Even the subtle theorist Emanuel Kant must have had some considerable portion of practical insight in the very useful "science" of changing the inward by "first" changing the outward. At least he gives a most interesting piece of advice to such who have had the misfortune of being violently attacked by their fellow men. His counsel is to this effect:
Suppose there is an excited person darting into your room one day, heaping you with the worst terms of abuse he can think of. What is then the first thing you ought to do? Kant suggests the following: as politely as you can you should entreat him to have a seat. If you succeed in getting him as far down as that, you will have the whole situation under better control. In fact, your victory is half won; for, from that moment on, the abusive terms will show a remarkable tendency to cool down.
Why? Well, simply because that more peaceful and comfortable position of his body naturally involves a corresponding relaxation of his mind. He has first definitely relaxed in his outward attitude. And that "movement of expression"--as Freienfels would have said--proves simply paralyzing to his whole inward system of warfare. The threatening attitude and the shouting voice he managed to keep up while standing, are now like a deflated balloon.
Kant's amusing stratagem here is of considerable interest to our discussion in several respects. Of course both its theoretical and its practical applicability may easily be exaggerated. One fact, however, is obvious enough: any beast that is to fall upon its prey forcefully and effectively, must see to it that it is not deprived of its initial position of superiority in a very literal sense. Similarly, any man who is to deal stunning blows to another man (even in a purely "spiritual" sense) has had his chances of an efficient "unfolding" considerably reduced, of course, if he suddenly finds himself far down in the hugging depths of an easy-chair.
Just imagine a similar spit-fire breaking into your own office one day. His rage, too, is, after all, dependent upon a certain "elbow room". His primitive deportment requires a primitive medium to unfold itself. And then, all of a sudden, you cut off every means of a natural exteriorization. Your courteous invitation to sit down is simply an ambush of the most malicious sort. That man's fresh fury is actually doomed to die out in his heart, gradually but surely.
In fact, this is a point where psychology quite dramatically seems to touch even the realms of specifically religious problems. For one thing is of course to know ~ with Kant ~ how to disarm a usual adversary. But my most dangerous adversary, from a religious viewpoint, is just my own self, and the seething emotions of my innermost mind. If I manage to keep them under control, then I have triumphantly won the day. No religious thinking and living can ignore the problems of overcoming human passions and of changing human minds. No true religion is ever indifferent to the strange "outward thing" called action (or "works"). Is not action, after all, the "movement of expression" par excellence? And, sincerely speaking, is it not an undeniable fact that almost any person would find it far, far less problematic to command his limbs to do something (even acts of love) than to command his heart to feel something (for instance just love)?
So a question of tremendous range and importance to the alterocentric system of moral theory, as well as of pragmatic deed, naturally arises here: is perhaps the alternative of doing "first", "then" feeling (or thinking, or believing) a workable approach toward changing the innermost depths of a human mind? Is this maybe one of the ropes of salvation let down to struggling man (not necessarily excluding all other "ropes")?
In fact, the idea is not all unknown to the thinking of religious men down through the annals of church history, that divine providence may thus have provided for human being in a strikingly realistic manner, simply through the working out of some admirable "natural laws" of psychophysical interaction, instituted by the Creator even on the first day when He said: "Let the human totality be."
We may quote here just one little statement from a modern religious writer. It contains nothing startling from a dogmatic Christian point of view. For the views are in perfect accordance with what are considered to be orthodox Christian views, as regards man's utter inability to change himself without the grace and the miraculous intervention of God. Still it affords material for strange reflections:
It is a law of nature that our thoughts and feelings are encouraged and strengthened as we give them utterance. While words express thoughts, it is also true that thoughts follow words. If we would give more expression to our faith, rejoice more in the blessings that we know we have,--the great love and mercy of God,--we would have more faith and greater joy.
And we know the striking piece of advice Pascal would not hesitate to give a group of young men who desired to obtain a deeper feeling of piety: Just conform your outward lives to all the outward practices of the Christian congregation, and you will soon see that the inward feeling of piety gradually appears "spontaneously", so to speak.
It is the theorist who makes us believe that religious life, too, may be divided up into separate departments, something called "faith" on one hand and something called `works" on the other. In our `Christian Anthropology" we shall in due course discuss what we call the dualism of faith versus works, showing that this too is an abstraction foreign to life's reality.
But is not this peculiar pattern of Christian "pragmatism", here recommended by Pascal, after all, a sort of dualism in its turn? you might perhaps object. "Perform some outward action first", it seems to say, "and you will have some inward experience afterwards." Ought not the true viewpoint of a really consistent totality and synthesis to rather exclude every form of mutual interaction between the outward and the inward? Should it not render impossible--in principle, so to say--any influence of Form upon matter, or of matter upon Form--to continue using Aristotle's terminology?
May we try to answer this by means of a rather rough illustration:
In order to make a bicycle move on the road, it does not make any difference in principle whether you push the back-wheel or the front-wheel. Still, no one can deny: it is the totality--the bicycle--that really moves. Every normal movement in this case automatically implies a movement of the front-wheel as well as the back-wheel. In fact, all parts of the bicycle may be imagined as chained together in the most tight and intimate way. But does that make it false to say that the back-wheel, once set in motion, will immediately also "cause" the front-wheel to move? Of course it does not matter a bit whether you apply your initial motive power to one wheel or to the other. We mean quite theoretically considered. That there may be a practical difference here--a difference to you who have in front of you the tangible task to make that bicycle move without taxing your physical forces too heavily--that is quite another story. In fact, in a given case, it may be far more practical to start the pushing on one wheel than on the other. (If you decide to ride a bicycle of the usual type, we assume for instance that you will soon make up your mind to concentrate your leg-power around the pushing of the back-wheel rather than the front-wheel.) We may express it in this way: in practice one of the wheels proves far easier to "get hold of" than the other one.
And is not that exactly the difference which also asserts itself in the case of the outward versus the inward in human psychology, as well as in any anthropological field?
We are all anxious to choose the wisest mode of tackling life's numerous problems. And then it will immediately appear more practical by far, to prefer the outward as our "point of departure", so to speak. Why? Simply because it is so infinitely more practicable to "get a firm and efficient hold" just there. Accordingly, we do not hesitate to apply our initial "pushing" on that very point. But, as for the "movement" eventually realized, it is of course the whole man who is being "moved" all the time, and not only this or that "exterior" or "interior" "part" of the compound reality he stands for.
Interestingly enough, by the way: in many respects man has adapted his behaviour quite intuitively, we assume, to these simple facts of common-sense reality.
Or is it sometimes just a sort of psychological cunning and technique on the part of a shrewd minority? Take as an example the really clever detective story writer. He has evidently made up his mind, in one particular case, not just to inform you that Miss So-and-So suddenly gets afraid, but certainly to make that idea quite humanly alive to you. Does he say then, "She got afraid"? No, no! That would not have convinced you, his incredulous reader, at all. He prefers to say something just as simple, perhaps even much simpler, but also ten times more efficient. He says, "She suddenly stopped. Every limb was stiff. Her face turned pale. Her eyes were frigidly staring. She gave a cry."
"Why all that round-about business?" some will ask. Does not everybody know how a woman behaves when she is afraid? Well, look at every sentence once more. What is described in each case? Simply a gesture of expression. The author--consciously or unconsciously--takes into account one capital fact: you are actually not able to read about those expressions without imitating, in your own body, every one of them. At least you do make the initial movement towards "turning pale", "staring", "crying", and so on and so forth. And what happens? To express it in a graphic and highly simplified way, the various gestures do not fail to "drag along" the corresponding feelings or inward "contents" of your mind.