Society And its Purpose
Book 4 - Psychological Laws and the End of Civil Societies
CHAPTER 28
The hierarchy of the unsatisfiable capacities of the spirit
789. The immense number of physiognomies assumed by human unhappiness can be classified into a kind of hierarchy in the same way as we classify the mental abstractions which serve as the basis of the various kinds of unhappiness we are describing. Because abstractions are more or less general, illusions about happiness rest on more or less general abstractions.
790. In our case, the most general abstract idea is that of happiness. This, however, lies under an infinite number of other abstract ideas which become continually more determined until they conclude with the determined idea to which real objects correspond. Individual, real objects could not be considered as objects corresponding to the general idea of happiness unless they were mediated through more restricted, special ideas of good to which the objects directly correspond. Let me explain.
Every time we falsely take a real object as that which corresponds to our happiness, we commit an error in which on analysis we would find other errors. We do not, in fact, erroneously assume something as the object of our happiness unless we have substituted various abstract ideas of particular kinds of good for more general ideas. This substitution is carried out as we go on putting restricted ideas in the place of ever broader ideas, until we come to the point where we confuse particular ideas with the idea of generic happiness. I mean: `Every abstract idea is a rule by which we are led to acknowledge the real object corresponding to it.’
This occurs infallibly every time the abstract mental conception and the positive conception of a real thing are present and compared with one another. When, however, the positive conception of the real thing is removed from our mind, we no longer know how to indicate to ourselves in a determined way the object signalled by our abstract mental conception. This conception no longer harmonises perfectly with any of our positive mental conceptions and consequently remains in the mind as an empty outline, an undetermined notion. Despite this, if the real object corresponding to our abstract conception is of extreme interest or necessary for us (our happiness is a case in point), we confuse the general abstract conception (the abstract idea of happiness) with all the special abstracts which are either subject to it or form part of it (unless we once more stumble across the real object itself). For example, we take the abstract conception of pleasure as the abstract of happiness (the first class of error).
Indeed, we take all the real objects known by us through their correspondence in some way to the special abstracts as objects corresponding to the general abstract (the second class of error). This is what actually happens in the illusions of false happinesses which we have described.
791. If we place our desire of happiness in relationship with the true, proper object which achieves it, our desire comes to be determined by the unity of this object. If, however, this desire and conception of happiness are divided from their proper object, they remain undetermined and empty. At this point, our heart wants something, but does not know exactly what it wants. It conceives its happiness, therefore, in a general, undetermined way; through its longing to give some kind of determination to its happiness it confuses happiness with other abstract but less undetermined ideas. The special ideas of which I am speaking have a certain relationship of likeness with the more general idea of happiness, of which they can become elements. Let us see how this is applied.
792. The absolute good corresponding to the fully undetermined, abstract idea of happiness has five characteristics and elements. These five elements are known through the abstract ideas or mental conceptions corresponding to them. It is precisely these abstract ideas or conceptions that we confuse and exchange with the general abstract of happiness.
793. The first characteristic and element of happiness is that happiness is actual enjoyment. Thus, human beings find a likeness to happiness in felt pleasure. Immediately, they produce the abstract idea of pleasure. This special, abstract idea is then exchanged for the generic, abstract idea of happiness. We then go on to believe that the object of the special abstract idea is the object of the generic idea. This is the origin of the first class of illusions.
794. The second characteristic and element of happiness is that this enjoyment should come to us from the possession of an object different from us; human beings are capable and desirous of possessing other things in order to make up for their own limitation. In material wealth, and in ownership of every kind, people find some object to possess, and therefore some likeness between wealth and happiness. Once formed, the special abstract of wealth is confused with the general abstract of happiness, and we begin to hope that real wealth, which corresponds to the idea of wealth, corresponds also to the idea of happiness. This is the origin of the second class of illusions.
795. The third characteristic and element of happiness is that the object of happiness possessed by us should amplify our nature. Human beings believe they find this effect in power, through which some are persuaded of their superiority over others. As a result of this apparent likeness between the conception of power and that of happiness, the special abstract of power is taken for the general abstract of happiness, and the object of power as the object of happiness itself. Hence the third class of illusions.
796. The fourth characteristic and element of happiness is that the pleasure and the object possessed, and one’s own greatness, reside in the spiritual part of human beings.(346) Especially attractive to our spirit is the possession of knowledge, which contains a close resemblance to happiness. Consequently, human beings deceive themselves by imagining that their happiness consists in knowledge in general. They take the abstract of knowledge for the abstract of happiness, and exchange the objects of happiness with those corresponding to the idea of knowledge. Hence the fourth class of illusions.
797. Finally, the fifth characteristic and element of happiness is that human beings, when reflecting upon themselves, see or can see and describe themselves as happy. They have a sure, lively consciousness of this state, which is authenticated and confirmed either by some infallible witness or at least by the greatest possible number of witnesses. Moreover, they want such witness in favour of their state of greatness and happiness to endure eternally, or at least be repeated as often as possible and with the greatest efficacy and vivacity. All this is desired so that they may have the highest conviction and most actual perception of their own greatness.
This is achieved by glory. Glory brings home vividly the greatness of the individual, and provides him with a secret complacency. This triumph seems to come from the glory of the people persuaded of his greatness, from whom he draws his praise. Finding a resemblance between glory and happiness, he first confuses the abstract of glory with that of happiness, and then goes on to believe that the realisation of human glory is the same as the realisation of his happiness. This gives rise to the fifth class of illusions.
798. These are the five special abstracts, superior to all others, which are confused with the most general abstract of happiness.
799. As I was saying, therefore, other minor abstracts are ranked beneath the five special abstracts captained by the general abstract of happiness. Although they are too many to be listed, they form a hierarchy of ideas, of which the last represents the lowest kind of real objects.(347) A hierarchy of possible errors and illusions about happiness corresponds to this hierarchy of ideas when human practical reason confuses one or other of the levels in the hierarchy. It takes the lowest real object in the hierarchy and elevates it level by level as it were to the highest level of all occupied by the most abstract notion of happiness.
Notes
(346) We have shown that human beings are not content except through an act of the intellect.
(347) For example, under the abstract of felt pleasure, we have the lesser abstracts of pleasurable food and physical love. Some people would reduce all pleasure, let us say, to eating, and thus confuse the idea of this specialised felt pleasure with the idea of felt pleasure in general. The objects of the former are then taken as the objects of the latter.