The World As Will And Idea

                                    By

                           Arthur Schopenhauer

                      Translated From The German By

                           R. B. Haldane, M.A.

                                   And

                              J. Kemp, M.A.

                                 Vol. II.

Containing the Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy, and the Supplements to
             the First and Part of the Second Book of Vol. I.

         “Paucis natus est, qui populum ætatis suæ cogitat.”—SEN.

                              Sixth Edition

                                  London

                    Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.

                                   1909





CONTENTS


Appendix: Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy.
Supplements to the First Book.
   First Half. The Doctrine Of The Idea Of Perception. (To § 1-7 of the
   First Volume.)
      Chapter I. The Standpoint of Idealism.
      Chapter II. The Doctrine of Perception or Knowledge Of The
      Understanding.
      Chapter III. On The Senses.
      Chapter IV. On Knowledge _A Priori_.
   Second Half. The Doctrine of the Abstract Idea, or Thinking.
      Chapter V. On The Irrational Intellect.
      Chapter VI. On The Doctrine of Abstract or Rational Knowledge.
      Chapter VII. On The Relation of the Concrete Knowledge of Perception
      to Abstract Knowledge.
      Chapter VIII. On The Theory Of The Ludicrous.
      Chapter IX. On Logic In General.
      Chapter X. On The Syllogism.
      Chapter XI. On Rhetoric.
      Chapter XII. On The Doctrine Of Science.
      Chapter XIII. On The Methods Of Mathematics.
      Chapter XIV. On The Association Of Ideas.
      Chapter XV. On The Essential Imperfections Of The Intellect.
      Chapter XVI. On The Practical Use Of Reason And On Stoicism.
      Chapter XVII. On Man’s Need Of Metaphysics.
Supplements to the Second Book.
   Chapter XVIII. On The Possibility Of Knowing The Thing In Itself.
   Chapter XIX. On The Primacy Of The Will In Self-Consciousness.
   Chapter XX. Objectification Of The Will In The Animal Organism.
   Note On What Has Been Said About Bichat.
Footnotes






APPENDIX: CRITICISM OF THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.


    C’est le privilège du vrai génie, et surtout du génie qui ouvre
                une carrière,
    de faire impunément de grandes fautes.—_Voltaire._


It is much easier to point out the faults and errors in the work of a
great mind than to give a distinct and full exposition of its value. For
the faults are particular and finite, and can therefore be fully
comprehended; while, on the contrary, the very stamp which genius
impresses upon its works is that their excellence is unfathomable and
inexhaustible. Therefore they do not grow old, but become the instructor
of many succeeding centuries. The perfected masterpiece of a truly great
mind will always produce a deep and powerful effect upon the whole human
race, so much so that it is impossible to calculate to what distant
centuries and lands its enlightening influence may extend. This is always
the case; for however cultivated and rich the age may be in which such a
masterpiece appears, genius always rises like a palm-tree above the soil
in which it is rooted.

But a deep-reaching and widespread effect of this kind cannot take place
suddenly, because of the great difference between the genius and ordinary
men. The knowledge which that one man in one lifetime drew directly from
life and the world, won and presented to others as won and arranged,
cannot yet at once become the possession of mankind; for mankind has not
so much power to receive as the genius has power to give. But even after a
successful battle with unworthy opponents, who at its very birth contest
the life of what is immortal and desire to nip in the bud the salvation of
man (like the serpents in the cradle of Hercules), that knowledge must
then traverse the circuitous paths of innumerable false constructions and
distorted applications, must overcome the attempts to unite it with old
errors, and so live in conflict till a new and unprejudiced generation
grows up to meet it. Little by little, even in youth, this new generation
partially receives the contents of that spring through a thousand indirect
channels, gradually assimilates it, and so participates in the benefit
which was destined to flow to mankind from that great mind. So slowly does
the education of the human race, the weak yet refractory pupil of genius,
advance. Thus with Kant’s teaching also; its full strength and importance
will only be revealed through time, when the spirit of the age, itself
gradually transformed and altered in the most important and essential
respects by the influence of that teaching, will afford convincing
evidence of the power of that giant mind. I have, however, no intention of
presumptuously anticipating the spirit of the age and assuming here the
thankless _rôle_ of Calchas and Cassandra. Only I must be allowed, in
accordance with what has been said, to regard Kant’s works as still very
new, while many at the present day look upon them as already antiquated,
and indeed have laid them aside as done with, or, as they express it, have
left them behind; and others, emboldened by this, ignore them altogether,
and with brazen face go on philosophising about God and the soul on the
assumption of the old realistic dogmatism and its scholastic teaching,
which is as if one sought to introduce the doctrines of the alchemists
into modern chemistry. For the rest, the works of Kant do not stand in
need of my feeble eulogy, but will themselves for ever praise their
author, and though perhaps not in the letter, yet in the spirit they will
live for ever upon earth.

Certainly, however, if we look back at the first result of his teaching,
at the efforts and events in the sphere of philosophy during the period
that has elapsed since he wrote, a very depressing saying of Goethe
obtains confirmation: “As the water that is displaced by a ship
immediately flows in again behind it, so when great minds have driven
error aside and made room for themselves, it very quickly closes in behind
them again by the law of its nature” (_Wahrheit und Dichtung_, Theil 3, s.
521). Yet this period has been only an episode, which is to be reckoned as
part of the lot referred to above that befalls all new and great
knowledge; an episode which is now unmistakably near its end, for the
bubble so long blown out yet bursts at last. Men generally are beginning
to be conscious that true and serious philosophy still stands where Kant
left it. At any rate, I cannot see that between Kant and myself anything
has been done in philosophy; therefore I regard myself as his immediate
successor.

What I have in view in this Appendix to my work is really only a defence
of the doctrine I have set forth in it, inasmuch as in many points that
doctrine does not agree with the Kantian philosophy, but indeed
contradicts it. A discussion of this philosophy is, however, necessary,
for it is clear that my train of thought, different as its content is from
that of Kant, is yet throughout under its influence, necessarily
presupposes it, starts from it; and I confess that, next to the impression
of the world of perception, I owe what is best in my own system to the
impression made upon me by the works of Kant, by the sacred writings of
the Hindus, and by Plato. But I can only justify the contradictions of
Kant which are nevertheless present in my work by accusing him of error in
these points, and exposing mistakes which he committed. Therefore in this
Appendix I must proceed against Kant in a thoroughly polemical manner, and
indeed seriously and with every effort; for it is only thus that his
doctrine can be freed from the error that clings to it, and its truth
shine out the more clearly and stand the more firmly. It must not,
therefore, be expected that the sincere reverence for Kant which I
certainly feel shall extend to his weaknesses and errors also, and that I
shall consequently refrain from exposing these except with the most
careful indulgence, whereby my language would necessarily become weak and
insipid through circumlocution. Towards a living writer such indulgence is
needed, for human frailty cannot endure even the most just refutation of
an error, unless tempered by soothing and flattery, and hardly even then;
and a teacher of the age and benefactor of mankind deserves at least that
the human weakness he also has should be indulged, so that he may not be
caused pain. But he who is dead has thrown off this weakness; his merit
stands firm; time will purify it more and more from all exaggeration and
detraction. His mistakes must be separated from it, rendered harmless, and
then given over to oblivion. Therefore in the polemic against Kant I am
about to begin, I have only his mistakes and weak points in view. I oppose
them with hostility, and wage a relentless war of extermination against
them, always mindful not to conceal them indulgently, but rather to place
them in the clearest light, in order to extirpate them the more surely.
For the reasons given above, I am not conscious either of injustice or
ingratitude towards Kant in doing this. However, in order that, in the
eyes of others also, I may remove every appearance of malice, I wish first
to bring out clearly my sincere reverence for Kant and gratitude to him,
by expressing shortly what in my eyes appears to be his chief merit; and I
shall do this from a standpoint so general that I shall not require to
touch upon the points in which I must afterwards controvert him.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

_Kant’s greatest merit is the distinction of the phenomenon from the thing
in itself_, based upon the proof that between things and us there still
always stands the _intellect_, so that they cannot be known as they may be
in themselves. He was led into this path through Locke (see _Prolegomena
zu jeder Metaph._, § 13, Anm. 2). The latter had shown that the secondary
qualities of things, such as sound, smell, colour, hardness, softness,
smoothness, and the like, as founded on the affections of the senses, do
not belong to the objective body, to the thing in itself. To this he
attributed only the primary qualities, _i.e._, such as only presuppose
space and impenetrability; thus extension, figure, solidity, number,
mobility. But this easily discovered Lockeian distinction was, as it were,
only a youthful introduction to the distinction of Kant. The latter,
starting from an incomparably higher standpoint, explains all that Locke
had accepted as _primary qualities_, _i.e._, qualities of the thing in
itself, as also belonging only to its phenomenal appearance in our faculty
of apprehension, and this just because the conditions of this faculty,
space, time, and causality, are known by us _a priori_. Thus Locke had
abstracted from the thing in itself the share which the organs of sense
have in its phenomenal appearance; Kant, however, further abstracted the
share of the brain-functions (though not under that name). Thus the
distinction between the phenomenon and the thing in itself now received an
infinitely greater significance, and a very much deeper meaning. For this
end he was obliged to take in hand the important separation of our _a
priori_ from our _a posteriori_ knowledge, which before him had never been
carried out with adequate strictness and completeness, nor with distinct
consciousness. Accordingly this now became the principal subject of his
profound investigations. Now here we would at once remark that Kant’s
philosophy has a threefold relation to that of his predecessors. First, as
we have just seen, to the philosophy of Locke, confirming and extending
it; secondly, to that of Hume, correcting and making use of it, a relation
which is most distinctly expressed in the “_Prolegomena_” (that most
beautiful and comprehensible of all Kant’s important writings, which is
far too little read, for it facilitates immensely the study of his
philosophy); thirdly, a decidedly polemical and destructive relation to
the Leibnitz-Wolfian philosophy. All three systems ought to be known
before one proceeds to the study of the Kantian philosophy. If now,
according to the above, the distinction of the phenomenon from the thing
in itself, thus the doctrine of the complete diversity of the ideal and
the real, is the fundamental characteristic of the Kantian philosophy,
then the assertion of the absolute identity of these two which appeared
soon afterwards is a sad proof of the saying of Goethe quoted above; all
the more so as it rested upon nothing but the empty boast of intellectual
intuition, and accordingly was only a return to the crudeness of the
vulgar opinion, masked under bombast and nonsense, and the imposing
impression of an air of importance. It became the fitting starting-point
for the still grosser nonsense of the clumsy and stupid Hegel. Now as
Kant’s separation of the phenomenon from the thing in itself, arrived at
in the manner explained above, far surpassed all that preceded it in the
depth and thoughtfulness of its conception, it was also exceedingly
important in its results. For in it he propounded, quite originally, in a
perfectly new way, found from a new side and on a new path, the same truth
which Plato never wearies of repeating, and in his language generally
expresses thus: This world which appears to the senses has no true being,
but only a ceaseless becoming; it is, and it is not, and its comprehension
is not so much knowledge as illusion. This is also what he expresses
mythically at the beginning of the seventh book of the Republic, the most
important passage in all his writings, which has already been referred to
in the third book of the present work. He says: Men, firmly chained in a
dark cave, see neither the true original light nor real things, but only
the meagre light of the fire in the cave and the shadows of real things
which pass by the fire behind their backs; yet they think the shadows are
the reality, and the determining of the succession of these shadows is
true wisdom. The same truth, again quite differently presented, is also a
leading doctrine of the Vedas and Puranas, the doctrine of Mâyâ, by which
really nothing else is understood than what Kant calls the phenomenon in
opposition to the thing in itself; for the work of Mâyâ is said to be just
this visible world in which we are, a summoned enchantment, an inconstant
appearance without true being, like an optical illusion or a dream, a veil
which surrounds human consciousness, something of which it is equally
false and true to say that it is and that it is not. But Kant not only
expressed the same doctrine in a completely new and original way, but
raised it to the position of proved and indisputable truth by means of the
calmest and most temperate exposition; while both Plato and the Indian
philosophers had founded their assertions merely upon a general perception
of the world, had advanced them as the direct utterance of their
consciousness, and presented them rather mythically and poetically than
philosophically and distinctly. In this respect they stand to Kant in the
same relation as the Pythagoreans Hicetas, Philolaus, and Aristarchus, who
already asserted the movement of the earth round the fixed sun, stand to
Copernicus. Such distinct knowledge and calm, thoughtful exposition of
this dream-like nature of the whole world is really the basis of the whole
Kantian philosophy; it is its soul and its greatest merit. He accomplished
this by taking to pieces the whole machinery of our intellect by means of
which the phantasmagoria of the objective world is brought about, and
presenting it in detail with marvellous insight and ability. All earlier
Western philosophy, appearing in comparison with the Kantian unspeakably
clumsy, had failed to recognise that truth, and had therefore always
spoken just as if in a dream. Kant first awakened it suddenly out of this
dream; therefore the last sleepers (Mendelssohn) called him the
“all-destroyer.” He showed that the laws which reign with inviolable
necessity in existence, _i.e._, in experience generally, are not to be
applied to deduce and explain _existence itself_ that thus the validity of
these laws is only relative, _i.e._, only arises after existence; the
world of experience in general is already established and present; that
consequently these laws cannot be our guide when we come to the
explanation of the existence of the world and of ourselves. All earlier
Western philosophers had imagined that these laws, according to which the
phenomena are combined, and all of which—time and space, as well as
causality and inference—I comprehend under the expression “the principle
of sufficient reason,” were absolute laws conditioned by nothing, _æternæ
veritates_; that the world itself existed only in consequence of and in
conformity with them; and therefore that under their guidance the whole
riddle of the world must be capable of solution. The assumptions made for
this purpose, which Kant criticises under the name of the Ideas of the
reason, only served to raise the mere phenomenon, the work of Mâyâ, the
shadow world of Plato, to the one highest reality, to put it in the place
of the inmost and true being of things, and thereby to make the real
knowledge of this impossible; that is, in a word, to send the dreamers
still more soundly to sleep. Kant exhibited these laws, and therefore the
whole world, as conditioned by the form of knowledge belonging to the
subject; from which it followed, that however far one carried
investigation and reasoning under the guidance of these laws, yet in the
principal matter, _i.e._, in knowledge of the nature of the world in
itself and outside the idea, no step in advance was made, but one only
moved like a squirrel in its wheel. Thus, all the dogmatists may be
compared to persons who supposed that if they only went straight on long
enough they would come to the end of the world; but Kant then
circumnavigated the world and showed that, because it is round, one cannot
get out of it by horizontal movement, but that yet by perpendicular
movement this is perhaps not impossible. We may also say that Kant’s
doctrine affords the insight that we must seek the end and beginning of
the world, not without, but within us.

All this, however, rests on the fundamental distinction between dogmatic
and _critical_ or _transcendental philosophy_. Whoever wishes to make this
quite clear to himself, and realise it by means of an example, may do so
very briefly by reading, as a specimen of dogmatic philosophy, an essay of
Leibnitz entitled “_De Rerum Originatione Radicali_,” and printed for the
first time in the edition of the philosophical works of Leibnitz by
Erdmann (vol. i. p. 147). Here the origin and excellence of the world is
demonstrated _a priori_, so thoroughly in the manner of
realistic-dogmatism, on the ground of the _veritates æternæ_ and with the
assistance of the ontological and cosmological proofs. It is indeed once
admitted, by the way, that experience shows the exact opposite of the
excellence of the world here demonstrated; but experience is therefore
given to understand that it knows nothing of the matter, and ought to hold
its tongue when philosophy has spoken a priori. Now, with Kant, the
_critical philosophy_ appeared as the opponent of this whole method. It
takes for its problem just these _veritates æternæ_, which serve as the
foundation of every such dogmatic structure, investigates their origin,
and finds it in the human mind, where they spring from the peculiar forms
which belong to it, and which it carries in itself for the purpose of
comprehending an objective world. Thus, here, in the brain, is the quarry
which supplies the material for that proud dogmatic edifice. But because
the critical philosophy, in order to attain to this result, was obliged to
go beyond the _veritates æternæ_ upon which all the preceding dogmatism
was founded, and make these truths themselves the objects of
investigation, it became _transcendental_ philosophy. From this, then, it
also follows that the objective world, as we know it, does not belong to
the true being of the thing in itself, but is merely its phenomenal
appearance conditioned by those very forms which lie _a priori_ in the
intellect (_i.e._, the brain), therefore it cannot contain anything but
phenomena.

Kant, indeed, did not attain to the knowledge that the phenomenon is the
world as idea, and the thing in itself is the will. But he showed that the
phenomenal world is conditioned just as much through the subject as
through the object, and because he isolated the most universal forms of
its phenomenal appearance, _i.e._, of the idea, he proved that we may know
these forms and consider them in their whole constitution, not only by
starting from the object, but also just as well by starting from the
subject, because they are really the limits between object and subject
which are common to them both; and he concluded that by following these
limits we never penetrate to the inner nature either of the object or of
the subject, consequently never know the true nature of the world, the
thing in itself.

He did not deduce the thing in itself in the right way, as I shall show
presently, but by means of an inconsistency, and he had to pay the penalty
of this in frequent and irresistible attacks upon this important part of
his teaching. He did not recognise the thing in itself directly in the
will; but he made a great initial step towards this knowledge in that he
explained the undeniable moral significance of human action as quite
different from and not dependent upon the laws of the phenomenon, nor even
explicable in accordance with them, but as something which touches the
thing in itself directly: this is the second important point of view for
estimating his services.

We may regard as the third the complete overthrow of the Scholastic
philosophy, a name by which I wish here to denote generally the whole
period beginning with Augustine, the Church Father, and ending just before
Kant. For the chief characteristic of Scholasticism is, indeed, that which
is very correctly stated by Tennemann, the guardianship of the prevailing
national religion over philosophy, which had really nothing left for it to
do but to prove and embellish the cardinal dogmas prescribed to it by
religion. The Schoolmen proper, down to Suarez, confess this openly; the
succeeding philosophers do it more unconsciously, or at least unavowedly.
It is held that Scholastic philosophy only extends to about a hundred
years before Descartes, and that then with him there begins an entirely
new epoch of free investigation independent of all positive theological
doctrine. Such investigation, however, is in fact not to be attributed to
Descartes and his successors,(1) but only an appearance of it, and in any
case an effort after it. Descartes was a man of supreme ability, and if we
take account of the age he lived in, he accomplished a great deal. But if
we set aside this consideration and measure him with reference to the
freeing of thought from all fetters and the commencement of a new period
of untrammelled original investigation with which he is credited, we are
obliged to find that with his doubt still wanting in true seriousness, and
therefore surrendering so quickly and so entirely, he has, indeed, the
appearance of wishing to throw off at once all the early implanted
opinions belonging to his age and nation, but does so only apparently and
for a moment, to assume them again immediately and hold them all the more
firmly; and so is it with all his successors down to Kant. Goethe’s lines
are, therefore, very applicable to a free independent thinker of this
kind:


    “Saving Thy gracious presence, he to me
    A long-legged grasshopper appears to be,
    That springing flies, and flying springs,
    And in the grass the same old ditty sings.”(2)


Kant had reasons for assuming the air of also intending nothing more. But
the pretended spring, which was permitted because it was known that it
leads back to the grass, this time became a flight, and now those who
remain below can only look after him, and can never catch him again.

Kant, then, ventured to show by his teaching that all those dogmas which
had been so often professedly proved were incapable of proof. Speculative
theology, and the rational psychology connected with it, received from him
their deathblow. Since then they have vanished from German philosophy, and
one must not allow oneself to be misled by the fact that here and there
the word is retained after the thing has been given up, or some wretched
professor of philosophy has the fear of his master in view, and lets truth
take care of itself. Only he who has observed the pernicious influence of
these conceptions upon natural science, and upon philosophy in all, even
the best writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, can estimate
the extent of this service of Kant’s. The change of tone and of
metaphysical background which has appeared in German writing upon natural
science since Kant is remarkable; before him it was in the same position
as it still occupies in England. This merit of Kant’s is connected with
the fact that the unreflecting pursuit of the laws of the phenomenon, the
elevation of these to the position of eternal truths, and thus the raising
of the fleeting appearance to the position of the real being of the world,
in short, _realism_ undisturbed in its illusion by any reflection, had
reigned throughout all preceding philosophy, ancient, mediæval, and
modern. Berkeley, who, like Malebranche before him, recognised its
one-sidedness, and indeed falseness, was unable to overthrow it, for his
attack was confined to _one_ point. Thus it was reserved for Kant to
enable the idealistic point of view to obtain the ascendancy in Europe, at
least in philosophy; the point of view which throughout all non-Mohammedan
Asia, and indeed essentially, is that of religion. Before Kant, then, we
were in time; now time is in us, and so on.

Ethics also were treated by that realistic philosophy according to the
laws of the phenomenon, which it regarded as absolute and valid also for
the thing in itself. They were therefore based now upon a doctrine of
happiness, now upon the will of the Creator, and finally upon the
conception of perfection; a conception which, taken by itself, is entirely
empty and void of content, for it denotes a mere relation that only
receives significance from the things to which it is applied. “To be
perfect” means nothing more than “to correspond to some conception which
is presupposed and given,” a conception which must therefore be previously
framed, and without which the perfection is an unknown quantity, and
consequently has no meaning when expressed alone. If, however, it is
intended tacitly to presuppose the conception “humanity,” and accordingly
to make it the principle of morality to strive after human perfection,
this is only saying: “Men ought to be as they ought to be,”—and we are
just as wise as before. In fact “perfect” is very nearly a mere synonym of
“complete,” for it signifies that in one given case or individual, all the
predicates which lie in the conception of its species appear, thus are
actually present. Therefore the conception “perfection,” if used
absolutely and in the abstract, is a word void of significance, and this
is also the case with the talk about the “most perfect being,” and other
similar expressions. All this is a mere jingle of words. Nevertheless last
century this conception of perfection and imperfection had become current
coin; indeed it was the hinge upon which almost all speculation upon
ethics, and even theology, turned. It was in every one’s mouth, so that at
last it became a simple nuisance. We see even the best writers of the
time, for example Lessing, entangled in the most deplorable manner in
perfections and imperfections, and struggling with them. At the same time,
every thinking man must at least dimly have felt that this conception is
void of all positive content, because, like an algebraical symbol, it
denotes a mere relation _in abstracto_. Kant, as we have already said,
entirely separated the undeniably great ethical significance of actions
from the phenomenon and its laws, and showed that the former directly
concerned the thing in itself, the inner nature of the world, while the
latter, _i.e._, time, space, and all that fills them, and disposes itself
in them according to the law of causality, is to be regarded as a changing
and unsubstantial dream.

The little I have said, which by no means exhausts the subject, may
suffice as evidence of my recognition of the great merits of Kant,—a
recognition expressed here both for my own satisfaction, and because
justice demands that those merits should be recalled to the memory of
every one who desires to follow me in the unsparing exposure of his errors
to which I now proceed.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

It may be inferred, upon purely historical grounds, that Kant’s great
achievements must have been accompanied by great errors. For although he
effected the greatest revolution in philosophy and made an end of
Scholasticism, which, understood in the wider sense we have indicated, had
lasted for fourteen centuries, in order to begin what was really the third
entirely new epoch in philosophy which the world has seen, yet the direct
result of his appearance was only negative, not positive. For since he did
not set up a completely new system, to which his disciples could only have
adhered for a period, all indeed observed that something very great had
happened, but yet no one rightly knew what. They certainly saw that all
previous philosophy had been fruitless dreaming, from which the new age
had now awakened, but what they ought to hold to now they did not know. A
great void was felt; a great need had arisen; the universal attention even
of the general public was aroused. Induced by this, but not urged by
inward inclination and sense of power (which find utterance even at
unfavourable times, as in the case of Spinoza), men without any
exceptional talent made various weak, absurd, and indeed sometimes insane,
attempts, to which, however, the now interested public gave its attention,
and with great patience, such as is only found in Germany, long lent its
ear.

The same thing must once have happened in Nature, when a great revolution
had altered the whole surface of the earth, land and sea had changed
places, and the scene was cleared for a new creation. It was then a long
time before Nature could produce a new series of lasting forms all in
harmony with themselves and with each other. Strange and monstrous
organisations appeared which did not harmonise either with themselves or
with each other, and therefore could not endure long, but whose still
existing remains have brought down to us the tokens of that wavering and
tentative procedure of Nature forming itself anew.

Since, now, in philosophy, a crisis precisely similar to this, and an age
of fearful abortions, was, as we all know, introduced by Kant, it may be
concluded that the services he rendered were not complete, but must have
been negative and one-sided, and burdened with great defects. These
defects we now desire to search out.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

First of all we shall present to ourselves clearly and examine the
fundamental thought in which the aim of the whole “Critique of Pure
Reason” lies. Kant placed himself at the standpoint of his predecessors,
the dogmatic philosophers, and accordingly he started with them from the
following assumptions:—(1.) Metaphysics is the science of that which lies
beyond the possibility of all experience. (2.) Such a science can never be
attained by applying principles which must first themselves be drawn from
experience (_Prolegomena_, § 1); but only what we know _before_, and thus
_independently of_ all experience, can reach further than possible
experience. (3.) In our reason certain principles of this kind are
actually to be found: they are comprehended under the name of Knowledge of
pure reason. So far Kant goes with his predecessors, but here he separates
from them. They say: “These principles, or this knowledge of pure reason,
are expressions of the absolute possibility of things, _æternæ veritates_,
sources of ontology; they stand above the system of the world, as fate
stood above the gods of the ancients.” Kant says, they are mere forms of
our intellect, laws, not of the existence of things, but of our idea of
them; they are therefore valid merely for our apprehension of things, and
hence they cannot extend beyond the possibility of experience, which,
according to assumption 1, is what was aimed at; for the _a priori_ nature
of these forms of knowledge, since it can only rest on their subjective
origin, is just what cuts us off for ever from the knowledge of the nature
of things in themselves, and confines us to a world of mere phenomena, so
that we cannot know things as they may be in themselves, even _a
posteriori_, not to speak of _a priori_. Accordingly metaphysics is
impossible, and criticism of pure reason takes its place. As opposed to
the old dogmatism, Kant is here completely victorious; therefore all
dogmatic attempts which have since appeared have been obliged to pursue an
entirely different path from the earlier systems; and I shall now go on to
the justification of my own system, according to the expressed intention
of this criticism. A more careful examination, then, of the reasoning
given above will oblige one to confess that its first fundamental
assumption is a _petitio principii_. It lies in the proposition (stated
with particular clearness in the _Prolegomena_, § 1): “The source of
metaphysics must throughout be non-empirical; its fundamental principles
and conceptions must never be taken from either inner or outer
experience.” Yet absolutely nothing is advanced in proof of this cardinal
assertion except the etymological argument from the word metaphysic. In
truth, however, the matter stands thus: The world and our own existence
presents itself to us necessarily as a riddle. It is now assumed, without
more ado, that the solution of this riddle cannot be arrived at from a
thorough understanding of the world itself, but must be sought in
something entirely different from the world (for that is the meaning of
“beyond the possibility of all experience”); and that everything must be
excluded from that solution of which we can in any way have _immediate_
knowledge (for that is the meaning of possible experience, both inner and
outer); the solution must rather be sought only in that at which we can
arrive merely indirectly, that is, by means of inferences from universal
principles _a priori_. After the principal source of all knowledge has in
this way been excluded, and the direct way to truth has been closed, we
must not wonder that the dogmatic systems failed, and that Kant was able
to show the necessity of this failure; for metaphysics and knowledge _a
priori_ had been assumed beforehand to be identical. But for this it was
first necessary to prove that the material for the solution of the riddle
absolutely cannot be contained in the world itself, but must be sought for
only outside the world in something we can only attain to under the
guidance of those forms of which we are conscious _a priori_. But so long
as this is not proved, we have no grounds for shutting ourselves off, in
the case of the most important and most difficult of all questions, from
the richest of all sources of knowledge, inner and outer experience, in
order to work only with empty forms. I therefore say that the solution of
the riddle of the world must proceed from the understanding of the world
itself; that thus the task of metaphysics is not to pass beyond the
experience in which the world exists, but to understand it thoroughly,
because outer and inner experience is at any rate the principal source of
all knowledge; that therefore the solution of the riddle of the world is
only possible through the proper connection of outer with inner
experience, effected at the right point, and the combination thereby
produced of these two very different sources of knowledge. Yet this
solution is only possible within certain limits which are inseparable from
our finite nature, so that we attain to a right understanding of the world
itself without reaching a final explanation of its existence abolishing
all further problems. Therefore _est quadam prodire tenus_, and my path
lies midway between the omniscience of the earlier dogmatists and the
despair of the Kantian Critique. The important truths, however, which Kant
discovered, and through which the earlier metaphysical systems were
overthrown, have supplied my system with data and materials. Compare what
I have said concerning my method in chap. xvii. of the Supplements. So
much for the fundamental thought of Kant; we shall now consider his
working out of it and its details.

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Kant’s style bears throughout the stamp of a pre-eminent mind, genuine
strong individuality, and quite exceptional power of thought. Its
characteristic quality may perhaps be aptly described as a _brilliant
dryness_, by virtue of which he was able to grasp firmly and select the
conceptions with great certainty, and then to turn them about with the
greatest freedom, to the astonishment of the reader. I find the same
brilliant dryness in the style of Aristotle, though it is much simpler.
Nevertheless Kant’s language is often indistinct, indefinite, inadequate,
and sometimes obscure. Its obscurity, certainly, is partly excusable on
account of the difficulty of the subject and the depth of the thought; but
he who is himself clear to the bottom, and knows with perfect distinctness
what he thinks and wishes, will never write indistinctly, will never set
up wavering and indefinite conceptions, compose most difficult and
complicated expressions from foreign languages to denote them, and use
these expressions constantly afterwards, as Kant took words and formulas
from earlier philosophy, especially Scholasticism, which he combined with
each other to suit his purposes; as, for example, “transcendental
synthetic unity of apperception,” and in general “unity of synthesis”
(_Einheit der Synthesis_), always used where “union” (_Vereinigung_) would
be quite sufficient by itself. Moreover, a man who is himself quite clear
will not be always explaining anew what has once been explained, as Kant
does, for example, in the case of the understanding, the categories,
experience, and other leading conceptions. In general, such a man will not
incessantly repeat himself, and yet in every new exposition of the thought
already expressed a hundred times leave it in just the same obscure
condition, but he will express his meaning once distinctly, thoroughly,
and exhaustively, and then let it alone. “_Quo enim melius rem aliquam
concipimus eo magis determinati sumus ad eam unico modo exprimendam_,”
says Descartes in his fifth letter. But the most injurious result of
Kant’s occasionally obscure language is, that it acted as _exemplar vitiis
imitabile_; indeed, it was misconstrued as a pernicious authorisation. The
public was compelled to see that what is obscure is not always without
significance; consequently, what was without significance took refuge
behind obscure language. Fichte was the first to seize this new privilege
and use it vigorously; Schelling at least equalled him; and a host of
hungry scribblers, without talent and without honesty, soon outbade them
both. But the height of audacity, in serving up pure nonsense, in
stringing together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had
previously only been heard in madhouses, was finally reached in Hegel, and
became the instrument of the most barefaced general mystification that has
ever taken place, with a result which will appear fabulous to posterity,
and will remain as a monument of German stupidity. In vain, meanwhile,
Jean Paul wrote his beautiful paragraph, “Higher criticism of
philosophical madness in the professorial chair, and poetical madness in
the theatre” (_Æsthetische Nachschule_); for in vain Goethe had already
said—


    “They prate and teach, and no one interferes;
    All from the fellowship of fools are shrinking;
    Man usually believes, if only words he hears,
    That also with them goes material for thinking.”(3)


But let us return to Kant. We are compelled to admit that he entirely
lacks grand, classical simplicity, _naïveté_, _ingénuité_, _candeur_. His
philosophy has no analogy with Grecian architecture, which presents large
simple proportions revealing themselves at once to the glance; on the
contrary, it reminds us strongly of the Gothic style of building. For a
purely individual characteristic of Kant’s mind is a remarkable love of
_symmetry_, which delights in a varied multiplicity, so that it may reduce
it to order, and repeat this order in subordinate orders, and so on
indefinitely, just as happens in Gothic churches. Indeed, he sometimes
carries this to the extent of trifling, and from love of this tendency he
goes so far as to do open violence to truth, and to deal with it as Nature
was dealt with by the old-fashioned gardeners, whose work we see in
symmetrical alleys, squares, and triangles, trees shaped like pyramids and
spheres, and hedges winding in regular curves. I will support this with
facts.

After he has treated space and time isolated from everything else, and has
then dismissed this whole world of perception which fills space and time,
and in which we live and are, with the meaningless words “the empirical
content of perception is given us,” he immediately arrives with one spring
at _the logical basis of his whole philosophy, the table of judgments_.
From this table he deduces an exact dozen of categories, symmetrically
arranged under four heads, which afterwards become the fearful procrustean
bed into which he violently forces all things in the world and all that
goes on in man, shrinking from no violence and disdaining no sophistry if
only he is able to repeat everywhere the symmetry of that table. The first
that is symmetrically deduced from it is the pure physiological table of
the general principles of natural science—the axioms of intuition,
anticipations of perception, analogies of experience, and postulates of
empirical thought in general. Of these fundamental principles, the first
two are simple; but each of the last two sends out symmetrically three
shoots. The mere categories were what he calls _conceptions_; but these
principles of natural science are _judgments_. In accordance with his
highest guide to all wisdom, symmetry, the series must now prove itself
fruitful in the syllogisms, and this, indeed, is done symmetrically and
regularly. For, as by the application of the categories to sensibility,
experience with all its _a priori_ principles arose for the understanding,
so by the application of _syllogisms_ to the categories, a task performed
by the _reason_ in accordance with its pretended principle of seeking the
unconditioned, the _Ideas_ of the reason arise. Now this takes place in
the following manner: The three categories of relation supply to
syllogistic reasoning the three only possible kinds of major premisses,
and syllogistic reasoning accordingly falls into three kinds, each of
which is to be regarded as an egg out of which the reason hatches an Idea;
out of the categorical syllogism the Idea of the _soul_, out of the
hypothetical the Idea of the _world_, and out of the disjunctive the Idea
of _God_. In the second of these, the Idea of the world, the symmetry of
the table of the categories now repeats itself again, for its four heads
produce four theses, each of which has its antithesis as a symmetrical
pendant.

We pay the tribute of our admiration to the really exceedingly acute
combination which produced this elegant structure, but we shall none the
less proceed to a thorough examination of its foundation and its parts.
But the following remarks must come first.

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It is astonishing how Kant, without further reflection, pursues his way,
following his symmetry, ordering everything in accordance with it, without
ever taking one of the subjects so handled into consideration on its own
account. I will explain myself more fully. After he has considered
intuitive knowledge in a mathematical reference only, he neglects
altogether the rest of knowledge of perception in which the world lies
before us, and confines himself entirely to abstract thinking, although
this receives the whole of its significance and value from the world of
perception alone, which is infinitely more significant, generally present,
and rich in content than the abstract part of our knowledge. Indeed, and
this is an important point, he has nowhere clearly distinguished
perception from abstract knowledge, and just on this account, as we shall
afterwards see, he becomes involved in irresolvable contradictions with
himself. After he has disposed of the whole sensible world with the
meaningless “it is given,” he makes, as we have said, the logical table of
judgments the foundation-stone of his building. But here again he does not
reflect for a moment upon that which really lies before him. These forms
of judgment are indeed _words_ and _combinations of words_; yet it ought
first to have been asked what these directly denote: it would have been
found that they denote _conceptions_. The next question would then have
been as to the nature of _conceptions_. It would have appeared from the
answer what relation these have to the ideas of perception in which the
world exists; for perception and reflection would have been distinguished.
It would now have become necessary to examine, not merely how pure and
merely formal intuition or perception _a priori_, but also how its
content, the empirical perception, comes into consciousness. But then it
would have become apparent what part the _understanding_ has in this, and
thus also in general what the _understanding_ is, and, on the other hand,
what the _reason_ properly is, the critique of which is being written. It
is most remarkable that he does not once properly and adequately define
the latter, but merely gives incidentally, and as the context in each case
demands, incomplete and inaccurate explanations of it, in direct
contradiction to the rule of Descartes given above.(4) For example, at p.
11; V. 24, of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” it is the faculty of
principles _a priori_; but at p. 299; V. 356, it is said that reason is
the faculty of _principles_, and it is opposed to the understanding, which
is the faculty of _rules_! One would now think that there must be a very
wide difference between principles and rules, since it entitles us to
assume a special faculty of knowledge for each of them. But this great
distinction is made to lie merely in this, that what is known _a priori_
through pure perception or through the forms of the understanding is a
rule, and only what results from mere conceptions is a principle. We shall
return to this arbitrary and inadmissible distinction later, when we come
to the Dialectic. On p. 330; V. 386, reason is the faculty of inference;
mere judging (p. 69; V. 94) he often explains as the work of the
understanding. Now, this really amounts to saying: Judging is the work of
the understanding so long as the ground of the judgment is empirical,
transcendental, or metalogical (Essay on the Principle of Sufficient
Reason, § 31, 32, 33); but if it is logical, as is the case with the
syllogism, then we are here concerned with a quite special and much more
important faculty of knowledge—the reason. Nay, what is more, on p. 303;
V. 360, it is explained that what follows directly from a proposition is
still a matter of the understanding, and that only those conclusions which
are arrived at by the use of a mediating conception are the work of the
reason, and the example given is this: From the proposition, “All men are
mortal,” the inference, “Some mortals are men,” may be drawn by the mere
understanding. On the other hand, to draw the conclusion, “All the learned
are mortal,” demands an entirely different and far more important
faculty—the reason. How was it possible for a great thinker to write the
like of this! On p. 553; V. 581, reason is all at once the constant
condition of all voluntary action. On p. 614; V. 642, it consists in the
fact that we can give an account of our assertions; on pp. 643, 644; V.
671, 672, in the circumstance that it brings unity into the conceptions of
the understanding by means of Ideas, as the understanding brings unity
into the multiplicity of objects by means of conceptions. On p. 646; V.
674, it is nothing else than the faculty which deduces the particular from
the general.

The understanding also is constantly being explained anew. In seven
passages of the “Critique of Pure Reason” it is explained in the following
terms. On p. 51; V. 75, it is the faculty which of itself produces ideas
of perception. On p. 69; V. 94, it is the faculty of judging, _i.e._, of
thinking, _i.e._, of knowing through conceptions. On p. 137 of the fifth
edition, it is the faculty of knowledge generally. On p. 132; V. 171, it
is the faculty of rules. On p. 158; V. 197, however, it is said: “It is
not only the faculty of rules, but the source of principles (_Grundsätze_)
according to which everything comes under rules;” and yet above it was
opposed to the reason because the latter alone was the faculty of
principles (_Principien_). On p. 160; V. 199, the understanding is the
faculty of conceptions; but on p. 302; V. 359, it is the faculty of the
unity of phenomena by means of rules.

Against such really confused and groundless language on the subject (even
though it comes from Kant) I shall have no need to defend the explanation
which I have given of these two faculties of knowledge—an explanation
which is fixed, clearly defined, definite, simple, and in full agreement
with the language of all nations and all ages. I have only quoted this
language as a proof of my charge that Kant follows his symmetrical,
logical system without sufficiently reflecting upon the subject he is thus
handling.

Now, as I have said above, if Kant had seriously examined how far two such
different faculties of knowledge, one of which is the specific difference
of man, may be known, and what, in accordance with the language of all
nations and all philosophers, reason and understanding are, he would
never, without further authority than the _intellectus theoreticus_ and
_practicus_ of the Schoolmen, which is used in an entirely different
sense, have divided the reason into theoretical and practical, and made
the latter the source of virtuous conduct. In the same way, before Kant
separated so carefully conceptions of the understanding (by which he
sometimes means his categories, sometimes all general conceptions) and
conceptions of the reason (his so-called Ideas), and made them both the
material of his philosophy, which for the most part deals only with the
validity, application, and origin of all these conceptions;—first, I say,
he ought to have really examined what in general a _conception_ is. But
this very necessary investigation has unfortunately been also neglected,
and has contributed much to the irremediable confusion of intuitive and
abstract knowledge which I shall soon refer to. The same want of adequate
reflection with which he passed over the questions: what is perception?
what is reflection? what is conception? what is reason? what is
understanding? allowed him to pass over the following investigations,
which were just as inevitably necessary: what is it that I call the
_object_, which I distinguish from the _idea_? what is existence? what is
object? what is subject? what is truth, illusion, error? But he follows
his logical schema and his symmetry without reflecting or looking about
him. The table of judgments ought to, and must, be the key to all wisdom.

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I have given it above as the chief merit of Kant that he distinguished the
phenomenon from the thing in itself, explained the whole visible world as
phenomenon, and therefore denied all validity to its laws beyond the
phenomenon. It is certainly remarkable that he did not deduce this merely
relative existence of the phenomenon from the simple undeniable truth
which lay so near him, “_No object without a subject_,” in order thus at
the very root to show that the object, because it always exists merely in
relation to a subject, is dependent upon it, conditioned by it, and
therefore conditioned as mere phenomenon, which does not exist in itself
nor unconditioned. Berkeley, to whose merits Kant did not do justice, had
already made this important principle the foundation-stone of his
philosophy, and thereby established an immortal reputation. Yet he himself
did not draw the proper conclusions from this principle, and so he was
both misunderstood and insufficiently attended to. In my first edition I
explained Kant’s avoidance of this Berkeleian principle as arising from an
evident shrinking from decided idealism; while, on the other hand, I found
idealism distinctly expressed in many passages of the “Critique of Pure
Reason,” and accordingly I charged Kant with contradicting himself. And
this charge was well founded, if, as was then my case, one only knew the
“Critique of Pure Reason” in the second or any of the five subsequent
editions printed from it. But when later I read Kant’s great work in the
first edition, which is already so rare, I saw, to my great pleasure, all
these contradictions disappear, and found that although Kant does not use
the formula, “No object without a subject,” he yet explains, with just as
much decision as Berkeley and I do, the outer world lying before us in
space and time as the mere idea of the subject that knows it. Therefore,
for example, he says there without reserve (p. 383): “If I take away the
thinking subject, the whole material world must disappear, for it is
nothing but a phenomenon in the sensibility of our subject, and a class of
its ideas.” But the whole passage from p. 348-392, in which Kant expounded
his pronounced idealism with peculiar beauty and clearness, was suppressed
by him in the second edition, and instead of it a number of remarks
controverting it were introduced. In this way then the text of the
“Critique of Pure Reason,” as it has circulated from the year 1787 to the
year 1838, was disfigured and spoilt, and it became a self-contradictory
book, the sense of which could not therefore be thoroughly clear and
comprehensible to any one. The particulars about this, and also my
conjectures as to the reasons and the weaknesses which may have influenced
Kant so to disfigure his immortal work, I have given in a letter to
Professor Rosenkranz, and he has quoted the principal passage of it in his
preface to the second volume of the edition of Kant’s collected works
edited by him, to which I therefore refer. In consequence of my
representations, Professor Rosenkranz was induced in the year 1838 to
restore the “Critique of Pure Reason” to its original form, for in the
second volume referred to he had it printed according to the _first_
edition of 1781, by which he has rendered an inestimable service to
philosophy; indeed, he has perhaps saved from destruction the most
important work of German literature; and this should always be remembered
to his credit. But let no one imagine that he knows the “Critique of Pure
Reason” and has a distinct conception of Kant’s teaching if he has only
read the second or one of the later editions. That is altogether
impossible, for he has only read a mutilated, spoilt, and to a certain
extent ungenuine text. It is my duty to say this here decidedly and for
every one’s warning.

Yet the way in which Kant introduces the _thing in itself_ stands in
undeniable contradiction with the distinctly idealistic point of view so
clearly expressed in the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason,”
and without doubt this is the chief reason why, in the second edition, he
suppressed the principal idealistic passage we have referred to, and
directly declared himself opposed to the Berkeleian idealism, though by
doing so he only introduced inconsistencies into his work, without being
able to remedy its principal defect. This defect, as is known, is the
introduction of the _thing in itself_ in the way chosen by him, the
inadmissibleness of which was exposed at length by G. E. Schulze in
“_Ænesidemus_,” and was soon recognised as the untenable point of his
system. The matter may be made clear in a very few words. Kant based the
assumption of the thing in itself, though concealed under various modes of
expression, upon an inference from the law of causality—an inference that
the empirical perception, or more accurately the _sensation_, in our
organs of sense, from which it proceeds, must have an external cause. But
according to his own account, which is correct, the law of causality is
known to us _a priori_, consequently is a function of our intellect, and
is thus of _subjective_ origin; further, sensation itself, to which we
here apply the law of causality, is undeniably _subjective_; and finally,
even space, in which, by means of this application, we place the cause of
this sensation as object, is a form of our intellect given _a priori_, and
is consequently _subjective_. Therefore the whole empirical perception
remains always upon a _subjective_ foundation, as a mere process in us,
and nothing entirely different from it and independent of it can be
brought in as a _thing in itself_, or shown to be a necessary assumption.
The empirical perception actually is and remains merely our idea: it is
the world as idea. An inner nature of this we can only arrive at on the
entirely different path followed by me, by means of calling in the aid of
self-consciousness, which proclaims the will as the inner nature of our
own phenomenon; but then the thing in itself will be one which is _toto
genere_ different from the idea and its elements, as I have explained.

The great defect of the Kantian system in this point, which, as has been
said, was soon pointed out, is an illustration of the truth of the
beautiful Indian proverb: “No lotus without a stem.” The erroneous
deduction of the thing in itself is here the stem; yet only the method of
the deduction, not the recognition of a thing in itself belonging to the
given phenomenon. But this last was Fichte’s misunderstanding of it, which
could only happen because he was not concerned with truth, but with making
a sensation for the furtherance of his individual ends. Accordingly he was
bold and thoughtless enough to deny the thing in itself altogether, and to
set up a system in which, not, as with Kant, the mere form of the idea,
but also the matter, its whole content, was professedly deduced _a priori_
from the subject. In doing this, he counted with perfect correctness upon
the want of judgment and the stupidity of the public, which accepted
miserable sophisms, mere hocus-pocus and senseless babble, for proofs; so
that he succeeded in turning its attention from Kant to himself, and gave
the direction to German philosophy in which it was afterwards carried
further by Schelling, and ultimately reached its goal in the mad sophistry
of Hegel.

I now return to the great mistake of Kant, already touched on above, that
he has not properly separated perceptible and abstract knowledge, whereby
an inextricable confusion has arisen which we have now to consider more
closely. If he had sharply separated ideas of perception from conceptions
merely thought _in abstracto_, he would have held these two apart, and in
every case would have known with which of the two he had to do. This,
however, was unfortunately not the case, although this accusation has not
yet been openly made, and may thus perhaps be unexpected. His “object of
experience,” of which he is constantly speaking, the proper object of the
categories, is not the idea of perception; neither is it the abstract
conception, but it is different from both, and yet both at once, and is a
perfect chimera. For, incredible as it may seem, he lacked either the
wisdom or the honesty to come to an understanding with himself about this,
and to explain distinctly to himself and others whether his “object of
experience, _i.e._, the knowledge produced by the application of the
categories,” is the idea of perception in space and time (my first class
of ideas), or merely the abstract conception. Strange as it is, there
always runs in his mind something between the two, and hence arises the
unfortunate confusion which I must now bring to light. For this end I must
go through the whole theory of elements in a general way.

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The “Transcendental Æsthetic” is a work of such extraordinary merit that
it alone would have been sufficient to immortalise the name of Kant. Its
proofs carry such perfect conviction, that I number its propositions among
incontestable truths, and without doubt they are also among those that are
richest in results, and are, therefore, to be regarded as the rarest thing
in the world, a real and great discovery in metaphysics. The fact,
strictly proved by him, that a part of our knowledge is known to us _a
priori_, admits of no other explanation than that this constitutes the
forms of our intellect; indeed, this is less an explanation than merely
the distinct expression of the fact itself. For _a priori_ means nothing
else than “not gained on the path of experience, thus not come into us
from without.” But what is present in the intellect, and has not come from
without, is just what belongs originally to the intellect itself, its own
nature. Now if what is thus present in the intellect itself consists of
the general mode or manner in which it must present all its objects to
itself, this is just saying that what is thus present is the intellect’s
forms of knowing, _i.e._, the mode, fixed once for all, in which it
fulfils this its function. Accordingly, “knowledge _a priori_” and “the
intellect’s own forms” are at bottom only two expressions for the same
things thus to a certain extent synonyms.

Therefore from the doctrine of the Transcendental Æsthetic I knew of
nothing to take away, only of something to add. Kant did not carry out his
thought to the end, especially in this respect, that he did not reject
Euclid’s whole method of demonstration, even after having said on p. 87;
V. 120, that all geometrical knowledge has direct evidence from
perception. It is most remarkable that one of Kant’s opponents, and indeed
the acutest of them, G. E. Schulze (_Kritik der theoretischen
Philosophie_, ii. 241), draws the conclusion that from his doctrine an
entirely different treatment of geometry from that which is actually in
use would arise; and thus he thought to bring an apagogical argument
against Kant, but, in fact, without knowing it, he only began the war
against the method of Euclid. Let me refer to § 15 of the first book of
this work.

After the full exposition of the universal _forms_ of perception given in
the Transcendental Æsthetic, one necessarily expects to receive some
explanation as to its _content_, as to the way in which the _empirical_
perception comes into our consciousness, how the knowledge of this whole
world, which is for us so real and so important, arises in us. But the
whole teaching of Kant contains really nothing more about this than the
oft-repeated meaningless expression: “The empirical element in perception
is _given_ from without.” Consequently here also from the _pure forms of
perception_ Kant arrives with one spring at _thinking_ at the
_Transcendental Logic_. Just at the beginning of the Transcendental Logic
(Critique of Pure Reason, p. 50; V. 74), where Kant cannot avoid touching
upon the content of the empirical perception, he takes the first false
step; he is guilty of the πρωτον ψευδος. “Our knowledge,” he says, “has
two sources, receptivity of impressions and spontaneity of conceptions:
the first is the capacity for receiving ideas, the second that of knowing
an object through these ideas: through the first an _object_ is given us,
through the second it is thought.” This is false; for according to it the
_impression_, for which alone we have mere receptivity, which thus comes
from without and alone is properly “given,” would be already an _idea_,
and indeed an _object_. But it is nothing more than a mere _sensation_ in
the organ of sense, and only by the application of the _understanding_
(_i.e._, of the law of causality) and the forms of perception, space and
time, does our _intellect_ change this mere _sensation_ into an _idea_,
which now exists as an object in space and time, and cannot be
distinguished from the latter (the object) except in so far as we ask
after the thing in itself, but apart from this is identical with it. I
have explained this point fully in the essay on the principle of
sufficient reason, § 21. With this, however, the work of the understanding
and of the faculty of perception is completed, and no conceptions and no
thinking are required in addition; therefore the brute also has these
_ideas_. If conceptions are added, if thinking is added, to which
spontaneity may certainly be attributed, then knowledge of _perception_ is
entirely abandoned, and a completely different class of ideas comes into
consciousness, non-perceptible abstract conceptions. This is the activity
of the _reason_, which yet obtains the whole content of its thinking only
from the previous perception, and the comparison of it with other
perceptions and conceptions. But thus Kant brings thinking into the
perception, and lays the foundation for the inextricable confusion of
intuitive and abstract knowledge which I am now engaged in condemning. He
allows the perception, taken by itself, to be without understanding,
purely sensuous, and thus quite passive, and only through thinking
(category of the understanding) does he allow an _object_ to be
apprehended: thus he brings _thought into the perception_. But then,
again, the object of thinking is an individual real object; and in this
way thinking loses its essential character of universality and
abstraction, and instead of general conceptions receives individual things
as its object: thus again he _brings perception into thinking_. From this
springs the inextricable confusion referred to, and the consequences of
this first false step extend over his whole theory of knowledge. Through
the whole of his theory the utter confusion of the idea of perception with
the abstract idea tends towards a something between the two which he
expounds as the object of knowledge through the understanding and its
categories, and calls this knowledge _experience_. It is hard to believe
that Kant really figured to himself something fully determined and really
distinct in this object of the understanding; I shall now prove this
through the tremendous contradiction which runs through the whole
Transcendental Logic, and is the real source of the obscurity in which it
is involved.

In the “Critique of Pure Reason,” p. 67-69; V. 92-94; p. 89, 90; V. 122,
123; further, V. 135, 139, 153, he repeats and insists: the understanding
is no faculty of perception, its knowledge is not intuitive but
discursive; the understanding is the faculty of judging (p. 69; V. 94),
and a judgment is indirect knowledge, an idea of an idea (p. 68; V. 93);
the understanding is the faculty of thinking, and thinking is knowledge
through conceptions (p. 69; V. 94); the categories of the understanding
are by no means the conditions under which objects are given in perception
(p. 89; V. 122), and perception in no way requires the functions of
thinking (p. 91; V. 123); our understanding can only think, not perceive
(V. pp. 135, 139). Further, in the “Prolegomena,” § 20, he says that
perception, sensation, _perceptio_, belongs merely to the senses; judgment
to the understanding alone; and in § 22, that the work of the senses is to
perceive, that of the understanding to think, _i.e._, to judge. Finally,
in the “Critique of Practical Reason,” fourth edition, p. 247;
Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 281, he says that the understanding is
discursive; its ideas are thoughts, not perceptions. All this is in Kant’s
own words.

From this it follows that this perceptible world would exist for us even
if we had no understanding at all; that it comes into our head in a quite
inexplicable manner, which he constantly indicates by his strange
expression the perception is _given_, without ever explaining this
indefinite and metaphorical expression further.

Now all that has been quoted is contradicted in the most glaring manner by
the whole of the rest of his doctrine of the understanding, of its
categories, and of the possibility of experience as he explains it in the
Transcendental Logic. Thus (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 79; V. 105), the
understanding through its categories brings unity into the manifold of
_perception_, and the pure conceptions of the understanding refer _a
priori_ to objects of _perception_. P. 94; V. 126, the “categories are the
condition of experience, whether of perception, which is found in it, or
of thought.” V. p. 127, the understanding is the originator of experience.
V. p. 128, the categories determine the _perception_ of objects. V. p.
130, all that we present to ourselves as connected in the object (which is
yet certainly something perceptible and not an abstraction), has been so
connected by an act of the understanding. V. p. 135, the understanding is
explained anew as the faculty of combining _a priori_, and of bringing the
multiplicity of given ideas under the unity of apperception; but according
to all ordinary use of words, apperception is not the thinking of a
conception, but is _perception_. V. p. 136, we find a first principle of
the possibility of all perception in connection with the understanding. V.
p. 143, it stands as the heading, that all sense perception is conditioned
by the categories. At the same place the _logical function of the
judgment_ also brings the manifold of given perceptions under an
apperception in general, and the manifold of a given perception stands
necessarily under the categories. V. p. 144, unity comes into perception,
by means of the categories, through the understanding. V. p. 145, the
thinking of the understanding is very strangely explained as synthetically
combining, connecting, and arranging the manifold of perception. V. p.
161, experience is only possible through the categories, and consists in
the connection of _sensations_, which, however, are just perceptions. V.
p. 159, the categories are _a priori_ knowledge of the objects of
perception in general. Further, here and at V. p. 163 and 165, a chief
doctrine of Kant’s is given, this: _that the understanding first makes
Nature possible_, because it prescribes laws for it _a priori_, and Nature
adapts itself to the system of the understanding, and so on. Nature,
however, is certainly perceptible and not an abstraction; therefore, the
understanding must be a faculty of perception. V. p. 168, it is said, the
conceptions of the understanding are the principles of the possibility of
experience, and the latter is the condition of phenomena in space and time
in general; phenomena which, however, certainly exist in perception.
Finally, p. 189-211; V. 232-265, the long proof is given (the
incorrectness of which is shown in detail in my essay on the principle of
sufficient reason, § 23) that the objective succession and also the
coexistence of objects of experience are not sensuously apprehended, but
are only brought into Nature by the understanding, and that Nature itself
first becomes possible in this way. Yet it is certain that Nature, the
course of events, and the coexistence of states, is purely perceptible,
and no mere abstract thought.

I challenge every one who shares my respect towards Kant to reconcile
these contradictions and to show that in his doctrine of the object of
experience and the way it is determined by the activity of the
understanding and its twelve functions, Kant thought something quite
distinct and definite. I am convinced that the contradiction I have
pointed out, which extends through the whole Transcendental Logic, is the
real reason of the great obscurity of its language. Kant himself, in fact,
was dimly conscious of the contradiction, inwardly combated it, but yet
either would not or could not bring it to distinct consciousness, and
therefore veiled it from himself and others, and avoided it by all kinds
of subterfuges. This is perhaps also the reason why he made out of the
faculties of knowledge such a strange complicated machine, with so many
wheels, as the twelve categories, the transcendental synthesis of
imagination, of the inner sense, of the transcendental unity of
apperception, also the schematism of the pure conceptions of the
understanding, &c., &c. And notwithstanding this great apparatus, not even
an attempt is made to explain the perception of the external world, which
is after all the principal fact in our knowledge; but this pressing claim
is very meanly rejected, always through the same meaningless metaphorical
expression: “The empirical perception is given us.” On p. 145 of the fifth
edition, we learn further that the perception is given through the object;
therefore the object must be something different from the perception.

If, now, we endeavour to investigate Kant’s inmost meaning, not clearly
expressed by himself, we find that in reality such an object, different
from the perception, but which is by no means a conception, is for him the
proper object for the understanding; indeed that it must be by means of
the strange assumption of such an object, which cannot be presented in
perception, that the perception first becomes experience. I believe that
an old deeply-rooted prejudice in Kant, dead to all investigation, is the
ultimate reason of the assumption of such an _absolute object_, which is
an object in itself, _i.e._, without a subject. It is certainly not the
_perceived object_, but through the conception it is added to the
perception by thought, as something corresponding to it; and now the
perception is experience, and has value and truth, which it thus only
receives through the relation to a conception (in diametrical opposition
to my exposition, according to which the conception only receives value
and truth from the perception). It is then the proper function of the
categories to add on in thought to the perception this directly
non-perceptible object. “The object is given only through perception, and
is afterwards thought in accordance with the category” (Critique of Pure
Reason, first edition, p. 399). This is made specially clear by a passage
on p. 125 of the fifth edition: “Now the question arises whether
conceptions _a priori_ do not also come first as conditions under which
alone a thing can be, not perceived certainly, but yet _thought_ as an
_object_ in general,” which he answers in the affirmative. Here the source
of the error and the confusion in which it is involved shows itself
distinctly. For the _object_ as such exists always only for _perception_
and in it; it may now be completed through the senses, or, when it is
absent, through the imagination. What is thought, on the contrary, is
always an universal non-perceptible _conception_, which certainly can be
the conception of an object in general; but only indirectly by means of
conceptions does thought relate itself to _objects_, which always are and
remain _perceptible_. For our thinking is not able to impart reality to
perceptions; this they have, so far as they are capable of it (empirical
reality) of themselves; but it serves to bring together the common element
and the results of perceptions, in order to preserve them, and to be able
to use them more easily. But Kant ascribes the objects themselves to
thought, in order to make experience and the objective world dependent
upon _understanding_, yet without allowing understanding to be a faculty
of _perception_. In this relation he certainly distinguishes perception
from thought, but he makes particular things sometimes the object of
perception and sometimes the object of thought. In reality, however, they
are only the object of the former; our empirical perception is at once
_objective_, just because it proceeds from the causal nexus. Things, not
ideas different from them, are directly its object. Particular things as
such are perceived in the understanding and through the senses; the
one-sided impression upon the latter is at once completed by the
imagination. But, on the contrary, as soon as we pass over to thought, we
leave the particular things, and have to do with general conceptions,
which cannot be presented in perception, although we afterwards apply the
results of our thought to particular things. If we hold firmly to this,
the inadmissibleness of the assumption becomes evident that the perception
of things only obtains reality and becomes experience through the thought
of these very things applying its twelve categories. Rather in perception
itself the empirical reality, and consequently experience, is already
given; but the perception itself can only come into existence by the
application to sensation of the knowledge of the causal nexus, which is
the one function of the understanding. Perception is accordingly in
reality intellectual, which is just what Kant denies.

Besides in the passages quoted, the assumption of Kant here criticised
will be found expressed with admirable clearness in the “Critique of
Judgment,” § 36, just at the beginning; also in the “Metaphysical
Principles of Natural Science,” in the note to the first explanation of
“Phenomenology.” But with a _naïveté_ which Kant ventured upon least of
all with reference to this doubtful point, it is to be found most
distinctly laid down in the book of a Kantian, Kiesewetter’s “_Grundriss
einer algemeinen Logik_,” third edition, part i., p. 434 of the
exposition, and part ii., § 52 and 53 of the exposition; similarly in
Tieftrunk’s “_Denklehre in rein Deutschem Gewande_” (1825). It there
appears so clearly how those disciples who do not themselves think become
a magnifying mirror of the errors of every thinker. Once having determined
his doctrine of the categories, Kant was always cautious when expounding
it, but his disciples on the contrary were quite bold, and thus exposed
its falseness.

According to what has been said, the object of the categories is for Kant,
not indeed the thing in itself, but yet most closely akin to it. It is the
_object in itself_; it is an object that requires no subject; it is a
particular thing, and yet not in space and time, because not perceptible;
it is an object of thought, and yet not an abstract conception.
Accordingly Kant really makes a triple division: (1.) the idea; (2.) the
object of the idea; (3.) the thing in itself. The first belongs to the
sensibility, which in its case, as in that of sensation, includes the pure
forms of perception, space and time. The second belongs to the
understanding, which thinks it through its twelve categories. The third
lies beyond the possibility of all knowledge. (In support of this, _cf._
Critique of Pure Reason, first edition, p. 108 and 109.) The distinction
of the idea from the object of the idea is however unfounded; this had
already been proved by Berkeley, and it appears from my whole exposition
in the first book, especially chap. i. of the supplements; nay, even from
Kant’s own completely idealistic point of view in the first edition. But
if we should not wish to count the object of the idea as belonging to the
idea and identify it with the idea, it would be necessary to attribute it
to the thing in itself: this ultimately depends on the sense which is
attached to the word object. This, however, always remains certain, that,
when we think clearly, nothing more can be found than idea and thing in
itself. The illicit introduction of that hybrid, the object of the idea,
is the source of Kant’s errors; yet when it is taken away, the doctrine of
the categories as conceptions _a priori_ also falls to the ground; for
they bring nothing to the perception, and are not supposed to hold good of
the thing in itself, but by means of them we only think those “objects of
the ideas,” and thereby change ideas into experience. For every empirical
perception is already experience; but every perception which proceeds from
sensation is empirical: this sensation is related by the understanding, by
means of its sole function (knowledge _a priori_ of the law of causality),
to its cause, which just on this account presents itself in space and time
(forms of pure perception) as object of experience, material object,
enduring in space through all time, yet as such always remains idea, as do
space and time themselves. If we desire to go beyond this idea, then we
arrive at the question as to the thing in itself, the answer to which is
the theme of my whole work, as of all metaphysics in general. Kant’s error
here explained is connected with his mistake, which we condemned before,
that he gives no theory of the origin of empirical perception, but,
without saying more, treats it as _given_, identifying it with the mere
sensation, to which he only adds the forms of intuition or perception,
space and time, comprehending both under the name sensibility. But from
these materials no objective idea arises: this absolutely demands the
relation of the idea to its cause, thus the application of the law of
causality, and thus understanding; for without this the sensation still
remains always subjective, and does not take the form of an object in
space, even if space is given with it. But according to Kant, the
understanding must not be assigned to perception; it is supposed merely to
_think_, so as to remain within the transcendental logic. With this again
is connected another mistake of Kant’s: that he left it to me to adduce
the only valid proof of the _a priori_ nature of the law of causality
which he rightly recognised, the proof from the possibility of objective
empirical perception itself, and instead of it gives a palpably false one,
as I have already shown in my essay on the principle of sufficient reason,
§ 23. From the above it is clear that Kant’s “object of the idea” (2) is
made up of what he has stolen partly from the idea (1), and partly from
the thing in itself (3). If, in reality, experience were only brought
about by the understanding applying its twelve different functions in
order to _think_ through as many conceptions _a priori_, the objects which
were previously merely perceived, then every real thing would necessarily
as such have a number of determinations, which, as given _a priori_,
absolutely could not be thought away, just like space and time, but would
belong quite essentially to the existence of the thing, and yet could not
be deduced from the properties of space and time. But only one such
determination is to be found—that of causality. Upon this rests
materiality, for the essence of matter consists in action, and it is
through and through causality (_cf._ Bk. II. ch. iv.) But it is
materiality alone that distinguishes the real thing from the picture of
the imagination, which is then only idea. For matter, as permanent, gives
to the thing permanence through all time, in respect of its matter, while
the forms change in conformity with causality. Everything else in the
thing consists either of determinations of space or of time, or of its
empirical properties, which are all referable to its activity, and are
thus fuller determinations of causality. But causality enters already as a
condition into the empirical perception, and this is accordingly a thing
of the understanding, which makes even perception possible, and yet apart
from the law of causality contributes nothing to experience and its
possibility. What fills the old ontologies is, with the exception of what
is given here, nothing more than relations of things to each other, or to
our reflection, and a farrago of nonsense.

The language in which the doctrine of the categories is expressed affords
an evidence of its baselessness. What a difference in this respect between
the Transcendental Æsthetic and the Transcendental Analytic! In the
former, what clearness, definiteness, certainty, firm conviction which is
freely expressed and infallibly communicates itself! All is full of light,
no dark lurking-places are left: Kant knows what he wants and knows that
he is right. In the latter, on the other hand, all is obscure, confused,
indefinite, wavering, uncertain, the language anxious, full of excuses and
appeals to what is coming, or indeed of suppression. Moreover, the whole
second and third sections of the Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the
Understanding are completely changed in the second edition, because they
did not satisfy Kant himself, and they have become quite different from
the first edition, though not clearer. We actually see Kant in conflict
with the truth in order to carry out his hypothesis which he has once
fixed upon. In the Transcendental Æsthetic all his propositions are really
proved from undeniable facts of consciousness, in the Transcendental
Analytic, on the contrary, we find, if we consider it closely, mere
assertions that thus it is and must be. Here, then, as everywhere, the
language bears the stamp of the thought from which it has proceeded, for
style is the physiognomy of the mind. We have still to remark, that
whenever Kant wishes to give an example for the purpose of fuller
explanation, he almost always takes for this end the category of
causality, and then what he has said turns out correct; for the law of
causality is indeed the real form of the understanding, but it is also its
only form, and the remaining eleven categories are merely blind windows.
The deduction of the categories is simpler and less involved in the first
edition than in the second. He labours to explain how, according to the
perception given by sensibility, the understanding produces experience by
means of thinking the categories. In doing so, the words recognition,
reproduction, association, apprehension, transcendental unity of
apperception, are repeated to weariness, and yet no distinctness is
attained. It is well worth noticing, however, that in this explanation he
does not once touch upon what must nevertheless first occur to every
one—the relation of the sensation to its external cause. If he did not
intend this relation to hold good, he ought to have expressly denied it;
but neither does he do this. Thus in this way he evades the point, and all
the Kantians have in like manner evaded it. The secret motive of this is,
that he reserves the causal nexus, under the name “ground of the
phenomenon,” for his false deduction of the thing in itself; and also that
perception would become intellectual through the relation to the cause,
which he dare not admit. Besides this, he seems to have been afraid that
if the causal nexus were allowed to hold good between sensation and
object, the latter would at once become the thing in itself, and introduce
the empiricism of Locke. But this difficulty is removed by reflection,
which shows us that the law of causality is of subjective origin, as well
as the sensation itself; and besides this, our own body also, inasmuch as
it appears in space, already belongs to ideas. But Kant was hindered from
confessing this by his fear of the Berkeleian idealism.

“The combination of the manifold of perception” is repeatedly given as the
essential operation of the understanding, by means of its twelve
categories. Yet this is never adequately explained, nor is it shown what
this manifold of perception is before it is combined by the understanding.
But time and space, the latter in all its three dimensions, are
_continua_, _i.e._, all their parts are originally not separate but
combined. Thus, then, everything that exhibits itself in them (is given)
appears originally as a _continuum_, _i.e._, its parts appear already
combined and require no adventitious combination of a manifold. If,
however, some one should seek to interpret that combining of the manifold
of perception by saying that I refer the different sense-impressions of
one object to this one only—thus, for example, perceiving a bell, I
recognise that what affects my eye as yellow, my hand as smooth and hard,
my ear as sounding, is yet only one and the same body,—then I reply that
this is rather a consequence of the knowledge _a priori_ of the causal
nexus (this actual and only function of the understanding), by virtue of
which all those different effects upon my different organs of sense yet
lead me only to one common cause of them, the nature of the body standing
before me, so that my understanding, in spite of the difference and
multiplicity of the effects, still apprehends the unity of the cause as a
single object, which just on that account exhibits itself in perception.
In the beautiful recapitulation of his doctrine which Kant gives at p.
719-726 or V. 747-754 of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” he explains the
categories, perhaps more distinctly than anywhere else, as “the mere rule
of the synthesis of that which empirical apprehension has given _a
posteriori_.” It seems as if here he had something in his mind, such as
that, in the construction of the triangle, the angles give the rule for
the composition of the lines; at least by this image one can best explain
to oneself what he says of the function of the categories. The preface to
the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science” contains a long
note which likewise gives an explanation of the categories, and says that
they “differ in no respect from the formal acts of the understanding in
judging,” except that in the latter subject and predicate can always
change places; then the judgment in general is defined in the same passage
as “an act through which given ideas first become knowledge of an object.”
According to this, the brutes, since they do not judge, must also have no
knowledge of objects. In general, according to Kant, there are only
conceptions of objects, no perceptions. I, on the contrary, say: Objects
exist primarily only for perception, and conceptions are always
abstractions from this perception. Therefore abstract thinking must be
conducted exactly according to the world present in perception, for it is
only their relation to this that gives content to conceptions; and we must
assume for the conceptions no other _a priori_ determined form than the
faculty of reflection in general, the nature of which is the construction
of conceptions, _i.e._, of abstract non-perceptible ideas, which
constitutes the sole function of the _reason_, as I have shown in the
first book. I therefore require that we should reject eleven of the
categories, and only retain that of causality, and yet that we should see
clearly that its activity is indeed the condition of empirical perception,
which accordingly is not merely sensuous but intellectual, and that the
object so perceived, the object of experience, is one with the idea, from
which there remains nothing to distinguish except the thing in itself.

After repeated study of the “Critique of Pure Reason” at different periods
of my life, a conviction has forced itself upon me with regard to the
origin of the Transcendental Logic, which I now impart as very helpful to
an understanding of it. Kant’s only discovery, which is based upon
objective comprehension and the highest human thought, is the _apperçu_
that time and space are known by us _a priori_. Gratified by this happy
hit, he wished to pursue the same vein further, and his love of
architectonic symmetry afforded him the clue. As he had found that a pure
intuition or perception _a priori_ underlay the empirical _perception_ as
its condition, he thought that in the same way certain _pure conceptions_
as presuppositions in our faculty of knowledge must lie at the foundation
of the empirically obtained _conceptions_, and that real empirical thought
must be only possible through a pure thought _a priori_, which, however,
would have no objects in itself, but would be obliged to take them from
perception. So that as the _Transcendental Æsthetic_ establishes an _a
priori_ basis of mathematics, there must, he supposed, also be a similar
basis for logic; and thus, then for the sake of symmetry, the former
received a pendant in a _Transcendental Logic_. From this point onwards
Kant was no more free, no more in the position of purely, investigating
and observing what is present in consciousness; but he was guided by an
assumption and pursued a purpose—the purpose of finding what he assumed,
in order to add to the Transcendental Æsthetic so happily discovered a
Transcendental Logic analogous to it, and thus symmetrically corresponding
to it, as a second storey. Now for this purpose he hit upon the table of
judgments, out of which he constructed, as well as he could, the table of
categories, the doctrine of twelve pure _a priori_ conceptions, which are
supposed to be the conditions of our _thinking_ those very _things_ the
_perception_ of which is conditioned by the two _a priori_ forms of
sensibility: thus a _pure understanding_ now corresponded symmetrically to
a _pure sensibility_. Then another consideration occurred to him, which
offered a means of increasing the plausibility of the thing, by the
assumption of the _schematism_ of the pure conceptions of the
understanding. But just through this the way in which his procedure had,
unconsciously indeed, originated betrayed itself most distinctly. For
because he aimed at finding something _a priori_ analogous to every
empirical function of the faculty of knowledge, he remarked that between
our empirical perception and our empirical thinking, conducted in abstract
non-perceptible conceptions, a connection very frequently, though not
always, takes place, because every now and then we try to go back from
abstract thinking to perception; but try to do so merely in order really
to convince ourselves that our abstract thought has not strayed far from
the safe ground of perception, and perhaps become exaggeration, or, it may
be, mere empty talk; much in the same way as, when we are walking in the
dark, we stretch out our hand every now and then to the guiding wall. We
go back, then, to the perception only tentatively and for the moment, by
calling up in imagination a perception corresponding to the conceptions
which are occupying us at the time—a perception which can yet never be
quite adequate to the conception, but is merely a temporary
_representative_ of it. I have already adduced what is needful on this
point in my essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 28. Kant calls
a fleeting phantasy of this kind a schema, in opposition to the perfected
picture of the imagination. He says it is like a monogram of the
imagination, and asserts that just as such a schema stands midway between
our abstract thinking of empirically obtained conceptions, and our clear
perception which comes to us through the senses, so there are _a priori
schemata of the pure conceptions of the understanding_ between the faculty
of perception _a priori_ of pure sensibility and the faculty of thinking
_a priori_ of the pure understanding (thus the categories). These
schemata, as monograms of the pure imagination _a priori_, he describes
one by one, and assigns to each of them its corresponding category, in the
wonderful “Chapter on the Schematism of the Pure Conceptions of the
Understanding,” which is noted as exceedingly obscure, because no man has
ever been able to make anything out of it. Its obscurity, however,
vanishes if it is considered from the point of view here indicated, but
there also comes out more clearly in it than anywhere else the intentional
nature of Kant’s procedure, and of the determination formed beforehand of
finding what would correspond to the analogy, and could assist the
architectonic symmetry; indeed this is here the case to such a degree as
to be almost comical. For when he assumes schemata of the pure (empty) _a
priori_ conceptions of the understanding (categories) analogous to the
empirical schemata (or representatives through the fancy of our actual
conceptions), he overlooks the fact that the end of such schemata is here
entirely wanting, For the end of the schemata in the case of empirical
(real) thinking is entirely connected with the _material content_ of such
conceptions. For since these conceptions are drawn from empirical
perception, we assist and guide ourselves when engaged in abstract
thinking by now and then casting a momentary glance back at the perception
out of which the conceptions are framed, in order to assure ourselves that
our thought has still real content. This, however, necessarily presupposes
that the conceptions which occupy us are sprung from perception, and it is
merely a glance back at their material content, indeed a mere aid to our
weakness. But in the case of _a priori_ conceptions which as yet have no
content at all, clearly this is necessarily omitted. For these conceptions
are not sprung from perception, but come to it from within, in order to
receive a content first from it. Thus they have as yet nothing on which
they could look back. I speak fully upon this point, because it is just
this that throws light upon the secret origin of the Kantian
philosophising, which accordingly consists in this, that Kant, after the
happy discovery of the two forms of intuition or perception _a priori_,
exerted himself, under the guidance of the analogy, to prove that for
every determination of our empirical knowledge there is an _a priori_
analogue, and this finally extended, in the schemata, even to a mere
psychological fact. Here the apparent depth and the difficulty of the
exposition just serve to conceal from the reader that its content remains
a wholly undemonstrable and merely arbitrary assumption. But he who has
penetrated at last to the meaning of such an exposition is then easily
induced to mistake this understanding so painfully attained for a
conviction of the truth of the matter. If, on the contrary, Kant had kept
himself here as unprejudiced and purely observant as in the discovery of
_a priori_ intuition or perception, he must have found that what is added
to the pure intuition or perception of space and time, if an empirical
perception arises from it, is on the one hand the sensation, and on the
other hand the knowledge of causality, which changes the mere sensation
into objective empirical perception, but just on this account is not first
derived and learned from sensation, but exists _a priori_, and is indeed
the form and function of the pure understanding. It is also, however, its
sole form and function, yet one so rich in results that all our empirical
knowledge rests upon it. If, as has often been said, the refutation of an
error is only complete when the way it originated has been psychologically
demonstrated, I believe I have achieved this, with regard to Kant’s
doctrine of the categories and their schemata, in what I have said above.

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After Kant had thus introduced such great errors into the first simple
outlines of a theory of the faculty of perception, he adopted a variety of
very complicated assumptions. To these belongs first of all the synthetic
unity of apperception: a very strange thing, very strangely explained.
“The _I think_ must be able to accompany all my ideas.” Must—be able: this
is a problematic-apodictic enunciation; in plain English, a proposition
which takes with one hand what it gives with the other. And what is the
meaning of this carefully balanced proposition? That all knowledge of
ideas is thinking? That is not the case: and it would be dreadful; there
would then be nothing but abstract conceptions, or at any rate a pure
perception free from reflection and will, such as that of the beautiful,
the deepest comprehension of the true nature of things, _i.e._, of their
Platonic Ideas. And besides, the brutes would then either think also, or
else they would not even have ideas. Or is the proposition perhaps
intended to mean: no object without a subject? That would be very badly
expressed by it, and would come too late. If we collect Kant’s utterances
on the subject, we shall find that what he understands by the synthetic
unity of apperception is, as it were, the extensionless centre of the
sphere of all our ideas, whose radii converge to it. It is what I call the
subject of knowing, the correlative of all ideas, and it is also that
which I have fully described and explained in the 22d chapter of the
Supplements, as the focus in which the rays of the activity of the brain
converge. Therefore, to avoid repetition, I now refer to that chapter.

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That I reject the whole doctrine of the categories, and reckon it among
the groundless assumptions with which Kant burdened the theory of
knowledge, results from the criticism given above; and also from the proof
of the contradictions in the Transcendental Logic, which had their ground
in the confusion of perception and abstract knowledge; also further from
the proof of the want of a distinct and definite conception of the nature
of the understanding and of the reason, instead of which we found in
Kant’s writings only incoherent, inconsistent, insufficient, and incorrect
utterances with regard to these two faculties of the mind. Finally, it
results from the explanations which I myself have given of these faculties
of the mind in the first book and its Supplements, and more fully in the
essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 21, 26, and
34,—explanations which are very definite and distinct, which clearly
follow from the consideration of the nature of our knowledge, and which
completely agree with the conceptions of those two faculties of knowledge
that appear in the language and writings of all ages and all nations, but
were not brought to distinctness. Their defence against the very different
exposition of Kant has, for the most part, been given already along with
the exposure of the errors of that exposition. Since, however, the table
of judgments, which Kant makes the foundation of his theory of thinking,
and indeed of his whole philosophy, has, in itself, as a whole, its
correctness, it is still incumbent upon me to show how these universal
forms of all judgment arise in our faculty of knowledge, and to reconcile
them with my exposition of it. In this discussion I shall always attach to
the concepts understanding and reason the sense given them in my
explanation, which I therefore assume the reader is familiar with.

An essential difference between Kant’s method and that which I follow lies
in this, that he starts from indirect, reflected knowledge, while I start
from direct or intuitive knowledge. He may be compared to a man who
measures the height of a tower by its shadow, while I am like him who
applies the measuring-rule directly to the tower itself. Therefore, for
him philosophy is a science _of_ conceptions, but for me it is a science
_in_ conceptions, drawn from knowledge of perception, the one source of
all evidence, and comprehended and made permanent in general conceptions.
He passes over this whole world of perception which surrounds us, so
multifarious and rich in significance, and confines himself to the forms
of abstract thinking; and, although he never expressly says so, this
procedure is founded on the assumption that reflection is the ectype of
all perception, that, therefore, all that is essential in perception must
be expressed in reflection, and expressed in very contracted forms and
outlines, which are thus easily surveyed. According to this, what is
essential and conformable to law in abstract knowledge would, as it were,
place in our hands all the threads by which the varied puppet-show of the
world of perception is set in motion before our eyes. If Kant had only
distinctly expressed this first principle of his method, and then followed
it consistently, he would at least have been obliged to separate clearly
the intuitive from the abstract, and we would not have had to contend with
inextricable contradictions and confusions. But from the way in which he
solves his problem we see that that fundamental principle of his method
was only very indistinctly present to his mind, and thus we have still to
arrive at it by conjecture even after a thorough study of his philosophy.

Now as concerns the specified method and fundamental maxim itself, there
is much to be said for it, and it is a brilliant thought. The nature of
all science indeed consists in this, that we comprehend the endless
manifold of perceptible phenomena under comparatively few abstract
conceptions, and out of these construct a system by means of which we have
all those phenomena completely in the power of our knowledge, can explain
the past and determine the future. The sciences, however, divide the wide
sphere of phenomena among them according to the special and manifold
classes of the latter. Now it was a bold and happy thought to isolate what
is absolutely essential to the conceptions as such and apart from their
content, in order to discover from these forms of all thought found in
this way what is essential to all intuitive knowledge also, and
consequently to the world as phenomenon in general; and because this would
be found _a priori_ on account of the necessity of those forms of thought,
it would be of subjective origin, and would just lead to the ends Kant had
in view. Here, however, before going further, the relation of reflection
to knowledge of perception ought to have been investigated (which
certainly presupposes the clear separation of the two, which was neglected
by Kant). He ought to have inquired in what way the former really repeats
and represents the latter, whether quite pure, or changed and to some
extent disguised by being taken up into its special forms (forms of
reflection); whether the form of abstract reflective knowledge becomes
more determined through the form of knowledge of perception, or through
the nature or constitution which unalterably belongs to itself, _i.e._, to
reflective knowledge, so that even what is very heterogeneous in intuitive
knowledge can no longer be distinguished when it has entered reflective
knowledge, and conversely many distinctions of which we are conscious in
the reflective method of knowledge have also sprung from this knowledge
itself, and by no means point to corresponding differences in intuitive
knowledge. As the result of this investigation, however, it would have
appeared that knowledge of perception suffers very nearly as much change
when it is taken up into reflection as food when it is taken into the
animal organism whose forms and compounds are determined by itself, so
that the nature of the food can no longer be recognised from the result
they produce. Or (for this is going a little too far) at least it would
have appeared that reflection is by no means related to knowledge of
perception as the reflection in water is related to the reflected objects,
but scarcely even as the mere shadow of these objects stands to the
objects themselves; which shadow repeats only a few external outlines, but
also unites the most manifold in the same form and presents the most
diverse through the same outline; so that it is by no means possible,
starting from it, to construe the forms of things with completeness and
certainty.

The whole of reflective knowledge, or the reason, has only one chief form,
and that is the abstract conception. It is proper to the reason itself,
and has no direct necessary connection with the world of perception, which
therefore exists for the brutes entirely without conceptions, and indeed,
even if it were quite another world from what it is, that form of
reflection would suit it just as well. But the combination of conceptions
for the purpose of judging has certain definite and normal forms, which
have been found by induction, and constitute the table of judgments. These
forms are for the most part deducible from the nature of reflective
knowledge itself, thus directly from the reason, because they spring from
the four laws of thought (called by me metalogical truths) and the _dictum
de omni et nullo_. Certain others of these forms, however, have their
ground in the nature of knowledge of perception, thus in the
understanding; yet they by no means point to a like number of special
forms of the understanding, but can all be fully deduced from the sole
function which the understanding has—the direct knowledge of cause and
effect. Lastly, still others of these forms have sprung from the
concurrence and combination of the reflective and intuitive modes of
knowledge, or more properly from the assumption of the latter into the
former. I shall now go through the moments of the judgment one by one, and
point out the origin of each of them in the sources referred to; and from
this it follows of itself that a deduction of categories from them is
wanting, and the assumption of this is just as groundless as its
exposition was found to be entangled and self-conflicting.

1. The so-called _Quantity_ of judgments springs from the nature of
concepts as such. It thus has its ground in the reason alone, and has
absolutely no direct connection with the understanding and with knowledge
of perception. It is indeed, as is explained at length in the first book,
essential to concepts, as such, that they should have an extent, a sphere,
and the wider, less determined concept includes the narrower and more
determined. The latter can therefore be separated from the former, and
this may happen in two ways,—either the narrower concept may be indicated
as an indefinite part of the wider concept in general, or it may be
defined and completely separated by means of the addition of a special
name. The judgment which carries out this operation is in the first case
called a particular, and in the second case an universal judgment. For
example, one and the same part of the sphere of the concept tree may be
isolated through a particular and through an universal judgment,
thus—“Some trees bear gall-nuts,” or “All oaks bear gall-nuts.” One sees
that the difference of the two operations is very slight; indeed, that the
possibility of it depends upon the richness of the language. Nevertheless,
Kant has explained this difference as disclosing two fundamentally
different actions, functions, categories of the pure understanding which
determines experience _a priori_ through them.

Finally, a concept may also be used in order to arrive by means of it at a
definite particular idea of perception, from which, as well as from many
others, this concept itself is drawn; this happens in the singular
judgment. Such a judgment merely indicates the boundary-line between
abstract knowledge and knowledge of perception, and passes directly to the
latter, “This tree here bears gall-nuts.” Kant has made of this also a
special category.

After all that has been said there is no need of further polemic here.

2. In the same way the _Quality_ of the judgment lies entirely within the
province of reason, and is not an adumbration of any law of that
understanding which makes perception possible, _i.e._, it does not point
to it. The nature of abstract concepts, which is just the nature of the
reason itself objectively comprehended, carries with it the possibility of
uniting and separating their spheres, as was already explained in the
first book, and upon this possibility, as their presupposition, rest the
universal laws of thought of identity and contradiction, to which I have
given the name of _metalogical_ truths, because they spring purely from
the reason, and cannot be further explained. They determine that what is
united must remain united, and what is separated must remain separate,
thus that what is established cannot at the same time be also abolished,
and thus they presuppose the possibility of the combination and separation
of spheres, _i.e._, of judgment. This, however, lies, according to its
_form_, simply and solely in the reason, and this _form_ has not, like the
_content_ of the judgments, been brought over from the perceptible
knowledge of the understanding, and therefore there is no correlative or
analogue of it to be looked for there. After the perception has been
brought about through the understanding and for the understanding, it
exists complete, subject to no doubt nor error, and therefore knows
neither assertion nor denial; for it expresses itself, and has not, like
the abstract knowledge of the reason, its value and content in its mere
relation to something outside of it, according to the principle of the
ground of knowing. It is, therefore, pure reality; all negation is foreign
to its nature, can only be added on through reflection, and just on this
account remains always in the province of abstract thought.

To the affirmative and negative Kant adds the infinite judgment, making
use of a crotchet of the old scholastics, an ingeniously invented
stop-gap, which does not even require to be explained, a blind window,
such as many others he made for the sake of his architectonic symmetry.

3. Under the very wide conception of _Relation_ Kant has brought three
entirely different properties of judgments, which we must, therefore,
examine singly, in order to recognise their origin.

(_a._) The _hypothetical judgment_ in general is the abstract expression
of that most universal form of all our knowledge, the principle of
sufficient reason. In my essay on this principle, I already showed in 1813
that it has four entirely different meanings, and in each of these
originally originates in a different faculty of knowledge, and also
concerns a different class of ideas. It clearly follows from this, that
the source of the hypothetical judgment in general, of that universal form
of thought, cannot be, as Kant wishes to make it, merely the understanding
and its category of causality; but that the law of causality which,
according to my exposition, is the one form of knowledge of the pure
understanding, is only one of the forms of that principle which embraces
all pure or _a priori_ knowledge—the principle of sufficient reason—which,
on the other hand, in each of its meanings has this hypothetical form of
judgment as its expression. We see here, however, very distinctly how
kinds of knowledge which are quite different in their origin and
significance yet appear, if thought _in abstracto_ by the reason, in one
and the same form of combination of concepts and judgments, and then in
this form can no longer be distinguished, but, in order to distinguish
them, we must go back to knowledge of perception, leaving abstract
knowledge altogether. Therefore the path which was followed by Kant,
starting from the point of view of abstract knowledge, to find the
elements and the inmost spring of intuitive knowledge also, was quite a
wrong one. For the rest, my whole introductory essay on the principle of
sufficient reason is, to a certain extent, to be regarded merely as a
thorough exposition of the significance of the hypothetical form of
judgment; therefore I do not dwell upon it longer here.

(_b._) The form of the _categorical judgment_ is nothing but the form of
judgment in general, in its strictest sense. For, strictly speaking,
judging merely means thinking, the combination of, or the impossibility of
combining, the spheres of the concepts. Therefore the hypothetical and the
disjunctive combination are properly no special forms of the judgment; for
they are only applied to already completed judgments, in which the
combination of the concepts remains unchanged the categorical. But they
again connect these judgments, for the hypothetical form expresses their
dependence upon each other, and the disjunctive their incompatibility.
Mere concepts, however, have only _one_ class of relations to each other,
those which are expressed in the categorical judgment. The fuller
determination, or the sub-species of this relation, are the intersection
and the complete separateness of the concept-spheres, _i.e._, thus
affirmation and negation; out of which Kant has made special categories,
under quite a different title, that of _quality_. Intersection and
separateness have again sub-species, according as the spheres lie within
each other entirely, or only in part, a determination which constitutes
the _quantity_ of the judgments; out of which Kant has again made a quite
special class of categories. Thus he separates what is very closely
related, and even identical, the easily surveyed modifications of the one
possible relation of mere concepts to each other, and, on the other hand,
unites what is very different under this title of relation.

Categorical judgments have as their metalogical principle the laws of
thought of identity and contradiction. But the _ground_ of the connection
of the concept-spheres which gives _truth_ to the judgment, which is
nothing but this connection, may be of very different kinds; and,
according to this, the truth of the judgment is either logical, or
empirical, or metaphysical, or metalogical, as is explained in the
introductory essay, § 30-33, and does not require to be repeated here. But
it is apparent from this how very various the direct cognitions may be,
all of which exhibit themselves in the abstract, through the combination
of the spheres of two concepts, as subject and predicate, and that we can
by no means set up the sole function of the understanding as corresponding
to them and producing them. For example, the judgments, “Water boils, the
sine measures the angle, the will resolves, business distracts,
distinction is difficult,” express through the same logical form the most
different kinds of relations; but from this we obtain the right, however
irregular the beginning may be, of placing ourselves at the standpoint of
abstract knowledge to analyse direct intuitive knowledge. For the rest,
the categorical judgment springs from knowledge of the understanding
proper, in my sense, only when causation is expressed by it; this is,
however, the case in all judgments which refer to a physical quality. For
if I say, “This body is heavy, hard, fluid, green, sour, alkaline,
organic, &c., &c.,” this always refers to its effect, and thus is
knowledge which is only possible through the pure understanding. Now,
after this, like much which is quite different from it (for example, the
subordination of very abstract concepts), has been expressed in the
abstract through subject and predicate, these mere relations of concepts
have been transferred back to knowledge of perception, and it has been
supposed that the subject and predicate of the judgment must have a
peculiar and special correlative in perception, substance and accident.
But I shall show clearly further on that the conception substance has no
other true content than that of the conception matter. Accidents, however,
are quite synonymous with kinds of effects, so that the supposed knowledge
of substance and accident is never anything more than the knowledge of
cause and effect by the understanding. But the special manner in which the
idea of matter arises is explained partly in § 4 of the first book, and
still more clearly in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason at
the end of § 21, p. 77 (3d ed., p. 82), and in some respects we shall see
it still more closely when we investigate the principle of the permanence
of substance.

(_c._) _Disjunctive judgments_ spring from the law of thought of excluded
third, which is a metalogical truth; they are, therefore, entirely the
property of the reason, and have not their origin in the understanding.
The deduction of the category of community or _reciprocity_ from them is,
however, a glaring example of the violence which Kant sometimes allowed to
be done to truth, merely in order to satisfy his love of architectonic
symmetry. The illegitimacy of that deduction has already often been justly
condemned and proved upon various grounds, especially by G. E. Schulze in
his “_Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie_,” and by Berg in his
“_Epikritik der Philosophie_.” What real analogy is there, indeed, between
the problematical determination of a concept by disjunctive predicates and
the thought of reciprocity? The two are indeed absolutely opposed, for in
the disjunctive judgment the actual affirmation of one of the two
alternative propositions is also necessarily the negation of the other;
if, on the other hand, we think two things in the relation of reciprocity,
the affirmation of one is also necessarily the affirmation of the other,
and _vice versa_. Therefore, unquestionably, the real logical analogue of
reciprocity is the vicious circle, for in it, as nominally in the case of
reciprocity, what is proved is also the proof, and conversely. And just as
logic rejects the vicious circle, so the conception of reciprocity ought
to be banished from metaphysics. For I now intend, quite seriously, to
prove that there is no reciprocity in the strict sense, and this
conception, which people are so fond of using, just on account of the
indefiniteness of the thought, is seen, if more closely considered, to be
empty, false, and invalid. First of all, the reader must call to mind what
causality really is, and to assist my exposition, see upon this subject §
20 of the introductory essay, also my prize-essay on the freedom of the
will, chap. iii. p. 27 _seq._, and lastly the fourth chapter of the second
book of this work. Causality is the law according to which the conditions
or states of matter which appear determine their position in time.
Causality has to do merely with conditions or states, indeed, properly,
only with _changes_, and neither with matter as such, nor with permanence
without change. _Matter_, as such, does not come under the law of
causality, for it neither comes into being nor passes away; thus neither
does the whole _thing_, as we commonly express ourselves, come under this
law, but only the _conditions_ or _states_ of matter. Further, the law of
causality has nothing to do with _permanence_, for where nothing changes
there is no producing of _effects_ and no causality, but a continuing
quiet condition or state. But if, now, such a state is changed, then the
new state is either again permanent or it is not, but immediately
introduces a third state, and the necessity with which this happens is
just the law of causality, which is a form of the principle of sufficient
reason, and therefore cannot be further explained, because the principle
of sufficient reason is the principle of all explanation and of all
necessity. From this it is clear that cause and effect stand in intimate
connection with, and necessary relation to, the _course of time_. Only
because the state A. precedes in time the state B., and their succession
is necessary and not accidental, _i.e._, no mere sequence but a
consequence—only because of this is the state A. cause and the state B.
effect. The conception _reciprocity_, however, contains this, that both
are cause and both are effect of each other; but this really amounts to
saying that each of the two is the earlier and also the later; thus it is
an absurdity. For that both states are simultaneous, and indeed
necessarily simultaneous, cannot be admitted, because, as necessarily
belonging to each other and existing at the same time, they constitute
only _one_ state. For the permanence of this state there is certainly
required the continued existence of all its determinations, but we are
then no longer concerned with change and causality, but with duration and
rest, and nothing further is said than that if _one_ determination of the
whole state be changed, the new state which then appears cannot continue,
but becomes the cause of the change of all the other determinations of the
first state, so that a new third state appears; which all happens merely
in accordance with the simple law of causality, and does not establish a
_new_ law, that of reciprocity.

I also definitely assert that the conception _reciprocity_ cannot be
supported by a single example. Everything that one seeks to pass off as
such is either a state of rest, to which the conception of causality,
which has only significance with reference to changes, finds no
application at all, or else it is an alternating succession of states of
the same name which condition each other, for the explanation of which
simple causality is quite sufficient. An example of the first class is
afforded by a pair of scales brought to rest by equal weights. Here there
is no effect produced, for there is no change; it is a state of rest;
gravity acts, equally divided, as in every body which is supported at its
centre of gravity, but it cannot show its force by any effect. That the
taking away of one weight produces a second state, which at once becomes
the cause of the third, the sinking of the other scale, happens according
to the simple law of cause and effect, and requires no special category of
the understanding, and not even a special name. An example of the second
class is the continuous burning of a fire. The combination of oxygen with
the combustible body is the cause of heat, and heat, again, is the cause
of the renewed occurrence of the chemical combination. But this is nothing
more than a chain of causes and effects, the links of which have
alternately _the same name_. The burning, A., produces free heat, B., this
produces new burning, C. (_i.e._, a new effect which has the same name as
the cause A., but is not individually identical with it), this produces
new heat, D. (which is not really identical with the effect B., but only
according to the concept, _i.e._, it has the same name), and so on
indefinitely. A good example of what in ordinary life is called
reciprocity is afforded by a theory about deserts given by Humboldt
(_Ansichten der Natur_, 2d ed., vol. ii. p. 79). In the sandy deserts it
does not rain, but it rains upon the wooded mountains surrounding them.
The cause is not the attraction of the clouds by the mountains; but it is
the column of heated air rising from the sandy plain which prevents the
particles of vapour from condensing, and drives the clouds high into the
heavens. On the mountains the perpendicular rising stream of air is
weaker, the clouds descend, and the rainfall ensues in the cooler air.
Thus, want of rain and the absence of plants in the desert stand in the
relation of reciprocity; it does not rain because the heated sand-plain
sends out more heat; the desert does not become a steppe or prairie
because it does not rain. But clearly we have here again, as in the
example given above, only a succession of causes and effects of the same
names, and throughout nothing essentially different from simple causality.
This is also the case with the swinging of the pendulum, and indeed also
with the self-conservation of the organised body, in which case likewise
every state introduces a new one, which is of the same kind as that by
which it was itself brought about, but individually is new. Only here the
matter is complicated, because the chain no longer consists of links of
two kinds, but of many kinds, so that a link of the same name only recurs
after several others have intervened. But we always see before us only an
application of the single and simple law of causality which gives the rule
to the sequence of states, but never anything which must be comprehended
by means of a new and special function of the understanding.

Or is it perhaps advanced in support of the conception of reciprocity that
action and reaction are equal? But the reason of this is what I urge so
strongly and have fully explained in the essay on the principle of
sufficient reason, that the cause and the effect are not two bodies, but
two successive states of bodies, consequently each of the two states
implicates all bodies concerned; thus the effect, _i.e._, the newly
appearing state, for example, in the case of an impulse, extends to both
bodies in the same proportion; therefore the body impelled produces just
as great a change in the body impelling as it itself sustains (each in
proportion to its mass and velocity). If one pleases to call this
reciprocity, then absolutely every effect is a reciprocal effect, and no
new conception is introduced on this account, still less does it require a
new function of the understanding, but we only have a superfluous synonym
for causality. But Kant himself, in a moment of thoughtlessness, exactly
expressed this view in the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural
Science” at the beginning of the proof of the fourth principle of
mechanics: “All external effect in the world is reciprocal effect.” How
then should different functions lie _a priori_ in the understanding for
simple causality and for reciprocity, and, indeed, how should the real
succession of things only be possible and knowable by means of the first,
and their co-existence by means of the second? According to this, if all
effect is reciprocal effect, succession and simultaneity would be the same
thing, and therefore everything in the world would take place at the same
moment. If there were true reciprocity, then perpetual motion would also
be possible, and indeed _a priori_ certain; but it is rather the case that
the _a priori_ conviction that there is no true reciprocity, and no
corresponding form of the understanding, is the ground of the assertion
that perpetual motion is impossible.

Aristotle also denies reciprocity in the strict sense; for he remarks that
two things may certainly be reciprocal causes of each other, but only if
this is understood in a different sense of each of them; for example, that
one acts upon the other as the motive, but the latter acts upon the former
as the cause of its movement. We find in two passages the same words:
Physic., lib. ii. c. 3, and Metaph., lib. v. c. 2. Εστι δε τινα και
αλληλων αιτια; οἱον το πονειν αιτιον της ευεξιας, και αὑτη του πονειν;
αλλ᾽ ου τον αυτον τροπον, αλλα το μεν ὡς τελος, το δε ὡς αρχη κινησεως.
(_Sunt præterea quæ sibi sunt mutuo causæ, ut exercitium bonæ habitudinis,
et hæc exercitii: at non eodem modo, sed hæc ut finis, aliud ut principium
motus._) If, besides this, he had accepted a reciprocity proper, he would
have introduced it here, for in both passages he is concerned with
enumerating all the possible kinds of causes. In the _Analyt. post._, lib.
ii. c. 11, he speaks of a circle of causes and effects, but not of
reciprocity.

4. The categories of _Modality_ have this advantage over all others, that
what is expressed through each of them really corresponds to the form of
judgment from which it is derived; which with the other categories is
scarcely ever the case, because for the most part they are deduced from
the forms of judgment with the most capricious violence.

Thus that it is the conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the
necessary which occasion the problematic, assertatory, and apodictic forms
of judgment, is perfectly true; but that those conceptions are special,
original forms of knowledge of the understanding which cannot be further
deduced is not true. On the contrary, they spring from the single original
form of all knowledge, which is, therefore, known to us _a priori_, the
principle of sufficient reason; and indeed out of this the knowledge of
_necessity_ springs directly. On the other hand, it is only because
reflection is applied to this that the conceptions of contingency,
possibility, impossibility, and actuality arise. Therefore all these do
not by any means spring from _one_ faculty of the mind, the understanding,
but arise through the conflict of abstract and intuitive knowledge, as
will be seen directly.

I hold that to be necessary and to be the consequent of a given reason are
absolutely interchangeable notions, and completely identical. We can never
know, nor even think, anything as necessary, except so far as we regard it
as the consequent of a given reason; and the conception of necessity
contains absolutely nothing more than this dependence, this being
established through something else, and this inevitable following from it.
Thus it arises and exists simply and solely through the application of the
principle of sufficient reason. Therefore, there is, according to the
different forms of this principle, a physical necessity (the effect from
the cause), a logical (through the ground of knowing, in analytical
judgments, syllogisms, &c.), a mathematical (according to the ground of
being in time and space), and finally a practical necessity, by which we
intend to signify not determination through a pretended categorical
imperative, but the necessary occurrence of an action according to the
motives presented, in the case of a given empirical character. But
everything necessary is only so relatively, that is, under the
presupposition of the reason from which it follows; therefore absolute
necessity is a contradiction. With regard to the rest, I refer to § 49 of
the essay on the principle of sufficient reason.

The contradictory opposite, _i.e._, the denial of necessity, is
_contingency_. The content of this conception is, therefore,
negative—nothing more than this: absence of the connection expressed by
the principle of sufficient reason. Consequently the contingent is also
always merely relative. It is contingent in relation to something which is
not its reason. Every object, of whatever kind it may be—for example,
every event in the actual world—is always at once necessary and
contingent, _necessary_ in relation to the _one_ condition which is its
cause: _contingent_ in relation to everything else. For its contact in
time and space with everything else is a mere coincidence without
necessary connection: hence also the words chance, συμπτωμα, _contingens_.
Therefore an absolute contingency is just as inconceivable as an absolute
necessity. For the former would be simply an object which stood to no
other in the relation of consequent to its reason. But the
inconceivability of such a thing is just the content of the principle of
sufficient reason negatively expressed, and therefore this principle must
first be upset before we can think an absolute contingency; and even then
it itself would have lost all significance, for the conception of
contingency has meaning only in relation to that principle, and signifies
that two objects do not stand to each other in the relation of reason and
consequent.

In nature, which consists of ideas of perception, everything that happens
is necessary; for it proceeds from its cause. If, however, we consider
this individual with reference to everything else which is not its cause,
we know it as contingent; but this is already an abstract reflection. Now,
further, let us abstract entirely from a natural object its causal
relation to everything else, thus its necessity and its contingency; then
this kind of knowledge comprehends the conception of the _actual_, in
which one only considers the _effect_, without looking for the cause, in
relation to which one would otherwise have to call it _necessary_, and in
relation to everything else _contingent_. All this rests ultimately upon
the fact that the _modality_ of the judgment does not indicate so much the
objective nature of things as the relation of our knowledge to them.
Since, however, in nature everything proceeds from a cause, everything
_actual_ is also _necessary_, yet only so far as it is _at this time, in
this place;_ for only so far does determination by the law of causality
extend. Let us leave, however, concrete nature and pass over to abstract
thinking; then we can present to ourselves in reflection all the natural
laws which are known to us partly _a priori_, partly only _a posteriori_,
and this abstract idea contains all that is in nature at _any_ time, in
_any_ place, but with abstraction from every definite time and place; and
just in this way, through such reflection, we have entered the wide
kingdom of _the possible_. But what finds no place even here is the
_impossible_. It is clear that possibility and impossibility exist only
for reflection, for abstract knowledge of the reason, not for knowledge of
perception; although it is the pure forms of perception which supply the
reason with the determination of the possible and impossible. According as
the laws of nature, from which we start in the thought of the possible and
impossible, are known _a priori_ or _a posteriori_, is the possibility or
impossibility metaphysical or physical.

From this exposition, which requires no proof because it rests directly
upon the knowledge of the principle of sufficient reason and upon the
development of the conceptions of the necessary, the actual, and the
possible, it is sufficiently evident how entirely groundless is Kant’s
assumption of three special functions of the understanding for these three
conceptions, and that here again he has allowed himself to be disturbed by
no reflection in the carrying out of his architectonic symmetry.

To this, however, we have to add the other great mistake, that, certainly
according to the procedure of earlier philosophy, he has confounded the
conceptions of necessity and contingency with each other. That earlier
philosophy has applied abstraction to the following mistaken use. It was
clear that that of which the reason is given inevitably follows, _i.e._,
cannot not be, and thus necessarily is. But that philosophy held to this
last determination alone, and said that is necessary which cannot be
otherwise, or the opposite of which is impossible. It left, however, the
ground and root of such necessity out of account, overlooked the
relativity of all necessity which follows from it, and thereby made the
quite unthinkable fiction of an _absolute necessity_, _i.e._, of something
the existence of which would be as inevitable as the consequent of a
reason, but which yet was not the consequent of a reason, and therefore
depended upon nothing; an addition which is an absurd _petitio_, for it
conflicts with the principle of sufficient reason. Now, starting from this
fiction, it explained, in diametrical opposition to the truth, all that is
established by a reason as contingent, because it looked at the relative
nature of its necessity and compared this with that entirely imaginary
_absolute_ necessity, which is self-contradictory in its conception.(5)
Now Kant adheres to this fundamentally perverse definition of the
contingent and gives it as explanation. (Critique of Pure Reason, V. p.
289-291, 243. V. 301, 419. V. 447, 486, 488.) He falls indeed into the
most evident contradiction with himself upon this point, for on p. 301 he
says: “Everything contingent has a cause,” and adds, “That is contingent
which might possibly not be.” But whatever has a cause cannot possibly not
be: thus it is necessary. For the rest, the source of the whole of this
false explanation of the necessary and the contingent is to be found in
Aristotle in “_De Generatione et Corruptione_,” lib. ii. c. 9 et 11, where
the necessary is explained as that which cannot possibly not be: there
stands in opposition to it that which cannot possibly be, and between
these two lies that which can both be and not be,—thus that which comes
into being and passes away, and this would then be the contingent. In
accordance with what has been said above, it is clear that this
explanation, like so many of Aristotle’s, has resulted from sticking to
abstract conceptions without going back to the concrete and perceptible,
in which, however, the source of all abstract conceptions lies, and by
which therefore they must always be controlled. “Something which cannot
possibly not be” can certainly be thought in the abstract, but if we go
with it to the concrete, the real, the perceptible, we find nothing to
support the thought, even as possible,—as even merely the asserted
consequent of a given reason, whose necessity is yet relative and
conditioned.

I take this opportunity of adding a few further remarks on these
conceptions of modality. Since all necessity rests upon the principle of
sufficient reason, and is on this account relative, all _apodictic_
judgments are originally, and according to their ultimate significance,
_hypothetical_. They become _categorical_ only through the addition of an
_assertatory_ minor, thus in the conclusion. If this minor is still
undecided, and this indecision is expressed, this gives the problematical
judgment.

What in general (as a rule) is apodictic (a law of nature), is in
reference to a particular case only problematical, because the condition
must actually appear which brings the case under the rule. And conversely,
what in the particular as such is necessary (apodictic) (every particular
change necessary through the cause), is again in general, and predicated
universally, only problematical; because the causes which appear only
concern the particular case, and the apodictic, always hypothetical
judgment, always expresses merely the general law, not the particular case
directly. All this has its ground in the fact that possibility exists only
in the province of reflection and for the reason; the actual, in the
province of perception and for the understanding; the necessary, for both.
Indeed, the distinction between necessary, actual, and possible really
exists only in the abstract and according to the conception; in the real
world, on the other hand, all three fall into one. For all that happens,
happens _necessarily_, because it happens from causes; but these
themselves have again causes, so that the whole of the events of the
world, great and small, are a strict concatenation of necessary
occurrences. Accordingly everything actual is also necessary, and in the
real world there is no difference between actuality and necessity, and in
the same way no difference between actuality and possibility; for what has
not happened, _i.e._, has not become actual, was also not possible,
because the causes without which it could never appear have not themselves
appeared, nor could appear, in the great concatenation of causes; thus it
was an impossibility. Every event is therefore either necessary or
impossible. All this holds good only of the empirically real world,
_i.e._, the complex of individual things, thus of the whole particular as
such. If, on the other hand, we consider things generally, comprehending
them _in abstracto_, necessity, actuality, and possibility are again
separated; we then know everything which is in accordance with the _a
priori_ laws which belong to our intellect as possible in general; that
which corresponds to the empirical laws of nature as possible in this
world, even if it has never become actual; thus we distinguish clearly the
possible from the actual. The actual is in itself always also necessary,
but is only comprehended as such by him who knows its cause; regarded
apart from this, it is and is called contingent. This consideration also
gives us the key to that _contentio_ περι δυνατων between the Megaric
Diodorus and Chrysippus the Stoic which Cicero refers to in his book _De
Fato_. Diodorus says: “Only what becomes actual was possible, and all that
is actual is also necessary.” Chrysippus on the other hand says: “Much
that is possible never becomes actual; for only the necessary becomes
actual.” We may explain this thus: Actuality is the conclusion of a
syllogism to which possibility gives the premises. But for this is
required not only the major but also the minor; only the two give complete
possibility. The major gives a merely theoretical, general possibility _in
abstracto_, but this of itself does not make anything possible, _i.e._,
capable of becoming actual. For this the minor also is needed, which gives
the possibility for the particular case, because it brings it under the
rule, and thereby it becomes at once actual. For example:

_Maj._ All houses (consequently also my house) can be destroyed by fire.

_Min._ My house is on fire.

_Concl._ My house is being destroyed by fire.

For every general proposition, thus every major, always determines things
with reference to actuality only under a presupposition, therefore
hypothetically; for example, the capability of being burnt down has as a
presupposition the catching fire. This presupposition is produced in the
minor. The major always loads the cannon, but only if the minor brings the
match does the shot, _i.e._, the conclusion, follow. This holds good
throughout of the relation of possibility to actuality. Since now the
conclusion, which is the assertion of actuality, always follows
_necessarily_, it is evident from this that all that is actual is also
necessary, which can also be seen from the fact that necessity only means
being the consequent of a given reason: this is in the case of the actual
a cause: thus everything actual is necessary. Accordingly, we see here the
conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the necessary unite, and not
merely the last presuppose the first, but also the converse. What keeps
them apart is the limitation of our intellect through the form of time;
for time is the mediator between possibility and actuality. The necessity
of the particular event may be fully seen from the knowledge of all its
causes; but the concurrence of the whole of these different and
independent causes seems to us _contingent_; indeed their independence of
each other is just the conception of contingency. Since, however, each of
them was the necessary effect of _its_ causes, the chain of which has no
beginning, it is evident that contingency is merely a subjective
phenomenon, arising from the limitation of the horizon of our
understanding, and just as subjective as the optical horizon at which the
heavens touch the earth.

Since necessity is the same thing as following from given grounds, it must
appear in a special way in the case of every form of the principle of
sufficient reason, and also have its opposite in the possibility and
impossibility which always arises only through the application of the
abstract reflection of the reason to the object. Therefore the four kinds
of necessity mentioned above stand opposed to as many kinds of
impossibility, physical, logical, mathematical and practical. It may
further be remarked that if one remains entirely within the province of
abstract concepts, possibility is always connected with the more general,
and necessity with the more limited concept; for example, “An animal _may_
be a bird, a fish, an amphibious creature, &c.” “A nightingale _must_ be a
bird, a bird _must_ be an animal, an animal _must_ be an organism, an
organism _must_ be a body.” This is because logical necessity, the
expression of which is the syllogism, proceeds from the general to the
particular, and never conversely. In the concrete world of nature (ideas
of the first class), on the contrary, everything is really necessary
through the law of causality; only added reflection can conceive it as
also contingent, comparing it with that which is not its cause, and also
as merely and purely actual, by disregarding all causal connection. Only
in this class of ideas does the conception of the _actual_ properly occur,
as is also shown by the derivation of the word from the conception of
causality. In the third class of ideas, that of pure mathematical
perception or intuition, if we confine ourselves strictly to it, there is
only necessity. Possibility occurs here also only through relation to the
concepts of reflection: for example, “A triangle _may_ be right-angled,
obtuse-angled, or equiangular; its three angles _must_ be equal to two
right-angles.” Thus here we only arrive at the possible through the
transition from the perceptible to the abstract.

After this exposition, which presupposes the recollection of what was said
both in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason and in the first
book of the present work, there will, it is hoped, be no further doubt as
to the true and very heterogeneous source of those forms which the table
of judgments lays before us, nor as to the inadmissibility and utter
groundlessness of the assumption of twelve special functions of the
understanding for the explanation of them. The latter point is also
supported by a number of special circumstances very easily noted. Thus,
for example, it requires great love of symmetry and much trust in a clue
derived from it, to lead one to assume that an affirmative, a categorical,
and an assertatory judgment are three such different things that they
justify the assumption of an entirely special function of the
understanding for each of them.

Kant himself betrays his consciousness of the untenable nature of his
doctrine of the categories by the fact that in the third chapter of the
Analytic of Principles (_phænomena et noumena_) several long passages of
the first edition (p. 241, 242, 244-246, 248-253) are omitted in the
second—passages which displayed the weakness of that doctrine too openly.
So, for example, he says there (p. 241) that he has not defined the
individual categories, because he could not define them even if he had
wished to do so, inasmuch as they were susceptible of no definition. In
saying this he forgot that at p. 82 of the same first edition he had said:
“I purposely dispense with the definition of the categories although I may
be in possession of it.” This then was, _sit venia verbo_, wind. But this
last passage he has allowed to stand. And so all those passages wisely
omitted afterwards betray the fact that nothing distinct can be thought in
connection with the categories, and this whole doctrine stands upon a weak
foundation.

This table of the categories is now made the guiding clue according to
which every metaphysical, and indeed every scientific inquiry is to be
conducted (Prolegomena, § 39). And, in fact, it is not only the foundation
of the whole Kantian philosophy and the type according to which its
symmetry is everywhere carried out, as I have already shown above, but it
has also really become the procrustean bed into which Kant forces every
possible inquiry, by means of a violence which I shall now consider
somewhat more closely. But with such an opportunity what must not the
_imitatores servum pecus_ have done! We have seen. That violence then is
applied in this way. The meaning of the expressions denoted by the titles,
forms of judgment and categories, is entirely set aside and forgotten, and
the expressions alone are retained. These have their source partly in
Aristotle’s _Analyt. priora_, i. 23 (περι ποιοτητος και ποσοτητος των του
συλλογισμου ὁρων: _de qualitate et quantitate terminorum syllogismi_), but
are arbitrarily chosen; for the extent of the concepts might certainly
have been otherwise expressed than through the word _quantity_, though
this word is more suited to its object than the rest of the titles of the
categories. Even the word _quality_ has obviously been chosen on account
of the custom of opposing quality to quantity; for the name quality is
certainly taken arbitrarily enough for affirmation and negation. But now
in every inquiry instituted by Kant, every quantity in time and space, and
every possible quality of things, physical, moral, &c., is brought by him
under those category titles, although between these things and those
titles of the forms of judgment and of thought there is absolutely nothing
in common except the accidental and arbitrary nomenclature. It is needful
to keep in mind all the respect which in other regards is due to Kant to
enable one to refrain from expressing in hard terms one’s repugnance to
this procedure. The nearest example is afforded us at once by the pure
physiological table of the general principles of natural science. What in
all the world has the quantity of judgments to do with the fact that every
perception has an extensive magnitude? What has the quality of judgments
to do with the fact that every sensation has a degree? The former rests
rather on the fact that space is the form of our external perception, and
the latter is nothing more than an empirical, and, moreover, entirely
subjective feeling, drawn merely from the consideration of the nature of
our organs of sense. Further, in the table which gives the basis of
rational psychology (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 344; V. 402), the
_simplicity_ of the soul is cited under quality; but this is just a
quantitative property, and has absolutely no relation to the affirmation
or negation in the judgment. But quantity had to be completed by the
_unity_ of the soul, which is, however, already included in its
simplicity. Then modality is forced in in an absurd way; the soul stands
in connection with _possible_ objects; but connection belongs to relation,
only this is already taken possession of by substance. Then the four
cosmological Ideas, which are the material of the antinomies, are referred
to the titles of the categories; but of this we shall speak more fully
further on, when we come to the examination of these antinomies. Several,
if possible, still more glaring examples are to be found in the table of
the _Categories of Freedom!_ in the “Critique of Practical Reason;” also
in the first book of the “Critique of Judgment,” which goes through the
judgment of taste according to the four titles of the categories; and,
finally, in the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science,” which
are entirely adapted to the table of the categories, whereby the false
that is mingled here and there with what is true and excellent in this
important work is for the most part introduced. See, for example, at the
end of the first chapter how the unity, the multiplicity, and the totality
of the directions of lines are supposed to correspond to the categories,
which are so named according to the quantity of judgments.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The principle of the _Permanence of Substance_ is deduced from the
category of subsistence and inherence. This, however, we know only from
the form of the categorical judgment, _i.e._, from the connection of two
concepts as subject and predicate. With what violence then is that great
metaphysical principle made dependent upon this simple, purely logical
form! Yet this is only done _pro forma_, and for the sake of symmetry. The
proof of this principle, which is given here, sets entirely aside its
supposed origin in the understanding and in the category, and is based
upon the pure intuition or perception of time. But this proof also is
quite incorrect. It is false that in mere time there is _simultaneity_ and
_duration_; these ideas only arise from the union of _space_ with time, as
I have already shown in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, §
18, and worked out more fully in § 4 of the present work. I must assume a
knowledge of both these expositions for the understanding of what follows.
It is false that time _remains_ the same through all change; on the
contrary, it is just time itself that is fleeting; a permanent time is a
contradiction. Kant’s proof is untenable, strenuously as he has supported
it with sophisms; indeed, he falls into the most palpable contradictions.
Thus, after he has falsely set up co-existence as a mode of time (p. 177;
V. 219), he says, quite rightly (p. 183; V. 226), “Co-existence is not a
mode of time, for in time there are absolutely no parts together, but all
in succession.” In truth, space is quite as much implicated in
co-existence as time. For if two things are co-existent and yet not one,
they are different in respect of space; if two states of one thing are
co-existent (_e.g._, the glow and the heat of iron), then they are two
contemporaneous effects of _one_ thing, therefore presuppose matter, and
matter presupposes space. Strictly speaking, co-existence is a negative
determination, which merely signifies that two things or states are not
different in respect of time; thus their difference is to be sought for
elsewhere. But in any case, our knowledge of the permanence of substance,
_i.e._, of matter, must be based upon insight _a priori_; for it is raised
above all doubt, and therefore cannot be drawn from experience. I deduce
it from the fact that the principle of all becoming and passing away, the
law of causality, of which we are conscious _a priori_, is essentially
concerned only with the _changes_, _i.e._, the successive _states_ of
matter, is thus limited to the form, and leaves the matter untouched,
which therefore exists in our consciousness as the foundation of all
things, which is not subject to becoming or passing away, which has
therefore always been and will always continue to be. A deeper proof of
the permanence of substance, drawn from the analysis of our perception of
the empirical world in general, is to be found in the first book of this
work, § 4, where it is shown that the nature of matter consists in the
absolute _union of space and time_, a union which is only possible by
means of the idea of causality, consequently only for the understanding,
which is nothing but the subjective correlative of causality. Hence, also,
matter is never known otherwise than as producing effects, _i.e._, as
through and through causality; to be and to act are with it one, which is
indeed signified by the word _actuality_. Intimate union of space and
time—causality, matter, actuality—are thus one, and the subjective
correlative of this one is the understanding. Matter must bear in itself
the conflicting properties of both factors from which it proceeds, and it
is the idea of causality which abolishes what is contradictory in both,
and makes their co-existence conceivable by the understanding, through
which and for which alone matter is, and whose whole faculty consists in
the knowledge of cause and effect. Thus for the understanding there is
united in matter the inconstant flux of time, appearing as change of the
accidents, with the rigid immobility of space, which exhibits itself as
the permanence of substance. For if the substance passed away like the
accidents, the phenomenon would be torn away from space altogether, and
would only belong to time; the world of experience would be destroyed by
the abolition of matter, annihilation. Thus from the share which space has
in matter, _i.e._, in all phenomena of the actual—in that it is the
opposite and counterpart of time, and therefore in itself and apart from
the union with the latter knows absolutely no change—the principle of the
permanence of substance, which recognises everything as _a priori_
certain, had to be deduced and explained; but not from mere time, to which
for this purpose and quite erroneously Kant has attributed _permanence_.

In the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 23, I have fully
explained the incorrectness of the following proof of the _a priori_
nature and of the necessity of the law of causality from the mere
succession of events in time; I must, therefore, content myself here by
referring to that passage.(6) This is precisely the case with the proof of
reciprocity also, the concept of which I was obliged to explain above as
invalid. What is necessary has also been said of modality, the working out
of the principles of which now follows.

There are still a few points in the further course of the transcendental
analytic which I should have to refute were it not that I am afraid of
trying the patience of the reader; I therefore leave them to his own
reflection. But ever anew in the “Critique of Pure Reason” we meet that
principal and fundamental error of Kant’s, which I have copiously
denounced above, the complete failure to distinguish abstract, discursive
knowledge from intuitive. It is this that throws a constant obscurity over
Kant’s whole theory of the faculty of knowledge, and never allows the
reader to know what he is really speaking about at any time, so that
instead of understanding, he always merely conjectures, for he alternately
tries to understand what is said as referring to thought and to
perception, and remains always in suspense. In the chapter “On the
Division of all Objects into Phenomena and Noumena,” Kant carries that
incredible want of reflection as to the nature of the idea of perception
and the abstract idea, as I shall explain more fully immediately, so far
as to make the monstrous assertion that without thought, that is, without
abstract conceptions, there is no knowledge of an object; and that
perception, because it is not thought, is also not knowledge, and, in
general, is nothing but a mere affection of sensibility, mere sensation!
Nay, more, that perception without conception is absolutely void; but
conception without perception is yet always something (p. 253; V. 309).
Now this is exactly the opposite of the truth; for concepts obtain all
significance, all content, only from their relation to ideas of
perception, from which they have been abstracted, derived, that is,
constructed through the omission of all that is unessential: therefore if
the foundation of perception is taken away from them, they are empty and
void. Perceptions, on the contrary, have in themselves immediate and very
great significance (in them, indeed, the thing in itself objectifies
itself); they represent themselves, express themselves, have no mere
borrowed content like concepts. For the principle of sufficient reason
governs them only as the law of causality, and determines as such only
their position in space and time; it does not, however, condition their
content and their significance, as is the case with concepts, in which it
appears as the principle of the ground of knowing. For the rest, it looks
as if Kant really wished here to set about distinguishing the idea of
perception and the abstract idea. He objects to Leibnitz and Locke that
the former reduced everything to abstract ideas, and the latter everything
to ideas of perception. But yet he arrives at no distinction; and although
Locke and Leibnitz really committed these errors, Kant himself is burdened
with a third error which includes them both—the error of having so mixed
up knowledge of perception and abstract knowledge that a monstrous hybrid
of the two resulted, a chimera of which no distinct idea is possible, and
which therefore necessarily only confused and stupefied students, and set
them at variance.

Certainly thought and perception are separated more in the chapter
referred to “On the Division of all Objects into Phenomena and Noumena”
than anywhere else, but the nature of this distinction is here a
fundamentally false one. On p. 253; V. 309, it is said: “If I take away
all thought (through the categories) from empirical knowledge, there
remains absolutely no knowledge of an object, for through mere perception
nothing at all is thought, and that this affection of sensibility is in me
establishes really no relation of such ideas to any object.” This sentence
contains, in some degree, all the errors of Kant in a nutshell; for it
brings out clearly that he has falsely conceived the relation between
sensation, perception, and thought, and accordingly identifies the
perception, whose form he yet supposes to be space, and indeed space in
all its three dimensions, with the mere subjective sensation in the organs
of sense, but only allows the knowledge of an object to be given through
thought, which is different from perception. I, on the contrary, say:
Objects are first of all objects of perception, not of thought, and all
knowledge of _objects_ is originally and in itself perception. Perception,
however, is by no means mere sensation, but the understanding is already
active in it. The thought, which is added only in the case of men, not in
the case of the brutes, is mere abstraction from perception, gives no
fundamentally new knowledge, does not itself establish objects which were
not before, but merely changes the form of the knowledge already won
through perception, makes it abstract knowledge in concepts, whereby its
concrete or perceptible character is lost, but, on the other hand,
combination of it becomes possible, which immeasurably extends the range
of its applicability. The material of our thought is, on the other hand,
nothing else than our perceptions themselves, and not something which the
perceptions did not contain, and which was added by the thought; therefore
the material of everything that appears in our thought must be capable of
verification in our perception, for otherwise it would be an empty
thought. Although this material is variously manipulated and transformed
by thought, it must yet be capable of being reduced to perception, and the
thought traced back to this—just as a piece of gold can be reduced from
all its solutions, oxides, sublimates, and combinations, and presented
pure and undiminished. This could not happen if thought itself had added
something, and, indeed, the principal thing, to the object.

The whole of the chapter on the Amphiboly, which follows this, is merely a
criticism of the Leibnitzian philosophy, and as such is on the whole
correct, though the form or pattern on which it is constructed is chosen
merely for the sake of architectonic symmetry, which here also is the
guiding clue. Thus, to carry out the analogy with the Aristotelian
Organon, a transcendental Topic is set up, which consists in this, that
every conception is to be considered from four points of view, in order to
make out to which faculty of knowledge it belongs. But these four points
of view are quite arbitrarily selected, and ten others might be added to
them with just as much right; but their fourfold number corresponds to the
titles of the categories, and therefore the chief doctrine of Leibnitz is
divided among them as best it may be. By this critique, also, to some
extent, certain errors are stamped as natural to the reason, whereas they
were merely false abstractions of Leibnitz’s, who, rather than learn from
his great philosophical contemporaries, Spinoza and Locke, preferred to
serve up his own strange inventions. In the chapter on the Amphiboly of
Reflection it is finally said that there may possibly be a kind of
perception entirely different from ours, to which, however, our categories
are applicable; therefore the objects of that supposed perception would be
_noumena_, things which can only be _thought_ by us; but since the
perception which would give that thought meaning is wanting to us, and
indeed is altogether quite problematical, the object of that thought would
also merely be a wholly indefinite possibility. I have shown above by
quotations that Kant, in utter contradiction with himself, sets up the
categories now as the condition of knowledge of perception, now as the
function of merely abstract thought. Here they appear exclusively in the
latter sense, and it seems quite as if he wished to attribute them merely
to discursive thought. But if this is really his opinion, then necessarily
at the beginning of the Transcendental Logic, before specifying the
different functions of thought at such length, he was necessarily bound to
characterise thought in general, and consequently to distinguish it from
perception; he ought to have shown what knowledge is given by mere
perception, and what that is new is added by thought. Then we would have
known what he was really speaking about; or rather, he would then have
spoken quite differently, first of perception, and then of thought;
instead of which, as it is, he is always dealing with something between
the two, which is a mere delusion. There would not then be that great gap
between the transcendental Æsthetic and the transcendental Logic, where,
after the exposition of the mere form of perception, he simply dismisses
its content, all that is empirically apprehended, with the phrase “It is
given,” and does not ask how it came about, _whether with or without
understanding_; but, with one spring, passes over to abstract thought; and
not even to thought in general, but at once to certain forms of thought,
and does not say a word about what thought is, what the concept is, what
is the relation of abstract and discursive to concrete and intuitive, what
is the difference between the knowledge of men and that of brutes, and
what is reason.

Yet it was just this distinction between abstract knowledge and knowledge
of perception, entirely overlooked by Kant, which the ancients denoted by
φαινομενα and νοουμενα,(7) and whose opposition and incommensurability
occupied them so much in the philosophemes of the Eleatics, in Plato’s
doctrine of Ideas, in the dialectic of the Megarics, and later the
Scholastics in the controversy between Nominalism and Realism, the seed of
which, so late in developing, was already contained in the opposite mental
tendencies of Plato and Aristotle. But Kant, who, in an inexcusable
manner, entirely neglected the thing to denote which the words φαινομενα
and νοουμενα had already been taken, took possession of the words, as if
they were still unappropriated, in order to denote by them his thing in
itself and his phenomenon.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Since I have been obliged to reject Kant’s doctrine of the categories,
just as he rejected that of Aristotle, I wish here to indicate as a
suggestion a third way of reaching what is aimed at. What both Kant and
Aristotle sought for under the name of the categories were the most
general conceptions under which all things, however different, must be
subsumed, and through which therefore everything that exists would
ultimately be thought. Just on this account Kant conceived them as the
_forms_ of all thought.

Grammar is related to logic as clothes to the body. Should not, therefore,
these primary conceptions, the ground-bass of the reason, which is the
foundation of all special thought, without whose application, therefore,
no thought can take place, ultimately lie in those conceptions which just
on account of their exceeding generality (transcendentalism) have their
expression not in single words, but in whole classes of words, because one
of them is thought along with every word whatever it may be, whose
designation would therefore have to be looked for, not in the lexicon but
in the grammar? In fact, should they not be those distinctions of
conceptions on account of which the word which expresses them is either a
substantive or an adjective, a verb or an adverb, a pronoun, a
preposition, or some other particle—in short, the parts of speech? For
undoubtedly these denote the forms which all thought primarily assumes,
and in which it directly moves; accordingly they are the essential forms
of speech, the fundamental constituent elements of every language, so that
we cannot imagine any language which would not consist of at least
substantives, adjectives, and verbs. These fundamental forms would then
have subordinated to them those forms of thought which are expressed
through their inflections, that is, through declension and conjugation,
and it is unessential to the chief concern whether in denoting them we
call in the assistance of the article and the pronoun. We will examine the
thing, however, somewhat more closely, and ask the question anew: What are
the forms of thought?

(1.) Thought consists throughout of judging; judgments are the threads of
its whole web, for without making use of a verb our thought does not move,
and as often as we use a verb we judge.

(2.) Every judgment consists in the recognition of the relation between
subject and predicate, which it separates or unites with various
restrictions. It unites them from the recognition of the actual identity
of the two, which can only happen in the case of synonyms; then in the
recognition that the one is always thought along with the other, though
the converse does not hold—in the universal affirmative proposition; up to
the recognition that the one is sometimes thought along with the other, in
the particular affirmative proposition. The negative propositions take the
opposite course. Accordingly in every judgment the subject, the predicate,
and the copula, the latter affirmative or negative, must be to be found;
even although each of these is not denoted by a word of its own, as is
however generally the case. The predicate and the copula are often denoted
by _one_ word, as “Caius ages;” sometimes one word denotes all three, as
_concurritur_, _i.e._, “the armies engage.” From this it is evident that
the forms of thought are not to be sought for precisely and directly in
words, nor even in the parts of speech, for even in the same language the
same judgment may be expressed in different words, and indeed in different
parts of speech, yet the thought remains the same, and consequently also
its form; for the thought could not be the same if the form of thought
itself were different. But with the same thought and the same form of
thought the form of words may very well be different, for it is merely the
outward clothing of the thought, which, on the other hand, is inseparable
from _its_ form. Thus grammar only explains the clothing of the forms of
thought. The parts of speech can therefore be deduced from the original
forms of thought themselves which are independent of all language; their
work is to express these forms of thought in all their modifications. They
are the instrument and the clothing of the forms of thought, and must be
accurately adapted to the structure of the latter, so that it may be
recognised in them.

(3.) These real, unalterable, original forms of thought are certainly
_those of Kant’s logical table of judgments_; only that in this table are
to be found blind windows for the sake of symmetry and the table of the
categories; these must all be omitted, and also a false arrangement.
Thus:—

(_a._) _Quality_: affirmation and negation, _i.e._, combination and
separation of concepts: two forms. It depends on the copula.

(_b._) _Quantity_: the subject-concept is taken either in whole or in
part: totality or multiplicity. To the first belong also individual
subjects: Socrates means “all Socrateses.” Thus two forms. It depends on
the subject.

(_c._) _Modality_: has really three forms. It determines the quality as
necessary, actual, or contingent. It consequently depends also on the
copula.

These three forms of thought spring from the laws of thought of
contradiction and identity. But from the principle of sufficient reason
and the law of excluded middle springs—

(_d._) _Relation._ It only appears if we judge concerning completed
judgments, and can only consist in this, that it either asserts the
dependence of one judgment upon another (also in the plurality of both),
and therefore combines them in the _hypothetical_ proposition; or else
asserts that judgments exclude each other, and therefore separates them in
the _disjunctive_ proposition. It depends on the copula, which here
separates or combines the completed judgments.

The _parts of speech_ and grammatical forms are ways of expressing the
three constituent parts of the judgment, the subject, the predicate, and
the copula, and also of the possible relations of these; thus of the forms
of thought just enumerated, and the fuller determinations and
modifications of these. Substantive, adjective, and verb are therefore
essential fundamental constituent elements of language in general;
therefore they must be found in all languages. Yet it is possible to
conceive a language in which adjective and verb would always be fused
together, as is sometimes the case in all languages. Provisionally it may
be said, for the expression of the _subject_ are intended the substantive,
the article, and the pronoun; for the expression of the _predicate_, the
adjective, the adverb, and the preposition; for the expression of the
_copula_, the verb, which, however, with the exception of the verb to be,
also contains the predicate. It is the task of the philosophy of grammar
to teach the precise mechanism of the expression of the forms of thought,
as it is the task of logic to teach the operations with the forms of
thought themselves.

_Note._—As a warning against a false path and to illustrate the above, I
mention S. Stern’s “_Vorläufige Grundlage zur Sprachphilosophie_,” 1835,
which is an utterly abortive attempt to construct the categories out of
the grammatical forms. He has entirely confused thought with perception,
and therefore, instead of the categories of thought, he has tried to
deduce the supposed categories of perception from the grammatical forms,
and consequently has placed the grammatical forms in direct relation to
perception. He is involved in the great error that _language_ is
immediately related to _perception_, instead of being directly related
only to thought as such, thus to the _abstract concepts_, and only by
means of these to perception, to which they, however, have a relation
which introduces an entire change of the form. What exists in perception,
thus also the relations which proceed from time and space, certainly
becomes an object of thought; thus there must also be forms of speech to
express it, yet always merely in the abstract, as concepts. Concepts are
always the primary material of thought, and the forms of logic are always
related to these, never _directly_ to perception. Perception always
determines only the material, never the formal truth of the proposition,
for the formal truth is determined according to the logical rules alone.

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I return to the Kantian philosophy, and come now to the _Transcendental
Dialectic_. Kant opens it with the explanation of _reason_, the faculty
which is to play the principal part in it, for hitherto only sensibility
and understanding were on the scene. When considering his different
explanations of reason, I have already spoken above of the explanation he
gives here that “it is the faculty of principles.” It is now taught here
that all the _a priori_ knowledge hitherto considered, which makes pure
mathematics and pure natural science possible, affords only _rules_, and
no _principles_; because it proceeds from perceptions and forms of
knowledge, and not from mere conceptions, which is demanded if it is to be
called a principle. Such a principle must accordingly be knowledge _from
pure conceptions_ and yet _synthetical_. But this is absolutely
impossible. From pure conceptions nothing but _analytical_ propositions
can ever proceed. If conceptions are to be synthetically and yet _a
priori_ combined, this combination must necessarily be accomplished by
some third thing, through a pure perception of the formal possibility of
experience, just as synthetic judgments _a posteriori_ are brought about
through empirical perception; consequently a synthetic proposition _a
priori_ can never proceed from pure conceptions. In general, however, we
are _a priori_ conscious of nothing more than the principle of sufficient
reason in its different forms, and therefore no other synthetic judgments
_a priori_ are possible than those which proceed from that which receives
its content from that principle.

However, Kant finally comes forward with a pretended principle of the
reason answering to his demand, yet only with this _one_, from which
others afterwards follow as corollaries. It is the principle which Chr.
Wolf set up and explained in his “_Cosmologia_,” sect. i. c. 2, § 93, and
in his “_Ontologia_,” § 178. As now above, under the title of the
Amphiboly, mere Leibnitzian philosophemes were taken for natural and
necessary aberrations of the reason, and were criticised as such, so here
precisely the same thing happens with the philosophemes of Wolf. Kant
still presents this principle of the reason in an obscure light, through
indistinctness, indefiniteness, and breaking of it up (p. 307; V. 361, and
322; V. 379). Clearly expressed, however, it is as follows: “If the
conditioned is given, the totality of its conditions must also be given,
and therefore also the _unconditioned_, through which alone that totality
becomes complete.” We become most vividly aware of the apparent truth of
this proposition if we imagine the conditions and the conditioned as the
links of a suspended chain, the upper end of which, however, is not
visible, so that it might extend _ad infinitum_; since, however, the chain
does not fall, but hangs, there must be above _one_ link which is the
first, and in some way is fixed. Or, more briefly: the reason desires to
have a point of attachment for the causal chain which reaches back to
infinity; it would be convenient for it. But we will examine the
proposition, not in figures, but in itself. Synthetic it certainly is;
for, analytically, nothing more follows from the conception of the
conditioned than that of the condition. It has not, however, _a priori_
truth, nor even _a posteriori_, but it surreptitiously obtains its
appearance of truth in a very subtle way, which I must now point out.
Immediately, and _a priori_, we have the knowledge which the principle of
sufficient reason in its four forms expresses. From this immediate
knowledge all abstract expressions of the principle of sufficient reason
are derived, and they are thus indirect; still more, however, is this the
case with inferences or corollaries from them. I have already explained
above how _abstract_ knowledge often unites a variety of _intuitive_
cognitions in _one_ form or _one_ concept in such a way that they can no
longer be distinguished; therefore abstract knowledge stands to intuitive
knowledge as the shadow to the real objects, the great multiplicity of
which it presents through one outline comprehending them all. Now the
pretended principle of the reason makes use of this shadow. In order to
deduce from the principle of sufficient reason the unconditioned, which
directly contradicts it, it prudently abandons the immediate concrete
knowledge of the content of the principle of sufficient reason in its
particular forms, and only makes use of abstract concepts which are
derived from it, and have value and significance only through it, in order
to smuggle its unconditioned somehow or other into the wide sphere of
those concepts. Its procedure becomes most distinct when clothed in
dialectical form; for example, thus: “If the conditioned exists, its
condition must also be given, and indeed all given, thus completely, thus
the totality of its conditions; consequently, if they constitute a series,
the whole series, consequently also its first beginning, thus the
unconditioned.” Here it is false that the conditions of a conditioned can
constitute a _series_. Rather must the totality of the conditions of
everything conditioned be contained in its _nearest_ ground or reason from
which it directly proceeds, and which is only thus a _sufficient_ ground
or reason. For example, the different determinations of the state which is
the cause, all of which must be present together before the effect can
take place. But the series, for example, the chain of causes, arises
merely from the fact that we regard what immediately before was the
condition as now a conditioned; but then at once the whole operation
begins again from the beginning, and the principle of sufficient reason
appears anew with its claim. But there can never be for a conditioned a
properly successive _series_ of conditions, which exist merely as such,
and on account of that which is at last conditioned; it is always an
alternating series of conditioneds and conditions; as each link is laid
aside the chain is broken, and the claim of the principle of sufficient
reason entirely satisfied, it arises anew because the condition becomes
the conditioned. Thus the principle of _sufficient_ reason always demands
only the completeness of the _immediate or next condition_, never the
completeness of a _series_. But just this conception of the completeness
of the condition leaves it undetermined whether this completeness should
be simultaneous or successive; and since the latter is chosen, the demand
now arises for a complete series of conditions following each other. Only
through an arbitrary abstraction is a series of causes and effects
regarded as a series of causes alone, which exists merely on account of
the last effect, and is therefore demanded as its _sufficient_ reason.
From closer and more intelligent consideration, and by rising from the
indefinite generality of abstraction to the particular definite reality,
it appears, on the contrary, that the demand for a _sufficient_ reason
extends only to the completeness of the determinations of the _immediate_
cause, not to the completeness of a series. The demand of the principle of
sufficient reason is completely extinguished in each sufficient reason
given. It arises, however, immediately anew, because this reason is again
regarded as a consequent; but it never demands directly a series of
reasons. If, on the other hand, instead of going to the thing itself, we
confine ourselves to the abstract concepts, these distinctions vanish.
Then a chain of alternating causes and effects, or of alternating logical
reasons and consequents, is given out as simply a chain of causes of the
last effect, or reasons of the last consequent, and the _completeness of
the conditions_, through which alone a reason becomes _sufficient_,
appears as the completeness of that assumed _series_ of reasons alone,
which only exist on account of the last consequent. There then appears the
abstract principle of the reason very boldly with its demand for the
unconditioned. But, in order to recognise the invalidity of this claim,
there is no need of a critique of reason by means of antinomies and their
solution, but only of a critique of reason understood in my sense, an
examination of the relation of abstract knowledge to direct intuitive
knowledge, by means of ascending from the indefinite generality of the
former to the fixed definiteness of the latter. From such a critique,
then, it here appears that the nature of the reason by no means consists
in the demand for an unconditioned; for, whenever it proceeds with full
deliberation, it must itself find that an unconditioned is an absurdity.
The reason as a faculty of knowledge can always have to do only with
objects; but every object for the subject is necessarily and irrevocably
subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason, both _a parte ante_
and _a parte post_. The validity of the principle of sufficient reason is
so involved in the form of consciousness that we absolutely cannot imagine
anything objective of which no _why_ could further be demanded; thus we
cannot imagine an absolute absolute, like a blind wall in front of us.
That his convenience should lead this or that person to stop at some
point, and assume such an absolute at pleasure, is of no avail against
that incontestable certainty _a priori_, even if he should put on an air
of great importance in doing so. In fact, the whole talk about the
absolute, almost the sole theme of philosophies since Kant, is nothing but
the cosmological proof _incognito_. This proof, in consequence of the case
brought against it by Kant, deprived of all right and declared outlawed,
dare no longer show itself in its true form, and therefore appears in all
kinds of disguises—now in distinguished form, concealed under intellectual
intuition or pure thought; now as a suspicious vagabond, half begging,
half demanding what it wants in more unpretending philosophemes. If an
absolute must absolutely be had, then I will give one which is far better
fitted to meet all the demands which are made on such a thing than these
visionary phantoms; it is matter. It has no beginning, and it is
imperishable; thus it is really independent, and _quod per se est et per
se concipitur_; from its womb all proceeds, and to it all returns; what
more can be desired of an absolute? But to those with whom no critique of
reason has succeeded, we should rather say—


    “Are not ye like unto women, who ever
    Return to the point from which they set out,
    Though reason should have been talked by the hour?”


That the return to an unconditioned cause, to a first beginning, by no
means lies in the nature of reason, is, moreover, practically proved by
the fact that the primitive religions of our race, which even yet have the
greatest number of followers upon earth, Brahmanism and Buddhaism, neither
know nor admit such assumptions, but carry the series of phenomena
conditioning each other into infinity. Upon this point, I refer to the
note appended to the criticism of the first antinomy, which occurs further
on; and the reader may also see Upham’s “Doctrine of Buddhaism” (p. 9),
and in general all genuine accounts of the religions of Asia. Judaism and
reason ought not to be identified.

Kant, who by no means desires to maintain his pretended principle of
reason as objectively valid, but merely as subjectively necessary, deduces
it even as such only by means of a shallow sophism, p. 307; V. 364. He
says that because we seek to subsume every truth known to us under a more
general truth, as far as this process can be carried, this is nothing else
than the pursuit of the unconditioned, which we already presuppose. But,
in truth, in this endeavour we do nothing more than apply reason, and
intentionally make use of it to simplify our knowledge by enabling us to
survey it—reason, which is that faculty of abstract, general knowledge
that distinguishes the reflective, thinking man, endowed with speech, from
the brute, which is the slave of the present. For the use of reason just
consists in this, that we know the particular through the universal, the
case through the rule, the rule through the more general rule; thus that
we seek the most general points of view. Through such survey or general
view our knowledge is so facilitated and perfected that from it arises the
great difference between the life of the brutes and that of men, and again
between the life of educated and that of uneducated men. Now, certainly
the series of _grounds of knowledge_, which exist only in the sphere of
the abstract, thus of reason, always finds an end in what is
indemonstrable, _i.e._, in an idea which is not further conditioned
according to this form of the principle of sufficient reason, thus in the
_a priori_ or _a posteriori_ directly perceptible ground of the first
proposition of the train of reasoning. I have already shown in the essay
on the principle of sufficient reason, § 50, that here the series of
grounds of knowledge really passes over into grounds of becoming or of
being. But one can only desire to make this circumstance hold good as a
proof of an unconditioned according to the law of causality, or even of
the mere demand for such an unconditioned, if one has not yet
distinguished the forms of the principle of sufficient reason at all, but,
holding to the abstract expression, has confounded them all. Kant,
however, seeks to establish that confusion, through a mere play upon
words, with _Universalitas_ and _Universitas_, p. 322; V. 379. Thus it is
fundamentally false that our search for higher grounds of knowledge, more
general truths, springs from the presupposition of an object unconditioned
in its being, or has anything whatever in common with this. Moreover, how
should it be essential to the reason to presuppose something which it must
know to be an absurdity as soon as it reflects? The source of that
conception of the unconditioned is rather to be found only in the
indolence of the individual who wishes by means of it to get rid of all
further questions, whether his own or of others, though entirely without
justification.

Now Kant himself denies objective validity to this pretended principle of
reason; he gives it, however, as a necessary subjective assumption, and
thus introduces an irremediable split into our knowledge, which he soon
allows to appear more clearly. With this purpose he unfolds that principle
of reason further, p. 322; V. 379, in accordance with the method of
architectonic symmetry of which he is so fond. From the three categories
of relation spring three kinds of syllogisms, each of which gives the clue
for the discovery of a special unconditioned, of which again there are
three: the soul, the world (as an object in itself and absolute totality),
and God. Now here we must at once note a great contradiction, of which
Kant, however, takes no notice, because it would be very dangerous to the
symmetry. Two of these unconditioneds are themselves conditioned by the
third, the soul and the world by God, who is the cause of their existence.
Thus the two former have by no means the predicate of unconditionedness in
common with the latter, though this is really the point here, but only
that of inferred being according to the principles of experience, beyond
the sphere of the possibility of experience.

Setting this aside, we recognise in the three unconditioneds, to which,
according to Kant, reason, following its essential laws, must come, the
three principal subjects round which the whole of philosophy under the
influence of Christianity, from the Scholastics down to Christian Wolf,
has turned. Accessible and familiar as these conceptions have become
through all these philosophers, and now also through the philosophers of
pure reason, this by no means shows that, without revelation, they would
necessarily have proceeded from the development of all reason as a
production peculiar to its very nature. In order to prove this it would be
necessary to call in the aid of historical criticism, and to examine
whether the ancient and non-European nations, especially the peoples of
Hindostan and many of the oldest Greek philosophers, really attained to
those conceptions, or whether it is only we who, by quite falsely
translating the Brahma of the Hindus and the Tien of the Chinese as “God,”
good-naturedly attribute such conceptions to them, just as the Greeks
recognised their gods everywhere; whether it is not rather the case that
theism proper is only to be found in the religion of the Jews, and in the
two religions which have proceeded from it, whose followers just on this
account comprise the adherents of all other religions on earth under the
name of heathen, which, by the way, is a most absurd and crude expression,
and ought to be banished at least from the writings of the learned,
because it identifies and jumbles together Brahmanists, Buddhists,
Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Gauls, Iroquois, Patagonians,
Caribbeans, Otaheiteans, Australians, and many others. Such an expression
is all very well for priests, but in the learned world it must at once be
shown the door: it can go to England and take up its abode at Oxford. It
is a thoroughly established fact that Buddhism, the religion which numbers
more followers than any other on earth, contains absolutely no theism,
indeed rejects it. As regards Plato, it is my opinion that he owes to the
Jews the theism with which he is periodically seized. On this account
Numenius (according to Clem. Alex., _Strom._, i. c. 22, Euseb. _præp.
evang._, xiii. 12, and Suidas under Numenius) called him the _Moses
græcisans_: Τι γαρ εστι Πλατων, η Μωσης αττικιζων; and he accuses him of
having stolen (αποσυλησας) his doctrine of God and the creation from the
Mosaical writings. Clemens often repeats that Plato knew and made use of
Moses, _e.g._, _Strom._, i. 25.—v. c. 14, § 90, &c., &c.; _Pædagog._, ii.
10, and iii. 11; also in the _Cohortatio ad gentes_, c. 6, where, after he
has bitterly censured and derided the whole of the Greek philosophers in
the preceding chapter because they were not Jews, he bestows on Plato
nothing but praise, and breaks out into pure exultation that as Plato had
learnt his geometry from the Egyptians, his astronomy from the
Babylonians, magic from the Thracians, and much also from the Assyrians,
so he had learnt his theism from the Jews: Οιδα σου τους διδασκαλους, καν
αποκρυπτειν εθελῇς, ... δοξαν την του θεου παρ᾽ αυτων ωφελησει των Εβραιων
(_Tuos magistros novi, licet eos celare velis, ... illa de Deo sententia
suppeditata tibi est ab Hebræis_). A pathetic scene of recognition. But I
see a remarkable confirmation of the matter in what follows. According to
Plutarch (_in Mario_), and, better, according to Lactantius (i. 3, 19),
Plato thanked Nature that he had been born a human being and not a brute,
a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a barbarian. Now in Isaac Euchel’s
“Prayers of the Jews,” from the Hebrew, second edition, 1799, p. 7, there
is a morning prayer in which God is thanked and praised that the
worshipper was born a Jew and not a heathen, a free man and not a slave, a
man and not a woman. Such an historical investigation would have spared
Kant an unfortunate necessity in which he now becomes involved, in that he
makes these three conceptions spring necessarily from the nature of
reason, and yet explains that they are untenable and unverifiable by the
reason, and thus makes the reason itself a sophisticator; for he says, p.
339; V. 397: “There are sophistications, not of man, but of pure reason
itself, from which even the wisest cannot free himself, and although after
much trouble he may be able to avoid error, yet he never can escape from
the illusion which unceasingly torments and mocks him.” Therefore these
Kantian “Ideas of the Reason” might be compared to the focus in which the
converging reflected rays from a concave mirror meet several inches before
its surface, in consequence of which, by an inevitable process of the
understanding, an object presents itself to us there which is a thing
without reality.

But the name “Idea” is very unfortunately chosen for these pretended
necessary productions of the pure theoretical reason, and violently
appropriated from Plato, who used it to denote the eternal forms which,
multiplied through space and time, become partially visible in the
innumerable individual fleeting things. Plato’s “Ideas” are accordingly
throughout perceptible, as indeed the word which he chose so definitely
signifies, for it could only be adequately translated by means of
perceptible or visible things; and Kant has appropriated it to denote that
which lies so far from all possibility of perception that even abstract
thought can only half attain to it. The word “Idea,” which Plato first
introduced, has, moreover, since then, through two-and-twenty centuries,
always retained the significance in which he used it; for not only all
ancient philosophers, but also all the Scholastics, and indeed the Church
Fathers and the theologians of the Middle Ages, used it only in that
Platonic sense, the sense of the Latin word _exemplar_, as Suarez
expressly mentions in his twenty-fifth Disputation, sect. 1. That
Englishmen and Frenchmen were later induced by the poverty of their
languages to misuse this word is bad enough, but not of importance. Kant’s
misuse of the word idea, by the substitution of a new significance
introduced by means of the slender clue of not being object of experience,
which it has in common with Plato’s ideas, but also in common with every
possible chimera, is thus altogether unjustifiable. Now, since the misuse
of a few years is not to be considered against the authority of many
centuries, I have always used the word in its old, original, Platonic
significance.

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The refutation of _rational psychology_ is much fuller and more thorough
in the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason” than in the second
and following editions, and therefore upon this point we must make use of
the first edition exclusively. This refutation has as a whole very great
merit and much truth. Yet I am clearly of the opinion that it was merely
from his love of symmetry that Kant deduced as necessary the conception of
the soul from the paralogism of substantiality by applying the demand for
the unconditioned to the conception _substance_, which is the first
category of relation, and accordingly maintained that the conception of a
soul arose in this way in every speculative reason. If this conception
really had its origin in the presupposition of a final subject of all
predicates of a thing, one would have assumed a soul not in men alone, but
also just as necessarily in every lifeless thing, for such a thing also
requires a final subject of all its predicates. Speaking generally,
however, Kant makes use of a quite inadmissible expression when he talks
of something which can exist only as subject and not as predicate (_e.g._,
Critique of Pure Reason, p. 323; V. 412; Prolegomena, § 4 and 47); though
a precedent for this is to be found in Aristotle’s “Metaphysics,” iv. ch.
8. Nothing whatever exists as subject and predicate, for these expressions
belong exclusively to logic, and denote the relations of abstract
conceptions to each other. Now their correlative or representative in the
world of perception must be substance and accident. But then we need not
look further for that which exists always as substance and never as
accident, but have it directly in matter. It is the substance
corresponding to all properties of things which are their accidents. It
is, in fact, if one wishes to retain the expression of Kant which has just
been condemned, the final subject of all predicates of that empirically
given thing, that which remains after the abstraction of all its
properties of every kind. And this holds good of man as of a brute, a
plant, or a stone, and is so evident, that in order not to see it a
determined desire not to see is required. That it is really the prototype
of the conception substance, I will show soon. But subject and predicate
are related to substance and accident rather as the principle of
sufficient reason in logic to the law of causality in nature, and the
substitution or identification of the former is just as inadmissible as
that of the latter. Yet in the “Prolegomena,” § 46, Kant carries this
substitution and identification to its fullest extent in order to make the
conception of the soul arise from that of the final subject of all
predicates and from the form of the categorical syllogism. In order to
discover the sophistical nature of this paragraph, one only needs to
reflect that subject and predicate are purely logical determinations,
which concern abstract conceptions solely and alone, and that according to
their relation in the judgment. Substance and accident, on the other hand,
belong to the world of perception and its apprehension in the
understanding, and are even there only as identical with matter and form
or quality. Of this more shortly.

The antithesis which has given occasion for the assumption of two
fundamentally different substances, body and soul, is in truth that of
objective and subjective. If a man apprehends himself objectively in
external perception, he finds a being extended in space and in general
merely corporeal; but if, on the other hand, he apprehends himself in mere
self-consciousness, thus purely subjectively, he finds himself a merely
willing and perceiving being, free from all forms of perception, thus also
without a single one of the properties which belong to bodies. Now he
forms the conception of the soul, like all the transcendental conceptions
called by Kant Ideas, by applying the principle of sufficient reason, the
form of all objects, to that which is not an object, and in this case
indeed to the subject of knowing and willing. He treats, in fact, knowing,
thinking, and willing as effects of which he seeks the cause, and as he
cannot accept the body as their cause, he assumes a cause of them entirely
different from the body. In this manner the first and the last of the
dogmatists proves the existence of the soul: Plato in the “Phædrus” and
also Wolf: from thinking and willing as the effects which lead to that
cause. Only after in this way, by hypostatising a cause corresponding to
the effect, the conception of an immaterial, simple, indestructible being
had arisen, the school developed and demonstrated this from the conception
of _substance_. But this conception itself they had previously constructed
specially for this purpose by the following artifice, which is worthy of
notice.

With the first class of ideas, _i.e._, the real world of perception, the
idea of matter is also given; because the law governing this class of
ideas, the law of causality, determines the change of the states or
conditions, and these conditions themselves presuppose something
permanent, whose changes they are. When speaking above of the principle of
the permanence of substance, I showed, by reference to earlier passages,
that this idea of matter arises because in the understanding, for which
alone it exists, time and space are intimately united, and the share of
space in this product exhibits itself as the permanence of matter, while
the share of time appears as the change of states. Purely in itself,
matter can only be thought _in abstracto_, and not perceived; for to
perception it always appears already in form and quality. From this
conception of _matter_, _substance_ is again an abstraction, consequently
a higher _genus_, and arose in this way. Of the conception of matter, only
the predicate of permanence was allowed to remain, while all its other
essential properties, extension, impenetrability, divisibility, &c., were
thought away. Like every higher _genus_, then, the concept _substance_
contains _less in itself_ than the concept _matter_, but, unlike every
other higher _genus_, it does not contain _more under it_, because it does
not include several lower _genera_ besides matter; but this remains the
one true species of the concept substance, the only assignable thing by
which its content is realised and receives a proof. Thus the aim with
which in other cases the reason produces by abstraction a higher
conception, in order that in it several subordinate species may be thought
at once through common determinations, has here no place; consequently
that abstraction is either undertaken idly and entirely without aim, or it
has a secret secondary purpose. This secret purpose is now brought to
light; for under the conception substance, along with its true sub-species
matter, a second species is co-ordinated—the immaterial, simple,
indestructible substance, soul. But the surreptitious introduction of this
last concept arose from the fact that the higher concept _substance_ was
framed illogically, and in a manner contrary to law. In its legitimate
procedure the reason always frames the concept of a higher genus by
placing together the concepts of several species, and now comparing them,
proceeds discursively, and by omitting their differences and retaining the
qualities in which they agree, obtains the generic concept which includes
them all but has a smaller content. From this it follows that the concepts
of the species must always precede the concept of the genus. But, in the
present case, the converse is true. Only the concept matter existed before
the generic concept _substance_. The latter was without occasion, and
consequently without justification, as it were aimlessly framed from the
former by the arbitrary omission of all its determinations except one. Not
till afterwards was the second ungenuine species placed beside the concept
matter, and so foisted in. But for the framing of this second concept
nothing more was now required than an express denial of what had already
been tacitly omitted in the higher generic concept, extension,
impenetrability, and divisibility. Thus the concept _substance_ was framed
merely to be the vehicle for the surreptitious introduction of the concept
of the immaterial substance. Consequently, it is very far from being
capable of holding good as a category or necessary function of the
understanding; rather is it an exceedingly superfluous concept, because
its only true content lies already in the concept of matter, besides which
it contains only a great void, which can be filled up by nothing but the
illicitly introduced species _immaterial substance_; and, indeed, it was
solely for the purpose of containing this that it was framed. Accordingly,
in strictness, the concept substance must be entirely rejected, and the
concept matter everywhere put in its place.

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The categories were a procrustean bed for every possible thing, but the
three kinds of syllogisms are so only for the three so-called Ideas. The
Idea of the soul was compelled to find its origin in the form of the
categorical syllogism. It is now the turn of the dogmatic ideas concerning
the universe, so far as it is thought as an object in itself, between two
limits—that of the smallest (atom), and that of the largest (limits of the
universe in time and space). These must now proceed from the form of the
hypothetical syllogism. Nor for this in itself is any special violence
necessary. For the hypothetical judgment has its form from the principle
of sufficient reason, and not the cosmological alone but all those
so-called Ideas really have their origin in the inconsiderate and
unrestricted application of that principle, and the laying aside of it at
pleasure. For, in accordance with that principle, the mere dependence of
an object upon another is ever sought for, till finally the exhaustion of
the imagination puts an end to the journey; and thus it is lost sight of
that every object, and indeed the whole chain of objects and the principle
of sufficient reason itself, stand in a far closer and greater dependence,
the dependence upon the knowing subject, for whose objects alone, _i.e._,
ideas, that principle is valid, for their mere position in space and time
is determined by it. Thus, since the form of knowledge from which here
merely the cosmological Ideas are derived, the principle of sufficient
reason, is the source of all subtle hypostases, in this case no sophisms
need be resorted to; but so much the more is sophistry required in order
to classify those Ideas according to the four titles of the categories.

(1.) The cosmological Ideas with regard to time and space, thus of the
limits of the world in both, are boldly regarded as determined through the
category of _quantity_, with which they clearly have nothing in common,
except the accidental denotation in logic of the extent of the concept of
the subject in the judgment by the word _quantity_, a pictorial expression
instead of which some other might just as well have been chosen. But for
Kant’s love of symmetry this is enough. He takes advantage of the
fortunate accident of this nomenclature, and links to it the transcendent
dogmas of the world’s extension.

(2.) Yet more boldly does Kant link to _quality_, _i.e._, the affirmation
or negation in a judgment, the transcendent Ideas concerning matter; a
procedure which has not even an accidental similarity of words as a basis.
For it is just to the _quantity_, and not to the _quality_ of matter that
its mechanical (not chemical) divisibility is related. But, what is more,
this whole idea of divisibility by no means belongs to those inferences
according to the principle of sufficient reason, from which, however, as
the content of the hypothetical form, all cosmological Ideas ought to
flow. For the assertion upon which Kant there relies, that the relation of
the parts to the whole is that of the condition to the conditioned, thus a
relation according to the principle of sufficient reason, is certainly an
ingenious but yet a groundless sophism. That relation is rather based upon
the principle of contradiction; for the whole is not through the part, nor
the parts through the whole, but both are necessarily together because
they are one, and their separation is only an arbitrary act. It depends
upon this, according to the principle of contradiction, that if the parts
are thought away, the whole is also thought away, and conversely; and by
no means upon the fact that the parts as the _reason_ conditioned the
whole as the _consequent_, and that therefore, in accordance with the
principle of sufficient reason, we were necessarily led to seek the
ultimate parts, in order, as its reason, to understand from them the
whole. Such great difficulties are here overcome by the love of symmetry.

(3.) The Idea of the first cause of the world would now quite properly
come under the title of _relation_; but Kant must reserve this for the
fourth title, that of _modality_, for which otherwise nothing would
remain, and under which he forces this idea to come by saying that the
contingent (_i.e._, according to his explanation, which is diametrically
opposed to the truth, every consequent of its reason) becomes the
necessary through the first cause. Therefore, for the sake of symmetry,
the conception of _freedom_ appears here as the third Idea. By this
conception, however, as is distinctly stated in the observations on the
thesis of the third conflict, what is really meant is only that Idea of
the cause of the world which alone is admissible here. The third and
fourth conflicts are at bottom tautological.

About all this, however, I find and assert that the whole antinomy is a
mere delusion, a sham fight. Only the assertions of the antitheses really
rest upon the forms of our faculty of knowledge, _i.e._, if we express it
objectively, on the necessary, _a priori_ certain, most universal laws of
nature. Their proofs alone are therefore drawn from objective grounds. On
the other hand, the assertions and proofs of the theses have no other than
a subjective ground, rest solely on the weakness of the reasoning
individual; for his imagination becomes tired with an endless regression,
and therefore he puts an end to it by arbitrary assumptions, which he
tries to smooth over as well as he can; and his judgment, moreover, is in
this case paralysed by early and deeply imprinted prejudices. On this
account the proof of the thesis in all the four conflicts is throughout a
mere sophism, while that of the antithesis is a necessary inference of the
reason from the laws of the world as idea known to us _a priori_. It is,
moreover, only with great pains and skill that Kant is able to sustain the
thesis, and make it appear to attack its opponent, which is endowed with
native power. Now in this regard his first and constant artifice is, that
he does not render prominent the _nervus argumentationis_, and thus
present it in as isolated, naked, and distinct a manner as he possibly
can; but rather introduces the same argument on both sides, concealed
under and mixed up with a mass of superfluous and prolix sentences.

The theses and antitheses which here appear in such conflict remind one of
the δικαιος and αδικος λογος which Socrates, in the “Clouds” of
Aristophanes, brings forward as contending. Yet this resemblance extends
only to the form and not to the content, though this would gladly be
asserted by those who ascribe to these most speculative of all questions
of theoretical philosophy an influence upon morality, and therefore
seriously regard the thesis as the δικαιος, and the antithesis as the
αδικος λογος. I shall not, however, accommodate myself here with reference
to such small, narrow, and perverse minds; and, giving honour not to them,
but to the truth, I shall show that the proofs which Kant adduced of the
individual theses are sophisms, while those of the antitheses are quite
fairly and correctly drawn from objective grounds. I assume that in this
examination the reader has always before him the Kantian antinomy itself.

If the proof of the thesis in the first conflict is to be held as valid,
then it proves too much, for it would be just as applicable to time itself
as to change in time, and would therefore prove that time itself must have
had a beginning, which is absurd. Besides, the sophism consists in this,
that instead of the beginninglessness of the series of states, which was
at first the question, suddenly the endlessness (infinity) of the series
is substituted; and now it is proved that this is logically contradicted
by completeness, and yet every present is the end of the past, which no
one doubted. The end of a beginningless series can, however, always be
_thought_, without prejudice to the fact that it has no beginning; just
as, conversely, the beginning of an endless series can also be _thought_.
But against the real, true argument of the antithesis, that the changes of
the world necessarily presuppose an infinite series of changes
_backwards_, absolutely nothing is advanced. We can think the possibility
that the causal chain will some day end in an absolute standstill, but we
can by no means think the possibility of an absolute beginning.(8)

With reference to the spatial limits of the world, it is proved that, if
it is to be regarded as a _given whole_, it must necessarily have limits.
The reasoning is correct, only it was just the first link of it that was
to be proved, and that remains unproved. Totality presupposes limits, and
limits presuppose totality; but here both together are arbitrarily
presupposed. For this second point, however, the antithesis affords no
such satisfactory proof as for the first, because the law of causality
provides us with necessary determinations only with reference to time, not
to space, and affords us _a priori_ the certainty that no occupied time
can ever be bounded by a previous empty time, and that no change can be
the first change, but not that an occupied space can have no empty space
beside it. So far no _a priori_ decision on the latter point would be
possible; yet the difficulty of conceiving the world in space as limited
lies in the fact that space itself is necessarily infinite, and therefore
a limited finite world in space, however large it may be, becomes an
infinitely small magnitude; and in this incongruity the imagination finds
an insuperable stumbling-block, because there remains for it only the
choice of thinking the world either as infinitely large or infinitely
small. This was already seen by the ancient philosophers: Μητροδωρος, ὁ
καθηγητης Επικουρου, φηδιν ατοπον ειναι εν μεγαλῳ πεδιῳ ἑνα σταχυν
γεννηθηναι, και ἑνα κοσμον εν τῳ απειρῳ (_Metrodorus, caput scholæ
Epicuri, absurdum ait, in magno campo spicam unam produci, et unum in
infinito mundum_) Stob. Ecl., i. c. 23. Therefore many of them taught (as
immediately follows), απειρους κοσμους εν τῳ απειρῳ (_infinitos mundos in
infinito_). This is also the sense of the Kantian argument for the
antithesis, only he has disfigured it by a scholastic and ambiguous
expression. The same argument might be used against the limitation of the
world in time, only we have a far better one under the guidance of
causality. In the case of the assumption of a world limited in space,
there arises further the unanswerable question, What advantage has the
filled part of space enjoyed over the infinite space that has remained
empty? In the fifth dialogue of his book, “_Del Infinito, Universo e
Mondi_,” Giordano Bruno gives a full account of the arguments for and
against the finiteness of the world, which is very well worth reading. For
the rest, Kant himself asserts seriously, and upon objective grounds, the
infinity of the world in space in his “Natural History of the Theory of
the Heavens,” part ii. ch. 7. Aristotle also acknowledges the same,
“Phys.,” iii. ch. 4, a chapter which, together with the following one, is
very well worth reading with reference to this antinomy.

In the second conflict the thesis is at once guilty of a very palpable
_petitio principii_, for it commences, “Every _compound_ substance
consists of simple parts.” From the compoundness here arbitrarily assumed,
no doubt it afterwards very easily proves the simple parts. But the
proposition, “All matter is compound,” which is just the point, remains
unproved, because it is simply a groundless assumption. The opposite of
simple is not compound, but extended, that which has parts and is
divisible. Here, however, it is really tacitly assumed that the parts
existed before the whole, and were brought together, whence the whole has
arisen; for this is the meaning of the word “compound.” Yet this can just
as little be asserted as the opposite. Divisibility means merely the
possibility of separating the whole into parts, and not that the whole is
compounded out of parts and thus came into being. Divisibility merely
asserts the parts _a parte post_; compoundness asserts them _a parte
ante_. For there is essentially no temporal relation between the parts and
the whole; they rather condition each other reciprocally, and thus always
exist at the same time, for only so far as both are there is there
anything extended in space. Therefore what Kant says in the observations
on the thesis, “Space ought not to be called a _compositum_, but a
_totum_,” &c., holds good absolutely of matter also, which is simply space
become perceptible. On the other hand, the infinite divisibility of
matter, which the antithesis asserts, follows _a priori_ and
incontrovertibly from that of space, which it fills. This proposition has
absolutely nothing against it; and therefore Kant also (p. 513; V. 541),
when he speaks seriously and in his own person, no longer as the
mouthpiece of the αδικος λογος, presents it as objective truth; and also
in the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science” (p. 108, first
edition), the proposition, “Matter is infinitely divisible,” is placed at
the beginning of the proof of the first proposition of mechanics as
established truth, having appeared and been proved as the fourth
proposition in the Dynamics. But here Kant spoils the proof of the
antithesis by the greatest obscurity of style and useless accumulation of
words, with the cunning intention that the evidence of the antithesis
shall not throw the sophisms of the thesis too much into the shade. Atoms
are no necessary thought of the reason, but merely an hypothesis for the
explanation of the difference of the specific gravity of bodies. But Kant
himself has shown, in the dynamics of his “Metaphysical First Principles
of Natural Science,” that this can be otherwise, and indeed better and
more simply explained than by atomism. In this, however, he was
anticipated by Priestley, “On Matter and Spirit,” sect. i. Indeed, even in
Aristotle, “Phys.” iv. 9, the fundamental thought of this is to be found.

The argument for the third thesis is a very fine sophism, and is really
Kant’s pretended principle of pure reason itself entirely unadulterated
and unchanged. It tries to prove the finiteness of the series of causes by
saying that, in order to be _sufficient_, a cause must contain the
complete sum of the conditions from which the succeeding state, the
effect, proceeds. For the completeness of the determinations present
_together_ in the state which is the cause, the argument now substitutes
the completeness of the series of causes by which that state itself was
brought to actuality; and because completeness presupposes the condition
of being rounded off or closed in, and this again presupposes finiteness,
the argument infers from this a first cause, closing the series and
therefore unconditioned. But the juggling is obvious. In order to conceive
the state A. as the sufficient cause of the state B., I assume that it
contains the sum of the necessary determinations from the co-existence of
which the estate B. inevitably follows. Now by this my demand upon it as a
_sufficient_ cause is entirely satisfied, and has no direct connection
with the question how the state A. itself came to be; this rather belongs
to an entirely different consideration, in which I regard the said state
A. no more as cause, but as itself an effect; in which case another state
again must be related to it, just as it was related to B. The assumption
of the finiteness of the series of causes and effects, and accordingly of
a first beginning, appears nowhere in this as necessary, any more than the
presentness of the present moment requires us to assume a beginning of
time itself. It only comes to be added on account of the laziness of the
speculating individual. That this assumption lies in the acceptance of a
cause as a _sufficient reason_ is thus unfairly arrived at and false, as I
have shown at length above when considering the Kantian principle of pure
reason which coincides with this thesis. In illustration of the assertion
of this false thesis, Kant is bold enough in his observations upon it to
give as an example of an unconditioned beginning his rising from his
chair; as if it were not just as impossible for him to rise without a
motive as for a ball to roll without a cause. I certainly do not need to
prove the baselessness of the appeal which, induced by a sense of
weakness, he makes to the philosophers of antiquity, by quoting from
Ocellus Lucanus, the Eleatics, &c., not to speak of the Hindus. Against
the proof of this antithesis, as in the case of the previous ones, there
is nothing to advance.

The fourth conflict is, as I have already remarked, really tautological
with the third; and the proof of the thesis is also essentially the same
as that of the preceding one. His assertion that every conditioned
presupposes a complete series of conditions, and therefore a series which
ends with an unconditioned, is a _petitio principii_, which must simply be
denied. Everything conditioned presupposes nothing but its condition; that
this is again conditioned raises a new consideration which is not directly
contained in the first.

A certain appearance of probability cannot be denied to the antinomy; yet
it is remarkable that no part of the Kantian philosophy has met so little
contradiction, indeed has found so much acceptance, as this exceedingly
paradoxical doctrine. Almost all philosophical parties and text-books have
regarded it as valid, and have also repeatedly reconstructed it; while
nearly all Kant’s other doctrines have been contested, and indeed there
have never been wanting some perverse minds which rejected even the
transcendental æsthetic. The undivided assent which the antinomy, on the
other hand, has met with may ultimately arise from the fact that certain
persons regard with inward satisfaction the point at which the
understanding is so thoroughly brought to a standstill, having hit upon
something which at once is and is not, so that they actually have before
them here the sixth trick of Philadelphia in Lichtenberg’s broadsheet.

If we examine the real meaning of Kant’s _Critical Solution_ of the
cosmological problem which now follows, we find that it is not what he
gives it out to be, the solution of the problem by the disclosure that
both sides, starting from false assumptions, are wrong in the first and
second conflicts, and that in the third and fourth both are right. It is
really the confirmation of the antitheses by the explanation of their
assertions.

First Kant asserts, in this solution, obviously wrongly, that both sides
started from the assumption, as their first principle, that with the
conditioned the completed (thus rounded off) _series_ of its conditions is
given. Only the thesis laid down this proposition, Kant’s principle of
pure reason, as the ground of its assertions; the antithesis, on the other
hand, expressly denied it throughout, and asserted the contrary. Further,
Kant charges both sides with this assumption, that the world exists in
itself, _i.e._, independently of being known and of the forms of this
knowledge, but this assumption also is only made by the thesis; indeed, it
is so far from forming the ground of the assertions of the antithesis that
it is absolutely inconsistent with them. For that it should all be given
is absolutely contradictory of the conception of an infinite series. It is
therefore essential to it that it should always exist only with reference
to the process of going through it, and not independently of this. On the
other hand, in the assumption of definite limits also lies that of a whole
which exists absolutely and independently of the process of completely
measuring it. Thus it is only the thesis that makes the false assumption
of a self-existent universe, _i.e._, a universe given prior to all
knowledge, and to which knowledge came as to something external to itself.
The antithesis from the outset combats this assumption absolutely; for the
infinity of the series which it asserts merely under the guidance of the
principle of sufficient reason can only exist if the regressus is fully
carried out, but not independently of it. As the object in general
presupposes the subject, so also the object which is determined as an
_endless_ chain of conditions necessarily presupposes in the subject the
kind of knowledge corresponding to this, that is, the _constant following_
of the links of that chain. But this is just what Kant gives as the
solution of the problem, and so often repeats: “The infinity of the world
is only _through_ the regressus, not _before_ it.” This his solution of
the conflict is thus really only the decision in favour of the antithesis
in the assertion of which this truth already lies, while it is altogether
inconsistent with the assertions of the thesis. If the antithesis had
asserted that the world consisted of infinite series of reasons and
consequents, and yet existed independently of the idea and its regressive
series, thus in itself, and therefore constituted a given whole, it would
have contradicted not only the thesis but also itself. For an infinite can
never be given as a whole, nor an _endless_ series exist, except as an
endless progress; nor can what is boundless constitute a whole. Thus this
assumption, of which Kant asserts that it led both sides into error,
belongs only to the thesis.

It is already a doctrine of Aristotle’s that an infinity can never be
_actu_, _i.e._, actual and given, but only _potentiâ_. Ουκ εστιν ενεργειᾳ
ειναι το απειρον ... αλλ᾽ αδυνατον το εντελεχειᾳ ον απειρον (_infinitum
non potest esse actu: ... sed impossibile, actu esse infinitum_), Metaph.
K. 10. Further: κατ᾽ ενεργειαν μεν γαρ ουδεν εστιν απειρον, δυναμει δε επι
την διαιρεσιν (_nihil enim actu infinitum est, sed potentia tantum, nempe
divisione ipsa_). _De generat. et corrupt._, i., 3. He develops this fully
in the “Physics,” iii. 5 and 6, where to a certain extent he gives the
perfectly correct solution of the whole of the antinomies. He expounds the
antinomies in his short way, and then says, “A mediator (διαιτητου) is
required;” upon which he gives the solution that the infinite, both of the
world in space and in time and in division, is never _before_ the
regressus, or progressus, but in it. This truth lies then in the rightly
apprehended conception of the infinite. Thus one misunderstands himself if
he imagines that he can think the infinite, of whatever kind it may be, as
something objectively present and complete, and independent of the
regressus.

Indeed if, reversing the procedure, we take as the starting-point what
Kant gives as the solution of the conflict, the assertion of the
antithesis follows exactly from it. Thus: if the world is not an
unconditioned whole and does not exist absolutely but only in the idea,
and if its series of reasons and consequents do not exist _before_ the
regressus of the ideas of them but only _through_ this regressus, then the
world cannot contain determined and finite series, because their
determination and limitation would necessarily be independent of the idea,
which would then only come afterwards; but all its series must be
infinite, _i.e._, inexhaustible by any idea.

On p. 506; V. 534, Kant tries to prove from the falseness of both sides
the transcendental ideality of the phenomenon, and begins, “If the world
is a whole existing by itself, it is either finite or infinite.” But this
is false; a whole existing of itself cannot possibly be infinite. That
ideality may rather be concluded from the infinity of the series in the
world in the following manner:—If the series of reasons and consequents in
the world are absolutely without end, the world cannot be a given whole
independent of the idea; for such a world always presupposes definite
limits, just as on the contrary infinite series presuppose an infinite
regressus. Therefore, the presupposed infinity of the series must be
determined through the form of reason and consequent, and this again
through the form of knowledge of the subject; thus the world as it is
known must exist only in the idea of the subject.

Now whether Kant himself was aware or not that his critical solution of
the problem is really a decision in favour of the antithesis, I am unable
to decide. For it depends upon whether what Schelling has somewhere very
happily called Kant’s system of accommodation extended so far; or whether
Kant’s mind was here already involved in an unconscious accommodation to
the influence of his time and surroundings.

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The solution of the third antinomy, the subject of which was the Idea of
freedom, deserves a special consideration, because it is for us very well
worth notice that it is just here in connection with _the Idea of freedom_
that Kant is obliged to speak more fully of the _thing in itself_, which
was hitherto only seen in the background. This is very explicable to us
since we have recognised the thing in itself as the _will_. Speaking
generally, this is the point at which the Kantian philosophy leads to
mine, or at which mine springs out of his as its parent stem. One will be
convinced of this if one reads with attention pp. 536 and 537; V. 564 and
565, of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” and, further, compares these
passages with the introduction to the “Critique of Judgment,” pp. xviii.
and xix. of the third edition, or p. 13 of Rosenkranz’s edition, where
indeed it is said: “The conception of freedom can in its object (that is
then the will) present to the mind a thing in itself, but not in
perception; the conception of nature, on the other hand, can present its
object to the mind in perception, but not as a thing in itself.” But
specially let any one read concerning the solution of the antinomies the
fifty-third paragraph of the Prolegomena, and then honestly answer the
question whether all that is said there does not sound like a riddle to
which my doctrine is the answer. Kant never completed his thought; I have
merely carried out his work. Accordingly, what Kant says only of the human
phenomenon I have extended to all phenomena in general, as differing from
the human phenomenon only in degree, that their true being is something
absolutely free, _i.e._, a will. It appears from my work how fruitful this
insight is in connection with Kant’s doctrine of the ideality of space,
time, and causality.

Kant has nowhere made the thing in itself the subject of a special
exposition or distinct deduction; but, whenever he wants it, he introduces
it at once by means of the conclusion that the phenomenon, thus the
visible world, must have a reason, an intelligible cause, which is not a
phenomenon, and therefore belongs to no possible experience. He does this
after having assiduously insisted that the categories, and thus causality
also, had a use which was absolutely confined to possible experience; that
they were merely forms of the understanding, which served to spell out the
phenomena of the world of sense, beyond which, on the other hand, they had
no significance, &c., &c. Therefore, he denies in the most uncompromising
manner their application to things beyond experience, and rightly explains
and at once rejects all earlier dogmatism as based upon the neglect of
this law. The incredible inconsistency which Kant here fell into was soon
noticed, and used by his first opponents to make attacks on his philosophy
to which it could offer no resistance. For certainly we apply the law of
causality entirely _a priori_ and before all experience to the changes
felt in our organs of sense. But, on this very account, this law is just
as much of subjective origin as these sensations themselves, and thus does
not lead to a thing in itself. The truth is, that upon the path of the
idea one can never get beyond the idea; it is a rounded-off whole, and has
in its own resources no clue leading to the nature of the thing in itself,
which is _toto genere_ different from it. If we were merely perceiving
beings, the way to the thing in itself would be absolutely cut off from
us. Only the other side of our own being can disclose to us the other side
of the inner being of things. This path I have followed. But Kant’s
inference to the thing in itself, contrary as it is to his own teaching,
obtains some excuse from the following circumstance. He does not say, as
truth required, simply and absolutely that the object is conditioned by
the subject, and conversely; but only that the manner of the appearance of
the object is conditioned by the forms of knowledge of the subject, which,
therefore, also come _a priori_ to consciousness. But that now which in
opposition to this is only known _a posteriori_ is for him the immediate
effect of the thing in itself, which becomes phenomenon only in its
passage through these forms which are given _a priori_. From this point of
view it is to some extent explicable how it could escape him that
objectivity in general belongs to the form of the phenomenon, and is just
as much conditioned by subjectivity in general as the mode of appearing of
the object is conditioned by the forms of knowledge of the subject; that
thus if a thing in itself must be assumed, it absolutely cannot be an
object, which however he always assumes it to be, but such a thing in
itself must necessarily lie in a sphere _toto genere_ different from the
idea (from knowing and being known), and therefore could least of all be
arrived at through the laws of the combination of objects among
themselves.

With the proof of the thing in itself it has happened to Kant precisely as
with that of the _a priori_ nature of the law of causality. Both doctrines
are true, but their proof is false. They thus belong to the class of true
conclusions from false premises. I have retained them both, but have
proved them in an entirely different way, and with certainty.

The thing in itself I have neither introduced surreptitiously nor inferred
according to laws which exclude it, because they really belong to its
phenomenal appearance; nor, in general, have I arrived at it by roundabout
ways. On the contrary, I have shown it directly, there where it lies
immediately, in the will, which reveals itself to every one directly as
the in-itself of his own phenomenal being.

And it is also this immediate knowledge of his own will out of which in
human consciousness the conception of _freedom_ springs; for certainly the
will, as world-creating, as thing in itself, is free from the principle of
sufficient reason, and therewith from all necessity, thus is completely
independent, free, and indeed almighty. Yet, in truth, this only holds
good of the will in itself, not of its manifestations, the individuals,
who, just through the will itself, are unalterably determined as its
manifestations in time. But in the ordinary consciousness, unenlightened
by philosophy, the will is at once confused with its manifestation, and
what belongs only to the former is attributed to the latter, whence arises
the illusion of the unconditioned freedom of the individual. Therefore
Spinoza says rightly that if the projected stone had consciousness, it
would believe that it flew of its own free will. For certainly the
in-itself of the stone also is the will, which alone is free; but, as in
all its manifestations, here also, where it appears as a stone, it is
already fully determined. But of all this enough has already been said in
the text of this work.

Kant fails to understand and overlooks this immediate origin of the
conception of freedom in every human consciousness, and therefore he now
places (p. 533; V. 561) the source of that conception in a very subtle
speculation, through which the unconditioned, to which the reason must
always tend, leads us to hypostatise the conception of freedom, and it is
only upon this transcendent Idea of freedom that the practical conception
of it is supposed to be founded. In the “Critique of Practical Reason,” §
6, and p. 158 of the fourth and 235 of Rosenkranz’s edition, he yet
deduces this last conception differently by saying that the categorical
imperative presupposes it. The speculative Idea is accordingly only the
primary source of the conception of freedom for the sake of this
presupposition, but here it obtains both significance and application.
Neither, however, is the case. For the delusion of a perfect freedom of
the individual in his particular actions is most lively in the conviction
of the least cultivated man who has never reflected, and it is thus
founded on no speculation, although often assumed by speculation from
without. Thus only philosophers, and indeed only the most profound of
them, are free from it, and also the most thoughtful and enlightened of
the writers of the Church.

It follows, then, from all that has been said, that the true source of the
conception of freedom is in no way essentially an inference, either from
the speculative Idea of an unconditioned cause, nor from the fact that it
is presupposed by the categorical imperative. But it springs directly from
the consciousness in which each one recognises himself at once as the
_will_, _i.e._, as that which, as the thing in itself, has not the
principle of sufficient reason for its form, and which itself depends upon
nothing, but on which everything else rather depends. Every one, however,
does not recognise himself at once with the critical and reflective
insight of philosophy as a determined manifestation of this will which has
already entered time, as we might say, an act of will distinguished from
that will to live itself; and, therefore, instead of recognising his whole
existence as an act of his freedom, he rather seeks for freedom in his
individual actions. Upon this point I refer the reader to my prize-essay
on the freedom of the will.

Now if Kant, as he here pretends, and also apparently did in earlier
cases, had merely inferred the thing in itself, and that with the great
inconsistency of an inference absolutely forbidden by himself, what a
remarkable accident would it then be that here, where for the first time
he approaches the thing in itself more closely and explains it, he should
recognise in it at once the _will_, the free will showing itself in the
world only in temporal manifestations! I therefore really assume, though
it cannot be proved, that whenever Kant spoke of the thing in itself, in
the obscure depths of his mind he already always indistinctly thought of
the will. This receives support from a passage in the preface to the
second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” pp. xxvii. and xxviii.,
in Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 677 of the Supplement.

For the rest, it is just this predetermined solution of the sham third
conflict that affords Kant the opportunity of expressing very beautifully
the deepest thoughts of his whole philosophy. This is the case in the
whole of the “Sixth Section of the Antinomy of Pure Reason;” but, above
all, in the exposition of the opposition between the empirical and the
intelligible character, p. 534-550; V. 562-578, which I number among the
most admirable things that have ever been said by man. (As a supplemental
explanation of this passage, compare a parallel passage in the Critique of
Practical Reason, p. 169-179 of the fourth edition, or p. 224-231 of
Rosenkranz’s edition.) It is yet all the more to be regretted that this is
here not in its right place, partly because it is not found in the way
which the exposition states, and therefore could be otherwise deduced than
it is, partly because it does not fulfil the end for which it is there—the
solution of the sham antinomy. The intelligible character, the thing in
itself, is inferred from the phenomenon by the inconsistent use of the
category of causality beyond the sphere of all phenomena, which has
already been sufficiently condemned. In this case the will of man (which
Kant entitles reason, most improperly, and with an unpardonable breach of
all use of language) is set up as the thing in itself, with an appeal to
an unconditioned ought, the categorical imperative, which is postulated
without more ado.

Now, instead of all this, the plain open procedure would have been to
start directly from the will, and prove it to be the in-itself of our own
phenomenal being, recognised without any mediation; and then to give that
exposition of the empirical and the intelligible character to explain how
all actions, although necessitated by motives, yet, both by their author
and by the disinterested judge, are necessarily and absolutely ascribed to
the former himself and alone, as depending solely upon him, to whom
therefore guilt and merit are attributed in respect of them. This alone
was the straight path to the knowledge of that which is not phenomenon,
and therefore will not be found by the help of the laws of the phenomenon,
but is that which reveals itself through the phenomenon, becomes knowable,
objectifies itself—the will to live. It would then have had to be
exhibited merely by analogy as the inner nature of every phenomenon. Then,
however, it certainly could not have been said that in lifeless or even
animal nature no faculty can be thought except as sensuously conditioned
(p. 546; V. 574), which in Kant’s language is simply saying that the
explanation, according to the law of causality, exhausts the inner nature
of these phenomena, and thus in their case, very inconsistently, the thing
in itself disappears. Through the false position and the roundabout
deduction according with it which the exposition of the thing in itself
has received from Kant, the whole conception of it has also become
falsified. For the will or the thing in itself, found through the
investigation of an unconditioned cause, appears here related to the
phenomenon as cause to effect. But this relation exists only within the
phenomenal world, therefore presupposes it, and cannot connect the
phenomenal world itself with what lies outside it, and is _toto genere_
different from it.

Further, the intended end, the solution of the third antinomy by the
decision that both sides, each in a different sense, are right, is not
reached at all. For neither the thesis nor the antithesis have anything to
do with the thing in itself, but entirely with the phenomenon, the
objective world, the world as idea. This it is, and absolutely nothing
else, of which the thesis tries to show, by means of the sophistry we have
laid bare, that it contains unconditioned causes, and it is also this of
which the antithesis rightly denies that it contains such causes.
Therefore the whole exposition of the transcendental freedom of the will,
so far as it is a thing in itself, which is given here in justification of
the thesis, excellent as it is in itself, is yet here entirely a μεταβασις
εις αλλο γενος. For the transcendental freedom of the will which is
expounded is by no means the unconditioned causality of a cause, which the
thesis asserts, because it is of the essence of a cause that it must be a
phenomenon, and not something which lies beyond all phenomena and is _toto
genere_ different.

If what is spoken of is cause and effect, the relation of the will to the
manifestation (or of the intelligible character to the empirical) must
never be introduced, as happens here: for it is entirely different from
causal relation. However, here also, in this solution of the antinomy, it
is said with truth that the empirical character of man, like that of every
other cause in nature, is unalterably determined, and therefore that his
actions necessarily take place in accordance with the external influences;
therefore also, in spite of all transcendental freedom (_i.e._,
independence of the will in itself of the laws of the connection of its
manifestation), no man has the power of himself to begin a series of
actions, which, however, was asserted by the thesis. Thus also freedom has
no causality; for only the will is free, and it lies outside nature or the
phenomenon, which is just its objectification, but does not stand in a
causal relation to it, for this relation is only found within the sphere
of the phenomenon, thus presupposes it, and cannot embrace the phenomenon
itself and connect it with what is expressly not a phenomenon. The world
itself can only be explained through the will (for it is the will itself,
so far as it manifests itself), and not through causality. But _in the
world_ causality is the sole principle of explanation, and everything
happens simply according to the laws of nature. Thus the right lies
entirely on the side of the antithesis, which sticks to the question in
hand, and uses that principle of explanation which is valid with regard to
it; therefore it needs no apology. The thesis, on the other hand, is
supposed to be got out of the matter by an apology, which first passes
over to something quite different from the question at issue, and then
assumes a principle of explanation which is inapplicable to it.

The fourth conflict is, as has already been said, in its real meaning
tautological with the third. In its solution Kant develops still more the
untenable nature of the thesis; while for its truth, on the other hand,
and its pretended consistency with the antithesis, he advances no reason,
as conversely he is able to bring no reason against the antithesis. The
assumption of the thesis he introduces quite apologetically, and yet calls
it himself (p. 562; V. 590) an arbitrary presupposition, the object of
which might well in itself be impossible, and shows merely an utterly
impotent endeavour to find a corner for it somewhere where it will be safe
from the prevailing might of the antithesis, only to avoid disclosing the
emptiness of the whole of his once-loved assertion of the necessary
antinomy in human reason.

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Now follows the chapter on the transcendental ideal, which carries us back
at once to the rigid Scholasticism of the Middle Ages. One imagines one is
listening to Anselm of Canterbury himself. The _ens realissimum_, the
essence of all realities, the content of all affirmative propositions,
appears, and indeed claims to be a necessary thought of the reason. I for
my part must confess that to my reason such a thought is impossible, and
that I am not able to think anything definite in connection with the words
which denote it.

Moreover, I do not doubt that Kant was compelled to write this
extraordinary chapter, so unworthy of him, simply by his fondness for
architectonic symmetry. The three principal objects of the Scholastic
philosophy (which, as we have said, if understood in the wider sense, may
be regarded as continuing down to Kant), the soul, the world, and God, are
supposed to be deduced from the three possible major propositions of
syllogisms, though it is plain that they have arisen, and can arise,
simply and solely through the unconditioned application of the principle
of sufficient reason. Now, after the soul had been forced into the
categorical judgment, and the hypothetical was set apart for the world,
there remained for the third Idea nothing but the disjunctive major.
Fortunately there existed a previous work in this direction, the _ens
realissimum_ of the Scholastics, together with the ontological proof of
the existence of God set up in a rudimentary form by Anselm of Canterbury
and then perfected by Descartes. This was joyfully made use of by Kant,
with some reminiscence also of an earlier Latin work of his youth.
However, the sacrifice which Kant makes to his love of architectonic
symmetry in this chapter is exceedingly great. In defiance of all truth,
what one must regard as the grotesque idea of an essence of all possible
realities is made an essential and necessary thought of the reason. For
the deduction of this Kant makes use of the false assertion that our
knowledge of particular things arises from a progressive limitation of
general conceptions; thus also of a most general conception of all which
contains all reality _in itself_. In this he stands just as much in
contradiction with his own teaching as with the truth, for exactly the
converse is the case. Our knowledge starts with the particular and is
extended to the general, and all general conceptions arise by abstraction
from real, particular things known by perception, and this can be carried
on to the most general of all conceptions, which includes everything under
it, but almost nothing _in it_. Thus Kant has here placed the procedure of
our faculty of knowledge just upside down, and thus might well be accused
of having given occasion to a philosophical charlatanism that has become
famous in our day, which, instead of recognising that conceptions are
thoughts abstracted from things, makes, on the contrary the conceptions
first, and sees in things only concrete conceptions, thus bringing to
market the world turned upside down as a philosophical buffoonery, which
of course necessarily found great acceptance.

Even if we assume that every reason must, or at least can, attain to the
conception of God, even without revelation, this clearly takes place only
under the guidance of causality. This is so evident that it requires no
proof. Therefore Chr. Wolf says (_Cosmologia Generalis, prœf._, p. 1):
_Sane in theologia naturali existentiam Numinis e principiis cosmologicis
demonstramus. Contingentia universi et ordinis naturæ, una cum
impossibilitate casus, sunt scala, per quam a mundo hoc adspectabili ad
Deum ascenditur._ And, before him, Leibnitz said, in connection with the
law of causality: _Sans ce grand principe on ne saurait venir à la preuve
de l’existence de Dieu_. On the other hand, the thought which is worked
out in this chapter is so far from being essential and necessary to
reason, that it is rather to be regarded as a veritable masterpiece of the
monstrous productions of an age which, through strange circumstances, fell
into the most singular aberrations and perversities, such as the age of
the Scholastics was—an age which is unparalleled in the history of the
world, and can never return again. This Scholasticism, as it advanced to
its final form, certainly derived the principal proof of the existence of
God from the conception of the _ens realissimum_, and only then used the
other proofs as accessory. This, however, is mere methodology, and proves
nothing as to the origin of theology in the human mind. Kant has here
taken the procedure of Scholasticism for that of reason—a mistake which
indeed he has made more than once. If it were true that according to the
essential laws of reason the Idea of God proceeds from the disjunctive
syllogism under the form of an Idea of the most real being, this Idea
would also have existed in the philosophy of antiquity; but of the _ens
realissimum_ there is nowhere a trace in any of the ancient philosophers,
although some of them certainly teach that there is a Creator of the
world, yet only as the giver of form to the matter which exists without
him, δεμιουργος, a being whom they yet infer simply and solely in
accordance with the law of causality. It is true that Sextus Empiricus
(_adv. Math._, ix. § 88) quotes an argument of Cleanthes, which some have
held to be the ontological proof. This, however, it is not, but merely an
inference from analogy; because experience teaches that upon earth one
being is always better than another, and man, indeed, as the best, closes
the series, but yet has many faults; therefore there must exist beings who
are still better, and finally one being who is best of all (κρατιστον,
αριστον), and this would be God.

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On the detailed refutation of speculative theology which now follows I
have only briefly to remark that it, and in general the whole criticism of
the three so-called Ideas of reason, thus the whole Dialectic of Pure
Reason, is indeed to a certain extent the goal and end of the whole work:
yet this polemical part has not really an absolutely universal, permanent,
and purely philosophical interest, such as is possessed by the preceding
doctrinal part, _i.e._, the æsthetic and analytic; but rather a temporary
and local interest, because it stands in a special relation to the leading
points of the philosophy which prevailed in Europe up till the time of
Kant, the complete overthrow of which was yet, to his immortal credit,
achieved by him through this polemic. He has eliminated theism from
philosophy; for in it, as a science and not a system of faith, only that
can find a place which is either empirically given or established by valid
proofs. Naturally we only mean here the real seriously understood
philosophy which is concerned with the truth, and nothing else; and by no
means the jest of philosophy taught in the universities, in which, after
Kant as before him, speculative theology plays the principal part, and
where, also, after as before him, the soul appears without ceremony as a
familiar person. For it is the philosophy endowed with salaries and fees,
and, indeed, also with titles of Hofrath, which, looking proudly down from
its height, remains for forty years entirely unaware of the existence of
little people like me, and would be thoroughly glad to be rid of the old
Kant with his Critiques, that they might drink the health of Leibnitz with
all their hearts. It is further to be remarked here, that as Kant was
confessedly led to his doctrine of the _a priori_ nature of the conception
of causality by Hume’s scepticism with regard to that conception, it may
be that in the same way Kant’s criticism of all speculative theology had
its occasion in Hume’s criticism of all popular theology, which he had
given in his “Natural History of Religion,” a book so well worth reading,
and in the “Dialogues on Natural Religion.” Indeed, it may be that Kant
wished to a certain extent to supplement this. For the first-named work of
Hume is really a critique of popular theology, the pitiable condition of
which it seeks to show; while, on the other hand, it points to rational or
speculative theology as the genuine, and that which is worthy of respect.
But Kant now discloses the groundlessness of the latter, and leaves, on
the other hand, popular theology untouched, nay, even establishes it in a
nobler form as a faith based upon moral feeling. This was afterwards
distorted by the philosophasters into rational apprehensions,
consciousness of God, or intellectual intuitions of the supersensible, of
the divine, &c., &c.; while Kant, as he demolished old and revered errors,
and knew the danger of doing so, rather wished through the moral theology
merely to substitute a few weak temporary supports, so that the ruin might
not fall on him, but that he might have time to escape.

Now, as regards the performance of the task, no critique of reason was
necessary for the refutation of the _ontological_ proof of the existence
of God; for without presupposing the æsthetic and analytic, it is quite
easy to make clear that that ontological proof is nothing but a subtle
playing with conceptions which is quite powerless to produce conviction.
There is a chapter in the “_Organon_” of Aristotle which suffices as fully
for the refutation of the ontological proof as if it had been written
intentionally with that purpose. It is the seventh chapter of the second
book of the “_Analyt. Post._” Among other things, it is expressly said
there: “το δε ειναι ουκ ουσια ουδενι,” _i.e._, _existentia nunquam ad
essentiam rei pertinet_.

The refutation of the _cosmological_ proof is an application to a given
case of the doctrine of the Critique as expounded up to that point, and
there is nothing to be said against it. The _physico-theological_ proof is
a mere amplification of the cosmological, which it presupposes, and it
finds its full refutation only in the “Critique of Judgment.” I refer the
reader in this connection to the rubric, “Comparative Anatomy,” in my work
on the Will in Nature.

In the criticism of this proof Kant has only to do, as we have already
said, with speculative theology, and limits himself to the School. If, on
the contrary, he had had life and popular theology also in view, he would
have been obliged to add a fourth proof to the three he has
considered—that proof which is really the effective one with the great
mass of men, and which in Kant’s technical language might best be called
the _keraunological_. It is the proof which is founded upon the needy,
impotent, and dependent condition of man as opposed to natural forces,
which are infinitely superior, inscrutable, and for the most part
threatening evil; to which is added man’s natural inclination to personify
everything, and finally the hope of effecting something by prayers and
flattery, and even by gifts. In every human undertaking there is something
which is not in our power and does not come within our calculations; the
wish to win this for oneself is the origin of the gods. “_Primus in orbe
Deos fecit timor_” is an old and true saying of Petronius. It is
principally this proof which is criticised by Hume, who throughout appears
as Kant’s forerunner in the writings referred to above. But those whom
Kant has placed in a position of permanent embarrassment by his criticism
of speculative theology are the professors of philosophy. Salaried by
Christian governments, they dare not give up the chief article of
faith.(9) Now, how do these gentlemen help themselves? They simply declare
that the existence of God is self-evident. Indeed! After the ancient
world, at the expense of its conscience, had worked miracles to prove it,
and the modern world, at the expense of its understanding, had brought
into the field ontological, cosmological, and physico-theological
proofs—to these gentlemen it is self-evident. And from this self-evident
God they then explain the world: that is their philosophy.

Till Kant came there was a real dilemma between materialism and theism,
_i.e._, between the assumption that a blind chance, or that an
intelligence working from without in accordance with purposes and
conceptions, had brought about the world, _neque dabatur tertium_.
Therefore atheism and materialism were the same; hence the doubt whether
there really could be an atheist, _i.e._, a man who really could attribute
to blind chance the disposition of nature, so full of design, especially
organised nature. See, for example, Bacon’s Essays (_sermones fideles_),
Essay 16, on Atheism. In the opinion of the great mass of men, and of the
English, who in such things belong entirely to the great mass (the mob),
this is still the case, even with their most celebrated men of learning.
One has only to look at Owen’s “_Ostéologie Comparée_,” of 1855, preface,
p. 11, 12, where he stands always before the old dilemma between
Democritus and Epicurus on the one side, and an intelligence on the other,
in which _la connaissance __ d’un être tel que l’homme a existé avant que
l’homme fit son apparition_. All design must have proceeded from an
_intelligence_; he has never even dreamt of doubting this. Yet in the
lecture based upon this now modified preface, delivered in the _Académie
des Sciences_ on the 5th September 1853, he says, with childish naivete:
“_La téléologie, ou la théologie scientifique_” (_Comptes Rendus_, Sept.
1853), that is for him precisely the same thing! Is anything in nature
designed? then it is a work of intention, of reflection, of intelligence.
Yet, certainly, what has such an Englishman and the _Académie des
Sciences_ to do with the “Critique of Judgment,” or, indeed, with my book
upon the Will in Nature? These gentlemen do not see so far below them.
These _illustres confrères_ disdain metaphysics and the _philosophie
allemande_: they confine themselves to the old woman’s philosophy. The
validity of that disjunctive major, that dilemma between materialism and
theism, rests, however, upon the assumption that the present given world
is the world of things in themselves; that consequently there is no other
order of things than the empirical. But after the world and its order had
through Kant become mere phenomenon, the laws of which rest principally
upon the forms of our intellect, the existence and nature of things and of
the world no longer required to be explained according to the analogy of
the changes perceived or effected by us in the world; nor must that which
we comprehend as means and end have necessarily arisen as the consequence
of a similar knowledge. Thus, inasmuch as Kant, through his important
distinction between phenomenon and thing in itself, withdrew the
foundation from theism, he opened, on the other hand, the way to entirely
different and more profound explanations of existence.

In the chapter on the ultimate aim of the natural dialectic of reason it
is asserted that the three transcendent Ideas are of value as regulative
principles for the advancement of the knowledge of nature. But Kant can
barely have been serious in making this assertion. At least its opposite,
that these assumptions are restrictive and fatal to all investigation of
nature, is to every natural philosopher beyond doubt. To test this by an
example, let any one consider whether the assumption of the soul as an
immaterial, simple, thinking substance would have been necessarily
advantageous or in the highest degree impeding to the truths which Cabanis
has so beautifully expounded, or to the discoveries of Flourens, Marshall
Hall, and Ch. Bell. Indeed Kant himself says (_Prolegomena_, § 44), “The
Ideas of the reason are opposed and hindering to the maxims of the
rational knowledge of nature.”

It is certainly not the least merit of Frederick the Great, that under his
Government Kant could develop himself, and dared to publish the “Critique
of Pure Reason.” Hardly under any other Government would a salaried
professor have ventured such a thing. Kant was obliged to promise the
immediate successor of the great king that he would write no more.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

I might consider that I could dispense with the criticism of the ethical
part of the Kantian philosophy here because I have given a detailed and
thorough criticism of it twenty-two years later than the present work in
the “_Beiden Grundproblemen der Ethik_.” However, what is here retained
from the first edition, and for the sake of completeness must not be
omitted, may serve as a suitable introduction to that later and much more
thorough criticism, to which in the main I therefore refer the reader.

On account of Kant’s love of architectonic symmetry, the theoretical
reason had also to have a _pendant_. The _intellectus practicus_ of the
Scholastics, which again springs from the νους πρακτικος of Aristotle (_De
Anima_, iii. 10, and _Polit._, vii. c. 14: ὁ μεν γαρ πρακτικος εστι λογος,
ὁ δε θεωρητικος), provides the word ready made. Yet here something quite
different is denoted by it—not as there, the reason directed to technical
skill. Here the practical reason appears as the source and origin of the
undeniable ethical significance of human action, and of all virtue, all
nobleness, and every attainable degree of holiness. All this accordingly
should come from mere _reason_, and demand nothing but this. To act
rationally and to act virtuously, nobly, holily, would be one and the
same; and to act selfishly, wickedly, viciously, would be merely to act
irrationally. However, all times and peoples and languages have
distinguished the two, and held them to be quite different things; and so
does every one even at the present day who knows nothing of the language
of the new school, _i.e._, the whole world, with the exception of a small
company of German _savants_. Every one but these last understands by
virtuous conduct and a rational course of life two entirely different
things. To say that the sublime founder of the Christian religion, whose
life is presented to us as the pattern of all virtue, was _the most
rational_ of all men would be called a very unbecoming and even a
blasphemous way of speaking; and almost as much so if it were said that
His precepts contained all the best directions for a perfectly _rational
life_. Further, that he who, in accordance with these precepts, instead of
taking thought for his own future needs, always relieves the greater
present wants of others, without further motive, nay, gives all his goods
to the poor, in order then, destitute of all means of subsistence, to go
and preach to others also the virtue which he practises himself; this
every one rightly honours; but who ventures to extol it as the highest
pitch of _reasonableness_? And finally, who praises it as a _rational_
deed that Arnold von Winkelried, with surpassing courage, clasped the
hostile spears against his own body in order to gain victory and
deliverance for his countrymen? On the other hand, if we see a man who
from his youth upwards deliberates with exceptional foresight how he may
procure for himself an easy competence, the means for the support of wife
and children, a good name among men, outward honour and distinction, and
in doing so never allows himself to be led astray or induced to lose sight
of his end by the charm of present pleasures or the satisfaction of
defying the arrogance of the powerful, or the desire of revenging insults
and undeserved humiliations he has suffered, or the attractions of useless
aesthetic or philosophical occupations of the mind, or travels in
interesting lands, but with great consistency works towards his one
end,—who ventures to deny that such a philistine is in quite an
extraordinary degree _rational_, even if he has made use of some means
which are not praiseworthy but are yet without danger? Nay, more, if a bad
man, with deliberate shrewdness, through a well-thought-out plan attains
to riches and honours, and even to thrones and crowns, and then with the
acutest cunning gets the better of neighbouring states, overcomes them one
by one, and now becomes a conqueror of the world, and in doing so is not
led astray by any respect for right, any sense of humanity, but with sharp
consistency tramples down and dashes to pieces everything that opposes his
plan, without compassion plunges millions into misery of every kind,
condemns millions to bleed and die, yet royally rewards and always
protects his adherents and helpers, never forgetting anything, and thus
reaches his end,—who does not see that such a man must go to work in a
most rational manner?—that, as a powerful understanding was needed to form
the plans, their execution demanded the complete command of the _reason_,
and indeed properly of _practical reason_? Or are the precepts which the
prudent and consistent, the thoughtful and far-seeing Machiavelli
prescribes to the prince _irrational_?(10)

As wickedness is quite consistent with reason, and indeed only becomes
really terrible in this conjunction, so, conversely, nobleness is
sometimes joined with want of reason. To this may be attributed the action
of Coriolanus, who, after he had applied all his strength for years to the
accomplishment of his revenge upon the Romans, when at length the time
came, allowed himself to be softened by the prayers of the Senate and the
tears of his mother and wife, gave up the revenge he had so long and so
painfully prepared, and indeed, by thus bringing on himself the just anger
of the Volscians, died for those very Romans whose thanklessness he knew
and desired so intensely to punish. Finally, for the sake of completeness,
it may be mentioned that reason may very well exist along with want of
understanding. This is the case when a foolish maxim is chosen, but is
followed out consistently. An example of this is afforded by the case of
the Princess Isabella, daughter of Philip II., who vowed that she would
not put on a clean chemise so long as Ostend remained unconquered, and
kept her word through three years. In general all vows are of this class,
whose origin is a want of insight as regards the law of causality, _i.e._,
want of understanding; nevertheless it is rational to fulfil them if one
is of such narrow understanding as to make them.

In agreement with what we have said, we see the writers who appeared just
before Kant place the conscience, as the seat of the moral impulses, in
opposition to the reason. Thus Rousseau, in the fourth book of “_Emile_,”
says: “_La raison nous trompe, mais la conscience ne trompe jamais_;” and
further on: “_Il est impossible d’expliquer par les conséquences de notre
nature le principe immédiat de la conscience indépendant de la raison
même_.” Still further: “_Mes sentimens naturels parlaient pour l’intérêt
commun, ma raison rapportait tout a moi.... On a beau vouloir etablir la
vertu __ par la raison seul, quelle solide base peut-on lui donner_?” In
the “_Rêveries du Promeneur_,” prom. 4 ême, he says: “_Dans toutes les
questions de morale difficiles je me suis tojours bien trouvé de les
résoudre par le dictamen de la conscience, plutôt que par les lumières de
la raison_.” Indeed Aristotle already says expressly (_Eth. Magna_, i. 5)
that the virtues have their seat in the αλογῳ μοριῳ της ψυχης (_in parte
irrationali animi_), and not in the λογον εχοντι (_in parte rationali_).
In accordance with this, Stobæus says (Ecl., ii, c.7), speaking of the
Peripatetics: “Την ηθικην αρετην ὑπολαμβανουσι περι το αλογον μερος
γιγνεσθαι της ψυχης, επειδη διμερη προς την παρουσαν θεωριαν ὑπεθεντο την
ψυχην, το μεν λογικον εχουσαν, το δ᾽ αλογον. Και περι μεν το λογικον την
καλοκαγαθιαν γιγνεσθαν, και την φρονησιν, και την αγχινοιαν, και σοφιαν,
και ευμαθειαν, και μνημην, και τας ὁμοιους; περι δε το αλογον, σωφροσυνην,
και δικαιοσυνην, και ανδρειαν, και τας αλλας τας ηθικας καλουμενας
αρετας.” (_Ethicam virtutem circa partem animæ ratione carentem versari
putant, cam duplicem, ad hanc disquisitionem, animam ponant, ratione
præditam, et ea carentem. In parte vero ratione prædita collocant
ingenuitatem, prudentiam, perspicacitatem, sapientiam, docilitatem,
memoriam et reliqua; in parte vero ratione destituta temperantiam,
justitiam, fortitadinem, et reliquas virtutes, quas ethicas vocant._) And
Cicero (_De Nat. Deor._, iii., c. 26-31) explains at length that reason is
the necessary means, the tool, of all crime.

I have explained _reason_ to be the _faculty of framing concepts_. It is
this quite special class of general non-perceptible ideas, which are
symbolised and fixed only by words, that distinguishes man from the brutes
and gives him the pre-eminence upon earth. While the brute is the slave of
the present, and knows only immediate sensible motives, and therefore when
they present themselves to it is necessarily attracted or repelled by
them, as iron is by the magnet, in man, on the contrary, deliberation has
been introduced through the gift of reason.

This enables him easily to survey as a whole his life and the course of
the world, looking before and after; it makes him independent of the
present, enables him to go to work deliberately, systematically, and with
foresight, to do evil as well as to do good. But what he does he does with
complete self-consciousness; he knows exactly how his will decides, what
in each case he chooses, and what other choice was in the nature of the
case possible; and from this self-conscious willing he comes to know
himself and mirrors himself in his actions. In all these relations to the
conduct of men reason is to be called _practical_; it is only theoretical
so far as the objects with which it is concerned have no relation to the
action of the thinker, but have purely a theoretical interest, which very
few men are capable of feeling. What in this sense is called _practical
reason_ is very nearly what is signified by the Latin word _prudentia_,
which, according to Cicero (_De Nat. Deor._ ii., 22), is a contraction of
_providentia_; while, on the other hand, _ratio_, if used of a faculty of
the mind, signifies for the most part theoretical reason proper, though
the ancients did not observe the distinction strictly. In nearly all men
reason has an almost exclusively practical tendency; but if this also is
abandoned thought loses the control of action, so that it is then said,
“_Scio meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor_,” or “_Le matin je fais des
projets, et le soir je fais des sottises_.” Thus the man does not allow
his conduct to be guided by his thought, but by the impression of the
moment, after the manner of the brute; and so he is called irrational
(without thereby imputing to him moral turpitude), although he is not
really wanting in reason, but in the power of applying it to his action;
and one might to a certain extent say his reason is theoretical and not
practical. He may at the same time be a really good man, like many a one
who can never see any one in misfortune without helping him, even making
sacrifices to do so, and yet leaves his debts unpaid. Such an irrational
character is quite incapable of committing great crimes, because the
systematic planning, the discrimination and self-control, which this
always requires are quite impossible to him. Yet, on the other hand, he
will hardly attain to a very high degree of virtue, for, however much
inclined to good he may be by nature, those single vicious and wicked
emotions to which every one is subject cannot be wanting; and where reason
does not manifest itself practically, and oppose to them unalterable
maxims and firm principles, they must become deeds.

Finally, _reason_ manifests itself very specially as _practical_ in those
exceedingly rational characters who on this account are called in ordinary
life practical philosophers, and who are distinguished by an unusual
equanimity in disagreeable as in pleasing circumstances, an equable
disposition, and a determined perseverance in resolves once made. In fact,
it is the predominance of reason in them, _i.e._, the more abstract than
intuitive knowledge, and therefore the survey of life by means of
conceptions, in general and as a whole, which has enabled them once for
all to recognise the deception of the momentary impression, the fleeting
nature of all things, the shortness of life, the emptiness of pleasures,
the fickleness of fortune, and the great and little tricks of chance.
Therefore nothing comes to them unexpectedly, and what they know in the
abstract does not surprise nor disturb them when it meets them in the
actual and in the particular case, though it does so in the case of those
less reasonable characters upon whom the present, the perceptible, the
actual, exerts such an influence that the cold, colourless conceptions are
thrown quite into the background of consciousness, and forgetting
principles and maxims, they are abandoned to emotions and passions of
every kind. I have already explained at the end of the first book that in
my opinion the ethics of Stoicism were simply a guide to a truly
reasonable life, in this sense. Such a life is also repeatedly praised by
Horace in very many passages. This is the significance of his _nil
admirari_, and also of the Delphic Μηδεν αγαν. To translate _nil admirari_
“to admire nothing” is quite wrong. This Horatian maxim does not concern
the theoretical so much as the practical, and its real meaning is: “Prize
no object unconditionally. Do not fall in love with anything; do not
believe that the possession of anything can give you happiness. Every
intense longing for an object is only a delusive chimera, which one may
just as well, and much more easily, get quit of by fuller knowledge as by
attained possession.” Cicero also uses _admirari_ in this sense (_De
Divinatione_, ii. 2). What Horace means is thus the αθαμβια and
ακαταπληξις, also αθαυμασια, which Democritus before him prized as the
highest good (see _Clem. Alex. Strom._, ii. 21, and cf. _Strabo_, i. p. 98
and 105). Such reasonableness of conduct has properly nothing to do with
virtue and vice; but this practical use of reason is what gives man his
pre-eminence over the brute, and only in this sense has it any meaning and
is it permissible to speak of a dignity of man.

In all the cases given, and indeed in all conceivable cases, the
distinction between rational and irrational action runs back to the
question whether the motives are abstract conceptions or ideas of
perception. Therefore the explanation which I have given of reason agrees
exactly with the use of language at all times and among all peoples—a
circumstance which will not be regarded as merely accidental or arbitrary,
but will be seen to arise from the distinction of which every man is
conscious, of the different faculties of the mind, in accordance with
which consciousness he speaks, though certainly he does not raise it to
the distinctness of an abstract definition. Our ancestors did not make the
words without attaching to them a definite meaning, in order, perhaps,
that they might lie ready for philosophers who might possibly come
centuries after and determine what ought to be thought in connection with
them; but they denoted by them quite definite conceptions. Thus the words
are no longer unclaimed, and to attribute to them an entirely different
sense from that which they have hitherto had means to misuse them, means
to introduce a licence in accordance with which every one might use any
word in any sense he chose, and thus endless confusion would necessarily
arise. Locke has already shown at length that most disagreements in
philosophy arise from a false use of words. For the sake of illustration
just glance for a moment at the shameful misuse which philosophers
destitute of thoughts make at the present day of the words substance,
consciousness, truth, and many others. Moreover, the utterances and
explanations concerning reason of all philosophers of all ages, with the
exception of the most modern, agree no less with my explanation of it than
the conceptions which prevail among all nations of that prerogative of
man. Observe what Plato, in the fourth book of the Republic, and in
innumerable scattered passages, calls the λογιμον, or λογιστικον της
ψυχης, what Cicero says (_De Nat. Deor._, iii. 26-31), what Leibnitz and
Locke say upon this in the passages already quoted in the first book.
There would be no end to the quotations here if one sought to show how all
philosophers before Kant have spoken of reason in general in my sense,
although they did not know how to explain its nature with complete
definiteness and distinctness by reducing it to one point. What was
understood by reason shortly before Kant’s appearance is shown in general
by two essays of Sulzer in the first volume of his miscellaneous
philosophical writings, the one entitled “Analysis of the Conception of
Reason,” the other, “On the Reciprocal Influence of Reason and Language.”
If, on the other hand, we read how reason is spoken about in the most
recent times, through the influence of the Kantian error, which after him
increased like an avalanche, we are obliged to assume that the whole of
the wise men of antiquity, and also all philosophers before Kant, had
absolutely no reason at all; for the immediate perceptions, intuitions,
apprehensions, presentiments of the reason now discovered were as utterly
unknown to them as the sixth sense of the bat is to us. And as far as I am
concerned, I must confess that I also, in my weakness, cannot comprehend
or imagine that reason which directly perceives or apprehends, or has an
intellectual intuition of the super-sensible, the absolute, together with
long yarns that accompany it, in any other way than as the sixth sense of
the bat. This, however, must be said in favour of the invention or
discovery of such a reason, which at once directly perceives whatever you
choose, that it is an incomparable expedient for withdrawing oneself from
the affair in the easiest manner in the world, along with one’s favourite
ideas, in spite of all Kants, with their Critiques of Reason. The
invention and the reception it has met with do honour to the age.

Thus, although what is essential in reason (το λογιμον, ἡ φρονησις,
_ratio_, _raison_, Vernunft) was, on the whole and in general, rightly
understood by all philosophers of all ages, though not sharply enough
defined nor reduced to one point, yet it was not so clear to them what the
understanding (νους, διανοια, _intellectus_, _esprit_, Verstand) is.
Therefore they often confuse it with reason, and just on this account they
did not attain to a thoroughly complete, pure, and simple explanation of
the nature of the latter. With the Christian philosophers the conception
of reason received an entirely extraneous, subsidiary meaning through the
opposition of it to revelation. Starting, then, from this, many are justly
of opinion that the knowledge of the duty of virtue is possible from mere
reason, _i.e._, without revelation. Indeed this aspect of the matter
certainly had influence upon Kant’s exposition and language. But this
opposition is properly of positive, historical significance, and is
therefore for philosophy a foreign element, from which it must keep itself
free.

We might have expected that in his critiques of theoretical and practical
reason Kant would have started with an exposition of the nature of reason
in general, and, after he had thus defined the _genus_, would have gone on
to the explanation of the two _species_, showing how one and the same
reason manifests itself in two such different ways, and yet, by retaining
its principal characteristic, proves itself to be the same. But we find
nothing of all this. I have already shown how inadequate, vacillating, and
inconsistent are the explanations of the faculty he is criticising, which
he gives here and there by the way in the “Critique of Pure Reason.” The
_practical_ reason appears in the “Critique of Pure Reason” without any
introduction, and afterwards stands in the “Critique” specially devoted to
itself as something already established. No further account of it is
given, and the use of language of all times and peoples, which is treated
with contempt, and the definitions of the conception given by the greatest
of earlier philosophers, dare not lift up their voices. In general, we may
conclude from particular passages that Kant’s opinion amounts to this: the
knowledge of principles _a priori_ is the essential characteristic of
reason: since now the knowledge of the ethical significance of action is
not of empirical origin, it also is an _a priori_ principle, and
accordingly proceeds from the reason, and therefore thus far the reason is
_practical_. I have already spoken enough of the incorrectness of this
explanation of reason. But, independently of this, how superficial it is,
and what a want of thoroughness it shows, to make use here of the single
quality of being independent of experience in order to combine the most
heterogeneous things, while overlooking their most essential and
immeasurable difference in other respects. For, even assuming, though we
do not admit it, that the knowledge of the ethical significance of action
springs from an imperative lying in us, an unconditioned _ought_, yet how
fundamentally different would such an imperative be from those universal
_forms of knowledge_ of which, in the “Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant
proves that we are conscious _a priori_, and by virtue of which
consciousness we can assert beforehand an unconditioned _must_, valid for
all experience possible for us. But the difference between this _must_,
this necessary form of all objects which is already determined in the
subject, and that _ought_ of morality is so infinitely great and palpable
that the mere fact that they agree in the one particular that neither of
them is empirically known may indeed be made use of for the purpose of a
witty comparison, but not as a philosophical justification for regarding
their origin as the same.

Moreover, the birthplace of this child of practical reason, the _absolute
ought_ or the categorical imperative, is not in the “Critique of Practical
Reason,” but in that of “Pure Reason,” p. 802; V. 830. The birth is
violent, and is only accomplished by means of the forceps of a
_therefore_, which stands boldly and audaciously, indeed one might say
shamelessly, between two propositions which are utterly foreign to each
other and have no connection, in order to combine them as reason and
consequent. Thus, that not merely perceptible but also abstract motives
determine us, is the proposition from which Kant starts, expressing it in
the following manner: “Not merely what excites, _i.e._, what affects the
senses directly, determines human will, but we have a power of overcoming
the impressions made upon our sensuous appetitive faculty through ideas of
that which is itself in a more remote manner useful or hurtful. These
deliberations as to what is worthy of desire, with reference to our whole
condition, _i.e._, as to what is good and useful, rest upon reason.”
(Perfectly right; would that he only always spoke so rationally of
reason!) “Reason _therefore_ gives! also laws, which are imperatives,
_i.e._, objective laws of freedom, and say what ought to take place,
though perhaps it never does take place”! Thus, without further
authentication, the categorical imperative comes into the world, in order
to rule there with its unconditioned _ought_—a sceptre of wooden iron. For
in the conception “_ought_” there lies always and essentially the
reference to threatened punishment, or promised reward, as a necessary
condition, and cannot be separated from it without abolishing the
conception itself and taking all meaning from it. Therefore an
_unconditioned ought_ is a _contradictio in adjecto_. It was necessary to
censure this mistake, closely as it is otherwise connected with Kant’s
great service to ethics, which consists in this, that he has freed ethics
from all principles of the world of experience, that is, from all direct
or indirect doctrines of happiness, and has shown in a quite special
manner that the kingdom of virtue is not of this world. This service is
all the greater because all ancient philosophers, with the single
exception of Plato, thus the Peripatetics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans,
sought by very different devices either to make virtue and happiness
dependent on each other in accordance with the principle of sufficient
reason, or to identify them in accordance with the principle of
contradiction. This charge applies with equal force to all modern
philosophers down to Kant. His merit in this respect is therefore very
great; yet justice demands that we should also remember here first that
his exposition and elaboration often does not correspond with the tendency
and spirit of his ethics, and secondly that, even so, he is not really the
first who separated virtue from all principles of happiness. For Plato,
especially in the “Republic,” the principal tendency of which is just
this, expressly teaches that virtue is to be chosen for itself alone, even
if unhappiness and ignominy are inevitably connected with it. Still more,
however, Christianity preaches a perfectly unselfish virtue, which is
practised not on account of the reward in a life after death, but quite
disinterestedly from love to God, for works do not justify, but only
faith, which accompanies virtue, so to speak, as its symptom, and
therefore appears quite irrespective of reward and of its own accord. See
Luther’s “_De Libertate Christiana_.” I will not take into account at all
the Indians, in whose sacred books the hope of a reward for our works is
everywhere described as the way of darkness, which can never lead to
blessedness. Kant’s doctrine of virtue, however, we do not find so pure;
or rather the exposition remains far behind the spirit of it, and indeed
falls into inconsistency. In his _highest good_, which he afterwards
discussed, we find virtue united to happiness. The ought originally so
unconditioned does yet afterwards postulate one condition, in order to
escape from the inner contradiction with which it is affected and with
which it cannot live. Happiness in the highest good is not indeed really
meant to be the motive for virtue; yet there it is, like a secret article,
the existence of which reduces all the rest to a mere sham contract. It is
not really the reward of virtue, but yet it is a voluntary gift for which
virtue, after work accomplished, stealthily opens the hand. One may
convince oneself of this from the “Critique of Practical Reason” (p.
223-266 of the fourth, or p. 264-295 of Rosenkranz’s, edition). The whole
of Kant’s moral theology has also the same tendency, and just on this
account morality really destroys itself through moral theology. For I
repeat that all virtue which in any way is practised for the sake of a
reward is based upon a prudent, methodical, far-seeing egoism.

The content of the absolute ought, the fundamental principle of the
practical reason, is the famous: “So act that the maxim of your will might
always be also valid as the principle of a universal legislation.” This
principle presents to him who desires a rule for his own will the task of
seeking such a rule for the wills of all. Then the question arises how
such a rule is to be found. Clearly, in order to discover the rule of my
conduct, I ought not to have regard to myself alone, but to the sum of all
individuals. Then, instead of my own well-being, the well-being of all
without distinction becomes my aim. Yet the aim still always remains
well-being. I find, then, that all can be equally well off only if each
limits his own egoism by that of others. From this it certainly follows
that I must injure no one, because, since this principle is assumed to be
universal, I also will not be injured. This, however, is the sole ground
on account of which I, who do not yet possess a moral principle, but am
only seeking one, can wish this to be a universal law. But clearly in this
way the desire of well-being, _i.e._, egoism, remains the source of this
ethical principle. As the basis of politics it would be excellent, as the
basis of ethics it is worthless. For he who seeks to establish a rule for
the wills of all, as is demanded by that moral principle, necessarily
stands in need of a rule himself; otherwise everything would be alike to
him. But this rule can only be his own egoism, since it is only this that
is affected by the conduct of others; and therefore it is only by means of
this egoism, and with reference to it, that each one can have a will
concerning the conduct of others, and that it is not a matter of
indifference to him. Kant himself very naively intimates this (p. 123 of
the “Critique of Practical Reason;” Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 192), where
he thus prosecutes the search for maxims for the will: “If every one
regarded the need of others with complete indifference, _and thou also
didst belong_ to such an order of things, wouldst thou consent thereto?”
_Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam!_ would be the rule of the
consent inquired after. So also in the “Fundamental Principles of the
Metaphysic of Morals” (p. 56 of the third, and p. 50 of Rosenkranz’s,
edition): “A will which resolved to assist no one in distress would
contradict itself, for cases might arise in which _it required the love
and sympathy of others_,” &c. &c. This principle of ethics, which when
light is thrown upon it is therefore nothing else than an indirect and
disguised expression of the old, simple principle, “_Quod tibi fieri non
vis, alteri ne feceris_,” is related first and directly to passivity,
suffering, and then only by means of this to action. Therefore, as we have
said, it would be thoroughly serviceable as a guide for the constitution
of the State, which aims at the prevention of _the suffering of wrong_,
and also desires to procure for all and each the greatest sum of
well-being. But in ethics, where the object of investigation is _action_
as _action_, and in its direct significance for the _actor_—not its
consequences, suffering, or its relation to others—in this reference, I
say, it is altogether inadmissible, because at bottom it really amounts to
a principle of happiness, thus to egoism.

We cannot, therefore, share Kant’s satisfaction that his principle of
ethics is not a material one, _i.e._, one which sets up an object as a
motive, but merely formal, whereby it corresponds symmetrically to the
formal laws with which the “Critique of Pure Reason” has made us familiar.
Certainly it is, instead of a law, merely a formula for finding such a
law. But, in the first place, we had this formula already more briefly and
clearly in the “_Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris_;” and,
secondly, the analysis of this formula shows that it is simply and solely
the reference to one’s own happiness that gives it content, and therefore
it can only be serviceable to a rational egoism, to which also every legal
constitution owes its origin.

Another mistake which, because it offends the feelings of every one, has
often been condemned, and was satirised by Schiller in an epigram, is the
pedantic rule that for an act to be really good and meritorious it must be
done simply and solely out of respect for the known law and the conception
of duty, and in accordance with a maxim known to the reason _in
abstracto_, and not from any inclination, not from benevolence felt
towards others, not from tender-hearted compassion, sympathy, or emotion
of the heart, which (according to the “Critique of Practical Reason,” p.
213; Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 257) to right-thinking persons are indeed
very burdensome, as confusing their deliberate maxims. The act must be
performed unwillingly and with self-compulsion. Remember that nevertheless
the hope of reward is not allowed to enter, and estimate the great
absurdity of the demand. But, what is saying more, this is directly
opposed to the true spirit of virtue; not the act, but the willingness to
do it, the love from which it proceeds, and without which it is a dead
work, constitutes its merit. Therefore Christianity rightly teaches that
all outward works are worthless if they do not proceed from that genuine
disposition which consists in true goodwill and pure love, and that what
makes blessed and saves is not the works done (_opera operata_), but the
faith, the genuine disposition, which is the gift of the Holy Ghost alone,
and which the free, deliberative will, having only the law in view, does
not produce. This demand of Kant’s, that all virtuous conduct shall
proceed from pure, deliberate respect for the law and in accordance with
its abstract maxims, coldly and without inclination, nay, opposed to all
inclination, is just the same thing as if he asserted that every work of
art must be accomplished by a well-considered application of æsthetical
rules. The one is just as perverse as the other. The question, already
handled by Plato and Seneca, whether virtue can be taught, is to be
answered in the negative. We must finally make up our minds to see, what
indeed was the source of the Christian doctrine of election by grace, that
as regards its chief characteristic and its inner nature, virtue, like
genius, is to a certain extent inborn; and that just as little as all the
professors of æsthetics could impart to any one the power of producing
works of genius, _i.e._, genuine works of art, so little could all the
professors of ethics and preachers of virtue transform an ignoble into a
virtuous and noble character, the impossibility of which is very much more
apparent than that of turning lead into gold. The search for a system of
ethics and a first principle of the same, which would have practical
influence and would actually transform and better the human race, is just
like the search for the philosopher’s stone. Yet I have spoken at length
at the end of the fourth book of the possibility of an entire change of
mind or conversion of man (new birth), not by means of abstract (ethics)
but of intuitive knowledge (the work of grace). The contents of that book
relieve me generally of the necessity of dwelling longer upon this point.

That Kant by no means penetrated to the real significance of the ethical
content of actions is shown finally by his doctrine of the highest good as
the necessary combination of virtue and happiness, a combination indeed in
which virtue would be that which merits happiness. He is here involved in
the logical fallacy that the conception of merit, which is here the
measure or test, already presupposes a theory of ethics as its own
measure, and thus could not be deducible from it. It appeared in our
fourth book that all genuine virtue, after it has attained to its highest
grade, at last leads to a complete renunciation in which all willing finds
an end. Happiness, on the other hand, is a satisfied wish; thus the two
are essentially incapable of being combined. He who has been enlightened
by my exposition requires no further explanation of the complete
perverseness of this Kantian view of the highest good. And, independent of
my positive exposition, I have no further negative exposition to give.

Kant’s love of architectonic symmetry meets us also in the “Critique of
Practical Reason,” for he has given it the shape of the “Critique of Pure
Reason,” and has again introduced the same titles and forms with manifest
intention, which becomes specially apparent in the table of the categories
of freedom.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The “Philosophy of Law” is one of Kant’s latest works, and is so poor
that, although I entirely disagree with it, I think a polemic against it
is superfluous, since of its own weakness it must die a natural death,
just as if it were not the work of this great man, but the production of
an ordinary mortal. Therefore, as regards the “Philosophy of Law,” I give
up the negative mode of procedure and refer to the positive, that is, to
the short outline of it given in the fourth book. Just one or two general
remarks on Kant’s “Philosophy of Law” may be made here. The errors which I
have condemned in considering the “Critique of Pure Reason,” as clinging
to Kant throughout, appear in the “Philosophy of Law” in such excess that
one often believes he is reading a satirical parody of the Kantian style,
or at least that he is listening to a Kantian. Two principal errors,
however, are these. He desires (and many have since then desired) to
separate the Philosophy of Law sharply from ethics, and yet not to make
the former dependent upon positive legislation, _i.e._, upon arbitrary
sanction, but to let the conception of law exist for itself pure and _a
priori_. But this is not possible; because conduct, apart from its ethical
significance, and apart from the physical relation to others, and thereby
from external sanction, does not admit even of the possibility of any
third view. Consequently, when he says, “Legal obligation is that which
_can_ be enforced,” this _can_ is either to be understood physically, and
then all law is positive and arbitrary, and again all arbitrariness that
achieves its end is law; or the _can_ is to be understood ethically, and
we are again in the province of ethics. With Kant the conception of legal
right hovers between heaven and earth, and has no ground on which to
stand; with me it belongs to ethics. Secondly, his definition of the
conception law is entirely negative, and thereby inadequate.(11) Legal
right is that which is consistent with the compatibility of the respective
freedom of individuals together, according to a general law. Freedom (here
the empirical, _i.e._, physical, not the moral freedom of the will)
signifies not being hindered or interfered with, and is thus a mere
negation; compatibility, again, has exactly the same significance. Thus we
remain with mere negations and obtain no positive conception, indeed do
not learn at all, what is really being spoken about, unless we know it
already from some other source. In the course of the exposition the most
perverse views afterwards develop themselves, such as that in the state of
nature, _i.e._, outside the State, there is no right to property at all,
which really means that all right or law is positive, and involves that
natural law is based upon positive law, instead of which the case ought to
be reversed. Further, the founding of legal acquisition on possession; the
ethical obligation to establish the civil constitution; the ground of the
right of punishment, &c., &c., all of which, as I have said, I do not
regard as worth a special refutation. However, these Kantian errors have
exercised a very injurious influence. They have confused and obscured
truths long known and expressed, and have occasioned strange theories and
much writing and controversy. This certainly cannot last, and we see
already how truth and sound reason again make way for themselves. Of the
latter, the “_Naturrecht_” of J. C. F. Meister specially bears evidence,
and is thus a contrast to many a preposterous theory, though I do not
regard it as on this account a pattern of perfection.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

On the “Critique of Judgment” also, after what has been said, I must be
very short. We cannot but be surprised that Kant, to whom art certainly
was very foreign, and who to all appearance had little susceptibility for
the beautiful, indeed probably never had the opportunity of seeing an
important work of art, and who seems, finally, to have had no knowledge of
Goethe, the only man of his century and nation who was fit to be placed by
his side as his giant equal,—it is, I say, surprising how, notwithstanding
all this, Kant was able to render a great and permanent service to the
philosophical consideration of art and the beautiful. His merit lies in
this, that much as men had reflected upon the beautiful and upon art, they
had yet really always considered it only from the empirical point of view,
and had investigated upon a basis of facts what quality distinguished the
object of any kind which was called beautiful from other objects of the
same kind. On this path they first arrived at quite special principles,
and then at more general ones. They sought to separate true artistic
beauty from false, and to discover marks of this genuineness, which could
then serve again as rules. What gives pleasure as beautiful and what does
not, what therefore is to be imitated, what is to be striven against, what
is to be avoided, what rules, at least negative rules, are to be
established, in short, what are the means of exciting æsthetic
satisfaction, _i.e._, what are the conditions of this residing in the
object—this was almost exclusively the theme of all treatises upon art.
This path was followed by Aristotle, and in the most recent times we find
it chosen by Home, Burke, Winckelmann, Lessing, Herder, and many others.
It is true that the universality of the æsthetical principles discovered
finally led back to the subject, and it was observed that if the effect
upon the subject were adequately known we would then also be able to
determine _a priori_ the causes of this which lie in the object, and thus
alone this method of treatment could attain to the certainty of a science.
This occasioned once and again psychological disquisitions. Specially
however, Alexander Baumgarten produced with this intention a general
æsthetic of all beauty, in which he started from the conception of the
perfection of sensuous knowledge, that is, of knowledge of perception.
With him also, however, the subjective part is done with as soon as this
conception has been established, and he passes on to the objective part
and to the practical, which is connected with it. But here also the merit
was reserved for Kant of investigating seriously and profoundly _the
feeling itself_, in consequence of which we call the object occasioning it
beautiful, in order to discover, wherever it was possible, the constituent
elements and conditions of it in our nature. His investigation, therefore,
took an entirely subjective direction. This path was clearly the right
one, for in order to explain a phenomenon which is given in its effects,
one must know accurately this effect itself, if one is to determine
thoroughly the nature of the cause. Yet Kant’s merit in this regard does
not really extend much further than this, that he has indicated the right
path, and by a provisional attempt has given an example of how, more or
less, it is to be followed. For what he gave cannot be regarded as
objective truth and as a real gain. He gave the method for this
investigation, he broke ground in the right direction, but otherwise he
missed the mark.

In the “Critique of Æsthetical Judgment” the observation first of all
forces itself upon us that Kant retains the method which is peculiar to
his whole philosophy, and which I have considered at length above—I mean
the method of starting from abstract knowledge in order to establish
knowledge of perception, so that the former serves him, so to speak, as a
_camera obscura_ in which to receive and survey the latter. As in the
“Critique of Pure Reason” the forms of judgment are supposed to unfold to
him the knowledge of our whole world of perception, so in this “Critique
of Æsthetical Judgment” he does not start from the beautiful itself, from
the perceptible and immediately beautiful, but from the _judgment_ of the
beautiful, the so-called, and very badly so-called, judgment of taste.
This is his problem. His attention is especially aroused by the
circumstance that such a judgment is clearly the expression of something
that takes place in the subject, but yet is just as universally valid as
if it concerned a quality of the object. It is this that struck him, not
the beautiful itself. He starts always merely from the assertions of
others, from the judgment of the beautiful, not from the beautiful itself.
It is therefore as if he knew it simply from hearsay, not directly. A
blind man of high understanding could almost in the same way make up a
theory of colours from very accurate reports which he had heard concerning
them. And really we can only venture to regard Kant’s philosophemes
concerning the beautiful as in almost the same position. Then we shall
find that his theory is very ingenious indeed, that here and there telling
and true observations are made; but his real solution of the problem is so
very insufficient, remains so far below the dignity of the subject, that
it can never occur to us to accept it as objective truth. Therefore I
consider myself relieved from the necessity of refuting it; and here also
I refer to the positive part of my work.

With regard to the form of his whole book, it is to be observed that it
originated in the idea of finding in the teleological conception the key
to the problem of the beautiful. This inspiration is deduced, which is
always a matter of no difficulty, as we have learnt from Kant’s
successors. Thus there now arises the strange combination of the knowledge
of the beautiful with that of the teleology of natural bodies in _one_
faculty of knowledge called _judgment_, and the treatment of these two
heterogeneous subjects in one book. With these three powers of knowledge,
reason, judgment, and understanding, a variety of
symmetrical-architectonic amusements are afterwards undertaken, the
general inclination to which shows itself in many ways in this book; for
example, in the forcible adaptation of the whole of it to the pattern of
the “Critique of Pure Reason,” and very specially in the antinomy of the
æsthetical judgment, which is dragged in by the hair. One might also
extract a charge of great inconsistency from the fact that after it has
been incessantly repeated in the “Critique of Pure Reason” that the
understanding is the faculty of judgment, and after the forms of its
judgment have been made the foundation-stone of all philosophy, a quite
special faculty of judgment now appears, which is completely different
from the former. For the rest, what I call the faculty of judgment, the
capacity for translating knowledge of perception into abstract knowledge,
and again of applying the latter correctly to the former, is explained in
the positive part of my work.

By far the best part of the “Critique of Æsthetical Judgment” is the
theory of the sublime. It is incomparably more successful than that of the
beautiful, and does not only give, as that does, the general method of
investigation, but also a part of the right way to it—so much so that even
though it does not give the real solution of the problem, it yet touches
very closely upon it.

In the “Critique of the Teleological Judgment,” on account of the
simplicity of the matter, we can recognise perhaps more than anywhere else
Kant’s rare talent of turning a thought this way and that way, and
expressing it in a multitude of different ways, until out of it there
grows a book. The whole book is intended to say this alone: although
organised bodies necessarily appear to us as if they were constructed in
accordance with a conceived design of an end which preceded them, yet we
are not justified in assuming that this is objectively the case. For our
intellect, to which things are given from without and indirectly, which
thus never knows their inner nature through which they arise and exist,
but merely their outward side, cannot otherwise comprehend a certain
quality peculiar to organised productions of nature than by analogy, for
it compares it with the intentionally accomplished works of man, the
nature of which is determined by a design and the conception of this
design. This analogy is sufficient to enable us to comprehend the
agreement of all the parts with the whole, and thus indeed to give us the
clue to their investigation; but it must by no means on this account be
made the actual ground of explanation of the origin and existence of such
bodies. For the necessity of so conceiving them is of subjective origin.
Somewhat in this way I would epitomise Kant’s doctrine on this question.
In its most important aspect he had expounded it already in the “Critique
of Pure Reason,” p. 692-702; V., 720-730. But in the knowledge of _this_
truth also we find David Hume to be Kant’s worthy forerunner. He also had
keenly controverted that assumption in the second part of his “Dialogues
concerning Natural Religion.” The difference between Hume’s criticism of
that assumption and Kant’s is principally this, that Hume criticised it as
an assumption based upon experience, while Kant, on the other hand,
criticised it as an _a priori_ assumption. Both are right, and their
expositions supplement each other. Indeed what is really essential in the
Kantian doctrine on this point we find already expressed in the commentary
of Simplicius on Aristotle’s Physics: “ἡ δε πλανη γεγονεν αυτοις απο του
ἡγεισθαι, παντα τα ἑνεκα του γινομενα κατα προαιρεσιν γενεσθαι και
λογισμον, τα δε φυσει μη ὁυτως ὁραν γινομενα.” (_Error iis ortus est ex
eo, quod credebant, omnia, quæ propter finem aliquem fierent, ex proposito
et ratiocinio fieri, dum videbant, naturæ opera non ita fieri._) _Schol.
in Arist., ex edit. Berol._, p. 354. Kant is perfectly right in the
matter; and it was necessary that after it had been shown that the
conception of cause and effect is inapplicable to the whole of nature in
general, in respect of its existence, it should also be shown that in
respect of its qualities it is not to be thought of as the effect of a
cause guided by motives (designs). If we consider the great plausibility
of the physico-theological proof, which even Voltaire held to be
irrefragable, it was clearly of the greatest importance to show that what
is subjective in our comprehension, to which Kant had relegated space,
time, and causality, extends also to our judgment of natural bodies; and
accordingly the compulsion which we feel to think of them as having arisen
as the result of premeditation, according to designs, thus in such a way
that _the idea of them preceded their existence_, is just as much of
subjective origin as the perception of space, which presents itself so
objectively, and that therefore it must not be set up as objective truth.
Kant’s exposition of the matter, apart from its tedious prolixity and
repetitions, is excellent. He rightly asserts that we can never succeed in
explaining the nature of organised bodies from merely mechanical causes,
by which he understands the undesigned and regular effect of all the
universal forces of nature. Yet I find here another flaw. He denies the
possibility of such an explanation merely with regard to the teleology and
apparent adaptation of _organised_ bodies. But we find that even where
there is no organisation the grounds of explanation which apply to _one_
province of nature cannot be transferred to another, but forsake us as
soon as we enter a new province, and new fundamental laws appear instead
of them, the explanation of which is by no means to be expected from the
laws of the former province. Thus in the province of the mechanical,
properly so called, the laws of gravitation, cohesion, rigidity, fluidity,
and elasticity prevail, which in themselves (apart from my explanation of
all natural forces as lower grades of the objectification of will) exist
as manifestations of forces which cannot be further explained, but
themselves constitute the principles of all further explanation, which
merely consists in reduction to them. If we leave this province and come
to the phenomena of chemistry, of electricity, magnetism, crystallisation,
the former principles are absolutely of no use, indeed the former laws are
no longer valid, the former forces are overcome by others, and the
phenomena take place in direct contradiction to them, according to new
laws, which, just like the former ones, are original and inexplicable,
_i.e._, cannot be reduced to more general ones. Thus, for example, no one
will ever succeed in explaining even the dissolving of a salt in water in
accordance with the laws proper to mechanics, much less the more
complicated phenomena of chemistry. All this has already been explained at
length in the second book of the present work. An exposition of this kind
would, as it seems to me, have been of great use in the “Critique of the
Teleological Judgment,” and would have thrown much light upon what is said
there. Such an exposition would have been especially favourable to his
excellent remark that a more profound knowledge of the real being, of
which the things of nature are the manifestation, would recognise both in
the mechanical (according to law) and the apparently intentional effects
of nature one and the same ultimate principle, which might serve as the
more general ground of explanation of them both. Such a principle I hope I
have given by establishing the will as the real thing in itself; and in
accordance with it generally in the second book and the supplements to it,
but especially in my work “On the Will in Nature,” the insight into the
inner nature of the apparent design and of the harmony and agreement of
the whole of nature has perhaps become clearer and deeper. Therefore I
have nothing more to say about it here.

The reader whom this criticism of the Kantian philosophy interests should
not neglect to read the supplement to it which is given in the second
essay of the first volume of my “Parerga and Paralipomena,” under the
title “_Noch einige Erläuterungen zur Kantischen Philosophie_” (Some
Further Explanations of the Kantian Philosophy). For it must be borne in
mind that my writings, few as they are, were not composed all at once, but
successively, in the course of a long life, and with long intervals
between them. Accordingly, it must not be expected that all I have said
upon one subject should stand together in one place.





SUPPLEMENTS TO THE FIRST BOOK.


    “ ‘Warum willst du dich von uns Allen
    Und unsrer Meinung entfernen?’
    Ich schreibe nicht euch zu gefallen,
    Ihr sollt was lernen.”

    —GOETHE.




First Half. The Doctrine Of The Idea Of Perception. (To § 1-7 of the First
Volume.)



Chapter I. The Standpoint of Idealism.


In boundless space countless shining spheres, about each of which, and
illuminated by its light, there revolve a dozen or so of smaller ones, hot
at the core and covered with a hard, cold crust, upon whose surface there
have been generated from a mouldy film beings which live and know—this is
what presents itself to us in experience as the truth, the real, the
world. Yet for a thinking being it is a precarious position to stand upon
one of those numberless spheres moving freely in boundless space without
knowing whence or whither, and to be only one of innumerable similar
beings who throng and press and toil, ceaselessly and quickly arising and
passing away in time, which has no beginning and no end; moreover, nothing
permanent but matter alone and the recurrence of the same varied organised
forms, by means of certain ways and channels which are there once for all.
All that empirical science can teach is only the more exact nature and law
of these events. But now at last modern philosophy especially through
Berkeley and Kant, has called to mind that all this is first of all merely
a _phenomenon of the brain_, and is affected with such great, so many, and
such different _subjective_ conditions that its supposed absolute reality
vanishes away, and leaves room for an entirely different scheme of the
world, which consists of what lies at the foundation of that phenomenon,
_i.e._, what is related to it as the thing in itself is related to its
mere manifestation.

“The world is my idea” is, like the axioms of Euclid, a proposition which
every one must recognise as true as soon as he understands it; although it
is not a proposition which every one understands as soon as he hears it.
To have brought this proposition to clear consciousness, and in it the
problem of the relation of the ideal and the real, _i.e._, of the world in
the head to the world outside the head, together with the problem of moral
freedom, is the distinctive feature of modern philosophy. For it was only
after men had spent their labour for thousands of years upon a mere
philosophy of the object that they discovered that among the many things
that make the world so obscure and doubtful the first and chiefest is
this, that however immeasurable and massive it may be, its existence yet
hangs by a single thread; and this is the actual consciousness in which it
exists. This condition, to which the existence of the world is irrevocably
subject, marks it, in spite of all _empirical_ reality, with the stamp of
_ideality_, and therefore of mere _phenomenal appearance_. Thus on one
side at least the world must be recognised as akin to dreams, and indeed
to be classified along with them. For the same function of the brain
which, during sleep, conjures up before us a completely objective,
perceptible, and even palpable world must have just as large a share in
the presentation of the objective world of waking life. Both worlds,
although different as regards their matter, are yet clearly moulded in the
one form. This form is the intellect, the function of the brain. Descartes
was probably the first who attained to the degree of reflection which this
fundamental truth demands, and consequently he made it the starting-point
of his philosophy, though provisionally only in the form of a sceptical
doubt. When he took his _cogito ergo sum_ as alone certain, and
provisionally regarded the existence of the world as problematical, he
really discovered the essential and only right starting-point of all
philosophy, and at the same time its _true_ foundation. This foundation is
essentially and inevitably the _subjective_, the _individual
consciousness_. For this alone is and remains immediate; everything else,
whatever it may be, is mediated and conditioned through it, and is
therefore dependent upon it. Therefore modern philosophy is rightly
regarded as starting with Descartes, who was the father of it. Not long
afterwards Berkeley followed the same path further, and attained to
_idealism_ proper, _i.e._, to the knowledge that the world which is
extended in space, thus the objective, material world in general, exists
as such simply and solely in our _idea_, and that it is false, and indeed
absurd, to attribute to it, _as such_, an existence apart from all idea
and independent of the knowing subject, thus to assume matter as something
absolute and possessed of real being in itself. But his correct and
profound insight into this truth really constitutes Berkeley’s whole
philosophy; in it he had exhausted himself.

Thus true philosophy must always be idealistic; indeed, it must be so in
order to be merely honest. For nothing is more certain than that no man
ever came out of himself in order to identify himself directly with things
which are different from him; but everything of which he has certain, and
therefore immediate, knowledge lies within his own consciousness. Beyond
this consciousness, therefore, there can be no _immediate_ certainty; but
the first principles of a science must have such certainty. For the
empirical standpoint of the other sciences it is quite right to assume the
objective world as something absolutely given; but not so for the
standpoint of philosophy, which has to go back to what is first and
original. Only consciousness is immediately given; therefore the basis of
philosophy is limited to facts of consciousness, _i.e._, it is essentially
_idealistic_. Realism which commends itself to the crude understanding, by
the appearance which it assumes of being matter-of-fact, really starts
from an arbitrary assumption, and is therefore an empty castle in the air,
for it ignores or denies the first of all facts, that all that we know
lies within consciousness. For that the _objective existence_ of things is
conditioned through a subject whose ideas they are, and consequently that
the objective world exists only as _idea_, is no hypothesis, and still
less a dogma, or even a paradox set up for the sake of discussion; but it
is the most certain and the simplest truth; and the knowledge of it is
only made difficult by the fact that it is indeed so simple, and that it
is not every one who has sufficient power of reflection to go back to the
first elements of his consciousness of things. There can never be an
absolute and independent objective existence; indeed such an existence is
quite unintelligible. For the objective, as such, always and essentially
has its existence in the consciousness of a subject, is thus the idea of
this subject, and consequently is conditioned by it, and also by its
forms, the forms of the idea, which depend upon the subject and not on the
object.

That _the objective world would exist_ even if there existed no conscious
being certainly seems at the first blush to be unquestionable, because it
can be thought in the abstract, without bringing to light the
contradiction which it carries within it. But if we desire to _realise_
this abstract thought, that is, to reduce it to ideas of perception, from
which alone (like everything abstract) it can have content and truth, and
if accordingly we try _to imagine an objective world without a knowing
subject_, we become aware that what we then imagine is in truth the
opposite of what we intended, is in fact nothing else than the process in
the intellect of a knowing subject who perceives an objective world, is
thus exactly what we desired to exclude. For this perceptible and real
world is clearly a phenomenon of the brain; therefore there lies a
contradiction in the assumption that as such it ought also to exist
independently of all brains.

The principal objection to the inevitable and essential _ideality of all
objects_, the objection which, distinctly or indistinctly, arises in every
one, is certainly this: My own person also is an object for some one else,
is thus his idea, and yet I know certainly that I would continue to exist
even if he no longer perceived me. But all other objects also stand in the
same relation to his intellect as I do; consequently they also would
continue to exist without being perceived by him. The answer to this is:
That other being as whose object I now regard my person is not absolutely
_the subject_, but primarily is a knowing individual. Therefore, if he no
longer existed, nay, even if there existed no other conscious being except
myself, yet the subject, in whose idea alone all objects exist, would by
no means be on that account abolished. For I myself indeed am this
subject, as every conscious being is. Consequently, in the case assumed,
my person would certainly continue to exist, but still as idea, in my own
knowledge. For even by me myself it is always known only indirectly, never
immediately; because all existence as idea is indirect. As _object_,
_i.e._, as extended, occupying space and acting, I know my body only in
the perception of my brain. This takes place by means of the senses, upon
data supplied by which the percipient understanding performs its function
of passing from effect to cause, and thereby, in that the eye sees the
body or the hands touch it, it constructs that extended figure which
presents itself in space as my body. By no means, however, is there
directly given me, either in some general feeling of bodily existence or
in inner self-consciousness, any extension, form, or activity, which would
then coincide with my nature itself, which accordingly, in order so to
exist, would require no other being in whose knowledge it might exhibit
itself. On the contrary, that general feeling of bodily existence, and
also self-consciousness, exists directly only in relation to the _will_,
that is, as agreeable or disagreeable, and as active in the acts of will,
which for external perception exhibit themselves as actions of the body.
From this it follows that the existence of my person or body as _something
extended and acting_ always presupposes a _knowing being_ distinct from
it; because it is essentially an existence in apprehension, in the idea,
thus an existence _for another_. In fact, it is a phenomenon of brain,
just as much whether the brain in which it exhibits itself is my own or
belongs to another person. In the first case one’s own person divides
itself into the knowing and the known, into object and subject, which here
as everywhere stand opposed to each other, inseparable and irreconcilable.
If, then, my own person, in order to exist as such, always requires a
knowing subject, this will at least as much hold good of the other objects
for which it was the aim of the above objection to vindicate an existence
independent of knowledge and its subject.

However, it is evident that the existence which is conditioned through a
knowing subject is only the existence in space, and therefore that of an
extended and active being. This alone is always something known, and
consequently _an existence for another_. On the other hand, every being
that exists in this way may yet have _an existence for itself_, for which
it requires no subject. Yet this existence for itself cannot be extension
and activity (together space-occupation), but is necessarily a being of
another kind, that of a thing in itself, which, as such, can never be an
_object_. This, then, would be the answer to the leading objection set
forth above, which accordingly does not overthrow the fundamental truth
that the objectively given world can only exist in the idea, thus only for
a subject.

We have further to remark here that Kant also, so long at least as he
remained consistent, can have thought no _objects_ among his things in
themselves. For this follows from the fact that he proves that space, and
also time, are mere forms of our perception, which consequently do not
belong to things in themselves. What is neither in space nor in time can
be no _object_; thus the being of _things in themselves_ cannot be
objective, but of quite a different kind, a metaphysical being.
Consequently that Kantian principle already involves this principle also,
that the _objective_ world exists only as _idea_.

In spite of all that one may say, nothing is so persistently and ever anew
misunderstood as _Idealism_, because it is interpreted as meaning that one
denies the _empirical_ reality of the external world. Upon this rests the
perpetual return to the appeal to common sense, which appears in many
forms and guises; for example, as an “irresistible conviction” in the
Scotch school, or as Jacobi’s _faith_ in the reality of the external
world. The external world by no means presents itself, as Jacobi declares,
upon credit, and is accepted by us upon trust and faith. It presents
itself as that which it is, and performs directly what it promises. It
must be remembered that Jacobi, who set up such a credit or faith theory
of the world, and had the fortune to impose it upon a few professors of
philosophy, who for thirty years have philosophised upon the same lines
lengthily and at their ease, is the same man who once denounced Lessing as
a Spinozist, and afterwards denounced Schelling as an atheist, and who
received from the latter the well-known and well-deserved castigation. In
keeping with such zeal, when he reduced the external world to a mere
matter of faith he only wished to open the door to faith in general, and
to prepare belief for that which was afterwards really to be made a matter
of belief; as if, in order to introduce a paper currency, one should seek
to appeal to the fact that the value of the ringing coin also depends
merely on the stamp which the State has set upon it. Jacobi, in his
doctrine that the reality of the external world is assumed upon faith, is
just exactly “the transcendental realist who plays the empirical idealist”
censured by Kant in the “Critique of Pure Reason,” first edition, p. 369.

The true idealism, on the contrary, is not the empirical but the
transcendental. This leaves the empirical reality of the world untouched,
but holds fast to the fact that every _object_, thus the empirically real
in general, is conditioned in a twofold manner by the subject; in the
first place _materially_ or as _object_ generally, because an objective
existence is only conceivable as opposed to a subject, and as its idea; in
the second place _formally_, because the mode of existence of an object,
_i.e._, its being perceived (space, time, causality), proceeds from the
subject, is pre-arranged in the subject. Therefore with the simple or
Berkeleian idealism, which concerns the object in general, there stands in
immediate connection the Kantian idealism, which concerns the specially
given _mode or manner_ of objective existence. This proves that the whole
material world, with its bodies, which are extended in space and, by means
of time, have causal relations to each other, and everything that depends
upon this—that all this is not something which is there _independently_ of
our head, but essentially presupposes the functions of our brain _by means
of which_ and _in_ which alone _such_ an objective arrangement of things
is possible. For time, space, and causality, upon which all those real and
objective events rest, are themselves nothing more than functions of the
brain; so that thus the unchangeable _order_ of things which affords the
criterion and clue to their empirical reality itself proceeds only from
the brain, and has its credentials from this alone. All this Kant has
expounded fully and thoroughly; only he does not speak of the brain, but
calls it “the faculty of knowledge.” Indeed he has attempted to prove that
when that objective order in time, space, causality, matter, &c., upon
which all the events of the real world ultimately rest, is properly
considered, it cannot even be conceived as a self-existing order, _i.e._,
an order of the thing in itself, or as something absolutely objective and
unconditionally given, for if one tries to think this out it leads to
contradictions. To accomplish this was the object of the antinomies, but
in the appendix to my work I have proved the failure of the attempt. On
the other hand, the Kantian doctrine, even without the antinomies, leads
to the insight that things and the whole mode of their existence are
inseparably bound up with our consciousness of them. Therefore whoever has
distinctly grasped this soon attains to the conviction that the assumption
that things also exist as such, apart from and independently of our
consciousness, is really absurd. That we are so deeply involved in time,
space, causality, and the whole regular process of experience which rests
upon them, that we (and indeed the brutes) are so perfectly at home, and
know how to find our way from the first—this would not be possible if our
intellect were one thing and things another, but can only be explained
from the fact that both constitute one whole, the intellect itself creates
that order, and exists only for things, while they, on the other hand,
exist only for it.

But even apart from the deep insight, which only the Kantian philosophy
gives, the inadmissibility of the assumption of absolute realism which is
so obstinately clung to may be directly shown, or at least made capable of
being felt, by the simple exhibition of its meaning in the light of such
considerations as the following. According to realism, the world is
supposed to exist, as we know it, independently of this knowledge. Let us
once, then, remove all percipient beings from it, and leave only
unorganised and vegetable nature. Rock, tree, and brook are there, and the
blue heaven; sun, moon, and stars light this world, as before; yet
certainly in vain, for there is no eye to see it. Let us now in addition
place in it a percipient being. Now that world presents itself _again_ in
his brain, and repeats itself within it precisely as it was formerly
without it. Thus to the _first_ world a _second_ has been added, which,
although completely separated from it, resembles it to a nicety. And now
the _subjective_ world of this perception is precisely so constituted in
_subjective_, known space as the _objective_ world in _objective_,
infinite space. But the subjective world has this advantage over the
objective, the knowledge that that space, outside there, is infinite;
indeed it can also give beforehand most minutely and accurately the whole
constitution or necessary properties of all relations which are possible,
though not yet actual, in that space, and does not require to examine
them. It can tell just as much with regard to the course of time, and also
with regard to the relation of cause and effect which governs the changes
in that external world. I think all this, when closely considered, turns
out absurd enough, and hence leads to the conviction that that absolute
objective world outside the head, independent of it and prior to all
knowledge, which at first we imagined ourselves to conceive, is really no
other than the second, the world which is known _subjectively_, the world
of idea, as which alone we are actually able to conceive it. Thus of its
own accord the assumption forces itself upon us, that the world, as we
know it, exists also only for our knowledge, therefore in the _idea_
alone, and not a second time outside of it.(12) In accordance, then, with
this assumption, the thing in itself, _i.e._, that which exists
independently of our knowledge and of every knowledge, is to be regarded
as something completely different from the _idea_ and all its attributes,
thus from objectivity in general. What this is will be the subject of our
second book.

On the other hand, the controversy concerning the reality of the external
world considered in § 5 of the first volume rests upon the assumption,
which has just been criticised, of an objective and a subjective world
both in _space_, and upon the impossibility which arises in connection
with this presupposition of a transition from one to the other, a bridge
between the two. Upon this controversy I have still to add the following
remarks.

The subjective and the objective do not constitute a continuous whole.
That of which we are immediately conscious is bounded by the skin, or
rather by the extreme ends of the nerves which proceed from the cerebral
system. Beyond this lies a world of which we have no knowledge except
through pictures in our head. Now the question is, whether and how far
there is a world independent of us which corresponds to these pictures.
The relation between the two could only be brought about by means of the
law of causality; for this law alone leads from what is given to something
quite different from it. But this law itself has first of all to prove its
validity. Now it must either be of _objective_ or of _subjective_ origin;
but in either case it lies upon one or the other side, and therefore
cannot supply the bridge between them. If, as Locke and Hume assume, it is
_a posteriori_, thus drawn from experience, it is of _objective_ origin,
and belongs then itself to the external world which is in question.
Therefore it cannot attest the reality of this world, for then, according
to Locke’s method, causality would be proved from experience, and the
reality of experience from causality. If, on the contrary, it is given _a
priori_, as Kant has more correctly taught us, then it is of _subjective_
origin, and in that case it is clear that with it we remain always in the
_subjective_ sphere. For all that is actually given _empirically_ in
perception is the occurrence of a sensation in the organ of sense; and the
assumption that this, even in general, must have a cause rests upon a law
which is rooted in the form of our knowledge, _i.e._, in the functions of
our brain. The origin of this law is therefore just as subjective as that
of the sensation itself. The cause of the given sensation, which is
assumed in consequence of this law, presents itself at once in perception
as an _object_, which has space and time for the form of its
manifestation. But _these forms_ themselves again are entirely of
subjective origin; for they are the mode or method of our faculty of
perception. That transition from the sensation to its cause which, as I
have repeatedly pointed out, lies at the foundation of all
sense-perception is certainly sufficient to give us the empirical presence
in space and time of an empirical object, and is therefore quite enough
for the practical purposes of life; but it is by no means sufficient to
afford us any conclusion as to the existence and real nature, or rather as
to the intelligible substratum, of the phenomena which in this way arise
for us. Thus that on the occasion of certain sensations occurring in my
organs of sense there arises in my head a perception of things which are
extended in space, permanent in time, and causally efficient by no means
justifies the assumption that they also exist in themselves, _i.e._, that
such things with these properties belonging absolutely to themselves exist
independently and outside of my head. This is the true outcome of the
Kantian philosophy. It coincides with an earlier result of Locke’s, which
is just as true, but far more easily understood. For although, as Locke’s
doctrine permits, external things are absolutely assumed as the causes of
sensations, yet there can be no _resemblance_ between the sensation in
which the _effect_ consists and the objective nature of the _cause_ which
occasions it. For the sensation, as organic function, is primarily
determined by the highly artificial and complicated nature of our organs
of sense. It is therefore merely excited by the external cause, but is
then perfected entirely in accordance with its own laws, and thus is
completely subjective. Locke’s philosophy was the criticism of the
functions of sense; Kant has given us the criticism of the functions of
the brain. But to all this we have yet to add the Berkeleian result, which
has been revised by me, that every object, whatever its origin may be, is
_as object_ already conditioned by the subject, is in fact merely its
_idea_. The aim of realism is indeed the object without subject; but it is
impossible even to conceive such an object distinctly.

From this whole inquiry it follows with certainty and distinctness that it
is absolutely impossible to attain to the comprehension of the inner
nature of things upon the path of mere _knowledge_ and _perception_. For
knowledge always comes to things from without, and therefore must for ever
remain outside them. This end would only be reached if we could find
_ourselves_ in the inside of things, so that their inner nature would be
known to us directly. Now, how far this is actually the case is considered
in my second book. But so long as we are concerned, as in this first book,
with objective comprehension, that is, with _knowledge_, the world is, and
remains for us, a mere _idea_, for here there is no possible path by which
we can cross over to it.

But, besides this, a firm grasp of the point of view of _idealism_ is a
necessary counterpoise to that of _materialism_. The controversy
concerning the _real_ and the _ideal_ may also be regarded as a
controversy concerning the existence of _matter_. For it is the reality or
ideality of this that is ultimately in question. Does matter, as such,
exist only in our _idea_, or does it also exist independently of it? In
the latter case it would be the thing in itself; and whoever assumes a
self-existent matter must also, consistently, be a materialist, _i.e._, he
must make matter the principle of explanation of all things. Whoever, on
the contrary, denies its existence as a thing in itself is _eo ipso_ an
idealist. Among the moderns only Locke has definitely and without
ambiguity asserted the reality of matter; and therefore his teaching led,
in the hands of Condillac, to the sensualism and materialism of the
French. Only Berkeley directly and without modifications denies matter.
The complete antithesis is thus that of idealism and materialism,
represented in its extremes by Berkeley and the French materialists
(Hollbach). Fichte is not to be mentioned here: he deserves no place among
true philosophers; among those elect of mankind who, with deep
earnestness, seek not their own things but the _truth_, and therefore must
not be confused with those who, under this pretence, have only their
personal advancement in view. Fichte is the father of the _sham
philosophy_, of the _disingenuous_ method which, through ambiguity in the
use of words, incomprehensible language, and sophistry, seeks to deceive,
and tries, moreover, to make a deep impression by assuming an air of
importance—in a word, the philosophy which seeks to bamboozle and humbug
those who desire to learn. After this method had been applied by
Schelling, it reached its height, as every one knows, in Hegel, in whose
hands it developed into pure charlatanism. But whoever even names this
Fichte seriously along with Kant shows that he has not even a dim notion
of what Kant is. On the other hand, materialism also has its warrant. It
is just as true that the knower is a product of matter as that matter is
merely the idea of the knower; but it is also just as one-sided. For
materialism is the philosophy of the subject that forgets to take account
of itself. And, accordingly, as against the assertion that I am a mere
modification of matter, this must be insisted upon, that all matter exists
merely in my idea; and it is no less right. A knowledge, as yet obscure,
of these relations seems to have been the origin of the saying of Plato,
“ὑλη αληθινον ψευδος” (_materia mendacium verax_).

_Realism_ necessarily leads, as we have said, to _materialism_. For if
empirical perception gives us things in themselves, as they exist
independently of our knowledge, experience also gives us the _order_ of
things in themselves, _i.e._, the true and sole order of the world. But
this path leads to the assumption that there is only _one_ thing in
itself, matter; of which all other things are modifications; for the
course of nature is here the absolute and only order of the world. To
escape from these consequences, while realism remained in undisputed
acceptance, spiritualism was set up, that is, the assumption of a second
substance outside of and along with matter, an _immaterial substance_.
This dualism and spiritualism, equally unsupported by experience and
destitute of proof and comprehensibility, was denied by Spinoza, and was
proved to be false by Kant, who dared to do so because at the same time he
established idealism in its rights. For with realism materialism, as the
counterpoise of which spiritualism had been devised, falls to the ground
of its own accord, because then matter and the course of nature become
mere phenomena, which are conditioned by the intellect, as they have their
existence only in its _idea_. Accordingly spiritualism is the delusive and
false safeguard against materialism, while the real and true safeguard is
idealism, which, by making the objective world dependent upon us, gives
the needed counterpoise to the position of dependence upon the objective
world, in which we are placed by the course of nature. The world from
which I part at death is, in another aspect, only my idea. The centre of
gravity of existence falls back into the _subject_. What is proved is not,
as in spiritualism, that the knower is independent of matter, but that all
matter is dependent on him. Certainly this is not so easy to comprehend or
so convenient to handle as spiritualism, with its two substances; but
χαλεπα τα καλα.

In opposition to the _subjective_ starting-point, “the world is my idea,”
there certainly stands provisionally with equal justification the
_objective_ starting-point, “the world is matter,” or “matter alone is
absolute” (since it alone is not subject to becoming and passing away), or
“all that exists is matter.” This is the starting-point of Democritus,
Leucippus, and Epicurus. But, more closely considered, the departure from
the subject retains a real advantage; it has the start by one perfectly
justified step. For consciousness alone is the _immediate_: but we pass
over this if we go at once to matter and make it our starting-point. On
the other hand, it would certainly be possible to construct the world from
matter and its properties if these were correctly, completely, and
exhaustively known to us (which is far from being the case as yet). For
all that has come to be has become actual through _causes_, which could
operate and come together only by virtue of the _fundamental forces of
matter_. But these must be perfectly capable of demonstration at least
objectively, even if subjectively we never attain to a knowledge of them.
But such an explanation and construction of the world would not only have
at its foundation the assumption of an existence in itself of matter
(while in truth it is conditioned by the subject), but it would also be
obliged to allow all the _original qualities_ in this matter to pass
current and remain absolutely inexplicable, thus as _qualitates occultæ_.
(Cf. § 26, 27 of the first volume.) For matter is only the vehicle of
these forces, just as the law of causality is only the arranger of their
manifestations. Therefore such an explanation of the world would always
remain merely relative and conditioned, properly the work of a _physical
science_, which at every step longed for a _metaphysic_. On the other
hand, there is also something inadequate about the subjective
starting-point and first principle, “the world is my idea,” partly because
it is one-sided, since the world is far more than that (the thing in
itself, will), and indeed its existence as idea is to a certain extent
only accidental to it; but partly also because it merely expresses the
fact that the object is conditioned by the subject, without at the same
time saying that the subject, as such, is also conditioned by the object.
For the assertion, “the subject would still remain a knowing being if it
had no object, _i.e._, if it had absolutely no idea,” is just as false as
the assertion of the crude understanding, “the world, the object, would
still exist, even if there were no subject.” A consciousness without an
object is no consciousness. A thinking subject has conceptions for its
object; a subject of sense perception has objects with the qualities
corresponding to its organisation. If we rob the subject of all special
characteristics and forms of its knowledge, all the properties of the
object vanish also, and nothing remains but _matter without form and
quality_, which can just as little occur in experience as a subject
without the forms of its knowledge, but which remains opposed to the naked
subject as such, as its reflex, which can only disappear along with it.
Although materialism pretends to postulate nothing more than this
matter—for instance, atoms—yet it unconsciously adds to it not only the
subject, but also space, time, and causality, which depend upon special
properties of the subject.

The world as idea, the objective world, has thus, as it were, two poles;
the simple knowing subject without the forms of its knowledge, and crude
matter without form and quality. Both are completely unknowable; the
subject because it is that which knows, matter because without form and
quality it cannot be perceived. Yet both are fundamental conditions of all
empirical perception. Thus the knowing subject, merely as such, which is a
presupposition of all experience, stands opposed as its pure counterpart
to the crude, formless, and utterly dead (_i.e._, will-less) matter, which
is given in no experience, but which all experience presupposes. This
subject is not in time, for time is only the more definite form of all its
ideas. The matter which stands over against it is, like it, eternal and
imperishable, endures through all time, but is, properly speaking, not
extended, for extension gives form, thus it has no spatial properties.
Everything else is involved in a constant process of coming into being and
passing away, while these two represent the unmoved poles of the world as
idea. The permanence of matter may therefore be regarded as the reflex of
the timelessness of the pure subject, which is simply assumed as the
condition of all objects. Both belong to phenomena, not to the thing in
itself, but they are the framework of the phenomenon. Both are arrived at
only by abstraction, and are not given immediately, pure and for
themselves.

The fundamental error of all systems is the failure to understand this
truth. _Intelligence and matter are correlates_, _i.e._, the one exists
only for the other, both stand and fall together, the one is only the
reflex of the other. Indeed they are really _one and the same thing_
regarded from two opposite points of view; and this one thing, I am here
anticipating, is the manifestation of the will, or the thing in itself.
Consequently both are secondary, and therefore the origin of the world is
not to be sought in either of the two. But because of their failure to
understand this, all systems (with the exception perhaps of that of
Spinoza) sought the origin of all things in one of these two. Some of
them, on the one hand, suppose an intelligence, νους, as the absolutely
First and δημιουργος, and accordingly in this allow an idea of things and
of the world to precede their actual existence; consequently they
distinguish the real world from the world of idea; which is false.
Therefore matter now appears as that through which the two are
distinguished, as the thing in itself. Hence arises the difficulty of
procuring this matter, the ὑλη, so that when added to the mere idea of the
world it may impart reality to it. That original intelligence must now
either find it ready to hand, in which case it is just as much an absolute
First as that intelligence itself, and we have then two absolute Firsts,
the δημιουργος and the ὑλη; or the absolute intelligence must create this
matter out of nothing, an assumption which our understanding refuses to
make, for it is only capable of comprehending changes in matter, and not
that matter itself should come into being or pass away. This rests
ultimately upon the fact that matter is essential, the correlate of the
understanding. On the other hand, the systems opposed to these, which make
the other of the two correlates, that is, matter, the absolute First,
suppose a matter which would exist without being perceived; and it has
been made sufficiently clear by all that has been said above that this is
a direct contradiction, for by the existence of matter we always mean
simply its being perceived. But here they encounter the difficulty of
bringing to this matter, which alone is their absolute First, the
intelligence which is finally to experience it. I have shown this weak
side of materialism in § 7 of the first volume. For me, on the contrary,
matter and intelligence are inseparable correlates, which exist only for
each other, and therefore merely relatively. Matter is the idea of the
intelligence; the intelligence is that in whose idea alone matter exists.
The two together constitute _the world as idea_, which is just Kant’s
_phenomenon_, and consequently something secondary. What is primary is
that which manifests itself, _the thing in itself_, which we shall
afterwards discover is the will. This is in itself neither the perceiver
nor the perceived, but is entirely different from the mode of its
manifestation.

As a forcible conclusion of this important and difficult discussion I
shall now personify these two abstractions, and present them in a dialogue
after the fashion of Prabodha Tschandro Daya. It may also be compared with
a similar dialogue between matter and form in the “_Duodecim Principia
Philosophiæ_” of Raymund Lully, c. 1 and 2.

_The Subject._

I am, and besides me there is nothing. For the world is my idea.

_Matter._

Presumptuous delusion! I, I am, and besides me there is nothing, for the
world is my fleeting form. Thou art a mere result of a part of this form
and altogether accidental.

_The Subject._

What insane arrogance! Neither thou nor thy form would exist without me;
ye are conditioned by me. Whosoever thinks me away, and believes he can
still think ye there, is involved in gross delusion, for your existence
apart from my idea is a direct contradiction, a meaningless form of words.
_Ye are_ simply means ye are perceived by me. My idea is the sphere of
your existence; therefore I am its first condition.

_Matter._

Fortunately the audacity of your assertion will soon be put to silence in
reality and not by mere words. Yet a few moments and thou actually art no
more. With all thy boasting thou hast sunk into nothing, vanished like a
shadow, and shared the fate of all my transitory forms. But I, I remain,
unscathed and undiminished, from age to age, through infinite time, and
behold unshaken the play of my changing form.

_The Subject._

This infinite time through which thou boastest that thou livest, like the
infinite space which thou fillest, exists only in my idea. Indeed it is
merely the form of my idea which I bear complete in myself, and in which
thou exhibitest thyself, which receives thee, and through which thou first
of all existest. But the annihilation with which thou threatenest me
touches me not; were it so, then wouldst thou also be annihilated. It
merely affects the individual, which for a short time is my vehicle, and
which, like everything else, is my idea.

_Matter._

And if I concede this, and go so far as to regard thy existence, which is
yet inseparably linked to that of these fleeting individuals, as something
absolute, it yet remains dependent upon mine. For thou art subject only so
far as thou hast an object; and this object I am. I am its kernel and
content, that which is permanent in it, that which holds it together, and
without which it would be as disconnected, as wavering, and unsubstantial
as the dreams and fancies of thy individuals, which have yet borrowed from
me even the illusive content they possess.

_The Subject._

Thou dost well to refrain from contesting my existence on the ground that
it is linked to individuals; for, as inseparably as I am joined to them,
thou art joined to thy sister, Form, and hast never appeared without her.
No eye hath yet seen either thee or me naked and isolated; for we are both
mere abstractions. It is in reality _one_ being that perceives itself and
is perceived by itself, but whose real being cannot consist either in
perceiving or in being perceived, since these are divided between us two.

_Both._

We are, then, inseparably joined together as necessary parts of one whole,
which includes us both and exists through us. Only a misunderstanding can
oppose us two hostilely to each other, and hence draw the false conclusion
that the one contests the existence of the other, with which its own
existence stands or falls.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

This whole, which comprehends both, is the world as idea, or the world of
phenomena. When this is taken away there remains only what is purely
metaphysical, the thing in itself, which in the second book we shall
recognise as the will.



Chapter II. The Doctrine of Perception or Knowledge Of The Understanding.


With all _transcendental_ ideality the objective world retains _empirical_
reality; the object is indeed not the thing in itself, but as an empirical
object it is real. It is true that space is only in my head; but
empirically my head is in space. The law of causality can certainly never
enable us to get quit of idealism by building a bridge between things in
themselves and our knowledge of them, and thus certifying the absolute
reality of the world, which exhibits itself in consequence of its
application; but this by no means does away with the causal relation of
objects to each other, thus it does not abolish the causal relation which
unquestionably exists between the body of each knowing person and all
other material objects. But the law of causality binds together only
phenomena, and does not lead beyond them. With that law we are and remain
in the world of objects, _i.e._, the world of phenomena, or more properly
the world of ideas. Yet the whole of such a world of experience is
primarily conditioned by the knowledge of a subject in general as its
necessary presupposition, and then by the special forms of our perception
and apprehension, thus necessarily belongs to the merely _phenomenal_, and
has no claim to pass for the world of things in themselves. Indeed the
subject itself (so far as it is merely the _knowing_ subject) belongs to
the merely phenomenal, of which it constitutes the complementary half.

Without application of the law of causality, however, perception of an
_objective_ world could never be arrived at; for this perception is, as I
have often explained, essentially matter of the _intellect_, and not
merely of the _senses_. The senses afford us mere _sensation_, which is
far from being _perception_. The part played by sensations of the senses
in perception was distinguished by Locke under the name _secondary
qualities_, which he rightly refused to ascribe to things in themselves.
But Kant, carrying Locke’s method further, distinguished also, and refused
to ascribe to things in themselves what belongs to the working up of this
material (the sensations) by the brain. The result was, that in this was
included all that Locke had left to things in themselves as _primary_
qualities—extension, form, solidity, &c.—so that with Kant the thing in
itself was reduced to a completely unknown quantity = _x_. With Locke
accordingly the thing in itself is certainly without colour, sound, smell,
taste, neither warm nor cold, neither soft nor hard, neither smooth nor
rough; yet it has still extension and form, it is impenetrable, at rest or
in motion, and has mass and number. With Kant, on the other hand, it has
laid aside all these latter qualities also, because they are only possible
by means of time, space, and causality, and these spring from an intellect
(brain), just as colours, tones, smells, &c., originate in the nerves of
the organs of sense. The thing in itself has with Kant become spaceless,
unextended, and incorporeal. Thus what the mere senses bring to the
perception, in which the objective world exists, stands to what is
supplied by the _functions of the brain_ (space, time, causality) as the
mass of the nerves of sense stand to the mass of the brain, after
subtracting that part of the latter which is further applied to thinking
proper, _i.e._, to abstract ideas, and is therefore not possessed by the
brutes. For as the nerves of the organs of sense impart to the phenomenal
objects colour, sound, taste, smell, temperature, &c., so the brain
imparts to them extension, form, impenetrability, the power of movement,
&c., in short all that can only be presented in perception by means of
time, space, and causality. How small is the share of the senses in
perception, compared with that of the intellect, is also shown by a
comparison of the nerve apparatus for receiving impressions with that for
working them up. The mass of the nerves of sensation of the whole of the
organs of sense is very small compared with that of the brain, even in the
case of the brutes, whose brain, since they do not, properly speaking,
_i.e._, in the abstract, think, is merely used for effecting perception,
and yet when this is complete, thus in the case of mammals, has a very
considerable mass, even after the cerebellum, whose function is the
systematic guidance of movements, has been taken away.

That excellent book by Thomas Reid, the “Inquiry into the Human Mind”
(first edition, 1764; 6th edition, 1810), as a _negative_ proof of the
Kantian truths, affords us a very thorough conviction of the inadequacy of
the senses to produce the objective perception of things, and also of the
non-empirical origin of the perception of space and time. Reid refutes
Locke’s doctrine that perception is a product of the senses, by a thorough
and acute demonstration that the collective sensations of the senses do
not bear the least resemblance to the world as known in perception, and
especially that the five primary qualities of Locke (extension, form,
solidity, movement, and number) absolutely could not be afforded us by any
sensation of the senses. Accordingly he gives up the question as to the
mode of origination and the source of perception as completely insoluble;
and although altogether unacquainted with Kant, he gives us, as it were,
according to the _regula falsi_, a thorough proof of the intellectual
nature of perception (really first explained by me as a consequence of the
Kantian doctrine), and also of the _a priori_ source, discovered by Kant,
of its constituent elements, space, time, and causality, from which those
primary qualities of Locke first proceed, but by means of which they are
easily constructed. Thomas Reid’s book is very instructive and well worth
reading—ten times more so than all the philosophy together that has been
written since Kant. Another indirect proof of the same doctrine, though in
the way of error, is afforded by the French sensational philosophers, who,
since Condillac trod in the footsteps of Locke, have laboured to show once
for all that the whole of our perception and thinking can be referred to
mere sensations (_penser c’est sentir_), which, after Locke’s example,
they call _idées simples_, and through the mere coming together and
comparison of which the whole objective world is supposed to build itself
up in our heads. These gentlemen certainly have _des idées bien simples_.
It is amusing to see how, lacking alike the profundity of the German and
the honesty of the English philosopher, they turn the poor material of
sensation this way and that way, and try to increase its importance, in
order to construct out of it the deeply significant phenomena of the world
of perception and thought. But the man constructed by them would
necessarily be an _Anencephalus_, a _Tête de crapaud_, with only organs of
sense and without a brain. To take only a couple of the better attempts of
this sort out of a multitude of others, I may mention as examples
Condorcet at the beginning of his book, “_Des Progrès de l’Esprit
Humain_,” and Tourtual on Sight, in the second volume of the
_“__Scriptures Ophthalmologici Minores,__”__ edidit Justus Radius_ (1828).

The feeling of the insufficiency of a purely sensationalistic explanation
of perception is in like manner shown in the assertion which was made
shortly before the appearance of the Kantian philosophy, that we not only
have _ideas_ of things called forth by sensation, but apprehend the
_things themselves_ directly, although they lie outside us—which is
certainly inconceivable. And this was not meant in some idealistic sense,
but was said from the point of view of common realism. This assertion is
well and pointedly put by the celebrated Euler in his “Letters to a German
Princess,” vol. ii. p. 68. He says: “I therefore believe that the
sensations (of the senses) contain something more than philosophers
imagine. They are not merely empty perceptions of certain impressions made
in the brain. They do not give the soul mere _ideas_ of things, _but
actually place before it objects_ which exist outside it, although we
cannot conceive how this really happens.” This opinion is explained by the
following facts. Although, as I have fully proved, perception is brought
about by application of the law of causality, of which we are conscious _a
priori_, yet in sight the act of the understanding, by means of which we
pass from the effect to the cause, by no means appears distinctly in
consciousness; and therefore the sensation does not separate itself
clearly from the idea which is constructed out of it, as the raw material,
by the understanding. Still less can a distinction between object and
idea, which in general does not exist, appear in consciousness; but we
feel the _things themselves_ quite directly, and indeed as lying _outside
us_, although it is certain that what is immediate can only be the
sensation, and this is confined to the sphere of the body enclosed by our
skin. This can be explained from the fact that _outside us_ is exclusively
a _spatial_ determination. But space itself is a form of our faculty of
perception, _i.e._, a function of our brain. Therefore that externality to
us to which we refer objects, on the occasion of sensations of sight, is
itself really within our heads; for that is its whole sphere of activity.
Much as in the theatre we see the mountains, the woods, and the sea, but
yet everything is inside the house. From this it becomes intelligible that
we perceive things in the relation of externality, and yet in every
respect immediately, but have not within us an idea of the things which
lie outside us, different from these things. For things are in space, and
consequently also external to us only in so far as we _perceive_ them.
Therefore those things which to this extent we perceive directly, and not
mere images of them, are themselves only _our ideas_, and as such exist
only in our heads. Therefore we do not, as Euler says, directly perceive
the things themselves which are external to us, but rather the things
which are perceived by us as external to us are only our ideas, and
consequently are apprehended by us immediately. The whole observation
given above in Euler’s words, and which is quite correct, affords a fresh
proof of Kant’s Transcendental Æsthetic, and of my theory of perception
which is founded upon it, as also of idealism in general. The directness
and unconsciousness referred to above, with which in perception we make
_the transition from the sensation to its cause_, may be illustrated by an
analogous procedure in the use of abstract ideas or thinking. When we read
or hear we receive mere words, but we pass from these so immediately to
the conceptions denoted by them, that it is as if we _received the
conceptions directly_; for we are absolutely unconscious of the transition
from the words to the conceptions. Therefore it sometimes happens that we
do not know in what language it was that we read something yesterday which
we now remember. Yet that such a transition always takes place becomes
apparent if it is once omitted, that is, if in a fit of abstraction we
read without thinking, and then become aware that we certainly have taken
in all the words but no conceptions. Only when we pass from abstract
conceptions to pictures of the imagination do we become conscious of the
transposition we have made.

Further, it is really only in perception in the narrowest sense, that is,
in _sight_, that in empirical apprehension the transition from the
sensation to its cause takes place quite unconsciously. In every other
kind of sense perception, on the contrary, the transition takes place with
more or less distinct consciousness; therefore, in the case of
apprehension through the four coarser senses, its reality is capable of
being established as an immediate fact. Thus in the dark we feel a thing
for a long time on all sides until from the different effects upon our
hands we are able to construct its definite form as their cause. Further,
if something feels smooth we sometimes reflect whether we may not have fat
or oil upon our hands; and again, if something feels cold we ask ourselves
whether it may not be that we have very warm hands. When we hear a sound
we sometimes doubt whether it was really an affection of our sense of
hearing from without or merely an inner affection of it; then whether it
sounded near and weak or far off and strong, then from what direction it
came, and finally whether it was the voice of a man or of a brute, or the
sound of an instrument; thus we investigate the cause of each effect we
experience. In the case of smell and taste uncertainty as to the objective
nature of the cause of the effect felt is of the commonest occurrence, so
distinctly are the two separated here. The fact that _in sight_ the
transition from the effect to the cause occurs quite unconsciously, and
hence the illusion arises that this kind of perception is perfectly
direct, and consists simply in the sensation alone without any operation
of the understanding—this has its explanation partly in the great
perfection of the organ of vision, and partly in the exclusively
rectilineal action of light. On account of the latter circumstance the
impression itself leads directly to the place of the cause, and since the
eye is capable of perceiving with the greatest exactness and at a glance
all the fine distinctions of light and shade, colour and outline, and also
the data in accordance with which the understanding estimates distance, it
thus happens that in the case of impressions of this sense the operation
of the understanding takes place with such rapidity and certainty that we
are just as little conscious of it as of spelling when we read. Hence
arises the delusion that the sensation itself presents us directly with
the objects. Yet it is just in sight that the operation of the
_understanding_, consisting in the knowledge of the cause from the effect,
is most significant. By means of it what is felt doubly, with two eyes, is
perceived as single; by means of it the impression which strikes the
retina upside down, in consequence of the crossing of the rays in the
pupils, is put right by following back the cause of this in the same
direction, or as we express ourselves, we see things upright although
their image in the eye is reversed; and finally by means of the operation
of the understanding magnitude and distance are estimated by us in direct
perception from five different data, which are very clearly and
beautifully described by Dr. Thomas Reid. I expounded all this, and also
the proofs which irrefutably establish the _intellectual nature of
perception_, as long ago as 1816, in my essay “On Sight and Colour”
(second edition, 1854; third edition, 1870), and with important additions
fifteen years later in the revised Latin version of it which is given
under the title, “_Theoria Colorum Physiologica Eademque Primaria_,” in
the third volume of the “_Scriptores Ophthalmologici Minores_,” published
by Justus Radius in 1830; yet most fully and thoroughly in the second (and
third) edition of my essay “On the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” § 21.
Therefore on this important subject I refer to these works, so as not to
extend unduly the present exposition.

On the other hand, an observation which trenches on the province of
æsthetics may find its place here. It follows from the proved intellectual
nature of perception that the sight of beautiful objects—for example, of a
beautiful view—is also a _phenomenon of the brain_. Its purity and
completeness, therefore, depends not merely on the object, but also upon
the quality of the brain, its form and size, the fineness of its texture,
and the stimulation of its activity by the strength of the pulse of the
arteries which supply it. Accordingly the same view appears in different
heads, even when the eyes are equally acute, as different as, for example,
the first and last impressions of a copper plate that has been much used.
This is the explanation of the difference of capacity for enjoying natural
beauty, and consequently also for reproducing it, _i.e._, for occasioning
a similar phenomenon of the brain by means of an entirely different kind
of cause, the arrangement of colours on a canvas.

The apparent immediacy of perception, depending on its entire
intellectuality, by virtue of which, as Euler says, we apprehend the thing
itself, and as external to us, finds an analogy in the way in which we
feel the parts of our own bodies, especially when they suffer pain, which
when we do feel them is generally the case. Just as we imagine that we
perceive things where they are, while the perception really takes place in
the brain, we believe that we feel the pain of a limb in the limb itself,
while in reality it also is felt in the brain, to which it is conducted by
the nerve of the affected part. Therefore, only the affections of those
parts whose nerves go to the brain are felt, and not those of the parts
whose nerves belong to the sympathetic system, unless it be that an
unusually strong affection of these parts penetrates by some roundabout
way to the brain, where yet for the most part it only makes itself known
as a dull sense of discomfort, and always without definite determination
of its locality. Hence, also, it is that we do not feel injuries to a limb
whose nerve-trunk has been severed or ligatured. And hence, finally, the
man who has lost a limb still sometimes feels pain in it, because the
nerves which go to the brain are still there. Thus, in the two phenomena
here compared, what goes on in the brain is apprehended as outside of it;
in the case of perception, by means of the understanding, which extends
its feelers into the outer world; in the case of the feeling of our limbs,
by means of the nerves.



Chapter III. On The Senses.


It is not the object of my writings to repeat what has been said by
others, and therefore I only make here some special remarks of my own on
the subject of the senses.

The senses are merely the channels through which the brain receives from
without (in the form of sensations) the materials which it works up into
ideas of perception. Those sensations which principally serve for the
objective comprehension of the external world must in themselves be
neither agreeable nor disagreeable. This really means that they must leave
the will entirely unaffected. Otherwise the sensation _itself_ would
attract our attention, and we would remain at the _effect_ instead of
passing to the _cause_, which is what is aimed at here. For it would bring
with it that marked superiority, as regards our consideration, which the
will always has over the mere idea, to which we only turn when the will is
silent. Therefore colours and sounds are in themselves, and so long as
their impression does not pass the normal degree, neither painful nor
pleasurable sensations, but appear with the indifference that fits them to
be the material of pure objective perception. This is as far the case as
was possible in a body which is in itself through and through will; and
just in this respect it is worthy of admiration. Physiologically it rests
upon the fact that in the organs of the nobler senses, thus in sight and
hearing, the nerves which have to receive the specific outward impression
are quite insusceptible to any sensation of pain, and know no other
sensation than that which is specifically peculiar to them, and which
serves the purpose of mere apprehension. Thus the retina, as also the
optic nerve, is insensible to every injury; and this is also the case with
the nerve of hearing. In both organs pain is only felt in their other
parts, the surroundings of the nerve of sense which is peculiar to them,
never in this nerve itself. In the case of the eye such pain is felt
principally in the _conjunctiva_; in the case of the ear, in the _meatus
auditorius_. Even with the brain this is the case, for if it is cut into
directly, thus from above, it has no feeling. Thus only on account of this
indifference with regard to the will which is peculiar to them are the
sensations of the eye capable of supplying the understanding with such
multifarious and finely distinguished data, out of which it constructs in
our head the marvellous objective world, by the application of the law of
causality upon the foundation of the pure perceptions of space and time.
Just that freedom from affecting the will which is characteristic of
sensations of colour enables them, when their energy is heightened by
transparency, as in the glow of an evening sky, in painted glass, and the
like, to raise us very easily into the state of pure objective will-less
perception, which, as I have shown in my third book, is one of the chief
constituent elements of the æsthetic impression. Just this indifference
with regard to the will fits sounds to supply the material for denoting
the infinite multiplicity of the conceptions of the reason.

_Outer sense_, that is, receptivity for external impressions as pure data
for the understanding, is divided into _five senses_, and these
accommodate themselves to the four elements, _i.e._, the four states of
aggregation, together with that of imponderability. Thus the sense for
what is firm (earth) is touch; for what is fluid (water), taste; for what
is in the form of vapour, _i.e._, volatile (vapour, exhalation), smell;
for what is permanently elastic (air), hearing; for what is imponderable
(fire, light), sight. The second imponderable, heat, is not properly an
object of the senses, but of general feeling, and therefore always affects
the _will_ directly, as agreeable or disagreeable. From this
classification there also follows the relative dignity of the senses.
Sight has the highest rank, because its sphere is the widest and its
susceptibility the finest. This rests upon the fact that what affects it
is an imponderable, that is, something which is scarcely corporeal, but is
_quasi_ spiritual. Hearing has the second place, corresponding to air.
However, touch is a more thorough and well-informed sense. For while each
of the other senses gives us only an entirely one-sided relation to the
object, as its sound, or its relation to light, touch, which is closely
bound up with general feeling and muscular power, supplies the
understanding with the data at once for the form, magnitude, hardness,
softness, texture, firmness, temperature, and weight of bodies, and all
this with the least possibility of illusion and deception, to which all
the other senses are far more subject. The two lowest senses, smell and
taste, are no longer free from a direct affection of the will, that is,
they are always agreeably or disagreeably affected, and are therefore more
subjective than objective.

Sensations of hearing are exclusively in _time_, and therefore the whole
nature of music consists in degrees of time, upon which depends both the
quality or pitch of tones, by means of vibrations, and also their quantity
or duration, by means of time. The sensations of sight, on the other hand,
are primarily and principally in _space_; but secondarily, by reason of
their duration, they are also in time.

Sight is the sense of the understanding which perceives; hearing is the
sense of the reason which thinks and apprehends. Words are only
imperfectly represented by visible signs; and therefore I doubt whether a
deaf and dumb man, who can read, but has no idea of the sound of the
words, works as quickly in thinking with the mere visible signs of
conceptions as we do with the real, _i.e._, the audible words. If he
cannot read, it is well known that he is almost like an irrational animal,
while the man born blind is from the first a thoroughly rational being.

Sight is an _active_, hearing a _passive_ sense. Therefore sounds affect
our mind in a disturbing and hostile manner, and indeed they do so the
more in proportion as the mind is active and developed; they distract all
thoughts and instantly destroy the power of thinking. On the other hand,
there is no analogous disturbance through the eye, no direct effect of
what is seen, _as such_, upon the activity of thought (for naturally we
are not speaking here of the influence which the objects looked at have
upon the will); but the most varied multitude of things before our eyes
admits of entirely unhindered and quiet thought. Therefore the thinking
mind lives at peace with the eye, but is always at war with the ear. This
opposition of the two senses is also confirmed by the fact that if deaf
and dumb persons are cured by galvanism they become deadly pale with
terror at the first sounds they hear (Gilbert’s “_Annalen der Physik_,”
vol. x. p. 382), while blind persons, on the contrary, who have been
operated upon, behold with ecstasy the first light, and unwillingly allow
the bandages to be put over their eyes again. All that has been said,
however, can be explained from the fact that hearing takes place by means
of a mechanical vibration of the nerve of hearing which is at once
transmitted to the brain, while seeing, on the other hand, is a real
_action_ of the retina which is merely stimulated and called forth by
light and its modifications; as I have shown at length in my physiological
theory of colours. But this whole opposition stands in direct conflict
with that coloured-ether, drum-beating theory which is now everywhere
unblushingly served up, and which seeks to degrade the eye’s sensation of
light to a mechanical vibration, such as primarily that of hearing
actually is, while nothing can be more different than the still, gentle
effect of light and the alarm-drum of hearing. If we add to this the
remarkable circumstance that although we hear with two ears, the
sensibility of which is often very different, yet we never hear a sound
double, as we often see things double with our two eyes, we are led to the
conjecture that the sensation of hearing does not arise in the labyrinth
or in the cochlea, but deep in the brain where the two nerves of hearing
meet, and thus the impression becomes simple. But this is where the _pons
Varolii_ encloses the _medulla oblongata_, thus at the absolutely lethal
spot, by the injury of which every animal is instantly killed, and from
which the nerve of hearing has only a short course to the labyrinth, the
seat of acoustic vibration. Now it is just because its source is here, in
this dangerous place, in which also all movement of the limbs originates,
that we start at a sudden noise; which does not occur in the least degree
when we suddenly see a light; for example, a flash of lightning. The optic
nerve, on the contrary, proceeds from its _thalami_ much further forward
(though perhaps its source lies behind them), and throughout its course is
covered by the anterior lobes of the brain, although always separated from
them till, having extended quite out of the brain, it is spread out in the
retina, upon which, on stimulation by light, the sensation first arises,
and where it is really localised. This is shown in my essay upon sight and
colour. This origin of the auditory nerve explains, then, the great
disturbance which the power of thinking suffers from sound, on account of
which thinking men, and in general all people of much intellect, are
without exception absolutely incapable of enduring any noise. For it
disturbs the constant stream of their thoughts, interrupts and paralyses
their thinking, just because the vibration of the auditory nerve extends
so deep into the brain, the whole mass of which feels the oscillations set
up through this nerve, and vibrates along with them, and because the
brains of such persons are more easily moved than those of ordinary men.
On the same readiness to be set in motion, and capacity for transmission,
which characterises their brains depends the fact that in the case of
persons like these every thought calls forth so readily all those
analogous or related to it whereby the similarities, analogies, and
relations of things in general come so quickly and easily into their
minds; that the same occasion which millions of ordinary minds have
experienced before brings them to _the_ thought, to _the_ discovery, that
other people are subsequently surprised they did not reach themselves, for
they certainly can think afterwards, but they cannot think before. Thus
the sun shone on all statues, but only the statue of Memnon gave forth a
sound. For this reason Kant, Gœthe, and Jean Paul were highly sensitive to
every noise, as their biographers bear witness.(13) Gœthe in his last
years bought a house which had fallen into disrepair close to his own,
simply in order that he might not have to endure the noise that would be
made in repairing it. Thus it was in vain that in his youth he followed
the drum in order to harden himself against noise. It is not a matter of
custom. On the other hand, the truly stoical indifference to noise of
ordinary minds is astonishing. No noise disturbs them in their thinking,
reading, writing, or other occupations, while the finer mind is rendered
quite incapable by it. But just that which makes them so insensible to
noise of every kind makes them also insensible to the beautiful in plastic
art, and to deep thought or fine expression in literary art; in short, to
all that does not touch their personal interests. The following remark of
Lichtenberg’s applies to the paralysing effect which noise has upon highly
intellectual persons: “It is always a good sign when an artist can be
hindered by trifles from exercising his art. F—— used to stick his fingers
into sulphur if he wished to play the piano.... Such things do not
interfere with the average mind;... it acts like a coarse sieve”
(_Vermischte Schriften_, vol. i. p. 398). I have long really held the
opinion that the amount of noise which any one can bear undisturbed stands
in inverse proportion to his mental capacity, and therefore may be
regarded as a pretty fair measure of it. Therefore, if I hear the dogs
barking for hours together in the court of a house without being stopped,
I know what to think of the intellectual capacity of the inhabitants. The
man who habitually slams the door of a room, instead of shutting it with
his hand, or allows this to go on in his house, is not only ill-bred, but
is also a coarse and dull-minded fellow. That in English “sensible” also
means gifted with understanding is based upon accurate and fine
observation. We shall only become quite civilised when the ears are no
longer unprotected, and when it shall no longer be the right of everybody
to sever the consciousness of each thinking being, in its course of a
thousand steps, with whistling, howling, bellowing, hammering,
whip-cracking, barking, &c. &c. The Sybarites banished all noisy trades
without the town; the honourable sect of the Shakers in North America
permit no unnecessary noise in their villages, and the Moravians have a
similar rule. Something more is said upon this subject in the thirtieth
chapter of the second volume of the “Parerga.”

The effect of music upon the mind, so penetrating, so direct, so
unfailing, may be explained from the _passive_ nature of hearing which has
been discussed; also the after effect which sometimes follows it, and
which consists in a specially elevated frame of mind. The vibrations of
the tones following in rationally combined numerical relations set the
fibre of the brain itself in similar vibration. On the other hand, the
_active_ nature of sight, opposed as it is to the passive nature of
hearing, makes it intelligible why there can be nothing analogous to music
for the eye, and the piano of colours was an absurd mistake. Further, it
is just on account of the active nature of the sense of sight that it is
remarkably acute in the case of beasts that hunt, _i.e._, beasts of prey,
while conversely the _passive_ sense of hearing is specially acute in
those beasts that are hunted, that flee, and are timid, so that it may
give them timely warning of the pursuer that is rushing or creeping upon
them.

Just as we have recognised in sight the sense of the understanding, and in
hearing the sense of the reason, so we might call smell the sense of the
memory, because it recalls to us more directly than any other the specific
impression of an event or a scene even from the most distant past.



Chapter IV. On Knowledge _A Priori_.


From the fact that we are able spontaneously to assign and determine the
laws of relations in space without having recourse to experience, Plato
concludes (_Meno_, p. 353, Bip.) that all learning is mere recollection.
Kant, on the other hand, concludes that space is subjectively conditioned,
and merely a form of the faculty of knowledge. How far, in this regard,
does Kant stand above Plato!

_Cogito, ergo sum_, is an analytical judgment. Indeed Parmenides held it
to be an identical judgment: “το γαρ αυτο νοειν εστι τε και ειναι” (_nam
intelligere et esse idem est_, _Clem. Alex. Strom._, vi. 2, § 23). As
such, however, or indeed even as an analytical judgment, it cannot contain
any special wisdom; nor yet if, to go still deeper, we seek to deduce it
as a conclusion from the major premise, _non-entis nulla sunt prædicata_.
But with this proposition what Descartes really wished to express was the
great truth that immediate certainty belongs only to self-consciousness,
to what is subjective. To what is objective, on the other hand, thus to
everything else, only indirect certainty belongs; for it is arrived at
through self-consciousness; and being thus merely at second hand, it is to
be regarded as problematical. Upon this depends the value of this
celebrated proposition. As its opposite we may set up, in the sense of the
Kantian philosophy, _cogito, ergo est_, that is, exactly as I think
certain relations in things (the mathematical), they must always occur in
all possible experience;—this was an important, profound, and a late
_apperçu_, which appeared in the form of the problem as to the
_possibility of synthetic judgments a priori_, and has actually opened up
the way to a deeper knowledge. This problem is the watchword of the
Kantian philosophy, as the former proposition is that of the Cartesian,
and shows εξ οἱων εισ οἱα.

Kant very fitly places his investigations concerning time and space at the
head of all the rest. For to the speculative mind these questions present
themselves before all others: what is time?—what is this that consists of
mere movement, without anything that moves it?—and what is space? this
omnipresent nothing, out of which nothing that exists can escape without
ceasing to be anything at all?

That time and space depend on the subject, are the mode in which the
process of objective apperception is brought about in the brain, has
already a sufficient proof in the absolute impossibility of thinking away
time and space, while we can very easily think away everything that is
presented in them. The hand can leave go of everything except itself.
However, I wish here to illustrate by a few examples and deductions the
more exact proofs of this truth which are given by Kant, not for the
purpose of refuting stupid objections, but for the use of those who may
have to expound Kant’s doctrine in future.

“A right-angled equilateral triangle” contains no logical contradiction;
for the predicates do not by any means cancel the subject, nor are they
inconsistent with each other. It is only when their object is constructed
in pure perception that the impossibility of their union in it appears.
Now if on this account we were to regard this as a contradiction, then so
would every physical impossibility, only discovered to be such after the
lapse of centuries, be a contradiction; for example, the composition of a
metal from its elements, or a mammal with more or fewer than seven
cervical vertebra,(14) or horns and upper incisors in the same animal. But
only _logical_ impossibility is a contradiction, not physical, and just as
little mathematical. Equilateral and rectangled do not contradict each
other (they coexist in the square), nor does either of them contradict a
triangle. Therefore the incompatibility of the above conceptions can never
be known by mere _thinking_, but is only discovered by perception—merely
mental perception, however, which requires no experience, no real object.
We should also refer here to the proposition of Giordano Bruno, which is
also found in Aristotle: “An infinitely large body is necessarily
immovable”—a proposition which cannot rest either upon experience or upon
the principle of contradiction, since it speaks of things which cannot
occur in any experience, and the conceptions “infinitely large” and
“movable” do not contradict each other; but it is only pure perception
that informs us that motion demands a space outside the body, while its
infinite size leaves no space over. Suppose, now, it should be objected to
the first mathematical example that it is only a question of how complete
a conception of a triangle the person judging has: if the conception is
quite complete it will also contain the impossibility of a triangle being
rectangular and also equilateral. The answer to this is: assume that his
conception is not so complete, yet without recourse to experience he can,
by the mere construction of the triangle in his imagination, extend his
conception of it and convince himself for ever of the impossibility of
this combination of these conceptions. This process, however, is a
synthetic judgment _a priori_, that is, a judgment through which,
independently of all experience, and yet with validity for all experience,
we form and perfect our conceptions. For, in general, whether a given
judgment is analytical or synthetical can only be determined in the
particular case according as the conception of the subject in the mind of
the person judging is more or less complete. The conception “cat” contains
in the mind of a Cuvier a hundred times more than in that of his servant;
therefore the same judgments about it will be synthetical for the latter,
and only analytical for the former. But if we take the conceptions
objectively, and now wish to decide whether a given judgment is analytical
or synthetical, we must change the predicate into its contradictory
opposite, and apply this to the subject without a copula. If this gives a
_contradictio in adjecto_, then the judgment was analytical; otherwise it
was synthetical.

That Arithmetic rests on the pure intuition or perception of time is not
so evident as that Geometry is based upon that of space.(15) It can be
proved, however, in the following manner. All counting consists in the
repeated affirmation of unity. Only for the purpose of always knowing how
often we have already affirmed unity do we mark it each time with another
word: these are the numerals. Now repetition is only possible through
succession. But succession, that is, being after one another, depends
directly upon the intuition or perception of _time_. It is a conception
which can only be understood by means of this; and thus counting also is
only possible by means of time. This dependence of all counting upon time
is also betrayed by the fact that in all languages multiplication is
expressed by “time,” thus by a time-concept: _sexies_, ἑξακις, _six fois_,
_sex mal_. But simple counting is already a multiplication by one, and for
this reason in Pestalozzi’s educational establishment the children are
always made to multiply thus: “Two times two is four times one.” Aristotle
already recognised the close relationship of number and time, and
expounded it in the fourteenth chapter of the fourth book of the
“Physics.” Time is for him “the number of motion” (“ὁ χρονος αριθμος εστι
κινησεως”). He very profoundly suggests the question whether time could be
if the soul were not, and answers it in the negative. If arithmetic had
not this pure intuition or perception of time at its foundation, it would
be no science _a priori_, and therefore its propositions would not have
infallible certainty.

Although time, like space, is the form of knowledge of the subject, yet,
just like space, it presents itself as independent of the subject and
completely objective. Against our will, or without our knowledge, it goes
fast or slow. We ask what o’clock it is; we investigate time, as if it
were something quite objective. And what is this objective existence? Not
the progress of the stars, or of the clocks, which merely serve to measure
the course of time itself, but it is something different from all things,
and yet, like them, independent of our will and knowledge. It exists only
in the heads of percipient beings, but the uniformity of its course and
its independence of the will give it the authority of objectivity.

Time is primarily the form of inner sense. Anticipating the following
book, I remark that the only object of inner sense is the individual will
of the knowing subject. Time is therefore the form by means of which
self-consciousness becomes possible for the individual will, which
originally and in itself is without knowledge. In it the nature of the
will, which in itself is simple and identical, appears drawn out into a
course of life. But just on account of this original simplicity and
identity of what thus exhibits itself, its _character_ remains always
precisely the same, and hence also the course of life itself retains
throughout the same key-note, indeed its multifarious events and scenes
are at bottom just like variations of one and the same theme.

The _a priori nature of the law of causality_ has, by Englishmen and
Frenchmen, sometimes not been seen at all, sometimes not rightly conceived
of; and therefore some of them still prosecute the earlier attempts to
find for it an _empirical_ origin. Maine de Biran places this in the
experience that the act of will as cause is followed by the movement of
the body as effect. But this fact itself is untrue. We certainly do not
recognise the really immediate act of will as something different from the
action of the body, and the two as connected by the bond of causality; but
both are one and indivisible. Between them there is no succession; they
are simultaneous. They are one and the same thing, apprehended in a double
manner. That which makes itself known to inner apprehension
(self-consciousness) as the real _act of will_ exhibits itself at once in
external perception, in which the body exists objectively as an _action_
of the body. That physiologically the action of the nerve precedes that of
the muscle is here immaterial, for it does not come within
self-consciousness; and we are not speaking here of the relation between
muscle and nerve, but of that between the act of will and the action of
the body. Now this does not present itself as a causal relation. If these
two presented themselves to us as cause and effect their connection would
not be so incomprehensible to us as it actually is; for what we understand
from its cause we understand as far as there is an understanding of things
generally. On the other hand, the movement of our limbs by means of mere
acts of will is indeed a miracle of such common occurrence that we no
longer observe it; but if we once turn our attention to it we become
keenly conscious of the incomprehensibility of the matter, just because in
this we have something before us which we do _not_ understand as the
effect of a cause. This apprehension, then, could never lead us to the
idea of causality, for that never appears in it at all. Maine de Biran
himself recognises the perfect simultaneousness of the act of will and the
movement (_Nouvelles Considérations des Rapports du Physique au Moral_, p.
377, 378). In England Thomas Reid (On the First Principles of Contingent
Truths, Essay IV. c. 5) already asserted that the knowledge of the causal
relation has its ground in the nature of the faculty of knowledge itself.
Quite recently Thomas Brown, in his very tediously composed book, “Inquiry
into the Relation of Cause and Effect,” 4th edit., 1835, says much the
same thing, that that knowledge springs from an innate, intuitive, and
instinctive conviction; thus he is at bottom upon the right path. Quite
unpardonable, however, is the crass ignorance on account of which in this
book of 476 pages, of which 130 are devoted to the refutation of Hume,
absolutely no mention is made of Kant, who cleared up the question more
than seventy years ago. If Latin had remained the exclusive language of
science such a thing would not have occurred. In spite of Brown’s
exposition, which in the main is correct, a modification of the doctrine
set up by Maine de Biran, of the empirical origin of the fundamental
knowledge of the causal relation, has yet found acceptance in England; for
it is not without a certain degree of plausibility. It is this, that we
abstract the law of causality from the perceived effect of our own body
upon other bodies. This was already refuted by Hume. I, however, have
shown that it is untenable in my work, “_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_”
(p. 75 of the second edition, p. 82 of the third), from the fact that
since we apprehend both our own and other bodies objectively in spatial
perception, the knowledge of causality must already be there, because it
is a condition of such perception. The one genuine proof that we are
conscious of the law of causality _before all experience_ lies in the
necessity of making a _transition_ from the sensation, which is only
empirically given, to its _cause_, in order that it may become perception
of the external world. Therefore I have substituted this proof for the
Kantian, the incorrectness of which I have shown. A most full and thorough
exposition of the whole of this important subject, which is only touched
on here, the _a priori_ nature of the law of causality and the
intellectual nature of empirical perception, will be found in my essay on
the principle of sufficient reason, § 21, to which I refer, in order to
avoid the necessity of repeating here what is said there. I have also
shown there the enormous difference between the mere sensation of the
senses and the perception of an objective world, and discovered the wide
gulf that lies between the two. The law of causality alone can bridge
across this gulf, and it presupposes for its application the two other
forms which are related to it, space and time. Only by means of these
three combined is the objective idea attained to. Now whether the
sensation from which we start to arrive at apprehension arises through the
resistance which is suffered by our muscular exertion, or through the
impression of light upon the retina, or of sound upon the nerves of the
brain, &c. &c., is really a matter of indifference. The _sensation_ always
remains a mere _datum_ for the _understanding_, which alone is capable of
apprehending it as the effect of a cause different from itself, which the
understanding now perceives as external, _i.e._, as something occupying
and filling space, which is also a form inherent in the intellect prior to
all experience. Without this intellectual operation, for which the forms
must lie ready in us, the perception of an _objective, external world_
could never arise from a mere _sensation_ within our skin. How can it ever
be supposed that the mere feeling of being hindered in intended motion,
which occurs also in lameness, could be sufficient for this? We may add to
this that before I attempt to affect external things _they_ must
necessarily have affected me as motives. But this almost presupposes the
apprehension of the external world. According to the theory in question
(as I have remarked in the place referred to above), a man born without
arms and legs could never attain to the idea of causality, and
consequently could never arrive at the apprehension of the external world.
But that this is not the case is proved by a fact communicated in
Froriep’s _Notizen_, July 1838, No. 133—the detailed account, accompanied
by a likeness, of an Esthonian girl, Eva Lauk, then fourteen years old,
who was born entirely without arms or legs. The account concludes with
these words: “According to the evidence of her mother, her mental
development had been quite as quick as that of her brothers and sisters;
she attained just as soon as they did to a correct judgment of size and
distance, yet without the assistance of hands.—Dorpat, 1st March 1838, Dr.
A. Hueck.”

Hume’s doctrine also, that the conception of causality arises from the
custom of seeing two states constantly following each other, finds a
practical refutation in the oldest of all successions, that of day and
night, which no one has ever held to be cause and effect of each other.
And the same succession also refutes Kant’s false assertion that the
_objective_ reality of a succession is only known when we apprehend the
two succeeding events as standing in the relation of cause and effect to
each other. Indeed the converse of this doctrine of Kant’s is true. We
know which of the two connected events is the cause and which the effect,
_empirically_, only in the succession. Again, on the other hand, the
absurd assertion of several professors of philosophy in our own day that
cause and effect are simultaneous can be refuted by the fact that in cases
in which the succession cannot be perceived on account of its great
rapidity, we yet assume it with certainty _a priori_, and with it the
lapse of a certain time. Thus, for example, we know that a certain time
must elapse between the falling of the flint and the projection of the
bullet, although we cannot perceive it, and that this time must further be
divided between several events that occur in a strictly determined
succession—the falling of the flint, the striking of the spark, ignition,
the spread of the fire, the explosion, and the projection of the bullet.
No man ever perceived this succession of events; but because we know which
is the cause of the others, we thereby also know which must _precede the
others in time_, and consequently also that during the course of the whole
series a certain time must elapse, although it is so short that it escapes
our empirical apprehension; for no one will assert that the projection of
the bullet is actually simultaneous with the falling of the flint. Thus
not only the law of causality, but also its relation to _time_, and the
necessity of the _succession_ of cause and effect, is known to us _a
priori_. If we know which of two events is the cause and which is the
effect, we also know which precedes the other in time; if, on the
contrary, we do not know which is cause and which effect, but only know in
general that they are causally connected, we seek to discover the
succession empirically, and according to that we determine which is the
cause and which the effect. The falseness of the assertion that cause and
effect are simultaneous further appears from the following consideration.
An unbroken chain of causes and effects fills the whole of time. (For if
this chain were broken the world would stand still, or in order to set it
in motion again an effect without a cause would have to appear.) Now if
every effect were simultaneous with its cause, then every effect would be
moved up into the time of its cause, and a chain of causes and effects
containing as many links as before would fill no time at all, still less
an infinite time, but would be all together in one moment. Thus, under the
assumption that cause and effect are simultaneous, the course of the world
shrinks up into an affair of a moment. This proof is analogous to the
proof that every sheet of paper must have a certain thickness, because
otherwise the whole book would have none. To say _when_ the cause ceases
and the effect begins is in almost all cases difficult, and often
impossible. For the _changes_ (_i.e._, the succession of states) are
continuous, like the time which they fill, and therefore also, like it,
they are infinitely divisible. But their succession is as necessarily
determined and as unmistakable as that of the moments of time itself, and
each of them is called, with reference to the one which precedes it,
“effect,” and with reference to the one which follows it, “cause.”

_Every change in the material world can only take place because another
has immediately preceded it_: this is the true and the whole content of
the law of causality. But no conception has been more misused in
philosophy than that of _cause_, by means of the favourite trick or
blunder of conceiving it too widely, taking it too generally, through
abstract thinking. Since Scholasticism, indeed properly since Plato and
Aristotle, philosophy has been for the most part a _systematic misuse of
general conceptions_. Such, for example, are substance, ground, cause, the
good, perfection, necessity, and very many others. A tendency of the mind
to work with such abstract and too widely comprehended conceptions has
shown itself almost at all times. It may ultimately rest upon a certain
indolence of the intellect, which finds it too difficult a task to be
constantly controlling thought by perception. By degrees such unduly wide
conceptions come to be used almost like algebraical symbols, and tossed
about like them, and thus philosophy is reduced to a mere process of
combination, a kind of reckoning which (like all calculations) employs and
demands only the lower faculties. Indeed there finally results from this a
mere juggling with words, of which the most shocking example is afforded
us by the mind-destroying Hegelism, in which it is carried to the extent
of pure nonsense. But Scholasticism also often degenerated into
word-juggling. Nay even the “Topi” of Aristotle—very abstract principles,
conceived with absolute generality, which one could apply to the most
different kinds of subjects, and always bring into the field in arguing
either _pro_ or _contra_—have also their origin in this misuse of general
conceptions. We find innumerable examples of the way the Schoolmen worked
with such abstractions in their writings, especially in those of Thomas
Aquinas. But philosophy really pursued the path which was entered on by
the Schoolmen down to the time of Locke and Kant, who at last bethought
themselves as to the origin of conceptions. Indeed we find Kant himself,
in his earlier years, still upon that path, in his “Proof of the Existence
of God” (p. 191 of the first volume of Rosenkranz’s edition), where the
conceptions substance, ground, reality, are used in such a way as would
never have been possible if he had gone back to the _source_ of these
conceptions and to their _true content_ which is determined thereby. For
then he would have found as the source and content of _substance_ simply
matter, of ground (if things of the real world are in question) simply
cause, that is, the prior change which brings about the later change, &c.
It is true that in this case such an investigation would not have led to
the intended result. But everywhere, as here, such unduly wide
conceptions, under which, therefore, more was subsumed than their true
content would have justified, there have arisen false principles, and from
these false systems. Spinoza’s whole method of demonstration rests upon
such uninvestigated and too widely comprehended conceptions. Now here lies
the great merit of Locke, who, in order to counteract all that dogmatic
unreality, insisted upon the investigation of the _origin of the
conceptions_, and thus led back to _perception and experience_. Bacon had
worked in a similar frame of mind, yet more with reference to Physics than
to Metaphysics. Kant followed the path entered upon by Locke, but in a
higher sense and much further, as has already been mentioned above. To the
men of mere show who succeeded in diverting the attention of the public
from Kant to themselves the results obtained by Locke and Kant were
inconvenient. But in such a case they know how to ignore both the dead and
the living. Thus without hesitation they forsook the only right path which
had at last been found by those wise men, and philosophised at random with
all kinds of indiscriminately collected conceptions, unconcerned as to
their origin and content, till at last the substance of the Hegelian
philosophy, wise beyond measure, was that the conceptions had no origin at
all, but were rather themselves the origin and source of things. But Kant
has erred in this respect. He has too much neglected empirical perception
for the sake of _pure_ perception—a point which I have fully discussed in
my criticism of his philosophy. With me perception is throughout the
source of all knowledge. I early recognised the misleading and insidious
nature of abstractions, and in 1813, in my essay on the principle of
sufficient reason, I pointed out the difference of the relations which are
thought under _this_ conception. General conceptions must indeed be the
material in which philosophy deposits and stores up its knowledge, but not
the source from which it draws it; the _terminus ad quem_, not _a quo_. It
is not, as Kant defines it, a science _drawn from_ conceptions, but a
science _in_ conceptions. Thus the conception of causality also, with
which we are here concerned, has always been taken far too widely by
philosophers for the furtherance of their dogmatic ends, and much was
imported into it which does not belong to it at all. Hence arose
propositions such as the following: “All that is has its cause”—“the
effect cannot contain more than the cause, thus nothing that was not also
in the cause”—“_causa est nobilior suo effectu_,” and many others just as
unwarranted. The following subtilty of that insipid gossip Proclus affords
an elaborate and specially lucid example of this. It occurs in his
“_Institutio Theologica_,” § 76: “Παν το απο ακινητου γιγνομενον αιτιας,
αμεταβλητον εχει την ὑπαρξιν; παν δε το απο κινουμενης, μεταβλητην; ει γαρ
ακινητον εστι παντῃ το ποιουν, ου δια κινησεως, αλλ᾽ αυτῳ τῳ ειναι παραγει
το δευτερον αφ᾽ ἑαυτου.” (_Quidquid ab immobili causa manat, immutabilem
habet essentiam [substantiam]. Quidquid vero a mobili causa manat,
essentiam habet mutabilem. Si enim illud, quod aliquid facit, est prorsus
immobile, non per motum, sed per ipsum Esse producit ipsum secundum ex se
ipso._) Excellent! But just show me a cause which is not itself set in
motion: it is simply impossible. But here, as in so many cases,
abstraction has thought away all determinations down to that one which it
is desired to make use of without regard to the fact that the latter
cannot exist without the former. The only correct expression of the law of
causality is this: _Every change has its cause in another change which
immediately precedes it_. If something _happens_, _i.e._, if a new state
of things appears, _i.e._, if something is _changed_, then something else
must have _changed_ immediately before, and something else again before
this, and so on _ad infinitum_, for a _first_ cause is as impossible to
conceive as a beginning of time or a limit of space. More than this the
law of causality does not assert. Thus its claims only arise in the case
of _changes_. So long as nothing changes there can be no question of a
cause. For there is no _a priori_ ground for inferring from the existence
of given things, _i.e._, states of matter, their previous non-existence,
and from this again their coming into being, that is to say, there is no
_a priori_ ground for inferring a change. Therefore the mere existence of
a thing does not justify us in inferring that it has a cause. Yet there
may be _a posteriori_ reasons, that is, reasons drawn from previous
experience, for the assumption that the present state or condition did not
always exist, but has only come into existence in consequence of another
state, and therefore by means of a change, the cause of which is then to
be sought, and also the cause of this cause. Here then we are involved in
the _infinite regressus_ to which the application of the law of causality
always leads. We said above: “_Things_, _i.e._, _states or conditions of
matter,_” for _change_ and _causality_ have only to do with states or
conditions. It is these states which we understand by _form_, in the wider
sense; and only the forms change, the matter is permanent. Thus it is only
the form which is subject to the law of causality. But the form
constitutes the _thing_, _i.e._, it is the ground of _the difference_ of
things; while matter must be thought as the same in all. Therefore the
Schoolmen said, “_Forma dat esse rei;_” more accurately this proposition
would run: _Forma dat rei essentiam, materia existentiam_. Therefore the
question as to the cause of a _thing_ always concerns merely its form,
_i.e._, its state or quality, and not its matter, and indeed only the
former so far as we have grounds for assuming that it has not _always_
existed, but has come into being by means of a _change_. The union of
_form_ and _matter_, or of _essentia_ and _existentia_, gives the
_concrete_, which is always particular; thus, the _thing_. And it is the
_forms_ whose union with _matter_, _i.e._, whose appearance in matter by
means of a _change_, are subject to the law of causality. By taking the
conception _too widely_ in the abstract the mistake slipped in of
extending causality to the thing absolutely, that is, to its whole inner
nature and existence, thus also to matter, and ultimately it was thought
justifiable to ask for a cause of the world itself. This is the origin of
the _cosmological proof_. This proof begins by inferring from the
existence of the world its non-existence, which preceded its existence,
and such an inference is quite unjustifiable; it ends, however, with the
most fearful inconsistency, for it does away altogether with the law of
causality, from which alone it derives all its evidencing power, for it
stops at a first cause, and will not go further; thus ends, as it were, by
committing parricide, as the bees kill the drones after they have served
their end. All the talk about the _absolute_ is referable to a shamefast,
and therefore disguised cosmological proof, which, in the face of the
“Critique of Pure Reason,” has passed for philosophy in Germany for the
last sixty years. What does the absolute mean? Something that is, and of
which (under pain of punishment) we dare not ask further whence and why it
is. A precious rarity for professors of philosophy! In the case, however,
of the honestly expressed cosmological proof, through the assumption of a
first cause, and therefore of a first beginning in a time which has
absolutely no beginning, this beginning is always pushed further back by
the question: Why not earlier? And so far back indeed that one never gets
down from it to the present, but is always marvelling that the present
itself did not occur already millions of years ago. In general, then, the
law of causality applies to all things in the world, but not to the world
itself, for it is _immanent_ in the world, not _transcendent; with_ it it
comes into action, and _with_ it it is abolished. This depends ultimately
upon the fact that it belongs to the mere form of our understanding, like
the whole of the objective world, which accordingly is merely phenomenal,
and is conditioned by the understanding. Thus the law of causality has
full application, without any exception, to all things in the world, of
course in respect of their form, to the variation of these forms, and thus
to their changes. It is valid for the actions of men as for the impact of
a stone, yet, as we have said always, merely with regard to events, to
_changes_. But if we abstract from its origin in the understanding and try
to look at it as purely objective, it will be found in ultimate analysis
to depend upon the fact that everything that acts does so by virtue of its
original, and therefore eternal or timeless, power; therefore its present
effect would necessarily have occurred infinitely earlier, that is, before
all conceivable time, but that it lacked the temporal condition. This
temporal condition is the occasion, _i.e._, the cause, on account of which
alone the effect only takes place _now_, but now takes place necessarily;
the cause assigns it its place in time.

But in consequence of that unduly wide view in abstract thought of the
conception _cause_, which was considered above, it has been confounded
with the conception of _force_. This is something completely different
from the cause, but yet is that which imparts to every cause its
causality, _i.e._, the capability of producing an effect. I have explained
this fully and thoroughly in the second book of the first volume, also in
“The Will in Nature,” and finally also in the second edition of the essay
on the principle of sufficient reason, § 20, p. 44 (third edition, p. 45).
This confusion is to be found in its most aggravated form in Maine de
Biran’s book mentioned above, and this is dealt with more fully in the
place last referred to; but apart from this it is also very common; for
example, when people seek for the cause of any original force, such as
gravitation. Kant himself (_Über den Einzig Möglichen Beweisgrund_, vol.
i. p. 211-215 of Rosenkranz’s edition) calls the forces of nature
“efficient causes,” and says “gravity is a cause.” Yet it is impossible to
see to the bottom of his thought so long as force and cause are not
distinctly recognised as completely different. But the use of abstract
conceptions leads very easily to their confusion if the consideration of
their origin is set aside. The knowledge of causes and effects, always
_perceptive_, which rests on the form of the understanding, is neglected
in order to stick to the abstraction _cause_. In this way alone is the
conception of causality, with all its simplicity, so very frequently
wrongly apprehended. Therefore even in Aristotle (“Metaph.,” iv. 2) we
find causes divided into four classes which are utterly falsely, and
indeed crudely conceived. Compare with it my classification of causes as
set forth for the first time in my essay on sight and colour, chap. 1, and
touched upon briefly in the sixth paragraph of the first volume of the
present work, but expounded at full length in my prize essay on the
freedom of the will, p. 30-33. Two things in nature remain untouched by
that chain of causality which stretches into infinity in both directions;
these are matter and the forces of nature. They are both conditions of
causality, while everything else is conditioned by it. For the one
(matter) is that _in_ which the states and their changes appear; the other
(forces of nature) is that by virtue of which alone they can appear at
all. Here, however, one must remember that in the second book, and later
and more thoroughly in “The Will in Nature,” the natural forces are shown
to be identical with the will in us; but matter appears as the mere
_visibility of the will_; so that ultimately it also may in a certain
sense be regarded as identical with the will.

On the other hand, not less true and correct is what is explained in § 4
of the first book, and still better in the second edition of the essay on
the principle of sufficient reason at the end of § 21, p. 77 (third
edition, p. 82), that matter is causality itself objectively comprehended,
for its entire nature consists in _acting in general_, so that it itself
is thus the activity (ενεργεια = reality) of things generally, as it were
the abstraction of all their different kinds of acting. Accordingly, since
the essence, _essentia_, of matter consists in _action in general_, and
the reality, _existentia_, of things consists in their materiality, which
thus again is one with action in general, it may be asserted of matter
that in it _existentia_ and _essentia_ unite and are one, for it has no
other attribute than _existence itself_ in general and independent of all
fuller definitions of it. On the other hand, all _empirically_ given
matter, thus all material or matter in the special sense (which our
ignorant materialists at the present day confound with matter), has
already entered the framework of the _forms_ and manifests itself only
through their qualities and accidents, because in experience every action
is of quite a definite and special kind, and is never merely general.
Therefore pure matter is an object of _thought_ alone, not of
_perception_, which led Plotinus (_Enneas II._, lib. iv., c. 8 & 9) and
Giordano Bruno (_Della Causa_, dial. 4) to make the paradoxical assertion
that matter has no extension, for extension is inseparable from the form,
and that therefore it is _incorporeal_. Yet Aristotle had already taught
that it is not a body although it is corporeal: “σωμα μεν ουκ αν ειη,
σωματικη δε” (_Stob. Ecl._, lib. i., c. 12, § 5). In reality we think
under _pure matter_ only action, in the abstract, quite independent of the
_kind_ of action, thus _pure causality_ itself; and as such it is not an
_object_ but a _condition_ of experience, just like space and time. This
is the reason why in the accompanying table of our pure _a priori_
knowledge matter is able to take the place of causality, and therefore
appears along with space and time as the third pure form, and therefore as
dependent on our intellect.

This table contains all the fundamental truths which are rooted in our
perceptive or intuitive knowledge _a priori_, expressed as first
principles independent of each other. What is special, however, what forms
the content of arithmetic and geometry, is not given here, nor yet what
only results from the union and application of those formal principles of
knowledge. This is the subject of the “Metaphysical First Principles of
Natural Science” expounded by Kant, to which this table in some measure
forms the propædutic and introduction, and with which it therefore stands
in direct connection. In this table I have primarily had in view the very
remarkable _parallelism_ of those _a priori_ principles of knowledge which
form the framework of all experience, but specially also the fact that, as
I have explained in § 4 of the first volume, matter (and also causality)
is to be regarded as a combination, or if it is preferred, an
amalgamation, of space and time. In agreement with this, we find that what
geometry is for the pure perception or intuition of space, and arithmetic
for that of time, Kant’s _phoronomy_ is for the pure perception or
intuition of the two _united_. For matter is primarily that which is
movable in space. The mathematical point cannot even be conceived as
movable, as Aristotle has shown (“Physics,” vi. 10). This philosopher also
himself provided the first example of such a science, for in the fifth and
sixth books of his “Physics” he determined _a priori_ the laws of rest and
motion.

Now this table may be regarded at pleasure either as a collection of the
eternal laws of the world, and therefore as the basis of our ontology, or
as a chapter of the physiology of the brain, according as one assumes the
realistic or the idealistic point of view; but the second is in the last
instance right. On this point, indeed, we have already come to an
understanding in the first chapter; yet I wish further to illustrate it
specially by an example. Aristotle’s book “_De Xenophane_,” &c., commences
with these weighty words of Xenophanes: “Αϊδιον ειναι φησιν, ει τι εστιν,
ειπερ μη ενδεχεται γενεσθαι μηδεν εκ μηδενος.” (_Æternum esse, inquit,
quicquid est, siquidem fieri non potest, ut ex nihilo quippiam existat._)
Here, then, Xenophanes judges as to the origin of things, as regards its
possibility, and of this origin he can have had no experience, even by
analogy; nor indeed does he appeal to experience, but judges
apodictically, and therefore _a priori_. How can he do this if as a
stranger he looks from without into a world that exists purely
objectively, that is, independently of his knowledge? How can he, an
ephemeral being hurrying past, to whom only a hasty glance into such a
world is permitted, judge apodictically, _a priori_ and without experience
concerning that world, the possibility of its existence and origin? The
solution of this riddle is that the man has only to do with his own ideas,
which as such are the work of his brain, and the constitution of which is
merely the manner or mode in which alone the function of his brain can be
fulfilled, _i.e._, the form of his perception. He thus judges only as to
the _phenomena of his own brain_, and declares what enters into its forms,
time, space, and causality, and what does not. In this he is perfectly at
home and speaks apodictically. In a like sense, then, the following table
of the _Prædicabilia a priori_ of time, space, and matter is to be taken:—

Prædicabilia _A Priori_.

Of Time.               Of Space.              Of Matter.
(1) There is only      (1) There is only      (1) There is only
_one_ Time, and all    _one_ Space, and all   _one_ Matter, and
different times are    different spaces are   all different
parts of it.           parts of it.           materials are
                                              different states of
                                              matter; as such it
                                              is called
                                              _Substance_.
(2) Different times    (2) Different spaces   (2) Different
are not simultaneous   are not successive     matters (materials)
but successive.        but simultaneous.      are not so through
                                              substance but
                                              through accidents.
(3) Time cannot be     (3) Space cannot be    (3) Annihilation of
thought away, but      thought away, but      matter is
everything can be      everything can be      inconceivable, but
thought away from      thought away from      annihilation of all
it.                    it.                    its forms and
                                              qualities is
                                              conceivable.
(4) Time has three     (4) Space has three    (4) Matter exists,
divisions, the past,   dimensions—height,     _i.e._, acts in all
the present, and the   breadth, and length.   the dimensions of
future, which                                 space and throughout
constitute two                                the whole length of
directions and a                              time, and thus these
centre of                                     two are united and
indifference.                                 thereby filled. In
                                              this consists the
                                              true nature of
                                              matter; thus it is
                                              through and through
                                              causality.
(5) Time is            (5) Space is           (5) Matter is
infinitely             infinitely             infinitely
divisible.             divisible.             divisible.
(6) Time is            (6) Space is           (6) Matter is
homogeneous and a      homogeneous and a      homogeneous and a
_Continuum_, _i.e._,   _Continuum_, _i.e._,   _Continuum_, _i.e._,
no one of its parts    no one of its parts    it does not consist
is different from      is different from      of originally
the rest, nor          the rest, nor          different
separated from it by   separated from it by   (_homoiomeria_) or
anything that is not   anything that is not   originally separated
time.                  space.                 parts (atoms); it is
                                              therefore not
                                              composed of parts,
                                              which would
                                              necessarily be
                                              separated by
                                              something that was
                                              not matter.
(7) Time has no        (7) Space has no       (7) Matter has no
beginning and no       limits, but all        origin and no end,
end, but all           limits are in it.      but all coming into
beginning and end is                          being and passing
in it.                                        away are in it.
(8) By reason of       (8) By reason of       (8) By reason of
time we count.         space we measure.      matter we weigh.
(9) Rhythm is only     (9) Symmetry is only   (9) Equilibrium is
in time.               in space.              only in matter.
(10) We know the       (10) We know the       (10) We know the
laws of time _a        laws of space _a       laws of the
priori_.               priori_.               substance of all
                                              accidents _a
                                              priori_.
(11) Time can be       (11) Space is          (11) Matter can only
perceived _a           immediately            be thought _a
priori_, although      perceptible _a         priori_.
only in the form of    priori_.
a line.
(12) Time has no       (12) Space can never   (12) The accidents
permanence, but        pass away, but         change; the
passes away as soon    endures through all    substance remains.
as it is there.        time.
(13) Time never        (13) Space is          (13) Matter is
rests.                 immovable.             indifferent to rest
                                              and motion, _i.e._,
                                              it is originally
                                              disposed towards
                                              neither of the two.
(14) Everything that   (14) Everything that   (14) Everything
exists in time has     exists in space has    material has the
duration.              a position.            capacity for action.
(15) Time has no       (15) Space has no      (15) Matter is what
duration, but all      motion, but all        is permanent in time
duration is in it,     motion is in it, and   and movable in
and is the             it is the change of    space; by the
persistence of what    position of what is    comparison of what
is permanent in        moved, in contrast     rests with what is
contrast with its      with its unbroken      moved we measure
restless course.       rest.                  duration.
(16) All motion is     (16) All motion is     (16) All motion is
only possible in       only possible in       only possible to
time.                  space.                 matter.
(17) Velocity is, in   (17) Velocity is, in   (17) The magnitude
equal spaces, in       equal times, in        of the motion, the
inverse proportion     direct proportion to   velocity being
to the time.           the space.             equal, is in direct
                                              geometrical
                                              proportion to the
                                              matter (mass).
(18) Time is not       (18) Space is          (18) Matter as such
measurable directly    measurable directly    (mass) is
through itself, but    through itself, and    measurable, _i.e._,
only indirectly        indirectly through     determinable as
through motion,        motion, which is in    regards its quantity
which is in space      time and space         only indirectly,
and time together:     together; hence, for   only through the
thus the motion of     example, an hour’s     amount of the motion
the sun and of the     journey, and the       which it receives
clock measure time.    distance of the        and imparts when it
                       fixed stars            is repelled or
                       expressed as the       attracted.
                       travelling of light
                       for so many years.
(19) Time is           (19) Space is          (19) Matter is
omnipresent. Every     eternal. Every part    absolute. That is,
part of time is        of it exists always.   it neither comes
everywhere, _i.e._,                           into being nor
in all space, at                              passes away, and
once.                                         thus its quantity
                                              can neither be
                                              increased nor
                                              diminished.
(20) In time taken     (20) In space taken    (20, 21) Matter
by itself everything   by itself everything   unites the ceaseless
would be in            would be               flight of time with
succession.            simultaneous.          the rigid immobility
                                              of space; therefore
                                              it is the permanent
                                              substance of the
                                              changing accidents.
                                              Causality determines
                                              this change for
                                              every place at every
                                              time, and thereby
                                              combines time and
                                              space, and
                                              constitutes the
                                              whole nature of
                                              matter.
(21) Time makes the    (21) Space makes the
change of accidents    permanence of
possible.              substance possible.
(22) Every part of     (22) No part of        (22) For matter is
time contains all      space contains the     both permanent and
parts of matter.       same matter as         impenetrable.
                       another.
(23) Time is the       (23) Space is the      (23) Individuals are
_principium            _principium            material.
individuationis_.      individuationis_.
(24) The now has no    (24) The point has     (24) The atom has no
duration.              no extension.          reality.
(25) Time in itself    (25) Space in itself   (25) Matter in
is empty and without   is empty and without   itself is without
properties.            properties.            form and quality,
                                              and likewise inert,
                                              _i.e._, indifferent
                                              to rest or motion,
                                              thus without
                                              properties.
(26) Every moment is   (26) By the position   (26) Every change in
conditioned by the     of every limit in      matter can take
preceding moment,      space with reference   place only on
and is only because    to any other limit,    account of another
the latter has         its position with      change which
ceased to be.          reference to every     preceded it; and
(Principle of          possible limit is      therefore a first
sufficient reason of   precisely              change, and thus
existence in           determined.            also a first state
time.—See my essay     (Principle of          of matter, is just
on the principle of    sufficient reason of   as inconceivable as
sufficient reason.)    existence in space.)   a beginning of time
                                              or a limit of space.
                                              (Principle of
                                              sufficient reason of
                                              becoming.)
(27) Time makes        (27) Space makes       (27) Matter, as that
arithmetic possible.   geometry possible.     which is movable in
                                              space, makes
                                              phoronomy possible.
(28) The simple        (28) The simple        (28) The simple
element in             element in geometry    element in phoronomy
arithmetic is unity.   is the point.          is the atom.


Notes to the Annexed Table.


(1) To No. 4 of Matter.


The essence of matter is acting, it is acting itself, in the abstract,
thus acting in general apart from all difference of the kind of action: it
is through and through causality. On this account it is itself, as regards
its existence, not subject to the law of causality, and thus has neither
come into being nor passes away, for otherwise the law of causality would
be applied to itself. Since now causality is known to us _a priori_, the
conception of matter, as the indestructible basis of all that exists, can
so far take its place in the knowledge we possess _a priori_, inasmuch as
it is only the realisation of an _a priori_ form of our knowledge. For as
soon as we see anything that acts or is causally efficient it presents
itself _eo ipso_ as material, and conversely anything material presents
itself as necessarily active or causally efficient. They are in fact
interchangeable conceptions. Therefore the word “actual” is used as
synonymous with “material;” and also the Greek κατ᾽ ενεργειαν, in
opposition to κατα δυναμιν, reveals the same source, for ενεργεια
signifies action in general; so also with _actu_ in opposition to
_potentia_, and the English “actually” for “_wirklich_.” What is called
space-occupation, or impenetrability, and regarded as the essential
predicate of body (_i.e._ of what is material), is merely that _kind of
action_ which belongs to _all_ bodies without exception, the mechanical.
It is this universality alone, by virtue of which it belongs to the
conception of body, and follows _a priori_ from this conception, and
therefore cannot be thought away from it without doing away with the
conception itself—it is this, I say, that distinguishes it from any other
kind of action, such as that of electricity or chemistry, or light or
heat. Kant has very accurately analysed this space-occupation of the
mechanical mode of activity into repulsive and attractive force, just as a
given mechanical force is analysed into two others by means of the
parallelogram of forces. But this is really only the thoughtful analysis
of the phenomenon into its two constituent parts. The two forces in
conjunction exhibit the body within its own limits, that is, in a definite
volume, while the one alone would diffuse it into infinity, and the other
alone would contract it to a point. Notwithstanding this reciprocal
balancing or neutralisation, the body still acts upon other bodies which
contest its space with the first force, repelling them, and with the other
force, in gravitation, attracting all bodies in general. So that the two
forces are not extinguished in their product, as, for instance, two equal
forces acting in different directions, or +E and -E, or oxygen and
hydrogen in water. That impenetrability and gravity really exactly
coincide is shown by their empirical inseparableness, in that the one
never appears without the other, although we can separate them in thought.

I must not, however, omit to mention that the doctrine of Kant referred
to, which forms the fundamental thought of the second part of his
“Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science,” thus of the Dynamics,
was distinctly and fully expounded before Kant by Priestley, in his
excellent “Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit,” § 1 and 2, a book which
appeared in 1777, and the second edition in 1782, while Kant’s work was
published in 1786. Unconscious recollection may certainly be assumed in
the case of subsidiary thoughts, flashes of wit, comparisons, &c., but not
in the case of the principal and fundamental thought. Shall we then
believe that Kant silently appropriated such important thoughts of another
man? and this from a book which at that time was new? Or that this book
was unknown to him, and that the same thoughts sprang up in two minds
within a short time? The explanation, also, which Kant gives, in the
“Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science” (first edition, p. 88;
Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 384), of the real difference between fluids and
solids, is in substance already to be found in Kaspar Freidr. Wolff’s
“Theory of Generation,” Berlin 1764, p. 132. But what are we to say if we
find Kant’s most important and brilliant doctrine, that of the ideality of
space and the merely phenomenal existence of the corporeal world, already
expressed by Maupertuis thirty years earlier? This will be found more
fully referred to in Frauenstädt’s letters on my philosophy, Letter 14.
Maupertuis expresses this paradoxical doctrine so decidedly, and yet
without adducing any proof of it, that one must suppose that he also took
it from somewhere else. It is very desirable that the matter should be
further investigated, and as this would demand tiresome and extensive
researches, some German Academy might very well make the question the
subject of a prize essay. Now in the same relation as that in which Kant
here stands to Priestley, and perhaps also to Kaspar Wolff, and Maupertuis
or his predecessor, Laplace stands to Kant. For the principal and
fundamental thought of Laplace’s admirable and certainly correct theory of
the origin of the planetary system, which is set forth in his “_Exposition
du Système du Monde_,” liv. v. c. 2, was expressed by Kant nearly fifty
years before, in 1755, in his “_Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels_,”
and more fully in 1763 in his “_Einzig möglichen Beweisgrund des Daseyns
Gottes_,” ch. 7. Moreover, in the later work he gives us to understand
that Lambert in his “_Kosmologischen Briefen_,” 1761, tacitly adopted that
doctrine from him, and these letters at the same time also appeared in
French (_Lettres Cosmologiques sur la Constitution de l’Univers_). We are
therefore obliged to assume that Laplace knew that Kantian doctrine.
Certainly he expounds the matter more thoroughly, strikingly, and fully,
and at the same time more simply than Kant, as is natural from his more
profound astronomical knowledge; yet in the main it is to be found clearly
expressed in Kant, and on account of the importance of the matter, would
alone have been sufficient to make his name immortal. It cannot but
disturb us very much if we find minds of the first order under suspicion
of dishonesty, which would be a scandal to those of the lowest order. For
we feel that theft is even more inexcusable in a rich man than in a poor
one. We dare not, however, be silent; for here we are posterity, and must
be just, as we hope that posterity will some day be just to us. Therefore,
as a third example, I will add to these cases, that the fundamental
thoughts of the “Metamorphosis of Plants,” by Goethe, were already
expressed by Kaspar Wolff in 1764 in his “Theory of Generation,” p. 148,
229, 243, &c. Indeed, is it otherwise with the _system of gravitation_?
the discovery of which is on the Continent of Europe always ascribed to
Newton, while in England the learned at least know very well that it
belongs to Robert Hooke, who in the year 1666, in a “Communication to the
Royal Society,” expounds it quite distinctly, although only as an
hypothesis and without proof. The principal passage of this communication
is quoted in Dugald Stewart’s “Philosophy of the Human Mind,” and is
probably taken from Robert Hooke’s Posthumous Works. The history of the
matter, and how Newton got into difficulty by it, is also to be found in
the “_Biographie Universelle_,” article Newton. Hooke’s priority is
treated as an established fact in a short history of astronomy, _Quarterly
Review_, August 1828. Further details on this subject are to be found in
my “_Parerga_,” vol. ii., § 86 (second edition, § 88). The story of the
fall of an apple is a fable as groundless as it is popular, and is quite
without authority.


(2) To No. 18 of Matter.


_The quantity of a motion_ (_quantitas motus_, already in Descartes) is
the product of the mass into the velocity.

This law is the basis not only of the doctrine of impact in mechanics, but
also of that of equilibrium in statics. From the force of impact which two
bodies with the same velocity exert the relation of their masses to each
other may be determined. Thus of two hammers striking with the same
velocity, the one which has the greater mass will drive the nail deeper
into the wall or the post deeper into the earth. For example, a hammer
weighing six pounds with a velocity = 6 effects as much as a hammer
weighing three pounds with a velocity = 12, for in both cases the quantity
of motion or the momentum = 36. Of two balls rolling at the same pace, the
one which has the greater mass will impel a third ball at rest to a
greater distance than the ball of less mass can. For the mass of the first
multiplied by the same velocity gives a _greater quantity of motion_, or a
_greater momentum_. The cannon carries further than the gun, because an
equal velocity communicated to a much greater mass gives a much _greater
quantity of motion_, which resists longer the retarding effect of gravity.
For the same reason, the same arm will throw a lead bullet further than a
stone one of equal magnitude, or a large stone further than quite a small
one. And therefore also a case-shot does not carry so far as a ball-shot.

The same law lies at the foundation of the theory of the lever and of the
balance. For here also the smaller mass, on the longer arm of the lever or
beam of the balance, has a greater velocity in falling; and multiplied by
this it may be equal to, or indeed exceed, the _quantity of motion_ or the
_momentum_ of the greater mass at the shorter arm of the lever. In the
state of rest brought about by _equilibrium_ this velocity exists merely
in intention or virtually, _potentiâ_, not _actu_; but it acts just as
well as _actu_, which is very remarkable.

The following explanation will be more easily understood now that these
truths have been called to mind.

The quantity of a given matter can only be estimated in general according
to its force, and its force can only be known in its _expression_. Now
when we are considering matter only as regards its quantity, not its
quality, this expression can only be mechanical, _i.e._, it can only
consist in motion which it imparts to other matter. For only in motion
does the force of matter become, so to speak, _alive_; hence the
expression _vis viva_ for the manifestation of force of matter in motion.
Accordingly the only measure of the quantity of a given matter is the
_quantity of its motion_, or its _momentum_. In this, however, if it is
given, the _quantity_ of matter still appears in conjunction and
amalgamated with its other factor, _velocity_. Therefore if we want to
know the quantity of matter (the mass) this other factor must be
eliminated. Now the velocity is known directly; for it is _S/T_. But the
other factor, which remains when this is eliminated, can always be known
only _relatively_ in comparison with other masses, which again can only be
known themselves by means of the _quantity of their motion_, or their
_momentum_, thus in their combination with velocity. We must therefore
compare one _quantity of motion_ with the other, and then subtract the
velocity from both, in order to see how much each of them owed to its
mass. This is done by weighing the masses against each other, in which
that _quantity of motion_ is compared which, in each of the two masses,
calls forth the attractive power of the earth that acts upon both only in
proportion to their _quantity_. Therefore there are two kinds of weighing.
Either we impart to the two masses to be compared _equal_ velocity, in
order to find out which of the two now _communicates_ motion to the other,
thus itself _has_ a greater quantity of motion, which, since the velocity
is the same on both sides, is to be ascribed to the other factor of the
_quantity of motion_ or the _momentum_, thus to the mass (common balance).
Or we weigh, by investigating how much _more velocity_ the one mass must
receive than the other has, in order to be equal to the latter in
_quantity of motion_ or _momentum_, and therefore allow no more motion to
be communicated to itself by the other; for then in proportion as its
velocity must exceed that of the other, its mass, _i.e._, the quantity of
its matter, is less than that of the other (steelyard). This estimation of
masses by weighing depends upon the favourable circumstance that the
moving force, in itself, acts upon both quite equally, and each of the two
is in a position to _communicate_ to the other directly its surplus
_quantity of motion_ or _momentum_, so that it becomes visible.

The substance of these doctrines has long ago been expressed by Newton and
Kant, but through the connection and the clearness of this exposition I
believe I have made it more intelligible, so that that insight is possible
for all which I regarded as necessary for the justification of proposition
No. 18.




Second Half. The Doctrine of the Abstract Idea, or Thinking.



Chapter V.(16) On The Irrational Intellect.


It must be possible to arrive at a complete knowledge of the consciousness
of the brutes, for we can construct it by abstracting certain properties
of our own consciousness. On the other hand, there enters into the
consciousness of the brute instinct, which is much more developed in all
of them than in man, and in some of them extends to what we call
mechanical instinct.

The brutes have understanding without having reason, and therefore they
have knowledge of perception but no abstract knowledge. They apprehend
correctly, and also grasp the immediate causal connection, in the case of
the higher species even through several links of its chain, but they do
not, properly speaking, _think_. For they lack _conceptions_, that is,
abstract ideas. The first consequence of this, however, is the want of a
proper memory, which applies even to the most sagacious of the brutes, and
it is just this which constitutes the principal difference between their
consciousness and that of men. Perfect intelligence depends upon the
distinct consciousness of the past and of the eventual future, _as such_,
and in connection with the present. The special memory which this demands
is therefore an orderly, connected, and thinking retrospective
recollection. This, however, is only possible by means of _general
conceptions_, the assistance of which is required by what is entirely
individual, in order that it may be recalled in its order and connection.
For the boundless multitude of things and events of the same and similar
kinds, in the course of our life, does not admit directly of a perceptible
and individual recollection of each particular, for which neither the
powers of the most comprehensive memory nor our time would be sufficient.
Therefore all this can only be preserved by subsuming it under general
conceptions, and the consequent reference to relatively few principles, by
means of which we then have always at command an orderly and adequate
survey of our past. We can only present to ourselves in perception
particular scenes of the past, but the time that has passed since then and
its content we are conscious of only in the abstract by means of
conceptions of things and numbers which now represent days and years,
together with their content. The memory of the brutes, on the contrary,
like their whole intellect, is confined to what they _perceive_, and
primarily consists merely in the fact that a recurring impression presents
itself as having already been experienced, for the present perception
revivifies the traces of an earlier one. Their memory is therefore always
dependent upon what is now actually present. Just on this account,
however, this excites anew the sensation and the mood which the earlier
phenomenon produced. Thus the dog recognises acquaintances, distinguishes
friends from enemies, easily finds again the path it has once travelled,
the houses it has once visited, and at the sight of a plate or a stick is
at once put into the mood associated with them. All kinds of training
depend upon the use of this perceptive memory and on the force of habit,
which in the case of animals is specially strong. It is therefore just as
different from human education as perception is from thinking. We
ourselves are in certain cases, in which memory proper refuses us its
service, confined to that merely perceptive recollection, and thus we can
measure the difference between the two from our own experience. For
example, at the sight of a person whom it appears to us we know, although
we are not able to remember when or where we saw him; or again, when we
visit a place where we once were in early childhood, that is, while our
reason was yet undeveloped, and which we have therefore entirely
forgotten, and yet feel that the present impression is one which we have
already experienced. This is the nature of all the recollections of the
brutes. We have only to add that in the case of the most sagacious this
merely perceptive memory rises to a certain degree of _phantasy_, which
again assists it, and by virtue of which, for example, the image of its
absent master floats before the mind of the dog and excites a longing
after him, so that when he remains away long it seeks for him everywhere.
Its dreams also depend upon this phantasy. The consciousness of the brutes
is accordingly a mere succession of presents, none of which, however,
exist as future before they appear, nor as past after they have vanished;
which is the specific difference of human consciousness. Hence the brutes
have infinitely less to _suffer_ than we have, because they know no other
pains but those which the _present_ directly brings. But the present is
without extension, while the future and the past, which contain most of
the causes of our suffering, are widely extended, and to their actual
content there is added that which is merely possible, which opens up an
unlimited field for desire and aversion. The brutes, on the contrary,
undisturbed by these, enjoy quietly and peacefully each present moment,
even if it is only bearable. Human beings of very limited capacity perhaps
approach them in this. Further, the sufferings which belong _purely_ to
the present can only be physical. Indeed the brutes do not properly
speaking feel death: they can only know it when it appears, and then they
are already no more. Thus then the life of the brute is a continuous
present. It lives on without reflection, and exists wholly in the present;
even the great majority of men live with very little reflection. Another
consequence of the special nature of the intellect of the brutes, which we
have explained is the perfect accordance of their consciousness with their
environment. Between the brute and the external world there is nothing,
but between us and the external world there is always our thought about
it, which makes us often inapproachable to it, and it to us. Only in the
case of children and very primitive men is this wall of partition so thin
that in order to see what goes on in them we only need to see what goes on
round about them. Therefore the brutes are incapable alike of purpose and
dissimulation; they reserve nothing. In this respect the dog stands to the
man in the same relation as a glass goblet to a metal one, and this helps
greatly to endear the dog so much to us, for it affords us great pleasure
to see all those inclinations and emotions which we so often conceal
displayed simply and openly in him. In general, the brutes always play, as
it were, with their hand exposed; and therefore we contemplate with so
much pleasure their behaviour towards each other, both when they belong to
the same and to different species. It is characterised by a certain stamp
of innocence, in contrast to the conduct of men, which is withdrawn from
the innocence of nature by the entrance of reason, and with it of prudence
or deliberation. Hence human conduct has throughout the stamp of intention
or deliberate purpose, the absence of which, and the consequent
determination by the impulse of the moment, is the fundamental
characteristic of all the action of the brutes. No brute is capable of a
purpose properly so-called. To conceive and follow out a purpose is the
prerogative of man, and it is a prerogative which is rich in consequences.
Certainly an instinct like that of the bird of passage or the bee, still
more a permanent, persistent desire, a longing like that of the dog for
its absent master, may present the appearance of a purpose, with which,
however, it must not be confounded. Now all this has its ultimate ground
in the relation between the human and the brute intellect, which may also
be thus expressed: The brutes have only _direct_ knowledge, while we, in
addition to this, have _indirect_ knowledge; and the advantage which in
many things—for example, in trigonometry and analysis, in machine work
instead of hand work, &c.—indirect has over direct knowledge appears here
also. Thus again we may say: The brutes have only a _single_ intellect, we
a _double_ intellect, both perceptive and thinking, and the operation of
the two often go on independently of each other. We perceive one thing,
and we think another. Often, again, they act upon each other. This way of
putting the matter enables us specially to understand that natural
openness and naivete of the brutes, referred to above, as contrasted with
the concealment of man.

However, the law _natura non facit saltus_ is not entirely suspended even
with regard to the intellect of the brutes, though certainly the step from
the brute to the human intelligence is the greatest which nature has made
in the production of her creatures. In the most favoured individuals of
the highest species of the brutes there certainly sometimes appears,
always to our astonishment, a faint trace of reflection, reason, the
comprehension of words, of thought, purpose, and deliberation. The most
striking indications of this kind are afforded by the elephant, whose
highly developed intelligence is heightened and supported by an experience
of a lifetime which sometimes extends to two hundred years. He has often
given unmistakable signs, recorded in well-known anecdotes, of
premeditation, which, in the case of brutes, always astonishes us more
than anything else. Such, for instance, is the story of the tailor on whom
an elephant revenged himself for pricking him with a needle. I wish,
however, to rescue from oblivion a parallel case to this, because it has
the advantage of being authenticated by judicial investigation. On the
27th of August 1830 there was held at Morpeth, in England, a coroner’s
inquest on the keeper, Baptist Bernhard, who was killed by his elephant.
It appeared from the evidence that two years before he had offended the
elephant grossly, and now, without any occasion, but on a favourable
opportunity, the elephant had seized him and crushed him. (See the
_Spectator_ and other English papers of that day.) For special information
on the intelligence of brutes I recommend Leroy’s excellent book, “_Sur
l’Intelligence des Animaux_,” _nouv. éd._ 1802.



Chapter VI. On The Doctrine of Abstract or Rational Knowledge.


The outward impression upon the senses, together with the mood which it
alone awakens in us, vanishes with the presence of the thing. Therefore
these two cannot of themselves constitute _experience_ proper, whose
teaching is to guide our conduct for the future. The image of that
impression which the imagination preserves is originally weaker than the
impression itself, and becomes weaker and weaker daily, until in time it
disappears altogether. There is only one thing which is not subject either
to the instantaneous vanishing of the impression or to the gradual
disappearance of its image, and is therefore free from the power of time.
This is the _conception_. In it, then, the teaching of experience must be
stored up, and it alone is suited to be a safe guide to our steps in life.
Therefore Seneca says rightly, “_Si vis tibi omnia subjicere, te subjice
rationi_” (Ep. 37). And I add to this that the essential condition of
surpassing others in actual life is that we should reflect or deliberate.
Such an important tool of the intellect as the _concept_ evidently cannot
be identical with the _word_, this mere sound, which as an impression of
sense passes with the moment, or as a phantasm of hearing dies away with
time. Yet the concept is an idea, the distinct consciousness and
preservation of which are bound up with the word. Hence the Greeks called
word, concept, relation, thought, and reason by the name of the first, ὁ
λογος. Yet the concept is perfectly different both from the word, to which
it is joined, and from the perceptions, from which it has originated. It
is of an entirely different nature from these impressions of the senses.
Yet it is able to take up into itself all the results of perception, and
give them back again unchanged and undiminished after the longest period
of time; thus alone does _experience_ arise. But the concept preserves,
not what is perceived nor what is then felt, but only what is essential in
these, in an entirely altered form, and yet as an adequate representative
of them. Just as flowers cannot be preserved, but their ethereal oil,
their essence, with the same smell and the same virtues, can be. The
action that has been guided by correct conceptions will, in the result,
coincide with the real object aimed at. We may judge of the inestimable
value of conceptions, and consequently of the reason, if we glance for a
moment at the infinite multitude and variety of the things and conditions
that coexist and succeed each other, and then consider that speech and
writing (the signs of conceptions) are capable of affording us accurate
information as to everything and every relation when and wherever it may
have been; for comparatively _few_ conceptions can contain and represent
an infinite number of things and conditions. In our own reflection
_abstraction_ is a throwing off of useless baggage for the sake of more
easily handling the knowledge which is to be compared, and has therefore
to be turned about in all directions. We allow much that is unessential,
and therefore only confusing, to fall away from the real things, and work
with few but essential determinations thought in the abstract. But just
because general conceptions are only formed by thinking away and leaving
out existing qualities, and are therefore the emptier the more general
they are, the use of this procedure is confined to the _working up_ of
knowledge which we have already acquired. This working up includes the
drawing of conclusions from premisses contained in our knowledge. New
insight, on the contrary, can only be obtained by the help of the faculty
of judgment, from perception, which alone is complete and rich knowledge.
Further, because the content and the extent of the concepts stand in
inverse relation to each other, and thus the more is thought _under_ a
concept, the less is thought _in_ it, concepts form a graduated series, a
hierarchy, from the most special to the most general, at the lower end of
which scholastic realism is almost right, and at the upper end nominalism.
For the most special conception is almost the individual, thus almost
real; and the most general conception, _e.g._, being (_i.e._, the
infinitive of the copula), is scarcely anything but a word. Therefore
philosophical systems which confine themselves to such very general
conceptions, without going down to the real, are little more than mere
juggling with words. For since all abstraction consists in thinking away,
the further we push it the less we have left over. Therefore, if I read
those modern philosophemes which move constantly in the widest
abstractions, I am soon quite unable, in spite of all attention, to think
almost anything more in connection with them; for I receive no material
for thought, but am supposed to work with mere empty shells, which gives
me a feeling like that which we experience when we try to throw very light
bodies; the strength and also the exertion are there, but there is no
object to receive them, so as to supply the other moment of motion. If any
one wants to experience this let him read the writings of the disciples of
Schelling, or still better of the Hegelians. _Simple conceptions_ would
necessarily be such as could not be broken up. Accordingly they could
never be the subject of an analytical judgment. This I hold to be
impossible, for if we think a conception we must also be able to give its
content. What are commonly adduced as examples of simple conceptions are
really not conceptions at all, but partly mere sensations—as, for
instance, those of some special colour; partly the forms of perception
which are known to us _a priori_, thus properly the ultimate elements of
_perceptive knowledge_. But this itself is for the whole system of our
thought what granite is for geology, the ultimate firm basis which
supports all, and beyond which we cannot go. The _distinctness_ of a
conception demands not only that we should be able to separate its
predicates, but also that we should be able to analyse these even if they
are abstractions, and so on until we reach knowledge of _perception_, and
thus refer to concrete things through the distinct perception of which the
final abstractions are verified and reality guaranteed to them, as well as
to all the higher abstractions which rest upon them. Therefore the
ordinary explanation that the conception is distinct as soon as we can
give its predicates is not sufficient. For the separating of these
predicates may lead perhaps to more conceptions; and so on again without
there being that ultimate basis of perceptions which imparts reality to
all those conceptions. Take, for example, the conception “spirit,” and
analyse it into its predicates: “A thinking, willing, immaterial, simple,
indestructible being that does not occupy space.” Nothing is yet
distinctly thought about it, because the elements of these conceptions
cannot be verified by means of perceptions, for a thinking being without a
brain is like a digesting being without a stomach. Only perceptions are,
properly speaking, _clear_, not conceptions; these at the most can only be
distinct. Hence also, absurd as it was, “clear and confused” were coupled
together and used as synonymous when knowledge of perception was explained
as merely a confused abstract knowledge, because the latter kind of
knowledge alone was distinct. This was first done by Duns Scotus, but
Leibnitz has substantially the same view, upon which his “_Identitas
Indiscernibilium_” depends. (See Kant’s refutation of this, p. 275 of the
first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason.)

The close connection of the conception with the word, thus of speech with
reason, which was touched on above, rests ultimately upon the following
ground. _Time_ is throughout the form of our whole consciousness, with its
inward and outward apprehension. Conceptions, on the other hand, which
originate through abstraction and are perfectly general ideas, different
from all particular things, have in this property indeed a certain measure
of objective existence, which does not, however, belong to any series of
events in time. Therefore in order to enter the immediate present of an
individual consciousness, and thus to admit of being introduced into a
series of events in time, they must to a certain extent be reduced again
to the nature of individual things, individualised, and therefore linked
to an idea of sense. Such an idea is the _word_. It is accordingly the
sensible sign of the conception, and as such the necessary means of
_fixing_ it, that is, of presenting it to the consciousness, which is
bound up with the form of time, and thus establishing a connection between
the reason, whose objects are merely general universals, knowing neither
place nor time, and consciousness, which is bound up with time, is
sensuous, and so far purely animal. Only by this means is the reproduction
at pleasure, thus the recollection and preservation, of conceptions
possible and open to us; and only by means of this, again, are the
operations which are undertaken with conceptions possible—judgment,
inference, comparison, limitation, &c. It is true it sometimes happens
that conceptions occupy consciousness without their signs, as when we run
through a train of reasoning so rapidly that we could not think the words
in the time. But such cases are exceptions, which presuppose great
exercise of the reason, which it could only have obtained by means of
language. How much the use of reason is bound up with speech we see in the
case of the deaf and dumb, who, if they have learnt no kind of language,
show scarcely more intelligence than the ourang-outang or the elephant.
For their reason is almost entirely potential, not actual.

Words and speech are thus the indispensable means of distinct thought. But
as every means, every machine, at once burdens and hinders, so also does
language; for it forces the fluid and modifiable thoughts, with their
infinitely fine distinctions of difference, into certain rigid, permanent
forms, and thus in fixing also fetters them. This hindrance is to some
extent got rid of by learning several languages. For in these the thought
is poured from one mould into another, and somewhat alters its form in
each, so that it becomes more and more freed from all form and clothing,
and thus its own proper nature comes more distinctly into consciousness,
and it recovers again its original capacity for modification. The ancient
languages render this service very much better than the modern, because,
on account of their great difference from the latter, the same thoughts
are expressed in them in quite another way, and must thus assume a very
different form; besides which the more perfect grammar of the ancient
languages renders a more artistic and more perfect construction of the
thoughts and their connection possible. Thus a Greek or a Roman might
perhaps content himself with his own language, but he who understands
nothing but some single modern patois will soon betray this poverty in
writing and speaking; for his thoughts, firmly bound to such narrow
stereotyped forms, must appear awkward and monotonous. Genius certainly
makes up for this as for everything else, for example in Shakespeare.

Burke, in his “Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful,” p. 5, § 4 and 5,
has given a perfectly correct and very elaborate exposition of what I laid
down in § 9 of the first volume, that the words of a speech are perfectly
understood without calling up ideas of perception, pictures in our heads.
But he draws from this the entirely false conclusion that we hear,
apprehend, and make use of words without connecting with them any idea
whatever; whereas he ought to have drawn the conclusion that all ideas are
not perceptible images, but that precisely those ideas which must be
expressed by means of words are abstract notions or conceptions, and these
from their very nature are not perceptible. Just because words impart only
general conceptions, which are perfectly different from ideas of
perception, when, for example, an event is recounted all the hearers will
receive the same conceptions; but if afterwards they wish to make the
incident clear to themselves, each of them will call up in his imagination
a different _image_ of it, which differs considerably from the correct
image that is possessed only by the eye-witness. This is the primary
reason (which, however, is accompanied by others) why every fact is
necessarily distorted by being repeatedly told. The second recounter
communicates conceptions which he has abstracted from the image of _his
own_ imagination, and from these conceptions the third now forms another
image differing still more widely from the truth, and this again he
translates into conceptions, and so the process goes on. Whoever is
sufficiently matter of fact to stick to the conceptions imparted to him,
and repeat them, will prove the most truthful reporter.

The best and most intelligent exposition of the essence and nature of
conceptions which I have been able to find is in Thomas Reid’s “Essays on
the Powers of Human Mind,” vol. ii., Essay 5, ch. 6. This was afterwards
condemned by Dugald Stewart in his “Philosophy of the Human Mind.” Not to
waste paper I will only briefly remark with regard to the latter that he
belongs to that large class who have obtained an undeserved reputation
through favour and friends, and therefore I can only advise that not an
hour should be wasted over the scribbling of this shallow writer.

The princely scholastic Pico de Mirandula already saw that reason is the
faculty of abstract ideas, and understanding the faculty of ideas of
perception. For in his book, “_De Imaginatione_,” ch. 11, he carefully
distinguishes understanding and reason, and explains the latter as the
discursive faculty peculiar to man, and the former as the intuitive
faculty, allied to the kind of knowledge which is proper to the angels,
and indeed to God. Spinoza also characterises reason quite correctly as
the faculty of framing general conceptions (Eth., ii. prop. 40, schol. 2).
Such facts would not need to be mentioned if it were not for the tricks
that have been played in the last fifty years by the whole of the
philosophasters of Germany with the conception _reason_. For they have
tried, with shameless audacity, to smuggle in under this name an entirely
spurious faculty of immediate, metaphysical, so-called super-sensuous
knowledge. The reason proper, on the other hand, they call
_understanding_, and the understanding proper, as something quite strange
to them, they overlook altogether, and ascribe its intuitive functions to
sensibility.

In the case of all things in this world new drawbacks or disadvantages
cleave to every source of aid, to every gain, to every advantage; and thus
reason also, which gives to man such great advantages over the brutes,
carries with it its special disadvantages, and opens for him paths of
error into which the brutes can never stray. Through it a new species of
motives, to which the brute is not accessible, obtains power over his
will. These are the _abstract_ motives, the mere thoughts, which are by no
means always drawn from his own experience, but often come to him only
through the talk and example of others, through tradition and literature.
Having become accessible to thought, he is at once exposed to error. But
every error must sooner or later do harm, and the greater the error the
greater the harm it will do. The individual error must be atoned for by
him who cherishes it, and often he has to pay dearly for it. And the same
thing holds good on a large scale of the common errors of whole nations.
Therefore it cannot too often be repeated that every error wherever we
meet it, is to be pursued and rooted out as an enemy of mankind, and that
there can be no such thing as privileged or sanctioned error. The thinker
ought to attack it, even if humanity should cry out with pain, like a sick
man whose ulcer the physician touches. The brute can never stray far from
the path of nature; for its motives lie only in the world of perception,
where only the possible, indeed only the actual, finds room. On the other
hand, all that is only imaginable, and therefore also the false, the
impossible, the absurd, and senseless, enters into abstract conceptions,
into thoughts and words. Since now all partake of reason, but few of
judgment, the consequence is that man is exposed to delusion, for he is
abandoned to every conceivable chimera which any one talks him into, and
which, acting on his will as a motive, may influence him to perversities
and follies of every kind, to the most unheard-of extravagances, and also
to actions most contrary to his animal nature. True culture, in which
knowledge and judgment go hand in hand, can only be brought to bear on a
few; and still fewer are capable of receiving it. For the great mass of
men a kind of training everywhere takes its place. It is effected by
example, custom, and the very early and firm impression of certain
conceptions, before any experience, understanding, or judgment were there
to disturb the work. Thus thoughts are implanted, which afterward cling as
firmly, and are as incapable of being shaken by any instruction as if they
were _inborn_; and indeed they have often been regarded, even by
philosophers, as such. In this way we can, with the same trouble, imbue
men with what is right and rational, or with what is most absurd. For
example, we can accustom them to approach this or that idol with holy
dread, and at the mention of its name to prostrate in the dust not only
their bodies but their whole spirit; to sacrifice their property and their
lives willingly to words, to names, to the defence of the strangest whims;
to attach arbitrarily the greatest honour or the deepest disgrace to this
or that, and to prize highly or disdain everything accordingly with full
inward conviction; to renounce all animal food, as in Hindustan, or to
devour still warm and quivering pieces, cut from the living animal, as in
Abyssinia; to eat men, as in New Zealand, or to sacrifice their children
to Moloch; to castrate themselves, to fling themselves voluntarily on the
funeral piles of the dead—in a word, to do anything we please. Hence the
Crusades, the extravagances of fanatical sects; hence Chiliasts and
Flagellants, persecutions, _autos da fe_, and all that is offered by the
long register of human perversities. Lest it should be thought that only
the dark ages afford such examples, I shall add a couple of more modern
instances. In the year 1818 there went from Würtemberg 7000 Chiliasts to
the neighbourhood of Ararat, because the new kingdom of God, specially
announced by Jung Stilling, was to appear there.(17) Gall relates that in
his time a mother killed her child and roasted it in order to cure her
husband’s rheumatism with its fat.(18) The tragical side of error lies in
the practical, the comical is reserved for the theoretical. For example,
if we could firmly persuade three men that the sun is not the cause of
daylight, we might hope to see it soon established as the general
conviction. In Germany it was possible to proclaim as the greatest
philosopher of all ages Hegel, a repulsive, mindless charlatan, an
unparalleled scribbler of nonsense, and for twenty years many thousands
have believed it stubbornly and firmly; and indeed, outside Germany, the
Danish Academy entered the lists against myself for his fame, and sought
to have him regarded as a _summus philosophus_. (Upon this see the preface
to my _Grundproblemen der Ethik_.) These, then, are the disadvantages
which, on account of the rarity of judgment, attach to the existence of
reason. We must add to them the possibility of madness. The brutes do not
go mad, although the carnivora are subject to fury, and the ruminants to a
sort of delirium.



Chapter VII.(19) On The Relation of the Concrete Knowledge of Perception
to Abstract Knowledge.


It has been shown that conceptions derive their material from knowledge of
perception, and therefore the entire structure of our world of thought
rests upon the world of perception. We must therefore be able to go back
from every conception, even if only indirectly through intermediate
conceptions, to the perceptions from which it is either itself directly
derived or those conceptions are derived of which it is again an
abstraction. That is to say, we must be able to support it with
perceptions which stand to the abstractions in the relation of examples.
These perceptions thus afford the real content of all our thought, and
whenever they are wanting we have not had conceptions but mere words in
our heads. In this respect our intellect is like a bank, which, if it is
to be sound, must have cash in its safe, so as to be able to meet all the
notes it has issued, in case of demand; the perceptions are the cash, the
conceptions are the notes. In this sense the perceptions might very
appropriately be called _primary_, and the conceptions, on the other hand,
_secondary_ ideas. Not quite so aptly, the Schoolmen, following the
example of Aristotle (_Metaph._, vi. 11, xi. 1), called real things
_substantiæ primæ_, and the conceptions _substantiæ secundæ_. Books impart
only secondary ideas. Mere conceptions of a thing without perception give
only a general knowledge of it. We only have a thorough understanding of
things and their relations so far as we are able to represent them to
ourselves in pure, distinct perceptions, without the aid of words. To
explain words by words, to compare concepts with concepts, in which most
philosophising consists, is a trivial shifting about of the
concept-spheres in order to see which goes into the other and which does
not. At the best we can in this way only arrive at conclusions; but even
conclusions give no really new knowledge, but only show us all that lay in
the knowledge we already possessed, and what part of it perhaps might be
applicable to the particular case. On the other hand, to perceive, to
allow the things themselves to speak to us, to apprehend new relations of
them, and then to take up and deposit all this in conceptions, in order to
possess it with certainty—that gives new knowledge. But, while almost
every one is capable of comparing conceptions with conceptions, to compare
conceptions with perceptions is a gift of the select few. It is the
condition, according to the degree of its perfection, of wit, judgment,
ingenuity, genius. The former faculty, on the contrary, results in little
more than possibly rational reflections. The inmost kernel of all genuine
and actual knowledge is a perception; and every new truth is the profit or
gain yielded by a perception. All original thinking takes place in images,
and this is why imagination is so necessary an instrument of thought, and
minds that lack imagination will never accomplish much, unless it be in
mathematics. On the other hand, merely abstract thoughts, which have no
kernel of perception, are like cloud-structures, without reality. Even
writing and speaking, whether didactic or poetical, has for its final aim
to guide the reader to the same concrete knowledge from which the author
started; if it has not this aim it is bad. This is why the contemplation
and observing of every real thing, as soon as it presents something new to
the observer, is more instructive than any reading or hearing. For indeed,
if we go to the bottom of the matter, all truth and wisdom, nay, the
ultimate secret of things, is contained in each real object, yet certainly
only _in concreto_, just as gold lies hidden in the ore; the difficulty is
to extract it. From a book, on the contrary, at the best we only receive
the truth at second hand, and oftener not at all.

In most books, putting out of account those that are thoroughly bad, the
author, when their content is not altogether empirical, has certainly
_thought_ but not _perceived_; he has written from reflection, not from
intuition, and it is this that makes them commonplace and tedious. For
what the author has thought could always have been thought by the reader
also, if he had taken the same trouble; indeed it consists simply of
intelligent thought, full exposition of what is _implicite_ contained in
the theme. But no actually new knowledge comes in this way into the world;
this is only created in the moment of perception, of direct comprehension
of a new side of the thing. When, therefore, on the contrary, _sight_ has
formed the foundation of an author’s thought, it is as if he wrote from a
land where the reader has never been, for all is fresh and new, because it
is drawn directly from the original source of all knowledge. Let me
illustrate the distinction here touched upon by a perfectly easy and
simple example. Any commonplace writer might easily describe profound
contemplation or petrifying astonishment by saying: “He stood like a
statue;” but Cervantes says: “Like a clothed statue, for the wind moved
his garments” (_Don Quixote_, book vi. ch. 19). It is thus that all great
minds have ever _thought in presence of the perception_, and kept their
gaze steadfastly upon it in their thought. We recognise this from this
fact, among others, that even the most opposite of them so often agree and
coincide in some particular; because they all speak of the same thing
which they all had before their eyes, the world, the perceived reality;
indeed in a certain degree they all say the same thing, and others never
believe them. We recognise it further in the appropriateness and
originality of the expression, which is always perfectly adapted to the
subject because it has been inspired by perception, in the naivete of the
language, the freshness of the imagery, and the impressiveness of the
similes, all of which qualities, without exception, distinguish the works
of great minds, and, on the contrary, are always wanting in the works of
others. Accordingly only commonplace forms of expression and trite figures
are at the service of the latter, and they never dare to allow themselves
to be natural, under penalty of displaying their vulgarity in all its
dreary barrenness; instead of this they are affected mannerists. Hence
Buffon says: “_Le style est l’homme même_.” If men of commonplace mind
write poetry they have certain traditional conventional opinions,
passions, noble sentiments, &c., which they have received in the abstract,
and attribute to the heroes of their poems, who are in this way reduced to
mere personifications of those opinions, and are thus themselves to a
certain extent abstractions, and therefore insipid and tiresome. If they
philosophise, they have taken in a few wide abstract conceptions, which
they turn about in all directions, as if they had to do with algebraical
equations, and hope that something will come of it; at the most we see
that they have all read the same things. Such a tossing to and fro of
abstract conceptions, after the manner of algebraical equations, which is
now-a-days called dialectic, does not, like real algebra, afford certain
results; for here the conception which is represented by the word is not a
fixed and perfectly definite quality, such as are symbolised by the
letters in algebra, but is wavering and ambiguous, and capable of
extension and contraction. Strictly speaking, all thinking, _i.e._,
combining of abstract conceptions, has at the most the _recollections_ of
earlier perceptions for its material, and this only indirectly, so far as
it constitutes the foundation of all conceptions. Real knowledge, on the
contrary, that is, immediate knowledge, is perception alone, new, fresh
perception itself. Now the concepts which the reason has framed and the
memory has preserved cannot all be present to consciousness at once, but
only a very small number of them at a time. On the other hand, the energy
with which we apprehend what is present in perception, in which really all
that is essential in all things generally is virtually contained and
represented, is apprehended, fills the consciousness in one moment with
its whole power. Upon this depends the infinite superiority of genius to
learning; they stand to each other as the text of an ancient classic to
its commentary. All truth and all wisdom really lies ultimately in
perception. But this unfortunately can neither be retained nor
communicated. The _objective_ conditions of such communication can
certainly be presented to others purified and illustrated through plastic
and pictorial art, and even much more directly through poetry; but it
depends so much upon _subjective_ conditions, which are not at the command
of every one, and of no one at all times, nay, indeed in the higher
degrees of perfection, are only the gift of the favoured few. Only the
worst knowledge, abstract, secondary knowledge, the conception, the mere
shadow of true knowledge, is unconditionally communicable. If perceptions
were communicable, that would be a communication worth the trouble; but at
last every one must remain in his own skin and skull, and no one can help
another. To enrich the conception from perception is the unceasing
endeavour of poetry and philosophy. However, the aims of man are
essentially _practical_; and for these it is sufficient that what he has
apprehended through perception should leave traces in him, by virtue of
which he will recognise it in the next similar case; thus he becomes
possessed of worldly wisdom. Thus, as a rule, the man of the world cannot
teach his accumulated truth and wisdom, but only make use of it; he
rightly comprehends each event as it happens, and determines what is in
conformity with it. That books will not take the place of experience nor
learning of genius are two kindred phenomena. Their common ground is that
the abstract can never take the place of the concrete. Books therefore do
not take the place of experience, because _conceptions_ always remain
_general_, and consequently do not get down to the particular, which,
however, is just what has to be dealt with in life; and, besides this, all
conceptions are abstracted from what is particular and perceived in
experience, and therefore one must have come to know these in order
adequately to understand even the general conceptions which the books
communicate. Learning cannot take the place of genius, because it also
affords merely conceptions, but the knowledge of genius consists in the
apprehension of the (Platonic) Ideas of things, and therefore is
essentially intuitive. Thus in the first of these phenomena the
_objective_ condition of perceptive or intuitive knowledge is wanting; in
the second the _subjective_; the former may be attained, the latter
cannot.

Wisdom and genius, these two summits of the Parnassus of human knowledge,
have their foundation not in the abstract and discursive, but in the
perceptive faculty. Wisdom proper is something intuitive, not something
abstract. It does not consist in principles and thoughts, which one can
carry about ready in his mind, as results of his own research or that of
others; but it is the whole manner in which the world presents itself in
his mind. This varies so much that on account of it the wise man lives in
another world from the fool, and the genius sees another world from the
blockhead. That the works of the man of genius immeasurably surpass those
of all others arises simply from the fact that the world which he sees,
and from which he takes his utterances, is so much clearer, as it were
more profoundly worked out, than that in the minds of others, which
certainly contains the same objects, but is to the world of the man of
genius as the Chinese picture without shading and perspective is to the
finished oil-painting. The material is in all minds the same; but the
difference lies in the perfection of the form which it assumes in each,
upon which the numerous grades of intelligence ultimately depend. These
grades thus exist in the root, in the _perceptive_ or _intuitive_
apprehension, and do not first appear in the abstract. Hence original
mental superiority shows itself so easily when the occasion arises, and is
at once felt and hated by others.

In practical life the intuitive knowledge of the understanding is able to
guide our action and behaviour directly, while the abstract knowledge of
the reason can only do so by means of the memory. Hence arises the
superiority of intuitive knowledge in all cases which admit of no time for
reflection; thus for daily intercourse, in which, just on this account,
women excel. Only those who intuitively know the nature of men as they are
as a rule, and thus comprehend the individuality of the person before
them, will understand how to manage him with certainty and rightly.
Another may know by heart all the three hundred maxims of Gracian, but
this will not save him from stupid mistakes and misconceptions if he lacks
that intuitive knowledge. For all _abstract knowledge_ affords us
primarily mere general principles and rules; but the particular case is
almost never to be carried out exactly according to the rule; then the
rule itself has to be presented to us at the right time by the memory,
which seldom punctually happens; then the _propositio minor_ has to be
formed out of the present case, and finally the conclusion drawn. Before
all this is done the opportunity has generally turned its back upon us,
and then those excellent principles and rules serve at the most to enable
us to measure the magnitude of the error we have committed. Certainly with
time we gain in this way experience and practice, which slowly grows to
knowledge of the world, and thus, in connection with this, the abstract
rules may certainly become fruitful. On the other hand, the _intuitive
knowledge_, which always apprehends only the particular, stands in
immediate relation to the present case. Rule, case, and application are
for it one, and action follows immediately upon it. This explains why in
real life the scholar, whose pre-eminence lies in the province of abstract
knowledge, is so far surpassed by the man of the world, whose pre-eminence
consists in perfect intuitive knowledge, which original disposition
conferred on him, and a rich experience has developed. The two kinds of
knowledge always stand to each other in the relation of paper money and
hard cash; and as there are many cases and circumstances in which the
former is to be preferred to the latter, so there are also things and
situations for which abstract knowledge is more useful than intuitive. If,
for example, it is a conception that in some case guides our action, when
it is once grasped it has the advantage of being unalterable, and
therefore under its guidance we go to work with perfect certainty and
consistency. But this certainty which the conception confers on the
subjective side is outweighed by the uncertainty which accompanies it on
the objective side. The whole conception may be false and groundless, or
the object to be dealt with may not come under it, for it may be either
not at all or not altogether of the kind which belongs to it. Now if in
the particular case we suddenly become conscious of something of this
sort, we are put out altogether; if we do not become conscious of it, the
result brings it to light. Therefore Vauvenargue says: “_Personne n’est
sujet à plus de fautes, que ceux qui n’agissent que par réflexion_.” If,
on the contrary, it is direct perception of the objects to be dealt with
and their relations that guides our action, we easily hesitate at every
step, for the perception is always modifiable, is ambiguous, has
inexhaustible details in itself, and shows many sides in succession; we
act therefore without full confidence. But the subjective uncertainty is
compensated by the objective certainty, for here there is no conception
between the object and us, we never lose sight of it; if therefore we only
see correctly what we have before us and what we do, we shall hit the
mark. Our action then is perfectly sure only when it is guided by a
conception the right ground of which, its completeness, and applicability
to the given cause is perfectly certain. Action in accordance with
conceptions may pass into pedantry, action in accordance with the
perceived impression into levity and folly.

_Perception_ is not only the _source_ of all knowledge, but is itself
knowledge κατ᾽ εξοχην, is the only unconditionally true, genuine knowledge
completely worthy of the name. For it alone imparts _insight_ properly so
called, it alone is actually assimilated by man, passes into his nature,
and can with full reason be called _his_; while the conceptions merely
cling to him. In the fourth book we see indeed that true virtue proceeds
from knowledge of perception or intuitive knowledge; for only those
actions which are directly called forth by this, and therefore are
performed purely from the impulse of our own nature, are properly symptoms
of our true and unalterable character; not so those which, resulting from
reflection and its dogmas, are often extorted from the character, and
therefore have no unalterable ground in us. But _wisdom_ also, the true
view of life, the correct eye, and the searching judgment, proceeds from
the way in which the man apprehends the perceptible world, but not from
his mere abstract knowledge, _i.e._, not from abstract conceptions. The
basis or ultimate content of every science consists, not in proofs, nor in
what is proved, but in the unproved foundation of the proofs, which can
finally be apprehended only through perception. So also the basis of the
true wisdom and real insight of each man does not consist in conceptions
and in abstract rational knowledge, but in what is perceived, and in the
degree of acuteness, accuracy, and profundity with which he has
apprehended it. He who excels here knows the (Platonic) Ideas of the world
and life; every case he has seen represents for him innumerable cases; he
always apprehends each being according to its true nature, and his action,
like his judgment, corresponds to his insight. By degrees also his
countenance assumes the expression of penetration, of true intelligence,
and, if it goes far enough, of wisdom. For it is pre-eminence in knowledge
of perception alone that stamps its impression upon the features also;
while pre-eminence in abstract knowledge cannot do this. In accordance
with what has been said, we find in all classes men of intellectual
superiority, and often quite without learning. Natural understanding can
take the place of almost every degree of culture, but no culture can take
the place of natural understanding. The scholar has the advantage of such
men in the possession of a wealth of cases and facts (historical
knowledge) and of causal determinations (natural science), all in
well-ordered connection, easily surveyed; but yet with all this he has not
a more accurate and profound insight into what is truly essential in all
these cases, facts, and causations. The unlearned man of acuteness and
penetration knows how to dispense with this wealth; we can make use of
much; we can do with little. One case in his own experience teaches him
more than many a scholar is taught by a thousand cases which he _knows_,
but does not, properly speaking, _understand_. For the little knowledge of
that unlearned man is living, because every fact that is known to him is
supported by accurate and well-apprehended perception, and thus represents
for him a thousand similar facts. On the contrary, the much knowledge of
the ordinary scholar is _dead_, because even if it does not consist, as is
often the case, in mere words, it consists entirely in abstract knowledge.
This, however, receives its value only through the _perceptive_ knowledge
of the individual with which it must connect itself, and which must
ultimately realise all the conceptions. If now this perceptive knowledge
is very scanty, such a mind is like a bank with liabilities tenfold in
excess of its cash reserve, whereby in the end it becomes bankrupt.
Therefore, while the right apprehension of the perceptible world has
impressed the stamp of insight and wisdom on the brow of many an unlearned
man, the face of many a scholar bears no other trace of his much study
than that of exhaustion and weariness from excessive and forced straining
of the memory in the unnatural accumulation of dead conceptions. Moreover,
the insight of such a man is often so puerile, so weak and silly, that we
must suppose that the excessive strain upon the faculty of indirect
knowledge, which is concerned with abstractions, directly weakens the
power of immediate perceptive knowledge, and the natural and clear vision
is more and more blinded by the light of books. At any rate the constant
streaming in of the thoughts of others must confine and suppress our own,
and indeed in the long run paralyse the power of thought if it has not
that high degree of elasticity which is able to withstand that unnatural
stream. Therefore ceaseless reading and study directly injures the
mind—the more so that completeness and constant connection of the system
of our own thought and knowledge must pay the penalty if we so often
arbitrarily interrupt it in order to gain room for a line of thought
entirely strange to us. To banish my own thought in order to make room for
that of a book would seem to me like what Shakespeare censures in the
tourists of his time, that they sold their own land to see that of others.
Yet the inclination for reading of most scholars is a kind of _fuga
vacui_, from the poverty of their own minds, which forcibly draws in the
thoughts of others. In order to have thoughts they must read something;
just as lifeless bodies are only moved from without; while the man who
thinks for himself is like a living body that moves of itself. Indeed it
is dangerous to read about a subject before we have thought about it
ourselves. For along with the new material the old point of view and
treatment of it creeps into the mind, all the more so as laziness and
apathy counsel us to accept what has already been thought, and allow it to
pass for truth. This now insinuates itself, and henceforward our thought
on the subject always takes the accustomed path, like brooks that are
guided by ditches; to find a thought of our own, a new thought, is then
doubly difficult. This contributes much to the want of originality on the
part of scholars. Add to this that they suppose that, like other people,
they must divide their time between pleasure and work. Now they regard
reading as their work and special calling, and therefore they gorge
themselves with it, beyond what they can digest. Then reading no longer
plays the part of the mere initiator of thought, but takes its place
altogether; for they think of the subject just as long as they are reading
about it, thus with the mind of another, not with their own. But when the
book is laid aside entirely different things make much more lively claims
upon their interest; their private affairs, and then the theatre,
card-playing, skittles, the news of the day, and gossip. The man of
thought is so because such things have no interest for him. He is
interested only in his problems, with which therefore he is always
occupied, by himself and without a book. To give ourselves this interest,
if we have not got it, is impossible. This is the crucial point. And upon
this also depends the fact that the former always speak only of what they
have read, while the latter, on the contrary, speaks of what he has
thought, and that they are, as Pope says:


    “For ever reading, never to be read.”


The mind is naturally free, not a slave; only what it does willingly, of
its own accord, succeeds. On the other hand, the compulsory exertion of a
mind in studies for which it is not qualified, or when it has become
tired, or in general too continuously and _invita Minerva_, dulls the
brain, just as reading by moonlight dulls the eyes. This is especially the
case with the straining of the immature brain in the earlier years of
childhood. I believe that the learning of Latin and Greek grammar from the
sixth to the twelfth year lays the foundation of the subsequent stupidity
of most scholars. At any rate the mind requires the nourishment of
materials from without. All that we eat is not at once incorporated in the
organism, but only so much of it as is digested; so that only a small part
of it is assimilated, and the remainder passes away; and thus to eat more
than we can assimilate is useless and injurious. It is precisely the same
with what we read. Only so far as it gives food for thought does it
increase our insight and true knowledge. Therefore Heracleitus says:
“πολυμαθια νουν ου διδασκει” (_multiscitia non dat intellectum_). It
seems, however, to me that learning may be compared to a heavy suit of
armour, which certainly makes the strong man quite invincible, but to the
weak man is a burden under which he sinks altogether.

The exposition given in our third book of the knowledge of the (Platonic)
Ideas, as the highest attainable by man, and at the same time entirely
_perceptive or intuitive_ knowledge, is a proof that the source of true
wisdom does not lie in abstract rational knowledge, but in the clear and
profound apprehension of the world in perception. Therefore wise men may
live in any age, and those of the past remain wise men for all succeeding
generations. Learning, on the contrary, is relative; the learned men of
the past are for the most part children as compared with us, and require
indulgence.

But to him who studies in order to gain _insight_ books and studies are
only steps of the ladder by which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As
soon as a round of the ladder has raised him a step, he leaves it behind
him. The many, on the other hand, who study in order to fill their memory
do not use the rounds of the ladder to mount by, but take them off, and
load themselves with them to carry them away, rejoicing at the increasing
weight of the burden. They remain always below, because they bear what
ought to have borne them.

Upon the truth set forth here, that the kernel of all knowledge is the
_perceptive or intuitive_ apprehension, depends the true and profound
remark of Helvetius, that the really characteristic and original views of
which a gifted individual is capable, and the working up, development, and
manifold application of which is the material of all his works, even if
written much later, can arise in him only up to the thirty-fifth or at the
latest the fortieth year of his life, and are really the result of
combinations he has made in his early youth. For they are not mere
connections of abstract conceptions, but his own intuitive comprehension
of the objective world and the nature of things. Now, that this intuitive
apprehension must have completed its work by the age mentioned above
depends partly on the fact that by that time the ectypes of all (Platonic)
Ideas must have presented themselves to the man, and therefore cannot
appear later with the strength of the first impression; partly on this,
that the highest energy of brain activity is demanded for this
quintessence of all knowledge, for this proof before the letter of the
apprehension, and this highest energy of the brain is dependent on the
freshness and flexibility of its fibres and the rapidity with which the
arterial blood flows to the brain. But this again is at its strongest only
as long as the arterial system has a decided predominance over the venous
system, which begins to decline after the thirtieth year, until at last,
after the forty-second year, the venous system obtains the upper hand, as
Cabanis has admirably and instructively explained. Therefore the years
between twenty and thirty and the first few years after thirty are for the
intellect what May is for the trees; only then do the blossoms appear of
which all the later fruits are the development. The world of perception
has made its impression, and thereby laid the foundation of all the
subsequent thoughts of the individual. He may by reflection make clearer
what he has apprehended; he may yet acquire much knowledge as nourishment
for the fruit which has once set; he may extend his views, correct his
conceptions and judgments, it may be only through endless combinations
that he becomes completely master of the materials he has gained; indeed
he will generally produce his best works much later, as the greatest heat
begins with the decline of the day, but he can no longer hope for new
original knowledge from the one living fountain of perception. It is this
that Byron feels when he breaks forth into his wonderfully beautiful
lament:


    “No more—no more—oh! never more on me
      The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,
    Which out of all the lovely things we see
      Extracts emotions beautiful and new,
    Hived in our bosoms like the bag o’ the bee:
      Think’st thou the honey with those objects grew?
    Alas! ’twas not in them, but in thy power
      To double even the sweetness of a flower.”


Through all that I have said hitherto I hope I have placed in a clear
light the important truth that since all abstract knowledge springs from
knowledge of perception, it obtains its whole value from its relation to
the latter, thus from the fact that its conceptions, or the abstractions
which they denote, can be realised, _i.e._, proved, through perceptions;
and, moreover, that most depends upon the quality of these perceptions.
Conceptions and abstractions which do not ultimately refer to perceptions
are like paths in the wood that end without leading out of it. The great
value of conceptions lies in the fact that by means of them the original
material of knowledge is more easily handled, surveyed, and arranged. But
although many kinds of logical and dialectical operations are possible
with them, yet no entirely original and new knowledge will result from
these; that is to say, no knowledge whose material neither lay already in
perception nor was drawn from self-consciousness. This is the true meaning
of the doctrine attributed to Aristotle: _Nihil est in intellectu, nisi
quod antea fuerit in sensu_. It is also the meaning of the Lockeian
philosophy, which made for ever an epoch in philosophy, because it
commenced at last the serious discussion of the question as to the origin
of our knowledge. It is also principally what the “Critique of Pure
Reason” teaches. It also desires that we should not remain at the
_conceptions_, but go back to their _source_, thus to _perception_; only
with the true and important addition that what holds good of the
perception also extends to its subjective conditions, thus to the forms
which lie predisposed in the perceiving and thinking brain as its natural
functions; although these at least _virtualiter_ precede the actual
sense-perception, _i.e._, are _a priori_, and therefore do not depend upon
sense-perception, but it upon them. For these forms themselves have indeed
no other end, nor service, than to produce the empirical perception on the
nerves of sense being excited, as other forms are determined afterwards to
construct thoughts in the abstract from the material of perception. The
“Critique of Pure Reason” is therefore related to the Lockeian philosophy
as the analysis of the infinite to elementary geometry, but is yet
throughout to be regarded as the _continuation of the Lockeian
philosophy_. The given material of every philosophy is accordingly nothing
else than the _empirical consciousness_, which divides itself into the
consciousness of one’s own self (self-consciousness) and the consciousness
of other things (external perception). For this alone is what is
immediately and actually given. Every philosophy which, instead of
starting from this, takes for its starting-point arbitrarily chosen
abstract conceptions, such as, for example, absolute, absolute substance,
God, infinity, finitude, absolute identity, being, essence, &c., &c.,
moves in the air without support, and can therefore never lead to a real
result. Yet in all ages philosophers have attempted it with such
materials; and hence even Kant sometimes, according to the common usage,
and more from custom than consistency, defines philosophy as a science of
mere conceptions. But such a science would really undertake to extract
from the partial ideas (for that is what the abstractions are) what is not
to be found in the complete ideas (the perceptions), from which the former
were drawn by abstraction. The possibility of the syllogism leads to this
mistake, because here the combination of the judgments gives a new result,
although more apparent than real, for the syllogism only brings out what
already lay in the given judgments; for it is true the conclusion cannot
contain more than the premisses. Conceptions are certainly the material of
philosophy, but only as marble is the material of the sculptor. It is not
to work _out of_ them but _in_ them; that is to say, it is to deposit its
results in them, but not to start from them as what is given. Whoever
wishes to see a glaring example of such a false procedure from mere
conceptions may look at the “_Institutio Theologica_” of Proclus in order
to convince himself of the vanity of that whole method. There abstractions
such as “ἑν, πληθος, αγαθον, παραγον και παραγομενον, αυταρκες, αιτιον,
κρειττον, κινητον, ακινητον, κινουμενον” (_unum_, _multa_, _bonum_,
_producens et productum_, _sibi sufficiens_, _causa_, _melius_, _mobile_,
_immobile_, _motum_), &c., are indiscriminately collected, but the
perceptions to which alone they owe their origin and content ignored and
contemptuously disregarded. A theology is then constructed from these
conceptions, but its goal, the θεος, is kept concealed; thus the whole
procedure is apparently unprejudiced, as if the reader did not know at the
first page, just as well as the author, what it is all to end in. I have
already quoted a fragment of this above. This production of Proclus is
really quite peculiarly adapted to make clear how utterly useless and
illusory such combinations of abstract conceptions are, for we can make of
them whatever we will, especially if we further take advantage of the
ambiguity of many words, such, for example, as κρειττον. If such an
architect of conceptions were present in person we would only have to ask
naively where all the things are of which he has so much to tell us, and
whence he knows the laws from which he draws his conclusions concerning
them. He would then soon be obliged to turn to empirical perception, in
which alone the real world exhibits itself, from which those conceptions
are drawn. Then we would only have to ask further why he did not honestly
start from the given perception of such a world, so that at every step his
assertions could be proved by it, instead of operating with conceptions,
which are yet drawn from perception alone, and therefore can have no
further validity than that which it imparts to them. But of course this is
just his trick. Through such conceptions, in which, by virtue of
abstraction, what is inseparable is thought as separate, and what cannot
be united as united, he goes far beyond the perception which was their
source, and thus beyond the limits of their applicability, to an entirely
different world from that which supplied the material for building, but
just on this account to a world of chimeras. I have here referred to
Proclus because in him this procedure becomes specially clear through the
frank audacity with which he carries it out. But in Plato also we find
some examples of this kind, though not so glaring; and in general the
philosophical literature of all ages affords a multitude of instances of
the same thing. That of our own time is rich in them. Consider, for
example, the writings of the school of Schelling, and observe the
constructions that are built up out of abstractions like finite and
infinite—being, non-being, other being—activity, hindrance,
product—determining, being determined, determinateness—limit, limiting,
being limited—unity, plurality, multiplicity—identity, diversity,
indifference—thinking, being, essence, &c. Not only does all that has been
said above hold good of constructions out of such materials, but because
an infinite amount can be thought _through_ such wide abstractions, only
very little indeed can be thought _in_ them; they are empty husks. But
thus the matter of the whole philosophising becomes astonishingly trifling
and paltry, and hence arises that unutterable and excruciating tediousness
which is characteristic of all such writings. If indeed I now chose to
call to mind the way in which Hegel and his companions have abused such
wide and empty abstractions, I should have to fear that both the reader
and I myself would be ill; for the most nauseous tediousness hangs over
the empty word-juggling of this loathsome philophaster.

That in _practical_ philosophy also no wisdom is brought to light from
mere abstract conceptions is the one thing to be learnt from the ethical
dissertations of the theologian Schleiermacher, with the delivery of which
he has wearied the Berlin Academy for a number of years, and which are
shortly to appear in a collected form. In them only abstract conceptions,
such as duty, virtue, highest good, moral law, &c., are taken as the
starting-point, without further introduction than that they commonly occur
in ethical systems, and are now treated as given realities. He then
discusses these from all sides with great subtilty, but, on the other
hand, never makes for the source of these conceptions, for the thing
itself, the actual human life, to which alone they are related, from which
they ought to be drawn, and with which morality has, properly speaking, to
do. On this account these diatribes are just as unfruitful and useless as
they are tedious, which is saying a great deal. At all times we find
persons, like this theologian, who is too fond of philosophising, famous
while they are alive, afterwards soon forgotten. My advice is rather to
read those whose fate has been the opposite of this, for time is short and
valuable.

Now although, in accordance with all that has been said, wide, abstract
conceptions, which can be realised in no perception, must never be the
source of knowledge, the starting-point or the proper material of
philosophy, yet sometimes particular results of philosophy are such as can
only be thought in the abstract, and cannot be proved by any perception.
Knowledge of this kind will certainly only be half knowledge; it will, as
it were, only point out the place where what is to be known lies; but this
remains concealed. Therefore we should only be satisfied with such
conceptions in the most extreme case, and when we have reached the limit
of the knowledge possible to our faculties. An example of this might
perhaps be the conception of a being out of time; such as the proposition:
the indestructibility of our true being by death is not a continued
existence of it. With conceptions of this sort the firm ground which
supports our whole knowledge, the perceptible, seems to waver. Therefore
philosophy may certainly at times, and in case of necessity, extend to
such knowledge, but it must never begin with it.

The working with wide abstractions, which is condemned above, to the
entire neglect of the perceptive knowledge from which they are drawn, and
which is therefore their permanent and natural controller, was at all
times the principal source of the errors of dogmatic philosophy. A science
constructed from the mere comparison of conceptions, that is, from general
principles, could only be certain if all its principles were synthetical
_a priori_, as is the case in mathematics: for only such admit of no
exceptions. If, on the other hand, the principles have any empirical
content, we must keep this constantly at hand, to control the general
principles. For no truths which are in any way drawn from experience are
ever unconditionally true. They have therefore only an approximately
universal validity; for here there is no rule without an exception. If now
I link these principles together by means of the intersection of their
concept-spheres, one conception might very easily touch the other
precisely where the exception lies. But if this happens even only once in
the course of a long train of reasoning, the whole structure is loosed
from its foundation and moves in the air. If, for example, I say, “The
ruminants have no front incisors,” and apply this and what follows from it
to the camel, it all becomes false, for it only holds good of horned
ruminants. What Kant calls _das Vernünfteln_, mere abstract reasoning, and
so often condemns, is just of this sort. For it consists simply in
subsuming conceptions under conceptions, without reference to their
origin, and without proof of the correctness and exclusiveness of such
subsumption—a method whereby we can arrive by longer or shorter circuits
at almost any result we choose to set before us as our goal. Hence this
mere abstract reasoning differs only in degree from sophistication
strictly so called. But sophistication is in the theoretical sphere
exactly what chicanery is in the practical. Yet even Plato himself has
very frequently permitted such mere abstract reasoning; and Proclus, as we
have already mentioned, has, after the manner of all imitators, carried
this fault of his model much further. Dionysius the Areopagite, “_De
Divinis Nominibus_,” is also strongly affected with this. But even in the
fragments of the Eleatic Melissus we already find distinct examples of
such mere abstract reasoning (especially § 2-5 in Brandis’ _Comment.
Eleat._) His procedure with the conceptions, which never touch the reality
from which they have their content, but, moving in the atmosphere of
abstract universality, pass away beyond it, resembles blows which never
hit the mark. A good pattern of such mere abstract reasoning is the “_De
Diis et Mundo_” of the philosopher Sallustius Büchelchen; especially
chaps. 7, 12, and 17. But a perfect gem of philosophical mere abstract
reasoning passing into decided sophistication is the following reasoning
of the Platonist, Maximus of Tyre, which I shall quote, as it is short:
“Every injustice is the taking away of a good. There is no other good than
virtue: but virtue cannot be taken away: thus it is not possible that the
virtuous can suffer injustice from the wicked. It now remains either that
no injustice can be suffered, or that it is suffered by the wicked from
the wicked. But the wicked man possesses no good at all, for only virtue
is a good; therefore none can be taken from him. Thus he also can suffer
no injustice. Thus injustice is an impossible thing.” The original, which
is less concise through repetitions, runs thus: “Αδικια εστι αφαιρεσις
αγαθου; το δε αγαθον τι αν ειη αλλο η αρετη?—ἡ δε αρετη αναφαιρετον. Ουκ
αδικησεται τοινυν ὁ την αρετην εχων, η ουκ εστιν αδικια αφαιρεσις αγαθου;
ουδεν γαρ αγαθον αφαιρετον, ουδ᾽ χαποβλητον, ουδ ἑλετον, ουδε ληιστον.
Ειεν ουν, ουδ᾽ αδικειται ὁ χρηστος, ουδ ὑπο του μοχθηρου; αναφαιρετος γαρ.
Λειπεται τοινυν η μηδενα αδικεισθαι καθαπαξ, η τον μοχθηρον ὑπο του
ὁμοιου; αλλα τῳ μοχθηρῳ ουδενος μετεστιν αγαθου; ἡ δε αδικια ην αγαθου
αφαιρεσις; ὁ δε μη εχων ὁ, τι αφαιρεσθη, ουδε εις ὁ, τι αδικησθη, εχει”
(_Sermo 2_). I shall add further a modern example of such proofs from
abstract conceptions, by means of which an obviously absurd proposition is
set up as the truth, and I shall take it from the works of a great man,
Giordano Bruno. In his book, “_Del Infinito Universo e Mondi_” (p. 87 of
the edition of A. Wagner), he makes an Aristotelian prove (with the
assistance and exaggeration of the passage of Aristotle’s _De Cœlo_, i. 5)
that there can be _no space_ beyond the world. The world is enclosed by
the eight spheres of Aristotle, and beyond these there can be no space.
For if beyond these there were still a body, it must either be simple or
compound. It is now proved sophistically, from principles which are
obviously begged, that no _simple_ body could be there; and therefore,
also, no compound body, for it would necessarily be composed of simple
ones. Thus in general there can be no body there—but if not, then _no
space_. For space is defined as “that in which bodies can be;” and it has
just been proved that no body can be there. Thus there is also there no
space. This last is the final stroke of this proof from abstract
conceptions. It ultimately rests on the fact that the proposition, “Where
no space is, there can be no body” is taken as a universal negative, and
therefore converted simply, “Where no body can be there is no space.” But
the former proposition, when properly regarded, is a universal
affirmative: “Everything that has no space has no body,” thus it must not
be converted simply. Yet it is not every proof from abstract conceptions,
with a conclusion which clearly contradicts perception (as here the
finiteness of space), that can thus be referred to a logical error. For
the sophistry does not always lie in the form, but often in the matter, in
the premisses, and in the indefiniteness of the conceptions and their
extension. We find numerous examples of this in Spinoza, whose method
indeed it is to prove from conceptions. See, for example, the miserable
sophisms in his “Ethics,” P. iv., prop. 29-31, by means of the ambiguity
of the uncertain conceptions _convenire_ and _commune habere_. Yet this
does not prevent the neo-Spinozists of our own day from taking all that he
has said for gospel. Of these the Hegelians, of whom there are actually
still a few, are specially amusing on account of their traditional
reverence for his principle, _omnis determinatio est negatio_, at which,
according to the charlatan spirit of the school, they put on a face as if
it was able to unhinge the world; whereas it is of no use at all, for even
the simplest can see for himself that if I limit anything by
determinations, I thereby exclude and thus negate what lies beyond these
limits.

Thus in all mere reasonings of the above kind it becomes very apparent
what errors that algebra with mere conceptions, uncontrolled by
perception, is exposed to, and that therefore perception is for our
intellect what the firm ground upon which it stands is for our body: if we
forsake perception everything is _instabilis tellus, innabilis unda_. The
reader will pardon the fulness of these expositions and examples on
account of their instructiveness. I have sought by means of them to bring
forward and support the difference, indeed the opposition, between
perceptive and abstract or reflected knowledge, which has hitherto been
too little regarded, and the establishment of which is a fundamental
characteristic of my philosophy. For many phenomena of our mental life are
only explicable through this distinction. The connecting link between
these two such different kinds of knowledge is the _faculty of judgment_,
as I have shown in § 14 of the first volume. This faculty is certainly
also active in the province of mere abstract knowledge, in which it
compares conceptions only with conceptions; therefore every judgment, in
the logical sense of the word, is certainly a work of the faculty of
judgment, for it always consists in the subsumption of a narrower
conception under a wider one. Yet this activity of the faculty of
judgment, in which it merely compares conceptions with each other, is a
simpler and easier task than when it makes the transition from what is
quite particular, the perception, to the essentially general, the
conception. For by the analysis of conceptions into their essential
predicates it must be possible to decide upon purely logical grounds
whether they are capable of being united or not, and for this the mere
reason which every one possesses is sufficient. The faculty of judgment is
therefore only active here in shortening this process, for he who is
gifted with it sees at a glance what others only arrive at through a
series of reflections. But its activity in the narrower sense really only
appears when what is known through perception, thus the real experience,
has to be carried over into distinct abstract knowledge, subsumed under
accurately corresponding conceptions, and thus translated into reflected
rational knowledge. It is therefore this faculty which has to establish
the firm _basis_ of all sciences, which always consists of what is known
directly and cannot be further denied. Therefore here, in the fundamental
judgments, lies the difficulty of the sciences, not in the inferences from
these. To infer is easy, to judge is difficult. False inferences are rare,
false judgments are always the order of the day. Not less in practical
life has the faculty of judgment to give the decision in all fundamental
conclusions and important determinations. Its office is in the main like
that of the judicial sentence. As the burning-glass brings to a focus all
the sun’s rays, so when the understanding works, the intellect has to
bring together all the data which it has upon the subject so closely that
the understanding comprehends them at a glance, which it now rightly
fixes, and then carefully makes the result distinct to itself. Further,
the great difficulty of judging in most cases depends upon the fact that
we have to proceed from the consequent to the reason, a path which is
always uncertain; indeed I have shown that the source of all error lies
here. Yet in all the empirical sciences, and also in the affairs of real
life, this way is for the most part the only one open to us. The
experiment is an attempt to go over it again the other way; therefore it
is decisive, and at least brings out error clearly; provided always that
it is rightly chosen and honestly carried out; not like Newton’s
experiments in connection with the theory of colours. But the experiment
itself must also again be judged. The complete certainty of the _a priori_
sciences, logic and mathematics, depends principally upon the fact that in
them the path from the reason to the consequent is open to us, and it is
always certain. This gives them the character of _purely objective_
sciences, _i.e._, sciences with regard to whose truths all who understand
them must judge alike; and this is all the more remarkable as they are the
very sciences which rest on the subjective forms of the intellect, while
the empirical sciences alone have to do with what is palpably objective.

Wit and ingenuity are also manifestations of the faculty of judgment; in
the former its activity is reflective, in the latter subsuming. In most
men the faculty of judgment is only nominally present; it is a kind of
irony that it is reckoned with the normal faculties of the mind, instead
of being only attributed to the _monstris per excessum_. Ordinary men show
even in the smallest affairs want of confidence in their own judgment,
just because they know from experience that it is of no service. With them
prejudice and imitation take its place; and thus they are kept in a state
of continual non-age, from which scarcely one in many hundreds is
delivered. Certainly this is not avowed, for even to themselves they
appear to judge; but all the time they are glancing stealthily at the
opinion of others, which is their secret standard. While each one would be
ashamed to go about in a borrowed coat, hat, or mantle, they all have
nothing but borrowed opinions, which they eagerly collect wherever they
can find them, and then strut about giving them out as their own. Others
borrow them again from them and do the same thing. This explains the rapid
and wide spread of errors, and also the fame of what is bad; for the
professional purveyors of opinion, such as journalists and the like, give
as a rule only false wares, as those who hire out masquerading dresses
give only false jewels.



Chapter VIII.(20) On The Theory Of The Ludicrous.


My theory of the ludicrous also depends upon the opposition explained in
the preceding chapters between perceptible and abstract ideas, which I
have brought into such marked prominence. Therefore what has still to be
said in explanation of this theory finds its proper place here, although
according to the order of the text it would have to come later.

The problem of the origin, which is everywhere the same, and hence of the
peculiar significance of laughter, was already known to Cicero, but only
to be at once dismissed as insoluble (_De Orat._, ii. 58). The oldest
attempt known to me at a psychological explanation of laughter is to be
found in Hutcheson’s “Introduction into Moral Philosophy,” Bk. I., ch. i.
§ 14. A somewhat later anonymous work, “_Traité des Causes Physiques et
Morals du Rire_,” 1768, is not without merit as a ventilation of the
subject. Platner, in his “Anthropology,” § 894, has collected the opinions
of the philosophers from Hume to Kant who have attempted an explanation of
this phenomenon peculiar to human nature. Kant’s and Jean Paul’s theories
of the ludicrous are well known. I regard it as unnecessary to prove their
incorrectness, for whoever tries to refer given cases of the ludicrous to
them will in the great majority of instances be at once convinced of their
insufficiency.

According to my explanation given in the first volume, the source of the
ludicrous is always the paradoxical, and therefore unexpected, subsumption
of an object under a conception which in other respects is different from
it, and accordingly the phenomenon of laughter always signifies the sudden
apprehension of an incongruity between such a conception and the real
object thought under it, thus between the abstract and the concrete object
of perception. The greater and more unexpected, in the apprehension of the
laughter, this incongruity is, the more violent will be his laughter.
Therefore in everything that excites laughter it must always be possible
to show a conception and a particular, that is, a thing or event, which
certainly can be subsumed under that conception, and therefore thought
through it, yet in another and more predominating aspect does not belong
to it at all, but is strikingly different from everything else that is
thought through that conception. If, as often occurs, especially in
witticisms, instead of such a real object of perception, the conception of
a subordinate species is brought under the higher conception of the genus,
it will yet excite laughter only through the fact that the imagination
realises it, _i.e._, makes a perceptible representative stand for it, and
thus the conflict between what is thought and what is perceived takes
place. Indeed if we wish to understand this perfectly explicitly, it is
possible to trace everything ludicrous to a syllogism in the first figure,
with an undisputed _major_ and an unexpected _minor_, which to a certain
extent is only sophistically valid, in consequence of which connection the
conclusion partakes of the quality of the ludicrous.

In the first volume I regarded it as superfluous to illustrate this theory
by examples, for every one can do this for himself by a little reflection
upon cases of the ludicrous which he remembers. Yet, in order to come to
the assistance of the mental inertness of those readers who prefer always
to remain in a passive condition, I will accommodate myself to them.
Indeed in this third edition I wish to multiply and accumulate examples,
so that it may be indisputable that here, after so many fruitless earlier
attempts, the true theory of the ludicrous is given, and the problem which
was proposed and also given up by Cicero is definitely solved.

If we consider that an angle requires two lines meeting so that if they
are produced they will intersect each other; on the other hand, that the
tangent of a circle only touches it at one point, but at this point is
really parallel to it; and accordingly have present to our minds the
abstract conviction of the impossibility of an angle between the
circumference of a circle and its tangent; and if now such an angle lies
visibly before us upon paper, this will easily excite a smile. The
ludicrousness in this case is exceedingly weak; but yet the source of it
in the incongruity of what is thought and perceived appears in it with
exceptional distinctness. When we discover such an incongruity, the
occasion for laughter that thereby arises is, according as we pass from
the real, _i.e._, the perceptible, to the conception, or conversely from
the conception to the real, either a witticism or an absurdity, which in a
higher degree, and especially in the practical sphere, is folly, as was
explained in the text. Now to consider examples of the first case, thus of
wit, we shall first of all take the familiar anecdote of the Gascon at
whom the king laughed when he saw him in light summer clothing in the
depth of winter, and who thereupon said to the king: “If your Majesty had
put on what I have, you would find it very warm;” and on being asked what
he had put on, replied: “My whole wardrobe!” Under this last conception we
have to think both the unlimited wardrobe of a king and the single summer
coat of a poor devil, the sight of which upon his freezing body shows its
great incongruity with the conception. The audience in a theatre in Paris
once called for the “Marseillaise” to be played, and as this was not done,
began shrieking and howling, so that at last a commissary of police in
uniform came upon the stage and explained that it was not allowed that
anything should be given in the theatre except what was in the playbill.
Upon this a voice cried: “_Et vous, Monsieur, êtes-vous aussi sur
l’affiche?_”—a hit which was received with universal laughter. For here
the subsumption of what is heterogeneous is at once distinct and unforced.
The epigramme:


    “Bav is the true shepherd of whom the Bible spake:
    Though his flock be all asleep, he alone remains awake:”


subsumes, under the conception of a sleeping flock and a waking shepherd,
the tedious preacher who still bellows on unheard when he has sent all the
people to sleep. Analogous to this is the epitaph on a doctor: “Here lies
he like a hero, and those he has slain lie around him;” it subsumes under
the conception, honourable to the hero, of “lying surrounded by dead
bodies,” the doctor, who is supposed to preserve life. Very commonly the
witticism consists in a single expression, through which only the
conception is given, under which the case presented can be subsumed,
though it is very different from everything else that is thought under it.
So is it in “Romeo” when the vivacious Mercutio answers his friends who
promise to visit him on the morrow: “Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall
find me a grave man.” Under this conception a dead man is here subsumed;
but in English there is also a play upon the words, for “a grave man”
means both a serious man and a man of the grave. Of this kind is also the
well-known anecdote of the actor Unzelmann. In the Berlin theatre he was
strictly forbidden to improvise. Soon afterwards he had to appear on the
stage on horseback, and just as he came on the stage the horse dunged, at
which the audience began to laugh, but laughed much more when Unzelmann
said to the horse: “What are you doing? Don’t you know we are forbidden to
improvise?” Here the subsumption of the heterogeneous under the more
general conception is very distinct, but the witticism is exceedingly
happy, and the ludicrous effect produced by it excessively strong. To this
class also belongs the following announcement from Hall in a newspaper of
March 1851: “The band of Jewish swindlers to which we have referred were
again delivered over to us with obligato accompaniment.” This subsuming of
a police escort under a musical term is very happy, though it approaches
the mere play upon words. On the other hand, it is exactly a case of the
kind we are considering when Saphir, in a paper-war with the actor Angeli,
describes him as “Angeli, who is equally great in mind and body.” The
small statue of the actor was known to the whole town, and thus under the
conception “great” unusual smallness was presented to the mind. Also when
the same Saphir calls the airs of a new opera “good old friends,” and so
brings the quality which is most to be condemned under a conception which
is usually employed to commend. Also, if we should say of a lady whose
favour could be influenced by presents, that she knew how to combine the
_utile_ with the _dulci_. For here we bring the moral life under the
conception of a rule which Horace has recommended in an æsthetical
reference. Also if to signify a brothel we should call it the “modest
abode of quiet joys.” Good society, in order to be thoroughly insipid, has
forbidden all decided utterances, and therefore all strong expressions.
Therefore it is wont, when it has to signify scandalous or in any way
indecent things, to mitigate or extenuate them by expressing them through
general conceptions. But in this way it happens that they are more or less
incongruously subsumed, and in a corresponding degree the effect of the
ludicrous is produced. To this class belongs the use of _utile dulci_
referred to above, and also such expressions as the following: “He had
unpleasantness at the ball” when he was thrashed and kicked out; or, “He
has done too well” when he is drunk; and also, “The woman has weak
moments” if she is unfaithful to her husband, &c. Equivocal sayings also
belong to the same class. They are conceptions which in themselves contain
nothing improper, but yet the case brought under them leads to an improper
idea. They are very common in society. But a perfect example of a full and
magnificent equivocation is Shenstone’s incomparable epitaph on a justice
of the peace, which, in its high-flown lapidary style, seems to speak of
noble and sublime things, while under each of their conceptions something
quite different is to be subsumed, which only appears in the very last
word as the unexpected key to the whole, and the reader discovers with
loud laughter that he has only read a very obscene equivocation. In this
smooth-combed age it is altogether impossible to quote this here, not to
speak of translating it; it will be found in Shenstone’s poetical works,
under the title “Inscription.” Equivocations sometimes pass over into mere
puns, about which all that is necessary has been said in the text.

Further, the ultimate subsumption, ludicrous to all, of what in one
respect is heterogeneous, under a conception which in other respects
agrees with it, may take place contrary to our intention. For example, one
of the free negroes in North America, who take pains to imitate the whites
in everything, quite recently placed an epitaph over his dead child which
begins, “Lovely, early broken lily.” If, on the contrary, something real
and perceptible is, with direct intention, brought under the conception of
its opposite, the result is plain, common irony. For example, if when it
is raining hard we say, “Nice weather we are having to-day;” or if we say
of an ugly bride, “That man has found a charming treasure;” or of a knave,
“This honest man,” &c. &c. Only children and quite uneducated people will
laugh at such things; for here the incongruity between what is thought and
what is perceived is total. Yet just in this direct exaggeration in the
production of the ludicrous its fundamental character, incongruity,
appears very distinctly. This species of the ludicrous is, on account of
its exaggeration and distinct intention, in some respects related to
_parody_. The procedure of the latter consists in this. It substitutes for
the incidents and words of a serious poem or drama insignificant low
persons or trifling motives and actions. It thus subsumes the commonplace
realities which it sets forth under the lofty conceptions given in the
theme, under which in a certain respect they must come, while in other
respects they are very incongruous; and thereby the contrast between what
is perceived and what is thought appears very glaring. There is no lack of
familiar examples of this, and therefore I shall only give one, from the
“Zobeide” of Carlo Gozzi, act iv., scene 3, where the famous stanza of
Ariosto (_Orl. Fur._, i. 22), “_Oh gran bontà de’ cavalieri antichi_,”
&c., is put word for word into the mouth of two clowns who have just been
thrashing each other, and tired with this, lie quietly side by side. This
is also the nature of the application so popular in Germany of serious
verses, especially of Schiller, to trivial events, which clearly contains
a subsumption of heterogeneous things under the general conception which
the verse expresses. Thus, for example, when any one has displayed a very
characteristic trait, there will rarely be wanting some one to say, “From
that I know with whom I have to do.” But it was original and very witty of
a man who was in love with a young bride to quote to the newly married
couple (I know not how loudly) the concluding words of Schiller’s ballad,
“The Surety:”


    “Let me be, I pray you,
    In your bond the third.”


The effect of the ludicrous is here strong and inevitable, because under
the conceptions through which Schiller presents to the mind a moral and
noble relation, a forbidden and immoral relation is subsumed, and yet
correctly and without change, thus is thought through it. In all the
examples of wit given here we find that under a conception, or in general
an abstract thought, a real thing is, directly, or by means of a narrower
conception, subsumed, which indeed, strictly speaking, comes under it, and
yet is as different as possible from the proper and original intention and
tendency of the thought. Accordingly wit, as a mental capacity, consists
entirely in a facility for finding for every object that appears a
conception under which it certainly can be thought, though it is very
different from all the other objects which come under this conception.

The second species of the ludicrous follows, as we have mentioned, the
opposite path from the abstract conception to the real or perceptible
things thought through it. But this now brings to light any incongruity
with the conception which was overlooked, and hence arises an absurdity,
and therefore in the practical sphere a foolish action. Since the play
requires action, this species of the ludicrous is essential to comedy.
Upon this depends the observation of Voltaire: “_J’ai cru remarquer aux
spectacles, qu’il ne s’élève presque jamais de ces éclats de rire
universels, qu’à l’occasion d’une_ MÉPRISE” (_Preface de L’Enfant
Prodigue_). The following may serve as examples of this species of the
ludicrous. When some one had declared that he was fond of walking alone,
an Austrian said to him: “You like walking alone; so do I: therefore we
can go together.” He starts from the conception, “A pleasure which two
love they can enjoy in common,” and subsumes under it the very case which
excludes community. Further, the servant who rubbed a worn sealskin in his
master’s box with Macassar oil, so that it might become covered with hair
again; in doing which he started from the conception, “Macassar oil makes
hair grow.” The soldiers in the guard-room who allowed a prisoner who was
brought in to join in their game of cards, then quarrelled with him for
cheating, and turned him out. They let themselves be led by the general
conception, “Bad companions are turned out,” and forget that he is also a
prisoner, _i.e._, one whom they ought to hold fast. Two young peasants had
loaded their gun with coarse shot, which they wished to extract, in order
to substitute fine, without losing the powder. So one of them put the
mouth of the barrel in his hat, which he took between his legs, and said
to the other: “Now you pull the trigger slowly, slowly, slowly; then the
shot will come first.” He starts from the conception, “Prolonging the
cause prolongs the effect.” Most of the actions of Don Quixote are also
cases in point, for he subsumes the realities he encounters under
conceptions drawn from the romances of chivalry, from which they are very
different. For example, in order to support the oppressed he frees the
galley slaves. Properly all Münchhausenisms are also of this nature, only
they are not actions which are performed, but impossibilities, which are
passed off upon the hearer as having really happened. In them the fact is
always so conceived that when it is thought merely in the abstract, and
therefore comparatively _a priori_, it appears possible and plausible; but
afterwards, if we come down to the perception of the particular case, thus
_a posteriori_ the impossibility of the thing, indeed the absurdity of the
assumption, is brought into prominence, and excites laughter through the
evident incongruity of what is perceived and what is thought. For example,
when the melodies frozen up in the post-horn are thawed in the warm
room—when Münchhausen, sitting upon a tree during a hard frost, draws up
his knife which has dropped to the ground by the frozen jet of his own
water, &c. Such is also the story of the two lions who broke down the
partition between them during the night and devoured each other in their
rage, so that in the morning there was nothing to be found but the two
tails.

There are also cases of the ludicrous where the conception under which the
perceptible facts are brought does not require to be expressed or
signified, but comes into consciousness itself through the association of
ideas. The laughter into which Garrick burst in the middle of playing
tragedy because a butcher in the front of the pit, who had taken off his
wig to wipe the sweat from his head, placed the wig for a while upon his
large dog, who stood facing the stage with his fore paws resting on the
pit railings, was occasioned by the fact that Garrick started from the
conception of a spectator, which was added in his own mind. This is the
reason why certain animal forms, such as apes, kangaroos, jumping-hares,
&c., sometimes appear to us ludicrous because something about them
resembling man leads us to subsume them under the conception of the human
form, and starting from this we perceive their incongruity with it.

Now the conceptions whose observed incongruity with the perceptions moves
us to laughter are either those of others or our own. In the first case we
laugh at others, in the second we feel a surprise, often agreeable, at the
least amusing. Therefore children and uneducated people laugh at the most
trifling things, even at misfortunes, if they were unexpected, and thus
convicted their preconceived conception of error. As a rule laughing is a
pleasant condition; accordingly the apprehension of the incongruity
between what is thought and what is perceived, that is, the real, gives us
pleasure, and we give ourselves up gladly to the spasmodic convulsions
which this apprehension excites. The reason of this is as follows. In
every suddenly appearing conflict between what is perceived and what is
thought, what is perceived is always unquestionably right; for it is not
subject to error at all, requires no confirmation from without, but
answers for itself. Its conflict with what is thought springs ultimately
from the fact that the latter, with its abstract conceptions, cannot get
down to the infinite multifariousness and fine shades of difference of the
concrete. This victory of knowledge of perception over thought affords us
pleasure. For perception is the original kind of knowledge inseparable
from animal nature, in which everything that gives direct satisfaction to
the will presents itself. It is the medium of the present, of enjoyment
and gaiety; moreover it is attended with no exertion. With thinking the
opposite is the case; it is the second power of knowledge, the exercise of
which always demands some, and often considerable, exertion. Besides, it
is the conceptions of thought that often oppose the gratification of our
immediate desires, for, as the medium of the past, the future, and of
seriousness, they are the vehicle of our fears, our repentance, and all
our cares. It must therefore be diverting to us to see this strict,
untiring, troublesome governess, the reason, for once convicted of
insufficiency. On this account then the mien or appearance of laughter is
very closely related to that of joy.

On account of the want of reason, thus of general conceptions, the brute
is incapable of laughter, as of speech. This is therefore a prerogative
and characteristic mark of man. Yet it may be remarked in passing that his
one friend the dog has an analogous characteristic action peculiar to him
alone in distinction from all other brutes, the very expressive, kindly,
and thoroughly honest fawning and wagging of its tail. But how favourably
does this salutation given him by nature compare with the bows and
simpering civilities of men. At least for the present, it is a thousand
times more reliable than their assurance of inward friendship and
devotion.

The opposite of laughing and joking is _seriousness_. Accordingly it
consists in the consciousness of the perfect agreement and congruity of
the conception, or thought, with what is perceived, or the reality. The
serious man is convinced that he thinks the things as they are, and that
they are as he thinks them. This is just why the transition from profound
seriousness to laughter is so easy, and can be effected by trifles. For
the more perfect that agreement assumed by seriousness may seem to be, the
more easily is it destroyed by the unexpected discovery of even a slight
incongruity. Therefore the more a man is capable of entire seriousness,
the more heartily can he laugh. Men whose laughter is always affected and
forced are intellectually and morally of little worth; and in general the
way of laughing, and, on the other hand, the occasions of it, are very
characteristic of the person. That the relations of the sexes afford the
easiest materials for jokes always ready to hand and within the reach of
the weakest wit, as is proved by the abundance of obscene jests, could not
be if it were not that the deepest seriousness lies at their foundation.

That the laughter of others at what we do or say seriously offends us so
keenly depends on the fact that it asserts that there is a great
incongruity between our conceptions and the objective realities. For the
same reason, the predicate “ludicrous” or “absurd” is insulting. The laugh
of scorn announces with triumph to the baffled adversary how incongruous
were the conceptions he cherished with the reality which is now revealing
itself to him. Our own bitter laughter at the fearful disclosure of the
truth through which our firmly cherished expectations are proved to be
delusive is the active expression of the discovery now made of the
incongruity between the thoughts which, in our foolish confidence in man
or fate, we entertained, and the truth which is now unveiled.

The _intentionally_ ludicrous is the _joke_. It is the effort to bring
about a discrepancy between the conceptions of another and the reality by
disarranging one of the two; while its opposite, _seriousness_, consists
in the exact conformity of the two to each other, which is at least aimed
at. But if now the joke is concealed behind seriousness, then we have
_irony_. For example, if with apparent seriousness we acquiesce in the
opinions of another which are the opposite of our own, and pretend to
share them with him, till at last the result perplexes him both as to us
and them. This is the attitude of Socrates as opposed to Hippias,
Protagoras, Gorgias, and other sophists, and indeed often to his
collocutors in general. The converse of irony is accordingly seriousness
concealed behind a joke, and this is _humour_. It might be called the
double counterpoint of irony. Explanations such as “Humour is the
interpenetration of the finite and the infinite” express nothing more than
the entire incapacity for thought of those who are satisfied with such
empty phrases. Irony is objective, that is, intended for another; but
humour is subjective, that is, it primarily exists only for one’s own
self. Accordingly we find the masterpieces of irony among the ancients,
but those of humour among the moderns. For, more closely considered,
humour depends upon a subjective, yet serious and sublime mood, which is
involuntarily in conflict with a common external world very different from
itself, which it cannot escape from and to which it will not give itself
up; therefore, as an accommodation, it tries to think its own point of
view and that external world through the same conceptions, and thus a
double incongruity arises, sometimes on the one side, sometimes on the
other, between these concepts and the realities thought through them.
Hence the impression of the intentionally ludicrous, thus of the joke, is
produced, behind which, however, the deepest seriousness is concealed and
shines through. Irony begins with a serious air and ends with a smile;
with humour the order is reversed. The words of Mercutio quoted above may
serve as an example of humour. Also in “Hamlet”—_Polonius_: “My honourable
lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you. _Hamlet_: You cannot, sir,
take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal, except my
life, except my life, except my life.” Again, before the introduction of
the play at court, Hamlet says to Ophelia: “What should a man do but be
merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died
within these two hours. _Ophelia_: Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.
_Hamlet_: So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a
suit of sables.”

Again, in Jean Paul’s “Titan,” when Schoppe, melancholy and now brooding
over himself, frequently looking at his hands, says to himself, “There
sits a lord in bodily reality, and I in him; but who is such?” Heinrich
Heine appears as a true humourist in his “_Romancero_.” Behind all his
jokes and drollery we discern a profound seriousness, which is ashamed to
appear unveiled. Accordingly humour depends upon a special kind of mood or
temper (German, _Laune_, probably from _Luna_) through which conception in
all its modifications, a decided predominance of the subjective over the
objective in the apprehension of the external world, is thought. Moreover,
every poetical or artistic presentation of a comical, or indeed even a
farcical scene, through which a serious thought yet glimmers as its
concealed background, is a production of humour, thus is humorous. Such,
for example, is a coloured drawing of Tischbein’s, which represents an
empty room, lighted only by the blazing fire in the grate. Before the fire
stands a man with his coat off, in such a position that his shadow, going
out from his feet, stretches across the whole room. Tischbein comments
thus on the drawing: “This is a man who has succeeded in nothing in the
world, and who has made nothing of it; now he rejoices that he can throw
such a large shadow.” Now, if I had to express the seriousness that lies
concealed behind this jest, I could best do so by means of the following
verse taken from the Persian poem of Anwari Soheili:—


    “If thou hast lost possession of a world,
      Be not distressed, for it is nought;
    Or hast thou gained possession of a world,
      Be not o’erjoyed, for it is nought.
    Our pains, our gains, all pass away;
      Get thee beyond the world, for it is nought.”


That at the present day the word humorous is generally used in German
literature in the sense of comical arises from the miserable desire to
give things a more distinguished name than belongs to them, the name of a
class that stands above them. Thus every inn must be called a hotel, every
money-changer a banker, every concert a musical academy, the merchant’s
counting-house a bureau, the potter an artist in clay, and therefore also
every clown a humourist. The word _humour_ is borrowed from the English to
denote a quite peculiar species of the ludicrous, which indeed, as was
said above, is related to the sublime, and which was first remarked by
them. But it is not intended to be used as the title for all kinds of
jokes and buffoonery, as is now universally the case in Germany, without
opposition from men of letters and scholars; for the true conception of
that modification, that tendency of the mind, that child of the sublime
and the ridiculous, would be too subtle and too high for their public, to
please which they take pains to make everything flat and vulgar. Well,
“high words and a low meaning” is in general the motto of the noble
present, and accordingly now-a-days he is called a humourist who was
formerly, called a buffoon.



Chapter IX.(21) On Logic In General.


Logic, Dialectic, and Rhetoric go together, because they make up the whole
of a _technic of reason_, and under this title they ought also to be
taught—Logic as the technic of our own thinking, Dialectic of disputing
with others, and Rhetoric of speaking to many (_concionatio_); thus
corresponding to the singular, dual, and plural, and to the monologue, the
dialogue, and the panegyric.

Under Dialectic I understand, in agreement with Aristotle (_Metaph._, iii.
2, and _Analyt. Post._, i. 11), the art of conversation directed to the
mutual investigation of truth, especially philosophical truth. But a
conversation of this kind necessarily passes more or less into
controversy; therefore dialectic may also be explained as the art of
disputation. We have examples and patterns of dialectic in the Platonic
dialogues; but for the special theory of it, thus for the technical rules
of disputation, eristics, very little has hitherto been accomplished. I
have worked out an attempt of the kind, and given an example of it, in the
second volume of the “Parerga,” therefore I shall pass over the exposition
of this science altogether here.

In Rhetoric the rhetorical figures are very much what the syllogistic
figures are in Logic; at all events they are worth considering. In
Aristotle’s time they seem to have not yet become the object of
theoretical investigation, for he does not treat of them in any of his
rhetorics, and in this reference we are referred to Rutilius Lupus, the
epitomiser of a later Gorgias.

All the three sciences have this in common, that without having learned
them we follow their rules, which indeed are themselves first abstracted
from this natural employment of them. Therefore, although they are of
great theoretical interest, they are of little practical use; partly
because, though they certainly give the rule, they do not give the case of
its application; partly because in practice there is generally no time to
recollect the rules. Thus they teach only what every one already knows and
practises of his own accord; but yet the abstract knowledge of this is
interesting and important. Logic will not easily have a practical value,
at least for our own thinking. For the errors of our own reasoning
scarcely ever lie in the inferences nor otherwise in the form, but in the
judgments, thus in the matter of thought. In controversy, on the other
hand, we can sometimes derive some practical use from logic, by taking the
more or less intentionally deceptive argument of our opponent, which he
advances under the garb and cover of continuous speech, and referring it
to the strict form of regular syllogisms, and thus convicting it of
logical errors; for example, simple conversion of universal affirmative
judgments, syllogisms with four terms, inferences from the consequent to
the reason, syllogisms in the second figure with merely affirmative
premisses, and many such.

It seems to me that the doctrine of the laws of thought might be
simplified if we were only to set up two, the law of excluded middle and
that of sufficient reason. The former thus: “Every predicate can either be
affirmed or denied of every subject.” Here it is already contained in the
“either, or” that both cannot occur at once, and consequently just what is
expressed by the laws of identity and contradiction. Thus these would be
added as corollaries of that principle which really says that every two
concept-spheres must be thought either as united or as separated, but
never as both at once; and therefore, even although words are brought
together which express the latter, these words assert a process of thought
which cannot be carried out. The consciousness of this infeasibility is
the feeling of contradiction. The second law of thought, the principle of
sufficient reason, would affirm that the above attributing or denying must
be determined by something different from the judgment itself, which may
be a (pure or empirical) perception, or merely another judgment. This
other and different thing is then called the ground or reason of the
judgment. So far as a judgment satisfies the first law of thought, it is
thinkable; so far as it satisfies the second, it is true, or at least in
the case in which the ground of a judgment is only another judgment it is
logically or formally true. But, finally, material or absolute truth is
always the relation between a judgment and a perception, thus between the
abstract and the concrete or perceptible idea. This is either an immediate
relation or it is brought about by means of other judgments, _i.e._,
through other abstract ideas. From this it is easy to see that one truth
can never overthrow another, but all must ultimately agree; because in the
concrete or perceptible, which is their common foundation, no
contradiction is possible. Therefore no truth has anything to fear from
other truths. Illusion and error have to fear every truth, because through
the logical connection of all truths even the most distant must some time
strike its blow at every error. This second law of thought is therefore
the connecting link between logic and what is no longer logic, but the
matter of thought. Consequently the agreement of the conceptions, thus of
the abstract idea with what is given in the perceptible idea, is, on the
side of the object _truth_, and on the side of the subject _knowledge_.

To express the union or separation of two concept-spheres referred to
above is the work of the copula, “is—is not.” Through this every verb can
be expressed by means of its participle. Therefore all judging consists in
the use of a verb, and _vice versâ_. Accordingly the significance of the
copula is that the predicate is to be thought in the subject, nothing
more. Now, consider what the content of the infinitive of the copula “to
be” amounts to. But this is a principal theme of the professors of
philosophy of the present time. However, we must not be too strict with
them; most of them wish to express by it nothing but material things, the
corporeal world, to which, as perfectly innocent realists at the bottom of
their hearts, they attribute the highest reality. To speak, however, of
the bodies so directly appears to them too vulgar; and therefore they say
“being,” which they think sounds better, and think in connection with it
the tables and chairs standing before them.

“For, because, why, therefore, thus, since, although, indeed, yet, but,
if, then, either, or,” and more like these, are properly _logical
particles_, for their only end is to express the form of the thought
processes. They are therefore a valuable possession of a language, and do
not belong to all in equal numbers. Thus “_zwar_” (the contracted “_es ist
wahr_”) seems to belong exclusively to the German language. It is always
connected with an “_aber_” which follows or is added in thought, as “if”
is connected with “then.”

The logical rule that, as regards quantity, singular judgments, that is,
judgments which have a singular conception (_notio singularis_) for their
subject, are to be treated as _universal judgments_, depends upon the
circumstance that they are in fact universal judgments, which have merely
the peculiarity that their subject is a conception which can only be
supported by a single real object, and therefore only contains a single
real object under it; as when the conception is denoted by a proper name.
This, however, has really only to be considered when we proceed from the
abstract idea to the concrete or perceptible, thus seek to realise the
conceptions. In thinking itself, in operating with judgments, this makes
no difference, simply because between singular and universal conceptions
there is no logical difference. “Immanuel Kant” signifies logically,
“_all_ Immanuel Kant.” Accordingly the quantity of judgments is really
only of two kinds—universal and particular. An _individual idea_ cannot be
the subject of a judgment, because it is not an abstraction, it is not
something thought, but something perceived. Every conception, on the other
hand, is essentially universal, and every judgment must have a
_conception_ as its subject.

The difference between _particular judgments_ (_propositiones
particulares_) and _universal judgments_ often depends merely on the
external and contingent circumstance that the language has no word to
express by itself the part that is here to be separated from the general
conception which forms the subject of such a judgment. If there were such
a word many a particular judgment would be universal. For example, the
particular judgment, “Some trees bear gall-nuts,” becomes a universal
judgment, because for this part of the conception, “tree,” we have a
special word, “All oaks bear gall-nuts.” In the same way is the judgment,
“Some men are black,” related to the judgment, “All negroes are black.” Or
else this difference depends upon the fact that in the mind of him who
judges the conception which he makes the subject of the particular
judgment has not become clearly separated from the general conception as a
part of which he defines it; otherwise he could have expressed a universal
instead of a particular judgment. For example, instead of the judgment,
“Some ruminants have upper incisors,” this, “All unhorned ruminants have
upper incisors.”

The _hypothetical and disjunctive judgments_ are assertions as to the
relation of two (in the case of the disjunctive judgment even several)
categorical judgments to each other. The _hypothetical judgment_ asserts
that the truth of the second of the two categorical judgments here linked
together depends upon the truth of the first, and the falseness of the
first depends upon the falseness of the second; thus that these two
propositions stand in direct community as regards truth and falseness. The
_disjunctive judgment_, on the other hand, asserts that upon the truth of
one of the categorical judgments here linked together depends the
falseness of the others, and conversely; thus that these propositions are
in conflict as regards truth and falseness. The _question_ is a judgment,
one of whose three parts is left open: thus either the copula, “Is Caius a
Roman—or not?” or the predicate, “Is Caius a Roman—or something else?” or
the subject, “Is Caius a Roman—or is it some one else who is a Roman?” The
place of the conception which is left open may also remain quite empty;
for example, “What is Caius?”—“Who is a Roman?”

The επαγωγη, inductio, is with Aristotle the opposite of the απαγωγη. The
latter proves a proposition to be false by showing that what would follow
from it is not true; thus by the _instantia in contrarium_. The επαγωγη,
on the other hand, proves the truth of a proposition by showing that what
would follow from it is true. Thus it leads by means of examples to our
accepting something while the απαγωγη leads to our rejecting it. Therefore
the επαγωγη, or induction, is an inference from the consequents to the
reason, and indeed _modo ponente_; for from many cases it establishes the
rule, from which these cases then in their turn follow. On this account it
is never perfectly certain, but at the most arrives at very great
probability. However, this _formal_ uncertainty may yet leave room for
_material_ certainty through the number of the sequences observed; in the
same way as in mathematics the irrational relations are brought infinitely
near to rationality by means of decimal fractions. The απαγωγη, on the
contrary, is primarily an inference from the reason to the consequents,
though it is afterwards carried out _modo tollente_, in that it proves the
non-existence of a necessary consequent, and thereby destroys the truth of
the assumed reason. On this account it is always perfectly certain, and
accomplishes more by a single example _in contrarium_ than the induction
does by innumerable examples in favour of the proposition propounded. So
much easier is it to refute than to prove, to overthrow than to establish.



Chapter X. On The Syllogism.


Although it is very hard to establish a new and correct view of a subject
which for more than two thousand years has been handled by innumerable
writers, and which, moreover, does not receive additions through the
growth of experience, yet this must not deter me from presenting to the
thinker for examination the following attempt of this kind.

An inference is that operation of our reason by virtue of which, through
the comparison of two judgments a third judgment arises, without the
assistance of any knowledge otherwise obtained. The condition of this is
that these two judgments have _one_ conception in common, for otherwise
they are foreign to each other and have no community. But under this
condition they become the father and mother of a child that contains in
itself something of both. Moreover, this operation is no arbitrary act,
but an act of the reason, which, when it has considered such judgments,
performs it of itself according to its own laws. So far it is objective,
not subjective, and therefore subject to the strictest rules.

We may ask in passing whether he who draws an inference really learns
something new from the new proposition, something previously unknown to
him? Not absolutely; but yet to a certain extent he does. What he learns
lay in what he knew: thus he knew it also, but he did not know that he
knew it; which is as if he had something, but did not know that he had it,
and this is just the same as if he had it not. He knew it only
_implicite_, now he knows it _explicite_; but this distinction may be so
great that the conclusion appears to him a new truth. For example:


    All diamonds are stones;
    All diamonds are combustible:
    Therefore some stones are combustible.


The nature of inference consequently consists in this, that we bring it to
distinct consciousness that we have already thought in the premisses what
is asserted in the conclusion. It is therefore a means of becoming more
distinctly conscious of one’s own knowledge, of learning more fully, or
becoming aware of what one knows. The knowledge which is afforded by the
conclusion was _latent_, and therefore had just as little effect as latent
heat has on the thermometer. Whoever has salt has also chlorine; but it is
as if he had it not, for it can only act as chlorine if it is chemically
evolved; thus only, then, does he really possess it. It is the same with
the gain which a mere conclusion from already known premisses affords: a
previously _bound or latent knowledge_ is thereby set _free_. These
comparisons may indeed seem to be somewhat strained, but yet they really
are not. For because we draw many of the possible inferences from our
knowledge very soon, very rapidly, and without formality, and therefore
have no distinct recollection of them, it seems to us as if no premisses
for possible conclusions remained long stored up unused, but as if we
already had also conclusions prepared for all the premisses within reach
of our knowledge. But this is not always the case; on the contrary, two
premisses may have for a long time an isolated existence in the same mind,
till at last some occasion brings them together, and then the conclusion
suddenly appears, as the spark comes from the steel and the stone only
when they are struck together. In reality the premisses assumed from
without, both for theoretical insight and for motives, which bring about
resolves, often lie for a long time in us, and become, partly through
half-conscious, and even inarticulate, processes of thought, compared with
the rest of our stock of knowledge, reflected upon, and, as it were,
shaken up together, till at last the right major finds the right minor,
and these immediately take up their proper places, and at once the
conclusion exists as a light that has suddenly arisen for us, without any
action on our part, as if it were an inspiration; for we cannot comprehend
how we and others have so long been in ignorance of it. It is true that in
a happily organised mind this process goes on more quickly and easily than
in ordinary minds; and just because it is carried on spontaneously and
without distinct consciousness it cannot be learned. Therefore Goethe
says: “How easy anything is he knows who has discovered it, he knows who
has attained to it.” As an illustration of the process of thought here
described we may compare it to those padlocks which consist of rings with
letters; hanging on the box of a travelling carriage, they are shaken so
long that at last the letters of the word come together in their order and
the lock opens. For the rest, we must also remember that the syllogism
consists in the process of thought itself, and the words and propositions
through which it is expressed only indicate the traces it has left behind
it—they are related to it as the sound-figures of sand are related to the
notes whose vibrations they express. When we reflect upon something, we
collect our data, reduce them to judgments, which are all quickly brought
together and compared, and thereby the conclusions which it is possible to
draw from them are instantly arrived at by means of the use of all the
three syllogistic figures. Yet on account of the great rapidity of this
operation only a few words are used, and sometimes none at all, and only
the conclusion is formally expressed. Thus it sometimes happens that
because in this way, or even merely intuitively, _i.e._, by a happy
_apperçu_, we have brought some new truth to consciousness, we now treat
it as a conclusion and seek premisses for it, that is, we desire to prove
it, for as a rule knowledge exists earlier than its proofs. We then go
through our stock of knowledge in order to see whether we can find some
truth in it in which the newly discovered truth was already implicitly
contained, or two propositions which would give this as a result if they
were brought together according to rule. On the other hand, every judicial
proceeding affords a most complete and imposing syllogism, a syllogism in
the first figure. The civil or criminal transgression complained of is the
minor; it is established by the prosecutor. The law applicable to the case
is the major. The judgment is the conclusion, which therefore, as
something necessary, is “merely recognised” by the judge.

But now I shall attempt to give the simplest and most correct exposition
of the peculiar mechanism of inference.

_Judging_, this elementary and most important process of thought, consists
in the comparison of two _conceptions_; _inference_ in the comparison of
two _judgments_. Yet ordinarily in text-books inference is also referred
to the comparison of conceptions, though of _three_, because from the
relation which two of these conceptions have to a third their relation to
each other may be known. Truth cannot be denied to this view also; and
since it affords opportunity for the perceptible demonstration of
syllogistic relations by means of drawn concept-spheres, a method approved
of by me in the text, it has the advantage of making the matter easily
comprehensible. But it seems to me that here, as in so many cases,
comprehensibility is attained at the cost of thoroughness. The real
process of thought in inference, with which the three syllogistic figures
and their necessity precisely agree, is not thus recognised. In inference
we operate _not_ with mere _conceptions_ but with whole _judgments_, to
which quality, which lies only in the copula and not in the conceptions,
and also quantity are absolutely essential, and indeed we have further to
add modality. That exposition of inference as a relation of _three
conceptions_ fails in this, that it at once resolves the judgments into
their ultimate elements (the conceptions), and thus the means of combining
these is lost, and that which is peculiar to the judgments as such and in
their completeness, which is just what constitutes the necessity of the
conclusion which follows from them, is lost sight of. It thus falls into
an error analogous to that which organic chemistry would commit if, for
example, in the analysis of plants it were at once to reduce them to their
_ultimate_ elements, when it would find in all plants carbon, hydrogen,
and oxygen, but would lose the specific differences, to obtain which it is
necessary to stop at their more special elements, the so-called alkaloids,
and to take care to analyse these in their turn. From three given
conceptions no conclusion can as yet be drawn. It may certainly be said:
the relation of two of them to the third must be given with them. But it
is just the _judgments_ which combine these conceptions, that are the
expression of this relation; thus _judgments_, not mere _conceptions_, are
the material of the inference. Accordingly inference is essentially a
comparison of two _judgments_. The process of thought in our mind is
concerned with these and the thoughts expressed by them, not merely with
three conceptions. This is the case even when this process is imperfectly
or not at all expressed in words; and it is as such, as a bringing
together of the complete and unanalysed judgments, that we must consider
it in order properly to understand the technical procedure of inference.
From this there will then also follow the necessity for three really
rational syllogistic figures.

As in the exposition of syllogistic reasoning by means of
_concept-spheres_ these are presented to the mind under the form of
circles, so in the exposition by means of entire judgments we have to
think these under the form of rods, which, for the purpose of comparison,
are held together now by one end, now by the other. The different ways in
which this can take place give the three figures. Since now every premiss
contains its subject and its predicate, these two conceptions are to be
imagined as situated at the two ends of each rod. The two judgments are
now compared with reference to the two _different_ conceptions in them;
for, as has already been said, the third conception must be the same in
both, and is therefore subject to no comparison, but is that _with which_,
that is, in reference to which, the other two are compared; it is the
_middle_. The latter is accordingly always only the means and not the
chief concern. The two different conceptions, on the other hand, are the
subject of reflection, and to find out their relation to each other by
means of the judgments in which they are contained is the aim of the
syllogism. Therefore the conclusion speaks only of them, not of the
middle, which was only a means, a measuring rod, which we let fall as soon
as it has served its end. Now if this conception which is _identical_ in
both propositions, thus the middle, is the subject of _one_ premiss, the
conception to be compared with it must be the predicate, and conversely.
Here at once is established _a priori_ the possibility of three cases;
either the subject of one premiss is compared with the predicate of the
other, or the subject of the one with the subject of the other, or,
finally, the predicate of the one with the predicate of the other. Hence
arise the three syllogistic figures of Aristotle; the fourth, which was
added somewhat impertinently, is ungenuine and a spurious form. It is
attributed to Galenus, but this rests only on Arabian authority. Each of
the three figures exhibits a perfectly different, correct, and natural
thought-process of the reason in inference.

If in the two judgments to be compared the relation between the _predicate
of the one and the subject of the other_ is the object of the comparison,
the _first figure_ appears. This figure alone has the advantage that the
conceptions which in the conclusion are subject and predicate both appear
already in the same character in the premisses; while in the two other
figures one of them must always change its roll in the conclusion. But
thus in the first figure the result is always less novel and surprising
than in the other two. Now this advantage in the first figure is obtained
by the fact that the predicate of the major is compared with the subject
of the minor, but not conversely, which is therefore here essential, and
involves that the middle should assume both the positions, _i.e._, it is
the subject in the major and the predicate in the minor. And from this
again arises its subordinate significance, for it appears as a mere weight
which we lay at pleasure now in one scale and now in the other. The course
of thought in this figure is, that the predicate of the major is
attributed to the subject of the minor, because the subject of the major
is the predicate of the minor, or, in the negative case, the converse
holds for the same reason. Thus here a property is attributed to the
things thought through a conception, because it depends upon another
property which we already know they possess; or conversely. Therefore here
the guiding principle is: _Nota notæ est nota rei ipsius, et repugnans
notæ repugnat rei ipsi_.

If, on the other hand, we compare two judgments with the intention of
bringing out the relation which the _subjects of both_ may have to each
other, we must take as the common measure their predicate. This will
accordingly be here the middle, and must therefore be the same in both
judgments. Hence arises the _second figure_. In it the relation of two
subjects to each other is determined by that which they have as their
common predicate. But this relation can only have significance if the same
predicate is attributed to the one subject and denied of the other, for
thus it becomes an essential ground of distinction between the two. For if
it were attributed to both the subjects this could decide nothing as to
their relation to each other, for almost every predicate belongs to
innumerable subjects. Still less would it decide this relation if the
predicate were denied of both the subjects. From this follows the
fundamental characteristic of the second figure, that the premisses must
be of _opposite quality_; the one must affirm and the other deny.
Therefore here the principal rule is: _Sit altera negans_; the corollary
of which is: _E meris affirmativis nihil sequitur_; a rule which is
sometimes transgressed in a loose argument obscured by many parenthetical
propositions. The course of thought which this figure exhibits distinctly
appears from what has been said. It is the investigation of two kinds of
things with the view of distinguishing them, thus of establishing that
they are _not_ of the same species; which is here decided by showing that
a certain property is essential to the one kind, which the other lacks.
That this course of thought assumes the second figure of its own accord,
and expresses itself clearly only in it, will be shown by an example:


    All fishes have cold blood;
    No whale has cold blood:
    Thus no whale is a fish.


In the first figure, on the other hand, this thought exhibits itself in a
weak, forced, and ultimately patched-up form:


    Nothing that has cold blood is a whale;
    All fishes have cold blood:
    Thus no fish is a whale,
    And consequently no whale is a fish.


Take also an example with an affirmative minor:


    No Mohamedan is a Jew;
    Some Turks are Jews:
    Therefore some Turks are not Mohamedans.


As the guiding principle for this figure I therefore give, for the mood
with the negative minor: _Cui repugnat nota, etiam repugnat notatum_; and
for the mood with the affirmative minor: _Notato repugnat id cui nota
repugnat_. Translated these may be thus combined: Two subjects which stand
in opposite relations to one predicate have a negative relation to each
other.

The third case is that in which we place two judgments together in order
to investigate the relation of their _predicates_. Hence arises the _third
figure_, in which accordingly the middle appears in both premisses as the
subject. It is also here the _tertium comparationis_, the measure which is
applied to both the conceptions which are to be investigated, or, as it
were, a chemical reagent, with which we test them both in order to learn
from their relation to it what relation exists between themselves. Thus,
then, the conclusion declares whether a relation of subject and predicate
exists between the two, and to what extent this is the case. Accordingly,
what exhibits itself in this figure is reflection concerning two
properties which we are inclined to regard either as _incompatible_, or
else as _inseparable_, and in order to decide this we attempt to make them
the predicates of one subject in two judgments. From this it results
either that both properties belong to the same thing, consequently their
_compatibility_, or else that a thing has the one but not the other,
consequently their _separableness_. The former in all moods with two
affirmative premisses, the latter in all moods with one negative; for
example:


    Some brutes can speak;
    All brutes are irrational:
    Therefore some irrational beings can speak.


According to Kant (_Die Falsche Spitzfinigkeit_, § 4) this inference would
only be conclusive if we added in thought: “Therefore some irrational
beings are brutes.” But this seems to be here quite superfluous and by no
means the natural process of thought. But in order to carry out the same
process of thought directly by means of the first figure I must say:


    “All brutes are irrational;
    Some beings that can speak are brutes,”


which is clearly not the natural course of thought; indeed the conclusion
which would then follow, “Some beings that can speak are irrational,”
would have to be converted in order to preserve the conclusion which the
third figure gives of itself, and at which the whole course of thought has
aimed. Let us take another example:


    All alkalis float in water;
    All alkalis are metals:
    Therefore some metals float in water.


                 [Alkalis and Metals overlapping circles]

                                 Figure 1


              [Metals circle with Alkalis circle inside it]

                                 Figure 2


When this is transposed into the first figure the minor must be converted,
and thus runs: “Some metals are alkalis.” It therefore merely asserts that
some metals lie in the sphere “alkalis,” thus [Figure 1], while our actual
knowledge is that all alkalis lie in the sphere “metals,” thus [Figure 2]:
It follows that if the first figure is to be regarded as the only normal
one, in order to think naturally we would have to think less than we know,
and to think indefinitely while we know definitely. This assumption has
too much against it. Thus in general it must be denied that when we draw
inferences in the second and third figures we tacitly convert a
proposition. On the contrary, the third, and also the second, figure
exhibits just as rational a process of thought as the first. Let us now
consider another example of the other class of the third figure, in which
the separableness of two predicates is the result; on account of which one
premiss must here be negative:


    No Buddhist believes in a God;
    Some Buddhists are rational:
    Therefore some rational beings do not believe in a God.


As in the examples given above the _compatibility_ of two properties is
the problem of reflection, now their _separableness_ is its problem, which
here also must be decided by comparing them with _one_ subject and showing
that _one_ of them is present in it without the _other_. Thus the end is
directly attained, while by means of the first figure it could only be
attained indirectly. For in order to reduce the syllogism to the first
figure we must convert the minor, and therefore say: “Some rational beings
are Buddhists,” which would be only a faulty expression of its meaning,
which really is: “Some Buddhists are yet certainly rational.”

As the guiding principle of this figure I therefore give: for the
affirmative moods: _Ejusdem rei notœ, modo sit altera universalis, sibi
invicem sunt notœ particulares_; and for the negative moods: _Nota rei
competens, notœ eidem repugnanti, particulariter repugnat, modo sit altera
universalis_. Translated: If two predicates are affirmed of one subject,
and at least one of them universally, they are also affirmed of each other
particularly; and, on the contrary, they are denied of each other
particularly whenever one of them contradicts the subject of which the
other is affirmed; provided always that either the contradiction or the
affirmation be universal.

In the _fourth figure_ the subject of the major has to be compared with
the predicate of the minor; but in the conclusion they must both exchange
their value and position, so that what was the subject of the major
appears as the predicate of the conclusion, and what was the predicate of
the minor appears as the subject of the conclusion. By this it becomes
apparent that this figure is merely the _first_, wilfully turned upside
down, and by no means the expression of a real process of thought natural
to the reason.

On the other hand, the first three figures are the ectypes of three real
and essentially different operations of thought. They have this in common,
that they consist in the comparison of two judgments; but such a
comparison only becomes fruitful when these judgments have _one_
conception in common. If we present the premisses to our imagination under
the sensible form of two rods, we can think of this conception as a clasp
that links them to each other; indeed in lecturing one might provide
oneself with such rods. On the other hand, the three figures are
distinguished by this, that those judgments are compared either with
reference to the subjects of both, or to the predicates of both, or
lastly, with reference to the subject of the one and the predicate of the
other. Since now every conception has the property of being subject or
predicate only because it is already part of a judgment, this confirms my
view that in the syllogism only judgments are primarily compared, and
conceptions only because they are parts of judgments. In the comparison of
two judgments, however, the essential question is, in _respect of what_
are they compared? not _by what means_ are they compared? The former
consists of the concepts which are different in the two judgments; the
latter consists of the middle, that is, the conception which is identical
in both. It is therefore not the right point of view which Lambert, and
indeed really Aristotle, and almost all the moderns have taken in starting
from the _middle_ in the analysis of syllogisms, and making it the
principal matter and its position the essential characteristic of the
syllogisms. On the contrary, its role is only secondary, and its position
a consequence of the logical value of the conceptions which are really to
be compared in the syllogism. These may be compared to two substances
which are to be chemically tested, and the middle to the reagent by which
they are tested. It therefore always takes the place which the conceptions
to be compared leave vacant, and does not appear again in the conclusion.
It is selected according to our knowledge of its relation to both the
conceptions and its suitableness for the place it has to take up.
Therefore in many cases we can change it at pleasure for another without
affecting the syllogism. For example, in the syllogism:


    All men are mortal;
    Caius is a man:


I can exchange the middle “man” for “animal existence.” In the syllogism:


    All diamonds are stones;
    All diamonds are combustible:


I can exchange the middle “diamond” for “anthracite.” As an external mark
by which we can recognise at once the figure of a syllogism the middle is
certainly very useful. But as the fundamental characteristic of a thing
which is to be explained, we must take what is essential to it; and what
is essential here is, whether we place two propositions together in order
to compare their predicates or their subjects, or the predicate of the one
and the subject of the other.

Therefore, in order as premisses to yield a conclusion, two judgments must
have a conception in common; further, they must not both be negative, nor
both particular; and lastly, in the case in which the conceptions to be
compared are the subjects of both, they must not both be affirmative.

The voltaic pile may be regarded as a sensible image of the syllogism. Its
point of indifference, at the centre, represents the middle, which holds
together the two premisses, and by virtue of which they have the power of
yielding a conclusion. The two different conceptions, on the other hand,
which are really what is to be compared, are represented by the two
opposite poles of the pile. Only because these are brought together by
means of their two conducting wires, which represent the copulas of the
two judgments, is the spark emitted upon their contact—the new light of
the conclusion.



Chapter XI.(22) On Rhetoric.


Eloquence is the faculty of awakening in others our view of a thing, or
our opinion about it, of kindling in them our feeling concerning it, and
thus putting them in sympathy with us. And all this by conducting the
stream of our thought into their minds, through the medium of words, with
such force as to carry their thought from the direction it has already
taken, and sweep it along with ours in its course. The more their previous
course of thought differs from ours, the greater is this achievement. From
this it is easily understood how personal conviction and passion make a
man eloquent; and in general, eloquence is more the gift of nature than
the work of art; yet here, also, art will support nature.

In order to convince another of a truth which conflicts with an error he
firmly holds, the first rule to be observed, is an easy and natural one:
_let the premisses come first, and the conclusion follow_. Yet this rule
is seldom observed, but reversed; for zeal, eagerness, and dogmatic
positiveness urge us to proclaim the conclusion loudly and noisily against
him who adheres to the opposed error. This easily makes him shy, and now
he opposes his will to all reasons and premisses, knowing already to what
conclusion they lead. Therefore we ought rather to keep the conclusion
completely concealed, and only advance the premisses distinctly, fully,
and in different lights. Indeed, if possible, we ought not to express the
conclusion at all. It will come necessarily and regularly of its own
accord into the reason of the hearers, and the conviction thus born in
themselves will be all the more genuine, and will also be accompanied by
self-esteem instead of shame. In difficult cases we may even assume the
air of desiring to arrive at a quite opposite conclusion from that which
we really have in view. An example of this is the famous speech of Antony
in Shakspeare’s “Julius Cæsar.”

In defending a thing many persons err by confidently advancing everything
imaginable that can be said for it, mixing up together what is true, half
true, and merely plausible. But the false is soon recognised, or at any
rate felt, and throws suspicion also upon the cogent and true arguments
which were brought forward along with it. Give then the true and weighty
pure and alone, and beware of defending a truth with inadequate, and
therefore, since they are set up as adequate, sophistical reasons; for the
opponent upsets these, and thereby gains the appearance of having upset
the truth itself which was supported by them, that is, he makes _argumenta
ad hominem_ hold good as _argumenta ad rem_. The Chinese go, perhaps, too
far the other way, for they have the saying: “He who is eloquent and has a
sharp tongue may always leave half of a sentence unspoken; and he who has
right on his side may confidently yield three-tenths of his assertion.”



Chapter XII.(23) On The Doctrine Of Science.


From the analysis of the different functions of our intellect given in the
whole of the preceding chapters, it is clear that for a correct use of it,
either in a theoretical or a practical reference, the following conditions
are demanded: (1.) The correct apprehension through perception of the real
things taken into consideration, and of all their essential properties and
relations, thus of all _data_. (2.) The construction of correct
conceptions out of these; thus the connotation of those properties under
correct abstractions, which now become the material of the subsequent
thinking. (3.) The comparison of those conceptions both with the perceived
object and among themselves, and with the rest of our store of
conceptions, so that correct judgments, pertinent to the matter in hand,
and fully comprehending and exhausting it, may proceed from them; thus the
right _estimation_ of the matter. (4.) The placing together or
_combination_ of those judgments as the premisses of _syllogisms_. This
may be done very differently according to the choice and arrangement of
the judgments, and yet the actual _result_ of the whole operation
primarily depends upon it. What is really of importance here is that from
among so many possible combinations of those different judgments which
have to do with the matter free deliberation should hit upon the very ones
which serve the purpose and are decisive. But if in the first function,
that is, in the apprehension through perception of the things and
relations, any single essential point has been overlooked, the correctness
of all the succeeding operations of the mind cannot prevent the result
from being false; for there lie the data, the material of the whole
investigation. Without the certainty that these are correctly and
completely collected, one ought to abstain, in important matters, from any
definite decision.

A conception is _correct_; a judgment is _true_; a body is _real_; and a
relation is _evident_. A proposition of immediate certainty is an _axiom_.
Only the fundamental principles of logic, and those of mathematics drawn
_a priori_ from intuition or perception, and finally also the law of
causality, have immediate certainty. A proposition of indirect certainty
is a maxim, and that by means of which it obtains its certainty is the
proof. If immediate certainty is attributed to a proposition which has no
such certainty, this is a _petitio principii_. A proposition which appeals
directly to the empirical perception is an _assertion_: to confront it
with such perception demands judgment. Empirical perception can primarily
afford us only _particular_, not universal truths. Through manifold
repetition and confirmation such truths indeed obtain a certain
universality also, but it is only comparative and precarious, because it
is still always open to attack. But if a proposition has absolute
universality, the perception to which it appeals is not empirical but _a
priori_. Thus Logic and Mathematics alone are absolutely certain sciences;
but they really teach us only what we already knew beforehand. For they
are merely explanations of that of which we are conscious _a priori_, the
forms of our own knowledge, the one being concerned with the forms of
thinking, the other with those of perceiving. Therefore we spin them
entirely out of ourselves. All other scientific knowledge is empirical.

A proof proves _too much_ if it extends to things or cases of which that
which is to be proved clearly does not hold good; therefore it is refuted
apagogically by these. The _deductio ad absurdum_ properly consists in
this, that we take a false assertion which has been made as the major
proposition of a syllogism, then add to it a correct minor, and arrive at
a conclusion which clearly contradicts facts of experience or
unquestionable truths. But by some round-about way such a refutation must
be possible of every false doctrine. For the defender of this will yet
certainly recognise and admit some truth or other, and then the
consequences of this, and on the other hand those of the false assertion,
must be followed out until we arrive at two propositions which directly
contradict each other. We find many examples in Plato of this beautiful
artifice of genuine dialectic.

A _correct hypothesis_ is nothing more than the true and complete
expression of the present fact, which the originator of the hypothesis has
intuitively apprehended in its real nature and inner connection. For it
tells us only what really takes place here.

The opposition of the _analytical_ and _synthetical_ methods we find
already indicated by Aristotle, yet perhaps first distinctly described by
Proclus, who says quite correctly: “Μεθοδοι δε παραδιδονται; καλλιστη μεν
ἡ δια της αναλυσεως επ᾽ αρχην ὁμολογουμενην αναγουσα το ζητουμενον; ἡν και
Πλατων, ὡς φασι, Λαοδαμαντι παρεδωκεν. κ.τ.λ.” (_Methodi traduntur
sequentes: pulcherrima quidem ea, quæ per analysin quæsitum refert ad
principium, de quo jam convenit; quam etiam Plato Laodamanti tradidisse
dicitur._) “_In Primum Euclidis Librum_,” L. iii. Certainly the analytical
method consists in referring what is given to an admitted principle; the
synthetical method, on the contrary, in deduction from such a principle.
They are therefore analogous to the επαγωγη and απαγωγη explained in
chapter ix.; only the latter are not used to establish propositions, but
always to overthrow them. The analytical method proceeds from the facts;
the particular, to the principle or rule; the universal, or from the
consequents to the reasons; the other conversely. Therefore it would be
much more correct to call them _the inductive and the deductive methods_,
for the customary names are unsuitable and do not fully express the
things.

If a philosopher tries to begin by thinking out the methods in accordance
with which he will philosophise, he is like a poet who first writes a
system of æsthetics in order to poetise in accordance with it. Both of
them may be compared to a man who first sings himself a tune and
afterwards dances to it. The thinking mind must find its way from original
tendency. Rule and application, method and achievement, must, like matter
and form, be inseparable. But after we have reached the goal we may
consider the path we have followed. Æsthetics and methodology are, from
their nature, younger than poetry and philosophy; as grammar is younger
than language, thorough bass younger than music, and logic younger than
thought.

This is a fitting place to make, in passing, a remark by means of which I
should like to check a growing evil while there is yet time. That Latin
has ceased to be the language of all scientific investigations has the
disadvantage that there is no longer an immediately common scientific
literature for the whole of Europe, but national literatures. And thus
every scholar is primarily limited to a much smaller public, and moreover
to a public hampered with national points of view and prejudices. Then he
must now learn the four principal European languages, as well as the two
ancient languages. In this it will be a great assistance to him that the
_termini technici_ of all sciences (with the exception of mineralogy) are,
as an inheritance from our predecessors, Latin or Greek. Therefore all
nations wisely retain these. Only the Germans have hit upon the
unfortunate idea of wishing to Germanise the _termini technici_ of all the
sciences. This has two great disadvantages. First, the foreign and also
the German scholar is obliged to learn all the technical terms of his
science twice, which, when there are many—for example, in Anatomy—is an
incredibly tiresome and lengthy business. If the other nations were not in
this respect wiser than the Germans, we would have the trouble of learning
every _terminus technicus_ five times. If the Germans carry this further,
foreign men of learning will leave their books altogether unread; for
besides this fault they are for the most part too diffuse, and are written
in a careless, bad, and often affected and objectionable style, and
besides are generally conceived with a rude disregard of the reader and
his requirements. Secondly, those Germanised forms of the _termini
technici_ are almost throughout long, patched-up, stupidly chosen,
awkward, jarring words, not clearly separated from the rest of the
language, which therefore impress themselves with difficulty upon the
memory, while the Greek and Latin expressions chosen by the ancient and
memorable founders of the sciences possess the whole of the opposite good
qualities, and easily impress themselves on the memory by their sonorous
sound. What an ugly, harsh-sounding word, for instance, is “_Stickstoff_”
instead of _azot_! “_Verbum_,” “_substantiv_,” “_adjectiv_,” are
remembered and distinguished more easily than “_Zeitwort_,” “_Nennwort_,”
“_Beiwort_,” or even “_Umstandswort_” instead of “_adverbium_.” In Anatomy
it is quite unsupportable, and moreover vulgar and low. Even “_Pulsader_”
and “_Blutader_” are more exposed to momentary confusion than “_Arterie_”
and “_Vene_;” but utterly bewildering are such expressions as
“_Fruchthälter_,” “_Fruchtgang_,” and “_Fruchtleiter_” instead of
“_uterus_,” “_vagina_,” and “_tuba Faloppii_,” which yet every doctor must
know, and which he will find sufficient in all European languages. In the
same way “_Speiche_” and “_Ellenbogenröhre_” instead of “_radius_” and
“_ulna_,” which all Europe has understood for thousands of years.
Wherefore then this clumsy, confusing, drawling, and awkward Germanising?
Not less objectionable is the translation of the technical terms in Logic,
in which our gifted professors of philosophy are the creators of a new
terminology, and almost every one of them has his own. With G. E. Schulze,
for example, the subject is called “_Grundbegriff_,” the predicate
“_Beilegungsbegriff_;” then there are “_Beilegungsschlüsse_,”
“_Voraussetzungsschlüsse_,” and “_Entgegensetzungsschlüsse_;” the
judgments have “_Grösse_,” “_Beschaffenheit_,” “_Verhältniss_,” and
“_Zuverlässigkeit_,” _i.e._, quantity, quality, relation, and modality.
The same perverse influence of this Germanising mania is to be found in
all the sciences. The Latin and Greek expressions have the further
advantage that they stamp the scientific conception as such, and
distinguish it from the words of common intercourse, and the ideas which
cling to them through association; while, for example, “_Speisebrei_”
instead of _chyme_ seems to refer to the food of little children, and
“_Lungensack_” instead of _pleura_, and “_Herzbeutel_” instead of
_pericardium_ seem to have been invented by butchers rather than
anatomists. Besides this, the most immediate necessity of learning the
ancient languages depends upon the old _termini technici_, and they are
more and more in danger of being neglected through the use of living
languages in learned investigations. But if it comes to this, if the
spirit of the ancients bound up with their languages disappears from a
liberal education, then coarseness, insipidity, and vulgarity will take
possession of the whole of literature. For the works of the ancients are
the pole-star of every artistic or literary effort; if it sets they are
lost. Even now we can observe from the miserable and puerile style of most
writers that they have never written Latin.(24) The study of the classical
authors is very properly called the study of _Humanity_, for through it
the student first becomes a _man_ again, for he enters into the world
which was still free from all the absurdities of the Middle Ages and of
romanticism, which afterwards penetrated so deeply into mankind in Europe
that even now every one comes into the world covered with it, and has
first to strip it off simply to become a man again. Think not that your
modern wisdom can ever supply the place of that initiation into manhood;
ye are not, like the Greeks and Romans, born freemen, unfettered sons of
nature. Ye are first the sons and heirs of the barbarous Middle Ages and
of their madness, of infamous priestcraft, and of half-brutal,
half-childish chivalry. Though both now gradually approach their end, yet
ye cannot yet stand on your own feet. Without the school of the ancients
your literature will degenerate into vulgar gossip and dull philistinism.
Thus for all these reasons it is my well-intended counsel that an end be
put at once to the Germanising mania condemned above.

I shall further take the opportunity of denouncing here the disorder which
for some years has been introduced into German orthography in an
unprecedented manner. Scribblers of every species have heard something of
conciseness of expression, but do not know that this consists in the
careful omission of everything superfluous (to which, it is true, the
whole of their writings belong), but imagine they can arrive at it by
clipping the words as swindlers clip coin; and every syllable which
appears to them superfluous, because they do not feel its value, they cut
off without more ado. For example, our ancestors, with true tact, said
“_Beweis_” and “_Verweis_;” but, on the other hand, “_Nachweisung_.” The
fine distinction analogous to that between “_Versuch_” and “_Versuchung_,”
“_Betracht_” and “_Betrachtung_,” is not perceptible to dull ears and
thick skulls; therefore they have invented the word “_Nachweis_,” which
has come at once into general use, for this only requires that an idea
should be thoroughly awkward and a blunder very gross. Accordingly a
similar amputation has already been proposed in innumerable words; for
example, instead of “_Untersuchung_” is written “_Untersuch_;” nay, even
instead of “_allmälig_,” “_mälig_;” instead of “_beinahe_,” “_nahe_;”
instead of “_beständig_,” “_ständig_.” If a Frenchman took upon himself to
write “_près_” instead of “_presque_,” or if an Englishman wrote “_most_”
instead of “_almost_,” they would be laughed at by every one as fools; but
in Germany whoever does this sort of thing passes for a man of
originality. Chemists already write “_löslich_” and “_unlöslich_” instead
of “_unauflöslich_,” and if the grammarians do not rap them over the
knuckles they will rob the language of a valuable word. Knots,
shoe-strings, and also conglomerates of which the cement is softened, and
all analogous things are “_löslich_” (can be loosed); but what is
“_auflöslich_” (soluble), on the other hand, is whatever vanishes in a
liquid, like salt in water. “_Auflösen_” (to dissolve) is the _terminus ad
hoc_, which says this and nothing else, marking out a definite conception;
but our acute improvers of the language wish to empty it into the general
rinsing-pan “_lösen_” (to loosen); they would therefore in consistency be
obliged to make “_lösen_” also take the place everywhere of “_ablösen_”
(to relieve, used of guards), “_auslösen_” (to release), “_einlösen_” (to
redeem), &c., and in these, as in the former case, deprive the language of
definiteness of expression. But to make the language poorer by a word
means to make the thought of the nation poorer by a conception. Yet this
is the tendency of the united efforts of almost all our writers of books
for the last ten or twenty years. For what I have shown here by _one_
example can be supported by a hundred others, and the meanest stinting of
syllables prevails like a disease. The miserable wretches actually count
the letters, and do not hesitate to mutilate a word, or to use one in a
false sense, whenever by doing so they can gain two letters. He who is
capable of no new thoughts will at least bring new words to market, and
every ink-slinger regards it as his vocation to improve the language.
Journalists practise this most shamelessly; and since their papers, on
account of the trivial nature of their contents, have the largest public,
indeed a public which for the most part reads nothing else, a great danger
threatens the language through them. I therefore seriously advise that
they should be subjected to an orthographical censorship, or that they
should be made to pay a fine for every unusual or mutilated word; for what
could be more improper than that changes of language should proceed from
the lowest branch of literature? Language, especially a relatively
speaking original language like German, is the most valuable inheritance
of a nation, and it is also an exceedingly complicated work of art, easily
injured, and which cannot again be restored, therefore a _noli me
tangere_. Other nations have felt this, and have shown great piety towards
their languages, although far less complete than German. Therefore the
language of Dante and Petrarch differs only in trifles from that of
to-day; Montaigne is still quite readable, and so also is Shakspeare in
his oldest editions. For a German indeed it is good to have somewhat long
words in his mouth; for he thinks slowly, and they give him time to
reflect. But this prevailing economy of language shows itself in yet more
characteristic phenomena. For example, in opposition to all logic and
grammar, they use the imperfect for the perfect and pluperfect; they often
stick the auxiliary verb in their pocket; they use the ablative instead of
the genitive; for the sake of omitting a couple of logical particles they
make such intricate sentences that one has to read them four times over in
order to get at the sense; for it is only the paper and not the reader’s
time that they care to spare. In proper names, after the manner of
Hottentots, they do not indicate the case either by inflection or article:
the reader may guess it. But they are specially fond of contracting the
double vowel and dropping the lengthening _h_, those letters sacred to
prosody; which is just the same thing as if we wanted to banish η and ω
from Greek, and make ε and ο take their place. Whoever writes _Scham_,
_Märchen_, _Mass_, _Spass_, ought also to write _Lon_, _Son_, _Stat_,
_Sat_, _Jar_, _Al_, &c. But since writing is the copy of speech, posterity
will imagine that one ought to speak as one writes; and then of the German
language there will only remain a narrow, mouth-distorting, jarring noise
of consonants, and all prosody will be lost. The spelling “_Literatur_”
instead of the correct “_Litteratur_” is also very much liked, because it
saves a letter. In defence of this the participle of the verb _linere_ is
given as the root of the word. But _linere_ means to smear; therefore the
favoured spelling might actually be correct for the greater part of German
bookmaking; so that one could distinguish a very small “_Litteratur_” from
a very extensive “_Literatur._” In order to write concisely let a man
improve his style and shun all useless gossip and chatter, and then he
will not need to cut out syllables and letters on account of the dearness
of paper. But to write so many useless pages, useless sheets, useless
books, and then to want to make up this waste of time and paper at the
cost of the innocent syllables and letters—that is truly the superlative
of what is called in English being penny wise and pound foolish. It is to
be regretted that there is no German Academy to take charge of the
language against literary _sans-culottism_, especially in an age when even
those who are ignorant of the ancient language venture to employ the
press. I have expressed my mind more fully on the whole subject of the
inexcusable mischief being done at the present day to the German language
in my “Parerga,” vol. ii. chap. 23.

In my essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 51, I already
proposed a first _classification of the sciences_ in accordance with the
form of the principle of sufficient reason which reigns in them; and I
also touched upon it again in §§ 7 and 15 of the first volume of this
work. I will give here a small attempt at such a classification, which
will yet no doubt be susceptible of much improvement and perfecting:—


    I. Pure _a priori_ Sciences.

    1. The doctrine of the ground of being.

    (_a._) In space: Geometry.

    (_b._) In time: Arithmetic and Algebra.

    2. The doctrine of the ground of knowing: Logic.

    II. Empirical or _a posteriori_ Sciences. All based upon the
    ground of becoming, _i.e._, the law of causality, and upon the
    three modes of that law.

    1. The doctrine of causes.

    (_a._) Universal: Mechanics, Hydrodynamics, Physics, Chemistry.

    (_b._) Particular: Astronomy, Mineralogy, Geology, Technology,
    Pharmacy.

    2. The doctrine of stimuli.

    (_a._) Universal: Physiology of plants and animals, together with
    the ancillary science, Anatomy.

    (_b._) Particular: Botany, Zoology, Zootomy, Comparative
    Physiology, Pathology, Therapeutics.

    3. The doctrine of motives.

    (_a._) Universal: Ethics, Psychology.

    (_b._) Particular: Jurisprudence, History.


Philosophy or Metaphysics, as the doctrine of consciousness and its
contents in general, or of the whole of experience as such, does not
appear in the list, because it does not at once pursue the investigation
which the principle of sufficient reason prescribes, but first has this
principle itself as its object. It is to be regarded as the thorough bass
of all sciences, but belongs to a higher class than they do, and is almost
as much related to art as to science. As in music every particular period
must correspond to the tonality to which thorough bass has advanced, so
every author, in proportion to the line he follows, must bear the stamp of
the philosophy which prevails in his time. But besides this, every science
has also its special philosophy; and therefore we speak of the philosophy
of botany, of zoology, of history, &c. By this we must reasonably
understand nothing more than the chief results of each science itself,
regarded and comprehended from the highest, that is the most general,
point of view which is possible within that science. These general results
connect themselves directly with general philosophy, for they supply it
with important data, and relieve it from the labour of seeking these
itself in the philosophically raw material of the special sciences. These
special philosophies therefore stand as a mediating link between their
special sciences and philosophy proper. For since the latter has to give
the most general explanations concerning the whole of things, these must
also be capable of being brought down and applied to the individual of
every species of thing. The philosophy of each science, however, arises
independently of philosophy in general, from the data of its own science
itself. Therefore it does not need to wait till that philosophy at last be
found; but if worked out in advance it will certainly agree with the true
universal philosophy. This, on the other hand, must be capable of
receiving confirmation and illustration from the philosophies of the
particular sciences; for the most general truth must be capable of being
proved through the more special truths. Goethe has afforded a beautiful
example of the philosophy of zoology in his reflections on Dalton’s and
Pander’s skeletons of rodents (_Hefte zur Morphologie_, 1824). And like
merit in connection with the same science belongs to Kielmayer, Delamark,
Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Cuvier, and many others, in that they have all
brought out clearly the complete analogy, the inner relationship, the
permanent type, and systematic connection of animal forms. Empirical
sciences pursued purely for their own sake and without philosophical
tendency are like a face without eyes. They are, however, a suitable
occupation for men of good capacity who yet lack the highest faculties,
which would even be a hindrance to minute investigations of such a kind.
Such men concentrate their whole power and their whole knowledge upon one
limited field, in which, therefore, on condition of remaining in entire
ignorance of everything else, they can attain to the most complete
knowledge possible; while the philosopher must survey all fields of
knowledge, and indeed to a certain extent be at home in them; and thus
that complete knowledge which can only be attained by the study of detail
is necessarily denied him. Therefore the former may be compared to those
Geneva workmen of whom one makes only wheels, another only springs, and a
third only chains. The philosopher, on the other hand, is like the
watchmaker, who alone produces a whole out of all these which has motion
and significance. They may also be compared to the musicians of an
orchestra, each of whom is master of his own instrument; and the
philosopher, on the other hand, to the conductor, who must know the nature
and use of every instrument, yet without being able to play them all, or
even one of them, with great perfection. Scotus Erigena includes all
sciences under the name _Scientia_, in opposition to philosophy, which he
calls _Sapientia_. The same distinction was already made by the
Pythagoreans; as may be seen from Stobæus (_Floril._, vol. i. p. 20),
where it is very clearly and neatly explained. But a much happier and more
piquant comparison of the relation of the two kinds of mental effort to
each other has been so often repeated by the ancients that we no longer
know to whom it belongs. Diogenes Laertius (ii. 79) attributes it to
Aristippus, Stobæus (_Floril._, tit. iv. 110) to Aristo of Chios; the
Scholiast of Aristotle ascribes it to him (p. 8 of the Berlin edition),
but Plutarch (_De Puer. Educ._, c. 10) attributes it to Bio—“_Qui ajebat,
sicut Penelopes proci, __ quum non possent cum Penelope concumbere, rem
cum ejus ancillis habuissent; ita qui philosophiam nequeunt apprehendere
eos in alliis nullius pretii disciplinis sese conterere._” In our
predominantly empirical and historical age it can do no harm to recall
this.



Chapter XIII.(25) On The Methods Of Mathematics.


Euclid’s method of demonstration has brought forth from its own womb its
most striking parody and caricature in the famous controversy on the
theory of parallels, and the attempts, which are repeated every year, to
prove the eleventh axiom. This axiom asserts, and indeed supports its
assertion by the indirect evidence of a third intersecting line, that two
lines inclining towards each other (for that is just the meaning of “less
than two right angles”) if produced far enough must meet—a truth which is
supposed to be too complicated to pass as self-evident, and therefore
requires a demonstration. Such a demonstration, however, cannot be
produced, just because there is nothing that is not immediate. This
scruple of conscience reminds me of Schiller’s question of law:—

“For years I have used my nose for smelling. Have I, then, actually a
right to it that can be proved?” Indeed it seems to me that the logical
method is hereby reduced to absurdity. Yet it is just through the
controversies about this, together with the vain attempts to prove what is
_directly_ certain as merely _indirectly_ certain, that the
self-sufficingness and clearness of intuitive evidence appears in contrast
with the uselessness and difficulty of logical proof—a contrast which is
no less instructive than amusing. The direct certainty is not allowed to
be valid here, because it is no mere logical certainty following from the
conceptions, thus resting only upon the relation of the predicate to the
subject, according to the principle of contradiction. That axiom, however,
is a synthetical proposition _a priori_, and as such has the guarantee of
pure, not empirical, perception, which is just as immediate and certain as
the principle of contradiction itself, from which all demonstrations first
derive their certainty. Ultimately this holds good of every geometrical
theorem, and it is quite arbitrary where we draw the line between what is
directly certain and what has first to be demonstrated. It surprises me
that the eighth axiom is not rather attacked. “Figures which coincide with
each other are equal to each other.” For “coinciding with each other” is
either a mere tautology or something purely empirical which does not
belong to pure perception but to external sensuous experience. It
presupposes that the figures may be moved; but only matter is movable in
space. Therefore this appeal to coincidence leaves pure space—the one
element of geometry—in order to pass over to what is material and
empirical.

The reputed motto of the Platonic lecture-room, “Αγεωμετρητος μηδεις
εισιτω,” of which mathematicians are so proud, was no doubt inspired by
the fact that Plato regarded the geometrical figures as intermediate
existences between the eternal Ideas and particular things, as Aristotle
frequently mentions in his “Metaphysics” (especially i. c. 6, p. 887, 998,
_et Scholia_, p. 827, ed. Berol.) Moreover, the opposition between those
self-existent eternal forms, or Ideas, and the transitory individual
things, was most easily made comprehensible in geometrical figures, and
thereby laid the foundation of the doctrine of Ideas, which is the central
point of the philosophy of Plato, and indeed his only serious and decided
theoretical dogma. In expounding it, therefore, he started from geometry.
In the same sense we are told that he regarded geometry as a preliminary
exercise through which the mind of the pupil accustomed itself to deal
with incorporeal objects, having hitherto in practical life had only to do
with corporeal things (_Schol. in Aristot._, p. 12, 15). This, then, is
the sense in which Plato recommended geometry to the philosopher; and
therefore one is not justified in extending it further. I rather
recommend, as an investigation of the influence of mathematics upon our
mental powers, and their value for scientific culture in general, a very
thorough and learned discussion, in the form of a review of a book by
Whewell in the _Edinburgh Review_ of January 1836. Its author, who
afterwards published it with some other discussions, with his name, is Sir
W. Hamilton, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Scotland. This work has
also found a German translator, and has appeared by itself under the
title, “_Ueber den Werth und Unwerth der Mathematik_” _aus dem Englishen_,
1836. The conclusion the author arrives at is that the value of
mathematics is only indirect, and lies in the application to ends which
are only attainable through them; but in themselves mathematics leave the
mind where they find it, and are by no means conducive to its general
culture and development, nay, even a decided hindrance. This conclusion is
not only proved by thorough dianoiological investigation of the
mathematical activity of the mind, but is also confirmed by a very learned
accumulation of examples and authorities. The only direct use which is
left to mathematics is that it can accustom restless and unsteady minds to
fix their attention. Even Descartes, who was yet himself famous as a
mathematician, held the same opinion with regard to mathematics. In the
“_Vie de Descartes par Baillet_,” 1693, it is said, Liv. ii. c. 6, p. 54:
“_Sa propre expérience l’avait convaincu du peu d’utilité des
mathématiques, surtout lorsqu’on ne les cultive que pour elles mêmes....
Il ne voyait rien de moins solide, que de s’occuper de nombres tout
simples et de figures imaginaires_,” &c.



Chapter XIV. On The Association Of Ideas.


The presence of ideas and thoughts in our consciousness is as strictly
subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason in its different forms
as the movement of bodies to the law of causality. It is just as little
possible that a thought can appear in the mind without an occasion as that
a body can be set in motion without a cause. Now this occasion is either
_external_, thus an impression of the senses, or _internal_, thus itself
also a thought which introduces another thought by means of _association_.
This again depends either upon a relation of reason and consequent between
the two; or upon similarity, even mere analogy; or lastly upon the
circumstance that they were both first apprehended at the same time, which
again may have its ground in the proximity in space of their objects. The
last two cases are denoted by the word _à propos_. The predominance of one
of these three bonds of association of thoughts over the others is
characteristic of the intellectual worth of the man. The first named will
predominate in thoughtful and profound minds, the second in witty,
ingenious, and poetical minds, and the third in minds of limited capacity.
Not less characteristic is the degree of facility with which one thought
recalls others that stand in any kind of relation to it: this constitutes
the activeness of the mind. But the impossibility of the appearance of a
thought without its sufficient occasion, even when there is the strongest
desire to call it up, is proved by all the cases in which we weary
ourselves in vain to _recollect_ something, and go through the whole store
of our thoughts in order to find any one that may be associated with the
one we seek; if we find the former, the latter is also found. Whoever
wishes to call up something in his memory first seeks for a thread with
which it is connected by the association of thoughts. Upon this depends
mnemonics: it aims at providing us with easily found occasioners or causes
for all the conceptions, thoughts, or words which are to be preserved. But
the worst of it is that these occasioners themselves have first to be
recalled, and this again requires an occasioner. How much the occasion
accomplishes in memory may be shown in this way. If we have read in a book
of anecdotes say fifty anecdotes, and then have laid it aside, immediately
afterwards we will sometimes be unable to recollect a single one of them.
But if the occasion comes, or if a thought occurs to us which has any
analogy with one of those anecdotes, it immediately comes back to us; and
so with the whole fifty as opportunity offers. The same thing holds good
of all that we read. Our immediate remembrance of words, that is, our
remembrance of them without the assistance of mnemonic contrivances, and
with it our whole faculty of speech, ultimately depends upon the direct
association of thoughts. For the learning of language consists in this,
that once for all we so connect a conception with a word that this word
will always occur to us along with this conception, and this conception
will always occur to us along with this word. We have afterwards to repeat
the same process in learning every new language; yet if we learn a
language for passive and not for active use—that is, to read, but not to
speak, as, for example, most of us learn Greek—then the connection is
one-sided, for the conception occurs to us along with the word, but the
word does not always occur to us along with the conception. The same
procedure as in language becomes apparent in the particular case, in the
learning of every new proper name. But sometimes we do not trust ourselves
to connect directly the name of _this_ person, or town, river, mountain,
plant, animal, &c., with the thought of each so firmly that it will call
each of them up of itself; and then we assist ourselves mnemonically, and
connect the image of the person or thing with any perceptible quality the
name of which occurs in that of the person or thing. Yet this is only a
temporary prop to lean on; later we let it drop, for the association of
thoughts becomes an immediate support.

The search of memory for a clue shows itself in a peculiar manner in the
case of a dream which we have forgotten on awaking, for in this case we
seek in vain for that which a few minutes before occupied our minds with
the strength of the clearest present, but now has entirely disappeared. We
grasp at any lingering impression by which may hang the clue that by
virtue of association would call that dream back again into our
consciousness. According to Kieser, “_Tellurismus_,” Bd. ii. § 271, memory
even of what passed in magnetic-somnambular sleep may possibly sometimes
be aroused by a sensible sign found when awake. It depends upon the same
impossibility of the appearance of a thought without its occasion that if
we propose to do anything at a definite time, this can only take place if
we either think of nothing else till then, or if at the determined time we
are _reminded_ of it by something, which may either be an external
impression arranged beforehand or a thought which is itself again brought
about in the regular way. Both, then, belong to the class of motives.
Every morning when we awake our consciousness is a _tabula rasa_, which,
however, quickly fills itself again. First it is the surroundings of the
previous evening which now reappear, and remind us of what we thought in
these surroundings; to this the events of the previous day link themselves
on; and so one thought rapidly recalls the others, till all that occupied
us yesterday is there again. Upon the fact that this takes place properly
depends the health of the mind, as opposed to madness, which, as is shown
in the third book, consists in the existence of great blanks in the memory
of past events. But how completely sleep breaks the thread of memory, so
that each morning it has to be taken up again, we see in particular cases
of the incompleteness of this operation. For example, sometimes we cannot
recall in the morning a melody which the night before ran in our head till
we were tired of it.

The cases in which a thought or a picture of the fancy suddenly came into
our mind without any conscious occasion seem to afford an exception to
what has been said. Yet this is for the most part an illusion, which rests
on the fact that the occasion was so trifling and the thought itself so
vivid and interesting, that the former is instantly driven out of
consciousness. Yet sometimes the cause of such an instantaneous appearance
of an idea may be an internal physical impression either of the parts of
the brain on each other or of the organic nervous system upon the brain.

In general our internal process of thought is in reality not so simple as
the theory of it; for here it is involved in many ways. To make the matter
clear to our imagination, let us compare our consciousness to a sheet of
water of some depth. Then the distinctly conscious thoughts are merely the
surface; while, on the other hand, the indistinct thoughts, the feelings,
the after sensation of perceptions and of experience generally, mingled
with the special disposition of our own will, which is the kernel of our
being, is the mass of the water. Now the mass of the whole consciousness
is more or less, in proportion to the intellectual activity, in constant
motion, and what rise to the surface, in consequence of this, are the
clear pictures of the fancy or the distinct, conscious thoughts expressed
in words and the resolves of the will. The whole process of our thought
and purpose seldom lies on the surface, that is, consists in a combination
of distinctly thought judgments; although we strive against this in order
that we may be able to explain our thought to ourselves and others. But
ordinarily it is in the obscure depths of the mind that the rumination of
the materials received from without takes place, through which they are
worked up into thoughts; and it goes on almost as unconsciously as the
conversion of nourishment into the humours and substance of the body.
Hence it is that we can often give no account of the origin of our deepest
thoughts. They are the birth of our mysterious inner life. Judgments,
thoughts, purposes, rise from out that deep unexpectedly and to our own
surprise. A letter brings us unlooked-for and important news, in
consequence of which our thoughts and motives are disordered; we get rid
of the matter for the present, and think no more about it; but next day,
or on the third or fourth day after, the whole situation sometimes stands
distinctly before us, with what we have to do in the circumstances.
Consciousness is the mere surface of our mind, of which, as of the earth,
we do not know the inside, but only the crust.

But in the last instance, or in the secret of our inner being, what sets
in activity the association of thought itself, the laws of which were set
forth above, is the _will_, which urges its servant the intellect,
according to the measure of its powers, to link thought to thought, to
recall the similar, the contemporaneous, to recognise reasons and
consequents. For it is to the interest of the will that, in general, one
should think, so that one may be well equipped for all cases that may
arise. Therefore the form of the principle of sufficient reason which
governs the association of thoughts and keeps it active is ultimately the
law of motivation. For that which rules the sensorium, and determines it
to follow the analogy or other association of thoughts in this or that
direction, is the will of the thinking subject. Now just as here the laws
of the connection of ideas subsist only upon the basis of the will, so
also in the real world the causal connection of bodies really subsists
only upon the basis of the will, which manifests itself in the phenomena
of this world. On this account the explanation from causes is never
absolute and exhaustive, but leads back to forces of nature as their
condition, and the inner being of the latter is just the will as thing in
itself. In saying this, however, I have certainly anticipated the
following book.

But because now the _outward_ (sensible) occasions of the presence of our
ideas, just as well as the _inner_ occasions (those of association), and
both independently of each other, constantly affect the consciousness,
there arise from this the frequent interruptions of our course of thought,
which introduce a certain cutting up and confusion of our thinking. This
belongs to its imperfections which cannot be explained away, and which we
shall now consider in a separate chapter.



Chapter XV. On The Essential Imperfections Of The Intellect.


Our self-consciousness has not space but only time as its form, and
therefore we do not think in three dimensions, as we perceive, but only in
_one_, thus in a line, without breadth or depth. This is the source of the
greatest of the essential imperfections of our intellect. We can know all
things only in _succession_, and can become conscious of only one at a
time, indeed even of this one only under the condition that for the time
we forget everything else, thus are absolutely unconscious of everything
else, so that for the time it ceases to exist as far as we are concerned.
In respect of this quality our intellect may be compared to a telescope
with a very narrow field of vision; just because our consciousness is not
stationary but fleeting. The intellect apprehends only successively, and
in order to grasp one thing must let another go, retaining nothing but
traces of it, which are ever becoming weaker. The thought which is vividly
present to me now must after a little while have escaped me altogether;
and if a good night’s sleep intervene, it may be that I shall never find
it again, unless it is connected with my personal interests, that is, with
my will, which always commands the field.

Upon this imperfection of the intellect depends the disconnected and often
_fragmentary nature_ of our course of thought, which I have already
touched on at the close of last chapter; and from this again arises the
unavoidable _distraction_ of our thinking. Sometimes external impressions
of sense throng in upon it, disturbing and interrupting it, forcing
different kinds of things upon it every moment; sometimes _one_ thought
draws in _another_ by the bond of association, and is now itself dislodged
by it; sometimes, lastly, the intellect itself is not capable of fixing
itself very long and continuously at a time upon _one_ thought, but as the
eye when it gazes long at one object is soon unable to see it any more
distinctly, because the outlines run into each other and become confused,
until finally all is obscure, so through long-continued reflection upon
one subject our thinking also is gradually confused, becomes dull, and
ends in complete stupor. Therefore after a certain time, which varies with
the individual, we must for the present give up every meditation or
deliberation which has had the fortune to remain undisturbed, but yet has
not been brought to an end, even if it concerns a matter which is most
important and pertinent to us; and we must dismiss from our consciousness
the subject which interests us so much, however heavily our anxiety about
it may weigh upon us, in order to occupy ourselves now with insignificant
and indifferent things. During this time that important subject no longer
exists for us; it is like the heat in cold water, _latent_. If now we
resume it again at another time, we approach it like a new thing, with
which we become acquainted anew, although more quickly, and the agreeable
or disagreeable impression of it is also produced anew upon our will. We
ourselves, however, do not come back quite unchanged. For with the
physical composition of the humours and tension of the nerves, which
constantly changes with the hours, days, and years, our mood and point of
view also changes. Moreover, the different kinds of ideas which have been
there in the meantime have left an echo behind them, the tone of which
influences the ideas which follow. Therefore the same thing appears to us
at different times, in the morning, in the evening, at mid-day, or on
another day, often very different; opposite views of it now press upon
each other and increase our doubt. Hence we speak of sleeping upon a
matter, and for important determinations we demand a long time for
consideration. Now, although this quality of our intellect, as springing
from its weakness, has its evident disadvantages, yet, on the other hand,
it affords the advantage that after the distraction and the physical
change we return to our subject as comparatively new beings, fresh and
strange, and thus are able to see it repeatedly in very different lights.
From all this it is plain that human consciousness and thought is in its
nature necessarily fragmentary, on account of which the theoretical and
practical results which are achieved by piecing together such fragments
are for the most part defective. In this our thinking consciousness is
like a magic lantern, in the focus of which only one picture can appear at
a time, and each, even if it represents the noblest objects, must yet soon
pass away in order to make room for others of a different, and even most
vulgar, description. In practical matters the most important plans and
resolutions are formed in general; but others are subordinated to these as
means to an end, and others again are subordinated to these, and so on
down to the particular case that has to be carried out _in concreto_. They
do not, however, come to be carried out in the order of their dignity, but
while we are occupied with plans which are great and general, we have to
contend with the most trifling details and the cares of the moment. In
this way our consciousness becomes still more desultory. In general,
theoretical occupations of the mind unfit us for practical affairs, and
_vice versâ_.

In consequence of the inevitably distracted and fragmentary nature of all
our thinking, which has been pointed out, and the mingling of ideas of
different kinds thereby introduced, to which even the noblest human minds
are subject, we really have only _half a consciousness_ with which to
grope about in the labyrinth of our life and the obscurity of our
investigations; bright moments sometimes illuminate our path like
lightning. But what is to be expected of heads of which even the wisest is
every night the scene of the strangest and most senseless dreams, and
which has to take up its meditations again on awakening from these?
Clearly a consciousness which is subject to such great limitations is
little suited for solving the riddle of the world; and such an endeavour
would necessarily appear strange and pitiful to a being of a higher order
whose intellect had not time as its form, and whose thinking had thus true
completeness and unity. Indeed it is really wonderful that we are not
completely confused by the very heterogeneous mixture of ideas and
fragments of thought of every kind which are constantly crossing each
other in our minds, but are yet always able to see our way again and make
everything agree together. Clearly there must exist a simpler thread upon
which everything ranges itself together: but what is this? Memory alone is
not sufficient, for it has essential limitations of which I shall speak
shortly, and besides this, it is exceedingly imperfect and untrustworthy.
The _logical ego_ or even the _transcendental synthetic unity of
apperception_ are expressions and explanations which will not easily serve
to make the matter comprehensible; they will rather suggest to many:


    “’Tis true your beard is curly, yet it will not draw you the
    bolt.”


Kant’s proposition, “The _I think_ must accompany all our ideas,” is
insufficient; for the “I” is an unknown quantity, _i.e._, it is itself a
secret. That which gives unity and connection to consciousness in that it
runs through all its ideas, and is thus its substratum, its permanent
supporter, cannot itself be conditioned by consciousness, therefore cannot
be an idea. Rather it must be the _prius_ of consciousness, and the root
of the tree of which that is the fruit. This, I say, is the _will_. It
alone is unchangeable and absolutely identical, and has brought forth
consciousness for its own ends. Therefore it is also the will which gives
it unity and holds together all its ideas and thoughts, accompanying them
like a continuous harmony. Without it the intellect would no longer have
the unity of consciousness, as a mirror in which now this and now that
successively presents itself, or at the most only so much as a convex
mirror whose rays unite in an imaginary point behind its surface. But the
_will_ alone is that which is permanent and unchangeable in consciousness.
It is the will which holds together all thoughts and ideas as means to its
ends, and tinges them with the colour of its own character, its mood, and
its interests, commands the attention, and holds in its hand the train of
motives whose influence ultimately sets memory and the association of
ideas in activity; at bottom it is the will that is spoken of whenever “I”
appears in a judgment. Thus it is the true and final point of unity of
consciousness, and the bond of all its functions and acts; it does not
itself, however, belong to the intellect, but is only its root, source,
and controller.

From the _form of time and the single dimension_ of the series of ideas,
on account of which, in order to take up one, the intellect must let all
the others fall, there follows not only its distraction, but also its
_forgetfulness_. Most of what it lets fall it never takes up again;
especially since the taking up again is bound to the principle of
sufficient reason, and thus demands an occasion which the association of
thoughts and motivation have first to supply; an occasion, however, which
may be the more remote and smaller in proportion as our sensibility for it
is heightened by our interest in the subject. But memory, as I have
already shown in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, is not a
store-house, but merely a faculty acquired by practice of calling up ideas
at pleasure, which must therefore constantly be kept in practice by use;
for otherwise it will gradually be lost. Accordingly the knowledge even of
the learned man exists only _virtualiter_ as an acquired facility in
calling up certain ideas; _actualiter_, on the other hand, it also is
confined to one idea, and is only conscious of this one at a time. Hence
arises a strange contrast between what he knows _potentiâ_ and what he
knows _actu_; that is, between his knowledge and what he thinks at any
moment: the former is an immense and always somewhat chaotic mass, the
latter is a single distinct thought. The relation resembles that between
the innumerable stars of the heavens and the limited field of vision of
the telescope; it appears in a striking manner when upon some occasion he
wishes to call distinctly to his remembrance some particular circumstance
in his knowledge, and time and trouble are required to produce it from
that chaos. Rapidity in doing this is a special gift, but is very
dependent upon day and hour; therefore memory sometimes refuses us its
service, even in things which at another time it has readily at hand. This
consideration calls us in our studies to strive more to attain to correct
insight than to increase our learning, and to lay it to heart that the
_quality_ of knowledge is more important than its _quantity_. The latter
imparts to books only thickness, the former thoroughness and also style;
for it is an _intensive_ quantity, while the other is merely _extensive_.
It consists in the distinctness and completeness of the conceptions,
together with the purity and accuracy of the knowledge of perception which
forms their foundation; therefore the whole of knowledge in all its parts
is penetrated by it, and in proportion as it is so is valuable or
trifling. With a small quantity, but of good quality, one achieves more
than with a very large quantity of bad quality.

The most perfect and satisfactory knowledge is that of perception, but it
is limited absolutely to the particular, the individual. The combination
of the many and the different in _one_ idea is only possible through the
_conception_, that is, through the omission of the differences; therefore
this is a very imperfect manner of presenting things to the mind.
Certainly the particular also can be directly comprehended as a universal,
if it is raised to the (Platonic) Idea; but in this process, which I have
analysed in the third book, the intellect already passes beyond the limits
of individuality, and therefore of time; moreover it is only an exception.

These inner and essential imperfections of the intellect are further
increased by a disturbance which, to a certain extent, is external to it,
but yet is unceasing—the influence exerted by the will upon all its
operations whenever it is in any way concerned in their result. Every
passion, indeed every inclination and aversion, tinges the objects of
knowledge with its colour. Of most common occurrence is the falsifying of
knowledge which is brought about by wishes and hopes, for they picture to
us the scarcely possible as probable and well nigh certain, and make us
almost incapable of comprehending what is opposed to it: fear acts in a
similar way; and every preconceived opinion, every partiality, and, as has
been said, every interest, every emotion and inclination of the will, acts
in an analogous manner.

To all these imperfections of the intellect we have finally to add this,
that it grows old with the brain, that is, like all physiological
functions, it loses its energy in later years, whereby all its
imperfections are then much increased.

The defective nature of the intellect here set forth will not, however,
surprise us if we look back at its origin and destiny as established by me
in the second book. Nature has produced it for the service of an
individual will. Therefore it is only designed to know things so far as
they afford the motives of such a will, but not to fathom them or
comprehend their true being. Human intellect is only a higher gradation of
the intellect of the brutes; and as this is entirely confined to the
present, our intellect also bears strong traces of this limitation,
Therefore our memory and recollection is something very imperfect. How
little of all that we have done, experienced, learnt, or read, can we
recall! And even this little for the most part only laboriously and
imperfectly. For the same reasons is it so very difficult for us to keep
ourselves free from the impressions of the present. Unconsciousness is the
original and natural condition of all things, and therefore also the basis
from which, in particular species of beings, consciousness results as
their highest efflorescence; wherefore even then unconsciousness always
continues to predominate. Accordingly most existences are without
consciousness; but yet they act according to the laws of their nature,
_i.e._, of their will. Plants have at most a very weak analogue of
consciousness; the lowest species of animals only the dawn of it. But even
after it has ascended through the whole series of animals to man and his
reason, the unconsciousness of plants, from which it started, still
remains the foundation, and may be traced in the necessity for sleep, and
also in all those essential and great imperfections, here set forth, of
every intellect produced through physiological functions; and of another
intellect we have no conception.

The imperfections here proved to be _essential_ to the intellect are
constantly increased, however, in particular cases, by _non-essential_
imperfections. The intellect is never in _every_ respect what it possibly
might be. The perfections possible to it are so opposed that they exclude
each other. Therefore no man can be at once Plato and Aristotle, or
Shakspeare and Newton, or Kant and Goethe. The imperfections of the
intellect, on the contrary, consort very well together; therefore in
reality it for the most part remains far below what it might be. Its
functions depend upon so very many conditions, which we can only
comprehend as anatomical and physiological, in the _phenomenon_ in which
alone they are given us, that a decidedly excelling intellect, even in
_one_ respect alone, is among the rarest of natural phenomena. Therefore
the productions of such an intellect are preserved through thousands of
years, indeed every relic of such a highly favoured individual becomes a
most valuable treasure. From such an intellect down to that which
approaches imbecility the gradations are innumerable. And primarily, in
conformity with these gradations, the _mental horizon_ of each of us
varies very much from the mere comprehension of the present, which even
the brute has, to that which also embraces the next hour, the day, even
the morrow, the week, the year, the life, the century, the thousand years,
up to that of the consciousness which has almost always present, even
though obscurely dawning, the horizon of the infinite, and whose thoughts
therefore assume a character in keeping with this. Further, that
difference among intelligences shows itself in the rapidity of their
thinking, which is very important, and which may be as different and as
finely graduated as that of the points in the radius of a revolving disc.
The remoteness of the consequents and reasons to which any one’s thought
can extend seems to stand in a certain relation to the rapidity of his
thinking, for the greatest exertion of thought-power in general can only
last quite a short time, and yet only while it lasts can a thought be
thought out in its complete unity. It therefore amounts to this, how far
the intellect can pursue it in so short a time, thus what length of path
it can travel in it. On the other hand, in the case of some, rapidity may
be made up for by the greater duration of that time of perfectly
concentrated thought. Probably the slow and lasting thought makes the
mathematical mind, while rapidity of thought makes the genius. The latter
is a flight, the former a sure advance upon firm ground, step by step. Yet
even in the sciences, whenever it is no longer a question of mere
quantities, but of understanding the nature of phenomena, this last kind
of thinking is inadequate. This is shown, for example, by Newton’s theory
of colour, and later by Biot’s nonsense about colour rings, which yet
agrees with the whole atomistic method of treating light among the French,
with its _molécules de lumière_, and in general with their fixed idea of
reducing everything in nature to mere mechanical effects. Lastly, the
great individual diversity of intelligence we are speaking about shows
itself excellently in the _degrees of the clearness of understanding_, and
accordingly in the distinctness of _the whole thinking_. To one man that
is to understand which to another is only in some degree to observe; the
one is already done and at the goal while the other is only at the
beginning; to the one that is the solution which to the other is only the
problem. This depends on the _quality of thought_ and knowledge, which was
already referred to above. As in rooms the degree of light varies, so does
it in minds. We can detect this _quality of the whole thought_ as soon as
we have read only a few pages of an author. For in doing so we have been
obliged to understand both with his understanding and in his sense; and
therefore before we know all that he has thought we see already how he
thinks, what is the _formal_ nature, the _texture_ of his thinking, which
remains the same in everything about which he thinks, and whose expression
is the train of thought and the style. In this we feel at once the pace,
the flexibleness and lightness, even indeed the soaring power of his mind;
or, on the contrary, its dulness, formality, lameness and leaden quality.
For, as language is the expression of the mind of a nation, style is the
more immediate expression of the mind of an author than even his
physiognomy. We throw a book aside when we observe that in it we enter an
obscurer region than our own, unless we have to learn from it mere facts,
not thoughts. Apart from mere facts, only that author will afford us
profit whose understanding is keener and clearer than our own, who
forwards our thinking instead of hindering it, like the dull mind that
will force us to keep pace with the toad-like course of its thought; thus
that author with whose mind it gives us sensible relief and assistance
sometimes to think, by whom we feel ourselves borne where we could not
have gone alone. Goethe once said to me that if he read a page of Kant he
felt as if he entered a brightly lighted room. Inferior minds are so not
merely because they are distorted, and therefore judge falsely, but
primarily through the _indistinctness_ of their whole thinking, which may
be compared to seeing through a bad telescope, when all the outlines
appear indistinct and as if obliterated, and the different objects run
into each other. The weak understanding of such minds shrinks from the
demand for distinctness of conceptions, and therefore they do not
themselves make this claim upon it, but put up with haziness; and to
satisfy themselves with this they gladly have recourse to _words_,
especially such as denote indefinite, very abstract, unusual conceptions
which are hard to explain; such, for example, as infinite and finite,
sensible and supersensible, the Idea of being, Ideas of the reason, the
absolute, the Idea of the good, the divine, moral freedom, power of
spontaneous generation, the absolute Idea, subject-object, &c. The like of
these they confidently fling about, imagine they really express thoughts,
and expect every one to be content with them; for the highest summit of
wisdom which they can see is to have at command such ready-made words for
every possible question. This immense _satisfaction in words_ is
thoroughly characteristic of inferior minds. It depends simply upon their
incapacity for distinct conceptions, whenever these must rise above the
most trivial and simple relations. Hence upon the weakness and indolence
of their intellect, and indeed upon the secret consciousness of this,
which in the case of scholars is bound up with the early learnt and hard
necessity of passing themselves off as thinking beings, to meet which
demand in all cases they keep such a suitable store of ready-made words.
It must really be amusing to see a professor of philosophy of this kind in
the chair, who _bonâ fide_ delivers such a juggle of words destitute of
thoughts, quite sincerely, under the delusion that they are really
thoughts, and in front of him the students, who just as _bonâ fide_,
_i.e._, under the same delusion, listen attentively and take notes, while
yet in reality neither the one nor the other goes beyond the words, but
rather these words themselves, together with the audible scratching of
pens, are the only realities in the whole matter. This peculiar
_satisfaction in words_ has more than anything else to do with the
perpetuation of errors. For, relying on the words and phrases received
from his predecessors, each one confidently passes over obscurities and
problems, and thus these are propagated through centuries from book to
book; and the thinking man, especially in youth, is in doubt whether it
may be that he is incapable of understanding it, or that there is really
nothing here to understand; and similarly, whether for others the problem
which they all slink past with such comical seriousness by the same path
is no problem at all, or whether it is only that they will not see it.
Many truths remain undiscovered simply on this account, that no one has
the courage to look the problem in the face and grapple with it. On the
contrary, the distinctness of thought and clearness of conceptions
peculiar to eminent minds produces the effect that even known truths when
brought forward by them gain new light, or at least a new stimulus. If we
hear them or read them, it is as if we exchanged a bad telescope for a
good one. Let one only read, for example, in Euler’s “Letters to the
Princess,” his exposition of the fundamental truths of mechanics and
optics. Upon this rests the remark of Diderot in the _Neveu de Rameau_,
that only the perfect masters are capable of teaching really well the
elements of a science; just because it is only they who really understand
the questions, and for them words never take the place of thoughts.

But we ought to know that inferior minds are the rule, good minds the
exception, eminent minds very rare, and genius a portent. How otherwise
could a human race consisting of about eight hundred million individuals
have left so much after six thousand years to discover, to invent, to
think out, and to say? The intellect is calculated for the support of the
individual alone, and as a rule it is only barely sufficient even for
this. But nature has wisely been very sparing of conferring a larger
measure; for the man of limited intelligence can survey the few and simple
relations which lie within reach of his narrow sphere of action, and can
control the levers of them with much greater ease than could the eminently
intellectual man who commands an incomparably larger sphere and works with
long levers. Thus the insect sees everything on its stem or leaf with the
most minute exactness, and better than we, and yet is not aware of the man
who stands within three steps of it. This is the reason of the slyness of
half-witted persons, and the ground of the paradox: _Il y a un mystère
dans l’esprit des gens qui n’en ont pas_. For practical life genius is
about as useful as an astral telescope in a theatre. Thus, with regard to
the intellect nature is highly _aristocratic_. The distinctions which it
has established are greater than those which are made in any country by
birth, rank, wealth, or caste. But in the aristocracy of intellect, as in
other aristocracies, there are many thousands of plebeians for one
nobleman, many millions for one prince, and the great multitude of men are
mere populace, mob, rabble, _la canaille_. Now certainly there is a
glaring contrast between the scale of rank of nature and that of
convention, and their agreement is only to be hoped for in a golden age.
Meanwhile those who stand very high in the one scale of rank and in the
other have this in common, that for the most part they live in exalted
isolation, to which Byron refers when he says:—


    “To feel me in the solitude of kings
    Without the power that makes them bear a crown.”

    —_Proph. of Dante_, c. I.


For intellect is a differentiating, and therefore a separating principle.
Its different grades, far more than those of mere culture, give to each
man different conceptions, in consequence of which each man lives to a
certain extent in a different world, in which he can directly meet those
only who are like himself, and can only attempt to speak to the rest and
make himself understood by them from a distance. Great differences in the
grade and in the cultivation of the understanding fix a wide gulf between
man and man, which can only be crossed by benevolence; for it is, on the
contrary, the unifying principle, which identifies every one else with its
own self. Yet the connection remains a moral one; it cannot become
intellectual. Indeed, when the degree of culture is about the same, the
conversation between a man of great intellect and an ordinary man is like
the journey together of two men, one of whom rides on a spirited horse and
the other goes on foot. It soon becomes very trying to both of them, and
for any length of time impossible. For a short way the rider can indeed
dismount, in order to walk with the other, though even then the impatience
of his horse will give him much to do.

But the public could be benefited by nothing so much as by the recognition
of that _intellectual aristocracy of nature_. By virtue of such
recognition it would comprehend that when facts are concerned, thus when
the matter has to be decided from experiments, travels, codes, histories,
and chronicles, the normal mind is certainly sufficient; but, on the other
hand, when mere thoughts are in question, especially those thoughts the
material or data of which are within reach of every one, thus when it is
really only a question of _thinking before_ others, decided
reflectiveness, native eminence, which only nature bestows, and that very
seldom, is inevitably demanded, and no one deserves to be heard who does
not at once give proofs of this. If the public could be brought to see
this for itself, it would no longer waste the time which is sparingly
measured out to it for its culture on the productions of ordinary minds,
thus on the innumerable botches of poetry and philosophy which are
produced every day. It would no longer seize always what is newest, in the
childish delusion that books, like eggs, must be enjoyed while they are
fresh, but would confine itself to the works of the few select and chosen
minds of all ages and nations, would strive to learn to know and
understand them, and might thus by degrees attain to true culture. And
then, also, those thousands of uncalled-for productions which, like tares,
hinder the growth of the good wheat would be discontinued.



Chapter XVI.(26) On The Practical Use Of Reason And On Stoicism.


In the seventh chapter I have shown that, in the theoretical sphere,
procedure based upon _conceptions_ suffices for mediocre achievements
only, while great achievements, on the other hand, demand that we should
draw from perception itself as the primary source of all knowledge. In the
practical sphere, however, the converse is the case. Here determination by
what is perceived is the way of the brutes, but is unworthy of man, who
has _conceptions_ to guide his conduct, and is thus emancipated from the
power of what is actually perceptibly present, to which the brute is
unconditionally given over. In proportion as a man makes good this
prerogative his conduct may be called _rational_, and only in this sense
can we speak of _practical reason_, not in the Kantian sense, the
inadmissibility of which I have thoroughly exposed in my prize essay on
the foundation of morals.

It is not easy, however, to let oneself be determined by _conceptions_
alone; for the directly present external world, with its perceptible
reality, intrudes itself forcibly even on the strongest mind. But it is
just in conquering this impression, in destroying its illusion, that the
human spirit shows its worth and greatness. Thus if incitements to lust
and pleasure leave it unaffected, if the threats and fury of enraged
enemies do not shake it, if the entreaties of erring friends do not make
its purpose waver, and the delusive forms with which preconcerted plots
surround it leave it unmoved, if the scorn of fools and of the vulgar herd
does not disturb it nor trouble it as to its own worth, then it seems to
stand under the influence of a spirit-world, visible to it alone (and this
is the world of conceptions), before which that perceptibly present world
which lies open to all dissolves like a phantom. But, on the other hand,
what gives to the external world and visible reality their great power
over the mind is their nearness and directness. As the magnetic needle,
which is kept in its position by the combined action of widely distributed
forces of nature embracing the whole earth, can yet be perturbed and set
in violent oscillation by a small piece of iron, if only it comes quite
close to it, so even a great mind can sometimes be disconcerted and
perturbed by trifling events and insignificant men, if only they affect it
very closely, and the deliberate purpose can be for the moment shaken by a
trivial but immediately present counter motive. For the influence of the
motives is subject to a law which is directly opposed to the law according
to which weights act on a balance, and in consequence of it a very small
motive, which, however, lies very near to us, can outweigh one which in
itself is much stronger, but which only affects us from a distance. But it
is this quality of the mind, by reason of which it allows itself to be
determined in accordance with this law, and does not withdraw itself from
it by the strength of actual practical reason, which the ancients denoted
by _animi impotentia_, which really signifies _ratio regendæ voluntatis
impotens_. Every _emotion_ (_animi perturbatio_) simply arises from the
fact that an idea which affects our will comes so excessively near to us
that it conceals everything else from us, and we can no longer see
anything but it, so that for the moment we become incapable of taking
account of things of another kind. It would be a valuable safeguard
against this if we were to bring ourselves to regard the present, by the
assistance of imagination, as if it were past, and should thus accustom
our apperception to the epistolary style of the Romans. Yet conversely we
are very well able to regard what is long past as so vividly present that
old emotions which have long been asleep are thereby reawakened in their
full strength. Thus also no one would be irritated or disconcerted by a
misfortune, a disappointment, if reason always kept present to him what
man really is: the most needy of creatures, daily and hourly abandoned to
innumerable misfortunes, great and small, το δειλοτατον ζωον, who has
therefore to live in constant care and fear. Herodotus already says, “Παν
εστι ανθρωπος συμφορα” (_homo totus est calamitas_).

The application of reason to practice primarily accomplishes this. It
reconstructs what is one-sided and defective in knowledge of mere
perception, and makes use of the contrasts or oppositions which it
presents, to correct each other, so that thus the objectively true result
is arrived at. For example, if we look simply at the bad action of a man
we will condemn him; on the other hand, if we consider merely the need
that moved him to it, we will compassionate him: reason, by means of its
conceptions, weighs the two, and leads to the conclusion that he must be
restrained, restricted, and curbed by a proportionate punishment.

I am again reminded here of Seneca’s saying: “_Si vis tibi omnia
subjicere, te subjice rationi_.” Since, however, as was shown in the
fourth book, the nature of suffering is positive, and that of pleasure
negative, he who takes abstract or rational knowledge as the rule of his
conduct, and therefore constantly reflects on its consequences and on the
future, will very frequently have to practise _sustine et abstine_, for in
order to obtain the life that is most free from pain he generally
sacrifices its keenest joys and pleasures, mindful of Aristotle’s “ὁ
φρονιμος το αλυπον διωκει, ου το ἡδυ” (_quod dolore vacat, non quod __
suave est, persequitur vir prudens_). Therefore with him the future
constantly borrows from the present, instead of the present borrowing from
the future, as is the case with a frivolous fool, who thus becomes
impoverished and finally bankrupt. In the case of the former reason must,
for the most part, assume the _rôle_ of a churlish mentor, and unceasingly
call for renunciations, without being able to promise anything in return,
except a fairly painless existence. This rests on the fact that reason, by
means of its conceptions, surveys the _whole_ of life, whose outcome, in
the happiest conceivable case, can be no other than what we have said.

When this striving after a painless existence, so far as it might be
attainable by the application of and strict adherence to rational
reflection and acquired knowledge of the true nature of life, was carried
out with the greatest consistency and to the utmost extreme, it produced
cynicism, from which stoicism afterwards proceeded. I wish briefly here to
bring this out more fully for the sake of establishing more firmly the
concluding exposition of our first book.

All ancient moral systems, with the single exception of that of Plato,
were guides to a happy life. Accordingly in them the end of virtue was
entirely in this life, not beyond death. For to them it is only the right
path to a truly happy life; and on this account the wise choose it. Hence
arise those lengthy debates chiefly preserved for us by Cicero, those keen
and constantly renewed investigations, whether virtue quite alone and in
itself is really sufficient for a happy life, or whether this further
requires some external condition; whether the virtuous and wise may also
be happy on the rack and the wheel, or in the bull of Phalaris; or whether
it does not go as far as this. For certainly this would be the touchstone
of an ethical system of this kind; the practice of it must give happiness
directly and unconditionally. If it cannot do this it does not accomplish
what it ought, and must be rejected. It is therefore with truth and in
accordance with the Christian point of view that Augustine prefaces his
exposition of the moral systems of the ancients (_De Civ. Dei_, Lib. xix.
c. 1) with the explanation: “_Exponenda sunt nobis argumenta mortalium,
quibus sibi ipsi beatitudinem facere_ IN HUJUS VITÆ INFELICITATE _moliti
sunt; ut ab eorum rebus vanis spes nostra quid differat clarescat. De
finibus bonorum et malorum multa inter se philosophi disputarunt; quam
quæstionem maxima intentione versantes, invenire conati sunt, quid
efficiat hominem beatum: illud enim est finis bonorum._” I wish to place
beyond all doubt the eudæmonistic end which we have ascribed to all
ancient ethics by several express statements of the ancients themselves.
Aristotle says in the “_Eth. Magna_,” i. 4: “Ἡ ευδαιμονια εν τῳ εν ζῃν
εστι, το δε ευ ζῃν εν τῳ κατα τας αρετας ζῃν.” (_Felicitas in bene vivendo
posita est: verum bene vivere est in eo positum, ut secundum virtutem
vivamus_), with which may be compared “_Eth. Nicom._,” i. 5. “_Cic.
Tusc._,” v. 1: “_Nam, quum ea causa impulerit eos, qui primi se ad
philosophiæ studia contulerunt, ut, omnibus rebus posthabitis, totos se in
optimo vitæ statu exquirendo collocarent; profecto spe beate vivendi
tantam in eo studio curam operamque posuerunt_”. According to Plutarch
(_De Repugn. Stoic._, c. xviii.) Chrysippus said: “Το κατα κακιαν ζῃν τῳ
κακοδαιμονως ζῃν ταυτον εστι.” (_Vitiose vivere idem est guod vivere
infeliciter._) Ibid., c. 26: “Ἡ φρονησις ουχ ἑτερον εστι της ευδαιμονιας
καθ᾽ ἑαυτο, αλλ᾽ ευδαιμονια.” (_Prudentia nihil differt a felicitate,
estque ipsa adeo felicitas._) “Stob. Ecl.,” Lib. ii. c. 7: “Τελος δε φασιν
ειναι το ευδαιμονειν, ὁυ ἑνεκα παντα πραττεται.” (_Finem esse dicunt
felicitatem, cujus causa fiunt omnia._) “Ευδαιμονιαν συνωνυμειν τῳ τελει
λεγουσι.” (_Finem bonorum et felicitatem synonyma esse dicunt._) “Arrian
Diss. Epict.,” i. 4: “Ἡ αρετη ταυτην εχει την επαγγελιαν, ευδαιμονιαν
ποιησαι.” (_Virtus profitetur, se felicitatem præstare._) Sen., Ep. 90:
“_Ceterum (sapientia) ad beatum statum tendit, illo ducit, __ illo vias
aperit_.”—Id., Ep. 108: “_Illud admoneo auditionem philosophorum,
lectionemque, ad propositum beatæ vitæ trahendum._”

The ethics of the Cynics also adopted this end of the happiest life, as
the Emperor Julian expressly testifies (Orat. vi.): “Της Κυνικης δε
φιλοσοφιας σκοπος μεν εστι και τελος, ὡσπερ δη και πασης φιλοσοφιας, το
ευδαιμονειν; το δε ευδαιμονειν εν τῳ ζῃν κατα φυσιν, αλλα μη προς τας των
πολλων δοξας.” (_Cynicæ philosophiæ ut etiam omnis philosophiæ, scopus et
finis est feliciter vivere: felicitas vitæ autem in eo posita est, ut
secundum naturam vivatur, nec vero secundum opiniones multitudinis._) Only
the Cynics followed quite a peculiar path to this end, a path directly
opposed to the ordinary one—the path of extreme privation. They start from
the insight that the motions of the will which are brought about by the
objects which attract and excite it, and the wearisome, and for the most
part vain, efforts to attain these, or, if they are attained, the fear of
losing them, and finally the loss itself, produce far greater pain than
the want of all these objects ever can. Therefore, in order to attain to
the life that is most free from pain, they chose the path of the extremest
destitution, and fled from all pleasures as snares through which one was
afterwards handed over to pain. But after this they could boldly scorn
happiness and its caprices. This is the _spirit of cynicism_. Seneca
distinctly expresses it in the eighth chapter, “_De Tranquilitate Animi_:”
“_Cogitandum est, quanto levior dolor sit, non habere, quam perdere: et
intelligemus paupertati eo minorem tormentorum, quo minorem damnorum esse
materiam._” Then: “_Tolerabilius est, faciliusque, non acquirere, quam
amittere.... Diogenes effecit, ne quid sibi eripi posset, ... qui se
fortuitis omnibus exuit.... Videtur mihi dixisse; age tuum negotium,
fortuna: nihil apud Diogenem jam tuum est._” The parallel passage to this
last sentence is the quotation of Stobæus (_Ecl._ ii. 7): “Διογενης εφη
νομιζειν ὁραν την Τυχην ενορωσαν αυτον και λεγουσαν; τουτον δ᾽ ου δυναμαι
βαλεειν κυνα λυσσητηρα.” (_Diogenes credere se dixit, videre Fortunam,
ipsum intuentem, ac dicentem: aut hunc non potui tetigisse canem
rabiosum._) The same spirit of cynicism is also shown in the epitaph on
Diogenes, in Suidas, under the word Φιλισκος, and in “Diogenes Laertius,”
vi. 2:


    “Γηρασκει μεν χαλκος ὑπο χρονου; αλλα σον ουτι
      Κυδος ὁ πας αιων, Διογενης, καθελει;
    Μουνος επει βιοτης αυταρκεα δοξαν εδειξας
      Θνητοις, και ζωης οιμον ελαφροτατην.”

    (_Æra quidem absumit tempus, sed tempore numquam_
      _Interitura tua est gloria, Diogenes:_
    _Quandoquidem ad vitam miseris mortalibus æquam_
      _Monstrata est facilis, te duce, et ampla via._)


Accordingly the fundamental thought of cynicism is that life in its
simplest and nakedest form, with the hardships that belong to it by
nature, is the most endurable, and is therefore to be chosen; for every
assistance, convenience, gratification, and pleasure by means of which men
seek to make life more agreeable only brings with it new and greater ills
than originally belonged to it. Therefore we may regard the following
sentence as the expression of the kernel of the doctrine of cynicism:
“Διογενης εβοᾳ πολλακις λεγων, τον των ανθωπων βιον ραδιον ὑπο των θεων
δεδοσθαι, αποκεκρυφθαι δε αυτον ζητουντων μελιπηκτα και μυρα και τα
παραπλησια.” (_Diogenes clamabat sæpius, hominum vitam facilem a diis
dari, verum occultari illam quærentibus mellita cibaria, unguenta et his
similia._) (_Diog., Laert._, vi. 2.) And further: “Δεον, αντι των αχρηστων
πονων, τους κατα φυσιν ἑλομενους, ζῃν ευδαιμονως; παρα την ανοιαν
κακοδαιμονουσι.... τον αυτον χαρακτηρα του βιου λεγων διεξαγειν, ὁνπερ και
Ἡρακλης, μηδεν ελευθηριας προκρινων.” (_Quum igitur, repudiatis inutilibus
laboribus, naturales insequi, ac vivere beate debeamus, per summam
dementiam infelices sumus.... eandem vitæ formam, quam Hercules, se vivere
affirmans, nihil libertati præferens. Ibid._) Therefore the old, genuine
Cynics, Antisthenes, Diogenes, Krates, and their disciples had once for
all renounced every possession, all conveniences and pleasures, in order
to escape for ever from the troubles and cares, the dependence and the
pains, which are inevitably bound up with them and are not counterbalanced
by them. Through the bare satisfaction of the most pressing wants and the
renunciation of everything superfluous they thought they would come off
best. Accordingly they contented themselves with what in Athens or Corinth
was to be had almost for nothing, such as lupines, water, an old
threadbare cloak, a wallet, and a staff. They begged occasionally, as far
as was necessary to supply such wants, but they never worked. Yet they
accepted absolutely nothing that exceeded the wants referred to above.
Independence in the widest sense was their aim. They occupied their time
in resting, going about, talking with all men, and much mocking, laughing,
and joking; their characteristic was carelessness and great cheerfulness.
Since now in this manner of life they had no aims of their own, no
purposes or ends to pursue, thus were lifted above the sphere of human
action, and at the same time always enjoyed complete leisure, they were
admirably fitted, as men of proved strength of mind, to be the advisers
and admonishers of the rest. Therefore Apuleius says (_Florid._, iv.):
“_Crates, ut lar familiaris apud homines suæ ætatis cultus est. Nulla
domus ei unquam clausa erat: nec erat patrisfamilias tam absconditum
secretum, quin eo tempestive Crates interveniret, litium omnium et
jurgiorum inter propinquos disceptator et arbiter._” Thus in this, as in
so many other respects, they show a great likeness to the mendicant friars
of modern times, that is, to the better and more genuine among them, whose
ideal may be seen in the Capucine Christoforo in Manzoni’s famous romance.
Yet this resemblance lies only in the effects, not in the cause. They
agree in the result, but the fundamental thought of the two is quite
different. With the friars, as with the Sannyâsis, who are akin to them,
it is an aim which transcends life; but with the Cynics it is only the
conviction that it is easier to reduce their wishes and their wants to the
_minimum_, than to attain to the _maximum_ in their satisfaction, which
indeed is impossible, for with their satisfaction the wishes and wants
grow _ad infinitum_; therefore, in order to reach the goal of all ancient
ethics, the greatest happiness possible in this life, they took the path
of renunciation as the shortest and easiest: “ὁθεν και τον Κυνισμον
ειρηκασιν συντομον επ᾽ αρετην ὁδον.” (_Unde Cynismum dixere compendiosam
ad virtutem viam._) _Diog. Laert._, vi. 9. The fundamental difference
between the spirit of cynicism and that of asceticism comes out very
clearly in the humility which is essential to the ascetic, but is so
foreign to the Cynic that, on the contrary, he is distinguished beyond
everything else for pride and scorn:—


    “_Sapiens uno minor est Jove, dives,_
    _Liber, honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum._”—_Hor._


On the other hand, the view of life held by the Cynics agrees in spirit
with that of J. J. Rousseau as he expounds it in the “_Discours sur
l’Origine de l’Inégalité_.” For he also would wish to lead us back to the
crude state of nature, and regards the reduction of our wants to the
minimum as the surest path to happiness. For the rest, the Cynics were
exclusively _practical_ philosophers: at least no account of their
theoretical philosophy is known to me.

Now the Stoics proceeded from them in this way—they changed the practical
into the theoretical. They held that the _actual_ dispensing with
everything that can be done without is not demanded, but that it is
sufficient that we should regard possessions and pleasures constantly as
_dispensable_, and as held in the hand of chance; for then the actual
deprivation of them, if it should chance to occur, would neither be
unexpected nor fall heavily. One might always have and enjoy everything;
only one must ever keep present the conviction of the worthlessness and
dispensableness of these good things on the one hand, and of their
uncertainty and perishableness on the other, and therefore prize them all
very little, and be always ready to give them up. Nay more, he who must
actually dispense with these things in order not to be moved by them,
thereby shows that in his heart he holds them to be truly good things,
which one must put quite out of sight if one is not to long after them.
The wise man, on the other hand, knows that they are not good things at
all, but rather perfectly indifferent things, αδιαφορα, in any case
προηγμενα. Therefore if they present themselves he will accept them, but
yet is always ready to let them go again, if chance, to which they belong,
should demand them back; for they are των ουκ εφ᾽ ἡμιν. In this sense,
Epictetus, chap. vii., says that the wise man, like one who has landed
from a ship, &c., will also let himself be comforted by a wife or a child,
but yet will always be ready, whenever the captain calls, to let them go
again. Thus the Stoics perfected the theory of equanimity and independence
at the cost of the practice, for they reduced everything to a mental
process, and by arguments, such as are presented in the first chapter of
Epictetus, sophisticated themselves into all the amenities of life. But in
doing so they left out of account that everything to which one is
accustomed becomes a need, and therefore can only be given up with pain;
that the will does not allow itself to be played with, cannot enjoy
without loving the pleasures; that a dog does not remain indifferent if
one draws a piece of meat through its mouth, and neither does a wise man
if he is hungry; and that there is no middle path between desiring and
renouncing. But they believed that they satisfied their principles if,
sitting at a luxurious Roman table, they left no dish untasted, yet at the
same time protested that they were each and all of them mere προηγμενα,
not αγαθα; or in plain English, if they eat, drank, and were merry, yet
gave no thanks to God for it all, but rather made fastidious faces, and
persisted in boldly asserting that they gained nothing whatever from the
whole feast. This was the expedient of the Stoics; they were therefore
mere braggarts, and stand to the Cynics in much the same relation as
well-fed Benedictines and Augustines stand to Franciscans and Capucines.
Now the more they neglected practice, the more they refined the theory. I
shall here add a few proofs and supplementary details to the exposition of
it given at the close of our first book.

If we search in the writings of the Stoics which remain to us, all of
which are unsystematically composed, for the ultimate ground of that
irrefragible equanimity which is unceasingly demanded of us, we find no
other than the knowledge that the course of the world is entirely
independent of our will, and consequently, that the evil which befalls us
is inevitable. If we have regulated our claims by a correct insight into
this, then mourning, rejoicing, fearing, and hoping are follies of which
we are no longer capable. Further, especially in the commentaries of
Arrian, it is surreptitiously assumed that all that is ουκ εφ᾽ ἡμιν
(_i.e._, does not depend upon us) is at once also ου προς ἡμας (_i.e._,
does not concern us). Yet it remains true that all the good things of life
are in the power of chance, and therefore whenever it makes use of this
power to deprive us of them, we are unhappy if we have placed our
happiness in them. From this unworthy fate we are, in the opinion of the
Stoics, delivered by the right use of reason, by virtue of which we regard
all these things, never as ours, but only as lent to us for an indefinite
time; only thus can we never really lose them. Therefore Seneca says (Ep.
98): “_Si, quid humanarum rerum varietas possit, cogitaverit, ante quam
senserit_,” and Diogenes Laertius (vii. 1. 87): “Ισον δε εστι το κατ᾽
αρετην ζῃν τῳ κατ᾽ εμπειριαν των φυσει συμβαινοντων ζῃν.” (_Secundum
virtutem vivere idem est, quod secundum experientiam eorum, quæ secundum
naturam accidunt, vivere._) The passage in Arrian’s “Discourses of
Epictetus,” B. iii., c. 24, 84-89, is particularly in point here; and
especially, as a proof of what I have said in this reference in § 16 of
the first volume, the passage: “Τουτο γαρ εστι το αιτιον τοις ανθροποις
παντων των κακων το τας προληψεις τας κοινας μη δυνασθαι εφαρμοζειν τοις
επι μερους,” Ibid. iv., 1. 42. (_Hæc enim causa est hominibus omnium
malorum, quod anticipationes generales rebus singularibus accommodare non
possunt._) Similarly the passage in “Marcus Aurelius” (iv. 29): “Ει ξενος
κοσμου ὁ μη γνωριζων τα εν αυτῳ οντα, ουχ ἡττον ξενος και ο μη γνωριζων τα
γιγνομενα;” that is: “If he is a stranger to the universe who does not
know what is in it, no less is he a stranger who does not know how things
go on in it.” Also Seneca’s eleventh chapter, “_De Tranquilitate Animi_,”
is a complete proof of this view. The opinion of the Stoics amounts on the
whole to this, that if a man has watched for a while the juggling illusion
of happiness and then uses his reason, he must recognise both the rapid
changes of the dice and the intrinsic worthlessness of the counters, and
therefore must henceforth remain unmoved. Taken generally the Stoical
point of view may be thus expressed: our suffering always arises from the
want of agreement between our wishes and the course of the world.
Therefore one of these two must be changed and adapted to the other. Since
now the course of things is not in our power (ουκ εφ᾽ ἡμιν), we must
direct our volitions and desires according to the course of things: for
the will alone is εφ᾽ ἡμιν. This adaptation of volition to the course of
the external world, thus to the nature of things, is very often understood
under the ambiguous κατα φυσιν ζην. See the “Discourses of Epictetus,” ii.
17, 21, 22. Seneca also denotes this point of view (Ep. 119) when he says:
“_Nihil interest, utrum non desideres, an habeas. Summa rei in utroque est
eadem: non torqueberis._” Also Cicero (_Tusc._ iv. 26) by the words:
“_Solum habere velle, summa dementia est._” Similarly Arrian (iv. 1. 175):
“Ου γαρ εκπληρωσει των επιθυμουμενων ελευθερια παρασκευαζεται, αλλα
ανασκευη της επιθυμιας.” (_Non enim explendis desideriis libertas
comparatur, sed tollenda cupiditate._)

The collected quotations in the “_Historia Philosophiæ Græco-Romanæ_” of
Ritter and Preller may be taken as proofs of what I have said, in the
place referred to above, about the ὁμολογουμενως ζῃν of the Stoics. Also
the saying of Seneca (Ep. 31, and again Ep. 74): “_Perfecta virtus est
æqualitas et tenor vitæ per omnia consonans sibi._” The following passage
of Seneca’s indicates the spirit of the Stoa generally (Ep. 92): “_Quid
est beata vita? Securitas et perpetua tranquillitas. Hanc dabit animi
magnitudo, dabit constantia bene judicati tenax._” A systematical study of
the Stoics will convince every one that the end of their ethics, like that
of the ethics of Cynicism from which they sprang, is really nothing else
than a life as free as possible from pain, and therefore as happy as
possible. Whence it follows that the Stoical morality is only a special
form of _Eudæmonism_. It has not, like the Indian, the Christian, and even
the Platonic ethics, a metaphysical tendency, a transcendental end, but a
completely immanent end, attainable in this life; the steadfast serenity
(αταραξια) and unclouded happiness of the wise man, whom nothing can
disturb. Yet it cannot be denied that the later Stoics, especially Arrian,
sometimes lose sight of this end, and show a really ascetic tendency,
which is to be attributed to the Christian and Oriental spirit in general
which was then already spreading. If we consider closely and seriously the
goal of Stoicism, that αταραξια, we find in it merely a hardening and
insensibility to the blow of fate which a man attains to because he keeps
ever present to his mind the shortness of life, the emptiness of pleasure,
the instability of happiness, and has also discerned that the difference
between happiness and unhappiness is very much less than our anticipation
of both is wont to represent. But this is yet no state of happiness; it is
only the patient endurance of sufferings which one has foreseen as
irremediable. Yet magnanimity and worth consist in this, that one should
bear silently and patiently what is irremediable, in melancholy peace,
remaining always the same, while others pass from rejoicing to despair and
from despair to rejoicing. Accordingly one may also conceive of Stoicism
as a spiritual hygiene, in accordance with which, just as one hardens the
body against the influences of wind and weather, against fatigue and
exertion, one has also to harden one’s mind against misfortune, danger,
loss, injustice, malice, perfidy, arrogance, and the folly of men.

I remark further, that the καθγκοντα of the Stoics, which Cicero
translates _officia_, signify as nearly as possible _Obliegenheiten_, or
that which it befits the occasion to do; English, _incumbencies_; Italian,
_quel che tocca a me di fare, o di lasciare_, thus what _it behoves_ a
reasonable man to do. Cf. _Diog. Laert._, vii. 1. 109. Finally, the
_pantheism_ of the Stoics, though absolutely inconsistent with many an
exhortation of Arrian, is most distinctly expressed by Seneca: “_Quid est
Deus? Mens universi. Quid est Deus? Quod vides totum, et quod non vides
totum. Sic demum magnitudo sua illi redditur, qua nihil majus excogitari
potest: si solus est omnia, opus suum et extra, et intra tenet._” (_Quæst.
Natur._ 1, _præfatio_ 12.)



Chapter XVII.(27) On Man’s Need Of Metaphysics.


With the exception of man, no being wonders at its own existence; but it
is to them all so much a matter of course that they do not observe it. The
wisdom of nature speaks out of the peaceful glance of the brutes; for in
them the will and the intellect are not yet so widely separated that they
can be astonished at each other when they meet again. Thus here the whole
phenomenon is still firmly attached to the stem of nature from which it
has come, and is partaker of the unconscious omniscience of the great
mother. Only after the inner being of nature (the will to live in its
objectification) has ascended, vigorous and cheerful, through the two
series of unconscious existences, and then through the long and broad
series of animals, does it attain at last to reflection for the first time
on the entrance of reason, thus in man. Then it marvels at its own works,
and asks itself what it itself is. Its wonder however is the more serious,
as it here stands for the first time consciously in the presence of
_death_, and besides the finiteness of all existence, the vanity of all
effort forces itself more or less upon it. With this reflection and this
wonder there arises therefore for man alone, the _need for a metaphysic_;
he is accordingly an _animal metaphysicum_. At the beginning of his
consciousness certainly he also accepts himself as a matter of course.
This does not last long however, but very early, with the first dawn of
reflection, that wonder already appears, which is some day to become the
mother of metaphysics. In agreement with this Aristotle also says at the
beginning of his metaphysics: “Δια γαρ το θαυμαζειν οἱ ανθρωποι και νυν
και το πρωτον ηρξαντο φιλοσοφειν.” (_Propter admirationem enim et nunc et
primo inceperunt homines philosophari._) Moreover, the special
philosophical disposition consists primarily in this, that a man is
capable of wonder beyond the ordinary and everyday degree, and is thus
induced to make the _universal_ of the phenomenon his problem, while the
investigators in the natural sciences wonder only at exquisite or rare
phenomena, and their problem is merely to refer these to phenomena which
are better known. The lower a man stands in an intellectual regard the
less of a problem is existence itself for him; everything, how it is, and
that it is, appears to him rather a matter of course. This rests upon the
fact that his intellect still remains perfectly true to its original
destiny of being serviceable to the will as the medium of motives, and
therefore is closely bound up with the world and nature, as an integral
part of them. Consequently it is very far from comprehending the world in
a purely objective manner, freeing itself, so to speak, from the whole of
things, opposing itself to this whole, and so for a while becoming as if
self-existent. On the other hand, the philosophical wonder which springs
from this is conditioned in the individual by higher development of the
intellect, yet in general not by this alone; but without doubt it is the
knowledge of death, and along with this the consideration of the suffering
and misery of life, which gives the strongest impulse to philosophical
reflection and metaphysical explanation of the world. If our life were
endless and painless, it would perhaps occur to no one to ask why the
world exists, and is just the kind of world it is; but everything would
just be taken as a matter of course. In accordance with this we find that
the interest which philosophical and also religious systems inspire has
always its strongest hold in the dogma of some kind of existence after
death; and although the most recent systems seem to make the existence of
their gods the main point, and to defend this most zealously, yet in
reality this is only because they have connected their special dogma of
immortality with this, and regard the one as inseparable from the other:
only on this account is it of importance to them. For if one could
establish their doctrine of immortality for them in some other way, their
lively zeal for their gods would at once cool, and it would give place
almost to complete indifference if, conversely, the absolute impossibility
of immortality were proved to them; for the interest in the existence of
the gods would vanish with the hope of a closer acquaintance with them, to
the residuum which might connect itself with their possible influence on
the events of this present life. But if one could prove that continued
existence after death is incompatible with the existence of gods, because,
let us say, it pre-supposes originality of being, they would soon
sacrifice the gods to their own immortality and become zealous for
Atheism. The fact that the materialistic systems, properly so-called, and
also absolute scepticism, have never been able to obtain a general or
lasting influence, depends upon the same grounds.

Temples and churches, pagodas and mosques, in all lands and in all ages,
in splendour and vastness, testify to the metaphysical need of man, which,
strong and ineradicable, follows close upon his physical need. Certainly
whoever is satirically inclined might add that this metaphysical need is a
modest fellow who is content with poor fare. It sometimes allows itself to
be satisfied with clumsy fables and insipid tales. If only imprinted early
enough, they are for a man adequate explanations of his existence and
supports of his morality. Consider, for example, the Koran. This wretched
book was sufficient to found a religion of the world, to satisfy the
metaphysical need of innumerable millions of men for twelve hundred years,
to become the foundation of their morality, and of no small contempt for
death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and most extended
conquests. We find in it the saddest and the poorest form of Theism. Much
may be lost through the translations; but I have not been able to discover
one single valuable thought in it. Such things show that metaphysical
capacity does not go hand in hand with the metaphysical need. Yet it will
appear that in the early ages of the present surface of the earth this was
not the case, and that those who stood considerably nearer than we do to
the beginning of the human race and the source of organic nature, had also
both greater energy of the intuitive faculty of knowledge, and a truer
disposition of mind, so that they were capable of a purer, more direct
comprehension of the inner being of nature, and were thus in a position to
satisfy the metaphysical need in a more worthy manner. Thus originated in
the primitive ancestors of the Brahmans, the Rishis, the almost
super-human conceptions which were afterwards set down in the Upanishads
of the Vedas.

On the other hand, there have never been wanting persons who were
interested in deriving their living from that metaphysical need, and in
making the utmost they could out of it. Therefore among all nations there
are monopolists and farmers-general of it—the priests. Yet their trade had
everywhere to be assured to them in this way, that they received the right
to impart their metaphysical dogmas to men at a very early age, before the
judgment has awakened from its morning slumber, thus in early childhood;
for then every well-impressed dogma, however senseless it may be, remains
for ever. If they had to wait till the judgment is ripe, their privileges
could not continue.

A second, though not a numerous class of persons, who derive their support
from the metaphysical need of man, is constituted by those who live by
_philosophy_. By the Greeks they were called Sophists, by the moderns they
are called Professors of Philosophy. Aristotle (_Metaph._, ii. 2) without
hesitation numbers Aristippus among the Sophists. In Diogenes Laertius
(ii. 65) we find that the reason of this is that he was the first of the
Socratics who accepted payment for his philosophy; on account of which
Socrates also returned him his present. Among the moderns also those who
live _by_ philosophy are not only, as a rule, and with the rarest
exceptions, quite different from those who live _for_ philosophy, but they
are very often the opponents, the secret and irreconcilable enemies of the
latter. For every true and important philosophical achievement will
overshadow their own too much, and, moreover, cannot adapt itself to the
views and limitations of their guild. Therefore it is always their
endeavour to prevent such a work from making its way; and for this
purpose, according to the age and circumstances in each case, the
customary means are suppressing, concealing, hushing up, ignoring and
keeping secret, or denying, disparaging, censuring, slandering and
distorting, or, finally, denouncing and persecuting. Hence many a great
man has had to drag himself wearily through life unknown, unhonoured,
unrewarded, till at last, after his death, the world became undeceived as
to him and as to them. In the meanwhile they had attained their end, had
been accepted by preventing him from being accepted, and, with wife and
child, had lived _by_ philosophy, while he lived _for_ it. But if he is
dead, then the thing is reversed; the new generation of the former class,
which always exists, now becomes heir to his achievements, cuts them down
to its own measure, and now lives _by_ him. That Kant could yet live both
_by_ and _for_ philosophy depended on the rare circumstance that, for the
first time since _Divus Antoninus_ and _Divus Julianus_, a philosopher sat
on the throne. Only under such auspices could the “Critique of Pure
Reason” have seen the light. Scarcely was the king dead than we see that
Kant also, seized with fear, because he belonged to the guild, modified,
expurgated, and spoiled his masterpiece in the second edition, and yet was
soon in danger of losing his place; so that Campe invited him to come to
him, in Brunswick, and live with him as the instructor of his family
(Ring., _Ansichten aus Kant’s Leben_, p. 68). University philosophy is, as
a rule, mere juggling. Its real aim is to impart to the students, in the
deepest ground of their thought, that tendency of mind which the ministry
that appoints to the professorships regards as consistent with its views.
The ministry may also be perfectly right in this from a statesman’s point
of view; only the result of it is that such philosophy of the chair is a
_nervis alienis mobile lignum_, and cannot be regarded as serious
philosophy, but as the mere jest of it. Moreover, it is at any rate just
that such inspection or guidance should extend only to the philosophy of
the chair, and not to the real philosophy that is in earnest. For if
anything in the world is worth wishing for—so well worth wishing for that
even the ignorant and dull herd in its more reflective moments would prize
it more than silver and gold—it is that a ray of light should fall on the
obscurity of our being, and that we should gain some explanation of our
mysterious existence, in which nothing is clear but its misery and its
vanity. But even if this is in itself attainable, it is made impossible by
imposed and compulsory solutions.

We shall now subject to a general consideration the different ways of
satisfying this strong metaphysical need.

By _metaphysics_ I understand all knowledge that pretends to transcend the
possibility of experience, thus to transcend nature or the given
phenomenal appearance of things, in order to give an explanation of that
by which, in some sense or other, this experience or nature is
conditioned; or, to speak in popular language, of that which is behind
nature, and makes it possible. But the great original diversity in the
power of understanding, besides the cultivation of it, which demands much
leisure, makes so great a difference between men, that as soon as a people
has emerged from the state of savages, no _one_ metaphysic can serve for
them all. Therefore among civilised nations we find throughout two
different kinds of metaphysics, which are distinguished by the fact that
the one has its evidence _in itself_, the other _outside itself_. Since
the metaphysical systems of the first kind require reflection, culture,
and leisure for the recognition of their evidence, they can be accessible
only to a very small number of men; and, moreover, they can only arise and
maintain their existence in the case of advanced civilisation. On the
other hand, the systems of the second kind exclusively are for the great
majority of men who are not capable of thinking, but only of believing,
and who are not accessible to reasons, but only to authority. These
systems may therefore be called metaphysics of the people, after the
analogy of poetry of the people, and also wisdom of the people, by which
is understood proverbs. These systems, however, are known under the name
of religions, and are found among all nations, not excepting even the most
savage. Their evidence is, as has been said, external, and as such is
called revelation, which is authenticated by signs and miracles. Their
arguments are principally threats of eternal, and indeed also temporal
evils, directed against unbelievers, and even against mere doubters. As
_ultima ratio theologorum_, we find among many nations the stake or things
similar to it. If they seek a different authentication, or if they make
use of other arguments, they already make the transition into the systems
of the first kind, and may degenerate into a mixture of the two, which
brings more danger than advantage, for their invaluable prerogative of
being imparted to _children_ gives them the surest guarantee of the
permanent possession of the mind, for thereby their dogmas grow into a
kind of second inborn intellect, like the twig upon the grafted tree;
while, on the other hand, the systems of the first kind only appeal to
grown-up people, and in them always find a system of the second kind
already in possession of their convictions. Both kinds of metaphysics,
whose difference may be briefly expressed by the words reasoned conviction
and faith, have this in common, that every one of their particular systems
stands in a hostile relation to all the others of its kind. Between those
of the first kind war is waged only with word and pen; between those of
the second with fire and sword as well. Several of the latter owe their
propagation in part to this last kind of polemic, and all have by degrees
divided the earth between them, and indeed with such decided authority
that the peoples of the earth are distinguished and separated more
according to them than according to nationality or government. They alone
_reign_, each in its own province. The systems of the first kind, on the
contrary, are at the most _tolerated_, and even this only because, on
account of the small number of their adherents, they are for the most part
not considered worth the trouble of combating with fire and
sword—although, where it seemed necessary, these also have been employed
against them with effect; besides, they occur only in a sporadic form. Yet
in general they have only been endured in a tamed and subjugated
condition, for the system of the second kind which prevailed in the
country ordered them to conform their teaching more or less closely to its
own. Sometimes it not only subjugated them, but even employed their
services and used them as a support, which is however a dangerous
experiment. For these systems of the first kind, since they are deprived
of power, believe they may advance themselves by craft, and never entirely
lay aside a secret ill-will which at times comes unexpectedly into
prominence and inflicts injuries which are hard to heal. For they are
further made the more dangerous by the fact that all the real sciences,
not even excepting the most innocent, are their secret allies against the
systems of the second kind, and without themselves being openly at war
with the latter, suddenly and unexpectedly do great mischief in their
province. Besides, the attempt which is aimed at by the enlistment
referred to of the services of the systems of the first kind by the
second—the attempt to add an inner authentication to a system whose
original authentication was external, is in its nature perilous; for, if
it were capable of such an authentication, it would never have required an
external one. And in general it is always a hazardous thing to attempt to
place a new foundation under a finished structure. Moreover, how should a
religion require the suffrage of a philosophy? It has everything upon its
side—revelation, tradition, miracles, prophecies, the protection of the
government, the highest rank, as is due to the truth, the consent and
reverence of all, a thousand temples in which it is proclaimed and
practised, bands of sworn priests, and, what is more than all, the
invaluable privilege of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind
at the tender age of childhood, whereby they became almost like innate
ideas. With such wealth of means at its disposal, still to desire the
assent of poor philosophers it must be more covetous, or to care about
their contradiction it must be more fearful, than seems to be compatible
with a good conscience.

To the distinction established above between metaphysics of the first and
of the second kind, we have yet to add the following:—A system of the
first kind, thus a philosophy, makes the claim, and has therefore the
obligation, in everything that it says, _sensu stricto et proprio_, to be
true, for it appeals to thought and conviction. A religion, on the other
hand, being intended for the innumerable multitude who, since they are
incapable of examination and thought, would never comprehend the
profoundest and most difficult truths _sensu proprio_, has only the
obligation to be true _sensu allegorico_. Truth cannot appear naked before
the people. A symptom of this _allegorical_ nature of religions is the
_mysteries_ which are to be found perhaps in them all, certain dogmas
which cannot even be distinctly thought, not to speak of being literally
true. Indeed, perhaps it might be asserted that some absolute
contradictions, some actual absurdities, are an essential ingredient in a
complete religion, for these are just the stamp of its allegorical nature,
and the only adequate means of making the ordinary mind and the uncultured
understanding _feel_ what would be incomprehensible to it, that religion
has ultimately to do with quite a different order of things, with an order
of _things in themselves_, in the presence of which the laws of this
phenomenal world, in conformity with which it must speak, vanish; and that
therefore not only the contradictory but also the comprehensible dogmas
are really only allegories and accommodations to the human power of
comprehension. It seems to me that it was in this spirit that Augustine
and even Luther adhered to the mysteries of Christianity in opposition to
Pelagianism, which sought to reduce everything to the dull level of
comprehensibility. From this point of view it is also conceivable how
Tertullian could say in all seriousness: “_Prorsus credibile est, quia
ineptum est: ... certum est, quia impossibile_” (_De Carne Christi_, c.
5). This _allegorical_ nature of religions makes them independent of the
proofs which are incumbent on philosophy, and in general withdraws them
from investigation. Instead of this they require faith, that is, a
voluntary admission that such is the state of the case. Since, then, faith
guides action, and the allegory is always so framed that, as regards the
practical, it leads precisely to that which the truth _sensu proprio_
would also lead to, religion is justified in promising to those who
believe eternal salvation. Thus we see that in the main, and for the great
majority, who cannot apply themselves to thought, religions very well
supply the place of metaphysics in general, the need of which man feels to
be imperative. They do this partly in a practical interest, as the guiding
star of their action, the unfurled standard of integrity and virtue, as
Kant admirably expresses it; partly as the indispensable comfort in the
heavy sorrows of life, in which capacity they fully supply the place of an
objectively true metaphysic, because they lift man above himself and his
existence in time, as well perhaps as such a metaphysic ever could. In
this their great value and indeed necessity shows itself very clearly. For
Plato says, and says rightly, “φιλόσοφον πλῆθος ἁδύνατον εἶναι” (_vulgus
philosophum esse impossible est_. _De Rep._, vi. p. 89, _Bip_.) On the
other hand, the only stumbling-stone is this, that religions never dare to
confess their allegorical nature, but have to assert that they are true
_sensu proprio_. They thereby encroach on the province of metaphysics
proper, and call forth the antagonism of the latter, which has therefore
expressed itself at all times when it was not chained up. The controversy
which is so perseveringly carried on in our own day between
supernaturalists and rationalists also rests on the failure to recognise
the allegorical nature of all religion. Both wish to have Christianity
true _sensu proprio_; in this sense the former wish to maintain it without
deduction, as it were with skin and hair; and thus they have a hard stand
to make against the knowledge and general culture of the age. The latter
wish to explain away all that is properly Christian; whereupon they retain
something which is neither _sensu proprio_ nor _sensu allegorico_ true,
but rather a mere platitude, little better than Judaism, or at the most a
shallow Pelagianism, and, what is worst, an abject optimism, absolutely
foreign to Christianity proper. Moreover, the attempt to found a religion
upon reason removes it into the other class of metaphysics, that which has
its authentication _in itself_, thus to the foreign ground of the
philosophical systems, and into the conflict which these wage against each
other in their own arena, and consequently exposes it to the light fire of
scepticism and the heavy artillery of the “Critique of Pure Reason;” but
for it to venture there would be clear presumption.

It would be most beneficial to both kinds of metaphysics that each of them
should remain clearly separated from the other and confine itself to its
own province, that it may there be able to develop its nature fully.
Instead of which, through the whole Christian era, the endeavour has been
to bring about a fusion of the two, for the dogmas and conceptions of the
one have been carried over into the other, whereby both are spoiled. This
has taken place in the most open manner in our own day in that strange
hermaphrodite or centaur, the so-called philosophy of religion, which, as
a kind of gnosis, endeavours to interpret the given religion, and to
explain what is true _sensu allegorico_ through something which is true
_sensu proprio_. But for this we would have to know and possess the truth
_sensu proprio_ already; and in that case such an interpretation would be
superfluous. For to seek first to find metaphysics, _i.e._, the truth
_sensu proprio_, merely out of religion by explanation and interpretation
would be a doubtful and dangerous undertaking, to which one would only
make up one’s mind if it were proved that truth, like iron and other base
metals, could only be found in a mixed, not in a pure form, and therefore
one could only obtain it by reduction from the mixed ore.

Religions are necessary for the people, and an inestimable benefit to
them. But if they oppose themselves to the progress of mankind in the
knowledge of the truth, they must with the utmost possible forbearance be
set aside. And to require that a great mind—a Shakspeare; a Goethe—should
make the dogmas of any religion implicitly, _bonâ fide et sensu proprio_,
his conviction is to require that a giant should put on the shoe of a
dwarf.

Religions, being calculated with reference to the power of comprehension
of the great mass of men, can only have indirect, not immediate truth. To
require of them the latter is as if one wished to read the letters set up
in the form-chase, instead of their impression. The value of a religion
will accordingly depend upon the greater or less content of truth which it
contains under the veil of allegory, and then upon the greater or less
distinctness with which it becomes visible through this veil, thus upon
the transparency of the latter. It almost seems that, as the oldest
languages are the most perfect, so also are the oldest religions. If I
were to take the results of my philosophy as the standard of truth, I
would be obliged to concede to Buddhism the pre-eminence over the rest. In
any case it must be a satisfaction to me to see my teaching in such close
agreement with a religion which the majority of men upon the earth hold as
their own; for it numbers far more adherents than any other. This
agreement, however, must be the more satisfactory to me because in my
philosophising I have certainly not been under its influence. For up till
1818, when my work appeared, there were very few, exceedingly incomplete
and scanty, accounts of Buddhism to be found in Europe, which were almost
entirely limited to a few essays in the earlier volumes of “Asiatic
Researches,” and were principally concerned with the Buddhism of the
Burmese. Only since then has fuller information about this religion
gradually reached us, chiefly through the profound and instructive essays
of the meritorious member of the St. Petersburg Academy, J. J. Schmidt, in
the proceedings of his Academy, and then little by little through several
English and French scholars, so that I was able to give a fairly numerous
list of the best works on this religion in my work, “_Ueber den Willen in
der Natur_,” under the heading _Sinologie_. Unfortunately Csoma Körösi,
that persevering Hungarian, who, in order to study the language and sacred
writings of Buddhism, spent many years in Tibet, and for the most part in
Buddhist monasteries, was carried off by death just as he was beginning to
work out for us the results of his researches. I cannot, however, deny the
pleasure with which I read, in his provisional accounts, several passages
cited directly from the Kahgyur itself; for example, the following
conversation of the dying Buddha with Brahma, who is doing him homage:
“There is a description of their conversation on the subject of
creation,—by whom was the world made? Shakya asks several questions of
Brahma,—whether was it he who made or produced such and such things, and
endowed or blessed them with such and such virtues or properties,—whether
was it he who caused the several revolutions in the destruction and
regeneration of the world. He denies that he had ever done anything to
that effect. At last he himself asks Shakya how the world was made,—by
whom? Here are attributed all changes in the world to the moral works of
the animal beings, and it is stated that in the world all is illusion,
there is no reality in the things; all is empty. Brahma, being instructed
in his doctrine, becomes his follower” (Asiatic Researches, vol. XX. p.
434).

I cannot place, as is always done, the fundamental difference of all
religions in the question whether they are monotheistic, polytheistic,
pantheistic, or atheistic, but only in the question whether they are
optimistic or pessimistic, that is, whether they present the existence of
the world as justified by itself, and therefore praise and value it, or
regard it as something that can only be conceived as the consequence of
our guilt, and therefore properly ought not to be, because they recognise
that pain and death cannot lie in the eternal, original, and immutable
order of things, in that which in every respect ought to be. The power by
virtue of which Christianity was able to overcome first Judaism, and then
the heathenism of Greece and Rome, lies solely in its pessimism, in the
confession that our state is both exceedingly wretched and sinful, while
Judaism and heathenism were optimistic. That truth, profoundly and
painfully felt by all, penetrated, and bore in its train the need of
redemption.

I turn to a general consideration of the other kind of metaphysics, that
which has its authentication in itself, and is called _philosophy_. I
remind the reader of its origin, mentioned above, in a _wonder_ concerning
the world and our own existence, inasmuch as these press upon the
intellect as a riddle, the solution of which therefore occupies mankind
without intermission. Here, then, I wish first of all to draw attention to
the fact that this could not be the case if, in Spinoza’s sense, which in
our own day has so often been brought forward again under modern forms and
expositions as pantheism, the world were an “_absolute substance_,” and
therefore an _absolutely necessary existence_. For this means that it
exists with so great a necessity that beside it every other necessity
comprehensible to our understanding as such must appear as an accident. It
would then be something which comprehended in itself not only all actual
but also all possible existence, so that, as Spinoza indeed declares, its
possibility and its actuality would be absolutely one. Its non-being would
therefore be impossibility itself; thus it would be something the
non-being or other-being of which must be completely inconceivable, and
which could therefore just as little be thought away as, for example,
space or time. And since, further, _we ourselves_ would be parts, modes,
attributes, or accidents of such an absolute substance, which would be the
only thing that, in any sense, could ever or anywhere exist, our and its
existence, together with its properties, would necessarily be very far
from presenting itself to us as remarkable, problematical, and indeed as
an unfathomable and ever-disquieting riddle, but, on the contrary, would
be far more self-evident than that two and two make four. For we would
necessarily be incapable of thinking anything else than that the world is,
and is, as it is; and therefore we would necessarily be as little
conscious of its existence _as such_, _i.e._, as a problem for reflection,
as we are of the incredibly fast motion of our planet.

All this, however, is absolutely not the case. Only to the brutes, who are
without thought, does the world and existence appear as a matter of
course; to man, on the contrary, it is a problem, of which even the most
uneducated and narrow-minded becomes vividly conscious in certain brighter
moments, but which enters more distinctly and more permanently into the
consciousness of each one of us the clearer and more enlightened that
consciousness is, and the more material for thought it has acquired
through culture, which all ultimately rises, in minds that are naturally
adapted for philosophising, to Plato’s “θαυμαζειν, μαλα φιλοσοφικον παθος”
(_mirari, valde philosophicus affectus_), that is, to that _wonder_ which
comprehends in its whole magnitude that problem which unceasingly occupies
the nobler portion of mankind in every age and in every land, and gives it
no rest. In fact, the pendulum which keeps in motion the clock of
metaphysics, that never runs down, is the consciousness that the
non-existence of this world is just as possible as its existence. Thus,
then, the Spinozistic view of it as an absolutely necessary existence,
that is, as something that absolutely and in every sense ought to and must
be, is a false one. Even simple Theism, since in its cosmological proof it
tacitly starts by inferring the previous non-existence of the world from
its existence, thereby assumes beforehand that the world is something
contingent. Nay, what is more, we very soon apprehend the world as
something the non-existence of which is not only conceivable, but indeed
preferable to its existence. Therefore our wonder at it easily passes into
a brooding over the _fatality_ which could yet call forth its existence,
and by virtue of which such stupendous power as is demanded for the
production and maintenance of such a world could be directed so much
against its own interest. The philosophical astonishment is therefore at
bottom perplexed and melancholy; philosophy, like the overture to “Don
Juan,” commences with a minor chord. It follows from this that it can
neither be Spinozism nor optimism. The more special nature, which has just
been indicated, of the astonishment which leads us to philosophise clearly
springs from the sight of the _suffering and the wickedness_ in the world,
which, even if they were in the most just proportion to each other, and
also were far outweighed by good, are yet something which absolutely and
in general ought not to be. But since now nothing can come out of nothing,
these also must have their germ in the origin or in the kernel of the
world itself. It is hard for us to assume this if we look at the
magnitude, the order and completeness, of the physical world, for it seems
to us that what had the power to produce such a world must have been able
to avoid the suffering and the wickedness. That assumption (the truest
expression of which is Ormuzd and Ahrimines), it is easy to conceive, is
hardest of all for Theism. Therefore the freedom of the will was primarily
invented to account for wickedness. But this is only a concealed way of
making something out of nothing, for it assumes an _Operari_ that
proceeded from no _Esse_ (see Die beiden _Grundprobleme der Ethik_, p. 58,
_et seq._; second edition, p. 57 _et seq._.) Then it was sought to get rid
of evil by attributing it to matter, or to unavoidable necessity, whereby
the devil, who is really the right _Expediens ad hoc_, was unwillingly set
aside. To evil also belongs _death_; but wickedness is only the throwing
of the existing evil from oneself on to another. Thus, as was said above,
it is wickedness, evil, and death that qualify and intensify the
philosophical astonishment. Not merely that the world exists, but still
more that it is such a wretched world, is the _punctum pruriens_ of
metaphysics, the problem which awakens in mankind an unrest that cannot be
quieted by scepticism nor yet by criticism.

We find _physics_ also (in the widest sense of the word) occupied with the
explanation of the phenomena in the world. But it lies in the very nature
of its explanations themselves that they cannot be sufficient. Physics
cannot stand on its own feet, but requires a metaphysic to lean upon,
whatever airs it may give itself towards the latter. For it explains the
phenomena by something still more unknown than they are themselves; by
laws of nature, resting upon forces of nature, to which the power of life
also belongs. Certainly the whole present condition of all things in the
world, or in nature, must necessarily be explicable from purely physical
causes. But such an explanation—supposing one actually succeeded so far as
to be able to give it—must always just as necessarily be tainted with two
imperfections (as it were with two sores, or like Achilles with the
vulnerable heel, or the devil with the horse’s hoof), on account of which
everything so explained really remains still unexplained. First with this
imperfection, that the _beginning_ of every explanatory chain of causes
and effects, _i.e._, of connected changes, can absolutely _never_ be
reached, but, just like the limits of the world in space and time,
unceasingly recedes _in infinito_. Secondly with this, that the whole of
the efficient causes out of which everything is explained constantly rest
upon something which is completely inexplicable, the original _qualities_
of things and the _natural forces_ which play a prominent part among them,
by virtue of which they produce a specific kind of effect, _e.g._, weight,
hardness, impulsive force, elasticity, warmth, electricity, chemical
forces, &c., and which now remain in every explanation which is given,
like an unknown quantity, which absolutely cannot be eliminated, in an
otherwise perfectly solved algebraical equation. Accordingly there is no
fragment of clay, however little worth, that is not entirely composed of
inexplicable qualities. Thus these two inevitable defects in every purely
physical, _i.e._, causal, explanation show that such an explanation can
only be _relative_, and that its whole method and nature cannot be the
only one, the ultimate and thus the sufficient one, _i.e._, cannot be the
method of explanation that can ever lead to the satisfactory solution of
the difficult riddle of things, and to the true understanding of the world
and existence; but that the physical explanation in general and as such
requires further a _metaphysical_ explanation, which affords us the key to
all its assumptions, but just on this account must necessarily follow
quite a different path. The first step to this is that one should bring to
distinct consciousness and firmly retain the difference of the two, hence
the difference between _physics_ and _metaphysics_. It rests in general on
the Kantian distinction between _phenomenon_ and _thing in itself_. Just
because Kant held the latter to be absolutely unknowable, there was,
according to him, no _metaphysics_, but merely immanent knowledge, _i.e._,
_physics_, which throughout can speak only of phenomena, and also a
critique of the reason which strives after metaphysics. Here, however, in
order to show the true point of connection between my philosophy and that
of Kant, I shall anticipate the second book, and give prominence to the
fact that Kant, in his beautiful exposition of the compatibility of
freedom and necessity (Critique of Pure Reason, first edition, p. 532-554;
and Critique of Practical Reason, p. 224-231 of Rosenkranz’s edition),
shows how one and the same action may in one aspect be perfectly
explicable as necessarily arising from the character of the man, the
influence to which he has been subject in the course of his life, and the
motives which are now present to him, but yet in another aspect must be
regarded as the work of his free will; and in the same sense he says, § 53
of the “Prolegomena:” “Certainly natural necessity will belong to every
connection of cause and effect in the world of sense; yet, on the other
hand, freedom will be conceded to that cause which is not itself a
phenomenon (though indeed it is the ground of phenomena), thus nature and
freedom may without contradiction be attributed to the same thing, but in
a different reference—in the one case as a phenomenon, in the other case
as a thing in itself.” What, then, Kant teaches of the phenomenon of man
and his action my teaching extends to _all_ phenomena in nature, in that
it makes the _will_ as a thing in itself their foundation. This proceeding
is justified first of all by the fact that it must not be assumed that man
is specifically _toto genere_ radically different from the other beings
and things in nature, but rather that he is different only in degree. I
turn back from this premature digression to our consideration of the
inadequacy of physics to afford us the ultimate explanation of things. I
say, then, everything certainly is physical, but yet nothing is explicable
physically. As for the motion of the projected bullet, so also for the
thinking of the brain, a physical explanation must ultimately be in itself
possible, which would make the latter just as comprehensible as is the
former. But even the former, which we imagine we understand so perfectly,
is at bottom as obscure to us as the latter; for what the inner nature of
expansion in space may be—of impenetrability, mobility, hardness,
elasticity, and gravity remains, after all physical explanations, a
mystery, just as much as thought. But because in the case of thought the
inexplicable appears most immediately, a spring was at once made here from
physics to metaphysics, and a substance of quite a different kind from all
corporeal substances was hypostatised—a soul was set up in the brain. But
if one had not been so dull as only to be capable of being struck by the
most remarkable of phenomena, one would have had to explain digestion by a
soul in the stomach, vegetation by a soul in the plant, affinity by a soul
in the reagents, nay, the falling of a stone by a soul in the stone. For
the quality of every unorganised body is just as mysterious as the life in
the living body. In the same way, therefore, the physical explanation
strikes everywhere upon what is metaphysical, by which it is annihilated,
_i.e._, it ceases to be explanation. Strictly speaking, it may be asserted
that no natural science really achieves anything more than what is also
achieved by Botany: the bringing together of similars, classification. A
physical system which asserted that its explanations of things—in the
particular from causes, and in general from forces—were really sufficient,
and thus exhausted the nature of the world, would be the true
_Naturalism_. From Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus down to the
_Système de la Nature_, and further, to Delamark, Cabanis, and to the
materialism that has again been warmed up in the last few years, we can
trace the persistent attempt to set up a _system of physics without
metaphysics_, that is, a system which would make the phenomenon the thing
in itself. But all their explanations seek to conceal from the explainers
themselves and from others that they simply assume the principal matter
without more ado. They endeavour to show that all phenomena, even those of
mind, are physical. And they are right; only they do not see that all that
is physical is in another aspect also metaphysical. But, without Kant,
this is indeed difficult to see, for it presupposes the distinction of the
phenomenon from the thing in itself. Yet without this Aristotle, much as
he was inclined to empiricism, and far as he was removed from the Platonic
hyper-physics, kept himself free from this limited point of view. He says:
“Ει μεν ουν μη εστι τις ἑτερα ουσια παρα τας φυσει συνεστηκυιας, ἡ φυσικη
αν ειη πρωτη επιστημη; ει δε εστι τις ουσια ακινητος, αὑτη προτερα και
φιλοσοφια πρωτη, και καθολου οὑτως, ὁτι πρωτη; και περι του οντοσ ᾑ ον,
ταυτης αν ειη θεωρησαι.” (_Si igitur non est aliqua alia substantia,
prœter eas, quœ natura consistunt, physica profecto prima scientia esset:
quodsi autem est aliqua substantia immobilis, hœc prior et philosophia
prima, et universalis sic, quod prima; et de ente, prout ens est,
speculari hujus est_), “Metaph.,” V. 1. Such an _absolute system of
physics_ as is described above, which leaves room for no _metaphysics_,
would make the _Natura naturata_ into the _Natura naturans_; it would be
physics established on the throne of metaphysics, yet it would comport
itself in this high position almost like Holberg’s theatrical would-be
politician who was made burgomaster. Indeed behind the reproach of
atheism, in itself absurd, and for the most part malicious, there lies, as
its inner meaning and truth, which gives it strength, the obscure
conception of such an absolute system of physics without metaphysics.
Certainly such a system would necessarily be destructive of ethics; and
while Theism has falsely been held to be inseparable from morality, this
is really true only of _metaphysics in general_, _i.e._, of the knowledge
that the order of nature is not the only and absolute order of things.
Therefore we may set up this as the necessary _Credo_ of all just and good
men: “I believe in metaphysics.” In this respect it is important and
necessary that one should convince oneself of the untenable nature of an
_absolute system of physics_, all the more as this, the true _naturalism_,
is a point of view which of its own accord and ever anew presses itself
upon a man, and can only be done away with through profound speculation.
In this respect, however, all kinds of systems and faiths, so far and so
long as they are accepted, certainly serve as a substitute for such
speculation. But that a fundamentally false view presses itself upon man
of its own accord, and must first be skilfully removed, is explicable from
the fact that the intellect is not originally intended to instruct us
concerning the nature of things, but only to show us their relations, with
reference to our will; it is, as we shall find in the second book, only
the medium of motives. Now, that the world schematises itself in the
intellect in a manner which exhibits quite a different order of things
from the absolutely true one, because it shows us, not their kernel, but
only their outer shell, happens accidentally, and cannot be used as a
reproach to the intellect; all the less as it nevertheless finds in itself
the means of rectifying this error, in that it arrives at the distinction
between the phenomenal appearance and the inner being of things, which
distinction existed in substance at all times, only for the most part was
very imperfectly brought to consciousness, and therefore was inadequately
expressed, indeed often appeared in strange clothing. The Christian
mystics, when they call it the _light of nature_, declare the intellect to
be inadequate to the comprehension of the true nature of things. It is, as
it were, a mere surface force, like electricity, and does not penetrate to
the inner being.

The insufficiency of pure naturalism appears, as we have said, first of
all, on the empirical path itself, through the circumstance that every
physical explanation explains the particular from its cause; but the chain
of these causes, as we know _a priori_, and therefore with perfect
certainty, runs back to infinity, so that absolutely no cause could ever
be the first. Then, however, the effect of every cause is referred to a
law of nature, and this finally to a force of nature, which now remains as
the absolutely inexplicable. But this inexplicable, to which all phenomena
of this so clearly given and naturally explicable world, from the highest
to the lowest, are referred, just shows that the whole nature of such
explanation is only conditional, as it were only _ex concessis_, and by no
means the true and sufficient one; therefore I said above that physically
everything and nothing is explicable. That absolutely inexplicable element
which pervades all phenomena, which is most striking in the highest,
_e.g._, in generation, but yet is just as truly present in the lowest,
_e.g._, in mechanical phenomena, points to an entirely different kind of
order of things lying at the foundation of the physical order, which is
just what Kant calls the order of things in themselves, and which is the
goal of metaphysics. But, secondly, the insufficiency of pure naturalism
comes out clearly from that fundamental philosophical truth, which we have
fully considered in the first half of this book, and which is also the
theme of the “Critique of Pure Reason;” the truth that every _object_,
both as regards its objective existence in general and as regards the
manner (forms) of this existence, is throughout conditioned by the knowing
_subject_, hence is merely a phenomenon, not a thing in itself. This is
explained in § 7 of the first volume, and it is there shown that nothing
can be more clumsy than that, after the manner of all materialists, one
should blindly take the objective as simply given in order to derive
everything from it without paying any regard to the subjective, through
which, however, nay, in which alone the former exists. Samples of this
procedure are most readily afforded us by the fashionable materialism of
our own day, which has thereby become a philosophy well suited for
barbers’ and apothecaries’ apprentices. For it, in its innocence, matter,
assumed without reflection as absolutely real, is the thing in self, and
the one capacity of a thing in itself is impulsive force, for all other
qualities can only be manifestations of this.

With naturalism, then, or the purely physical way of looking at things, we
shall never attain our end; it is like a sum that never comes out. Causal
series without beginning or end, fundamental forces which are inscrutable,
endless space, beginningless time, infinite divisibility of matter, and
all this further conditioned by a knowing brain, in which alone it exists
just like a dream, and without which it vanishes—constitute the labyrinth
in which naturalism leads us ceaselessly round. The height to which in our
time the natural sciences have risen in this respect entirely throws into
the shade all previous centuries, and is a summit which mankind reaches
for the first time. But however great are the advances which _physics_
(understood in the wide sense of the ancients) may make, not the smallest
step towards _metaphysics_ is thereby taken, just as a plane can never
obtain cubical content by being indefinitely extended. For all such
advances will only perfect our knowledge of the _phenomenon_; while
_metaphysics_ strives to pass beyond the phenomenal appearance itself, to
that which so appears. And if indeed it had the assistance of an entire
and complete experience, it would, as regards the main point, be in no way
advantaged by it. Nay, even if one wandered through all the planets and
fixed stars, one would thereby have made no step in _metaphysics_. It is
rather the case that the greatest advances of physics will make the need
of metaphysics ever more felt; for it is just the corrected, extended, and
more thorough knowledge of nature which, on the one hand, always
undermines and ultimately overthrows the metaphysical assumptions which
till then have prevailed, but, on the other hand, presents the problem of
metaphysics itself more distinctly, more correctly, and more fully, and
separates it more clearly from all that is merely physical; moreover, the
more perfectly and accurately known nature of the particular thing more
pressingly demands the explanation of the whole and the general, which,
the more correctly, thoroughly, and completely it is known empirically,
only presents itself as the more mysterious. Certainly the individual,
simple investigator of nature, in a special branch of physics, does not at
once become clearly conscious of all this; he rather sleeps contentedly by
the side of his chosen maid, in the house of Odysseus, banishing all
thoughts of Penelope (cf. ch. 12 at the end). Hence we see at the present
day the _husk of nature_ investigated in its minutest details, the
intestines of intestinal worms and the vermin of vermin known to a nicety.
But if some one comes, as, for example, I do, and speaks of the _kernel of
nature_, they will not listen; they even think it has nothing to do with
the matter, and go on sifting their husks. One finds oneself tempted to
call that over-microscopical and micrological investigator of nature the
cotquean of nature. But those persons who believe that crucibles and
retorts are the true and only source of all wisdom are in their own way
just as perverse as were formerly their antipodes the Scholastics. As the
latter, absolutely confined to their abstract conceptions, used these as
their weapons, neither knowing nor investigating anything outside them, so
the former, absolutely confined to their empiricism, allow nothing to be
true except what their eyes behold, and believe they can thus arrive at
the ultimate ground of things, not discerning that between the phenomenon
and that which manifests itself in it, the thing in itself, there is a
deep gulf, a radical difference, which can only be cleared up by the
knowledge and accurate delimitation of the subjective element of the
phenomenon, and the insight that the ultimate and most important
conclusions concerning the nature of things can only be drawn from
self-consciousness; yet without all this one cannot advance a step beyond
what is directly given to the senses, thus can get no further than to the
problem. Yet, on the other hand, it is to be observed that the most
perfect possible knowledge of nature is the corrected _statement of the
problem_ of metaphysics. Therefore no one ought to venture upon this
without having first acquired a knowledge of all the branches of natural
science, which, though general, shall be thorough, clear, and connected.
For the problem must precede its solution. Then, however, the investigator
must turn his glance inward; for the intellectual and ethical phenomena
are more important than the physical, in the same proportion as, for
example, animal magnetism is a far more important phenomenon than mineral
magnetism. The last fundamental secret man carries within himself, and
this is accessible to him in the most immediate manner; therefore it is
only here that he can hope to find the key to the riddle of the world and
gain a clue to the nature of all things. The special province of
metaphysics thus certainly lies in what has been called mental philosophy.


    “The ranks of living creatures thou dost lead
    Before me, teaching me to know my brothers
    In air and water and the silent wood:

    Then to the cave secure thou leadest me,
    Then show’st me mine own self, and in my breast
    The deep, mysterious miracles unfold.”(28)


Finally, then, as regards the _source or the foundation_ of metaphysical
knowledge, I have already declared myself above to be opposed to the
assumption, which is even repeated by Kant, that it must lie _in mere
conceptions_. In no knowledge can conceptions be what is first; for they
are always derived from some perception. What has led, however, to that
assumption is probably the example of mathematics. Mathematics can leave
perception altogether, and, as is especially the case in algebra,
trigonometry, and analysis, can operate with purely abstract conceptions,
nay, with conceptions which are represented only by signs instead of
words, and can yet arrive at a perfectly certain result, which is still so
remote that any one who adhered to the firm ground of perception could not
arrive at it. But the possibility of this depends, as Kant has clearly
shown, on the fact that the conceptions of mathematics are derived from
the most certain and definite of all perceptions, from the _a priori_ and
yet intuitively known relations of quantity, and can therefore be
constantly realised again and controlled by these, either arithmetically,
by performing the calculations which are merely indicated by those signs,
or geometrically, by means of what Kant calls the construction of the
conceptions. This advantage, on the other hand, is not possessed by the
conceptions out of which it was believed metaphysics could be built up;
such, for example, as essence, being, substance, perfection, necessity,
reality, finite, infinite, absolute, ground, &c. For such conceptions are
by no means original, as fallen from heaven, or innate; but they also,
like all conceptions, are derived from perceptions; and as, unlike the
conceptions of mathematics, they do not contain the mere form of
perception, but more, empirical perceptions must lie at their foundation.
Thus nothing can be drawn from them which the empirical perceptions did
not also contain, that is, nothing which was not a matter of experience,
and which, since these conceptions are very wide abstractions, we would
receive with much greater certainty at first hand from experience. For
from conceptions nothing more can ever be drawn than the perceptions from
which they are derived contain. If we desire pure conceptions, _i.e._,
such as have no empirical source, the only ones that can be produced are
those which concern space and time, _i.e._, the merely formal part of
perception, consequently only the mathematical conceptions, or at most
also the conception of causality, which indeed does not originate in
experience, but yet only comes into consciousness by means of it (first in
sense-perception); therefore experience indeed is only possible by means
of it; but it also is only valid in the sphere of experience, on which
account Kant has shown that it only serves to communicate the connection
of experience, and not to transcend it; that thus it admits only of
physical application, not of metaphysical. Certainly only its _a priori_
origin can give apodictic certainty to any knowledge; but this limits it
to the mere _form_ of experience in general, for it shows that it is
conditioned by the subjective nature of the intellect. Such knowledge,
then, far from taking us beyond experience, gives only one _part_ of
experience itself, the _formal_ part, which belongs to it throughout, and
therefore is universal, consequently mere form without content. Since now
metaphysics can least of all be confined to this, it must have also
_empirical_ sources of knowledge; therefore that preconceived idea of a
metaphysic to be found purely _a priori_ is necessarily vain. It is really
a _petitio principii_ of Kant’s, which he expresses most distinctly in § 1
of the Prolegomena, that metaphysics must not draw its fundamental
conceptions and principles from experience. In this it is assumed
beforehand that only what we knew _before_ all experience can extend
beyond all possible experience. Supported by this, Kant then comes and
shows that all such knowledge is nothing more than the form of the
intellect for the purpose of experience, and consequently can never lead
beyond experience, from which he then rightly deduces the impossibility of
all metaphysics. But does it not rather seem utterly perverse that in
order to discover the secret of experience, _i.e._, of the world which
alone lies before us, we should look quite away from it, ignore its
content, and take and use for its material only the empty forms of which
we are conscious _a priori_? Is it not rather in keeping with the matter
that _the science of experience in general_, and as such, should also be
drawn from experience? Its problem itself is given it empirically; why
should not the solution of it call in the assistance of experience? Is it
not senseless that he who speaks of the nature of things should not look
at things themselves, but should confine himself to certain abstract
conceptions? The task of metaphysics is certainly not the observation of
particular experiences, but yet it is the correct explanation of
experience as a whole. Its foundation must therefore, at any rate, be of
an empirical nature. Indeed the _a priori_ nature of a part of human
knowledge will be apprehended by it as a given _fact_, from which it will
infer the subjective origin of the same. Only because the consciousness of
its _a priori_ nature accompanies it is it called by Kant _transcendental_
as distinguished from _transcendent_, which signifies “passing beyond all
possibility of experience,” and has its opposite in _immanent_, _i.e._,
remaining within the limits of experience. I gladly recall the original
meaning of this expression introduced by Kant, with which, as also with
that of the Categories, and many others, the apes of philosophy carry on
their game at the present day. Now, besides this, the source of the
knowledge of metaphysics is not _outer_ experience alone, but also
_inner_. Indeed, what is most peculiar to it, that by which the decisive
step which alone can solve the great question becomes possible for it,
consists, as I have fully and thoroughly proved in “_Ueber den Willen in
der Natur_,” under the heading, “_Physische Astronomie_,” in this, that at
the right place it combines outer experience with inner, and uses the
latter as a key to the former.

The origin of metaphysics in empirical sources of knowledge, which is here
set forth, and which cannot fairly be denied, deprives it certainly of
that kind of apodictic certainty which is only possible through knowledge
_a priori_. This remains the possession of logic and mathematics—sciences,
however, which really only teach what every one knows already, though not
distinctly. At most the primary elements of natural science may also be
deduced from knowledge _a priori_. By this confession metaphysics only
surrenders an ancient claim, which, according to what has been said above,
rested upon misunderstanding, and against which the great diversity and
changeableness of metaphysical systems, and also the constantly
accompanying scepticism, in every age has testified. Yet against the
possibility of metaphysics in general this changeableness cannot be urged,
for the same thing affects just as much all branches of natural science,
chemistry, physics, geology, zoology, &c., and even history has not
remained exempt from it. But when once, as far as the limits of human
intellect allow, a true system of metaphysics shall have been found, the
unchangeableness of a science which is known _a priori_ will yet belong to
it; for its foundation can only be _experience in general_, and not the
particular and special experiences by which, on the other hand, the
natural sciences are constantly modified and new material is always being
provided for history. For experience as a whole and in general will never
change its character for a new one.

The next question is: How can a science drawn from experience pass beyond
it and so merit the name of metaphysics? It cannot do so perhaps in the
same way as we find a fourth number from three proportionate ones, or a
triangle from two sides and an angle. This was the way of the pre-Kantian
dogmatism, which, according to certain laws known to us _a priori_, sought
to reason from the given to the not given, from the consequent to the
reason, thus from experience to that which could not possibly be given in
any experience. Kant proved the impossibility of a metaphysic upon this
path, in that he showed that although these laws were not drawn from
experience, they were only valid for experience. He therefore rightly
taught that in such a way we cannot transcend the possibility of all
experience. But there are other paths to metaphysics. The whole of
experience is like a cryptograph, and philosophy the deciphering of it,
the correctness of which is proved by the connection appearing everywhere.
If this whole is only profoundly enough comprehended, and the inner
experience is connected with the outer, it must be capable of being
_interpreted_, _explained_ from itself. Since Kant has irrefutably proved
to us that experience in general proceeds from two elements, the forms of
knowledge and the inner nature of things, and that these two may be
distinguished in experience from each other, as that of which we are
conscious _a priori_ and that which is added _a posteriori_, it is
possible, at least in general, to say, what in the given experience, which
is primarily merely phenomenal, belongs to the _form_ of this phenomenon,
conditioned by the intellect, and what, after deducting this, remains over
for the _thing in itself_. And although no one can discern the thing in
itself through the veil of the forms of perception, on the other hand
every one carries it in himself, indeed is it himself; therefore in
self-consciousness it must be in some way accessible to him, even though
only conditionally. Thus the bridge by which metaphysics passes beyond
experience is nothing else than that analysis of experience into
phenomenon and thing in itself in which I have placed Kant’s greatest
merit. For it contains the proof of a kernel of the phenomenon different
from the phenomenon itself. This can indeed never be entirely separated
from the phenomenon and regarded in itself as an _ens extramundanum_, but
is always known only in its relations to and connections with the
phenomenon itself. But the interpretation and explanation of the latter,
in relation to the former, which is its inner kernel, is capable of
affording us information with regard to it which does not otherwise come
into consciousness. In this sense, then, metaphysics goes beyond the
phenomenon, _i.e._, nature, to that which is concealed in or behind it (το
μετα το φυσικον), always regarding it, however, merely as that which
manifests itself in the phenomenon, not as independent of all phenomenal
appearance; it therefore remains immanent, and does not become
transcendent. For it never disengages itself entirely from experience, but
remains merely its interpretation and explanation, since it never speaks
of the thing in itself otherwise than in its relation to the phenomenon.
This at least is the sense in which I, with reference throughout to the
limitations of human knowledge proved by Kant, have attempted to solve the
problem of metaphysics. Therefore his Prolegomena to future metaphysics
will be valid and suitable for mine also. Accordingly it never really goes
beyond experience, but only discloses the true understanding of the world
which lies before it in experience. It is neither, according to the
definition of metaphysics which even Kant repeats, a science of mere
conceptions, nor is it a system of deductions from _a priori_ principles,
the uselessness of which for the _end_ of metaphysics has been shown by
Kant. But it is rational knowledge, drawn from perception of the external
actual world and the information which the most intimate fact of
self-consciousness affords us concerning it, deposited in distinct
conceptions. It is accordingly the science of experience; but its subject
and its source is not particular experiences, but the totality of all
experience. I completely accept Kant’s doctrine that the world of
experience is merely phenomenal, and that the _a priori_ knowledge is
valid only in relation to phenomena; but I add that just as phenomenal
appearance, it is the manifestation of that which appears, and with him I
call this the thing in itself. This must therefore express its nature and
character in the world of experience, and consequently it must be possible
to interpret these from this world, and indeed from the matter, not the
mere form, of experience. Accordingly philosophy is nothing but the
correct and universal understanding of experience itself, the true
exposition of its meaning and content. To this the metaphysical, _i.e._,
that which is merely clothed in the phenomenon and veiled in its forms, is
that which is related to it as thought to words.

Such a deciphering of the world with reference to that which manifests
itself in it must receive its confirmation from itself, through the
agreement with each other in which it places the very diverse phenomena of
the world, and which without it we do not perceive. If we find a document
the alphabet of which is unknown, we endeavour to make it out until we hit
upon an hypothesis as to the significance of the letters in accordance
with which they make up comprehensible words and connected sentences.
Then, however, there remains no doubt as to the correctness of the
deciphering, because it is not possible that the agreement and connection
in which all the letters of that writing are placed by this explanation is
merely accidental, and that by attributing quite a different value to the
letters we could also recognise words and sentences in this arrangement of
them. In the same way the deciphering of the world must completely prove
itself from itself. It must throw equal light upon all the phenomena of
the world, and also bring the most heterogeneous into agreement, so that
the contradiction between those which are most in contrast may be
abolished. This proof from itself is the mark of genuineness. For every
false deciphering, even if it is suitable for some phenomena, will
conflict all the more glaringly with the rest. So, for example, the
optimism of Leibnitz conflicts with the palpable misery of existence; the
doctrine of Spinoza, that the world is the only possible and absolutely
necessary substance, is incompatible with our wonder at its existence and
nature; the Wolfian doctrine, that man obtains his _Existentia_ and
_Essentia_ from a will foreign to himself, is contradicted by our moral
responsibility for the actions which proceed with strict necessity from
these, in conflict with the motives; the oft-repeated doctrine of the
progressive development of man to an ever higher perfection, or in general
of any kind of becoming by means of the process of the world, is opposed
to the _a priori_ knowledge that at any point of time an infinite time has
already run its course, and consequently all that is supposed to come with
time would necessarily have already existed; and in this way an
interminable list might be given of the contradictions of dogmatic
assumptions with the given reality of things. On the other hand, I must
deny that any doctrine of my philosophy could fairly be added to such a
list, because each of them has been thought out in the presence of the
perceived reality, and none of them has its root in abstract conceptions
alone. There is yet in it a fundamental thought which is applied to all
the phenomena of the world as their key; but it proves itself to be the
right alphabet at the application of which all words and sentences have
sense and significance. The discovered answer to a riddle shows itself to
be the right one by the fact that all that is said in the riddle is
suitable to it. In the same way my doctrine introduces agreement and
connection into the confusion of the contrasting phenomena of this world,
and solves the innumerable contradictions which, when regarded from any
other point of view, it presents. Therefore, so far, it is like a sum that
comes out right, yet by no means in the sense that it leaves no problem
over to solve, no possible question unanswered. To assert anything of that
sort would be a presumptuous denial of the limits of human knowledge in
general. Whatever torch we may kindle, and whatever space it may light,
our horizon will always remain bounded by profound night. For the ultimate
solution of the riddle of the world must necessarily be concerned with the
things in themselves, no longer with the phenomena. But all our forms of
knowledge are adapted to the phenomena alone; therefore we must comprehend
everything through coexistence, succession, and causal relations. These
forms, however, have meaning and significance only with reference to the
phenomenon; the things in themselves and their possible relations cannot
be apprehended by means of those forms. Therefore the actual, positive
solution of the riddle of the world must be something that human intellect
is absolutely incapable of grasping and thinking; so that if a being of a
higher kind were to come and take all pains to impart it to us, we would
be absolutely incapable of understanding anything of his expositions.
Those, therefore, who profess to know the ultimate, _i.e._, the first
ground of things, thus a primordial being, an absolute, or whatever else
they choose to call it, together with the process, the reasons, motives,
or whatever it may be, in consequence of which the world arises from it,
or springs, or falls, or is produced, set in existence, “discharged,” and
ushered forth, are playing tricks, are vain boasters, when indeed they are
not charlatans.

I regard it as a great excellence of my philosophy that all its truths
have been found independently of each other, by contemplation of the real
world; but their unity and agreement, about which I had been unconcerned,
has always afterwards appeared of itself. Hence also it is rich, and has
wide-spreading roots in the ground of perceptible reality, from which all
nourishment of abstract truths springs; and hence, again, it is not
wearisome—a quality which, to judge from the philosophical writings of the
last fifty years, one might regard as essential to philosophy. If, on the
other hand, all the doctrines of a philosophy are merely deduced the one
out of the other, and ultimately indeed all out of one first principle, it
must be poor and meagre, and consequently wearisome, for nothing can
follow from a proposition except what it really already says itself.
Moreover, in this case everything depends upon the correctness of _one_
proposition, and by a single mistake in the deduction the truth of the
whole would be endangered. Still less security is given by the systems
which start from an intellectual intuition, _i.e._, a kind of ecstasy or
clairvoyance. All knowledge so obtained must be rejected as subjective,
individual, and consequently problematical. Even if it actually existed it
would not be communicable, for only the normal knowledge of the brain is
communicable; if it is abstract, through conceptions and words; if purely
perceptible or concrete, through works of art.

If, as so often happens, metaphysics is reproached with having made so
little progress, it ought also to be considered that no other science has
grown up like it under constant oppression, none has been so hampered and
hindered from without as it has always been by the religion of every land,
which, everywhere in possession of a monopoly of metaphysical knowledge,
regards metaphysics as a weed growing beside it, as an unlicensed worker,
as a horde of gipsies, and as a rule tolerates it only under the condition
that it accommodates itself to serve and follow it. For where has there
ever been true freedom of thought? It has been vaunted sufficiently; but
whenever it wishes to go further than perhaps to differ about the
subordinate dogmas of the religion of the country, a holy shudder seizes
the prophets of tolerance, and they say: “Not a step further!” What
progress of metaphysics was possible under such oppression? Nay, this
constraint which the privileged metaphysics exercises is not confined to
the _communication_ of thoughts, but extends to _thinking_ itself, for its
dogmas are so firmly imprinted in the tender, plastic, trustful, and
thoughtless age of childhood, with studied solemnity and serious airs,
that from that time forward they grow with the brain, and almost assume
the nature of innate thoughts, which some philosophers have therefore
really held them to be, and still more have pretended to do so. Yet
nothing can so firmly resist the comprehension of even the _problem_ of
metaphysics as a previous solution of it intruded upon and early implanted
in the mind. For the necessary starting-point for all genuine philosophy
is the deep feeling of the Socratic: “This one thing I know, that I know
nothing.” The ancients were in this respect in a better position than we
are, for their national religions certainly limited somewhat the imparting
of thoughts; but they did not interfere with the freedom of thought
itself, because they were not formally and solemnly impressed upon
children, and in general were not taken so seriously. Therefore in
metaphysics the ancients are still our teachers.

Whenever metaphysics is reproached with its small progress, and with not
having yet reached its goal in spite of such sustained efforts, one ought
further to consider that in the meanwhile it has constantly performed the
invaluable service of limiting the boundless claims of the privileged
metaphysics, and yet at the same time combating naturalism and materialism
proper, which are called forth by it as an inevitable reaction. Consider
to what a pitch the arrogance of the priesthood of every religion would
rise if the belief in their doctrines was as firm and blind as they really
wish. Look back also at the wars, disturbances, rebellions, and
revolutions in Europe from the eighth to the eighteenth century; how few
will be found that have not had as their essence, or their pretext, some
controversy about beliefs, thus a metaphysical problem, which became the
occasion of exciting nations against each other. Yet is that whole
thousand years a continual slaughter, now on the battlefield, now on the
scaffold, now in the streets, in metaphysical interests! I wish I had an
authentic list of all crimes which Christianity has really prevented, and
all good deeds it has really performed, that I might be able to place them
in the other scale of the balance.

Lastly, as regards the _obligations_ of metaphysics, it has only one; for
it is one which endures no other beside it—the obligation to be _true_. If
one would impose other obligations upon it besides this, such as to be
spiritualistic, optimistic, monotheistic, or even only to be moral, one
cannot know beforehand whether this would not interfere with the
fulfilment of that first obligation, without which all its other
achievements must clearly be worthless. A given philosophy has accordingly
no other standard of its value than that of truth. For the rest,
philosophy is essentially _world-wisdom_: its problem is the world. It has
to do with this alone, and leaves the gods in peace—expects, however, in
return, to be left in peace by them.





SUPPLEMENTS TO THE SECOND BOOK.


    “Ihr folget falscher Spur,
      Denkt nicht, wir scherzen!
    Ist nicht der Kern der Natur
      Menschen im Herzen?”

    —Goethe.




Chapter XVIII.(29) On The Possibility Of Knowing The Thing In Itself.


In 1836 I already published, under the title “_Ueber den Willen in der
Natur_” (second ed., 1854; third ed., 1867), the most essential supplement
to this book, which contains the most peculiar and important step in my
philosophy, the transition from the phenomenon to the thing in itself,
which Kant gave up as impossible. It would be a great mistake to regard
the foreign conclusions with which I have there connected my expositions
as the real material and subject of that work, which, though small as
regards its extent, is of weighty import. These conclusions are rather the
mere occasion starting from which I have there expounded that fundamental
truth of my philosophy with so much greater clearness than anywhere else,
and brought it down to the empirical knowledge of nature. And indeed this
is done most exhaustively and stringently under the heading “_Physische
Astronomie_;” so that I dare not hope ever to find a more correct or
accurate expression of that core of my philosophy than is given there.
Whoever desires to know my philosophy thoroughly and to test it seriously
must therefore give attention before everything to that section. Thus, in
general, all that is said in that little work would form the chief content
of these supplements, if it had not to be excluded on account of having
preceded them; but, on the other hand, I here take for granted that it is
known, for otherwise the very best would be wanting.

I wish now first of all to make a few preliminary observations from a
general point of view as to the sense in which we can speak of a knowledge
of the thing in itself and of its necessary limitation.

What is _knowledge_? It is primarily and essentially _idea_. What is
_idea_? A very complicated _physiological_ process in the brain of an
animal, the result of which is the consciousness of a _picture_ there.
Clearly the relation between such a picture and something entirely
different from the animal in whose brain it exists can only be a very
indirect one. This is perhaps the simplest and most comprehensible way of
disclosing the _deep gulf between the ideal and the real_. This belongs to
the things of which, like the motion of the earth, we are not directly
conscious; therefore the ancients did not observe it, just as they did not
observe the motion of the earth. Once pointed out, on the other hand,
first by Descartes, it has ever since given philosophers no rest. But
after Kant had at last proved in the most thorough manner the complete
diversity of the ideal and the real, it was an attempt, as bold as it was
absurd, yet perfectly correctly calculated with reference to the
philosophical public in Germany, and consequently crowned with brilliant
results, to try to assert the _absolute identity_ of the two by dogmatic
utterances, on the strength of a pretended intellectual intuition. In
truth, on the contrary, a subjective and an objective existence, a being
for self and a being for others, a consciousness of one’s own self, and a
consciousness of other things, is given us directly, and the two are given
in such a fundamentally different manner that no other difference can
compare with this. About himself every one knows directly, about all
others only very indirectly. This is the fact and the problem.

Whether, on the other hand, through further processes in the interior of a
brain, general conceptions (_Universalia_) are abstracted from the
perceptible ideas or images that have arisen within it, for the assistance
of further combinations, whereby knowledge becomes _rational_, and is now
called _thinking_—this is here no longer the essential question, but is of
subordinate significance. For all such _conceptions_ receive their content
only from the perceptible idea, which is therefore _primary knowledge_,
and has consequently alone to be taken account of in an investigation of
the relation between the ideal and the real. It therefore shows entire
ignorance of the problem, or at least it is very inept, to wish to define
that relation as that between _being_ and _thinking_. Thinking has
primarily only a relation to _perceiving_, but _perception_ has a relation
to the _real being_ of what is perceived, and this last is the great
problem with which we are here concerned. Empirical being, on the other
hand, as it lies before us, is nothing else than simply being given in
perception; but the relation of the latter to _thinking_ is no riddle, for
the conceptions, thus the immediate materials of thought, are obviously
_abstracted_ from perception, which no reasonable man can doubt. It may be
said in passing that one can see how important the choice of expressions
in philosophy is from the fact that that inept expression condemned above,
and the misunderstanding which arose from it, became the foundation of the
whole Hegelian pseudo-philosophy, which has occupied the German public for
twenty-five years.

If, however, it should be said: “The perception is itself the knowledge of
the thing in itself: for it is the effect of that which is outside of us,
and as this _acts_, so it _is_: its action is just its being;” to this we
reply: (1.) that the law of causality, as has been sufficiently proved, is
of subjective origin, as well as the sensation from which the perception
arises; (2.) that at any rate time and space, in which the object presents
itself, are of subjective origin; (3.) that if the being of the object
consists simply in its action, this means that it consists merely in the
changes which it brings about in others; therefore itself and in itself it
is nothing at all. Only of _matter_ is it true, as I have said in the
text, and worked out in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason,
at the end of § 21, that its being consists in its action, that it is
through and through only causality, thus is itself causality objectively
regarded; hence, however, it is also nothing in itself (ἡ ὑλη το αληθινον
ψευδος, _materia mendacium verax_), but as an ingredient in the perceived
object, is a mere abstraction, which for itself alone can be given in no
experience. It will be fully considered later on in a chapter of its own.
But the perceived object must be something _in itself_, and not merely
something _for others_. For otherwise it would be altogether merely idea,
and we would have an absolute idealism, which would ultimately become
theoretical egoism, with which all reality disappears and the world
becomes a mere subjective phantasm. If, however, without further question,
we stop altogether at the _world as idea_, then certainly it is all one
whether I explain objects as ideas in my head or as phenomena exhibiting
themselves in time and space; for time and space themselves exist only in
my head. In this sense, then, an identity of the ideal and the real might
always be affirmed; only, after Kant, this would not be saying anything
new. Besides this, however, the nature of things and of the phenomenal
world would clearly not be thereby exhausted; but with it we would always
remain still upon the ideal side. The _real_ side must be something _toto
genere_ different from _the world as idea_, it must be that which things
are _in themselves_; and it is this entire diversity between the ideal and
the real which Kant has proved in the most thorough manner.

Locke had denied to the senses the knowledge of things as they are in
themselves; but Kant denied this also to the perceiving _understanding_,
under which name I here comprehend what he calls the _pure_ sensibility,
and, as it is given _a priori_, the law of causality which brings about
the empirical perception. Not only are both right, but we can also see
quite directly that a contradiction lies in the assertion that a thing is
known as it is in and for itself, _i.e._, outside of knowledge. For all
knowing is, as we have said, essentially a perceiving of ideas; but my
perception of ideas, just because it is mine, can never be identical with
the inner nature of the thing outside of me. The being in and for itself,
of everything, must necessarily be _subjective_; in the idea of another,
however, it exists just as necessarily as _objective_—a difference which
can never be fully reconciled. For by it the whole nature of its existence
is fundamentally changed; as objective it presupposes a foreign subject,
as whose idea it exists, and, moreover, as Kant has shown, has entered
forms which are foreign to its own nature, just because they belong to
that foreign subject, whose knowledge is only possible by means of them.
If I, absorbed in this reflection, perceive, let us say lifeless bodies,
of easily surveyed magnitude and regular, comprehensible form, and now
attempt to conceive this spatial existence, in its three dimensions, as
their being in itself, consequently as the existence which to the things
is subjective, the impossibility of the thing is at once apparent to me,
for I can never think those objective forms as the being which to the
things is subjective, rather I become directly conscious that what I there
perceive is only a picture produced in my brain, and existing only for me
as the knowing subject, which cannot constitute the ultimate, and
therefore subjective, being in and for itself of even these lifeless
bodies. But, on the other hand, I must not assume that even these lifeless
bodies exist only in my idea, but, since they have inscrutable qualities,
and, by virtue of these, activity, I must concede to them a _being in
itself_ of some kind. But this very inscrutableness of the properties,
while, on the one hand, it certainly points to something which exists
independently of our knowledge, gives also, on the other hand, the
empirical proof that our knowledge, because it consists simply in _framing
ideas_ by means of subjective forms, affords us always mere _phenomena_,
not the true being of things. This is the explanation of the fact that in
all that we know there remains hidden from us a certain something, as
quite inscrutable, and we are obliged to confess that we cannot thoroughly
understand even the commonest and simplest phenomena. For it is not merely
the highest productions of nature, living creatures, or the _complicated_
phenomena of the unorganised world that remain inscrutable to us, but even
every rock-crystal, every iron-pyrite, by reason of its
crystallographical, optical, chemical, and electrical properties, is to
the searching consideration and investigation an abyss of
incomprehensibilities and mysteries. This could not be the case if we knew
things as they are in themselves; for then at least the simpler phenomena,
the path to whose qualities was not barred for us by ignorance, would
necessarily be thoroughly comprehensible to us, and their whole being and
nature would be able to pass over into our knowledge. Thus it lies not in
the defectiveness of our acquaintance with things, but in the nature of
knowledge itself. For if our perception, and consequently the whole
empirical comprehension of the things that present themselves to us, is
already essentially and in the main determined by our faculty of
knowledge, and conditioned by its forms and functions, it cannot but be
that things exhibit themselves in a manner which is quite different from
their own inner nature, and therefore appear as in a mask, which allows us
merely to assume what is concealed beneath it, but never to know it;
hence, then, it gleams through as an inscrutable mystery, and never can
the nature of anything entire and without reserve pass over into
knowledge; but much less can any real thing be construed _a priori_, like
a mathematical problem. Thus the empirical inscrutableness of all natural
things is a proof _a posteriori_ of the ideality and merely
phenomenal-actuality of their empirical existence.

According to all this, upon the path of _objective knowledge_, hence
starting from the _idea_, one will never get beyond the idea, _i.e._, the
phenomenon. One will thus remain at the outside of things, and will never
be able to penetrate to their inner nature and investigate what they are
in themselves, _i.e._, for themselves. So far I agree with Kant. But, as
the counterpart of this truth, I have given prominence to this other
truth, that we are not merely the _knowing subject_, but, in another
aspect, we ourselves also belong to the inner nature that is to be known,
_we ourselves are the thing in itself_; that therefore a _way from within_
stands open for us to that inner nature belonging to things themselves, to
which we cannot penetrate _from without_, as it were a subterranean
passage, a secret alliance, which, as if by treachery, places us at once
within the fortress which it was impossible to take by assault from
without. The thing in itself can, as such, only come into consciousness
quite directly, in this way, that _it is itself conscious of itself_: to
wish to know it objectively is to desire something contradictory.
Everything objective is idea, therefore appearance, mere phenomenon of the
brain.

Kant’s chief result may in substance be thus concisely stated: “All
conceptions which have not at their foundation a perception in space and
time (sensuous intuition), that is to say then, which have not been drawn
from such a perception, are absolutely empty, _i.e._, give no knowledge.
But since now perception can afford us only _phenomena_, not things in
themselves, we have also absolutely no knowledge of things in themselves.”
I grant this of everything, with the single exception of the knowledge
which each of us has of his own _willing_: this is neither a perception
(for all perception is spatial) nor is it empty; rather it is more real
than any other. Further, it is not _a priori_, like merely formal
knowledge, but entirely _a posteriori_; hence also we cannot anticipate it
in the particular case, but are hereby often convicted of error concerning
ourselves. In fact, our _willing_ is the one opportunity which we have of
understanding from within any event which exhibits itself without,
consequently the one thing which is known to us _immediately_, and not,
like all the rest, merely given in the idea. Here, then, lies the datum
which alone is able to become the key to everything else, or, as I have
said, the single narrow door to the truth. Accordingly we must learn to
understand nature from ourselves, not conversely ourselves from nature.
What is known to us immediately must give us the explanation of what we
only know indirectly, not conversely. Do we perhaps understand the rolling
of a ball when it has received an impulse more thoroughly than our
movement when we feel a motive? Many may imagine so, but I say it is the
reverse. Yet we shall attain to the knowledge that what is essential in
both the occurrences just mentioned is identical; although identical in
the same way as the lowest audible note of harmony is the same as the note
of the same name ten octaves higher.

Meanwhile it should be carefully observed, and I have always kept it in
mind, that even the inward experience which we have of our own will by no
means affords us an exhaustive and adequate knowledge of the thing in
itself. This would be the case if it were entirely an immediate
experience; but it is effected in this way: the will, with and by means of
the corporisation, provides itself also with an intellect (for the sake of
its relations to the external world), and through this now knows itself as
will in self-consciousness (the necessary counterpart of the external
world); this knowledge therefore of the thing in itself is not fully
adequate. First of all, it is bound to the form of the idea, it is
apprehension, and as such falls asunder into subject and object. For even
in self-consciousness the I is not absolutely simple, but consists of a
knower, the intellect, and a known, the will. The former is not known, and
the latter does not know, though both unite in the consciousness of an I.
But just on this account that I is not thoroughly _intimate_ with itself,
as it were transparent, but is opaque, and therefore remains a riddle to
itself, thus even in inner knowledge there also exists a difference
between the true being of its object and the apprehension of it in the
knowing subject. Yet inner knowledge is free from two forms which belong
to outer knowledge, the form of _space_ and the form of _causality_, which
is the means of effecting all sense-perception. On the other hand, there
still remains the form of _time_, and that of being known and knowing in
general. Accordingly in this inner knowledge the thing in itself has
indeed in great measure thrown off its veil, but still does not yet appear
quite naked. In consequence of the form of time which still adheres to it,
every one knows his will only in its successive _acts_, and not as a
whole, in and for itself: therefore no one knows his character _a priori_,
but only learns it through experience and always incompletely. But yet the
apprehension, in which we know the affections and acts of our own will, is
far more immediate than any other. It is the point at which the thing in
itself most directly enters the phenomenon and is most closely examined by
the knowing subject; therefore the event thus intimately known is alone
fitted to become the interpreter of all others.

For in every emergence of an act of will from the obscure depths of our
inner being into the knowing consciousness a direct transition occurs of
the thing in itself, which lies outside time, into the phenomenal world.
Accordingly the act of will is indeed only the closest and most distinct
_manifestation_ of the thing in itself; yet it follows from this that if
all other manifestations or phenomena could be known by us as directly and
inwardly, we would be obliged to assert them to be that which the will is
in us. Thus in this sense I teach that the inner nature of everything is
_will_, and I call will the thing in itself. Kant’s doctrine of the
unknowableness of the thing in itself is hereby modified to this extent,
that the thing in itself is only not absolutely and from the very
foundation knowable, that yet by far the most immediate of its phenomena,
which by this immediateness is _toto genere_ distinguished from all the
rest, represents it for us; and accordingly we have to refer the whole
world of phenomena to that one in which the thing in itself appears in the
very thinnest of veils, and only still remains phenomenon in so far as my
intellect, which alone is capable of knowledge, remains ever distinguished
from me as the willing subject, and moreover does not even in _inner_
perfection put off the form of knowledge of _time_.

Accordingly, even after this last and furthest step, the question may
still be raised, what that will, which exhibits itself in the world and as
the world, ultimately and absolutely is in itself? _i.e._, what it is,
regarded altogether apart from the fact that it exhibits itself as will,
or in general _appears_, _i.e._, in general is _known_. This question can
never be answered: because, as we have said, becoming known is itself the
contradictory of being in itself, and everything that is known is as such
only phenomenal. But the possibility of this question shows that the thing
in itself, which we know most directly in the will, may have, entirely
outside all possible phenomenal appearance, ways of existing,
determinations, qualities, which are absolutely unknowable and
incomprehensible to us, and which remain as the nature of the thing in
itself, when, as is explained in the fourth book, it has voluntarily
abrogated itself as _will_, and has therefore retired altogether from the
phenomenon, and for our knowledge, _i.e._, as regards the world of
phenomena, has passed into empty nothingness. If the will were simply and
absolutely the thing in itself this nothing would also be _absolute_,
instead of which it expressly presents itself to us there as only
_relative_.

I now proceed to supplement with a few considerations pertinent to the
subject the exposition given both in our second book and in the work
“_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_,” of the doctrine that what makes itself
known to us in the most immediate knowledge as will is also that which
objectifies itself at different grades in all the phenomena of this world;
and I shall begin by citing a number of psychological facts which prove
that first of all in our own consciousness the will always appears as
primary and fundamental, and throughout asserts its superiority to the
intellect, which, on the other hand, always presents itself as secondary,
subordinate, and conditioned. This proof is the more necessary as all
philosophers before me, from the first to the last, place the true being
or the kernel of man in the _knowing_ consciousness, and accordingly have
conceived and explained the I, or, in the case of many of them, its
transcendental hypostasis called soul, as primarily and essentially
_knowing_, nay, _thinking_, and only in consequence of this, secondarily
and derivatively, as _willing_. This ancient and universal radical error,
this enormous πρωτον ψευδος and fundamental ὑστερον προτερον, must before
everything be set aside, and instead of it the true state of the case must
be brought to perfectly distinct consciousness. Since, however, this is
done here for the first time, after thousands of years of philosophising,
some fulness of statement will be appropriate. The remarkable phenomenon,
that in this most essential point all philosophers have erred, nay, have
exactly reversed the truth, might, especially in the case of those of the
Christian era, be partly explicable from the fact that they all had the
intention of presenting man as distinguished as widely as possible from
the brutes, yet at the same time obscurely felt that the difference
between them lies in the intellect, not in the will; whence there arose
unconsciously within them an inclination to make the intellect the
essential and principal thing, and even to explain volition as a mere
function of the intellect. Hence also the conception of a soul is not only
inadmissible, because it is a transcendent hypostasis, as is proved by the
“Critique of Pure Reason,” but it becomes the source of irremediable
errors, because in its “simple substance” it establishes beforehand an
indivisible unity of knowledge and will, the separation of which is just
the path to the truth. That conception must therefore appear no more in
philosophy, but may be left to German doctors and physiologists, who,
after they have laid aside scalpel and spattle, amuse themselves by
philosophising with the conceptions they received when they were
confirmed. They might certainly try their luck in England. The French
physiologists and zootomists have (till lately) kept themselves free from
that reproach.

The first consequence of their common fundamental error, which is very
inconvenient to all these philosophers, is this: since in death the
knowing consciousness obviously perishes, they must either allow death to
be the annihilation of the man, to which our inner being is opposed, or
they must have recourse to the assumption of a continued existence of the
knowing consciousness, which requires a strong faith, for his own
experience has sufficiently proved to every one the thorough and complete
dependence of the knowing consciousness upon the brain, and one can just
as easily believe in digestion without a stomach as in a knowing
consciousness without a brain. My philosophy alone leads out of this
dilemma, for it for the first time places the true being of man not in the
consciousness but in the will, which is not essentially bound up with
consciousness, but is related to consciousness, _i.e._, to knowledge, as
substance to accident, as something illuminated to the light, as the
string to the resounding-board, and which enters consciousness from within
as the corporeal world does from without. Now we can comprehend the
indestructibleness of this our real kernel and true being, in spite of the
evident ceasing of consciousness in death, and the corresponding
non-existence of it before birth. For the intellect is as perishable as
the brain, whose product or rather whose action it is. But the brain, like
the whole organism, is the product or phenomenon, in short, the
subordinate of the will, which alone is imperishable.




Chapter XIX.(30) On The Primacy Of The Will In Self-Consciousness.


The will, as the thing in itself, constitutes the inner, true, and
indestructible nature of man; in itself, however, it is unconscious. For
consciousness is conditioned by the intellect, and the intellect is a mere
accident of our being; for it is a function of the brain, which, together
with the nerves and spinal cord connected with it, is a mere fruit, a
product, nay, so far, a parasite of the rest of the organism; for it does
not directly enter into its inner constitution, but merely serves the end
of self-preservation by regulating the relations of the organism to the
external world. The organism itself, on the other hand, is the visibility,
the objectivity, of the individual will, the image of it as it presents
itself in that very brain (which in the first book we learned to recognise
as the condition of the objective world in general), therefore also
brought about by its forms of knowledge, space, time, and causality, and
consequently presenting itself as extended, successively acting, and
material, _i.e._, as something operative or efficient. The members are
both directly felt and also perceived by means of the senses only in the
brain. According to this one may say: The intellect is the secondary
phenomenon; the organism the primary phenomenon, that is, the immediate
manifestation of the will; the will is metaphysical, the intellect
physical;—the intellect, like its objects, is merely phenomenal
appearance; the will alone is the thing in itself. Then, in a more and
more _figurative sense_, thus by way of simile: The will is the substance
of man, the intellect the accident; the will is the matter, the intellect
is the form; the will is warmth, the intellect is light.

We shall now first of all verify and also elucidate this thesis by the
following facts connected with the inner life of man; and on this
opportunity perhaps more will be done for the knowledge of the inner man
than is to be found in many systematic psychologies.

1. Not only the consciousness of other things, _i.e._, the apprehension of
the external world, but also _self-consciousness_, contains, as was
mentioned already above, a knower and a known; otherwise it would not be
_consciousness_. For _consciousness_ consists in knowing; but knowing
requires a knower and a known; therefore there could be no
self-consciousness if there were not in it also a known opposed to the
knower and different from it. As there can be no object without a subject,
so also there can be no subject without an object, _i.e._, no knower
without something different from it which is known. Therefore a
consciousness which is through and through pure intelligence is
impossible. The intelligence is like the sun, which does not illuminate
space if there is no object from which its rays are reflected. The knower
himself, as such, cannot be known; otherwise he would be the known of
another knower. But now, as the _known_ in self-consciousness we find
exclusively the _will_. For not merely willing and purposing in the
narrowest sense, but also all striving, wishing, shunning, hoping,
fearing, loving, hating, in short, all that directly constitutes our own
weal and woe, desire and aversion, is clearly only affection of the will,
is a moving, a modification of willing and not-willing, is just that
which, if it takes outward effect, exhibits itself as an act of will
proper.(31) In all knowledge, however, the known is first and essential,
not the knower; for the former is the πρωτοτυπος, the latter the εκτυπος.
Therefore in self-consciousness also the known, thus the will, must be
what is first and original; the knower, on the other hand, only what is
secondary, that which has been added, the mirror. They are related very
much as the luminous to the reflecting body; or, again, as the vibrating
strings to the resounding-board, in which case the note produced would be
consciousness. We may also regard the plant as a like symbol of
consciousness. It has, we know, two poles, the root and the corona: the
former struggling into darkness, moisture, and cold, the latter into
light, dryness, and warmth; then, as the point of indifference of the two
poles, where they part asunder, close to the ground, the collum
(_rhizoma_, _le collet_). The root is what is essential, original,
perennial, the death of which involves that of the corona, is thus the
primary; the corona, on the other hand, is the ostensible, but it has
sprung from something else, and it passes away without the root dying; it
is thus secondary. The root represents the will, the corona the intellect,
and the point of indifference of the two, the collum, would be the _I_,
which, as their common termination, belongs to both. This I is the _pro
tempore_ identical subject of knowing and willing, whose identity I called
in my very first essay (on the principle of sufficient reason), and in my
first philosophical wonder, the miracle κατ εξοχην. It is the temporal
starting-point and connecting-link of the whole phenomenon, _i.e._, of the
objectification of the will: it conditions indeed the phenomenon, but is
also conditioned by it. This comparison may even be carried to the
individual nature of men. As a large corona commonly springs only from a
large root, so the greatest intellectual capabilities are only found in
connection with a vehement and passionate will. A genius of a phlegmatic
character and weak passions would resemble those succulent plants that,
with a considerable corona consisting of thick leaves, have very small
roots; will not, however, be found. That vehemence of will and
passionateness of character are conditions of heightened intelligence
exhibits itself physiologically through the fact that the activity of the
brain is conditioned by the movement which the great arteries running
towards the _basis cerebri_ impart to it with each pulsation; therefore an
energetic pulse, and even, according to Bichat, a short neck, is a
requisite of great activity of the brain. But the opposite of the above
certainly occurs: vehement desires, passionate, violent character, along
with weak intellect, _i.e._, a small brain of bad conformation in a thick
skull. This is a phenomenon as common as it is repulsive: we might perhaps
compare it to beetroot.

2. But in order not merely to describe consciousness figuratively, but to
know it thoroughly, we have first of all to find out what appears in the
same way in every consciousness, and therefore, as the common and constant
element, will also be the essential. Then we shall consider what
distinguishes _one_ consciousness from another, which accordingly will be
the adventitious and secondary element.

Consciousness is positively only known to us as a property of animal
nature; therefore we must not, and indeed cannot, think of it otherwise
than as _animal consciousness_, so that this expression is tautological.
Now, that which in _every_ animal consciousness, even the most imperfect
and the weakest, is always present, nay, lies at its foundation, is an
immediate sense of _longing_, and of the alternate satisfaction and
non-satisfaction of it, in very different degrees. This we know to a
certain extent _a priori_. For marvellously different as the innumerable
species of animals are, and strange as some new form, never seen before,
appears to us, we yet assume beforehand its inmost nature, with perfect
certainty, as well known, and indeed fully confided to us. We know that
the animal _wills_, indeed also _what_ it wills, existence, well-being,
life, and propagation; and since in this we presuppose with perfect
certainty identity with us, we do not hesitate to attribute to it
unchanged all the affections of will which we know in ourselves, and speak
at once of its desire, aversion, fear, anger, hatred, love, joy, sorrow,
longing, &c. On the other hand, whenever phenomena of mere knowledge come
to be spoken of we fall at once into uncertainty. We do not venture to say
that the animal conceives, thinks, judges, knows: we only attribute to it
with certainty ideas in general; because without them its _will_ could not
have those emotions referred to above. But with regard to the definite
manner of knowing of the brutes and the precise limits of it in a given
species, we have only indefinite conceptions, and make conjectures. Hence
our understanding with them is also often difficult, and is only brought
about by skill, in consequence of experience and practice. Here then lie
distinctions of consciousness. On the other hand, a longing, desiring,
wishing, or a detesting, shunning, and not wishing, is proper to every
consciousness: man has it in common with the polyp. This is accordingly
the essential element in and the basis of every consciousness. The
difference of the manifestations of this in the different species of
animal beings depends upon the various extension of their sphere of
knowledge, in which the motives of those manifestations lie. We understand
directly from our own nature all actions and behaviour of the brutes which
express movements of the will; therefore, so far, we sympathise with them
in various ways. On the other hand, the gulf between us and them results
simply and solely from the difference of intellect. The gulf which lies
between a very sagacious brute and a man of very limited capacity is
perhaps not much greater than that which exists between a blockhead and a
man of genius; therefore here also the resemblance between them in another
aspect, which springs from the likeness of their inclinations and
emotions, and assimilates them again to each other, sometimes appears with
surprising prominence, and excites astonishment. This consideration makes
it clear that in all animal natures the _will_ is what is primary and
substantial, the _intellect_ again is secondary, adventitious, indeed a
mere tool for the service of the former, and is more or less complete and
complicated, according to the demands of this service. As a species of
animals is furnished with hoofs, claws, hands, wings, horns, or teeth
according to the aims of its will, so also is it furnished with a more or
less developed brain, whose function is the intelligence necessary for its
endurance. The more complicated the organisation becomes, in the ascending
series of animals, the more numerous also are its wants, and the more
varied and specially determined the objects which are capable of
satisfying them; hence the more complicated and distant the paths by which
these are to be obtained, which must now be all known and found: therefore
in the same proportion the ideas of the animal must be more versatile,
accurate, definite, and connected, and also its attention must be more
highly strung, more sustained, and more easily roused, consequently its
intellect must be more developed and perfect. Accordingly we see the organ
of intelligence, the cerebral system, together with all the organs of
sense, keep pace with the increasing wants and the complication of the
organism; and the increase of the part of consciousness that has to do
with ideas (as opposed to the willing part) exhibits itself in a bodily
form in the ever-increasing proportion of the brain in general to the rest
of the nervous system, and of the cerebrum to the cerebellum; for
(according to Flourens) the former is the workshop of ideas, while the
latter is the disposer and orderer of movements. The last step which
nature has taken in this respect is, however, disproportionately great.
For in man not only does the faculty of ideas of _perception_, which alone
existed hitherto, reach the highest degree of perfection, but the
_abstract_ idea, thought, _i.e._, _reason_, and with it reflection, is
added. Through this important advance of the intellect, thus of the
secondary part of consciousness, it now gains a preponderance over the
primary part, in so far as it becomes henceforward the predominantly
active part. While in the brute the immediate sense of its satisfied or
unsatisfied desire constitutes by far the most important part of its
consciousness, and the more so indeed the lower the grade of the animal,
so that the lowest animals are only distinguished from plants by the
addition of a dull idea, in man the opposite is the case. Vehement as are
his desires, even more vehement than those of any brute, rising to the
level of passions, yet his consciousness remains continuously and
predominantly occupied and filled with ideas and thoughts. Without doubt
this has been the principal occasion of that fundamental error of all
philosophers on account of which they make thought that which is essential
and primary in the so-called soul, _i.e._, in the inner or spiritual life
of man, always placing it first, but will, as a mere product of thought,
they regard as only a subordinate addition and consequence of it. But if
willing merely proceeded from knowing, how could the brutes, even the
lower grades of them, with so very little knowledge, often show such an
unconquerable and vehement will? Accordingly, since that fundamental error
of the philosophers makes, as it were, the accident the substance, it
leads them into mistaken paths, which there is afterwards no way of
getting out of. Now this relative predominance of the _knowing_
consciousness over the _desiring_, consequently of the secondary part over
the primary, which appears in man, may, in particular exceptionally
favoured individuals, go so far that at the moments of its highest
ascendancy, the secondary or knowing part of consciousness detaches itself
altogether from the willing part, and passes into free activity for
itself, _i.e._, untouched by the will, and consequently no longer serving
it. Thus it becomes purely objective, and the clear mirror of the world,
and from it the conceptions of genius then arise, which are the subject of
our third book.

3. If we run through the series of grades of animals downwards, we see the
intellect always becoming weaker and less perfect, but we by no means
observe a corresponding degradation of the will. Rather it retains
everywhere its identical nature and shows itself in the form of great
attachment to life, care for the individual and the species, egoism and
regardlessness of all others, together with the emotions that spring from
these. Even in the smallest insect the will is present, complete and
entire; it wills what it wills as decidedly and completely as the man. The
difference lies merely in _what_ it wills, _i.e._, in the motives, which,
however, are the affair of the intellect. It indeed, as the secondary part
of consciousness, and bound to the bodily organism, has innumerable
degrees of completeness, and is in general essentially limited and
imperfect. The _will_, on the contrary, as original and the thing in
itself, can never be imperfect, but every act of will is all that it can
be. On account of the simplicity which belongs to the will as the thing in
itself, the metaphysical in the phenomenon, its nature admits of no
degrees, but is always completely itself. Only its _excitement_ has
degrees, from the weakest inclination to the passion, and also its
susceptibility to excitement, thus its vehemence from the phlegmatic to
the choleric temperament. The _intellect_, on the other hand, has not
merely degrees of _excitement_, from sleepiness to being in the vein, and
inspiration, but also degrees of its nature, of the completeness of this,
which accordingly rises gradually from the lowest animals, which can only
obscurely apprehend, up to man, and here again from the fool to the
genius. The _will_ alone is everywhere completely itself. For its function
is of the utmost simplicity; it consists in willing and not willing, which
goes on with the greatest ease, without effort, and requires no practice.
Knowing, on the contrary, has multifarious functions, and never takes
place entirely without effort, which is required to fix the attention and
to make clear the object, and at a higher stage is certainly needed for
thinking and deliberation; therefore it is also capable of great
improvement through exercise and education. If the intellect presents a
simple, perceptible object to the will, the latter expresses at once its
approval or disapproval of it, and this even if the intellect has
laboriously inquired and pondered, in order from numerous data, by means
of difficult combinations, ultimately to arrive at the conclusion as to
which of the two seems to be most in conformity with the interests of the
will. The latter has meanwhile been idly resting, and when the conclusion
is arrived at it enters, as the Sultan enters the Divan, merely to express
again its monotonous approval or disapproval, which certainly may vary in
degree, but in its nature remains always the same.

This fundamentally different nature of the will and the intellect, the
essential simplicity and originality of the former, in contrast to the
complicated and secondary character of the latter, becomes still more
clear to us if we observe their remarkable interaction within us, and now
consider in the particular case, how the images and thoughts which arise
in the intellect move the will, and how entirely separated and different
are the parts which the two play. We can indeed perceive this even in
actual events which excite the will in a lively manner, while primarily
and in themselves they are merely objects of the intellect. But, on the
one hand, it is here not so evident that this reality primarily existed
only in the intellect; and, on the other hand, the change does not
generally take place so rapidly as is necessary if the thing is to be
easily surveyed, and thereby become thoroughly comprehensible. Both of
these conditions, however, are fulfilled if it is merely thoughts and
phantasies which we allow to act on the will. If, for example, alone with
ourselves, we think over our personal circumstances, and now perhaps
vividly present to ourselves the menace of an actually present danger and
the possibility of an unfortunate issue, anxiety at once compresses the
heart, and the blood ceases to circulate in the veins. But if then the
intellect passes to the possibility of an opposite issue, and lets the
imagination picture the long hoped for happiness thereby attained, all the
pulses quicken at once with joy and the heart feels light as a feather,
till the intellect awakes from its dream. Thereupon, suppose that an
occasion should lead the memory to an insult or injury once suffered long
ago, at once anger and bitterness pour into the breast that was but now at
peace. But then arises, called up by accident, the image of a long-lost
love, with which the whole romance and its magic scenes is connected; then
that anger will at once give place to profound longing and sadness.
Finally, if there occurs to us some former humiliating incident, we shrink
together, would like to sink out of sight, blush with shame, and often try
forcibly to distract and divert our thoughts by some loud exclamation, as
if to scare some evil spirit. One sees, the intellect plays, and the will
must dance to it. Indeed the intellect makes the will play the part of a
child which is alternately thrown at pleasure into joyful or sad moods by
the chatter and tales of its nurse. This depends upon the fact that the
will is itself without knowledge, and the understanding which is given to
it is without will. Therefore the former is like a body which is moved,
the latter like the causes which set it in motion, for it is the medium of
motives. Yet in all this the primacy of the will becomes clear again, if
this will, which, as we have shown, becomes the sport of the intellect as
soon as it allows the latter to control it, once makes its supremacy in
the last instance felt by prohibiting the intellect from entertaining
certain ideas, absolutely preventing certain trains of thought from
arising, because it knows, _i.e._, learns from that very intellect, that
they would awaken in it some one of the emotions set forth above. It now
bridles the intellect, and compels it to turn to other things. Hard as
this often may be, it must yet be accomplished as soon as the will is in
earnest about it, for the resistance in this case does not proceed from
the intellect, which always remains indifferent, but from the will itself,
which in one respect has an inclination towards an idea that in another
respect it abhors. It is in itself interesting to the will simply because
it excites it, but at the same time abstract knowledge tells it that this
idea will aimlessly cause it a shock of painful or unworthy emotion: it
now decides in conformity with this abstract knowledge, and compels the
obedience of the intellect. This is called “being master of oneself.”
Clearly the master here is the will, the servant the intellect, for in the
last instance the will always keeps the upper hand, and therefore
constitutes the true core, the inner being of man. In this respect the
title Ηγεμονικον would belong to the _will_; yet it seems, on the other
hand, to apply to the _intellect_, because it is the leader and guide,
like the _valet de place_ who conducts a stranger. In truth, however, the
happiest figure of the relation of the two is the strong blind man who
carries on his shoulders the lame man who can see.

The relation of the will to the intellect here explained may also be
further recognised in the fact that the intellect is originally entirely a
stranger to the purposes of the will. It supplies the motives to the will,
but it only learns afterwards, completely _a posteriori_, how they have
affected it, as one who makes a chemical experiment applies the reagents
and awaits the result. Indeed the intellect remains so completely excluded
from the real decisions and secret purposes of its own will that sometimes
it can only learn them like those of a stranger, by spying upon them and
surprising them, and must catch the will in the act of expressing itself
in order to get at its real intentions. For example, I have conceived a
plan, about which, however, I have still some scruple, but the
feasibleness of which, as regards its possibility, is completely
uncertain, for it depends upon external and still undecided circumstances.
It would therefore certainly be unnecessary to come to a decision about it
at present, and so for the time I leave the matter as it is. Now in such a
case I often do not know how firmly I am already attached to that plan in
secret, and how much, in spite of the scruple, I wish to carry it out:
that is, my intellect does not know. But now only let me receive news that
it is practicable, at once there rises within me a jubilant, irresistible
gladness, that passes through my whole being and takes permanent
possession of it, to my own astonishment. For now my intellect learns for
the first time how firmly my will had laid hold of that plan, and how
thoroughly the plan suited it, while the intellect had regarded it as
entirely problematical, and had with difficulty been able to overcome that
scruple. Or in another case, I have entered eagerly into a contract which
I believed to be very much in accordance with my wishes. But as the matter
progresses the disadvantages and burdens of it are felt, and I begin to
suspect that I even repent of what I so eagerly pursued; yet I rid myself
of this feeling by assuring myself that even if I were not bound I would
follow the same course. Now, however, the contract is unexpectedly broken
by the other side, and I perceive with astonishment that this happens to
my great satisfaction and relief. Often we don’t know what we wish or what
we fear. We may entertain a wish for years without even confessing it to
ourselves, or even allowing it to come to clear consciousness; for the
intellect must know nothing about it, because the good opinion which we
have of ourselves might thereby suffer. But if it is fulfilled we learn
from our joy, not without shame, that we have wished this. For example,
the death of a near relation whose heir we are. And sometimes we do not
know what we really fear, because we lack the courage to bring it to
distinct consciousness. Indeed we are often in error as to the real motive
from which we have done something or left it undone, till at last perhaps
an accident discovers to us the secret, and we know that what we have held
to be the motive was not the true one, but another which we had not wished
to confess to ourselves, because it by no means accorded with the good
opinion we entertained of ourselves. For example, we refrain from doing
something on purely moral grounds, as we believe, but afterwards we
discover that we were only restrained by fear, for as soon as all danger
is removed we do it. In particular cases this may go so far that a man
does not even guess the true motive of his action, nay, does not believe
himself capable of being influenced by such a motive; and yet it is the
true motive of his action. We may remark in passing that in all this we
have a confirmation and explanation of the rule of Larochefoucauld:
“_L’amour-propre est plus habile que le plus habile homme du monde;_” nay,
even a commentary on the Delphic γνωθι σαυτον and its difficulty. If now,
on the contrary, as all philosophers imagine, the intellect constituted
our true nature and the purposes of the will were a mere result of
knowledge, then only the motive from which we imagined that we acted would
be decisive of our moral worth; in analogy with the fact that the
intention, not the result, is in this respect decisive. But really then
the distinction between imagined and true motive would be impossible. Thus
all cases here set forth, to which every one who pays attention may
observe analogous cases in himself, show us how the intellect is so
strange to the will that it is sometimes even mystified by it: for it
indeed supplies it with motives, but does not penetrate into the secret
workshop of its purposes. It is indeed a confidant of the will, but a
confidant that is not told everything. This is also further confirmed by
the fact, which almost every one will some time have the opportunity of
observing in himself, that sometimes the intellect does not thoroughly
trust the will. If we have formed some great and bold purpose, which as
such is yet really only a promise made by the will to the intellect, there
often remains within us a slight unconfessed doubt whether we are quite in
earnest about it, whether in carrying it out we will not waver or draw
back, but will have sufficient firmness and persistency to fulfil it. It
therefore requires the deed to convince us ourselves of the sincerity of
the purpose.

All these facts prove the absolute difference of the will and the
intellect, the primacy of the former and the subordinate position of the
latter.

4. The _intellect_ becomes tired; the _will_ is never tired. After
sustained work with the head we feel the tiredness of the brain, just like
that of the arm after sustained bodily work. All _knowing_ is accompanied
with effort; _willing_, on the contrary, is our very nature, whose
manifestations take place without any weariness and entirely of their own
accord. Therefore, if our will is strongly excited, as in all emotions,
thus in anger, fear, desire, grief, &c., and we are now called upon to
know, perhaps with the view of correcting the motives of that emotion, the
violence which we must do ourselves for this purpose is evidence of the
transition from the original natural activity proper to ourselves to the
derived, indirect, and forced activity. For the will alone is αυτοματος,
and therefore ακαματος και αγηρατος ηματα παντα (_lassitudinis et senii
expers in sempiternum_). It alone is active without being called upon, and
therefore often too early and too much, and it knows no weariness. Infants
who scarcely show the first weak trace of intelligence are already full of
self-will: through unlimited, aimless roaring and shrieking they show the
pressure of will with which they swell, while their willing has yet no
object, _i.e._, they will without knowing what they will. What Cabanis has
observed is also in point here: “_Toutes ces passions, qui se succèdent
d’une mannière si rapide, et se peignent avec tant de naïveté, sur le
visage mobile des enfants. Tandis que les faibles muscles de leurs bras et
de leurs jambes savent encore a peine former quelque mouvemens indécis,
les muscles de la face expriment déjà par des mouvemens distincts presque
toute la suite des affections générales propres a __ la nature humaine: et
l’observateur attentif reconnait facilement dans ce tableau les traits
caractéristiques de l’homme futur_” (_Rapports du Physique et Moral_, vol.
i. p. 123). The intellect, on the contrary, develops slowly, following the
completion of the brain and the maturity of the whole organism, which are
its conditions, just because it is merely a somatic function. It is
because the brain attains its full size in the seventh year that from that
time forward children become so remarkably intelligent, inquisitive, and
reasonable. But then comes puberty; to a certain extent it affords a
support to the brain, or a resounding-board, and raises the intellect at
once by a large step, as it were by an octave, corresponding to the
lowering of the voice by that amount. But at once the animal desires and
passions that now appear resist the reasonableness that has hitherto
prevailed and to which they have been added. Further evidence is given of
the indefatigable nature of the will by the fault which is, more or less,
peculiar to all men by nature, and is only overcome by
education—_precipitation_. It consists in this, that the will hurries to
its work before the time. This work is the purely active and executive
part, which ought only to begin when the explorative and deliberative
part, thus the work of knowing, has been completely and thoroughly carried
out. But this time is seldom waited for. Scarcely are a few data
concerning the circumstances before us, or the event that has occurred, or
the opinion of others conveyed to us, superficially comprehended and
hastily gathered together by knowledge, than from the depths of our being
the will, always ready and never weary, comes forth unasked, and shows
itself as terror, fear, hope, joy, desire, envy, grief, zeal, anger, or
courage, and leads to rash words and deeds, which are generally followed
by repentance when time has taught us that the hegemonicon, the intellect,
has not been able to finish half its work of comprehending the
circumstances, reflecting on their connection, and deciding what is
prudent, because the will did not wait for it, but sprang forward long
before its time with “Now it is my turn!” and at once began the active
work, without the intellect being able to resist, as it is a mere slave
and bondman of the will, and not, like it, αυτοματος, nor active from its
own power and its own impulse; therefore it is easily pushed aside and
silenced by a nod of the will, while on its part it is scarcely able, with
the greatest efforts, to bring the will even to a brief pause, in order to
speak. This is why the people are so rare, and are found almost only among
Spaniards, Turks, and perhaps Englishmen, who even under circumstances of
provocation _keep the head uppermost_, imperturbably proceed to comprehend
and investigate the state of affairs, and when others would already be
beside themselves, _con mucho sosiego_, still ask further questions, which
is something quite different from the indifference founded upon apathy and
stupidity of many Germans and Dutchmen. Iffland used to give an excellent
representation of this admirable quality, as Hetmann of the Cossacks, in
Benjowski, when the conspirators have enticed him into their tent and hold
a rifle to his head, with the warning that they will fire it if he utters
a cry, Iffland blew into the mouth of the rifle to try whether it was
loaded. Of ten things that annoy us, nine would not be able to do so if we
understood them thoroughly in their causes, and therefore knew their
necessity and true nature; but we would do this much oftener if we made
them the object of reflection before making them the object of wrath and
indignation. For what bridle and bit are to an unmanageable horse the
intellect is for the will in man; by this bridle it must be controlled by
means of instruction, exhortation, culture, &c., for in itself it is as
wild and impetuous an impulse as the force that appears in the descending
waterfall, nay, as we know, it is at bottom identical with this. In the
height of anger, in intoxication, in despair, it has taken the bit between
its teeth, has run away, and follows its original nature. In the _Mania __
sine delirio_ it has lost bridle and bit altogether, and shows now most
distinctly its original nature, and that the intellect is as different
from it as the bridle from the horse. In this condition it may also be
compared to a clock which, when a certain screw is taken away, runs down
without stopping.

Thus this consideration also shows us the will as that which is original,
and therefore metaphysical; the intellect, on the other hand, as something
subordinate and physical. For as such the latter is, like everything
physical, subject to _vis inertiæ_, consequently only active if it is set
agoing by something else, the will, which rules it, manages it, rouses it
to effort, in short, imparts to it the activity which does not originally
reside in it. Therefore it willingly rests whenever it is permitted to do
so, often declares itself lazy and disinclined to activity; through
continued effort it becomes weary to the point of complete stupefaction,
is exhausted, like the voltaic pile, through repeated shocks. Hence all
continuous mental work demands pauses and rest, otherwise stupidity and
incapacity ensue, at first of course only temporarily; but if this rest is
persistently denied to the intellect it will become excessively and
continuously fatigued, and the consequence is a permanent deterioration of
it, which in an old man may pass into complete incapacity, into
childishness, imbecility, and madness. It is not to be attributed to age
in and for itself, but to long-continued tyrannical over-exertion of the
intellect or brain, if this misfortune appears in the last years of life.
This is the explanation of the fact that Swift became mad, Kant became
childish, Walter Scott, and also Wordsworth, Southey, and many _minorum
gentium_, became dull and incapable. Goethe remained to the end clear,
strong, and active-minded, because he, who was always a man of the world
and a courtier, never carried on his mental occupations with
self-compulsion. The same holds good of Wieland and of Kuebel, who lived
to the age of ninety-one, and also of Voltaire. Now all this proves how
very subordinate and physical and what a mere tool the intellect is. Just
on this account it requires, during almost a third part of its lifetime,
the entire suspension of its activity in sleep, _i.e._, the rest of the
brain, of which it is the mere function, and which therefore just as truly
precedes it as the stomach precedes digestion, or as a body precedes its
impulsion, and with which in old age it flags and decays. The will, on the
contrary, as the thing in itself, is never lazy, is absolutely untiring,
its activity is its essence, it never ceases willing, and when, during
deep sleep, it is forsaken of the intellect, and therefore cannot act
outwardly in accordance with motives, it is active as the vital force,
cares the more uninterruptedly for the inner economy of the organism, and
as _vis naturæ medicatrix_ sets in order again the irregularities that
have crept into it. For it is not, like the intellect, a function of the
body; _but the body is its function_; therefore it is, _ordine rerum_,
prior to the body, as its metaphysical substratum, as the in-itself of its
phenomenal appearance. It shares its unwearying nature, for the time that
life lasts, with the heart, that _primum mobile_ of the organism, which
has therefore become its symbol and synonym. Moreover, it does not
disappear in the old man, but still continues to will what it has willed,
and indeed becomes firmer, more inflexible, than it was in youth, more
implacable, self-willed, and unmanageable, because the intellect has
become less susceptible: therefore in old age the man can perhaps only be
matched by taking advantage of the weakness of his intellect.

Moreover, the prevailing _weakness_ and _imperfection_ of the intellect,
as it is shown in the want of judgment, narrow-mindedness, perversity, and
folly of the great majority of men, would be quite inexplicable if the
intellect were not subordinate, adventitious, and merely instrumental, but
the immediate and original nature of the so-called soul, or in general of
the inner man: as all philosophers have hitherto assumed it to be. For how
could the original nature in its immediate and peculiar function so
constantly err and fail? The _truly_ original in human consciousness, the
_willing_, always goes on with perfect success; every being wills
unceasingly, capably, and decidedly. To regard the immorality in the will
as an imperfection of it would be a fundamentally false point of view. For
morality has rather a source which really lies above nature, and therefore
its utterances are in contradiction with it. Therefore morality is in
direct opposition to the natural will, which in itself is completely
egoistic; indeed the pursuit of the path of morality leads to the
abolition of the will. On this subject I refer to our fourth book and to
my prize essay, “_Ueber das Fundament der Moral_.”

5. That the _will_ is what is real and essential in man, and the
_intellect_ only subordinate, conditioned, and produced, is also to be
seen in the fact that the latter can carry on its function with perfect
purity and correctness only so long as the will is silent and pauses. On
the other hand, the function of the intellect is disturbed by every
observable excitement of the will, and its result is falsified by the
intermixture of the latter; but the converse does not hold, that the
intellect should in the same way be a hindrance to the will. Thus the moon
cannot shine when the sun is in the heavens, but when the moon is in the
heavens it does not prevent the sun from shining.

A great _fright_ often deprives us of our senses to such an extent that we
are petrified, or else do the most absurd things; for example, when fire
has broken out run right into the flames. _Anger_ makes us no longer know
what we do, still less what we say. _Zeal_, therefore called blind, makes
us incapable of weighing the arguments of others, or even of seeking out
and setting in order our own. _Joy_ makes us inconsiderate, reckless, and
foolhardy, and _desire_ acts almost in the same way. _Fear_ prevents us
from seeing and laying hold of the resources that are still present, and
often lie close beside us. Therefore for overcoming sudden dangers, and
also for fighting with opponents and enemies, the most essential
qualifications are _coolness and presence of mind_. The former consists in
the silence of the will so that the intellect can act; the latter in the
undisturbed activity of the intellect under the pressure of events acting
on the will; therefore the former is the condition of the latter, and the
two are nearly related; they are seldom to be found, and always only in a
limited degree. But they are of inestimable advantage, because they permit
the use of the intellect just at those times when we stand most in need of
it, and therefore confer decided superiority. He who is without them only
knows what he should have done or said when the opportunity has passed. It
is very appropriately said of him who is violently moved, _i.e._, whose
will is so strongly excited that it destroys the purity of the function of
the intellect, he is _disarmed_; for the correct knowledge of the
circumstances and relations is our defence and weapon in the conflict with
things and with men. In this sense Balthazar Gracian says: “_Es la passion
enemiga declarada de la cordura_” (Passion is the declared enemy of
prudence). If now the intellect were not something completely different
from the will, but, as has been hitherto supposed, knowing and willing had
the same root, and were equally original functions of an absolutely simple
nature, then with the rousing and heightening of the will, in which the
emotion consists, the intellect would necessarily also be heightened; but,
as we have seen, it is rather hindered and depressed by this; whence the
ancients called emotion _animi perturbatio_. The intellect is really like
the reflecting surface of water, but the water itself is like the will,
whose disturbance therefore at once destroys the clearness of that mirror
and the distinctness of its images. The _organism_ is the will itself, is
embodied will, _i.e._, will objectively perceived in the brain. Therefore
many of its functions, such as respiration, circulation, secretion of
bile, and muscular power, are heightened and accelerated by the
pleasurable, and in general the healthy, emotions. The _intellect_, on the
other hand, is the mere function of the brain, which is only nourished and
supported by the organism as a parasite. Therefore every perturbation of
the _will_, and with it of the _organism_, must disturb and paralyse the
function of the brain, which exists for itself and for no other wants than
its own, which are simply rest and nourishment.

But this disturbing influence of the activity of the will upon the
intellect can be shown, not only in the perturbations brought about by
emotions, but also in many other, more gradual, and therefore more lasting
falsifications of thought by our inclinations. _Hope_ makes us regard what
we wish, and _fear_ what we are apprehensive of, as probable and near, and
both exaggerate their object. Plato (according to Ælian, V.H., 13, 28)
very beautifully called hope the dream of the waking. Its nature lies in
this, that the will, when its servant the intellect is not able to produce
what it wishes, obliges it at least to picture it before it, in general to
undertake the roll of comforter, to appease its lord with fables, as a
nurse a child, and so to dress these out that they gain an appearance of
likelihood. Now in this the intellect must do violence to its own nature,
which aims at the truth, for it compels it, contrary to its own laws, to
regard as true things which are neither true nor probable, and often
scarcely possible, only in order to appease, quiet, and send to sleep for
a while the restless and unmanageable _will_. Here we see clearly who is
master and who is servant. Many may well have observed that if a matter
which is of importance to them may turn out in several different ways, and
they have brought all of these into one disjunctive judgment which in
their opinion is complete, the actual result is yet quite another, and one
wholly unexpected by them: but perhaps they will not have considered this,
that this result was then almost always the one which was unfavourable to
them. The explanation of this is, that while their _intellect_ intended to
survey the possibilities completely, the worst of all remained quite
invisible to it; because the _will_, as it were, covered it with its hand,
that is, it so mastered the intellect that it was quite incapable of
glancing at the worst case of all, although, since it actually came to
pass, this was also the most probable case. Yet in very melancholy
dispositions, or in those that have become prudent through experience like
this, the process is reversed, for here apprehension plays the part which
was formerly played by hope. The first appearance of danger throws them
into groundless anxiety. If the intellect begins to investigate the matter
it is rejected as incompetent, nay, as a deceitful sophist, because the
heart is to be believed, whose fears are now actually allowed to pass for
arguments as to the reality and greatness of the danger. So then the
intellect dare make no search for good reasons on the other side, which,
if left to itself, it would soon recognise, but is obliged at once to
picture to them the most unfortunate issue, even if it itself can scarcely
think this issue possible:


    “Such as we know is false, yet dread in sooth,
    Because the worst is ever nearest truth.”

    —BYRON (_Lara_, c. 1).


_Love_ and _hate_ falsify our judgment entirely. In our enemies we see
nothing but faults—in our loved ones nothing but excellences, and even
their faults appear to us amiable. Our _interest_, of whatever kind it may
be, exercises a like secret power over our judgment; what is in conformity
with it at once seems to us fair, just, and reasonable; what runs contrary
to it presents itself to us, in perfect seriousness, as unjust and
outrageous, or injudicious and absurd. Hence so many prejudices of
position, profession, nationality, sect, and religion. A conceived
hypothesis gives us lynx-eyes for all that confirms it, and makes us blind
to all that contradicts it. What is opposed to our party, our plan, our
wish, our hope, we often cannot comprehend and grasp at all, while it is
clear to every one else; but what is favourable to these, on the other
hand, strikes our eye from afar. What the heart opposes the head will not
admit. We firmly retain many errors all through life, and take care never
to examine their ground, merely from a fear, of which we ourselves are
conscious, that we might make the discovery that we had so long believed
and so often asserted what is false. Thus then is the intellect daily
befooled and corrupted by the impositions of inclination. This has been
very beautifully expressed by Bacon of Verulam in the words: _Intellectus_
LUMINIS SICCI _non est; sed recipit infusionem a voluntate et affectibus:
id quod generat ad quod vult scientias: quod enim mavult homo, id potius
credit. Innumeris modis, iisque interdum imperceptibilibus, affectus
intellectum imbuit et inficit_ (_Org. Nov._, i. 14). Clearly it is also
this that opposes all new fundamental opinions in the sciences and all
refutations of sanctioned errors, for one will not easily see the truth of
that which convicts one of incredible want of thought. It is explicable,
on this ground alone, that the truths of Goethe’s doctrine of colours,
which are so clear and simple, are still denied by the physicists; and
thus Goethe himself has had to learn what a much harder position one has
if one promises men instruction than if one promises them amusement. Hence
it is much more fortunate to be born a poet than a philosopher. But the
more obstinately an error was held by the other side, the more shameful
does the conviction afterwards become. In the case of an overthrown
system, as in the case of a conquered army, the most prudent is he who
first runs away from it.

A trifling and absurd, but striking example of that mysterious and
immediate power which the will exercises over the intellect, is the fact
that in doing accounts we make mistakes much oftener in our own favour
than to our disadvantage, and this without the slightest dishonest
intention, merely from the unconscious tendency to diminish our _Debit_
and increase our _Credit_.

Lastly, the fact is also in point here, that when advice is given the
slightest aim or purpose of the adviser generally outweighs his insight,
however great it may be; therefore we dare not assume that he speaks from
the latter when we suspect the existence of the former. How little perfect
sincerity is to be expected even from otherwise honest persons whenever
their interests are in any way concerned we can gather from the fact that
we so often deceive ourselves when hope bribes us, or fear befools us, or
suspicion torments us, or vanity flatters us, or an hypothesis blinds us,
or a small aim which is close at hand injures a greater but more distant
one; for in this we see the direct and unconscious disadvantageous
influence of the will upon knowledge. Accordingly it ought not to surprise
us if in asking advice the will of the person asked directly dictates the
answer even before the question could penetrate to the forum of his
judgment.

I wish in a single word to point out here what will be fully explained in
the following book, that the most perfect knowledge, thus the purely
objective comprehension of the world, _i.e._, the comprehension of genius,
is conditioned by a silence of the will so profound that while it lasts
even the individuality vanishes from consciousness and the man remains _as
the pure subject of knowing_, which is the correlative of the _Idea_.

The disturbing influence of the will upon the intellect, which is proved
by all these phenomena, and, on the other hand, the weakness and frailty
of the latter, on account of which it is incapable of working rightly
whenever the will is in any way moved, gives us then another proof that
the will is the radical part of our nature, and acts with original power,
while the intellect, as adventitious and in many ways conditioned, can
only act in a subordinate and conditional manner.

There is no direct disturbance of the will by the intellect corresponding
to the disturbance and clouding of knowledge by the will that has been
shown. Indeed we cannot well conceive such a thing. No one will wish to
construe as such the fact that motives wrongly taken up lead the will
astray, for this is a fault of the intellect in its own function, which is
committed quite within its own province, and the influence of which upon
the will is entirely indirect. It would be plausible to attribute
_irresolution_ to this, for in its case, through the conflict of the
motives which the intellect presents to the will, the latter is brought to
a standstill, thus is hindered. But when we consider it more closely, it
becomes very clear that the cause of this hindrance does not lie in the
activity of the _intellect_ as such, but entirely in _external objects_
which are brought about by it, for in this case they stand in precisely
such a relation to the will, which is here interested, that they draw it
with nearly equal strength in different directions. This real cause merely
acts _through_ the intellect as the medium of motives, though certainly
under the assumption that it is keen enough to comprehend the objects in
their manifold relations. Irresolution, as a trait of character, is just
as much conditioned by qualities of the will as of the intellect. It is
certainly not peculiar to exceedingly limited minds, for their weak
understanding does not allow them to discover such manifold qualities and
relations in things, and moreover is so little fitted for the exertion of
reflection and pondering these, and then the probable consequences of each
step, that they rather decide at once according to the first impression,
or according to some simple rule of conduct. The converse of this occurs
in the case of persons of considerable understanding. Therefore, whenever
such persons also possess a tender care for their own well-being, _i.e._,
a very sensitive egoism, which constantly desires to come off well and
always to be safe, this introduces a certain anxiety at every step, and
thereby irresolution. This quality therefore indicates throughout not a
want of understanding but a want of courage. Yet very eminent minds survey
the relations and their probable developments with such rapidity and
certainty, that if they are only supported by some courage they thereby
acquire that quick decision and resolution that fits them to play an
important part in the affairs of the world, if time and circumstances
afford them the opportunity.

The only decided, direct restriction and disturbance which the will can
suffer from the intellect as such may indeed be the quite exceptional one,
which is the consequence of an abnormally preponderating development of
the intellect, thus of that high endowment which has been defined as
genius. This is decidedly a hindrance to the energy of the character, and
consequently to the power of action. Hence it is not the really great
minds that make historical characters, because they are capable of
bridling and ruling the mass of men and carrying out the affairs of the
world; but for this persons of much less capacity of mind are qualified
when they have great firmness, decision, and persistency of will, such as
is quite inconsistent with very high intelligence. Accordingly, where this
very high intelligence exists we actually have a case in which the
intellect directly restricts the will.

6. In opposition to the hindrances and restrictions which it has been
shown the intellect suffers from the will, I wish now to show, in a few
examples, how, conversely, the functions of the intellect are sometimes
aided and heightened by the incitement and spur of the will; so that in
this also we may recognise the primary nature of the one and the secondary
nature of the other, and it may become clear that the intellect stands to
the will in the relation of a tool.

A motive which affects us strongly, such as a yearning desire or a
pressing need, sometimes raises the intellect to a degree of which we had
not previously believed it capable. Difficult circumstances, which impose
upon us the necessity of certain achievements, develop entirely new
talents in us, the germs of which were hidden from us, and for which we
did not credit ourselves with any capacity. The understanding of the
stupidest man becomes keen when objects are in question that closely
concern his wishes; he now observes, weighs, and distinguishes with the
greatest delicacy even the smallest circumstances that have reference to
his wishes or fears. This has much to do with the cunning of half-witted
persons, which is often remarked with surprise. On this account Isaiah
rightly says, _vexatio dat intellectum_, which is therefore also used as a
proverb. Akin to it is the German proverb, “_Die Noth ist die Mutter der
Künste_” (“Necessity is the mother of the arts”); when, however, the fine
arts are to be excepted, because the heart of every one of their works,
that is, the conception, must proceed from a perfectly will-less, and only
thereby purely objective, perception, if they are to be genuine. Even the
understanding of the brutes is increased considerably by necessity, so
that in cases of difficulty they accomplish things at which we are
astonished. For example, they almost all calculate that it is safer not to
run away when they believe they are not seen; therefore the hare lies
still in the furrow of the field and lets the sportsman pass close to it;
insects, when they cannot escape, pretend to be dead, &c. We may obtain a
fuller knowledge of this influence from the special history of the
self-education of the wolf, under the spur of the great difficulty of its
position in civilised Europe; it is to be found in the second letter of
Leroy’s excellent book, “_Lettres sur l’intelligence et la perfectibilité
des animaux_.” Immediately afterwards, in the third letter, there follows
the high school of the fox, which in an equally difficult position has far
less physical strength. In its case, however, this is made up for by great
understanding; yet only through the constant struggle with want on the one
hand and danger on the other, thus under the spur of the will, does it
attain that high degree of cunning which distinguishes it especially in
old age. In all these enhancements of the intellect the will plays the
part of a rider who with the spur urges the horse beyond the natural
measure of its strength.

In the same way the memory is enhanced through the pressure of the will.
Even if it is otherwise weak, it preserves perfectly what has value for
the ruling passion. The lover forgets no opportunity favourable to him,
the ambitious man forgets no circumstance that can forward his plans, the
avaricious man never forgets the loss he has suffered, the proud man never
forgets an injury to his honour, the vain man remembers every word of
praise and the most trifling distinction that falls to his lot. And this
also extends to the brutes: the horse stops at the inn where once long ago
it was fed; dogs have an excellent memory for all occasions, times, and
places that have afforded them choice morsels; and foxes for the different
hiding-places in which they have stored their plunder.

Self-consideration affords opportunity for finer observations in this
regard. Sometimes, through an interruption, it has entirely escaped me
what I have just been thinking about, or even what news I have just heard.
Now if the matter had in any way even the most distant personal interest,
the after-feeling of the impression which it made upon the _will_ has
remained. I am still quite conscious how far it affected me agreeably or
disagreeably, and also of the special manner in which this happened,
whether, even in the slightest degree, it vexed me, or made me anxious, or
irritated me, or depressed me, or produced the opposite of these
affections. Thus the mere relation of the thing to my will is retained in
the memory after the thing itself has vanished, and this often becomes the
clue to lead us back to the thing itself. The sight of a man sometimes
affects us in an analogous manner, for we remember merely in general that
we have had something to do with him, yet without knowing where, when, or
what it was, or who he is. But the sight of him still recalls pretty
accurately the feeling which our dealings with him excited in us, whether
it was agreeable or disagreeable, and also in what degree and in what way.
Thus our memory has preserved only the response of the will, and not that
which called it forth. We might call what lies at the foundation of this
process the memory of the heart; it is much more intimate than that of the
head. Yet at bottom the connection of the two is so far-reaching that if
we reflect deeply upon the matter we will arrive at the conclusion that
memory in general requires the support of a will as a connecting point, or
rather as a thread upon which the memories can range themselves, and which
holds them firmly together, or that the will is, as it were, the ground to
which the individual memories cleave, and without which they could not
last; and that therefore in a pure intelligence, _i.e._, in a merely
knowing and absolutely will-less being, a memory cannot well be conceived.
Accordingly the improvement of the memory under the spur of the ruling
passion, which has been shown above, is only the higher degree of that
which takes place in all retention and recollection; for its basis and
condition is always the will. Thus in all this also it becomes clear how
very much more essential to us the will is than the intellect. The
following facts may also serve to confirm this.

The intellect often obeys the will; for example, if we wish to remember
something, and after some effort succeed; so also if we wish now to ponder
something carefully and deliberately, and in many such cases. Sometimes,
again, the intellect refuses to obey the will; for example, if we try in
vain to fix our minds upon something, or if we call in vain upon the
memory for something that was intrusted to it. The anger of the will
against the intellect on such occasions makes its relation to it and the
difference of the two very plain. Indeed the intellect, vexed by this
anger, sometimes officiously brings what was asked of it hours afterwards,
or even the following morning, quite unexpectedly and unseasonably. On the
other hand, the will never really obeys the intellect; but the latter is
only the ministerial council of that sovereign; it presents all kinds of
things to the will, which then selects what is in conformity with its
nature, though in doing so it determines itself with necessity, because
this nature is unchangeable and the motives now lie before it. Hence no
system of ethics is possible which moulds and improves the will itself.
For all teaching only affects _knowledge_, and knowledge never determines
the will itself, _i.e._, the _fundamental character_ of willing, but only
its application to the circumstances present. Rectified knowledge can only
modify conduct so far as it proves more exactly and judges more correctly
what objects of the will’s choice are within its reach; so that the will
now measures its relation to things more correctly, sees more clearly what
it desires, and consequently is less subject to error in its choice. But
over the will itself, over the main tendency or fundamental maxim of it,
the intellect has no power. To believe that knowledge really and
fundamentally determines the will is like believing that the lantern which
a man carries by night is the _primum mobile_ of his steps. Whoever,
taught by experience or the admonitions of others, knows and laments a
fundamental fault of his character, firmly and honestly forms the
intention to reform and give it up; but in spite of this, on the first
opportunity, the fault receives free course. New repentance, new
intentions, new transgressions. When this has been gone through several
times he becomes conscious that he cannot improve himself, that the fault
lies in his nature and personality, indeed is one with this. Now he will
blame and curse his nature and personality, will have a painful feeling,
which may rise to anguish of consciousness, but to change these he is not
able. Here we see that which condemns and that which is condemned
distinctly separate: we see the former as a merely theoretical faculty,
picturing and presenting the praiseworthy, and therefore desirable, course
of life, but the other as something real and unchangeably present, going
quite a different way in spite of the former: and then again the first
remaining behind with impotent lamentations over the nature of the other,
with which, through this very distress, it again identifies itself. Will
and intellect here separate very distinctly. But here the will shows
itself as the stronger, the invincible, unchangeable, primitive, and at
the same time as the essential thing in question, for the intellect
deplores its errors, and finds no comfort in the correctness of the
_knowledge_, as its own function. Thus the intellect shows itself entirely
secondary, as the spectator of the deeds of another, which it accompanies
with impotent praise and blame, and also as determinable from without,
because it learns from experience, weighs and alters its precepts. Special
illustrations of this subject will be found in the “_Parerga_,” vol. ii. §
118 (second ed., § 119.) Accordingly, a comparison of our manner of
thinking at different periods of our life will present a strange mixture
of permanence and changeableness. On the one hand, the moral tendency of
the man in his prime and the old man is still the same as was that of the
boy; on the other hand, much has become so strange to him that he no
longer knows himself, and wonders how he ever could have done or said this
and that. In the first half of life to-day for the most part laughs at
yesterday, indeed looks down on it with contempt; in the second half, on
the contrary, it more and more looks back at it with envy. But on closer
examination it will be found that the changeable element was the
_intellect_, with its functions of insight and knowledge, which, daily
appropriating new material from without, presents a constantly changing
system of thought, while, besides this, it itself rises and sinks with the
growth and decay of the organism. The will, on the contrary, the basis of
this, thus the inclinations, passions, and emotions, the character, shows
itself as what is unalterable in consciousness. Yet we have to take
account of the modifications that depend upon physical capacities for
enjoyment, and hence upon age. Thus, for example, the eagerness for
sensuous pleasure will show itself in childhood as a love of dainties, in
youth and manhood as the tendency to sensuality, and in old age again as a
love of dainties.

7. If, as is generally assumed, the will proceeded from knowledge, as its
result or product, then where there is much will there would necessarily
also be much knowledge, insight, and understanding. This, however, is
absolutely not the case; rather, we find in many men a strong, _i.e._,
decided, resolute, persistent, unbending, wayward, and vehement will,
combined with a very weak and incapable understanding, so that every one
who has to do with them is thrown into despair, for their will remains
inaccessible to all reasons and ideas, and is not to be got at, so that it
is hidden, as it were, in a sack, out of which it wills blindly. Brutes
have often violent, often stubborn wills, but yet very little
understanding. Finally, plants only will without any knowledge at all.

If willing sprang merely from knowledge, our _anger_ would necessarily be
in every case exactly proportionate to the occasion, or at least to our
relation to it, for it would be nothing more than the result of the
present knowledge. This, however, is rarely the case; rather, anger
generally goes far beyond the occasion. Our fury and rage, the _furor
brevis_, often upon small occasions, and without error regarding them, is
like the raging of an evil spirit which, having been shut up, only waits
its opportunity to dare to break loose, and now rejoices that it has found
it. This could not be the case if the foundation of our nature were a
_knower_, and willing were merely a result of _knowledge_; for how came
there into the result what did not lie in the elements? The conclusion
cannot contain more than the premisses. Thus here also the will shows
itself as of a nature quite different from knowledge, which only serves it
for communication with the external world, but then the will follows the
laws of its own nature without taking from the intellect anything but the
occasion.

The intellect, as the mere tool of the will, is as different from it as
the hammer from the smith. So long as in a conversation the intellect
alone is active it remains _cold_. It is almost as if the man himself were
not present. Moreover, he cannot then, properly speaking, compromise
himself, but at the most can make himself ridiculous. Only when the will
comes into play is the man really present: now he becomes _warm_, nay, it
often happens, _hot_. It is always the will to which we ascribe the warmth
of life; on the other hand, we say the _cold_ understanding, or to
investigate a thing _coolly_, _i.e._, to think without being influenced by
the will. If we attempt to reverse the relation, and to regard the will as
the tool of the intellect, it is as if we made the smith the tool of the
hammer.

Nothing is more provoking, when we are arguing against a man with reasons
and explanations, and taking all pains to convince him, under the
impression that we have only to do with his _understanding_, than to
discover at last that he _will_ not understand; that thus we had to do
with his _will_, which shuts itself up against the truth and brings into
the field wilful misunderstandings, chicaneries, and sophisms in order to
intrench itself behind its understanding and its pretended want of
insight. Then he is certainly not to be got at, for reasons and proofs
applied against the will are like the blows of a phantom produced by
mirrors against a solid body. Hence the saying so often repeated, “_Stat
pro ratione voluntas._” Sufficient evidence of what has been said is
afforded by ordinary life. But unfortunately proofs of it are also to be
found on the path of the sciences. The recognition of the most important
truths, of the rarest achievements, will be looked for in vain from those
who have an interest in preventing them from being accepted, an interest
which either springs from the fact that such truths contradict what they
themselves daily teach, or else from this, that they dare not make use of
them and teach them; or if all this be not the case they will not accept
them, because the watchword of mediocrity will always be, _Si quelqu’un __
excelle parmi nous, qu’il aille exceller ailleurs_, as Helvetius has
admirably rendered the saying of the Ephesian in the fifth book of
Cicero’s “_Tusculanæ_” (c. 36), or as a saying of the Abyssinian Fit Arari
puts it, “Among quartzes adamant is outlawed.” Thus whoever expects from
this always numerous band a just estimation of what he has done will find
himself very much deceived, and perhaps for a while he will not be able to
understand their behaviour, till at last he finds out that while he
applied himself to _knowledge_ he had to do with the _will_, thus is
precisely in the position described above, nay, is really like a man who
brings his case before a court the judges of which have all been bribed.
Yet in particular cases he will receive the fullest proof that their will
and not their insight opposed him, when one or other of them makes up his
mind to plagiarism. Then he will see with astonishment what good judges
they are, what correct perception of the merit of others they have, and
how well they know how to find out the best, like the sparrows, who never
miss the ripest cherries.

The counterpart of the victorious resistance of the will to knowledge here
set forth appears if in expounding our reasons and proofs we have the will
of those addressed with us. Then all are at once convinced, all arguments
are telling, and the matter is at once clear as the day. This is well
known to popular speakers. In the one case, as in the other, the will
shows itself as that which has original power, against which the intellect
can do nothing.

8. But now we shall take into consideration the individual qualities, thus
excellences and faults of the will and character on the one hand, and of
the intellect on the other, in order to make clear, in their relation to
each other, and their relative worth, the complete difference of the two
fundamental faculties. History and experience teach that the two appear
quite independently of each other. That the greatest excellence of mind
will not easily be found combined with equal excellence of character is
sufficiently explained by the extraordinary rarity of both, while their
opposites are everywhere the order of the day; hence we also daily find
the latter in union. However, we never infer a good will from a superior
mind, nor the latter from the former, nor the opposite from the opposite,
but every unprejudiced person accepts them as perfectly distinct
qualities, the presence of which each for itself has to be learned from
experience. Great narrowness of mind may coexist with great goodness of
heart, and I do not believe Balthazar Gracian was right in saying
(_Discreto_, p. 406), “_No ay simple, que no sea malicioso_” (“There is no
simpleton who would not be malicious”), though he has the Spanish proverb
in his favour, “_Nunca la necedad anduvo sin malicia_” (“Stupidity is
never without malice”). Yet it may be that many stupid persons become
malicious for the same reason as many hunchbacks, from bitterness on
account of the neglect they have suffered from nature, and because they
think they can occasionally make up for what they lack in understanding
through malicious cunning, seeking in this a brief triumph. From this, by
the way, it is also comprehensible why almost every one easily becomes
malicious in the presence of a very superior mind. On the other hand,
again, stupid people have very often the reputation of special
good-heartedness, which yet so seldom proves to be the case that I could
not help wondering how they had gained it, till I was able to flatter
myself that I had found the key to it in what follows. Moved by a secret
inclination, every one likes best to choose for his more intimate
intercourse some one to whom he is a little superior in understanding, for
only in this case does he find himself at his ease, because, according to
Hobbes, “_Omnis animi voluptas, omnisgue alacritas in eo sita est, quod
quis habeat, quibuscum conferens se, possit magnifice sentire de se ipso_”
(_De Cive_, i. 5). For the same reason every one avoids him who is
superior to himself; wherefore Lichtenberg quite rightly observes: “To
certain men a man of mind is a more odious production than the most
pronounced rogue.” And similarly Helvetius says: “_Les gens médiocres ont
un instinct sûr et prompt, pour connaître et fuir les gens d’esprit._” And
Dr. Johnson assures us that “there is nothing by which a man exasperates
most people more than by displaying a superior ability of brilliancy in
conversation. They seem pleased at the time, but their envy makes them
curse him in their hearts” (Boswell; aet. anno 74). In order to bring this
truth, so universal and so carefully concealed, more relentlessly to
light, I add the expression of it by Merck, the celebrated friend of
Goethe’s youth, from his story “_Lindor:_” “He possessed talents which
were given him by nature and acquired by himself through learning; and
thus it happened that in most society he left the worthy members of it far
behind.” If, in the moment of delight at the sight of an extraordinary
man, the public swallows these superiorities also, without actually at
once putting a bad construction upon them, yet a certain impression of
this phenomenon remains behind, which, if it is often repeated, may on
serious occasions have disagreeable future consequences for him who is
guilty of it. Without any one consciously noting that on this occasion he
was insulted, no one is sorry to place himself tacitly in the way of the
advancement of this man. Thus on this account great mental superiority
isolates more than anything else, and makes one, at least silently, hated.
Now it is the opposite of this that makes stupid people so generally
liked; especially since many can only find in them what, according to the
law of their nature referred to above, they must seek. Yet this the true
reason of such an inclination no one will confess to himself, still less
to others; and therefore, as a plausible pretext for it, will impute to
those he has selected a special goodness of heart, which, as we have said,
is in reality only very rarely and accidentally found in combination with
mental incapacity. Want of understanding is accordingly by no means
favourable or akin to goodness of character. But, on the other hand, it
cannot be asserted that great understanding is so; nay, rather, no
scoundrel has in general been without it. Indeed even the highest
intellectual eminence can coexist with the worst moral depravity. An
example of this is afforded by Bacon of Verulam: “Ungrateful, filled with
the lust of power, wicked and base, he at last went so far that, as Lord
Chancellor and the highest judge of the realm, he frequently allowed
himself to be bribed in civil actions. Impeached before his peers, he
confessed himself guilty, was expelled by them from the House of Lords,
and condemned to a fine of forty thousand pounds and imprisonment in the
Tower” (see the review of the latest edition of Bacon’s Works in the
_Edinburgh Review_, August 1837). Hence also Pope called him “the wisest,
brightest, meanest of mankind” (“Essay on Man,” iv. 282). A similar
example is afforded by the historian Guicciardini, of whom Rosini says in
the _Notizie Storiche_, drawn from good contemporary sources, which is
given in his historical romance “_Luisa Strozzi_:” “_Da coloro, che
pongono l’ingegno e il sapere al di sopra di tutte le umane qualità,
questo uomo sarà riguardato come fra i più grandi del suo secolo: ma da
quelli, che reputano la virtù dovere andare innanzi a tutto, non potra
esecrarsi abbastanza la sua memoria. Esso fu il più crudele fra i
cittadini a perseguitare, uccidere e confinare_,” &c.(32)

If now it is said of one man, “He has a good heart, though a bad head,”
but of another, “He has a very good head, yet a bad heart,” every one
feels that in the first case the praise far outweighs the blame—in the
other case the reverse. Answering to this, we see that if some one has
done a bad deed his friends and he himself try to remove the guilt from
the _will_ to the _intellect_, and to give out that faults of the heart
were faults of the head; roguish tricks they will call _errors_, will say
they were merely want of understanding, want of reflection,
light-mindedness, folly; nay, if need be, they will plead a paroxysm,
momentary mental aberration, and if a heavy crime is in question, even
madness, only in order to free the _will_ from the guilt. And in the same
way, we ourselves, if we have caused a misfortune or injury, will before
others and ourselves willingly impeach our _stultitia_, simply in order to
escape the reproach of _malitia_. In the same way, in the case of the
equally unjust decision of the judge, the difference, whether he has erred
or been bribed, is so infinitely great. All this sufficiently proves that
the _will_ alone is the real and essential, the kernel of the man, and the
_intellect_ is merely its tool, which may be constantly faulty without the
will being concerned. The accusation of want of understanding is, at the
moral judgment-seat, no accusation at all; on the contrary, it even gives
privileges. And so also, before the courts of the world, it is everywhere
sufficient to deliver a criminal from all punishment that his guilt should
be transferred from his will to his intellect, by proving either
unavoidable error or mental derangement, for then it is of no more
consequence than if hand or foot had slipped against the will. I have
fully discussed this in the appendix, “_Ueber die Intellektuelle
Freiheit_,” to my prize essay on the freedom of the will, to which I refer
to avoid repetition.

Everywhere those who are responsible for any piece of work appeal, in the
event of its turning out unsatisfactorily, to their good intentions, of
which there was no lack. Hereby they believe that they secure the
essential, that for which they are properly answerable, and their true
self; the inadequacy of their faculties, on the other hand, they regard as
the want of a suitable tool.

If a man is _stupid_, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but
if we were to excuse a _bad_ man on the same grounds we would be laughed
at. And yet the one, like the other, is innate. This proves that the will
is the man proper, the intellect merely its tool.

Thus it is always only our _willing_ that is regarded as depending upon
ourselves, _i.e._, as the expression of our true nature, and for which we
are therefore made responsible. Therefore it is absurd and unjust if we
are taken to task for our beliefs, thus for our knowledge: for we are
obliged to regard this as something which, although it changes in us, is
as little in our power as the events of the external world. And here,
also, it is clear that the _will_ alone is the inner and true nature of
man; the _intellect_, on the contrary, with its operations, which go on as
regularly as the external world, stands to the will in the relation of
something external to it, a mere tool.

High mental capacities have always been regarded as the gift of nature or
the gods; and on that account they have been called _Gaben_, _Begabung_,
_ingenii dotes_, gifts (a man highly gifted), regarding them as something
different from the man himself, something that has fallen to his lot
through favour. No one, on the contrary, has ever taken this view of moral
excellences, although they also are innate; they have rather always been
regarded as something proceeding from the man himself, essentially
belonging to him, nay, constituting his very self. But it follows now from
this that the will is the true nature of man; the intellect, on the other
hand, is secondary, a tool, a gift.

Answering to this, all religions promise a reward beyond life, in
eternity, for excellences of the _will_ or heart, but none for excellences
of the head or understanding. Virtue expects its reward in that world;
prudence hopes for it in this; genius, again, neither in this world nor in
that; it is its own reward. Accordingly the will is the eternal part, the
intellect the temporal.

Connection, communion, intercourse among men is based, as a rule, upon
relations which concern the _will_, not upon such as concern the
_intellect_. The first kind of communion may be called the _material_, the
other the _formal_. Of the former kind are the bonds of family and
relationship, and further, all connections that rest upon any common aim
or interest, such as that of trade or profession, of the corporation, the
party, the faction, &c. In these it merely amounts to a question of views,
of aims; along with which there may be the greatest diversity of
intellectual capacity and culture. Therefore not only can any one live in
peace and unity with any one else, but can act with him and be allied to
him for the common good of both. Marriage also is a bond of the heart, not
of the head. It is different, however, with merely formal communion, which
aims only at an exchange of thought; this demands a certain equality of
intellectual capacity and culture. Great differences in this respect place
between man and man an impassable gulf: such lies, for example, between a
man of great mind and a fool, between a scholar and a peasant, between a
courtier and a sailor. Natures as heterogeneous as this have therefore
trouble in making themselves intelligible so long as it is a question of
exchanging thoughts, ideas, and views. Nevertheless close _material_
friendship may exist between them, and they may be faithful allies,
conspirators, or men under mutual pledges. For in all that concerns the
will alone, which includes friendship, enmity, honesty, fidelity,
falseness, and treachery, they are perfectly homogeneous, formed of the
same clay, and neither mind nor culture make any difference here; indeed
here the ignorant man often shames the scholar, the sailor the courtier.
For at the different grades of culture there are the same virtues and
vices, emotions and passions; and although somewhat modified in their
expression, they very soon mutually recognise each other even in the most
heterogeneous individuals, upon which the similarly disposed agree and the
opposed are at enmity.

Brilliant qualities of mind win admiration, but never affection; this is
reserved for the moral, the qualities of the character. Every one will
choose as his friend the honest, the good-natured, and even the agreeable,
complaisant man, who easily concurs, rather than the merely able man.
Indeed many will be preferred to the latter, on account of insignificant,
accidental, outward qualities which just suit the inclination of another.
Only the man who has much mind himself will wish able men for his society;
his friendship, on the other hand, he will bestow with reference to moral
qualities; for upon this depends his really high appreciation of a man in
whom a single good trait of character conceals and expiates great want of
understanding. The known goodness of a character makes us patient and
yielding towards weaknesses of understanding, as also towards the dulness
and childishness of age. A distinctly noble character along with the
entire absence of intellectual excellence and culture presents itself as
lacking nothing; while, on the contrary, even the greatest mind, if
affected with important moral faults, will always appear blamable. For as
torches and fireworks become pale and insignificant in the presence of the
sun, so intellect, nay, genius, and also beauty, are outshone and eclipsed
by the goodness of the heart. When this appears in a high degree it can
make up for the want of those qualities to such an extent that one is
ashamed of having missed them. Even the most limited understanding, and
also grotesque ugliness, whenever extraordinary goodness of heart declares
itself as accompanying them, become as it were transfigured, outshone by a
beauty of a higher kind, for now a wisdom speaks out of them before which
all other wisdom must be dumb. For goodness of heart is a transcendent
quality; it belongs to an order of things that reaches beyond this life,
and is incommensurable with any other perfection. When it is present in a
high degree it makes the heart so large that it embraces the world, so
that now everything lies within it, no longer without; for it identifies
all natures with its own. It then extends to others also that boundless
indulgence which otherwise each one only bestows on himself. Such a man is
incapable of becoming angry; even if the malicious mockery and sneers of
others have drawn attention to his own intellectual or physical faults, he
only reproaches himself in his heart for having been the occasion of such
expressions, and therefore, without doing violence to his own feelings,
proceeds to treat those persons in the kindest manner, confidently hoping
that they will turn from their error with regard to him, and recognise
themselves in him also. What is wit and genius against this?—what is Bacon
of Verulam?

Our estimation of our own selves leads to the same result as we have here
obtained by considering our estimation of others. How different is the
self-satisfaction which we experience in a moral regard from that which we
experience in an intellectual regard! The former arises when, looking back
on our conduct, we see that with great sacrifices we have practised
fidelity and honesty, that we have helped many, forgiven many, have
behaved better to others than they have behaved to us; so that we can say
with King Lear, “I am a man more sinned against than sinning;” and to its
fullest extent if perhaps some noble deed shines in our memory. A deep
seriousness will accompany the still peace which such a review affords us;
and if we see that others are inferior to us here, this will not cause us
any joy, but we will rather deplore it, and sincerely wish that they were
as we are. How entirely differently does the knowledge of our intellectual
superiority affect us! Its ground bass is really the saying of Hobbes
quoted above: _Omnis animi voluptas, omnisque alacritas in eo sita est,
quad quis habeat, quibuscum conferens se, possit magnifice sentire de se
ipso._ Arrogant, triumphant vanity, proud, contemptuous looking down on
others, inordinate delight in the consciousness of decided and
considerable superiority, akin to pride of physical advantages,—that is
the result here. This opposition between the two kinds of
self-satisfaction shows that the one concerns our true inner and eternal
nature, the other a more external, merely temporal, and indeed scarcely
more than a mere physical excellence. The _intellect_ is in fact simply
the function of the brain; the _will_, on the contrary, is that whose
function is the whole man, according to his being and nature.

If, looking without us, we reflect that ὁ βιος βραχυς, ἡ δε τεχνη μακρα
(_vita brevis, ars longa_), and consider how the greatest and most
beautiful minds, often when they have scarcely reached the summit of their
power, and the greatest scholars, when they have only just attained to a
thorough knowledge of their science, are snatched away by death, we are
confirmed in this, that the meaning and end of life is not intellectual
but moral.

The complete difference between the mental and moral qualities displays
itself lastly in the fact that the intellect suffers very important
changes through time, while the will and character remain untouched by it.
The new-born child has as yet no use of its understanding, but obtains it
within the first two months to the extent of perception and apprehension
of the things in the external world—a process which I have described more
fully in my essay, “_Ueber das Sehn und die Farben_,” p. 10 of the second
(and third) edition. The growth of reason to the point of speech, and
thereby of thought, follows this first and most important step much more
slowly, generally only in the third year; yet the early childhood remains
hopelessly abandoned to silliness and folly, primarily because the brain
still lacks physical completeness, which, both as regards its size and
texture, it only attains in the seventh year. But then for its energetic
activity there is still wanting the antagonism of the genital system; it
therefore only begins with puberty. Through this, however, the intellect
has only attained to the _capacity_ for its psychical improvement; this
itself can only be won by practice, experience, and instruction. Thus as
soon as the mind has escaped from the folly of childhood it falls into the
snares of innumerable errors, prejudices, and chimeras, sometimes of the
absurdest and crudest kind, which it obstinately sticks to, till
experience gradually removes them, and many of them also are insensibly
lost. All this takes many years to happen, so that one grants it majority
indeed soon after the twentieth year, yet has placed full maturity, years
of discretion, not before the fortieth year. But while this psychical
education, resting upon help from without, is still in process of growth,
the inner _physical_ energy of the brain already begins to sink again.
This has reached its real culminating point about the thirtieth year, on
account of its dependence upon the pressure of blood and the effect of the
pulsation upon the brain, and through this again upon the predominance of
the arterial over the venous system, and the fresh tenderness of the brain
fibre, and also on account of the energy of the genital system. After the
thirty-fifth year a slight diminution of the physical energy of the brain
becomes noticeable, which, through the gradually approaching predominance
of the venous over the arterial system, and also through the increasing
firmer and drier consistency of the brain fibre, more and more takes
place, and would be much more observable if it were not that, on the other
hand, the psychical perfecting, through exercise, experience, increase of
knowledge, and acquired skill in the use of it, counteracts it—an
antagonism which fortunately lasts to an advanced age, for the brain
becomes more and more like a worn-out instrument. But yet the diminution
of the original energy of the intellect, resting entirely upon organic
conditions, continues, slowly indeed, but unceasingly: the faculty of
original conception, the imagination, the plastic power, the memory,
become noticeably weaker; and so it goes on step by step downwards into
old age, garrulous, without memory, half-unconscious, and ultimately quite
childish.

The will, on the contrary, is not affected by all this becoming, this
change and vicissitude, but is from beginning to end unalterably the same.
_Willing_ does not require to be learned like _knowing_, but succeeds
perfectly at once. The new-born child makes violent movements, rages, and
cries; it wills in the most vehement manner, though it does not yet know
what it wills. For the medium of motives, the intellect, is not yet fully
developed. The will is in darkness concerning the external world, in which
its objects lie, and now rages like a prisoner against the walls and bars
of his dungeon. But little by little it becomes light: at once the
fundamental traits of universal human willing, and, at the same time, the
individual modification of it here present, announce themselves. The
already appearing character shows itself indeed at first in weak and
uncertain outline, on account of the defective service of the intellect,
which has to present it with motives; but to the attentive observer it
soon declares its complete presence, and in a short time it becomes
unmistakable. The characteristics appear which last through the whole of
life; the principal tendencies of the will, the easily excited emotions,
the ruling passion, declare themselves. Therefore the events at school
stand to those of the future life for the most part as the dumb-show in
“Hamlet” that precedes the play to be given at the court, and foretells
its content in the form of pantomime, stands to the play itself. But it is
by no means possible to prognosticate in the same way the future
intellectual capacities of the man from those shown in the boy; rather as
a rule the _ingenia præcocia_, prodigies, turn out block-heads; genius, on
the contrary, is often in childhood of slow conception, and comprehends
with difficulty, just because it comprehends deeply. This is how it is
that every one relates laughing and without reserve the follies and
stupidities of his childhood. For example, Goethe, how he threw all the
kitchen crockery out of the window (_Dichtung und Wahrheit_, vol. i. p.
7); for we know that all this only concerns what changes. On the other
hand, a prudent man will not favour us with the bad features, the
malicious or deceitful actions, of his youth, for he feels that they also
bear witness to his present character. I have been told that when Gall,
the phrenologist and investigator of man, had to put himself into
connection with a man as yet unknown to him, he used to get him to speak
about his youthful years and actions, in order, if possible, to gather
from these the distinctive traits of his character; because this must
still be the same now. This is the reason why we are indifferent to the
follies and want of understanding of our youthful years, and even look
back on them with smiling satisfaction, while the bad features of
character even of that time, the ill-natured actions and the misdeeds then
committed exist even in old age as inextinguishable reproaches, and
trouble our consciences. Now, just as the character appears complete, so
it remains unaltered to old age. The advance of age, which gradually
consumes the intellectual powers, leaves the moral qualities untouched.
The goodness of the heart still makes the old man honoured and loved when
his head already shows the weaknesses which are the commencement of second
childhood. Gentleness, patience, honesty, veracity, disinterestedness,
philanthropy, &c., remain through the whole life, and are not lost through
the weaknesses of old age; in every clear moment of the worn-out old man
they come forth undiminished, like the sun from the winter clouds. And, on
the other hand, malice, spite, avarice, hard-heartedness, infidelity,
egoism, and baseness of every kind also remain undiminished to our latest
years. We would not believe but would laugh at any one who said to us, “In
former years I was a malicious rogue, but now I am an honest and
noble-minded man.” Therefore Sir Walter Scott, in the “Fortunes of Nigel,”
has shown very beautifully, in the case of the old usurer, how burning
avarice, egoism, and injustice are still in their full strength, like a
poisonous plant in autumn, when the intellect has already become childish.
The only alterations that take place in our inclinations are those which
result directly from the decrease of our physical strength, and with it of
our capacities for enjoyment. Thus voluptuousness will make way for
intemperance, the love of splendour for avarice, and vanity for ambition;
just like the man who before he has a beard will wear a false one, and
later, when his own beard has become grey, will dye it brown. Thus while
all organic forces, muscular power, the senses, the memory, wit,
understanding, genius, wear themselves out, and in old age become dull,
the will alone remains undecayed and unaltered: the strength and the
tendency of willing remains the same. Indeed in many points the will shows
itself still more decided in age: thus, in the clinging to life, which, it
is well known, increases; also in the firmness and persistency with regard
to what it has once embraced, in obstinacy; which is explicable from the
fact that the susceptibility of the intellect for other impressions, and
thereby the movement of the will by motives streaming in upon it, has
diminished. Hence the implacable nature of the anger and hate of old
persons—


    “The young man’s wrath is like light straw on fire,
    But like red-hot steel is the old man’s ire.”

    —_Old Ballad._


From all these considerations it becomes unmistakable to the more
penetrating glance that, while the _intellect_ has to run through a long
series of gradual developments, but then, like everything physical, must
encounter decay, the _will_ takes no part in this, except so far as it has
to contend at first with the imperfection of its tool, the intellect, and,
again, at last with its worn-out condition, but itself appears perfect and
remains unchanged, not subject to the laws of time and of becoming and
passing away in it. Thus in this way it makes itself known as that which
is metaphysical, not itself belonging to the phenomenal world.

9. The universally used and generally very well understood expressions
_heart_ and _head_ have sprung from a true feeling of the fundamental
distinction here in question; therefore they are also apt and significant,
and occur in all languages. _Nec cor nec caput habet_, says Seneca of the
Emperor Claudius (_Ludus de morte Claudii Cæsaris_, c. 8). The heart, this
_primum mobile_ of the animal life, has with perfect justice been chosen
as the symbol, nay, the synonym, of the _will_, as the primary kernel of
our phenomenon, and denotes this in opposition to the intellect, which is
exactly identical with the head. All that, in the widest sense, is matter
of the will, as wish, passion, joy, grief, goodness, wickedness, also what
we are wont to understand under “Gemüth,” and what Homer expresses through
φιλον ἠτορ, is attributed to the _heart_. Accordingly we say: He has a bad
heart;—his heart is in the thing;—it comes from his heart;—it cut him to
the heart;—it breaks his heart;—his heart bleeds;—the heart leaps for
joy;—who can see the heart of man?—it is heart-rending, heart-crushing,
heart-breaking, heart-inspiring, heart-touching;—he is good-hearted,
hard-hearted, heartless, stout-hearted, faint-hearted, &c. &c. Quite
specially, however, love affairs are called affairs of the heart,
_affaires de cœur_; because the sexual impulse is the focus of the will,
and the selection with reference to it constitutes the chief concern of
natural, human volition, the ground of which I shall show in a full
chapter supplementary to the fourth book. Byron in “Don Juan,” c. xi. v.
34, is satirical about love being to women an affair of the head instead
of an affair of the heart. On the other hand, the _head_ denotes
everything that is matter of _knowledge_. Hence a man of head, a good
head, a fine head, a bad head, to lose one’s head, to keep one’s head
uppermost, &c. Heart and head signifies the whole man. But the head is
always the second, the derived; for it is not the centre but the highest
efflorescence of the body. When a hero dies his heart is embalmed, not his
brain; on the other hand, we like to preserve the skull of the poet, the
artist, and the philosopher. So Raphael’s skull was preserved in the
Academia di S. Luca at Rome, though it has lately been proved not to be
genuine; in Stockholm in 1820 the skull of Descartes was sold by
auction.(33)

A true feeling of the real relation between will, intellect, and life is
also expressed in the Latin language. The intellect is _mens_, νους; the
will again is _animus_, which comes from _anima_, and this from ανεμων.
_Anima_ is the life itself, the breath, ψυχη; but _animus_ is the living
principle, and also the will, the subject of inclinations, intentions,
passions, emotions; hence also _est mihi animus_,—_fert animus_,—for “I
have a desire to,” also _animi causa_, &c.; it is the Greek θυμος, the
German “Gemüth,” thus the heart but not the head. _Animi perturbatio_ is
an emotion; _mentis perturbatio_ would signify insanity. The predicate
_immortalis_ is attributed to _animus_, not to _mens_. All this is the
rule gathered from the great majority of passages; though in the case of
conceptions so nearly related it cannot but be that the words are
sometimes interchanged. Under ψυχη the Greeks appear primarily and
originally to have understood the vital force, the living principle,
whereby at once arose the dim sense that it must be something
metaphysical, which consequently would not be reached by death. Among
other proofs of this are the investigations of the relation between νους
and ψυχη preserved by Stobæus (_Ecl._, Lib. i. c. 51, § 7, 8).

10. Upon what depends the _identity of the person_? Not upon the matter of
the body; it is different after a few years. Not upon its form, which
changes as a whole and in all its parts; all but the expression of the
glance, by which, therefore, we still know a man even after many years;
which proves that in spite of all changes time produces in him something
in him remains quite untouched by it. It is just this by which we
recognise him even after the longest intervals of time, and find the
former man entire. It is the same with ourselves, for, however old we
become, we yet feel within that we are entirely the same as we were when
we were young, nay, when we were still children. This, which unaltered
always remains quite the same, and does not grow old along with us, is
really the kernel of our nature, which does not lie in time. It is assumed
that the identity of the person rests upon that of consciousness. But by
this is understood merely the connected recollection of the course of
life; hence it is not sufficient. We certainly know something more of our
life than of a novel we have formerly read, yet only very little. The
principal events, the interesting scenes, have impressed themselves upon
us; in the remainder a thousand events are forgotten for one that has been
retained. The older we become the more do things pass by us without
leaving any trace. Great age, illness, injury of the brain, madness, may
deprive us of memory altogether, but the identity of the person is not
thereby lost. It rests upon the identical _will_ and the unalterable
character of the person. It is it also which makes the expression of the
glance unchangeable. In the _heart_ is the man, not in the head. It is
true that, in consequence of our relation to the external world, we are
accustomed to regard as our real self the subject of knowledge, the
knowing I, which wearies in the evening, vanishes in sleep, and in the
morning shines brighter with renewed strength. This is, however, the mere
function of the brain, and not our own self. Our true self, the kernel of
our nature, is what is behind that, and really knows nothing but willing
and not willing, being content and not content, with all the modifications
of this, which are called feelings, emotions, and passions. This is that
which produces the other, does not sleep with it when it sleeps, and in
the same way when it sinks in death remains uninjured. Everything, on the
contrary, that belongs to _knowledge_ is exposed to oblivion; even actions
of moral significance can sometimes, after years, be only imperfectly
recalled, and we no longer know accurately and in detail how we acted on a
critical occasion. But the _character itself_, to which the actions only
testify, cannot be forgotten by us; it is now still quite the same as
then. The will itself, alone and for itself, is permanent, for it alone is
unchangeable, indestructible, not growing old, not physical, but
metaphysical, not belonging to the phenomenal appearance, but to that
itself which so appears. How the identity of consciousness also, so far as
it goes, depends upon it I have shown above in chapter 15, so I need not
dwell upon it further here.

11. Aristotle says in passing, in his book on the comparison of the
desirable, “To live well is better than to live” (βελτιον του ζῃν το ευ
ζῃν, Top. iii. 2). From this we might infer, by double contraposition, not
to live is better than to live badly. This is also evident to the
intellect; yet the great majority live very badly rather than not at all.
This clinging to life cannot therefore have its ground in the _object_ of
life, since life, as was shown in the fourth book, is really a constant
suffering, or at the least, as will be shown further on in the 28th
chapter, a business which does not cover its expenses; thus that clinging
to life can only be founded in the _subject_ of it. But it is not founded
in the _intellect_, it is no result of reflection, and in general is not a
matter of choice; but this willing of life is something that is taken for
granted: it is a _prius_ of the intellect itself. We ourselves are the
will to live, and therefore we must live, well or ill. Only from the fact
that this clinging to a life which is so little worth to them is entirely
_a priori_ and not a _posteriori_ can we explain the excessive fear of
death that dwells in every living thing, which Rochefoucauld has expressed
in his last reflection, with rare frankness and naïveté, and upon which
the effect of all tragedies and heroic actions ultimately rest, for it
would be lost if we prized life only according to its objective worth.
Upon this inexpressible _horror mortis_ is also founded the favourite
principle of all ordinary minds, that whosoever takes his own life must be
mad; yet not less the astonishment, mingled with a certain admiration,
which this action always excites even in thinking minds, because it is so
opposed to the nature of all living beings that in a certain sense we are
forced to admire him who is able to perform it. For suicide proceeds from
a purpose of the intellect, but our will to live is a _prius_ of the
intellect. Thus this consideration also, which will be fully discussed in
chapter 28, confirms the primacy of the will in self-consciousness.

12. On the other hand, nothing proves more clearly the secondary,
dependent, conditioned nature of the _intellect_ than its periodical
intermittance. In deep sleep all knowing and forming of ideas ceases. But
the kernel of our nature, the metaphysical part of it which the organic
functions necessarily presuppose as their _primum mobile_, must never
pause if life is not to cease, and, moreover, as something metaphysical
and therefore incorporeal, it requires no rest. Therefore the philosophers
who set up a _soul_ as this metaphysical kernel, _i.e._, an originally and
essentially _knowing_ being, see themselves forced to the assertion that
this soul is quite untiring in its perceiving and knowing, therefore
continues these even in deep sleep; only that we have no recollection of
this when we awake. The falseness of this assertion, however, was easy to
see whenever one had rejected that _soul_ in consequence of Kant’s
teaching. For sleep and waking prove to the unprejudiced mind in the
clearest manner that knowing is a secondary function and conditioned by
the organism, just like any other. Only the _heart_ is untiring, because
its beating and the circulation of the blood are not directly conditioned
by nerves, but are just the original manifestation of the will. Also all
other physiological functions governed merely by ganglionic nerves, which
have only a very indirect and distant connection with the brain, are
carried on during sleep, although the secretions take place more slowly;
the beating of the heart itself, on account of its dependence upon
respiration, which is conditioned by the cerebral system (_medulla
oblongata_), becomes with it a little slower. The stomach is perhaps most
active in sleep, which is to be attributed to its special consensus with
the now resting brain, which occasions mutual disturbances. The _brain_
alone, and with it knowing, pauses entirely in deep sleep. For it is
merely the minister of foreign affairs, as the ganglion system is the
minister of the interior. The brain, with its function of knowing, is only
a _vedette_ established by the will for its external ends, which, up in
the watch-tower of the head, looks round through the windows of the senses
and marks where mischief threatens and where advantages are to be looked
for, and in accordance with whose report the will decides. This _vedette_,
like every one engaged on active service, is then in a condition of strain
and effort, and therefore it is glad when, after its watch is completed,
it is again withdrawn, as every watch gladly retires from its post. This
withdrawal is going to sleep, which is therefore so sweet and agreeable,
and to which we are so glad to yield; on the other hand, being roused from
sleep is unwelcome, because it recalls the _vedette_ suddenly to its post.
One generally feels also after the beneficent systole the reappearance of
the difficult diastole, the reseparation of the intellect from the will. A
so-called _soul_, which was originally and radically a _knowing_ being,
would, on the contrary, necessarily feel on awaking like a fish put back
into water. In sleep, when merely the vegetative life is carried on, the
will works only according to its original and essential nature,
undisturbed from without, with no diminution of its power through the
activity of the brain and the exertion of knowing, which is the heaviest
organic function, yet for the organism merely a means, not an end;
therefore, in sleep the whole power of the will is directed to the
maintenance and, where it is necessary, the improvement of the organism.
Hence all healing, all favourable crises, take place in sleep; for the
_vis naturæ medicatrix_ has free play only when it is delivered from the
burden of the function of knowledge. The embryo which has still to form
the body therefore sleeps continuously, and the new-born child the greater
part of its time. In this sense Burdach (_Physiologie_, vol. iii. p. 484)
quite rightly declares sleep to be the _original state_.

With reference to the brain itself, I account to myself for the necessity
of sleep more fully through an hypothesis which appears to have been first
set up in Neumann’s book, “_Von den Krankheiten des Menschen_,” 1834, vol.
4, § 216. It is this, that the nutrition of the brain, thus the renewal of
its substance from the blood, cannot go on while we are awake, because the
very eminent organic function of knowing and thinking would be disturbed
or put an end to by the low and material function of nutrition. This
explains the fact that sleep is not a purely negative condition, a mere
pausing of the activity of the brain, but also shows a positive character.
This makes itself known through the circumstance that between sleep and
waking there is no mere difference of degree, but a fixed boundary, which,
as soon as sleep intervenes, declares itself in dreams which are
completely different from our immediately preceding thoughts. A further
proof of this is that when we have dreams which frighten us we try in vain
to cry out, or to ward off attacks, or to shake off sleep; so that it is
as if the connecting-link between the brain and the motor nerves, or
between the cerebrum and the cerebellum (as the regulator of movements)
were abolished; for the brain remains in its isolation and sleep holds us
fast as with brazen claws. Finally, the positive character of sleep can be
seen in the fact that a certain degree of strength is required for
sleeping. Therefore too great fatigue or natural weakness prevent us from
seizing it, _capere somnum_. This may be explained from the fact that the
_process of nutrition_ must be introduced if sleep is to ensue: the brain
must, as it were, begin to feed. Moreover, the increased flow of blood
into the brain during sleep is explicable from the nutritive process; and
also the position of the arms laid together above the head, which is
instinctively assumed because it furthers this process: also why children,
so long as their brain is still growing, require a great deal of sleep,
while in old age, on the other hand, when a certain atrophy of the brain,
as of all the parts, takes place, sleep is short; and finally why
excessive sleep produces a certain dulness of consciousness, the
consequence of a certain hypertrophy of the brain, which in the case of
habitual excess of sleep may become permanent and produce imbecility: ανιη
και πολυς ὑπνος (_noxæ est etiam multus somnus_), Od. 15, 394. The need of
sleep is therefore directly proportionate to the intensity of the
brain-life, thus to the clearness of the consciousness. Those animals
whose brain-life is weak and dull sleep little and lightly; for example,
reptiles and fishes: and here I must remind the reader that the winter
sleep is sleep almost only in name, for it is not an inaction of the brain
alone, but of the whole organism, thus a kind of apparent death. Animals
of considerable intelligence sleep deeply and long. Men also require more
sleep the more developed, both as regards quantity and quality, and the
more active their brain is. Montaigne relates of himself that he had
always been a long sleeper, that he had passed a large part of his life in
sleeping, and at an advanced age still slept from eight to nine hours at a
time (Liv. iii., chap. 13). Descartes also is reported to have slept a
great deal (Baillet, _Vie de Descartes_, 1693, p. 288). Kant allowed
himself seven hours for sleep, but it was so hard for him to do with this
that he ordered his servant to force him against his will, and without
listening to his remonstrances, to get up at the set time (Jachmann,
_Immanuel Kant_, p. 162). For the more completely awake a man is, _i.e._,
the clearer and more lively his consciousness, the greater for him is the
necessity of sleep, thus the deeper and longer he sleeps. Accordingly much
thinking or hard brain-work increases the need of sleep. That sustained
muscular exertion also makes us sleepy is to be explained from the fact
that in this the brain continuously, by means of the _medulla oblongata_,
the spinal marrow, and the motor nerves, imparts the stimulus to the
muscles which affects their irritability, and in this way it exhausts its
strength. The fatigue which we observe in the arms and legs has
accordingly its real seat in the brain; just as the pain which these parts
feel is really experienced in the brain; for it is connected with the
motor nerves, as with the nerves of sense. The muscles which are not
actuated from the brain—for example, those of the heart—accordingly never
tire. The same grounds explain the fact that both during and after great
muscular exertion we cannot think acutely. That one has far less energy of
mind in summer than in winter is partly explicable from the fact that in
summer one sleeps less; for the deeper one has slept, the more completely
awake, the more lively, is one afterwards. This, however, must not mislead
us into extending sleep unduly, for then it loses in intension, _i.e._, in
deepness and soundness, what it gains in extension; whereby it becomes
mere loss of time. This is what Goethe means when he says (in the second
part of “Faust”) of morning slumber: “Sleep is husk: throw it off.” Thus
in general the phenomenon of sleep most specially confirms the assertion
that consciousness, apprehension, knowing, thinking, is nothing original
in us, but a conditioned and secondary state. It is a luxury of nature,
and indeed its highest, which it can therefore the less afford to pursue
without interruption the higher the pitch to which it has been brought. It
is the product, the efflorescence of the cerebral nerve-system, which is
itself nourished like a parasite by the rest of the organism. This also
agrees with what is shown in our third book, that knowing is so much the
purer and more perfect the more it has freed and severed itself from the
will, whereby the purely objective, the æsthetic comprehension appears.
Just as an extract is so much the purer the more it has been separated
from that out of which it is extracted and been cleared of all sediment.
The opposite is shown by the _will_, whose most immediate manifestation is
the whole organic life, and primarily the untiring heart.

This last consideration is related to the theme of the following chapter,
to which it therefore makes the transition: yet the following observation
belongs to it. In magnetic somnambulism the consciousness is doubled: two
trains of knowledge, each connected in itself, but quite different from
each other, arise; the waking consciousness knows nothing of the
somnambulent. But the will retains in both the same character, and remains
throughout identical; it expresses in both the same inclinations and
aversions. For the function may be doubled, but not the true nature.




Chapter XX.(34) Objectification Of The Will In The Animal Organism.


By _objectification_ I understand the self-exhibition in the real
corporeal world. However, this world itself, as was fully shown in the
first book and its supplements, is throughout conditioned by the knowing
subject, thus by the intellect, and therefore as such is absolutely
inconceivable outside the knowledge of this subject; for it primarily
consists simply of ideas of perception, and as such is a phenomenon of the
brain. After its removal the thing in itself would remain. That this is
the _will_ is the theme of the second book, and is there proved first of
all in the human organism and in that of the brutes.

The knowledge of the external world may also be defined as the
_consciousness of other things_, in opposition to _self-consciousness_.
Since we have found in the latter that its true object or material is the
will, we shall now, with the same intention, take into consideration the
consciousness of other things, thus objective knowledge. Now here my
thesis is this: _that which in self-consciousness, thus subjectively is
the intellect, presents itself in the consciousness of other things, thus
objectively, as the brain; and that which in self-consciousness, thus
subjectively, is the will, presents itself in the consciousness of other
things, thus objectively, as the whole organism_.

To the evidence which is given in support of this proposition, both in our
second book and in the first two chapters of the treatise “_Ueber den
Willen in der Natur_,” I add the following supplementary remarks and
illustrations.

Nearly all that is necessary to establish the first part of this thesis
has already been brought forward in the preceding chapter, for in the
necessity of sleep, in the alterations that arise from age, and in the
differences of the anatomical conformation, it was proved that the
intellect is of a secondary nature, and depends absolutely upon a single
organ, the brain, whose function it is, just as grasping is the function
of the hand; that it is therefore physical, like digestion, not
metaphysical, like the will. As good digestion requires a healthy, strong
stomach, as athletic power requires muscular sinewy arms, so extraordinary
intelligence requires an unusually developed, beautifully formed brain of
exquisitely fine texture and animated by a vigorous pulse. The nature of
the will, on the contrary, is dependent upon no organ, and can be
prognosticated from none. The greatest error in Gall’s phrenology is that
he assigns organs of the brain for moral qualities also. Injuries to the
head, with loss of brain substance, affect the intellect as a rule very
disadvantageously: they result in complete or partial imbecility or
forgetfulness of language, permanent or temporary, yet sometimes only of
one language out of several which were known, also in the loss of other
knowledge possessed, &c., &c. On the other hand, we never read that after
a misfortune of this kind the _character_ has undergone a change, that the
man has perhaps become morally worse or better, or has lost certain
inclinations or passions, or assumed new ones; never. For the will has not
its seat in the brain, and moreover, as that which is metaphysical, it is
the _prius_ of the brain, as of the whole body, and therefore cannot be
altered by injuries of the brain. According to an experiment made by
Spallanzani and repeated by Voltaire,(35) a snail that has had its head
cut off remains alive, and after some weeks a new head grows on, together
with horns; with this consciousness and ideas again appear; while till
then the snail had only given evidence of blind will through unregulated
movements. Thus here also we find the will as the substance which is
permanent, the intellect, on the contrary, conditioned by its organ, as
the changing accident. It may be defined as the regulator of the will.

It was perhaps Tiedemann who first compared the cerebral nervous system to
a _parasite_ (_Tiedemann und Trevirann’s Journal für Physiologie_, Bd. i.
§ 62). The comparison is happy; for the brain, together with the spinal
cord and nerves which depend upon it, is, as it were, implanted in the
organism, and is nourished by it without on its part _directly_
contributing anything to the support of the economy of the organism;
therefore there can be life without a brain, as in the case of brainless
abortions, and also in the case of tortoises, which live for three weeks
after their heads have been cut off; only the _medulla oblongata_, as the
organ of respiration, must be spared. Indeed a hen whose whole brain
Flourens had cut away lived for ten months and grew. Even in the case of
men the destruction of the brain does not produce death directly, but only
through the medium of the lungs, and then of the heart (_Bichat, Sur la
Vie et la Mort_, Part ii., art. ii. § 1). On the other hand, the brain
controls the relations to the external world; this alone is its office,
and hereby it discharges its debt to the organism which nourishes it,
since its existence is conditioned by the external relations. Accordingly
the brain alone of all the parts requires sleep, because its _activity_ is
completely distinct from its _support_; the former only consumes both
strength and substance, the latter is performed by the rest of the
organism as the nurse of the brain: thus because its activity contributes
nothing to its continued existence it becomes exhausted, and only when it
pauses in sleep does its nourishment go on unhindered.

The second part of our thesis, stated above, will require a fuller
exposition even after all that I have said about it in the writings
referred to. I have shown above, in chapter 18, that the thing in itself,
which must lie at the foundation of every phenomenon, and therefore of our
own phenomenal existence also, throws off in self-consciousness _one_ of
its phenomenal forms—space, and only retains the other—time. On this
account it presents itself here more immediately than anywhere else, and
we claim it as will, according to its most undisguised manifestation. But
no _permanent substance_, such as matter is, can present itself in time
alone, because, as § 4 of the first volume showed, such a substance is
only possible through the intimate union of space and time. Therefore, in
self-consciousness the will is not apprehended as the enduring substratum
of its impulses, therefore is not perceived as a permanent substance; but
only its individual acts, such as purposes, wishes, and emotions, are
known successively and during the time they last, directly, yet not
perceptibly. The knowledge of the will in self-consciousness is
accordingly not a _perception_ of it, but a perfectly direct becoming
aware of its successive impulses. On the other hand, for the knowledge
which is directed _outwardly_, brought about by the senses and perfected
in the understanding, which, besides time, has also space for its form,
which two it connects in the closest manner by means of the function of
the understanding, causality, whereby it really becomes _perception_—this
knowledge presents to itself _perceptibly_ what in inner immediate
apprehension was conceived as will, as _organic body_, whose particular
movements visibly present to us the acts, and whose parts and forms
visibly present to us the sustained efforts, the fundamental character, of
the individually given will, nay, whose pain and comfort are perfectly
immediate affections of this will itself.

We first become aware of this identity of the body with the will in the
individual actions of the two, for in these what is known in
self-consciousness as an immediate, real act of will, at the same time and
unseparated, exhibits itself outwardly as movement of the body; and every
one beholds the purposes of his will, which are instantaneously brought
about by motives which just as instantaneously appear at once as
faithfully copied in as many actions of his body as his body itself is
copied in his shadow; and from this, for the unprejudiced man, the
knowledge arises in the simplest manner that his body is merely the
outward manifestation of his will, _i.e._, the way in which his will
exhibits itself in his perceiving intellect, or his will itself under the
form of the idea. Only if we forcibly deprive ourselves of this primary
and simple information can we for a short time marvel at the process of
our own bodily action as a miracle, which then rests on the fact that
between the act of will and the action of the body there is really no
causal connection, for they are directly _identical_, and their apparent
difference only arises from the circumstance that here what is one and the
same is apprehended in two different modes of knowledge, the outer and the
inner. Actual willing is, in fact, inseparable from doing and in the
strictest sense only that is an act of will which the deed sets its seal
to. Mere resolves of the will, on the contrary, till they are carried out,
are only intentions, and are therefore matter of the intellect alone; as
such they have their place merely in the brain, and are nothing more than
completed calculations of the relative strength of the different opposing
motives. They have, therefore, certainly great probability, but no
infallibility. They may turn out false, not only through alteration of the
circumstances, but also from the fact that the estimation of the effect of
the respective motives upon the will itself was erroneous, which then
shows itself, for the deed is untrue to the purpose: therefore before it
is carried out no resolve is certain. The _will itself_, then, is
operative only in real action; hence in muscular action, and consequently
in _irritability_. Thus the _will_ proper objectifies itself in this. The
cerebrum is the place of motives, where, through these, the will becomes
choice, _i.e._, becomes more definitely determined by motives. These
motives are ideas, which, on the occasion of external stimuli of the
organs of sense, arise by means of the functions of the brain, and are
also worked up into conceptions, and then into resolves. When it comes to
the real act of will these motives, the workshop of which is the cerebrum,
act through the medium of the cerebellum upon the spinal cord and the
motor nerves which proceed from it, which then act upon the muscles, yet
merely as _stimuli_ of their irritability; for galvanic, chemical, and
even mechanical stimuli can effect the same contraction which the motor
nerve calls forth. Thus what was _motive_ in the brain acts, when it
reaches the muscle through the nerves, as mere stimulus. Sensibility in
itself is quite unable to contract a muscle. This can only be done by the
muscle itself, and its capacity for doing so is called _irritability_,
_i.e._, _susceptibility to stimuli_. It is exclusively a property of the
muscle, as sensibility is exclusively a property of the nerve. The latter
indeed gives the muscle the _occasion_ for its contraction, but it is by
no means it that, in some mechanical way, draws the muscle together; but
this happens simply and solely on account of the _irritability_, which is
a power of the muscle itself. Apprehended from without this is a _Qualitas
occulta_, and only self-consciousness reveals it as the _will_. In the
causal chain here briefly set forth, from the effect of the motive lying
outside us to the contraction of the muscle, the will does not in some way
come in as the last link of the chain; but it is the metaphysical
substratum of the irritability of the muscle: thus it plays here precisely
the same part which in a physical or chemical chain of causes is played by
the mysterious forces of nature which lie at the foundation of the
process—forces which as such are not themselves involved as links in the
causal chain, but impart to all the links of it the capacity to act, as I
have fully shown in § 26 of the first volume. Therefore we would ascribe
the contraction of the muscle also to a similar mysterious force of
nature, if it were not that this contraction is disclosed to us by an
entirely different source of knowledge—self-consciousness as _will_.
Hence, as was said above, if we start from the will our own muscular
movement appears to us a miracle; for indeed there is a strict causal
chain from the external motive to the muscular action; but the will itself
is not included as a link in it, but, as the metaphysical substratum of
the possibility of an action upon the muscle through brain and nerve, lies
at the foundation of the present muscular action also; therefore the
latter is not properly its _effect_ but its _manifestation_. As such it
enters the world of idea, the form of which is the law of causality, a
world which is entirely different from the _will_ in itself: and thus, if
we start from the _will_, this manifestation has, for attentive
reflection, the appearance of a miracle, but for deeper investigation it
affords the most direct authentication of the great truth that what
appears in the phenomenon as body and its action is in itself _will_. If
now perhaps the motor nerve that leads to my hand is severed, the will can
no longer move it. This, however, is not because the hand has ceased to
be, like every part of my body, the objectivity, the mere visibility, of
my will, or in other words, that the irritability has vanished, but
because the effect of the motive, in consequence of which alone I can move
my hand, cannot reach it and act on its muscles as a stimulus, for the
line of connection between it and the brain is broken. Thus really my will
is, in this part, only deprived of the effect of the motive. The will
objectifies itself directly, in irritability, not in sensibility.

In order to prevent all misunderstandings about this important point,
especially such as proceed from physiology pursued in a purely empirical
manner, I shall explain the whole process somewhat more thoroughly. My
doctrine asserts that the whole body is the will itself, exhibiting itself
in the perception of the brain; consequently, having entered into its
forms of knowledge. From this it follows that the will is everywhere
equally present in the whole body, as is also demonstrably the case, for
the organic functions are its work no less than the animal. But how, then,
can we reconcile it with this, that the _voluntary_ actions, those most
undeniable expressions of the will, clearly originate in the brain, and
thus only through the spinal cord reach the nerve fibres, which finally
set the limbs in motion, and the paralysis or severing of which therefore
prevents the possibility of voluntary movement? This would lead one to
think that the will, like the intellect, has its seat only in the brain,
and, like it, is a mere function of the brain.

Yet this is not the case: but the whole body is and remains the exhibition
of the will in perception, thus the will itself objectively perceived by
means of the functions of the brain. That process, however, in the case of
the acts of will, depends upon the fact that the will, which, according to
my doctrine, expresses itself in every phenomenon of nature, even in
vegetable and inorganic phenomena, appears in the bodies of men and
animals as a _conscious will_. A _consciousness_, however, is essentially
a unity, and therefore always requires a central point of unity. The
necessity of consciousness is, as I have often explained, occasioned by
the fact that in consequence of the increased complication, and thereby
more multifarious wants, of an organism, the acts of its will must be
guided by _motives_, no longer, as in the lower grades, by mere stimuli.
For this purpose it had at this stage to appear provided with a knowing
consciousness, thus with an intellect, as the medium and place of the
motives. This intellect, if itself objectively perceived, exhibits itself
as the brain, together with its appendages, spinal cord, and nerves. It is
the brain now in which, on the occasion of external impressions, the ideas
arise which become motives for the will. But in the _rational_ intellect
they undergo besides this a still further working up, through reflection
and deliberation. Thus such an intellect must first of all unite in _one_
point all impressions, together with the working up of them by its
functions, whether to mere perception or to conceptions, a point which
will be, as it were, the focus of all its rays, in order that that unity
of consciousness may arise which is the the _theoretical ego_, the
supporter of the whole consciousness, in which it presents itself as
identical with the _willing ego_, whose mere function of knowledge it is.
That point of unity of consciousness, or the theoretical ego, is just
Kant’s synthetic unity of apperception, upon which all ideas string
themselves as on a string of pearls, and on account of which the “I
think,” as the thread of the string of pearls, “must be capable of
accompanying all our ideas.”(36) This assembling-place of the motives,
then, where their entrance into the single focus of consciousness takes
place, is the brain. Here, in the non-rational consciousness, they are
merely perceived; in the _rational_ consciousness they are elucidated by
conceptions, thus are first thought in the abstract and compared; upon
which the will chooses, in accordance with its individual and immutable
character, and so the _purpose_ results which now, by means of the
cerebellum, the spinal cord, and the nerves, sets the outward limbs in
motion. For although the will is quite directly present in these, inasmuch
as they are merely its manifestation, yet when it has to move according to
motives, or indeed according to reflection, it requires such an apparatus
for the apprehension and working up of ideas into such motives, in
conformity with which its acts here appear as resolves: just as the
nourishment of the blood with chyle requires a stomach and intestines, in
which this is prepared, and then as such is poured into the blood through
the _ductus thoracicus_, which here plays the part which the spinal cord
plays in the former case. The matter may be most simply and generally
comprehended thus: the will is immediately present as irritability in all
the muscular fibres of the whole body, as a continual striving after
activity in general. Now if this striving is to realise itself, thus to
manifest itself as movement, this movement must as such have some
direction; but this direction must be _determined_ by something, _i.e._,
it requires a guide, and this is the nervous system. For to the mere
irritability, as it lies in the muscular fibres and in itself is pure
will, all directions are alike; thus it determines itself in no direction,
but behaves like a body which is equally drawn in all directions; it
remains at rest. Since the activity of the nerves comes in as motive (in
the case of reflex movements as a stimulus), the striving force, _i.e._,
the irritability, receives a definite direction, and now produces the
movements. Yet those external acts of will which require no motives, and
thus also no working up of mere stimuli into ideas in the brain, from
which motives arise, but which follow immediately upon stimuli, for the
most part inward stimuli, are the reflex movements, starting only from the
spinal cord, as, for example, spasms and cramp, in which the will acts
without the brain taking part. In an analogous manner the will carries on
the organic life, also by nerve stimulus, which does not proceed from the
brain. Thus the will appears in every muscle as irritability, and is
consequently of itself in a position to contract them, yet only _in
general_; in order that some definite contraction should take place at a
given moment, there is required here, as everywhere, a cause, which in
this case must be a stimulus. This is everywhere given by the nerve which
goes into the muscle. If this nerve is in connection with the brain, then
the contraction is a conscious act of will, _i.e._, takes place in
accordance with motives, which, in consequence of _external_ impressions,
have arisen as ideas in the brain. If the nerve is _not_ in connection
with the brain, but with the _sympathicus maximus_, then the contraction
is involuntary and unconscious, an act connected with the maintenance of
the organic life, and the nerve stimulus which causes it is occasioned by
_inward_ impressions; for example, by the pressure upon the stomach of the
food received, or of the chyme upon the intestines, or of the in-flowing
blood upon the walls of the heart, in accordance with which the act is
digestion, or _motus peristalticus_, or beating of the heart, &c.

But if now, in this process, we go one step further, we find that the
muscles are the product of the blood, the result of its work of
condensation, nay, to a certain extent they are merely solidified, or, as
it were, clotted or crystallised blood; for they have taken up into
themselves, almost unaltered, its fibrin (_cruor_) and its colouring
matter (_Burdach’s Physiologie_, Bd. v. § 686). But the force which forms
the muscle out of the blood must not be assumed to be different from that
which afterwards moves it as irritability, upon nerve stimulus, which the
brain supplies; in which case it then presents itself in
self-consciousness as that which we call _will_. The close connection
between the blood and irritability is also shown by this, that where, on
account of imperfection of the lesser circulation, part of the blood
returns to the heart unoxidised, the irritability is also uncommonly weak,
as in the batrachia. Moreover, the movement of the blood, like that of the
muscle, is independent and original; it does not, like irritation, require
the influence of the nerve, and is even independent of the heart, as is
shown most clearly by the return of the blood through the veins to the
heart; for here it is not propelled by a _vis a tergo_, as in the case of
the arterial circulation; and all other mechanical explanations, such as a
power of suction of the right ventricle of the heart, are quite
inadequate. (See _Burdach’s Physiologie_, Bd. 4, § 763, and _Rösch, Ueber
die Bedeutung des Blutes, § II, seq._) It is remarkable to see how the
French, who recognise nothing but mechanical forces, controvert each other
with insufficient grounds upon both sides; and Bichat ascribes the flowing
back of the blood through the veins to the pressure of the walls of the
capillary tubes, and Magendie, on the other hand, to the continue action
of the impulse of the heart (_Précis de Physiologie par Magendie_, vol.
ii. p. 389). That the movement of the blood is also independent of the
nervous system, at least of the cerebral nervous system, is shown by the
fetus, which (according to _Müller’s Physiologie_), without brain and
spinal cord, has yet circulation of the blood. And Flourens also says:
“_Le mouvement du cœur, pris en soi, et abstraction faite de tout ce qui
n’est pas essentiellement lui, comme sa durée, son énergie, ne dépend ni
immédiatement, ni coinstantanément, du système nerveux central, et
conséquemment c’est dans tout autre point de ce système que dans les
centres nerveux eux-mêmes, qu’il faut chercher le principe primitif et
immédiat de ce mouvement_” (_Annales des sciences naturelles p. Audouin et
Brougniard_, 1828, vol. 13). Cuvier also says: “_La circulation survit à
la déstruction de tout l’encéphale et de toute la moëlle épiniaire_ (_Mém.
de l’acad. d. sc._, 1823, vol. 6; _Hist. d. l’acad. p. Cuvier_,” p. cxxx).
“_Cor primum vivens et ultimum moriens_,” says Haller. The beating of the
heart ceases at last in death. The blood has made the vessels themselves;
for it appears in the ovum earlier than they do; they are only its path,
voluntarily taken, then beaten smooth, and finally gradually condensed and
closed up; as Kaspar Wolff has already taught: “_Theorie der Generation_,”
§ 30-35. The motion of the heart also, which is inseparable from that of
the blood, although occasioned by the necessity of sending blood into the
lungs, is yet an original motion, for it is independent of the nervous
system and of sensibility, as Burdach fully shows. “In the heart,” he
says, “appears, with the maximum of irritability, a minimum of
sensibility” (_loc. cit._, § 769). The heart belongs to the muscular
system as well as to the blood or vascular system; from which, however, it
is clear that the two are closely related, indeed constitute one whole.
Since now the metaphysical substratum of the force which moves the muscle,
thus of irritability, is the _will_, the will must also be the
metaphysical substratum of the force which lies at the foundation of the
movement and the formations of the blood, as that by which the muscles are
produced. The course of the arteries also determines the form and size of
all the limbs; consequently the whole form of the body is determined by
the course of the blood. Thus in general the blood, as it nourishes all
the parts of the body, has also, as the primary fluidity of the organism,
produced and framed them out of itself. And the nourishment which
confessedly constitutes the principal function of the blood is only the
continuance of that original production of them. This truth will be found
thoroughly and excellently explained in the work of Rösch referred to
above: “_Ueber die Bedeutung des Blutes_,” 1839. He shows that the blood
is that which first has life and is the source both of the existence and
of the maintenance of all the parts; that all the organs have sprung from
it through secretion, and together with them, for the management of their
functions, the nervous system, which appears now as _plastic_, ordering
and arranging the life of the particular parts within, now as _cerebral_,
controlling the relation to the external world. “The blood,” he says, p.
25, “was flesh and nerve at once, and at the same moment at which the
muscle freed itself from it the nerve, severed in like manner, remained
opposed to the flesh.” Here it is a matter of course that the blood,
before those solid parts have been secreted from it, has also a somewhat
different character from afterwards; it is then, as Rösch defines it, the
chaotic, animated, slimy, primitive fluid, as it were an organic emulsion,
in which all subsequent parts are _implicite_ contained: moreover, it has
not the red colour quite at the beginning. This disposes of the objection
which might be drawn from the fact that the brain and the spinal cord
begin to form before the circulation of the blood is visible or the heart
appears. In this reference also Schultz says (_System der Circulation_, §
297): “We do not believe that the view of Baūmgärten, according to which
the nervous system is formed earlier than the blood, can consistently be
carried out; for Baūmgärten reckons the appearance of the blood only from
the formation of the corpuscles, while in the embryo and in the series of
animals blood appears much earlier in the form of a pure plasma.” The
blood of invertebrate animals never assumes the red colour; but we do not
therefore, with Aristotle, deny that they have any. It is well worthy of
note that, according to the account of Justinus Kerner (_Geschichte zweier
Somnambulen_, § 78), a somnambulist of a very high degree of clairvoyance,
says: “I am as deep in myself as ever a man can be led; the force of my
mortal life seems to me to have its source in the blood, whereby, through
the circulation in the veins, it communicates itself, by means of the
nerves, to the whole body, and to the brain, which is the noblest part of
the body, and above the blood itself.”

From all this it follows that the will objectifies itself most immediately
in the blood as that which originally makes and forms the organism,
perfects it by growth, and afterwards constantly maintains it, both by the
regular renewal of all the parts and by the extraordinary restoration of
any part that may have been injured. The first productions of the blood
are its own vessels, and then the muscles, in the irritability of which
the will makes itself known to self-consciousness; but with this also the
heart, which is at once vessel and muscle, and therefore is the true
centre and _primum mobile_ of the whole life. But for the individual life
and subsistence in the external world the will now requires two assistant
systems: _one_ to govern and order its inner and outer activity, and
_another_ for the constant renewal of the mass of the blood; thus a
controller and a sustainer. It therefore makes for itself the nervous and
the intestinal systems; thus the _functiones animales_ and the _functiones
naturales_ associate themselves in a subsidiary manner with the
_functiones vitales_, which are the most original and essential. In the
_nervous system_, accordingly, the will only objectifies itself in an
indirect and secondary way; for this system appears as a mere auxiliary
organ, as a contrivance by means of which the will attains to a knowledge
of those occasions, internal and external, upon which, in conformity with
its aims, it must express itself; the internal occasions are received by
the _plastic_ nervous system, thus by the sympathetic nerve, this
_cerebrum abdominale_, as mere stimuli, and the will thereupon reacts on
the spot without the brain being conscious; the _outward_ occasions are
received by the brain, as _motives_, and the will reacts through conscious
actions directed outwardly. Therefore the whole nervous system
constitutes, as it were, the antennæ of the will, which it stretches
towards within and without. The nerves of the brain and spinal cord
separate at their roots into sensory and motory nerves. The sensory nerves
receive the knowledge from without, which now accumulates in the thronging
brain, and is there worked up into ideas, which arise primarily as
motives. But the motory nerves bring back, like couriers, the result of
the brain function to the muscle, upon which it acts as a stimulus, and
the irritability of which is the immediate manifestation of the will.
Presumably the plastic nerves also divide into sensory and motory,
although on a subordinate scale. The part which the ganglia play in the
organism we must think of as that of a diminutive brain, and thus the one
throws light upon the other. The ganglia lie wherever the organic
functions of the vegetative system require care. It is as if there the
will was not able by its direct and simple action to carry out its aims,
but required guidance, and consequently control; just as when in some
business a man’s own memory is not sufficient, and he must constantly take
notes of what he does. For this end mere knots of nerves are sufficient
for the interior of the organism, because everything goes on within its
own compass. For the exterior, on the other hand, a very complicated
contrivance of the same kind is required. This is the brain with its
feelers, which it stretches into the outer world, the nerves of sense. But
even in the organs which are in communication with this great nerve
centre, in very simple cases the matter does not need to be brought before
the highest authority, but a subordinate one is sufficient to determine
what is needed; such is the spinal cord, in the reflex actions discovered
by Marshall Hall, such as sneezing, yawning, vomiting, the second half of
swallowing, &c. &c. The will itself is present in the whole organism,
since this is merely its visible form; the nervous system exists
everywhere merely for the purpose of making the _direction_ of an action
possible by a control of it, as it were to serve the will as a mirror, so
that it may see what it does, just as we use a mirror to shave by. Hence
small sensoria arise within us for special, and consequently simple,
functions, the ganglia; but the chief sensorium, the brain, is the great
and skilfully contrived apparatus for the complicated and multifarious
functions which have to do with the ceaselessly and irregularly changing
external world. Wherever in the organism the nerve threads run together in
a ganglion, there, to a certain extent, an animal exists for itself and
shut off, which by means of the ganglion has a kind of weak knowledge, the
sphere of which is, however, limited to the part from which these nerves
directly come. But what actuates these parts to such _quasi_ knowledge is
clearly the _will_; indeed we are utterly unable to conceive it otherwise.
Upon this depends the _vita propria_ of each part, and also in the case of
insects, which, instead of a spinal cord, have a double string of nerves,
with ganglia at regular intervals, the capacity of each part to continue
alive for days after being severed from the head and the rest of the
trunk; and finally also the actions which in the last instance do not
receive their motives from the brain, _i.e._, instinct and natural
mechanical skill. Marshall Hall, whose discovery of the reflex movements I
have mentioned above, has given us in this the _theory of involuntary
movements_. Some of these are normal or physiological; such are the
closing of the places of ingress to and egress from the body, thus of the
_sphincteres vesicæ et ani_ (proceeding from the nerves of the spinal
cord); the closing of the eyelids in sleep (from the fifth pair of
nerves), of the larynx (from _N. vagus_) if food passes over it or
carbonic acid tries to enter; also swallowing, from the pharynx, yawning
and sneezing, respiration, entirely in sleep and partly when awake; and,
lastly, the erection, ejaculation, as also conception, and many more.
Some, again, are abnormal and pathological; such are stammering,
hiccoughing, vomiting, also cramps and convulsions of every kind,
especially in epilepsy, tetanus, in hydrophobia and otherwise; finally,
the convulsive movements produced by galvanic or other stimuli, and which
take place without feeling or consciousness in paralysed limbs, _i.e._, in
limbs which are out of connection with the brain, also the convulsions of
beheaded animals, and, lastly, all movements and actions of children born
without brains. All cramps are a rebellion of the nerves of the limbs
against the sovereignty of the brain; the normal reflex movements, on the
other hand, are the legitimate autocracy of the subordinate officials.
These movements are thus all involuntary, because they do not proceed from
the brain, and therefore do not take place in accordance with motives, but
follow upon mere stimuli. The stimuli which occasion them extend only to
the spinal cord or the _medulla oblongata_, and from there the reaction
directly takes place which effects the movement. The spinal cord has the
same relation to these involuntary movements as the brain has to motive
and action, and what the sentient and voluntary nerve is for the latter
the incident and motor nerve is for the former. That yet, in the one as in
the other, that which really moves is the _will_ is brought all the more
clearly to light because the involuntarily moved muscles are for the most
part the same which, under other circumstances, are moved from the brain
in the voluntary actions, in which their _primum mobile_ is intimately
known to us through self-consciousness as the _will_. Marshall Hall’s
excellent book “On the Diseases of the Nervous System” is peculiarly
fitted to bring out clearly the difference between volition and will, and
to confirm the truth of my fundamental doctrine.

For the sake of illustrating all that has been said, let us now call to
mind that case of the origination of an organism which is most accessible
to our observation. Who makes the chicken in the egg? Some power and skill
coming from without, and penetrating through the shell? Oh no! The chicken
makes itself, and the force which carries out and perfects this work,
which is complicated, well calculated, and designed beyond all expression,
breaks through the shell as soon as it is ready, and now performs the
outward actions of the chicken, under the name of _will_. It cannot do
both at once; previously occupied with the perfecting of the organism, it
had no care for without. But after it has completed the former, the latter
appears, under the guidance of the brain and its feelers, the senses, as a
tool prepared beforehand for this end, the service of which only begins
when it grows up in self-consciousness as intellect, which is the lantern
to the steps of the will, its ἡγεμονικον, and also the supporter of the
objective external world, however limited the horizon of this may be in
the consciousness of a hen. But what the hen is now able to do in the
external world, through the medium of this organ, is, as accomplished by
means of something secondary, infinitely less important than what it did
in its original form, for it made itself.

We became acquainted above with the cerebral nervous system as an
_assistant organ_ of the will, in which it therefore objectifies itself in
a secondary manner. As thus the cerebral system, although not directly
coming within the sphere of the life-functions of the organism, but only
governing its relations to the outer world, has yet the organism as its
basis, and is nourished by it in return for its services; and as thus the
cerebral or animal life is to be regarded as the production of the organic
life, the brain and its function, knowledge, thus the intellect, belong
indirectly and in a subordinate manner to the manifestation of the _will_.
The will objectifies itself also in it, as will to apprehend the external
world, thus as _will to know_. Therefore great and fundamental as is the
difference in us between willing and knowing, the ultimate substratum of
both is yet the same, the _will_, as the real inner nature of the whole
phenomenon. But knowing, the intellect, which presents itself in
self-consciousness entirely as secondary, is to be regarded not only as
the accident of the will, but also as its work, and thus, although in a
circuitous manner, is yet to be referred to it. As the intellect presents
itself physiologically as the function of an organ of the body,
metaphysically it is to be regarded as a work of the will, whose
objectification or visible appearance is the whole body. Thus the will _to
know_, objectively perceived, is the brain; as the will _to go_,
objectively perceived, is the foot; the will _to grasp_, the hand; the
will _to digest_, the stomach; the will _to beget_, the genitals, &c. This
whole objectification certainly ultimately exists only for the brain, as
its perception: in this the will exhibits itself as organised body. But so
far as the brain knows, it is _itself_ not known, but is the _knower_, the
subject of all knowledge. So far, however, as in objective perception,
_i.e._, in the consciousness of _other things_, thus secondarily, _it is
known_, it belongs, as an organ of the body, to the objectification of the
will. For the whole process is the _self-knowledge of the will_; it starts
from this and returns to it, and constitutes what Kant has called the
_phenomenon_ in opposition to the thing in itself. Therefore that which is
_known_, that which is _idea_, is the _will_; and this idea is what we
call body, which, as extended in space and moving in time, exists only by
means of the functions of the brain, thus only in it. That, on the other
hand, which _knows_, which _has that idea_, is the _brain_, which yet does
not know itself, but only becomes conscious of itself subjectively as
intellect, _i.e._, as the _knower_. That which when regarded from within
is the faculty of knowledge is when regarded from without the brain. This
brain is a part of that body, just because it itself belongs to the
objectification of the _will_, the will’s _will to know_ is objectified in
it, its tendency towards the external world. Accordingly the brain, and
therefore the intellect, is certainly conditioned immediately by the body,
and this again by the brain, yet only indirectly, as spatial and
corporeal, in the world of perception, not in itself, _i.e._, as will.
Thus the whole is ultimately the will, which itself becomes idea, and is
that unity which we express by I. The brain itself, so far as it is
_perceived_—thus in the consciousness of other things, and hence
secondarily—is only idea. But in itself, and so far as it _perceives_, it
is the will, because this is the real substratum of the whole phenomenon;
its will to know objectifies itself as brain and its functions. We may
take the voltaic pile as an illustration, certainly imperfect, but yet to
some extent throwing light upon the nature of the human phenomenon, as we
here regard it. The metals, together with the fluid, are the body; the
chemical action, as the basis of the whole effect, is the will, and the
electric current resulting from it, which produces shock and spark, is the
intellect. But _omne simile claudicat_.

Quite recently the _physiatrica_ point of view has at last prevailed in
pathology. According to it diseases are themselves a curative process of
nature, which it introduces to remove, by overcoming its causes, a
disorder which in some way has got into the organism. Thus in the decisive
battle, the crisis, it is either victorious and attains its end, or else
is defeated. This view only gains its full rationality from our
standpoint, which shows the _will_ in the vital force, that here appears
as _vis naturœ medicatrix_, the will which lies at the foundation of all
organic functions in a healthy condition, but now, when disorder has
entered, threatening its whole work, assumes dictatorial power in order to
subdue the rebellious forces by quite extraordinary measures and entirely
abnormal operations (the disease), and bring everything back to the right
track. On the other hand, that the _will itself_ is sick, as Brandis
repeatedly expresses himself in his book, “_Ueber die Anwendung der
Kälte_,” which I have quoted in the first part of my essay, “_Ueber den
Willen in der Natur_,” is a gross misunderstanding. When I weigh this, and
at the same time observe that in his earlier book, “_Ueber die
Lebenskraft_,” of 1795, Brandis betrayed no suspicion that this force is
in itself the will, but, on the contrary, says there, page 13: “It is
impossible that the vital force can be that which we only know through our
consciousness, for most movements take place without our consciousness.
The assertion that this, of which the only characteristic known to us is
consciousness, also affects the body without consciousness is at the least
quite arbitrary and unproved;” and page 14: “Haller’s objections to the
opinion that all living movements are the effect of the soul are, as I
believe, quite unanswerable;” when I further reflect that he wrote his
book, “_Ueber die Anwendung der Kälte_,” in which all at once the will
appears so decidedly as the vital force, in his seventieth year, an age at
which no one as yet has conceived for the first time original fundamental
thoughts; when, lastly, I bear in mind that he makes use of my exact
expressions, “will and idea,” and not of those which are far more commonly
used by others, “the faculties of desire and of knowledge,” I am now
convinced, contrary to my earlier supposition, that he borrowed his
fundamental thought from me, and with the usual honesty which prevails at
the present day in the learned world, said nothing about it. The
particulars about this will be found in the second (and third) edition of
my work, “_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_,” p. 14.

Nothing is more fitted to confirm and illustrate the thesis with which we
are occupied in this chapter than Bichat’s justly celebrated book, “_Sur
la vie et la mort_.” His reflections and mine reciprocally support each
other, for his are the physiological commentary on mine, and mine are the
philosophical commentary on his, and one will best understand us both by
reading us together. This refers specially to the first half of his work,
entitled “_Recherches physiologiques sur la vie_.” He makes the foundation
of his expositions the opposition of the _organic_ to the _animal_ life,
which corresponds to mine of the will to the intellect. Whoever looks at
the sense, not at the words, will not allow himself to be led astray by
the fact that he ascribes the will to the animal life; for by will, as is
usual, he only understands conscious volition, which certainly proceeds
from the brain, where, however, as was shown above, it is not yet actual
willing, but only deliberation upon and estimation of the motives, the
conclusion or product of which at last appears as the act of will. All
that I ascribe to the _will_ proper he ascribes to the _organic_ life, and
all that I conceive as _intellect_ is with him the _animal_ life: the
latter has with him its seat in the brain alone, together with its
appendages: the former, again, in the whole of the remainder of the
organism. The complete opposition in which he shows that the two stand to
each other corresponds to that which with me exists between the will and
the intellect. As anatomist and physiologist he starts from the objective,
that is, from the consciousness of other things; I, as a philosopher,
start from the subjective, self-consciousness; and it is a pleasure to see
how, like the two voices in a duet, we advance in harmony with each other,
although each expresses something different. Therefore, let every one who
wishes to understand me read him; and let every one who wishes to
understand him, better than he understood himself, read me. Bichat shows
us, in article 4, that the _organic_ life begins earlier and ends later
than the _animal_ life; consequently, since the latter also rests in
sleep, has nearly twice as long a duration; then, in articles 8 and 9,
that the organic life performs everything perfectly, at once, and of its
own accord; the animal life, on the other hand, requires long practice and
education. But he is most interesting in the sixth article, where he shows
that the _animal_ life is completely limited to the intellectual
operations, therefore goes on coldly and indifferently, while the emotions
and passions have their seat in the _organic_ life, although the occasions
of them lie in the animal, _i.e._, the cerebral, life. Here he has ten
valuable pages which I wish I could quote entire. On page 50 he says: “_Il
est sans doute étonnant, que les passions n’ayent jamais leur terme ni
leur origine dans les divers organs de la vie animale; qu’au contraire les
parties servant aux fonctions internes, soient constamment affectées par
elles, et même les déterminent suivant l’état où elles se trouvent. Tel
est cependant ce que la stricte observation nous prouve. Je dis d’abord
que l’effet de toute espèce de passion, constamment étranger à la vie
animale, est de faire naître un changement, une altération quelconque dans
la vie organique._” Then he shows in detail how anger acts on the
circulation of the blood and the beating of the heart, then how joy acts,
and lastly how fear; next, how the lungs, the stomach, the intestines, the
liver, glands, and pancreas are affected by these and kindred emotions,
and how grief diminishes the nutrition; and then how the animal, that is,
the brain life, is untouched by all this, and quietly goes on its way. He
refers to the fact that to signify intellectual operations we put the hand
to the head, but, on the contrary, we lay it on the heart, the stomach,
the bowels, if we wish to express our love, joy, sorrow, or hatred; and he
remarks that he must be a bad actor who when he spoke of his grief would
touch his head, and when he spoke of his mental effort would touch his
heart; and also that while the learned make the so-called soul reside in
the head, the common people always indicate the well-felt difference
between the affections of the intellect and the will by the right
expression, and speak, for example, of a capable, clever, fine head; but,
on the other hand, say a good heart, a feeling heart, and also “Anger
boils in my veins,” “Stirs my gall,” “My bowels leap with joy,” “Jealousy
poisons my blood,” &c. “_Les chants sont le langage des passions, de la
vie organique, comme la parole ordinaire __ est celui de l’entendement, de
la vie animale: la déclamation, tient le milieu, elle anime la langue
froide du cerveau par la langue expressive des organes intérieurs, du
cœur, du foie, de l’estomac_,” &c. His conclusion is: “_La vie organique
est le terme où aboutissent, et le centre d’où partent les passions_.”
Nothing is better fitted than this excellent and thorough book to confirm
and bring out clearly that the body is only the embodied (_i.e._,
perceived by means of the brain functions, time, space, and causality)
will itself, from which it follows that the will is the primary and
original, the intellect, as mere brain function, the subordinate and
derived. But that which is most worthy of admiration, and to me most
pleasing, in Bichat’s thought is, that this great anatomist, on the path
of his purely physiological investigations, actually got so far as to
explain the unalterable nature of the _moral character_ from the fact that
only the _animal_ life, thus the functions of the brain, are subject to
the influence of education, practice, culture, and habit, but the moral
character belongs to the _organic_ life, _i.e._, to all the other parts,
which cannot be modified from without. I cannot refrain from giving the
passage; it occurs in article 9, § 2: “_Telle est donc la grande
différence des deux vies de l’animal_” (cerebral or animal and organic
life) “_par rapport à l’inégalité de perfection des divers systèmes de
fonctions, dont chacune résulte; savoir, que dans l’une la prédominance ou
l’infériorité d’un système relativement aux autres, tient presque toujours
à l’activité ou à l’inertie plus grandes de ce système, à l’habitude
d’agir ou de ne pas agir; que dans l’autre, au contraire, cette
prédominance ou cette infériorité sont immédiatement liées a la texture
des organes, et jamais à leur éducation. Voilà pourquoi le tempérament
physique et le_ CHARACTÈRE MORAL _ne sont point susceptible de changer par
l’éducation, qui modifie si prodigieusement les actes de la vie animale;
car, comme nous l’avons vu, tous deux_ APPARTIENNENT À LA VIE ORGANIQUE.
_La charactère est, si je puis m’exprimer ainsi, la physionomie des
passions; le tempérament est celle des fonctions __ internes: or les unes
et les autres étant toujours les mêmes, ayant une direction que l’habitude
et l’exercice ne dérangent jamais, il est manifeste que le tempérament et
le charactère doivent être aussi soustraits à l’empire de l’éducation.
Elle peut modérer l’influence du second, perfectionner assez le jugement
et la réflection, pour rendre leur empire supérieur au sien, fortifier la
vie animal afin qu’elle résiste aux impulsions de l’organique. Mais
vouloir par elle dénaturer le charactère, adoucir ou exalter les passions
dont il est l’expression habituelle, agrandir ou resserrer leur sphère,
c’est une entreprise analogue a celle d’un médecin qui essaierait d’élever
ou d’abaisser de quelque degrés, et pour toute la vie, la force de
contraction ordinaire au cœur dans l’état de santé, de précipiter ou de
ralentir habituellement le mouvement naturel aux artères, et qui est
nécessaire à leur action, etc. Nous observerions à ce médecin, que la
circulation, la respiration, etc., ne sont point sous le domaine de la
volonté_ (volition), _quelles ne peuvent être modifiées par l’homme, sans
passer à l’état maladif, etc. Faisons la même observation à ceux qui
croient qu’on change le charactère, et par-là, même les_ PASSIONS,
_puisque celles-ci sont un_ PRODUIT DE L’ACTION DE TOUS LES ORGANES
INTERNES, _ou qu’elles y ont au moins spécialement leur siège._” The
reader who is familiar with my philosophy may imagine how great was my joy
when I discovered, as it were, the proof of my own convictions in those
which were arrived at upon an entirely different field, by this
extraordinary man, so early taken from the world.

A special authentication of the truth that the organism is merely the
visibility of the will is also afforded us by the fact that if dogs, cats,
domestic cocks, and indeed other animals, bite when violently angry, the
wounds become mortal; nay, if they come from a dog, may cause hydrophobia
in the man who is bitten, without the dog being mad or afterwards becoming
so. For the extremest anger is only the most decided and vehement will to
annihilate its object; this now appears in the assumption by the saliva of
an injurious, and to a certain extent magically acting, power, and springs
from the fact that the will and the organism are in truth one. This also
appears from the fact that intense vexation may rapidly impart to the
mother’s milk such a pernicious quality that the sucking child dies
forthwith in convulsions (_Most, Ueber sympathetische Mittel_, p. 16).




Note On What Has Been Said About Bichat.


Bichat has, as we have shown above, cast a deep glance into human nature,
and in consequence has given an exceedingly admirable exposition, which is
one of the most profound works in the whole of French literature. Now,
sixty years later, M. Flourens suddenly appears with a polemic against it
in his work, “_De la vie et de l’intelligence_,” and makes so bold as to
declare without ceremony that all that Bichat has brought to light on this
important subject, which was quite his own, is false. And what does he
oppose to him in the field? Counter reasons? No, counter assertions(37)
and authorities, indeed, which are as inadmissible as they are
remarkable—Descartes and Gall! M. Flourens is by conviction a Cartesian,
and to him Descartes, in the year 1858, is still “_le philosophe par
excellence_.” Now Descartes was certainly a great man, yet only as a
forerunner. In the whole of his dogmas, on the other hand, there is not a
word of truth; and to appeal to these as authorities at this time of day
is simply absurd. For in the nineteenth century a Cartesian in philosophy
is just what a follower of Ptolemy would be in astronomy, or a follower of
Stahl in chemistry. But for M. Flourens the dogmas of Descartes are
articles of faith. Descartes has taught, _les volontés sont des pensées_:
therefore this is the case, although every one feels within himself that
willing and thinking are as different as white and black. Hence I have
been able above, in chapter 19, to prove and explain this fully and
thoroughly, and always under the guidance of experience. But above all,
according to Descartes, the oracle of M. Flourens, there are two
fundamentally different substances, body and soul. Consequently M.
Flourens, as an orthodox Cartesian, says: “_Le premier point est de
séparer, même par les mots, ce qui est du corps de ce qui est de l’âme_”
(i. 72). He informs us further that this “_âme réside uniquement et
exclusivement dans le cerveau_” (ii. 137); from whence, according to a
passage of Descartes, it sends the _spiritus animales_ as couriers to the
muscles, yet can only itself be affected by the brain; therefore the
passions have their seat (_siège_) in the heart, which is altered by them,
yet their place (_place_) in the brain. Thus, really thus, speaks the
oracle of M. Flourens, who is so much edified by it, that he even utters
it twice after him (i. 33 and ii. 135), for the unfailing conquest of the
ignorant Bichat, who knows neither soul nor body, but merely an animal and
an organic life, and whom he then here condescendingly informs that we
must thoroughly distinguish the parts where the passions have their _seat_
(_siègent_) from those which they _affect_. According to this, then, the
passions _act_ in one place while they _are_ in another. Corporeal things
are wont to act only where they are, but with an immaterial soul the case
may be different. But what in general may he and his oracle really have
thought in this distinction of _place_ and _siège_, of _sièger_ and
_affecter_? The fundamental error of M. Flourens and Descartes springs
really from the fact that they confound the motives or occasions of the
passions, which, as ideas, certainly lie in the intellect, _i.e._, in the
brain, with the passions themselves, which, as movements of the will, lie
in the whole body, which (as we know) is the perceived will itself. M.
Flourens’ second authority is, as we have said, Gall. I certainly have
said, at the beginning of this twentieth chapter (and already in the
earlier edition): “The greatest error in Gall’s phrenology is, that he
makes the brain the organ of moral qualities also.” But what I censure and
reject is precisely what M. Flourens praises and admires, for he bears in
his heart the doctrine of Descartes: “_Les volontés sont des pensées._”
Accordingly he says, p. 144: “_Le premier service que Gall a rendu à la
physiologie (?) a éte de rammener le moral à l’intellectuel, et de faire
voir que les facultés morales et les facultés intellectuelles sont du même
ordre, et de les placer toutes, autant les unes que les autres, uniquement
et exclusivement dans le cerveau._” To a certain extent my whole
philosophy, but especially the nineteenth chapter of this volume, consists
of the refutation of this fundamental error. M. Flourens, on the contrary,
is never tired of extolling this as a great truth and Gall as its
discoverer; for example, p. 147: “_Si j’en étais à classer les services
que nous a rendu Gall, je dirais que le premier a été de rammener les
qualités morales au cerveau_;”—p. 153: “_Le cerveau seul est l’organe de
l’âme, et de l’âme dans toute la plénitude de ses fonctions_” (we see the
simple soul of Descartes still always lurks in the background, as the
kernel of the matter); “_il est le siège de toutes les facultés
intellectuelles.... Gall a rammené_ LE MORAL A L’INTELLECTUEL, _il a
rammené les qualités morales au même siège, au même organe, que les
facultés intellectuelles_.” Oh how must Bichat and I be ashamed of
ourselves in the presence of such wisdom! But, to speak seriously, what
can be more disheartening, or rather more shocking, than to see the true
and profound rejected and the false and perverse extolled; to live to find
that important truths, deeply hidden, and extracted late and with
difficulty, are to be torn down, and the old, stale, and late conquered
errors set up in their place; nay, to be compelled to fear that through
such procedure the advances of human knowledge, so hardly achieved, will
be broken off! But let us quiet our fears; for _magma est vis veritatis et
prævalebit_. M. Flourens is unquestionably a man of much merit, but he has
chiefly acquired it upon the experimental path. Just those truths,
however, which are of the greatest importance cannot be brought out by
experiments, but only by reflection and penetration. Now Bichat by his
reflection and penetration has here brought a truth to light which is of
the number of those which are unattainable by the experimental efforts of
M. Flourens, even if, as a true and consistent Cartesian, he tortures a
hundred more animals to death. But he ought betimes to have observed and
thought something of this: “Take care, friend, for it burns.” The
presumption and self-sufficiency, however, such as is only imparted by
superficiality combined with a false obscurity, with which M. Flourens
undertakes to refute a thinker like Bichat by counter assertions, old
wives’ beliefs, and futile authorities, indeed to reprove and instruct
him, and even almost to mock at him, has its origin in the nature of the
Academy and its _fauteuils_. Throned upon these, and saluting each other
mutually as _illustre confrère_, gentlemen cannot avoid making themselves
equal with the best who have ever lived, regarding themselves as oracles,
and therefore fit to decree what shall be false and what true. This impels
and entitles me to say out plainly for once, that the really superior and
privileged minds, who now and then are born for the enlightenment of the
rest, and to whom certainly Bichat belongs, are so “by the grace of God,”
and accordingly stand to the Academy (in which they have generally
occupied only the forty-first _fauteuil_) and to its _illustres
confrères_, as born princes to the numerous representatives of the people,
chosen from the crowd. Therefore a secret awe should warn these gentlemen
of the Academy (who always exist by the score) before they attack such a
man,—unless they have most cogent reasons to present, and not mere
contradictions and appeals to _placita_ of Descartes, which at the present
day is quite absurd.






FOOTNOTES


    1 Bruno and Spinoza are here entirely to be excepted. They stand each
      for himself and alone, and belong neither to their age nor their
      quarter of the globe, which rewarded the one with death and the
      other with persecution and insult. Their miserable existence and
      death in this Western world is like that of a tropical plant in
      Europe. The banks of the sacred Ganges were their true spiritual
      home; there they would have led a peaceful and honoured life among
      men of like mind. In the following lines, with which Bruno begins
      his book _Della Causa Principio et Uno_, for which he was brought to
      the stake, he expresses clearly and beautifully how lonely he felt
      himself in his age, and he also shows a presentiment of his fate
      which led him to delay the publication of his views, till that
      inclination to communicate what one knows to be true, which is so
      strong in noble minds, prevailed:

      “_Ad partum properare tuum, mens ægra, quid obstat;_
      _ Seclo hæc indigno sint tribuenda licet?_
      _ Umbrarum fluctu terras mergente, cacumen_
      _ Adtolle in clarum, noster Olympe, Jovem._”

      Whoever has read this his principal work, and also his other Italian
      writings, which were formerly so rare, but are now accessible to all
      through a German edition, will find, as I have done, that he alone
      of all philosophers in some degree approaches to Plato, in respect
      of the strong blending of poetical power and tendency along with the
      philosophical, and this he also shows especially in a dramatic form.
      Imagine the tender, spiritual, thoughtful being, as he shows himself
      to us in this work of his, in the hands of coarse, furious priests
      as his judges and executioners, and thank Time which brought a
      brighter and a gentler age, so that the after-world whose curse was
      to fall on those fiendish fanatics is the world we now live in.

    2 Bayard Taylor’s translation of “Faust,” vol. i. p. 14.—TRS.

    3 “Faust,” scene vi., Bayard Taylor’s translation, vol. i. p.
      134.—TRS.

    4 Observe here that I always quote the “Kritik der reinen Vernunft”
      according to the paging of the first edition, for in Rosenkranz’s
      edition of Kant’s collected works this paging is always given in
      addition. Besides this, I add the paging of the fifth edition,
      preceded by a V.; all the other editions, from the second onwards,
      are the same as the fifth, and so also is their paging.

    5 Cf. Christian Wolf’s “_Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, Welt und
      Seele_,” § 577-579. It is strange that he only explains as
      contingent what is necessary according to the principle of
      sufficient reason of becoming, _i.e._, what takes place from causes,
      and on the contrary recognises as necessary that which is so
      according to the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason;
      for example, what follows from the _essentia_ (definition), thus
      analytical judgments, and further also mathematical truths. The
      reason he assigns for this is, that only the law of causality gives
      infinite series, while the other kinds of grounds give only finite
      series. Yet this is by no means the case with the forms of the
      principle of sufficient reason in pure space and time, but only
      holds good of the logical ground of knowledge; but he held
      mathematical necessity to be such also. Compare the essay on the
      principle of sufficient reason, § 50.

    6 With my refutation of the Kantian proof may be compared the earlier
      attacks upon it by Feder, _Ueber Zeit, Raum und Kausalität_, § 28;
      and by G. E. Schulze, _Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie_, Bd.
      ii. S. 422-442.

    7 See _Sext. Empir. Pyrrhon. hypotyp._, lib. i. c. 13, νοουμενα
      φαινομενοις αντετιθη Αναξαγορας (intelligibilia apparentibus
      opposuit Anaxagoras).

    8 That the assumption of a limit of the world in time is certainly not
      a necessary thought of the reason may be also proved historically,
      for the Hindus teach nothing of the kind, even in the religion of
      the people, much less in the Vedas, but try to express
      mythologically by means of monstrous chronology the infinity of this
      phenomenal world, this fleeting and baseless web of Mâyâ, for they
      at once bring out very ingeniously the relativity of all periods of
      time in the following mythus (Polier, _Mythologie des Indous_, vol.
      ii. p. 585). The four ages, in the last of which we live, embrace
      together 4,320,000 years. Each day of the creating Brahma has 1000
      such periods of four ages, and his nights have also 1000. His year
      has 365 days and as many nights. He lives 100 of his years, always
      creating; and if he dies, at once a new Brahma is born, and so on
      from eternity to eternity. The same relativity of time is also
      expressed in the special myth which is quoted in Polier’s work, vol.
      ii. p. 594, from the Puranas. In it a Rajah, after a visit of a few
      seconds to Vishnu in his heaven, finds on his return to earth that
      several millions of years have elapsed, and a new age has begun; for
      every day of Vishnu is 100 recurrences of the four ages.

    9 Kant said, “It is very absurd to expect enlightenment from reason,
      and yet to prescribe to her beforehand which side she must
      necessarily take” (“Critique of Pure Reason,” p. 747; V. 775). On
      the other hand, the following is the naive assertion of a professor
      of philosophy in our own time: “If a philosophy denies the reality
      of the fundamental ideas of Christianity, it is either false, or,
      _even if true, it is yet useless_.” That is to say, for professors
      of philosophy. It was the late Professor Bachmann who, in the Jena
      _Litteraturzeitung_ for July 1840, No. 126, so indiscreetly blurted
      out the maxim of all his colleagues. However, it is worth noticing,
      as regards the characteristics of the University philosophy, how
      here the truth, if it will not suit and adapt itself, is shown the
      door without ceremony, with, “Be off, truth! we cannot make _use_ of
      you. Do we owe you anything? Do you pay us? Then be off!”

   10 By the way, Machiavelli’s problem was the solution of the question
      how the prince, _as a prince_, was to keep himself on the throne in
      spite of internal and external enemies. His problem was thus by no
      means the ethical problem whether a prince, as a man, ought to will
      such things, but purely the political one how, if he so wills, he
      can carry it out. And the solution of this problem he gives just as
      one writes directions for playing chess, with which it would be
      folly to mix up the answer to the question whether from an ethical
      point of view it is advisable to play chess at all. To reproach
      Machiavelli with the immorality of his writing is just the same as
      to reproach a fencing-master because he does not begin his
      instructions with a moral lecture against murder and slaughter.

   11 Although the conception of legal right is properly negative in
      opposition to that of wrong, which is the positive starting-point,
      yet the explanation of these conceptions must not on this account be
      entirely negative.

   12 I specially recommend here the passage in Lichtenberg’s
      “Miscellaneous Writings” (Göthingen, 1801, vol. ii. p. 12): “Euler
      says, in his letters upon various subjects in connection with
      natural science (vol. ii. p. 228), that it would thunder and lighten
      just as well if there were no man present whom the lightning might
      strike. It is a very common expression, but I must confess that it
      has never been easy for me completely to comprehend it. It always
      seems to me as if the conception _being_ were something derived from
      our thought, and thus, if there are no longer any sentient and
      thinking creatures, then there is nothing more whatever.”

   13 Lichtenberg says in his “_Nachrichten und Bemerkungen von und über
      sich selbst_” (_Vermischte Schriften, Göttingen_, 1800, vol. i. p.
      43): “I am extremely sensitive to all noise, but it entirely loses
      its disagreeable character as soon as it is associated with a
      rational purpose.”

   14 That the three-toed sloth has nine must be regarded as a mistake;
      yet Owen still states this, “_Ostéologie Comp._,” p. 405.

   15 This, however, does not excuse a professor of philosophy who,
      sitting in Kant’s chair, expresses himself thus: “That mathematics
      as such contains arithmetic and geometry is correct. It is
      incorrect, however, to conceive arithmetic as the science of time,
      really for no other reason than to give a pendant (_sic_) to
      geometry as the science of space” (Rosenkranz in the “_Deutschen
      Museum_,” 1857, May 14, No. 20). This is the fruit of Hegelism. If
      the mind is once thoroughly debauched with its senseless jargon,
      serious Kantian philosophy will no longer enter it. The audacity to
      talk at random about what one does not understand has been inherited
      from the master, and one comes in the end to condemn without
      ceremony the fundamental teaching of a great genius in a tone of
      peremptory decision, just as if it were Hegelian foolery. We must
      not, however, fail to notice that these little people struggle to
      escape from the track of great thinkers. They would therefore have
      done better not to attack Kant, but to content themselves with
      giving their public full details about God, the soul, the actual
      freedom of the will, and whatever belongs to that sort of thing, and
      then to have indulged in a private luxury in their dark back-shop,
      the philosophical journal; there they may do whatever they like
      without constraint, for no one sees it.

   16 This chapter, along with the one which follows it, is connected with
      § 8 and 9 of the first book.

   17 Illgen’s “_Zeitschrift für Historische Theologie_,” 1839, part i, p.
      182.

_   18 Gall et Spurzheim_, “_Des Dispositions Innées_,” 1811, p. 253.

   19 This chapter is connected with § 12 of the first volume.

   20 This chapter is connected with § 13 of the first volume.

   21 This chapter and the one which follows it are connected with § 9 of
      the first volume.

   22 This chapter is connected with the conclusion of § 9 of the first
      volume.

   23 This chapter is connected with § 14 of the first volume.

   24 A principal use of the study of the ancients is that it preserves us
      from _verbosity_; for the ancients always take pains to write
      concisely and pregnantly, and the error of almost all moderns is
      verbosity, which the most recent try to make up for by suppressing
      syllables and letters. Therefore we ought to pursue the study of the
      ancients all our life, although reducing the time devoted to it. The
      ancients knew that we ought not to write as we speak. The moderns,
      on the other hand, are not even ashamed to print lectures they have
      delivered.

   25 This chapter is connected with § 15 of the first volume.

   26 This chapter is connected with § 16 of the first volume.

   27 This chapter is connected with § 15 of the first volume.

   28 [Bayard Taylor’s translation of Faust, vol. i. 180. Trs.]

   29 This chapter is connected with § 18 of the first volume.

   30 This chapter is connected with § 19 of the first volume.

   31 It is remarkable that Augustine already knew this. In the fourteenth
      book, “_De Civ. Dei_,” c. 6, he speaks of the _affectionibus animi_,
      which in the preceding book he had brought under four categories,
      _cupiditas_, _timor_, _lætitia_, _tristitia_, and says: “_Voluntas
      est quippe in omnibus, imo omnes nihil aliud, quam voluntates sunt:
      nam quid est cupiditas et lætitia, nisi voluntas in eorum
      consensionem, quæ volumus? et quid est metus atque tristitia, nisi
      voluntas in dissensionem ab his, quæ nolumus? cet._”

   32 By those who place mind and learning above all other human qualities
      this man will be reckoned the greatest of his century. But by those
      who let virtue take precedence of everything else his memory can
      never be execrated enough. He was the cruelest of the citizens in
      persecuting, putting to death, and banishing.

   33 The _Times_ of 18th October 1845; from the _Athenæum_.

   34 This chapter is connected with § 20 of the first volume.

_   35 Spallanzani, Risultati di esperienze sopra la riproduzione della
      testa nelle lumache terrestri_: in the _Memorie di matematica e
      fisica della Società Italiana_, Tom. i. p. 581. _Voltaire, Les
      colimaçons du révérend père l’escarbotier_.

   36 Cf. Ch. 22.

_   37 « __Tout ce qui est relatif à l’entendement appartient à la vie
      animale,__ »__ dit Bichat, et jusque-là point de doute; __« __tout
      ce qui est relatif aux passions appartient à la vie
      organique,__ »__—et ceci est absolument faux._ Indeed!—_decrevit
      Florentius magnus_.