The Journals of Ayn Rand (58 page)

Before we proceed to analyze in detail the implications contained in the above axiom and the specific code of behavior it demands, we must stop to examine and fully understand the nature of the axiom itself.

It consists of three facts which must be accepted as self-evident: 1) that man exists, 2) that man is a rational being, 3) that man’s survival is desirable.

 

1) Any conception or discussion of man’s existence is an axiom implying three parts: that man exists, that an objective world exists around him, and that he has the faculty of rational consciousness which enables him to know the external world. [
This is AR’s first discussion of the axioms of existence and consciousness; see John Galt’s speech for her definitive formulations
.]

These three facts need not and cannot be proved. Any proof rests on them and implies them as axioms. Proof by physical demonstration implies a physical fact (in the external world) demonstrated to an observer (man) who grasps it through a faculty of consciousness which permits him to grasp it (the rational faculty). Proof by rational demonstration implies an entity (man) who possesses a faculty of consciousness (the rational faculty) which permits him to acquire knowledge about facts (in the external world). Proof cannot begin in a vacuum. Existence begins by existing. Proof begins with something that exists proving something about something that exists.

The
nature
of man and the
nature
of the world in which he lives are
not
self-evident. It is the function of man’s mind to give him knowledge of himself and of the world—the knowledge of
what
he is and of
what
it is. But that he is and that it is are axioms implicit in the mere fact of consciousness, axioms preceding and permitting the perceptions, conceptions and definitions which constitute his knowledge.

A stupendous amount of writing has been done as an alleged demonstration of the fact that no objective world exists outside of man—or that man does not really exist—or that he exists but has no mind—or that nothing really exists at all. But since all the volumes of such demonstrations simply amount to: “My observations of the world lead me to conclude that it doesn’t exist, that there’s nobody observing it and that there’s no faculty to observe it with,” we can safely take these theories and their authors at their own word—as non-existent.

 

 

2) The assertion that man has no rational faculty is a contradiction in terms. An attempt to lift oneself by one’s own bootstraps is the physical counterpart of a man proclaiming as a fact the fact that he has no capacity for grasping facts. ([
Note added later:
] By means of
what
does an irrationalist demonstrate that reason doesn’t exist?)

The anti-rationalist doctrine (remember that “anti-rationalist” means “anti-necessity-to-make-sense”) is extremely old, has a long, bloody history and as many variations as skin disease. That doctrine has no intelligible content—but a most intelligible purpose, since the rational faculty is the badge of man’s freedom. That doctrine has always preceded and accompanied the slaughter and enslavement of men. Its current version is known as “dialectic materialism.” It holds that man has no mind. It holds choice as an illusion and reason as a by-product of the physical environment, nutrition, and some sort of a voodoo process named “conditioning,” which makes reason operate without volition, automatically. Translated into human language, this doctrine claims that the operations of reason work on the following pattern: if you had oatmeal for breakfast, you will think that two and two make four; if not, you’ll think it’s six.

A statement such as: “Man’s thinking is conditioned by his background” is merely a confession that the speaker has no conception of what constitutes
thinking
, and that those to whom the statement might apply are not men whose thinking is conditioned, but men who do not
think
at all. The appalling collection of miscellaneous garbage which present-day men hold to be their intellectual convictions has no resemblance to or connection with the act of thought. It would be useless to argue that some backgrounds bring some men to a state where they cannot think. The only men who
cannot
think are those who are or belong in insane asylums. That a great many men do not choose to think is another matter. There are reasons for such a choice, which we shall examine later; the chief reason can be mentioned now—
thinking
is not done automatically.

The proponents of the doctrine that denies the existence of man’s rational faculty claim to have reached their doctrine by—rational deduction. They urge us to improve our physical environment in order to improve the by-product, our brain, and they urge us to take such action through a conscious decision of—our rational faculty. If a dialectical materialist asks at this point: “But why should I have to make sense?”—the answer is: “You don’t have to. Just remember that you don’t.”

Then there is a school of opinion which describes itself loosely as “naturalistic” or “realistic.” The arguments of this school amount to: Man’s body has many similarities to an animal’s body, therefore man’s consciousness is like that of an animal, therefore man is ruled by instincts, therefore reason is a delusion, therefore the way a rat goes about getting to a piece of cheese in a maze is the way man goes about building the Rheims Cathedral.

By this type of argument one could say that an animal’s body has so many similarities with a plant’s that the animal’s consciousness and manner of living ought to be like a plant‘s, therefore his basic distinction—the power of locomotion—is an illusion, therefore an animal ought to dig his paws into the ground and stay there, because it is unnatural for him to do more.

It is precisely by observing nature that we discover that a living organism endowed with an attribute higher and more complex than the attributes possessed by the organisms below him in nature’s scale shares many functions with these lower organisms. But these functions are modified by his higher attribute and adapted to its function—
not
the other way around. Plants possess digestive and reproductive organs; animals possess digestive and reproductive organs plus the power of locomotion. An animal’s stomach is not that of a plant; it is not adapted to the needs of an organism attached by roots to the ground, but to the needs of an organism that obtains its food by moving.

Man possesses digestive and reproductive organs, plus the power of locomotion, plus the faculty of reason. The distinction of an animal from a plant is the power of a self-moving body; the distinction of a man from an animal is the power of a self-moving mind. Whatever organs and attributes man may possess, they are modified by and adapted to the needs of a being who survives through the use of his mind. His nature is not to be discovered by what he has in common with lower animals—but by what he has and they haven’t.

If it is biased not to notice similarities between a man and an amoeba—what sort of bias prompts those who do not notice the differences? Man is a rational being, according to the plain, hard, material facts of reality. Those who imagine themselves as harsh realists when they say: “Man is just an animal ruled by his stomach,” had better remember what puts food into a human stomach and what must be preserved if there is to be any food—or any stomach.

Since no road is ever muddy enough but that someone will rush to plump himself into its middle, there are a great many middle-of-the-roaders on this issue, who claim that man has a mind all right, except that he’s not able to use it. Man cannot, they say, be called a rational being because his actions are not motivated by his mind; his mind is like his Sunday clothes, kept in a dark closet and donned reluctantly on rare occasions; and when donned, it makes him stiff, uncomfortable and unhappy, because it never fit him well in the first place. What man does on weekdays, they say, is to gallop about stark-naked, on all fours, because it reminds him of his mother who gave him a complex, and to whirl around catching his own tail which he hasn’t got but feels he has; that is what he does because it makes him happy. Reason? Reason, they say, is just something he uses in such negligible, incidental matters as earning a living. ([
Note added later:
] There’s no basic contradiction or conflict between the “physical” and the “spiritual.” There are no different sets of rules or principles for them. They’re based on and proceed from the same principle.)

It is pointless to argue with the instinct—feeling—urge—emotion—compulsion-sub-conscious boys and to debate what percentage of man’s nature can be called rational. It is simpler to take them at their word. Even if we suppose that man is not a rational being, but a howling neurosis endowed with one percent of rationality—it still remains true that in order to survive he must take rational actions rationally thought out from rational motives, and that unless he does so, he won’t be there to enjoy his sub-conscious. Let it be but one percent of his nature, his rational faculty is all that matters in him and all that counts. It must still be taken as his dominant trait—because it is his sole lease on life. He can survive only to the extent that he is able to exist in accordance with it. When and if he is unable to do so—he has stated and signed his death warrant. There is no point in discussing the way of life proper to a creature who has no means to keep itself alive.

Your inexplicable emotions? Your great big dark mysterious urges? Your irresistible impulses? Your desires for you don’t know what you don’t know why? Go right ahead and roll in them as in any other gutter. But remember that when you lie on a barren stretch of soil, with a single seed of wheat in your hand, all your emotions, urges, and desires will not make the seed grow. Only your mind will.

 

3) Every living thing is motivated by the instinct of self-preservation. This is implicit in the mere fact of life. Life is a matter of motion and activity; a living thing not motivated by self-preservation would not and could not preserve itself. But a plant’s or an animal’s method of survival is automatic, i.e., instinctive; therefore its motive is an instinct. Man’s survival is not achieved instinctively; therefore an instinct is inadequate to motivate it. His motive must be conscious.

([
Note added later:
] Most men actually have no desire to survive—in fact, they act as if they had accepted the opposite premise; their actions are consistent with a hatred of life.)

Man needs a rational decision, an axiom understood and consciously accepted: I wish to survive—my survival is desirable. In accepting this, he has accepted the standard and the first axiom of morality.

In morality man’s life is taken as the supreme value. It is the gauge by which the value of every part, aspect and action of his existence is to be measured.

If anyone now asks: But why do I have to hold my survival as desirable?—The answer is: You don’t have to. It is an axiom, to be accepted as self-evident. If it is not self-evident to you, you have an alternative: admit that your survival is not desirable and get out of the way. There is no middle-ground and no middle choice. The act of evading this issue, making no decision, closing your mind and just floating along, is precisely the act of suspending your rational faculty—of refusing to observe a fact, to identify it and to understand it. It is the primary act of your self-destruction. With that as your first premise, you will not survive—and the span of life you have at your disposal will be a succession of acts leading to your self-annihilation, as the history of mankind and of most private lives has amply demonstrated. You have many choices open to you, but the choice is saying: “I don’t have to decide whether life is desirable, I’ll just live” is not one of them. That choice is not given to you because the life you refer to is a human life, and a human life is not preserved automatically.

A moral code is not a sentimental luxury, nor a pretty dream, nor an arbitrary decree, nor an impractical abstraction. It is the hardest, most practical of all necessities—because without it no practical action nor any kind of life is possible.

But a moral code—like any other rational conception—cannot be forced upon men. It must be accepted. Those who wish to accept what is to follow, are asked to accept as self-evident a single axiom:

The “common man” doesn’t understand the gibberish of the “intellectuals” —because the common man relates abstractions to the concrete. It takes a second-hander, a collectivist intellectual, to run amuck among “floating abstractions.”

 

 

It is the doctrine of altruism that stops men from thinking. They have been battered by altruism and have accepted it before they reach the age of reason and begin to think. Then altruism stops them—because the very nature of thinking is not merely unsocial, but anti-social: it is profoundly
selfish,
it implies setting oneself apart from and
above
all others. So men feel (and justly, by their standards of morality) that they are doing something vicious when they attempt to think. (Why is every thinking, independent person called “hard,” “conceited,” “arrogant,” “selfish”?)

August II, 1945
When fools say that technical progress destroys man, that the machine is bad for him, it makes him evil, etc.—the actual fact behind the phenomenon they describe is that man’s moral thinking is centuries behind his scientific or “practical” thinking. He has never discovered the morality that would permit him to use and enjoy the machine properly. He has not discovered that reason is his only weapon and standard for dealing with both physical nature and with himself.