon in 'Islam and Ahmedism', an article published in January 1936.