Arthur Schopenhauer - The World As Will and Idea, Vol 2 (1909)

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THE
ENGLISH AND FOREIGN
PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY.
THE
WORLD AS WILL AND IDEA

BT
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.
VOLUME
II.
THE
WORLD AS WILL AND

BY
IDEA.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
K. B.
HALDANE,
AND
MA
JOHN KEMP,
VOL. IL
MA
CONTAINING THE CRITICISM OF THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY, AND THE SUPPLEMENTS TO THE FIRST AND PART
OF THE SECOND BOOK OF VOL.
I.
"Paucis natua
est,
qui populum tetatis suae cogitat." Sen.
SIXTH EDITION.
LONDON:
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRttBNER &

DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD
1909.
CO.
L*
STREET, W.
B
SHZ
584273 2.1. 5". 54
The rights of trantlation and of reprodtiction are
rtterved.
CONTENTS.
APPENDIX.
Obitioism of the Kantian Philosophy
.....
PAGE
i
SUPPLEMENTS TO THE FIRST BOOK.

FIRST HALF.
The Doctrine of the Idea op Perception.
OTA P.
I.
The Standpoint of Idealism
163
IL The Doctrine of Perception, ob Knowledge of the Understanding

III.
184
On the Senses IV. On Knowledge a priori
193
201
SECOND HALF.
The Doctrine op the Abstract
Thinking.
V. On the Irrational Intellect
228
.
Idea, or op
VL The
VII.
Doctrine of Arstract or Rational Knowledge
234
VIII.
IX.
On the Relation of the Concrete Knowledge of Perception to Arstract Knowledge 244 On the Theory of the Ludicrous 270 On Logic in General 285
....
. .
viii
CONTENTS.
FAQ*
OH A P. X.
On the
Syllogism
292
305 307
321
XL On
On XIII. On XIV. On XV. On XVL On XVLL On
XII.
Rhetoric
the Doctrine of Science

the Methods of Mathematics the Association of Ideas the Essential Imperfections of the Intellect
the Practical Use of Reason and on Stoicism
.
324
330
345
Man's Need of Metaphysics
359
SUPPLEMENTS TO THE SECOND BOOK.

XVIII. On the PossD3n.nr of Knowlno the Thing
in Itself
399
411
XIX
XX.
On the Primacy of the Will

Objeotifioation of the
in Self-Consciousness
Will
in
the Animal Organism
468
&ppentitx.
CRITICISM OF THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.
C'est le privilege
du
de
faire
du g^nie qui ouvre une impunement de grandes fautes. Voltaire.

vrai g^nie, et surtout
carrifere,
VOL.
II
easier to point out the faults and errors in tne a great mind than to give a distinct and full For the faults are particular and exposition of its value.
It
is
much
of
work
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 inTherefore they do not grow old, but become exhaustible,
finite,
;
the instructor of
many
succeeding centuries.
fected masterpiece of a truly great
mind
The perwill always pro-
duce a deep and powerful

race, so
effect
upon the whole human
impossible to calculate to what distant centuries and lands its enlightening influence may This is always the case ; for however cultivated extend.
so that
it is
much
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 But even after a sucas the genius has power to give. cessful 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
CRITICISM OF
THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.
attempts to unite it with old errors, and so live in conflict a new and unprejudiced generation grows up to meet Little by little, even in youth, this new generation it
till
partially receives the contents of that spring through a thousand indirect channels, gradually assimilates it, and
to
so participates in the benefit which mankind from that great mind.
was destined
to flow
So slowly does the
education of the
human
of genius, advance.
full strength
race, the weak yet refractory pupil Thus with Kant's teaching also its
;
and importance will only be revealed through
time,
when
the spirit of the age, itself gradually trans-
formed and altered in the most important and essential
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 rdle 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 and others, emboldened by this, ignore left them behind 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
respects
;
as
if
into
modern chemistry.
one sought to introduce the doctrines of the alchemists For the rest, the works of Kant
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
do not stand in need of
my
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 con" As the water that is displaced by a ship firmation
:
immediately flows in again behind
it,
so
when great minds
CRITICISM OF
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 an episode which is befalls all new and great knowledge 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
it is
clear that
is
of this philosophy is, however, necessary, for my train of thought, different as its conis
tent
from that of Kant,
yet throughout under

;
its
from it and I world of perin own I what best to the owe is my system ception, 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 neverinfluence, necessarily presupposes it, starts confess that, next to the impression of the
theless 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 rever-
ence for
Kant which
weaknesses and
refrain
I certainly feel shall extend to his errors also, and that I shall consequently
from exposing these except with the most careful
CRITICISM OF
indulgence, whereby
come weak and
my language would necessarily beTowards insipid through circumlocution.
a living writer such indulgence is needed, for human frailty cannot endure even the most just refutation of an
tempered by soothing and flattery, and hardly 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 But he who is dead has thrown off this weakness pain. time will purify it more and more his merit stands firm from all exaggeration and detraction. His mistakes must be separated from it, rendered harmless, and then given
error, unless
even then
Therefore in the polemic against Kant about to begin, I have only his mistakes and weak I oppose them with hostility, and wage points in view. a relentless war of extermination against them, always mindful not to conceal them indulgently, but rather to
over to oblivion.
I
am
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.
KanCs
from
tJie
greatest merit is the distinction of the
phenomenon
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
The latter had shown zu jeder Mctaph., 13, Anm. 2). that the secondary qualities of things, such as sound,

smell, colour, hardness, softness, smoothness, as
7
like,
and the
founded on the affections of the senses, do not belong To this he to the objective body, to the thing in itself. 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 be-
tween 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 ex;
pressed in the "Prolegomena" (that most beautiful and
comprehensible of
all
far too little read, for it facilitates
Kant's important writings, which is 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
CRITICISM OF
to the study of the Kantian philosophy. If now, accordfrom of the to distinction the the above, phenomenon ing
the thing in
itself,
thus the doctrine of the complete diver-
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 It became the fitting startingof an air of importance. for the still grosser nonsense of the clumsy and point
sity of the ideal
;
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
it
in the
depth and thoughtfulness

exceedingly important in
of its
its
was also conception, results. For in it he pro-
pounded, 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 becom-
ing
it is,
and
it is
much knowledge
not, and its comprehension is not so as illusion. This is also what he ex-
presses 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
behind their backs yet they think the shadows are the reality, and the determining of the succession of these
fire
;
The same truth, again quite a leading doctrine of the also differently presented, Vedas and Puranas, the doctrine of Maya, by which really
shadows
is
true wisdom.
is
CRITICISM OF
nothing else
is

calls
understood than what Kant
the
phenomenon in opposition to the thing in itself; for the work of May& 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 But Kant not only expressed it is and that it is not. 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 perthat
ception of the world, had advanced them as the direct utterance of their consciousness, and presented them
rather mythically and poetically than philosophically and In this respect they stand to Kant in the distinctly.
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 marvelAll earlier Western philosophy, lous insight and ability. in with the Kantian unspeakably comparison appearing clumsy, had failed to recognise that truth, and had therefore
always spoken just as

it
if
in a dream.
"
Kant
first
awakened
suddenly out
of this
dream; therefore the
last sleepers
He
(Mendelssohn) called him the all-destroyer." 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
io
CRITICISM OF

;
arises after existence

is
already these laws cannot be our guide when we come to the explanation of the existence of the world and of our-
established
the world of experience in general and present; that consequently
All earlier Western philosophers had imagined selves. that these laws, according to which the phenomena aro combined, and all of which time and space, as well as
I comprehend under the exprescausality and inference sion "the principle of sufficient reason," were absolute
laws conditioned by nothing, ceternce veritates; that the world itself existed only in consequence of and in confor-
mity 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 criti;
cises
under the name of the Ideas of the reason, only
served to raise the mere phenomenon, the work of May&, 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
sible
to
make
the real knowledge of this impos-
is, in a word, to send the dreamers still more ; to Kant exhibited these laws, and theresoundly sleep. fore the whole world, as conditioned by the form of know-
that
ledge 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,
itself
in knowledge of the nature of the world in i.e., and outside the idea, no step in advance was made,
but one only moved like a squirrel in its wheel. Thus, the dogmatists may be compared to persons who supposed that if they only went straight on long enough they
all
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. may also say that Kant's doctrine affords the insight that we must seek the end and beginning
We
of the world, not without, but within us.

All
this,
however, rests on the fundamental distinction

critical or transcendental philosophy.
between dogmatic and
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 Leibnitz entitled
"
of
dogmatic philosophy, an essay

Originatione Badicali,"
Be Berum
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 realisticdogmatism, on the ground of the veritates ceternce and with the assistance of the ontological and cosmological
proofs.
by the way, that exthe excellence of of the exact shows opposite perience, the world here demonstrated but experience is therefore
It is indeed once admitted,
;
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 It takes for its as the opponent of this whole method.
problem just these
veritates ozternm,
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 ediBut because the critical philosophy, in order to attain fice. to this result, was obliged to go beyond the veritates ceterncB upon which all the preceding dogmatism was founded, and make these truths themselves the objects of inFrom vestigation, it became transcendental philosophy.
this,
then,
know
itself,
it also follows that the objective world, as we does not belong to the true being of the thing in it, but is merely its phenomenal appearance conditioned
by those very forms which

(i.e.,
lie
a priori in the intellect
the brain), therefore
it
cannot contain anything but
phenomena.
12
CRITICISM OF
Kant, indeed, did not attain to the knowledge that the phenomenon is the world as idea, and the thing in itself But he showed that the phenomenal world is is the will.
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 inand he had
to
consistency,
frequent and
irresistible attacks
pay the penalty of this in upon this important part
He did not recognise the thing in itself in the will; but he made a great initial step directly towards this knowledge in that he explained the undeniof his teaching.
able 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.
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 winch is very correctly stated by Tennemann, the guardianship of the prevailing national religion over
We
philosophy, which had really nothing left for it to do but to prove and embellish the cardinal dogmas prescribed
CRITICISM OF
to it
13
proper, down to Suarez, the succeeding philosophers do it more unconsciously, or at least unavowedly. It is held that Scholastic philosophy only extends to about a hun-
by
religion.
The Schoolmen
confess this openly;
dred years before Descartes, and that then with him

there begins an entirely
of
all
of free investigation Such positive theological doctrine. independent in is fact not to be attributed to investigation, however, Descartes and his successors,1 but only an appearance of it,
new epoch
any case an effort after it. Descartes was a man of supreme ability, and if we take account of the age he lived But if we set aside this in, he accomplished a great deal. 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 and so is it with all his successors down to Kant. firmly
and
in
;
tirely to
Bruno and Spinoza are here enbe excepted. They stand each for himself and alone, and
and he ment of his

age,
also fate
shows a presentiwhich led him to
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. of the sacred Ganges
delay the publication of his views, till that inclination to communicate
what one knows

is
to be true, which
so strong in vailed :
noble minds, pre-
Ad
Hum
fnftr9in tuum
ind ^
^^
The banks
there
cegra quidobstat
true
spiritual
home;
were their they
Sedo
tHlumda
licet?
would have led a peaceful and honoured life among men of like mind. In the following lines, with which Bruno begins his book Bella Causa Principio et Uno, for which he was brought to the stake, he expresses clearly and beautifully how lonely he felt himself in his
Umbrarum
fiuctu terras mergente, cacuraen Adtolle in clarum, noster Olympe,
Jovem."
Whoever has read

cipal work,
this his prin-
and also his other Italian writings, which were formerly so rare, but are now accessible to all
14
CRITICISM OF
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."
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 Since then they their deathblow.
it,
received from him 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 ob-
served 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.
of tone
and
of
The change metaphysical background which has apwriting upon natural science since
this
peared in
German
Kant
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
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
strong blending of poetical power and tendency along with the philohophical, cially in
and this he also shows espea dramatic form. Imagine
now
l
live in.
tender, spiritual, thoughtful being, as he shows himself to us in
the
"
Bayard Taylor's translation

p. 14.
of
Faust," vol. L
Tbs.
CRITICISM OF
is

him
it
15
remarkable
before
was
in the
same position
as
occupies in England. This merit of Kant's is connected with the fact that the unreflecting pursuit of the
it still
laws of the phenomenon, the elevation of these to the position of eternal truths, and thus the raising of the
appearance to the position of the real being of the in short, realism undisturbed in its illusion by any world,
fleeting
had reigned throughout all preceding philoBerkeley, who, sophy, ancient, mediaeval, and modern. like Malebranche before him, recognised its one-sidedness, and indeed falseness, was unable to overthrow it, for his Thus it was reserved attack was confined to one point. for Kant to enable the idealistic point of view to obtain
reflection,
the ascendancy in Europe, at least in philosophy

of
the
view which throughout all non-Mohammedan point Before Asia, and indeed essentially, is that of religion. 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 hap;
piness,
now upon
the conception of perfection
the will of the Creator, and finally upon a conception which, taken ;
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
by
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
" Men perfection, this is only saying : ought to be as they ought to be," and we are just as " wise as before. In fact " perfect is very nearly a mere
human
synonym
of
"
complete," for
it signifies
that in one given
i6
CRITICISM OF
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
"
"
and other similar expressions.

of words.
All this
most perfect being," is a mere jingle

;
Nevertheless last century this conception of per-
and imperfection had become current coin indeed it was the hinge upon which almost all speculation upon It was in every one's ethics, and even theology, turned. a so that at last it became mouth, simple nuisance. We
fection
see even the best writers of the time, for example Lessing, entangled in the most deplorable manner in perfections
At the and imperfections, and struggling with them. 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
phenomenon and its laws, and showed that the former directly concerned the thing in itself, the inner nature of the world, while the latter, %.e., time,
actions from the
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

suffice as
by no means exhausts the
my recognition of the a recognition expressed here both for my own satisfaction, and because justice demands that those merits should be recalled to the memory of every
subject,
may
evidence of
great merits of Kant,
one
who
desires to follow
me
in the unsparing exposure
of his errors to
which
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
CRITICISM OF
17
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 Induced by this, but not the general public was aroused. and sense of power (which inward inclination urged by find utterance even at unfavourable times, a3 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, 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
when
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.
now, in philosophy, a crisis precisely similar to and an age of fearful abortions, was, as we all know, introduced by Kant, it may be concluded that the serB VOL. n.
Since,
this,
CRITICISM OF
must have been burdened with and and one-sided, great defects. negative These defects we now desire to search out.
vices he rendered were not complete, but
First of all we shall present to ourselves clearly and examine the fundamental thought in which the aim of " " Kant placed lies. the whole Critique of Pure Eeason
himself at the standpoint of his predecessors, the dogmatic philosophers, and accordingly he started with them from the following assumptions (i.) Metaphysics is the
:
science of that which lies beyond the possibility of all be attained by experience. (2.) Such a science can never
applying principles which must first themselves be drawn but only what we from experience {Prolegomena, 1) 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 prin; :
ciples, or this
knowledge
of
the
absolute
of pure reason, are expressions possibility of things, cetemce 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,
is
what was aimed
at
which, according to assumption 1, for the a priori nature of these

;
forms of knowledge, since

jective origin, is just
it
can only rest on their sub-
what
cuts us off for ever from the
knowledge of the nature of things in themselves, and contines 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
CRITICISM OF
is
19
As opposed
victorious;
impossible, and criticism of pure reason takes its place. to the old dogmatism, Kant is here completely
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 more carethe expressed intention of this criticism. ful 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
Yet advanced in proof of this cardinal assertion except the etymological argument from the word In truth, however, the matter stands thus metaphysic. The world and our own existence presents itself to us It is now assumed, without more necessarily as a riddle. 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
be taken from either inner or outer experience."
absolutely nothing
is
:
merely indirectly, that

universal principles
is,
by means
of inferences
from
After the principal source priori. 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 But for this it was first necessary to prove that identical.
the material for the solution of the riddle absolutely can-
2o
CRITICISM OF

itself,
not be contained in the world

for only outside
but must be sought
the world in something we can only attain to under the guidance of those forms of which we
But so long as this is not proved, are conscious a priori. for no we have shutting ourselves off, in the case grounds and most difficult of all questions, the most of important
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 there-
world is only possible of connection outer the with inner expeproper through rience, effected at the right point, and the combination
fore the solution of the riddle of the
knowledge.
tain limits so that
thereby produced of these two very different sources of Yet this solution is only possible within cer-
which are inseparable from our finite nature, attain to a right understanding of the world itself without reaching a final explanation of its existence
we
Therefore est quadam abolishing all further problems. prodire tenus, and my path lies midway between the omniscience of the earlier dogmatists and the despair of The important truths, however, the Kantian Critique.
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 SuppleSo much for the fundamental thought of Kant ments. we shall now consider his working out of it and its
;
details.
Kant's style bears throughout the stamp of a preeminent mind, genuine strong individuality, and quite
CRITICISM OF
21
Its characteristic quality exceptional power of thought. a brilliant dryness, by be described as may perhaps aptly
to grasp firmly and select the with conceptions great certainty, and then to turn them about with the greatest freedom, to the astonishment of the
virtue of
which he was able
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
indefinite conceptions, compose most 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
set
difficult
up wavering and
in general
sufficient
"
unity of synthesis
"
"
always used where
union
"
(Eiriheit der Syntliesis),
by
itself.
Moreover, a
Vereinigung) would be quite 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
In general, such a man will other leading conceptions. 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
haustively,
express his meaning once distinctly, thoroughly, and exand then let it alone. " Quo enim melius rem
aliquam concipimus eo magis determinati sumus ad earn unico modo exprimendam," says Descartes in his fifth letter. But the most injurious result of Kant's occasionally obscure
language
it
is,
that
it
acted as exemplar
vitiis
imitabile;
indeed,
was misconstrued
as a pernicious
22
CRITICISM OF
The public was compelled to see that what not always without significance; consequently, what was without significance took refuge behind Fichte was the first to seize this new obscure language.
authorisation.
is
obscure
is
privilege
him
and use it vigorously and a host of hungry
Schelling at least equalled

scribblers,
without talent
and without honesty, soon outbade them both.

height of audacity, in serving
But the
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
{jEsthetische Naclischule) said
"
;
for in vain
Goethe had already
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." '
us return to Kant.
But
let
We
are
competed
to
admit
that he entirely lacks grand, classical simplicity, naivete, His philosophy has no analogy with inginuiU, candeur.
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
For a purely individual characteristic of Kant's a remarkable love of symmetry, which delights in a varied multiplicity, so that it may reduce it to order,
building.
is
mind
and repeat
this order in subordinate orders,
and so on
Indeed, indefinitely, just as happens in Gothic churches. he sometimes carries this to the extent of trifling, and
from love of this tendency he goes so

1
far as to
L
p.
do open
134.
"Faust," scene
vi.,
Bayard
Taylor's translation, vol.
Trs.
23
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
pyramids and spheres, and hedges winding in regular 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
like
curves.
live
and
are,
content of perception
with the meaningless words "the empirical is given us," he immediately arrives
logical basis of his whole philosophy,
with one spring at the
From this table the table of judgments. exact dozen of categories, symmetrically
he deduces an 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 repeat everywhere the symmetry of that table.
that
is
is
able to
first
The
the pure physioof natural science of the table logical general principles the axioms of intuition, anticipations of perception, anait is
symmetrically deduced from
logies 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 symme-
The mere categories were what he trically three shoots. 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 symme-
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 applicatrically
tion 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
24
three only possible kinds of major premisses, and syllogistic which reasoning accordingly falls into three kinds, each of
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 In the world, and out of the disjunctive the Idea of God.
is
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. pay the tribute of our admiration to the really exceedingly acute combination which produced this elegant
We
structure, but
we
shall
none the
first.
less
proceed to a thorough
examination of
its
foundation and
its parts.
But the
fol-
lowing remarks must come
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 I will explain myself more fully. account. After he has
considered intuitive knowledge in a mathematical refer-
ence 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
is infinitely more significant, geneand rich in content than the abstract part rally present, of our knowledge. Indeed, and this is an important he has nowhere point, 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 asain he
perception alone, which
CRITICISM OF
does not reflect for a
before him.

moment upon
25
that which really lies
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 But then it would perception, comes into consciousness. 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,
above. 1
in direct contradiction to the rule of Descartes given For example, at p. 1 1 V. 24, of the " Critique of
;
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
Pure Reason,"
it is
the faculty of rules

rules, since
it
One would now think

difference
that there
must be a very wide

entitles
between principles and us to assume a special faculty of
knowledge
for
each of them.
But
this great distinction is
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
made
to lie
1 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
pag-
sides 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,
ing
is
always given in addition.
Be-
26
shall return to this arbiconceptions is a principle. trary and inadmissible distinction later, when we come to
We
On p. 330 V. 386, reason is the faculty of mere judging (p. 69 V. 94) he often explains as the work of the understanding. Now, this really amounts
the Dialectic.
; ;
inference
to saying : long as the
Judging is the work of the understanding so ground of the judgment is empirical, transor cendental, 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
are mortal," the be drawn by the

to
From the proposition, " All men " Some mortals are men," may inference,
:
mere understanding. On the other hand, draw the conclusion, "All the learned are mortal," demands an entirely different and far more important the reason. How was it possible for a great faculty
thinker to write the like of this!

reason
action.
is all
On
p.
553; V. 581,
On
at once the constant condition of all voluntary p. 614; V. 642, it consists in the fact that
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
we can
by means of conceptions.
On p. 646 V.
;
nothing else than the faculty which deduces the particular from the general
674,
it is
The understanding also is constantly being explained anew. In seven passages of the " Critique of Pure Rea" son it is explained in the following terms. On p. 5 1
;
V. 75,
the faculty which of itself produces ideas of On p. 69 V. 94, it is the faculty of judging, perception.
it is
;
CRITICISM OF
i.e.,
27
of thinking, i.e., of knowing through conceptions. p. 1 37 of the fifth edition, it is the faculty of knowledge On p. 132; V. 171, it is the faculty of rules. generally.
On
V. 197, however, it is said " It is not only the faculty of rules, but the source of principles (Grundsdtze) " and according to which everything comes under rules latter the it because above was to the reason yet opposed
On
p.
158
On p. alone was the faculty of principles (Princijrien). 1 the is the of V. 60; concepunderstanding faculty 199, tions ; 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
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 charge
which
is fixed,
my
follows his symmetrical, logical system without sufficiently reflecting upon the subject he is thus handling.
that
Kant
Now, as I have said above, if Kant bad 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
;
28
CRITICISM OF
But this very is. also nehas been unfortunately necessary investigation to much the irremediable and has contributed glected,
examined what
in general a conception
confusion of intuitive and abstract knowledge which I
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
shall soon refer to.
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 with-
out reflecting or looking about him. The table of judgments ought to, and must, be the key to all wisdom.
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 had justice, 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 Kant's first edition I avoidance of this my explained
Berkeleian principle as arising from an evident shrink-
CRITICISM OF

;
29
while, on the other hand, I ing from decided idealism found idealism distinctly expressed in many passages of
the
"
Kant with
"
Critique of Pure Eeason," and accordingly I charged contradicting himself. And this charge was
if,
well founded,
as
was then
"
my
case,
one only knew the
Critique of Pure Eeason 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, " If I take away he says there without reserve (p. 383)
:
"
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 In this way then the text of the " Critique introduced. 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 conjectures
my
and the weaknesses which may have influenced Kant so to disfigure his immortal work, I have given in a letter to Professor Eosenkranz, and he has
as to the reasons
quoted the principal passage of it in his preface to the second volume of the edition of Kant's collected works
edited
of
in
to
which I therefore refer. In consequence my representations, Professor Eosenkranz was induced the year 1838 to restore the " Critique of Pure Eeason " its original form, for in the second volume referred to by him,
to
30

it
printed according to the first edition of 1781, by which he has rendered an inestimable service to philo-
he had
sophy ; indeed, he has perhaps saved from destruction the most important work of German literature and this should But let no one always be remembered to his credit. " " the of Pure Reason that he knows Critique imagine 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, It is my spoilt, and to a certain extent ungenuine text. to this and for one's here every say decidedly duty 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 " uEnesidemus" and was soon length by G-. E. Schulze in
recognised as the untenable point of his system. matter may be made clear in a very few words.
The Kaut
based the' assumption of the thing in itself, though concealed under various modes of expression, upon an an inference that the inference from the law of causality
empirical perception, or more accurately the sensation, in our organs of sense, from which it proceeds, must have an But according to his own account, which external cause.
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,
CRITICISM OF
31
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
The empirical perception actually 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
necessary assumption.
is
:
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.
defect of the Kantian system in this point, as has been said, was soon pointed out, is an illuswhich, tration of the truth of the beautiful Indian proverb : " No
lotus without a stem."
The great
thing in itself is here the stem
The erroneous deduction of the yet only the method of

;
the deduction, not the recognition of a thing in itself But this last was belonging to the given phenomenon.
it, which could only happen because he was not concerned with truth, but with making a sensation for the furtherance of his individual ends.
Fichte's misunderstanding of
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
a priori from the
subject.
whole content, was professedly deduced 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
I
its
now
goal in the mad sophistry of Hegel. return to the great mistake of Kant, already
32
CRITICISM OF
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
If he had sharply separated ideas of perclosely. ception from conceptions merely thought in dbstracto, he would have held these two apart, and in every case would
of the
have known with which
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
it
both at once, and is a perfect chimera. For, incredible as 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
space and time (my

abstract conception. in his
first class
of ideas), or
it is,
the idea of perception in merely the

there always runs
Strange as
mind something between the two, and hence arises the unfortunate confusion which I must now bring to For this end I must go through the whole theory light.
of elements in a general
way.
The
"
Transcendental Esthetic
"
is
work
of such extra-
ordinary 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 prion, admits of no other explanation than that this
CRITICISM OF

;
33
constitutes the forms of our intellect
indeed, this
is less
an explanation than merely the distinct expression of the For a priori means nothing else than "not fact itself. on the path of experience, thus not come into us gained from without." But what is present in the intellect, and has not come from without, is just what belongs originally Now if what is to the intellect itself, its own nature.
thus present in the intellect itself consists of the general or manner in which it must present all its objects to itself, this is just saying that what is thus present is the
mode
intellect's
all,
forms of knowing,
it
i.e.,
the mode, fixed once for

function.
which " knowledge a priori and the at bottom only two expressions
in
fulfils
"
this "
its
intellect's
own forms "
Accordingly,
are
for the
same things thus

Transcendental
to a certain extent
synonyms.
the
doctrine
of
Therefore from
./Esthetic I
the
thing to
knew of nothing to take away, only of someKant did not carry out his thought to the add.
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 It is most remarkhas direct evidence from perception. able that one of Kant's opponents, and indeed the acutest
of them, G. E.
sophie,
ii.
Schulze (Kritik der theoretischen Fhilo-
241), draws the conclusion that from his doctrine an entirely different treatment of geometry from
would arise and thus he an thought to bring apagogical argument against Kant, but, in fact, without knowing it, he only began the war Let me refer to 15 of against the method of Euclid. the first book of this work.
that
which
is
actually in use
After the full exposition of the universal forms of perception given in the Transcendental iEsthetic, 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 vol. il
is for
us so real and so important, arises in
34
us.
CRITICISM OF
But the whole teaching of Kant contains really nothing more about this than the oft-repeated meaning" The empirical element in perception is less expression
:
Consequently here also from the given from without" pure forms of perception Kant arrives with one spring at
thinking at the Transcendental Logic. ning of the Transcendental Logic
;
Just at the begin(Critique

of
Pure
Eeason, p. 50 V. 74), where Kant cannot avoid touching upon the content of the empirical perception, he takes
he is guilty of the irpmrov ^vSo?. first false step 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 knowthe
"
;
:
ing an object through these ideas: through the first an the second it is thought." object is given us, through 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 I have explained this point fully this is identical with it.
in the essay
on the principle of sufficient reason, 21. the work of the and of this, however, understanding the faculty of perception is completed, and no conceptions and no thinking are required in addition therefore the
With
brute also has these ideas.

is
If conceptions are added,
if
added, to which spontaneity may certainly be thinking attributed, then knowledge of perception is entirely aban-
doned, and a completely different class of ideas comes into This consciousness, non-perceptible abstract conceptions.
is
the activity of the reason, which yet obtains the whole

content of
its
35
and the comparison

ceptions.
thinking only from the previous perception, of it with other perceptions and con-
But thus Kant brings thinking into the percep-
tion, and lays the foundation for the inextricable confusion of intuitive and abstract knowledge which I am now en-
gaged 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 appre-
hended
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 char:
acter of universality and abstraction, and instead of geneconceptions receives individual things as its object: From this thus again he brings perception into thinking.
ral
springs the inextricable confusion referred to, and the consequences of this first false step extend over his whole Through the whole of his theory theory of knowledge.
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 knowIt is hard to believe that Kant really ledge experience. to himself figured 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 Eeason," p. 67-69 ; V. 92-94
p.
90; Y. 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 the understanding is the faculty of thinking, (p. 68 Y. 93) and thinking is knowledge through conceptions (p. 69 V. 94) the categories of the understanding are by no means
89,
: ;
; ; ; ;
36

which objects are given
;
the conditions under

tion (p.
in percep-
V. 122), and perception in no way requires' V. 123) our underthe functions of thinking (p. 91 standing can only think, not perceive (V. pp. 135, 139). " Further, in the Prolegomena," 20, he says that percep-
89
tion,
sensation, perceptio, belongs merely to the senses;

;
22, that judgment to the understanding alone and in the work of the senses is to perceive, that of the under-
standing 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 discur;
sive; 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
;
comes into our head in a quite inexplicable manner, which he constantly indicates by his strange expression;
it
the perception
definite
is given,
without ever explaining this
in-j
and metaphorical expression further. Now all that has been quoted is contradicted in the most glaring manner by the whole of the rest of hi doctrine of the understanding, of its categories, and of th< possibility of experience as he explains it in the Trans cendental Logic. Thus (Critique of Pure Eeason, p. 79 V
;
105), the understanding through its categories brings unit; into the manifold of perception, and the pure conception
understanding refer a priori to objects of per P. 94 V. 126, the " categories are the conditio: of experience, whether of perception, which is found i V. p. 127, the understanding is th it, or of thought."
of
the
ception.
originator of experience.
V.
p. 128,
mine the perception
of objects.
V.
p. 130, all
the categories detei that we pn
sent to ourselves as connected in the object (which is y certainly something perceptible and not an abstraction), hi
been so connected by an act of the understanding. V. 135, the understanding is explained anew as the faculty combining a priori, and of bringing the multiplicity of giv
CRITICISM OF
;
37
deas under the unity of apperception ; but according to all wdinary use of words, apperception is not the thinking of
V. p. 1 36, we find a first conception, but is perception. of all of the possibility perception in connection principle the V. (iwith understanding. p. 143, it stands as the
t 1
heading, that all sense perception
is
conditioned by the
the same place the logical function of the fsategories. also judgment brings the manifold of given perceptions under an apperception in general, and the manifold of a
i
At
|V.
i
'l
given perception stands necessarily under the categories. p. 144, unity comes into perception, by means of the
V. p. 145, the categories, through the understanding. thinking of the understanding is very strangely explained
synthetically combining, connecting, and arranging the manifold of perception. V. p. 161, experience is only possible through the categories, and consists in the conas
nection of sensations, which, however, are just perceptions. V. p. 1 59, 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,
principles of the possibility of experience, the condition of phenomena in space and
the conceptions of the understanding are the and the latter is
time in general
phenomena which, however, certainly exist in perception. V. 232-265, the long proof is given Finally, p. 189-2 11 (the incorrectness of which is shown in detail in my essay
;
on the principle of
jective succession
sufficient
reason,
23) that the ob-
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
and
becomes possible in this way. Yet it is certain that Nature, the course of events, and the coexistence
38
CRITICISM OF
states,
is
of
purely perceptible, and no mere abstract
thought.
Kant
I challenge every one who shares to reconcile these contradictions
my
and
respect towards 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
distinct
twelve functions, Kant thought something quite and definite. I am convinced that the contra-
diction I have pointed out,
which extends through the

is
whole Transcendental Logic,
the real reason
of
the
Kant himself, in fact, great obscurity of its language. was dimly conscious of the contradiction, inwardly combated
to
it,
distinct consciousness,
but yet either would not or could not bring it and therefore veiled it from
himself and others, and avoided it by all kinds of subterThis is perhaps also the reason why he made out fuges.
of the faculties of
knowledge such a strange complicatec
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 understandAnd notwithstanding this great apparatus, ing, &c, &c.
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 meta-
phorical expression:
us."
"The
On
p.
145 of the
is
fifth edition,
empirical perception is given we learn further that

;
the perception
object
must be something
given through the object therefore the different from the perception.
If, now, we endeavour to investigate Kant's inmost tat meaning, not clearly expressed by himself, we find that in reality such an object, different from the perceptioi
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 per-

ception
first
39
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 a subject. object, which is an object in itself, i.e., without
It is
certainly not the perceived

it is
object,
but through the
to the perception by thought, as conception something corresponding to it; and now the perception is
added
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.
is
The object is given only through perception, and afterwards thought in accordance with the category" This is (Critique of Pure Reason, first edition, p. 399).
:
"
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.
fusion in
the object
it
;
Here the source of the error and the conwhich it is involved shows itself distinctly. For as such exists always only for perception and in
be completed through the senses,
or,
it
may now
when
it is
"What is thought, absent, through the imagination. on the contrary, is always an universal non-perceptible
conception,
which certainly can be the conception of an 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
object in general
;
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
to
the results of perceptions, in order to preserve them, and be able to use them more easily. But Kant ascribes
the objects themselves to thought, in order to
make
expe-
40

and the objective world dependent upon under"
rience
without allowing understanding to be a In this relation he certainly disfrom thought, but he makes partinguishes perception ticular things sometimes the object of perception and In reality, however, sometimes the object of thought. our empirical the of the are former; object only they
standing, yet faculty of perception.
perception is at once from the causal nexus.
them, are directly
its
because it proceeds not ideas different from Things, Particular things as such object.
objective, just
are perceived in the understanding
and through the senses;
the one-sided impression upon the latter is at once comBut, on the contrary, as soon pleted by the imagination.
as
we
pass over to thought,

to
we
leave the particular things,
do with general conceptions, which cannot be presented in perception, although we afterwards apply If we the results of our thought to particular things. hold firmly to this, the inadmissibleness of the assumption becomes evident that the perception of things only obtains
and have
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
by the application to sensation of the knowledge of the causal nexus, which is the one function of the understanding. Perception is accordingly
into existence
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 nalveti which Kant ven-
tured 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 " Orundriss einer algemeinen Logik," third edition, part i., p. 434 of the exposi-
CRITICISM OF
tion,
41
and part
ii.,
in Tieftrunk's
"
52 and 53 of the exposition; similarly Denklehre in rein Deutschem Gewande"
It there appears so clearly how those disciples (1825). 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:

idea
;
(1.)
the
of the idea ; (3.) the thing in itself. (2.) the object The first belongs to the sensibility, which in its ca3e, as in that of sensation, includes the
pure forms of perception,
The second belongs to the understandspace and time. it through its twelve categories. which thinks The ing,
third lies
beyond the
cf.
support of this,
p. J 08
and
109.)
is
possibility of all knowledge. (In Critique of Pure Eeason, first edition, The distinction of the idea from the
object of the idea
however unfounded
it
this
had already
been proved by Berkeley, and

exposition in the
first
appears from
i.
my
whole
book, especially chap.
of the sup-
plements; 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 The illicit introduction of that hybrid, the thing in itself.
object of the idea, is the source of Kant's errors ; yet when it is taken away, the doctrine of the categories as concep-
42
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
tions
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
this account presents itself in space and time (forms of pure perception) as object of experience, material objecti
on
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
which we condemned
the
before, that
connected with his mistake, he gives no theory of
more, treats
sation, to
origin of empirical perception, but, without saying it as given, identifying it with the mere sen-
which he only adds the forms of intuition or perand 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
ception, space
:
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
:
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
left it to
me
to
CRITICISM OF
sufficient reason,

23.
43
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
If, in reality, experience were only brought about by the understanding applying its twelve different functions in order to think through as
the thing in itself (3 ).
many
conceptions a priori, the objects which were pre-
viously 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

causality. Upon matter consists in action,
is to
be found
that of
this rests materiality, for the essence of
and
it is
through and through

it
is materiality alone causality (c/. iv.) that distinguishes the real thing from the picture of the For matter, as perimagination, which is then only idea.
Bk.
II. ch.
But
manent, 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
its
consists either of determinations of space or of time, or of empirical properties, which are all referable to its
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 What fills the old ontoloexperience and its possibilty. gies 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
activity,
is
expressed affords an evidence of its baselessness. What a difference in this respect between the Transcendental Êsthetic
and the Transcendental Analytic!
In the
44
CRITICISM OF
former, viction
what clearness, definiteness, certainty, firm conwhich is freely expressed and infallibly comitself
:
!
municates
All
is full
of light, no dark lurking-
places are left Kant In that he is right.

is
knows what he wants and knows

the
latter,
on the other hand,
all
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
conflict
sis
tal
though not clearer. We actually see Kant in with the truth in order to carry out his hypothewhich he has once fixed upon. In the TranscendenÊsthetic all his propositions are really proved from
edition,
,
undeniable facts of consciousness

tal Analytic,
in
the Transcenden-
on the contrary, we
find, if
we
consider
be.
it
Here, then, as everywhere, the language bears the stamp of the thought from which it has proceeded, for style is the have still to remark, that physiognomy of the mind.
closely,
mere assertions that thus
it is
and must
We
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 The deduction of the categories is simpler windows. and less involved in the first edition than in the second.
;
labours to explain how, according to the perception given by sensibility, the understanding produces experi-
He
ence 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 explana-

tion
first
45
he does not once touch upon what must nevertheless
its
occur to every one the relation of the sensation to If he did not intend this relation to external cause.
hold good, he ought to have expressly denied it; but neither does he do this. Thus in this way he evades the
point,
it.
and all the Kantians have in like manner evaded The secret motive of this is, that he reserves the
causal nexus, under the
name "ground
of the
phenome-
non," for his false deduction of the thing in itself ; and also that perception would become intellectual through the
which he dare not admit. Besides 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
relation to the cause,
this,
introduce the empiricism of Locke.

is
removed by
is
;
reflection,
But this difficulty which shows us that the law of
causality
itself
it
and
of subjective origin, as well as the sensation besides this, our own body also, inasmuch as
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 underYet this is standing, by means of its twelve categories. never adequately explained, nor is it shown what this
manifold of perception is before it is combined by the But time and space, the latter in all its understanding.
three dimensions, are
continue/,,
i.e
all
their
parts are
Thus, then, everyoriginally not separate but combined. thing that exhibits itself in them (is given) appears originally as a continuum, i.e., its parts appear already combined
and
require
If,
manifold.
no adventitious combination of a 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 what that affects my eye as yellow, my hand as recognise
46
smooth and hard, my ear as sounding, is yet only one and then I reply that this is rather a consethe same body, quence 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 exIn the beautiful recapitulation hibits itself in perception.
of his
gives at p. 719-726 or V. Pure Reason," he explains the 747-754 more distinctly than anywhere else, as categories, perhaps " 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 comof the
"
doctrine which
Kant
Critique of
position of the lines ; at least by this image one can best explain to oneself what he says of the function of the cateThe preface to the " Metaphysical First Principles gories. " 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 under-
standing 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
I, on the contrary, say objects, no perceptions. Objects exist primarily ouly for perception, and conceptions are always abstractions from this perception. Therefore ab:
stract 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
CRITICISM OF
47
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 I therefore the reason, as I have shown in the first book.
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 Eeason 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
Kant's only discovery, which is understanding of it. based upon objective comprehension and the highest human thought, is the appercu that time and space are
known by us a
Gratified by this happy hit, he priori. wished to pursue the same vein further, and his love of As he architectonic symmetry afforded him the clue. 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 a pure thought priori, which, however, would have no in but would be obliged to take them from itself, objects that as the Transcendental Êsthetic estabSo perception. lishes 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,
48
CRITICISM OF

what
is
investigating and observing
present in conscious-
ness; 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 Êsthetic 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 plausi-
bility 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 eveiy 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
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
exaggeration, or,
adequate to the conception, but
is
merely a temporary
CRITICISM OF
representative
sufficient

I
49
is
of
it.
needful on this point in

reason,
28.
have already adduced what my essay on the principle
of
Kant
calls
of
this
kind a schema, in opposition
picture of the imagination.
He
a fleeting phantasy to the perfected says it is like a mono-
gram 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.
of
schemata in the case empirical (real) thinking entirely connected with the material content of such conceptions. For since these are drawn from conceptions empirical perception, we assist and guide ourselves when engaged in abstract thinking
of the
is
For the end
by now and then casting a momentary glance back

vol.
11.
at
So
CRITICISM OF
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, For these conceptions clearly this is necessarily omitted. are not sprung from perception, but come to it from Thus within, in order to receive a content first from it. 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, tha 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,

fact.
psychological
difficulty of
even to a mere Here the apparent depth and the
the reader that

strable
the exposition just serve to conceal from its content remains a wholly undemon-
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 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 froir sensation, but exists a priori, and is indeed the form anc function of the pure understanding. It is also, however
1
CRITICISM OF
its sole
51
form and function, yet one so rich in results that our empirical knowledge rests upon it. If, as has often been said, the refutation of an error is only complete
all
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.
After
the
first
Kant had thus introduced such
great errors into
simple outlines of a theory of the faculty of perception, he adopted a variety of very complicated assumpTo these belongs first of all the synthetic unity tions.
of apperception:
explained.
all
a very strange
thing,
very strangely
"The 7" think must be able to accompany my ideas." Must be able this is a problematic:
enunciation; in plain English, a proposition takes with one hand what it gives with the other. which And what is the meaning of this carefully balanced
apodictic
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
proposition
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
the correlative of all ideas,

fully described
what I call the subject of knowing, and it is also that which I have
Supplements, as the focus in
and explained in the 2 2d chapter of the which the rays of the activity
52
CRITICISM OF
of the brain converge. Therefore, to avoid repetition, I now refer to that chapter.
That I
reckon
it
reject the
whole doctrine of the
categories,
and
Kant
the groundless assumptions with which burdened the theory of knowledge, results from the
among
criticism given above
and
also
from the proof
of the con-
tradictions in the Transcendental Logic, which had their ground in the confusion of perception and abstract know-
ledge
also further
from the proof of the want of a distinct
and and
definite conception of the nature of the understanding of the reason, instead of which we found in Kant's writ-
ings 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 21, 26, and 34, principle of sufficient reason, 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 conceptioi 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
my exposition of it. In this discussion I shall always attach to the concepts understanding and reason the sens given them in my explanation, which I therefore assume
with
the reader
is
familiar with.
CRITICISM OF
53
An
essential difference
lies
between Kant's method and that
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
which I follow
who
the height of a tower by its shadow, while I am like him applies the measuring-rule directly to the tower
Therefore, for
itself.
him philosophy
it is
is
a science of con-
ceptions, but for
me
from knowledge
dence,
a science in conceptions, drawn of perception, the one source of all evi-
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 perIf Kant had ception is set in motion before our eyes.
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
in
and confusions. But from the which he his solves way 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
maxim
sists
itself,
as concerns the specified method and fundamental there is much to be said for it, and it is a
brilliant thought.
The nature
of all science indeed con-
in this, that
we comprehend
the endless manifold of
54
CRITICISM OF
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
perceptible
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
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
this
;
knowledge of perception ought have been investigated (which certainly presupposes the clear separation of the two, which was neglected by He ought to have inquired in what way the Kant). 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 unalterto
;
relation of reflection to
ably 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
CRITICISM OF
.

itself,
55
forms and compounds are determined by
so that the
nature of the food can no longer be recognised from the Or (for this is going a little too far) result they produce.
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
from
it,
so that it is by no means possible, starting ; 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
;
56
CRITICISM OF
I shall
now go through the moments of the and point out the origin of each of one one, judgment by them in the sources referred to ; and from this it follows of itself that a deduction of categories from them is wantformer.
ing,
its
exposition
and the assumption of this is just as groundless as was found to be entangled and self-con-
flicting.
I. The so-called Quantity of judgments springs from the It thus has its ground in the nature of concepts as such. reason alone, and has absolutely no direct connection with It the understanding and with knowledge of perception.
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."
that the difference of the two operations indeed, that the possibility of it depends
is
One
sees
;
very slight
upon the
rich-
ness 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,
itself is
from which, as well as from many others, this concept drawn; this happens in the singular judgment. Such a judgment merely indicates the boundary-line
CRITICISM OF
57
between abstract knowledge and knowledge of perception, and passes directly to the latter, "This tree here bears Kant has made of this also a special categall-nuts."
gory.
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 within the province of reason, and is not an entirely
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
it
of the reason itself objectively comprehended, carries with 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 from the reason, and cannot be further explained. purely 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.
is,
It
therefore, pure reality; all negation is foreign to its
nature, can only be
added on through, reflection, and just
58
CRITICISM OF
this
on
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.
hypothetical Judgment in general is the abstract of that most universal form of all our knowexpression In the essay on principle of sufficient reason. ledge,
(a.)
The
my
this principle, I already showed in 18 13 that it has four entirely different meanings, and in each of these originally
concerns a different class of ideas.

this,
originates in a different faculty of knowledge, and also It clearly follows from
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 judg-
as its expression. see here, however, very distinctly how kinds of knowledge which are quite different
ment
We
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
CRITICISM OF
$9
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
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
of sufficient reason
upon
(b.)
it
longer here. 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
Therefore the hypothetical and spheres of the concepts. the disjunctive combination are properly no special forms
of the
they are only applied to already completed judgments, in which the combination of the But they concepts remains unchanged the categorical. for the connect these hypothetical form judgments, again
judgment;
for
expresses their dependence upon each other, and the disMere concepts, however, junctive their incompatibility. have only one class of relations to each other, those which
The fuller are expressed in the categorical judgment determination, or the sub-species of this relation, are
the intersection and
concept-spheres,
i.e.,
the complete separateness of the thus affirmation and negation out of

;
which Kant has made special

different title, that of quality.
under quite a Intersection and separatecategories,
ness
lie
have again sub-species, according as the spheres within each other entirely, or only in part, a deter-
mination 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 modifica-
tions of the
other,
one possible relation of mere concepts to each on the other hand, unites what is very different and,
title of relation.
under this
Categorical judgments have as their metalogical principle the laws of thought of identity and contradiction.
60

of the connection of the concept-spheres to the judgment, which is nothing but
But the ground

this
which gives truth

connection,
to
be of very different kinds; and, truth of the judgment is either the this, according or or metaphysical, or metalogical, as logical, empirical, is explained in the introductory essay, 30-33, and does
may
this
But it is apparent from not require to be repeated here. 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
beginning
ledge.
may
obtain the right, however irregular the be, of placing ourselves at the standpoint
of abstract
knowledge to analyse direct intuitive knowFor the rest, the categorical judgment springs
from knowledge of the understanding proper, in

only
my
sense,
when
causation
is
expressed by
it
this
is,
however,
For
the case in all judgments which refer to a physical quality. " if I say, This body is heavy, hard, fluid, green, sour,
is
&c, &c," this always refers to its effect, 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
alkaline, organic,
and thus
matter.
Accidents, however, are quite
synonymous with
CRITICISM OF
kinds of
stance
61
effects, so that the supposed knowledge of suband 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 4 of the first book, and still more explained partly in clearly in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason at the end of 21, p. yj (3d ed., p. 82), and in some respects we shall see it still more closely when we in-
vestigate the principle of the

(c.)
permanence
of substance.
Disjunctive judgments spring from the law of thought of excluded third, which is a metalogical truth ;
entirely the property of the reason, not their The and have origin in the understanding. deduction of the category of community or reciprocity from them is, however, a glaring example of the violence
they
are, therefore,
which Kant sometimes allowed
to
be done to truth,
merely in order to satisfy his love of architectonic symThe illegitimacy of that deduction has already metry.
often been justly
condemned and proved upon various
" Kritik der grounds, especially by G. E. Schulze in his " theoretischen Philosophic," and by Berg in his Epikritik
What real analogy is there, indeed, der Philosophic" 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
the other
alternative propositions is also necessarily the negation of 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,
and conversely.
is proved is also the proof, as just logic rejects the vicious so the of circle, conception reciprocity ought to be ban-
what
And
ished from metaphysics. For I now intend, quite serito is no reciprocity in the strict that there ously, prove
62
CRITICISM OF
and
this conception, which people are so fond of on account of the indefiniteness of the thought, using, just 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 Causality has to do merely with conposition in time. ditions 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
sense,
But causality, but a continuing quiet condition or state. 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
sity.
is
From
the principle of all explanation and of all necesthis 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 consequenceonly because of this is the state A. cause and the state B.
effect.
The conception
amounts
reciprocity,
however, contains
;
this,
that both are cause and both are effect of each other
this really
but
the
to saying that each of the
two
is
CRITICISM OF

;
63
thus it is an absurdity. For earlier and also the later 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,
For the permanence of 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
they constitute only one
state.
this state there is certainly required the
the cause of the change of all the other determinations of the first state, so that a new third state appears ; which
happens merely in accordance with the simple law of causality, and does not establish a new law, that of reciall
procity. 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
brought to rest by equal weights. Here there is 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 bescales
no
effect
comes the cause of the

scale,
third, the
happens and requires no special category of the underAn example of standing, and not even a special name. The the second class is the continuous burning of a fire. combination of oxygen with the combustible body is the
effect,
according to the simple
sinking of the other law of cause and
64
cause of heat, and heat, again, is the cause of the renewed But this is occurrence of the chemical combination.
nothing more than a chain of causes and effects, the links The burning, of which have alternately the same name.
A.,
produces free heat, B., this produces new burning, C. a new effect which has the same name as the cause (i.e., is not individually identical with it), this probut A.,
duces
new
heat,
the effect
of
B.,
D. (which is not really identical with but only according to the concept, i.e., it has
the same name), and so on indefinitely.
A good
example
in ordinary life is called reciprocity is afforded a about deserts given by Humboldt (Ansichten theory by In the sandy deserts der Natur, 2d ed., vol. ii. p. 79).
it
what
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
from the sandy plain which prevents the parvapour 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
air rising
ticles
of
relation of reciprocity
it does not rain because the heated out heat the desert does not besends more sand-plain come a steppe or prairie because it does not rain. But
; ;
here again, as in the example given a succession of causes and effects of the same above, only
clearly
we have
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
it was itself brought about, but indivinew. Only here the matter is complicated,dually 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
that by which
is
CRITICISM OF
65
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
I urge so strongly and have fully in the on the principle of sufficient reason, explained essay that the cause and the effect are not two bodies, but two
reason of this
is
what
successive states of bodies, consequently each of the

states implicates all bodies
two
i.e.,
concerned
thus the
effect,
example, in the case of an newly appearing impulse, extends to both bodies in the same proportion;
;he
state, for
therefore
the body impelled produces just as great a 3hange in the body impelling as it itself sustains (each in proportion to its mass and velocity). If one pleases to
sail
this
reciprocity, then
still less
reciprocal effect,
bhis
and no new conception
absolutely every effect is a is introduced on
account,
the understanding, but

for causality.
does it require a new function of we only have a superfluous synonym But Kant himself, in a moment of thought" expressed this view in the Metaphysical Natural Science," at the beginning of the
lessness, exactly
First Principles of
" All external proof of the fourth principle of mechanics : affect in the world is reciprocal effect." then should different functions lie a priori in the understanding for
How
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
reciprocal effect, succession
According to this, if all effect is 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, VOL, 11. B
;
66

no corresponding form of
assertion
and
the ground of the
the understanding, that perpetual motion
impossible. Aristotle also denies reciprocity in the strict sense ; fo he remarks that two things may certainly be reciprocal causes of each other, but only if this is understood in
different sense of each of
them;
for
example, that on
acts
d 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. Eari oe riva /ecu aWrfXwp atria' olo\
:
upon the other
as the motive, but the latter ac
to iroveiv avriov
T779
evefta<?,
tcai
avrr) rov ttovuv' a\X' o V

a>9
top avrov rpoirov,

Kivrjo-em.
aXKa to pep <o<? re\o9, to 6c (Sunt prosterea qua sibi sunt mutiio
apxt
cuusce, ut
exercitium bonce habitudinis, et hcec exereitii : ai non corfem modo, sed hcec ut finis, aliud ut principium motus.) Ify 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 In the Analyt. post., lib. ii c. 11, he speaks of a causes. circle of causes and effects, but not of reciprocity.
4.
The
all others,
categories of Modality have this advantage over that what is expressed through each of them
really corresponds to the

is
form of judgment from which
it
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 capriciomj
violence.
Thus that it is the conceptions of the possible, the actual and the necessary which occasion the problematic, asserta tory, and apodictic forms of judgment, is perfectly true i but that those conceptions are special, original forms knowledge of the understanding which cannot be furthe deduced is not true. On the contrary, they spring fror the single original form of all knowledge, which is, there fore, known to us a priori, the principle of sufficient ret son; and indeed out of this the knowledge of necessil
1
CRITICISM OF
springs directly.

the other hand,
it is
67
On
only because
reflection is applied to this that the conceptions of con-
tingency, 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 and the concepit as the consequent of a given reason contains of tion absolutely nothing more than necessity
;
this
else,
dependence, this being established through something
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, of this forms the different to principle, a physical according
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 pre-
tended categorical imperative, but the necessary occurrence of an action according to the motives presented, in the
case
But everything only so relatively, that is, under the presupposition of the reason from which it follows; thereWith regard fore absolute necessity is a contradiction. the to the rest, I refer to of on the 49 essay principle
of
a given empirical character.

is
necessary
of sufficient reason..
is
The contradictory opposite, i.e., the denial of necessity, contingency. The content of this conception is, therefore, negative nothing more than this absence of the con:
nection expressed
by the principle of sufficient reason.
Consequently the contingent is also always merely relaIt is contingent in relation to something which is tive.
68
CRITICISM OF
its
reason. Every object, of whatever kind it may be example, every event in the actual world is alwayi at once necessary and contingent necessary in relation the one condition which is its cause contingent in relatio:
not
for
For its contact in time and sp to everything else. with everything else is a mere coincidence without ne'
sary connection : hence also the words chance, avfiirrto Therefore an absolute contingency is just contingent.
For the former inconceivable as an absolute necessity. would be simply an object which stood to no other in the
relation
of
consequent to
its
reason.
But the incon-
ceivability 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 conhas meaning only in relation to that principle tingency and signifies that two objects do not stand to each othei
in the relation of reason
and consequent.
In nature, which consists of ideas of perception, everything that happens is necessary ; for it proceeds from iti cause. If, however, we consider this individual with re ference to everything else which is not its cause, w know it as contingent; but this is already an abstrac reflection. Now, further, let us abstract entirely from
i
natural object
its
its
causal relation to everything else, thu
necessity and its contingency ; then this kind of know ledge comprehends the conception of the actual, in whic one only considers the effect, without looking for the cauw
in relation to
which one would otherwise have

in relation to
to call
necessary, everything else contingen All this rests ultimately upon the fact that the modalit of the judgment does not indicate so much the objectiV
and
nature of things as the relation of our knowledge to thei Since, however, in nature everything proceeds from
cause, everything actual
as
it
is
is
at this time, in
this place; for
also necessary, yet only so f; only so far do>
CRITICISM OF
69
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
and
to us
priori,
partly only a
is
posteriori,
this
partly a abstract idea
contains all that
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
is
of the possible.
But what
finds
nc place even here
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.
from which
we
start in the
According as the laws of nature, thought of the possible and
impossible, are known a priori or a posteriori, is the possibility or impossibility metaphysical or physical.
it
which requires no proof because the upon knowledge of the principle of sufficient reason and upon the development of the concepthis exposition,
rests directly
From
tions 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.
that, certainly
we have to add the other great mistake, according to the procedure of earlier philosophy, he has confounded the conceptions of necessity and That earlier philosophy contingency with each other.
To
this,
however,
has applied abstraction to the following mistaken use. It was clear that that of which the reason is given inevitably
But i.e., cannot not be, and thus necessarily is. that philosophy held to this last determination alone, and said that is necessary which cannot be otherwise, or the
follows,
opposite of
which
is
impossible.
It left, however, the
70
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
thia
with that entirely imaginary absolute necessity, which

is
1 Kant adself-contradictory in its conception. heres to this fundamentally perverse definition of the
Now
(Critique of Pure contingent and gives it as explanation. Reason, V. p. 289-291 , 243. V. 301 , 419. V. 447, 486, He falls indeed into the most evident contra488.)
diction with himself
on p. 301 he and adds, a has cause," says: "Everything contingent M That is contingent which might possibly not be." But
upon
this point, for
whatever has a cause cannot possibly not be thus it is For the rest, the source of the whole of this necessary. false explanation of the necessary and the contingent is to be found in Aristotle in "De Generatione et Corruption^
:
lib.
ii
that
1
c. 9 et 11, where the necessary is explained as which cannot possibly not be there stands in opposi:
Cf. Christian Wolf's
ftige
Gedankcn von
Gott,
"VerniinWell und
matical truths.
The
reason be
It is strange Sede," 577-579. 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 an 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 mathe-
signs for this is, that only the lav of causality gives infinite series, while the other kinds of groundf
Yet this i> give only finite series. by no means the case with the form of the principle of sufficient reasoi in pure space and time, but onl; holds good of the logical ground o knowledge ; but he held mathe matical necessity to be such alsc Compare the essay on the prinoH
of sufficient reason,
50.
CRITICISM OF
tion to it that
71
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 we find nothing to support the thought, even
as
reason,
even .merely the asserted consequent whose necessity is yet relative and conditioned. I take this opportunity of adding a few further remarks
Since
perceptible, as possible, of a given
on these conceptions of modality.

rests
all necessity
upon the principle

all
of sufficient reason,
and
is
on
this
apodictic judgments are originally, and according to their ultimate significance, hypothetical. They become categorical only through the addition of an
If this minor is assertatory minor, thus in the conclusion. still undecided, and this indecision is expressed, this gives
account relative,
the problematical judgment. What in general (as a rule)

is
is apodictic (a law of nature), 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 All this has its ground in the fact that possidirectly.
bility exists
reason
only in the province of reflection and for the the actual, in the province of perception and for
72

Indeed, the
the understanding ; the necessary, for both.

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
; ;
Accordingly everything actual is also necesand 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.
occurrences.
sary,
; ;
Every event
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
is
particular as such.
If,
on the other hand, we consider
them in abstracto, necesare sity, actuality, possibility again separated; we then know everything which is in accordance with the a
things generally, comprehending
and
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.
is
The actual
is
in itself always also necessary, but
only comprehended
as such
regarded apart from
this, it is
by him who knows its cause ; and is called contingent.
This consideration also gives us the key to that contentio between the Megaric Diodorus and Chryirepi Bvvarmv
sippus the Stoic which Cicero refers to in his book Dt Diodorus says: "Only what becomes actual was Fato. possible, and all that is actual is also necessary." Chry-
sippus on the other hand says: "Much that is possible never becomes actual; for only the necessary becomes
CRITICISM OF
actual."
73
"We may explain this thus: Actuality is the conclusion of a syllogism to which possibility gives the But for this is required not only the major but premises. minor; only the two give complete possibility. gives a merely theoretical, general possibility in dbstracto, but this of itself does not make anything For this the possible, i.e., capable of becoming actual.
also the
The major
needed, which gives the possibility for the particular case, because it brings it under the rule, and
minor also
thereby
it
is
becomes at once
actual.
For example
Maj. All houses (consequently also

destroyed
my
house) can be
by
fire.
fire.
Min.
destroyed by fire. For every general proposition, thus every major, always determines things with reference to actuality only under for example, a presupposition, therefore hypothetically the capability of being burnt down has as a presupposition
;
My house is on Concl. My house is being
This presupposition is produced in the the catching fire. The major always loads the cannon, but only if minor. the minor brings the match does the shot, i.e., the conclusion, follow.
This holds good throughout of the rela-
tion 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
which can also be seen from the fact that necessity only means being the consequent of a given
also necessary,
reason
this is in the case of the actual a cause
thus
Accordingly, we see here everything actual is necessary. the conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the necessary unite,
and not merely the
last
presuppose the
is
;
first,
but also the converse.

tation of our intellect
What
keeps them apart
the limi-
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
74
CRITICISM OF
us contingent ; indeed their independence of each other is Since, however, each just the conception of contingency. of them was the necessary effect of its causes, the chain
which has no beginning, it is evident that contingency merely a subjective phenomenon, arising from the limi tion of the horizon of our understanding, and just as subjective as the optical horizon at which the heavens tou<
the earth.
is the same thing as following from 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
Since necessity
it
given grounds,
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, mathe
and practical. It may further be remarked that 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 " A nightingale must be a bird, a bird must creature, &c." an be 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
matical,
if
;
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
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 concepcausality
;
tion 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 per-
ception or intuition, if there is only necessity.
we
confine ourselves strictly to it, Possibility occurs here also only
CRITICISM OF
"

:
75
through relation to the concepts of reflection for example, A triangle may be right-angled, obtuse-angled, or equi;
angular 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 unten-
able nature of his doctrine of the categories by the fact that in the third chapter of the Analytic of Principles
(phenomena
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. that he has not defined the individual categories, 241)
them even if he had wished 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
because he could not define
to
do
so,
definition of the categories although I

of
it."
may be
in possession
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
76
CRITICISM OF
categories,
nothing distinct can be thought in connection with the and this whole doctrine stands upon a weak
This table of the categories
is
foundation.
now made
the guiding
clue according to
which every metaphysical, and indeed

is
every scientific inquiry
to be conducted (Prolegomena,
And, in fact, it is not only the foundation of the 39). whole Kantian philosophy and the type according to which
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
its
not the imitatores servumpecus have done That violence then is applied in this way.
!
We
have seen.
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 Ancdyt. priora, i. 23 (irepi ttolot^to^ Kai iro<roTT)To<i twv tov avWoyuTfiov opoav de qualitate
:
quantitate terminorum syllogismi), but are arbitrarily chosen ; for the extent of the concepts might certainly have been otherwise expressed than through the word quantity,
et
though this word
is
more suited
to its object
than the
quality
rest of the titles of the categories.
Even the word
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
But now in every inquiry instituted by Kant, negation. 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
77
The nearest terms one's repugnance to this procedure. example is afforded us at once by the pure physiological
table of the general principles of natural science. in all the world has the quantity of judgments to
What
do with
tude
the fact that every perception has an extensive magni? 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
and the latter is nothing more than an empirical, and, moreover, entirely subjective feeling, drawn merely from the consideration of the nature of our
external perception,
organs of sense.
basis of rational
;
Further, in the table which gives the
psychology (Critique of Pure Eeason, the V. 402), simplicity of the soul is cited under p. 344 but this is just a quantitative property, and has quality to the affirmation or negation in no relation absolutely But quantity had to be completed by the the judgment.
;
unity of the soul, which

its
is,
simplicity. the soul stands in connection with possible objects ; but connection belongs to relation, only this is already
Then modality
however, already included in is forced in in an absurd

;
way
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
;
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
shall
the Categories of Freedom ! in the " Eeason ; also in the first book
"
of
Critique of Practical " 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
78
CRITICISM OF

supposed to corre-
totality of the directions of lines are
spond to the categories, which are so the quantity of judgments.
named according
to
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 Yet this is only done pro simple, purely logical form for the sake of and The proof of this symmetry. forma,
!
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 18, and worked out more fully in reason, 4 of I must assume a knowledge of both the present work. these expositions for the understanding of what follows. It is false that time remains the same through all change ;
on the contraiy, permanent time
it
is
is
just time itself that
is
fleeting; a
Kant's proof is unhe as has tenable, strenuously supported it with sophisms; he falls into the most indeed, palpable contradictions.
a contradiction.
Thus, after he has falsely set up co-existence as a mode of time (p. 1 77 V. 219), he says, quite rightly (p. 183 V. 226), " Co-existence is not a mode of time, for in time there are
;
;
In absolutely no parts together, but all in succession." is as much in as co-existence truth, space quite implicated
For if two things are co-existent and yet not one, are different in respect of space ; if two states of one they are co-existent (e.g., the glow and the heat of iron), thing
time.
then they are two contemporaneous
effects of one thing,
CRITICISM OF

and matter presupposes
79
therefore presuppose matter,
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
all
upon insight a priori;
for it is raised
above
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 con-
a priori, is essentially concerned only with the changes, ie., the successive states of matter, is thus limited
scious
to the form,
and leaves the matter untouched, which
therefore exists in our consciousness as the foundation of
which is not subject to becoming or passing away, which has therefore always been and will always continue to be. deeper proof of the permanence of substance, drawn from the analysis of our perception of
all things,
the empirical world in general, is to be found in the book of this work, 4, where it is shown that
first
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,
is
consequently only for the understanding, which nothing but the subjective correlative of causality.
also,
Hence,
matter
is
never
known
otherwise than as
;
and through causality producing effects, i.e., to be and to act are with it one, which is indeed signified Intimate union of space and by the word actuality. 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
as through
80
CRITICISM OF
united in matter the inconstant flux of time, appearing aa change of the accidents, with the rigid immobility of space, ! which exhibits itself as the permanence of substance. For
if
menon would be
the substance passed torn
away like the accidents, the phenoaway from space altogether, and
;
Mould 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 1 This is precisely the case with the proof of passage.
reciprocity also, the concept of which I was obliged to What is necessary has also explain above as invalid.
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 prin-
cipal
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
1
that throws a constant obscurity over Kant's whole

28 and Zrit, Ravtn und KatualiUU, Schulze, Kritik der tkeorttby G. ischen Philo$opkie, Bd ii. S. 422-44*
;
.
refutation of the Kanthe eartier attacks upon it by Feder, lebcr

tian proof
With my
may be compared
fl
CRITICISM OF
81
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 conjectures, for he alternately tries to understand
merely
what
is
said as referring to thought and to perception, and remains " On the Division of always in suspense. In the chapter
all
Objects into
that incredible idea of
Phenomena and Noumena," Kant carries want of reflection as to the nature of the perception and the abstract idea, as I shall explain
more
fully immediately, so far as to assertion that without thought, that
make
is,
the monstrous without abstract

;
conceptions, there
is
no knowledge of an object
it is
and that
perception, because
ledge, and, in general, is

sensibility,
not thought, is also not knownothing but a mere affection of
mere sensation!
is
without conception without perception

309).
Nay, more, that perception absolutely void ; but conception

(p.
is
yet always something

all
253; V.
;
Now
this is exactly the opposite of the truth

significance, to ideas of perception,
all
for
concepts obtain
their relation
content, only from
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
in themselves
void. Perceptions, on the contrary, have 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 appears as the principle of the
the rest,
it
looks as
if
with concepts, in which it ground of knowing. For 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 everyvol.

11.
82
CRITICISM OF
But yet he arrives at no and although Locke and Leibnitz really committed these errors, Kant himself is burdened with a third the error of having so error which includes them both 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
thing to ideas of perception.
distinction
;
the chapter referred to

into
"
On
the Division of
"
all
Objects
Phenomena and Noumena

is
the nature of this distinction

one.
than anywhere else, but here a fundamentally false
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^
On
p.
253
through mere perception nothing at all is thought, and that this affection of sensibility is in me establishes really
for
no relation of such ideas to any object" This sentence contains, in some degree, all the errors of Kant in a nutfor it brings out clearly that he has falsely conshell ceived 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 oJ.j an object to be given through thought, which is different from perception. I, on the contrary, say Objects an first of all objects of perception, not of thought, and al knowledge of objects is originally and in itself perception Perception, however, is by no means mere sensation, bu
;
,
the understanding
is
already active in it
The thoughl
which
added only in the case of men, not in the case c the brutes, is mere abstraction from perception, gives n
is
fundamentally
new knowledge,
does not
itself
estab|f|
objects which were not before, but merely changes form of the knowledge already won through percept
CRITICISM OF
makes
it

its
83
abstract
knowledge in concepts, whereby
con-
crete or perceptible character is lost, but, on the other hand, combination of it becomes possible, which immeasur-
ably 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 per;
ception, 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
its
just as a piece of gold can be

solutions, oxides, sublimates,
reduced from all and combinations, and
presented pure and undiminished.

if
thought
itself
This could not happen had added something, and, indeed, the
principal thing, to the object The whole of the chapter on the
Amphiboly, which
fol-
lows
merely a criticism of the Leibnitzian philoand as such is on the whole correct, though the sophy, form or pattern on which it is constructed is chosen merely
this, is
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
categories,
number corresponds
as best it
to the titles of the

of Leibnitz is
this critique,
and therefore the chief doctrine
divided
also, to
among them
some
may
be.
By
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
extent, certain errors are
84
CRITICISM OF
In the chapter on serve up his own strange inventions. the Amphiboly of Reflection it is finally said that there
may
cable
from ours,
;
possibly be a kind of perception entirely different to which, however, our categories are appli-
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,
;
categories now as the condition of knowledge of perception, now as the function of merely abstract thought.
sets
up the
Here they appear exclusively

seems quite as
if
in the latter sense, and he wished to attribute them merely
it
to
But if this is really his opinion, then discursive thought. 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
and consequently to distinguish it from perhe ought to have shown what knowledge is g by mere perception, and what that is new is added thought. Then we would have known what he was re or rather, he would then have spoke speaking about quite differently, first of perception, and then of thought instead of which, as it is, he is always dealing with soi There thing between the two, which is a mere delusion. would not then be that great gap between the transoM dental Êsthetic and the transcendental Logic, where, aftei the exposition of the mere form of perception, he siinplj
in general,
ception
dismisses
with the phrase
came
content, all that is empirically apprehended " It is given," and does not ask how i whether with or without understanding ; bui about,
its
;
with one spring, passes over to abstract thought and uc even to thought in general, but at once to certain forms ( thought, and does not say a word about what thoughflj what the concept is, what is the relation of abstract an
CRITICISM OF
85
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 <fraivofieva and voovfieva} 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
was already contained in the opposite mental tendencies of Plato and Aristotle. But Kant, who, in an inexcusable manner, entirely neglected the thing
late in developing,
to
denote which the words
<f>aivofieva
and voovpeva 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
general conceptions
different,
under the name of the categories were the most under which all things, however
must be subsumed, and through which therefore
Just everything that exists would ultimately be thought. 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 groundbass 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
1
See Sext. Empir. Pymhon. hyi.
pois avrtTiOr] Avai-ayopa.s{inteltigibilia
potyp., lib.
c. 13,
voov/ieva
<pa.ivop.c-
apparenlibus opposuit Anaxayoras.
86
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
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
the lexicon but in the
an adjective, a verb or an adverb, a pronoun, a preposition, in short, the parts of speech ? For or some other particle these denote the all forms which undoubtedly thought primarily assumes, and in which it directly moves ac;
cordingly they are the essential forms of speech, the fundamental constituent elements of every language, so that we cannot imagine any language which would not
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,
consist
however, somewhat more closely, and ask the question anew : What are the forms of thought ?
(I.)
Thought
are the threads of
consists throughout of judging its whole web, for without
judgments
making use
of a verb our thought does not
move, and as often as we
use a verb
(2.)
we
judge.
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
affirmative proposition;
up
to the recognition
universal] that the

in th<
one
is
sometimes thought along with the other,
CRITICISM OF
87
Accordingly in every the the subject, predicate, and the copula, the judgment
latter affirmative or negative, must be to be found ; even although each of these is not denoted by a word of its
particular affirmative proposition. sitions take the opposite course.
The negative propo-
own, as
is
however generally the
case.
The predicate
" Caius and the copula are often denoted by one word, as ages;" sometimes one word denotes all three, as eon" the armies engage." From this it is evicurritur, i.e.,
dent 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
of
different
words,
and indeed in
different parts
speech, yet the thought remains the for the thought same, and consequently also its form could not be the same if the form of thought itself were
;
different.
0:
But with the same thought and the same form
thought the form of words may very well be different, it is merely the outward clothing of the thought, the other hand, is inseparable from its form. on which, Thus grammar only explains the clothing of the forms of The parts of speech can therefore be deduced thought.
fcr
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
that in this table are to

of
ofjudgments ; only be found blind windows for the sake

;
symmetry and the table of the categories be omitted, and also a false arrangement. (a.) Quality : affirmation and negation, i.e., and separation of concepts: two forms. It
ail
these
must
:
Thus
combination
depends on
the copula.
(b.)
Quantity: the subject-concept
is
taken either in
88
CRITICISM OF

To the
first
whole or in part:
belong also
totality or multiplicity.
individual subjects: Socrates means "all Socrateses." Thus two forms. It depends on the subject. has really three forms. It determines (c.) Modality:
the quality as necessary, actual, or contingent
It con-
sequently depends also on the copula. These three forms of thought spring from the laws
of thought of contradiction
principle of sufficient reason
and identity. But from the and the law of excluded

if
middle springs
(d.) Relation.
It only appears
we judge
concerning
completed judgments, and can only consist in this, that/ it either asserts the dependence of one judgment uponl
plurality of both), and therefor* combines them in the hypothetical proposition; or else asserts that judgments exclude each other, and therefore It depend* separates them in the disjunctive proposition. on the copula, which here separates or combines the
another (also in 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
languages.
therefore they
must be found
in
all
...
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 j for the expression of the predicate, the adjective, the ad
verb, and the preposition ; for the expression of the copul*, 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 ol
CRITICISM OF
89
the expression of the forms of thought, as it is the task of forms of thought logic to teach the operations with the themselves.
Note.
As a warning
against a false path and to illusS. Stern's
Vorlavfige Grundis an utterly which zur SpracJiphilosophie," 1835, lage abortive attempt to construct the categories out of the
trate the above, I
mention
"
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 conse-
quently has placed the grammatical forms in direct relaHe is involved in the great error that tion to perception.
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
language
is
What exists introduces an entire change of the form. 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.
the
Concepts are always the primary material of thought, and forms of logic are always related to these, never
Perception always determines only directly to perception. the material, never the formal truth of the proposition, for the formal truth is determined according to the logical
rules alone.
I return to the
the
Kantian philosophy, and come now to 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
explanations of reason, I have already spoken above of the explanation he gives here that "it is the
different
90

It is
faculty of principles."
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 Such a principle must accordingly be knowprinciple. But this ledge from pure conceptions and yet synthetical.
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 percep-
tion
; 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
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 si It is the principle which Chr. Wolf set up corollaries. and explained in his " Cosmologia," sect. i. c 2, 93, and " in his As now above, under the title Ontologia" 178. 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 Kanl: thing happens with the philosophemes of Wolf. 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 exits
pressed, however,
it is
as follows
its
"
:
If the conditioned
i:
given, the totality of
conditions
must
also be giveo
CRITICISM OF
91
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
ever, the
not visible, so that it might extend ad infinitum; since, howchain 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
is
for
it.
But we
itself.
will
examine the
it
proposition, not in figures, but in

tainly
;
Synthetic
cer-
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
which I must now point out. Immediately, and a priori, we have the knowledge which the principle From of sufficient reason in its four forms expresses.
subtle way,
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.
plained above
have already exknowledge often unites a of intuitive variety cognitions in one form or one concept in such a way that they can no longer be distinguished
I
how
abstract
therefore abstract
as the
knowledge stands
to intuitive
knowledge
shadow
it
which
all
of this
to the real objects, the great multiplicity of presents through one outline comprehending them
pretended principle of the reason makes use shadow. In order to deduce from the principle of sufficient reason the unconditioned, which directly contra-
Now the
dicts 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
92
its
CRITICISM OF
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
they constitute a series, the consequently also its first beginning, thus Here it is false that the conditions the unconditioned."
conditions
;
consequently,
if
whole
series,
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
is the cause, all of which must be present before the effect can take place. But the series, together for example, the chain of causes, arises merely from the
state
which
fact that
dition as
we regard what immediately before was the connow 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
cessive series of conditions,
there can never be for a conditioned a properly sucwhich exist merely as such,
is
and on account of that which always an alternating series
at last conditioned
it ie
of conditioneds
and condi-
tions ; as eacli link is laid aside the ciiain is broken, and the claim of the principle of sufficient reason entirely satisfied, it arises anew because the condition become!
Thus the principle of sufficient reasoc demands always only the completeness of the immcdiat*
the conditioned.
or next condition, never the completeness of a series. Bw of the the of conditio! this conception just completeness
it undetermined whether this completeness shoult be simultaneous or successive; and since the latter |i chosen, the demand now arises for a complete series e> conditions following each other. Only through an ejflj
leaves
trary abstraction is a series of causes and effects regarded as a series of causes alone, which exists merely on accosj
CRITICISM OF
of the last effect,
\

is
93
and
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 The demand cause, not to the completeness of a series.
of the principle of sufficient reason is completely extinIt arises, however, guished in each sufficient reason given.
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, Then a chain of alternating these distinctions vanish.
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 as-
sumed
series of
of the last consequent.
reasons alone, which only exist on account There then appears the abstract
principle of the reason very boldly with its demand for the unconditioned. But, in order to recognise the inof this claim, there is no need of a critique of validity
reason
by means
of antinomies
and
their solution, but
sense, an only of a critique of reason understood in examination of the relation of abstract knowledge to
my
direct intuitive
knowledge, by means of ascending from
the indefinite generality of the former to the fixed defmiteness 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,
when-
ever
proceeds with full deliberation, it must itself find that an unconditioned is an absurdity. The reason as a
it
knowledge can always have to do only with but every object for the subject is necessarily and irrevocably subordinated to the principle of sufficient
faculty of
objects
;
94
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, That his convenience like a blind wall in front of us.
;
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
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
proof incognito.
begging, half
demanding what
it
wants in more unpre-
tending 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 j
to those
what more can

with
be desired of an absolute
But
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 thf
greatest
number
of followers
upon
earth,
Brahmanism anc
CRITICISM OF
95
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
and the reader may also see Upham's (p. 9), and in general all genuine Judaism and reason accounts of the religions of Asia. ought not to be identified. Kant, who by no means desires to maintain his preoccurs further on
;
"Doctrine of Buddhaism"
tended principle of reason as objectively valid, but merely as subjectively necessary, deduces it even as such only by He says means of a shallow sophism, p. 307 V. 364.
;
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,
this
which we already presuppose.
But, in truth, in
endeavour we do nothing more than apply reason, and intentionally make use of it to simplify our knowledge by
enabling us to survey
abstract, general
tive,
reason, which is that faculty of knowledge that distinguishes the reflecit
which
thinking man, endowed with speech, from the brute, For the use of reason is the slave of the present.
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 train of reasoning.
ground of the first proposition of the I have already shown in the essay on
g6
CRITICISM OF
the principle of sufficient reason, 50, that here the series of grounds of knowledge really passes over into ground* But one can only desire to make of becoming or of being.
this circumstance hold good, as a proof of an unconditioned according to the law of causality, or even of the mere
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 confor
demand
Kant, however, seeks to establish that a mere play upon words, with Univer* confusion, through salitas and Uhiversitas, p. 322 V. 379. Thus it is funfalse that our for higher grounds of search damentally more knowledge, general truths, springs from the preof an object unconditioned in its being, or supposition has anything whatever in common with this. Moreover
all.
;
founded them
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 ol
the individual
further questions, whether his
entirely without justification.
who wishes by means own
of
it to get rid of all or of others, thougl
himself denies objective validity to thi pretended principle of reason ; he gives it, however, as necessary subjective assumption, and thus introduces ai
j
Now Kant
irremediable split into our knowledge, which he sooi allows to appear more clearly. With this purpose h unfolds that principle of reason further, p. 322; V, 37c
in accordance with the of
method
of architectonic
symmetr
the three categories c relation spring three kinds of syllogisms, each of whic gives the clue for the discovery of a special unconditionei
is
which he
so fond.
From
of
which again there are three: the
soul, the
world
(as a
Now hei object in itself and absolute totality), and God. we must at once note a great contradiction, of whic Kant, however, takes no notice, because it would be fS
dangerous to the symmetry.
Two
of these unconditionec
CRITICISM OF
are
97
themselves conditioned by the third, the soul and the who is the cause of their existence. Thus :he two former have by no means the predicate of unconworld by God,
iitionedness in
really
common with
the latter, though this
is
the point here, but only that of inferred being iccording to the principles of experience, beyond the sphere of the possibility of experience.
Setting this aside,
litioneds, to
ts
we
recognise in the three uncon-
which, according to Kant, reason, following essential laws, must come, the three principal subjects
ound which the whole of philosophy under the influence Christianity, from the Scholastics down to Christian Accessible and familiar as these convVolf, has turned. have become ceptions through all these philosophers, and
)f
ow also through the philosophers of pure reason, this by o means shows that, without revelation, they would lecessarily have proceeded from the development of all eason as a production peculiar to its very nature. In
>rder to prove this it would be necessary to call in the ud of historical criticism, and to examine whether the indent and non-European nations, especially the peoples
f
Hindostan and
many
of the oldest Greek philosophers,
translating iindus and the Tien of the Chinese as "God," goodlaturedly attribute such conceptions to them, just as the
lot
eally attained to those conceptions, or whether it is only ve who, by quite falsely the Brahma of the
xreeks recognised their gods everywhere; whether it is rather the case that theism proper is only to be found
a the religion of the Jews,

iave
and in the two
religions
which
proceeded from it, whose followers just on this ccount comprise the adherents of all other religions on
arth
i
under the name of heathen, which, by the way, is most absurd and crude expression, and ought to be
tanished at least
fc
from the writings of the learned, because and jumbles together Brahmanists, Buddhists, Egyptians, Greeks, Eomans, Germans, Gauls, Iroquois, J atagonians, Caribbeans, Otaheiteans, Australians, and vol II. G
identifies
98
CRITICISM OF
others.
Such an expression is all very well foi but iu 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
many
priests,
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
(accord-
ing to Clem. Alex., Strom., i. c. 22, Euseb. prctp. evajig., xiii. 12, and Suidas under Numenius) called him the Moses grcecisans : Ti yap eari ILXarav, rj Mo>o-i/9 arriKiâv and he accuses him of having stolen {atroavkfjo-as;)
\
doctrine
writings.
of
God and the creation from the Mosaic Clemens often repeats that Plato knew
Moses,
ii.
made use
&c.
;
of
e.g.,
Strom.,
iii.
i.
25.
v.
14,
90,
11; also in the Cohortc c. ad gentes, 6, where, after he has bitterly censured of the Greek philosophers in the the whole derided ceding chapter because they were not Jews, he besio\
Pcedagog.,
10,
and
praise, and breaks out into part that as Plato had learnt his geometry from exultation the Egyptians, his astronomy from the Babylonians,
on Plato nothing but
magic from the Thracians, and much also from the> Assyrians, so he had learnt his theism from the Jews: OiBa gov tou? StSaoTcaAovs, xav aTTOKptrrrreLv etfeXi}?, JL\ Boâv ttjv too 6eov irap avrwv axpeX-qaei tcov Efipauw (^W ilia de Deo senUn/Ai magistros novi, licet eos celare veils,
.
suppeditata
tibi
recognition. matter in what follows.
ab Hebrceis). pathetic see: But I see a remarkable confirmation of

est
th*
According
to Plutarch (in
3,
according to Lactantius (i. thanked Nature that he had been born a

and,
better,
19),
Marm\ Pfl
beinj
human
and not a brute, a man and not a woman, a Greek am

not a barbarian.
Jews," from is a morning prayer in which
in Isaac Euchel's " Prayers of tSj the Hebrew, second edition, 1799, p. 7, ther
Now
God
is
thanked and prais
fl
CRITICISM OF
bliat
99
1 free
Jew and not a heathen, man and not a woman. Such an historical investigation would have spared Kant in unfortunate necessity in which he now becomes
the worshipper was born a man and not a slave, a
involved, in that
he makes these three conceptions spring from the nature of reason, and yet explains aecessarily ;hat they are untenable and unverifiable by the reason,
md
makes the reason itself a sophisticator for he says, p. 339; V. 397: "There are sophistications, not of nan, but of pure reason itself, from which even the wisest )annot free himself, and although after much trouble he
thus
;
nay be able
ihe illusion
to avoid error, yet he never can escape from which unceasingly torments and mocks him." Therefore these Kantian "Ideas of the Keason" might 3e compared to the focus in which the converging relected rays from a concave mirror meet several inches iefore its surface, in consequence of which, by an inevitible process of the understanding, an object presents itself .0 us there which is a thing without reality. " But the name " Idea is very unfortunately chosen for
hese pretended necessary productions of the pure theoised
and violently appropriated from Plato, who denote the eternal forms which, multiplied hrough space and time, become partially visible in the
etical reason,
it
to
nnumerable individual ileeting things. Plato's "Ideas" *e accordingly throughout perceptible, as indeed the vord which he chose so definitely signifies, for it could
inly
asible things;
be adequately translated by means of perceptible or and Kant has appropriated it to denote
hat which lies so far from all possibility of perception hat even abstract thought can only half attain to it.
Che
>ver,
Idea," which Plato first introduced, has, moresince then, through two-and-twenty centuries, always etained the significance in which he used it; for not
word
"
.nd
nly all ancient philosophers, but also all the Scholastics, indeed the Churcli Fathers and the theologians of he Middle Ages, used it only in that Platonic sense, the
ioo
CRITICISM OF

word exemplar,
as Suarez expressly
sense of the Latin
mentions in his twenty-fifth Disputation, sect I. 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
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,
ideas,
original, Platonic significance.
The refutation of rational psychology is much fuller and more thorough in the first edition of the " Critique of " Pure Keason than in the second and following editions, and therefore upon this point we must make use of the This refutation has as a whole first edition exclusively. and much merit truth. Yet I am clearly of very great it was merely from his love of that opinion symmetry that Kant deduced as necessary the conception of the soul from the paralogism of substantiality by applying
substance,
the conception category of relation, and accordingly maintained that the conception of a sou] If this arose in this way in every speculative reason.
the
for
demand
the unconditioned to the

first
which
is
conception really had
its
final subject of all predicates of
origin in the presupposition of t 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 require*
a final subject of all its predicates. Speaking generally however, Kant makes use of a quite inadmissible ex
pression when he talks of something only as subject and not as predicate
which can
(e.g.,
exis
Critique o
Pure Reason,
p.
323; V. 412; Prolegomena,
4 am
CRITICISM OF
101
47) ; though a precedent for this is to be Aristotle's "Metaphysics," iv. ch. 8. Nothing
exists
found in
whatever
as
subject
and
predicate,
for
these
expressions
belong exclusively to logic, and denote the relations of

abstract conceptions to each other. or representative in the world of
Now
their correlative
substance
further for that
never as
and accident. which exists always as substance and It is accident, but have it directly in matter.
perception must be But then we need not look
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 con-
demned, the
final subject of all predicates of that empiri-
cally 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
That it is really the prototype of the conrequired. But subject and ception substance, I will show soon. predicate are related to substance and accident rather as
is
the principle of sufficient reason in logic to the law of causality in nature, and the substitution or identification
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
of the
to
make the conception
of the soul arise
from that of the
subject of all predicates and from the form of the In order to discover the sophistical categorical syllogism.
final
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 Subaccording to their relation in the judgment. stance and accident, on the other hand, belong to the world of perception and its apprehension in the under-
and are even there only as identical with matter and form or Of this more shortly. quality. The antithesis which has given occasion for the assunipstanding,
102
CRITICISM OF

different substances,
tion of
two fundamentally
body aud
If a
soul, is in truth that of objective
and
subjective.
man apprehends
tion,
;
himself objectively in external percep-
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 Now single one of the properties which belong to bodies. he forms the conception of the
soul, like all the trans-
cendental 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.
knowing, thinking, and willing seeks the cause, and as he cannot accept the body as their cause, he assumes a cause of them entirely different from In this manner the first and the last of the the body.
dogmatists proves the existence of the soul Plato in the " " Phsedrus and also Wolf from thinking and willing at the effects which lead to that cause. Only after in thi$
: :
treats, in fact, as effects of which he
He
way, by hypostatising a cause corresponding to the effect the conception of an immaterial, simple, indestructibli being had arisen, the school developed and demonstrate this from the conception of substance. But this conceptioi
itself
they had previously constructed specially for

artifice,
thi
c
purpose by the following

notice.
which
is
worthy
With the
first class
of ideas,
i.e.,
the real world of pel

;
because the la' ception, the idea of matter is also given governing this class of ideas, the law of causality, detei mines the change of the states or conditions, and thes
conditions themselves presuppose something permanen
whose changes they are. When speaking above of tl principle of the permanence of substance, I showed, I
reference to earlier
arises because in the
passages, that
this
idea of matt
understanding, for which alone
CRITICISM OF
103
exists, time and space are intimately united, and the share of space in this product exhibits itself as the per-, manence of matter, while the share of time appears as the
change of
it
states.
Purely in
itself,
matter can only be

;
thought in dbstracto, and not perceived
for to perception
From always appears already in form and quality. this conception of matter, substance is again an abstraction, Of consequently a higher germs, and arose in this way.
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
more under
every other higher genus, it does not contain 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 con;
sequently 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 the immaterial, matter, a second species is co-ordinated But the surrepsimple, indestructible substance, soul.
titious introduction
fact that
of this last
concept arose from the
the higher concept substance was framed illogiIn its legitimate cally, and in a manner contrary to law. reason the frames the procedure always concept of a higher the genus by placing together 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
104
it
CRITICISM OF
follows that the concepts of the species must alwayi precede the concept of the genus. But, in the presen' case, the converse is true. Only the concept matte:
existed before the generic concept substance.
was without
tion, as it
The latte; and consequently without justifies, were aimlessly framed from the former by thi
occasion,
arbitrary omission of
all its determinations except one afterwards was the second ungenuine specie Bu placed beside the concept matter, and so foisted in. for the framing of this second concept nothing more wa
Not
till
required than an express denial of what had alread; been tacitly omitted in the higher generic concept, exteD Thus the concep sion, impenetrability, and divisibility. substance was framed merely to be the vehicle for the sui
reptitious introduction of the concept of the immateru substance. Consequently, it is very far from being capabl of holding good as a category or necessary function of tb
is it an exceedingly superfluor only true content lies already in tb concept of matter, besides which it contains only a grej void, which can be filled up by nothing but the illicit!
now
understanding; rather
its
concept, because
introduced species immaterial substance; and, indeed, solely for the purpose of containing this that it wi framed. Accordingly, in strictness, the concept substam
was
must be
entirely rejected,
its place.
and the concept matter ever
where put in
categories were a procrustean bed for every possib thing, but the three kinds of syllogisms are so only for tl The Idea of the soul was compell< three so-called Ideas.
to find its origin in the form of the categorical syllogisi It is now the turn of the dogmatic ideas concerning tl
The
thought as an object in itself, b that of the smallest (atom), and that the largest (limits of the universe in time and space). The must now proceed from the form of the hypothetic
universe, so far as
it is
tween two limits
CRITICISM OF
syllogism.
105
for this in itself is any special violence For the hypothetical judgment has its form necessary. 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
Nor
an object upon another is ever sought for, till finally the exhaustion of the imagination puts an end to the
of
journey \ and thus it is lost sight of that every object, and indeed the whole chain of objects and the principle of
itself, stand in a far closer and greater the dependence, dependence upon the knowing subject, for whose objects alone, i.e., ideas, that principle is valid,
sufficient
reason
for their
by
it.
here
mere position in space and time is determined Thus, since the form of knowledge from which 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
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
as
judgment by the word quantity, a pictorial instead of which some other might just as well expression have been chosen. But for Kant's love of symmetry this
subject in the
is
of this
takes advantage of the fortunate accident 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
enough.
He
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
io6
CRITICISM OF
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
to the quantity,
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
for the whole is not of contradiction through the part, nor the parte through the whole, but both are necessarily together because they are one, and
upon the principle
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.
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
(3.)
opposed to the truth, every consequent of its reason) becomes the necessary through the first cause. Therefore, for the sake of symmetry, the conception offreedom ap:
here as the third Idea.
is
By this conception, however, as in stated the observations on the t distinctly of the third conflict, what is really meant is only
Idea of the cause of the world which alone
is
aumi
CRITICISM OF
here.
logical.

conflicts are at
107
The
third
and fourth
bottom tauto-
however, I find and assert that the whole a mere delusion, a sham fight. Only the asantinomy sertions of the antitheses really rest upon the forms of our
About
all this,
is
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
On the other hand, the assertions and objective grounds. theses have no other than a subjective of the proofs
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
case
;
and
his
judgment, moreover,
is
in this
paralysed by early and deeply imprinted

this
prejudices.
account the proof of the thesis in all the four is conflicts throughout a mere sophism, while that of the antithesis is a necessary inference of the reason from the
laws of the world as idea
able to sustain the thesis,
On
known
to us
priori.
It
is,
moreover, only with great pains and
skill that
Kant
is
and make it appear to attack Now its opponent, which is endowed with native power. 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 Si/cato? and aSi/co? X0705 which
;
Socrates, in the
as contending.
"
Clouds
"
of Aristophanes, brings forward
form and
this resemblance extends only to the not to the content, though this would gladly be
Yet
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
108
CRITICISM OF
and the antithesis as the aSitco? X0705. 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
St/cato?,
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
it is
endlessness (infinity) of the series is substituted ; and now proved that this is logically contradicted by com-
and yet every present is the end of the past* which no one doubted. The end of a beginningless series
pleteness,
can, however, always be thought, without prejudice to the fact that it has no beginning ; just as, conversely, the be-
But ginning of an endless series can also be thought. against the real, true argument of the antithesis, that the
changes of the world necessarily presuppose an infinite of changes backwards, absolutely nothing is adWe can think the possibility that the causal vanced. chain will some day end in an absolute standstill, but
series
we can by no means
beginning.
1
think the possibility of an absolute

a
fleeting and baseless web of for they at once bring out very ingeniously the relativity of all periods of time in the follow 1:
this
That the assumption

world in time
is
of
limit
of the
certainly not a necessary thought of the reason may be also proved historically, for the Hindus teach nothing of the
Maya,
kind, even
)>eople,
in
much
of
the religion of the less in the Vedas, but
thus (Polier, Mythologit dcM The four vol. ii. p. 585). the last of which we live, ei
.-.
^^^H
try
to
means
iutiuity
mythological ly by a monstrous chronology the of this phenomenal world,

express
of
together 4,320,000 yean. Each daj the creating Brahma li. such periods of four ages, and his
CRITICISM OF

he regarded as a given whole,
it
109
it is
With
proved
reference to the spatial limits of the world,
that, if it is to
must
The reasoning is correct, onlynecessarily have limits. 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
For this second point, however, arbitrarily presupposed. the antithesis affords no sucli 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.
by the ancient philosophers

Eiriicovpov,
<f>r]cnv
This was already seen MrjrpoBmpo^, 6 Kadryyqrris

7re$i(p
wtottov eivai ev p,eya\q>
kva arayyv
kva Koafiov ev r<p cnreiprp (Metrodorus, caput scholce Epicuri, absurdum ait, in magno campo spicam unam product, et unum in infinito mandum) Stob. Ech, i. c. 23. Therefore many of them taught (as immediately follows),
yevvr)dr]vai, kcli
aireipov? Koo-pbov? ev rep atreipw (infinitos mundos in infinito). This is also the sense of the Kantian argument for the
His year 1000. has 365 days and as many nights,

nights have also
He
lives
;
100 of his years, always
and if he dies, at once a new Brahma is born, and so on from The same reeternity to eternity.
creating
lativity of
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
time
is
the special
myth which
also expressed in is quoted in
begun
for every day of Vishnu 100 recurrences of the four ages.

;
is
no
CRITICISM OF
antithesis, only
it by a scholastic and The same argument might be used against the limitation of the world in time, only we
he has disfigured
ambiguous expression.
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 lias the filled part of space enjoyed over the
infinite space
that has remained
empty
In the
fifth
dialogue of his
book, "Del Infinite), 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 the Heavens," part
ledges the
"
ii.
Natural History of the Theory

ch.
7.
of
Aristotle
also
acknow-
" 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
The opposite of simple assumption. but extended, that which has parts and
not compound, 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
is
is divisible.
"
compound."
Yet
this
can just as
little
be asserted as
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; comFor there is essenpoundness asserts them a parte ante. relation no the between temporal parts and the tially
the opposite.
CRITICISM OF
vhole
;
THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY,
they rather condition each other reciprocally, and hus always exist at the same time, for only so far as both Therefore ire there is there anything extended in space. " vhat Kant says in the observations on the thesis, Space
>ught not to be called a compositum, bnt a totum" &c, lolds good absolutely of matter also, which is simply
ipace
become
perceptible.
On
the other hand, the infinite
livisibility of matter,
i
which the antithesis asserts, follows priori and incontrovertibly from that of space, which it
This proposition has absolutely nothing against it ; Kant also (p. 513 V. 541), when he speaks
;
ills.
ind therefore
leriously and in his own person, no longer as the mouth)iece of the aSiieos X070?, presents it as objective truth ;
tnd also in the
Science"
(p.
Metaphysical First Principles of Natural 108, first edition), the proposition, "Matter is
"
nfinitely divisible," is placed at the beginning of the proof )f the first proposition of mechanics as established truth,
laving appeared and been proved as the fourth proposition n the Dynamics. But here Kant spoils the proof of the
by the greatest obscurity of style and useless iccumulation of words, with the cunning intention that ;he evidence of the antithesis shall not throw the sophisms
mtithesis
)f
the thesis too
much
into the shade.
Atoms
are no
accessary thought of the reason, but merely an hypothesis for the explanation of the difference of the specific gravity
jf
bodies.
"
But Kant himself has shown,
in the
dynamics
jf his Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science," that this can be otherwise, and indeed better and more
In this, however, he simply explained than by atomism. was anticipated by Priestley, " On Matter and Spirit,"
" Indeed, even in Aristotle, Phys." fundamental thought of this is to be found.
sect.
1.
iv.
9,
the
The
argument
for
the
third
thesis
is
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
U2
the complete
sum
of the conditions
from which the suc-
For the completeness ceeding state, the effect, proceeds. 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

that
it
is
obvious.
state A. as the sufficient cause of the state B., I
In order to conceive the assume
contains the
sum
of the necessary determinations
from the co-existence of which the estate B. inevitably
upon it as a sufficient 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 a first beginning, appeal* effects, and accordingly of 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
follows.
Now
by
this
my demand
cause
is
entirely satisfied,
That this assumption

a
I
sufficient
account of the laziness of the speculating individual lies in the acceptance of a cause as
thus unfairly arrived at and false, as have shown at length above when considering the Kantian principle of pure reason which coincides with In illustration of the assertion of this false this thesis.
reason
is
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 ol
CRITICISM OF
113
weakness, he makes to the philosophers of antiquity, by quoting from Ocellus Lucanus, the Eleatics, &c., not to
Against the proof of this antispeak of the Hindus. case of in the the as thesis, previous ones, there is nothing to advance.
The fourth
really
is, as I have already remarked, with the third; and the proof of the tautological
conflict
thesis is also essentially the
same
as that of the preceding
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
one.
;
conditioned
raises
new
consideration
which
is
not
directly contained in the first. certain appearance of probability
to
the antinomy
yet
it
is
cannot be denied remarkable that no part of

little
the
Kantian philosophy has met so
contradiction,
indeed has found so

ingly
much
acceptance, as this exceed-
Almost all philosophical paradoxical doctrine. have and text-books regarded it as valid, and parties nave also repeatedly reconstructed it; while nearly all Kant's other doctrines have been contested, and indeed
:here
ffhich rejected
have never been wanting some perverse minds even the transcendental aesthetic. The mdivided assent which the antinomy, on the other hand, las met with may ultimately arise from the fact that certain persons regard with inward satisfaction the point it which the understanding is so thoroughly brought to 1 standstill, having hit upon something which at once is ind is not, so that they actually have before them here the
ixth trick of Philadelphia in Lichtenberg's broadsheet. If we examine the real meaning of Kant's Critical Soluion of the cosmological problem which now follows, we ind that it is not what he gives it out to be, the solution >f the problem by the disclosure that both sides, starting
rom
false
11.
assumptions, are wrong in the
first
and second
VOL.
H4
CRITICISM OF

rig]
conflicts,
and that in the third and fourth both are
It is really the confirmation of planation of their assertions.
the antitheses by the
ex-
First Kant asserts, in this solution, obviously wrongl; that both sides started from the assumption, as their firsi 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 as the reason, ground of its assertions ; the antithesis, on
the other hand, expressly denied it throughout, and asserted Further, Kant charges both sides with this that the world exists in itself, i.e., indepenassumption, the contrary.
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
dently of being
;
of the antithesis that
it
is
absolutely inconsistent with
them.
For that
it
should
all
be given
is
absolutely con-
It is tradictory of the conception of an infinite series. therefore essential to it that it should always exist only with reference to the process of going through it, and not
independently of
exists absolutely
this.
On
tion of definite limits also lies that of a
the other hand, in the assumpwhole whicl
and independently of the process o completely measuring it. Thus it is only the thesis tha makes the false assumption of a self-existent universe i.e., a universe given prior to all knowledge, and to whicl knowledge came as to something external to itself. Th antithesis from the outset combats this assumption absc lutely ; for the infinity of the series which it asserts merel under the guidance of the principle of sufficient reaso
can only exist if the regressus is fully carried out, bi not independently of it. As the object in general pr
supposes the subject, so also the object which is determine as an endless chain of conditions necessarily presuppos
in the subject the kind of knowledge corresponding this, that is, the constant following of the links of tpj
chain.
But
this is just
what Kant gives as the solvl j
CRITICISM OF
of the problem,

:
115
and so often repeats
"The
infinity of the
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
world
is
truth already lies, while it is altogether inconsistent with If the antithesis had asserted the assertions of the thesis.
and and of existed the idea consequents, yet independently and its regressive series, thus in itself, and therefore constituted a given whole, it would have contradicted not For an infinite can never only the thesis but also itself.
that the world consisted of infinite series of reasons
be given as a whole, nor an endless series exist, except as an endless progress nor can what is boundless constitute
;
a whole.
that
it
Thus
this assumption, of
which Kant asserts
led both sides into error, belongs only to the thesis. It is already a doctrine of Aristotle's that an infinity
i.e., actual and given, but only potentid. eaTiv evepyeia eivcu to aireipov aX\' a&vvarov to evreXe-êca ov arrupov {infinitum non potest esse actu: sed impossibile, oxtu esse infinitum), Metaph. K. 10. Further:
can never be actu,
Ovk
nor evepyeiav
fiev
yap ovbev eaTiv
aireipov, Bvvajiei Se errc
Tnv Siaipeaiv (nihil enim actu infinitum
tantum, nempe divisione ipsa).

i.,
De
est, sed potentia generat. et cori'upt.,
6,
develops this fully in the Physics," iii. 5 and where to a certain extent he gives the perfectly correct
3.
He
"
whole of the antinomies. He expounds and then says, " A mediator (SiaLTTjTov) 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 in it. but This truth lies then in the rightly progresses, 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 resolution of the
the antinomies in his short way,
gressus.
Indeed
if,
reversing
the
procedure,
we
take as the
u6

what Kant gives as the solution of the the assertion of the antithesis follows exactly Thus if the world is not an unconditioned
:
starting-point
conflict,
from it. 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
of
falseness
V. 534, Kant tries to prove from the both sides the transcendental ideality of
"
the phenomenon, and begins,

existing
is
If the
world
is
a whole
by
;
itself, it is
either finite or infinite."

itself
But
this
false
a whole existing of
infinite.
That ideality
may
cannot possibly be rather be concluded from
the infinity of the series in the world in the following If the series of reasons and consequents in manner: 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
subject ; in the idea of the subject.
through the form of knowledge of the thus the world as it is known must exist only
critical
whether Kant himself was aware or not that hi* solution of the problem is really a decision ii favour of the antithesis, I am unable to decide. For i depends upon whether what Schelling has somewher* very happily called Kant's system of accommodatioi extended so far; or whether Kant's mind was her already involved in an unconscious accommodation t the influence of his time and surroundings.
Now
CRITICISM OF
117
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 connection with the Idea of freedom it is just here in
is obliged to speak more fully of the thing in which was hitherto only seen in the background. This is very explicable to us since we have recognised
that
Kant
itself,
the thing in itself as the vrill. Speaking generally, this is the point at which the Kantian philosophy leads to
mine, or at
stem.
which mine springs out

will
of his as its parent

if
One
attention
pp. "Critique of
one reads with 536 and 537; V. 564 and 565, of the Pure Eeason," and, further, compares these
be convinced of this
" passages with the introduction to the Critique of Judgand xviii. xix. of the third ment," pp. edition, or p. 13 of
Ilosenkranz's
edition,
where indeed
its
it
is
said
is
"
:
The
conception of
will)
object (that 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."
freedom can in
then the
But
specially let
any one read con-
cerning 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 doctrine is the answer. Kant
my
never completed his thought I have merely carried out his work. Accordingly, what Kant says o^y of the
;
human phenomenon
have extended to
being
all
in general, as differing from the in degree, that their true

free,
i.e.,
human phenomenon
piienomena only
is something absolutely 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
a will.
It appears
conclusion that the
phenomenon, thus the
visible world,
118
CRITICISM OF
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 signifiTherefore, he denies in the most uncomcance, &c, &c.
promising manner their application to things beyond experience, and rightly explains and at once rejects all
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
earlier
make
resistance.
attacks on his philosophy to which it could offer no 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 The truth is, that upon the path of the idea one in itself. can never get beyond the idea ; it is a rounded-off whole,
and has
it.
in its
own
of the thing in
If
resources no clue leading to the nature itself, which is toto genere different from
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 itaefl
contrary as it is to his own teaching, obtains some exeiB 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
fore, also
of
knowledge of the subject, which,

'priori to consciousness.
there-
come a
which in opposition to
this is
But that no* only known a posteriori u

for
119
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
that thus
lutely
conditioned by the forms of knowledge of the subject ; if a thing in itself must be assumed, it abso-
assumes
cannot be an object, which however he always it to be, but such a thing in itself must necesa sphere
toto genere different from the idea and being known), and therefore could (from knowing least of all be arrived at through the laws of the com-
sarily lie in
bination of objects among themselves. With the proof of the thing in itself
it
has happened to
Kant
is
precisely as with that of the a priori nature of the law of causality. Both doctrines are true, but their proof
They thus belong to the class of true concluI have retained them both, from false premises. but have proved them in an entirely different way, and
false.
sions
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.
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.
also this immediate knowledge of his own which in human consciousness the conception of freedom springs for certainly the will, as worldas in is free from the principle of itself, creating, thing sufficient reason, and therewith from all necessity, thus is completely independent, free, and indeed almighty. Yet,
it is
On
And
will out of
in truth, this only holds

its
good of the will in
itself,
not of
manifestations, the individuals, who, just through the
l?/n
CRITICISM OF
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 but, as in all its manifestations, here also, where it ;
is free
all this
appears as a stone, it is already fully determined. But of 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 conV. 561) sciousness, and therefore he now places (p. 533 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 free-
dom, 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
it.
gorical imperative presupposes

is
by saying that the cateThe speculative Idea
of
it
accordingly only the primary source of the conception freedom for the sake of this presupposition, but here obtains both significance and application. Neither,
For the delusion of a perfect however, is the case. freedom of the individual in his particular actions is most
lively in the conviction of the least cultivated
man who
has never reflected, and

tion,
it
is
thus founded on no specula-
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
CRITICISM OF
121
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
thing in
for its
once as the will, i.e., as that which, as the has not the principle of sufficient reason form, and which itself depends upon nothing, but
itself,
on which everything else rather depends. Every one, however, does not recognise himself at once with the critical
and
reflective insight of
festation of this will
might say,
live itself
;
philosophy as a determined maniwhich has already entered time, as we an act of will distinguished from that will to 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
will.
my
prize-essay on the freedom of the
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 it, he should recognise in
itself
it
more closely and explains at once the will, the free will
though
it
showing
tions
!
itself in
the world only in temporal manifesta-
I therefore really assume,
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 Eeason," pp. xxvii. and xxviii., in Eosenkranz's edition, p. 677 of the Supplement.
For the
rest, it is just this
sham third
conflict that affords
predetermined solution of the Kant the opportunity of
expressing very beautifully the deepest thoughts of his whole philosophy. This is the case in the whole of the
122
'
CRITICISM OF

Antinomy
of
"
;
Pure Reason b above all, in the exposition of the opposition between tb empirical and the intelligible character, p. 534-550; V. 562-578, which I number amonj the most admirable (As a supplethings that have ever been said by man. mental explanation of this passage, compare a parallel
Sixth Section of the
passage in the Critique of Practical Reason, p. 169-179 of the fourth edition, or p. 224-231 of Rosenkranz's ediIt is yet all the more to be regretted that this is tion.)
here not in
in the
its right place,
partly because
it is
not found
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
sham antinomy. The intelligible character, the in itself, is inferred from the phenomenon by tflj thing inconsistent use of the category of causality beyond the sphere of all phenomena, which has already been suffiof the
In this case the will of man (which ciently condemned. 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 ough^ the categorical imperative, which is postulated without
more
ado.
Now,
instead of
all this,
the plain open procedure would
start directly from the will, and prove it U be the in-itself of our own phenomenal being, recognisec
have been to
and then to give that exposition ; the empirical and the intelligible character to explain ho? all actions, although necessitated by motives, yet, both b; their author and by the disinterested judge, are necesttSi
without any mediation
and absolutely ascribed to the former himself and alone, a depending solely upon him, to whom therefore guilt an
merit are attributed in respect of them. This alone the straight path to the knowledge of that which is
w
nc
phenomenon, and therefore will not be found by the hel of the laws of the phenomenon, but is that which revv] itself through the phenomenon, becomes knowable, obj# I
CRITICISM OF
tifies itself

It
123
the will to live.
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 which in Kant's language is simply (p. 546; V. 574), the that explanation, according to the law of saying
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
falsified. For the found through the investigation of an unconditioned cause, appears here related to the
it
has also become
will or the thing in itself,
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
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 diffe-
what
thesis
rent sense, are right, is not reached at all. For neither the nor the antithesis have anything to do with the
itself, but entirely with the phenomenon, the This it is, and absoobjective world, the world as idea. lutely nothing else, of which the thesis tries to show, by
thing in
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 ii&rafiacn*; eia
aXko
yevos.
is
For the transcendental freedom of the will which
ex-
pounded 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 some-
124
CRITICISM OF
lies

all
thing which
different.
beyond
phenomena and
cause and
is toto
genert
If
what
is
spoken of
is
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., indepen-
dence of the will in

its
itself of
the laws of the connection of
has the power of himself to a of series actious, which, however, was asserted by begin Thus also freedom has no causality for only the thesis.
;
manifestation), no
man
the will
is free,
and
it lies
menon, which is just its in a causal relation to
outside nature or the phenoobjectification, but does not stand
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
can only be explained through the will (for it is the will itself, so far as it manifests itself), and not through But in the world causality is the sole principle causality.
itself
of explanation, and everything happens simply according Thus the ri^ht lies entirely on the to the laws of nature.
which sticks to the question in and uses that hand, principle of explanation which is valid with regard to it; therefore it needs no apoloffl 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
side of the antithesis,
to
it.
The fourth conflict is, as has already been In real meaning tautological with the third.
said, in
its
its solution

Kant develops
while for
still
125
more the untenable nature of the thesis on the other hand, and its pretended consistency with the antithesis, he advances no reason, as
;
its truth,
conversely he
thesis.
is
able to bring no reason against the anti-
The assumption of the thesis he introduces quite V. 590) apologetically, and yet calls it himself (p. 562 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 anti-
nomy
in
human
reason.
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
I for my part must confess that thought of the reason. 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
that they
major propositions of syllogisms, though it is plain have arisen, and can arise, simply and solely through the unconditioned application of the principle of
sufficient reason.
Now,
into the categorical
had been forced and the judgment, hypothetical was

after the soul
126
set
apart for the world, ihere 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 ontorudilogical proof of the existence of God set up in a
mentary form by Anselm of Canterbury and then perThis was joyfully made use of by fected by Descartes. reminiscence also of an earlier Latin with some Kant, work of his youth. However, the sacrifice which Kant makes to his love of architectonic symmetry in this In defiance of all truth, chapter is exceedingly great. 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 concepIn this he tion of all which contains all reality in itself. ne
;
stands just as much in contradiction with his own teac ing as with the truth, for exactly the converse is the ci
Our knowledge
starts
with the particular and
is
extend
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 concep-
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
tions,
might well be accused of having given occasion to a philosophical charletanism 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 rev
CRITICISM OF
tion, this clearly
127
causality.
This
is
takes place only under the guidance of so evident that it requires no proof.
says (Cosmologia
Generalis, prcef.,
Therefore Chr.
p.
Wolf
Sane in theologia naturali existentiam Numinis e Contingentia uniprincipiis cosmologicis demonstramus.

1)
:
versi et ordinis naturae,
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
la
preuve de
I'existence
de
Dim.
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
This history of the world, and can never return again. 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
Kant has here taken the theology in the human mind. 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
îver of
form to the matter which exists without him, 5e/iioup7o?, a being whom they yet infer simply and solely .u accordance with the law of It is true that causality. Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math., ix. 88) quotes an argu-
128
CRITICISM OF
of

some have held
it is
ment
Cleanthes, which
to
be the
ontological proof. inference from analogy
This, however,
not, but merely an
because experience teaches that ; is earth one always better than another, and being upon closes the series, but yet has as the best, man, indeed, must exist beings who are still there therefore faults ; many
and finally one being who apicnov), and this would be God.
better,
is
best of all (KpaTunov,
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
aesthetic
interest,
possessed by the preceding doctrinal part, i.c, the and analytic ; but rather a temporary and local
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
immortal credit, achieved by him through 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 estab-
was
yet, to his
this
polemic
He
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
lished
jest of philosophy taught in the universities, in which, aftei
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, als(
with
its
Hofrath, which, looking proudly down fron for forty years entirely unaware of fll remains height, existence of little people like me, and would be thoroughly
titles of
fl
CRITICISM OF
'
129
glad to be rid of the old Kant with his Critiques, that they might drink the health of Leibnitz with all their
It is further to be remarked here, that as Kant was confessedly led to his doctrine of the a priori nature
hearts.
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
tion of
it
this.
For the first-named work of
Hume
is
really a critique of
which
it
popular theology, the pitiable condiseeks to show while, on the other hand,
;
points to rational or speculative theology as the genuine, and that which is worthy of respect. But Kant now dis-
and leaves, on the other hand, popular theology untouched, nay, even establishes it in a nobler form as a faith based upon moral
closes the groundlessness of the latter,
feeling.
This was afterwards distorted by the philosointo rational apprehensions, consciousness of phasters or intellectual intuitions of the supersensible, of the God,
divine,
revered errors,
while Kant, as he demolished old and 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
&c, &c.
proof of the existence of

:he aesthetic
God
it
for
without presupposing
and
analytic,
;hat that ontological

ivith
proof
is
quite easy to make clear nothing but a subtle playing

is
viction.
conceptions which is quite powerless to produce con" There is a chapter in the " Organon of Aristotle
.vhich suffices as fully for the refutation of the ontological Droof as if it had been written intentionally with that
It is the purpose. vol. n.
seventh chapter of the second book of

I
130
CRITICISM OF
thei'" AncUyt. Post." Among other things, it is expressly " to Be eivai ovk ovaiu ovSevi," i.e., existentia said there
:
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 The physico-theological proof is a mere said against it.
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 we have already said, with speculative theology, anc limits himself to the School. If, on the contrary, he hat had life and popular theology also in view, he would hav been obliged to add a fourth proof to the three he ha considered that proof which is really the effective om with the great mass of men, and which in Kant's technics language might best be called the keraunological. It i the proof which is founded upon the needy, impotent, an<
as
dependent condition of man as opposed to natural force? which are infinitely superior, inscrutable, and for the mos part threatening evil; to which is added man's nature inclination to personify everything, and finally the hop of effecting something by prayers and flattery, and eve by gifts. In every human undertaking there is somethin
which
is
calculations
not in our power and does not come within ot the wish to win this for oneself is the origi
;
of the gods.
is criticised by Hume, who throughout appears Bi Kant's forerunner in the writings referred to above. those whom Kant has placed in a position of permanei
and which
orbe Deos fecit timor is an ol true saying of Petronius. It is principally this pro<
i
"
Primus in
"
embarrassment by his criticism of speculative theolo$ are the professors of philosophy. Salaried by Chrisfll
governments, they dare not give up the chief
article
II
CRITICISM OF
aith.
1
131
?
Now, how do these gentlemen help themselves

!
'hey simply declare that the existence of God is selfAfter the ancient world, at the expense vident. Indeed
f
its
conscience,
had worked miracles to prove
it,
and
lie modern world, at the expense of its understanding, ad brought into the field ontological, cosmological, and
to these gentlemen it is selfhysico-theological proofs vident. And from this self-evident God they then explain
le
world
that
is
laterialism
dilemma between and theism, i.e., between the assumption that blind chance, or that an intelligence working from withit in accordance with purposes and conceptions, had
Till
ire
Kant came there was a
their philosophy. real
ought about the world, neque ddbatur tertium. Thereatheism and materialism were the same ; hence the
)ubt whether there really could be an atheist, i.e., a man ho really could attribute to blind chance the disposition
':
nature, so full of design, especially organised nature,

for example, Bacon's Essays (sermones Jldeles), Essay on Atheism. In the opinion of the great mass of en, and of the English, who in such things belong
je,
5,
itirely to
the great mass (the mob), this is still the case, en with their most celebrated men of learning. One " is only to look at Owen's Osteologie Compared" of 1855,
eface, p. 11, 12, where he stands always before the old ilemma between Democritus and Epicurus on the one :le, and an intelligence on the other, in which la con-
Kant said, " It is very absurd expect enlightenment from reaand yet to prescribe to her lorehand which side she must
,
the late Professor Bachmann who, in the Jena Litteraturzeitung for
July 1840, No.

blurted out the
126, so indiscreetly maxim of all his
i:essarily
(
lason," p. 747
take" ("Critique of Pure V. 775). On the

;
er hand, the following is the ive assertion of a professor of
However, it is worth colleagues. noticing, as regards the characteristics of the University philosophy, how here the truth, if it will not
suit
llosophyin our
own time
"If a
jlosophy denies the reality of the f damental ideas of Christianity, i s either false, or, even if true, it I let useless." That is to say, for It was F feasors of philosophy.
and adapt itself, is shown the door without ceremony, with, "Be we cannot make use of truth off,
!
you.
Do we owe you
us ?
Do you pay
Then be
! anything "
off
132

tel que son apparition.
naissance d"un Stre
Vhomme a
exists
avant
I'homme
fit
ceeded from an intelligence ; doubting this. Yet in the lecture based upon this modified preface, delivered in the Academie des Sciences the 5th September 1853, he says, with childish naiv
"
All design must have pro he has never even dreamt
{Com/ptes Sept. 1853), that is for him precisely the same thing! anything in nature designed ? then it is a work of inl
Uliologie,
La
ou la theologie scientifique
"
Yet, certainly, has such an Englishman and the AcadSmie des Scietu " to do with the l.wi Critique of Judgment," or, indeed,
tion, of reflection, of intelligence.
book upon the Will in Nature ? These gentle: ;lem. These illustres con4 do not see so far below them. disdain metaphysics and the philosophie allemande: th confine themselves to the old woman's philosophy. T validity of that disjunctive major, that dilemma betwe materialism and theism, rests, however, upon the assun tion that the present given world is the world of things themselves; that consequently there is no other order But after the world and things than the empirical order had through Kant become mere phenomenon, laws of which rest principally upon the forms of intellect, the existence and nature of things and of world no longer required to be explained according to
my
analogy of the changes perceived or effected by us in world ; nor must that which we comprehend as means
end have necessarily arisen as the consequence of a sim r Thus, inasmuch as Kant, through his im] knowledge taut distinction between phenomenon and thing in its withdrew the foundation from theism, he opened, on e other hand, the way to entirely different and more profo J
',
explanations of existence. In the chapter on the ultimate aim of the natural

lectic of
reason
it is
asserted that the three transeen
' :
Ideas are of value as regulative principles for the adva J* ment of the knowledge of nature. But Kant can be J
CRITICISM OF

At
assumptions are restrictive and
133
ave been serious in making this assertion.

pposite, that these
d all
least its
fatal
investigation of nature, is to every natural philoTo test this by an example, let any Dpher beyond doubt.
ne consider whether the assumption of the soul as an

nmaterial, simple, thinking substance would have been ecessarily advantageous or in the highest degree impeding
)
the truths
which Cabanis has
so beautifully expounded,
Marshall Hall, and Ch. Indeed Kant himself says (Prolegomena, 44), The Ideas of the reason are opposed and hindering to le maxims of the rational knowlege of nature."
to the discoveries of Flourens,
ell.
It is certainly
-reat,
not the least merit of Frederick the
Government Kant could develop and dared to publish the " Critique of Pure ,eason." Hardly under any other Government would a daried professor have ventured such a thing. Kant was bliged to promise the immediate successor of the great ing that he would write no mora
that under his
imself,
I might consider that I could dispense with the criticism the ethical part of the Kantian philosophy here because
have given a detailed and thorough criticism of it venty-two years later than the present work in the Beiden Grundproblemen der Fthik." However, what is
3re
retained from the
first
edition,
and
for the sake of
impleteness must not be omitted, may serve as a suitable traduction to that later and much more thorough critism, to
which in the main I therefore

had
also to
refer the reader.
ie
symmetry, have a pendant. The Mlectus practicus of the Scholastics, which again springs om the vov$ TrpatcTiicos of Aristotle (De Anima, iii. 10,
theoretical reason
id Polit., vii. c.
On account
of Kant's love of architectonic
14
6 p.ev
yap
Trpa/cTiicos
eari X070?, 6 8e
provides the word ready made. Yet here mething quite different is denoted by it not as there,
opyTiKos),
134
CRITICISM OF
THE KANtlAN PHILOSOPHY.

skill.
the reason directed to technical
Here the
practical
reason appears as the source and origin of the undeniable

ethical significance of human action, and of all virtue, all All nobleness, and every attainable degree of holiness. this accordingly should come from mere reason, and de-
mand 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
men would be blasphemous way

all
if it
called a very of speaking;
unbecoming and even a and almost as much sc

all
were said that His precepts contained
the
best
directions for a perfectly rational life. Further, that h( in of taking with instead accordance these who, precepts,
own future needs, always relieves th< wants of others, without further motive greater present
thought for his
nay, gives all his goods to the poor, in order then, desti tute of all means of subsistence, to go and preach fr others also the virtue which he practises himself; thi
\
very one rightly honours but who ventures to extol i And finally, wh as the highest pitch of reasonableness f it as a rational deed that Arnold von Winkelriec praises
;
with surpassing courage, clasped the hostile spears

his
again.'
in order to gain victory and deliverance ft On the other hand, if we see a ma his countrymen ?
own body
who from his youth upwards deliberates with exception! foresight how he may procure for himself an easy comp<
tence, the
means
for the support of wife
and
children,
CRITICISM OF
135
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-thoughtout plan attains to riches and honours, and even to thrones and crowns, and then with the acutest cunning gets the
better of
one,
neighbouring states, overcomes them one by and now becomes a conqueror of the world, and in
is
doing so
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
go to work in a most powerful understanding was needed to form the plans, their execution demanded the 3omplete command of the reason, and indeed properly of
does not see that such a
rational
man must
manner ?
that, as a
practical
reason
Or
are the precepts
which the pru-
ient and consistent, the thoughtful and far-seeing Machiax velli prescribes to the prince irrational ?
the way, Machiavelli's probthe solution of the question low the prince, as a prince, was to ceep himself on the throne in spite of nternal and external enemies. His problem was thus by no means the
1
By
em was
purely the political one how, if he so And the wills, he can carry it out.
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
ithical
*
problem whether a prince, as man, ought to will such things, but
136
l
CRITICISM OF
~v
Ab 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, 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
when
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 completeit 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
ness,
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
it is
understanding; nevertheless
if
causality, i.e., want of rational to fulfil them
one is of such narrow understanding as to make them. In agreement with what we have said, we see the
who appeared just before Kant place the conas the seat of the moral impulses, in opposition to science, " the reason. Thus Rousseau, in the fourth book of Umile,"
writers
"
says
les
La
"
raison nous trompe, mais la conscience ne trompe
jamais;
: "U est impossible tfexpliquer par de notre nature consequences leprincipe immddiat de la con" science independant de la raison mSme." Still further
and further on
Ma
sentimens naturels parlaient pour Vinterit commun, ma raison On a beau vouloir etablir la vrrtu rapportait tout a moi.
.
.
.
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.
Jl
CRITICISM OF
par la raison
the
"

peut-on lui donner
Sine,
137
"
seul, quelle solide base
In
BSveries
du Promeneur," prom. 4
morale
le
he says
toutes les questions de

trouve" de les resoudre
difjicilesje
me
suis
Dane s toujour Men

:
"
que
par
les
dictamen de la conscience, plutdt par lumiires de la raison." Indeed Aristotle already
says expressly (Eth.

tionali animi),
rationali).
ii., c.
their seat in the a\oyq>
Magna, i. 5) that the virtues have popup T779 yfrv)(7j<; (in parte irra-
and not in the Xoyov eypvri {in parte In accordance with this, Stobaeus says (Eel.,
:
" Trjv tjOcktiv aperrjv speaking of the Peripatetics {hroXafiftavovat irepc to aXoyov fipo$ ycyveadac ttjs ^f^?,
7),
ttc8i]
'r"
Bcfieprj
>
7r/)o?
ttjv
vX7l v
T0
^wywov eôvaav, to
trapovaav dewpcav viredevro ttjv Kac irepc 6 aXoyov.
(lev
(Tiv,
to Xoytfcov tt\v /caAo/car/adcav ycyvecrdav, Kac ttjv (ppovrjKac tt]v a/YXjbvoiav, tcai ao<pcav, nai evpadecav, /cat
Kac t<z?
Ofjcocovs'
teat
p,vr)p,r/v,
/cat
SifcaioavvTjv,
icaXovfievas apera?." ratione carentem versari putant,
irepc Se to aXoyov, craKppocrvvrjv, avSpecav, Kac Ta<; aX\a<; tcc? r)6c/ca<; (Ethicam virtutem circa partem animm
cum
duplieem, ad hanc
disquisitionem, animam ponant, ratione prceditam, et ea carentem. In parte vero ratione prmdita collocant ingenuitatem,
memoriam
prudentiam, perspicacitatem, sapientiam, docilitatem, et reliqua ; in parte vero ratione destituta tem-
perantiam, justitiam, fortitudinem, 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
concepts.
framing
quite special class of general nonwhich are symbolised and fixed only ideas, perceptible by words, that distinguishes man from the brutes and
It is
this
gives
is
him the pre-eminence upon
earth.
While the brute
the slave of the present, and knows only immediate sensible motives, and therefore when they present themselves to it is necessarily attracted or repelled
as iron is
by the magnet,
in
by them, man, on the contrary, degift of reason.
liberation has
been introduced through the
140
CRITICISM OF

To
translate
nil
quite wrong. does not concern the theoretical so
Delphic Mrjhev admire nothing"
ar/av.
is
admirari "to
This Horatian
maxim
much
as the practical,
and
Do
" Prize no object unconditionally. not fall in love with anything ; do not believe that the
its real
meaning
is
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. What Horace means is thus the adafifiia and 2).
him
of
aKarairkr}^, also adavfiaaia, which Democritus before prized as the highest good (see Clem. Alex. Strom., ii. Such reasonableness 21, and cf. Strabo, i. p. 98 and 105).
conduct has properly nothing to do with virtue and 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
vice
dignity of man. In all the cases given, and indeed in all conceivable cases, the distinction between rational and irrational
abstract
action runs back to the question whether the motives are Therefore conceptions or ideas of perception.
explanation which I have given of reason agrees exactly with the use of language at all times and among a circumstance which will not be regarded as all peoples
the
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 docs not raise it to the distinctness of an abstract definition. Our ancestors did not make the words without attaching
to
them a
lie
definite
meaning, in order, perhaps, that they

philosophers
come centuries
who might possibly and determine what ought to be thought in connection with them but they denoted by them quite definite conceptions. Thus the words are no
might
ready
for
after
CRITICISM. OF
141
longer unclaimed, and to attribute to them an entirely different sense from that which they have hitherto had means
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
to
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, Moreover, the consciousness, truth, and many others. 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 Observe what Plato, in the fourth book of the of man. Eepublic, and in innumerable scattered passages, calls the Xoyifiov, or X&ytoTiKov T779 ^v)(7]<i, what Cicero says (De Nat. Deor., iii. 26-31), what Leibnitz and Locke say upon
arise.
this in the
would be no end
passages already quoted in the first book. There 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 distinct-
What was understood by reducing it to one point. 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
ness
"
Analysis of the Conception of Eeason," the other,
"
On
the Eeciprocal Influence of Eeason and Language." If, on the other hand, we read how reason is spoken about in
the most
recent
error,
times,
Kantian
lanche,
which
after
through the influence of the him increased like an avaof the
wise
we are obliged to assume that the whole men of antiquity, and also all philosophers
all
;
before
Kant, had absolutely no reason at
for the
immediate
perceptions, intuitions, apprehensions, presentiments of the
142
CRITICISM OF
reason now discovered were as utterly unknown to them And as far as I am as the sixth sense of the bat is to us.
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
must be said in favour 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
sense of the bat.
This, however,
of the invention or discovery of
The invention and the reception it has met with do honour to the age. Thus, although what is essential in reason (to koyifiop, 17 on the whole and <ppovr)cn<i, ratio, raison, Vemunft) was, 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
of Eeason.
understanding (vow, Siavota, intellcdus, 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
virtue
is
it
to revelation.
many are justly of opinion that the knowledge

possible from
Starting, then, from this, of the duty of
reason, .., without revelation. matter certainly had influence Indeed 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
this aspect of the
mere
keep
itself free.
We might
retical
have expected that in his critiques of theoand practical reason Kant would have started with
after
an exposition of the nature of reason in general, and,
CRITICISM OF
143
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
itself to
be the same.
But we
principal characteristic, proves 1 find nothing of all this.
how inadequate, vacillating, and inthe are consistent explanations of the faculty he is critihe which gives here and there by the way in the cising, " of Pure Reason." The practical reason appears Critique " " in the Critique of Pure Reason without any introduction,
have already shown
and afterwards stands in the
to itself as
specially devoted established. No further something already account of it is given, and the use of language of all times
"
"
Critique
and peoples, which
is
treated with contempt,

lift
tions of the conception given
philosophers, dare not
and the definiby the greatest of earlier up their voices. In general,
we may conclude from particular passages that Kant's the knowledge of principles opinion amounts to this
:
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
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
this,
how
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 3uch an imperative be from those universal forms of knoio" ledge of which, in the Critique of Pure Reason," Kant proves that we are conscious a priori, and by virtue of ffhich consciousness we can assert beforehand an unconto
f44
CRITICISM OF
But the
ditioned must, valid for all experience possible for ua. 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
may
indeed be
made use
them is empirically known 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 Pure Critique of Practical Eeason," but in that of
Eeason,"
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
in the following manner Not merely what excites, the senses directly, determines human i.e., what affects will, but we have a power of overcoming the impressions
it
:
"
made upon our sensuous

of that
appetitive faculty through ideas
which is itself in a more remote manner useful or hurtful. These deliberations as to what is worthy of with reference to our whole condition, t.&, as to desire, what is good and useful, rest upon reason." (Perfectly right would that he only always spoke so rationally of " Eeason therefore gives also laws, which are reason !) imperatives, i.e., objective laws of freedom, and say W.
;
!
ought to take place, though perhaps it never does Thus, without further authentication, the cateplace" gorical imperative comes into the world, in order to rule
!
iron.
there with its unconditioned ought a sceptre of wooden " For in the conception " ought there lies always
and essentially the reference
to threatened punishment, or
CRITICISM OF
145
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 uncondi-
It was necessary tioned ought is a contradictio in adjecto. to censure this mistake, closely as it is otherwise connected with Kant's great service to ethics, which consists
in this,
world of experience, that
that he has freed ethics from all principles of the 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.
is all the greater because all ancient philowith 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
This service
sophers,
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
:he
and elaboration often does not correspond with tendency and spirit of his ethics, and secondly that,
jven so, he is not really the first who separated virtue *rom all principles of happiness. For Plato, especially in he " Eepublic," the principal tendency of which is just
his, expressly teaches that virtue is to be chosen for itself done, even if unhappiness and ignominy are inevitably
onnected with it. Still more, however, Christianity reaches a perfectly unselfish virtue, which is practised tot on account of the reward in a life after death, but
ustify,
from love to God, for works do not which accompanies virtue, so to peak, as its symptom, and therefore appears quite irreSee Luther's pective of reward and of its own accord.
uite disinterestedly
but only
faith,
De Zibertate
11
Christiana."
I will not take into account at
the Indians, in whose sacred books the hope of a reard for our works is everywhere described as the way VOL. il. K.
146
CRITICISM OF
of darkness, which can never lead to blessedness. Kant's doctrine of virtne, 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 the reward of but it is a virtue, voluntary gift really yet for which virtue, after work accomplished, stealthily opens One may convince oneself of this from the the hand. " " of Practical Reason Critique (p. 223-266 of the fourth, The whole of or p. 264-295 of Rosenkranz's, edition). 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 " So act principle of the practical reason, is the famous :
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. question arises how such a rule is to be found.
in order to discover the rule of to
Then
the
my
Clearly, conduct, I ought not
have regard to myself alone, but to the sum of all individuals. Then, instead of my own well-being, the wellbeing of all without distinction becomes my aim. Yei the aim still always remains well-being. I find, then, tha' all can be equally well off only if each limits his owi
egoism by that of others. From this it certainly follow; that I must injure no one, because, since this principle i
il
CRITICISM OF
147
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 But clearly in one, can wish ,this to be a universal law.
way the desire of well-being, i.e., egoism, remains the As the basis of politics source of this ethical principle. it would be excellent, as the basis of ethics it is worthless.
this
For he
as is in
who
seeks to establish a rule for the wills of
all,
demanded by
that moral principle, necessarily stands

;
need of a rule himself
otherwise everything would be
alike to him.
since
it
;
others
this rule can only be his own egoism, is only this that is affected by the conduct of and therefore it is only by means of this egoism,
But
and with reference to it, that each one can have a will concerniug the conduct of others, and that it is not a
matter of indifference to him.
intimates
this
'
Keason
Kant himself very naively 123 of the "Critique of Practical Eosenkranz's edition, p. 192), where he thus
(p. "
If every prosecutes the search for maxims for the will : 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 would be the rule of the consent legem sancimus iniquam ! " also in the after. So Fundamental inquired Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals" (p. 56 of the third, and p. 50 of Eosenkranz'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
148
greatest sum of well-being. But in ethics, where the objed of investigation is action as action, and in its direct signifi-
cance for the actor

relation to others
not
its
consequences, suffering, or
its
in this reference, I say, it is altogethe inadmissible, because at bottom it really amounts to principle of happiness, thus to egoism.
cannot, therefore, share Kant's satisfaction that his principle of ethics is not a material one, t.e., one whie
sets
it
We
object as a motive, but merely formal, whereb; corresponds symmetrically to the formal laws with whi
"
up an
has made us familii Critique of Pure Eeason it of a instead is, law, merely a formula for fin Certainly a in the first place, we had t such law. But, ing formula already more briefly and clearly in the " Quod tibi " and, secondly, the analysis fieri non vis, alteri nefeceris ;
the
of this formula
"
shows that
it is
simply and solely the

that gives
it
reference to one's
own happiness
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
p. 213; Eosenkranz's edition, p. 257) to right-thinking persons are indeed very burdensome, as confusing their deliberate
" Critique of Practical Reason," (according to the
maxims.
of
The act must be performed unwillingly and
with
'
self-compulsion.
reward
is
that nevertheless the hope not allowed to enter, and estimate the great
Eemember
But, what is saying more, this absurdity of the demand. is directly opposed to the true spirit of virtue ; not the
CRITICISM OF
act,
149
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
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 This demand of only the law in view, does not produce. 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
that all outward
he asserted that every work of art must be accomplished by a well-considered application of sssthetical rules. The
is just as perverse as the other. The question, already handled by Plato and Seneca, whether virtue can be taught, We must finally make is to be answered in the negative.
one
up our minds to
its
see,
what indeed was the source

and
its
of the
Christian doctrine of election

chief characteristic
is
by grace, that as regards inner nature, virtue, like
little as all
and that just as ; the professors of aesthetics 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
genius,
to a certain extent inborn
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.
system of ethics and a first prinwhich would have practical influence same, and would actually transform and better the human race, is just like the search for the Yet I philosopher's stone. 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
The search
for a
ciple of the
l$o
CRITICISM OF
book
relieve
this

the necessity of dwell
of that
me generally of
ing longer
point upon That Kant by no means penetrated to the real
signifi
cance of the ethical content of actions is shown finally b; his doctrine of the highest good as the necessary combina tion of virtue and happiness, a combination indeed
which virtue would be that which merits happiness.

is
He
here involved in the logical fallacy that the conception of merit, which is here the measure or test, already pre-
supposes a theory of ethics as could not be deducible from it.
its
own measure, and
thus
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
hand,
an end. Happiness, on the other thus the two are essentially in; capable 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
all willing finds
is
a satisfied wish
categories of freedom.
The and is
"
Philosophy of
Law "
is
one of Kant's latest woitfl
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,"
give
up the negative mode

is,
of procedure
and
refl
to the positive, that
to the short outline of
it gi\
;:
the fourth book.
Just one or two general remarks on
CRITICISM OF
Kant's
"

Law
"
151
Philosophy of
may
be made here.
The
" Crierrors which I have condemned in considering the Kant to as of Pure Reason," throughout, clinging tique " " in such excess that Philosophy of Law appear in the 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
admit even of the possibility of any " third view. Legal obligaConsequently, when he says, this is either to can be can is that which tion enforced," be understood physically, and then all law is positive and arbitrary, and again all arbitrariness that achieves its end or the can is to be understood ethically, and we are is law
sanction, does not
;
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

negative,
is
entirely
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
and thereby inadequate. 1
moral freedom of the will) signifies not being hindered or interfered with, and is thus a mere negation compatiThus we bility, again, has exactly the same significance. remain with mere negations and obtain no positive concep;
tion,
indeed do not learn at
about, unless
1
we know
it
is really being spoken from some other source. already

all,
what
Although the conception of legal right is properly negative in opposition to that of wrong, which is the
positive starting-point, yet the ex-
planation of these conceptions must not on this account be entirely negative.
152
CRITICISM OF
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 pro-
which really means that all right or law is 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;
perty at
all,
positive,
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

latter,
for themselves.
Of the
the
"
Naturrtckt
evidence, and
of J. C. F. Meister specially bears is thus a contrast to many a preposterous

it
"
theory, though I do not regard pattern of perfection.
as
on
this account a
On
been
the "Critique of Judgment" also, after what has We cannot but be sursaid, I must be very short.
prised 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
to
an important work of art, and who seems, finally, have had no knowledge of Goethe, the only man of his century and nation who was fit to be placed by his side
it is,
as his giant equal,
standing
all this,
Kant was
I say, surprising how, notwithable 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
CRITICISM OF
of facts
153
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
They sought principles, and then at more general ones. 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 aesthetic satisfaction, i.e., what are this was the conditions of this residing in the object 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 aesthetical principles discovered finally led back to the subject, and it was observed that
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.
if
This occasioned once
and again psychological
disquisitions.
Specially however, Alexander Baumgarten produced with this intention a general aesthetic of all beauty, in which
he started from the conception of the perfection of sensu3us knowledge, that is, of knowledge of perception. With
aim
also,
however, the subjective part
is
done with as
soon as this conception has been established, and he passes to the objective part and to the practical, which is con-
lected with it. But here also the merit was reserved for Hant of investigating seriously and profoundly the feeling
tself,
in consequence of which we call the object occasioning beautiful, in order to discover, wherever it was possible,
it
he constituent elements and conditions of

lis
in our nature,
investigation,
therefore, took
an entirely subjective
lirection.
This path was clearly the right one, for in
154
CRITICISM OF

is
order to explain a
phenomenon which
given
in i
effects, one must know accurately this effect itself, if o 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 can-
not 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 Êsthetical Judgment the observa-
tion first of all forces itself
upon us that Kant
retains the
method which is peculiar to

I
have
his whole philosophy, and which I mean the method of considered at length above
starting
knowledge
from abstract knowledge in order to establish 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 Eeason" the forms of judgment are supposed to unfold to him the knowledge of our whole world of perception, so in this " " he does not start Critique of Êsthetical Judgment 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
It is this that struck him, not the quality of the object. He starts always merely from the asserbeautiful itself.
tions of others,
from the judgment of the beautful, 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
CRITICISM OF
THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY
155
Then we shall find that in almost the same position. 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
from the necessity of refuting it ; and myself here also I refer to the positive part of my work. With regard to the form of his whole book, it is to be
relieved
observed that
it
originated in the idea of finding in the
teleological conception the key to the problem of the This inspiration is deduced, which is always a beautiful.
matter of no
cessors.
difficulty, as
we have
learnt from Kant's suc-
Thus there now
of the
knowledge
arises the strange combination 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 under-
taken, 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 Eeason," and very specially in the antinomy of the aesthetical 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 judg-
ment have been made the foundation-stone
of all philo-
sophy, 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
ledge,
i'ormer, is
knowledge of perception into abstract knowand again of applying the latter correctly to the
explained in the positive part of my work. " the best part of the Critique of Êsthetical Judg-
By far
156
CRITICISM OF
is
ment"
It is incomparablj the theory of the sublime. than that of the more successful beautiful, and does not
only give, as that does, the general method of investigaso much so tion, but also a part of the right way to it
it does not give the real solution of the touches very closely upon it. problem, yet In the " Critique of the Teleological Judgment," on ac-
that even though

it
count 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 thia 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 This by a design and the conception of this design.
analogy
is
sufficient
to
enable us
to
comprehend the
agreement to give us no means on
of all the parts with the whole, and thus indeed the clue to their investigation ; but it must by
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 Somewhat in this way I would epitomise Kant's origin.
doctrine on this question.
In its most important aspect he had expounded it already in the " Critique of Pure Reason," But in the knowledge of th V., 720-730. p. 692-702 truth also we find David Hume to be Kant's worthy for runner. He also had keenly controverted that assumptioi
;
in the second part of his "Dialogues concerning Natt
CRITICISM OF
157
The difference between Hume's criticism of Religion." 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
tion.
it as an a priori assumpBoth are right, and their expositions supplement each Indeed what is really essential in the Kantian other. doctrine on this point we find already expressed in the " r) 8e commentary of Simplicius on Aristotle's Physics ifKavq yeyovev avrois airo tov rpyeiadcu, iravra ra eveica tov yivofieva Kara 7rpoaipe<Tiv yeveadat icai Xoyiafiov, ra Be (pvcret, fir} ovtw? opav yivo/xeva." {Error iis ortus est ex eo,
:
guod credebant, omnia, quce propter finem aliguem fierent, ex dura videoant, naturce opera non proposito et ratiocinio fieri, Kant Schol. in Arist., ex edit. Berol., p. 354. ita fieri.)
is
and it was necessary that ; the after it had been shown that conception of cause and to the whole of nature in general, in is effect inapplicable
perfectly right in the matter
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
con-
sider 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,
;
natural bodies
feel to
think of
extends also to our judgment of and accordingly the compulsion which we them as having arisen as the result of pre-
meditation, according to designs, thus in such a way that the idea of them preceded their existence, is just as much of
itself
subjective origin as the perception of space, which presents so objectively, and that therefore it must not be set
up
Kant's exposition of the matter, as objective truth. apart fron 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
158
CRITICISM OF
Yet I

He
denies the
nature.
find here another flaw.
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 i3 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,
possibility of such
which in themselves (apart from my all natural forces as lower grades of the of explanation as manifestations of forces exist of will) objectification
and
elasticity prevail,
which cannot be further explained, but themselves constitute the principles of all further explanation, which merely If we leave this province consists in reduction to them.
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 longei
former forces are overcome by others, and the phenomena take place in direct contradiction to them,
valid, the
according to
are original
new
ones.
laws, which, just like the former ones,

i.e.,
and inexplicable,
cannot be reduced
to
J
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,
more general
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
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
would, as
"
exposition would have been especially favourable to his excellent remark that a more profound knowledge of the
real being, of
tation,
which the things of nature are the manifeswould recognise both in the mechanical (according
CRITICISM OF
to law) as the
159
and the apparently intentional effects of nature one and the same ultimate principle, which might serve
more general ground of explanation of them both. 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 Therefore I have perhaps become clearer and deeper. more to about it here. nothing say The reader whom this criticism of the Kantian philoSuch a principle
sophy interests should not neglect to read the supplement to it which is given in the second essay of the first volume
" "Parerga and Paralipomena," under the title Noch " einige Urlduterungen zur Kantischen Philosophic (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
of
my
course of a long
life,
them.
Accordingly, have said upon one subject should stand together in one
place.
it
and with long intervals between must not be expected that all I
158
CRITICISM OF
Yet I

He
denies the
to
nature.
find here another flaw.
possibility of such
an explanation merely with regard
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 we enter a new province, and new fundamental laws appear instead of them, the explanation of which is
soon as
by no means to be expected from the laws of the former province. Thus in the province of the mechanical, properly
and
so called, the laws of gravitation, cohesion, rigidity, fluidity, elasticity prevail, which in themselves (apart from my
all
explanation of
natural forces as lower grades of the
objectification of will) exist as manifestations of forces which cannot be further explained, but themselves consti-
tute the principles of all further explanation, which merely If we leave this province consists in reduction to them. 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 longei
former forces are overcome by others, and the phenomena take place in direct contradiction to them,
valid, the
according to
are original
new
laws, which, just like the former ones,
and inexplicable, i., 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 (accordii
I:
'b'
CRITICISM OF
to law)
as the
159
and the apparently intentional effects of nature one and the same ultimate principle, which might serve
more general ground of explanation of them both. 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, " On the Will in Nature," the but. especially in my work into inner the nature of the apparent design and insight of the harmony and agreement of the whole of nature has Therefore I have perhaps become clearer and deeper. more to about it here. say nothing The reader whom this criticism of the Kantian philoSuch a principle
sophy interests should not neglect to read the supplement to it which is given in the second essay of the first volume
" "Parerga and Paralipomena," under the title Noch " (Some einige Erlauterungen zur Kantischen Philos&phie Further Explanations of the Kantian Philosophy). For it must be borne in mind that my writings, few as they are,
of
my
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 tfje JFtrst SSooft.
'
Warum willst du dich von uns Allen Und unsrer Meinung entfernen ?
'
Ich schreibe nicht euch zu gefallen, Ihr sollt was lernen."
Goethk.
VOL. n.
SUPPLEMENTS TO THE FIRST BOOK.
tftrst
&alt
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.
it
Yet
for a thinking being
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 Df innumerable similar beings who throng and press and
is
X)il,
;ime,
and quickly arising and passing away in which has no beginning and no end moreover, lothing permanent but matter alone and the recurrence )f the same varied organised forms, by means of certain All that vays and channels which are there once for all. the science can teach is more exact nature impirical only nd law of these events. But now at last modern philoophv especially through Berkeley and Kant, has called
ceaselessly
;
164 to
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER

mind
that all this
is first of all
I.
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 a proposition which every one must recognise
soon as he understands
sition
it
;
of Euclid,
as true as
although
it
is
not a propo-
which every one understands as soon as he hears To have brought this proposition to clear consciousit. ness, 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
freedom,
is
head, together with the problem of moral the distinctive feature of modern philosophy.
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
For
chiefest is this, that

it
however immeasurable and massive

hangs by a single thread
;
may
be, its existence yet
and
This
this is the actual consciousness in
which
it exists.
condition, to
which the existence of the world is irrevocably marks it, in spite of all empirical reality, with subject, the stamp of ideality, and therefore of mere phenomenal Thus on one side at least the world must be appearance. as akin to dreams, and indeed to be classified recognised with them. For the same function of the brain along
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

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.
world of waking
Descartes was probably the
first
who
attained to the

degree of reflection
165
which this fundamental truth deand mands, consequently he made it the starting-point of his philosophy, though provisionally only in the When he took his cogito form of a sceptical doubt. as sum alone and certain, provisionally regarded the ergo 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
But his correct and propossessed of real being in itself. found insight into this truth really constitutes Berkeley's
whole philosophy
in it he had exhausted himself. Thus true philosophy must always be idealistic indeed, mst be so in order to be merely honest. For nothing lore certain than that no man ever came out of him; ;
self
in
order to
-vhich are different

le
has certain,
directly with thing3 from him; but everything of which and therefore immediate, knowledge lies
identify himself
vithin his
own consciousness. Beyond this consciousness, there can be no immediate certainty ; but the herefore, irst of a science must have such certainty. principles
r
or the empirical
standpoint of the other sciences
it is
uite right to
solutely
assume the objective world as something given but not so for the standpoint of philo;
166
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
I.
sophy, 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,
it is essentially idealistic.
i.e^
Eealism 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
all
air, for it
that
we know
ignores or denies the first of all facts, that lies within consciousness. For that
is
the objective existence of things

subject whose ideas they
are,
conditioned through a
objective world exists only as still less a dogma, or even a paradox set
of discussion x.
I
;
and consequently that the idea, is no hypothesis, and
up
for the sake
but
it is
it is
the most certain and the simplest
truth
and the knowledge
the fact that
every one
who
of it is only made difficult by indeed so simple, and that it is not 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 con-
/tent
truth, and if accordingly we try to imagine an world without a knowing subject, we become aware objective that what we then imagine is in truth the opposite of
and
what we intended,
is
in the intellect of a
in fact nothing else than the process knowing subject who perceives an

objective world,
is
167
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 in-
dependently of all brains.
The principal objection

ideality of
all objects,
to the inevitable
and
:
essentiai
the objection which, distinctly or in-
distinctly, 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
also
if he no But all other objects longer perceived me. stand in the same relation to his intellect as I do ;
consequently they also would continue to exist without The answer to this is: That being perceived by him.
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, W( ould by no means be on that account abolished. For I
am this subject, as every conscious being 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
yself indeed
is.
only indirectly, never immediately ; because all existence as idea is indirect. As object, i.e., as extended, occupying
know my body only in the perception This takes place by means of the senses, my data upon supplied by which the percipient understanding its function of passing from effect to cause, and performs
space and acting, I
brain.
of
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 nature itself, activity, which would then coincide with
my
which accordingly, in order so to
exist,
would require no
168
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
it
I.
other being in whose knowledge
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,
the acts of
will,
as agreeable or disagreeable, and as active in 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
In the first case one's own person to another person. divides itself into the knowing and the known, into object
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
and
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 know-
ledge and
its subject.
it is
However,
evident that the existence which
is
con-
ditioned through a knowing subject is only the existence in space, and therefore that of an extended and active
always something known, and conOn the other hand, for another. that in exists this every being 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
being.
This alone
is
sequently an
existence
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
169
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
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
objective
reality of the external world.
sense, which appeal and for forms many guises ; example, as an " " in the Scotch school, or as irresistible conviction
petual return
to
the
to
Upon this common
rests the per-
appears in
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
It presents itself as that forms directly what it promises. It

faith.
which it is, and permust be remembered

it
that Jacobi,
who
set
up such a
to
credit or faith theory of the
world,
and had the fortune
impose
upon a few pro-
have philosophised upon the same lines lengthily and at their ease, is the same man who once denounced Lessing as a Spinozist,
fessors of philosophy,
who
for thirty years
and afterwards denounced Schelling as an atheist, and who received from the latter the well-known and welldeserved 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
170
FIRST BOOK.
faith, is just
CHAPTER
I.
upon
"
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 in general, is conditioned object, thus the empirically real
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 preTherefore with the simple or arranged in the subject. 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,
by means
of time,
which are extended in space and, have causal relations to each other, and
that all this
is
everything that depends upon this
not
something which
there independently of our head, but essentially presupposes the functions of our brain by meant of which and in which alone such an objective arrangement
is
of things
is
possible.
For time, space, and
causality,
upon
which
those real and objective events rest, are themselves nothing more than functions of the brain ; so that
all
thus the unchangeable order of things which affords the
and clue to their empirical reality itself proceeds from the brain, and has its credentials from this alone. only All this Kant has expounded fully and thoroughly only " he does not speak of the brain, but calls it the faculty Indeed he has attempted to prove that of knowledge."
criterion
;
when
&c, upon which

rest, is
that objective order in time, space, causality, matter, all the events of the real world ultimately
properly considered,
i.e.,
as a self-existing order,
it cannot even be conceived an order of the thing in itself,
"
171
or as something absolutely objective and unconditionally given, for if one tries to think this out it leads to contra-
To accomplish this was the object of the antidictions. nomies, 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
assumption that things also from and independently of our conThat we are so deeply insciousness, is really absurd. in volved time, space, causality, and the whole regular of experience which rests upon them, that we (and process 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 conexist as such, apart
to the conviction that the
one whole, the intellect itself creates that order, and exists only for things, while they, on the other hand,
stitute
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
made capable the of exhibition its by simple being meaning in the as the of such considerations following. According light
clung to
of
may
be directly shown, or at least
felt,
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. Eock, tree, and brook are there, and
sun, moon, and stars light this world, as ; yet certainly in vain, for there is no eye to see it. Let us now in addition place in it a percipient being. Now
the blue heaven

before
;
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
172
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
I.
completely separated from it, resembles it to a nicety. And the subjective world of this perception is precisely so constituted in subjective, known space as the objective world
now
But the subjective world has in objective, infinite space. 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 It can tell just as much with require to examine them.
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
at first
it
we imagined
and prior to all knowledge, which ourselves to conceive, is really no

is
other than the second, the world which jectively, the world of idea, as which alone
able to conceive
forces itself
it.
known
sub-
we
are actually
exists
Thus
of its
own
accord the assumption
upon
us, that the world, as

1
we know
it,
also only for our knowledge, therefore in the idea alone,
In accordance, then, with this assumption, the thing in itself, i.t\, that which exists independently of our knowledge aud 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.
it.
and not a second time outside of
the other hand, the controversy concerning the reality of the external world considered in 5 of the first
1 I specially recommend here the " Miscelpassage in Lachtenberg's " laneous Writings (Gothingen, i8oi,
On
expression, but I
it
must confess
that
has never been easy for
me
com-
vol.
ii.
p. 12)
letters
upon
says, in his various subjects in con:
"Euler
pletely to comprehend it It always seems to me as if the conception being were something derived from
nection 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
our thought, and thus, if there are no longer any sentient and thinking creatures, then there is nothing mora whatever."

volume
rests
criticised, of
173
upon the assumption, which has just been 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 conI to add the have still remarks. troversy following The subjective and the objective do not constitute a conThat of which we are immediately continuous whole. scious 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 causaIf, on the contrary, it is given a priori, as Kant has lity. 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 For all that is actually given empirisubjective sphere.
; ;
cally 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
174
FIRST BOOK.
is
CHAPTER
I.
assumed in consequence of this in perception as an object, once law, presents which has space and time for the form of its manifestaBut these forms themselves again are entirely of tion.
given sensation, which
itself
at
subjective origin
for they are the
mode
or
method
of our
That transition from the sensation faculty of perception. 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
of the
real nature, or rather as to the intelligible substratum, 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 assumpthat 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 cointion
cides with
true,
an
earlier result of Locke's,
which
is
just as
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
it
and the objective nature of the cause which occasions 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
com-
Locke's philosophy was the criticism pletely subjective. of the functions of sense ; Kant has given us the criticism
of the functions of the brain. to add the Berkeleian
result,
But to all this we have yet which has been revised by me,

that every object, whatever its origin
175
may
be, is as object
already conditioned by the subject, is in fact merely its The aim of realism is indeed the object without idea.
subject
;
but
this
it is
impossible even to conceive such an

follows with certainty and absolutely impossible to attain to the
it
object distinctly.
From
whole inquiry
it is
distinctness that
comprehension of the inner nature of things upon the path For knowledge always of mere knowledge and perception. comes to things from without, and therefore must for ever remain outside them. This end would only be reached if
we could
their inner nature
find ourselves in the inside of things, so that would be known to us directly. Now,
is
how
first
far this
second book.
But
actually the case is considered in my so long as we are concerned, as in this
book, with objective comprehension, that is, with knowledge, the world is, and remains for us, a mere idea, for here
no possible path by which we can cross over to it. besides But, this, a firm grasp of the point of view of idealism is a necessary counterpoise to that of materialism.
there
is
The controversy concerning the
real
and the
ideal
may
also
be regarded as a controversy concerning the existence of For it is the reality or ideality of this that is matter.
Does matter, as such, exist only ultimately in question. 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,
of
i.e.,
he must make matter the principle
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
to the
his teaching led, in the hands of Condillac, 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
176
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
I.
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 sliam philosophy, of the disingenuous method
:
which, through ambiguity in the use of words, incomprehensible language, and sophistry, seeks to deceive, and
make a deep impression by assuming 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
tries,
moreover, to
an
air of
it
names
developed into pure charlatanism. But whoever even this Fichte seriously along with Kant shows that
he has not even a dim notion of what Kant is. On the It is just other hand, materialism also has its warrant. as true that the knower is a product of matter as that matter is merely the idea of the knower ; but it is also For materialism is the philosophy of just as one-sided. that the subject And, forgets to take account of itself. as against the assertion that I am a mere accordingly, modification of matter, this must be insisted upon, that all matter exists merely in my idea; and it is no less
A knowledge, as yet obscure, of these relations right. " seems to have been the origin of the saying of Plato, v\if
"
akrjdivov yjrev&os
(materia mendacium verax).
Realism necessarily leads, as we have said, to material' For if empirical perception gives us things in themism. selves, as they exist independently of our knowledge,
experience also gives us the order of things in themselves, But this path i.e., the true and sole order of the world.
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
177
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 maas the terialism, 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 pheno-
mena, 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 of nature. The world
which we are placed by the course 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 Cermatter, but that all matter is dependent on him.
tainly this is not so easy to
to
handle as spiritualism, with
comprehend or so convenient its two substances; but
"Xfikeira
ra
icaXa.
is
In opposition to the subjective starting-point, " the world 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,
But, more closely considered, Leucippus, and Epicurus. the departure from the subject retains a real advantage ;
it
sciousness alone
if
has the start by one perfectly justified step. For con is the immediate : but we pass over this
-
we go
at once to matter
and make
it
our starting-point-
vol. n.
178
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
I.
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 subBut jectively we never attain to a knowledge of them. 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 gualitates occulta. For matter is only the 26, 27 of the first volume.) (Cf. vehicle of these forces, just as the law of causality is only Therefore such an the arranger of their manifestations. of world would the always remain merely explanation relative and conditioned, properly the work of a physical On science, which at every step longed for a metaphysic.
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
its
existence as idea
is
(the thing in itself, will), and indeed 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, ie., if it had absolutely no idea," is just as false as the asser" tion of the crude understanding, the world, the object, even if would still exist, conthere were no subject." sciousness without an object is no consciousness. think-
ing subject has conceptions for its object; a subject of sense perception has objects with the qualities correspond-

ing to
179
If we rob the subject of all special its organisation. 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
ject as such, as its reflex,
knowledge, but which remains opposed to the naked subwhich can only disappear along
Although materialism pretends to postulate than this matter for instance, atoms yet more nothing
with
it.
it
unconsciously adds to
time, and
it
not only the subject, but also
space,
causality, perties of the subject. The world as idea, the objective world, has thus, as it
which depend upon special pro-
were,
two poles
its
forms of
the simple knowing subject without the knowledge, and crude matter without form
;
Both are completely unknowable; the subbecause it is that which knows, matter because withject out form and quality it cannot be perceived. Yet both
and quality.
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
are
time, but
is,
properly speaking, not extended, for exten-
sion gives form, thus it has no spatial properties. thing else is involved in a constant process of
into
Every-
coming
sent the
being and passing away, while these two repreunmoved poles of the world as idea. The perof
manence
matter
may
therefore
be regarded as the
reflex of the timelessness of the
pure subject, which is assumed as the of all objects. Both condition simply to not to but the in itself, belong phenomena, thing they are the framework of the phenomenon. Both are arrived
180
at only
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER

by
abstraction,
I.
and are not given immediately,
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 Infall together, the one is only the reflex of the other. deed they are really one and the same thing regarded from two opposite points of view and this one thing, I am here
t ;
pure and for themselves. The fundamental error of
anticipating, is the manifestation of the will, or the tl in itself. Consequently both are secondary, and therefoi
the origin of the world is not to be sought in either of the But because of their failure to understand this, two.
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, vovs,
as the absolutely First and 8i)(Juovpyo<;, and accordingly in this allow an idea of things and of the world to precede
real world
their actual existence; consequently they distinguish the from the world of idea ; which is false. Therefore matter
now appears
as that through
itself.
are distinguished, as the thing in

difficulty of procuring this
which the two Hence arises the matter, the v\n, so that when
added to the mere idea of the world it may impart reality That original intelligence must now either find it it. to hand, in which case it is just as much an absolute ready First as that intelligence itself, and we have then two absolute Firsts, the Sn/itoupyo? and the v\ij ; or the absoto
lute 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
On the other essential, the correlate of the understanding. 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 j and it has been made sufficiently clear by all that

has been said above that this
is
181
a direct contradiction, for
by the existence
being perceived.
First,
of
matter we always mean simply its But here they encounter the difficulty
of bringing to this matter,
which alone
is
is
their absolute
the intelligence which
finally to
experience
it.
I have
shown
this
weak
side of materialism in
7 of
For me, on the contrary, matter and are intelligence inseparable correlates, which exist only Matter for each other, and therefore merely relatively.
the
first
volume.
is
the idea of the intelligence
the intelligence
is
that in
whose idea alone matter

stitute the
exists.
The two together con-
world as idea, which is just Kant's phenomenon, and consequently something secondary. What is primary
that
is
which manifests
itself, the
thing in
itself,
which we
in itself
shall afterwards discover is the will.
This
is
neither the perceiver nor the perceived, but is entirely different from the mode of its manifestation.
As
discussion I shall
a forcible conclusion of this important and difficult 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 Philosophies
of
Raymund
Subject.
is
Lully,
c.
and
2.
The
I am,
is
and besides
me
there
nothing.
For the world
my
idea.
Matter.
I, I am, and besides me there Presumptuous delusion Thou art a nothing, for the world is my fleeting form. mere result of a part of this form and altogether acci!
is
dental.
The
Subject.
!
Neither thou nor thy form would exist without me ye are conditioned by me. Whosoever thinks me away, and believes he can still think
insane arrogance
;
What
182
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
I.
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.
thou
. This infinite time through which thou boastest that like the infinite which thou exists fillest, livest, space
Indeed it is merely the form of my only in my idea. 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.
far as to regard thy to that of these linked yet inseparably as fleeting individuals, something absolute, it yet remains mine. For thou art subject only so far dependent upon
if
And
concede
is
this,
and go so
existence, which
and this object I am. I am its 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
as thou hast an object; kernel and content, that
183
and fancies of thy individuals, which have yet borrowed from me even the illusive content they possess.
The
Subject.
dost well to refrain from contesting my existence oa the ground that it is linked to individuals ; for, as in-
Thou
am joined to them, thou art joined to thy Form, and hast never appeared without her. No eye hath yet seen either thee or me naked and isolated It is in reality one for we are both mere abstractions. 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.
separably as I
sister,
;
Both.
We
are, then,
inseparably joined together as necessary
one whole, which includes us both and exists us. through Only a misunderstanding can oppose us two to each other, and hence draw the false concluhostilely sion that the one contests the existence of the other, with
parts of
which
its
own
existence stands or
falls.
idea, or
This whole, which comprehends both, is the world as 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.
i84
CHAPTER
II.
THE DOCTRINE OF PERCEPTION OR KNOWLEDGE OF THE UNDERSTANDING.

all transcendental ideality the objective world reempirical 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
With
tains
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 But the law of causality binds together only objects. 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
J
4
}
its
conditioned by the knowledge of a subject in general as 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 merely phenomenal, of which it constitutes the complementary half. Without application of the law of causality, however, at ; perception of an objective world could never be arrived
to the
THE DOCTRINE OF PERCEPTION.

for this perception
is,
185
have often explained, essentially and not merely of the senses. The senses afford us mere sensation, which is far from being The part played by sensations of the senses perception. 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
as I
matter of the
intellect,
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 so that with Kant the extension, form, solidity, &c. thing in itself was reduced to a completely unknown With Locke accordingly the thing in itself x. quantity is certainly without colour, sound, smell, taste, neither warm nor cold, neither soft nor hard, neither smooth nor
rough
yet
it
has
still
trable, at rest or in motion,
extension and form, it is impeneand has mass and number.

it
With Kant, on the other hand,

latter
has laid aside
all
these
qualities also,
because they are only possible by
causality, and these spring from (brain), just as colours, tones, smells, &c, in the nerves of the organs of sense. The thing originate in itself has with Kant become spaceless, unextended, and
means of time, space, and
an intellect
incorporeal.
perception, in
Thus what the mere senses bring to the which the objective world exists, stands to
what
supplied by the functions of the brain (space, time, causality) as the mass of the nerves of sense stand to the
is
mass of the brain, after subtracting that part of the latter which is further applied to thinking proper, i.e., to abstract
is therefore not possessed by the brutes. For 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, impenetra-
ideas,
and
as the
bility, the power of movement, &c, in short all that can only be presented in perception by means of time, space,
186
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER

causality.
II.
and
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
whole of the organs of very small compared with that of the brain, even in the case of the brutes, whose brain, since they do not,
of the nerves of sensation of the
is
senso
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
properly speaking,
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, 18 10),
as a negative proof of the Kantian truths, affords us a very thorough conviction of the inadequacy of the senses to proof things, and also of the nonof the empirical origin perception of space and time. Reid refutes Locke's doctrine that perception is a product of
duce the objective perception
the senses, by a thorough and acute demonstration that the collective sensations of the senses do not bear the least re-
semblance to the world aj 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 regvXa falsi, a thorough proof of the intellectual nature of perception (really first explained by me as a consequence of the Kantian doctrine), and also
o priori source, discovered by Kant, of its constituent elements, space, time, and causality, from which those primary qualities of Locke first proceed, but by
of the
means
of
which they are

is
easily constructed.
Thomas
Reid's book
very instructive and well worth reading ten times more so than all the philosophy together that has

been written since Kant.
187
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 ide'es simples, and through the mere coming together and comparison of which the whole objective world is supposed to build itself up These gentlemen certainly have des ide'es in our heads.
how, lacking alike the honesty of the English philosopher, they turn the poor material of sensation this way and that way, and try to increase its imporsimples.
It is
Men
amusing
to see
the profundity of
the
German and
tance, in order to construct out of it the deeply significant phenomena of the world of perception and thought. But
constructed by them would necessarily be an Anencephalus, a Ttte de crapaud, with only organs of sense and without a brain. To take only a couple of the better
the
man
attempts of this sort out of a multitude of others, I may mention as examples Condorcet at the beginning of his book, "Des Progress de V Esprit Humain," and Tourtual on Sight, in the second volume of the " Scriptores Ophthal-
mologic Minores" edidit Justus Radiits (1828). The feeling of the insufficiency of a purely sensationalists explanation of perception is in like manner shown in the assertion which was made shortly before the appear-
ance 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 This assertion is well point of view of common realism. and pointedly put by the celebrated Euler in his " Letters
to a
He says : " I therePrincess," vol. ii. p. 68. that the sensations (of the senses) contain something more than philosophers imagine. They are not
German
fore believe
88
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
II.
the brain.
merely empty perceptions of certain impressions made in They do not give the soul mere ideas of things,
it
but actually place before

it,
objects
which
exist outside
really hapis explained by the following facts. This opinion pens." 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 under-
although we cannot
conceive
how
this
standing, 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,
tinction
by the understanding. Still less can a disbetween 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 sphero of the body enclosed by our skin. This can be explained from the fact
that outside us
itself is
is
exclusively a spatial determination.
But
a form of our faculty of perception, i.e., a space function of our brain. Therefore that externality to us to
which we
sight,
is
refer objects,
itself
on the occasion of sensations

;
of
its
really within our heads
for that
is
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 Thereexternal to us only in so far as we perceive them.
which to this extent we perceive directly, and not mere images of them, are themselves only our Therefore we ideas, and as such exist only in our heads. do not, as Euler says, directly perceive the things themselves which are external to us, but rather the things
fore those things
189
which are perceived by us as external to us are only our ideas, and consequently are apprehended by us immeTh^ whole observation given above in Euler's diately. which is quite correct, affords a fresh proof of and words, Kant's Transcendental iEsthetic, and of my theory of perception which is founded upon it, as also of idealism in The directness and unconsciousness referred to general. 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 thinkWhen we read or hear we receive mere words, but ing.
we
pass from these so immediately to the conceptions denoted by them, that it is as if we received the conceptions
directly ; for
sition
we
are absolutely unconscious of the tran-
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
abstraction
aware that
we we
if it is once omitted, that is, if in a fit of read without thinking, and then become certainly have taken in all the words but
no conceptions.
ceptions to pictures of the imagination do conscious of the transposition we have made.
Only when we pass from abstract conwe become
really only in perception in the narrowest in is, sight, that in empirical apprehension the transition from the sensation to its cause takes place quite
Further, sense, that
it is
In every other kind of sense perception, unconsciously. 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 ia
Thus capable of being established as an immediate fact. in the dark we feel a thing for a long time on all
sides
we
upon our hands form as their causa Further, if something feels smooth we sometimes reflect whether we may not have fat or oil upon our hands; and
until
different
effects
from the
are able to construct its definite
190
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER

if
II.
again,
something
may
not be that
feels cold we ask ourselves whether it we have very warm hands. When we
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 investiIn the case gate the cause of each effect we experience. of smell and taste uncertainty as to the objective nature
hear a sound
;
of the cause of the
effect felt is of the
commonest
oc-
The currence, so distinctly are the two separated here. fact that in sight the transition from the effect to the cause occurs quite unconsciously, and hence the illusion
kind of perception is perfectly direct, and consists simply in the sensation alone without any operation of the understanding this has its explanation partly
arises that this
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
and
outline,
the fine distinctions of light and shade, colour 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 Hence arises the delusion that spelling when we read.
itself presents us directly with the objects. 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
the sensation
Yet
it is
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
191
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
this,
and
also the proofs
by Dr. Thomas Eeid. I expounded all which irrefutably establish the
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
essay
intellectual "
nature of perception, as long ago as 18 16, in
my
On
Primaria" in the third volume
Scriptores Ophthalmologici Minores," published by Justus Radius in 1830 ; yet most fully and thoroughly in the second (and third) edition
of the
"
of
" 21. essay On the Principle of Sufficient Eeason," Therefore on this important subject I refer to these works, so as not to extend unduly the present exposition.
my
On
the other hand, an observation which trenches on
It the province of aesthetics may find its place here. follows from the proved intellectual nature of perception
for example, of a that the sight of beautiful objects is also a phenomenon of the orain. beautiful view 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
it.
of the pulse of the arteries
Accordingly the same view appears in different heads, even when the eyes are equally acute, as
which supply
different as, for
example, the first and last impressions of a copper plate that has been much used. This is the for of the of difference explanation enjoying capacity natural beauty, and consequently also for reproducing it,
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
i.e.,
192
its
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER

entire intellectuality,
II.
says, finds
we apprehend
by virtue of which, as Euler the thing itself, and as external to us, 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 on what in the brain is apprehended as compared, goes
in the case of perception, by means of the understanding, which extends its feelers into the outer
outside of
it
world
in the case of the feeling of our limbs,
by means
of
the nerves.
193
CHAPTEE
IIL
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 This really means be neither agreeable nor disagreeable.
Otherthat thoy must leave the will entirely unaffected. wise the sensation itself would attract our attention, and
we would remain at the effect instead of passing to the For it would cause, which is what is aimed at here. as it that marked with bring superiority, regards oui
which the will always has over the mere 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,
consideration,
idea,
to
painful nor pleasurable sensations, but appear with the indifference that fits them to be the material
neither
of
pure objective perception.
This
is
is
as far the case as
was possible in a body which

admiration.
in itself through
it is
and
of
through will; and just in this reppect
worthy
Physiologically it rests upon the fact that in the organs of the nobler senses, thus in sight and hear-
the nerves which have to receive the specific outward impression are quite insusceptible to any sensation of pain, vol. u. N
ing,
i 94
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
III.
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
;
In both organs pain is case with the nerve of hearing. other their the in felt parts, surroundings of the only 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 Even with the brain this is the the meatus auditorius.
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 ob-
jective world,
by the application of the law of causality upon the foundation of the pure perceptions of space and Just that freedom from affecting the will which is time. characteristic of sensations of colour enables them, when
their energy is heightened
by transparency,
glass,
of
an evening sky, in painted
and the
as in the glow 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 aesthetic imJust this indifference with regard to the will pression.
fits
sounds to supply the material for denoting the
in-
finite multiplicity of the conceptions of the reason. Outer sense, that is, receptivity for external impressions
as pure data for the understanding, is divided into jive 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
is
(earth) is touch ; for what is fluid (water), taste ; for what in the form of vapour, i.e., volatile (vapour, exhalation),
smell
for
what
is
permanently elastic imponderable (fire, light), sight.

is
what
(air),
hearing
for
The second
im-
ON THE
SENSES.
19*
ponderable, heat, is not properly an object of the senses, but of general feeling, and therefore always affects the
will
From this directly, as agreeable or disagreeable. classification there also follows the relative dignity of the
senses.
the widest
Sight has the highest rank, because and its susceptibility the finest.
its
sphere is This rests
upon the fact that what affects it is an imponderable, that is, something which is scarcely corporeal, but is quasi Hearing has the second place, corresponding spiritual. to air. However, touch is a more thorough and wellinformed 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
other senses are far
smell and taste, of the will, that

ably affected,
objective.
and deception, to which all the more subject. The two lowest senses, are no longer free from a direct affection
is,
they are always agreeably or disagree-
and are therefore more subjective than
Sensations of hearing are exclusively in time, and therewhole nature of music consists in degrees of time, which upon depends both the quality or pitch of tones,
fore the
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 seconby reason of their duration, they are also in time. is the sense of the understanding which perceives; hearing is the sense of the reason which thinks and apdarily,
Sight
are only imperfectly represented by 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.,
prehends.
Words
;
visible signs
196
FIRST BOOK.
If
CHAPTER
III.
it is
the audible words. that he

is
he cannot read,
well
known
almost like an irrational animal, while the man born blind is from the first a thoroughly rational being.
Sight
is
Therefore active, hearing a passive sense. our mind in a disturbing and hostile manner, sounds affect and indeed they do so the more in proportion as the
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
;
an
mind
activity of thought (for naturally we are not speaking here of the influence which the objects looked at have
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 This oppothe eye, but is always at war with the ear.
upon the
sition of the
if
two senses
is
also confirmed
by the
fact that
deaf and
become
persons are cured by galvanism they deadly pale with terror at the first sounds they
dumb
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 All that has been said, however, can be explained again. 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,
lated
is
a real action of the retina which

light in
is
merely stimu;
and called forth by
and
its
modifications
as I
have shown at length my physiological theory of But this whole opposition stands in direct concolours.
with that coloured-ether, drum-beating theory which served up, and whicl seeks to degrade the eye's sensation of light to a mechanics vibration, such as primarily that of hearing actually is while nothing can be more different than the still, gentlt If we ad( effect of light and the alarm-drum of hearing.
flict
is
now everywhere unblushingly
ON THE
SENSES.
197
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
to this 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 imBut this is where the pons pression becomes simple. 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 Now it is just because its source is acoustic vibration.
here, in this
of the
dangerous place, in which also all movement limbs originates, that we start at a sudden noise which does not occur in the least degree when we sud;
for example, a flash of lightning. The on the from its thalami optic nerve, contrary, proceeds much further forward (though perhaps its source lies behind them), and throughout its course is covered by the
denly see a light
anterior lobes of
from them
it is
till,
the brain, although always separated having extended quite out of the brain,
by
light,
spread out in the retina, upon which, on stimulation the sensation first arises, and where it is really
localised.
colour.
This is shown in my essay upon sight and 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 excepFor it tion absolutely incapable of enduring any noise.
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
198
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
III.
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
easily into their millions of ordinary
and
minds that the same occasion which minds have experienced before brings
them
for
to the thought, to the discovery, that other people are subsequently surprised they did not reach themselves,
they certainly can think afterwards, but they cannot think before. Thus the sun shone on all statues, but For only the statue of Memnon gave forth a sound.
this reason
Kant, Goethe, and Jean Paul were highly
sensitive to every noise, as their biographers bear witness. 1 Goethe 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 It is not a matter of custom. On the against noise.
other hand,
the
is
truly
stoical
indifference
to
noise
of
ordinary minds
astonishing. in their thinking, reading, writing, or other occupations,
No
noise disturbs
them
But just
mind is rendered quite incapable by it. makes them so insensible to noise of kind also insensible to the beautiful makes them every
while the finer
that which
in plastic art, and to deep thought or fine expression in literary art; in short, to all that does not touch their
The following remark of Lichtenberg's personal interests. to the paralysing effect which noise has upon applies
highly intellectual persons: "It is always a good sign when an artist can be hindered by trifles from exercising
his art.
used to stick his fingers into sulphur if F Such things do not he wished to play the piano.
.
" Lichtenberg says in his Nachridden und Bemerkungen von und " iiber sich siibst ( Vermischte Schrif1
"I
am
noise,
extremely sensitive to all but it entirely loses its dis-
ten, (JiiUimjen,
1800, vol.
i.
p.
43)
ix agreeable character as soon as it associated with a rational purpose."
ON THE SENSES.
sieve
interfere "
(
99
with the average mind ; ... it acts like a coarse 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
as a pretty fair
mental capacity, and therefore may be regarded 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
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.
ill-bred,
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, The Sybarites banished all noisy trades barking, &c. &c.
without the town; the honourable sect of the Shakers
North America permit no unnecessary noise in their Somevillages, and the Moravians have a similar rule. thing more is said upon this subject in the thirtieth
in
" chapter of the second volume of the Parerga." The effect of music upon the mind, so penetrating, so
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
direct,
the tones
following in
the
rationally
combined numerical
relations set the fibre of the brain itself in similar vibration.
On
opposed as
it
it is
other hand, the active nature of sight, to the passive nature of hearing, makes
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
200
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
it is
III.
nature of the sense of sight that
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
rushing or creeping upon them. Just as we have recognised in sight the sense of the
is
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
20J
CHAPTER
IV.
ON KNOWLEDGE A PRIORI.
Fkom
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, Kant, p. 353, Bip.) that all learning is mere recollection.
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

Indeed
"
Plato
Cogito, ergo sum, is an analytical judgment. Parmenides held it to be an identical judgment
avTo voeiv
est,
eo-rt
re
/cat
eivai
"
to yap
(nam
intelligere et esse
idem
Clem. Alex. Strom., vi 2, As such, however, or 23). 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 prcedicata. But with this proposition what Descartes really wished to express was the great
truth
certainty belongs only to selfto what is consciousness, subjective. To what is objective, on the other hand, thus to everything else, only indirect
certainty belongs ; for it is arrived at through selfconsciousness and being thus merely at second hand, it is to be regarded as problematical. Upon this depends
;
that immediate
we may
the value of this celebrated As its opposite proposition. 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
*>2
all possible
FIRST BOOK.
experience
;
CHAPTER
IV.
this
was an important, profound,
late appergu, 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 know-
and a
This problem is the watchword of the Kantian philosophy, as the former proposition is that of the
ledge.
Cartesian,
and shows
fitly
oicov e*9 ola.
Kant very
speculative all others
:
places
his
time and space at the head of
investigations concerning all the rest. For to the
mind these questions present themselves before what is time ? what is this that consists of mere movement, without anything that moves it? and
space? this omnipresent nothing, out of which nothing that exists can escape without ceasing to be
is
what
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
that
we can very easily think away everything presented in them. The hand can leave go of everything except itself. However, I wish here to illusis
trate
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

;
do not by any means cancel the subject, nor are they inconsistent with each
contradiction
for the predicates other.
It is only
when
perception that the
their object is constructed in pure it impossibility of their union in
Now if on this account we were to regard appears. this as a contradiction, then so would every physical impossibility, only discovered to be such after the lapse
of centuries,
position of a metal
be a contradiction; for example, the comfrom its elements, or a mammal with
ON KNOWLEDGE A
PRIORI.
203
more or fewer than seven cervical vertebra,1 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 Therefore the does either of them contradict a triangle.
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 " An infinitely large body is necessarily imin Aristotle movable" 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

of a triangle the
is it
person judging has
quite complete
a conception the conception will also contain the impossibility

if
how complete
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

of
it
and convince himself
for ever
the impossibility of this combination of these con-
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,
ceptions.
we form and
For, in general, perfect our conceptions. whether a given judgment is analytical or synthetical can only be determined in the particular case according as
1 That the three-toed sloth has nine must be regarded as a mistake ;
yet
Owen
still
states this,
"
Osttologit
Comp.," p. 405.
204
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER

more
IV.
of the person
the conception of the subject in the
mind
judging
The conception "cat" or less complete. contains in the mind of a Cuvier a hundred times more
is
than in that of his servant; therefore the same judgments about it will be synthetical for the latter, and only But if we take the concepanalytical for the former. wish to decide whether a given and now tions objectively,
judgment
is analytical or synthetical, we must change the into its contradictory opposite, and apply this to predicate If this gives a contradictio the subject without a cupola.
in adjecto, then the judgment was analytical
otherwise
it
was synthetical. That Arithmetic

that of space. 1
of time is not so evident as that
on the pure intuition or perception Geometry is based upon It can be proved, however, in the following
rests
manner.
of unity.
All counting consists in the repeated affirmation Only for the purpose of always knowing how
already affirmed unity do we mark it each these are the numerals. Now
:
often
we have
is
time with another word

repetition cession, that
only possible through succession.

is,
But
suc-
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
;
1 This, however, does not excuse a professor of philosophy who, sitting in Kant's chair, expresses himself "That mathematics as such thus contains arithmetic and geometry is
:
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 must not, however, fail foolery. to notice that these little people struggle to escape from the track of great thinkers. They would there-
We
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" " Dculschen (Rosenkranz in the
correct.
It
is
Museum," 1857,
ThiB
is
May
14,
No.
20).
the fruit of Hegelism. If the mind is once thoroughly debauched with its senseless jargon,
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
serious
fore 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 balongs to that sort of thing, and then to have indulged in a private luxury in their dark back-shop, the philo-
sophical journal
there they
may
c>
do whatever they like without straint. for no one sees it.
n-
ON KNOWLEDGE A
PRIORI.
205
and thus counting also is only possible by means of time. This dependence of all counting upon time is also be-
by the fact that in all languages multiplication expressed by "time," thus by a time- concept sexies, ea/?, sixfois, sex mal. But simple counting is already a multiplication by one, and for this reason in Pestalozzi's
trayed
is
:
to
educational establishment the children are always made " Two times two is four times one." multiply thus
:
already recognised the close relationship of number and time, and expounded it in the fourteenth " Time is for chapter of the fourth book of the Physics." " " him the number of motion (" 6 xpovo? apiO/uo? ea-rc tcwAristotle
He very profoundly suggests the question whether time could be if the soul were riot, and answers it in the
7/o-ecD<?").
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
tive existence
were something quite objective. And what is this objecNot the progress of the stars, or of the ?
to measure the course of time 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
clocks,
itself,
which merely serve

it is
but
give it the authority of objectivity.
Time
is
primarily the form of inner sense.
Anticipat-
ing 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-con-
sciousness becomes possible for the individual will, which In it the originally and in itself is without knowledge.
206
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
IV.
nature of the will, which in itself is simple and identical, appears drawn out into a course of life. But just on
thus exhibits
account of this original simplicity and identity of what 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
;
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
of
still
them
movement
untrue.
of the
certainly do not recognise the really immediate act of will as something different from the action of
We
body
as effect.
But
this fact itself is
the body, and the two as connected by the bond of causality;

is
but both are one and indivisible. Between them there no succession ; they are simultaneous. They are one and That the same thing, apprehended in a double manner. 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
That physiologically the action as an action of the body. 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. If
relation.
cause and
Now this does not present itself as a causal these two presented themselves to us as effect their connection would not be so incomit
prehensible to us as stand from its cause
actually
is
for
what we underis
we understand
as far as there
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
ON KNOWLEDGE A
;
PRIORI.
207
no longer observe it but if we once turn our attention to 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 This apprehension, then, could never lead us to cause. 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 (Nouvtlles
it
Considerations des Rapports
du Physique au Moral,
p.
In England Thomas Eeid (On the First 377, 378). of Contingent Truths, Essay IV. c. 5) already Principles 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 Eelation 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
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
Hume.
I,
"
we apprehend both our own and other bodies

in spatial
objectively perception, the knowledge of causality must
2o8
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER

it is
IV.
already be there, because

tion.
The one genuine proof that we
a condition of such percepare 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 incorrect-
A most full and thorough 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 1 refer, in order to avoid the
ness of which I have shown.
exposition of the
I have necessity of repeating here what is said there. 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 Now whether the sensation from which idea attained to.
we
start to
resistance which
arrive at apprehension arises through the 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
itself,
i.e.,
for the understanding, which alone is capable of apprehending it as the effect of a cause different from
which the understanding now perceives as external. as something occupying and filling space, which if also a form inherent in the intellect prior to all experiWithout this intellectual operation, for which tht ence.
forms must
lie
ready in
us,
the perception of an objecnM]
external world could never arise from a
mere
sensatior
ever be supposed that tht mere feeling of being hindered in intended motion, whicl
it
within our skin.
How
can
ON KNOWLEDGE A
PRIORI.
209
occurs also in lameness, could be sufficient for this ? may add to this that before I attempt to affect external
We
things they
must necessarily have
affected
me
as motives.
almost presupposes the apprehension of the exworld. ternal According to the theory in question (as I have remarked in the place referred to above), a man
But
this
born without arms and legs could never attain to the idea of causality, and consequently could never arrive at
But that this the apprehension of the external world. is not the case is proved by a fact communicated in
the detailed July 1838, No. 133 a of an Esthonian account, accompanied by likeness, 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
Froriep's
Notizen,
the assistance of hands.
Dorpat, 1st
March
1838, Dr.
Hueck."
arises
Hume's doctrine also, that the conception of causality 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
tion
the
that
same succession
also refutes Kant's false asser-
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, [ndeed the converse of this doctrine of Kant's is true.
We know which
ind
of the two connected events is the cause which the effect, empirically, only in the succession, igain, on the other hand, the absurd assertion of several >rofessors of philosophy in our own day that cause and
ases in
by the fact that in which the succession cannot be perceived on ccount of its great rapidity, we yet assume it with
ffect
are simultaneous can be refuted
VOL. H.
210
FIRST BOOK.
and with
CHAPTER
it
IV.
certainty a priori,
Thus, for example,
we know
the lapse of a certain time 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 fallthe of the the of flint, striking spark, ignition, the ing
spread of the
bullet.
fire,
No man
but because
thereby also
and consequently
that
it
precede the others in time, also that during the course of the whole series a certain time must elapse, although it is so short
we know which must
the explosion, and the projection of the ever perceived this succession of events ; know which is the cause of the others, we
escapes our empirical apprehension
for
no one
will assert that the projection of the bullet is actually simultaneous with the falling of the flint. Tims 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
we know which of two events is the cause 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
us a priori.
If
and which
is
the
;
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
were broken the world would stand still, or 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
if
this chain
in order to set
effects containing as
many
an
links as before
would
fill
no
all
time at
all, still
less
infinite time,
but would be
together in one moment. Thus, under the assumption that cause and effect are simultaneous, the course of the world
ON KNOWLEDGE A
shrinks
PRIORI.
211
up
into an affair of a
moment.
This proof
is
analogous to the proof that every sheet of paper have a certain thickness, because otherwise the
must
whole
ceases
book would have none.
To say when the cause
and the
effect
begins
is
in almost all cases difficult,
and
For the changes (i.e., the succession of often impossible. like the time which they fill, and are continuous, states)
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
it,
them
" "
is called,
effect,"
and with reference
with reference to the one which precedes 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
by
:oo
means
has been more misused in philosophy than that of cause, of the favourite trick or blunder of conceiving it
widely, taking it too generally, through abstract thinkSince Scholasticism, indeed properly since Plato and Aristotle, philosophy has been for the most part a systematic nisuse 0/ general conceptions. Such, for example, are subng.
stance,
ground, cause, the good, perfection, necessity, and A tendency of the mind to work with rery many others. uch abstract and too widely comprehended conceptions
las
itself almost at all times. It may ultimately a of certain indolence the intellect, which finds upon t too difficult a task to be constantly controlling thought >y perception. By degrees such unduly wide conceptions
est
shown
ome
to be used almost like algebraical symbols, and tossed bout like them, and thus philosophy is reduced to a mere rocess of combination, a kind of reckoning which (like all
alculations)
es.
'ith
employs and demands only the lower faculIndeed there finally results from this a mere juggling words, of which the most shocking example is afforded
it is
s
)
by the mind-destroying Hegelism, in which

the extent of pure nonsense.
carried
also
But Scholasticism
212
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
IV.
Nay even the degenerated into word-juggling. " 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 have also their origin field in arguing either pro or contra We find innumerin this misuse of general conceptions. able examples of the way the Schoolmen worked with such
often
"
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 Locke and Kant, who at last bethought themselves as
the origin of conceptions.
in his earlier years, still the Existence of God"
of to
Indeed we find Kant himself,

" Proof of path, in his of the first volume of
upon that
(p. 191 Kosenkranz'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 latei It is true that in this case such an investichange, &c. would not have led to the intended result. But gation everywhere, as here, such unduly wide conceptions, undei 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 toe
Now here lies th( widely comprehended conceptions. great merit of Locke, who, in order to counteract all tha dogmatic unreality, insisted upon the investigation of th<
origin of the conceptions,
and
experience.
and thus led back to perception Bacon had worked in a similar frame
mind, yet more with reference to Physics than to Meta Kant followed the path entered upon by Lock* physics. but in a higher sense and much further, as has already bee
ON KNOWLEDGE A
mentioned above.
PRIORI.
213
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 both the dead and the living. Thus without ignore 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
till
conceptions, unconcerned as to their origin and content, 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 But Kant has erred in this respect. He has too things.
empirical perception for the sake of pure a point which I have fully discussed in my perception criticism of his philosophy. With me perception is throughI early recognised the out the source of all knowledge. and insidious nature of abstractions, and in misleading 18 1 3, in my essay on the principle of sufficient reason, I
much neglected
pointed out the difference of the relations
under this conception.

the material in
its
which are thought General conceptions must indeed be
it;
which philosophy deposits and stores up but not the source from which it draws knowledge, the terminus ad quern, not a quo. It is not, as Kant
it,
defines
in conceptions.
a science drawn from conceptions, but a science Thus the conception of causality also,
with which
far too
we are here concerned, has always been taken widely by philosophers for the furtherance of their
dogmatic ends, and

not belong to the following
it
:
much was imported

all.
into
it
which does
at "
Hence
is
All that
arose propositions such as " " 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
an elaborate
subtilty of that insipid gossip Proclus affords
and specially lucid example of this. It occurs in his " " Institutio Theologica" $j6: Tlav to airo aKCvrjrov yiyvo-
214
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
IV.
fievov aiTias, a/xeTa/3\i]T0V eêt ttjv inrapf;t,v' irav 8e to airo

Ktvovfievrjs, fiera^XrjTTjv'
ei
<yap
aKivrjrov
cart iravrr) to
iroiovv,
ov Sia KLvnaea^,
dXX avrw tw
etvai irapayei, to
BevTepov a<j> eavTov." (Quidquid ab immobili causa manat, immutdbilem habet essentiam [substantiam]. Quidquid vero a mobili causa manat, essentiam habet mutabilem. Si enim, ilhid, quod aliquid facit, est prorsus immobile, non per motum, sed per ipsum Esse producit ipsum secundum ex se Excellent But just show me a cause which is not ipso.) 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 ex-
its
pression of the law of causality is this Every change lias cause in another change which immediately precedes it.
:
If
something happens,
if
i.e., if
new
state of things appears,
something have changed immediately before, and something else again before this, and so on ad infinitum, for a first cause is as
i.e.,
is
changed, then something else must
impossible to conceive as a beginning of time or a limit of space. More than this the law of causality does not
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
assert.
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 existnot a does of ence thing justify us in inferring that it has a cause. Yet there may be a posteriori reasons,
is,
drawn from previous experience, for the the present state or condition did not that assumption has only come into existence in conbut always exist,
that
reasons
sequence of another
state,
and therefore by means of
change, the cause of which is then to be sought, and also Here then we are involved in the cause of this cause.
ON KNOWLEDGE A
PRIORI.
215
the infinite regresms to which the application of the law " said above : of causality always leads. Things, i.e., states or conditions of matter" for change and causality
We
states
have only to do with states or conditions. It is these 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.
tie
But the form constitutes the thing, i.e., it is of the difference of things ; while matter must ground be thought as the same in all. Therefore the Schoolsaid,
men
"Forma dat
would run
:
esse
rei;"
more accurately
rei essentiam,
this
proposition
Forma dat
materia
or
so
existeniam.
Therefore the question as to the cause of a
thing
ways concerns merely its form, i.e., its state quality,\nd not its matter, and indeed only the former
$
far as
weâve grounds
b+,
existed,
has not always has come into being by means of a change. The
for
assuming that
it
union of fom and matter, or of essentia and existentia, gives the co7icreêw hich is always particular; thus, the thing.
forms whose union with matter, i.e., whose matter appearance by means of a change, are subject to the law of ca\a lity. By taking the conception too widely in the abstract^ mistake slipped in of extending causality to the thing that is, to its whole inner nature acutely,
1.
And
it is
ta
and existence, t^ ai so to matter, and ultimately thought justifiau, to ask for a cause of the world
This
it
was
itself.
is the orig. f the This proof cosmological proof. begins by inferri, from t he existence of the world its non-existence, wh^ preceded its existence, and such an inference is quite u us tifiable it ends, however, with the ; most fearful inconsi, ncVj for lt does away altogether with the law of causalityrom hi c h alone it derives all its
evidencing power, for stopg at a first caU se, and will not go further ; thus ends* ft were? by committing parricide, as the bees kill the d les a f ter have served their
they
end.
All the talk aty
t he absolute
is
referable to a
proof,
shamefast,
and thereto
disguised
cosmological
216
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
IV.
" which, in the face of the Critique of Pure Eeason," has in passed for philosophy 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
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 timr
philosophy
!
which has absolutely no beginning, this beginning is alwa*s pushed further back by the question Why not earlirf" ? And so far back indeed that one never gets down fom
:
is always marvelling that the ppsent did not occur already millions of years ag- In general, then, the law of causality applies to all thngs in the world, but not to the world itself, for it is immanent it
to the present, but
itself
in the world, not transcendent
with
it
it
co*es into
This depends itimately action, fact that it belongs to the mere frm of our the upon understanding, like the whole of the objerive world, which accordingly is merely phenomenal, nd is conThus the la of causality ditioned by the understanding. t a U things in without has full
it it is
and with
abolished.
any exception, application, the world, of course in respect of their form, the variation of these forms, and thus to their changes. It is valid for the actions of men as for the impact of a ,on e, yet, as we
'
have said always, merely with regard to <ents, to changes. But if we abstract from its origin in * understanding and try to look at it as purely objectiv^ will be found in ultimate analysis to depend upon M fa t that everyits original, and thing that acts does so by virtue
therefore eternal or timeless,
effect
its present power would necessarily have occur^ infinitely earlier, that is, before all conceivable time, * that it lacked the
;
*erefore
;ondi tion is the occatemporal condition. This tempora hich alone the effect on of the account cause, sion, i.e., ce s place necessarily; only takes place now, but now
the cause assigns
it its
place in
ON KNOWLEDGE A
PRIORI.
217
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.
is something completely different from the cause, but yet is that which imparts to every cause its causality, the capability of producing an effect. I have exi.e.,
This
plained 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 prin-
20, p. 44 (third edition, p. 45). ciple of sufficient reason, This confusion is to be found in its most aggravated form
in
dealt with
Maine de Biran's book mentioned above, and this is more fully in the place last referred to but
;
also very common ; for example, when for the seek cause of any original force, such as people
apart from this
it is
gravitation.
Kant himself (Uber den Einzig Moglichen
Beweisgrund, vol. i. p. 21 1-2 15 of Eosenkranz's edition) calls the forces of nature "efficient causes," and says
Yet it is impossible to see to the "gravity is a cause." bottom of his thought so long as force and cause are not But the distinctly recognised as completely different
use of abstract conceptions leads very easily to their confusion if the consideration of their origin is set aside. The
knowledge
rests
of causes and effects, always perceptive, which 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
Therefore even very frequently wrongly apprehended. in Aristotle (" Metaph.," iv. 2) we find causes divided into
four classes
which are
utterly falsely,
it
and indeed crudely
conceived.
Compare with
1
,
my
classification of causes
the first time in my essay on sight and and touched upon briefly in the sixth paracolour, chap. of the first of the present work, but exvolume graph at full in pounded length 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
as set forth for
21 8
FIRST BOOK.
;
CHAPTER
IV.
infinity in of nature.
both directions these are matter and the forces They are both conditions of causality, while
is
everything else is conditioned by it. For the one (matter) 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
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. yy (third edition, p. 82], that matter
is
On
causality itself objectively comprehended, for
its
entire
nature consists in acting in general, so that it itself is thus the activity (evepyLa = 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, cxistcntia, 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
manifests itself only their and accidents, because in experience through qualities of a action is definite and special kind, and is quite every
the framework of the forms and
never merely general. Therefore pure matter is an object of thought alone, not of perception, which led Plotinus (Enncas II., lib. iv., c. 8 & 9) and Giordano Bruno (Bella
Causa,
dial.
4) to
make
the paradoxical assertion that
ON KNOWLEDGE A
the form, and that therefore had already taught that it
corporeal: "acofia /xev
lib.
i.,
PRIORI.
is
219
matter has no extension, for extension

it is is
inseparable from incorporeal. Yet Aristotle

it is
not a body although
ovk av
ecq, (jcofiarcKT]
Be"
(Stob. Eel.,
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
is the reason why in the accompanying table 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 de-
time.
This
of our
pendent on our
intellect.
all
This table contains
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 propaedutic and introduction, and with which
therefore stands in direct connection.
it
In this table I have had in remarkable view the very primarily 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
of the first volume, matter
(and also causality) is to be regarded as a combination, or In if it is preferred, an amalgamation, of space and time.
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 For matter is primarily or intuition of the two united.
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
that
220
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
IV.
first example of such a science, for in the and sixth books of his "Physics" he determined a priori the laws of rest and motion.
provided the
fifth
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
last instance right.
view
On
it
this point, indeed,

first
but the second is in the we have already
chapter ; yet I wish an specially by example. Aristotle's book "Be Xenophane" &c, commences with these weighty words of Xenophanes " AiZiov ewat <f>rj(riv, ei rt eanv,
to
come
an understanding in the
further to illustrate
ecirep
esse,
fir}
ei>8e%eTai fyeveaOcu
est,
fjbrjBev
ex firjSevo?."
(JSternum
inguit, quicquid
nihUo quippiam
existat.)
siquidem fieri non potest, ut ex 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
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
of his
without experience concerning that world, the possibility

of its existence
is
and
origin
The
solution of this riddle
that the
man
has only to do with his
own
ideas,
which
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
as
of his perception.
He
brain,
thus judges only as to the pluno~
mena of
and declares what enters into its In and forms, time, space, causality, and what does not this he is perfectly at home and speaks apodictically. In a like sense, then, the following table of the Prcedicabilia a priori of time, space, and matter is to be taken
his
own
ON KNOWLEDGE A
PKÊDICABILIA
Of Time.
Of Space.
PRIORI.
221
PRIORI.
Of Matter.
(i)
There
is
only one
it.
Time, and
all different
times are parts of
(1) There is only one Space, and all different spaces are parts of it.
(1)
ter,
rials
There is only one Matand all different mateare different states of

;
matter
(2)
as such
it is
called
Substance.
Different
are
not
times simultaneous
(2) Different spaces are not successive but
(2)
terials) are
Different matters (manot so through
but successive.
simultaneous.
substance but through accidents.

(3)
is
thought
(3) Space cannot be but thought but away, be everything can be thought away from it. thought away from it. (4) Space has three (4) Time has three divisions, the past, the dimensions height, present, and the future, breadth, and length. which constitute two directions and a centre
(3)
Time cannot be
Annihilation of matter
away, can everything
inconceivable, but annihilation of all its forms and

qualities
(4)
is
conceivable.
exists, i.e., acts
Matter
the
in
all
dimensions of
space and throughout the
of indifference.
whole length of time, and thus these two are united and thereby filled. In this consists the true nature of matter ; thus it is through
(5)
Time
is infinitely
(5)
Space
is
infinitely
and through causality. (5) Matter is infinitely

visible.
di-
divisible.
(6)
divisible.
is homo(6) Space geneous and a Continuum, i.e., no one of its
Time is homogeneits
ous and a Continuum,

i.e., is
(6) Matter is homogeneous and a Continuum, i.e., it
no one of
parts
different
rest,
it
from the nor separated from

is
parts
is
different
from
different
does not consist of originally (homoiomeria) or
the rest, nor separated
originally
;
separated
parts
by anything that
from
that
is
it
not time.
by anything (atoms) it is therefore not not space. composed of parts, which would necessarily be separated by something that was
not matter.
Time has no be(7) Space has no lim(7) Matter has no origin ginning and no end, but its, but all limits are and no end, but all coming all beginning and end in it. into being and passing away
(7)
is
in
(8)
it.
are in
(8)
it.
By reason of time
By reason of space
(8)
By
reason of
is
matter
only in
we count.
(9)
Rhythm
is
we measure. we weigh. (9) Equilibrium only (9) Symmetry is only

in space.
(10) We know the laws of space a priori.
in time.
matter.
know the (10) laws of time a priori.
We
know the laws of (10) the substance of all accidents a priori.
We
222
FIRST BOOK.
Of Time.
CHAPTER
IV.
Of Space.
Of Matter.
ceived
(n) Time can be pera priori, al-
(n) Space
is
immea
diately perceptible
(n) Matter can only be thought a priori.
though only in the priori. form of a line. (12) Space can never ( 12) The accidents change ; (12) Time has no permanence, but passes pass away, but endures the substance remains. away as soon as it is through all time.
there.
(13)
Time never rests.
(13)
Space
is
immov-
(13)
able.
to rest
is
Matter is indifferent and motion i.e., it

;
disposed towards neither of the two.

originally
(14)
exists in
tion.
Everything that time has dura-
(14)
Everything that
in space has a
exists
(14) Everything material has the capacity for action.
position.
(15)
(15) Time has no duration, but all duration
Space has no mo(15) Matter is what is perbut all motion is manent in time and movthe in it, and it is the able in space by the comis is in it, and persistence of what is change of position of parison of what rests wiih permanent in contrast what is moved, in con- what is moved we measure with its restless course. trast with its uubroken duration.
tion,
;
rest.
(16) All
motion
is
(16)
All
motion
is
(16) All
motion
is
only
the
only possible in time.

(17)
only possible in space.

(17) Velocity
is,
possible to matter.
(17)
Velocity
is,
in
in
The magnitude of
equal spaces, in inverse proportion to the time.
equal times, in direct proportion to the space.
motion, the velocity being

equal, is in direct geometrical proportion to the matter
(mass).
(18)
is
(18)
Time is not meas-
(18)
Space
is
measur-
Matter as such (mass)
urable directly through itself, but only indirectmotion, through ly
able directly through

itself,
and indirectly
which
is
through motion, which in space and is in time and space

:
measurable, i.e., determinable as regards its quantity only indirectly, unly through the amount of the
thus time together the motion of the sun and of the clock measure time.
together
example,
hence, for an hour's

1
motion which it receives and imparts when it is repelled or attracted.
journey, and the distance of the fixed stars
expressed as the travelling of light for so
many
(19)
years.
Time
is
is
omnipart
at
(19)
Space
is
eternal.
it
(19)
Matter
is,
is
absolute.
present. of time
i.e.,
Every
all
Every part of
always.
exists
That
it
neither conies
everywhere,
space,
in
into being nor passes away, and thus its quantity cau
ouce.
neither
be
increased
not
diminished.
ON KNOWLEDGE A
Of Time.
Of Space.
PRIORI.
Of Matter.
723
(20)
In
time
taken
(20)
In space taken
(20, 21)
Matter unites the
by itself everything would be in succession.

(21)
by itself everything ceaseless flight of time with would be simultane- the rigid immobility of
ous.
space
therefore
it
is
the
Time makes the
change of accidents possible.
Space makes the permanence of sub(21)
permanent substance
of the
stance possible.
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.
(22)
(22)
Every
part
all
of
time contains
of matter.
(23)
parts
part of space contains the same mat(22)
No
permanent
trable.
For matter is both and impeneare
ter as another.
(23)
Space is the principium in dividuationis. cipium individuation is. (24) The point has no (24) The now has no
duration.
(25)
Time is the prin-
(23) Individuals
terial.
mano
is
(24)
The
atom
has
itself
extension.
in itself
is
reality.
itself is
Time
(25)
Space in
(25)
Matter in
empty and without properties.
em pty and without pro- without form and

perties.
quality,
i.e., in-
and likewise
inert,
different to rest or motion,

(26)
is
Every
moment
conditioned by the
preceding
is
moment, and
only because the latter has ceased to be.

(Principle of sufficient
the position of every limit in space with reference to any other limit, its position with reference to every
(26)
By
thus without properties. (26) Every change in matter can take place only on account of another change
possible limit
is
pre-
and preceded it a first change, and thus also a first state

;
which
therefore
reason of existence in
time.
cisely determined.
(Principle of sufficient reason of existence in
space.)
See
my essay
on
of matter, is just as inconceivable as a beginning of
the principle of sufficient reason. )
time or a limit of space.

(Principle of sufficient reason of becoming.)
(27)
is
(27)
Time makes
ar-
(27)
Space makes geopossible.
ithmetic possible.
metry
ele(28)
Matter, as that which movable in space, makes
(28)
The simple
The simple
eleis
ment
unity.
in arithmetic is
ment
in geometry
phoronomy possible. (28) The simple element in phoronomy is the atom.
the point.
224.
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
IV.
NOTES TO THE ANNEXED TABLE.

To No. 4 of Matter.
:
(i)
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,
is
The essence
of matter
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 to 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
kot' ertpyeuw, in opposition to Kara Svrafiw, reveals the same source, for tvepytia. signifies action in general; so also with actu in opposition to po> What is called spacetentia, and the English "actually" for "vrirklich."
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 te It is this universality alone, all bodies without exception, the mechanical.
by virtue of which it belongs to the conception of body, and follows a prion 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 Kant has very accurately analysed this space-occupation of light or heat. 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 parallelo-
gram 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.
tion, the
body
first force,
Notwithstanding this reciprocal balancing or neutralisaupon other bodies which contest its space with the repelling them, and with the other force, in gravitation, attracting
still
acts
So that the two forces are not extinguished in their 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.
all
bodies in general.
product,
as, for instance,
in that the one never appears without the other, although them in thought.
I
we can
separate
must not, however, omit to mention that the doctrine of Kant referred 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 exoafl^B i and 2, a book which appeared "Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit,"
to,
ON KNOWLEDGE A
in 1777,
PRIORI.
225
and the second edition in 1782, while Kant's work was published in 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 anoiher 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, of the real difference between fluids and solids, is in substance already p. 384), to be found in Kaspar Freidr. "Wolff's "Theory of Generation," Berlin 1764, But what are we to say if we find Kant's most important and p. 132.
1786.
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 Frauenstadt's
brilliant doctrine, that of
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
letters
that the matter should be further investigated, and as this woidd 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 For "Wolff, and Maupertuis or his predecessor, Laplace stands to Kant. 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 Systeme du Monde" liv. v. c. 2, was expressed by Kant " Naturgeschichte und Theorie des nearly fifty years before, in 1755, in his " Himmels," and more fully in 1763 in his Einzig moglichen Beweisgrund des Daseyns Gottes," ch. 7. Moreover, in the later work he gives us to under" stand that Lambert in his Kosmologischeti Briefen," 1761, tacitly adopted that doctrine from him, and these letters at the same time also appeared in
French (Lettres Cosmologiques tur la Constitution de VUnivers). 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
We
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 For we dishonesty, which would be a scandal to those of the lowest order. 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 f 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
she year 1666, in a
mite distinctly,
" "Communication to the Royal Society, expounds it although only as an hypothesis and without proof. The
belongs to Robert Hooke,
who
in
VOL.
II,
226
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
IV.
principal passage of this communication is quoted in Dugald Stewart's " Philosophy of the Human Mind," and is probably taken from Robert Hooke's
The history of the matter, and how Newton got into " by it, is also to be found in the Biographic 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, The story of the fall of an apple is a fable as groundless as it is 88). popular, and is quite without authority.
Posthumous Works.
difficulty
(2)
To No. 18 of Matter.
in Descartes)
is
The quantity of a motion (quantitas motus, already product of the mass into the velocity.
This law
is
the
the basis not only of the doctrine of impact in mechanics, bat 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 weigh6 effects as much as a hammer weighing ing six pounds with a velocity
also of that of equilibrium in statics.
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 0) For the same motion, which resists longer the retarding effect of gravity. 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. therefore also a case-shot does not carry so far as a ball-shot.
balance.
this it
And
The same law lies at the foundation of the theory of the lever and of the 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
may
be equal
to,
momentum
of the greater
mass at the shorter arm
or indeed exceed, the quantity of motion or the of the lever. In the state
of rest brought about
by equilibrium this velocity exists merely in intention or virtually, potentid, not actu ; but it acts just as well as actu, which is very remarkable.
The following explanation will be truths have been called to mind.

The quantity
to its force,
more
easily understood
now
that these
and
of a given matter can only be estimated in general according its force can only be known in its expression. Now when
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 mutter
we
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 oon-
ON KNOWLEDGE A
PRIORI.
227
junction 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.
factor,
Now
the velocity
is
known
directly
for
it is
~ But the
other
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,
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
in order to see
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 mart 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
motion or
momentum,
to communicate to the other directly its surplus quantity of 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 nil which I regarded as necessary for the justification of proposition No. 18.
228
Second
f&atf.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE ABSTRACT

THINKING.
IDEA, OR
CHAPTER
V.i
ON THE IRRATIONAL INTELLECT.

It
must be possible
to arrive at a complete
knowledge
of
the consciousness of the brutes, for
by abstracting certain properties of 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 can construct it our own consciousness.
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.

ceptions, that
this,
is,
For they lack

first
conof
abstract ideas.
The
consequence
the want of a proper memory, which to the most sagacious of the brutes, and it even applies is just this which constitutes the principal difference be-
however,
is
tween
their consciousness
telligence
and that of men. Perfect the distinct consciousness of upon depends

it, is
in-
thf
wit!
1 This chapter, along with the one which follows 8 and 9 of the first book.
connected
ON THE. IRRATIONAL INTELLECT.

past
229
and
is
of the eventual future, as such,
and in connection
this
with the present.
The
special
memory which
de-
mands
therefore an orderly, connected,
and thinking
This, however, is only possible retrospective recollection. of means by 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
Therefore
memory
all this
nor our time would be sufficient. 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
orderly and adequate survey of 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
always at
our past.
command an
We can
abstract
by means
of conceptions of things
and numbers
which
their
now
content.
represent days and years, together with their The memory of the brutes, on the contrary, like
intellect, is confined to
whole
what they
'perceive,,
and
primarily consists merely in the fact that a recurring impression presents itself as having already been experienced,
for the
one.
present perception revivifies the traces of an earlier Their memory is therefore always dependent upon
what
is
now
ever, this excites
actually present. Just on this account, howanew the sensation and the mood which
the earlier
nises
Thus the dog recogfriends from enemies, acquaintances, distinguishes
phenomenon produced.
path
it
easily finds again the

it
has once travelled, the houses
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

animals
is
force of habit,
which
in
the case of
specially strong.
It is therefore just as dine-
230
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
V.
rent from
We
human education as perception is from thinking. 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
when he remains away long it seeks for him everywhere. Its dreams also depend upon this phanThe consciousness of the brutes is accordingly a tasy.
after him, so that
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
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
than
we
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

:
23 1
Bpeaking feel death they can only know it when it apThus then the pears, and then they are already no more. It lives on life of the brute is a continuous present.
without reflection, and exists wholly in the present ; even
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
the great majority of
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 tlways our thought about it, which makes us often inap-
proachable 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 what goes on round about them. Therefore the brutes are incapable alike of purpose and dissimulation; they In this respect the dog stands to the rtserve nothing. mm in the same relation as a glass goblet to a metal one,
ee
aid this helps greatly to endear the dog so much to us, for it affords us great pleasure to see all those inclinations
anc emotions
and openly in him.

it
Wire,
which we so often conceal displayed simply In general, the brutes always play, as with their hand exposed and therefore we con;
tenrjlate
with so
each other,
much both when
pleasure their behaviour towards they belong to the same and to
diffesnt species.
It is characterised
by a
certain
stamp
of innocence, in contrast to
the conduct of men, which is withcrawn from the innocence of nature by the entrance
of reaon,
and with it of prudence or deliberation. Hence huma. conduct has throughout the stamp of intention or delibeate purpose, the absence of which, and the consequent letermination by the impulse of the moment, is the fundaiental characteristic of all the action of the brutes.
No
and
brue
is
conceiv and follow out a purpose
capable of a purpose properly so-called. To is the prerogative of man,
it s a prerogative which is rich in consequences. Certain/ an instinct like that of the bird of passage or the
232
bee, still
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
V.
desire, a longing like absent master, may present the appearance of a purpose, with which, however, it must not be confounded. Now all this has its ultimate ground
more a permanent, persistent

its
that of the dog for
in the relation between the

tellect,
human and
the brute in:
be thus expressed The brutes have only direct knowledge, while we, in addition to and the advantage which this, have indirect knowledge
which may
also
trigonometry and; hand work, &c / over direct knowledge appears here alsc. Thus again we may say: The brutes have only a single intellect, we a double intellect, both perceptive and thinking,
in
many
things
for
example,
in
analysis, in indirect has
machine work instead
of
each other.
and the operation of the two often go on independently or We perceive one thing, and we think another
This way of put" Often, again, they act upon each other. the to understand th<t matter enables us ting specially natural openness and naivete of the brutes, referred x>
above, as contrasted with the concealment of man. However, the law natura nonfacit saltus is not entirsly suspended even with regard to the intellect of the broes,
though certainly the step from the brute to the huaan intelligence is the greatest which nature has made in the production of her creatures. In the most favoured hdividuals of the highest species of the brutes there certinly sometimes appears, always to our astonishment, a aint trace of reflection, reason, the comprehension of wons, of
The most stiking thought, purpose, and deliberation. indications of this kind are afforded by the elephant, *hose
highly developed intelligence is heightened and suported by an experience of a lifetime which sometimes e.tends
to
He has often given unmistkable years. in well-known recorded anecdotes, of premedtation, signs, the case of in brutes, always astonishes u more which, than anything else. Such, for instance, is the stor of the
two hundred
tailor
on
whom
an elephant revenged himself

I
for picking
him with a
needle.
wish,
however, to resce
from

oblivion a parallel case to this, because
it
233
has the advan-
On tage of being authenticated by judicial investigation. the 27th of August 1830 there was held at Morpeth, in
England, a coroner's inquest on the keeper, Baptist Bern-
who was killed by his elephant. It appeared from that two years before he had offended the evidence the elephant grossly, and now, without any occasion, but on
hard,
a favourable opportunity, the elephant
had seized him and
crushed him.
of that day.) of brutes
(See the Spectator and other English papers For special information on the intelligence
recommend Leroy's
excellent
4d. 1802.
book,
"
Sur
VIntelligence des Animaicx," nouv.
234
CHAPTER VL
ON THE DOCTRINE OF ABSTRACT OR RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE.
The outward impression upon the the mood which it alone awakens
senses, together with 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 which the imagination preserves is originally impression 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,
(Ep. 37).
Si vis
I
tibi
omnia
And
add to this that the essential condition
subjicere, te subjice rationi" 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, o X0709.
Yet the concept
is
perfectly different both from the word,
ON ABSTRACT OR RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE.

to
it
235
which
it is
joined,
and from the perceptions, from which
It is of an entirely different nature has originated. from these impressions of the senses. Yet it is able to
up into itself all the results of perception, and give them back again unchanged and undiminished after the
take
longest period of time; thus alone does experience arise. But the concept preserves, not what is perceived nor what
is essential in these, in an and yet as an adequate representaJust as flowers cannot be preserved, but tive of them. their ethereal oil, their essence, with the same smell and the same virtues, can be. The action that has been guided
is
then
felt,
but only what
entirely altered form,
by correct conceptions
real object
will, in the result, coincide
with the
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
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
other,
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
of
more
a throwing off of useless baggage for the sake easily handling the knowledge which is to be
directions.
'
compared, and has therefore to be turned about in all allow much that is unessential, and
We
therefore
things,
only confusing, to fall away from the real and work with few but essential determinations
But just because general conare formed ceptions only by thinking away and leaving out existing qualities, and are therefore the emptier the
thought in the abstract.
more general they are, the use of this procedure is confined to the working up of knowledge which we have already This working up includes the drawing of conacquired. clusions from premisses contained in our knowledge. New insight, on the contrary, can only be obtained by the help
236
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
VI.
judgment, from perception, which alone 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
of the faculty of
is
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
;
the infinitive of the copula), is scarcely anything but a word. Therefore philosophical systems which confine
(i.e.,
general conceptions, without the real, are little more than mere jugFor since all abstraction consists in gling with words. the further we push it the less we have thinking away,
themselves to such very

to
going down
left
Therefore, if I read those modern philosowhich move constantly in the widest abstracphemes
over.
tions, I
am
soon quite unable, in spite of
all attention,
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
to think
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
still
writings of the disciples of Schelling, or 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
monly adduced
be able to give its content. What are comas examples of simple conceptions are really not conceptions at all, but partly mere sensations as, foi
we must
also
instance, those of some special colour of perception which are known to us
partly the form*

pro-
a priori, thus
perly the ultimate elements of perceptive knowledge.
Hu

this itself is for the
237
whole system
of our
thought what
granite
ports
is for
geology, the ultimate firm basis which sup-
all,
and beyond which we cannot
ness of a conception
The distinctgo. 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
are verified and reality guaranteed to them, as well as to all the higher abstractions which rest upon them. Therefore the ordinary explanaabstractions
tion that the conception is distinct as
soon as
we can
For the separating give its predicates is not sufficient. of these predicates may lead perhaps to more conceptions
;
basis of perceptions
and so on again without there being that ultimate which imparts reality to all those
Take, for example, the conception
it
"
spirit,"
conceptions.
and analyse
ing,
into its
immaterial, not occupy space." Nothing is yet distinctly thought about it, because the elements of these conceptions
predicates thinking, willindestructible being that does simple,

:
"
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,
distinct.
not conceptions; these at the most can only be Hence also, absurd as it was, " clear and con-
fused" were coupled together and used as synonymous
when knowledge
of perception was explained as merely a confused abstract knowledge, because the latter kind This was first done of knowledge alone was distinct.
by Duns Scotus, but Leibnitz has substantially the same

view,
upon which
his "Identitas Indiscemibiliwm," depends.
(See Kant's refutation of this, p. 275 of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Eeason.)
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 of our whole consciousness, with its throughout the form
238
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
VI.
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
It is accordingly the sensible sign of the conception, and as such the necessary means of fixing it, that is,
word.
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
by means
conceptions possible and open to us; and only of this, again, are the operations which are
undertaken with conceptions possible
judgment, infer-
It is true it sometimes ence, comparison, limitation, &c. that happens 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.
cases are exceptions, which presuppose great exercise of the reason, which it could only have obtained much the use of reason is by means of language.
But such
How
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

of distinct
thought
But
are thus the indispensable means as every means, every machine,

at
for
239
once burdens and hinders, so also does language; and modifiable thoughts, with it forces the fluid
their infinitely fine distinctions of difference, into certain rigid, permanent forms, and thus in fixing also fetters
some extent got rid of by For in these the thought learning 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
them.
This hindrance
several
is
to
languages.
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 with his own language, but he content himself perhaps who understands nothing but some single modern patois
will
soon betray this poverty in writing and speaking;
for his thoughts, firmly
forms,
bound to such narrow stereotyped 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.
clusion that
But he draws from
we
hear, apprehend,
this the entirely false conand 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
240
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
VI.
and these from their very nature are not 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,
or conceptions,
perceptible.
Just because words
each of them will

of
call
up
it, image image that is possessed only by the eye-witness. This is the primary reason (which, however, is accompanied by
which
differs
in his imagination a different considerably from the correct
others)
why
repeatedly
told.
every fact is necessarily distorted by being The second recounter communicates con-
ceptions 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

and nature
is
intelligent exposition of the essence of conceptions which I have been able to find
in
Thomas
vol.
Mind,"
ii.,
demned by
Eeid's "Essays on the Powers of Human Essay 5, ch. 6. This was afterwards con" Dugald Stewart in his Philosophy of the
to the to waste paper I will only briefly latter that he belongs to
Human
Mind." Not remark with regard
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 underFor in his standing the faculty of ideas of perception.
"
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

characterises
241
Spinoza also proper to the angels, and indeed to God. reason quite correctly as the faculty of
framing general conceptions (Eth., ii. prop. 40, schol. 2). facts would not need to be mentioned if it were not
Such
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
of immediate,
this
name an
entirely
spurious
faculty
super-sensuous knowledge.
metaphysical, so-called The reason proper, on the
other hand, they call understanding, and the understanding proper, as something quite strange to them, they over-
look
altogether,
and ascribe
all
its
intuitive
functions to
sensibility.
In the case of
gain, to
to
it
things in this world
new drawbacks
also,
or disadvantages cleave to every source of aid, to every
every advantage
and thus reason
which gives
man such
its
great advantages over the brutes, carries with
error into
and opens for him paths of which the brutes can never stray. Through it a new species of motives, to which the brute is not These are the accessible, obtains power over his will. 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
special disadvantages,
the greater the
harm
it
will do.
The individual
error
must be atoned for by him who cherishes it, and often he aas to pay dearly for it. And the same thing holds good a large scale of the common errors of whole nations.
Therefore
vvherever
it
we meet
of
cannot too often be repeated that every error it, is to be pursued and rooted out as
enemy
as
mankind, and that there can be no such

or
'hing
privileged
it,
sanctioned error.
if
The thinker
Q
>ught to attack
even
humanity should cry out with
VOL.
II.
242
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
VI.
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. Oi 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
abandoned
talks
to every conceivable
him
into,
exposed to delusion, for he is chimera which any one and which, acting on his will as a motive,
that
is
man
him to perversities and follies of every kind, 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 For the great mass of men capable of receiving it.
may
influence
to the
a kind of training
effected
It is everywhere takes its place. and the and firm custom, very early by example, before of certain any experience, conceptions, impression understanding, or judgment were there to disturb the work. Thus thoughts are implanted, which afterward
as firmly, and are as incapable of being shaker by any instruction as if they were inborn; and indeec they have often been regarded, even by philosophers In this way we can, with the same trouble as such. imbue men with what is right and rational, or wit! what is most absurd. For example, we can accustoi them to approach this or that idol with holy dread, and a the mention of its name to prostrate in the dust not onl to sacrifice their pre their bodies but their whole spirit perty and their lives willingly to words, to names, to tfc
cling
;
defence of the strangest whims ; to attach arbitrarily tl greatest honour or the deepest disgrace to this or that, an
to prize highly or disdain everything accordingly wit full inward conviction ; to renounce all animal food, as
:
Hindustan, or to devour
still
warm and
quivering
piec<
ON THE DOCTRINE OF KNOWLEDGE.

in
243
cut from the living animal, as in Abyssinia ; to eat men, as 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
Hence the Crusades, the extravagances of we please. fanatical sects ; hence Chiliasts and Flagellants, persecutions,
autos
da
fe,
and
all
that
is
offered
by the long
Lest it should be thought perversities. that only the dark ages afford such examples, I shall add a couple of more modern instances. In the year 1818
register of
human
went from Wiirtemberg 7000 Chiliasts to the neighnew kingdom of God, 1 specially announced by Jung Stilling; was to appear there. Gall relates that in his time a mother killed her child and roasted it in order to cure her husband's rheumatism with 8 its fat. The tragical side of error lies in the practical, the 3omical is reserved for the theoretical. For example, if we could firmly persuade three men that the sun is not
there
bourhood of Ararat, because the
:he
established
cause of daylight, we might hope to see it soon as the general conviction. In Germany it Hegel, a repulsive, mindless charlatan, an unparalleled and for twenty years many thouit stubbornly and firmly ; and indeed, Danish Academy entered the lists the Germany,
vas possible to proclaim as the greatest philosopher of all

iges
cribbler of nonsense,
ands have believed

utside
gainst myself for his fame, and sought to have him rearded as a su/mmus philosophus. (Upon this see the
reface to
re
my Grundproblemen der ffihik.) These, then, the disadvantages which, on account of the rarity of must ldgment, attach to the existence of reason.
We
id to
The brutes do possibility of madness. ot go mad, although the carnivora are subject to fury, id the ruminants to a sort of delirium.
them the
1
Hlgen's
'ische
"
Zeitschrift fiir
Hisi.
Theologie,"
1839,
part
2 Des DisGall et Spurzheim, positions lnnies" 181 I, p. 253.
"
182.
244
CHAPTER VIL 1
ON THE RELATION OF THE CONCRETE KNOWLEDGE 01 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 We must therefore be able to go back of perception. from every conception, even if only indirectly through intermediate conceptions, to the perceptions from which it
is either itself directly
derived of which
say,
we
derived or those conceptions are again an abstraction. That is to must be able to support it with perceptions which
it is
stand to the abstractions in the relation of examples These perceptions thus afford the real content of all oui
thought, and whenever they are wanting conceptions but mere words in our heads.
we have
not hat
In this respec
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 al
the notes it has issued, in case of demand ; the perception In this sens are the cash, the conceptions are the notes. the perceptions might very appropriately be called primar, and the conceptions, on the other hand, secondary idea Not quite so aptly, the Schoolmen, following the exainp'
vi. u, xl i), called real thin; and the substantia primce, conceptions substantias secund< Books impart only secondary ideas. Mere conceptions a thing without perception give only a general knowled We only have a thorough understanding of thin of it.
of
Aristotle
(Metaph.,
and their relations so

1
far as
we
are able to represent the

12 of the first volume.
This chapter
is
connected with
CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT KNOWLEDGE.

to ourselves in pure, distinct perceptions,
245
without the aid
To explain words by words, to compare concepts with concepts, in which most philosophising consists, is a
of words.
about of the concept-spheres in order to 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
trivial shifting
see
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
that gives
new knowledge.
with certainty 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,
judgment, ingenuity, genius. The former faculty, on the contrary, results in little more than possibly rational The inmost kernel of all genuine and actual reflections.
of wit,
knowledge
is
a perception; and every
new
truth
is
the
profit or gain yielded by a perception. ing takes place in images, and this is
All original think-
why
imagination
is
an instrument of thought, and minds that lack imagination will never accomplish much, unless it be in mathematics. On the other hand, merely abstract which have no kernel of perception, are like thoughts, 7 Even writing and speakcloud-structures, without realit) or whether didactic ing, 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
so necessary
.
real thing,
as
soon
as
the observer, is
all
more
it presents something new to instructive than any reading or
hearing. truth
For indeed, if we go to the bottom of the matter, and wisdom, nay, the ultimate secret of things, is
contained in each real object, yet certainly only in concreto,
246
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
VII.
just as gold lies hidden in the ore ; the difficulty is to ex tract 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,
that makes them commonplace and tedious. what the author has thought could always have been thought by the reader also, if he had taken the same
and
"For
it is this
trouble
indeed
it
full exposition of
what
consists simply of intelligent thought, 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 percepcomprehension 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 Let me illustrate the original source of all knowledge. distinction here touched upon by a perfectly easy and
tion, of direct
simple example.
:
Any commonplace
writer might easily
describe profound contemplation or petrifying astonish" but Cervantes ment by saying " He stood like a statue
;
Like a clothed statue, for the wind moved his garsays ments" {Don Quixote, book vi. ch. 19). It is thus that all
:
"
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 all had before their eyes, the world, the which they thing
great
;
perceived reality ; indeed in a certain degree they all say We the same thing, and others never believe them.
recognise it further in the appropriateness and originality of the expression, which is always perfectly adapted to the subject because it has beeu inspired by perception, in
CONCRBTt AND ABSTRA CT KNO W LEDGE.

and the impressiveness
ties,
247
the naivete of the language, the freshness of the imagery, of the similes, all of which quali-
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,
natural,
its
and they never dare to allow themselves to be under penalty of displaying their vulgarity in all
dreary barrenness; instead of this they are affected Hence Buffon says : " Le style est Vlwmmi mannerists. mime." If men of commonplace mind write poetry they
have certain traditional conventional opinions, passions, noble sentiments, &c, which they have received in the
and attribute to the heroes of their poems, who way reduced to mere personifications of those and are thus themselves to a certain extent opinions, If they and therefore insipid and tiresome. abstractions, in taken a wide abstract have few philosophise, they 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,
abstract,
are in this
like real algebra, afford certain results
for here the con-
represented by the word is not a fixed and perfectly definite quality, such as are symbolised by
ception which
is
the letters in algebra, but is wavering and capable of extension and contraction.
ing, all thinking,
i.e.,
and ambiguous,
combining
Strictly speakof abstract conceptions,
has at the
its
most the
recollections of earlier perceptions for
material, and this only indirectly, so far as it constitutes the foundation of all conceptions. Eeal knowledge,
on the contrary, that

tion alone,
is, immediate knowledge, is percepnew, 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
248
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
VII.
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
is
really all that is essential in all
things generally
virtually contained
and represented,
is
apprehended,
its
fills
the consciousness in one
moment
with
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 cerbe 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
tainly
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 knowIf perceptions ledge, is unconditionally communicable. 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
;
and philosophy. However, the aims of man are 1 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
of poetry
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,
it.
and determines what
is
in conformity with
That books will not take the place of experience nor Then learning of genius are two kindred phenomena.
common ground
is
that the abstract can never take the
place of the concrete.
Books therefore do not take
tki
249
place of experience, because conceptions always remain general, and consequently do not get down to the particular,
is just what has to be dealt with and, besides this, all conceptions are abstracted from what is particular and perceived in experience, and
which, however,
in life
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,
intuitive.
objective
and therefore
of
is
essentially
Thus
in
the
first
these
phenomena the
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
and discursive, but in the perceptive faculty. Wisdom proper is something intuitive, not something It does not consist in principles and thoughts, abstract which one can carry about ready in his mind, as results of but it is the whole his own research or that of others 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
abstract
;
man
arises
of genius
immeasurably surpass those
of all others
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 The material is in all minds the same but oil-painting. 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
;
250
exist
FIRST BOOK.
in
CHAPTER
VII.
the root, in
hension, and do not

original
others.
first
the perceptive or intuitive appre* appear in the abstract Hence
the occasion arises, and
mental superiority shows itself so easily when is at once felt and hated by
life
In practical
the intuitive knowledge of the under-
standing 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
this account,
women
thus for daily intercourse, in which, just on excel. Only those who intuitively
know
men as they are as a rule, and thug comprehend the individuality of the person before them, will understand how to manage him with certainty and Another may know by heart all the three hunrightly.
the nature of
dred maxims of Gracian, but this will not save him from stupid mistakes and misconceptions if he lacks that in-
For all abstract knowledge affords knowledge. us primarily mere general principles and rules ; but the particular case is almost never to be carried out exactly
tuitive
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.
ReJe, case, and application are for
it
one,
and
action
follows immediately
upon
it.
This explains
why
in real

life
251
of abstract
the scholar, whose pre-eminence lies in the province knowledge, is so far surpassed by the man of
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
the world,
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. 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 But this to work with perfect certainty and consistency. 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
If,
for it may be either not at all or not 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. There-
not
come under
it,
altogether of the
Vauvenargue says: "Personne riest sujet a plus defaides, ceux If, on the conque qui n'agissent que par reflexion" is it direct of the to be dealt with trary, perception objects
fore
and their relations that guides our action, we easily hesitate at every step, for the perception is always modifiable, is amhas in details inexhaustible biguous, itself, and shows many
sides in succession
;
we
act therefore without full confiis
dence.
But the subjective uncertainty
the objective certainty, for
here there
is
compensated by 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 applica-
252
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
VII.
Action bility to the given cause is perfectly certain. in accordance with conceptions may pass into pedantry, action in accordance with the perceived impression into
levity
and
folly.
is
Perception
is itself
not only the source of
all
knowledge, but
true,
knowledge tear eôxv^> is the only unconditionally genuine knowledge completely worthy of the name.
alone imparts insight properly so called,
it
For
it
alone
m^
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 know-
The basis or ledge, i.e., not from abstract conceptions. ultimate content of every science consists, not in proofs, nor in what is proved, but in the unproved foundation
can finally be apprehended only So also the basis of the true wisdom through perception. 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,
of
;
the proofs, which
corresponds to his insight. By degrees also his countenance assumes the expression of penetration, of true

intelligence, and, if it goes far
it is
253
enough, of wisdom.
For
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
Natural understanding can take the place of almost every degree of culture, but no culture can take The scholar has the the place of natural understanding. of men in such the advantage possession of a wealth of
learning.
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
to
man of acuteness and penetration knows how dispense with this wealth ; we can make use of much ; we can do with little. One case in his own experience
him more than many a
thousand cases which
Bpeaking, understand.
teaches
scholar is taught by a he knows, but does not, properly For the little knowledge of that
unlearned
to
man
is living,
because every fact that
is
known
supported by accurate and well-apprehended perception, and thus represents for him a thousand
is
him
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 ensimilar facts.
tirely 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 ulti-
mately realise
all
the conceptions.
If
now
this perceptive
knowledge
liabilities
very scanty, such a mind is like a bank with tenfold in excess of its cash reserve, whereby in
is
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 un-
learned man, the face of
many
a scholar bears no other
254
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
that
of
VII.
trace of his
much study than

excessive and
exhaustion and
weariness from
memory
tions.
straining of the in the unnatural accumulation of dead concep-
forced
Moreover, the insight of such a
man
is
often so
puerile, so weak excessive strain
and
silly,
that
we must suppose
that the
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
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
others
is
light of books. the thoughts of
At any
rate the constant streaming in of
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
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 Shakespeai
to gain
own
censures in the tourists of his time, that they sold theii land to see that of others. Yet the inclination foi
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. gerous to read about a subject before about it ourselves. For along with the
Indeed
it is
dan-
we have thought 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

truth.
it
to pass for
itself, and henceforward our on the subject always takes the accustomed path, thought like brooks that are guided by ditches to find a thought
This
now
insinuates
II

of our
255
own, a new thought,
is
then doubly
difficult.
This
contributes
scholars.
much to the want of originality on the part of Add to this that they suppose that, like other people,
reading as their work and special calling,
it, beyond what Then reading no longer plays the part of
;
they must divide their time between pleasure and work.
Now they regard

they can digest.
the
for
and therefore they gorge themselves with
initiator of thought, but takes its place altogether think of the subject just as long as they are readthey thus with the mind of another, not with their about it, ing
mere
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, The man of skittles, the news of the day, and gossip.
thought
him.
therefore
is
He
is
so because such things have no interest for interested only in his problems, with which
is
always occupied, by himself and without this interest, if we have not This is the crucial point And is impossible. got it, that the former also the fact this depends always upon speak only of what they have read, while the latter, on the contrary, speaks of what he has thought, and that they
he
a book.
To give ourselves
are, as
Pope says
is
"For ever
reading, never to be read." it
The mind
naturally free, not a slave ; only what
On the other does willingly, of its own accord, succeeds. 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
Minerva, dulls the This is brain, just as reading by moonlight dulls the eyes. especially the case with the straining of the immature
invito,
continuously and
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
is
aourishment of materials from without. All that we eat not at once incorporated in the organism, but only so
256
FIRST BOOK.
of
it
CHAPTER
VII.
it
much
is
as is digested
so that ouly a small part of

;
assimilated,
to
It
and the remainder passes away and thus eat more than we can assimilate is useless and injurious. is precisely the same with what we read. Only so far
it
as
and true knowledge.

tiadia
gives food for thought does it increase our insight " Therefore Heracleitus says iroXv
:
ov BtSao-tcei" (multiscitia non dot intdlectum). It seems, however, to me that learning may be compared to a heavy suit of armour, which certainly makes the
strong
vow
man
burden under which
quite invincible, but to the lie sinks altogether.
weak man
is
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
The exposition given
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. Learn-
on the contrary, is relative the learned men of the past are for the most part children as compared with us, and require indulgence.
ing,
;
But
to
him who
and studies are only steps
studies in order to gain insight books 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.
to
fill
The many, on the other hand, who study

their
in order
memory do not use the rounds of the ladder to mount by, but take them off, and load themselves with
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.
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, develop-
257
ment, 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 Now, that this intuitive apprehension must have things. 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

:>f
is
demanded
for this quintessence
all
knowledge,
for this proof before the letter of the
ipprehension, and this highest energy of the brain is dependent on the freshness and flexibility of its fibres and the
apidity with
Jut this
which the
is at its
arterial blood flows to the brain.
strongest only as long as the arteial system has a decided predominance over the venous ystem, which begins to decline after the thirtieth year,
again
ntil
at
last,
after
y'stem obtains the
the forty-second year, the venous upper hand, as Cabanis has admirably
ad instructively explained. venty and thirty and the

>t
Therefore the years between

first
few years
the trees
after thirty are

;
the intellect
what
May
is for
ie
blossoms appear of which
all
only then do the later fruits are the
ivelopment.
lpression,
The world of perception has made its and thereby laid the foundation of all the
thoughts of
clearer
He may by the individual. what he has apprehended; he uy yet acquire much knowledge as nourishment for the
ibsequent
Section
make
flit
which has once set he may extend his views, correct h conceptions and judgments, it may be only through edless combinations that he becomes completely master c the materials he has gained indeed he will generally
;
p>duce his best works

701+
II.
much
later, as
the greatest heat
258
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
VII.
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 h
:
breaks forth into his wonderfully beautiful lament

M
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
Hived
!
Extracts emotions beautiful and new, in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee
Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew Alas 'twas not in them, but iu thy power
To double even
the sweetness of a flow Br."
Through all that I have said hitherto I hope I have placed in a clear light the important truth that since al
knowledge springs from knowledge of perception, 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, t.*., proved, through perceptions and, moreover, that most depends upon th< Conceptions and abstracquality of these perceptions. tions which do not ultimately refer to perceptions an like paths in the wood that end without leading out of it
abstract
it
obtains
The great value of conceptions lies in the fact that b; means of them the original material of knowledge is mor But althoug easily handled, surveyed, and arranged. kinds of and dialectical many logical operations are po:
with them, yet no entirely original and new knov ledge will result from these that is to say, no knowledj
sible
;
whose material neither lay already in perception nor w; drawn from self-consciousness. This is the true meanii
of the doctrine attributed to Aristotle
tellectu,
:
Nihil
est
in
quod antea fuerit in sensu. It is also t of the Lockeian philosophy, which made for ev meaning an epoch in philosophy, because it commenced at last t
nisi
serious discussion of the question as to the origin of c " knowledge. It is also principally what the Critique " Pure Reason teaches. It also desires that we should
i
259
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
functions ; although these at least virtualiter actual sense-perception, i.e., are a priori, and the precede therefore do not depend upon sense-perception, but it upon
natural
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 abThe "Critique from the material of perception. of Pure Eeason" is therefore related to the Lockeian
stract
philosophy as the analysis of the infinite to elementary geometry, but is yet throughout to be regarded as the
continuation of the Lockeian philosophy.
rial of
The given mate-
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.
takes
Every philosophy which, instead of starting from this, for its starting-point arbitrarily chosen abstract
conceptions, such as, for example, absolute, absolute substance,
God,
infinity, finitude,
absolute
air
identity, being,
essence,
&c, &c, moves in the
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 is not to be found in the
are) what ideas complete (the perceptions), :rom which the former were drawn by abstraction. The
possibility of
what the abstractions
the syllogism leads to this mistake, because
26o
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
VII.
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
Conceptions are certainly the material of but only as marble is the material of the philosophy, to work out of them but in them that It is not sculptor.
premisses.
;
is
to say, it is to deposit its results in
start
see a glaring
mere
is given. of such a false procedure from example " " look at the Institutio Theologica conceptions may
from them as what
them, but not to Whoever wishes to
of Proclus in order to convince himself of of that

fr\r)8o<;,
the vanity
"
kv,
whole method.
ayadov, irapayov
et
There abstractions such as

kcli
irapwyofievov, avrap/ces, aircov,
KpeLrrov,Kivr]Tov, aKiv7]rov,Kivovfievov"
(unum, mvlta, bonum,
producens
productum,
sibi suffveiens, 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 is then constructed from these conceptions, but thus the whole proits goal, the 0eo?, is kept concealed
theology
;
cedure
know
apparently unprejudiced, as if the reader did not at the first page, just as well as the author, what
is
I have already quoted a fragment of in. This production of Proclus is really quite peculiarly adapted to make clear how utterly useless and illusory such combinations of abstract conceptions are, for
it is all
to
end
this above.
we can make
of them whatever we will, especially if we further take advantage of the ambiguity of many words, If such an architect of such, for example, as Kpeirrov.
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 onl)

have to ask further
261
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,
than that which

is
and therefore can have no further validity it imparts to them. But of course this
by virtue
far
just his trick. Through such conceptions, in which, of abstraction, what is inseparable is thought
and what cannot be united as united, he goes 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 But in Plato also audacity with which he carries it out. 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.
as separate,
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
That of our
finite
and
infinite
being, non-being, other being
activity,
hindrance, product
minateness
multiplicity
determining, being determined, deterlimit, limiting, being limited unity, plurality,
identity, diversity, indifference thinking, Not only does all that has been said being, essence, &c. above hold good of constructions out of such materials,
but because an infinite amount can be thought through such wide abstractions, only veiy 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
sxcruciating tediousness which is characteristic of all such If indeed I now chose to call to mind the way writings.
vide
n which Hegel and his companions have abused such and empty abstractions, I should have to fear that
262
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
VII.
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
In them only shortly to appear in a collected form. 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.
ful
On
At
and useless
is
deaL
this account these diatribes are just as unfruitas they are tedious, which is saying a great all times we find persons, like this theologian,
who
too fond of philosophising, famous while they are soon forgotten. afterwards advice is rather to alive, read those whose fate has been the opposite of this, for time is short and valuable.
My
Now
although, in accordance with all that has been
which can be realised in no perception, must never be the source of knowledge, the
said, wide, abstract conceptions,
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 wher
;
we have reached
the limit of the knowledge possible
t*

our faculties.
263
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

sort the firm
it.
"With conceptions of this
ground which supports our whole knowledge, the perceptible, seems to waver. Therefore philosophy at and in case of times, may certainly 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
[philosophy.
times the principal source of the errors of dogmatic science constructed from the mere com-
parison 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 conFor no stantly at hand, to control the general principles.
any way drawn from experience are They have therefore only an universal for here there is no approximately validity
truths
which are
in
ever unconditionally true.
rule without
an exception.
of the
together
by means
I link these principles intersection of their conceptIf
now
spheres, one conception
precisely
might very easily touch the other 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 What Kant calls das Vergood of horned ruminants.
mere abstract reasoning, and so often condemns, For it consists simply in subsuming conceptions under conceptions, without reference to their origin, and without proof of the correctness and exclusivenilnfteln,
is
just of this sort.
264
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
VII.
a method whereby we can ness of such subsumption 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 sophisticaBut sophistication is in the theotion strictly so called.
what chicanery i3 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, Be 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
retical sphere exactly
abstract reasoning (especially 2-5 in Brandis' Comment. with His the Eleat.) procedure conceptions, which never
touch the reality from which they have their content, but,
moving in the atmosphere of abstact 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 Biichelchen
But a perfect gem of especially chaps. 7, 12, and 17. 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 It now remains either that injustice from the wicked. no injustice can be suffered, or that it is suffered by the But the wicked man possesses wicked from the wicked. no good at all, for only virtue is a good therefore none Thus he also can suffer no incan be taken from him. Thus injustice is an impossible thing." The justice. runs original, which is less concise through repetitions,
:
thus
17)
"
:
ASitcia eari
7]
a<f>atpecri<;
r)
ayadoV to
rj
Be ayadov ti av
aWo
apenj
Se apery avaipaiperov.
Ovk
aSiKrjae1
rac TOivvv 6 ttjv apeTtjv e^top,
:01s ovk eariv a&iKia afyaipeoK
II
265
ayaOov' ovBev yap ayaOov a<paiperov, ovB'xcnrofiXrjTov, ovB Eiev ovv, ovB' aSi/ceircu 6 XPV~iXerov, ovBe Xrjiarov.
ros,
toivvv
AenreTai ovB viro tov fioyÔrjpov avcKpctipero? yap. tov aSi/ceicrdat, 7) fjirjSeva KaOaira%, r\ fioÔijpov viro
ofioiov'
tov
r)
aX\a
ei<?
toj
p.o^vP'P ovBevo? peTecrTiv ayaOov

acpaipeais' 6 Be
Be aBi/cia nv
ayaOov
o,
peaOn, ovBe add further
tl chiicqo-Or], eêi"
e^wv 6, (Sermo 2).

fir)
tl a<pai-
I shall
modern
example
of
such
proofs
from
abstract conceptions,
it
absurd proposition is from the works of
by means of which an obviously set up as the truth, and I shall take a great man, Giordano Bruno. In
Universo
e
his book,
"Del
Infinite
Mondi"
(p.
87
of the
edition of
(with
A. Wagner), he makes an Aristotelian prove the assistance and exaggeration of the passage
of Aristotle's
Be
Ccelo,
i.
5) that there
can be no space
beyond the world.

spheres
of
The world is enclosed by the eight Aristotle, and beyond these there can be
if
no space.
it
beyond these there were still a body, It is now simple or compound. 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 comThus in general there can be no posed of simple ones. but if then there no space. For space is denned not, body " " as that in which bodies can be ; and it has just been that no can be Thus there is also there. proved body
be
there
For must either
no space.
This last
is
from abstract conceptions. " fact that the proposition,

be no
Pore
the final stroke of this proof It ultimately rests on the
Where no space is, there can taken a as universal body negative, and thereconverted simply, " Where no body can be there is no
"
is
space."
But the former

body,"
garded, is a universal affirmative 10 space has no thus it
proposition, "
:
when properly
re-
Everything that has must not be converted
simply.
ceptions,
not every proof from abstract conwith a conclusion which clearly contradicts perception (as here the finiteness of space), that can thus
it
Yet
is
266
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
VII.
error. For the sophistry does not but in the matter, in the the often in form, always of the conceptions and in the indefiniteness and premisses, "We find numerous examples of this in their extension.
be referred to a logical
lie
Spinoza, whose
tions.
method indeed
See, for
Ethics," P. iv., the uncertain conceptions convenire and
"
it is to prove from concepthe miserable example, sophisms in his of means the ambiguity of prop. 29-31, by
commune
habere.
Yet
day
this does not prevent the neo-Spinozists of our own 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
it is of
on a face as if it was able to unhinge the world whereas no use at all, for even the simplest can see for
;
himself that
limits.
if I limit anything by determinations, I thereby exclude and thus negate what lies beyond these
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, innabilit
The reader will pardon the fulness of these exposiand examples on account of their instructivenesa. 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 0: which is a fundamental characteristic of ray philosophy For many phenomena of our mental life are only ex The connecting linl plicable through this distinction. between these two such different kinds of knowledg< is the faculty of judgment, as I have shown in 14
unda.
tions
the
first
volume.
This faculty
is
certainly also activ

in the province
it
267
of
mere abstract knowledge, in which

;
compares conceptions only with conceptions therefore every judgment, in the logical sense of the word, is certainly a
work
consists in the
of the faculty of judgment, for it always subsumption of a narrower conception under
in
Yet this activity of the faculty of judgment, 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
a wider one.
which
it
..essentially general,
of conceptions into their essential predicates it
For by the analysis 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
the conception.
faculty of
judgment
is
ening this process, for

glance
flections.
he who
therefore only active here in shortis gifted with it sees at a
what others only arrive at through a series of reBut 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 corre-
sponding conceptions, and thus translated into reflected
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
rational
denied.
lies
Therefore here, in the fundamental judgments, 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 Not less in practical life has the faculty of day. 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 burningglass 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
268
it
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
VII.
now rightly fixes, and then carefully makes the result distinct to itself. Further, the great difficulty of judging
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 The experiment is an part the only one open to us.
in
;
attempt to go over
is
it
again the other way; therefore

;
it
at least brings out error clearly provided that it is always rightly chosen and honestly carried out; not like Newton's experiments in connection with the theory
decisive,
and
of colours.
judged.
logic
But the experiment itself must also again be The complete certainty of the a priori sciences,
that in
is
and mathematics, depends principally upon the fact them the path from the reason to the consequent open to us, and it is always certain. This gives them
the character of purely objective sciences, i.., 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
is palpably objective. ingenuity are also manifestations of the facultv of judgment; in the former its activity is reflective, in the
to
do with what
Wit and
subsuming. In most men the faculty of judgment only nominally present it is a kind of irony that it is reckoned with the normal faculties of the mind, instead
latter
is
;
being only attributed to the monstris per excessum. Ordinary men show even in the smallest affairs want of
of
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.
confidence in their
; ;
269
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 Others borrow strut about giving them out as their own. 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
opinion, such as journalists only false wares, as those
bad; for the professional purveyors of and the like, give as a rule who hire out masquerading
dresses give only false jewels.
270
CHAPTER VIIL
ON THE THEORY OF THE LUDICBOUS.
theory of the ludicrous also depends upon the opposition explained in the preceding chapters between
perceptible
My
and abstract
ideas,
such marked prominence.
which I have brought into 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 {Be Orat., ii. 58). The oldest
attempt
laughter
later
known
is
to
me
at a psychological explanation of
found in Hutcheson's "Introduction A somewhat into Moral Philosophy," Bk. I., ch. i. 14.
" Traiti des Causes Physiques ei anonymous work, du Morals Eire," 1 768, is not without merit as a ventila-
to be
tion
Platner, in his "Anthropology," subject. has the collected 894, opinions of the philosophers from
of the
Home
this
Kant who have attempted an explanation of phenomenon peculiar to human nature. Kant's and
to
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
x
to
my
is
explanation given in the

connected with
13 of the
first
first
volume
This chapter
volume.
ON THE THEORY OF THE LUDICROUS.
271
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 sudden apprehension of an incongruity signifies the such a conception and the real object thought between thus between the abstract and the concrete under it,
The greater and more unexpected, object of perception. in the apprehension of the laugher, this incongruity is,
the
more violent
that
will
be his laughter.
laughter
it
Therefore
in
everything
excites
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,
in
another
it
and therefore thought through it, yet and more predominating aspect does not
at
all,
belong to
but
is
strikingly different from everyIf,
thing else that is

a real
thought through that conception.
as often occurs, especially in witticisms, instead of
such
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
it, i.e., makes a and thus the conthought and what is perceived takes
the fact that the imagination
realises
it,
perceptible representative stand for

flict
between what is Indeed if we wish to understand place.

explicitly, it is possible to trace
this perfectly
everything ludicrous to
a syllogism in the
is
and an unexpected
with an undisputed major which to a certain extent minor, in only sophistically valid, consequence of which confirst figure,
nection the conclusion

ludicrous.
partakes of the quality of the
volume I regarded it as superfluous to illustheory 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 assistfirst
In the
trate this
ance of the mental inertness of those readers
who
prefer
always to remain in a passive condition, I will accommodate
272
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
VIII.
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
If
is
definitely solved.
consider that an angle requires two lines meeting that if so they are produced they will intersect each other;
we
on the other hand, that the tangent of a circle only 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,
touches
;
The ludicrousness in this weak but exceedingly yet the source of it in the of what is incongruity thought and perceived appears in it with exceptional distinctness. When we discover such
this will easily excite a smile.
is
;
case
an incongruity, the occasion

arises
for laughter that
thereby
is, according as we pass from the real, i.e., the to the conception, or conversely from the perceptible,
conception to the real, either a witticism or an absurdity, in a higher degree, and especially in the practical Now to sphere, is folly, as was explained in the text.
which
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 " If your Majesty had put on what I have, to the king :
and on being asked what you would find it very warm " he had put on, replied " My whole wardrobe Under
;
:
!
"
this last conception

devil, the sight of
we have
to think both the unlimited
wardrobe of a king and the single summer coat of a pooi which upon his freezing body shows its The audience in great incongruity with the conception. a theatre in Paris once called for the " Marseillaise" to be
played, and as this
was not done, began shrieking and
273
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 " Et vous, was in the playbill. Upon this a voice cried :
a hit which Monsieur, etes-voits aussi sur Vaffiche t was received with universal laughter. For here the sub-
"
sumption of what
unforced.
u
is
heterogeneous
:
is
at once distinct
and
The epigramme
is
Bav
Though
the true shepherd of whom the Bible spake : 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. " Here lies Analogous to this is the epitaph on a doctor " he like a hero, and those he has slain lie around him ; it
:
of
subsumes under the conception, honourable to the hero, " 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
to visit
answers his friends

"
:
him on the morrow
Ask
for
me
who promise 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. was strictly forbidden to imSoon afterwards he had to appear on the stage provise. 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 Don't you know we are forbidden to doing ? " ? Here the subsumption of the heterogeneous improvise
In the Berlin theatre he
:
vol.
II,
274
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
VIII.
under the more general conception is very distinct, but the witticism is exceedingly happy, and the ludicrous effect
To this class also it excessively strong. belongs the following announcement from Hall in a news" The band of Jewish swindlers to paper of March 185 1 :
produced by
which we have referred were again delivered over to us with obligate accompaniment." This subsuming of a a escort under musical term is very happy, though police it approaches the mere play upon words. On the other
hand,
it is
when
exactly a case of the kind we are considering Saphir, in a paper-war with the actor Angeli, de-
him as " Angeli, who is equally great in mind and body." The small statue of the actor was known to the
scribes
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 sesthetical reference. Also if to signify a brothel we should call it the " modest abode of quiet joys." Good society, in or. be thoroughly insipid, has forbidden all decided utter-
and therefore all strong expressions. Therefore it wont, when it has to signify scandalous or in any way indecent things, to mitigate or extenuate them bj
ances,
is
way
expressing them through general conceptions. But in thi' it happens that they are more or less incongruously
subsumed, and
the ludicrous
is
in a corresponding degree the effect produced. To this class belongs the us

"
and also such expression had unpleasantness at the ball when he was thrashed and kicked out or, " He has don too well" when he is drunk; and also, "The woman hf
of utile dulci referred to above,
:
as the following
He

weak moments
"
if
275
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
In this smooth-combed age it is altogether equivocation. 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
all
over into
mere puns, about which
that
is
pass 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 For example, one of the free contrary to our intention. who in North take pains to imitate the negroes America, whites in everything, quite recently placed an epitaph over his dead child which begins, " Lovely, early broken If, on the contrary, something real and perceptible lily."
is,
Df its
with direct intention, brought under the conception For opposite, the result is plain, common irony.
if
Bxample,
'
raining hard we say, Nice weather .ve are having to-day;" or if we say of an ugly bride, " That man has found a charming treasure ; or of a knave,
when
it is
"
This honest man," &c. &c.
Only children and quite un;
'ducated people will laugh at such things
for here the
ncongruity between
eived
is
what
total.
Yet just
is perin this direct exaggeration in
is
thought and what
be production of the ludicrous its fundamental character,
276
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
VIII.
This species of the incongruity, appears very distinctly. ludicrous is, on account of its exaggeration and distinct
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 insignifiintention, in
cant 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 bontade cavalieri antichi," &c, is put word for word into the mouth of two clowns who have just been thrashing each This other, and tired with this, lie quietly side by side.
;
also the nature of the application so popular in Germany of serious verses, especially of Schiller, to trivial
is
which clearly contains a subsumption of heterogeneous things under the general conception which th<
events,
Thus, for example, when any one has a characteristic trait, there will rarely b displayed very " to some one From that I know with whon wanting say,
verse expresses.
I
have to do."
man who was
But it was original and very witty of in love with a young bride to quote to tin
:
newly married couple (I know not how loudly) the con " " eluding words of Schiller's ballad, The Surety
" Let
me
be, I
pray you,
third."
In your bond the
The
effect of the ludicrous is here strong and inevitahl because under the conceptions through which Schill< presents to the mind a moral and noble relation, a fo
bidden and immoral relation
subsumed, and yet co rectly and without change, thus is thought through
is

In
all
277
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 Accordoriginal intention and tendency of the thought.
ingly wit, as a mental capacity, consists entirely in a facility for finding for every object that appears a concep-
under which it certainly can be thought, though it is very different from all the other objects which come under
tion
this conception.
The second species

to
of the ludicrous follows, as
we have
mentioned, the opposite path from the abstract conception

this
the real or perceptible things thought through it. But now brings to light any incongruity with the concep-
tion
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 essential to comedy. Upon this depends the observa" tion of Yoltaire Tai remarquer aux spectacles, qu'il
is
:
cm
tie
jamais de ces e'clats de rire universels, qu'a cCune m^prise" {Preface de Enfant Prodigue). The following may serve as examples of this species of the ludicrous. When some one had declared that he was fond
s'&tve presque
I'occasion
of
" You like walking alone, an Austrian said to him do therefore we alone so I can ; walking go together."
: :
Ee
starts
from the conception,
"
ove they can enjoy in common," t the very case which excludes
pleasure which two and subsumes under
he servant
)ox
who rubbed a worn
community. Further, sealskin in his master's
with Macassar oil, so that it might become covered nth hair again ; in doing which he started from the con" Macassar oil makes hair grow." The soldiers in eption,
he guard-room who allowed a prisoner who was brought 1 to join in their game of cards, then quarrelled with
im
for
ilves
They let themcheating, and turned him out. be led by the general conception, " Bad companions
278
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
VIII.
are turned out," and forget that he is also a prisoner, ijt^ Two young peasants one whom they ought to hold fast. 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

tion,
first."
He
starts
from the concep-
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 For example, in order to support the are very different.
oppressed he frees the galley slaves.
Properly all Miinchhausenisms are also of this nature, only they are not actions which are performed, but impossibilities, which arc
them the
passed off upon the hearer as having really happened. Ir fact is always so conceived that when it L
thought merely in the abstract, and therefore comparatively a priori, it appears possible and plausible ; bu
afterwards, if we come down to the perception of the parti cular case, thus a posteriori the impossibility of the thinr
indeed the absurdity of the assumption,
is
brought
iut
prominence, and excites laughter through the eviden incongruity of what is perceived and what is though For example, when the melodies frozen up in the posi horn are thawed in the warm room when Munchhausei h sitting upon a tree during a hard frost, draws up knife which has dropped to the ground by the frozen j< of his own water, &c. Such is also the story of the t* lions who broke down the partition between them durir the night and devoured each other in their rage, so that the morning there was nothing to be found but the tv
tails.
There are also cases of the ludicrous where the conce under which the perceptible facts are brought do not require to be expressed or signified, but comes in
tion
II
279
consciousness itself through the association of ideas. The into which Garrick in the burst middle of laughter playing
had taken
tragedy because a butcher in the front of the pit, who 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 This is the reason why certain animal his own mind.
forms, such as apes, kangaroos, jumping-hares, &c, sometimes appear to us ludicrous because something about
them resembling
man
leads us to
the conception of the human form, we perceive their incongruity with
subsume them under and starting from this

it.
the conceptions whose observed incongruity with the perceptions moves us to laughter are either those of
others or our own. in the
Now
In the
feel a
first
case
we laugh
at others,
second
we
the least amusing. people laugh at the

tunes,
if
surprise, often agreeable, at Therefore children and uneducated

trifling things,
most
even at misfor-
they were unexpected, and thus convicted their As a rule laughing is preconceived conception of error.
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 ap-
prehension 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
itself.
no confirmation from without, but answers for with what is thought springs ultimately from the fact that the latter, with its abstract conceptions, cannot get down to the infinite multifariousness and
Its conflict
ine shades of difference of the concrete.
This victory of
knowledge of perception over
thought affords us pleasure. ?or is the kind of knowledge inseparperception original
28o
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
VI IT.
able from animal nature, in which everything that gives It is the direct satisfaction to the will presents itself. medium of the present, of enjoyment and gaiety ; more-
With thinking the the second ; power of knowledge, opposite the exercise of which always demands some, and often Besides, it is the conceptions of considerable, exertion.
over
it is
attended with no exertion.

the case
it is
is
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 reIt must therefore be divertpentance, and all our cares. ing 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
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
man.
Yet
it
may
the very expressive, kindly, and thoroughly honest fawninc and wagging of its tail But how favourably does thi
him by nature compare with the bow? 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 seriousnesi
salutation given
Accordingly
it
consists in the consciousness of the perfec
agreement and congruity of the conception, or thoughl with what is perceived, or the reality. The serious mai is convinced that he thinks the things as they are, an
This is just why th that they are as he thinks them. transition from profound seriousness to laughter is so eas} and can be effected by trifles. For the more perfect ths
agreement assumed by seriousness
may seem
to be, th
more
easily is
it
destroyed by the unexpected discover

is
281
Therefore the move a man of even a slight incongruity. capable of entire seriousness, the more heartily can he
Men whose laughter is always affected and forced laugh. 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 serious-
ness 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 conFor the same reason, ceptions and the objective realities. " " " " is insulting. The the predicate ludicrous or absurd with to the baffled announces of scorn laugh triumph 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
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
of the truth
thoughts which, in our foolish confidence in man or fate, we entertained, and the truth which is now unveiled.
The intentionally ludicrous

to bring
is
the joke.
It is the effort
about a discrepancy between the conceptions of another and the reality by disarranging one of the two;
while
opposite, seriousness, consists in the exact conof the two to each other, which is at least aimed formity at. But if now the joke is concealed behind seriousits
ness,
then
seriousness
we have irony. For example, if with apparent 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
to Hippias, Protagoras, Gorgias,
the attitude of Socrates as opposed and other sophists, and
282
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
VIII.
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
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
is
the ancients, but those of

For,
humour among the moderns.
closely considered, humour depends upon a subjective, yet serious and sublime mood, which is involuntarily in conflict with a common external world
more
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 Hence the impression of realities thought through them.
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 " honourable lord, I will most Polonius :
"Hamlet"
humbly
take
My
my
me
leave of you. Hamlet: You cannot, sir, take from will that I more willingly part withal, except anything
life, except my life, except my life." Again, before the introduction of the play at court, Hamlet says to " What should a man do but be merry ? for, Ophelia :
my
look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and died within these two hours. Ophelia: Nay,
my
'tis
father
twice
let
two months, my lord. Hamlet : So long the devil wear black, for I'll have a
Nay, then
suit
of sablea"

"
283
Again, in Jean Paul's Titan," when Schoppe, melancholy and now brooding over himself, frequently looking at his
hands, says to himself, and I in him ; but
"
There
is
sits
who
such
a lord in bodily reality, " ? Heinrich Heine
" Behind appears as a true humourist in his JRomancero." and all his jokes drollery we discern a profound serious-
which is ashamed to appear unveiled. Accordingly humour depends upon a special kind of mood or temper (German, Zaune, probably from Luna) through which
ness,
conception in all its modifications, a decided predominance of the subjective over the objective in the appre-
hension 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

production
of
its
concealed background,
is
example,
is
humour, thus is humorous. Such, for a coloured drawing of Tischbein's, which
represents an empty room, lighted only by the blazing Before the fire stands a man with his fire in the grate.
such a position that his shadow, going out 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
coat
off,
in
from his
feet, stretches across
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 homorous is generally German literature in the sense of comical arises from the miserable desire to give things a more distinused in
284
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
VIII.
guished name than belongs to them, the that stands above them. Thus every inn
name
of a class
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

buffoonery, as
is
first
remarked by them.
title for all
But
it is
not
intended to be used as the
kinds of jokes and
now
without opposition from
universally the case in Germany, 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 Well, "high words and a low meaning" is in vulgar. the motto of the noble present, and accordingly general is called a humourist who was he now-a-days formerly
called a buffoon.
28s
CIIAPTEK
IX.*
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
of
they ought also to be taught rLogic as the technic our own thinking, Dialectic of disputing with others,
and Ehetoric of speaking to many (concionatio) ; thus corresponding to the singular, dual, and plural, and to the monologue, the dialogue, and the panegyric.
totle
Under Dialectic I understand, in agreement with Aris(Metaph., iii. 2, and Analyt. Post, i. 1 1), the art of conversation directed to the mutual investigation of truth, But a conversation of this especially philosophical truth. kind necessarily passes more or less into controversy;
therefore
dialectic
may
disputation.
in
We have
also be explained as the art of examples and patterns of dialectic
the Platonic dialogues ; but for the special theory of it, thus for the technical rules of disputation, eristics, very
little
Dut
in
has hitherto been accomplished. I have worked an attempt of the kind, and given an example of it, the second volume of the " Parerga," therefore I shall
pass over the exposition of this science altogether here.

the
In Ehetoric the rhetorical figures are very much what syllogistic figures are in Logic ; at all events they are
worth considering. In Aristotle's time they seem to have Qot yet become the object of theoretical investigation, for ae does not treat of them in any of his rhetorics, and in
1
-he first
This chapter and the one which follows volume.
it
are connected with
9 of
286
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
IX.
this reference we are referred to Eutilius 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

of them.
first
abstracted from this natural
Therefore, although they are of employment theoretical interest, they are of little practical use; great because, they certainly give the rule, they though partly do not give the case of its application ; partly because in
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 knowLogic will not ledge of this is interesting and important.
practice there
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
easily
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 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
and contradiction.
as both at once ; separated, but never are words brought together although
latter,
287
not be carried out.

is
these words assert a process of The consciousness of this infeasibility the feeling of contradiction. The second law of thought,
and therefore, even which express the thought which can-
the principle of sufficient reason, would affirm that the above attributing or denying must be determined by some-
thing different from the judgment itself, which may be a (pure or empirical) perception, or merely another judgThis other and different thing is then called the ment.
ground or reason of the judgment. satisfies the first law of thought, it

t satisfies
So
is
far as a
judgment
;
thinkable
so far as
the second, it is true, or at least in the case in ,vhich the ground of a judgment is only another judgment t is logically or formally true. But, finally, material or ibsolute truth is always the relation between a judgment
md
a perception, thus between the abstract and the conThis is either an immediate rete or perceptible idea.
brought about by means of other judgFrom this it is oents, i.e., through other abstract ideas. can that one truth never to overthrow see another, asy ut all must ultimately agree because in the concrete or
elation or it is
;
erceptible,
which
is
their
ction
jar
is
possible.
foundation, no contraTherefore no truth has anything to

Illusion
common
from other truths.
and
error
have to fear
very truth, because through the logical connection of all uths even the most distant must some time strike its
low at every error. This second law of thought is thereire the connecting link between logic and what is no
mger
le
logic, but the matter of thought. Consequently agreement of the conceptions, thus of the abstract iea with what is given in the perceptible idea, is, on
le
side of the object truth,
and on the side
of the subject
wwledge.
)heres referred to
To express the union or separation of two conceptabove is the work of the copula, " is -is not." Through this every verb can be expressed by
288
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
IX.
means
of its participle. Therefore all judging consists in the use of a verb, and vice versd. 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 But this is a principal theme of the professors of to.
philosophy of the present time. However, we must not be too strict with them; most of them wish to express
nothing but material things, the corporeal world, to which, as perfectly innocent realists at the bottom of their To speak, howhearts, they attribute the highest reality.
by
it
ever, of the bodies so directly appears to
them
too vulgar ;
and therefore they say u 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 t valuable possession of a language, and do not belong to al
" in equal numbers. Thus " zwar (the contracted " es is wahr ") seems to belong exclusively to the German Ian
It is always connected with an "aber" whicl guage. " " follows or is added in thought, as if is connected wit] " then."
The
logical rule that, as regards quantity, singular judg

is,
ments, that
(notio singularis) for their subject, are to
judgments which have a singular conceptio be treated a
universal judgments, depends upon the circumstance tha they are in fact universal judgments, which have merel
is a conception whic can only be supported by a single real object, and then fore only contains a single real object under it as whe
the peculiarity that their subject
denoted by a proper name. This, ho? ever, has really only to be considered when we procet from the abstract idea to the concrete or perceptible, thi
the conception
is
seek to realise the conceptions.
In thinking
itself,
289
operating with judgments, this makes no difference, simply because between singular and universal conceptions there
is
no logical difference.
"all
"
Immanuel Kant
"
signifies logi-
cally,
Immanuel Kant."
is
of
judgments
particular.
An
Accordingly the quantity universal and really only of two kinds individual idea cannot be the subject of a
it is
judgment, because
not an abstraction,
it is
not some-
Every concepthing thought, but something perceived. tion, on the other hand, is essentially universal, and every judgment must have a conception as its subject.
%ones particulares)
The difference between particular judgments (jproposiand universal judgments often depends the external on and contingent circumstance that nerely ;he language has no word to express by itself the part hat is here to be separated from the general conception vhich forms the subject of such a judgment If there vere such a word many a particular judgment would be miversaL For example, the particular judgment, " Some rees bear gall-nuts," becomes a universal judgment, be" ause for this part of the conception, tree," we have a " All oaks bear gall-nuts." In the same way pecial word,
3
the judgment,
"
"
Some men
are black," related to the
All negroes are black." Or else this differidgment, nce depends upon the fact that in the mind of him who
ldges the conception which he makes the subject of the articular judgment has not become clearly separated om the general conception as a part of which he defines
i
otherwise he could have expressed a universal instead
a particular judgment. For example, instead of the " Some ruminants have upper incisors," this, idgment, All unhorned ruminants have upper incisors."
The hypothetical and disjunctive judgments are assertions to the relation of two (in the case of the disjunctive dgment even several) categorical judgments to each other.
he hypothetical judgment asserts that the truth of the cond of the two categorical judgments here linked tosther
depends upon the truth of the

II.
first,
and
T
the,
VOt.
290
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER

upon the
IX.
falseuess of the
falseness of the first depends
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 The question is a judgment, one of whose three falseness.
thus either the copula, " Is Caius a parts is left open " Eoman or not ? or the predicate, " Is Caius a Roman " or the subject, " Is Caius a Roman or something else ?
:
some one else who is a Roman the conception which is left open may
or is it
The place of also remain quite

?
"
empty
Roman ?
for "
"
example,
What
is
Caius
"
?
"
Who
is
The eirayoyyr], inductio, is with Aristotle the opposite The latter proves a proposition to bt of the airarfdrfrj. false by showing that what would follow from it is not
true
thus by the instantia in contrarium. The eTrwyar/t) on the other hand, proves the truth of a proposition bj showing that what would follow from it is true. Thus i leads by means of examples to our accepting something
;
while the aira^tarp) leads to our rejecting it Therefor the ejrcvyaK/T), or induction, is an inference from the con
sequents to the reason, and indeed modo ponente ; for fror many cases it establishes the rule, from which these case
then in their turn follow. On this account it is neve perfectly certain, but at the most arrives at very gres
probability.
However,
this
leave
room
for material certainty
the sequences observed ; matics the irrational relations
formal uncertainty may yc through the number in the same way as in niathc
(
are brought infinite! near to rationality by means of decimal fractions. Ti aira<yQ>yr} on the contrary, is primarily an inference fro:
>
the reason to the consequents, though it is afterwan carried out modo tollente, in that it proves the no:
existence of a necessary consequent, and thereby destro;
the truth of the
291
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 proSo much easier is it to refute than to prove, to pounded.
jverthrow than to establish.
292
CHAPTER
X.
ON THE SYLLOGISM.
it is very hard to establish a new and correc view of a subject which for more than two thousam years has been handled by innumerable writers, ant
Although
which, moreover, does not receive additions through th growth of experience, yet this must not deter me fror
presenting to the thinker for examination the followin attempt of this kind.
An
inference
is
that operation of our reason
by
virtue
which, through the comparison of two judgments a thii judgment arises, without the assistance of any knowled^ otherwise obtained. The condition of this is that the.
two judgments have one conception in common, for othe wise they are foreign to each other and have no cor munity. But under this condition they become the fath
and mother
both.
of a child that contains in itself something Moreover, this operation is no arbitrary act, b an act of the reason, which, when it has considered su
judgments, performs it of itself according to its own la^ So far it is objective, not subjective, and therefore subj(
to the strictest rules.
We may ask in passing

sition,
ence really learns something
whether he who draws an infl new from the new pro]
something previously unknown to him ? absolutely but yet to a certain extent he does. W. he learns lay in what he knew thus he knew it also, he did not know that he knew it which is as if he thi a tni something, but did not know that he had it, and
;
:
1
1 I
ON THE SYLLOGISM.
just the
plicite,
293
same
as
if
he had
it
it
not.
;
He knew
now he knows
explicite
it only imbut this distinction
may be
new
so great that the conclusion appears to
him
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 conIt is therefore a means of becoming more diselusion.
tinctly
more
one's own knowledge, of learning or becoming aware of what one knows. The fully, knowledge which is afforded by the conclusion was latent,
conscious of
ind therefore
had just as
little
effect as latent heat
has
;
m the thermometer.
aut
it is
Whoever has
;
salt
has also chlorine
he had it not, for it can only act as chlorine f it is chemically evolved thus only, then, does he really It is the same with the gain which a mere Dossess it. jonclusion from already known premisses affords : a previas
if
These msly bound or latent knowledge is thereby set free. somparisons may indeed seem to be somewhat strained, but
r
)ossible
For because we draw many of the from our knowledge very soon, very inferences and without apidly, formality, and therefore have no disinct recollection of them, it seems to us as if no premisses or possible conclusions remained long stored up unused, >ut as if we had also conclusions already prepared for all
et
they really are not.
he premisses within reach of our knowledge. But this is ot always the case ; on the two contrary, premisses may ave for a long time an isolated existence in the same mind,
ill
at last
some occasion brings them
ae conclusion
le steel
and
together, and then as the suddenly appears, spark comes from the stone only when they are struck together,
n reality the premisses assumed from without, both for heoretical insight and for motives, which bring about reolves, often lie for
a long time in us, and become, partly
294
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
X.
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 imme-
diately 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
cannot comprehend
how we and
were an inspiration for we 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 spon-
taneously 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 oi the word come together in their order and the lock opens
;
For the
consists
remember that the syllogisn itself, and the word.' and propositions through which it is expressed onlj
rest,
we must
also
in
the process of thought

it
indicate the traces
has
left
behind
it
they are
relatec
to it as the sound-figures of sand are related to the note:
whose vibrations they express. When we reflect upoi something, we collect our data, reduce them to judgments which are all quickly brought together and compared, an< thereby the conclusions which it is possible to draw froc them are instantly arrived at by means of the use of al the three syllogistic figures. Yet on account of the grea rapidity of this operation only a few words are used, an sometimes none at all, and only the conclusion is formall Thus it sometimes happens that because i expressed.
way, or even merely intuitively, i.e., by a happ appergu, we have brought some new truth to consciousnes
this
we now
that
is,
treat it as a conclusion
and seek premisses

for as a rule
for
we
desire to prove
it,
knowledg
ON THE SYLLOGISM.
exists earlier
295
than its proofs. We then go through our 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
stock of
to rule. On the other hand, every judicial proceeding affords a most complete and imposing sylloin the first figure. The civil or criminal gism, a syllogism
according
transgression complained of
is
the minor;
it is
established
The law applicable to the case is the The judgment is the conclusion, which therefore, major. as something necessary, is "merely recognised" by the
by the prosecutor.
judge.
But now I
correct exposition of the peculiar
shall attempt to give the simplest and most mechanism of inference.
of
Judging, this elementary and most important process thought, consists in the comparison of two concep;
Yet inference in the comparison of two judgments. in inference is text-books also referred to ordinarily
tions
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 iffords opportunity for the perceptible demonstration of
syllogistic relations
1
by means of drawn concept-spheres, of by me in the text, it has the idvantage of making the matter easily comprehensible. But it seems to me that here, as in so many cases, commethod approved
prehensibility is attained at the cost of thoroughness. The real process of thought in inference, with which the
:hree syllogistic figures
.3
and their necessity precisely agree, not thus recognised. In inference we operate not with nere conceptions but with whole judgments, to which piality, which lies only in the copula and not in the
quantity are absolutely essential, That further to add modality. of of three as a inference relation exposition conceptions
3onceptions, also
and
ind
indeed
we have
496
fails in this,
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER

that
it
X.
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
an error analogous to that which organic would commit if, for example, in the analysis chemistry of plants it were at once to reduce them to their ultimate
thus
falls into
when it would find in all plants carbon, hydroand oxygen, but would lose the specific differences, to gen, obtain which it is necessary to stop at their more special elements, the so-called alkaloids, and to take care to
elements,
tions
analyse these in their turn. From three given concepno 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 Hie 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
The process essentially a comparison of two judgments. of thought in our mind is concerned with these and the
thoughts expressed by them, not merely with three conThis is the case even when this process is ceptions. 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.
in the exposition of syllogistic reasoning by means of concept-spheres these are presented to the mind under
As
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
ON THE SYLLOGISM.
Since
297
contains its subject and its these two conceptions are to be imagined as predicate, The two judgments situated at the two ends of each rod.
now every premiss
are
now compared with

them;
for,
reference
to the
two
different
conceptions in
third conception must fore subject to no comparison, but is that vnth which, that
is,
as has already been said, the be the same in both, and is there-
in reference to which, the other
two are compared
it
is
the middle.
The
latter is acC3rdingly
always only the
means and not the chief concern. The two different conceptions, on the other hand, are the subject of reflection,
and
the
to find out their relation to
each other by means of

is
judgments in which they are contained
the aim of
Therefore the conclusion speaks only of the syllogism. them, not of the middle, which was only a means, a
measuring rod, which we let fall as soon as it has served Now if this conception which is identical in both its end. propositions, thus the middle, is the subject of one premiss, the conception to be
predicate,
'priori
and conversely.
compared with it must be the Here at once is established a
one premiss
the possibility of three cases ; either the subject of is compared with the predicate of the other,
one with the subject of the other, the or, finally, predicate of the one with the predicate of the other. Hence arise the three syllogistic figures of
or the subject of the
Aristotle
the fourth, which was added somewhat imIt is attripertinently, is ungenuine and a spurious form.
;
buted to Galenus, but this rests only on Arabian authority. Each of the three figures exhibits a perfectly different, correct,
If in
and natural thought-process of the reason in inference. the two judgments to be compared the relation be-
is
tween the predicate of the one and the subject of the otlier 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
298
FIRST BOOK
its roll
CHAPTER
X.
change
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
case, the converse holds for the
same
reason.
the negative Thus here a
property
is
attributed to the things thought through a con-
it depends upon another property which Therefore already know they possess or conversely. here the guiding principle is : Nbta notce est nota rei ipsius,
ception, because
we
et
repugnans notce repugned 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
both judgments.
the relation of
their predicate. This will accordingly and must therefore be the same in be here the middle,
Hence
arises the second figure.
In
it
two subjects to each other is determined which they have as their common predicate. But by that relation can this only have significance if the same predito the one subject and denied of the is attributed cate an essential ground of distincbecomes thus it for other, For if it were attributed to both tion between the two.
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
this follows the
the predicate were denied of both the subjects. fundamental characteristic of the
From
s
ON THE SYLLOGISM
figure,
299
that the premisses must be of opposite quality ; the Therefore here the one must affirm and the other deny. the is Sit rule altera corollary of which negans ; principal
:
is
E meris ajjirmativis nihil sequiter;
a rule which
is
some-
times transgressed in a loose argument obscured by many The course of thought which parenthetical propositions.
this figure exhibits distinctly
said.
appears from what has been
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
assumes the second figure of

presses itself
That this course of thought its own accord, and exclearly only in it, will be shown by an
lacks.
example
All fishes have cold blood ;
No whale
In the
first
has cold blood
hibits itself
Thus no whale is a fish. figure, on the other hand, this thought exin 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
Jew
:
Some Turks are Jews Therefore some Turks

As the guiding
give, for
are not
Mohamedans.
figure I therefore
principle for this
the negative minor : Gui repugned nota, etiam repugned notatum; and for the mood with the affirmative minor Notato repugnat id cui nota repugnat.
the
:
mood with
may be thus combined Two subjects which stand in opposite relations to one predicate have a negative relation to each other.
Translated these
:
The
third case is that in
which we place two judgments
300
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
X.
together in order to investigate the relation of their predicates. Hence arises the third Jlgure,in which accordingly the
middle appears in both premisses as the subject It here the tertium corrvparationis, the measure which
is also
is apto to the which are be both plied conceptions investigated, or, as it were, a chemical reagent, with which we test
it what between themselves. Thus, then, the conclusion declares whether a relation of subject and predicate exists between the two, and to what extent this is
them both
in order to learn from their relation to
relation exists
the case.
is
Accordingly, what exhibits
itself in this figure
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
to the
this it
same
both properties belong thing, consequently their compatibility, or else

results either that
that a thing has the one but not the other, consequently their separableness. The former in all moods with two
negative
affirmative premisses, the latter in all for example ;

:
moods with one
Some brutes can speak ; All brutes are irrational
Therefore some irrational beings can speak.
According to Kant {Die Falscke SpUzfinigkeit, 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
which
is
beings that can speak are brute?," clearly not the natural course of thought;
in-
deed 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
ON THE SYLLOGISM.
third figure gives of itself,
of
301
and
at
which the whole course

:
thought has aimed. Let us take another example All alkalis float in water
;
All alkalis are metals Therefore some metals
float in water.
When
must be converted,
alkalis."
this is transposed into the first figure the " and
minor
are
lie
thus runs
Some metals
some metals
It therefore
merely
asserts that
in the
"
sphere
alkalis,"
thus Wikan.U
(QQ,
ileum
while our
actual
knowledge
is
that all alkalis

N.
lie
in the
sphere
/
"metals," thus:
(
Metal*.
^-v
It follows that
if
the
first
figure is to
to think naturally
be regarded as the only normal one, in order 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.
consider another example of the other class of the third figure, in which the separableness of two
Let us
now
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
cided
by comparing them with one
must be desubject and showing

also
302
FIRST BOOK.
them
is
CHAPTER
it
X.
other.
that one of
present in
without the
Thus
the end
is
figure it to reduce the syllogism to the first figure we must convert " the minor, and therefore say : Some rational beings are
directly attained, while by means of the first could only be attained indirectly. For in order
Buddhists," which would be only a faulty expression of

its
meaning, which really
is:
"Some Buddhists
are yet
certainly rational."
the guiding principle of this figure I therefore give : affirmative moods: Ejusdem rei notce, modo sit the for
altera universalis, sibi invicem sunt notce particulares ; and for the negative moods: Nota rei competens, notce eidem
As
repugnanti, particulariter repugnat, modo sit altera univerTranslated If two predicates are affirmed of one salis.
:
them universally, they are subject, also affirmed of each other particularly ; and, on the contrary, they are denied of each other particularly whenand
at least one of
contradicts the subject of which the affirmed; provided always that either the contradiction or the affirmation be universal.
ever one of
other
is
them
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
means
wilfully turned upside down, and by no the expression of a real process of thought natural
first,
first three figures are the ectypes essentially different operations of thought this in common, that they consist in the com-
to the reason.
On
the other hand, the
of three real
and
They have
parison 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
ON THE SYLLOGISM.
303
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,
the one
and the predicate
with reference to the subject of 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,
are parts of
and conceptions only because they judgments. In the comparison of two judg-
ments, 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 the latter consists of are different in the two judgments
;
the middle, that

both.
It is
the conception which is identical in therefore not the right point of view which
is,
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.
its
On
position
the contrary, its roll is only secondary, and a consequence of the logical value of the
conceptions which are really to be compared in the syllo-
These may be compared to two substances which gism. 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
its
of its relation to both the
conceptions and
take up.
suitableness for the place it has to Therefore in many cases we can change it at
pleasure for another without affecting the syllogism. example, in the syllogism :
For
All
men
is
are mortal
Caius
man
304
I can
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
"
X.
" man for " animal exist* exchange the middle : the In ence." syllogism All diamonds are stones ; All diamonds are combustible : " diamond " for " anthracite * I can exchange the middle As an external mark by which we can recognise at once the figure of a syllogism the middle is certainly very But as the fundamental characteristic of a thing useful. 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;
negative, nor both partiin which in the case the conceptions to ; lastly, be compared are the subjects of both, they must not both be affirmative.
further, they
must not both be
cular
and
The voltaic pile may be regarded as a sensible image of the syllogism. Its point of indifference, at the centre, which holds together the two prethe middle, represents misses, and by virtue of which they have the power of The two different conceptions, on yielding a conclusion. 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
of the
two conducting wires, which represent the copulas two judgments, is the spark emitted upon their
the
contact
new
light of the conclusion.
II
305
CHAPTER XL1
ON BHETORIO.
Eloquence
is the faculty of awakening in others our /iew of a thing, or our opinion about it, of kindling in ;hem our feeling concerning it, and thus putting them
n sympathy with us. And all this by conducting the tream of our thought into their minds, through the
aedium of words, with such force as to carry their hought from the direction it has already taken, and weep it along with ours in its course. The more their revious course of thought differs from ours, the greater this achievement. From this it is easily understood
i
ow personal conviction and passion make a man elouent; and in general, eloquence is more the gift of ature than the work of art; yet here, also, art will
lpport nature. In order to convince another of a truth
ith
which
conflicts
an error he firmly holds, the first rule to be observed, an easy and natural one let the premisses come first, and
:
e conclusion follow.
it
Yet
this rule is
seldom observed,
reversed; for zeal, eagerness, and dogmatic positive's urge us to proclaim the conclusion loudly and noisily
;ainst
akes
him who adheres to the opposed error. This easily him shy, and now he opposes his will to all reasons d premisses, knowing already to what conclusion they
Therefore
ad.
rather to keep the conclusion and (mpletely concealed, only advance the premisses
This chapter
is
we ought
connected with the conclusion of
9 of the
first
volume.
VOL. IL
306
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XI.
distinctly, fully, and in different lights. Indeed, if possibl we ought not to express the conclusion at all. It
necessarily and regularly of its own accord into the reason of the hearers, and the conviction thus born in
come
themselves will be
all
the more genuine, and will also
be accompanied by self-esteem instead of shame. Id difficult cases we may even assume the air of desiring tc
arrive at a quite opposite conclusion from that which we example of this is the famous really have in view.
An
speech of
Antony
in Shakspeare's
"
Julius Caesar."
In defending a thing many persons err by confident!} advancing everything imaginable that can be said for it mixing up together what is true, half true, and merel; But the false is soon recognised, or at any rat plausible.
and throws suspicion also upon the cogent and tru arguments which were brought forward along with i Give then the true and weighty pure and alone, beware of defending a truth with inadequate, and there
felt,
fore, since
they are set up as adequate, sophistical reasons
these, and thereby gains tl appearance of having upset the truth itself which supported by them, that is, he makes argumenta c hominem hold good as argumenta ad rem. The Chine for
the opponent upsets
m
tl
go, perhaps,
too far the other way, for they have

is
saying:
may who
eloquent and has a sharp tongi always leave half of a sentence unspoken and has right on his side may confidently yield thre
)
"He who
tenths of his assertion."
307
CHAPTER
XII.1
OK THE DOCTRINE OF SCIENCE.

^ROM the analysis of the different functions of our intellect iven in the whole of the preceding chapters, it is clear
hat for a correct use of
ractical reference,
[.)
it,
either in a theoretical or a
the following conditions are
demanded
The
sal
correct apprehension through perception of the things taken into consideration, and of all their
>sential properties
and
relations, thus of all data.
(2.)
he construction of correct conceptions out of these ; thus e connotation of those properties under correct abstrac-
ms, which
inking.
.th
now become
the material of the subsequent
the
(3.) The comparison of those conceptions both perceived object and among themselves, and
th the rest of our store of conceptions, so that correct jlgments, pertinent to the matter in hand, and fully
cnprehending and exhausting

tis
it,
may proceed from them;
the right estimation of the matter. (4.) The placing t;ether or combination of those judgments as the premisses
syllogisms.
H
y>
to the choice
may be done very differently accordand arrangement of the judgments, and the actual result of the whole operation primarily
This
d>ends
tit
upon
it.
from among so
What is really of importance here is many possible combinations of those
A'erent
fr$
deliberation should hit
sire
judgments which have to do with the matter upon the very ones which the purpose and are decisive. But if in the first
is,
action, that
1
in the apprehension through perception

is
This chapter
connected with
14 of the
first
volume.
308
of the things
FIRST BOOK.
and
relations,
CHAPTER
any
XII.
hi
single essential point
been overlooked, the correctness of all the succee operations of the mind cannot prevent the result fro:
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
real ;
conception is correct ; a judgment is true.; a body if and a relation is evident. proposition of immedi-
ate certainty is an axiom. Only the fundamental principle of logic, and those of mathematics drawn a priori from in
and finally also the law of causality have immediate certainty. A proposition of indirec is a and that maxim, by means of which i certainty obtains its certainty is the proof. If immediate certaint is attributed to a proposition which has no such certaint} A proposition which appea this is a petitio principii. the to directly empirical perception is an assertion: confront it with such perception demands judgmeD Empirical perception can primarily afford us only pa ticular, not universal truths. Through manifold repetitic and confirmation such truths indeed obtain a certain ur versality also, but it is only comparative and prec But if rious, because it is still always open to attack. proposition has absolute universality, the perception which it appeals is not empirical but a priori. Th Logic and Mathematics alone are absolutely certs sciences but they really teach us only what we alrea knew beforehand. For they are merely explanations that of which we are conscious a priori, the forms of c own knowledge, the one being concerned with the for
tuition or perception,
t
of thinking, the other with those of perceiving. Theref we spin them entirely out of ourselves. All other sci
tific
knowledge
is
empirical.
J proves too much if it extends to things or cf of which that which is to be proved clearly does not 1 J
A proof
j
good
therefore
it is
refuted apagogically by these.
ON THE DOCTRINE OF SCIENCE.

deductio
309
ad absurdum properly
consists in this, that
we
take a false assertion which has been
made
proposition of a syllogism, then add to it and arrive at a conclusion which clearly contradicts facts
of
as the major a correct minor,
But by some experience or unquestionable truths. round-about way such a refutation must be possible of
svery false doctrine.
For the defender of this will yet and admit some truth or other, and 3ertainly recognise :hen the consequences of this, and on the other hand ;hose of the false assertion, must be followed out until ye arrive at two propositions which directly contradict
jach other.
We
find
many examples
in Plato of
this
)eautiful artifice of
A correct
genuine dialectic. hypothesis is nothing more than the true and
jomplete expression of the present fact, which the origilator of the hypothesis has intuitively apprehended in For it tells us only ts real nature and inner connection.
vhat really takes place here.
The opposition of the analytical and

ve find
synthetical
methods
already indicated by Aristotle, yet perhaps first istinctly described by Proclus, who says quite correctly
:
MeOohoi 8e irapaBiBovrac' KaWiarrj

.uo-ea>? eir'
fiev
f)
Sta T17? avat^qrovfievov
ap^rjv ofxoXoyovfievrjv
avayovaa to
AaoSafxavTi irapeBcoKev. k. t. X." Methodi traduntur sequentes : pulcherrima quidem ea, quce
analysin qucesitum refert ad principium, de quo jam mvenit ; quam, etiam Plato Laodamanti tradidisse dicitur.) In Primum Euclidis Librum" L. iii. Certainly the anaer
v Kai IIXaTcov, to? <pa<ri,
meal method consists in referring what is given to an imitted principle ; the synthetical method, on the conary, in deduction from such a principle. They are there>re analogous to the eTrar/ayyr) and a7rajy(oyr) explained chapter ix. ; only the latter are not used to establish The analyrepositions, but always to overthrow them. eal method proceeds from the facts the particular, to the the universal, or from the consequents inciple or rule the reasons ; the other Therefore it would conversely.
1
3io
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
them
XII.
be
much more
correct to call
the inductive
and
the
deductive methods, for the customary

fully express the things. If a philosopher tries to begin methods in accordance with which
names
are unsuitable
and do not
by thinking out
the
he will philosophise, he is like a poet who first writes a system of aesthetics in order to poetise in accordance with it. Both of them may
be compared to a
man who
it.
first
sings himself a tune and
The thinkiug mind must find its way from original tendency. Eule and application, method and achievement, must, like matter and form, be inseparable. But after we have reached the goal we
afterwards dances to
consider the path we have followed. ./Esthetics 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
may
thought.
This
is
means
of
a fitting place to make, in passing, a remark by which I should like to check a growing evi]
is
while there
yet time.
all
is
That Latin has ceased

investigations has
to be the
language of
scientific
the disad-
vantage that there

literatures.
scientific literature for the
no longer an immediately commor whole of Europe, but nationa
And thus every scholar is primarily limitei smaller public, and moreover to a public ham pered with national points of view and prejudices. Thei he must now learn the four principal European languages
to a
much
two ancient languages. In this it will be assistance to him that the termini technici of al great sciences (with the exception of mineralogy) are, as an in
as well as the
heritance from our predecessors, Latin or Greek. Therefoi all nations wisely retain these. Only the Germans hav
hit
upon the unfortunate idea
the termini technici of all the sciences.
of wishing to Germanis This has tw
First, the foreign and also the Ge great disadvantages. man scholar is obliged to learn all the technical tern
of his
science twice, which,
when
there are
many
II

example,
311
an incredibly tiresome and in Anatomy is If the other nations were not in this lengthy business. respect wiser than the Germans, we would have the
trouble of learning
If
every terminus technieus

this further, foreign
;
five
times.
the
Germans carry
men
leave their books altogether unread fault they are for the most part too diffuse,
will
of learning for besides this
and are writ-
;en in
*tyle,
a careless, bad, and often affected and objectionable and besides are generally conceived with a rude
iisregard of the reader
and his requirements. Secondly, hose Germanised forms of the termini technici are almost
.hroughout long, patched-up, stupidly chosen, awkward, arring words, not clearly separated from the rest of the
anguage, which therefore impress themselves with diffiulty upon the memory, while the Greek and Latin extressions
if
chosen by the ancient and memorable founders

the opposite good and easily impress themselves on the memory sonorous sound. What an ugly, harsh-sound-
the sciences possess the whole of

their
qualities,
>y
" ug word, for instance, is Stickstoff" instead of azot ! " " substantiv" Verbum," adjectiv," are remembered and " Zeitwort" " Nenntvort," istinguished more easily than " " instead of "adverUmstandswort Beiwort," or even
ium."
In Anatomy
it is
quite unsupportable, and more"
ver vulgar
re
and low.
Even
Pulsader
"
and
"
Blutader
" "
more exposed to momentary confusion than " Arterie " nd " Vene ; but utterly bewildering are such expressions " " " " 3 inFruchtleiter Fruchthdlter," Fruchtgang," and " " " ;ead of and which tuba uterus," vagina," yet Faloppii," very doctor must know, and which he will find sufficient " I all European languages. In the same way "Speiche and " " " " instead of radius and ulna," which Elleribogenrohre II for thousands of years. Wherehas understood Europe >re then this clumsy, confusing, drawling, and awkward
Not less objectionable is the translation the technical terms in Logic, in which our gifted profes)rs of philosophy are the creators of a new terminology,
ermanising?
312
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XII.
and almost every one
of them has his own. "Wit G. E. Schulze, for example, the subject is called " Gtwi " " then there hegriff" the predicate Beilegungsbegriff ; "
"
VoraussetzungsscMilsse," and "Bntge" " the BeGrosse," gensetzungsschliisse ; judgments have " " and Verhaltniss" schaffenJieit," Zuverldssigkeit" ijt.,
Beilegungsschlusse,"
"
quantity, quality, relation, and modality. verse influence of this Germanising mania
in all the sciences.
The same
is
perto be found
The Latin and Greek expressions have the further advantage that they stamp the scientific conception as such, and distinguish it from the words oi
common
intercourse,
;
and the ideas which cling
" through association while, for example, Speisebrei instead of chyme seems to refer to the food of little children
to then: "
and
"
"
Lungensack
instead of pleura, and
"
Herzbeutel
'
instead of pericardium seem to have been invented 03 butchers rather than anatomists. Besides this, the mos
immediate necessity of learning the ancient languages de pends upon the old termini technici, and they are mort and more in danger of being neglected through the use But if it come living languages in learned investigations. to this, if the spirit of the ancients bound up with thei languages disappears from a liberal education, then coarse ness, insipidity, and vulgarity will take possession of th whole of literature. For the works of the ancients ar
the pole-star of every artistic or literary effort ; if it set they are lost. Even now we can observe from the misei
able
and puerile style
never written Latin. 1

is it
of most The study
writers that
they hav
of the classical authoi
very properly called the study of Humanity, for throug the student first becomes a man again, for he entei
1 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 al-
Therefore
we ought to pursue tl study of the ancients all our lif although reducing the time devot*
it.
to
The
ancients
knew
that
most all moderns is verbosity, which the most recent try to make up for by suppressing syllables and letters,
ought not to write as we spea The moderns, on the other ban are not even ashamed to print le tures they have delivered.

into the
of the
313
world which was still free from all the absurdities 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 Eomans, born freemen, unfettered sons of
Ye are first the sons and heirs of the barbarous nature. 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 Without the school of the ancients on your own feet.
your literature will degenerate into vulgar gossip and dull Thus for all these reasons it is my wellphilistinism.
intended
that an end be put mania condemned above. Germanising
counsel
at
once to the
I shall further
the disorder
into
which
take the opportunity of denouncing here for some years has been introduced
in an unprecedented manner. every species have heard something of conciseness of expression, but do not know that this consists in the careful omission of everything superScribblers
of fluous (to
German orthography
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 " true with Beweis" and " Veriveis;" tact, said ancestors, " but, on the other hand, Nachweisung." The fine distinc" Versuch" and " Versuanalogous to that between " chung," "Betracht and "Betrachtung" is not perceptible to dull ears and thick skulls therefore they have invented
tion
the
Nachweis," which has come at once into general use, for this only requires that an idea should be and a blunder very gross. Accordawkward thoroughly
word
"
ingly a similar
amputation has already been proposed in
in-
SH
is
FIRST BOOK.
;
CHAPTER
XII.
" n
numerable words
written
"
Untersuch ; nay, even instead of allmalig,' " instead of ;" "beinahe," "nahe;" instead of bemalig " If a Frenchman took upon himself stdndig," stdndig."
"
for example, instead of "
Untersitchung
"
wrote
at
to write "prbs " "
"
instead of "presque," or
"
if
an Englishman
most
instead of
as fools
by every one
almost," they would be laughed but in Germany whoever does
this sort of thing passes for a " " "
man of
already write
loslich
and
unloslich
originality. "
Chemists
"
instead of
unauf-
the grammarians do not rap them over the knuckles they will rob the language of a valuable
loslich"
if
and
word.
Knots, shoe-strings, and also conglomerates

is
of
which the cement
and all analogous things " " " are loslich (can be loosed) but what is aujloslich" on the other is vanishes in a whatever hand, (soluble),
softened,
;
liquid, like salt in water.
"
"
Auflosen
this
(to dissolve) is the
terminus ad
else, marking but our acute improvers of the language wish to empty it into the general rinsing-pan
hoc,
which says
;
and nothing
out a definite conception

"
losen
"
(to loosen)
"
they would therefore in consistency be

"
obliged to make losen also take the place everywhere of "ablasen" (to relieve, used of guards), "auslosen" (to " einlosen" (to redeem), &c, and in these, as in release),
the former case, deprive the language of definiteness of But to make the language poorer by a word expression.
means
of
to
make
Yet
all
conception.
the thought of the nation poorer by a this is the tendency of the united efforts
almost
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
is capable of no new thoughts will at least bring new words to market, and every ink-slinger regards it as his
who
vocation to improve the language.
Journalists practise

this
315
most shamelessly ; and since their papers, on account have the largest a indeed which for the most part reads public public, a threatens the language great danger nothing else,
of the trivial nature of their contents,
I therefore seriously advise that they through them. 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
from that of to-day; Montaigne is and so also is Shakspeare in his quite readable, 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
differs
still
only in
trifles
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
make
of omitting a couple of logical particles they 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
spare.
tots,
and not the reader's time that they care to
In proper names, after the manner of Hottenthey do not indicate the case either by inflection or article But they are specially the reader may guess it.
:
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 rj and to
316
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
XII.
from Greek, and make e and o take their place. Whoever writes Scham, Marchen, 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
;
and all prosody will be lost. The " " " LUeratur instead of the correct " LUteratur spelling is also very much liked, because it saves a letter. In defence of this the participle of the verb linere is given
noise of consonants,
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 " LUteratur from a very extensive " LUeratur." In order to write concisely let a
"
man improve
chatter,
and then he
his style and shun all useless gossip and will not need to cut out syllables
of paper. But useless pages, useless sheets, useless to want to make up this waste of
and
letters
on account of the dearness
to write so
many
and then time and paper at the cost

books,
letters
of the innocent syllables and
truly the superlative of what is called It is to in English being penny wise and pound foolish. be regretted that there is no German Academy to take
that
is
charge of the language
against literary sans-culottism, in an when even those who are ignorant especially age of the ancient language venture to employ the press.
mind more fully on the whole subI have expressed ject of the inexcusable mischief being done at the present "Parerga," voL ii. day to the German language in
my
my
chap. 23.
In my essay on the principle of sufficient reas< n, 51, I already proposed a first classification of the scien< accordance with the form of the principle of sufficient
reason which reigns in
it
I
them ; and I also touched upon 7 and 1 5 of the first volume of this work. will give here a small attempt at such a classification,
again in
317
which will yet no doubt be susceptible of much improvement and perfecting

:
L Pure a priori
1.
Sciences.
The doctrine
(a.)
(&.)
of the ground of being. In space Geometry. In time Arithmetic and Algebra.

:
The doctrine of the ground of knowing Logic. All based upon II. Empirical or a posteriori Sciences. the ground of becoming, i.e., the law of causalty, and upon the three modes of that law. 1. The doctrine of causes.
2.
:
(a.)
Universal
Mechanics,
Hydrodynamics,
(6.)
Physics, Chemistry. Particular Astronomy, Mineralogy, Geo:
2.
The doctrine of
(a.)
logy, Technology, stimuli.

:
Pharmacy.
Universal
Physiology of plants and animals, together with the ancillary

science,
Anatomy.
(5.)
Particular:
Botany, Zoology, Zootomy, Comparative Physiology, Pathology,

Therapeutics. of motives.
:
3.
The doctrine
(a.)
(b.)
Universal
Particular
Ethics, Psychology.
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 It is to be regarded as the thorough itself as its object.
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
318
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
XII.
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 ; of the philosophy of botany, of zoof &c. history, By this we must reasonably underology,
and therefore we speak
stand 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
that
science.
is
possible within
These general results connect themselves with directly general philosophy, for they supply it with and relieve it from the labour of seeking data, important these itself in the philosophically raw material of the These special philosophies therefore special sciences. 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 Therefore it does not need to wait till that science itself.
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 Goethe has afforded a beautiful example of truths. 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

sciences
of
for
animal forms.
their
own
Empirical pursued purely sake and without philosophical tendency are

like a face
319
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 and a third only chains. The philosopher, on springs, the other hand, is like the watchmaker, who alone produces a whole out of all these which has motion and They may also be compared to the musisignificance. cians 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 Soupientia. The same distinction was already made by the Pythagoreans; as may be seen from Stobseus (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
it
whom
;
it
belongs.
Diogenes Laertius
tit. iv.
(ii.
to Aristippus, Stobseus (Floril.,
79) attributes no) to Aristo of

it
Chios
the Scholiast of Aristotle ascribes
to
him
(p.
8 of
the Berlin edition), but Plutarch (Be Puer. Educ., c. 10) " attributes it to Bio Qui ajebai, sicut Penelopes proci,
320
FIRST BOOK.
possent
;
CHAPTER
XII.
quum non
cum
Penelope concumbere, rem
cum
ejus
ancillis habuissent
ita qui philosophiam nequeunt appre-
hendere eos in alliis nullius pretii diciplinis sese conterere." In our predominantly empirical and historical age it can
do no harm
to recall this.
321
CHAPTER
XIII. 1
ON THE METHODS OF MATHEMATICS.

Euclid's
ts
method of demonstration has brought forth from own womb its most striking parody and caricature in
he famous controversy on the theory of parallels, and he attempts, which are repeated every year, to prove the Seventh axiom. This axiom asserts, and indeed supports
ts
assertion
acting line,
for
that
that is
if
ngles")
'hich is
by the indirect evidence of a third intertwo lines inclining towards each other just the meaning of "less than two right produced far enough must meet a truth
self-
supposed to be too complicated to pass as
vident,
and therefore requires a demonstration.
Such a
emonstration, however, cannot be produced, just because lere is nothing that is not immediate. This scruple of
mscience reminds
of Schiller's question of law : nose for smelling. Have I, " Indeed ten, actually a right to it that can be proved ? seems to me that the logical method is hereby reduced
me
"For years
have used
my
)out this,
Yet it is just through the controversies together with the vain attempts to prove what directly certain as merely indirectly certain, that the lf-sufficingness and clearness of intuitive evidence apabsurdity.
ars in
îcal
contrast with the uselessness
and
difficulty of
proof
a contrast which
direct certainty
it is
is
is
no
less instructive
than
nusing.
Ire,
13
The
not allowed to be valid
because
no mere
logical certainty following
from
conceptions, thus resting only upon the relation of the

1
This chapter
is
connected with
5 of the first
volume.
VOL. H.
322
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER
XIII.
predicate to the subject, according to That axiom, however, contradiction.
is
the principle a synthetica

o
proposition
priori,
and as such has the guarantee

is
pure, not empirical, perception, which
just as immediat and certain as the principle of contradiction itself, fror which all demonstrations first derive their certainty
and
Ultimately this holds good of every geometrical theoren it is quite arbitrary where we draw the line betwee
is
what
strated.
directly certain and what has first to be demor It surprises me that the eighth axiom is nc
rather attacked.
"Figures which coincide with eac
other are equal to each other." For " coinciding wit each other" is either a mere tautology or somethir purely empirical which does not belong to pure percei
tion but to external sensuous experience. It presupposthat the figures may be moved ; but only matter is mo able in space. Therefore this appeal to coincidence leav
-
pure space the one element of geometry in order pass over to what is material and empirical. The reputed motto of the Platonic lecture-room, " Aye
ewtro)," of which mathematicians are no doubt inspired by the fact tb.at Plato proud, was
fieTpijTos
/j.7]Si<;
i
garded the geometrical figures as intermediate existenc between the eternal Ideas and particular things,
Aristotle frequently mentions in his
cially
i.
c.
6,
p.
887, 998,
et
Scholia, p. 827, ed.
"Metaphysics" (esj Ben
Moreover, the
eternal
opposition between those self-exist* or forms, Ideas, and the transitory individi. most was things, easily made comprehensible in geomei cal figures, and thereby laid the foundation of the d
the central point of the philosor of Plato, and indeed his only serious and decided th
trine of Ideas,
is
which
'
1 dogma. In expounding it, therefore, he started fr i he the that In same are told sense we regar< geometry. a geometry as a preliminary exercise through which
retical
mind
of the pupil
accustomed
itself to
deal with incoi
real objects, having hitherto in practical life
had
ON THE METHODS OF MATHEMATICS.
323
do with corporeal things (Schol. inAristot., p. 12, 15). This, then, is the sense in which Plato recommended geometry
philosopher ; and therefore one is not justified in I rather recommend, as an investiextending it further.
to the
our mental gation of the influence of mathematics upon and their for scientific culture in general, value powers, a very thorough and learned discussion, in the form of
a review of a book by
of
it
Whewell
in the
Edinburgh Beview
is
January 1836.
Its author,
who
afterwards published
Sir
with some other discussions, with his name,
W.
Hamilton, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in ScotThis work has also found a German translator, land.
md
has appeared by itself under the title, Uieber den " dem und der Mathematik aus Unwerth Werth Englishen, The conclusion the author arrives at is that the 1836.
"
mathematics is only indirect, and lies in the implication to ends which are only attainable through hem; but in themselves mathematics leave the mind vhere they find it, and are by no means conducive to ts general culture and development, nay, even a decided
/alue
of
indrance.
not only proved by thoough dianoiological investigation of the mathematical ctivity of the mind, but is also confirmed by a very
is
This conclusion
;arned accumulation of nly direct use
examples and authorities. The left to mathematics is that it in accustom restless and unsteady minds to fix their Mention. Even Descartes, who was yet himself famous a mathematician, held the same opinion with regard In the " Vie de Descartes par BaiLlet" mathematics.
which
is
393, it is said, Liv.

ivait
ii. c. 6, Sa propre experience p. 54: convaincu du pen cCutiliU des mathtmatiques, surtout II ne rsqu'on ne les cultive que pour elles mimes. rien de moins de nombres tout de yait solide, que s'occuper
.
.
"
nples et de figures
imaginaires" &c.
324
CHAPTER
XIV.
IDEAS.
ON THE ASSOCIATION OF
The
is
presence of ideas and thoughts in our consciousnesf
as strictly subordinated to the principle of sufficieni reason in its different forms as the movement of bodies
law of causality. It is ju3t as little possible tha a thought can appear in the mind without an occasioi as that a body can be set in motion without a cause
to the
this occasion is either external, thus an impressioi of the senses, or internal, thus itself also a thought whic introduces another thought by means of association. Thi
Now
again depends either upon a relation of reason and cor sequent between the two or upon similarity, even mei
;
analogy or lastly upon the circumstance that they wei both first apprehended at the same time, which agai
;
may have
objects.
its
ground in the proximity in space
of the
& propos.
The last two cases are denoted by the woi The predominance of one of these three bom
of association of thoughts over the others is characterist The first narai of the intellectual worth of the man.
will predominate in thoughtful and profound minds, tl second in witty, ingenious, and poetical minds, and t Not less characterisl third in minds of limited capacity.
the degree of facility with which one thought reca tl others that stand in any kind of relation to it
is
:
constitutes
the activeness of the
mind.
But the
possibility of the sufficient occasion,
appearance of a thought without even when there is the strongest des

all
to call it up, is
proved by
the cases in which wo
IDEAS.
325
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

the latter
in
is
is
find the former,

to
also found.
we seek; if we Whoever wishes

first
call
thread with
of thoughts.
up something which it
his
memory
seeks for a
Upon
connected by the association 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 But the worst of it is that these occasioners preserved.
themselves have
quires
n
first to
an occasioner.
How much
be recalled, and this again rethe occasion accomin this way.

If
plishes in
memory may be shown
we have
ead in a book of anecdotes say fifty anecdotes, and then aave laid it aside, immediately afterwards we will sometimes
f
the occasion comes, or
be unable to recollect a single one of them. But if a thought occurs to us which
las
liately
is
any analogy with one of those anecdotes, it immecomes back to us; and so with the whole fifty
offers.
II
The same thing holds good of Our immediate remembrance of vords, that is, our remembrance of them without the ssistance of mnemonic contrivances, and with it our
opportunity
that
we
read.
rhole
irect
faculty of speech, ultimately depends upon the association of thoughts. For the learning of lan-
uage consists in this, that once for all we so connect a onception with a word that this word will always occur
D
and this conception will occur to us with this word. "We have afterlways along 'ards to repeat the same process in learning every new mguage yet if we learn a language for passive and not
us along with this conception,
;
)r
sample,
but not to speak, as, for then the connection is le-sided, for the conception occurs to us along with the ord, but the word does not always occur to us along with
active use
that
is,
to read,
most
of us learn
Greek
te
The same procedure as in language beconception. >mes apparent in the particular case, in the learning of
326
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
name
XIV.
trust
every
new proper name.
But sometimes we do not
ourselves to connect directly the
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
con-
nect the image of the person or thing with any perceptible quality the name of which occurs in that of the persor
or thing.
later
Yet
this is only a
temporary prop to lean on
we
let it drop, for
the association of thoughts be
comes an immediate support The search of memory for a clue shows itself in peculiar manner in the case of a dream which we hav< forgotten on awaking, for in this case we seek in vain fo that which a few minutes before occupied our minds wit!
the strength of the clearest present, but
disappeared.
now has
entire!
grasp at any lingering impression b which may hang the clue that by virtue of associatio would call that dream back again into our conscious
" According to Kieser, Tellurismus," Bd. ii. 27 of what passed in magnetic-somnainbuk memory even sleep may possibly sometimes be aroused by a sensib' It depends upon the san sign found when awake.
ness.
We
impossibility of the appearance of a thought withoi occasion that if we propose to do anything at a del nite time, this can only take place if we either think
its
nothing else till then, or if at the determined time v are reminded of it by something, which may either an external impression arranged beforehand or a thoug'
1
again brought about in the regular wa Both, then, belong to the class of motives. Every mornii when we awake our consciousness is a tabula rasa, whic
which
is
itself
however, quickly
fills itself again. First it is the si the which now reappe; of previous evening roundings and remind us of what we thought in these surrounding
to this the events of the previous day link themselves and so one thought rapidly recalls the others, till all tl
occupied us yesterday
is
there again.
Upon
the fact
tl
ON THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

this
327
as
takes place properly depends the health of the mind, opposed to madness, which, as is shown in the third
consists
book,
in
the existence of great blanks in the
of past events. But how completely sleep breaks the thread of memory, so that each morning it has to be
memory
taken up again,
we
see in particular cases of the incom-
For example, sometimes we pleteness of this operation. cannot recall in the morning a melody which the night
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
before ran in our
internal
brain
physical impression either of the parts of the on each other or of the organic nervous system upon
the brain.
not so simple as the theory of it
In general our internal process of thought is in reality 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 indis;
tinct
tions
thoughts, the feelings, the after sensation of percepand of experience generally, mingled with the special
disposition of
being, is
our
own
is
will,
which
is
the kernel of our

the mass of the
proportion to the
the mass of the water.
Now
whole consciousness
more or
less, in
ntellectual activity, in constant motion,

:he
)f
and what
rise to
surface, in consequence of this, are the clear pictures the fancy or the distinct, conscious thoughts expressed
)f
n words and the resolves of the will. our thought and purpose seldom
consists in
The whole process

lies
on the surface,
-hat is,
a combination of distinctly thought
328
;
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER XIV.

strive against this in order that
judgments although we
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
which they are worked up into thoughts on almost as unconsciously as the conversion of goes nourishment into the humours and substance of the body. Hence it is that we can often give no account of the origin
place, through
;
and
it
of our deepest thoughts. They are the birth of our mysterious inner life. Judgments, thoughts, purposes, rise from
letter brings
out that deep unexpectedly and to our own surprise. A us unlooked-for and important news, in con-
sequence of which our thoughts and motives are disordered we get rid of the matter for the present, and think nc more about it but next day, or on the third or fourth
;
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
day
after,
as of the earth,
we do
not
know
the inside, but only
th(
crust
But in the last being, what sets

itself,
instance, or in the secret of our inne: in activity the association of though
the laws of which were set forth above, is the vrill which urges its servant the intellect, according to th measure of its powers, to link thought to thought, to re
contemporaneous, to recognise reason it is to the interest of the wi] in one should that, think, so that one may b general, well equipped for all cases that may arise. Therefore th
call the similar, the
and consequents.
For
form of the principle of sufficient reason which govern the association of thoughts and keeps it active is ult; mately the law of motivation. For that which rules th
sensorium, and determines
it
to follow the analogy or otht
association of thoughts in this or that direction, is th Now just as here the lav* will of the thinking subject.
of the connection of ideas subsist only upon the basis < the will, so also in the real world the causal connectio
IDEAS.
329
of bodies really subsists only upon the basis of the will, which manifests itself in the phenomena of this world.
account the explanation from causes is never and absolute exhaustive, but leads back to forces of nature as their condition, and the inner being of the latter is just In saying this, however, I the will as thing in itself.
On
this
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 conThis belongs to its imperfections fusion of our thinking.
which cannot be explained away, and which we shall now

consider in a separate chapter.
33
CHAPTER XV.
ON THE ESSENTIAL IMPERFECTIONS OF THE INTELLECT.
Oub
form, and therefore
self-consciousness has not space but only time as its 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 can know the essential imperfections of our intellect.
We
things only in succession, and can become conscious of only one at a time, indeed even of this one only under
all
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.
the condition that for the time
In respect of
this quality our intellect
may
be compared
fleeting.
to a telescope
with a very narrow

is
field of vision; just
because our consciousness
not stationary but
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 and if a good little while have escaped me altogether never find that I shall it be may night's sleep intervene,
The
intellect
it
again, unless
is,
it is
connected with
my
personal interests,
field.
that
with
my
will,
which always commands the
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 Sometimes external impre3distraction of our thinking.
ON THE IMPERFECTIONS OF THE INTELLECT.

sions of sense throng in upon it, disturbing ing it, forcing different kinds of things
331
and
interruptit
upon
every
moment
sometimes one thought draws in another by the bond of association, and is now itself dislodged by it;
;
itself is not capable of 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
sometimes, lastly, the intellect

fixing itself
the outlines run into each other and

until
finally
all
is
reflection
confused,
upon becomes
become confused, so obscure, through long-continued one subject our thinking also is gradually
dull,
Therefore after a certain

individual,
and ends in complete stupor. time, which varies with the
we must
for the present give
up every meditato
tion or deliberation
which has had the fortune
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
things.
occupy ourselves now with insignificant and indifferent During this time that important subject no
is
longer exists for us; it

latent.
like the heat in cold water,
If
approach
now we resume it again at another time, we it like a new thing, with which we become
it
acquainted anew, although more quickly, and the agreeable or disagreeable impression of
is
also
produced
anew upon our will. We ourselves, however, do not come back quite unchanged. For with the physical of the humours and tension of the nerves, composition 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
332
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XV.
very different; opposite views of it now press upon each other and increase our doubt. Hence we speak of sleeping
for important determinations we dea long time for consideration. Now, although this quality of our intellect, as springing from its weakness,
upon a matter, and
mand
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
has
beings, fresh and strange, and thus are able to see From all this it repeatedly in very different lights. is plain that human consciousness and thought is in its
new
it
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 In this our thinking consciousness is like a defective.
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,
In practical matters the most important description. 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 concrete.
They do
not, however,
come
to be carried out in the order
of their dignity, but while which are great and general,
we are occupied with plans we have to contend with the

of the
still
most
this
trifling
details
and the cares
way our
consciousness becomes
moment. In more desultory.
In general, theoretical occupations of the mind unfit us for practical affairs, and vice versd. 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
333
obscurity of our investigations ; bright moments someBut what is times illuminate our path like lightning. 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
to
?
Clearly a consciousness which
is
subject
such great limitations is little suited for solving the and such an endeavour would necesriddle of the world
;
appear strange and pitiful to a being of a higher order whose intellect had not time as its form, and whose Indeed thinking had thus true completeness and unity
sarily
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 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 The logical ego or even imperfect and untrustworthy.
there
:
pressions
to
the transcendental synthetic unity of apperception are exand explanations which will not easily serve
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 therefore cannot be an idea. Eather it
of consciousness,
is
and the root

I
of
by consciousness, must be the prius the tree of which that

will.
the fruit.
This,
say, is
the
It alone is un-
changeable and
absolutely
identical,
and has brought
33*
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
ends.
XV.
it is
forth consciousness for its
own
Therefore
also
the will which gives it unity and holds together all its ideas and thoughts, accompanying them like a continuous
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
harmony.
But the will alone is and permanent unchangeable in consciousIt is the will which holds together all thoughts ness. 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
imaginary point behind
that which
is
its surface.
it
does not
itself,
however, belong to the

the
intellect,
but
is
only
itsjroot,
soii^ceând controller.
From
the
form of time and
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 forgetfvlness.
;
Most
of
what
it lets fall it
never takes up again
especi-
ally 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 But it is heightened by our interest in the subject. the in on I have shown the as essay already memory,
but principle of sufficient reason, is not a store-house, ideas of a calling up faculty acquired by practice merely at pleasure, which must therefore constantly be kept
in practice
lost.
for otherwise it will gradually be the Accordingly knowledge even of the learned
by use;

man
exists
335
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 Hence arises a strange contrast this one at a time.
between what he knows potentid and what he knows ; that is, between his knowledge and what he thinks at any moment the former is an immense and always
ache
:
somewhat chaotic mass, the latter is a single distinct The relation resembles that between the inthought. numerable 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
;
from that chaos. Eapidity in doing this is a special hour ; therefore gift, but is very dependent upon day and refuses its sometimes us service, even in things memory which at another time it has readily at hand. This
it
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

;
The latter imparts to its quantity. books only thickness, the former thoroughness and also for it is an intensive quantity, while the other is style
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
all its
foundation
so is
With a small quantity, but of good quality, one achieves more than with a very large
quantity of bad quality.
parts is penetrated valuable or trifling.
therefore the whole of knowledge in by it, and in proportion as it is
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
that
is,
only possible through the conception, therefore of the differences omission through the
;
336
this is
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER XV.
the mind.
a very imperfect manner of presenting things to Certainly the particular also can be directly
if
comprehended as a universal,
tonic) Idea
;
it is
raised to the (Pla-
but in this process, which I have analysed
in the third book, the intellect already passes the limits of individuality, and therefore of time
beyond more-
it is only an exception. These inner and essential imperfections of the intellect are further increased by a disturbance which, to a certain the influence extent, is external to it, but yet is unceasing
over
is
exerted by the will upon all its operations whenever it 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,

possible as probable
for they picture to us the scarcely
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 and destiny as established by
we look back
at its origin
me
in the second book.
Nature has produced

will.
it
for the service of
an individual
only designed to know things so far as they afford the motives of such a will, but not to
Therefore
it is
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
imperfect.
little for
337
memory and
recollection is something very
How
little of all
that
we have
I
done, experi-
enced, learnt, or read, can
we
recall
And
even this
the most part only laboriously and imperfectly. For the same reasons is it so very difficult for us to keep
ourselves free
consciousness
things,
from the impressions of the present. Unthe original and natural condition of all and therefore also the basis from which, in paris
ticular 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
ness
;
most a very weak analogue of conscious-
the lowest species of animals only the dawn of it. But even after it has ascended through the whole series
man and his reason, the unconsciousness of which it started, still remains the foundation, from plants, and may be traced in the necessity for sleep, and also in all those essential and great imperfections, here set forth,
of
animals to
of
every intellect produced through physiological functions; and of another intellect we have no conception.
The imperfections here proved to be

intellect are
cases,
essential to the
constantly increased, however, in particular

imperfections.
by
non-essential
The
intellect
is
never in every respect
what
perfections possible to it each other. Therefore no

Aristotle, or
The possibly might be. are so opposed that they exclude

it
man can be at once Plato and Shakspeare and Newton, or Kant and Goethe.
;
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
The imperfections of the
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
uatural
vol.
phenomena.
11.
Therefore the productions of such an
338
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER XV.
through thousands of years, indeec a such every highly favoured individual become; a most valuable treasure. From such an intellect dowi
intellect are preserved
relic of
to that which approaches imbecility the gradations an innumerable. And primarily, in conformity with thes< gradations, the mental horizon of each of us varies ver
the mere comprehension of the present, whic) even the brute has, to that which also embraces the nex hour, the day, even the morrow, the week, the year, th life, the century, the thousand years, up to that of the cod sciousness which has almost always present, even thoug obscurely dawning, the horizon of the infinite, and whos thoughts therefore assume a character in keeping wit this. Further, that difference among intelligences show
itself in the rapidity of their thinking, which is very in portant, and which may be as different and as finely gradv. ated as that of the points in the radius of a revolving dis> The remoteness of the consequents and reasons to whic
much from
any
one's thought can extend seems to stand in a certai
relation to the rapidity of his thinking, for the greate: exertion of thought-power in general can only last quit
a short time, and yet only while it lasts can a thought 1 thought out in its complete unity. It therefore amoun to this, how far the intellect can pursue it in so short C time, thus what length of path it can travel in it.
the other hand, in the case of some, rapidity may be mai up for by the greater duration of that time of perfect
concentrated thought. Probably the slow and lastii thought makes the mathematical mind, while rapidity
thought makes the genius. The latter is a flight, tl former a sure advance upon firm ground, step by ste Yet even in the sciences, whenever it is no longer
question of mere quantities, but of understanding t nature of phenomena, this last kind of thinking is i adequate. This is shown, for example, by Newton's theo of colour, and later by Biot's nonsense about colour rin;
which yet agrees with the whole atomistic method
339
treating light among the French, with its moldcules de lumibre, and in general with their fixed idea of reducing
the great
everything in nature to mere mechanical effects. individual diversity of intelligence
we
Lastly, are
speaking about shows itself excellently in the degrees and accordingly in of the clearness of understanding, To one man that the distinctness of the whole thinking.
is
to
understand which
to
another
is
only in
some
degree to observe; the one is already done and at the while the other is only at the beginning; to the goal
the solution which to the other is only the This depends on the quality of thought and problem. which was already referred to above. As knowledge,
one that
is
in
rooms the degree
of light varies, so does it in minds.
We
as
can detect this quality of the whole thought as soon 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
texture of his
what is the formal nature, the which remains the same in everythinking, which he and whose expression is about thinks, :hing In this we feel at :he train of thought and the style. mce the pace, the flexibleness and lightness, even indeed 'he soaring power of his mind; or, on the contrary, its lulness, formality, lameness and leaden quality. For, as
thinks,
how he
anguage
s
is
the expression of the
mind
of a nation, style
the
.uthor
side
more immediate expression of the mind of an than even his physiognomy. We throw a book
that in it we enter an obscurer own, unless we have to learn from it aere facts, not thoughts. Apart from mere facts, only hat author will afford us profit whose understanding keener and clearer than our own, who forwards our
egion than our
i
when we observe
linking instead of hindering it, like the dull mind that 'ill force us to keep pace with the toad-like course of
s
thought ; thus that author with whose
mind
it
gives
340
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER XV.
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 froir the demand for distinctness of conceptions, and thereforf they do not themselves make this claim upon it, but pu' up with haziness ; and to satisfy themselves with this the] gladly have recourse to words, especially such as denotx indefinite, very abstract, unusual conceptions which ar hard to explain such, for example, as infinite and finite
;
sensible
and supersensible, the Idea

the
absolute,
of being, Ideas
the
reason,
the
Idea of
the
good,
th
divine,
moral freedon, power of spontaneous generatioi
the absolute Idea, subject-object, &c.
The
like of thes
they confidently fling about, imagine they really expres thoughts, and expect every one to be content with then]
to
for the highest summit of wisdom which they can see have at command such ready-made words for ever
:
This immense satisfaction in words possible question. thoroughly characteristic of inferior minds. It depenc simply upon their incapacity for distinct conception
whenever these must rise above the most trivial ar simple relations. Hence upon the weakness and indolen of their intellect, and indeed upon the secret consciou ness of this, which in the case of scholars is bound \ with the early learnt and hard necessity of passing thei selves off as thinking beings, to meet which demand
all cases
words.
It
they keep such a suitable store of ready-ma must really be amusing to see a professor
philosophy of this kind in the chair,
who bond Jide
delivt
341
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 bond 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
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
realities in
received from his predecessors, each one confidently passes over obscurities and problems, and thus these are pro-
pagated 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
truths remain undiscovered simply on this 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
see
it.
Many
account, that
light,
or at least a
it is
them,
one.
to
of
as if
new stimulus. If we hear them or read we exchanged a bad telescope for a good
Let one only read, for example, in Euler's " Letters the Princess," his exposition of the fundamental truths 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 1 science ; just because it is only they who really understand the questions, olace of thoughts.
and
for
them words never take the
But we ought to know that inferior minds are the ule, good minds the exception, eminent minds very rare,
342
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER XV.

portent.
and genius a
have
left so
How
otherwise could a
human
to
race consisting of about eight hundred million individuals
much
after six
thousand years to discover,

?
invent, to think out,
and
to say
The
intellect is calcu-
lated 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 man who commands an incomparably larger
intellectual
sphere anc
works with long levers. Thus the insect sees everything on its stem or leaf with the most minute exactness, anc better than we, and yet is not aware of the man wh<,
This is the reason of stands within three steps of it. slyness of half-witted persons, and the ground of
th<
th<
y a un mystbre dans V esprit des gens For practical life genius is about as usefu rien ont pas. v as an astral Thus, with regar< telescope in a theatre. The dis to the intellect nature is highly aristocratic. tinctions which it has established are greater than thos which are made in any country by birth, rank, wealtl But in the aristocracy of intellect, as in othe or caste.
paradox
:
aristocracies, there are
one nobleman, multitude of

canaille.
many thousands of plebeians fc for one prince, and the grea millions many men are mere populace, mob, rabble, I
certainly there
is
Now
a glaring contrast
be
tween the scale of rank of nature and that of conventioi and their agreement is only to be hoped for in a golde Meanwhile those who stand very high in the or age. scale of rank and in the other have this in common, tht for the most part they live in exalted isolation, to whic Byron refers when he says
:
* To
feel
me
Without the
in the solitude of kings po'Arer that makes them bear a crown."
Proph. of Dante,

For intellect
is
343
a differentiating,
and therefore a separating
different grades, far more than those of principle. mere culture, give to each man different conceptions, in consequence of which each man lives to a certain extent Its
which he can directly meet those and can only attempt to speak only 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 Yet the conidentifies every one else with its own self. nection remains a moral one it cannot become intellectual.
in a different world, in
who
are like himself,
Indeed,
the
the degree of culture is about the same, conversation between a man of great intellect and an
when
like the journey together of two men, one on a spirited horse and the other goes on It soon becomes very trying to both of them, and foot. For a short way the for any length of time impossible. rider can indeed dismount, in order to walk with the other, though even then the impatience of his horse will
ordinary
of
man
is
whom
rides
give
him much
to do.
But the public could be benefited by nothing so much is by the recognition of that intellectual aristocracy of wture. By virtue of such recognition it would comprelend
that
when
facts
are
concerned,
thus
when
the
natter has to
dstories,
be decided from experiments, travels, codes,
ufficient; but,
re in
and chronicles, the normal mind is certainly on the other hand, when mere thoughts
ata of
i
question, especially those thoughts the material or which are within reach of every one, thus when it
3flectiveness,
only a question of thinking before others, decided native eminence, which only nature bestows, ad that very seldom, is inevitably demanded, and no one
really
eserves to
!
be heard
who
does not at once give proofs
this.
If the public could
be brought to see this for

is
self, it
would no longer waste the time which
sparingly
r
344
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER XV.
it for its culture on the productions of thus on the innumerable botches of poetry ordinary minds,
measured out to
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, anc
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 wouh
be discontinued.
345
CHAPTER XVL1
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
to
unworthy
is
of
man, who has
conceptions
guide his conduct, and
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
essay
It
which I have thoroughly exposed in my prize on the foundation of morals. 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
the
if
if
it,
its
illusion, that
Thus spirit shows its worth and greatness. incitements to lust and pleasure leave it unaffected, the threats and fury of enraged enemies do not shake
if
human
the entreaties of erring friends do not

1
make
its
This chapter
is
connected with
16 of the
first
volume.
346
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER XVI.
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
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
trouble
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
close to it, so even a great mind can sometimes be disconcerted and perturbed by trifling events and
comes quite
insignificant men, if only they affect it very closely, and the deliberate purpose can be for the moment shaken
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 regendce 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
by a
ON THE USE OF REASON AND

the present,
STOICISM.
347
by the assistance of imagination, as if it and should thus accustom our apperception past, Yet conversely to the epistolary style of the Romans. 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
were by a misfortune, a disappointment,
present to
if
:
him what man
really js
reason always kept the most needy of
and hourly abandoned to innumerable misfortunes, great and small, to BeiXorarov ooov, who has Herodotus therefore to live in constant care and fear.
creatures, daily
"
already says,
est
Uav e<m
of
avdpcoTTOs <rvfi<f>opa" (homo
totivs
calamitas).
The
application
this.
complishes
It reconstructs
reason to practice primarily acwhat 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
at the
result is arrived
For example, if we look simply at. bad action of a man we will condemn him; on the other hand, if we consider merely the need that
moved him
means
to
it,
we
will compassionate
him
reason,
by
weighs the two, and leads to the conclusion that he must be restrained, restricted, and
of its conceptions,
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
is
was shown in the fourth book, the nature of suffering O positive, and that of pleasure negative, he who takes
9
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 " 6 joys and pleasures, mindful of Aristotle's
akviTov
Siw/cei.
its
keenest
to
<f>povcfw;
ov to rjSv" (guod dolore vacat, non quod
348
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVI.
Therefore with him est, persequitur vir prudens). the future constantly borrows from the present, instead of the present borrowing from the future, as is the case
suave
with a frivolous
fool,
finally bankrupt for the most part,
who thus becomes impoverished and In the case of the former reason must, assume the rdle of a churlish mentor,
and unceasingly
call for renunciations, without being able to promise anything in return, except a fairly painless This rests on the fact that reason, by means existence.
of its conceptions, surveys the whole of life, in the happiest conceivable case, can be
whose outcome, no other than
what we have
said.
When
it
might
this striving after a painless existence, so far as 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 cyniI wish cism, from which stoicism afterwards proceeded. briefly here to bring this out more fully for the sake of
establishing first book.
more firmly the concluding exposition
of our
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. a truly happy

it.
life
For to them it is only the right path to and on this account the wise choose
;
lengthy debates chiefly preserved us by Cicero, those keen and constantly renewed investigations, whether virtue quite alone and in itself
arise those
Hence
for
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
it
Mi-
must give happiness

cannot do this
it
and unconditionally. If does not accomplish what it ought,

directly

and must be
in
STOICISM.
349
rejected.
It is therefore with truth
and
that
accordance with the
Christian
point
of view
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 morta:
lium, quibus sibi ipsi beatitudinem faccrc IN hujus yitje INFELICITATE moliti sunt ; ut ab eorum rebus vanis spes
nostra
quid differat
inter
clarescat.
se
De
finibus
bonorum
et
malorum multa
qucestionem
sunt,
maxima
efficiat
philosophi disputarunt; quam intentione versantes, invcnire conati
quid bonorum."
ethics
selves.
hominem beatum:
to
Mud
enim
est
finis
place beyond all doubt the eudsemonistic end which we have ascribed to all ancient
I wish
by several express statements

"
of the ancients
them-
Eth. Magna" i. 4: "'H Aristotle says in the to Be ev Zflv ev tcd Kara ra<; ev ev evhaifiovut %yv eari, T(p
aperas %yv."
(Felicitas in bene vivendo posita est
bene vivere est in eo positum, ut
with which
:
may
: verum secundum virtutem vivamus), " be compared Eth. Nicom." i. 5. " Cic.
Tusc" v. 1 " Nam, quum ea causa impulerit eos, qui primi se ad philosophies studia contulerunt, ut, omnibus rebus posthabitis, totos se
in optimo
vitoz statu
exquirendo collocarent
profecto spe beate vivendi
tantam in
eo studio
curam operam-
que posuerunt.
c.
According to Plutarch (De Repugn. Stoic, " To Kara /caiciav tflv tw /ca/coChrysippus said Vitiose vivere idem est quod Saifioveos %yv ravrov eari." ( " 'H <$>povwcn<i ov% erepov vivere infeliciter.) Ibid., c. 26
xviii.)
:
:
ecrv T179 evBaifiovia? Ka& eavro, evBai/xovia." (Prudentia nihil differt a felicitate, estque ipsa adeo felicitas.) " " Stob. Eel.," Lib. ii. c. 7 : TeXo? Se <paatv ewai to evBacfioveiv,
aW
6v
evetca
ttavra irpaTreTai."
(Finem
"
esse
dicunt
felicitatem, cujus
causa fiunt omnia.)

"
EvSac/iovcav avvcoet felicitai.
wp,eiv
T(p
Tekei Xeyovai."
esse dicunt.)
(Finem bonorum
tem synonyma
(
Arrian Diss. Epict."
"
:
'H
90
:
apeTT) TavTTjv eêi
ti\v errayyeXiav, evSaip.oviav Troirjaat." se felicitatem pro3stare.)
Virtus profitetur,
Sen., Ep.
"
Ceterum (sapientia) ad beatum statum
tendit,
Mo
ducit.
350
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER XVI.

Id.,
Ulo vias aperit."
Ep. 108
philosophorum, lectionemque,
Illud admoneo audiiionem ad propositum beatos vitas tra:
"
hendum."
ethics of the Cynics also adopted this end of the happiest life, as the Emperor Julian expressly testifies
Tt}<; Kuvt/cr}<; Se (pCkoaotpias <tkoito<; fiev eari re\o?, dxnrep Br) /cat iraat]^ <pikoao<pia<;, to evSaifjuovetv' to Se evSaifioveiv ev ra> tflv Kara <f>vo~tv, p.r\ 7rpo<? ra<$ ut etiam omnis riov iroWtov Sof-as." (Cynicce philosophice
The
"
(Orat. vi.)
/cat
aWa
philosophice, scopus et finis est feliciter vivere : felicitas vitce autem in eo posita est, ut secundum naturam vivatur, nee
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 privavero
tion.
will
They start from the insight that the motions of the which are brought about by the objects which attract and excite it, and the wearisome, and for the most part
if
vain, efforts to attain these, or,

fear of losing them,
they are attained, the
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 I
'
the spirit of cynicism. Seneca dis- 1 " in the De tinctly expresses eighth chapter, Tranquili- I " " levior dolor tote Animi : sit, non i Gogitandum est, guanto
caprices.
is
it
This
habere,
quam perdere :
et
intelligemus paupertati eo mino- $
rem tormentorum, quo minorem damnorum esse materiam." Then " Tolerabilius est, faciliusque, non acquirere, quam amittere. Diogenes effecit, ne quid sibi eripi posset, ... se Videtur mihi dixisse ; qui fortuitis omnibus eccuit. tuum nihil negotium, fortuna apud Diogenem jam age tuum est." The parallel passage to this last sentence is
:
)
,1
the quotation of Stobaeus {Eel.

%eiv
ii.
7)
"Aioyevys
e<pv vofiiI
opav
TTjv Tv)(r,v
evoptoaav avrov xai
XeyovaaV tovtov

B'ov Bvvajxat fiakeeiv
se dixit,
STOICISM.
351
Kvva
Xva-arjrrjpa."
(Diogenes credere
ipsum intuentem, ac dicentem : aut hunc non potui tetigisse canem rabiosum.) The same of in is also the on shown cynicism epitaph spirit Diogenes, " in Suidas, under the word <t\to7co9, and in Diogenes
Laertius," vi. 2
m
:
videre Fortunam,
TtjpaffKet fixv x<xKkos ineo xpovov'
a\Xo aov
ovri
KvSos 6 was ati>, Atoryemjt, Kc&e\ei' Novvos eirei /Scores avrapicea Sol-av toeâs
QnjTots, Kot fwT/s oifiov eXa^poraTijj'."
(^Jra quidem absumit tempus, sed tempore

Interitura tua
est gloria,
numquam
aquam
Diogenes
Quandoquidem ad vitam miseris

Monstrata
mortalibtis
estfacilis, 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,
make
life
and pleasure by means of which men seek to more agreeable only brings with it new and
than originally belonged to
it.
greater ills
Therefore
we
may regard the following sentence as the expression of the " kernel of the doctrine of cynicism : Atoyevr)*; efioa 7ro\Xa/a? Xeyaw, rov tcov avdoiTcwv ftiov pahiov xnro rav Oecov BeBoaQai, airoiceicpvcpdcu Be avrov tyjravvronv /J,e\i7rr)Kra
/cat
fivpa
tcai
ra
7rapaTr\r]<Ti,a."
(Diogenes clamabat scepius,
hominum vitam facilem a

qucerentibus mellita cibaria,
Laert., vi. 2.)
diis dari,
verum
et
occultari
Mam
unguenta
"
:
And
further
Aeov,
his similia. (Diog., avri rcov axpv"ra)v
vovwv, tov<;
Kara <pvo~iv
ekofievow;, tjgv
.
avoiav icatco8aip,ovov<n.
evBaifiovW rrapa rrjv rov avrov âpaicrqpa rov fiiov

'
Xeywv Bieâyetv, owrep Kai

irpoKpiv<ov."
Hpa/cXr]?, fiijBev
eXevdrjptas
(Quum
igitur, repudiatis
inutUibus laboribus,
naturales insequi, ac vivere beate debeamus, per summam dementiam infelices sumtis. . . . eandem vita formam, quam
Bercules,
se
vivere
affirmans,
nihil
libertati prozferens.
Ibid)
Therefore the old, genuine Cynics, Antisthenes,
352
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER XVI.
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 press-
ing 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,
staff. They was necessary to supply such wants, but they never worked. Yet they accepted] absolutely nothing that exceeded the wants referred above. Independence in the widest sense was their aim.1
an old threadbare cloak, a wallet, and a

begged occasionally, as far as
They occupied
with
all
their time in resting, going about, talking!
men, and much mocking, laughing, and joking their characteristic was carelessness and great cheerfulness. Since now in this manner of life they had no aim*) of their own, no purposes or ends to pursue, thus we lifted above the sphere of human action, and at the sam<] time always enjoyed complete leisure, they were admirj
fitted, as men of proved strength of mind, to be thi advisers and admonishers of the rest. Therefore Apuleiui " Crates, ut lar familiaris apud homiml says (Florid., iv.) Nulla domus ei unquam clausa erat' suae cetatis cultus est.
ably
nee erat patrisfamilias tarn absconditum secretum, quin t] tempestive Crates interveniret, litium omnium et jurgiorui
inter propinquos disceptator et arbiter." Thus in this, as il so many other respects, they show a great likeness to tt
mendicant friars of modern times, that is, to the bett< and more genuine among them, whose ideal may be see, in the Capucine Christoforo in Manzoni's famous romanc Yet this resemblance lies only in the effects, not in tl cause. They agree in the result, but the fundament thought of the two is quite different. With the friars, with the Sannyasis, who are akin to them, it is an ai

which transcends
conviction that
their
life
is
;
STOICISM.
it is
353
but with the Cynics
it
easier to reduce their
only the wishes and
wants to the minimum, than to attain to the maxiin their satisfaction, which indeed is impossible, for with their satisfaction the wishes and wants grow ad
mum
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 " 60ev icai rov Kwia-fiov et,pr)ica<nv <tvvto/j.ov
:
(Unde Gynismum dixere compendiosam The fundamental Diog. Laert., vi. 9. difference between the spirit of cynicism and that of asceticism comes out very clearly in the humility which
err
apeTTjv 68ov."
ad virtutem viam.)
is
essential to the ascetic, but is so foreign to the
Cynic
distinguished beyond everything else for pride and scorn

that,
:
on the contrary, he
"
is
Sapiens uno minor est Jove, dives, Liber, honoratus, pvZeher, rex denique regum."
Hor.
On the other hand, the view

anv
of life held
by the Cynics
agrees in spirit with that of J. J. Eousseau as he expounds " it in the Discours sur VOrigine de I'lnegalite'." For he
would wish to lead us back nature, and regards the reduction

also
to the
crude state of
of our
minimum
the
least
as the surest path to happiness.
wants to the For the rest,
Cynics were exclusively practical philosophers : at no account of their theoretical philosophy is known
to
me.
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
Now
we should regard
and
as dispensable,
possessions and pleasures constantly as held in the hand of chance ; for
then the actual deprivation of

to occur,
them,
if
it
should chance
would neither be unexpected nor fall heavily. One might always have and enjoy everything only one
;
vol.
11.
354
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER XVI
must ever keep present the conviction of the worthless ness 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 with these actually dispense 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 The quite out of sight if one is not to long after them.
wise man, on the other hand, knows that they are not good things at all, but rather perfectly indifferent things,
a8ia<popa,
in
any case
irporiy/xeva.
Therefore
is
if
they
present themselves he will accept them, but yet
always
ready to let them go again, if chance, to which they befor they are rtov ovk e(jj long, should demand them back
;
f)p.iv.
In
wise man, also let himself be comforted by a wife or a child, but yet will always be ready, whenever the captain calls, to let
this sense, Epictetus, chap, vii., says that the like one who has landed from a ship, &c, will
them go
again.
Thus the
Stoics perfected the theory
oi
equanimity and independence at the cost of the practice for they reduced everything to a mental process, and b) arguments, such as are presented in the first chapter o: Epictetus, sophisticated themselves into all the amenitiei But in doing so they left out of account tha of life. everything to which one is accustomed becomes a need and therefore can only be given up with pain; that th will does not allow itself to be played with, cannot enjo;
without loving the pleasures that a dog does not remai) indifferent if one draws a piece of meat through its moutl and neither does a wise man if he is hungry and tha there is no middle path between desiring and renouncin<
;
;
satisfied their principles i luxurious Eoman at a table, they left no dis sitting untasted, yet at the same time protested that they wei
But they believed that they
each and
all of
them mere
they
eat,
plain English,
if
or irporf/fieva, not cvyada drank, and were merry,

;
ON THE USE OF REASON AND STOICISM.

gave no thanks to
faces,
355
God
for
it all,
but rather made fastidious
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 FrancisNow the more they neglected cans and Capucines. I shall here practice, the more they refined the theory. 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
main to
which rewhich are unsystematically composed, for the ultimate ground of that irrefragible equanimity which is unceasingly demanded of us, we find no other
us, all of
than the knowledge that the course of the world is entirely independent of our will, and consequently, that the evil
which befalls us
jlaims
is
inevitable.
If
we have
this,
by a correct insight into

and hoping are
regulated our then mourning,
ejoicing, fearing,
10
follies of
which we
are
longer capable.
aries of
s
Arrian,
rjuLv
it is
Further, especially in the commensurreptitiously assumed that all that

is
ovk
e<f>
(i.e.,
does not depend upon us)
at once
Iso
Yet it ov Trpos r)fia<i (i.e., does not concern us). emains true that all the good things of life are in the ower of chance, and therefore whenever it makes use of
lis
power
to deprive us of
them, we are unhappy
if
we
From this unworthy ave placed our happiness in them. ite we are, in the opinion of the Stoics, delivered by the
ght use of reason, by virtue of which we regard all these lings, never as ours, but only as lent to us for an inifinite
time
herefore
only thus can we never really lose them. " Seneca says (Ep. 98) Si, quid humanarum
;
:
:
rum
varietas possit, cogitaverit, ante quam senserit," and " Iaov Be ea-Tt ro icar aperrjv iogenes Laertius (vii. I. 87) v T kclt roav (pvaet avfificuvovTav ^jjp" (Secune/jbireiptav
est, quod secundum experientiam <mm, quce secundum naturam accidunt, vivere.) The pas-
"m virtutem vivere idem
356
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVI.
iii.,
sage in Arrian's "Discourses of Epictetus," B.
c.
24,
particularly in point here; and especially, as a proof of what I have said in this reference in 16 oi
84-89,
is
the
first
volume, the passage
"
:
Tovto 7a?
to Ta?
eo-rt
to cutloi
T049 avOpoTTois rravTtov
twu
est
/caiccov
7rpo\r}-^rei<; t<x*
Koivas
1.
/xi]
Sirvaadat eipapfioêiv toi?
em
fiepow;," Ibid. iv.
42.
(Hax enim causa
hominibus
omnium malorum
quod anticipation's generates rebus singularibus accom modare non possunt.) Similarly the passage in "Marcu,
Aurelius
"
"
(iv.
29)
Et
%evo<;
tcoo-fiov
p,r\
yvcopiâ
yva>pi%(o
ra ev avrw oma, ov% rynov ra yvyv ofteva;" that is: "If

universe
êi/09
Kai o
fit]
he
is
a stranger
to
th
know what is in ic, no les is he a stranger who does not know how things g on in it." Also Seneca's eleventh chapter, "Be Trai Tl quilitate Animi" is a complete proof of this view.
does not
opinion of the Stoics amounts on the whole to thi that if a man has watched for a while the juggling illusic of happiness and then uses his reason, he must recogni:
who
both the rapid changes of the dice and the intrinsic wort) lessness of the counters, and therefore must hencefonl
remain unmoved. Taken generally the Stoical point view may be thus expressed our suffering always arisl from the want of agreement between our wishes and t'l Therefore one of these two mt^ course of the world. be changed and adapted to the other. Since now tA course of things is not in our power (ovk <f> f}fiiv), *l must direct our volitions and desires according to tt
:
for the will alone is eft 77/uu. T)i of volition to the of course the external wor , adaptation thus to the nature of things, is very often understcl
course of things:
under the ambiguous Kara <pvaiv
^rjv.
See the
"
Discour
of Epictetus," ii. 17, 21, 22. Seneca also denotes t3 of view when he says: "Nihil inter*, point (Ep. 119) utrum non desideres, an habeas. Summa rei in utroque t
eadem: non the words

:
torqueberis."
"
Solum habere
Also Cicero (Tusc iv. 26) f * velle, summa dementia t
ON THE USE OF REASON AND STOICISM.

Similarly Arrian
eiridvfioviMevoav
T7/5
357
(iv.
1.
"
175):
Ov yap
etcrrXvpaxreL tcov
eXevdepia irapacrKevaêrai,
aXXa
avaaicevi,
iri6vfiia<;."
(Non enim
explendis
"
desideriis libcrtas
comparator, sed tollenda cupiditate.) The collected quotations in the
Historia Philosophice
Groxo-Bomance" of Hitter and Preller may be taken as proofs of what I have said, in the place referred to above, ^ ^he Stoics. Also the about the ofioXoyovp-eva)^ %V V " and of Seneca again Ep. 74): Perfecta (Ep. 31, saying
virtus est cegualitas et tenor vitoz
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." systematical study of the Stoics will convince every one that
the
end of their
ethics, like that of the ethics of

is
Cynicism
from which they sprang,

as free as possible
from
it
really nothing else than a life pain, and therefore as happy as
is
follows that the Stoical morality It has not, like only a special form of Eudozmonism. the Indian, the Christian, and even the Platonic ethics,
possible.
Whence
a metaphysical
completely
the wise
immanent end,
tendency, a transcendental end, but a attainable in this life; the
and unclouded happiness of man, 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 arapa^ta, 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 shortsteadfast serenity (arapal-La)
whom
ness 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 But this is represent.
358
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVI.
yet no state of happiness ; it is only the patient endurance of sufferings which one has foreseen as irremedi-
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 desable.
pair 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 /cady/coma of the Stoics,
officio,,
which Cicero translates

sible
Obliegenheiten, or that
;
which
;
signify as nearly as posit befits the occasion
to
do
English, incumbencies
Italian, quel che tocca

it
I.
a me di
fare, o di lasciare, thus what to do. Cf. Diog. Laert, vii.
behoves a reasonable
man
109. Finally, the pantheism of the Stoics, though absolutely inconsistent with many an exhortation of Arrian, is most distinctly ex-
pressed by Seneca
est
Quid est Deus ? Mens universi. Quid Quod vides totum, et quod non vides totum. Sic demum magnitudo sua Uli redditur, qua nihil majus ex:
"
Deus
cogitari potest
si solus
intra tenet."
(Quosst.
est omnia, opus suum Natur. i,prcefatio 12.)
et
extra
et
359
CHAPTEE
XVII. 1
ON man's need of metaphysics.
With
existence
the exception of man, no being wonders at its own 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
it
still
firmly
attached to the stem of nature from which
has come, and is partaker of the unconscious omniscience of the great mother. Only after the inner being of nature (the
has ascended, vigorous and cheerful, through the two series of unconscious existences, and then through the long and broad series of aniwill to live in its objectification)
mals, does it attain at last to reflection for the first time
on the entrance of reason, thus in man. at its own works, and asks itself what
Then
it
marvels
Its
it itself is.
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
the need for
wonder there arises therefore for man alone, a metaphysic; he is accordingly an animal
metaphysicum.
At the beginning of his consciousness cerThis he also tainly accepts himself as a matter of course. does not last long however, but very early, with the first
dawn
of reflection, that
1
wonder already
appears,
which
is
This chapter
is
connected with
15 of the first volume.
36o
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVII.
some day to become the mother of metaphysics. In agreement with this Aristotle also says at the beginning of his " Ata yap to davfia&iv oi avOpoatroi kcli vw teai metaphysics
:
to irptoTov rjpgavTo <pikocro<peLv."
(Propter admirationem
enim
primo inceperunt homines philosophari.) the Moreover, special philosophical disposition consists in that a man is capable of wonder beyond this, primarily
et
et
nunc
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

its original
still
remains perfectly true to

viceable to the will as the
closely gral part of them.
is
destiny of being ser-
medium of motives, and therefore bound up with the world and nature, as an inteConsequently
it is
very far from com-
prehending 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 selfthe other hand, the philosophical wonder which springs from this is conditioned in the individual
existent.
On
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 In everything would just be taken as a matter of course. which we find the interest this that with accordance has philosophical and also religious systems inspire of kind of some hold in the its dogma strongest always
ON MAN'S NEED OF METAPHYSICS.

existence
361
after death; and although the most recent to make the existence of their gods the seem systems 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
vanish with
for the interest in the existence of the gods would the hope of a closer acquaintance with
their possible influence
them, to the residuum which might connect itself with on the events of this present life. But if one could prove that continued existence after
is incompatible with the existence of gods, because, 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
death
let
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
is
close
upon
his physical
need.
Certainly
this
whoever
fare.
satirically inclined
is
might add that
meta-
physical need
a modest fellow
who
It sometimes allows itself clumsy fables and insipid tales. If only imprinted early enough, they are for a man adequate explanations of his
content with poor to be satisfied with

is
and supports of his morality. Consider, for the Koran. This wretched book was sufficient example, to found a religion of the world, to satisfy the metaphysical
existence
need of innumerable millions of

years, to
men
for twelve
become the foundation
of their morality,
hundred and of
362
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVII.
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 maybe 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
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
of
more worthy manner. Thus originated in the primitive ancestors of the Brahmans, the Eishis, the almost superhuman conceptions which were afterwards set down in the
Upanishads
of the Vedas.
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
On
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.
second, though not a numerous class of persons, whc derive their support from the metaphysical need of man is constituted by those who live by philosophy. By th(
Greeks they were called Sophists, by the moderns the} Aristotle (Metaph. are called Professors of Philosophy.

ii.
363
without hesitation numbers Aristippus among the In Diogenes Laertius (ii. 65) we find that the Sophists.
2)
reason of this
is
that he was the
first of
the Socratics
who accepted payment
which 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
very often the opponents, the secret and irreconcilable enemies of the latter. For every true and important philosophical achievement will overshadow their own too
are
for his philosophy ; on account of Socrates also returned him his present. Among
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 circum-
means are suppressing, and concealing, hushing up, ignoring keeping secret, or denying, disparaging, censuring, slandering and distorting, Hence many a or, finally, denouncing and persecuting. man himself had to has great drag wearily through life
stances in each case, the customary
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 Dimes Julianus, a philosopher sat on the throne. Only under such auspices could the " " of Pure Reason have seen the light. Scarcely Critique 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,
;
364
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVII.
and yet was soon in danger
Campe
live
invited
him
to
come
of losing his place ; so that to him, in Brunswick, and
with him as the instructor of his family (Ring., Ansichten aus Kant's Leben, p. 68). University philosophy Its real aim is to impart to is, as a rule, mere juggling. the students, in the deepest ground of their thought, that
tendency of mind which the ministry that appoints to the The professorships regards as consistent with its views. 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 philo-
sophy of the chair, and not to the real philosophy that ii in earnest. For if anything in the world is woi-th wishins for so well worth wishing for that even the ignorant anc dull herd in its more reflective moments would prize i more than silver and gold it is that a ray of light shouk fall on the obscurity of our being, and that we should gaii I
-
some explanation
nothing
if
is
of our mysterious existence, in
this is
clear but its misery in itself attainable,
and
it
its
vanity.
which But evei

fr
is
made impossible
imposed and compulsory
solutions.
We
By
shall
now
subject to a general consideration th
different
ways of satisfying this strong metaphysical need metaphysics I understand all knowledge that pre
tends to transcend the possibility of experience, thus t* transcend nature or the given phenomenal appearance o
things, in order to give an explanation of that by which in some sense or other, this experience or nature is con ditioned; or, to speak in popular language, of that whicl
is it possible. But the grea in the of beside diversity power understanding, original the cultivation of it, which demands much leisure, make
behind nature, and makes
so great a difference between men, that as soon as a peopl has emerged from the state of savages, no one metapliysi

can serve for them
all.
365
Therefore
among
civilised nations
we find throughout two different kinds of metaphysics, which are distinguished by the fact that the one has its Since the metaevidence in itself, the other outside itself. physical 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
tions,
is,
name
of religions,
and are found among

is
all
na-
not excepting even the most savage. as has been said, external, and as such
Their evidence
called revela-
tion,
which
is
authenticated by signs and miracles.
Their
arguments are principally threats of eternal, and indeed also temporal evils, directed against unbelievers, and even As ultima ratio theologorum, we against mere doubters.
among many nations the stake or things similar to it. they seek a different authentication, or if they make use of other arguments, they already make the transition into
find
If
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
kind only appeal to grown-up people, and in them always find a system of the second kind already in posfirst
session of their convictions.
whose difference
may
Both kinds of metaphysics, be briefly expressed by the words
366
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
have
XVII.
reasoned conviction and
faith,
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
waged only with word and pen between 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 nation
first
kind war
is
those of the second with
government. They alone reign, each in its own The systems of the first kind, on the contrary, province. are at the most tolerated, and even this only because, on
ality or
account of the small number of their adherents, they are for the most part not considered worth the trouble of com
bating with fire and sword although, where it seemed necessary, these also have been employed against their
with effect; besides, they occur only in a sporadic form Yet in general they have only been endured in a tamec and subjugated condition, for the system of the second kind which prevailed in the country ordered them to con form their teaching more or less closely to its own. Some times it not only subjugated them, but even employee their services and used them as a support, which is how ever a dangerous experiment. For these systems of th<
first
kind, since they are deprived of power, believe the]
and never entirely laj comes unexpectedly into prominence and inflicts injuries which are hard to heal For they are further made the more dangerous by the fac that all the real sciences, not even excepting the mos
may advance
themselves by
craft,
aside a secret ill-will
which
at times
innocent, are their secret allies against the systems of
th<
second kind, and without themselves being openly at wa with the latter, suddenly and unexpectedly do great mis
chief in their province. Besides, the attempt which i enlistment referred to of the services o the aimed at by
the systems of the
first
kind by the second
the attemp

to
367
add an inner authentication to a system whose original
authentication
if it
was
external,
is
in its nature perilous
for,
were capable of such an authentication, it would never And in general it is have required an external one. always a hazardous thing to attempt to place a new foundation under a finished structure. Moreover, how should It has a religion require the suffrage of a philosophy ?
everything upon its side revelation, tradition, miracles, prophecies, the protection of the government, the highest
rank, as is
all,
due to the
of
truth, the consent

it
a thousand temples in which
practised,
bands
sworn
priests,
and reverence of proclaimed and what is more than and,

is
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
claim,
of the first kind, thus a philo-
sophy,
in
makes the
and has therefore the

sensu stricto
et
obligation,
everything that
it says,
true, for it
appeals to thought and
proprio, to be conviction. 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. 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
Indeed, perhaps it
contradictions,
thought, not to speak of being literally true. might be asserted that some absolute
some actual absurdities, are an essential ingredient in a complete religion, for these are just the
368
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVII.
the only adequate
stamp means
of its allegorical nature, and of making the ordinary mind
and the uncultured

to
it,
understanding/^ what would be incomprehensible
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 compre-
hensible
dogmas are
it
dations to the
to
human power
was
really only allegories and of comprehension.
accommoIt seems
in this spirit that Augustine and even Luther adhered to the mysteries of Christianity in opposisition to Pelagianism, which sought to reduce everything
me
that
From this point of to the dull level of comprehensibility. view it is also conceivable how Tertullian could say in all
seriousness
:
"Prorsus credibile
"
est,
quia ineptum
est:
cer-
tum est, quia impossibUe (De Came Christi, c. 5). This allegorical nature of religions makes them independent of the
proofs which are incumbent on philosophy,
and in general
this
withdraws them from

faith,
investigation.
is,
Instead of
they require 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
truth sensu proprio would also lead to, religion is justified in promising to those who believe eternal salva-
that
a voluntary admission that
the
tion.
Thus we
see that in the main,
and
for the great
ma-
jority,
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
who cannot
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 meta;
physic. because they lift man above himself and his existence in time, as well perhaps as such a metaphysic ever

Dould.
369
In
itself
this their great
3hows
I
esse
<f>i\6cro<f>ov
value and indeed necessity Plato says, and says rightly, For very clearly. " dSvparov elvai TrXfjdos (vulgus philosophum
est.
impossible
Be
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
is
troversy which
day between
it was not chained up. The conso perseveringly carried on in our own supernaturalists and rationalists also rests on
when
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

as it
it without deduction, 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
which
properly Christian ; whereupon they retain something 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 Moreover, the attempt to found a religion upon proper. reason removes it into the other class of metaphysics,
that
which has
its
authentication in
itself,
thus to the
foreign
conflict
ground which these wage against each other in their own arena, and consequently exposes it to the light fire of " Critique of scepticism and the heavy artillery of the " Pure Eeason ; but for it to venture there would be clear
presumption.
It
of the philosophical systems,
and into the
would be most
beneficial to both kinds of meta-
physics that each of them should remain clearly separated from the other and confine itself to its own province, that
it
of
Instead there be able to develop its nature fully. the endeavour whole the Christian era, which, through 2 A vol. 11.
may
37o
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVII.
has been to bring about a fusion of the two, for the dogmas and conceptions of the one have been carried over into the This has taken place in other, whereby both are spoiled. the most open manner in our own day in that strange her-
maphrodite 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
proprio already
to know and possess the truth sensu and in that case such an interpretation would be superfluous. For to seek first to find meta;
we would have
the truth sensu proprio, merely out of religion by explanation and interpretation would be a doubtful
physics,
i.e.,
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 inestimBut if they oppose themselves to able benefit to them.
the progress of
mankind in the knowledge of the truth, must with the utmost possible forbearance be set they And to require that a great mind a Shakspeare; aside.
a Goethe
should
make the dogmas

et
of
any religion im-
sensu proprio, his conviction is to fide, plicitly, that a should giant put on the shoe of a dwarf. require with reference to the power calculated Eeligions, being of comprehension of the great mass of men, can only have
indirect, not
latter is as if
bond
immediate truth. To require of them one wished to read the letters set up in
the
the
The value of s form-chase, instead of their impression. religion will accordingly depend upon the greater or less
content of truth which
gory,
it contains under the veil of alle and then upon the greater or less distinctness witl which it becomes visible through this veil, thus upon tin transparency of the latter. It almost seems that, as th< oldest languages are the most perfect, so also are the oldes
ON MAWS NEED OF METAPHYSICS.

religions.
371
as the
If I were to take the results of my philosophy standard of truth, I would be obliged to concede to Buddhism the pre-eminence over the rest. In any case
satisfaction to me to see my teaching in such agreement with a religion which the majority of men upon the earth hold as their own; for it numbers This agreement, far more adherents than any other. however, must be the more, satisfactory to me because in my philosophising I have certainly not been under For up till 18 18, when my work appeared, its influence. 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 Eesearches," 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
it
must be a
close
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 Erench scholars, so that I was able to give a fairly numerous list of the best works on this religion " in my work, JJeber den Willen in der Natur" under the
heading Sinologie.
severing Hungarian,
Unfortunately Csoma Korosi, that perwho, 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 pro-
visional accounts, several passages cited directly
from the
Kahgyur of the dying Buddha with Brahma, who is doing him " There is a description of their conversation on homage the subject of creation, by whom was the world made ? Shakya asks several questions of Brahma, whether was tt he who made or produced such and such things, and
:
itself; for example, the following conversation
372
FIRST BOOK.
or blessed
CHAPTER
it
XVII.
virtues or
endowed
them with such and such

he
properties,
whether was
who caused
the several
revolutions in the destruction and regeneration of the He denies that he had ever done anything to world.
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 Eesearches, 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
ceived
it,
as
or regard it as something that can only be conthe 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
ought
to be.
of things, in that
The power by
was able to overcome first ism of Greece and Eome, lies solely in its pessimism, in the confession that our state is both exceedingly wretched and sinful, while Judaism and heathenism were optiThat truth, profoundly and painfully felt by all, mistic. 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
which in every respect which Christianity and then the heathenJudaism,

virtue of
mentioned above, in a wonder concerning the world ami 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 firs of all to draw attention to the fact that this could not

the case
so often
373
if, in Spinoza's sense, which in our own day has 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
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,
that beside
as Spinoza indeed declares, its possibility and its actuality would be absolutely one. Its non-being would therefore
be impossibility itself; thus
it
non-being
or other-being of
as, for
would be something the which must be completely

little
inconceivable,
and which could therefore just as

example, space or time.
be
thought away
further,
And
since,
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, and therefore we would necessarily be as little as it is
we
ourselves
;
conscious of
reflection, as
its
existence as such,
i.e.,
as a problem for
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
moments, but which enters more distinctly and more permanently into the consciousness of each one of us the clearer and more enlightened that consciouscertain brighter
374
FIRST BOOK.
is,
CHAPTER
XVII.
ness
and the more material for thought it has acquire through culture, which all ultimately rises, in minds tha
" are naturally adapted for philosophising, to Plato's davfia" e>, fMaXa (f>L\o(ro<f)iKov TraOos (mirari, valde philosophicus
that is, to that wonder which comprehends in its whole magnitude that problem whicli unceasingly occupies the nobler portion of mankind in every age and in every In fact, the pendulum which land, and gives it no rest. keeps in motion the clock of metaphysics, that never runs
affectus),
down, world
is
the consciousness that the non-existence of this
Thus, then, the just as possible as its existence. Spinozistic view of it as an absolutely necessary existence, that is, as something that absolutely and in every sense
is
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
manded
for the production
which such stupendous power as is deand 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
they were in the most just and also were far outweighed by good, are yet something which absolutely and in geneBut since now nothing can come ral ought not to be. out of nothing, these also must have their germ in the
in the world, which, even proportion to each other,
if
375
It is hard for origin or in the kernel of the world itself. us to assume this if we look at the magnitude, the order and completeness, of the physical world, for it seems to us
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
that
all
for
Theism.
Therefore the freedom of the will was
But this primarily invented to account for wickedness. is only a concealed way of making something out of
nothing, for it assumes an Operari that proceeded from no Esse (see Die beiden Ghundprobleme der Ethik, p. 58,
et seq. ;
second edition,
p.
57
et seq.)
Then
it
was sought
to
get rid of evil able necessity,
by attributing it to matter, or to unavoidwhereby 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
wickedness, evil, and death that qualify and the Not merely intensify philosophical astonishment. that the world exists, but still more that it is such a
above,
it is
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)
world.
occupied with the explanation of the phenomena in the But it lies in the very nature of its explanations themselves that they cannot be sufficient. Physics cannot
its
stand on
own
feet,
it
upon, whatever airs For it explains the
but requires a metaphysic to lean may give itself towards the latter.
unknown than they
resting upon forces also belongs. Certainly the

all
phenomena by something still more are themselves by laws of nature, of nature, to which the power of life
;
whole present condition of in in the or nature, must necessarily be world, things from explicable purely physical causes. But such an exsupposing one actually succeeded so far as to
planation
376
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVII.
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 First with explained really remains still unexplained. 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 infinite.
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
prominent part among them, by duce 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
forces which play a virtue of which they pro-
is not entirely composed of inexThus these two inevitable defects in plicable qualities. 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 The first step necessarily follow quite a different path.
worth, that
to this is that one should bring to distinct consciousness and firmly retain the difference of the two, hence the It rests in difference between physics and metaphysics. between on Kantian distinction the phenomenal general

and thing in
itself.
377
Just because Kant held the latter to
be absolutely unknowable, there was, according to him, no metaphysics, but merely immanent knowledge, i.e., physics,
also a critique of the reason
which throughout can speak only of phenomena, and which strives after metaphy-
sics. 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
comfreedom and of Pare necessity (Critique patibility Eeason, first edition, p. 532-554; and Critique of Practical Reason, p. 224231 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
the fact that Kant, in his beautiful exposition of the
of
;
says,
53 of the
"
Prolegomena
:"
"
Certainly natural neces-
sity 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 attri-
buted 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

his action
of the
man and
my
teaching extends to
phenomenon of all phenomena
in nature, in that it
their foundation.
makes the will as a thing in itself 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 I turn back from this premature digresonly in degree.
sion to our consideration of the
inadequacy of physics to
I say, then,
is
afford us the ultimate explanation of things.
everything certainly
is
physical, but yet nothing
explic-
378
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER XVII.
able physically. As for the motion of the projected bullet, so also for the thinking of the brain, a physical explanation
must ultimately be
latter just as
in itself possible,
is
comprehensible as
the former.
which would make the 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
bility, mobility,
may
be
of impenetra-
hardness, elasticity,
and gravity remains,
after all physical explanations, a mystery, just as much as But because in the case of thought the inexplicthought.
able appears most immediately, a spring was at once made here from physics to metaphysics, and a substance of quite
a different kind from

tatised
all
a soul was set
corporeal substances was hyposup 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 A physical system which asserted similars, classification.
:
that
its
explanations of things
in general
in the particular from
causes,
and
from forces
and thus exhausted the nature

the true Naturalism.
were really sufficient, of the world, would be
From Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus down to the Systeme 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
explana-

tions seek to conceal
379
from the explainers themselves and from others that they simply assume the principal matter without more ado. They endeavour to show that all those of mind, are physical. even And they phenomena,
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 dis-
in itself. Yet he was inclined to empiricism, and far as he was removed from the Platonic hyperphysics, kept himself free from this limited point of view.
tinction of the
phenomenon from the thing
without this Aristotle,
much
as
He
"
says
El
fiev
ovv
r)
fir}
eon
(f>vcrec
avve<TT7jKVta<i,
(pvaiKr) av
eir)
Tt? krepa ovaia irapa ra<i 7rpa>T7) eTn<TTwp.r)' et Se
eorc Tt9 ovcrca a/avr)TO<;, avrrj irporepa kcu <f>iXoaro<f>ia Trpayrr), Kdl KddoXoV OVTWS, OTl TTpOOTT}' Kdl 7T6/H TOV OVTOS 7) OV,
Tavrr}<;
av
eirj
deayprjaai."
(Si igitur noil est aliqua alia sub-
stantia, prceter eas, quae
'prima scientia esset

immobilis, hcec prior
natura consistunt, physica profecto quodsi autem est aliqua substantia
quod prima
et
"Metaph."
v. I.
philosophia prima, et universalis sic, de ente, prout ens est, speculari hujus est), Such an absolute system of physics as is
et
which leaves room for no metaphysics, Natura naturata into the Natura natuit be would rans; physics established on the throne of it would comport itself in this high metaphysics, yet
described above, would make the
position almost like Holberg's theatrical would-be politician
who was made
burgomaster.
Indeed behind the
atheism, in itself absurd, and for the most part malicious, there lies, as its inner meaning and truth,
reproach of
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
Therefore we not the only and absolute order of things. may set up this as the necessary Credo of all just and
380
:
FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER XVII.
"I believe in metaphysics." In this respect it good men 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
itself in
of motives.
the intellect in a
Now, that the world schematises 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
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 appear-
ance 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 The Christian mystics, when they call strange clothing.
it
the light of nature, declare the intellect to be inadequate
It is, to the comprehension of the true nature of things. 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 as particular from its cause but the chain of these causes,
;
we know a
priori,
and therefore with perfect
certainty,
381
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
which now remains as the absolutely inexplicable. 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 That absolutely everything and nothing is explicable. all element which pervades phenomena, which inexplicable is most striking in the highest, e.g., in generation, but yet
nature,
But
this inexplicable, to
just as truly present in the lowest, e.g., in mechanical phenomena, points to an entirely different kind of order
is
of things lying at the foundation of the physical order, which is just what Kant calls the order of things in
themselves, and winch is the goal of metaphysics. But, secondly, the insufficiency of pure naturalism comes out
clearly
from that fundamental philosophical truth, which fully considered in the first half of this book, and which is also the theme of the " Critique of Pure Eeason ;" the truth that every object, both as regards its objective existence in general and as regards the manner (forms) of
we have
subject,
throughout conditioned by the knowing 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,
this existence, is
hence
is
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
382
FIRST BOOK.
self,
CHAPTER
XVII.
of a thing in itsel
the thing in
is
and the one capacity
impulsive
force, for all other qualities
can only be inani
festations of this.
With
a
looking at things,
naturalism, then, or the purely physical way of we shall never attain our end ; it is like
that never comes out. Causal series without beginor end, fundamental forces which are inscrutable, ning 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
sum
to
which naturalism leads us ceaselessly round. The height which in our time the natural sciences have risen in
throws into the shade
all
this respect entirely
previous
and is a summit which mankind reaches for the But however great are the advances which first time. physics (understood in the wide sense of the ancients)
centuries,
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
may make,
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 over-
throws the metaphysical assumptions which till then have prevailed, but, on the other hand, presents the problem
of metaphysics itself
more
is
more distinctly, more correctly, and and separates it more clearly from all that fully, merely physical; moreover, the more perfectly and

accurately
pressingly
general,
383
known nature of the particular thing more demands the explanation of the whole and the which, the more correctly, thoroughly, and com-
empirically, only presents itself as the 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
pletely it is
known
more mysterious.
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

its
day the husk
of nature investigated in
tines of intestinal
minutest
details, the intes-
to a nicety.
do,
worms and the vermin of vermin known But if some one comes, as, for example, I
;
and speaks of the kernel of nature, they will not listen it has nothing to do with the matter, and One finds oneself tempted to go on sifting their husks. 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
they even think
source of all
verse as
wisdom
are in their
own way just
as per-
were formerly their antipodes the Scholastics.

latter,
As the
absolutely confined to their abstract con-
used these as their weapons, neither knowing nor investigating anything outside them, so the Mrmer, absolutely confined to their empiricism, allow nothing to
ceptions,
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
which can only be cleared up by delimitation of the subjective and accurate knowledge 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,
gulf,
a radical difference,
the
384
it is
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVII.
to be observed that the most perfect possible know-, ledge 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
Then, however, the investigator inward; for the intellectual and more important than the physical, in the same proportion as, for example, animal magnetism is a far more important phenomenon than mineral magThe last fundamental secret man carries within netism. and this is accessible to him in the most immehimself, diate manner ; therefore it is only here that he can hope to find the key to the riddle of the world and gain a clue
precede
its
solution.
must turn
his glance ethical phenomena are
to the nature of all things.
physics thus certainly

philosophy.
"
lies in
The special province of metawhat has been called mental
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 sbow'st me mine own self, and in my The deep, mysterious miracles unfold." 1
breast
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 Mathematics can leave perception altoof mathematics.
gether, and, as is especially the case in algebra, trigonometry, and analysis, can operate with purely abstract
conceptions, nay, with conceptions

1
which are represented

i.
[Bayard Taylor's translation of Faust, vol.
iSo.
Tra.]
385
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
But the possibility of this depends, as it. clearly shown, on the fact that the conceptions of mathematics are derived from the most certain and
not arrive at
Kant has
definite of all perceptions,
from the a priori and yet
in-
relations of quantity, and can therefore be constantly realised again and controlled by these, either arithmetically, by performing the calculations which are
tuitively
known
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
from heaven, or innate but they also, like all conand as, unlike the ceptions, are derived from perceptions of do not contain the mere mathematics, they conceptions form of perception, but more, empirical perceptions must Thus nothing can be drawn from lie at their foundation. 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 For from conceptions nothing hand from experience. more can ever be drawn than the perceptions from which
fallen
;
they are derived contain.

ie.,
If we desire pure conceptions, such as have no empirical source, the only ones that can be produced are those which concern space and time,
ie.,
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 of it (first in sense-perception) ; therefore experience
means
indeed
is
only possible by means of
it
but
it
also is only
vol. n.
2 B
386
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVII.
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 in general, for it shows that it is conditioned experience the subjective nature of the intellect Such knowledge, by
;
then, far from taking us beyond experience, gives only one part of experience itself, the formal part, which belongs
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
to it throughout,
sources of knowledge therefore that preconceived idea of a metaphysic to be found purely a priori is necessarily vain.
;
It is really apetitioprincipii of Kant's, which he expresses most distinctly in i of the Prolegomena, that metaphysics
must not draw
fundamental conceptions and principles 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 impossiBut does it not rather seem bility of all metaphysics.
its
from experience.
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
in the assistance of experience ? Is it not senseless that he who speaks of the nature of
it call
uld things should not look at things themselves, but should

confine himself to certain abstract conceptions
of
?
387
The task
metaphysics is certainly not the observation of particular experiences, but yet it is the correct explanation of experience as a whole.
rate,
Its
be of
an empirical nature.
foundation must therefore, at any Indeed the a priori

will be
nature of a part of
it
human knowledge
which
it
apprehended
as a given fact, from by jective origin of the same. ness of its
will infer the sub-
Only because the consciousa priori nature accompanies it is it called by

as distinguished from
transcendent,
"
Kant transcendental
which
ence,"
signifies
passing beyond all possibility of experiits
and has
opposite in immanent,
of
i.e.,
remaining
within
gladly recall the of this introduced original meaning expression by Kant, with which, as also with that of the Categories, and many
experience.
the limits
apes of philosophy carry on their game at the Now, besides this, the source of the knowpresent day. ledge of metaphysics is not outer experience alone, but
others, the
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 Astronomic" 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
'airly
be denied, deprives
certainty which
is
it
certainly of that kind of
ipodictic
edge a priori.
only possible through knowThis remains the possession of logic and
nathematics sciences, however, which really only teach At vhat every one knows already, though not distinctly. nost the primary elements of natural science may also be
(educed from knowledge a priori. By this confession an ancient surrenders claim, which, aetaphysics only
ccording to
what has been said above, rested upon misnderstanding, and against which the great diversity and
388
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVII.
changeableness of metaphysical systems, and also the constantly accompanying scepticism, in eveiy age has testified
possibility of metaphysics in general this cannot be urged, for the same thing affects changeableness all branches of natural science, much as just chemistry,
Yet against the
physics, geology, zoology,
remained exempt from

limits of
it.
&c, and even history has not But when once, as far as the
system of meta-
human
intellect allow, a true
physics shall have been found, the unchangeableness of a science which is known a priori will yet belong to it ; for
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
its
and new material is always being provided For experience as a whole and in general
change
its
for history. will never
character for a
is
:
new
one.
The next question
How
and
can a science drawn from
experience pass beyond
it
so merit the
name
of meta-
physics ? It cannot do so perhaps in the same way as we find a fourth number from three proportionate ones, or a
This was the way triangle from two sides and an angle. 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.
such a way we
therefore rightly taught that in cannot transcend the possibility of all ex-
He
But there are other paths to metaphysics. The perience. 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 only profoundly enough comprehended, and the innei experience is connected with the outer, it must be capable
is
of being interpreted, explained
from
itself.
Since Kant
389
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
dis-
tinguished 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
And although no one can disover for the thing in itself. cern the thing in itself through the veil of the forms of
perception, on the other
self,
it
hand every one
carries it in
him-
indeed
must
himself; therefore in self-consciousness be in some way accessible to him, even though

is it
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.
only conditionally.
For
it
different
contains the proof of a kernel of the phenomenon 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
phenomenon
in its relations to
itself.
and connections with the
interpretation and explanation of the latter, in relation to the former, which is its inner kernel, is capable of affording us information with
it
But the
regard to
ness.
which does not otherwise come into consciousmetaphysics goes beyond the
nature, to that
<f>vai/cov),
In
it
this sense, then,

i.e.,
phenomenon,
behind
which
is
concealed in or
it,
(to fiera to
always regarding
how-
ever, merely as that which manifests itself in the phenomenon, not as independent of all phenomenal appearance
it
immanent, and does not become tranFor it never disengages itself entirely from scendent. experience, but remains merely its interpretation and
therefore remains
explanation, since otherwise than in
it
never speaks of the thing in

relation to the
itself
its
phenomenon.
This
39
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
I,
XVII.
at least is the sense in
which
with reference through-
out 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 but only discloses the true really goes beyond experience, world of the which lies before it in experiunderstanding It is neither, according to the definition of metaence.
physics 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 meta-
been shown by Kant. But it is rational from perception of the external actual drawn knowledge, world and the information which the most intimate fact
physics has
of self-consciousness affords us concerning
it,
deposited in
distinct conceptions.
It is accordingly the science of ex-
but its subject and its source is not particular I comexperiences, but the totality of all experience. world of Kant's doctrine that the experience accept pletely is merely phenomenal, and that the a priori knowledge is valid only in relation to phenomena but I add that just
perience
;
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
391
unknown, we endeaupon 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
is
which
hit
vour to
make
it
out until
we
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
and that by attributing quite a different value 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
accidental,
to the letters
.
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
;
is incompatible with our wonder at its existence and nature ; the Wolfian doctrine, that man obtains
substance,
his Eanstentia
is
and Essentia from a will foreign to himself, contradicted by our moral responsibility for the actions
;
strict necessity from these, in conflict 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 pro-
which proceed with

with the motives
opposed to the a priori knowledge 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 concess of the world, is
that at
tradictions of dogmatic assumptions with the given reality of things. On the other hand, I must deny that any doc-
392
trine of
FIRST BOOK.
CHAPTER
XVII.
my philosophy could fairly be added to such a because each of them has been thought out in the presence of the perceived reality, and none of them has
list,
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
its
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 In the same way my doctrine introduces suitable to it. into the confusion of the conand connection agreement of this world, and solves the innumetrasting phenomena rable contradictions which, when regarded from any other
Therefore, so far, it is like point of view, it presents. a sum that comes out right, yet by no means in the
sense that
it leaves no problem over to solve, no possible To assert anything of that sort unanswered. question 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 to the adapted phenomena alone ; therefore we must com-
prehend 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
it
to us,
we would be
pains to impart absolutely incapable of understandall
come and take
ing anything of his expositions.
Those, therefore,
who
pro-
393
fess 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
of
is
which the world
arises
whatever it may be, in consequence from it, or springs, or falls, or
forth, are
produced, set in existence, "discharged," and ushered playing tricks, are vain boasters, when indeed
they are not charlatans. I regard it as a great excellence of

its
my philosophy that all

by
truths have been found independently of each other,

;
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
;
which, to judge
fifty
and hence, again, it is not wearisome from the philosophical writings
a quality
of the last
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
out of one first principle, it must be poor and and meagre, 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.
indeed
all
having made so
metaphysics is reproached with it ought also to be conhas sidered that no other science grown up like it under
If,
as so often happens,
little
progress,
394
riRST BOOK. CHAPTER XVII.
hindered from without as
constant oppression, none has been so hampered and it has always been by the
religion of every land, which, everywhere in possession of a monopoly of metaphysical knowledge, regards meta-
physics 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
Yet nothing can so even the problem of comprehension as a of it intruded upoD solution metaphysics previous For the necessary and early implanted in the mind. starting-point for all genuine philosophy is the deep " This one thing I know, that I feeling of the Socratic know nothing." The ancients were in this respect in a better position than we are, for their national religions
still
more have pretended
to
do
so.
firmly resist the
of
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
teachers.
the
ancients
are
still
our
Whenever metaphysics
is
reproached with
its
small pro-

gress,
395
and with not having yet reached its goal in spite efforts, one ought further to consider that in the meanwhile it has constantly performed the inof
such sustained
valuable 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
Look back also at the wars, 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 Yet is that whole thousand years a against each other. continual slaughter, now on the battlefield, now on the
blind as they really wish.
disturbances, rebellions,
scaffold,
now
in
I wish I
had an authentic
the streets, in metaphysical interests! list of all crimes which Chris-
tianity has really prevented, really performed, that I might other scale of the balance.
and all good deeds it has be able to place them in the
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
obli-
gations
upon
it
besides this, such as to be spiritualistic,
optimistic, monotheistic, or
even only to be moral, one

this
cannot
all its
know beforehand whether

first
would not
interfere
with the fulfilment of that
obligation, without which A other achievements must clearly be worthless.
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 however, in return, to be left in peace by them.
expects,
Supplements
to
tfje
Seconfc ISooft*
'
Ihr folget falscher Spur,
Denkt
nicht, wir scherzen

'
1st nicht der
Kern der Natur " Menachen im Herzen ?

Goethe.
SUPPLEMENTS TO THE SECOND BOOK.
CHAPTEE
XVIII. 1
ITSELF.
ON THE POSSIBILITY OF KNOWING THE THING IN
In 1836 I already published, under the title " Ueber den " Willen in der Natur (second ed., 1854 third ed., 1867),
;
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
the
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
it
much greater clearness than anywhere else, and brought down to the empirical knowledge of nature. And in-
deed 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
to
my philosophy than is given there. Whoever desires

to test
it
know my philosophy thoroughly and

Thus, in general,
all
seriously
must therefore give attention before everything to that

section.
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
1
This chapter
is
connected with
18 of the first volume,
400
SECOND BOOK. CHAPTER

but,
is
XVIII.
them;
that
it
on the other hand, I here take for gran 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.
It is primarily
very complicated physiological process in the brain of an animal, the result of which is the consciousness of a picture there. Clearly the relation
What is knowledge? What is idea? idea.
and
essentially
between such a picture and something entirely different from the animal in whose brain it exists can only be a very This is perhaps the simplest and most comindirect one.
prehensible
of disclosing the deep gulf"between the ideal 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
way
and
the real.
observe the motion of the earth.

the other hand,
first
Once pointed
out, on
by Descartes, it has ever since given But after Kant had at last proved philosophers no rest. 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
identity of the
brilliant results, to try to assert the absolute
two by dogmatic utterances, on the strength a of pretended intellectual intuition. In truth, on the ing contrary, a subjective and an objective existence, a being
for self
own
and a being for others, a consciousness of one*! self, and a consciousness of other things, is given directly, and the two are given in such a fundamental! different manner that no other difference can comp are with this. About himself every one knows directly, about This is the fact and the all others only very indirectly.
problem.
Whether, on the other hand, through further processes
ON KNOWING THE THING IN
ITSELF.
401
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 com-
now
whereby knowledge becomes rational, and is this is here no longer the essential called thinking but is of subordinate For all such significance. question,
binations,
from the perceptible idea, primary knowledge, and has conto be alone taken account of in an investigation sequently 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
conceptions receive their content only
which
is
therefore
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
being,
we
are here concerned.
Empirical
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
is
how important the choice of expressions in philosophy from the fact that that inept expression condemned above, and the misunderstanding which arose from it, became the foundation of the whole Hegelian pseudophilosophy,
which has occupied the German public

it
for
:wenty-five years.
!
If,
however,
should be said
"
:
The perception
is itself
;he
knowledge of the thing in itself: for it is the effect of that vhich is outside of us, and as this acts, so it is : its action
s
just its being;" to this
we
reply:
(1.)
that the law of
ausality, as has
rigin,
rises
been sufficiently proved, is of subjective as well as the sensation from which the perception and space, in which the (2.) that at any rate time
;
bject presents itself, are of subjective origin
(3.)
that
if
le being of the object consists simply in its action, this 2 c vol. n.
+02
SECOND BOOK. CHAPTER XVIII.

it
means that
nothing at
brings about in others

all.
consists merely in the changes which therefore itself and in itself it ;
it
is
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 causathus is itself causality objectively regarded ; hence, however, it is also nothing in itself (17 v\r) to a\i]6ivov yfrevSos, materia mendacium verax), but as an ingredient
lity,
in
the
for itself alone
perceived object, is a mere abstraction, which 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 otliers. For otherwise it
would be altogether merely idea, and we would have an absolute idealism, which would ultimately become theowith 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
retical egoism,
head or as phenomena exhibiting for time and space themIn this sense, then, an selves exist only in my head. 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 The real side must be something toto generc diffeside. rent 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
objects as ideas in
my
themselves in time and space
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
ITSELF.
403
which brings about Not only are both right, but we the empirical perception. can also see quite directly that a contradiction lies in the
of causality
given a priori, the law
assertion that a thing is known as it is in and for itself, i.e., For all knowing is, as we have said, outside of knowledge.
but my perception of ideas, it is mine, can never be identical with the inner because just V The being in and for nature of the thing outside of me. , itself, of everything,, must necessarily be subjective; in the
essentially a perceiving of ideas ;
idea of another, however,

1
it
exists just as necessarily as
objective
For by
it
a difference which can never be fully reconciled. 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, ab-
sorbed in this reflection, perceive, let us say lifeless bodies,

!
of easily
form,
,
surveyed magnitude and regular, comprehensible 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
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
that
bodies exist only in 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
lifeless
my
this
very iuscrutableness 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
404
XVIII.
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 com-
monest 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 ironpyrite, by reason of its crystallographical, optical, chemical, and electrical properties, is to the searching consideration
and investigation an abyss
of incomprehensibilities and This could not be the case if we knew things mysteries. as they are in themselves ; for then at least the simpler phe-
nomena, 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 For if our perception, in the nature of knowledge itself. 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 can-
not 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,
to
which allows us merely

it,
assume what
it
is
concealed beneath
it
but never
to
hence, then, ; gleams through as an inscrutable never and can the nature of anything entire and mystery, without reserve pass over into knowledge ; but much less
know
can any real thing be construed a priori, like a mathematical problem. natural things
is
Thus the empirical inscrutableness of all a proof a posteriori of the ideality and
merely phenomenal-actuality of their empirical existence. According to all this, upon the path of objective know-
ITSELF.
405
ledge, 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 themSo far I agree with Kant. But, selves, i.e., for themselves. of this the as truth, I have given prominence to counterpart
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.

thing in itself can, as such, only quite directly, in this way, that
itself: to
The
come
is
into consciousness
conscious of
it is itself
to desire something objectively Everything objective is idea, therefore contradictory. appearance, mere phenomenon of the brain.
it
wish to know
Kant's chief result

stated
"
:
may
in substance be thus concisely
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 abso-
I grant lutely no knowledge of things in themselves." knowof the with the this of everything, single exception
this ledge which each of us has of his own willing: nor is all is a neither spatial) perception perception (for it is more real than any other. rather Further, empty
;
is
it
it
not a priori, like merely formal knowledge, but entirely a posteriori; hence also we cannot anticipate it in the of error particular case, but are hereby often convicted
is
In have which we opportunity

concerning ourselves.
fact,
our willing
is
the
one
of understanding
from within
406
XVIII.
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. Accordinglv we must learn to understand nature from ourWhat is selves, not conversely ourselves from nature.
:
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 rewhen we
say
it is
ceived an impulse more thoroughly than our movement feel a motive? Many may imagine so, but I
the reverse.
Yet we
shall attain to the
know-
ledge that
what
mentioned
essential in both the occurrences just is identical; although identical in the same
is
way
as the lowest audible note of
harmony
is
the same as
the note of the same
name
ten octaves higher.
should be carefully observed, and I have in mind, that even the inward experience always kept which we have of our own will by no means affords us an
it
Meanwhile
it
exhaustive and adequate knowledge of the thing in itself. Tiiis 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 selfconsciousness (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 J is not known, and the latter does not know, though both But just on this unite in the consciousness of an I. account that I is not thoroughly intimate with itself, as it were transparent, but is opaque, and therefore remains a

riddle to itself, thus
exists a difference
ITSELF.
407
even in inner knowledge there also 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
acts, and not as a whole, in and for no one knows his character a 'priori, but only learns it through experience and always incomBut yet the apprehension, in which we know pletely. 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 therefore the closely examined by the knowing subject event thus intimately known is alone fitted to become the
only in
its
successive
itself: therefore
interpreter of all others. For in every emergence of an act of will from the ob-
scure depths of our inner being into the
knowing conitself,
sciousness a direct transition occurs of the thing in which lies outside time, into the phenomenal world.
Ac-
cordingly the act of will

follows from this that
is
indeed only the closest and

of the thing in itself; yet it other manifestations or phe-
most distinct manifestation

if all
nomena 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
i
I
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
r
408
of its
XVIII.
phenomena, which by this imraediateness 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, becom:
ing
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, of existing, determinations, qualities, which are absolutely unknowable and incomprehensible to us, and which
ways
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 WiUen 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 phe-

;
ITSELF.
409
noinena 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 the kernel of
accordingly
in the case
first
to
the the
last,
place the true being or
man
have
of
knowing consciousness, and conceived and explained the I, or,

in
of
many
them,
its
transcendental hypo-
stasis called soul,
nay, thinking,
and
as primarily and essentially knowing, only in consequence of this, secondarily
and derivatively, as willing.

radical error, this
tal
This ancient and universal

yfrevSos
enormous irparov
and fundamen-
before everything be set aside, varepop irporepov, and instead of it the true state of the case must be
must
brought to perfectly distinct consciousness. Since, however, this is done here for the first time, after thousands of
years of philosophising,
appropriate. most essential point all philosophers have erred, nay, have exactly reversed the truth, might, especially in the case
some fulness of statement The remarkable phenomenon, that
will be
in this
be partly explicable from the 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 inadmisof those of the Christian era, fact that
they
all
because it is a transcendent hypostasis, as is proved " it becomes the the by Critique of Pure Eeason," but " source of irremediable errors, because in its simple subsible,
stance
"
it
establishes beforehand
an
indivisible unity of
is
knowledge and
will, the separation of which
just the
4io
XVIII.
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 conpath to the truth.
firmed.
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 obvi:
ously 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.
alone leads out of this dilemma, for it for time places the true being of man not in the consciousness but in the will, which is not essentially bound
My philosophy
first
the
consciousness, but is related to consciousness, ie., 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 cor-
up with
Now we can compreporeal world does from without. hend 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
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
birth.
imperishable.
4"
CHAPTER
XTX.i
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 regulat-
ing 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
and material,
members 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 imme:
itself as extended, successively acting, as i.e., something operative or efficient. The are both directly felt and also perceived by
diate manifestation of
cal,
the will
;
the will
is
metaphysi-
the intellect, like its objects, is merely phenomenal appearance ; the will alone is the Then, in a more and more figurative sense, thing in itself.
the intellect physical
1
This chapter
is
connected with
19 of the
first
volume.
412

way
of simile
:
XIX.
thus by
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.
now first of all verify and also elucidate thia 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
thesis
;
We shall
systematic psychologies. of other things, i.e., the apprehension of the external world, but also self-consciousness, contains, as was mentioned already above, a knower
i.
found in
many
Not only the consciousness
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 inThe intelligence is like the sun, telligence is impossible. 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
is clearly only affection of the will, is a mova modification of willing and not- willing, is just that which, if it takes outward effect, exhibits itself as an act of
and aversion,
ing,
will proper. 1
1
In
all
knowledge, however, the
known is
first
remarkable that Augustine already knew this. In the fourteenth book, "De Civ. Dei," c 6, he speaks of the affectionibus animi, which in the
It
is
preceding book he had brought under

four categories, cupiditas, timor, la" Voluntas est titia, tristitia, and says quippe in omnibus, imo omnes nihil
:
ON THE WILL IN SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

and
essential, not the
413
irpat-
knower
for the former
is
the
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
TOTfTro?, the latter
the eKTwro^.
are related
secondary, that which has been added, the mirror. They very much as the luminous to the reflecting
;
body
or, again, as
the vibrating strings to the resounding-
which case the note produced would be consciousWe may also regard the plant as a like symbol of ness. 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
board, in
:
part asunder, close to the ground, the collum (rhizoma, le The root is what is essential, original, perennial, collet). 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
ing,
the pro tempore identical subject of knowing and willwhose identity I called in my very first essay (on the
principle of sufficient reason),
and in
-
my first philosophical
wonder, the miracle tear egoxv v
I* is the temporal start-
ing-point and connecting-link of the whole phenomenon, will it conditions indeed \i.e., of the objectification of the
:
by it. This comnature of to individual carried the be even parison may men. As a large corona commonly springs only from a
the phenomenon, but
is
also conditioned
large root, so the greatest intellectual capabilities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.
genius of a phlegmatic character and weak passions

quam
voluntates
aliud,
sunt
nam
volumus t
titia,
et
quid
est
metus atque
tris-
cupiditas et Icetitia, nisi voluntas in eorum consensioncm, qua
quid
est
nisi voluntas in dissensionem a&
his, quce
nolumus ? cet"
414
XIX.
would resemble those succulent plants that, with a considerable corona consisting of thick leaves, have very small That vehemence of roots ; will not, however, be found.
will
and passionateness
of
character are
conditions of
intelligence exhibits itself physiologically through the fact that the activity of the brain is conditioned by the movement which the great arteries running
heightened
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.
above certainly occurs vehement violent desires, passionate, character, along with weak ina small brain of bad conformation in a thick tellect, i.e.,
of the
:
But the opposite
skulL
This is a phenomenon as common as we might perhaps compare it to beetroot

2.
it is
repulsive
merely to describe consciousness but to know it thoroughly, we have first of figuratively, all to find out what appears in the same way in every
consciousness,
But
in order not
and
therefore, as the
common and
Then we
constant
element, will also be the essential.
shall consider
what distinguishes one consciousness from another, which accordingly will be the adventitious and secondary element.
is positively only known to us as a proanimal 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
Consciousness
perty of
and the weakest, is always present, nay, lies at its foundation, is an immediate sense of longing, and of the alternate nt satisfaction and non-satisfaction of it, in very different This we know to a certain extent a priori. F degrees.
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 know that the animal wills, indeed confided to us.
We
also what
it wills,
existence, well-being,
life,
and propaga-

tion
;
415
and since in
all
this
we presuppose with
perfect certaintyit
identity with us,
we do
not hesitate to attribute to
un-
changed
the affections of will which
we know
in our-
selves, and speak at once of its desire, aversion, fear, ano-er, On the other hand, hatred, love, joy, sorrow, longing, &c. 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 mill could not have those emo-
But with regard to the definite 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 Here skill, in consequence of experience and practice.
tions referred to above.
of
manner
knowing
of the brutes
lie distinctions of consciousness. On the other hand, a longing, desiring, wishing, or a detesting, shunning, and is proper to every consciousness: man has ['not wishing,
then
it
in
common with
essential element in
the polyp. This is accordingly the 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.
our
own nature
all actions
"We understand directly from and behaviour of the brutes

will
;
which express movements of the
therefore, so far,
we sympathise with them

solely
lies
hand, the gulf between from the difference of intellect.

is
in various ways. On the other us and them results simply and
The gulf which between a very sagacious brute and a man of very
perhaps not much greater than that which exists between a blockhead and a man of genius ; therefore here also the resemblance between them in
limited capacity
another aspect, which springs from the likeness of their inclinations and emotions, and assimilates them again
to
each other, sometimes appears with surprising promi-
416
XIX.
Jf<
nence, and excites astonishment. This consideration makes it clear that in all animal natures the trill is what is
primary and substantial, the

( adventitious, indeed a
)
(
intellect
again
is
mere
tool for the service of
secondary. the
former, and
is
according to the
more or less complete and complicated, demands of this service. As a species of
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
animals
the intelligence necessary for its endurance. The more the in the complicated organisation becomes, ascending series of animals, the more numerous also are its wants, and the more varied and specially determined the objects
is
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 and orderer of movements. The last step which disposer
nature has taken in this respect is, however, disproporFor in man not only does the faculty tionately great.
of
ideas
of
perception,
which
alone
existed
hitherto,
reach the highest degree of perfection, but the abstract

idea, thought,
i.e.,
Through
this
and with it reflection, is added, important advance of the intellect, thus

reason,

of
417
secondary part of consciousness, it now gains a preponderance over the primary part, in so far as it becomes henceforward the predominantly active part.
the
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
his desires,
man the opposite is the case.
Vehement
as are
even more vehement than those of any brute,
to the level of passions, yet his consciousness remains continuously and predominantly occupied and filled with ideas and thoughts. Without doubt this has
rising
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,
ie., in the inner or spiritual life of man, always placing it first, but will, as a mere product of thought, they regard
yjt
**'
only a subordinate addition and consequence of it. if willing merely proceeded from knowing, how could the brutes, even the lower grades of them, with so very
as
^v^
But
little
vehement will?
knowledge, often show such an unconquerable and Accordingly, since that fundamental
error of the philosophers
the substance, it leads there is afterwards no

relative
them
makes, as it were, the accident into mistaken paths, which

of getting out
of.
way
Now
this
knowing consciousness over predominance 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
of the
1
moments
of
its
highest ascendancy,
the secondary
or
of consciousness detaches itself altogether from the willing part, and passes into free activity for itself, [
knowing part
ie.,
untouched by the will, and consequently no longer and the clear serving it. Thus it becomes purely objective, mirror of the world, and from it the conceptions of genius
then arise, which are the subject of our third book. 2D VOL. n.
4i 8
XIX.
^/
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. r lt~ina eed, as the secondary part of consciousness, and m bound to the bodily organism, has innumerable degrees of
completeness, and
imperfect.
is
in general essentially limited and
The
that
will,
on the contrary, as original and the
thing in
will
is
itself,
all
can never be imperfect, but every act of 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 highe
;
<
419
3tage is certainly needed for thinking and deliberation ; ;herefore it is also capable of great improvement through jxercise and education. If the intellect presents a simple,
3erceptible object to the will, the latter expresses at once ts approval or disapproval of it, and this even if the
rom numerous
nteilect has laboriously inquired and pondered, in order data, by means of difficult combinations,
iltimately to arrive at the conclusion as to which of the wo seems to be most in conformity with the interests of
he
will.
The
latter has
is
meanwhile been idly

arrived at
it
vhen the conclusion
resting, and as the Sultan enters,
nters the Divan, merely to express again its monotonous pproval or disapproval, which certainly may vary in ;egree, but in its nature remains always the same.
!
atellect,
This fundamentally different nature of the will and the the essential simplicity and originality of the
ormer, in contrast to the complicated

cter of
and secondary charthe latter, becomes still more clear to us if we bserve their remarkable interaction within us, and now
in the particular case, how the images and loughts which arise in the intellect move the will, and ow entirely separated and different are the parts which
3tual
onsider
jae
can indeed perceive this even in play. events which excite the will in a lively manner, hile primarily and in themselves they are merely objects
intellect.
two
We
I the
rident that this

tellect;
But, on the one hand, it is here not so reality primarily existed only in the
and, on the other hand, the change does not take place so rapidly as is necessary if the thing merally 1 to be easily surveyed, and thereby become thoroughly Both of these conditions, however, are >mprehensible.
Wow
merely thoughts and phantasies which we on the will. If, for example, alone with ournow ;lves, we think over our personal circumstances, and of an menace the to ourselves jrhaps vividly present of an unfortustually present danger and the possibility
lulled
if
it is
to act
l.te issue,
the anxiety at once compresses the heart, and
420
XIX.
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 jcy
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 But then arises, the breast that was but now at peace.
up by accident, the image of a long-lost love, with which the whole romance and its magic scenes is concalled
nected; then that anger will at once give place to profound longing and sadness. Finally, if there occurs to ua
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 if J without will Therefore the former is like a body which is moved, the latter like the causes which set it in motion,
of motives. Yet in all this the pribecomes clear again, if this will, which macy as we have shown, becomes the sport of the intellect as soon as it allows the latter to control it, once makes it*
for it is the
of the will
medium
supremacy in the last instance felt by prohibiting the from entertaining certain ideas, absolutely pretrains of thought from arising, because certain venting it knows, i.e., learns from that very intellect, that thej would awaken in it some one of the emotions set fortl above. It now bridles the intellect, and compels it to tun Hard as this often may be, it must ye to other things.
intellect
-
be accomplished as soon as the will
is in
earnest about
it

for
421
the resistance in this case does not proceed from the which always remains indifferent, but from the will itself, which in one respect has an inclination towards
intellect,
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
it a shock of painful or unworthy decides in conformity with this abstract knowledge, and compels the obedience of the intellect. " This is called being master of oneself." Clearly the
will aimlessly
cause
emotion
it
now
master here
last
is
the will, the servant the intellect, for in the
instance the will always keeps the upper hand, and therefore constitutes the true core, the inner being of
In this respect the title Hyefiovucop would belong 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
man.
to the will ;
can
see.
The
relation of the will to the intellect here explained
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
may
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
them like those of a stranger, by spying upon them and surprising them, and must catch the will in
only learn
intentions.
the act of expressing itself in order to get at its real For example, I have conceived a plan, about
still
which, however, I have
some
its
scruple, but the feasible-
ness of which, as regards
possibility, is
completely
uncertain, for it depends upon external and still undecided circumstances. It would therefore certainly be un-
422

it it is.
XIX.
necessary to come to a decision about

for the time I leave the matter as I often
at present,
and
so
Now in such a case
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

once there
let
me
receive
news
that
it is
prac-
ticable, at
rises
within
me
a jubilant,
irresis-
tible 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
A
*
will
had
the plan suited
laid hold of that plan, and how thoroughly it, while the intellect had regarded it as
entirely problematical, and to overcome that scruple.
had with
Or
difficulty been able 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
;
course. Now, however, the contract is broken the other side, and I perceive with unexpectedly by 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
follow the
same
clear consciousness
for the intellect
must know nothing

fulfilled
about
selves
it,
because the good opinion which

suffer.
might thereby 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
But
if it is
we have of ourwe learn
we
sciousnesss.
lack the courage to bring it to distinct conIndeed we are often in error as to the real
undone,
motive from which we have done something or left it till at last perhaps an accident discovers to us the secret, and we know that what we have held to be the
423
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 our-
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 In particular cases as all danger is removed we do it.
selves.
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 "We may remark in is the true motive of his action.
passing that in all this we have a confirmation and ex" L' amour-propre planation of the rule of Larochefoucauld
:
plus habile que le plus habile homme du monde;" nay, even a commentary on the Delphic yva>6i aavrov and its
est
If now, on the contrary, as all philosophers difficulty. imagine, the intellect constituted our t rue natur e and the purposes of the w ill were a mere resultfof 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
set forth, to
and true motive would be impossible. Thus all cases here which every one who pays attention may
observe
intellect
analogous
is
cases in himself, show us how the 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
not told everything. This is also the fact, which almost every one will by some time have the opportunity of observing in himself, that sometimes the intellect does not thoroughly trust the
is
further confirmed
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
424
it,
XIX.
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 sub-
ordinate 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
All knowing is accompanied with effort; bodily work. on the willing, contrary, is our very nature, whose manifestations take place without any weariness and entirely
of their
excited,
grief,
own accord. Therefore, if our will is strongly as in all emotions, thus in anger, fear, desire,
&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 avrofiaTo?, and therefore a/ca/xaTos tcai aynparo? rjfiara iravra (lassituIt alone is active dinis et senii expers in sempitemum).
without being called upon, and therefore often too early
and too much, and scarcely show the
it
first
knows no weariness. Infants who 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 peignent avec tant de naivete", sur
se succtdent
d'une manniire
le
si rapide, et se
visage mobile des en/ants.
Tandis que lesfaibles muscles de leurs brasetde leurs jambes savent encore a peine former quelque mouvemens inde'eis, les muscles de la face expriment deja par des mouvemens distincts
presque toute la suite des affections gtntrales proprcs
425
la nature humaine: et V observateur attentif rcconnait facilement dans ce tableau les traits caracUristiques de I'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 It is because the brain merely a somatic function.
attains its full size in the seventh year that from that time forward children become so remarkably intelligent,
"
But then comes puberty to inquisitive, and reasonable. a certain extent it affords a support to the brain, or a resounding-board, and raises the intellect at once by a
;
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
large step, as it
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, This that the will hurries to its work before the time. 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,
leads joy, desire, envy, grief, zeal, anger, or courage, and 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
426
XIX.
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, aa
!
it is
a mere slave and
bondman
of the will,
and
not, like
its
it, avTo/j,a.To<;,
nor active from

it is
its
own power and
own
able,
impulse ; by a nod of the will, while on its part it is scarcely with the greatest efforts, to bring the will even to a
therefore
easily pushed aside
and silenced
brief
This is why the people are so pause, in order to speak. rare, and are found almost only among Spaniards, Turks, and perhaps Englishmen, who even under circumstances
of provocation keep the liead 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
he utters a cry, Iffland blew into the whether it was loaded. Of ten that nine would not be able to do so if annoy us, things we understood them thoroughly in their causes, and therebut we would fore knew their necessity and true nature 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 unmanagethey will
fire
it
if
mouth
of the rifle to try
able horse the intellect

bridle
it
is
for the will in
man
by
this
and as the force in the an that impetuous impulse appears as we it is at bottom waterfall, know, nay, descending In the height of anger, in intoxicaidentical with this. tion, in despair, it has taken the bit between its teeth, has run away, and follows its original nature. In the Mania
is
must be controlled by means exhortation, culture, &c, for in itself it
of
instruction,
as wild

sine delirio
427
it has lost bridle and bit altogether, and shows distinctly its original nature, and that the intellect is as different from it as the bridle from the horse.
now most
In this condition
it
may
also
is
which, when a certain screw without stopping.
be compared to a clock taken away, runs down
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,
set
subject to vis inertice, consequently only active if it is agoing by something else, the will, which rules it,
it,
manages
rouses
it
to effort, in short, imparts to
it
the
Therefore activity which does not originally reside in it. 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 Hence all continuous mental work derepeated shocks.
rest, otherwise stupidity and incapacity course only temporarily ; but if this rest is persistently denied to the intellect it will become excessively and continuously fatigued, and the consequence
mands pauses and

ensue, at
first of
is
may
a permanent deterioration of it, which in an old man pass into complete incapacity, into childishness, im-
becility,
and madness.
itself,
in and for
It is not to be attributed to age 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
also Wordsworth, Southey, and many minorum gentium, became dull and incapable. Goethe remained to the end clear, strong, and activeminded, 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
childish,
Scott,
Walter
and
428
XIX.
very subordinate
of Voltaire.
'
Now
all this
proves
how
and physical and what a mere tool the intellect is. Just on this account it requires, during almost a third part of
the entire suspension of its activity in sleep, of the brain, of which it is the mere functhe rest i.e., and which therefore just as truly precedes it as the tion,
its lifetime,
stomach precedes digestion, or as a body precedes its impulThe sion, and with which in old age it flags and decays. * will, on the contrary, as the thing in itself, is never lazy,
absolutely untiring, its activity is its essence, it never ceases willing, and when, during deep sleep, it is forsaken
is
of the intellect,
and therefore cannot act outwardly in

it is
accordance with motives,

cares the
active as the vital force,
more uninterruptedly for the inner economy of the organism, and as vis natures medicatrix sets in order again the irregularities that have crept into it. For it is
body ; but the body ordine rerum, prior to the body, as its metaphysical substratum, as the in-itself of It shares its unwearying its phenomenal appearance.
is its
not, like the intellect, a function of the
function ; therefore
it
is,
primum
come
nature, for the time that life lasts, with the heart, that mobile of the organism, which has therefore beits
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 sustherefore in old age the man can perhaps only be matched by taking advantage of the weakness of his
ceptible
:
intellect.
Moreover, the prevailing weakness and imperfection of 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 inthe intellect, as
tellect 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
:
429
For how philosophers have hitherto assumed it to be. 'could the original nature in its immediate and peculiar function so constantly err and fail ? The truly original
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
in
human
imperfection of it would be a fundamentally false point of For morality has rather a source which really lies view. above nature, and therefore its utterances are in contradiction with
it.
Therefore morality is in direct opposition
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
to the natural will,
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

its
function with perfect purity and correctness so only long as the will is silent and pauses. On the other hand, the function of the intellect is disturbed by
carry on
falsified
every observable excitement of the will, and its result is by the intermixture of the latter ; but the con-
verse does not hold, that the intellect should in the same way be a hindrance to the will. Thus the moon cannot
is in the heavens, but when the moon does not prevent the sun from shining. great fright often deprives us of our senses to such an extent that we are petrified, or else do the most absurd
shine
when
the sun
it
is
in the heavens
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 Fear prevents us from seeacts almost in the same way.
ing and laying hold of the resources that are
still
present,
43Q
XIX.
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 The former consists in the silence of presence of mind. 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
; ;
;
of inestimable advantage, because the use of the intellect just at those times they permit when we stand most in need of it, and therefore confer
degree.
But they are
decided superiority. He who is without them only knows what he should have done or said when the opportunity
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
has passed.
knowledge of the circumstances and weapon in the conflict with things and with men. In this sense Balthazar Gra" Us la passion enemiga declarada de la cordura " cian says
disarmed;
for the correct
and
relations is our defence
(Passion
intellect
is
the declared
enemy
of prudence).
If
now
the
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 The intellect is really

but
called emotion animi perturbatio. like the reflecting surface of water, the water itself is like the will, whose disturbance
therefore at once destroys the clearness of that mirror and The organism is the will the distinctness of its images.
itself,
is
embodied
will,
i.e.,
the brain.
Therefore
many
will objectively perceived in of its functions, such as res-
piration, circulation, secretion of bile,
and muscular power.

are heightened
431
and accelerated by the pleasurable, and in
The intellect, on the other general the healthy, emotions. is the mere function of the brain, which is only hand, 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
upon
tions
this disturbing influence of the activity of the will the intellect can be shown, not only in the perturba-
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 iElian, V.H., 13, 28) very beautifully called
hope the dream of the waking.

that the will,
Its nature lies in this,

is
when
it
its
servant the intellect

it
not able to
produce what
>
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
wishes, obliges
dress these out that they gain
an appearance
of likelihood.
Now in this the intellect must do violence to its own

which aims at the
truth, for it
nature,
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
if
is
servant.
Many may
well have observed that
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
a matter
which
is of
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 ex:
planation of this
is,
that while their
intellect
intended to
432
XIX.
quite invisible to
it it
survey the possibilities completely, the worst of all rernainc it because the will, as it were, coverec
;
with
its
hand, that
it
is, it
so mastered the intellect that
was quite incapable

probable case.
although, since
of glancing at the worst case of all, actually came to pass, this was also the
most
or in those that have
Yet in very melancholy dispositions, become prudent through experi-
ence 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.
it is
matter
the intellect begins to investigate the rejected as incompetent, nay, as a deceitful

If
sophist, because the heart is to be believed, whose fears are now actually allowed to pass for arguments as to the
reality
and greatness
if left
dare
make no
which,
issue,
of the danger. So then the intellect search for good reasons on the other side, to itself, it would soon recognise, but is
obliged at once to picture to
them the most unfortunate

:
even
"
if it itself
can scarcely think this issue possible

is false,
is
Such
as
we know
Because the worst
yet dread in sooth, ever nearest truth."
Byron
(Lara,
1).
Love and Tiate 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 Our interest, of whatever kind it may be, exeramiable. what is in cises a like secret power over our judgment 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 injudiHence so many prejudices of position, cious and absurd.
profession, nationality,
sect,
and
religion.
conceivec
hypothesis gives us lynx-eyes for all that confirms it, and makes us blind to all that contradicts it. What is opposec our plan, our wish, our hope, we often canto our
party,
not comprehend and grasp at
all,
while
it is
clear to ever)
433
one else; but what is favourable to these, on the other What the heart opposes fiand, strikes our eye from afar. 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. then is the intellect daily befooled and corrupted
Thus by the
:
impositions of inclination.
This has been very beauti-
fully expressed by Bacon of Verulam in the words Intellectus LUMINIS SICCI non est ; sed recijpit infusionem a voluntate et affectibus : id quod generat ad quod milt scientias ; quod enim mavult homo, id potius credit. Innumeris modis,
iisque
interdum imperceptibilibus,
i.
affectus intellectum
it is
im-
buit et inficit (Org. Nov.,
opposes all
all
Clearly opinions in the sciences and refutations of sanctioned errors, for one will not easily
14).
also this that
new fundamental
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
nake mistakes much oftener in our own favour than to >ur disadvantage, and this without the slightest dishonest ntention, merely from the unconscious tendency to liminish our Debit and increase our Credit.
VOL. H.
2B
*34
XIX.
is
Lastly, the fact is also in point here, that when advice given the slightest aim or purpose of the adviser gene-
rally outweighs his insight,
therefore
latter
however great it may be; we dare not assume that he speaks from the 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

fools us, or suspicion
when hope
us, or
bribes us, or fear be-
torments
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 influ;
ence 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
i.e. t the comprehension of genius, is conditioned by a silence of the will so profound that while it lasts even the individuality vanishes from consciousness
of the world,
and the man remains as

is
the
pure
subject
of knowing, which
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
the will
any way moved, gives us then another proof that 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
intelol
lect corresponding to the disturbance and clouding knowledge by the will that has been shown. Indeed
435
cannot well conceive such a thing. No one will wish to 'construe as such the fact that motives wrongly taken
lead the will astray, for this
its
is
up
irf*
a fault of the intellect
committed quite within its own province, and the influence of which upon the will is entirely indirect. It would be plausible to attribute
function,
is
own
which
9 irresolution
the motives
latter is
to this, for in its case, through the conflict of which the intellect presents to the will, the
standstill,
brought to a
consider
it
thus
it
when we
tivity
objects
more
closely,
is hindered. But becomes very clear
that the cause of this hindrance does not lie in the acof
the intellect as such, but entirely in
external
it, they stand in precisely such a relation to the will, which is here interested, that they draw it with nearly equal strength in
which are brought about by
for in this case
different directions.
This real cause merely acts through
the intellect as the
though certainly keen enough to comprehend the objects in their manifold relations. Irresoluunder the assumption that
it is
medium
of motives,
tion, as a trait of character, is just as
much
conditioned
It is certainly qualities of the will as of the intellect. not peculiar to exceedingly limited minds, for their weak
by
understanding does not allow them to discover such manifold qualities and relations in things, and moreover is so
little
fitted for
these,
the exertion of reflection and pondering and then the probable consequences of each step,
that they rather decide at impression, or according to
once according to the
first
some simple
rule of conduct.
The converse
of this occurs in the case of persons of con-
siderable understanding. Therefore, whenever such persons also possess a tender care for their own well-being,
i.e.,
come
a very sensitive egoism, which constantly desires to off well and always to be safe, this introduces a cer-
tain anxiety at every step,
and thereby
irresolution.
This
throughout not a want of understanding but a want of courage. Yet very eminent minds survey the relations and their probable developquality
therefore
indicates
436
XIX.
and certainty, that if they are only supported by some courage they thereby acquire
merits with such rapidity
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
Hence it is not the really great minds that make historical characters, because they are capable of bridling
action.
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

of will,
great
is
firmness,
decision,
sistent
this
and persistency
such as
quite incon-
with very high intelligence. Accordingly, where very high intelligence exists we actually have a case
which the intellect directly restricts the will. 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
in
6.
;
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
that in this also
relation of a tool.
we may
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
new
us,
the necessity of certain achievements, develop entirely talents in us, the germs of which were hidden from
and
for
which we did not
credit ourselves with any

capacity.
437
The understanding
;
of the
stupidest
man
be-
comes 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
is
persons, which
is
to do with the cunning of half-witted often remarked with surprise. On this
account Isaiah rightly says, vexatio dot intellectum, which Akin to it is the therefore also used as a proverb. German proverb, " Die Noth ist die Mutter der Kunste "
("
Necessity
is
fine arts are to
the mother of the arts ") ; when, however, the 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,
sity, so
Even the underif they are to be genuine. standing of the brutes is increased considerably by necesthat in cases of difficulty they accomplish things
it is
at
which we are astonished.
calculate that
safer not
;
For example, they almost all 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
obtain a fuller knowledge of this influence from the special history of the self-education of
to it; insects, dead, &c.
when they cannot
escape, pretend to be
We may
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,

telligence
et
"
Zettres sur I'in-
la perfectibiliU des animaiix."
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.

is
In
its case,
;
however, this
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
made up
for
by
great understanding
it
it
attain that high degree of cunning which distinguishes In all these enhancements of the especially in old age.
intellect the will plays the part of a rider
who with
the
438
XIX.
its
spur urges the horse beyond the natural measure of

strength.
In the same
way
the
memory
is
enhanced through the
pressure of the will.
preserves perfectly The lover forgets no opportunity favourable to him, the ambitious man forgets no circumstance that can forward
his plans, the avaricious
suffered, the
Even if it is otherwise weak, it what has value for the ruling passion.
man never forgets the loss he has 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
proud
it
also extends to the brutes: the horse
stops at the inn 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.
where once long ago
was fed
Self-consideration affords opportunity for finer observations in this regard.

it
Sometimes, through an interruption, has entirely escaped me what I have just been thinking
Now if the about, or even what news I have just heard. 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.
am
still
quite conscious
how
far it affected
me
agreeably or disagreeably, and also
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
of the special
manner
Thus the mere relation of opposite of these affections. the thing to my will is retained in the memory after the thing itself has vanished, and this often becomes the clue The sight of a man to lead us back to the thing itself.
sometimes
affects
us in an analogous manner, for

in general that
remember merely
we we have had something
to do with him, yet without what it was, or who he is.
knowing where, when, or But the sight of him still recalls pretty accurately the feeling which our dealings with him excited in us, whether it was agTeeable or dis-
439
and also in what degree and in what way. agreeable, 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
of the head.
Yet
at
bottom the connection
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
Accordingly the improvement of the under the memory 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
;
well be conceived.
serve to confirm this.
The intellect often obeys the will for example, if we wishto remember something, and after some effort succeed; so also if we wish now to ponder something carefully and
;
Sometimes, again, deliberately, and in many such cases. 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
The anger of the will against the occasions makes its relation to it and the
to
it.
intellect
on such
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 unexOn the other hand, the will pectedly and unseasonably. never really obeys the intellect but the latter is only the
;
440
XIX.
ministerial council of that sovereign ; it presents all kinds of things to the will, which then selects what is in con-
formity with
itself
its
nature, though in doing so
it
determines
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
For all teaching only affects knowledge, and knowitself. ledge 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
reach
correctly what objects of the will's choice are within its so that the will now measures its relation to things ;
correctly, sees more clearly what it desires, and consequently is less subject to error in its choice. But over the
more
>
will itself, over the main tendency or fundamental of it, the intellect has no power. To believe that
maxim
if
knowwill is like determines the and fundamentally ledge really a man carries that lantern which the by night is believing 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.
transgressions. pentance, has been gone through several times he becomes conscious that he cannot improve himself, that the fault lies in his
new
intentions,
new
New reWhen this
will
nature and personality, indeed is one with this. Now he blame and curse his nature and personality, will have
ness,
a painful feeling, which may rise to anguish of consciousbut to change these he is not able. Here we see that
which condemns and that which

separate
:
is
condemned
distinctly
we
picturing
see the former as a merely theoretical faculty, 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 and then again the first remaining spite of the former:
441
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
But here the will shows itself as the stronger,, distinctly. 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
gjshows itself entirely secondary, as the spectator of the
deeds of another, which

praise
it accompanies with impotent 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. 1 18 1 (second ed., 19.) Accordingly, a
comparison of our manner of thinking at different mixture of permanence and changeableness. On the one hand, the moral
periods of our life will present a strange
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
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
this
examination
it
was the
intellect,
will be found that the changeable element with its functions of insight and know-
ledge, which, daily appropriating
new
material from with-
out, presents a constantly changing system of thought, while, besides this, it itself rises and sinks with the growth
on the contrary, the basis of this, thus the inclinations, passions, and emotions, the character, shows itself as what is unalterable in conYet we have to take account of the modificasciousness.
of the organism.
will,
and decay
The
tions 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
442
XIX.
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
knowledge, as
generally assumed, the will proceeded from its result or product, then where there is
much
will there
ledge, insight,
would necessarily also be much knowand understanding. This, however, is abso;
lutely not the case

i.e.,
rather,
we
find in
many men
a strong,
decided, resolute, persistent, unbending, wayward, and

will,
vehement
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
is
and
ideas,
and
is
not to be got
at,
so that
it
it
hidden, as it were, in a sack, out of
which
wills
Brute3 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
blindly.
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
*
rather, knowledge. This, however, is rarely the case 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 Thus here also the contain more than the premisses. 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
443
So long as in a 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
as the
hammer from
the smith.
is
conversation the intellect alone
active
~?
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.,
enced by the
if
will.
If
we attempt
to think without being influto reverse the relation,
and to regard the
will as the tool of the intellect, it is as
we made
the smith the tool of the hammer.
Nothing is more provoking, when we are arguing against 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 mil, which shuts itself up against the truth and brings into the field wilful misunderstandings, chicaneries, and
a
man
sophisms in order to intrench

pretended want
itself
behind
its
understand-
Then he is cering and its and reasons for not to be got at, proofs applied tainly against the will are like the blows of a phantom produced by mirrors against a solid body. Hence the saying
of insight.
" Sufficient so often repeated, Stat pro ratione voluntas!' evidence of what has been said is afforded by ordinary
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 interest which preventing them from being accepted, an either springs from the fact that such truths contradict what they themselves daily teach, or else from this, that or if they dare not make use of them and teach them; because all this be not the case they will not accept them,
life.
the
watchword
of mediocrity will
always
be, Si quelqu'un
444
excelle
XIX.
parmi tious, qu'il aille exceller ailleurs, as Helvetius has admirably rendered the saying of the Ephesian in the " " fifth book of Cicero's Tvsadance (c. 36), or as a saying
of the Abyssinian Fit Arari puts
it,
"Among
quartzes
adamant is outlawed." Thus whoever expects from thi3 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 be-
haviour, till at last he finds out that while he applied himself to ktwwledge he had to do with the vnll, thus is
precisely in the position described above, nay, is really like a man who brings his case before a court the judges
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
of
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
his
how
to find out the best, like the sparrows,
who
never
miss the ripest cherries.
The counterpart
to
of the victorious resistance of the will
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 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 charof the

acter is sufficiently explained
445
rarity
by the extraordinary
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
qualities, the presence of which has to be learned from experience. Great narrowness of mind may coexist with great goodness of
as
perfectly
distinct
each for
itself
and I do not believe Balthazar Gracian was right in saying (Discrete, p. 406), "Ho 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
heart,
never without malice"). Yet it may be that many stupid malicious for the same reason as many become persons
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 maliOn the cious in the presence of a very superior mind.
other hand, again, stupid people have very often the reputation of special good-hearted ness, which yet so seldom proves to be the case that I could not help wondering
how they had gained

that I
it, till
I
it
had found the key
to
was able in what
to flatter myself Moved follows.
secret inclination, every one likes best to choose for his more intimate intercourse some one to whom in understanding, for only in this he is a little
by a
voluptas, omnisque quod quis habeat, quibuscum conferens se, possit " (Be Cive, i. 5). Tor the magnifies sentire de se ipso same reason every one avoids him who is superior to him-
superior case does he find himself at his ease, because, according to " alacritas in eo animi
Hobbes,
Omnis
sita est,
self;
wherefore Lichtenberg quite rightly observes:
"To
446
certain
XIX.
men a man of mind is a more odious production than the most pronounced rogue." And similarly Helve" tius says Les gens mAdiocres ont un instinct sur et prompt,
:
pour connditre 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
They seem pleased ability of brilliancy in conversation. at the time, but their envy makes them curse him " in their hearts (Boswell ; aet. anno 74). In order to
more
bring this truth, so universal and so carefully concealed, relentlessly to light, I add the expression of it by
Merck, the celebrated friend of Goethe's youth, from his " " " Lindor : He possessed talents which were given story 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
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 Without future consequences for him who is guilty of it. 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
delight at the sight of
the opposite of this that rally liked ; especially since

it is
makes stupid people
so gene-
many
can only find in them
what, according to the law of their nature referred to Yet this the true reason of such above, they must seek.
an inclination no one will confess to himself, still less to 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
others
;
incapacity.
Want
of understanding is accordingly
by
447
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
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
example
of this is afforded
by Bacon
of
bribed in civil actions.
Impeached before
his peers, he
" pounds and imprisonment in the Tower
confessed himself guilty, was expelled by them from the House of Lords, and condemned to a fine of forty thousand
of the latest edition of Bacon's
Works
(see the review in the Edinburgh
Hence also Pope called him "the " of mankind meanest wisest, brightest, (" Essay on Man," A similar example is afforded by the historian iv. 282).
Review, August 1837).
Guicciardini, of
whom
Eosini says in the Notizie Storiche,

sources,
drawn from good contemporary " his historical romance Luisa

pongono Vingegno
which
" "
is
given in
Strozzi
Da
coloro, che
e il sapere al di sopra di tutte le umane uomo sard riguardato come fra i piiju grandi qualitdb, questo del suo secolo : ma da quelli, che reputano la virtii dovere andare innanzi a tutto, non potra esecrarsi abbastanza la
sua memoria.
Esso
fu
il
piu
crudele
fra
i cittadini
1 perseguitare, uccidere e confinare," " He has a good heart, If now it is said of one man, " though a bad head," but of another, He has a very good
&C
head, yet a bad heart," every one feels that in the first case the praise far outweighs the blame in the other case the
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
reverse.
1
By
those
who
learning
above
all
place mind and other human
dence of everything else his memory can never be execrated enough. He
qualities this
man will be reckoned But the greatest of his century. by those who let virtue take prece-
was the
cruelest of the citizens in persecuting, putting to death, and banishing.
448
XIX.
;
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 ;
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 In the same way, in the case of the reproach of malitia.
nay,
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
And
at all on the contrary, it even gives privileges. so also, before the courts of the world, it is every;
where
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

if
hand or
foot
it is of no more consequence than had slipped against the will. I have fully
" Ueber die Intellektuelle discussed this in the appendix, 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,
it
;
cannot help
the
but
if
we excuse him by we were to excuse
saying that he a bad man on
same grounds we would be laughed
at.
And
yet the
ON THE WILL IN SELF-CONSCIOUSNBSS.

one, like the other, is innate.
'
449
is
This proves that the will

its tool.
is
the
man
proper, the intellect merely
Thus
it is
always only our willing that

i.e.,
regarded as
depending upon ourselves,

true nature,
sible.
and
for
which we
as the expression of our are therefore made responif
Therefore
it is
absurd and unjust
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
alone
is
us, is as little in
our power as the events of the
external world.
And
the inner and
here, also, it is clear that the will true nature of man ; the intellect, on
the contrary, with its operations, which go 011 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, Begdbung, ingenii dotes, gifts (a
;
man
from the
this
highly gifted), regarding them as something different man himself, something that has fallen to his lot
through favour. No one, on the contrary, has ever taken view of moral excellences, although they also are innate; they have rather always been regarded as some-
thing proceeding from the man himself, essentially belongBut it follows ing to him, nay, constituting his very self. now from this that the will is the true nature of man ; the
intellect,
on the other hand,
is
secondary, a
tool,
gift.
Answering to this, all religions promise a reward beyond life, in eternity, for excellences of the will or heart, but
head or understanding. Virtue for it expects its reward in that world prudence hopes in that nor world this in this ; genius, again, neither in
none
for excellences of the
it is its
own
reward.
Accordingly the will
is
the eternal
part, the intellect the temporal.
Connection, communion, intercourse among men is based, 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 2 F VOL. 11.
as a rule,
450
XIX.
former kind are the bonds of family and relationship, and further, all connections that rest upon any common aim or
interest,
tion, the party,
such as that of trade or profession, of the corporathe 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
ever,
It is different, howof the heart, not of the head. 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 gulf : such lies, for example,
man and man an between a man of
impassable
great
mind
between a scholar and a peasant, between a Natures as heterogeneous as this courtier and a sailor. in therefore trouble have making themselves intelligible
and a
fool,
and views.
so long as it is a question of exchanging thoughts, ideas, 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
courtier.
often shames the scholar, the sailor the For at the different grades of culture there are the same virtues and vices, emotions and passions and
;
man
although somewhat modified
in their expression, they very soon mutually recognise each other even in the most heterogeneous individuals, upon which the similarly dis-
posed agree and the opposed are at enmity.

Brilliant qualities of mind win admiration, but never this is reserved for the moral, the qualities of ; the character. Every one will choose as his friend the
affection
honest, the good-natured, and even the agreeable, com-
451
plaisant man, who easily concurs, rather than the merely Indeed many will be preferred to the latter, able man. 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 un-
The known goodness of a character makes derstanding. us patient and yielding towards weaknesses of understanding, as also
A distinctly
towards the dulness and childishness of age. 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
large that
present in a high degree it makes the heart so embraces the world, so that now everything lies within it, no longer without ; for it identifies all natures
it is
it
with
less
It then extends to others also that boundotherwise each one only bestows on which indulgence lself. Such a man is incapable of becoming angry even the malicious mockery and sneers of others have drawn
its
own.
452
XIX.
own intellectual or physical faults, he only reproaches himself in his heart for having been the occaattention to his
sion 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 What is wit and genius against themselves in him also.
? what is Bacon of Verulam ? Our estimation of our own selves leads to the same result as we have here obtained by considering our esti-
this
mation 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, "lama man more sinned against " and to its fullest extent if perhaps some than sinning ; 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 superio!
rity affect us
Its
Hobbes quoted above

alacritas in eo sita
est,
ground bass is really the saying of Omnis animi voluptas, omnisque

:
quod quis habeat, quibuscum conferens 8e, 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.
two kinds
of self-satisfaction
This opposition between the 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

being
453
function of the brain; the will, on the contrary, is that whose function is the whole man, according to his and nature.
If,
looking without us,
we
reflect that o /3to? /3pa^v?,
17
Se re^vv fiatcpa (vita brevis, ars longa), and consider the greatest and most beautiful minds, often when
how
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
1
difference
between the mental and moral
qualities displays itself lastly in the fact that the intellect suffers very important changes through time, while the
and character remain untouched by it. The newborn 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
will
world
"
essay,
a process
which
have described more fully
in
my
Ueber das Sehn
und
second (and third) edition.
die Farben," p. 10 of the The growth of reason to the

first
point of speech, and thereby of thought, follows this
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
But then for its energetic activity there is the antagonism of the genital system; it wanting therefore only begins with puberty. Through this, howseventh year.
still
ever, 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

also are insensibly lost.
them, and
many
of
them
All
454
this takes

many
XIX.
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, rest-
ing 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 calminating 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
derness of the brain
venous system, and the fresh tenfibre, 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 pre-
dominance 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, counteran antagonism which fortunately lasts to an adacts it
vanced 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
goes on step by step downwards into old age, garrulous, without memory, half-unconscious, and ulti-
and so
it
mately quite childish. The will, on the contrary, is not affected by all this becoming, this change and vicissitude, but is from beginWilling does not ning to end unalterably the same. like but succeeds to be learned knowing, perfectly require The new-born child makes violent movements, at once.
rages,
and
cries
it
wills in the
most vehement manner,

though
it
455
medium
veloped. world, in
of
does not yet know what it wills. For the motives, the intellect, is not yet fully deThe will is in darkness concerning the external
its objects lie, and now rages like a the walls and bars of his dungeon. But prisoner against at once the fundamental little by little it becomes light
which
traits of universal
human
willing, and, at the

it
same
time,
the individual modification of
here present, announce The already appearing character shows itself themselves. indeed at first in weak and uncertain outline, on account
of the defective service
of the
intellect,
which has
to
it
it
present soon declares
it
with motives
its
but to the attentive observer complete presence, and in a short time

;
becomes unmistakable. The characteristics appear which the principal tendencies of last through the whole of life
;
the will, the easily excited emotions, the ruling passion, Therefore the events at school stand declare themselves.
to those of the future life for the most part as the dumbshow in " Hamlet" that precedes the play to be given at the
court,
and
foretells its
content in the form of pantomime,
But it is by no means possible itself. in the same to prognosticate way the future intellectual shown in the boy ; rather from those of the man capacities as a rule the ingenia prcecocia, prodigies, turn out blockstands to the play
heads ; genius, on the contrary, is often in childhood of slow conception, and comprehends with difficulty, just This is how it is that because it comprehends deeply.
follies every one relates laughing and without reserve the and stupidities of his childhood. For example, Goethe, how he threw all the kitchen crockery out of the window
know that (Dichtung und Wahrheit, vol. i. p. 7) ; for we the other hand, On what concerns changes. only a prudent man will not favour us with the bad features, the malicious or deceitful actions, of his youth, for he feels
all this
I that they also bear witness to his present character. and the have been told that when Gall, phrenologist himself into connection investigator of man, had to put
456
XIX.
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
is
because this must
still
be the same now.
This
the reason
why we
are indifferent to the follies and
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
want
actions and the misdeeds then committed exist even in old
sciences.
it
age as inextinguishable reproaches, and trouble our conNow, just as the character appears complete, so
The advance of age, which the intellectual consumes gradually 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 comremains unaltered to old age.
of second childhood. Gentleness, patience, disinterestedness, veracity, honesty, philanthropy, &c, remain through the whole life, and are not lost through the
mencement
weaknesses of old age in every clear moment of the wornout old man they come forth undiminished, like the sun
;
from the winter clouds.

spite,
avarice,
hard-heartedness, infidelity,
And, on the other hand, malice, egoism, and
latest years.
baseness of every kind also remain undiminished to our would not believe but would laugh at
We
cious rogue, but
In former years I was a malihonest 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
said to us,
any one who
"
now
am an
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
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;
strength,
457
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, muscu-
lar 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
well known, increases
thus, in the clinging to life, which, it is 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

is like light straw like red-hot steel is the old man's ire."
of the anger
and hate of old persons

u The young man's wrath
on
fire,
But
Old Ballad.
From
to the
to
all
these considerations
it
becomes unmistakable
while the
intellect
more penetrating glance
that,
has
developments, but then, like everything physical, must encounter decay, the will takes no part in this, except so far as it has to conseries of gradual
run through a long
tend 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
is
in this
way
it
makes
itself
known
as that
which
metaphysical, not itself belonging to the phenomenal world. well under9. The universally used and generally very
stood 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.
Nee
cor nee caput habet, says Seneca of the

Ccesaris, c. 8).
Emperor Claudius (Zudus de morte Claudii
458
XIX.
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 pheno-
The
menon, and denotes this in opposition which is exactly identical with the head.
widest sense,
grief,
is
to the intellect, All that, in the
matter of the
will, as wish, passion, joy,
understand under
goodness, wickedness, also "

(f)t\ov rjrop, is
what we are wont to and what Homer expresses Gemiith,"

attributed to the heart.
;
through
ingly
Accordto the
;
we
; ;
say
He
has a bad heart

his
;
his heart is in the

it
thing heart
it
it
comes from his heart

breaks
heart
;
cut
him
his
heart bleeds
the
it
heart leaps for joy

is
who can
see the heart of
man ?
inspiring,
heart-rending, heart-crushing, heart-breaking, heart - touching ; he is good-hearted,
heart-
hard-
stout-hearted, faint-hearted, &c. &c. Quite specially, however, love affairs are called affairs of the heart, affaires de coeur ; because the sexual impulse is
hearted, heartless,
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 sup-
plementary to the fourth book. Byron in Don Juan," c. xl 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 know-
"
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.
ledge.
;
When a hero dies his heart is embalmed, not his brain on the other hand, we like to preserve the skull of the So Raphael's skull poet, the artist, and the philosopher. was preserved in the Academia di S. Luca at Rome, though in Stockholm it has lately been proved not to be genuine 1 in 1820 the skull of Descartes was sold by auction.
;
The Times
of 18th
October 1845
from the Athenceum.
459
tellect,
The which comes from anima, and

is
true feeling of the real relation between will, inand life is also expressed in the Latin language. intellect is mens, vov<i ; the will again is animus,
this
from
',
ave/icov.
Anima
the breath, yfrvxn hut animus is the and also the will, the subject of inclinaliving principle, tions, intentions, passions, emotions ; hence also est mihi
life
itself,
the
animus,
fert animus,
;
for
is
animi causa, &c.

f Gemiith," thus
is
it
the
"I have a desire to," also Greek Ov/ao?, the German

but not the head.
the
heart
Animi
mentis perturbatio would signify ; perturbatio The is attributed to aniimmortalis insanity. predicate mus, 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 "^vyy the Greeks
an emotion
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
relation
other proofs of this are the investigations of the between vovs and yfrvîj preserved by Stobseus
i.
{Eel, Lib.
10.
c.
51,
7, 8).
Upon what depends

of the
its
the identity of the person?

;
Not upon the matter few years. Not upon

and in
years
all its
body it is different after a form, which changes as a whole
parts
all
by which,
;
therefore,
we
but the expression of the glance, still know a man even after many
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 It is the same with ourselves, for, however old we entire. become, we yet feel within that we are entirely the same as we were when we were young, nay, when we were still
the This, which unaltered always remains quite same, and does not grow old along with us, is really the
children.
460
XIX.
kernel of our nature, which does not lie in time. It is assumed that the identity of the person rests upon that of But by this is understood merely the conconsciousness.
nected recollection of the course of

sufficient
life
hence
it is
not
life
We
certainly
know something more
of our
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,
*
A
,
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
may
also
able.
which makes the expression of the glance unchangeIn the lieart is the man, not in the head. It is true
consequence of our relation to the external world, are accustomed to regard as our real self the subject of knowledge, the knowing I, which wearies in the evening,
that, in
we
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
This is that which profeelings, emotions, and passions. duces 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
indestructible, not
growing
old,
alone is unchangeable, not physical, but meta-

,
461
physical, not belonging to the phenomenal appearance, but to that itself which so appears. 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
How
upon
it
further here.
II.
Aristotle says in passing, in his book on the comparison of the desirable, "To live well is better than to
to ev fyjv, Top. iii. 2). From this double infer, by contraposition, not to live is This is also evident to the inbetter than to live badly.
live
%-qv
"
(fieXnov tov
we might
tellect
;
not at
all.
yet the great majority live very badly rather than This clinging to life cannot therefore have its
object of life, since life, as
is
ground in the
fourth book,
was shown in the a constant really suffering, or at the least, as will be shown further on in the 28th chapter, a business
;
life
which does not cover its expenses thus that clinging to 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
; :
is not a matter of choice but this willing of life 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 Eochefoucauld has expressed in his last reflection, with rare frankness and naivete', and upon which
general
is
the effect of
for it
all
tragedies
lost if
and heroic actions ultimately

prized
life
rest,
would be
we
Upon objective worth. also founded the favourite principle of all ordinary minds, that whosoever takes his own life must be mad ; yet not
less the
only according to its this inexpressible horror mortis is
which
this action
it is
astonishment, mingled with a certain admiration, always excites even in thinking minds,
so opposed to the nature of all living beings we are forced to admire him who is
it.
because
that in a certain sense

able to perform
For suicide proceeds from a purpose
462
XIX.
tellect.
of the intellect, but our will to live is a prius of the inThus 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 know-
But the kernel of our ing and forming of ideas ceases. the of it which the nature, metaphysical part organic functions necessarily presuppose as their primum mobile,
must never pause
requires no
rest.
if life is
not to cease, and, moreover,
as something metaphysical
and therefore incorporeal,
it
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.
other physiological functions governed merely by ganglionic nerves, which have only a very indirect and distant conuection with the brain, are
all
Also
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
the cerebral system (medulla oblongata), becomes with

little slower.
conditioned by it a
The stomach
is
perhaps most active in sleep,
which
is
to be attributed to its special consensus with the
now
resting brain,
alone,
The brain
which occasions mutual disturbances. and with it knowing, pauses entirely in

deep
'
463
affairs,
sleep.
For
it is
merely the minister of foreign

is
as the ganglion system
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
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 on one active is then in a condition service, every engaged of strain and effort, and therefore it is glad when, after its watch is completed, it is again withdrawn, as every watch This withdrawal is going to gladly retires from its post. is which therefore so and agreeable, and to sweet sleep, which we are so glad to yield on the other hand, being roused from sleep is unwelcome, because it recalls the
of the senses
;
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.
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
;
1
Hence all healing, all favourable crises, take organism. place in sleep ; for the vis naturce medicatrix has free play only when it is delivered from the burden of the function
knowledge. The embryo which has still to form the body therefore sleeps continuously, and the new-born In this sense Burdach child the greater part of its time.
of
'
(Physiologie, vol.
iii.
p.
484) quite rightly declares sleep
to be the original state.
464

reference to the brain
itself, I
XIX.
With
for the necessity of sleep which appears to have "
more
been
account to myself fully through an hypothesis

first
set
up
in
Neumann's
4,
book, 216.
Von den Krankheiten
des
Menschen" 1834, voL
It is this, that the nutrition of the brain, thus the
its substance from the blood, cannot go on are awake, because the very eminent organic function of knowing and thinking would be disturbed or
renewal of
while
we
put an end to by the low and material function of nutriThis explains the fact that sleep is not a purely negative condition, a mere pausing of the activity of the
tion.
brain, but also

itself
shows a positive character.

is
This makes
known through
boundary,
the circumstance that between sleep
and waking there

fixed
no mere difference
as
of degree,
but a
which,
soon
as
sleep
intervenes,
different
declares itself in dreams
which are completely
from our immediately preceding thoughts. A further proof of this is that when we have dreams which frighten
us
to
we
try in vain to cry out, or to
ward
off attacks, or
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 Therefore too great fatigue or natural weakness sleeping.
prevent us from seizing it, capere somnum. This may be explained from the fact that the process of nutrition must
be introduced
the brain must, as it the increased flow of blood Moreover, into the brain during sleep is explicable from the nutritive
if
:
sleep is to ensue
were, begin to feed.
process and also the position of the arms laid together above the head, which is insiinctively assumed because it furthers this process also why children, so long as their
;
:
brain
is
still
growing, require a great deal of sleep, while

of
in old age,
on the other hand, when a certain atrophy

the brain, as of short ; and finally
all
465
is
the
parts,
takes
place,
sleep
why excessive sleep produces a certain dullness of consciousness, the consequence of a certain hypertrophy of the brain, which in the case of habitual
excess
of
:
sleep
may become permanent and

7ro\v? virvo? (noxce
est
imbecility
avir) /cat
produce 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
and
dull sleep little and lightly
for example, reptiles
fishes:
and here
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
whole organism, thus a kind of apparent death. Animals of considerable intelligence sleep deeply and Men also require more sleep the more developed, long. both as regards quantity and quality, and the more active their brain is. Montaigne relates of himself that he had been a always 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
of the
Kant allowed (Baillet, Vie de Descartes, 1693, p. 288). 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). clearer
him
is
For the more completely awake a man is, ie., the and more lively his consciousness, the greater for the necessity of sleep, thus the deeper and longer
Accordingly
thinking or hard brain-work That sustained muscular sleep. exertion also makes us sleepy is to be explained from
he sleeps.
much
increases the need of
ie
fact that in this the brain continuously,
by means
of
medulla oblongata, the spinal marrow, and the motor lerves, imparts the stimulus to the muscles which affects
ie
leir irritability,
and in
this
way
it
exhausts
its strength.
vol.
11.
466

fatigue
its real
XIX.
legs has as the ; just accordingly pain which these parts feel is really experienced in the brain ; for it is connected with the motor nerves, as with the
The
which we observe in the arms and

seat in the brain
nerves of sense.
the brain
The muscles which
are not actuated from
never
tire.
for example, those of the heart accordingly The same grounds explain the fact that both
during and after great muscular exertion we cannot think That one has far less energy of mind in summer acutely.
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
mere
"
loss of time.
gains in extension ; whereby it becomes 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 phe:
most specially confirms the assertion that consciousness, apprehension, knowing, thinking, is nothing original in us, but a conditioned and secondary
of sleep
state.
nomenon
which
it
It is a luxury of nature, and indeed its highest, 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 This also agrees with what is the rest of the organism.
shown
in our third book, that knowing is so much the and more perfect the more it has freed and severed purer itself from the will, whereby the purely objective, the
comprehension appears. Just as an extract is so the purer the more it has been separated from that out of which it is extracted and been cleared of all sediaesthetic
much
The opposite is shown by the wiU, whose most immediate manifestation is the whole organic life, and primarily the untiring heart This last consideration is related to the theme of the
ment.
467
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 aver
sions.
For the function
may be
doubled, but not the true
nature.
468
CHAPTER XX.
OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL IN THE ANIMAL OBGANISM.
By
objectification I
understand the self-exhibition in the
real corporeal world. However, this world itself, as was in shown the first book and its supplements, is fully
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
is
That this is the will the thing in itself would remain. the theme of the second book, and is there proved first
of all in the
human organism and

of
in that of the brutes.
The knowledge
the external world
may
also
be
defined as the consciousness of other things, in opposition to Since we have found in the latter that self-consciousness.
its
the
true object or material is the will, we shall now, with same intention, take into consideration the conscious-
Now here ness of other things, thus objective knowledge. 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 tilings, thus objectively, as the whole organism.
is given in support of this proin our second book and in the first wo both position, " treatise of the Ueber den WUlen in der Natur" chapters
t
To the evidence which
This chapter
is
connected with
20 of the
first
volume.
OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL.

I
469
illustra-
add the following supplementary remarks and Nearly

all
tions.
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 altera-
tions 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 graspthat it is therefore ing is the function of the hand
;
physical, like digestion, not metaphysical, like the will. As good digestion requires a healthy, strong stomach, as
athletic
power requires muscular sinewy arms,

intelligence
so extra-
ordinary
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,
dependent upon no organ, and can be from The greatest error in Gall's none. prognosticated that he is phrenology assigns organs of the brain for moral
is
qualities also.
Injuries to the head, with loss of brain sub-
stance, affect the intellect as a rule
very disadvantageously: they result in complete or partial imbecility or forgetfulness of lauguage, 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.
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 ;
On
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 experinever.
ment made by Spallanzani and repeated by

SpaManzani, Ritultati di espesopra la riproduzione della testa nelle lumache terrestri : in the Memorie di matematica efisica della
rienze
1
Voltaire,
i.
Societa Italiana,
Tom.
Voltaire, Les colimacont
du
p. 581. rivirend
pere
I'escarbotier.
47
SECOND BOOK. CHAPTER XX.
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
snail that has
;
;
accident.
It
It
may
be defined as the regulator of the

first
will.
was perhaps Tiedemann who
compared the
cerebral nervous system to a parasite {Tiedemann Trevirann's Journal fur Physiologic, Bd. i. 62).
und The
for the brain, together with the is happy ; which nerves cord and depend upon it, is, as it were, spinal and is nourished by it without in the organism, implanted
comparison
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,

after their heads
which live for three weeks have been cut off; only the medidla oblongata, as the organ of respiration, must be spared. Indeed a hen whose whole brain Flourens had cut away Even in the case of men lived for ten months and grew.
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
it
relations to the external world;
the other hand, the brain controls the this alone is its office,
and hereby
nourishes
it,
discharges its debt to the organism which 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
it
contributes nothing to its continued existence
becomes exhausted, and only when it pauses in sleep does its nourishment go on unhindered.
0BJECTIF1CATI0N OF THE WILL.
47 i
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 1 8, 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
impulses, therefore is not perceived as a permanent substance ; but only its individual acts, such as purposes,
its
wishes, and emotions, are known successively and during the time they last, directly, yet not perceptibly. The
knowledge
aware
not a perception of
of the will in self -consciousness is accordingly it, but a perfectly direct becoming
On the other hand, for of its successive impulses. 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 conmanner by means of the function of the understanding, causality, whereby it really becomes
nects in the closest
this knowledge presents to itself perceptibly perception what in inner immediate apprehension was conceived as
will, as organic body,
present to us the acts,
whose particular movements and whose parts and forms
visibly
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.
first become aware of this identity of the body with the will in the individual actions of the two, for in these
We
472

is
an immediate, real 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
in self-consciousness as
what
known
act of will, at the
appear at once as faithfully copied in as

his
many
actions of
;
body body 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
as his
itself is
manifestation of his will, i.e., the way in which his will exhibits itself in his perceiving intellect, or his will itself
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
under the form of the
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 Actual willing is, in fact, inseparable from doing inner. 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 They may turn out great probability, but no infallibility. of alteration the not circumstances, but false, only through
also from the fact that the estimation of the effect of the
respective motives
upon the will

deed
itself
is
was erroneous, which

:
then shows
will
itself, for the

it is
untrue to the purpose

is certain.
;
therefore before
carried out no resolve
The
hence in is operative only in real action itself, then, muscular action, and consequently in irritability. Thus the The cerebrum is the will proper objectifies itself in this.
473
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 act through the
workshop
of
which
is
the cerebrum,
upon the spinal cord and the motor nerves which proceed from it, which
irritability; for galvanic, chemical, and stimuli can effect the same contraction
medium
of the cerebellum
then act upon the muscles, yet merely as stimuli of their even mechanical
which the motor

in the brain acts,
nerve calls forth.
Thus what was motive
reaches the muscle through the nerves, as mere stimulus. Sensibility in itself is quite unable to contract a
it
when
muscle.
This can only be done by the muscle
itself,
and
its
capacity for doing so is called irritability, ie., susceptibility to stimuli. It is exclusively a property of the muscle, as sen-
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
sibility is exclusively a
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 muscle
the metaphysical substratum of the irritability of 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 inlinks of
volved as links in the causal chain, but impart to all the it the capacity to act, as I have fully shown in 26 of the first voluma Therefore we would ascribe the
contraction of
the muscle also to a similar mysterious
474

if
it were not that this contraction is different an source of knowentirely by as as was said self-consciousness will. Hence, ledge will from the our own if start muscular movewe above,
force of nature,
disclosed to us
ment 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,
substratum of the possibility of an action upon the muscle through brain and nerve, lies at the foundation of the present muscular action also therebut, as the metaphysical
;
fore the latter is not properly its effect

tion.
As
is
which
manifestasuch it enters the world of idea, the form of the law of causality, a world which is entirely
but
its
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
different
that
what appears
is
in the
If
is
phenomenon
action
in itself will.
now perhaps
as body and its the motor nerve
that leads to
my
hand
severed, the will can
move
it.
This, however, is
no longer 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
really
it
and the brain
is
broken.
Thus
my
will
is,
in this part, only
de-
prived of the effect of the motive. The will objectifies itself directly, in irritability, not in sensibility.
misunderstandings about this such as proceed from physioimportant point, especially in a purely empirical manner, I shall explain logy pursued the whole process somewhat more thoroughly. My doctrine asserts that the whole body is the will itself, exhibit-
In order to prevent
all
ing itself in the perception of the brain; consequently, having entered into its forms of knowledge. From this it

follows that the will
is
475
everywhere equally present in the

less
whole body, as
how, then, can
is
also demonstrably the case, for the orgaits
than the animal. But 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
nic functions are
work no
we
reconcile
it
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
doctrine, expresses itself in every phenomenon of nature, even in vegetable and inorganic phenomena, appears in the bodies of men and animals as a
my
conscious will.
consciousness, however, is essentially a
unity, and therefore always requires a central point of The necessity of consciousness is, as I have often unity.
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
no longer, as in the lower grades, by mere For this purpose it had at this stage to appear with an provided with a knowing consciousness, thus This motives. intellect, as the medium and place of the
by
motives,
stimuli.
exhibits itself as intellect, if itself objectively perceived,
the brain, together with It is the brain nerves.
appendages, spinal cord, 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
its
and
besides this a
still
further working up, through reflection
and deliberatioa
Thus such an
intellect
must
first
of all
476

in
unite
one
point
of
all
impressions,
its
together
with the
functions, whether to mere working up or to a perception conceptions, point which will be, as it
them by
were, the focus of all its rays, in order that that unity of consciousness may arise which is the tlieoretical ego, the
supporter of the whole consciousness, in which it presents itself as identical with the willing ego, whose mere function
of unity of consciousness, Kant's just synthetic unity of which all ideas apperception, upon string themselves as on a string of pearls, and on account of which the " I of
knowledge
it is.
That point
is
or the theoretical ego,
" must be think," as the thread of the string of pearls, 1 of all our This ideas." capable accompanying 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.
these,
For although the will is quite directly present in inasmuch as they are merely its manifestation, yet
it
when
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 thoraciais, which here plays the part which the The matter may be spinal cord plays in the former case.
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
:
Cf. Ch.
2X
OBjfECTIFlCATION OF THE WILL.
477
itself,
if this activity in general. striving is to realise thus to manifest itself as movement, this movement
Now
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
;
must
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,
t
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 In an analothe will acts without the brain taking part.
gous 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
consequently of itself in a position to contract them, yet only in general; in order that some definite contraction
is
should take place at a given moment, there

here, as everywhere, a cause,
is
required
a stimulus.
This
is
must be everywhere given by the nerve which

which in
is
this case
goes into the muscle.
If this nerve
in connection with
the brain, then the contraction is a conscious act of will, with motives, which, in coni.e., takes place in accordance of external impressions, have arisen as ideas in the
sequence
brain.
If the nerve
is
but with the sympathicus with the involuntary and unconscious, an act connected stimulus nerve the and maintenance of the organic life,
for it is occasioned by inward impressions of the food the stomach the pressure upon example, by
not in connection with the brain, maximus, then the contraction is
which causes
478
XX.
chyme upon the intestines, or of the blood in-flowing upon the walls of the heart, in accordance with which the act is digestion, or motus peristalticus, or
received, or of the
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
for
they are merely solidified,

lised blood
;
of condensation, nay, to a certain extent or, as it were, clotted or crystal-
unaltered, its fibrin (cruor) dock's Physiologie, Bd. v.
they have taken up into themselves, almost and its colouring matter (Bur686).
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 irrita-
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
bility,
;
is
the blood returns to the heart unoxidised, the irritability also uncommonly weak, as in the batrachia. Moreover,
the
movement
independent and original
of the blood, like that of the muscle, is it does not, like irritation, re;
quire 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
as a
circulation
by a vis a tergo, as in the case of the arterial and all other mechanical explanations, such
;
power of suction of the right ventricle
of the heart,
4,
are quite inadequate.
(See Burdock's Physiologie, Bd.
763, and Bosch, Ueber die Bedeutung des Blutes, 11, 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 continued action of the impulse

of the heart (Pre'cis de Physiologie
par Magendie,
vol.
ii.
p.

That the movement of the blood
is
479
is also 389). independent of the nervous system, at least of the cerebral nervous
system,
shown by the
fetus,
which (according
:
to Muller's
Physiologie), without brain and spinal cord, has yet circulation of the blood. And Flourens also says " Le mouvement
abstraction faite de tout ce qui n'est essentiellement comme sa dure'e, son e'nergie, ne depend lui, pas
cosur, pris
soi, et
du
en
ni immMiatement, ni coinstantane'ment, du sysUme nerveux central, et consequemment c'est dans tout autre point de ce systtme que dans les centres nerveux eux-mimes, qu'il faut
chercher
le
principe primitif
et
immtdiat de
ce
mouvement
"
sciences naturelles p. Audouin et Brougniard, Cuvier also says " La circulation survit a 1828, vol. 13). la destruction de tout Vencdphale et de toute la raoelle epini-
(Annates des
aire (Me'm. de Vacad. d. sc, 1823, vol. 6; Hist. d. I'acad. p. " Cor primum vivens et ultimum moriens," Cuvier," p. cxxx). says Haller. The beating of the heart ceases at last in
vessels themselves ; for it than they do they are only its path, voluntarily taken, then beaten smooth, and finally as Kaspar Wolff gradually condensed and closed up
death.
The blood has made the
appears in the
ovum
earlier
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
independent of the nervous system and of sensibility, " In the heart," he says, " appears, fully shows. with the maximum of irritability, a minimum of sensiit is
as
Burdach
"
The heart belongs to the muscular 769). to the blood or vascular system ; from well as as system which, however, it is clear that the two are closely related,
bility
(loc. cit.,
Since now the metaphysical substratum of the force which moves the muscle, thus of also be the metairritability, is the will, the will must
indeed constitute one whole.
tion of the
physical substratum of the force which lies at the foundamovement and the formations of the blood, as
that
by which the muscles
are produced.
The course
of
480

all
the arteries also determines the form and size of
tha
consequently the whole form of the body is determined by the course of the blood. Thus in general the
limbs
;
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
is
confessedly constitutes the principal function of the blood only the continuance of that original production of
This truth will be found thoroughly and excellently " Ueber explained in the work of Eosch referred to above
them.
die
is
Bedeutung des Blutes," 1839. He shows that the blood 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 Eosch 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 dis:
poses 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
297)
this reference also Schultz says (System der Circulation, " do not believe that the view of
:
We
Baumgarten,
according to which the nervous system is formed earlier than the blood, can consistently be carried out; for Baumgarten reckons the appearance of the blood only from
the formation of the corpuscles, while in the embryo and
481
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
renewal of
tion of
afterwards constantly maintains it, both by the regular all the parts and by the extraordinary restora-
The first injured. own of the are its and then the blood vessels, productions the will makes itself in the of which muscles, irritability any part that may have been
known
which
but with this also the heart, ; and muscle, and therefore is the But for true centre and jprimum mobile of the whole life. 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 functioned animates and the functiones naturales associate themselves in a subwhich are the sidiary manner with the functiones vitales, most original and essential. In the nervous system, accordin an indirect and ingly, the will only objectifies itself for this system appears as a mere auxiliary secondary way ; a contrivance as by means of which the will attains organ, to a knowledge of those occasions, internal and external,
to self-consciousness at once vessel
is
:
VOL. IL
482
its aims, it must express occasions are received by the plastic internal the itself; nervous system, thus by the sympathetic nerve, this cerer
upon which, in conformity with
as mere stimuli, and the will thereupon 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 antennae 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 The sensory nerves receive the knowledge from nerves. without, which now accumulates in the thronging brain, and is there worked up into ideas, which arise primarily as
brum dbdominale,
reacts
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
plastic nerves also divide into sensory
on a subordinate
in the organism
brain,
scale.
Presumably the and motory, although The part which the ganglia play
will.
we must think
of as that of a diminutive
ganglia
and thus the one throws light upon the other. The 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 For the exterior, on the other hand, its own compass. a very complicated contrivance of the same kind is reThis is the brain with its feelers, which it quired. But stretches into the outer world, the nerves of sense. 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
483
what is needed such is the spinal cord, in the reflex actions discovered byMarshall 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
to determine
may
shave by.
see what Hence small
it does, just as we use a mirror to 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 Wherever in the irregularly changing external world. 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
it
clearly the will ; indeed we are utterly unable to conceive otherwise. Upon this depends the vita propria of each
part,
and also in the case of
insects, which, instead of
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
skill
in the last instance do not receive their
motives from
the
brain,
i.e.,
instinct
and natural mechanical
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 vesicae et ani (proceeding from the nerves of the spinal cord) the
closing
of the eyelids in
sleep (from the
fifth
pair of
484
it
nerves), of the larynx (from N. vagus) if food passes over 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, Some, ejaculation, as also conception, and many more.
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
again, are
; ;
feeling or consciousness in paralysed limbs, i.e., in limbs which are out of connection with the brain, also the con-
vulsions 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 subThese movements are thus all involunordinate officials.
tary, 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

gata,
effects the
to the spinal cord or the medulla oblondirectly takes place
and from there the reaction
which
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
movement
and motor nerve is 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 circumis
for the latter the incident
for the former.
That
yet, in the
stances, are moved from the brain in the voluntary actions, in which their primum mobile is intimately known to us
Marshall Hall's through self-consciousness as the will. " On the Diseases of the Nervous System excellent book is peculiarly fitted to bring out clearly the difference be-
485
tween 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 It cannot do both at once; previously occupied 'will. with the perfecting of the organism, it had no care for
!
But after it has completed the former, the latter the guidance of the brain and its feelers, under appears,
without.
the senses, as a tool prepared beforehand for this end, the
which only begins when it grows up in selfconsciousness as intellect, which is the lantern to the steps of the will, its rp/eôviKov, and also the supporter of the objective external world, however limited the horizon of
service of
this
hen
may be is now
in the consciousness of a hen.
But what the
able to do in the external world, through the

is,
medium
it
of this organ,
as accomplished
less
something secondary, infinitely

did in
its original
by means of important than what

itself.
form, for
it
made
We became acquainted above with the cerebral nervous system as an assistant organ of the will, in which it thereAs thus the fore objectifies itself in a secondary manner. cerebral system, although not directly coming within the of the life-functions of the organism, but only
sphere
its relations to the outer world, has yet the its basis, and is nourished by it in return for as organism its services ; and as thus the cerebral or animal life is to be of the organic life, the brain as the
governing
regarded
production
function, knowledge, thus the intellect, belong indirectlv and in a subordinate manner to the manifesta-
and
its
486

The
will objectifies itself also in
it,
tion of the will.

will to
as
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
is to
itself
in
self-consciousness
entirely as
be regarded not only as the accident of secondary, the will, but also as its work, and thus, although in a As the circuitous manner, is yet to be referred to it.
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
objectively perceived,
the whole body. Thus the will to know, 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
This whole objectification certainly ultigenitals, mately exists only for the brain, as its perception : in this But so far as the will exhibits itself as organised body.
the brain knows,
it is itself
&c
not known, but
is
the knower,
the subject of
all
knowledge.
tive perception,
i.e.,
however, as in objecin the consciousness of other things, thus

far,
So
secondarily, it is known, it belongs, as an organ of the body, to the objectification of the wilL For the whole process
the self-knowledge of the will ; it starts from this and returns to it, and constitutes what Kant has called the
is
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 subThat which jectively as intellect, i.e., as the knower. when regarded from within is the faculty of knowledge is when regarded from without the brain. This brain is a
4g 7
part of that body, just because it itself belongs to the objectification of the will, the will's will to know is
tified
objec-
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.
becomes
Thus the whole is ultimately the will, which itself idea, and is that unity which we express by I.
The brain
thus in the itself, so far as it is perceived 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
and
its
its will to
know
objectifies itself as brain
take the voltaic pile as an illustration, certainly imperfect, but yet to some extent throwing light upon the nature of the human phenomenon,
functions.
We may
as
we
are the
here regard it. The metals, together with the fluid, 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 physiatrical 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

battle, the
Thus in the decisive into the organism. victorious and attains its it is either crisis,
This view only gains its full is defeated. our from standpoint, which shows the will in rationality
end, or else
the vital force, that here appears as vis naturae 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 and bring everything back to the right track
(the disease),
488
the other hand, that the will itself is sick, as Brandis " Ueber die repeatedly expresses himself in his book, I which have in the first KaXte" der quoted Anwendung " Ueber den Willen in der of Natur," is a part my essay, When I gross misunderstanding. weigh this, and at the
On
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 " It is impossible that the vital force can be there, page 1 3 :
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

is
body with-
the least quite arbitrary and " " and Haller's objections to the unproved ; page 14 : that all movements are the effect of the opinion living " soul are, as I believe, quite unanswerable ; when I fur-
out consciousness
at
ther reflect that he wrote his book, Ueber die Anwendung der Kdlte" 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,
now
convinced, contrary to
the faculties of desire and of knowledge," I am 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
thesis
more fitted to confirm and illustrate the with which we are occupied in this chapter than
is et la
Bichat's justly celebrated book, " Siir la vie
mort."
His
and mine reciprocally support each other, for his are the physiological commentary on mine, and mine are the philosophical commentary on his, and one
reflections
0BJECTIF1CAT10N OF THE WILL.
489
will best understand us both by reading us together. This refers specially to the first half of his work, entitled " Re-
cherehes 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
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 deliberausual,
is
upon and estimation of the motives, the conclusion or product of which at last appears as the act of will. All
tion
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 comthe whole of the remainder of the organism. two in that the stand which he shows plete opposition 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
harmony with each
how, like the two voices in a duet, we advance in other, although each expresses someunthing different. Therefore, let every one who wishes to to unwishes who derstand me read him and let every one derstand 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
accord
then, in articles 8
and
9, that
the organic
life
performs everything perfectly, at once,

;
and
of its
own
life, on the other hand, requires long But he is most interesting in the and education. practice sixth article, where he shows that the animal life is com-
the animal
490
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.
pletely limited to the
I wish I could " est sans doute ttonpage 50 he says nant, que Its passions riayent jamais leur terme ni leur origine dans les divers organs de la vie animate; qu'au
Here he has ten valuable pages which
quote entire.
On
contraire les parties servant
aux fonctions
et
internes, soient
constamment affecties par dies, vant VUat oil elles se trouvent.

stricte observation
meme
les
de"terminent sui-
Tel est cependant ce que la nous prouve. Je dis dlabord que Veffet de toute espbce de passion, constamment Uranger & la vie animate, est de /aire nattre un changement, une alUration 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
that
is,
the brain
its
life, is
and then how the animal, untouched by all this, and quietly
;
goes on
way.
He
lectual operations
we put
refers to the fact that to signify intelthe hand to the head, but, on the
we lay it on the heart, the stomach, the bowels, 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
contrary,
if
;
spoke of his mental

in the head, the
felt difference
effort
would touch
also that while the learned
make
his heart; and the so-called soul reside
common people always indicate the wellbetween 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
lan-
gage des passions, de la vie organique,
comme
la parole ordi-
OBJBCTIFICATION OF THE WILL.

naire
est eelui
49I
:
de Fentendement, de la vie animate

milieu,
elle
la decla-
mation, tient
le
anime
la languefroide
-par la langue expressive des organes inUrieurs,

foie,
du cerveau du cceur, du
de Vestomac" &c.
His conclusion is
"La
vie organique
est le
terme
oil dboutissent, et le centre a" oil

is
sions."
Nothing
partent les pasbetter 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 with-
I cannot refrain from giving the passage it occurs out. in article 9, 2 " Telle est done la grande difference des " deux vies de V animal (cerebral or animal and organic life)
;
"par rapport d
Vinigaliti de perfection des divers sysUmes
de fonctions, dont chacune requite; savoir, que dans I'une la
predominance ou linfe'rioriU d'un sysUme relativement aux autres, tient presgue toujours d VactiviU ou d Vinertie plus grandes de ce sysUme, & V habitude d'agir ou de ne pas agir ; que dans V autre, au contraire, cette predominance ou cette
inferioriU sont immediatement
ganes,
liees
la texture
des or-
jamais & leur temperament physique et

et
education.
le
Voild pourquoi le charactere moral ne sont
point susceptible de changer par Veducation, qui modifie si prodigieusement actes de la vie animate; car, les comme nous I'avons vu, tous deux appartiennent A la vie
ORGANIQUE.
La charactdre est,
le
si je
puis m'exprimer
est cette
ainsi, la
physionomie des passions;
temperament
des /one-
92
SECOND BOOK. CHAPTER XX

:
tions internes
or
les
unes
et
les
autres itant toujours

et
let
mimes, ayant une direction que Vhabitude

dirangent jamais, il est manifeste que charactere doivent itre aussi soustraits
cation.
le
I'exercice
ne
temperament
et Le
Elle peut modirer V influence
& I'empire de I 'Edudu second, perfectionner
assez le
jugement
et
la reflection,
supirieur
au
sien, fortifier la vie
pour rendre leur empire animal afin qu'elle resiste

vouloir
les
aux impulsions de Vorganique.

naturer
est
le
Mais
par
elle
diil
charactere, adoucir ou exalter
passions dont
V expression habituelle, agrandir ou resserrer leur sphere, y c est une entreprise analogue a celle (Tun midecin qui essaierait d'ilever
vie, la force de contraction ordinaire
santi,
pour toute la dans Vital de de pricipiter ou de ralentir habituellement le mouvedegres, et
ou d'abaisser de quelque
au
cceur
ment naturel aux artercs, etc. Nous observerions d,

respiration,
etc.,
et
qui
est nicessaire
ce
mMecin,
ne sont point sous le (volition), quelles ne peuvent itre modifiers par Vhomme, sans Faisons la mime observation d passer d Vitat maladif, etc.
ceux qui croient qu'on change
les
le
d leur action, la circulation, la que domaine de la volonti
charactere, et par-Id,
mime
passions, puisque
celles-ci sont
un pboduit de
l' action
de tous les organes internes, ou qu'elles y ont au moins The reader who is familiar with spicialement leur siige." 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.
is
merely the
special authentication of the truth that the organism visibility of the will is also afforded us by
if
the fact that
dogs, cats, domestic cocks,
animals, bite
when
if
violently angry, the
and indeed other wounds become
mortal
phobia in the
they come from a dog, may cause hydrois bitten, without the dog being mad or afterwards becoming so. For the extremest anger is only the most decided and vehement will to annihilate
;
nay,
man who
its
object saliva of
this now appears in the assumption by the an injurious, and to a certain extent magically
;

acting, power,
493
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.

has, as we have shown above, cast a deep glance into human 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
Bichat
nature,
" appears with a polemic against it in his work, De la vie et de I'inteUigence," 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
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 philosophy par excellence."
"U
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
;
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, ox a follower of Stahl in chemistry. But for M. Flourens the dogmas of Descartes are articles of faith. Descartes has taught, let volontes
of truth
: therefore this is the case, although every within himself that willing and thinking are as different and black. Hence I have been able above, in chapter 19, and explain this fully and thoroughly, and always under the of experience. But above all, according to Descartes, the
tout dee penstes
one feels as white

to prove guidance
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 separer, mime par lee mots, ee qui est du corps de " He informs us further that this " ame rece qui est de I'dme (i. 72).
:
side uniquement et excltuivement 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 ;
1 " Tout ce qui est relatifa Ventendement appartient a la vie animate," dit
appartient
ceci est
Bichat, "
et
tout ce qui est rtlatif
jutque-la point de doute; aux passions
decrevit Florentius
A la vie organique," et absolument faux. Indeed! magnus.
NOTE ABOUT BICHAT.
49S
is
therefore the passions have their seat (stige) in the heart, which 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 (siigent) from those which they
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 sitige, of singer 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,
affect.
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 u The greatest error in Gall's phrenology is, that he makes edition) :
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 volonUs sont des pense'es." " Le premier service que Gall a rendu Accordingly he says, p. 144: a la physiologie (?) a 4t6 de rammener le moral a I'intellectuel, et de
:
faire voir que
du mime
les faculty morales et les faculte's intellectuelles sont ordre, et de les placer toutes, autant les unes que les autres, et
uniquement
exclusivement dans
le
cerveau."
To
a certain extent
of
my
this
whole philosophy, but especially the nineteenth chapter
volume, consists of the refutation of this fundamental error. M. Flourens, on the contrary, is never tired of extolling this as a U S% great truth and Gall as its discoverer; for example, p. 147: dirais a rendu services dais a classer les nous que le Gall, je que fen premier a e'te'de rammener les qualite's morales au cerveau j" p. 153 " Le cerveau seal est Vorgane de I'dme, et de I'dme dans toute la pleni:
speak seriously, and the chocking, than to see the true and profound rejected
tude de sesfonctions (we see the simple soul of Descartes still always " il est le lurks in the background, as the kernel of the matter) le rammeni moral . . Gall a stige de toutes les faculte's intellectuelles. a l'intellectuel, il a rammene les qualite's morales au mSme sihge, au mime organe, que les faculte's intellectuelles." Oh how must Bichat and I be ashamed of ourselves in the presence of such wisdom But, to what can be more disheartening, or rather more
; . !
"
false
496

;
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 magna est vis veritatis et prcevalebit.
!
M. Flourens
is
chiefly acquired
unquestionably a man of much merit, but he has 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 But he Cartesian, he tortures a hundred more animals to death.
ought betimes to have observed and thought something of this "Take care, friend, for it burns." The presumption and selfsufficiency, 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, indeed to reprove and instruct him, and even almost to mock at him, has its 01 igin in the nature of the Academy and its fauteui/s. Throned upon these, and saluting each other
and
futile authorities,
mutually as
illustre confrere,
selves equal with the best who selves as oracles, and therefore
gentlemen cannot avoid making themhave ever lived, regarding -themfit to decree what shall be false
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 cer-
and what
by the grace of God," and accordingly which they have generally occupied only (in the forty-first fauteuH) and to its illustres confreres, as born princes to the numerous representatives of the people, chosen from the crowd. Therefore a secret awe should warn these gentlemen of the
stand to the
" tainly Bichat belongs, are so
Academy
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
Academy (who always
present day
is
quite absurd.
END OF
VOL. IL
Printed by Baixanttne,
at Paul't
Hansom
&
Co.
Work, Edinburgh
pimjims
at.^1.
JUL lQltfTD
PLEASE
DO NOT REMOVE
FROM
THIS POCKET
CARDS OR
SLIPS
UNIVERSITY OF
TORONTO
LIBRARY
B 3138 E5H2 1909
Schopenhauer, Arthur The world as will and
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A37'

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN

WORLD AS WILL AND IDEA

WORLD AS WILL AND

OF THE SECOND BOOK OF VOL.

qui populum tetatis suae cogitat." Sen.

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRttBNER &

584273 2.1. 5". 54

The rights of trantlation and of reprodtiction are

SUPPLEMENTS TO THE FIRST BOOK.

The Standpoint of Idealism

IL The Doctrine of Perception, ob Knowledge of the Understanding

On the Senses IV. On Knowledge a priori

Doctrine of Arstract or Rational Knowledge

the Doctrine of Science

Man's Need of Metaphysics

SUPPLEMENTS TO THE SECOND BOOK.

On the Primacy of the Will

the Animal Organism

du g^nie qui ouvre une impunement de grandes fautes. Voltaire.

fected masterpiece of a truly great

The perwill always pro-

duce a deep and powerful

upon the whole human

THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.

so participates in the benefit which mankind from that great mind.

So slowly does the

and importance will only be revealed through

the spirit of the age, itself gradually trans-

formed and altered in the most important and essential

do not stand in need of

immediately flows in again behind

when great minds

THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.

from that of Kant,

yet throughout under

work by accusing him

be expected that the sincere rever-

from exposing these except with the most careful

THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.

come weak and

my language would necessarily beTowards insipid through circumlocution.

eyes appears to be his chief merit ; and I shall do this

greatest merit is the distinction of the

was led into

path through Locke (see Prolegomena

CRITICISM OF THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.

Locke had accepted

and causality, are known by us a

Thus Locke had

pressed in the "Prolegomena" (that most beautiful and

far too little read, for it facilitates

Kant's important writings, which is immensely the study of

All three systems ought to be

before one proceeds

THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.

thus the doctrine of the complete diver-

explained above, far surpassed