As far as we know, it was the pragmatist William James who first formulated this idea in that paradoxical way. How much truth is there in it? Let us now, for the time being, look away from the possibility that perfect concomitance, or parallelism, or totality, is the truth here. Let us rather keep to the conventional view of a separateness, or may we say popular dualism: "One element comes first, the other comes immediately after it." The great question will then naturally be: Which comes first? Is it those thoughts and feelings of my deepest interior? Or is it the external expressions corresponding to them? As already mentioned, it has become a rather firm tradition to consider the inward and the outward in terms of cause and effect. And few people would dare to deny that causes should come before their effects. Provided that every law of conventional logic has not been turned upside down in these times of incredible upheavals, that rule may still seem to hold good, at least in this world of time-space reality which we common people know.
But then comes the next question: which is the cause here, and which is the effect? That may sometimes be quite a problematic issue.
Let us take a very commonplace example: you have been particularly successful one day. Your "inward content" is one of joy and satisfaction. And that is no secret either. For your whole face is lighted up by a big smile. That smile is of course the outward expression of your inward joy.
"Quite right", you say, "I am first glad, and then comes the smile."
Well, can we always be sure that this is the sequence of events in the process presented here for our inspection? Especially in the country of William James a peculiar catchword has developed: "Keep smiling!" So a person smiling at a given moment might of course simply be a sworn adherent to that purposeful American device. And just how much of that "hearty" smile could then be depended upon as a "natural consequence" of some constant feeling of happiness in the very depths of a human heart? Of course the principle of "Keep smiling!" is good enough. But such principles clearly imply what a teacher of morals and religion has called a stern "educating of the human will." And why do some people-even those who are not particularly compelled to do so by any religious sense of duty-adopt that smile as a standby rule in their most practical philosophy of life? Well, simply because they have experienced that the smile, somehow, carries inward happiness along with it. Briefly stated: the outward thing is accompanied by the inward.
In other words: where the outward is, the inward is also forced to be. Or, in the context of our chosen example: where the smile exists, the happiness is, to some extent, bound to exist also. If there is something inevitably true in this, what reason should there be to imagine that the "trick" works only in our arbitrarily selected example? Would it not be more likely to assume here a principle of general validity: the outward is always accompanied by something inward.
We have here intentionally chosen the epithet "accompanied by". Please notice that this affords room for even this third alternative: "The outward and the inward are simultaneous and inseparable, simply because they are just two sides of one and the same total reality".
So, in fact, we have three possible answers to our original question, "What is the general relation between the inward and the outward?" To be honest, the main question here, to us, is just this one: Are we discussing a relation of justifiable dualism or a relation of the deepest totality? In our thorough discussion of some dualistic trends in history we shall deal, in a particular way, with philosophical anthropology. We shall also, in a further work,[1] give an historical sketch of the attitude adopted by the great religion of our Western culture towards the most topical questions of that anthropology. So our inquiry into the actual relations between the inward and the outward may eventually be seen to reach the full dimensions of a world drama: what are the destiny-laden relations between the "inward thing" called a human soul and the "outward thing" called a human body? Should they, as well, happen to be absolutely concomitant? Are they just inseparable sides of one single reality? Or is the viewpoint of totality in this case immediately absurd--and even indecent or blasphemous? Is it so absurd and basically irreligious that neither any intelligent philosopher nor any true theologian would ever dare to advance such a theory?
But already at this preliminary stage we are to speak about some "inward things"--here called impressions, thoughts, and feelings--and about some "outward things"--here called expressions, gestures, and actions.
First: a question well worth asking may be: Do we not, by splitting up the reality of human experience into an "inward sphere" having "pre-existence" and an "outward phenomenon" which "follows" it, render ourselves guilty of an unwarranted abstraction similar to that which Aristotle could not accept in the Platonists? They conceived the Ideas (or Forms) as eternally pre-existing reality, whereas the outward manifestations of those Ideas in the visible world were just something subsequent, contingent, ephemeral, and as inferior to the Ideas as a shadow is to the reality casting it. Aristotle, too, knows some pre-existent causes. "The moving causes exist as things preceding the effects." Christian Aristotelians of the Middle Ages, like Thomas Aquinas, were to become particularly conscious of pre-existent causes--in fact one great eternal cause, God. Aristotle, however, so definitely refractory to Plato's theory about the Idea as the only true reality and a reality eternally prior to--and absolutely separable from--the visible phenomena of terrestrial life, points out that some causes may be "simultaneous with their effects". But here he speaks about "causes in the sense of definitions".
Aristotle takes these examples: "When a man is healthy, then health also exists." It exists just as long as that man can be described as healthy. For health is simply the description of his present physical condition.
Similarly "the shape of a bronze sphere exists at the same time as the bronze sphere."[2] They are exactly co-existent. The Form is inseparable from the matter of which it is the Form.
Now the "soul" (or anything that we may describe as the "inward contents" of man) is--in Aristotle's terms--nothing but the Form of the living human body--or any bodily manifestations (i.e. what we have called the "outward expressions") of that living human reality. So soul and body, form and matter, the inward contents and the outward manifestations, are simply phases of the same total reality, and consequently concomitant and inseparable.
According to Aristotle, then, there is "no necessity ... for the existence of the Ideas." Here he obviously means of the Ideas in the purely Platonic sense, as something of separable and anterior existence.
Now our curious question is this: "Is there a definite "Platonism" right in our very common conception today of the inward in human life as something anterior, superior, and more real?"
Suppose that our traditional assumptions are entirely erroneous? What if, in reality, those inward impressions (or contents of consciousness) are just as closely united to their outward expressions (or concrete manifestations) as the soul--according to a consistent monistic anthropology--is united to the body? Then certain logical consequences will seem to devolve quite naturally from such an assumption.
According to that consistent view of totality, the union between the inward and the outward phases of any living human reality must be as intimate as the union between the inside and the outside of, let us say, a tangible dome. Of course you may reasonably say that the inside here is different and perfectly distinguishable from the outside. That certainly applies to any partition wall. But there would also be considerable reason to think that something must be wrong with your senses, your mental soundness, if you seriously suggest: "The inside of this wall "was here already before the outside had yet arrived"." Or: "I doubt that the outside of this wall "will ever have any existence at all"."
Turning now to the different phases of the human reality, we must frankly ask: is "the outward" perhaps equally inseparable from "the inward" there too? If so, then how could we marvel that the outward display of an inward state of the human mind simply appears to be absolutely indispensable for the realization of that inward state?
For instance, to return to our first example: Without your external manifestation of happiness, how could that happiness have any chance of realizing itself in a full and genuine way in your deepest heart?
We sometimes seem to imagine that we may cast down our eyes, making a sad face and singing funeral songs--and still remain perfectly happy. Is that simply a deplorable mistake? And is it actually the inevitable mistake of all radical dualism of the visible versus the invisible, the outward versus the inward?
Among the most well-known expressions of the happiness of a human being we may mention his hearty smile, his fresh peals of laughter, and why not his exuberant hugging of a whole world around him? Why not even his spontaneous words of praise and thanksgiving to his Maker and Benefactor in the heavens above? Every little unhampered "movement outward" of that person's happiness may, after all, simply be the prerequisite or a sine qua non for its full and real existence. His joy seems to be actually born in those manifestations. It lives in them and grows strong in them. No man should ever try to tell anybody that he has been happy if he has not yet given vent to his happiness. For that would probably be a still-born happiness. It would have no chance to breathe its first breath.
And now, what about that "most inward reality" called thinking? An operation as profoundly intimate as this should certainly manage splendidly without any outward manifestations at all, shouldn"t it? Or does even thinking require some particular "elbow room" in order to develop naturally and successfully? Anyway, most people would no doubt deem it rather bold to assert that the external expressions of thinking constitute an indispensable element of the process of thinking.
Well, how does a man absorbed in thought behave externally then? Let us have just a furtive glance at him: he keeps his head in a definite position. His eyes may be closed, or they will keep staring at some casual, preferably rather distant object inside his field of vision. His brows are probably knit. His respiratory system has reduced its functions to a minimum.
Some uncomprehending observer might actually exclaim, "What silly sort of comedy is this? Can all that tomfoolery be strictly necessary for so inward a function as thought?"
It is necessary. And it is no "tomfoolery" at all. It is the house our thoughts live in. Just tear it down, and you will soon see what becomes of your deep meditation. Suppress every single one of those mechanical gestures. Go even still further in your conscious efforts of making your ideas homeless. For instance, put on an air characterizing quite another mental attitude, let us say that of wonder. That's right: your eyes wide open, your jaw hanging down--excellent! But tell me, do you suppose that you would be capable of very fruitful intellectual activity with your face adopting that expression? You do not feel much like a philosopher, do you? Perhaps more like a fool, if you are to be quite sincere. In fact, there is every reason to doubt that even an Einstein would have made much headway with his heavy speculations over the mysteries of relativity if he had not been allowed to let his thinking give itself a more congenial expression than that, every time he sat down to meditate.
Of course here, too, going from one extreme to the other is very tempting. For ages people have reasoned conventionally: "Deep thinking produces intense staring." So it sounds quite subtle, even revolutionary, doesn't it, to state, "no-no, intense staring, on the contrary, produces deep thought." This is also almost exactly what we observe some iconoclastic psychologists to assert.
Rightly considered, however, that new statement--pronounced with almost equal cocksureness by some lovers of paradoxical formulations--might of course be criticized as a dualistic one-sidedness, just as unwarranted as the first. It is simply an analytical attitude of the opposite form. But if rather the synthesis, the totality, is the real truth, then we should think any separation, or splitting up of that totality, must inevitably remove us from the full and inalienable reality.
In fact, you are perfectly right in asking this very relevant question: if the inward thought or feeling on one hand, and its outward movement of expression on the other, are just different aspects of one single reality, why then give the latter a stress out of all proportion, as it may sometimes come to appear that we, too, have done in the present discussion?
Well, we have two good reasons for stressing the outward in our discussion: first, its dignity and importance as an equal partner has been sadly slighted in traditional thinking (as well as in traditional living). Secondly, its more tangible character--please notice this--makes it more apt to serve as a practical hold for a truly alterocentric orientation in life.
Notes: