J.H, PRYNNE Resistance and Difficulty Behind a wide range of recurring situations and problems in the fields of human relations and the various arts stands a small number of concepts of crucial but nebulous importance. It is my intention to ex- amine two of these, and to indicate on what lines a further and more detailed investigation might be conducted. I make no apology for main- taining the discussion on a high level of generality, giving the minimum of specific concrete examples; to particularise might be more cogent, but very much less economical. There are several different ways of considering the nature and structure of process; Aristotle worked from the central notions of direction (the_intentional- orientation of process) and of end (what con- stitutes its delimiting terminus). The concept of substance can thus be Seen primarily as the locus of processes, the dimension within which process becomes intelligible. Anton has pointed out that "substance is the ontological principle and contrariety is a- necessary principle for its “intelligibility, and in this respect, the latter is ontologically grounded in the essence of the former and only logically prior to it." However, ~ this logical priority seems to-have bent —view,—and-hence-substancé t# not as fully considered as the structure of difference and of change. If a philosopher is concerned to make ine felligible the world around him, then its intelligibility must be of prior _ importance to, the given fact that the world exists. It is not perhaps until we reach the later scholastics that we begin to find any serious attempt made.to.reverse the priorities and to assert the full importance of-substance. And-at once we find the nature of thé ~ cognitive act and the anatomy of awareness assuming an important place in philosophical speculation. Ockham spent much time refining and de- veloping the teaching of DunsScotus on abstractive and intuitive cognition; —_ but the feeling which these theorists maybe said to have shared, that the latter mode of cognition was logically- dependent on the former but prior toit both ontologically andinimportance, is not an easy one to communi- cate, and seems tohave been widely misinterpreted at the time, Theories that subordinate intelligibility - even in part - to some other criterion of importance-are=characteristically-difficult to expound, and also to comprehend. — When Aureolug-writes "omnis res est se ipsa singularis et per nihil aliud, "' thighasa fine-conclusive ring about it, but it does Pot seem to represent aposition that can be argued. Intuitive cognition, however, was an important concept, as it made possible the cognition of contingent facts, tne awareness of objects as substance and not simply more important in Aristotle's”“poset evidenter cognosci ab intellect," andthis is perhaps not far, “object 0 as the locus of change or the substratum of structure and relationship. ‘As Fr. Boehner explains, "intuitive cognitionhas the inherent intention- ality of immediacy towards the presence, actuality and existence of _an object; whilet abstractive cognition does not have oris indifferent to these “conditions of the object." The whole position is more complex than it may sound, andthe technical use of notitia intuitiva shouldnot be confused with the usage of Bergson or Husserl. But Ockham shows himself fully aware of the significance of his position when he observes that "notitia singularie aliqua potest esse intuitiva, quiaaliternulla veritas contingens R.P. crease the 5: mur's contention that it is the function of poetry to in ‘of the world's available realit SS ‘This brief account of ome of the stages in thé development of the idea of substance is necessary to my argument, as the concept-of resist- ance canbe seen, I suggest, to stand in a similar relation to substance loes Aristotle's principle of contrariety. ‘That is to say;the concept ofresistance may provide an alternative criterion of intelligibility; one which does not undermine the "presence; actuality and existence" of an yerson, hich makes the fact of its existence without impairing its status as a substantial, independent entity. And hence the reality of the external world may be constituted, not by an effort of will as Maine de Biran contended, but on the basis.of the world's perceived -existence,-the resistance that it offers to_our awareness. Such a viewpoint has been canvassed in part by various phenomeno- logical writers; but as their work is largely and unjustifiably neglected inthis country, it may be helpful to consider their contribution. Brentano was explicit about his debt to "was die Scholastiker des Mittelalters die intentionale (auch wohl mentale) Inexistenz eines Gegenstandes genannt haben," and although the precise relationship has been much disputed in the case of other writers, some general indebtedness of greater or lesser obliquity seems fairly certain. However, it is in the work of the realist wing of the phenomenological movement that the concept of resistance becomes of primary ontological importance. Hartmann writes: "Es wird sich zeigen, dass die durchgehende Uberzeugtheit vorn Ansichsein der Welt, in der wir leben, nicht so sehr auf der Wahrnehmung als auf dem erlebten Widerstande beruht, den das Reale der Aktivitat des Subjekts leistet, - auf einer breiten Basie der Lebenserfahrung also, welche die emotionalen Akte liefern." ("It will become evident that the thorough- going cogency of the independent existence ofthe world we live in depends not somuch on perception, as on the experience of resistance which the reality of the subject's activity provides - depends, therefore on a basis of lived experience furnished by emotional acts.") All human ‘action, Hartmann suggests, including physical movement and emotional activities such as expecting, hoping, desiring, valuing and so on, intend outward from the subject. They are directed towards some object or person, and this object or person conditions their exact nature. It is for Hartmann the resistance that these activities, radiating from the sub- ject, encounter in the external world that is the chief source of our ‘awareness of the world's independent reality. The world becomes in- 27telligtble to us - that is to say, we can discriminate between different spects of its existence - by virtue of the fact that it resists our activie i ties in various ways. This is what Hartmann means by his phrase "the hardness of what is real,"" in complete contradistinction to the Sartrian | “espdce d'écoeurement douceatre’ over the pervasive viscosity of sabe stance. Scheler may be said to have anticipated Hartmann in this approach, especially in his anti-Kantian thesis of the "weakness of the spirit"! Hartmann follows Scheler closely by asserting that the "strength" of any category of being is proportional to its proximity in the metaphysical hierarchy tothe lowest level, that of individual particularity, even though | he elsewhere criticises Scheler's "'voluntativer Realismus." Further speculation along these lines has been carried out by figures as different as Marcel and Merleau-Ponty. (The latter's writings deserve to be much better known in England, and his recent death is especially un- fortunate.) However, even the recent impetus given to speculation about substance by the phenomenologists and perceptual psychologist | has not overcome Aristotle's dilemma of logical and ontological priorities, | The exertions of mind and body that we make to become aware of the external world, through the facts of experienced resistance, may be seen as the attempt to gain knowledge of an already existing world; but con- ~—versely, they may also be seen as the way in which we constitute the world, make it real for ourselves by the continuous projection of our own image. For can the world - in its full and detailed substantiality = be saidtohave existed for me, before my knowledge of it? And if so, what_warrant of this can have, which will provide the same degree of convincingness as experienced resistance? Itis problems of thie order that occupied -Husserl increasingly towards the end of his life, and it —Seems=likely-that-he-decided finally-for intelligibility over actuality. I At this point it will perhaps be profitable to distinguish between resistance and difficulty. Resistance is a quality that manifests itself | to me’ only in the context of process, though I can obtain less vivid Sensations of resistance from imagined process. or from process re- — ported to have occurred to another subject. But resistance iteelf comes nearer than any other differentiable quality to being completely inherent inthe object, in the core of the other person's distinctness from myself: 7 =the stone's hard palpable weight is the closest I can come to the fact of its existence, and the reserve or disagreement of my neighbour is my primary evidence for his beingreallythere. Inertia is probaly a more accurate term, and is the one.suggested for this-purpose by Destutt de —— Tracy as early as 1801. ''Sans elle, " he observed of the inertial force, “nous n'aurions pas connu les corps étrangers Anous, ni méme le nétre."" Difficulty, however, is clearly a function ofprocess, perhaps even - with ‘ontrast - the main criterion of its intelligibility. Difficulty, 1 suggest Z t § the subjective counterpart to resistance: 1 experience difficulty when E encounter resistance. — It is as. if the-senses reported to my mind the i ‘Presence of resistance outside me by means of the internal sensation of difficulty. This distinction will perhaps give us some means of coming to closer grips with the problem of priorities, since difficulty is cog- nitively prior to resistance but ontologically dependent upon it. 28Thus if we view the mind's exertions as constitutive of the world's reality, then all we meet withisdifficulty. This may be of an agonising i order (as it was for Husserl and for Mallarmé), but it testifies to no necessarily existing-reality outside itself. _ Abailard is typical of this approach when he writes, in his Ethica seu Scito Teipsum, "Where is the battle if the antagonist is away? Whence the great rewerd without grave endurance?...... For a contest, an opponent is needed, tot one who simply submits." The agonised attempts of the intellect to account for the existence of evil all too often come to this: contrary ethical poles are necessary so that moral activity can have a dimension.within which its processes can operate and become*intelligible. And further- more; behind arguments of this order are concealed logical assumptions that the two ethical poles are in some respects at least of equal status we recall the satanic ingenuities-of Paradise Regained: — If the subject allows the external world only-sufficient objective reality for the major dimensions of human living tobe set up, then all that can be discovered in it is difficulty. — Sooner-or later the viciousnese of this position be- comes evident, because once it has finally been adopted it cannot admit the existence of contingent facts or other beings. Even works of art — are reduced ultimately to the status of tools, of devices without valid — substance - a fate against which Heidegger gave brilliant warning in his work, Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes. = At this point I shall take issue with part of an important essay by i Professor Wild, inwhich he suggests that if resistance to our awareness | (or "noetic resistance''as he has elsewhere called it) be a distinguishing | mark of reality, then what is imagined is too fixed in its perspectives to | | yield evidence of changing depths opaque to instantaneous insight. He continues his discussion by apparently identifying imagining with imag- ination, as when he writes: "Imagination and reason can tell us about qualities and essences, that may or may not exist, with a high degree of clarity and distinctness. By themselves alone they can tell us nothing about existence..... Such knowledge comes from self-conscious action in the Lebenewelt of man. It comes from the sensing of variations in intensity, from the feeling of friendly forces which support our intentions, or from the shock of alien forces which resist them, and finally from the | inexhaustible richness of the things and persons around us which con- stantly blocks our attempts to understand." This is a carefully defined | point of view, with perhaps deceptive warmth about it, "'Self-conscious | action" in the milieu described with such eloquence, as a primary source for the experience of existence, seems to point to a position where the u external world’s main value to the subject lies in the graduated difficulties that it can provide him with, and by means of which the subject can render 1 himself and his actions fully intelligible. I do not discover much about | the nature of water, if I require it only in order to realise my ability to swim; and if the attempt to reach an awareness of substance is thus Prompted by the need for self-definition, then we must expect the con- tributions of the imagination to be set aside. _ It is in fact notable that very few formal ontological systems have made any special provision for the imagination and the special status of its products. Even the phenomenologists have tended to enact their insights rather than explain 29them, asin the French existential novel or the remarkable prose poetry of Heidegge Itisa d our most valu culties, Resistance, I have mai ngerous omission, however, as the imagination is one of iemodes of access to the resistance beyond our several ned, is in an inescapable sense given, foundto exist, and may not be fabricated or willed into being - like difficulty ~ to meet the continuing demand for palpable texture 6% human affairs. And this priority of givenness over purposiveness seems to be-a distinguishing. feature of the creative imagination alone of the various capacities of man - this unfathomable ability to give substance to what is needed but not simply wanted, to offer both the difficulty of contrivance and also a profound assurance that this difficulty corresponds to genuine resistance in the larger context of the outside world. It is the imagination's peculiar functionto admit, draw sustenance from, and celebrate the ontological priority of this outside world, by creating en - tities which subsequently become a part of the world, an addition to it. Hence the tensions between metre and rhythm, between credibility and dramatic cogency, infact the stringencies of artifice and discipline _gen- erally which constitute the dimensions within which the imagination is realised and becomes intelligible, embody both the process and its diffi- culties, and the resistances properto its substance. Just as for Marcel and Merleau-Ponty the existence of my body; as mine, bridges the gap between my consciousness and the world, so the substantial medium of the artist and the autonomy of his creation establish the priority of the world while at the same time making it accessible. In this way the ontology implicit in Hopkins's- poetry draws much-of its strength from_a— syntactical difficulty underpinned by etymological and phonetic resistance; the image of Christ's body as part of the natural order constantly re- asserts the valid priority of substance. For Rilke this embodied fusion of process with substance is-an urgent and conscious theme: = "Und so drangen wir uns und wollen es leisten, wollens enthalten in unseren ¢infachen Handen, im berfiillteren Blick und im sprachlosen Herzen. Wollen es werden." (Vand so we urge ourselves on and want to achieve it, - want to contain it-within-our_simple-hands,, in the yet more crowded gaze and the speechless heart. a Wanting to become it."') it is perhaps ultimately from sources like these that we derive our most powerful and sustaining sense of the world, in all its complex variousness. 30