The Purpose of Life in Economics:

Weighing Human Values Against Pure

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Lall Ramrattan and Michael Szenberg

The Purpose of Life in Economics

Weighing Human Values Against Pure Science
Lall Ramrattan
University of California, Berkeley Extension, Antioch, CA, USA

Michael Szenberg
Touro College and University System, New York, NY, USA

ISBN 978-3-031-17064-5 e-ISBN 978-3-031-17065-2

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17065-2

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To my wife, Noreena, my kids, Devi, Shanti and Rajan, Hari and Mena, and
Rani and Jonathan, and my grandchildren, Brian, Sabrina, Aditi, and
Abhishek, and Mia, and my great-grandchild Anna. I will love them
forever.—L.R.B”H
Dedicated to the memory of my sister, Esther, for bringing me to these
shores; to the memory of my father, Henoch, for his wisdom and to my
mother, Sara, for giving birth to me—twice; and my grandparents, who
died on Kiddush Hashem, Abraham Mordchai and Feigel Rosensaft, and
Itzhak Meir and Chava Szenberg, to my children, Marc and Naomi Kunin,
Avi and Tova Szenberg; to my grandchildren, Chaim and Elki Herzog,
Moshe and Batya Shain, Nachum and Devorah Wolmark, Chanoch,
Ephraim, Ayala and Menachem Pfeiffer, and Yaakov Nosson, and to my
great-grandchildren, Chanoch, Faigale, Moshe, Avigdor Mordchai, Chaya
Avigail, Yaakov, and Chaim Baruch; and to my wife, Miriam.—M.S.
Preface
The book calls for a broader purpose for economics than a mere means
to ends analysis. In current practice, economics is focused too minutely.
Although Adam Smith, the father of economics, was working with “a
vision of the economic process” which allows the practitioners “to think
economic problems through, not in separate bits, but together,” as
explained by Hicks (Hicks, 1983, p. 6), his approach is considered self-
centered. While humans are endowed with multiple faculties, Smith
honed in on only the one that will produce plentiful revenue for
themselves, and to supply the nation with sufficient revenues for public
services. Such a goal assumes inequality, situates morality on greed,
and does not impute a true social cost of production, particularly of the
environment. In times of crises, Smith’s vision is not consistent with
expenditures on public works and institutions, which are in the interest
of the individual (Robbins, 1976, p. 7).
David Ricardo had at heart the distribution of output. He believed
that “the laboring classes should have a taste for comforts and
enjoyments, and that they should be stimulated by all legal means in
their exertions to procure them” (Ricardo, 2004, p. 100). He was
particularly concerned that this goal should not be achieved by a policy
of reducing the population, but not for the reason that Scrooge gave for
reducing the surplus population. Rather, he was concerned that such a
policy will reduce production and therefore defeat the purpose.
The philosopher and economist, John Stuart Mill, sought a goal that
would humanize economics. He stood on the shoulders of Jeremy
Bentham and David Ricardo, on utility theory and distribution theory,
to achieve that purpose. With regard to utility, he held that “the sole
evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that
people actually do desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine
proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged to
be an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was so” (Mill,
2001 [1863], p. 25). Mill improved utilitarianism by distinguishing
higher from lower pleasure. The test for this is that one who
experiences both would prefer the higher pleasure thing. The higher
pleasure may require a higher education or wisdom for it is “better to
be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied” (p. 13).
 With regard to distribution, Mill advocated a special brand of
equality, which on the one side has “the theory of dependence and
protection, and other that of self-dependence” (Mill, 1909, p. 753). As is
expected of every human, Mill sanctioned the latter. The poor should
not depend on the rich in their thinking, morality, or religion. In the
economic sense, he regarded relation between “protector and
protected” as belonging to “a rude and imperfect state of the social
union” (p. 755). The modern poor can be self-dependent because they
have the laws to protect them, and “where laws do not reach, manners
and opinion protect them” (Ibid.).
The classical economists, Alfred Marshall, wrote that “economics
has to use every method known to science. And as to scope…economics
is a study of man’s action in the ordinary business of life. It inquires
how he gets his income and how he uses it” (Marshall, Volume One,
1996, pp. 299–300). We are told that “the Mecca of the economist lies in
economic biology rather than in economic dynamics economics”
(Marshall, 1982 [1890], p. xiv). In a letter to John N. Keynes (September
20, 1890), he gave a more general view of his method, when he wrote
that “I think that the right order is first to emphasize the mutual
dependence of induction & deduction, and afterwards…collecting,
arranging, and narrating facts” (Marshall, 1996, Volume One, p. 339). It
reads much as Aristotle’s definition that studies “those qualities which
are held in common by all the members of the class. And afterwards to
study special qualities of each individual in it” (Aquinas, 1967, p. 55).
Marshall is also known for favoring analysis over theory, as when
one analyzes all the forces pushing balls in a bowl. But in his analysis,
he invokes the ceteris paribus method that changes one variable while
holding all others constant, as opposed to the mutatis mutandis method
where all variables adjust to the said change. The latter application
finds a home in linear programming in economics. A major problem
with Marshallian economics is in ‘pretending that perfect competition
does a good enough job in fitting the real world’ and he was ‘delaying
the understanding of general equilibrium’ (Samuelson, 1972, Vol. 3, p.
26).
Marshall’s analysis revolves around the many and the one analyses.
In a letter to William Hewins (October 12, 1889), he wrote, “In my view,
the Many is the ground of study, and the One is the Holy Grail to be
sought by the pious and the laborious pilgrim; and the One when so
found is to help as a guide through life over the broken ground of the
Many” (Marshall, 1996, Volume Two, p. 257)[Italics original]. This view
correlates well with his thoughts of reasoning in economics where one
“forges rightly many short chains and single connecting links”
(Marshall, 1982 [1890], p. 638). He gave the example of how the
concept of rent has been extended in meaning from the middle-ages to
current use without contradiction (p. 641). Marshall could have better
exemplified this concept by the atom, rather that sounding a spiritual
bell as he does in his letter.
Marshall wrote on poverty as almost the purpose of economics. He
tells us that “‘the destruction of the poor is their poverty,’ …the
degradation of a large part of mankind.” Further, he asserted that “the
dignity of man was proclaimed by the Christian religion: it has been
asserted with increasing vehemence during the last hundred years: but,
only through the spread of education during quite recent times, are we
beginning to feel the full import of the phrase” (Marshall, 1982 [1890],
p. 3). For him, “consumption is the end of production,” implying the
increase of production for bettering oneself (Marshall, 1982 [1890], p.
67). In a letter to Helen Bosanquet (28 September 1902), he stated that
“true philanthropy aims at increasing strength more than at
diminishing poverty” (Marshall, 1996, Volume Two, p. 399). This view
is further elaborated in a letter to Bishop Brook Westcott (4 January
1900) stating that the “effective remedy” to poverty is “to improve
through education of home life, and the opportunity for fresh-air joyous
play of the young; to keep them longer at school, and to look after them,
when their parents are making defaults, much more paternally that we
do” (Marshall, 1996, Volume Two, p. 263).
The common thread among the classics is the rapid production of
wealth. Unequal distribution is left to the invisible market force. When
it fails, the visible hand such as the government intervenes. But market
is not the only invisible force. Many invisible forces were discovered
and became science. When Galileo was defending his scientific view, he
sought support from the scripture and the works of Saint Augustine.
About the former, we read that there is a “command in Joshua that the
sun should stand still ‘in the midst of the heavens’” (McMullin, 2013, p.
213).
 The way Galileo used Augustine’s views of the scripture was set out
in propositional form. There is a Principle of Accommodation that
accommodates scriptural language to the intended audience (p. 199).
This proposition gave a stronger version of Augustine’s Principle of
Priority of Demonstration proposition, which requires an alternative
reading when the scripture and science conflicts (p. 197). This
nourishes the Principle of Prudence proposition (p. 202) that says one
should not rush to judgment because scriptural interpretation is
fallible, namely that one can make errors in judgment in scriptural
arguments and that new proofs may come to us in the future.
Combining the last two propositions enables one to know that natural
knowledge would be demonstrated that unveils the Principle of
Scriptural Limitation (p. 199) proposition, which implies that nature
can be approached through science.
From the classical, we break into other schools that evolved. The
basic thesis of the purpose of life broadly examined for human affairs is
the underlying thread that ties our chapters together. Broadness means
we expanded to include all disciplines. When specific links arise for the
broad conception, we subject them to appraisal. This is true for the
current popular means to ends definition of economics, and
mathematical models that have a broad base such as Hayek’s model.
Economic schools of thoughts and application for economic
development are also featured.
So far, “Smith’s postulate of the maximizing individual in a relatively
free market… is our basic paradigm” (Gordon, 1965, p. 123). Ricardo
has added the principle of variable proportion. Now, we look at the
addition of stable transitive preferences of neoclassical economists. The
assumption of stable preferences of income and leisure, for instance,
allows agents to maximize utility and wealth at the margin. One
drawback is that income distribution was “independent of property
institutions and of social relations” (Dobb, 1973, p. 35). According to
Douglas North, the “world with which it is concerned is a frictionless
one in which institutions do not exist” (North, 1981, p. 5). North
emphasizes institutional concerns with the “cost of acquiring
information, uncertainty, and transactions costs” (p. 5). The famous
institutionalist, Thorstein Veblen, addressed institutional concerns that
deal with “widespread social habit” (Mitchell, 1969, V. 2, p. 611). The
concept is based on cumulative changes in cultural evolution, which
contrast with “naïve notions” in classical economics such as a
relationship to a “deity,” and which is lacking in neoclassical theories
(pp. 607, 609). Marx was also concerned with evolutionary changes but
one based on Hegel’s thesis, antithesis, and synthesis that comes to an
end in communism. However, Veblen’s view of evolution is based on
Darwin’s evolution that one cannot say when it will end.
The “big” Keynesian revolution developed the demand side to
rescue the free market system in crises (Hicks, 1963, p. 5). Keynes saw
that the instrument for moving the economy was the long-term interest
rate through banking control, but it could not be moved in a hurry. So,
Keynes shifted policy emphasis to fiscal methods (p. 15). Hicks wrote
that this is a “dated” theory in the sense that it must be reinterpreted
for the times. It was useful for the Great Depression (1930s) and the
Great Recession (2007). Hicks was right that in between periods, we
must make dangerous selections from plenty of “practically useful”
theories that come with criticisms (p. 15).
This work looks for the purpose of life from the economic
perspective. It has to straddle both arts and sciences because the
practice of economics has a foot in both. It embraces rather than
rejecting ideas in the unknown domain, such as the notion of deity and
God, which general economic theories tend to purge from its hardcore
in preference for laws of nature. It looks for purpose by looking at
models based on the mind and extends the popular definition of means
to ends to include the mind of all regimes of economics. It sides with
analyses that show decline and decay in current business performance,
and analysis that needs improvement in economic development.
One way to summarize our “purpose in life” viewpoint is gleaned
from trying to answer the question of whether we eat in order to live or
live in order to eat. In his Poverty and Famine book, Sen wrote,
“Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food
to eat. It is not the characteristic of there not being enough to eat” (Sen,
1992, p. 1). He developed this theory in terms of “Entitlement and
Deprivation,” based on ways people can buy or get entitled to food,
instead of using the standard Food Availability Decline (FAD) method to
study famine (p. 57). To study deprivation, “it is necessary to look at
both ownership patterns and exchange entitlements and at the forces
that lie behind them” (p. 6).
Sen’s method is broad-based. This comes out from his spatial
diagram plotted in a Non-food versus Food Cartesian plane. Once you
locate the minimum amount of food on the x-axis, then you can
complete a starvation set by extending that point to the y-axis. Sen’s
diagram is topologically “N” shaped. The two uprights of the letter
enclose the space of analysis, as the second one is fixed on the
minimum food requirement. Below the slant and above the x-axis are
points of entitlement vectors, which together form the starvation set.
One gets out of starvation if an entitlement point in the starvation set is
mapped above the slant. As nonfood prices fall, the slant pivots upward
on the nonfood axes. The model went broad because it brings in the
philosophy of entitlement. But its nonfood set can be further expanded
from its materialistic base to a spiritual or religious one. The obvious
reason was told a long time ago in a statement to the effect that man
shall not live by bread alone.
Religion and spirituality have values, which are no idle pursuit.
They are achieved by practice work, and human labor, which also
evolved. Therefore, to take them away would be depriving one of their
property rights. They bear fruits in the form of a steady mind. One who
attains them is said to be liberated. This is analogous to successful
investment in business, yet no one criticizes the rich investor for not
being able to pass on the successful secret of investment. Testimonies
exist that religious and spiritual powers have been transmitted. We are
beginning to discover that when the mind is religiously and spiritually
concentrated, we can use consciousness as well, as a means to ends.
We acknowledge the permission to reproduce materials from a Sage
preprint: https://​advance.​sagepub.​com/​articles/​preprint/​Two_​
Propositions_​of_​Heilbroner_​1919-2005_​/1 ​ 4879793 , and the Meta-
Graphic Framework for Major Theories of Poverty with Dynamic and
Invariant mapping analysis. (December 7, 2021), International Journal
of Current Research, Vol. 7, Issue, 01, pp. 11685–11695, January, 2015.
Both pieces were published under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows
one to share and adapt under attribution to the original post.
Lall Ramrattan
Michael Szenberg
 Antioch, USA
New York, USA
Contents
1 Introduction and the Consciousness as the Purpose of Life
Introduction
Some Basic Views of the Purpose of Life
David Hume (1632–1704) on Religion and Philosophy
Hume’s Proposition:​Theists &​Sceptics Theories
Corollary I:​Hume’s Passion vs.​Reason
Specification of Hume’s Model: H1…H4
On Passion
On Constraints
On the Functional Relationship
Corollary II:​Hume’s Imagination vs.​Reason vs.​Feelings
The Implication of Hume’s System and its Elements for the
Purpose of Life
The Influence of Hume on Adam Smith
Consciousness as the Purpose of Life
Existence of Consciousness
Some Main Propositions on Consciousness
Early Proposition of Cognition [Saint Augustine of Hippo
(354–430)]
Propositions on Revelation [Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–
1274)]
Main Cognitive Proposition [René Descartes (1596–1650)]
Phenomenal Propositions [Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1726/​
27)]
Proposition on Understanding and Ideas [John Locke
(1632–1704)]
 Main Perception Proposition [Gottfried Wilhelm (von)
Leibniz (1646–1716)]
Main Categorical Imperative Proposition [Immanuel Kant
(1724–1804)]
Main Phenomenological​Proposition [Edmund Gustav
Albrecht Husserl (1859–1938)]:​Stream of Consciousness—
Past, Present, and Future
Some Individual Propositions of Consciousness
Proposition I [Daniel Dennett]:​Multiple Drafts Model
Proposition II [Francis and Oldie Click]:​The Astonishing
Hypothesis
Proposition III [David Chalmers]:​Great Divide
Proposition IV [John Searle]:​The Chinese Room Argument:​
The Behavioral and Rain Science
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
Proposition V [Amit Goswami]:​Monistic Idealism
Proposition [Deepak Chopra]:​Consciousness Is Non-Local:​
Consciousness Is Not in the Brain and Not in the Body Has
no Location in Space and Time
Consciousness in Economics
Chapters’ Outline
References
2 Scientific, Philosophical, and Psychological Views of the Purpose
of Life
Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543) and Galileo Galilei’s (1564–
1642) Views
Copernicus’s Revolution Implied a Purpose
Einstein’s Notion of Science
Mathematical Methods of Science
Scientific Method for the Purpose of Life
Efforts to Rescue the Degeneration Materialists Side of
Economics by Quantum Theory
Quantum Theory and Economics
Schrodinger’s Wave Function and Consciousness
Promises of Quantum Theory
Science and Materialism
Understanding Physical vs.​Economic Universes
Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882)
John Searle’s View of Consciousness
Gilbert Ryle’s Dualism and Spirituality
Daniel C.​Dennett on Consciousness
Matter is Mind and Vice Versa
Terrence Deacon and Jeremy Sherman on Life on Earth
Means to Ends in Economics
Life Came from Matter
The Search for Extraterrestrial​Life
Language:​Sentence and Propositional Concerns
On the Denotation of “Means to Achieve Ends”
On Proposition:​Meaning vs.​Purpose
A Theory of Meaning
On Carnap’s L-Language
Russell’s Theory of Meaning and Denotation
Psychological Purposes of Life
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961)
 Carl Jung on Synchronicity
Carl Jung on the Meaning
Victor Frankl (1905–1997)
Behaviorism
John Broadus Watson (1878–1958)
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904–1990)
Skinner on Beyond Freedom and Dignity
References
3 Economics Purpose of Life
Topical Aspect of Holism in Economics
The Pre-classical Schools
The Classical School
The Marginalists
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)
Economic Domain of the Purpose of Life:​Life-Information
Space
In Search of a Completeness Theorem for Lord Robbins’s
Definition of Economics
Introduction
Consistency of Robbins’s Completeness Theorem
On the Logic of Language in Robbins’s Definition
On the Denotation of “Means to Achieve Ends”
Robbins on Scarcity as a Driver of His Definition
Conclusion
F.​A.​Hayek’s Rule-Following and Purpose Seeking Propositions
Introduction
Hayek’s Rule-Following Proposition
 Hayek’s Purpose-Seeking Proposition
Hayek on Homeomorphism and Correspondence Relations
A Collection of Hayek’s Symbols and Their Relationships
Conclusion
Two Propositions of Robert Heilbroner (1919–2005):​Stage
Theories of Social Problems and Business and Moral Decay
Introduction
Proposition I:​General Social and Economic Proposition
Proposition II:​The Main Proposition About Business and
Moral Decay
Modern Attempts at a Dominant Model for Capitalism
The Place of Heilbroner’s Proposition in HET
Conclusion
References
4 Economic Development and the Purpose of Life
Development Plan, Variables, and Models
Harrod-Domar Model
Neoclassical Growth Model
Choice of Techniques
The Neutrality Hypothesis
Poverty and Development
A Unified Model of Poverty
A Specialization of the Meta-Graph Model
The Domain Set of Figure 4.​2
The Image Set of Figure 4.​2
Mapping Between Capability and Function Sets
On the Mapping of Figure 4.​2
 Dynamics of Change and Invariance Through Graph Theory
Dynamic Application to Developing Countries
A Brief Background on the Schools Represented in Figure 4.​2
The Utilitarian Perspective
Tversky and Kahneman Utility Perspective
Libertarian Perspective
John Rawls’s Perspective
Marxian Perspectives
Amartya Sen’s Perspective
Reference
5 The Religious Purpose of Life
Islam
Islam and the Law
Sufism
Hinduism
The Vedas
Mīmāṁsā School of Jaimini and Vyasa
Nyāya School of Gautama (Second Century CE)
Vaiśeṣika School of Kaṇāda (Second Century CE)
Sāṃkhya Philosophy
Judaism
Maimonides (1138–1204)
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677)
Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
Hypotheses on Judaism
 Christianity
Propositions About Christianity
Buddhism (ca. 500 BCE)
Some Novelties, Old vs.​New Buddhism
Main Contributors to Buddhism
Nāgārjuna (Second Century CE)
Chandrakirti (ca. 600–650)
Propositions of Buddhism Schools
References
Bibliography
Index
List of Figures
Fig.​1.​1 A concentric view:​The purpose of life

Fig. 3.1 Specie and genera map for exchange economies (Source Author)

Fig. 3.2 A heuristic view of models to embed Heilbroner’s Vision

(Source Author)

Fig.​4.​1 Measurable poverty models

Fig.​4.​2 Set-value mapping here

Fig.​4.​3 Comparison of two capability sets for two countries or regions

Fig.​4.​4 Income convergence

Fig.​4.​5 Difference of differences:​Per capita incomes vs.​Nutritional

deficiencies of millions of person in the areas

Fig.​5.​1 Reflection of bounded Prakṛti on infinite Puruṣa

List of Tables
Table 1.​1 Theories of Knowledge Influencing Economics

Table 2.​1 Characteristics of Erwin Schrodinger’s Wave Equation

Table 3.​1 Variable of circulation in the production period

Table 3.​2 Specification Being-Genes-Space Game (BGS)

Table 3.​3 Logical vs.​exchange specification

Table 3.​4 Hayek’s model of economics

Table 3.​5 Menger’s vs.​Hayek’s social group reaction

Table 3.​6 Heilbroner’s dynamic path of America from colonial times to

present

Table 4.​1 Sen’s Model of Malthus’s Poor Law Policy

Table 4.​2 The nature of capital in a Hicksian single period production

function

Table 5.​1 A path through Leibniz to Spinoza’s axiomatic model

Table 5.​2 Russell’s refutation of proofs of God
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
L. Ramrattan, M. Szenberg, The Purpose of Life in Economics
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17065-2_1

1. Introduction and the Consciousness as the Purpose

of Life
Lall Ramrattan1 and Michael Szenberg2
(1) University of California, Berkeley Extension, Antioch, CA, USA
(2) Touro College and University System, New York, NY, USA

Lall Ramrattan (Corresponding author)

Email: lallram@netscape.net

Michael Szenberg
Email: Michael.Szenberg@touro.edu

Keywords Teleological – Consciousness – Sympathy – Images – Spectator – Deity

Introduction
We can trace the everyday use of purpose of life to the Greek philosopher, Plato. He wrote in his
dialog, Eryxias, that people, “by the arts which they profess, and in exchange for them, obtain
the necessities of life … if they procure by this means what they want for the purposes of life,
that art will be useful towards life” (Plato, 1931 [1871], p. 5721) [Italics added].
Plato is saying that we should use our arts as a means to attain the purpose of life. He did
not define the latter, but we can infer from his philosophy that the purpose of life is a moral one
that makes virtue the highest goal. His definition of art, however, is somewhat ambiguous. We
read that “Plato consistently distinguishes between two types of artists, one which he calls
‘imitative’ in a pejorative sense, and the other which he conceives to be philosophical, and hence
completely valid” (Oates, 1942, p. 247). Another commentator wrote that “Plato distinguishes
between true art and pseudo art and condemns only the latter” (Cavarnos, 1953, p. 497). True
art can give a rational of what it does, occurs in a state of pure consciousness, expresses truth
and real being, expresses beauty, and so on (ibid.., p. 488).
Aristotle presented several viewpoints for the purpose of life. In one approach, he identified
final cause as the purpose of life. It is one of his four definitions of causes, namely “(1) The
substantial or Formal cause; (2) The necessary conditions of a thing, or Material cause; (3) That
which gave the first impulse to a thing, or Efficient cause; (4) That for the sake of which a thing
is done, or Final cause” (Aristotle, 1901, Ch. 11, p. 103).
The final cause deals with the end, purpose, or aim of a thing. We do a thing for a final cause,
as when we go walking in order to feel well (ibid., p. 104). Inanimate things also tend to have an
end, as light passing through a lantern necessarily prevents us from stumbling (ibid., p. 105).
There seem to be three types of final causes. One is that humans consciously intend an end, goal
or purpose. Another is that inanimate things tend to go in motion and then come to a rest or
equilibrium. The third is that final cause is an aim for the good or perfection of a thing, such as
when a tree grows roots for nutrition, or bears fruits for seeds to perpetuate itself.
 Associated with Aristotle, final cause is his teleological argument for purpose. Teleological is
from the root word telos, which is also translated as a potential end or goal (Inwood, 1999, p.
133). One commentator described the teleology view of nature as follows: “Nature like a good
householder throws away nothing of which anything useful can be made.” “Nature does nothing
in vain, nothing superfluous.” “Nature behaves as if it foresaw the future.” To a large extent, this
is merely the statement of de facto teleology (Ross, 1949, pp. 78–79).
Aristotle’s views on definitions are also an aid in the search for the purpose of life. His
definitions require us to put the concept into the genus it belongs and state its common and
specific qualities. For instance, a soul or life is common to all animals, so one can study
differences between species. The method failed for the definition of the soul. One reason is that
Aristotle could not find a universal for the soul. He did not accept Plato’s universal or form
ideas. We will have discussion below of how St. Thomas Aquinas adopted Aristotle’s view in
defining the purpose of life in Christianity.
Another authority on definitions, Martin Heidegger, tried to explain “Being” by embedding it
in a horizon. He considered time as the horizon for understanding being (Polk, 1999). However,
he did not show that time is the horizon of Being. In his 1924 lecture, he stated how time should
be treated. He wrote that “Time is the ‘how’” and it should not be treated as “such and such … a
‘what”’ (Heidegger, 1992). This points not only to the treatment of what the purpose of life is,
but how is it performing in society. We find that as long as the economy is performing well,
there is the tendency to play down the dis-utilities of work, but when it breaks down as during a
recession, a depression, or because of inequality and racism and so on, people start questioning
their economic purpose of life.
We can try to define the purpose of life from the conceptual point of view. One such
approach is through the analysis of a sentence. Following the work of the philosopher Gottlob
Frege, a concept is what the predicate of a sentence “stands for” (Geach, 1968, p. 285).
Sometimes a concept is taken as what the predicate “refers to.” If two things have the same
form, say A is red, and B is red, they each stand for something. But what do A and B jointly stand
for? One way developed by the logician Willard Quine to improve that joint concept is to
postulate an existential quantifier that is called essentialism, namely if , and
number of planets, there exists an such that necessarily (Quine, 1993, p. 26).
Another way is to use the concept of class developed by Bertrand Russell. If we use a variable
such as “x is red,” then we can posit a class with all things that are red. In the example,
.
Philosophers have analyzed objects in terms of the couplet “intention and extension.” A
simple interpretation from an analytical point of view would be what you determine your
purpose is, and from a pragmatic point of view, what society sets as your purpose. But we find
deeper and perhaps more fuzzy attempts at definitions of purpose if we follow two other
couplets of Gottlob Frege and Rudolf Carnap, namely “sense and reference” and “concept and its
extension” (Geach, 1968, p. 284).
According to the philosophers Alfred Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, one can adopt a
system of proposition called primitive ideas to understand terms. They wrote:

Since all definitions of terms are effected by means of other terms, every system of
definitions which is not circular must start from a certain apparatus of undefined terms
... The primitive ideas are explained by means of descriptions intended to point out to
the reader what is meant; but the explanations do not constitute definitions, because
they really involve the ideas they explain. (Whitehead & Russell, 1963, Vol. 1, p. 91)
 We can claim that the “purposes of life” are undetermined terms. Life itself is said to have
either evolved from matter or created by an agent. So the Big Bang and God will be primitive
ideas to define life and its purpose. But that does not seem to be the case from the last stanza in
the creation hymn of the Hindu’s Rig Veda, which states that not even the God in Heaven knows
who created the universe. Also, we find in modern science, there is a tendency to start
researches from the study of genes, which already presume the life of cells, and which are
preprogramed with a purpose somewhat like a hammer is to a nail.
The concept of life is synonymous with life and Being. If one cannot define them precisely, it
does not follow that we cannot ask questions, for instance, about the purpose of life. In our
discipline, there are many undefined terms or as John S. Mill would say, unsettled questions in
economics. The same position was taken by economist W. Stanley Jevons. Also, one can find
undefined terms in the physical science as well. But one will not find a lack of practitioners who
are working to make those field progress. To begin our study of the purpose of life, we now take
a look at some popular definitions of the purpose of life.

Some Basic Views of the Purpose of Life

A common view of purpose of life would result from direct knowledge, which is acquired by
instinct, acquaintance, or direct sense experience very much like a baby experiences things.
Knowledge about things goes further than direct knowledge. It requires that all the senses are
associated with a thing, as one will know of an egg that can be boiled, scrambled, turned into an
omelet, produce a chicken, and so on (Langer, 1954 [1948]).
A survey of the use of the purpose of life reveals the following common concepts:
1. To be, which was popularly stated in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet.

2. To know that life has no purpose as in the axiom: One should follow one’s bliss.

3. The “desire of bettering our conditions” (A. Smith, 1976, Vol. 1, p. 341).

4. To live a religious life (Worship God) (Kierkegaard, 1949 [1847], p. 9).

5. To let nature select our purpose randomly (Charles Darwin: discussed in Ch. 2).

6. To use our endowment of resources and knowledge wisely (Welfare Economics).

7. To live a virtuous life (Plato and Aristotle in Ramrattan & Szenberg, 2019, pp. 276–278).

8. To work as a wage laborer (Marx, 1973, p. 509).

9. To be an atheist or a deist (David Hume & Adam Smith discussed in text).

10. To show unbiased compassion (Dalai Lama & H. C. Cutler, 1998, p. 40).

11. To choose and act as the Action Axiom of Libertarians (Rothbard, 2009, p. 2).

12. To wonder whether life has a meaning (Camus, 1955, p. 6).

13. To be a superhuman (Nietzsche, 1988, p. 191).

14. To stop suffering through the practice of right speech, action, mindedness, efforts, living,
concentration, attentiveness, and understanding according to the Buddha (Goddard, 1979,
p. 33).

From this short list, one gets many points of view of the purpose of life. We place the most
famous source for each proposition in brackets. One observes everyday activities like work (3,
6, 8, &11); leisure (1, 3 & 5); reason (3 & 6); faith and religion (4 & 10); and philosophizing (1,
2, 7, 9 & 12). The list overlaps and can be further expanded. Items are listed from the point of
view of the individual person, which needs to be generalized for group or society. The list is
manmade: Man reflecting on himself (1 & 9) and on others (10). The list validates the
expression: Man shall not live by bread alone.
In general, one looks for lines of demarcation that make the expression the purpose of life,
scientific or not. One general rule followed by the philosopher Karl Popper is to draw a line
between 1. scientific statements and 2. pseudo-scientific statements of a concept. A third
possibility, based on thoughts associated with other people besides Popper who belong to the
Vienna Circle, is to speak of only pseudo-statements such as, “Declarative sentences devoid of
cognitive meaning” (Carnap, 1963, p. 878).
For a logical discussion, we need to assert something with these concepts. So, (1) becomes
“The purpose of life is to be at work,” similarly (3) becomes “My purpose of life is to better my
condition” and so on. This view makes the reference of the subject of what is stated in the
predicate. It was espoused by the logician Gottlob Frege as follows:

In logical discussions one quite often needs to assert something about a concept, and to
express this in the form usual for such assertion, viz., to make what is asserted of the
concept into the content of the grammatical predicate. Consequently, one would expect
that the reference of the grammatical subject would be the concept; but the concept as
such cannot play this part, in view of its predicative nature; it must first be converted
into an object, or, speaking more precisely, represented by an object. (Frege, 1951, p.
172)

When we think of science as experimental and demonstrative, the famous scientist, Galileo,
comes to mind although he did not accept Aristotle’s definition of causes. In contrast, Rene
Descartes accepted Aristotle’s efficient over the final cause. Immanuel Kant distinguished
between a physical and ethical teleology and tried to unite them as “ultimate end” (Kant, 2004,
pp. 388–389).
Aristotle’s teleological argument had an early confrontation with the concept of evolution. It
was against Empedocles who argued that “existing animal species with all the apparent
adaptation of heir part to ends are simply the result of natural selection by the survival of the
fittest” (Ross, 1949, p. 78). Aristotle then argued that this is mostly commonplace and therefore,
not a result of chance. Thus, their occurrences are for an end (ibid.).
We have inherited a modern evolutionary science, due to Darwin, that posits matter first,
which became union with mind. We decided that the first main purpose of life is that this unity
must survive, despite not having a solution to what is called the mind–body problem. Human
activities all around are not seen as achieving that goal of unity of mind and body. But for their
material needs, humans employ means to achieve ends, a proposition we will discuss in Chapter
2 with regard to Lionel Robbins’s popular view that economics is a means to ends discipline.
Our concern is with the purpose of life, so something must be said of life as well. The
philosopher I. Kant studied three aspects of life (Kant, 2004, pp. 278–279). One is that the
“worth of life” is less than nothing. Another is that the “life principle itself” as it relates to one’s
body and mind. We note the mind–body problem of life is still an ongoing research program
today in both philosophy and science areas. The third view of life is the “organize product” of
nature concerning how the organization of a life is different from the laws of nature. Today’s
research is no longer focused on how life came from matter, but how to steer its evolution by
manipulating DNA and RNA, whose usefulness was recently demonstrated as the savior of the
human race in confronting the COVID-19 challenges.
Some speak of life biologically, metaphysically, and historically. Historically contemplated,
Karl Marx propounded a principle of materialism that underlies all his work. It holds that
“human life has since time immemorial rested on production, and, in one way or another, on
social production, whose relations we call, precisely, economic relations” (Marx, 1973, pp. 426–
427). Our consciousness depends on material condition, social relation, and social life (Marx &
Engels, 2006, pp. 25–26). Marx paradigm is said to be grounded in reality, “a scientifically
proven proposition” and not general hypotheses (Lenin, 2008, p. 142). Marx’s view is opposed
metaphysically to the view of force of chemical affinity, biologically to the views of the nature of
life and the vital force, and psychologically to the view of the nature of the soul (ibid., p. 144).
The Buddha too had a paradigm about the reality of life. He did not answer “metaphysical
questions and confined himself to teachings regarding the world and the improvement of our
existence here” (Aurobindo, 1970, pp. 241–242). But many interpretations of his teaching have
given rise to different schools of thought. Schools that believe in physical and mental realism
but differ on whether we know reality through perception or inferences. Schools that deal not
with realism, but with differing views as to whether or not everything is empty or if only
consciousness exists (ibid., p. 242).
From the complexity of the terms in the purpose and life, one can see difficulties of bringing
them together as the purpose of life. In particular, it is difficult to defend that the purpose of life
is only means to ends. A pragmatic way out might be to argue that the “‘practical’ are for the
most part exclusively preoccupied with means. But theirs is only one-half of wisdom. When we
take account of the other half, which is concerned with ends, the economics process and the
whole of human life take on an entirely new aspect” (Russell, 1952, p. 147). We will revisit this
concept with regard to Lionel Robbin’s means to ends later, where we will argue that the model
needs to be generalized for all types of societies to embrace.
Besides Buddhism, which some call a religion and some do not, the purpose of life of other
religious views is yet to be analyzed. Islam seems to suggest a purpose of life that posits a direct
relation to God. Christianity holds an indirect way through Christ to God. Judaism emphasizes
that the purpose of life is to follow the prophetic laws. Hinduism holds that the purpose of life is
attainment from following a personal or impersonal God. We will analyze these views in
Chapter 5 as we hold that humanity cannot exclude religion as a path to fathom the purpose of
life.
Figure 1.1 is a conceptual map that will guide our research of the purpose of life. Purpose of
life is situated at the center of various concentric environments. Our direct concern is that there
exists a purpose of life, which is logically asserted by an index , where the index runs
through a class of concepts enumerated as the one above, and the bracket items represent its
existence logically (Carnap, 1950, p. 82). For example, we may assert that there exists an
, which is the purpose of life.
Fig. 1.1 A concentric view: The purpose of life
Our interest is to locate the purpose of life in the domain of economics. In the rest of this
chapter, we will be concerned with some other authors whose works bear on the purpose of
life. The classical economics of Adam Smith had a foot in the philosophical and in the economic
worlds. Smith’s association with David Hume leads us to start with Hume’s work and its
influence on him. Hume’s philosophy embraced the deity concept of religion and empiricism. To
complete the overview of religion, we will have to go back to St. Augustine and St. Thomas
Aquinas. Also, we will have to broaden the research to bring in the concept of consciousness,
which is now a huge research program in modern science. The other chapters will flesh out the
outer rings in Fig. 1.1 as well. As the figure stands now, purpose is a core value in human life
that had been a degenerating research program in the tract of means to ends analysis. The cost
of such a degeneration is the extent to which it denies practitioners of creative experiences to
be had from the religious and spiritual world. Our research seeks to widen the purpose of life to
make it progressive.

David Hume (1632–1704) on Religion and Philosophy

In studying the purpose of life, it seems natural to begin with David Hume because he was a
friend and colleague of Adam Smith who give us the capitalist vision of society. We have
compiled Table 1.1 below to guide us in the influence of philosophy before and after Hume. In
the table, Hume is carried as a British empiricists along with John Locke and George Berkeley.
The first entry for Hume underscores his bent toward quantitative, measurable, and
experimental reasoning. He is famous for saying everything else should be cast into the fire.
Hume brings inference to the existence of the supreme creator. He wrote that it is “a noble
privilege … of human reason to attain the knowledge of the supreme Being; and, from the
visible works of nature, be enabled to infer so sublime a principle as its supreme Creator”
(Hume, 1947, p. 11).
Table 1.1 Theories of Knowledge Influencing Economics

Descriptions Definition A1: State of A2: A 3: Sense- A4: [p] & [e] Comments
Knowledge Physical experience Independent
Object [p] [e] or
Contingent
Naïve Realism: The naïve realist Justified as it Exists Exists Exists Russell
Assumptions: claims that his is Problem: Problem: We unperceived thought the
A1…A4 are true picture of a It is “the “The real experience “[W]hat we view is “false,
thing is “just as doctrine that table … is colors, see when we but logically
“Common sense it would appear
believes in naive things are not texture, shape, are looking at impossible”
if he perceives it what they immediately touch, and something is (BR1, p. 283)
realism, and … a step in the known to us sound still there
Descriptions Definition A1: State of A2: A 3: Sense- A4: [p] & [e] Comments
Knowledge Physical experience Independent
Object [p] [e] or
Contingent
makes no direction of seem” (BR1,p. at all, but differently. when we are Plato’s
distinction phenomenalism” 15) must be an (BR2, pp. 7– no longer rationalism:
between physical (AA1, p. 117) inference” 11) looking” (BR1, We can know
and perceptual (BR2, p. 11) p. 283) only
space. (BR1, p. necessary
302) truth of math
and logic.
(WO, p. 171)
Representative “[I]deas are Skeptical**: Primary Secondary Exists Berkeley: [p]
Realism: representations Objects [p]: Objects [e]: without our & [e]
[p]
John Locke (JH, p. … of the real Resembles (size; shape) (color; smell) perception distinction are
496) eternal world” are real & are ideas. (JH, inseparable.
[e] (JH, p.
(DR, p. 271) measurable p. 497) (JH, p. 498)
He founded 502)
British
Empiricism
Idealism: All that exists There is no “Physical [e], alone Things exist Berkeley
George Berkeley are minds and [p] without objects are exists unperceived includes
(JH, p. 507) their ideas. (JH, touch- families of “God … gives Berkeley: “[I]t consciousness,
Empiricist who p. 507) experience. sense- us orderly sets is an idea in but Locke
defended “[A] thing was (JH, p. 510) experiences” of sense- the mind of does not. (JH,
subjective nothing more Can’t know (JH, pp. experiences” God” p. 507)
idealism than the sum of the thing-in- 520–521) (JH, p. 523) Leibniz: “[I]t Berkeley’s
Gottfried Leibniz its sensible itself is a principle: “To
(BR2, pp. 15, 73) qualities” (AA1, community of be is to be
Rationalist with p. 151) souls” (BR2., perceived
“innate ideas” p. 16) (Esse est
percipii)”
Skepticism*: Hume’s Fork: We have Concept of Concept of Association Hume
David Hume, Knowledge impressions: [p] [e] of ideas replaced
Empiricist: He (truth or sensations, Example: through Locke’s inner
asked for falsehood) passions, and “[T]he self is “Resemblance, and outer
“quantity or concerns a “real emotions, ‘a bundle of contiguity in with original
number … relations of and ideas: perceptions.’” time or place, and copied.
experimental ideas” and a faint images (AA2, p. 191) and cause and (WW, p. 454)
reasoning “real existence (copies) of effect” (HU2, For Hume, one
concerning of matter of impressions. p. 11) thing did not
matter of fact and fact” (Hu2, p. HU2, p.1) Also, “the idea cause another,
existence” (HU1, 458) Maybe it is a of existence is but “constant
p. 165) biological nothing conjunction
theory of different from by means of
knowledge the idea of custom …
(WM, p. 264) any object” determines
(Hu2, p. 94) the
imagination to
make a
transition
from the idea
of one object
Descriptions Definition A1: State of A2: A 3: Sense- A4: [p] & [e] Comments
Knowledge Physical experience Independent
Object [p] [e] or
Contingent
to … the other.
“ (HU2, p. 170)
Phenomenalism: We experience Specifies the [p], Needs [p] exists One creates
Like Plato’s myth sense data or condition in represents “descriptions unperceived if–then
of shadows on the appearances of which the actual and of physical (JH, p. 527) statements
wall of a cave: reality. (JH, pp. experience is possible reality to J. S. Mill wrote from sense-
“Phenomenalism 532–533) obtained. (JH, sense- descriptions that physical data, to allow
seems to leave us That is, p. 530) experiences. of possible, if objects have one to get a
with nothing but “physical Sensing is a (JH, p. 530) not actual “permanent sense that the
the shadows” objects are condition for appearances” possibilities physical
(AA2, p. 122) logical knowing. (JH, (AA2, p. 125) of sensation” objects
constructions p. 535) (AA2, p. 122)
out of sense-
data”(AA2, p.
118)

Two forms of skepticism—one (*) where all judgements are mistaken, another (**) where only
some judgements are false
Sources The Authors
AA1: Ayer, A. J. (1971). Language, Truth, and Logic. New York: Penguin
AA2: Ayer, A. J. (1972). The Problem of Knowledge. New York: Penguin
BR1: Russell, B. (1956 [1940]. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. London: George Allen and
Unwin
BR2: Russell, B. (1959 [1912]. The Problems of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press
DR: Runes, D. D. (1941). The Dictionary of Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library
HU1: Hume, D. (1963). Enquiries: Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the
Principles of Morals. Edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge. Second Edition. Second Edition. Oxford:
Clarendon Press
HU2: Hume, D. (1992 [1740]). A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge. Second
Edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press
JH: Hospers, J. (1967). An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis. Second Edition. Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice-Hall
WM: Meyer, W. (1906, July). Hume Versus Kant. The Monist, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 461–468
WO: Wooozley, A. D. (1969). Theory of Knowledge. London: Hutchinson University Library
WW: Wendelband, W. (1914). History of Philosophy. Trans. by James H. Tufts. Second Edition.
London: Macmillan & Co
Hume based his account of religion on “a philosophical account of the Deity” (ibid., p. 12).
Religion was first restricted to sacrifices in the temple. Outside of the temple, people were
guided by philosophy. At first, philosophy and religion coincide, but “true religion is nothing but
a species of philosophy, one to be skeptical about, that is, religion guided by ‘common sense and
reflection’” (ibid., p. 20). Hume proceeded to enunciate a philosophical theist’s or skeptic’s
proposition about religion as follows:

Hume’s Proposition: Theists & Sceptics Theories

“[T]he cause or causes of order in the universe probable bear some remote analogy to human
intelligence” (ibid., p. 20).
 Hume’s proposition seems to scope out Hume’s concern with religion. It was not as some
suggested because of “unresolved spiritual conflict within himself,” or because he wished to free
us from “error and superstition,” but mainly because of “concern with the proper limits of
human understanding” (Noxon, 1976, pp. 60–63). Within that limit, the proper role of the deity
is established. Like in the world of fractals mathematics, our world is one big machine made up
of smaller machines, infinite in numbers. Nature adopts means to ends where effects resemble
each other. We can infer an effect from its cause, which also resembles each other.
In his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume communicated his philosophical
position through one of his protagonists, Cleanthes, who said that “the Author of nature is
somewhat similar to the mind of man … we do prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his
similarity to human mind and intelligence” (Hume, 1947, p. 143). In The History of Religion,
Hume recognized the existence of the author of nature as follows: “The whole frame of nature
bespeaks an in intelligent author; and no rational; enquirer can, after serious reflection,
suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and
Religion” (Hume, 1757, p. 1).
Some interpreters of Hume’s Dialogues are puzzled by the skeptical argument of one of his
characters. The observer of the Dialogues, Pamphilus, gave the character portraits as: “the
accurate philosophical turn of Cleanthes … the careless skepticism of Philo … the rigid inflexible
orthodoxy of Demes” (Hume, 1947, p. 128). His skeptic character, Philo, lays out his seemingly
sound argument in the course of the twelfth dialogue, making it hard to infer that he represents
Hume (Noxon, 1968, p. 367). Some steps have been taken to reclaim Philo’s position. One step is
by Ernest Mossner who claimed that the “characterizations are ironically offered” (Mossner,
1977, p. 7). A more recent article used true religion based on the argument of design to show
that only Philo and Cleanthes views can be true (Black & Gressis, 2017, p. 244).
An important corollary to Hume’s proposition above has to do with the passions. This can be
stated as follows:

Corollary I: Hume’s Passion vs. Reason

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other
office than to serve and obey them” (Hume, 1992 [1740], p. 415).
One notes the “is” and the “ought” in this corollary. Modern interpretation as to their
meaning is much discussed in the literature. One view is that “ought” referrers to “human
sentiments and feelings, and sentiments are the objects of feelings, not of reason or the
understanding” (Hunter, 1968, p. 289). Economists usually follow John Neville Keynes’s
definition of political economy “as a positive science, or as a normative science, or as an art”
where the latter is “a system of rules for the attainment of a given end” (Keynes, 1987, p. 36).
One may correspond positive and normative with “is” and “ought,” respectively.
In case of rules or art, we may take action to control our passion with reason. But for Hume,
that is not possible because the effect is not in the cause. For example, we may assert a causal
connection between many hours of study and getting a good grades. But unless we want a good
grade, such reasoning is not useful to us. To be useful, such a theory presupposes a passion for
good grades. So, it is said that what Hume is advancing is not only a positive and naturalistic
model, but also a humanistic one, which subjugates reason to passion (N. K. Smith, 1966, pp.
154–155). This corollary then suggests a system of equations specification as follows:

Specification of Hume’s Model: H1…H4

(H1)
 (H2)

(H3)

(H4)
where the following descriptions applies:

On Passion
Hume wrote “Passions are connected with their objects and with one another; no less than
external bodies are connected together. The same relation, then, of cause and effect, which
belongs to one, must be common to all of them” (Hume, 1992 [1740], p. 78). Belief is required to
excite passion, which in turn, is favorable to belief (ibid., p. 120). We read that “pains and
pleasures are the source of many passions” that arrive within us “without thought perception …
affection or idea” (ibid., p. 276).
Even H3 only accounts for human nature as the source of passion. Hume wrote that “Human
nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected” (ibid., p. 273).
But we also know that “sympathy, or the communication of passions, takes place among
animals, no less than among men” (ibid., p. 398). Hume mentions the “animal spirit” several
places in the Treatise. In one instance, he states that “natural propensity, and the course of my
animal spirits and passions reduce me to this indolent belief in the general maxims of the
world,” but that he willing to trade them for “the pleasures of life” (ibid., p. 269).
Hume spoke of “the combat of passion and reason” in the old philosophy, which argues for
reason to prevail over passion. But he found that reason alone cannot account for action of the
will, and it never opposes passion against the will (ibid., p. 413). One way for reason to
dominate passion is if passion chooses insufficient means to end or is based on false
supposition. But passion cannot be unreasonable (ibid., p. 416).
Hume added that passions “keep pace with the imagination in all its variations” (ibid., p.
424). The balance between passion and imagination is said to be analogous to the balance
philosophers keep between profit and honesty (ibid., p. 426). Hume illustrated this with how
Athenians refused to adopt a secret plan of Themistocles to set fire on a Grecian fleet at a
nearby port. Although the plan would have profited the Athenians, it was refused because it was
unjust (ibid., p. 425). Justice balanced desire and profit.
The final Equation H4 shows the factors that drive human nature. In The History of England,
Hume wrote “The only certain means, by which nations can indulge their curiosity in researches
concerning their remote origin, is to consider the language, manners, and customs of their
ancestors, and to compare them with those of the neighboring nations” (Hume, 1983 [1778], p.
4). We read that “critics agree that the concept of human nature is central to Hume’s idea of
history, and in this connection he is often grouped with his contemporaries, Montesquieu and
Voltaire” (Wertz, 1975, p. 483). In writing history, he adopted his model. We read that “Like all
men, Hume was subject to passions and prejudices; but unlike most men, he was customarily
able to view himself coolly and fairly” (Mossner, 1941a, p. 233). Some general characters
pertain to Hume’s history area:
1. The “purpose is to trace “the history of the human mind” (Mossner, 1941b, p. 660).

2. History is the means of “explaining present ‘national characters and manners’” (ibid., p.
666).
3. “The lessons of history are rather the unchanging ethical and psychological principles that
guide human nature in action” (ibid., p. 666).

4. “Human nature, despite its many imperfections, is intrinsically moral and, even when most
corrupted, is likely enough to overthrow its perversions if given fair play” (ibid., p. 667).

5. “Human society is in perpetual flux … Yet if change is certain, progress is not” (ibid.).

6. “Custom and not reason is the ruling guide of man. What has been done largely determines
what will be done … Reason, speculative and passive, cannot initiate action; custom
stimulates the emotions which in turn motivate action” (ibid., p. 668).

7. “Civilization is primarily the result of the broadening of man’s ideas” (ibid.).

8. “Utility, not speculative truth, is the ultimate criterion in public affairs as in private” (ibid., p.
669).

On Constraints
Some Operational and Technical constraints may be held constant that is Ceteris Paribus.
Cognitive and psychological influences are justified from Hume’s generalization that “all the
sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature … Even Mathematics, Natural
Philosophy, and Natural Religion … since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged
of by their powers and faculties” (Hume, 1992 [1740], p. xix). The perception of images and
ideas, along with their relation of ideas and their rules, and Matters of fact with their
contingencies would justify equation H4.
The logician, Karl Popper shared the Humean view that one cannot verify or show general
laws on H1 “on the basis of observational or experimental data” (Putnam, 1974, p. 121). This is
so because scientific laws are falsifiable and not verifiable; that is, one can only claim that “I
have subjected this law to severe tests and it has withstood them” (ibid.).
The other equations H2…H4 are recursive to H1. For instance, H2 captures the specification
that passion is the only cause of labor. It is a bridge between Hume’s philosophy and the
“science of man” as appeared in Hume’s shorter essays such as On Commerce (Rotwein, 1975, p.
118). In that essay, Hume wrote “Everything in the world is purchased by labor; and our
passions are the only causes of labor” (Hume, 1987 [1777], p. 261). Hume expounded that
process of how an economy with manufacturer, mechanical arts, and agriculture are driven by
labor. The surplus of farmers causes the conversion of manufacturers to soldiers and so on. He
then generalizes that “this is the case in all civilized governments” (ibid.). It leads to trade and
manufacturing and described, at least, the economy of his time.
Professor Hayek emphasized Hume’s general rules about civilized government. He would
have us read Hume backwards from the Appendix III to the Enquiry Concerning the Principle of
Morals, “to the fuller statements in the Treatise” (Hayek, 1968, pp. 348–349). That appendix
prescribed three fundamental laws of nature that are necessary for human society, namely “the
stability of possession, of its transference by consent, and of the performance of promises”
(ibid., p. 346). According to this interpretation, the purpose of life seems to be “the observance
of the general rule; and it is sufficient, if compensation is thereby made for all the ills and
inconveniences which flow from the particular character and situations” (ibid., p. 351). As a
medical expert may put it, there must be sufficient pills for all ills.
We follow the common economic practice in economics to include labor as a technical
constraint in H1. Proper compensation will be sufficient to make labor operational with capital
and other means of production. In modern societies, the relation between wage and capital,
negotiations between management and unions, and wage fixing of government and corporation
seem sufficient to make the system operational.

On the Functional Relationship

We will later discuss the role consciousness plays in the purpose of life. But we find that its
functional aspects need to be addressed in relation to equation H1. The new literature splits
between the biological and computational analysis of the mind (Block, 1997, p. 159). The
philosopher Hilary Putnam was a pioneer of the computational view. One of his views is that
“The brain may be, among other things, a computer, but the mind is more than the brain,
according to liberal functionalism” (Putnam, 2015, p. 213). In that view, the mind can be
described through “transactions of the organism with an environment, including, in the human
case, the social environment” (ibid.). This literature gives the following functional points of
view:
1. Liberal, meaning “mentality is a collection of interrelated world-involving abilities” (ibid.,
p. 213). One can then say that the purpose of life is socially determined in this case.

2. Physical, such the mind-brain identity or the brain is the mind. This is achieved by using
Ramsey sentences that adopt existential quantifiers, to purge all mental activities from
the variables, (w, x, y, z), in describing a situation as follows (Maslin, 2001, p. 145):

We can think of the purpose of life in this case as determined by structural models such
as demand and supply equations at both the microeconomic and macroeconomics levels.

3. Metaphysical. It is concerned with what mental states are, and not with how they explain
behavior. It is similar to physical and behavioral functionalism that asks what is pain?
(Block, 2007, p. 28) Metaphysical functionalism is described in an example where body
injury or tissue damage leads to pain-behavior such a wincing and groaning and which
creates a relation to other mental states such as a desire to be rid of the pain (Maslin, 2001,
p. 133). This view of functionalism gets rid of brain-mind identity, namely that mental types
identical to brain types, where the function is “neither nonphysical nor physical” (ibid., p.
134).
The purpose of life in this example will not be suitable for humans or animals as they
are purged of the soul.

4. Computational state, or machine functionalism. The mind is considered as a Turing

machine, where mental states are given by a table of commands. A simple machine has 1. a
tape that is divided into cells that can move left or right; 2. a head that can read or erase and
write one digit in a cell it points to; 3. a finite symbol such as zeros or ones in each cell of
the tape; and 4. a table of machine states that tell the head what to do when it reads a cell
(Haigh & Priestley, 2020, pp. 26–27). An example of its operation is that it starts with 1 = 1
and halts at 11 = 2. A machine table is a table with rows of the two digits and
columns of the two states ( , ). Each cell has conditional statements to tell the head
what to do when a row is selected. See Block (2007, p. 16).
Purpose of life is determined by a Turing machine, where the brain represents the
hardware and the mind represents the software.
5. Psychological, or psycho-functionalism. This requires one to specify the
neurophysiological mechanisms to accounts for pain. It is the neurology of humans and
animals. It is probably silicon chips for androids (Maslin, 2001, p. 134).
Purpose of life is determined by mental images and ideas for David Hume.

6. Consciousness. Ned Block defines Phenomenal consciousness as “what it is like for a

subject to have an experience,” and Access consciousness as “a representation is access-
conscious if it is made available to cognitive processing” (Block, Perceptual Consciousness
Overflows Cognitive Access, 2011, p. 567). Examples of the latter are “high level cognitive
functions such as memory, attention and decision making.” An example of the former is
“experiencing the world … seeing the color red” (Cohen & Dennett, 2011, p. 358).
One can experiment on phenomenal consciousness through a 3X4 array of letters called
the Sperling paradigm. In that paradigm: “Subjects can recall 3–4 items from the whole
array but when a row is cued by a tone after the array has disappeared, subjects can recall
3–4 items from any given row” (Block, 2011, p. 568). The result can be functional or neuro
type, a functional explanation of the impression of seeing a whole array of letters on a
Sperling task bar (Kouider et al., 2012, p. 1).
Regarding the purpose of life, we know that Marx argued that consciousness is socially
determined. We read that “It is not consciousness that determines life, but life that
determines consciousness” (Stockhammer, 1965, p. 49). We will discuss more proposition
about consciousness below.

To summarize this section, we use the information in Table 1.1 to correlate some relevant
theories of knowledge in order to appraise our model H1…H4. The table shows several ideas
that will extend our purpose of life thesis to accommodate knowledge from the human point of
view. According to a book on this matter, one obtains knowledge from a human point of view
through “‘perspectivism’ … looking at its broader historical and epistemological context” (Cretu
& Massimi, 2020, p. ix).
Table 1.1 represents the methodological perspective Plato, Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, and
Hume. For example, the Rationalist or Naïve Rationalist is shown as foreshadowing
phenomenalism, which will be central in our discussion on consciousness. Plato is mentioned
for taking the position that “we have some mysterious faculty of ‘grasping concepts’ … to fix a
model … and not just operational and theoretical constraints” (Putnam, 1980, p. 471). This
grasping of forms is a “nonnatural mental power,” which stands against the classical positions
that assert verification or proof over truth, and against the moderate realist position that
maintains the classical truth position without the nonnatural mental power (ibid., p. 464).
The system H1…H4 incorporates “the superiority of genuine theism results from its moral
qualities rather than its epistemological warrant” (Immerwahr, 1996, p. 325). We read that
“true theism has to do with its source in human nature, not its justification in reason … true
religion is grounded in the passions” (ibid., p. 327). However, the epistemic and other
constraints are still relevant in three directions: “(1) Believes that an intelligent designer
created and imposed order on the universe … (2) Grounds this belief … in complex natural
systems … (3) Retains this belief, on the basis of these reasons, even after careful scrutiny”
(Black & Gressis, 2017, p. 246).
Hume’s concerns with imagination forms a second corollary to his proposition as follows:

Corollary II: Hume’s Imagination vs. Reason vs. Feelings

“Reason can never shew us the connexion of one object with another … When the mind,
therefore, passes from the idea or impression of one object to the idea or belief of another, it is
not determined by reason, but by certain principles, which associate together the ideas of these
objects, and unite them in the imagination” (Hume, 1992 [1740], p. 92).
An eminent commentator stated that the addition of imagination is “vital to the role of
sympathy in ethics; it is needed, again, for the stability and impartiality of moral judgements;
and it is implied in the formation of artificial virtues” (Raphael, 1977). The basis of this addition
is to account for Adam Smith bringing Plato’s concept of “wonder” into the history of science
and philosophy through Humean lenses (ibid., p. 27). This argument brings imagination into the
scientific bases of theory. It inherits the logic that we find aesthetic values in things because we
imagine “the satisfaction we would get if we owned and used them” (ibid., p. 29). It spotlights
the beauty to be had from the true purpose of life.
Much of Corollary II is captured in Hume’s statement in his Treatise that “The imagination,
when set into any train of thinking, is apt to continue, even when its object fails it, and like a
galley put in motion by the oars, carries on its course without any new impulse” (Hume, 1992
[1740], p. 198). We read also in his Enquires: “Nothing is more free than the imagination of man
… it has unlimited power of mixing, compounding, separating, and dividing these ideas, in all
the varieties of fiction and vision” (Hume, 1963, p. 47).

The Implication of Hume’s System and its Elements for the Purpose
of Life
Fully fleshed out, Hume’s system unites causal laws and feelings to explain concepts of the
mind. By causal laws, Hume means the constant conjunction as when we observe regularly that
B is present when A is present, and that B follows A in time. By concepts, Hume means the
impression of sense-data like seeing a horse, and idea like when I close my eyes I can imagine a
horse (Hosper, 1967, pp. 102, 289). Hume’s system is proposed to explain our sense
mechanism, imagination, memory, beliefs, actions, and passions (N. K. Smith, 1966, p. 5).
As shown in Table 1.1, Hume developed his system by deviating mainly from the ideas of
John Locke (1632–1704) and George Berkeley (1685–1753). Locke’s major hypothesis is that
“nothing is perceived but what is in the mind which perceives it” (N. K. Smith, 1966, p. 4).
Locke was concerned with the psychology of how the mind works, and not with
epistemology or what the mind works on. He gives us mind-dependent ideas. These ideas both
represent and resemble their objects. Locke operated in the domain of history that is on the
origins, certainty and extent of human knowledge. Berkeley differs in that his ideas are a
resemblance relationship like a person resembles its family. Hume substituted the terms
“impression” and “ideas” (Woozley, 1969, pp. 14–15, 21). Relation of ideas and matters of fact in
Hume’s system have been characterized by six elements as follows (Hazony & Schliesser, 2016,
pp. 676–677):
Psychological Elements: 1. Impressions and 2. Ideas
Operational Elements: 3. copying an impression; 4. uniting and separation of ideas
through the imagination; 5. operation of association, which works on ideas and establishes
relations among them; 6. a transfer function that transfers force and vivacity from an
impression to an idea and, from there, possibly, to other ideas.
Hume’s system has been questioned over time. It is not a mathematical model in the sense
that it is expected to work. In studying the purpose of life, it seems we need the owner of the
purpose. Hume’s owner does not seem to be an agent, but a perception, or “bundle of
experiences” (Hosper, 1967, p. 408). The system starts with ideas and beliefs and then moves to
feelings; it should presuppose a person that has those experiences. Otherwise, it is like the
atoms of Epicurus that are in no space, or like the play Hamlet without a prince of Denmark
(Hosper, 1967, p. 408; N. K. Smith, 1966, p. 6).
 Bertrand Russell raised a problem concerning the time relationship between images and
sense experience. When an image is created from a sense experience, “the sensation … is in the
past when the image exists and can therefore only be known by memory, while, on the other
hand, memory of past sensations seems only possible of present images” (Russell, 1995 [1921],
pp. 158–159). For Russel, memory is “a definite knowledge of some past event in one’s own
experience” (ibid., p. 82). That requires “(1) The present stimulus, (2) The past occurrence”
(ibid.). A major implication of Hume’s system for the purpose of life is that it is anchored in
Being in the world. This grounding in the world bears some relationship to the philosophical
view that Being means being in the world (Inwood, 1999, p. 185).
On the theological side, Hume’s model is based on the deity, which posits the existence of an
author of the creation. Grounding in the world can mean that everything in the world unfolds
by, say, free will. This again would be the argument from design where everything follows from
the will of God. So it seems that the purpose of life is set by some convention or habit in the
world. We observe an image of doing things which follows by another and so on, forming a
habit.
For the purpose of life, Hume did not elevate religion. In fact, Ernest Mossner said he was
not a good Christian. His deist view does not correspond to how religion is practiced today. It
probably is more on the side of atheism than religion. His inference of God follows from the
following premises in his Enquiries: “The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise,
and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting,
without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom” (Hume, 1963, p. 19). The main
implication of this view for the purpose of life is that the religion base is cast into the fire. This
decision is not based on whether religion is good or bad today, or according to the models in
history and predictions. It is based on the face of a vivid impression. But that base does not give
the imagination and consciousness a fair chance.
This point also is underscored by Hume’s skepticism. A radical interpretation states that:
“We cannot know … whether a God exists; if one exists, he is incapable of any communication
with us, and we have therefore so to arrange our practical affairs as if he did not exist. We
cannot know whether the mind is distinct from the body and immortal; we therefore live as if
this life were the only one we have and do not bother about things that go beyond our
understanding” (Marx & Engels, 2010, p. 472).
There is some ambiguity of Hume’s system in relation to order and time as well. Hume holds
that passions, like desires, emotions, and sentiments, are second order; that is, they come from
impression of reflections (Hume, 1992 [1740], p. 275). Russell explained that because of time
differences, we cannot bring a sensation and its image together for comparison (Russell, 1995
[1921], p. 159). One way this is practiced in orthodox General Equilibrium model of the Arrow-
Debreu type is that future expectations are discounted to the present time. In the Marxian
model, account is made for dated labor in capital equipment. Economists do not see time
differences as a problem in those regards.
All these analyses point to the problem in maintaining a means to end purpose of life. It is
defined for being in only one world. It is driven by passion based on faint ideas. It has
ambiguous time dimensions. So, its widespread practice seems to continue only on pragmatic
grounds, while the problems with it seem to make it a paradox.

The Influence of Hume on Adam Smith

Smith and Hume were students of Francis Hutchens who was steeped in moral philosophy.
Frances Hutcheson compared the moral forces to Newton’s force of gravity. He beheld it as a gift
of the deity (Phillipson, 2013, p. 27). He prefaced his book with the idea that pleasure and pain
are tied to objects and are not determined by our Will (Hutcheson, 2008, p. 7). Our mind is
passive when we receive sensation from objects (ibid., p. 19). But the mind compounds simple
ideas with complex ones (ibid., p. 20). Then, we get to the statement that “Wisdom denotes the
pursuing of the best Ends by the best Means” (ibid., p. 57).
Adam Smith built his theory of moral sentiments on Hutcheson’s ideas and Hume’s system.
While Hume entertained the concept of a deity, Adam Smith pushed further in the direction of
atheism. For instance, a recent article shows that although he had the concept of a deity in early
drafts of his work, he proceeded to replace it with the term “nature” (Kennedy, 2013, p. 479). In
his Theory of Moral Sentiment, Smith’s idea of a deity works from moral principles because
people must be held accountable for their actions. But Smith added an immanent dimension to
accountability, namely, that before we can conceive of a deity or its laws in time, we are
accountable to our fellow creatures. He likened the situation to a child who is accountable to its
parents first before it develops an idea of deity (Smith, 1984, p. 111).
We find that when Smith had an opportunity to visit the Christian idea of loving one’s
neighbor, he would limit loving a neighbor up to the degree that “our neighbor is capable of
loving us” (ibid., pp. 25, 171). This is conditional love that points in the direction of self-interest.
We read that Smith combines “the Christian ethic of love with the Stoic ethic of self-command.
This feature of Smith’s moral philosophy marks a striking divergence from the position of
Hutcheson and Hume” (ibid., p. 24).
Two areas where Smith outshines Hume in economics deal with the “theory of imaginative
sympathy and of the impartial spectator. Each of these he developed from ideas that he had
found in Hume” (Raphael, 1975, p. 85). The impartial spectator is “a creation of my imagination
… is indeed myself (the man within) … not the character of an agent (the man without)” (ibid., p.
90). Other names used for the impartial spectator include inmate of the breast, abstract man,
representative of mankind, and substitute of the deity (ibid., p. 91).
For the purpose of life, it appears that that we should see every one equally. John Rawls’s
popular utilitarian concept of equality based on the interest of a single person is ruled out (ibid.,
p. 94). It is not also the equality of an “ideal observer” which is more like a God than a man
(ibid., p. 95). This equality is not like when one sees a vista through a window. One needs to
“imagine oneself at roughly equal distance from both” (ibid., p. 92). In short, the “spectator
imagines himself in the shoes of the agent, and if he finds that he would share the agent’s
feelings, the correspondence of sentiments constitutes his ‘sympathy’” (ibid., p. 96).
As a mirror reflects our image, society reflects our sympathy. Within society, there is back
and forth reciprocal relationship that converges to harmonious feelings. Nature does not endow
us with an innate moral sense, but with a desire to sympathize with the joy and sorrow of other.
If an actor behaves in a way that invites sorrow to himself, the spectator would be moved to
share the sorrow of the actor. The latter in turn would be moved to return sympathy to the
agent for his concerns. “Such a marginal adjustments eventually lead to a new emotional
equilibrium, ‘a concord of feelings’” (West, 1976, p. 101). This reciprocal relation generalizes to
triangular relationships and to society as a whole. The spectator need not sympathize with the
actor if the latter causes injury to a third person, but will direct his sympathy to the injured
person. In turn, the actor and the third person would reciprocate sympathy to the spectator for
being concerned. This will happen for more than three persons, and there, the spectator need
not be a real person for an imaginary person will work efficiently (ibid., p. 102).
In practical economics, Smith’s spectator is translatable to the invisible hand of the market
mechanism. It, therefore, will preserve self-interest. For instance, because of the passion of self-
motivation, a simple trade between two traders would be chaotic. But Smith made their trade
pragmatic by allowing the traders to imagine themselves in the shoe of the other, or imagine a
spectator, say the deity, as the invisible hands effecting equality over their higgling and
bargaining in the market. The result is that trade benefits each trader as their self-interest
becomes somewhat reduced to a fractal, and they walk away from an otherwise chaotic market
situation with smiles on their faces.
The impartial spectator is not accepted by everyone. One problem is that it requires that
because “I ought to pipe down” therefore, “you ought to pipe down” (ibid., p. 99). Table 1.1
shows that Hume’s system requires a spectator view of what is going on with perceptions of
objects [p], and sense experience [e], and their independence or condition. In setting one
purpose of life, each spectator receives different information from colors, texture, shape, touch,
and sound leading them to different feelings. From a more modern point of view, one may add
that people tend to partition their information differently, as when two people witnessing an
accident would give different micro- and macro-views of it.
In the world of economics, people think that purpose is a goal and end. One uses whatever
means at their disposal to achieve an end. Because one’s desires are unlimited, and one’s means
are scarce, the fundamental problem for economists to solve is thereby defined differently for
everyone. But there is a bigger problem concerning the purpose of life going beyond the
materialist point of view, unless we think that economics define the whole purpose of life.
At least one person, Karl Marx, situates the economic structure within the material
conditions of life only upon which he built the legal and political superstructures. But in that
system, a dictator, a national committee, sets the purpose of life. At least, the impossibility
theory of Kenneth Arrow holds that in capitalism, the dictator is benevolent. But Adam Smith is
famous for saying that it is not benevolence but self-interest that gives us our daily bread,
subject to a zero role for God.

Consciousness as the Purpose of Life

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung have popularized the research on consciousness and the
unconscious or subconscious. Jung’s views seem to have activated research interest in the
religious and spiritual realm as the purpose of life. Indians recognize that “mental operation
produce dynamic latent impressions called saṃ skā r-s … at the base of the mind” (Leggett, 1992,
pp. 14–15). These are like etches or riverbeds in the mind, and some thoughts tend to flow
against your wishes in those groves. For thoughts that are inconvenient, one can practice filling
up those riverbeds. As one spiritual master puts it, they are an “‘inherent tendency.’ Using the
simile of a lake for the mind, every ripple, every wave that rises in the mind, when it subsides,
does not die out entirely, but leaves a mark and a future possibility of that wave coming out
again” (Vivekananda, Vol. 1, p. 48).
So, we are not masters of our home, as these subconscious thoughts can appear and disrupt
our consciousness at any time and place. Our purpose is to master our conscious world for “this
world of ours … is only the Infinite Existence projected into the plane of consciousness” (ibid., p.
184). We are lucky that religion is a mean to access but sides of the projection. Scientists are
working on the conscious plane through demonstration and experiments. David Chalmers, a
modern scientist, classified the functional aspects of consciousness as the easy problem, while
the experience we could have is the harder problem to study (Chalmers, 2003, pp. 103–104).
Experiments of consciousness have been researching Block’s definition of P-consciousness
and A-conscious. We already mentioned these under the functional model above. What is worth
underscoring is that some researchers no longer think that it matters to find out where life
comes from. Followers of John Searle accept that consciousness exists, and proceed to show
that it cannot be studied from the Turing machine point of view. Others such as Daniel Dennett
think that it is approachable only from the point of view of matter. We shall mention these
views below.
 Some religions tend to practice conscious all the time as a purpose of life. Followers of the
International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) are by definition that type of
practitioners. They make the body spiritually conscious, and like a red-hot iron act as fire, a
conscious body will be spiritual. Buddhism prescribes being conscious for every task of life. In
his Mahā satipaṭṭhā na Sutta, Buddha gives the method of consciousness to our breath by saying I
am breathing in or I am breathing out, and so on. We are aware also that Buddhists tend to be
conscious in other matters such as every step they take in walking.
In philosophy, Plato stated that consciousness is the “union or communion of soul and body
in one feeling and motion.” Memory preserves consciousness (Plato, 2018 [1892], p. 84). He
remarked that we are not always conscious of such things about us such as growth, or the like.
We are unconscious about them (ibid., p. 99). Plato’s method of ideas and form holds that there
exists a universal soul in which individual souls partake. His student, Aristotle, held that the
universal is not to found in the real world. “For the Forms are practically equal to—or not fewer
than—the things, in trying to explain which these thinkers proceeded from them to the Form”
(Marx & Engels, 2010, p. 439).
Plato ranked consciousness above the material level. “The right way is to place goods of the
soul first and highest in the scale; and in the second place, the goods of the body; and in the
third place, those of money and property” (Plato, 1965, p. 243). His Allegory of the Cave is
currently a stage for much discussion on consciousness. Basically, the allegory holds that a
person in a cave can learn only from his or her shadow cast by a fire behind them on the cave of
a wall. Bernard J. Baars, a modern cognitive psychologist, compared Plato’s fire-cast shadow on
the wall of a cave to Francis Crick’s thalamic spotlight of consciousness and Daniel Dennett and
Marcel Kinsbourne’s criticisms of Rene Descartes’s Cartesian Theater model that focuses
conscious experience on one spot, the pineal gland of the brain (Baars, 2007, p. 299). Baars
developed a Global Workspace Theory where the “brain seems to show a distributed style of
functioning, in which the detailed work is done by millions of specialized neural groupings
without specific instructions from some command center” (ibid., p. 296).
Aristotle wrote about the soul in his work De anima. St. Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on
that work says that “anyone may know from his own experience that man is endowed with a
soul, and that his soul dives life” (Aquinas, 1967, p. 58). Among the difficulties of Aristotle’s
inquiry is whether the genus of the soul actually or potentially exists, whether it is simple or
complex, whether it is divisible or indivisible, whether it is defined by generic category or by
species, and so on (ibid., p. 62). Aristotle thought that Plato’s universal does not exist in the
world (ibid., p. 63).
John Mill equates consciousness with state of mind as follows:

A Feeling and a State of Consciousness are, in the language of philosophy, equivalent

expressions. (Mill, 1970, p. 32)
All which we are aware of, even in our own mind, is ... a certain “thread of
consciousness”; … the being that has the thoughts, and which I can conceive as existing
forever in a state of quiescence, without any thoughts at all. (ibid., p. 40)

Mill seems to split the “I” from consciousness, while some modern thoughts seem to unite
them. But Bertrand Russell is even more radical. He asserted that “‘consciousness’ is not the
essence of life or mind” (Russell, 1995 [1921], p. 60). He made it a trivial and unimportant
outcome of linguistic habits (ibid.). One view is that because it lies at the root of all knowledge it
cannot be defined (Runes, 1942, p. 64). Another view is that conscious is what we are when we
are awake (ibid.).
Existence of Consciousness
According to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s claims, we witness consciousness. He
wrote: “Human beings agree in saying that they see, hear, feel, and so on (even though some are
blind and some are deaf). So they are their own witnesses that they have consciousness”
(Wittgenstein, 1986, Sec. 146, p. 125).
One sense of the existence of consciousness may be taken as an alternative to the mind–
body problem. We read that “man’s ‘substance’ is not spirit as a synthesis of soul and body; it is
rather existence” (Dreyfus, 1991, p. 148). Hubert Dreyfus explained “One is what one does,”
meaning that “we understand ourselves and our existence by way of the activities we pursue
and the things we take care of” (ibid., p. 147). He likens this to a form of behaviorism associated
with L. Wittgenstein and G. Ryle that has “human beings going about their business in a
meaningful social world” (ibid.). This reads like the definition that Alfred Marshall give for the
economics, namely,

Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of
individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and
with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing.
Thus it is on the one side a study of wealth; and on the other, Economics and more
important side, a part of the study of man. (Marshall, 2013 [1890], p. 1)

The philosopher John Searle argues that we stop trying to prove that consciousness exists;
that we assume that it does and proceed to study its nature. As opposed to those who say
consciousness is fundamental, Searle makes a distinction between an epistemic and ontological
reduction. Both of these reductions have subject and objective sides. When one states the date
of birth of Adam Smith, for instance, one is stating a fact, but when one says that Smith is a
better economist than Ricardo, one is being subjective.
If consciousness exists, then it is possible for some to state its location in the body. For Plato,
it resided in the pelvis area. We read that the “ancient Egyptians and Hebrews placed the psyche
in the heart, whereas the Maya located it in the liver. We moderns know that the conscious mind
is a product of the brain” (Koch, 2012, p. 23). Hindus look for consciousness in the Chakras, or
several special places of the body. The philosopher Rene Descartes located it in the pineal gland.

Some Main Propositions on Consciousness

A fundamental approach to consciousness in the evolutionary tradition starts with having a
functional system in an organism. A nervous system needs to evolve, as does a way to
accumulate memory. From here, consciousness evolves over time. In contrast, a fundamental
approach can be given. We present first, the religious proposition of St. Augustine and St.
Aquinas.

Early Proposition of Cognition [Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430)]

“For if I am deceived I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this
same token I am” (Augustine, 1913, Vol. 1, pp. 458–469).
This proposition foreshadows Descartes’s cogito ergo sum, except it is premised on the word
deception rather than thinking. The proposition comes up in Augustine’s work with regard to
thinking about the Trinity. We have this image in us of the Trinity, which is close, if not equal to,
God. This image is closer to us than any other works of God (ibid., p. 458). We do not have this
Trinity through perception. About the truth of the Trinity, the academicians may raise the
question as to whether we can be deceived about their certainty, but Augustine replied that if
deceived, the “I am” conclusion still follows.
Augustine’s city has two domains: the city of God and the city of the world. He writes from
the point of view of the city of God “in comparison with the other, it may shine with a blighter
luster” (ibid., p. 47). But “In truth, these two cities are entangled together in this world, and
intermixed until the last judgment effect their separation” (ibid., p. 48). He sourced their origin
to these two cities to the “difference that arose among the angels” (ibid., p. 437).
The proposition also indicates that one can cognize things that do not enter us through the
gateways of our senses. That is, we have knowledge of the imperceptible. We can perceive a
three-sided figure, but cannot perceive higher dimension sided figure say of fifty sides. But we
can conceive the latter. So, we can cognize that which is imperceptible. So, our cognition is not
constrained by our perception.
Augustine uses the causal categories of Aristotle, namely material, efficient, form, and final
causes. Material cause of a chair is wood. Efficient is what pushes the thing to make it happen. A
will does not have an efficient cause. The will becomes evil when it avoids what is above it and
does below it. This brings us to Adam and Eve who were endowed with the purest will, but they
turned away from it through temptation by the serpent. We read in Augustine the following:

nothing is the efficient cause of the bad will. For if anything is the cause, this thing either
has or has not a will. If it has, the will is either good or bad. If good, who is so left to
himself as to say that a good will? (ibid., Bk XII, p. 487)

Again “it is not an inferior thing which has made the will evil, but it is itself which has
become so by wickedly and inordinately desiring an inferior thing” (ibid., Bk XI, p. 489).

The soul, then, lives by God when it lives well, for it cannot live well unless by God
working in it what is good; and the body lives by the soul when the soul lives in the body,
whether itself be living by God or no. (ibid., Bk III, p. 523)
This race we have distributed into two parts, the one consisting of those who live
according to man, the other of those who live according to God. And these we also
mystically call the two cities. (ibid., Bk XIV, Sec. 1, p. 49)
When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according to God, he is like the
devil. (ibid., Bk XIV, Sec. 4, p. 6)

Augustine is not saying that one should live according to rationality or passion. Rather, we
see that everything must be related to a God-Soul-Body. The right will directs you to love this
relationship. It not an either or between passion and reason, but turning it to love. This is
summarized as follows: “he right will is, therefore, well-directed love, and the wrong will is ill-
directed love. Love, then, yearning to have what is loved, is desire; and having and enjoying it, is
joy; fleeing what is opposed to it, it is fear; and feeling what is opposed to it, when it has
befallen it, it is sadness” (ibid., V. II, Bk IV, Sec. 7, p. 11). Again, we read: “but man did not so fall
away as to become absolutely nothing; but being turned towards himself, his being became
more contracted than it was when he clave to Him who supremely is” (ibid., V.II, Bk. IV, Sec. 7, p.
26).
In Book XV, Augustine turned to the discussion of love as the source of the two cities.
“Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to
the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former,
in a word, glories, in itself, the latter in the Lord” (ibid., V.II, Bk XV, Sec. 28, p. 47).
Cain, the first born, represents the city of Men, and Abel, who was born afterward,
represents the city of God. From that we get that nature precedes the spiritual (ibid., V.II, Bk. XV,
Sec. 1, p. 50). Somehow, this implies that “no one will be good who was not first of all wicked”
(ibid.).
The purpose of the earthly city is peace. “For it desires earthly peace for the sake of enjoying
earthly goods, and it makes war in order to attain to this peace … This peace is purchased by
toilsome wars; it is obtained by what they style a glorious victory” (ibid., II, Bk. XV, Sec. 4, p. 54).
We read also that “there cannot be war without some kind of peace, because war supposes the
existence of some natures to wage it, and these natures cannot exist without peace of one kind
or other” (ibid., I. Bk. XIX, Sec. 13, p. 320). Robert Aumann, a modern game theorist and Nobel
laureate economist, had this in mind when he said if you want peace, prepare for war (Aumann,
December 8, 2005). This idea he linked up with the Romans (Linde, July 28, 2018).
As regards the purpose of peace for the individual, we read that “the soul is converted from
its own evil and selfish desires, and, God possessing it, it possesses itself in peace even in this
life, and afterwards, with perfected health and endowed with immortality, will reign without sin
in peace everlasting” (Augustine, II, Bk. XV, Sec. 6, p. 57).
As regards the dynamic path of the two cities, Augustine said that “both cities, in their
course amid mankind, certainly experienced conquered times together just as from the
beginning” (ibid., II, Bk. XVII, Sec. 1, p. 217). This is a confrontation of creation and fall, as with
an economy we get business cycles, which in worse cases are depression and recovery.
The dynamic path of mortals is described this way: “The society of mortals spread abroad
through the earth everywhere … for the most part divided against itself, and the strongest
oppress the others because all follow after their own interests and lusts, while what is longed
for either suffices for none, or not for all” (ibid., II, Bk. XVIII, Sec. 2, p. 218). Along with this goes
the idea that the conquered stay subjects to the conqueror for the sake of peace.
In Book 19, we read a summary that says “The whole use, then, of things temporal has a
reference to this result of earthly peace in the earthly community, while in the city of God it is
connected with eternal peace” (ibid., II, Bk. XIX, Sec. 14, p. 322).

On Properties of Peace
One can make an argument for peace as the purpose of life. This goes to the argument above
that after war or preparing for war has peace as the goal. We read that “peace is a good so great,
that even in this earthly and mortal life there is no word we hear with such pleasure, nothing
we desire with such zest, or find to be more thoroughly gratifying” (ibid., II, Bk. XIX, Sec. 11, p.
315).
“The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God,
and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the tranquility of order” (ibid., II, Bk. XIX,
Sec. 13, p. 319). Because the latter have some tranquility of order, they have some peace.
“He did not intend that His rational creature, who was made in His image, should have
dominion over anything but the irrational creation,—not man over man, hut man over the
beasts” (ibid., II, Sec. 15, pp. 323–324).
Again, we read that

The earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace … The heavenly city,
or rather the part of it which sojourns on earth and lives by faith, makes use of this peace
only because it must, until this mortal condition which necessitates it shall pass away.
Consequently, so long as it lives like a captive and a stranger in the earthly city, though it
has already received the promise of redemption, and the gift of the Spirit as the earnest
of it, it makes no scruple to obey the laws of the earthly city, whereby the things
necessary for the maintenance of this mortal life are administered; and thus, as this life
 is common to both cities, so there is a harmony between them in regard to what belongs
to it. (ibid., II, Bk. XIX, Sec. 17, pp. 326–327)
Even the heavenly city, therefore, while in its state of pilgrimage, avails itself of the
peace of earth, and, so far as it can without injuring faith and godliness, desires and
maintains a common agreement among men regarding the acquisition of the necessaries
of life, and makes this earthly peace bear upon the peace of heaven. (ibid., II, Bk. XIX,
Sec.17, p. 328)
But, in that final peace to which all our righteousness has reference, and for the sake
of which it is maintained, as our nature shall enjoy a sound immortality and
incorruption, and shall have no more vices, and as we shall experience no resistance
either from ourselves or from others, it will not be necessary that reason should rule
vices which no longer exist, but God shall rule the man, and the soul shall rule the body,
with a sweetness and facility suitable to the felicity of a life which is done with bondage.
And this condition shall there be eternal, and we shall be assured of its eternity; and thus
the peace of this blessedness and the blessedness of this peace shall be the supreme
good. (ibid., II, Bk. XIX, Sec. 27, p. 343)
War and peace have been old companions throughout history and religion. This brings up
the question as to what will happen to the conquered. Some ancient societies did not take
prisoners of war. Augustine was a person of scripture and human reason and, for him, the
choice seemed to be between incorporating the conquered and keeping them segregated.
Augustine’s purpose of life seems to straddle both belief and doubt. He is known for saying
that one should: 1. believe in order that you may understand (Crede ut intellegas). This can be
taken to mean one comes to know what one believes in in the sense of Plato. Another
interpretation is that from the teachings we receive from God by way of the Bible, one can
intellectually confront the problems of life. 2. If I am deceived, I am (Dubito ergo sum). It is a
response to academician of his days who held that because of uncertainty, nothing can be
known, and therefore, one should remain skeptical. Augustine seems to be saying that if one is
skeptical, then it shows that one exists. We have to believe in something in order to come to
knowledge. It seems to be an anticipation of Descartes’s Cogito ergo sum to be explained below,
and 3. faith seeking understanding (Fides quaerens inellectum).

Propositions on Revelation [Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)]

“[T]here should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by
human reason … certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him by
divine revelation” (Aquinas, Summa Th., 1947, p. 2).
St. Thomas Aquinas adopted Aristotle’s logics in his reasoning on religion. He interpreted
Aristotle’s concepts of the four causes in a teleological way as follows:

In respect of the final cause, we love medicine, for instance, for health; in respect of the
formal cause, we love a man for his virtue, ... in respect of the efficient cause, we love
certain men because, for instance, they are the sons of such and such a father; ... in
respect of the disposition which is reducible to the genus of a material cause, we speak
of loving something for that which disposed us to love it, e.g. we love a man for the favors
received from him, although after we have begun to love our friend, we no longer love
him for his favors, but for his virtue. (ibid., pp. 1740–1741)

But Aquinas’s method of reasoning is from principles based on religious doctrine as well.
This method follows Aristotle’s syllogism in that conclusion follows from premises. For
instance, from “all men are mortal,” and “Socrates is a man,” we conclude that “Socrates is
mortal.” Aquinas contributed the application of syllogism to the Dominican view of religion.
True premises reveal truths, which are canonized, and used to judge other science. For instance,
from the biblical premise that thou shall not kill would follow the judgment that taking a human
life is wrong. A quote that establishes this method is as follows:

The principles of other sciences either are evident and cannot be proved, or are proved
by natural reason through some other science. But the knowledge proper to this science
comes through revelation and not through natural reason.
Therefore it has no concern to prove the principles of other sciences, but only to
judge of them. Whatsoever is found in other sciences contrary to any truth of this science
must be condemned as false: “Destroying counsels and every height that exalted itself
against the knowledge of God.” (ibid., p. 7)
Aristotle’s type of reasoning judges between competing sciences as well. For instance, since
behaviorism, which we shall discuss below, does not need the revelation, then it is false. The
same conclusion is reached for Darwinian doctrine of chance and natural selection over
intelligent design, which we will also take up later.
For practical purposes, a science is nobler if it “is ordained to a further purpose” (ibid., p. 5).
In this way, one can say that political science stands for more good of the state than military
science. Since the purpose of the sacred science is “bliss; to which as to an ultimate end the
purposes of every practical science are directed … it is nobler than other sciences” (ibid., p. 5).
Religious science, therefore, can judge the science of economics. It does not have to study and
learn economics to do so. But if one wants to know economics, one has to study that science in
particular and not infer it from religious truths. This does not preclude the practitioner of
economics to draw inspiration from the religious science.
Aristotle’s concept of subaltern helps us to clinch the relation between religious and natural
science. Aquinas wrote that “sacred doctrine is a science because it proceeds from principles
established by the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and the blessed. Hence,
just as the musician accepts on authority the principles taught him by the mathematician, so
sacred science is established on principles revealed by God” (Aquinas, Summa Th., 2002, p. 3).
We read that “Mathematic supplies the reason for the facts which are studied by optics,
harmonics, and astronomy, and even for some of the facts studied by sciences which are not
‘subaltern’ to it, such as medicine. Thus one who is both a geometer and a medical man will be
able to explain on geometrical grounds; why round wounds heal more slowly than others”
(Ross, 1949, p. 47). So, it seems that the study and learning of both the sciences are also covered
by St. Thomas’s quote.
In his treatise De regimine principum, St. Thomas is clear about the nature of reason in man.
He stated that “each man is imbued by nature with the light of reason, and he is directed
towards his end by its action within him” (Aquinas, Summa Th., 2002, p. 5). Aquinas speaks of
ends in the form of imperfect and perfect happiness. The “operation of the senses is required
antecedently for imperfect happiness, such as can be had in this life … In perfect happiness the
entire man is perfected, in the lower part of his nature, by an overflow from the higher” (ibid., p.
796).
For St. Thomas, philosophy set the upper limit of practical language through reasoning. He
qualified this by focusing on that part of philosophy dealing with the divine science according to
Aristotle (ibid., p. 2). But he agreed that “there should be a sacred science learned through
revelation” (ibid., p. 3). One science is based on natural intelligence, the other on a higher
science, “the science of God and the blessed” (ibid., p. 3).
Aquinas considered that “the nobility of a science depends on the certitude it establishes”
(ibid., p. 5). The natural science depends on human reason that can err. The sacred science
depends on the “light of divine knowledge” (ibid., p. 5). Wisdom is the “experience of divine
Another random document with
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anybody meeting the one person most ideally suited to him is so
mathematically small as to be not worth considering.... We all have
to put up with either nothing at all or the thousandth or the millionth
best.... Somewhere in the world there is, no doubt, somebody who
would fit in with me so exquisitely that every phase of my life and
endeavour would be the better for the fusing of two into one.... Same
with you.... But what earthly chance is there of either of us ever
discovering that person? Talk about looking for a needle in a
haystack! It’s worse than that: you do know the needle when you
have found it, but if a man were to meet his ideal partner, the
chances are he wouldn’t recognize her! ... I tell you, the quest of an
ideal mate is hopeless from the start. If you’re extraordinarily lucky,
you may get somebody not many thousand places down on the list
that is headed by that theoretical ideality who lives in the next street
or the next continent....”
“And what if you’re not extraordinarily lucky?” she put in.
“Providence, or whatever you choose to call it,” he replied, “has
realized that the vast majority of people cannot in the nature of
things be extraordinarily lucky. But providence has wisely contrived
that if a man is unable to get the woman he wants, there is at least
one method by which he can be made to want the woman he gets.”
“And what is the method?”
“Very simple.... Falling in love with her.”
“I suppose you don’t agree with falling in love?”
He laughed.
“You might as well ask me if I agreed with eating and drinking.
Certainly a good deal of time and labour would be saved if we didn’t
have to perform these functions.... What I object to in falling in love
(and it’s a purely personal objection: I mean it applies to me and not
necessarily to anybody else) is simply that it’s such a monopolizer of
energy.... I’m one of those people who’re used to doing many things
at once. There are heaps of important things in my life that love has
never had anything to do with and never could have ... and yet love,
if it were violent enough, and if I were weak enough, might
completely paralyse them for a time” ... He began searching for a
simile—“like,” he added, “like a perfectly loyal and orderly body of
workpeople compelled to take a rest because of a strike hundreds of
miles away that has really no connection with them at all....”
She nodded.
“There is, or ought to be, in every man and woman some divine
sense of purposefulness, some subtle foretaste of greater things that
would make life worth living if everything else were taken away. And
it ought to be completely independent of and separate from every
other living creature in the world. Call it personality, or ‘ego,’ or
anything you like. It is above jealousy and envy. It gives every man a
sunken indestructible pride in being himself and no one else. That’s
where novelists, sentimental folk and such like make their mistake.
They give love far too prominent a place in the scheme of things....
Love is only one phase of life. At critical moments no doubt it does
take precedence of everything else, but think of the heaps of other
things that go to make up life! Ambition, for instance. And ideals.... A
man may have ideals so utterly removed from all connection with
love that if they were blurred by any act of his, love would be a
worthless recompense.... Oh yes, falling in love may be a passably
pleasant means of frittering away a dull seaside holiday, but for a
busy ambitious spirit it spells—usually—ruination—unless—unless
—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless,” he resumed, “the fates were so miraculously thoughtful
as to provide such a man with somebody whose dreams and hopes
and ambitions were in mystic harmony with his own.... And that, of
course, is a miracle not to be expected once in a hundred years....”
Pause.
“And it is such a confoundedly casual business too,” he went on.
“Falling in love, I mean. It’s about as sudden and spontaneous and
unreasonable and unthought-out as walking down a railway platform
beside a train of empty carriages and selecting one compartment in
preference to all the others.... And think of the horror of falling in
love, not merely with somebody you don’t like, but with somebody
you actively dislike. Oh, I assure you, it’s quite possible. Some
wretched creature with whom fate had capriciously made you
infatuated! Someone who would monopolize selfishly everything in
you that was free and open to all; someone who would divert
everything high and noble in you to swell that tragic outflow of
wasted ambitions, warped enthusiasms, cramped souls and stunted
ideals! And someone, moreover, who would make it hard for you to
value the people you liked but did not love! Think of it—all your life
thrown out of perspective by something as casual and involuntary as
a hundred unremembered things one does every day of one’s life!”
They had entered the station-yard. It was beginning to rain in big,
cold drops.
“I suppose you think intellectual attachments are all right?” she
remarked.
He grunted.
“If you want to know my candid opinion,” he replied gruffly,
“intellectual attachments, so called, are all bosh. If you like a clever
woman (or a clever man, for that matter), the feeling is not, properly
speaking, intellectual. And if you merely feel æsthetic admiration for
somebody’s nimble intellect, then I should say there was no real
attachment.”
“But I presume you prefer a woman should not be too intensely
sexual?”
“If you mean do I prefer a woman who is half a man as well as
not quite half a woman, I certainly do not. The best women, let me
tell you”—(he began fishing out money from his pocket and
advanced to the ticket office. Their conversation went spasmodically)
—“are all sex.” (He took the tickets and rejoined her slowly, counting
his change as he did so.) “Let me see, what was I saying? Oh yes, I
remember.... Well, the best women, as I say, are all sex—but—
but”—(interruption while the man punched their tickets at the top of
the steps)—“but not always.... All sex, but not always.... That’s how it
appears to me.... There’s the train just coming in. Hurry along, or we
shall have to get in anywhere....”

§6
They were in time to select an empty first-class compartment.
There the conversation was resumed, though not precisely where it
had been broken off.
“You see,” he went on, “there is a part of me that in the ordinary
sense neither is nor could be in love with anybody. And that’s this ...”
he touched his head. “My head is always capable of stepping in at
the most awkward moments to tell me what a damn fool I am.... And
I am so queerly constituted that I care more for what my head tells
me than for any other advice in the world. I could not ignore its
directions and still keep my own self-respect.... I said just now that
providence had contrived that when a man can’t get what he wants
he can be induced to want what he gets by the mere incidental
process of falling in love.... That’s true enough generally, but it isn’t in
my case. All my life I’ve been wanting what I can’t get. Dreams
bigger than the world, ambitions beyond my own capabilities, visions
higher than the stars—every idealist knows what that is. But I’m not
merely an idealist. I like Debussy’s stuff, but I like Bach’s more,
because Bach always knows what he’s talking about. As an
economist, I dislike froth and sentiment, which always obscures
truth, and that’s why I can’t stand a lot of the music that would send
the average idealist into the seventh heaven. Contrariwise, as you
might say, my idealism creeps into my economic work and makes
me see behind all the figures and documents the lives of men and
women. And that’s what a lot of economists can’t see.”
Pause.
“You see it’s not in my power to want what I can get. I shall
always be reaching for the impossible.”
“Then you will never be satisfied,” she said.
 “No, never,” he replied, “not even if I got what I wanted.... But you
can’t understand that, can you?”
She reflected.
“I don’t know,” she answered, hesitating, “whether I understand it
or not.”
And she thought passionately as she listened to him: Why can’t I
understand? Why am I not like him? Why is he on a plane different
from mine? Why has providence brought us together when we are
so far apart?

§7
On a dull December afternoon, Catherine stood in a tiny room at
the back of the Guildhall at Cambridge. She was to play at a
combined violin and pianoforte recital, arranged by the University
Musical Society. She was tired, for the journey down had been
tedious. Verreker was at York: he had discovered a pianoforte genius
of twelve years old amongst the northern moors, and was very much
engrossed in her. “Superb child,” he had said of her to Catherine,
and Catherine, knowing the rarity of his praise, had felt angrily
jealous of her. Yet she knew that his enthusiasm was strictly
professional: the girl was nothing to him: it was only her genius that
counted.
Through the half open door that led to the platform Catherine
could see the audience filtering in. Loosely dressed undergraduates
and senile professors formed the bulk. From the drab walls the
portraits of gaily caparisoned mayors and aldermen looked down in
vacuous reproach. Queen Victoria presented her angular profile
chillingly at one side of the platform: the only cheerful thing in the
entire building was a large open fire, in front of which a crowd of
undergraduates were standing.... Slowly the clock at the back of the
hall climbed up to three. Catherine sighed. It was not often she felt
uninterested in her work. But this afternoon the huge bulk of the
Kreutzer Sonata loomed in front of her as burdensome as a cartload
of stones to be shifted. She knew that her hands would perform their
duty, just as a tired walker knows that his legs will assuredly carry
him the last long mile. But at the thought of the Sonata, with all its
varying movements and repetitions of theme, the greatest violinist in
England scraping away beside her, and a front row composed of
doctors and bachelors of music, she shivered. She was annoyed at
the ominous fact that she was not the least interested in music that
afternoon. She was annoyed at the spiritless architecture of the
Guildhall. She was annoyed because she knew she would have to
start punctually at three.
Just as the minute hand of the clock was almost on the point of
twelve, the door at the back of the room opened suddenly, and she
caught a swift glimpse of a man in a huge fur overcoat and gloves.
She was about to ask him his business when he turned his face to
her. She started. A rush of overmastering joy swept over her. It was
Verreker. The moment was delectable. To see him there when she
had not expected him, when she did not know why he had come!
Never in all her life was she so happy as in that moment. She was
too joyful to speak to him. She just looked up into his face smilingly
and took the hand he offered.
“Surprised to see me?” he began, and from his tone she knew he
was in an unusually good humour.
“Yes. I thought you were at York.”
“So I was till this morning. The child-genius is a fake.... I came
down here to give a lecture on Economics ... five o’clock in the Arts
School....”
“So you’ll stay to hear me, then?”
“As long as I can stand it.... I’ve heard the Kreutzer till I’m sick of
it. Still, it suits a Cambridge audience.... What’ll you play if they ask
for an encore?”
“I don’t know ... Debussy, maybe.”
“Not after the Kreutzer. Give them something sweet and sugary.
The adagio out of the Sonata Pathétique, for instance.”
The conversation developed on technical lines.
 Then the clock showed three. Catherine had to appear on the
platform. Verreker disappeared by the back door and reappeared
shortly in the stalls as a member of the audience. The greatest
violinist in England commenced to tune up. The secretary of the
University Musical Society placed Catherine’s music on the music
rest, and prepared himself for the task of turning over the pages.
Then the Kreutzer commenced. For over half an hour the performers
worked hard, and then tumultuous applause indicated that
Cambridge appreciated the sacrifice offered up at the altar of the
academic muse. Beethoven had finally routed Debussy.
Catherine’s solo was the Rondo Capriccioso. It was encored, and
she played a simple minuet of Beethoven. Afterwards a Haydn
Concerto was laboriously worked through, and by the conclusion of
that the concert was over and the time a quarter to five.
Verreker saw her at the back entrance. He was in a hurry and
had only time to say: “See me at the ’Varsity Arms Hotel at seven to-
night.” Then he snatched up a bundle of lecture notes and departed
down Bene’t Street.

§8
In Downing Street that afternoon she met Buckland, one of the
leading professors of Economics. They had met several times before
at Verreker’s house at Upton Rising. After a few insignificant remarks
Catherine said:
“So you have asked Verreker to come up and lecture, I notice?”
Buckland smiled.
“Well, we didn’t exactly ask him. He asked himself. Of course, we
are very glad to get him. As a matter of fact, he wrote to me saying
he should be in Cambridge to-day and suggesting that I should fix up
a lecture appointment for him. Only I’m afraid it won’t be well
attended: there has been such short notice.”
The rest of Buckland’s remarks were comparatively of no
significance at all. All that mattered to Catherine was this sudden
amazing revelation of something that Verreker had done. He had
come to Cambridge, not primarily to deliver a lecture on Economics,
but for something else. He had intended to come to Cambridge on
this particular date, even if a lecture could not be arranged for. What,
then, could be the real, the primary, the basic object of his visit?
Obviously it was her concert that attracted him, and how could it be
her concert? He had scores of opportunities of visiting her concerts
in London. He was not (he had frequently asserted) an admirer of
her playing. He knew she was going to play the Kreutzer Sonata,
and he hated the Kreutzer Sonata. The Guildhall he had declared
unequivocally to be the ugliest building in England. It could not be
the concert that brought him to Cambridge. Then what could it be?
All the way from the café in Sidney Street to the University Arms
Hotel, Catherine debated that question.
Could it be herself, for instance?
That was a very daring thought for her to think. For all the past
was strewn with the memories of occasions on which he had insulted
her, avoided her, ignored her, shown her as much consideration as if
she were no more than the dust he trod on. And yet (it was strange
that this had never entirely occurred to her before) this was no worse
than the treatment he accorded to everybody. She had never known
him to be polite. Even when he was trying to be so it was for him so
consciously an effort that he appeared sarcastically urbane and
nothing more. She had suffered his vagaries of temper no more than
others who knew him. And their arguments! Was it not a subtle mark
of his appreciation of her that he condescended to spend irritating
hours explaining to her what a fool she was? Was not the very pain
she had suffered something she might have treasured as indicating
his deep and abiding interest in her?
He was standing at the entrance of the hotel when she came in
sight. Not often since that night at the Forest Hotel had she seen him
in evening dress, and now she was reminded poignantly of that far-
off occasion with all its strangely distorted memories. He descended
the steps to meet her. His handshake was cordial. The whole of his
attitude towards her seemed different from anything she had
previously experienced.
“Come into the lounge,” he said, and took her arm. “I’ve been
waiting for you.”
She was ten minutes late, and was glad to think he had noticed it
and had been kept waiting. And besides that, she was amazed at his
cordiality, at the sudden phase of courtliness which prompted him to
take her arm as they strolled down the hotel lobby. She felt that her
arm touching his was trembling, and she summoned every effort,
mental and physical, to curb this manifestation of her excitement.
They entered the lounge and occupied adjacent positions on a
chesterfield. The room was comfortably full of fashionably dressed
men and women. Catherine felt that many eyes of recognition were
upon her. But that caused her no thrill of pleasurable triumph. Her
mind and soul were centred on this unique phenomenon that was
unfolding itself to her by degrees—Verreker, the curt, the abrupt, the
brutally direct, transformed into a veritable grandee of courtliness.
In the dining-hall they had a table to themselves that overlooked
the dark spaciousness of Parker’s Piece. Once again she was
quaintly fascinated by the peculiarities of his table manners. In this
respect, at any rate, he was still himself, and she marvelled at the
intense personality that crowded into every movement, however
bizarre and unconventional, of his knife and fork. Evening dress
gave his weird facial expressions a touch of sublimity. She looked
round at the other tables and compared him with men there. There
was scarcely one that was not more handsome than he, certainly
none whose table manners were not infinitely smoother and more
refined. There were men whose cheeks and chin were smooth as a
shave ten minutes ago could make them. A glance at Verreker
showed that a razor had not touched him for at least twenty-four
hours. Other men had hair carefully brushed and pomaded,
artistically parted in the middle or at the side, compelled into spray-
like festoons above the ears. But Verreker’s hair was black and thick,
coarse, horsey hair, innocent of pomade and parting, hair that he
occasionally ran his fingers through without in any real sense
disturbing. Other men in the room were smiling with rows of white
symmetrical teeth, speaking in cultured university accents, gazing
with animated eyes at their fellow-diners. And yet she knew that
compared with him they were all as nothing. The whole secret of him
flashed out upon her. He was a man. His personality invaded
everything he did and everything that belonged to him: it overflowed
like a bursting torrent into his most trivial actions. With all his facial
ugliness, his abrupt manners, his disposition, which people called
“difficult,” he was the towering superior of any man she knew. And
not all the oiled and manicured youths in the world could give her
what he could give. She looked triumphantly round the room as if to
say: This man here, whom you all think is so ugly and ill-mannered,
is, if only you knew it, the personal superior of every one of you! ...
She was proud to be with him, proud of every bizarrerie in him of
which others might be ashamed.
After dinner he led her into the lobby and said: “I want you to
come up into my room for a little while. I have engaged a room with a
piano in it.”
Thrilled and excited, she went with him. The room was heavily
and tastelessly furnished, the piano upright and metallic.
He did not seem particularly conversational.
After a silence he said:
“Oh, what was that little piece you played as an encore this
afternoon?”
“One of Beethoven’s Minuets.”
“Oh?—I don’t remember ever having heard it. Play it now, will
you?”
His courtliness had vanished, for he let her carry a chair to the
piano unassisted.
Towards the conclusion of the piece he rose and stood at her
elbow, leaning on the top of the piano. She could see him frowning.
When she had finished, she was expecting some ruthless technical
criticism of her playing.
But he stood for a long while in silence. Then he said gruffly:
 “Damned sentimental. I thought as much.”
“What do you mean?” she asked quietly.
He paused and commenced to walk about the room with his
hands in his pockets.
“Look here,” he began irritably, “when I heard that piece this
afternoon I liked it very much. Then I asked myself why I liked it, and
found it difficult to say. A sensible man should, of course, be
prepared to give reasons for his likes and dislikes. ‘Is it possible,’ I
asked myself, ‘that you like the thing because it is sentimental?’ I
shuffled basely by telling myself: ‘I don’t know: I don’t even
remember if the thing was sentimental.’ ... Well, now I’ve heard it a
second time and I know for certain. It is sentimental—damned oozy,
slimy, slithery sentiment from beginning to end. And the question is:
What the devil’s the matter with me that I should have liked it this
afternoon?”
She turned round to face him and laughed.
“How should I know?” she replied. “Perhaps you’re getting
sentimental.”
“Heaven preserve me from such a fate,” he muttered gruffly. “Play
me a Bach’s fugue to take that beastly sugary taste away.”
She did so, but if ever an attempt was made to infuse sentiment
into a Bach’s fugue, it was on that occasion. All the while her soul
was revelling in a strange airiness.
“Bach would turn in his grave if he could hear,” was his sole
comment when she had finished. “Get up and I’ll show you how to do
it.”
Once again the relationship of master and pupil had ousted every
other.
He played the same fugue over again, and she was lost in
admiration of his supreme technical facility. Obviously this was Bach
as he should be played, Bach as he was meant to be played, every
note mathematically in place and in time; every arpeggio like a row
of stones in one triumphant mosaic. She was not fond of Bach, and
in her deepest self she knew that she disliked him for precisely the
reason that Verreker liked him: he was so totally devoid of
sentimentality. Yet she could not but admire the stern purposefulness
of his style: the lofty grace of his structures, that serene beauty of
which, because it is purely æsthetic, one never tires.
When he had finished she said: “I want you to play some
Debussy.”
At first he seemed disinclined to accede to her request, but after
a few seconds’ pause he started a slow sarabande movement. She
listened enraptured till the end.
“Isn’t that sentiment?” she asked.
“No,” he replied curtly.
“Then what is it?”
He ground his teeth savagely.
“Passion,” he snapped.
“And what,” she asked softly—her voice was trembling—“is the
difference between sentiment and passion?”
He looked at her searchingly.
“Don’t you know?”
“I may do—I’m not certain.”
“Well, if you do know, you don’t need me to tell you, and if you
don’t know, I can’t tell you.”
At a quarter past nine they went downstairs. Catherine was
leaving by the 9.30 train to Liverpool Street. They left by taxi to the
station. Fortunately the train was late, or they would have missed it.
In the alcove formed by two adjacent open carriage doors Catherine
and he stood and talked till the guard whistled for the departure of
the train.
Their farewell was curious. She was leaning out of the window so
that her head was above his. He sprang on to the foot-board as the
train was moving and seized her hand. She wondered what he was
going to do. She thought perhaps he might be going to kiss her. She
waited for what seemed hours and then he suddenly vanished into
the gloom of the station platform. Almost simultaneously she heard a
porter’s raucous voice crying out: “Clear away there! What d’yer
think yer doin’——” The rest trailed into inarticulate sound. Obviously
he had been pulled down.
The whole incident was somewhat undignified.
Yet all the way to Liverpool Street she was speculating on what
he had been about to do when the porter pulled him away.
And she was happier than she had ever been in her life.

§9
In the bedroom of her cottage at High Wood, Catherine stood in
front of the cheval glass and eyed herself critically. It seemed to her
in that moment that a miracle had happened, a door unlocked to her
that she thought would be for ever closed, a dream which she had
scarcely dared to glimpse, even from afar, brought suddenly and
magically within her grasp. A miracle indeed, and yet the very ease
with which she acclimatized herself to new conditions gave almost
the impression that the miracle had been to some extent anticipated,
that she had so prepared and organized her soul that she could slip
into the new scheme of things with a minimum of perturbation.
Standing before the mirror, she was surprised at her own
calmness. And the more she pondered, the more stupendous
seemed the miracle, and consequently the more amazing her own
attitude. Already it seemed that she was beginning to take for
granted what a day before had been a dream so far from fulfilment
that she had scarcely dared to admit it into coherent form. A day ago
the idea that her affection for Verreker was reciprocated seemed the
wildest phantasy: she had not dared even to think of such a thing
hypothetically, for fear it should grow into her life as something
confidently expected: yet dim and formless it had lurked behind all
her thoughts and ideas; shadowy and infinitely remote, it had guided
and inspired her with greater subtlety than she knew. But now it need
no longer be dim and formless: it entered boldly into the strong light
of day, into the definition of word and sentence: she could ask
herself plainly the question, “Does he love me?” because deep down
in her heart she knew that he did. Her instinct told her that he did,
but she was quite prepared to doubt her own instinct. She did not
know that her feminine instinct in such a matter was nearly infallible.
But she was no longer afraid of treating herself to the random luxury
of thinking and dreaming.
All at once she was seized with a terrible sense of absurdity and
incongruity. Was it possible, was it even remotely conceivable that
he should love her? She did not know that she was on the brink of
the perennial mystery that has surprised millions of men and women:
she felt that her question was singularly acute and penetrating. What
was there in her that could attract him? Not her intellect, for he knew
full well the measure of that. Not her musical genius, for he was not
an admirer of it. Not her sympathies and ideals common to his, for
she was incapable of understanding the major part of him. Nor even
her beauty, for she was not beautiful. What, then, could it be? And
the answer was that love, the force he despised, the elemental thing
to which he conceived himself superior, had linked him to her by
bonds that he had not the power to sever. The strong man had
toppled. He suddenly ceased to be a god in the clouds and became
a human being on her earth. Would his ideals crumble to dust at the
touch of this mighty enslaving force? Would he shatter the dreams of
a lifetime, those mighty dreams of his that had nothing to do with
love, would he shatter them and lay the ruins at her feet? How would
he reconcile the iron rigidity of his theories with the impulse of his
passion?
There had been a time when she thought: All I want is his
friendship, his sympathy, his understanding, the consciousness that
our souls are affinite. Intellectual and spiritual sympathy with him,
she had argued, is the summit of my ambition. To talk with him on
terms of candid intimacy, to be the sharer of his deepest
confidences, to realize in their relationship something of the glorious
male ideal of camaraderie, that had been her grand aim. She had
deceived herself. That was not so. In the moment that he stood on
the foot-board of the departing train at Cambridge every vestige of
the platonic camouflage was torn from her. There was one thought
that was infinitely more rapturous, infinitely more seductive and
alluring, than even the thought that he and she were on terms of
deep intellectual and spiritual intimacy. And that was the thought that
whilst he was standing there on the foot-board he was wondering
whether to kiss her. If now her platonic dreams were to be fulfilled,
she would be strangely and subtly disappointed. Deep communion
with a god-like personality was fine. But she preferred the impulse
that changed the deity into a man, that dragged him from the stars
into the streets, that caused all his dreams and ideals to be obscured
by that single momentous triviality, the desire to kiss her.
She was cruel, merciless in her hour of seeming triumph. She
loved him more passionately than ever now that he was a being
dethroned from heaven. She had thought formerly: I cannot
understand him: we are on a different plane. But now she thought:
He has come down to my plane. One thing at least I can understand:
I can understand why he wanted to kiss me. And that crude fragment
of understanding was more precious to her than all the subtleties
and spiritual nuances which had made his soul a hitherto uncharted
sea.
If she could break his ideals, if she could shatter everything in
him that had nothing to do with her, she would be glad. Already, not
content with the footing she had gained on what had seemed an
unscalable cliff, she wanted to dominate the heights and destroy
everything that was independent of her. Never had the essential
selfishness of her nature so revealed itself. She grudged him every
acre of his soul that was not sown with seeds of her own planting.
She wanted him, all of him, passionately, selfishly: his soul and
intellect would be for ever beyond her, so she was jealous of their
freedom. That he should fall from the lofty heights of his idealism
was epic, a thing of high tragedy, yet thrilling with passion: that she
should be the means of it was something that convulsed her with
rapture. Her passion was terrible and destructive. She wanted it to
scorch his soul until he desired nothing save what she could give.
She wanted entire possession of him: she grudged him everything
that was beyond her comprehension.

§ 10
All this was somewhat premature.
As yet he had not spoken a word save what was easily
compatible with disinterested friendship. He had treated her many
times with such curtness and incivility that it seemed absurd on the
face of it to imagine that he could love her. And yet there was in her
that strange instinct which told her that he did.
After her return from Cambridge she began to wonder when she
should see him again. Since she had left Mrs. Carbass and had
taken the cottage at High Wood, he had been a moderately frequent
visitor. He liked the situation of “Elm Cottage,” he liked to sit in a
deck-chair on the lawn and watch the sun dipping down over the
roofs of Upton Rising. The æsthetic pleasure made him talkative and
companionable. In the summer time she would open the windows
and play Debussy on the baby grand piano she had bought. She had
furnished the interior in masculine taste. There were great brown
leather armchairs of the kind common enough in clubs, and
innumerable facilities for smoking (she was not a great smoker
herself), and a general atmosphere of freedom and geniality. She
had bought an expensive club-fender with leather seats at either end
and a leather rail, because she had noticed that at his own house he
liked to sit with his back to the flames. The front room was really very
comfortable and cosy, though she was lost when she sat in either of
the two great armchairs.
There was no particular business reason why he should see her,
yet for several nights after his return to Upton Rising she expected
him to come. She laid in a stock of his favourite cigarettes: she
diligently learned a little known and mathematical work of Bach
because she knew he would appreciate it. But he did not come.
Then she had a spell of concerts which kept her in town until nearly
midnight: he did not come to see her after the performance, as he
sometimes did, so that she did not know if he had been among the
audience or not. She knew that he had returned from Cambridge,
and she knew that an abstruse work on sociology was occupying a
good deal of his time and attention. Yet it seemed strange that he did
not visit her. Their farewell on Cambridge platform was already past
history, and she sometimes found it hard to believe it had taken
place at all. She wanted further proof that it was no delusion. She felt
that every day made that incident more isolated, more inconsistent,
more meaningless. And in another sense every day was adding to its
tremendous significance.
A fortnight passed and still he did not come. She did not want to
go and see him. She wanted him to come and see her. She made a
vow: I am not going to see him; I am going to wait till he comes to
see me: if he doesn’t want to, he needn’t. And she was glad when a
concert or other engagement kept her busy in the evenings, for the
temptation to break her vow was strong if she were alone at “Elm
Cottage.”
On Christmas Day the temptation was overmastering. An offer
from a Scotch concert agency had come by post that morning, and
she found it easy to persuade herself that she had to visit him to talk
it over.
Snow was falling through the skeleton trees on the Ridgeway as
she approached “Claremont.” Through the window of the front room
she could catch the glow of leaping flames. That indicated that he
was at home. He had no relatives and no friends of the kind that
would share Christmas Day with him. Besides, he was quite
impervious to the Christmas type of sentimentality. Yet possibly he
would be pleased to see her.
She found him sitting on the club-fender with the fire behind him.
He was reading long proof-slips. As she entered he merely glanced
up casually.
“Come in,” he drawled, and went on correcting until he had
finished the slip.
There are no words to convey how deeply that annoyed her.
 “Well,” he began, when the last marginal correction had been
inserted, “and how are you getting on?”
“All right,” she asserted, with some pique. Then, in a spitefully
troubled tone: “What have you been doing with yourself since you
came back from Cambridge?”
He pointed to the litter of proof-slips on the floor.
“Working,” he replied.
“I half expected you’d come and see me,” she remarked
tentatively.
“So did I,” he replied quietly, “but I didn’t after all....”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean I half thought I might visit you. I really didn’t know....”
“I suppose you didn’t want to.”
“On the contrary, I wanted to very much. That was just why I
didn’t.”
“I don’t quite——”
“Listen. Did I ever tell you that I detest worms?”
“No, but what——?”
“Well, I do. I can’t stand them at any price.”
“Nor can I, but how——”
“Listen. When I was a tiny boy it used to send me almost into
hysterics if I touched one, even by accident. Well, when I grew older,
I used to despise myself for being so weak-minded. I used to gather
all the worms I could find, fat juicy ones, you know, with red bellies,
put them all into one single writhing heap and run my fingers through
the lot! My flesh crept with the loathsomeness of it: I was often sick
and gasping with horror after I had done it. But it gave me
confidence, because it taught me I wasn’t at the mercy of arbitrary
feelings. It showed me that I had myself under iron control....”
“Well?”
 “Since I returned from Cambridge I have wanted to see you so
often and so intensely that it seemed to me a capital opportunity for
finding out if that iron control had at all relaxed.... I am pleased to say
that it has not done so.”
“But you wanted to see me?”
“I did.”
“Then what on earth was there to keep you from coming to visit
me?”
“Nothing at all except this—my own desire to be complete master
of myself—greater even than my desire to see you.”
“Why did you want to see me?”
“I could think of no sensible reason for desiring to see you, and
that was why I decided not to.”
“Are you glad I have come now?”
“No. I am sorry. You have interrupted my work.”
“Have I? Thanks for telling me. Then I’ll go——”
“Your going would not alter the fact that my work has been
interrupted. I shall do no more work to-day, whether you go or not. I
—I”—his voice became thick with anger, or scorn, or some complex
combination of the two—“I have—been—spiritually interrupted!”
She took off her thick furs and muff.
“I’m going to stay,” she said quietly, “and we’re going to have tea
and then go for a walk. I think you and your arguments are very silly.”
It was immensely significant, that final sentence of hers. Before,
she would never have dared to say such a thing to him. But now she
felt he was in some strange way delivered into her power: she was
not afraid of treating him like a baby. The truth was, he was no
longer a god to her. And her task was, if possible, to strip from him
the last remnants of his divinity. His strange conversation she had
but half understood: but it immensely reassured her as to this subtle
and mysterious power she possessed over him. But she divined that
her task was difficult: she feared an explosion that would be
catastrophic. The atmosphere was too tense for either comfort or
safety: she would have to lower the temperature. And all the time her
own heart was a raging furnace within her.
“Mrs. Tebbutt is out,” he said gruffly. “I’m hanged if I know where
anything is. I was going to go out to tea at Mason’s.” (Mason’s was
the café in the Bockley High Street.)
“How like a man not to know where anything is!” she commented
lightly, removing her hat. “Never mind, I’ll soon find out. And you’ll be
saved the trouble of going to Mason’s.”
She discovered it was absurdly easy to treat him like a baby.
She found crockery and food without much difficulty, and while
she was making tea he followed her about from room to room,
chatting quite genially. His surliness seemed to vanish entirely: he
became charmingly urbane. Evidently her method of treatment bad
been completely successful. The tension of the atmosphere had
been very much lowered, and he seemed quite schoolboyish in his
amateur assistance at what he called “indoor picnicking.” As she
emerged from cupboards carrying cups and plates and fancy cakes
he looked at her very much as if she were a species of conjurer.
They behaved just like a couple of jolly companions as they sat
round the fire and had tea.

§ 11
Afterwards he became less conversational.
“Leave the things,” he commanded. “Mrs. Tebbutt will see to them
when she gets back.”
“All right,” she agreed. “Now we’re going for a walk, eh?”
“I’ve got heaps of work——” he began.
“Not on Christmas Day,” she urged.
“Oh, that makes no difference.”