AL II,32: "Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor infinite & unknown; & all their words are skew-wise."

THE OLD COMMENT.

32. We have insufficient data on which to reason. This passage only allies to 'rational' criticism of the Things Beyond.

THE NEW COMMENT.

The 'factor infinite and unknown' is the subconscious Will. 'On with the revel!" 'Their words' -- the plausible humbug of the newspapers and the churches. Forget it! Allons! Marchons!
It has been explained at length in a previous note that 'reason is a lie' by nature. We may here add certain confirmations suggested by the 'factor.' A and a (not-A) together make up the Universe. As a is evidently 'infinite and unknown,' its equal and opposite A must be so no less. Again, from any proposition S is P, reason deduces "S is not p;" thus the apparent finitude and knowability of S is deceptive, since it is in direct relation with p.
No matter what n may be, {?infinity?}, the number of the inductive numbers, is unaltered by adding or subtracting it. There are just as many odd numbers as there are numbers altogether. Our knowledge is confined to statements of the relations between certain sets of our own sensory impressions; and we are convinced by our limitations that 'a factor infinite and unknown' must be concealed within the sphere of which we see but one minute part of the surface. As to reason itself, what is more certain than that its laws are only the conscious expression of the limits imposed upon us by our animal nature, and that to attribute universal validity, or even significance, to them is a logical folly, the raving of our megalomania? Experiment proves nothing; it is surely obvious that we are obliged to correlate all observations with the physical and mental structure whose truth we are trying to test. Indeed, we can assume an 'unreasonable' axiom, and translate the whole of our knowledge into its terms, without fear of stumbling over any obstacle. Reason is no more than a set or rules developed by the race; it takes no account of anything beyond sensory impressions and their reactions to various parts of our being. There is no possible escape from the vicious circle that we can register only the behaviour of our own instrument. We conclude from the fact that it behaves at all, that there must be 'a factor infinite and unknown' at work upon it. This being the case, we may be sure that our apparatus is inherently incapable of discovering the truth about anything, even in part.
Let me illustrate. I see a drop of water. Distrusting my eyes, I put it under the microscope. Still in doubt, I photograph and enlarge the slide. I compare my results with those of others. I check them by cultivating the germs in the water, and injecting them into paupers. But I have learnt nothing at all about 'the infinite and unknown,' merely producing all sorts of different impressions according to the conditions in which one observes it!
More yet, all the instruments used have been tested and declared "true" on the evidence of those very eyes distrust of which drove me to the research.
Modern Science has at last grown out of the very-young-man cocksureness of the 19th century. It is now admitted that axioms themselves depend on definitions, and that Intuitive Certainty is simply one trait of "homo sapiens", like the ears of the *** or the slime of the slug. That we reason as we do merely proves that we cannot reason otherwise. We cannot move the upper jaw; it does not follow that the idea of motion is ridiculous. The limitation hints rather that there may be an infinite variety of structures which the jaw cannot imagine. The metric system is not the necessary mode of measurement. It is the mark of a mind untrained to take its own processes as valid for all men, and its own judgments for absolute truth. Our two eyes see an object in two aspects, and present to our consciousness a third which agrees with neither, is indeed, strictly speaking, not sensible to sight, but to touch! Our senses declare some things at rest and others in motion; our reason corrects the error, firstly by denying that anything can exist unless it is in motion, secondly by denying that absolute motion possesses any meaning at all.
At the time when this Book was written, official Science angrily scouted the 'factor infinite and unknown,' and clung with pathetic faith to the idea that reason was the touchstone of truth. In a single sentence, Aiwaz anticipates the discoveries by which the greatest minds now incarnate have made the last ten years memorable.


AL II,33: "Enough of Because! Be he damned for a dog!"

THE OLD COMMENT.

33. We pass from the wandering in the jungle of Reason to -- the Awakening. (see next verse).

THE NEW COMMENT.

This is the only way to deal with reason. Reason is like a woman; if you listen, you are lost; with a thick stick, you have some sort of sporting chance. Reason leads the philosopher to self-contradiction, the statesman to doctrinaire follies; it makes the warrior lay down his arms, and the lover cease to rave. What is so unreasonable as man? The only Because in the lover's litany is Because I love you. We want no skeleton syllogisms at our symposium of souls.
Philosophically, 'Because is absurd.' There is no answer to the question "Why." The greatest thinkers have been sceptics or agnostics: "omnia exeunt in mysterium"," and "summa scientia nihil scire" are old commonplaces. In my essays 'Truth' (in Konx Om Pax), 'The Soldier and the Hunchback,' 'Eleusis' and others, I have offered a detailed demonstration of the self-contradictory nature of Reason. The crux of the whole proof may be summarized by saying that any possible proposition must be equally true with its contradictory, as, if not, the universe would no longer be in equilibrium. It is no objection that to accept this is to destroy conventional Logic, for that is exactly what it is intended to do. I may also mention briefly one line of analysis.
I ask "What is (e.g.) a tree?" The dictionary defines this simple idea by means of many complex ideas; obviously one gets in deeper with every stroke one takes. The same applies to any "Why" that may be posed. The one existing mystery disappears as a consequence of innumerable antecedents, each equally mysterious.
To ask questions is thus evidently worse than a waste of time, so far as one is looking for an answer.
There is also the point that any proposition S is P merely includes P in the connotation of S, and is therefore not really a statement of relation between two things, but an amendment of the definition of one of them. "Some cats are black" only means that our idea of a cat involves the liability to appear black, and that blackness is consistent with those sets of impressions which we recognize as characteristic of cats. All ratiocination may be reduced to syllogistic form; hence, the sole effect of the process is to make each term more complex. Reason does not add to our knowledge; a filing system does not increase one's correspondence directly, though by arranging it one gets a better grasp of one's business. Thus coordination of our impressions should help us to control them; but to allow reason to rule us is as abject as to expect the exactitude of our ledgers to enable us to dispense with initiative on the one hand and actual transactions on the other.