Humanism and Superhumanism

The synopsis sheet is the lecture's cover: the running-order with page numbers, the venue and Stapledon's own preparation date in red pencil — South Place, 29·12·34, the day before the Sunday delivery of 30 December 1934. The delivery date, and a four-sentence summary of the lecture's published abstract (Monthly Record, Feb. 1935 — the abstract itself not yet acquired), survive in Conway Hall's catalogue record, which calls superhumanism concern with "forces greater than man" and says its object of worship "may not necessarily be a deity." The sheet also queues two planned readings, Blake's "The Tyger" and Shelley's "Ozymandias", with the page numbers of an anthology. The prose that follows keeps to what the notes license: editorial connective tissue is tinted like this (toggle below), expansions of his shorthand are silent, and the two poems are signalled where the argument seems to call them rather than performed.

My claim to speak, let me confess at once, is dissatisfaction with both.

First, definitions. Humanism, says the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is "devotion to human interests; a system concerned with human — not divine — interests, or with the human race, not the individual." Let us say: an attitude of mind, a policy, a way of living, according to which "the proper study of mankind is man" — and the proper object of all devotion is man also. It makes two claims. First, nothing less than man is worthy of devotion. Second, nothing more than man is knowable by men. Therefore all service, all loyalty, all praise and worship, is due to the awakening spirit of man.

The service of humanity should be the dominant motive of the individual's life and the dominant principle of politics. And that service consists in helping to fulfil the capacities of men — their vital and their mental capacities; in helping others to be as fully human as possible, to realize in themselves the ideal form of human nature; and in helping to make a society favourable to that fulfilment.

Now for the other word. Superhumanism, let us say, is likewise an attitude of mind, a way of living, a policy; and its content is simply this: that humanism is not enough. The positive side of humanism, on this view, is sound, and indeed essential; but the denial of the superhuman is an error.

What is the starting point of superhumanism? Either a feeling that man is not enough — a vague dissatisfaction, a yearning; or else some positive experience — worship of a nonhuman Other. That Other may be conceived in many ways — as gods, as Fate, as God, as Nature, as a Principle of Order, as the Whole. But note: doctrinal elaboration is not essential to superhumanism — though it is almost inevitable, because the Object of this devotion is excessively obscure from an intellectual point of view, however vivid it may be in experience.

One more point of definition. Superhumanism issues in practice — either as worship, or as a regulative principle in all conduct. It is not merely a passive recognition of "God"; it is a regulative principle, making a difference to life, to conduct — as, for instance, in the Christian doctrine of salvation.

Now, what does humanism really involve? The form a man's humanism takes depends on that particular humanist's mental type. Let us distinguish a low-brow and a high-brow humanism — simple and sophisticated, primitive and mature.

Naive humanism — is it humanism at all? — starts from the simple sense of obligation toward one's fellow men, and its goal is to fulfil the actual felt needs and capacities of men as they arise: to take men at their face-value, as they seem to themselves, and give them a happy life. It is identical with Utilitarianism — the greatest happiness of the greatest number, where happiness means simply pleasant hours. And since the "greatest number" are average, simple folk, the stress falls on average, simple needs: safety, food, comfort, free movement, and "amusements". There is in all this no impulsion toward "difficult living" — no suggestion that men should strive to rise above their actual selves, to realize a finer potentiality. Push-pin is as good as poetry — if it feels as good.

To the naive humanist, the high-brow humanist seems to suffer from a delusion. His cultural ideal is superfluous, since practical fulfilment gives as much pleasure; and his delusion is due to his divorce from actual life — he has lost touch with the concrete, and therefore craves the sophisticated.

Consider the case of Communism, which is in general a naive humanism. The proletarian communists are mostly naive humanists: their goal is the fulfilment of simple needs; cultural needs are incidental, and sophisticated needs are suspect. And that attitude is natural to the wage-slave, to the toiler who has unfulfilled material needs and no apprehension of the subtler ones. The communist intelligentsia, on the other hand, tend to high-brow humanism — but shame-facedly. And communist theory itself seems to allow two stages: first the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, with its urgency of reorganization for the fulfilling of primitive need; and afterwards the Triumphant Communism which opens up new capacities of men — and therefore, in the end, a full humanism, subject to popular sanction.

Note this, before we go further. The intuitive basis of naive, low-brow humanism is the sense of obligation toward others. This is simply felt — and felt as obligation, as "I ought". It is not derivable from self-regard. That is: Utilitarianism is not derived from individualism but from social impulses — an intuitive "oneness" with others. And similarly the values of individualism itself are intuitive: preferring the greater future pleasure to the lesser present pleasure; and preferring the enduring personality to passing impulse — for example, the goal of personal dominance.

High-brow humanism accepts the low-brow kind as a sine qua non, but it goes further. Its goal is the fulfilling of human capacity: including the needs men actually feel, but including also their dormant capacities, capacities for more difficult living. It recognizes, that is, a precious potentiality in man. Something in him is better than something else. Pleasures are not all of equal worth. The contrast of man and animal reveals the essentially human in man — and the possibility of further growth. The goal is the development of full humanity in human individuals: the development of persons toward more complete personality.

And what is that? It is the development of conscious activity — of knowing, feeling, and striving; and each involves the others. (Boxed beside this in the notes, a delivery cue: dwell on this.) By "knowing" I mean awareness of objects of every kind — in perception, in introspection, in understanding — as truly as possible, as comprehensively as possible, as dispassionately as possible (in the margin, diagonally: the relation of cognition and conation). And "objects" must include the sensible world; scientific concepts and metaphysical principles; human personalities in all their diversity; social enterprise; the objects of art; the objects of the religious consciousness. Feeling has a corresponding development: our emotional reactions are to become more appropriate to their objects, more discriminate, more graded and varied — and the appropriateness, mark, is itself intuited. And striving: to subordinate the lesser to the major ends in actual conduct; emancipation from the obsession of the familiar, easy, primitive impulse, for the sake of the new, the more difficult, the more developed. Advance — he boxes the formula in the margin — is finer adjustment to reality.

Such is the goal of humanism at its best. Call it the development of distinctively human capacity; call it the development of sensibility, external and internal, of intelligence — practical and theoretical — and of imagination. And the sanction of this aim, its basis? Again: intuition. We feel it to be right; we have vision of the worthwhileness of these activities. They need no demonstration; they are not derived from something more basic. It is the same sanction as that of low-brow humanism, and of individualism.

An analogy. A starving man craves food as a great good — it is his nature to eat, and his nature is unfulfilled; but he may not have the strength or the resolution to go in search of food. Just so, a mentally starving man sees the humanistic goal as good — if he has it in him to apprehend it at all; but he may lack strength or resolution, or be sidetracked by easier goods.

Now the humanistic ideal, thus stated, raises questions — and first: aristocracy or democracy? Should our aim be to give all men equal opportunity for fulfilment, all fulfilled to some extent, even if this involves a low level of personal attainment? Or to secure the highest possible attainment for a few — a few fulfilled extremely — even if this involves slavery for most? In other words: is the goal finally the fulfilling of all particular individuals? Or is it the achievement of a form of mind, by means of individuals? Is Man an end, or a means?

There is a practical question here, and a theoretical one. Practically: in the pre-machine age it was simply impossible to afford fulness of life to all. But machinery — mechanization — might enable all to attain fulness, each up to the limit of his capacity. A well-ordered mechanized world should make the best possible of every man. But though mechanization solves the practical dilemma, the theoretical dilemma remains: is the ideally awakened world good because it is implied in actual human beings — or is it good in itself, absolutely? Are individuals instrumental?

Consider some hypothetical examples. First, a world of mediocre beings exercising their mediocre powers fully. Second, a world of many abject slaves and a few splendidly fulfilled beings, attaining a high degree of humanity. Third, a brotherhood of equal supermen. Fourth, a world of many subordinates, each fulfilling his own powers, and a few supermen attaining humanity. Note what we say of them. The mediocre world we condemn as a failure. The aristocratic slave-world we condemn as violating human unity and the sense of obligation to others. The brotherhood of equal supermen is impossible, since capacities vary in rank. But the fourth — the hierarchical world of free exercise of powers — does not violate the social obligation, and yet does justice to the ideal.

The upshot of this discussion of humanism, for the thorough-going humanist, is fourfold. First: the satisfaction of felt need is not enough — the mediocre world is condemned. Second: the perfection of the few at the expense of the many is equally condemned — because it violates love, and justice; and because the few cannot accept it and be perfect. Third: yet finally we judge in relation to the humanistic ideal — approximation toward the ideal form of Man. And fourth: we recognize that when we are most vital — most human, most awakened, most spiritual — we are ready to be sacrificed for the humanistic ideal. If by being sacrificed I could contribute, then I ought to be sacrificed — I ought willingly to sacrifice myself; and so ought all men, though none may sacrifice another against his will. Equally, if I could contribute to the happiness of others, I ought to be sacrificed. But note the difference: this — sacrifice for others' happiness — I accept out of comradeship; the other — sacrifice for the Ideal — I accept out of devotion. And further: it is meaningless for all to "die" for one another; but all might have to "die" for the Ideal, out of human unity.

But first, the sceptic — for his doubt reaches the foundation. What justifies the sense of obligation? Is it not sheer prejudice? Why not eat, drink and be merry? These high-flown intuitions are suspect: psycho-analysis explains them away — finds their primitive unconscious sources. When we prize something, the cause of our valuing may be some trivial association with an infantile craving no longer accessible to memory. The worship of the Virgin is traced to infantile sexual and filial craving; the worship of a personal God to the infant's need of a Father. And the present application: the humanistic ideal owes its power to — infantile conditioning, merely.

To this the notes give four answers. First, psycho-analysis is very salutary and enlightening, and it should make us sceptical. Second: its principles are still uncertain and vague, and its method can be turned against itself — the analyst's trust in his own theory is due to infantile conditioning also; say, to a revulsion against parental sanctity. In the margin, diagonally, the choice is put without softening: choose — between psycho-analysis and humanism. Third: the reduction of a developed valuation to primitive motives is an illicit abstraction. Fourth: there is a qualitative difference between infantile craving and the recognition of the human ideal.

In spite of all critics, then, we cannot but accept the humanistic ideal — as the goal for the individual and for society. All other goals are either incomplete, like the naive goal, or positively false, like national power.

But from another point of view — though the humanistic goal is necessary, it is not enough. We must orientate ourselves to Something beyond Man — beyond even human perfection.

The plan of what follows he first drafted and then struck through and tightened; its final shape is: the defence of the humanistic attitude against superhumanism, stated as strongly as possible — and then the defence of superhumanism.

To this the humanist replies. A parenthesis in the note adds a qualification whose middle words are a disputed reading — "(using θ arguments θ 4 an used against him)", with "θ H can use" preserved as the alternative — and it is left unresolved here rather than expanded.

The humanist says, first: superhumanism is a dangerous drug. It is habit-forming. It gets hold of a man. It makes all else seem worthless, insipid. It incapacitates one for useful life. It undermines the intellect, blurring all concepts, giving a bias to all reasoning. The appeal of superhumanism is to the infantile in us — to the desire for a fairy-land universe where all wishes are fulfilled, glamourously, mysteriously, unintelligibly. Its peculiar power derives from infantile awe of the parent. Its seductive experiences are mere hallucinations, due to unconscious cravings for safety, for peace, for omnipotence. It is, in short, the supreme flight from reality.

And the humanist points to the disastrous effects of the superhuman religions in the past. They withdrew men from the battle of life: to monastic seclusion, to ritual activities, to doctrinal disputation — withdrawing interest from this world, and from the call to make a better world, for the sake of "another" world, of soul-saving and mortification. They gave us dominance by priests: a class privileged to "know", and to keep others from knowing; tyrannizing by fear of divine wrath and hell-fire; turning wealth to unproductive expense — building temples instead of improving the lot of the poor; resisting all advance in knowledge and in morality. They gave us orgies of persecution. They gave us the religious wars.

Then the argument from the limitations of the human mind. Man's intellect is a practical instrument, formed by natural selection for the struggle for existence. It is not suited to metaphysics. A spear serviceable for hunting quarry is futile when thrown at the moon. (Against this, in the margin, stands a counter-seed: wings were not for flying — a qualifier, "originally", is struck in the manuscript.) We cannot know anything superhuman — so why worry? Man's desire is an expression of human needs: when the stomach lacks nutriment, we desire food; and even our most developed desires are desires for human fulfilment. Superhumanism, on this view, is, first, an expression of biological cravings — especially suppressed infantile cravings with their glamourous feeling-tone — and, second, a tissue of biased reasoning, whose illusory cogency is due to the illegitimate use of practical concepts beyond their sphere.

And finally the argument from world-confusion. Even if superhumanism were right, in some sense, yet today — all hands to the pumps! Civilization is falling to pieces. What we want is a new human loyalty: a vivid realization of what the world might be, of what might be made of man — and more science. In times of crisis superhumanism is pernicious: it distracts from the urgent task. The Communist puts it thus: superhumanism is capitalist dope, calculated to side-track the proletariat; and Fascism is a new version of the same drug — a mystical Race-deity. I should say: not calculated — but it does have the effect desired; it does distract — for example, Roman Catholic influence. And the diagnosis continues: superhumanism expresses, on the one hand, the crushed worker's yearning for a better world — the fairyland motive; and on the other, the worldly capitalist's yearning for — otherworldliness.

Some of these arguments strike home with great force. They have the appeal of common sense; they seem reasonable, practical. Humanism is a clear, serene light to guide us; superhumanism, a will-o'-the-wisp, leading us over a precipice. Once follow it, and we are lost — we flounder in folly, in superstition, in religious mania.

Yet humanism is not enough — for me. My sympathy is entirely with the humanist. I crave sanity, reasonableness, precision, rationality, science, practical bearing. Then why reject humanism — or why demand more? What more is needed — what more can it have? And what practical bearing has it? It is impossible to give a clear answer — though a clear answer is desperately needed. This is the most difficult of all questions; it stretches the mind to its limits.

As clear as I can get it — here are my "reasons" for demanding more than humanism (summarised). First, a felt lack, an insufficiency, in humanism itself. Second, a felt acquaintance with a positive Something which supplies that lack. Third, a number of rational considerations (True Rationalists should be Superhumanists). And fourth, that I live better — more humanly, more effectively — through keeping sensitive to the superhuman.

First, then, the felt insufficiency. Naive humanism — utilitarianism — is felt to be insufficient by the full humanist himself. And developed humanism satisfies in so far as it is implicitly superhumanist — in so far, that is, as it sets man a goal which is good intrinsically, independently of anyone's opinion. But even so, the best kind of humanism is not enough. For it turns mankind into a mutual improvement and admiration society. Its goal is, at bottom, no better than self-improvement — like record-breaking, or the learning of fresh accomplishments. Humanism does not really make the best of Man — because it leaves out his true function.

Second, the felt acquaintance with a positive Something which fills the lack. It is extremely difficult to speak accurately about this; indeed the experience is strictly indescribable, save by emotional words — emotive words — which indicate a special and appropriate emotion but do not describe the thing itself. Those who already know will understand; others will not. (How dangerous to say this.)

Call it a sense of "the numinous", "the holy": mystery, majesty, formidableness; horror, weirdness, eeriness; and yet exquisiteness, sweetness, excellence, beauty. And it is found in objective existence. It is possible to find it in every kind of object — in the margin he glosses: in everything that can be object to the apprehending mind — even mind itself as object. In pure sensation. In perceptual objects small and great — and this is not merely aesthetic delight. In human persons, and lives, and dramas. In our own introspected mental activities. In personal relations: in love, in hate, in copulation. In communities; in the World Community; in History; in Evolution. In the objects of science — atoms, stars. In mathematical principles. In the objects of art.

The synopsis sheet queues Blake's "The Tyger" among the two planned readings. Its station in the delivery is unrecorded; the catalogue of numinous objects above is its most natural cue.

Normally, of course, things seem — just themselves: good, bad or indifferent in relation to our needs; beautiful or ugly, and so forth — likewise in relation to our needs. But sometimes they strike us differently. They come alive. Or say rather: we come alive, awake, and see them better, realize them; and we recognize in all of them — even the bad ones — a common character, a numinous significance. Not with the physical vision, but with the mind's eye, the eye of the spirit — and yet not mystical vision either.

And when, in solitude, we try to feel existence whole — concentrating on the actual passage of time, and mentally embracing all experience, all that has ever come our way — we may have a vivid sense of — what? Of the Mighty Other: weird, holy, dread. A "presence" — though no personal presence; to call it personal is to belittle it. Mysterium Tremendum.

"Mysterium Tremendum," "numinous," and "holy" stand bare in the notes; the vocabulary, and its paired structure of dread and fascination, is Rudolf Otto's (Das Heilige, 1917; English as The Idea of the Holy, 1923). Stapledon names no source, but Crossley records the book on the reading list at the back of his 1933–34 diary — the season of this lecture, though the list does not fix the month.

Youth, perhaps, is most sensitive to the numinous in particular things — Wordsworth said so, though I am not sure. But as we mature we may respond more deeply to the numinous aspect of our whole experience. Such is the solitary felt-acquaintance with the Great Other.

For some, though, the felt acquaintance comes best not in solitude but in company with others; hence communal worship, in all the religions. But we must distinguish. There is mere herd-feeling: the sense of the crowd's presence, the lust of gregariousness, exultation in the special stimuli of the herd — the perceived herd, the herd noises. And there is community in the presence of the Other: "Together we face God." I, the crowd, face God — the Other. I, the individual, bow — not to the herd, but to God. I, the crowd, worship God, subject myself to the Other in self-oblivious devotion.

Third, the rational considerations. Distinguish two sorts of rationalism: a pettifogging rationalism, and "the larger Rationalism". Pettifogging rationalism is dogmatic. It craves certainty and slick interpretation. It accepts human reason uncritically — and current science too; and it tends to deny what it cannot cope with. The larger Rationalism is sceptical. Its spirit is reasonableness rather than rationality. It does not mistake probability for certainty, nor slight possibility for certainty.

Now regard human experience in this larger spirit, and what do we find? We find sheer humanism unsatisfying — because it shuts the windows, draws the blinds, and seeks an artificial elegance within, oblivious of the outer night and the stars. Instead, we boldly go out into the darkness. And we find — the superhuman everywhere. The magnitudes of astronomy: the aeons; the expanding space; the gigantic inconceivables — Relativity, star-dust; the minutiae of sub-atomic physics, and the basic physical mystery of — electrons, and the rest; an overwhelming sense of the Vast Inhuman — and that all our knowledge of it is mythical. And the story of the evolution of life: its length, its wastefulness, its precariousness, its chanciness; its progressive release of potentiality; its incomprehensibility — and ourselves as moments in it.

And we find the significance of the distinctively human as an achievement of that evolution. For the Great Other includes Man. We ourselves constitute the chief mystery for ourselves: the sheer fact of our awareness; our implication in the physical; our desiring this and not that; our varying degrees of wakefulness; our beginnings and our endings; our relationships together; our intelligence and imagination; our striving toward spirituality. In the margin, a conviction: man is transitional, and scarcely a beginning — even, but doomed? Our mystery reaches beyond the human sphere. Bearing all this in mind — and bearing in mind the growing humility of science — is it reasonable to blinker oneself with humanism? Is not concern with the superhuman the way of life — though a dangerous way?

But the larger rationalism should also restrain us from all doctrine — through realization of the Other's vastness, and the limitations of our thought, and the snares of wish-fulfilment. We may be tempted to say: "Surely, then, there must be a God" — a personal God, and benevolent; and therefore all is well; and immortality, et cetera, et cetera. But we must not. We must outgrow the craving for security, and the desire to have salvation.

We may say only —

I am aware of an unspeakable Beauty and Majesty, which I salute though it destroy me. I can say no more about it, but only about its effects on me.

And I am aware also of the claims of altruism, and of the humanistic ideal. These are the objects of practical loyalty. I ought to serve them unswervingly — though, as the arrowed note in the margin has it, their final justification is man's function as worshipper. Yet — if fate goes against them; if I suffer; if my beloved suffer; if all men are tortured; even if the human race is destroyed — I must salute the Supreme Beauty which I see.

Fourth, the pragmatic considerations — the practical effects of sensitivity to the superhuman aspect of existence. And first, recognize the practical dangers of superhumanism: the tendency to withdraw from actual life, to live in a dream-world of abstractions and doctrines; the tendency to dogmatize, to persecute, to disparage reason and science, to lose the critical faculty; the tendency toward individual soul-saving and mob hysteria. These dangers must be guarded against — not run away from. And contrast, as the margin directs, the pragmatic reason commonly urged for belief in God — "comfort".

Now compare the practical effects of humanism and of superhumanism at their best. Humanism may give generosity, refinement, fortitude. But — aridity? A certain complacency; a lack of detachment; a lack of humour — from taking Man too seriously. Some humanists, the margin allows, are more than humanists. And superhumanism — of the undoctrinal sort — may indeed give selfishness, withdrawal, and the like; but these are its perversions. What it should give, and can give, is a heightened temper of the will; an improved muscular tone of the spirit; and this makes a subtle difference in conduct — day by day, minute by minute.

The psychology of this heightened temper: It presupposes, first, a degree of sensibility — the spirit's eyes must be open. But, second, what is thereby revealed awakens the spirit further — as a sleeper sensitive to sound is wakened outright by the bell. And the final result is conduct raised to a new plane. The margin adds: a sense of the Presented Other; a Presence; It; Reality, terrible — beautiful. The main text continues: a finer adjustment to circumstances — compare the effects of coffee on the thought-processes. We become more able to live with style instead of sloppily, to get the best out of ourselves. A second marginal phrase adds: a participation in It, in the Real. Therefore everything comes to seem more worth while. There is at once more energy and more detachment: more strength for serving the Ideal — the Human Ideal — and more detachment in success and in failure.

And the detachment goes further: detachment not only from self, but from Man. For we feel man to be so small — and to be, finally, instrumental. Instrumental to what? To worship: to the apprehending and enjoying of the universe — and thus, contributing? a distinctive beauty. And out of this humility comes a new dignity, which the sheer humanist must lack: the dignity which comes of free subordination of oneself to something more admirable.

The second planned reading on the synopsis sheet is Shelley's "Ozymandias". Its station too is unrecorded; the dignity that fails without subordination is its most natural cue.

The humanist subordinates himself to the human ideal. But he cannot subordinate Mankind; and therefore, ultimately, not even himself. Whereas the mind sensitive to the superhuman has a humility, a dignity, a peace, which is unshakable — and which underlies even his dread of the holy, even his vision of the horror of existence. He has also a deep felt-scepticism of human thought: he feels its superficiality, its minute scope, its merely mythical character — because he feels the presence of that which utterly transcends it.

This should make him, in the long run, a better thinker than the pure humanist: a more sensitive, supple, cautious one. He will not take the fashionable principles of his day too seriously: the materialism of the nineteenth century; the mentalism of the twentieth — Eddington; psycho-analysis; the scientific attitude. But he must beware of taking theology seriously too: he must avoid all doctrine, and welcome all hypothesis.

And last: scepticism about human reason need not lead him to irrationalism. A man may doubt the reach of his own mind and still accept objective rationality. The Other that he worships is irrational to him — freakish, terrible, grisly — but it may yet be in itself systematic. The universe may be intelligible, though not to man. And even man may progressively understand — and must try to do so.

The final two sheets carry no lecture text: sheet 33 is blank, and sheet 34 bears only the circular Liverpool University Library stamp ("STAP." boxed at its centre) with "F11/4" added by hand — the manuscript's afterlife as an archival object (catalogue reference OS/F11/4).