opher.
On the other hand, we have "R^" standing for intense realism, which means an attitude
of accepting life as it is and of regarding a bird in the hand as better than two
in the bush. This realism, therefore, both reinforces and supplements the artist's
affirmation that this life is transiently beautiful, and it all but saves the artist
and poet from escaping from life altogether. The Dreamer says "Life is but a dream,
" and the Realist replies, "Quite correct. And let us live this dream as beautifully
as we can. " But the realism of one awakened is the poet's realism and not that of
the business man, and the laughter of the old rogue is no longer the laughter of the
young go-getter singing his way to success with his head up and his chin out, but
that of an old man running his finger through his flowing beard, and speaking in a
soothingly low voice. Such a dreamer loves peace, for no one can fight hard for a
dream. He will be more intent to live reasonably and well with his fellow dreamers.
Thus is the high tension of life lowered.
But the chief function of this sense of realism is the elimination of all non-
essentials in the philosophy of life, holding life down by the neck, as it were, for
fear that the wings of imagination may carry it away to an imaginary and possibly
beautiful, but unreal, world. And after all, the wisdom of life consists in the
elimination of non-essentials, in reducing the problems of philosophy to just a
few the enjoyment of the home (the relationship between man and woman and child),
of living, of Nature and of culture and in showing all the other irrelevant scientific
disciplines and futile chases after knowledge to the door. The problems of life for
the Chinese philosopher then become amazingly few and simple. It means also an
impatience with metaphysics and with the pursuit of knowledge that does not lead to
any practical bearing on life itself. And it also means that every human activity,
whether the acquiring of knowledge or the acquiring of things, has to be submitted
immediately to the test of life itself and of its subserviency to the end of living.
Again, and here is a significant result, the end of living is not some metaphysical
entity but just living itself.
Gifted with this realism, and with a profound distrust of logic and of the intellect
itself, philosophy for the Chinese becomes a matter of direct and intimate feeling
of life itself, and refuses to be encased in any system. For there is a robust sense
of reality, a sheer animal sense, a spirit of reasonableness which crushes reason
itself and makes the rise of any hard and fast philosophic system impossible. There
are the three religions of China, Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, all magnificent
systems in themselves, and yet robust common sense dilutes them all and reduces them⑧⑧
all into the common problem of the pursuit of a happy human life. The mature Chinese
is always a person who refuses to think too hard or to believe in any single idea
or faith or school of philosophy whole-heartedly. When a friend of Confucius told
him that he always thought three times before he acted, Confucius wittily replied,
"To think twice is quite enough. " A follower of a school of philosophy is but a student
of philosophy, but a man is a student, or perhaps a master, of life.
The final product of this culture and philosophy is this: in China, as compared with
the West, man lives a life closer to nature and closer to childhood, a life in which
the instincts and the emotions are given free play and emphasized against the life
of the intellect, with a strange combination of devotion to the flesh and arrogance
of the spirit, of profound wisdom and foolish gaiety, of high sophistication and
childish naivete. I would say, therefore, that this philosophy is characterized by:
first, a gift for seeing life whole in art; secondly, a conscious return to simplicity
in philosophy; and thirdly, an ideal of re