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HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY
. SCHELLING-'S ,
TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISE
A CRITICAL EXPOSITION
By JOHN WATSON,
i/lLuD..
F.R.S.C.,
PROFESSOR OP MENTAL AND MORAL PBILOSOPHT, QUEEN 8
UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON, CANADA.
CHICAGO:
fi. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY.
1882.
■^^S^S^i^r
Copyright, 1882,
Bt S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY.
Harvard university:
LIBRARY
MAY 2 1989
I KMUriJfc i>gm. ft i
GERMAN PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS
FOB
ENGLISH READERS AND STUDENTS.
EDITED BT
GEORGE S. MORRIS.
SPELLING'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
IN PREPARATION
FOR THE 8A9CE 8BRIE8:
KANTS ETHICS. Ppesidekt Porter.
KANTS CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT. Prop. Robert Adamsox.
HEGEL'S LOGIC. Dr. Wm. T. Harris.
HEGEL'S ^ESTHETICS. Prof. J. S. Kidney.
HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AND OF THE STATE.
HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
FICHTB'S SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
LEIBNITZ'S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING HUMAN UNDER-
STANDING.
ALREADY PVBLIABBU:
KANTS CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. Prof. Geo. S. Morris.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KANT.
Three phases of Schelling's speculations: (1)
agnostic, (2) pantheistic, (3) theistic • . 1
Schelling, the link connecting Hegel with Kant
through Fichte 3
Relations of the Transcendental Idealism to
Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre and Hegel's Plue-
nomenologie des Geistes 3
The Critical problem 4
Conditions of experience G
Are there supersensible realities? If so, they
are not objects of "experience," because they
cannot be *' schematized." 8
Reason compels us to seek for a totality of con-
ditions 12
Rational Psychology, Cosmology and Theology
uncritically identify Ideas of reason with
supersensible realities 13
Relation of Theoretical to Practical Reason;
possibility of reconciling free and natural
causation 17
▼
VI CONTENTS,
Practical Reason proves the freedom and immor-
tality of man, and tbe existence of God . 22
The world must be conceived by us as a teleo-
logical system 25
CHAPTER II.
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF FICHTE.
Free activity for Kant the essence of Reason . 28
Imperfect development of Kant's doctrine . 30
Fichte's simplification of it by the denial of any
reality out of relation to human intelligence 33
Contrast of Dogmatism and Idealism ... 35
Dogmatism leads to Determinism and Material-
ism, and fails to explain conscious experience 37
Idealism starts from Intelligence as pure self-
activity 40
Fundamental thesis, antithesis and synthesis . 42
Diremption of philosophy into Theoretical and
Practical 40
Relation of Fichte's three fundamental proposi-
tions to the philosophy of Kant .... 47
And to the Logic of Hegel 50
The Psychology of Fichte 50
Stages of knowledge: sensation, perception, im-
agination, understanding, judgment, reason 53
Practical Reason as the ultimate explanation of
reality 59
Personality and Morality 61
Critical estimate of Fichte's earlier philosophy 64
CONTENTS. Vll
CHAPTER III.
schellixg's earlier treatises.
Schelling's first work, The Possibility of a
Form of Philosophy in General, deduces the
categories of quality and modality from
Fichte's fundamental propositions ... 70
In The I as Principle of Philosophy, the ab-
solute and the finite Ego are strongly opposed,
subject and object coordinated, and the world
viewed as manifesting unconscious reason . 71
The Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and
Criticism regards the existence of an "ob-
jective" God as an unverifiable hypothesis,
and conceives the absolute as the unrealisable
goal of man's strivings 78
Essays in explanation of Idealism: (1) Space
and Time modes of the self-activity of intelli-
gence; (2) The Kantians err by confusing the
logical opposition of Subject and Object with
their actual separation; (3) The essence of
Spirit is infinite self-limitation .... 84
Schelling's Philosophy of Nature connected
with Kant's Anfangsgriinde der Natur-
wissenschaft and Kritik der Utiheilskraft . 90
In the Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature the
various phenomena of the material world are
deduced from the nature of Perception and
Sensation 92
The treatise On the World Soul reduces all
▼iii CONTENTS.
the phenomena of nature to a single force
manifesting itself in two opposite directions 94
In the First Outline of the Philosophy of
Nature Schelling maintains nature to be
an eternal process of self-limitation ... 96
CHAPTER IV.
THE PROBLEM OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
Schelling's gradual separation from Fichte • 98
Philosophy of Nature and Transcendental
Idealism two, coordinate disciplines, the
former dealing with the totality of objects
and the latter with the totality of conscious
acts 100
Criticism of philosophical dogmatism . . . 101
Intellectual Perception as the organ of phi- ' i
losophy 102 J
Method of Transcendental Idealism . • . 104
A single first principle necessary .... 105
That principle pure self-consciousness . . . 106
And is self-evident 107
Distinction and relation of consciousness and
self-consciousness 110
Problem of Theoretical Philosophy: How do
subject and object seem to be independent of
each other? 112
The three " epochs " or stages of knowledge .114 J
!
CONTENTS. IX
CHAPTER V.
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY.
First stage of knowledge: from sensation to
perception 115
Sensation an immediate feeling of necessity . 115
Not the product of something out of relation
to intelligence 117
But of the first self-limitation of intelligence . 118
As such it excludes all reflection • • • .119
Failure of dogmatism to account for it . . 120
Perception the explicit opposition of subject
and object, or the consciousness of a real
world of matter 121
Dogmatic materialism does not account for the
consciousness of reality 122
Perception the act in which the ideal self con-
templates the real self as limited . • .122
The objective world seems to be independent of
intelligence because the relation of the ideal
to the real self is not made explicit • • . 124
The perception of its own contrary activities by
intelligence yields as product the forces of
matter, the synthesis of which is gravity . 124
Second stage of knowledge: from perception to
reflection 125
The distinction of internal and external per-
ception 125
The feeling of self given in the perception of
time 120
X CONTENTS.
Consciousness of an external object given in the
perception of space 128
-Inner and outer world correlative .... 128
The object as an extensive quantity is substance,
as intensive quantity it is accident • . .129
Substance presupposes causality and both reci-
procity 129
All substances are in reciprocal causation . 132
The knowledge of such substances a process in
which the idea of the world as a unity is con-
tinuously specified for the individual intelli-
gence . . 133
Distinction of absolute and finite intelligence . 136
Perception of the world as organized and of the
various phases of organization . . . .138
Third stage of knowledge : from reflection to
will 139
Schelling's development of the Kantian doc-
trine of the categories, schemata and prin-
ciples of judgment 139
The apparent opposition of intelligence and
nature 140
The opposition explained from the nature of
abstraction 141
Conception as the product of abstraction . .142
Judgment the union of conception and per-
ceived object by means of the schema . . . 143
Transcendental abstraction, the categories and
the transcendental schema 143
True relation of conception and |>erception ex-
plained from the nature of reflection . . 144
CONTENTS. XI
The distinction of a priori and a posteriori
purely relative 147
Distinction or non-distinction of inner and
outer sense accounts for the character of the
mathematical and dynamical categories re-
spectively . . 147
Reduction of Kant's categories to those of
relation 149
Transition to practical philosophy . . • .150
CHAPTER VI.
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY.
The ultimate explanation of intelligence as
knowing found in intelligence as will . .152
Contrast of the original act of self-consciousness *
and the act of self-determination . . .153
Why is will apparently limited to specific •
objects? 155
Will the condition of individuality . . . 157
How do I obtain a knowledge of other intelli-
gences besides myself, and seem to be acted
upon by them? 157
The knowledge of nature as independent of the
individual consciousness also explained from
the nature of will 161
Relation of will to perceived objects . . . 162
The idea and the ideal 16-i
Impulse the feeling of opposition between the
ideal and the external world 165
Xll CONTENTS.
The realization of will in the objective world a
change in the perceptions of the willing
agent 165
Action must therefore conform to the laws of
nature, i.e., to the laws of intelligence as
perceptive 171
Opposition of will and impulse . . . .172
Freedom as identification with the moral law . 173
Happiness the coincidence of natural impulse
and moral law 174
Justice the law of free beings 175
History the union of will and law as realized
in perpetual progress 177
The goal of human history the complete reve-
lation of God 179
CHAPTER VII.
TELEOLOGT AND ART.
Teleology the final solution of the problem of
philosophy: Schelling's debt to Kant . . 181
Organisms are under mechanical law, and yet
must be explained by the idea of final cause:
imperfection of hylicism and conscious teleo-
logy 183
Difference between Kant and Schelling on the
question of immanent teleology . . . .186
Art. as the actual unity of the conscious and
unconscious . . ....... 187
CONTENTS, Xlll
Contrast of the products of art and the organ-
ized products of nature 188
Art as the organ of philosophy . . 189
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SYSTEM OF IDENTITY.
Main value of the Transcendetital Idealism its
application of the idea of process or develop-
ment 191
Its general imperfection a want of systematic
completeness 193
1. Schelling errs in coordinating Nature and
Intelligence, instead of subordinating the
former to the latter, but his view is a step in
advance of Fichte's subjective idealism . . 196
2. He wrongly conceives of Intelligence as in
itself a negative infinite, but he also rightly
regards it as an infinite process .... 201
3. Metaphysic and Psychology not clearly dis-
tinguished, but the phases of subjective spirit
well characterized 203
4. Mistake of subordinating Theoretical to Prac-
tical Intelligence 205
5. Art not a true synthesis of the conscious and
the unconscious 206
Schelling's System of Identity the logical result
of his previous speculations 208
Reason as the Absolute Identity of Intelligence
XIV CONTENTS.
and Nature, their difference being purely
quantitative 209
Fichte's criticism of the System of Identity rela-
tively valid, but fails to do justice to the
truth it contains 214
CHAPTER IX.
schilling's later philosopht.
Mysticism of Schelling's later speculation . . 218
Philosophy and Religion the link between
the System of Identity and the "Positive"
Philosophy 219
Summary of the Enquiries into the Nature of
Human Freedom *~. . 220
Not the Pantheism of Spinoza but his Realism is
destructive of Individuality and Freedom . 220
Relation of Schelling to BOhmen . . . . 222 j
Possibility of evil not inconsistent with the per-
sonality of God 223
Existence of evil due to the necessary self-revela-
tion of God 226
Freedom a choice of good and evil in a timeless
act 227
God not the author of evil, but evil a stage in
' the realization of good 228
The Philosophy of Mythology and the Philoso-
phy of Revelation exhibit the self- revelation
of God in the successive stages of the religious
consciousness 229
CONTENTS.
Religion as the Positive Philosophy . . . 230
Criticism of the later philosophy of Schelling 232
CHAPTER X.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
Contrast of the first and last stages of Spel-
ling's speculations 237
Comparison of the first stage with English Em-
piricism and with the Critique of Pure
Reason 238
Imperfection of the second phase of Schelling's
speculations 244
That imperfection arose from following the
letter of-Kant's "Dialectic" 247
Unsatisfactoriness of the last phase of Spel-
ling's speculations, and its sources . . . 249
Hegel the true follower of Kant .... 250
SCHELLING'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
CHAPTER I.
THE PHILOSOPHY OP KANT.
TpVERYBODY is familiar with the saying of
~^"^ Hegel, that Schelling "carried on his philo-
sophical education before the public, and signalized
each fresh stage of his advance by a new treatise."
The essential truth of this criticism it would be
vain to deny, but perhaps it suggests to the ordi-
nary reader a lack of coherence and continuity, with
which Schelling is not justly chargeable. Perpetual
change, both in the substance and the form of his
philosophy, there is, but it is the change of one who
cannot stand still because he is the continual recipi-
ent of fresh light, which he cannot avoid communi-
cating to others. The phases of Schelling's philo-
sophical faith may be regarded as three : first, the
period of " storm and stress, 11 in which, in harmony
with Fichte's earlier philosophy, he refused to admit
the reality of any Supreme Being other than the
moral order of the world, as revealed to the indi-
vidual in the idea of a moral perfection to which
2 schelling's transcendental idealism.
man can only approximate, and in the struggle to-
ward which his true life consists ; secondly, the
stage at which man and nature are regarded as two
coordinate manifestations of a single, activity, that
is revealed in each with equal fulness and perfec-
tion; and, lastly, the crowning stage, in which an
attempt is made to prove the personality of God,
while preserving the freedom and the moral respon-
sibility of man maintained in the earlier stages.
The mere mention of these three phases will sug-
gest what is the truth, that there is no break in the
continuity of Schelling's philosophy. In his first
period Schelling does indeed deny the reality of
what he calls an " objective God," by which he
meant what Mr. Matthew Arnold has called a
" magnified and non- natural man in the next-
street "; but he may be said to catch a glimpse of
the glory of God in the ideal of infinite moral per-
fection, and at any rate he has grasped with perfect
clearness the principle of human freedom, however
blind he may be to its ultimate implications. In
the second stage, without letting go the freedom and
responsibility of man, he has discovered that Nature
is the expression of a rational process, in some sense
the obverse of the process of human knowledge and
action, and hence that man and Nature arc alike
manifestations of something not themselves. In
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KAXT. 3
the third stage, Schelling seeks to gather up all the
elements of truth already discovered, and to fuse
them in the perfect unity of a personal God. The
philosophy of Schelling is thus itself an example of a
law upon which he insists, that man moves on toward
a goal which he only sees in a dim and imperfect
way. It must, however, be added that Schelling
saw much more clearly the problems which demand
solution, than how to solve them. His philosophy is
in large measure a failure ; but then it is one of
those failures that are more significant than the
petty successes of others. It would be hazardous to
say that Hegel, with Kant and Aristotle, not to
speak of Spinoza and Leibnitz, to stimulate his own
marvellous insight, could not have dispensed with
the assistance of Fichte and Schelling ; but this at
least may be admitted, that without them he would
have found his task a much harder one. The inter-
est in the philosophy of Schelling is thus twofold :
firstly, as a record of the intellectual development
of a singularly gifted mind, and, secondly, as form-
ing the transition from Kant to Hegel through
Fichte.
The Transcendental Idealism is one of Spel-
ling's many attempts to present the Critical Phi-
losophy of Kant in a form less inadequate than
that in which it was given to the world by its
4 SCHELLINXTS TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
founder. With the Wissenschaftslehre of Fichte
it is connected in the way of direct affiliation, as it is
itself in turn the philosophical progenitor of Hegel's
Phcenomenologie des Geistes ; or rather, as Schel-
ling read Kant with the eyes of Fichte as well as
with his own, so Hegel studied Kant to all the
more advantage that he had profited by the disci-
pline imparted to him by Fichte and Schelling.
The great problems of man's beliefs, conduct, and
destiny, which have exercised so great a fascination
over men's minds in all ages, receive from Kant that
peculiar illumination which it is the glory of philo-
sophical genius to cast upon them. What can we
know ? What ought we to do ? What may we
hope ? To these old questions Kant's thoughts were
irresistibly drawn, and the answers which he gave
to them, imperfect as in some ways they were, have
already changed, and are destined still further to
change, the whole system of beliefs which have
slowly grown up through the ages. This revolu-
tion has taken place because Kant, in virtue of his
speculative endowment and his ethical enthusiasm,
could not be content with the answers which had
come down from the past. Every belief, however
venerable, must show to him its right to exist, or
be calmly and firmly set aside. Whether there is
any God but Nature, whether man's actions are
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KANT.
purely mechanical or are free, whether this life is
the be-all and end-all, — these questions above all
must be submitted to the severest tests of reason,
and must be answered without regard to men's
individual hopes or fears. At the same time, no
one ever had less of the purely sceptical temper
than Kant, the temper which is content to marshal
the arguments for and against the beliefs of men,
without seeking for new principles to be put in
place of the old. Kant never swerved from the
conviction that Reason must be able to solve the
problems which it has itself raised ; and it makes
one impatient to find his large, calm vision con-
founded with the intellectual indolence or vanity
which regards no solution as the only one possible.
Philosophical criticism meant for Kant, as for his
idealist followers, a demolition of the idols of the
age, but not less the erection in their stead of new
forms of truth and beauty. Like all the masters in
philosophy, Kant's speculations were prompted and
guided by the necessity laid upon him to seek for
an explanation of the foundations of morality and
religion. But he soon found that, to arrive at any
satisfactory conclusion, it was first necessary to de-
termine how far knowledge was possible. The free-
dom of the human will, the immortality of the soul,
and the existence of God, were beliefs tenaciously
6 6CHELLING'ft transcendental idealism.
held or flippantly denied ; but neither the dogmatist
nor the sceptic seemed to him to have any rational
and inexpugnable ground for the belief that was in
him, but rather held it as an unreasoned conviction.
Was there, then, any rational principle by which those
questions might be at once and forever resolved?
This at least seemed to Kant self-evident, that if our
edifice of belief is to rest on a rock, and to be too
strongly built to be carried away when the floods
come and the winds blow and beat upon it, we must,
before asserting the reality of anything supersensi-
ble, begin by asking what it is that constitutes the
strength and stability of that knowledge of common
objects and common facts which no one can seriously
call in question. Of the truths of e very-day life,
the mathematical and physical sciences and history,
— the facts of experience, in a word, — no one has yet
been sceptical, however sceptical he may have been
of a supersensible world beyond experience. Let
us, then, find out the secret of their reality, and we
shall probably be able to decide whether, and how
far, the world beyond the senses is worthy of our
credence. What, then, is experience? and how do
we come to get knowledge by means of it ?
It has almost universally been taken for granted
that whatever is known by experience exists full-
formed and complete before it is experienced, and
THE PHILOSOPHY OP KANT. ?
that knowledge consists in the passive apprehension
of this preSxistent world of objects. But closer
consideration shows this supposition to be self-con-
tradictory, and incompatible with the facts supposed
to be thus passively mirrored in the mind. A fact
is something very different from the immediate
apprehension at a given moment of a particular
object or event; it is something that exists not
merely when we apprehend it, but before and after
that apprehension, — something therefore which is
not particular, but universal. " Water rusts iron 1 ':
here is a proposition which asserts the invariable,
real or necessary connection of two phenomena, not
simply their connection so long as they are present
to the senses. In every fact something universal is
implied, or every fact is an instance of a law. Ad-
mitting, therefore, that the particular phenomenon
is nothing for us apart from sense, but is given to
us by sense, we must still hold that the law is not so
given. But how can law be imposed upon nature
by our minds? Only upon the supposition that
nature is not, as we at first suppose, something exist-
ing apart from all relation to conscious beings, but
something that exists only for such beings. Of
course we do not create nature, but we constitute it
as it is for us. What nature apart from us may be,
we cannot possibly tell. The nature which we
8
know is made by the action of our thought upon the
material supplied by the senses. And since the facts
which we know are not isolated or random affections,
but form a cosmos, we must regard experience as
made for us by the subordination of all the particu-
lars of sense to universal laws belonging to the very
nature of our intelligence as self-conscious.
Thus the universal judgments which form the
warp of experience are capable of being explained
in accordance with the conditions under which only
our intellectual life can be carried on. There
belong to our intellect certain functions of thought,
or categories, which take hold of whatever units of
sense may be presented to them and form the world
of experience familiar to us all. In every single bit
of experience thought is implied as reducing the
thronging crowd (Gewllhl) of impressions to order
by bringing them under the supreme unity of a
single self.
The inquiry into the constitution of nature has
led to the quite unexpected result that the univer-
sal notions or categories — unity, substance, cause,
etc. — which form the very soul, so to speak, of na-
ture, exist for us only because we are self-con-
scious. Thus, if we abstract in thought from those
categories, nature becomes unthinkable, or drops
back into the chaos of mere impressions from which
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KANT. 9
the activity of thought had rescued it. The next
and more important question is, whether the prob-
lem as to the existence of supersensible realities
has become any easier for us now that we have
discovered the conditions of sensible experience.
This is a much harder problem than the other.
That we have a knowledge of a world in space and
time no one can doubt, even prior to an exhibition
by philosophy of the elements implied in the knowl-
edge of it as real ; but that over and above this
world there are existences which are not in time
or space seems at first sight problematical enough.
For how can we know anything of realities that
ex hypothesi are not in space and time, and so give
us nothing definite to which we can apply those
universal conceptions, by the employment of which
detached impressions of sense emerge as universal
laws? Can we, for example, say that in its true
essence the soul is something not directly known,
but only inferred from the successive modifica-
tions or manifestations of it? How can we, in
accordance with the conditions of knowledge, be
certain that there is a God, who, if he exists, must
be independent of the forms of space and time?
How, in short, can there be any knowledge at
all of the supersensible, which by its verj- nature
must be out of space and time, and so incapable
10 sciielling's transcendental idealism.
of being known, so far, at least, as we have yet
seen? Assuming for a moment that there actu-
ally is a supersensible world, what can we know
of it? Is it definable as a magnitude? Evidently
not, for the term " magnitude " has absolutely no
meaning for us unless we realize in thought the
actual process by which an object is known as an
extensive quantity, — unless, in other words, we
represent it as generated in time by the suc-
cessive addition of unit to unit. We speak of
a color, a sound, or a taste, as having a certain
degree of intensity; can we affirm the like of the
supersensible? Impossible, for that which has
degree must be represented as filling a given
moment of time with an intensity somewhere be-
tween zero and infinity. But at least the super-
sensible may be defined as a substance or a cause ?
Is not the soul a substance, and God a cause? At
first, no doubt, they seem to be so. but an inquiry
into the conditions of knowledge has shown us that
a substance or cause not in time is quite incapable
of being known. A substance, as we know it, is
something that does not pass away with the mo-
ments of time as they come one by one, but jvrsists
through time? whereas the supersensible is that
which, if known at all. must be known as not in
time. A cause, again, so far as our experience goes,
THE PHILOSOPHY OP KANT. 11
is something which, as the condition of a certain
change of state which follows it, must be in time
and therefore be itself a change of state ; the super-
sensible would therefore cease to be supersensible
were it in time, while on the other hand as out of
time it cannot be known as a cause.
From all this it seems plain enough that what-
ever cannot be " schematized " — represented, that
is, as conforming to the process by which the defi-
nite or concrete becomes a possible object in time —
cannot be known in the sense in which we speak
of knpwing anything by experience. Shall we,
then, at once conclude that the whole of knowable
existence is exhausted in the world of sense, and
that the existence of any supersensible reality is
utterly incapable of being established? By no
means; all that we are entitled to say is, that super-
sensible realities, if there are such, are not capable
of Wing " schematized/ 1 do not admit of the appli-
cation to them of the categories, and can never
become objects of actual sensible experience. Our
inquiry into the conditions of knowledge has, so
far as the supersensible is concerned, yielded only
a negative result. But this result must not be
regarded as worthless; it at least enables us to see
that to the supersensible world, if such a world
exists at all, the schematized categories have no
application. We cannot say, for example, that the
soul, supposing it to be something different from
its manifestations, is a cause in the sense in which
we say that a sensible phenomenon is the cause or
condition of a change in nature ; for to do so would
be to represent the soul as one of a series of sensi-
ble phenomena, and therefore to deny its super-
sensible nature. Nor can we speak of God as either
a substance or a cause, since in that case he would
be conditioned or dependent on something else, and
would therefore cease to be God. It is not meant
by this that there are supersensible realities — that
yet remains to be determined, — but only that, if
there are such, they must not be brought under the
categories or be regarded as objects limited in space
and time. Our next question must therefore be,
whether there is anything to lead to the conclusion
that there are supersensible realities, and if so,
what relation these tear to the sensible realities
indubitably known to us.
Intelligence in its application to the sensible world
is concerned only with the relations of particulars to
one another. Given a certain change, for example,
and the understanding directs us to seek for its
cause or condition in some precedent state of nature.
But, besides this knowledge of the relations of par-
ticular objects or events to one another, we find our-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KANT. 13
selves impelled by Reason to seek, not merely for a
definite condition for a given phenomenon, but to
seek for all the conditions of it.
The understanding is satisfied when it has found
the special condition; Reason is not satisfied, but
seeks for that which, as the complete totality of con-
ditions, is not itself conditioned at all. And as an
unconditioned totality is evidently incapable of be-
ing made an object of sensible experience, it is so
far merely an idea, useful in prompting the under-
standing to seek always for a prior condition of
every phenomenon, but incapable; from the nature
of the case, of ever becoming an object of experience.
It supplies a rule for the understanding, but it does
not, so far as we can yet see, add anything to our
knowledge; it is regulative, not constitutive. We
must therefore be exceedingly careful not to identify
an idea of Reason with the knowledge of an actual
'" object" corresponding to it. That identification,
however, has unwittingly been made by all those
who have maintained that we actually have a know-
ledge of supersensible realities, in the same way in
which we have a knowledge of sensible or phenome-
nal things. Hence the supposed sciences of Rational
Psychology, the science of the soul in itself, Rational
Cosmology, the science of the world as a whole, and
Rational Theology, the science of God in his inner
14 schelling's transcendental idealism.
nature. It has already been pointed oat that the
soul as a supersensible reality cannot be an object
of experience, since it cannot be determined by any
category without being represented as in time, and
so as sensible or phenomenal. Those, therefore, who
assert, on the one hand, that the soul is a supersensi-
ble reality, and, on the other hand, that it is a sub-
stance, simple, self-identical, and relative to possible
objects in space and time, really make the soul at
once sensible and supersensible, and thus fall into a
manifest paralogism. If the soul is a substance, it
is simply a part of the sensible world, and therefore
not unconditioned, but conditioned: if it is uncondi-
tioned, it is not a substance. Similarly, the world,
as a complete whole, is confused by the Rational
Cosmologist with the conditioned or limited phe-
nomena which alone are actually known in expe-
rience ; that is to say, a pure idea of Reason is identi-
fied with a supposed object of experience. It is no
wonder, therefore, that the Rational Cosmologist finds
himself maintaining mutually contradictory propo-
sitions. Take, for example, the quantitative deter-
mination of the world of experience. On the one
hand, it is said that the world had an absolute begin-
ning in time and is limited in space; while, on the
other hand, it is maintained that it never began
to be and has no limit in space. Either of these
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KAXT. 15
propositions may be proved with equal cogency if
we assume that the partial determination of the
world by the understanding is the same thing as the
complete determination of it, as it exists in the idea
of Reason. But the moment we see that the idea of
Reason is not capable of being presented as an actual
object of experience, we discover that both proposi-
tions are false. We cannot say that the world began
to exist at some point of time or has existed from
all eternity, because we can represent objects as
quantitative only by "schematizing" them, i.e. by
representing them as in time, which itself is capable
of being represented only as a never-ending series.
To know the world as complete in time is impossible;
and equally impossible is it to know the world as
necessarily incomplete in time; the only knowledge
we have is of a series of conditions which is never
complete, but which, under the guiding idea of
Reason, we perpetually seek to complete. Turning
now to the dynamical relations of things, we find
the Rational Cosmologist again falling into self-
contradiction. Thus it is held, on the one hand,
that all things are connected by the law of natural
causation, and, on the other hand, that there must
l»e a sort of cause that is not necessitated, but free.
Now the truth is that, while each of these proposi-
tions is as susceptible of proof as the other, neither
1G schelling's transcendental idealism.
is true so long as we suppose both to apply to the
world as it is' in itself, while both may be true on the
supposition that the one applies to the phenomenal
and the other to the noumenal world. To this point
we shall immediately return. In the meantime we
may look at Kant's criticism of Rational Theology.
What course that criticism will take may be
readily anticipated. The three arguments for the
existence of a Supreme Being, who is the source
of all reality, are held to be reducible, ultimately,
to one — the ontological, which reasons from the
conception to the actual existence of a Supreme
Being. This argument really contains a fallacy
similar to that implied in identifying the self, as
known in sensible consciousness, with a supposed
supersensible self. However necessary the idea of
a Supreme Being may be as an ideal of Reason,
giving satisfaction to the demand for perfect unity
in knowledge, we cannot take this ideal as a proof
of the reality of a Being corresponding to it. That
such a Being exists is not impossible, but it is
impossible that he can ever be known, since that
would imply that he had become an object of con-
tingent experience, and thus had ceased to be un-
conditioned or supersensible. Practical reason may,
and, as a matter of fact, Kant asserts emphatically
that it does, establish the reality of a Supreme
THE PHILOSOPHY OP KANT. • 17
Being, as well as the freedom of the human will
and the immortality of the soul : bat in no possible
way can it be shown that any of the ideas of Reason
have within the realm of actual knowledge other
than a regulative use. We must, then, go on to ask
what is the relation of Theoretical and Practical
Reason.
This question cannot be better answered than by
a careful statement of the solution of the problem
as to the relation of natural and free causation, to
which we promised to return. It has already ap-
peared that the seeming contradiction of natural
and free causation can only be solved by drawing a
distinction between the sensible and the supersensi-
ble world, and refusing to attempt to determine the
latter in the same way in which we determine the
former. In his further discussion of this vexed
question, Kant's aim is to show that the physical
law of causality may perhaps be reconciled with
the existence of a free causality, and that, looked at
from the proper point of view, neither is contra-
dictory of the other. No solution of the problem
can for a moment be entertained which tries to
weaken the universal validity of the law of cause
and effect in nature. Any such attempt is fore-
doomed to failure, since a denial of natural causa-
tion carries with it logically the downfall of expen-
ds
18 schklling's transcendental idealism.
ence as a connected whole, including tbe facts and
laws of tbe special sciences. Every change of state
whatever must have a cause or condition without
which it could not be. And this is just as true of
human actions as of the mechanical movements of
material bodies. If we could trace back the actions
of men to their source, we should be able to see that
they invariably follow the law of natural causation.
An un motived act is a mere absurdity. Any viola-
tion of that law, either in the realm of matter or of
mind, would be destructive of the whole of experi-
ence. On the other band, there is a manifest dis-
tinction in the manner of causation between the
actions of man and the unconscious or mechanical
sequences, according to which the changes of ma-
terial bodies or the acts of the lower animals take
place. The former are purely mechanical, the latter
are not. A billiard-ball when struck must move;
an animal follows its immediate instincts: man,
however, does not invariably follow the promptings
of his immediate desires, but may subordinate them
to some end set up by his reason. Hence we have
the conviction that we are under a law of freedom.
The question is whether this conviction can be
philosophically justified. The ordinary method of
solution, which consists in denying that the law of
natural causation applies to human acts — the so-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KANT. 19
called "liberty of indifference," or liberty to act
apart from or contrary to motives — is no solution
at all. Is any other solution possible ?
Reason, as we have seen, sets up the idea of an
unconditioned causality, — a causality that does not
form a mere link in the chain of natural causa-
tion, but is quite independent of it. If there is a
causality of this kind, which can be shown to be
not incompatible with the prevalence of natural
law, the way will be left open for a positive solution
of the problem of human freedom, — a solution which
can only be given when we come to consider reason
as practical, — that is, as setting up a purely intelli-
gible world of moral laws. At present we cannot
do more than show that free and natural causality
may possibly coexist.
When we ask whether the world has had a begin-
ning in time or has existed from all eternity, we
forget that a third supposition is possible, namely,
that the sensible world is merely what it seems to
us to be, and does not exist except in relation to
our faculty of perception. Hence we do not, in
solving the difficulty, need to suppose any super-
sensible or intelligible world, but have only to draw
attention to the fact that the world-in-itself is a
mere idea, set up by reason, of a complete series
of conditions, — an idea which, from the nature of
20 schelling's transcendental idealism.
the case, can never be realized, since every indefi-
nitely extensible quantitative series is by its nature
incapable of being completely summed up, and yet
compels us to seek for its complete summation. But
when we seek for the unconditioned in the case of
causality, it is quite possible to conceive — nay, rea-
son compels us to suppose — that there may b9 a
kind of causality which is not conditioned, but un-
conditioned. In our ordinary notion of freedom, as
action according to an end prescribed by reason,
this supposition of a causality which does not itself
form a link in the chain of causes and effects in
nature, is tacitly assumed. While, therefore, every
cause actually known by us as an object of experi-
ence is itself an effect presupposing a prior cause,
it is not impossible that there may be another sort
of causality which is not an object of sensible ex-
perience, and therefore is not itself an effect. Such
a cause, it is true, as supersensible, can never be-
come an actual object of " experience," for in that
case it would cease to be supersensible; but it may
nevertheless be indisputably proved to be real. A
causality of this kind would be unconditioned, and
would not enter into the series of causes and effects
known to us as in time. It might initiate a series
of conditions presenting themselves in the world of
sense, and yet might not itself be initiated. Sup-
THE PHILOSOPHY OP KANT. 21
posing, then, that there are two distinct kinds of
causality — a causality which, as the condition of
a change of state in the sensible world, is itself con-
ditioned, and a causality that is the supreme condi-
tion of a certain series of states in the world of
sense, but is not itself a member of that series —
how may these be shown to be not destructive of
one another? To this question, Kant, as I under*
stand him, would answer in this way. My acts,
looked at simply as objects of experience, belong
to the phenomenal world, and so far come under
the law that every phenomenal event must have
a phenomenal cause. Hut reason, in so far as it
is practical, takes me out of this merely phenome-
nal world, and sets before me certain ends which
it pronounces to be binding upon all rational be-
ings. Thus there rises up before me a world dis-
tinct from that which presents itself to me, in so
far as I simply contemplate events as in time. Sup-
pose now that I act in accordance with the ends
prescribed by reason, will my acts then cease to be
conformable to the law of natural causation? By
no means. The man who obeys the law to do jus-
tice to all men does not therefore act in violation
of the law of natural causation, that every event
must have its condition in the phenomenal world.
The difference between him and the immoral man
22 SCHELLINO'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
who steals his neighbor's property is not that the
acts of the one come under the law of causality and
the acts of the other do not, but that from the
point of view of the moral law the one acts freely
and the other does not. Freedom means conform-
ity to the pure idea of Duty, not action contrary
to motives. When I act in accordance with that
idea, I initiate a series of acts from an idea of
Reason; but these acts, looked at simply as follow-
ing in time on volition, are an instance of the law
of natural causality, that every event as condi-
tioned is relative to another event as its condition.
Kant, in other words, in distinguishing between
free and natural causation, virtually says that the
category of causality, in the sense in which it holds
of sensible phenomena, is inadequate to express the
character of the actions of man as originating from
a regard for moral law. That his mode of pre-
sentation is open to objection should not blind us
to the essential truth for which he is contending,
that from the point of view of man as a moral
being, freedom is not only possible, but is not in-
compatible with the law of natural causation.
In what has just been said we have to some ex-
tent anticipated the result of Kant's criticism of
the Practical Reason, to which attention must now
be directed. In the Critique of Pure Reason it has
THE PHILOSOPHY OP KANT. 23
been maintained that no knowledge of supersensible
realities can be obtained, since sack knowledge
always implies a process of determining objects in
time, whilst the supersensible is necessarily free
from the limits of time. We have now to see how
Kant would show from the nature of the practical
reason that man is free and the heir of immor-
tality, and that God exists. The central idea from
which he starts is that of Freedom, which has
already been shown to be at least possible. That
we have the consciousness of a moral law is a fact
which admits of no dispute; it is given to us in
the contrast of what is and what ought to be. Were
there no conception of the moral law we should
never become conscious of freedom; while on the
other hand, were there no freedom there could be
no realization of the moral law. The pure idea
of Duty and the idea of Freedom necessarily imply
each other. That this pure idea is originated en-
tirely by reason is evident from the fact that it
cannot be derived from any observation of the
facts of experience, not even from an observation
of the sequence of our own acts on motives. Ex-
perience can tell us what actually takes place, but
it cannot set before us an intelligible world in
which men might act quite differently from the
way in which they do act. Thus we get the notion
24 sciiblling's transcendental idealism.
of a world in which all men should act purely
according to ends prescribed by reason. As a
matter of fact men do not so act. The natural
desires prompt them to follow inclination rather
than reason, and thus a conflict arises between
the law of Reason and the law of Desire. Hence
it is that the moral law presents itself as obliga-
tory — as a command to act according to reason,
not according to desire; and that any swerving
from the law of duty destroys the morality of an
act To do one's duty is therefore to act from
reason : to follow inclination is to cease to be
moral. But while to be moral our acts must take
place in complete independence of all natural de-
sire, it does not follow that to act freely is to act
without regard for law. True freedom is that
which consists in willing the moral law. When I
act from the idea of duty I am free, and freedom
of will is therefore identical with willing the idea
of duty. The answer, then, to the question " What
ought I to do?" is this: "Do that which will make
thee worthy of happiness." This is a very different
thing from saying " Do that which will bring thee
happiness." Action regulated by the latter maxim
is not moral, but rests upon self-love; for to seek
for happiness is to act simply from a desire for the
satisfaction of our natural inclinations, and all ac-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KANT. 25
tion so determined is incompatible with freedom.
But, supposing action to be regulated purely by tbe
idea of duty or a regard for moral law, will hap-
piness as a matter of fact follow? It need hardly
be said that it does not follow in this world. If,
indeed, all men at all times acted in accordance
with the idea of duty, we might say that happiness
would be the lot of all, for free or moral action
naturally tends to produce happiness. But a world
in which all men on all occasions act morally is a
mere idea, which can never be realized so long as
man has a twofold nature, prompting him, on the
one hand, to follow desire and, on the other, setting
before him a pure moral law. We can only hope
for the realization of such an idea, if a supreme
reason is held to exist A state of things, in which
happiness is exactly proportionate to moral worth,
is only conceivable in a world ruled over by a wise
and good Author. Such a world, ruled over by such
a Being, reason compels us to postulate, although it
is not susceptible to the senses, nor can ever become
an object of our experience.
Thus, as it seems to Kant, we can see that the
moral law must be obeyed, whether happiness may
in this world follow in its train or no, while yet
the divorce between desire and reason, virtue and
happiness, inevitably leads to the certainty of a
26 schelling's transcendental idealism.
Supreme Being and of a future life. And having
established the existence of a Supreme Being, we
can now determine with certainty that which to
reason in its speculative aspect was at best prob-
lematical. The world of nature as ruled over by
a single Supreme Being must be viewed as in some
sense a manifestation of Infinite Intelligence, and
hence as adapted to the realization of our moral
nature. Accordingly the study of nature tends to
assume the form of a teleological system in which
all things are adapted to one supreme end. True,
we cannot say that we comprehend the nature of
God absolutely as he is, or that we are abstractly
right in conceiving of nature as a system adapted
to ends, but we are entitled to make the nature
of God intelligible to ourselves by analogies drawn
from the world of experience, and practically to
view all things as forming a system presided over
by an all-wise, all-perfect and all-powerful Being.
The world of sense thus becomes for us a " sensu-
ous symbol " of that higher world which is half-
revealed and half-concealed from us. Knowing
only in part, we can but laboriously spell out, from
indications in the world of sense, what seem to be
the designs of the Infinite Mind, but we have the
satisfaction of knowing that all things work to-
gether for good to those who obey the moral law,
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KANT. 27
and to those who, in the interrogation of nature,
are willing to spend themselves and to be spent.
The former have a certificate of Reason that worthi-
ness to be happy will ultimately bring happiness;
the latter, freed from the danger of an " indolent "
or " perverted " reason, know that in the careful
examination of experience they are following the
only path which can lead to the better comprehen-
sion of Nature, Mind, and God.
CHAPTER II.
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OP PICHTE.
TT^VEN from the hurried summary of the Criti-
"^~*^ cal Philosophy given in the preceding chap-
ter, it must be evident to the reader that Kant
regards Will, or Practical Reason, as constituting
in a peculiar sense the essence of man. Were it
possible for us to be purely contemplative beings,
we should have no proper reason for regarding
ourselves as free beings, or as destined to a higher
life beyond the grave; nor should we have any
proper reason for holding that the world mani-
fests, however dimly and imperfectly, the unseen
guidance of a Supreme Being. It is the revela-
tion of moral law, as introducing us to an ideal
world that ought to be, and ought to fashion the
sensible world after its pattern, that enables us to
learn what our true nature is and demands. Even
in his account of the conditions of knowledge,
however, Kant shows that his system, half uncon-
sciously to himself, rests upon the conviction that
the inner nature of intelligence is free activity real-
izing itself through universal laws. Nature is not
so much made for us as made by us. Intelligence,
ft)
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF FICHTE. 29
as the source of those universal conceptions which
unite the material of sense in a connected system,
is contrasted with sense as receptive, and is ex-
pressly qualified as "spontaneous" and "active";
and the process by which the manifold of sense is
determined in definite ways is a spontaneous ac-
tivity of mind. That spontaneous activity is of
the very essence of intelligence is implied in the
" synthetical unity of self-consciousness," — that
unity wh" h is the supreme condition of all knowl-
edge that we can have. Free activity being thus,
in Kant's view, regarded as the characteristic fea-
ture of man as rational, it was only natural that
Fichte, in seeking for a supreme principle from
which a system of philosophy at once reasoned
and true might be built up. should be led to start
from the conception of man as self-conscious, active
and free: and equally natural that his philosophy
should explicitly formulate that subordination of
theory to practice, of knowledge to morality, which
had been in no obscure way indicated by Kant*
Further reflection on the principle thus grasped,
viewed in its relation to the Critical Philosophy
as presented by its author, led to a simplification
and restatement of it that at first sight makes it
seem rather a new theory than a recast of the
old. The aim of Kant was to prepare the way for
30 schelling's transcendental idealism.
a philosophy that should hold nothing on suffer-
ance. That which could be proved to be in ac-
cordance with the necessary conditions of human
knowledge and morality was alone to be admitted
into the new and completely reasoned system. The
principle was thoroughly sound, but even after
all proper allowance has been made for numerous
infelicities of statement, it cannot be said to have
been thoroughly and consistently carried out to
its issues. Even to state, and much more to trace
to their source, all the instances in which Kant is
untrue to that principle, is here impossible, but a
few words may be said on the point by way of
preparation for the understanding of the changes
introduced by Fichte.
Although, as has been said, Kant regards human
intelligence as essentially active and spontaneous,
he is not less certain that, so far as knowledge is
concerned, it is active only in relation to the ma-
terial of sense which is "given" to it. If it is asked,
"given" by what? the answer of Kant is not by
any means so clear as could be wished. Kant cer-
tainly does not say that sensations are effects of a
pre€xistent and independent "thing- in -itself," as
those who study his philosophy only in part are apt
to suppose; all that he says is, that our minds do
not originate the particular element of knowledge,
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF FICHTE. 31
but receive it from some other source. The state-
ment is manifestly true, from the point of view of
the individual man, and is little more than an ex-
pression of the conviction — a conviction which Kant
never dreams of questioning — that the objects which
come before us, one by one, as parts of a real world,
are not made by us, but revealed to us. At the
same time, it must be admitted that here we have
the xpwray fsbto- of the Critical Philosophy. For
Kant, even when he has defined the " thing-in-itself,"
as he afterward does, as a supersensible world,
manifesting the presence of a Supreme Reason, re-
gards both as hidden from us in their universal
nature, by the necessary limitations of our minds,
and as but dimly suggested by the world we know ;
a view which, if taken literally, leads to the grave
of all sound philosophy in the unknown and the
unknowable. A similar mixture of truth and false-
hood is implied in the view that space and time are
forms of human perception, or at least of the percep-
tions of all intelligent beings who have a sensuous
nature. In one aspect of it, the subjectivity of these
"forms" draws attention to a truth which is simply
an application of the principle of all true philoso-
phy, the truth that space no less than time, and
therefore all knowable objects in either or both,
cannot be said to exist apart from their relation to
32 schelling's transcendental idealism.
consciousness. In asserting that space and time
belong to us as perceptive beings, Kant also meant
to emphasize the truth, that the constitution of our
minds, to be completely explained, must be brought
into relation with the supersensible source of finite
intelligence. Still further, his theory implies that
the determination of objects, simply as in space and
time, gives an imperfect and partial knowledge of
things, and leaves, as problems to be solved, the
true nature of the mind, the world and God. But
while these points of view, taking hold as they do of
an aspect of truth of supreme importance, are all
more or less implied in Kant, the view which is
actually formulated by him, that space and time
are mere modes of our perception, and hence that
objects of perception are but phenomena, is not only
unsatisfactory, but is inconsistent with the demand
for a theory which shall fully explain how knowl-
edge is possible. Not to prolong this criticism un-
necessarily, it may be said, summarily, that in the
limitation of the categories and schemata to human
intelligence, and above all in the denial that in the
principle of self-consciousness we reach a real knowl-
edge of intelligence as it is in itself, Kant betrays
a confusion of thought between two very different
propositions: (1) that the finite intelligence, as such,
requires ultimately to be explained by relation to
THE EABLIEB PHILOSOPHY OF FICHTE. 33
infinite intelligence, and (2) that human intelligence
is by its very nature incapable of knowing things
as they must present themselves to an intelligence
free from all limitations. The first of these propo-
sitions I regard as true, the second as false. For,
while our intelligence necessarily implies relation to
an infinite intelligence, it does not follow that the
latter is in its essence different from ours, nor does
it follow that the world which we know is not, when
properly understood, the only world that there is to
be known. An imperfection of a similar kind besets
Kant's account of the Practical Reason. Between
Reason and Desire, the " kingdom of nature " and
the "kingdom of grace," he places an impassable
gulf, and even his proofs of God and immortality
suffer from the imperfect logic of his theory. On
the other hand, the ideas of freedom, immortality
and God are treated in a supremely suggestive way,
and the direction in which the only possible solu-
tions must be found is clearly marked out. It is
unnecessary, however, at present, to speak of these
points more at length, since Fichte here closely
follows Kant, with the important and significant
exception of the moral belief in a Supreme Reason
existing apart from the ideal of such a reason in us.
From what has been said it will be possible to
make plain, in a few words, the way in which Fichte
3
34 schelung's transcendental idealism.
sought to develop Criticism into a system of philoso-
phy. Starting from the conception of Reason, or
the Ego as essentially active, he endeavors to show
how knowledge and conduct may be explained, with-
out, in any case, taking refuge in a conception
incapable of verification. Hence lie denies sum-
marily that there are realities, supersensible or
other, which can possibly exist or be known out of
relation to reason. That the manifold or sensible
is "given," he admits only in this sense, that when
we look at knowledge as it exists for ordinary con-
sciousness, without bringing it in relation to the
practical originativeness of reason as manifested in
will, the only test of reality which we have is the
feeling of necessity, a compulsion to think certain
objects as real. Space and time, and the categories,
again, are certainly modes in which the known world
is determined by us, but they are also modes in
which that world actually exists. The known world,
however, can only be properly explained when it is
brought into relation with reason as practical; then
only is the mere feeling of compulsion, which is the
empirical criterion of reality, seen to arise from the
consciousness of self as willing. Only in willing do I
become conscious of myself as active, that is. in my
essential nature; and as the consciousness of self is
the necessary condition of the consciousness of not-
THE EAKLLER PHILOSOPHY OF FICHTE. 35
self, it is in will that I at once become aware of
myself and of a not-self or real world contrasted
with and }*et relative to it. Reason is, therefore,
the true " thing- in-itself," and hence Fichte, at least
in the first stage of his philosophizing, with which
only we have here to deal, does not admit that there
is any supersensible reality but reason, as mani-
fested in and to us, nor any God but the ideal of
moral perfection, in the continual approximation to
which the moral life of man consists. Whether,
in discarding the supersensible as formulated by
Kant, Fichte has not swept away the nobler part
of his system, we shall afterward consider. Mean-
time it will be advisable to give a statement of his
philosophy, following rather more closely his own
mode of statement, and entering somewhat more
into detail.
The moment we turn our thoughts to the con-
tents of consciousness we find, says Fichte, that they
divide up into two classes, — those which are accom-
panied by a feeling of freedom, and those which arc
accompanied by a feeling of necessity. To explain
that class of ideas which is accompanied bj* the feel-
ing of necessity, — to account, in other words, for
experience, outer and inner, — is the problem of
Philosophy. Now, to put forward any explanation
of experience, it must be possible to rise above ex-
36 scuelling's transcendental idealism.
perience so far as to make it, as a whole, an object of
reflection, and this implies the faculty of abstracting
from experience. Only two methods of explaining
experience are logically possible, — that of dog-
matism and that <Jf idealism. According to ideal-
ism, the explanation must be sought in intelligence
in itself, as abstracted from all its relations to
experience; according to dogmatism, the explana-
tion must be sought in the thing-in-itself, as ab-
stracted from the fact that it occurs in experience
or is in consciousness. Now, there is a marked con-
trast between the object of idealism and the ob-
ject of dogmatism. Intelligence is neither a pure
fiction nor an actual object or thing in experience;
not the former, because even a pure fiction is
freely produced by intelligence, and so presupposes
intelligence; not the latter, because, while no ob-
ject exists except for intelligence, the latter is not
itself an object of experience in the ordinary sense
of that term. The thing-in-itself, on the other
hand, is a pure fiction, for, as be} r ond intelligence,
it cannot be known at all. Thus the object of
idealism and the object of realism are alike be-
j*ond experience ; but they differ in this, that in-
telligence is presupposed in all experience, while
the thing-in-itself is at best a fiction set up by
intelligence to account for experience. This does
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF FIOHTE. 37
not show that there is no thing-in-itself, but it
raises a suspicion against it.
Neither of these systems can refute the other.
Idealism cannot refute dogmatism. The idealist
starts from the belief in free self-activity, but the
dogmatist, in holding that all experience is to be
explained by the action of an independent reality
on consciousness, reduces that belief to an illusion,
due, as Spinoza said, to a knowledge of our actions
without a knowledge of their causes. Every dog-
matist is necessarily a determinist and material-
ist; the former because he makes free activity an
illusion, and the latter because he explains intel-
ligence as a mode of a thing-in-itself. Nor can
dogmatism refute idealism. The basis, and the
only basis, of dogmatism is the supposed necessity
of explaining experience by a thing-in-itself. But
if it can be shown that experience may be ex-
plained by idealism, the whole structure built up
by dogmatism fails to the ground.
The insufficiency of dogmatism to explain actual
experience may be easily shown. Intelligence is
that which sees itself, or is at once object and
subject; it exists for itself and only for itself. If
I think any object whatever, I must relate the
object to myself. If the object is a mere inven-
tion, I produce it for myself; if the object is real
38 sciielling's transcendental idealism.
and independent of my invention, I contemplate
it as it arises for me; but in either case the object
as experienced exists only for me as intelligence,
not for itself. A thing has no existence except
for some intelligence. Hence, while intelligence is
in its very nature dual, or at once ideal and real,
the thing is only single or real; the former exists
for itself, while the latter does not.
On the one side, then, we have intelligence with
its objects as referred to itself, and on the other side
the thing- in-itself of the dogmatist, and there is no
bridge from the one to the other. How does the
dogmatist seek to connect them? Hy the principle
of causality. Intelligence with its objects he ex-
plains as a product or effect of something which is
out of relation to intelligence. Hut this is no expla-
nation at all. Suppose a thing to act as cause on
something else, and you have not advanced a single
step in the explanation of intelligence. If the
object acted upon is conceived as endowed with
mechanical force, it will transmit the impression to
another object, this to a third, and so along the chain
of objects; but none of these objects comes thereby
to be or exist for itself or to be conscious: it is
acted upon, but it does not know itself as acted
upon. Nay, endow your object with the highest
property an object can be supposed to have, — the
TUB EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF FICIITE. 39
property of sensibility, — and it will not be excited to
self-consciousness; it may react against an external
stimulus, but it will not know itself as reacting.
Thus conscious experience is not explained by the
thing-in- itself, but simply ignored. All that we
have is the mutual action of things on one another
and the product of this action. A change in things
is supposed to take place, but this change is nothing
for experience, since experience implies conscious-
ness. The dogmatist may say that the soul is one
of the things- in- themselves, and in this way he may,
no doubt, apply the category of cause and effect to
it; but in so doing he has not explained experience,
but simply put the soul among the fictions set up
to explain it. Or, if it is said that the effect of
the thing-in-itself — by whatever name it is called,
matter or soul or God — is such as to produce con-
sciousness, we have simply combined the idea of
causality with intelligence without explaining any-
thing, for the two ideas are perfectly distinct.
Dogmatism thus fails to explain what it sets out to
explain. Hence it is no philosophy at all, but an
unthinkable absurdity. The moment we perceive
the distinction between intelligence and mechanism,
the whole attempt to explain the former by the lat-
ter is seen to be in the literal sense preposterous.
Only those who ignore intelligence can suppose that
40 schelling's transcendental idealism.
they have explained it by the hypothesis of things-
in-themselves.
Idealism explains the consciousness of objects
from the activity of intelligence. Intelligence is
purely active or self-determined, since it is that on
which all else is to depend. It is not correct to
say that it is a mode of being, for being implies the
mutual action of things on one another, whilst on
intelligence nothing can act, because nothing exists
in knowledge but for it. It is not even something
that acts, for that would imply that it exists prior to
its activity. Now experience in its various mani-
festations — the experience, for example, of a mate-
rial world in space and time — is to be explained
by the pure self-activity of intelligence, and hence
intelligence must obey the laws originated by itself.
This is the reason why the experience of objects is
accompanied by the feeling .of necessity. Intelli-
gence can only act according to its own laws, and
recognizing itself as determined by those laws, it
feels itself restricted or limited in its nature. This
conception of intelligence as acting according to the
laws of its own nature is Transcendental or Criti-
cal Idealism, as distinguished from a Transcendent
Idealism, which supposes intelligence to act in a
lawless or capricious way. In acting, intelligence
manifests its laws, and these laws are all connected
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OP FICIITE. 41
together in a single system. How, then, are these
laws discovered? Let any one think some object —
say a triangle — and he will find by reflection that
two things are implied: (1) The act of thinking,
which is free or depends upon the will of the
person thinking; and (2) the necessary manner in
which that act can be realized. The latter is
the law according to which thought acts, and which
is revealed only by thinking freely. Thus the
thinking is free, and yet it takes place according
to a necessary law of thought. In this way a
fundamental law of all thinking is discovered. But
it can be shown by an examination of that law
that a second act is implied in it, then that this
act implies a third, and so on until all the acts
on which the first depends are completed. If
the presupposition of Idealism is sound, and the
deduction has been correctly made, the results must
harmonize with the laws of all experience. Thus
Idealism proceeds from a fact of consciousness —
which, however, is obtainable only by a free act of
thinking — to the totality of laws of experience. It
is not identical with experience, but it is when com-
pleted a perfect picture of experience as a whole.
Experience involves the cooperation of all the laws
discovered by philosophy, not of any one of them in
separation from the rest. The separate laws exist
only for the philosopher: they are merely ideal dis-
tinctions, which he finds according to the method
indicated. Those distinctions are, however, real
laws, since they are discovered by contemplation of
the manner in which intelligence necessarily acts.
The fundamental principle, then, of the' philoso-
phy of Fichte is that of the self as an activity
which returns upon itself. Let us now see how
it may be formally established. It will be admit-
ted by every one that there are in consciousness
various objects. It is not asserted that such con-
sciousness testifies to anything absolutely true, but
only that there actually is a consciousness of objects.
Let us suppose that we have in our empirical con-
sciousness the perception or apprehension of the
sensible object which we call a billiard-ball. Now,
in philosophy we are not concerned, at least in
the first instance, with the sensible properties by
which one object is marked off and distinguished
from other objects, but only with the relations of
objects, whatever they may be, to consciousness.
Expressed generally, therefore, our question is this:
What is the relation of any object whatever to
consciousness ? We abstract from the various
sensible properties of the billiard-ball, extension,
roundness, solidity, etc., and in so doing we elimi-
nate all that marks off the billiard-ball from other
THE EARLIER THILOSOPHY OP FICHTE. 43
objects of consciousness, and have as residue merely
the consciousness of something, or of an object in
general. For simplicity, let us term this something
or object A. Now A is in consciousness. We do
not say that there is any real object — any object
that exists apart from consciousness, — but only that
A is in consciousness. We affirm that // A is in
consciousness, then it is in consciousness. The con-
tent of this proposition is purely hypothetical, since
we have not decided that there is any real A at
all, but the form of the proposition is not hypo-
thetical, but absolutely certain. " If A is, then it
is A," is a proposition immediately certain, and
therefore not in need of proof of any kind. The
question is as to the ground of this law. We have
posited that A actually is in consciousness, hut not
that it has any reality apart from consciousness.
Hut to be in consciousness the A must be referred
to the self. I posit the A in my consciousness, and
in so doing T posit myself. We may see this very
clearly by considering that if the first A were in
consciousness, and the second A not in conscious-
ness, we should manifestly be unable to make the
affirmation A = A. The self must therefore be
identical with itself. Hence we may substitute for
A = A the proposition Ego = Ego, or Ego as object
is identical with Ego as subject. In order that
44 SCHELLINO'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
the proposition A=A may be formed, both subject
and object must be present in consciousness; and
however frequently this proposition may be made,
the same condition will be demanded. Now as the
identity of the self is the basis of the proposition
A= A, we get, by abstracting from the self and look-
ing merely to the form of affirmation, the logical
law of identity. Moreover, since all knowable ob-
jects are only for the Ego, the reference of an
object, whatever it may be, to the Ego is the con-
dition of there being any real object in knowledge;
hence that which is referred to the Ego is alone
real, or the reference of an object to the Ego is
the category of reality.
Again, in empirical consciousness we find a dis-
tinction drawn between one object and another;
we affirm, for example, that a cannon-ball is not
a billiard-ball. Expressed abstractly, this yields the
proposition not- A is not=A. The relation of sub-
ject and predicate in this proposition brings to light
a second and quite distinct act from that implied
in the proposition A = A. And as nothing is except
for the Ego, the act is an act of the Ego. The act
is one of opposition as the first act is one of posi-
tion. But while the act is distinct and independent,
the content or matter is dependent on the content
or matter of the first proposition. Unless we posit
THE EABLIER PHILOSOPHY OP FICHTE. 45
A, there can be no not-A. Now, as in the first
act the Ego posited the Ego, in this act it must
oppose to the Ego the non-Ego. Abstracting from
the content and looking merely at the form of
the act of opposition, we get the logical formula
not-A is not=A, which we may call the logical
law of opposition or contradiction; and this act
when applied to any real object yields the category
of negation.
The two propositions just set forth, taken per se,
are, apparently, contradictory of one another. If
the non-Ego is posited, there can be no Ego posited;
if the Ego is posited, there can be no non-Ego pos-
ited. Yet both are posited in the Ego, and there-
fore must be somehow reconcilable with each other,
unless the identity of self-consciousness is to be
destroyed. Evidently, therefore, there must be a
third act of consciousness in which the opposites are
reconciled. This third act can only consist in
uniting the two opposites without destroying either,
and this is equivalent to the limitation of each by
the other. The immediate, empirical Ego and non-
Ego, or subject and object of consciousness, mutually
limit one another or exist only in relation to one
another, the combining activity being in the absolute
Ego which posits both. This act may therefore be
expressed in the formula: The absolute Ego opposes
46 sen e lung's transcendental idealism.
in the Ego a limited Ego to a limited non-Ego.
Farther, by abstracting from the content and looking
at the mere form of uniting opposites, we get the
logical law of the ground. A is in part = not- A:
A is in part not = not- A. In so far as A and not-A
are equal, we have ground of relation: in so far as
A and not-A are not equal, we have ground of dis-
tinction. Moreover, in relation to real objects the
act of synthesis yields the category of limitation or
determination.
The synthesis contained in the third fundamental
principle is the starting-point of both the theoretical
and the practical philosophy of Fichte. That syn-
thesis is expressed in the proposition : " In and
through the absolute Ego. both the Ego and non-Ego
are posited as each limitable through the other; or,
in positing the Ego the reality of the non-Ego is
negated, and in positing the non-Ego the reality of
the Ego is negated, while yet the reality of each
exists only for the Ego. M Now, this synthesis may
be broken up into two propositions: (1) The Ego
posits the non-Ego as limited through the Ego;
(2) The Ego posits the Ego as limited through the
non-Ego. The former of these propositions is the
basis of Practical Philosophy, the latter the basis of
Theoretical Philosophy. Now, the proposition that
the relative Ego and non-Ego mutually limit or
THE EARLIEB PHILOSOPHY OP PICHTE. 47
determine each other, while yet both are only for the
absolute Ego, leaves it undecided what is the exact
sense in which the mutual determination is to be
understood, and also how the contradiction is to be
reconciled. We have, therefore, to take each of the
modes of determination and examine it separately
before we can come to any decision as to the ulti-
mate synthesis by which the two contradictions are
reconciled with one another. How can it be the
case that the Ego determines the non-Ego, while yet
the non-Ego determines the Ego? This problem
can only be solved by asking in what sense each
proposition is true consistently with the relation of
both Ego and non-Ego to the absolute Ego.
If the three propositions which have just been
"deduced," or shown to be implied in the very
nature of intelligence, should seem somewhat ob-
scure to the reader, their significance may be easily
apprehended by bringing them into relation with
the better known philosophy of Kant. The very
titles of Kant's first two Critiques imply that in
both it is Reason as a single indivisible unity which
is under consideration, and that it is the same Rea-
son variously determined which manifests itself
now as knowing and again as practically active.
Substitute Reason for the self-positingEgoof Fichte,
and it is plain that the absolute thesis is simply a
48 schelling's transcendental idealism.
formal statement of the nature of Reason as a
self-conscious activity, which cannot be resolved
into anything but itself, and which is neither theo-
retical alone, nor practical alone, but the poten-
tiality of both. Now, it requires little reflection to
see that Reason, or the pure Ego, — which, if viewed
in its mere abstraction or potentiality, can only
be defined negatively as independent of all else,
positively as absolute self-affirmation or self-reali-
zation, — must differentiate itself before it can be
Reason as it actually exists for us; it must, in other
words, be distinguished according to its mode of
manifestation, as theoretical or practical, and in
either case there must be an opposition of subject
and object, self and not -self. These terms are
necessarily correlative: there can be for us no sub-
ject which does not know an object or realize an
object or end, and no object that is not known or
realized. This condition at once of knowledge and
of action is also implied in the philosophy of Kant,
as we have seen, although he is not always quite
true to himself. As, then, Fichte's first proposition
asserts that Reason or Self-consciousness can never
be shown to depend upon anything foreign to it —
any unthinkable thing - in - itself, — so his second
proposition maintains that the necessary condition
of all reality is the distinction within consciousness
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF FICHTE. 49
of subject and object. And this proposition, it
will be observed, holds both of knowing and of act-
ing. The third proposition or fundamental syn-
thesis, simply makes explicit what is implied in the
first two propositions taken in combination with one
another. Subject and object must be opposed one
to the other, since otherwise there could be no
real consciousness, and the opposition may be either
theoretical or practical. But the opposition, as
within consciousness, is not a real separation, but
merely a formal or logical distinction. Reason
manifests itself in the contrast of self and not-self,
otherwise it would not be reason, but yet it em-
braces the distinctions which express its nature.
Moreover, the opposition of self and not-self takes
two different directions, according as the self seems
to be dependent on the not-self or the reverse: as
theoretical, the object seems to be "given" to the
self; as practical, the self puts itself into the object.
The further course of philosophy will therefore
have two branches; the theoretical, in which the
various ways in which reason makes objects intel-
ligible to itself are exhibited, and the practical, in
which is shown the manner in which it realizes
its inner nature in a world produced by itself.
It will not be necessary to follow Fichte in his
44 deduction " of the categories of reciprocity, cau-
4
50 schellikg's transcendental idealism.
sality and substantiality. The principle of the de-
duction is in essence identical with Kant's " deduc-
tion of the categories. 19 All that need be borne in
mind is that Fichte exhibits the categories not as
forms belonging to the " constitution " of the human
mind, but rather as movements in the living pro-
cess by which Reason manifests itself in the knowl-
edge of the objective world. In his distinction of
the threefold movement of intelligence, as well as
in his attempt to connect the categories with one
another in an organic system, he supplies the norm
which, under the hands of Hegel, developed into an
elaborate system of all the categories or modes of
activity by which intelligence thinks the real world.
It will be advisable, in order that the reader may
see for himself how far Schelling in his Transcen-
dental Idealism is original, to give a short summary
of what in Fichte's system may be called Psychology.
The main difference between Fichte and Kant in
their theory of knowledge arises from the fact that
the former refuses to make the problem easier to
himself by assuming that there is a " manifold of
sense, 1 somehow made real by its relation to the
thing-in-itself. Hence Fichte is compelled to ex-
plain the seeming independence of the world of sen-
sible objects entirely from the nature of intelligence
itself. The explanation is found so far in the nature
THE EABLIER PHILOSOPHY OF FICHTE. 51
of the " productive imagination/ 1 a faculty described
as a law of our minds by which the particulars
appearing in our consciousness are, so to speak,
thrown out of the knowing subject. The reason
why the object seems to be independent and out
of relation to consciousness is, that the process is
one that takes place apart from any reflective con-
sciousness of it As in the first instance the object
or non-Ego is contemplated in itself — this being
the characteristic feature of mere knowledge, as
distinguished from practical activity — it is not ex-
plicitly related to the self, and hence it presents
itself as if it were an independent reality. Philo-
sophical reflection is therefore required to bring out
the tacit relation of the object to the subject, and
to show that the supposed independence and causal
activity of the object is but a natural illusion. By
the reality of an object, then, we must understand
simply the limit which intelligence as knowing sets
to itself by the very law of its being. A limit,
however, which is made by intelligence, intelligence
must be capable of removing, and as a matter of
fact the process of knowing is the perpetual tran-
scendence of a self-created limit. The imagina-
tion is thus a continuous process of setting down
and removing a limit ; in the very act. in truth, of
opposing something as foreign to itself it removes
52 schelling's transcendental idealism.
the opposition. Hence the various phases which
constitute the ideal evolution of knowledge, and
which we must follow out until we have completely
exhausted them; when, as we may expect, we shall
be compelled to seek for the final explanation of
reality, not in contemplation of the object, but in
the self-activity of the subject.
The result of Fichte's metaphysical investigations
has been to show that there can be no knowable
reality out of all relation to intelligence, and that
the law which governs the development of human
knowledge is, that that which intelligence at first
thinks in an unconscious or unreflective way, it
is compelled by the very law of its nature subse-
quently to think in a reflective or conscious way.
The elevation of unconscious into conscious knowl-
edge constitutes the dialectic movement of thought
by which the several stages of knowledge are
reached. Now, when we fix our attention upon
the process of knowledge itself, — when, in other
words, we deal with the peculiar problem of psy-
chology. — we find that there are various stages
through which knowledge passes: sensation, in-
ception, etc. In treating of these Fichte combines
a description of these phases as they present them-
selves to the individual with a deduction of them:
that is. he endeavors to show, not onlv that as a
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF FICHTE. 53
matter of fact knowledge has these stages, but why,
in accordance with the necessary law of its devel-
opment, it must have these stage's and no others.
The deduction of the categories he supplements
by a deduction of the subjective phases of knowl-
edge.
The first and lowest phase of knowledge is sen-
sat ion. To the individual who is still at the stage
of sensation nothing is present but an immediate
feeling; in other words, he seems to be absolutely
passive or to be devoid of all reflection. A sensa-
tion — which, as we know, must be tiie product of
the Ego itself, since nothing can exist for intelli-
gence except that which is in relation to it, and
nothing can be in relation to it which it does not
actively relate — seems to be passively taken up
from without. A sensation, therefore, appears to
be a purely passive state. The Ego simply Jin<l*
it in itself: it does not apparently produce it. Sen-
sation ma}' thus be defined as a finding-within-self
{Empjhi(hniy) of a given state. Hut when, with
the light which we have obtaiued from our meta-
physical study of knowledge, we go on to ask
whether the Ego is in reality, as it seems to be,
absolutely passive, we at once see that it is not.
If it were quite passive there would be no feeling
at all. A mere impression coming from without
54 schelling's transcendental idealism.
is not to be identified with a sensation actually
experienced. To be experienced it must be appro-
priated by the Ego, and this appropriation is an act,
not a state. We must, therefore, regard sensation
as a complex product, which on the one side is
passive, and on the other side is active. Two fac-
tors, passivity and activity, combine, and their com-
mon product can only be something which is nei-
ther mere activity nor mere passivity, but both in
one. And if these two factors unite in a common
product, they must mutually limit without destroy-
ing one another. Sensation is thus a limitation of
the Ego. In itself, or taken in abstraction from
all its products or objects, the Ego is pure, un-
limited activity. But an absolutely pure Ego is
an unthinkable abstraction, because the Ego can
only exist at all if it has some consciousness of
itself. In order, therefore, that it may have any
knowledge whatever, intelligence must in some
way reflect, check, or render definite its unlimited
activity. When the unlimited activity is thus re-
flected — when, in other words, it is turned back
toward the self — there is an interruption of the
unlimited activity, which therefore becomes limited.
The Ego is thus an activity turning back upon it-
self. Accordingly it becomes aware of itself, finds
itself, feels itself. So far we have explained why
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF PICHTE. 55
intelligence is conscious of itself, but we have not
explained how it happens that it does not recog-
nize the limitation as produced by itself. To the
individual, as we have seen, sensation appears to
be a limitation of the Ego by something external
to it. How are we to explain this illusion? The
answer is perfectly simple : the Ego reflects its
own activity, but it does not, and indeed cannot,
at the same time reflect on this reflection; in other
words it cannot become conscious of itself as at
once determined and productive. Reflection, in its
first form, is thus an unconscious activity. And
as intelligence is unconscious of itself as produc-
tive, what is produced necessarily seems to be given
to it from some other source. Accordingly the
Ego simply finds itself limited, without recogniz-
ing that what it finds is really produced by itself,
and this is sensation. Thus all the character-
istics of sensation are explained. (1) The I seems
to be passive, because it does not reflect on its own
reflective activity; (2) self and its object are im-
mediately identical, or, rather, seem to be identi-
cal, because of the same absence of conscious re-
flection, and (3) the union of passivity and activity
is explained by the fact that the I reacts on its
own activity, which is therefore to that extent
56 schelling's transcendental idealism.
passive. Hence every sensation is accompanied by
a feeling of constraint or compulsion.
The second stage of knowledge is perception. In
perception, the Ego has before it an object or non-
Ego in which it is, as it were, sank and lost. At
the same time, intelligence is no longer immediately
identical with its object, as in sensation, but to it
there is opposed a non-Ego or object by which it
seems to be limited. Thus there is not only sensa-
tion, but perception; not only a feeling of constraint,
tut the perception of a non-Ego which produces
that feeling; not only a something limited, but a
something which limits. In perception, these two
elements are united together, so that there is no
perception without a feeling of constraint, and no
feeling of constraint without perception. This is a
description of perception from the phenomenal point
of view, and we have now to ask how the second
stage of knowledge is to be philosophically explained.
Each new step in the evolution of knowledge, as
has been said, must arise from a new act of reflec-
tion, and must give rise to a new product. What
the Ego is, it must become for itself. Now we have
seen that in sensation intelligence finds itself lim-
ited. This limitation was, however, simply a feeling
of limitation, not a definite reflection upon limita-
tion. The next step, therefore, is to raise this fact
THE EARLIER PHIJX>SOPHY OF FICHTE. 57
of limitation into explicit consciousness, and this
takes place when the Ego reflects on its limit, and
by that very fact goes beyond it. Just as reflection
of the pure activity of the self gave rise to its limi-
tation, so reflection on its limitation is necessarily
a transcendence of it. And beyond the limit of the
Ego there can be nothing but that which limits it,
i.e. a non-Ego. We know, from our metaphysical
analysis of knowledge, that there can be no object in
knowledge which is not the product of intelligence.
How, then, does it come that the non-Ego seems to
be completely independent of the Ego? Exactly for
the same reason that sensation seems to be a pure
passivity. In perception, intelligence reflects upon
sensation, but for that very reason it cannot, at the
same time, reflect on its reflection. Hence the non-
Ego, which is really a product of the activity of the
Ego, appears to be independent of it. As it does
not see itself act, intelligence is not conscious of its
own activity in perception, and hence the object
seems to be independent of it. At the .stage of per-
ception, that which is perceived ap|icai's, and can
only appear, as a product of the non-Ego. Starting
from what is given in perception, intelligence goes
on to raise it into a higher form, and this it, of
course, effects by a new act of reflection. This act
of reflection is free or spontaneous: the Ego can
58 SCH EL LING'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALI8M.
only reflect on what is given to it in perception, but
the act of reflection is its own spontaneous activity.
This act of imagination is, on the one hand, free,
and on the other hand determined: free, inasmuch
as it is a product of the spontaneous activity of the
Ego, and determined, since the Ego must conform to
the attributes of the object as given in perception.
The marks or attributes of the resulting mental
image are thus referred to the real object, which
appears as the substance of which those are attri-
butes; and the existence of the image is regarded as
due to the activity of the object, or as an effect of
which the latter is the cause. It thus becomes evi-
dent that the imagination is the true condition of
the categories. From the same source spring the
pure perceptions of space and time, which are poten-
tial infinities issuing from the imaginative activity
of intelligence.
So far we have explained only the universal con-
ditions of the representation of objects. The prod-
uct of imagination has, however, to be fixed or
related, and this is due to the Understanding. The
understanding, again, is itself subject to a new
act of reflection, which implies a capacity for reflec-
tion upon an object or abstraction from it. This
new act of reflection is Judgment, which itself rests
upon Reason, the activity by which complete abstrac-
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OP FICIITE. 59
tion is made from the whole world of objects and
attention concentrated entirely on intelligence it-
self. Thus we reach pure Self • consciousness, the
point from which our inquiry originally started.
The circle of knowledge has thus been completed,
and it only remains to determine the relations of
knowledge and action.
It has been shown that, apart from the relation
of self and not-self, subject and object, no knowl-
edge whatever is possible. But in this relation
there is an unresolved remainder to which attention
must now be directed. Starting from knowledge,
as it is found in our actual experience, we have
found that to take away either the subject or the
object is to make knowledge an impossibility. A
self that has nothing before it is merely the poten-
tiality of knowledge, whilst an object existing apart
from self is for knowledge nothing at all. But in
the apprehension of an object as distinct from the
self, while yet in relation to it, there is a convic-
tion or feeling that the object is necessary, or, in
other words, that it is something not made by us.
As Fichte properly maintains, the presence of this
feeling of necessity is the criterion by which, in our
ordinary knowledge, we satisfy ourselves that what
is before us is a real object, and not simply a fiction
of our own minds. The connection of this feeling
60 schelling's transcendental idealism.
of necessity with tbe Kantian tbing-in-itself is obvi-
ous. Kant, starting from the point of view of the
individual man who gradually acquires knowledge,
was led to hold that objects in space and time im-
ply, besides the formal constitution of our knowing
faculty, a certain sensuous element that is " given "
to us, not produced by us, and that, apart from
this "given" element, there is no knowledge of an
actual object. Taking one step farther, he asserted
that the thing-in- itself is not known in our ordinary
or sensible experience, but that its nature remains
a problem for subsequent consideration. Similarly,
Fichte, hardly changing in the least degree Kant's
view as properly understood, maintains that our
ordinary experience of a real world is accompa-
nied by the feeling that what is before us is not
made by us, but is independent of us. This convic-
tion must, however, be justified. It is not enough
simply to accept the object as something necessary
or real; we must further show, from the nature of
the self, or Reason, how it comes about that we
apparently refer reality to an independent world,
while yet there can be no world but that which is in
relation to us as conscious beings.
Now it is evident that the explanation of the feel-
ing of necessity, which is for us as knowing intelli-
gences the test of the reality of the world, must be
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF FICHTE. 61
found in the nature of self-consciousness. To seek
for the explanation of it in any transcendental
reality, such as Kant seemed to find in the noume-
nal or supersensible world, is inconsistent with the
first principle of Idealism. That which is to
explain reality must be in direct and indissoluble
connection with the self. Now we found that the
self which is to unite knowledge and action is the
self as an activity returning upon itself, or estab-
lishing its reality by the fact of its own activity.
This pure activity, unlike the limited activity of the
knowing self,. is absolutely unlimited or infinite in
its activity: it is its nature to be incapable of inter-
ference from anything alien to itself. Kant, as we
have seen, finds in reason as practical the essence of
human freedom, and by means of the ideal set up
by reason as the ultimate goal of all things, he is
led to regard the world of ordinary experience as
manifesting palpable traces of a Divine Mind.
Ficlite grasps the Practical Reason as an absolute
and universal self, revealing itself to us as an Ideal
which wc must make the goal of all our efforts.
The self as it actually exists at any moment is thus
contrasted with the idea of an infinitely perfect self
with which we are to seek for identification. This
ideal self is not, however, to be regarded with Kant
as identical with a Supreme Reason, conceived of as
62 schelling's transcendental idealism.
beyond the sphere of our knowledge, and therefore
as unknowable. The absolute self is, in short,
simply our ordinary self conceived of as an ideal to
which in this world, and in virtue of our freedom,
we must continually approximate. To each individ-
ual as a self-conscious activity the absolute self is
necessarily given, not as an object known, but as an
ideal to be realized. Admitting, then, that human
reason necessarily contains the ideal of an infinitely
perfect self, what is the relation of this ideal self
to the self as standing in relation to known objects?
Can we connect the feeling of necessity, which is the
mark of reality for us as knowing, with the neces-
sary ideal of reason? Fichte has no doubt what-
ever that knowledge must be explained from the
nature of the self as freely determining itself to
activity. Only in the consciousness of myself as
active, as willing the moral law, have I a belief in
the reality of myself as a person. Now morality,
as consisting in an approximation to the ideal self,
necessarily implies strife or effort. The law of my
mind wars against the law of my members; the
desires have to be overcome, and they can be over-
come only by a fierce struggle against the imme-
diate self and toward the ideal self. Thus the
world appears to me as something alien to my
nature, which yet it is my nature to overcome.
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF F1CHTE. 63
This foreign element is necessary to the moral
life, which would cease were there no opposition.
The reality of the world thus means for me the con-
sciousness of a something resisting all my efforts,
or, subjectively, the consciousness of an infinite
striving toward a goal that perpetually recedes
from me. Thus we can distinguish what may meta-
phorically be called a centrifugal and a centripetal
direction in the self, the former impelling us onward
and the latter manifesting itself as a return to self.
Were either of these absent, there would be no con-
"ciousness of self, and therefore no world of objects.
Our fini tude, then, consists in the fact that while our
very nature is to realize the ideal self, we yet are pre-
vented from doing so by the opposition that we con-
tinually encounter. This opposition appears in our
consciousness as a feeling of necessity or compulsion
— that feeling which, as we saw, was the immediate
criterion of reality for the knowing subject. Thus
the circle of reality is completed. The feeling of a
necessary reality, which from the point of view of
knowledge is unintelligible, receives explanation
from the consideration of man as a finite being
striving after perfection and continually driven
back into himself by something that seems foreign
to him, but which is in reality the infinite Reason
constituting his essential nature.
64 schelling's transcendental idealism.
Before passing from the earlier philosophy of
Fichte, which exercised so great an influence on
Schelling, a short estimate may be made of its
value as a solution of the great problems raised by
Kant. In the whole of his inquiries, Kant assumes
that reason is absolutely the same in all men,
and that the conclusions of reason are to be ac-
cepted as universally valid. But just because he
unq ues t ion ingly starts from this assumption he
never clearly distinguishes between reason in the
individual man and reason as the essence of intel-
ligence as such; or, rather, he assumes that the
limitations hemming in the individual man are lim-
itations which, as belonging to the nature of reason
as such, are incapable of being transcended. Hence
it is that, perceiving, as we all do, that the knowable
world is constituted independently of our individ-
ual consciousness of it, he fails to see with perfect
clearness that there can be no world at all which
is not in relation to intelligence. Accordingly it
seems self-evident to Kant that, besides the world
revealed to human intelligence, there is a super-
sensible world which is only dimly shadowed forth,
and which, while known to exist, can never be
made perfectly intelligible to us. And because the
world of experience is only phenomenal, Kant is
led to the conclusion that the mind in its true
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OP FICHTB. 65
nature is not properly known, but has to be sensu-
ously figured by us in our imperfect human way.
Finally, while God as the Supreme Good is unde-
niably real, He is not strictly speaking known to
us, but is made intelligible to us by analogies
drawn from the world of sense.
Now if we are strict to bring home to Kant the
logical consequences of this separation of the phe-
nomenal from the noumenal world, we may easily
show, as has been shown scores of times, that the
noumenal world vanishes in smoke, and leaves us
only with the so-called phenomenal or sensible
world. It is illogical to say that the world in
itself, the mind in itself, and God in himself, are
not at all what we know them to be, because of
that which we do not know we can assert nothing
whatever. At the same time it must be said that
this method of criticism is somewhat superficial,
and entirely overlooks the deeper elements of the
critical theory. For while the world, the mind,
and God, are certainly not incapable of being
known as they are, it is not less true that they
are not adequately characterized by the ordinary
categories of quantity, substance or cause. These
categories, as Kant rightly says, are applicable to
parts of experience, but not to experience as a
whole; they express the nature of matter as the
5
66 schelling's transcendental idealism.
movable in space and time, but not the nature of
mind ; and they completely fail to express the
nature of God. Kant's imperfection, therefore, is
not in asserting the limited nature of the sensible
world, but in throwing around the noumenal world
a half-transparent veil of mystery. Granting that
the world, the mind and God are not adequately
characterized as quantities, substances or causes,
at least they are more adequately characterized
by these categories than by that of pure Being,
which might almost as well be puye Nothing. The
development of Kant's thought, therefore, demands
a positive determination of the nature of those
supersensible objects which he had defined only by
negative predicates, or at best by analogies bor-
rowed from that very sensible world which he
rightly held to be limited, partial and dependent.
Fichte's chief merit is that with unhesitating
clearness and decision he removes the veil which
Kant had drawn across the mysterious thing-in-
itself. The absoluteness of reason and the identity
of individual and universal reason being assumed
by him as by Kant, the problem of philosophy as
he figured it was: How do I, in virtue of my rea-
son, come to know a world in space and time, and
what is the inner nature of my reason? The an-
swer to these questions Fie lite found in a simplin-
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OP FICHTE. 67
cation of the Kantian theory. The mind of man
is, in a sense, the only intelligible reality, and that
which supplies the key to all the rest Determine
exactly the nature of human intelligence, and the
necessary conditions of all reality will be laid bare.
Hints for the simplification of Kant's view were
plentifully supplied by Kant himself; and indeed
all that Fichte needed to bring him to his peculiar
point of view was to connect Kant's account of the
transcendental unity of self-consciousness with the
account of reason in its practical use, and to reject
any mysterious unknowable thing-in-itself as a pure
fiction. It cannot, however, be said that Fichte
has completely solved the problems raised by Kant.
His chief merit lies in the emphasis he has placed
on the necessary relativity of existence and self-
consciousness. His simplification of Kant's theory
leaves the deeper aspect of it very much as he found
it. The picture which he presents to us of exist-
ence is that of a number of finite intelligences, each
striving to realize an ideal of perfection somehow
given to it; but what is the relation of these intelli-
gences to the world as a whole, or how they are
related to an infinite intelligence, he does not tell
us. To the individual there is somehow given a
self that at once consists in a perpetual struggle
toward the infinite, and is itself the goal of the
OS schilling's transcendental idealism.
si niggle; but no attempt is made to connect this
self with an absolute intelligence comprehending at
once finite beings and the finite things known by
them. Nor can it be said that Fichte's " deduction "
of the reality of the world is more than a restate-
ment of the problem. It is no doubt true that,
apart from the free activity of the will, there could
1m> uo knowledge; but it is equally true that apart
from knowledge there could be no free activity.
To say that the infinite striving after an unattain-
able ideal explains the feeling of reality is merely
\o say that freedom finds itself impeded. It is no
proper explanation of the objective world to say
that it so presents itself to the individual intelli-
gence; we still wish to know what objective reality
is, apart from the intelligence of any particular in-
dividual, — or, rather, what the finite intelligence,
together with its world, is in relation to that which
is somehow higher than either; and that question
cannot be answered without a theory of knowledge
loss assumptive in its nature than the one with
which Ftehte presents us. This indeed is virtually
implied in the changes which Fichte introduced in
the later presentation of his system, which are all
in the direction of defining the absolute Ego more
oloselv, or, in other words, of explaining the re-
lations of individual and universal intelligence.
THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHY OF F1CIITE. 69
It is evident, therefore, that subsequent speculation,
starting from the unity of subject and object, which
Fichte, following out the theory of Kant, was led
to formulate with such force and clearness, must
attempt to get a closer and deeper view of the rela-
tions of Man, the World, and the Absolute.
CHAPTER III.
SCHILLING'S EARLIER TREATISES.
1D0RX at Leonberg, in Wllrtemberg, in 1775,
-*-** thirteen years after the birth of Fichte,
Schelling entered Tubingen as a student of theol-
ogy at the age of fifteen, and began his career as a
philosophical writer in his twentieth year. His first
work was a little treatise on The Possibility of a
Form of Philosophy in General, in which he follows
pretty closely the substance of Fichte's Idea of Phi-
losophy. This essay is by Schelling himself said to
have originated in a study of the Ctitique of Pure
Reason, from reflection on which he was led to see the
necessity of a single principle that should connect
every part of philosophy in an organic whole. The
need for such a principle was made still more plain
to him l-y .Schulze's ^-Enesidetnus and Maimon's Xetr
Theory •/ Knowledge. He also came to the conclu-
sion tha: ReinhohTs Elementary Philosophy did not
supply what was wanted, inasmuch as the principle
on which it tried to base a complete system was not
one from which the form as well as the content of
philosophy could be derived. Fichte's review of
o-Enesiii'tHMs and tract on the Idea of Philosophy
71)
scheluxg's earlier treatises. 71
convinced him that the principle of which he had
been in search could only be found in self-conscious-
ness, as that which, in establishing itself, is form and
content in one. In this account of the origin of his
little essay, Schelling displays somewhat too eager a
desire to lay claim to an originality of which the
work itself, however excellent in point of style,
gives no special evidence. Its only claim to origi-
nality lies in the attempt it makes to deduce from
the three fundamental principles of the Fichtean
philosophy not only the Kantian categories of qual-
ity, but those of quantity and modality as well. The
main significance of this }'outhfui writing for Spel-
ling's philosophical development is the indication it
gives of his tendency to read Kant with his own
eyes as well as with those of Fichte, — a tendencj*
which is still more plainly displayed in a somewhat
longer treatise, The I an Prhtnph of Philosophy,
published in the following year (1705).
By the publication of this little work Schelling
at once established his position as a philosophical
writer, who, if he did not as yet give evidence of
the originality of Fichte, at least had as firm a
grasp of the principles of the WUscuxchuftslehre
as its author, who was also familiar with the phi-
losophy of Spinoza and of Kant, and who had the
capacity of expressing his ideas with wonderful
72 schelling'b transcendental idealism.
ease and grace. In a letter to Reinhold, Fichte
expressed great admiration for the ability shown
by Schelling in this essay, and spoke of it as a
commentary on the Wissenschaftslehre, which had
been quite intelligible to many who had failed to
comprehend his own exposition. At a later period,
when Schelling had struck out an independent path
of his own, Fichte refused to admit that his former
disciple had ever properly comprehended the sys-
tem of which he had been a supposed exponent.
There is a certain justification for each of these
estimates, contradictory as they are. The work in
question, while it is in the main an independent
statement of the philosophy of Fichte, j-et exhibits
unmistakable traces of Schelling's future diver-
gence from Fichte, — a divergence, however, the
germs of which are contained in Fichte himself.
The aim of the work, as its title indicates, is to
show that the Ego, or intelligence, is the supreme
or unconditioned element in human knowledge.
It " traces back the results of the critical philoso-
phy to the ultimate principle of all knowledge,"
refusing to be bound by the mere letter of Kant's
system. No doubt in Kant the true principle is
implicit, but the way in which he separates the
theoretical and the practical parts of his philoso-
phy prevented him from seeing that the basis of
73
the whole was the pure or absolute Ego. As ulti-
mate and supreme, this principle can be derived
from nothing else; it is, in Spinoza's phrase, "the
light which reveals at once itself and darkness."
It is vain to seek for the supreme principle of all
knowledge in any object of knowledge, for each
object as but a single link in the chain cannot
possibly bind all the other links together. Not
even God, as a supposed object of knowledge, can be
for us the ground of reality, as Descartes supposed;
for we cannot establish the reality of God until
we have first found the supreme condition of any
knowledge whatever. The principle we seek cannot
be found even in the subject of knowledge, for just
as an object exists only in contrast and relation to a
subject, so a subject exists only in contrast and re-
lation to an object; nay, the subject is itself knowa-
ble only by becoming an object of knowledge, and
is therefore conditioned. The supreme principle,
then, is neither subject nor object, but that which
is the condition of both; it is the pure or absolute
Ego, which can never be an object of knowledge,
but which establishes its reality in and through
itself. This absolute Ego, while it is not an object
of outer sense, cannot be thought, but only per-
ceived or contemplated, and the organ by which
it is known is well named by Fichte Intellectual
74 schellixg's transcendental idealism.
Perception. The Absolute Ego, which must not for
a moment be confounded with self-consciousness
or the empirical Ego, is absolutely free, since that
must be free which is not only independent of all
else but is the condition of all possible reality. Of
the Ego we cannot say that we have an immediate
knowledge or consciousness, for consciousness im-
plies the opposition of subject and object, or more
definitely a struggle with the not-self or world
of nature which perpetually threatens to carry the
self away in its ever-flowing stream of change.
The infinite Ego is above all strife and change: it
is an absolute unity or self- identity, excluding at
once numerical multiplicity and numerical unity.
The source of all possible reality, it is, as Spinoza
said of his absolute Substance, infinite, indivisible
and unchangeable. Still, the infinite Ego, which is
best characterized as absolute Power, is the condi-
tion of the finite self as related to finite objects,
to which it appears as the command, not so much
to be identical with self as to Income identical with
self. In the absolute Ego there is complete iden-
tity of possibility and actuality, but the finite Ego
must seek to make actual, by slow and painful
steps, what is potentially in it, and hence for it
the absolute Ego is an ideal to be realized. The
approximation toward this ideal is possible to man
sciiklling's earlier treatises. 75
just because he is identical in nature with the ab-
. solute Ego, and herein consists his practical free-
dom; but as the world of nature stands in oppo-
sition to him as a finite being, absolute freedom
assumes the form of a transcendence of the natu-
ral limitations by which he is surrounded, or an
obedience to a moral law imposed upon him as
finite by his infinite reason. Each moral advance
carries man beyond the immediate limits of his
finite nature, and in this partial negation of the
objective world, — the world which stands opposed
to him as something foreign to his ideal self, — his
life as a rational being consists. In the perpetual
approximation to complete freedom lies the recon-
ciliation, in idea, of morality and happiness; and
in this preestabiished harmony of nature and mo-
rality lies the possibility of reconciling the mech-
anism of nature with the finality of reason. Na-
ture is not something absolutely alien to reason,
but borrows reality from it, and hence in follow-
ing out the law of our reason we do not find our-
selves in absolute disharmony with nature.
The main features in this outline of a philo-
sophical system are Fichtean, but the atmosphere
which pervades it is sensibly different, although it
is not easy to make the difference palpable to one
who has not read the treatise itself in connection
76 schelling's transcendental idealism.
with the Wissenschaftslehre. One point of distinc-
tion manifestly is, that Fichte's tacit opposition of
U the absolute and the finite Ego is brought by Schel-
ling into clear and bold relief Predicates are ap-
plied to the former which make it apparent that
all finite individuals are in some sense but modes
of an intelligence which manifests itself in them,
but is somehow distinct from them. This is espe-
cially apparent in the deliberate application to the
absolute Ego of predicates applied by Spinoza to
the absolute substance which he calls God. It is
true that Schelling still speaks in words of the
absolute Ego as nothing apart from the totality of
self-conscious beings; but on the other hand his
assertion of the absolute identity of subject and
object is, to say the least, as much in accordance
with his own later thought as with the philosophy
of Fichte. It is but another manifestation of the
same tendency to go beyond the subjective idealism
of Fichte, that Schelling insists upon the coordi-
nation of subject and object. While denying as
strongly as Fichte any " thing-in-itself" lying back
of knowable objects, he yet opposes the object to
the subject more strongly than Fichte, and seeks
in the absolute Ego for the unity which is to recon-
cile them. The reason why the supreme principle
cannot be found in the finite self is mainly that
schelling's earlier treatises. 77
the latter exists only as conscious of an object, and
such consciousness, as implying distinction, neces-
sarily implies limitation. If we follow out this
idea we shall manifestly be led to the conclusion
that the true absolute is to be sought in an ab-
stract identity, which excludes all definiteness what-
ever, and which, therefore, will be almost indis-
tinguishable from the absolute Substance of Spinoza
or the Unknowable of recent English philosophy.
It is of course true that Schelling was very far
from intending such a result, and that his theory
contains a principle utterly discrepant from it; but
there can be no doubt that here we have already
the germ of the theory which he afterward devel-
oped, that the true absolute is to be found in the
complete indifference of subject and object. Lastly,
it may be remarked that in this treatise Schelling
already shows that tendency to view the world as
moving toward an end, or as manifesting unconscious
reason, which had been suggested to him by a study
of Kant's Critique of -Judgment, and which he
was soon to apply, not merely as here, to man as
a moral being, living in a world that seemed to be
alien to him, but to the determination of nature
itself as rising through various forms, each of which
is the prophecy of that which includes and tran-
scends it.
78 schelling's transcendental idealism.
In the same year the Philosophical Letters on
Dogmatism and Criticism were published. Nothing
could exceed the force and grace of this little work,
which may be regarded as the consummate flower
of Schelling's period of storm and stress. Dogma-
tism and criticism are here considered in their
bearings on the independent existence of an "ob-
jective" God. The work was meant as a counter-
blast against the official followers of Kant, who, in
Schelling's estimation, were seeking to convert the
Critical Philosophy into a dogmatism of a worse
kind than that from which Kant had sought to free
the minds of men. The result of Kant's specula-
tions, it was held, was to show that Theoretical
Reason, from its inherent weakness, is unable to
conceive of God, while Practical Reason compels us
to assume his existence as a "postulate" required
to establish the absoluteness of morality, and to
furnish a motive for obedience to it. This attempt
to base morality on a pure hj*pothesis Schelling
denounces as neither Kantian nor rational. God
is conceived of as a being entirely external to the
world, and as formed in the image of man. He is
at once a First Cause and a Moral Governor. How
can the existence of such a being be proved ?
44 Theoretical Reason," it is said, " is by its neces-
sary limitations forever prevented from framing
79
any conception of God." There need be no dispute
about words; if we cannot "conceive" of God by
theoretical reason, we must at least "believe," or
"suppose" him to exist; how then is this belief or
supposition to be justified? It is all very well to
talk of "practical needs" establishing his reality,
but if "needs" are to determine anything, why
should not theoretical needs be as potent as prac-
tical? If the existence of God is a mere assump-
tion, it is not likely to bear much strain. If it is
said that practical needs are more imperative than
theoretical, the answer is that our needs cannot
establish the reality of a being who is assumed to
be unknowable. The so-called " practical needs "
thus turn out to be an uncritical belief, — a belief,
moreover, which belongs to that very theoretical
faculty the weakness of which is made the reason
for assuming it. Waiving this objection, how can
it be shown that the First Cause is a Moral Gov-
ernor? "The fact of the moral law,** it is said.
" proves the existence of an Absolute Being, and
human freedom would be destroyed were the will
of that being not conformed to the moral law."
But if it is legitimate to reason forward in this
wa} r from human freedom to the existence of
God, why should not others reason back-Hard from
the existence of God to the denial of human free-
• 80 schelling's transcendental idealism.
dom? If there is an Absolute Cause, how can man
possibly be free? The exponents of criticism are
pare dogmatists. "Can there be a more pitiable
spectacle/ 1 Schelling indignantly exclaims, "than a
so-called philosophy, the burden of which is that
while reason is too weak to conceive of God, a man
will only act morally if he assumes the existence
of a Being who rewards the virtuous and punishes
the guilty!' 1 A breath is enough to upset such a
castle of cards. The real weakness of reason is not
that it cannot know an objective God, but in sup-
posing that there is such a God to know. The
Critique of Pure Reason is not to be charged with
the stupidities of its incompetent interpreters, but
it has given occasion for them, from the fact that
it is a criticism merely of the faculty of knowledge,
and therefore begins with the opposition of subject
and object. The question with which it starts —
How do we come to form synthetical judgments? —
may be thus put: How, by going beyond the ab-
solute, does opposition arise ? Although synthesis
is possible only through an original unity in con-
trast to multiplicity, the Critique of Pure Reason
could not ascend to that unity, since it started
from the opposition of subject and object as a fact.
The disadvantage of this point of view is that
knowledge seems to be something not belonging
schklling's earlier treatises. 81
to the very nature of intelligence, but something
peculiar to the individual subject The most that
the Critique of Pure Reason has been able to
show is, that dogmatism is theoretically incapable
of proof. Dogmatism cannot be overthrown so
long as we remain at the point of view of knowl-
edge. No doubt it may be shown that the subject
can only get a knowledge of the objective world
by means of synthesis, and hence that objects are
necessarily in relation to the subject. But this
only proves that, within the sphere of conditioned
or limited existence — the sphere in which object
and subject are opposed to one another — there can
be no object out of relation to a subject; it deter-
mines nothing as to the unconditioned or absolute
unity which combines subject and object in one.
All synthesis must finally end in a thesis. What
is this thesis? We are seeking for that which is
beyond the difference of subject and object, and
this something must be either (a) an absolute sub-
ject or (b) an absolute object. But just because
theoretical reason moves only within the realm in
which subject and object are opposed, it can give
no answer to this problem. Hence completed dog-
matism, as it exists, for example, in Spinoza, cannot
be refuted by criticism, so long as both remain
within the sphere of "knowledge." The battle
must therefore be carried into the sphere of ac-
tion and determined there. Criticism as well as
dogmatism leads to " SchwHrraerei," if it holds
that the object must finally be swallowed up in
the subject; in other words, that absolute identity
of subject and object is the goal of human prog-
ress. To negate the object and to negate the sub-
ject are at bottom the same, for in either case
personality disappears. The only difference is that
criticism starts from the immediate identity of the
subject and goes on to unite subject and object;
whereas dogmatism proceeds in the reverse way.
The former says that in morality the subject affirms
itself, and holds that the goal is the synthesis of
morality and happiness ; the latter begins with
happiness, or the harmony of the subject with
the objective world, and in this way seeks to find
morality. In both systems morality and happiness
are distinct principles which can be united only
synthetically, that is, as ground and consequence,
so long only as the individual is on his way to
the goal. Were the goal reached, the distinction
would disappear in absolute being or blessedness.
So freedom and necessity must be united in the
absolute; a will which is subject only to itself is
at once free and necessary; free because it obeys
the laws of its own being, necessary because iu
schellixg's earlier treatises. 83
obeying itself it is under the yoke of law. If,
therefore, criticism is to separate itself definitely
from dogmatism, it must deny that the absolute
unity of subject and object, morality and happiness,
freedom and necessity, is possible for man. That
unity is not something capable of being realized,
but an infinite problem; it is not something to be
k'Hoiat, but something to be done. Hence it is that
conscious life is an infinite striving after the recon-
ciliation of subject and object, a striving to attain
to unlimited activity. Were the goal attained,
moral life would vanish. The command of criti-
cism, therefore, is: "Strive after unconditioned
freedom, unlimited activity; seek to form thyself
into the divine/' The choice must be made be-
tween the dogmatic supposition of an " objective v
God, and the critical proof of human personality.
One or the other must be given up. The more
a people surrenders itself to dreams of a far-off
supersensible world, the less is its moral enthu-
siasm in this world. Not the weakness of reason,
but its strength, &huts it out from the supersensi-
ble; true criticism finds the secret of human free-
dom in the divine idea which man carries in his
own breast, and which he struggles with all his
might to realize here and now.
The main advance beyond Fichte, made in the
84 schellixg's transcendental idealsim.
work of which a summary has just been given, lies
in the conception of dogmatism as incapable of
refutation by criticism, except within the sphere of
practical reason, — a view which foreshadows Spel-
ling's subsequent coordination of the philosophy of
spirit and the philosophy of nature. About the
same time as the last treatise appeared the New
Deduction of Natural Bights, and in the years 1796
and 1797, in Fichte and Niethammer's Journal a
series of four articles in elucidation of the Idealism
of the Wissenschaftslehve, which may be said to
complete the work done by Schelling during his
apprenticeship in philosophy under Fichte, and even
to give unmistakable evidences of the coming master
of his craft.
In the first of these articles Schelling endeavors
to show that the ordinary interpretation of Kant
completely misrepresents his real meaning. From
perception, says Kant, all other knowledge borrows
its worth and reality. When he speaks of " things-
in-themselves " he does not mean things which, as
existing apart from knowledge, act on the knowing
subject and produce affections of sense. For Kant
there are no objects but those given in an original
synthesis of perception. -When he calls space and
time "forms" of perception, he does not mean that
they are empty moulds lying ready-made in the
bchellixg's earlier treatises. 85
mind, but only that they are the forms by which
the synthetic activity of the imagination in percep-
tion actively relates objects in the most general
way. These forms of activity do not indeed present
objects to us, but they are the conditions under
which alone we can present objects to ourselves.
And neither activity exists apart from the other.
Space without time is sphere without limit; time
without space is limit without sphere. As mere
limitation time is negative, space as sphere or ex-
tension is originally positive ; and hence perception
is possible only through the cooperation of two
opposed activities. The faculty which combines in
itself these opposites is imagination. The reason
why real objects are regarded as independent of
the mind's activity is, that upon the productive
activity of the mind there supervenes a peculiar
activity of the imagination which consists in repeat-
ing the original activity ou its purely formal side.
Thus arises the outline or "schema" of an object
in general as floating in space and time. This
schema Kant separates from the conception of the
understanding, as if the one were independent of
the other; but while in speculation they may be
distinguished, in actual knowledge they always go
together, and only when object and schema are
opposed to each other does there arise the conviction
80 sciiellixg's transcendental idealism.
of a real object as outside of the mind and inde-
pendent of it. The world of nature is thus con-
stituted by the series of acts in which intelligence
as productive and reproductive advances toward
complete self-consciousness.
No error can be destroyed until its source is
clearly pointed out; and hence Scheliing goes on, in
the second article, to show how the Kantians have
come to misrepresent their master so grossly. In
our actual knowledge the form and the matter of
knowledge are indissolubly united, but philosophy
must hypothetic-ally destroy this unity in order to
explain it. The problem is to account for the abso-
lute harmony of object and idea, being and knowl-
edge. Now when by philosophical analysis we have
opposed the object as a thing outside of us to our
knowledge of it, no immediate union of the two
seems possible, and hence we try to find a point of
connection in the conception of cause and effect:
the object, we say, is the cause of our representa-
tion of it. But such a conception cannot possibly
explain the unity of subject and object, for the
object as beyond knowledge cannot be really known.
The difficulty can only be solved if it can be shown
that the knowing subject does not apprehend some-
thing foreign to itself, but in all knowledge knows
only itself. Now a self-conscious being can only
schellixg's earlier treatises. 8?
know itself as active, and hence conscious life is a
perpetual process, in which intelligence manifests its
original infinity. On the other hand, intelligence is
an object for itself only in so far as, acting in a
definite way, it limits or makes itself finite. Rea-
son is thus in its inmost nature a unity of infinite
and finite. Hence the fact that perception implies
two opposite activities. As limiting itself, a self-con-
scious being is at once active and passive. Now
passivity is simply negative activity, for an abso-
lutely passive being would be a mere negation.
The object of perception is thus not an object inde-
pendent of intelligence, but intelligence itself as at
once active and passive. Intelligence, however,
cannot in the same act perceive itself and distin-
guish itself from it.self: hence in perception no dis-
tinction is drawn between the perception and the
object perceived. lUit in virtue of his freedom a sell-
conscious being is able to abstract from himself as
perceived — an abstraction which has been already
described as the faculty of concentrating attention
on the general process of perception ; and so arises
the consciousness of an object, the origin of which
as lying beyond consciousness cannot be explained
from the point of view of consciousness. Further,
since the consciousness of an object is possible only
as contrasted with free activitv and the consciousness
88 sciielling's transcendental idealism.
of free activity only as contrasted with an object, to
those still at the point of view of consciousness, man
seems partly necessitated and partly free. Hence
we can understand how the Kantians have come to
regard the " form " of knowledge as supplied by us,
the " matter M as coming from without.
Our knowledge, if it is to be real, Schelling goes on
to say in the third article, must rest upon something
which is not obtained by means of conceptions and
inferences, but which is just as immediately certain
as our own existence. How does it happen that that
which is distinct from the soul should yet be so
closely bound up with our inner nature that it can-
not be denied without denial of the consciousness of
self? All the mistaken attempts to answer this
question have assumed that we must start from con-
ception or mediate knowledge. The fact of immedi-
ate knowledge in perception is not denied, but it is
said that such knowledge is due to the operation of
external objects upon us. But (1) the hypothesis, at
the most, explains, not perception, but sensation, the
reception of an impression from an object, not the
immediate knowledge of an object; and hence the
perception at least must be regarded as a free act.
(2) Since a cause must precede, in time, its effect,
the thing-in-itself must act before we perceive it,
and this leads to the absurd supposition of a double
schelling's earlier treatises. 89
series of time. (3) In perception, object and idea
are identical, whereas the supposed thing-in-itself
must be separate from perception, — a view which
lies at the base of all scepticism, as might be shown
historically. The opposite view is, that there is no
object independent of perception; that intelligence
is an activity which goes back into itself, and that
to go back into itself it must first have gone out
from itself. The essence of spirit is to perceive
itself. This tendency to self- perception is infinite,
and in the infinite reproduction of itself consists its
permanence. Spirit necessarily strives to contem-
plate itself in its opposite activities, and this it can
only do by presenting them in a common product,
i.e. by making them permanent. Hence, at the
standpoint of consciousness these opposite activities
appear as at rest, or as forces which act only in op-
position to an internal obstacle. Matter is simply
spirit contemplated in the equilibrium of its activi-
ties. That common product is necessarily finite,
and spirit becomes aware of its fi nitude in the act
of production. The ground of this limitation can-
not lie in its present act, which is jierfectly free;
and hence in this act it does not limit itself, but
finds or feels itself limited. The product of its free
act, spirit, perceives as a quantity in sjtare, the limit
of this production as a quantity in time. Hence
90 schelling's transcendental idealism.
arises the distinction of outer and inner sense, the
former being simply the latter as limited. The limit
of its production appears to spirit as contingent;
the sphere of production, in which it perceives only
its own mode of activity, as essential, necessary or
substantial. But spirit is the infinite tendency to
become an object to itself, to present the infinite in
the finite. The goal of all acts is self-consciousness,
and the history of those acts is just the history of
self-consciousness. Hence the task of philosophy
can only be completed when we have reached the
goal of complete self-consciousness. Such self-con-
sciousness is will, in which theoretical and practical
reason meet together. By freeing ourselves from
our representations and holding them away from us,
we are able to explain them, and so to connect the
theoretical and the practical self. Thus we arrive at
the Ego as the principle of freedom, beginning with
which we can now see spirit and nature arise
together.
It does not lie within the plan of this work to
give anything like an extended account of Spel-
ling's Philosophy of Nature, but some idea of its
principle and main positions is necessary as a prepa-
ration for the proper understanding of the Tran-
scendental Idealism. We have already seen that
Scbelling, even in his appropriation and assimila-
SCHELLlXti's EARLIER TREATISES. 91
tion of the thought of Fichte, shows a decided
tendency to go back to Kant. This tendency is
manifested still more clearly in that part of his
philosophy which is now under consideration. Not
Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre, but Kant's Metaphy-
sisrhe Anfangsgrunde der Naturtciftsenschaft and
Kritik der Urtheilshrqft form the starting- point of
his Philosophy of Nature. In the former work-
Kant had endeavored to show that matter must be
resolved, not into a number of indivisible material
units, as variously arranged in space, but into two
ultimate forces — a force of attraction and a force
of repulsion — by the relation of which to each other
all phenomena of matter, as that which occupies or
is movable in space, may be explained. In the
latter work he had pointed out that the character-
istics of organic beings can only be made intelli-
gible to us if we think of them as if they were
produced by an intelligence similar to our own.
Schelling endeavors to show that the fundamental
ideas of those two works must be thought out to
their issue, and combined in a true philosophy of
nature. And just as Fichte refused to admit that
there is any noumenal mind distinct from that
which we actually know, so Schelling denies that
the application of means to ends displayed in the
whole of nature, and more clearly in organic beings,
92 SCHELLlNG's TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
can be accounted for by the " transcendent " prin-
ciple of an intelligence distinct from the world, and
acting externally upon it.
In 1797 appeared the Ideas for a Philosophy of
Nature, in which Scheiling endeavors to connect
the main principle of the philosophy of Fichte with
a philosophy of nature, which in its broad outlines
is identical with that contained in Kant. In a
purely analytical way Kant had shown that matter
implies the presence of two opposite forces. Spel-
ling's aim is to derive those forces from the nature
of perception, and to explain the various phenomena
of nature by the same method. The way in which
the derivation is made has been partly explained
above. All reality or objectivity implies the presence
in consciousness of something, the primary origin of
which must be sought in an unconscious or un re-
flective act of production. Intelligence, which in
its own nature is infinite, limits its productivity
and presents to itself that which has the appearance
of an independent object. At first this object is
simply the purely abstract "something we-know-not-
what," and hence it calls for more definite character-
ization. This further definition of reality is the
task of the philosophy of nature, which is therefore
related to transcendental philosophy as a sub-
ordinate or applied department of it, like the
schellixg's earlier treatises. 93
philosophy of rights and the philosophy of morals
in the system of Fichte. The first and funda-
mental determination of matter is given in the
conception of force, as specifying itself in attrac-
tion and repulsion, which correspond respectively
to the objective and subjective activities implied in
perception. The former activity as coming back
to the self, and centering, so to speak, in a point, is
time; the latter activity, which strives continually
outward in all directions, is space. Matter is there-
fore definable as the product of the two forces
of attraction and repulsion, and as in space and
time. It must not be supposed for a moment that
besides these forces there are material things
outside of each other: forces are not properties
of matter, but constitute its very essence, just as
the infinite and finite activities are not attributes
of which intelligence is the substratum, but are
identical with intelligence. Matter, however, has
certain specific forms, which must be shown to be
compatible with the outline or schema of it which
has just been drawn. The various states of cohe-
sion — solidity, fluidity, etc., — are readily seen to
be derivable from the relation of these two forces,
but more difficulty is experienced when we come to
consider the qualitative properties of matter. In
sensation wc find ourselves qualitatively determined.
Referred to an object, the determination is con-
tingent, the object necessary. This necessary object,
as product of the two forces, is purely quantitative
or determined only as in space and time, but when
qualified by the addition of the element of feeling,
the general notion of the object becomes individual
or determinate. Quality cannot indeed be reduced
to quantity, but all quality rests on the intensity
of the fundamental forces.
It is not necessary to follow Schelling in his
attempt to reduce the varied phenomena of physics
to a unity in duality; all that need be said is that,
beginning with a consideration of combustion, he
considers successively light, air, electricity, magnet-
ism and heat. More important is his consideration
of life, which is closely connected with Kant's con-
ception of organisms as marked by the peculiarity
that in them there is a unity of means and ends.
Life is a process of individuation, and implies a con-
tinual restoration of the equilibrium which the
chemical process tends to destroy. Thus, in the
living being the whole conditions the parts, and
each part is at once cause and effect. Accordingly
we are compelled, in the case of living beings, to
suppose an immanent adaptation of means to ends,
instead of mere mechanical causality.
In the Ideas, a twofold tendency is manifested:
SCHELLTCO'S EARLIER TREATISES. 95
the one toward unity, the other toward specification;
bat, on the whole, the latter prevails. In the work
entitled On the World Soul, published in 1798,
the former tendency comes to the front, and Schel-
ling seeks mainly for a principle which shall reduce
the whole of nature to unity. This principle must
not be sought in any transcendental, supernatural
region, whether called God or Fate, but in nature
itself. A principle such as is sought Schelling
seemed to find in the conception of matter as a unity
of opposite forces, and hence he naturally attempted
to reduce all the varied phenomena of nature to the
single principle of a force that always manifests itself
in opposite directions. Accordingly nature must no
longer be divided up into separate groups of phe-
nomena, with a special kind of force for each, —
mechanical, chemical, electrical, vital, — but in all
must be seen the same force in various fonn^, the
same unity in duality. Even the division of organic
and inorganic beings, which at first sight seems to
be an absolute one. is to be reconciled with the ulti-
mate unity of all natural phenomena, and must
therefore be regarded as merely relative. Schelling,
of course, did not mean that, from the historical
point of view, any transition from inorganic to
organic things has ever taken place. It should be
observed, however, that tho*e who, like Mr. Herbert
96 schelling's transcendental idealism.
Spencer, find a principle of order and unity in
the conception of force, do not, any more than
Schelling, find it necessary, in establishing the so-
called " persistence of force, 1 ' to prove genetic devel-
opment: the two points of view are really distinct,
and the one may be held irrespective of the other.
In thus making the idea of force the supreme prin-
ciple of nature, Schelling has manifestly stripped
that conception of its purely mechanical connota-
tion, and thus it becomes practically identical with
the idea of nature as an eternal process or mani-
festation of self-activity. This self-activity takes
two directions, one forward or positive, and the other
backward or negative. These logically distinguish-
able activities of a single principle, when viewed as
one, give us the notion of a single principle imma-
nent in nature, which is the source of its organic
unity. The somewhat unfortunate term *" World
Soul," borrowed by Schelling from Plato, is, there-
fore, not meant to signify more than the unity of
nature.
In the First Outline of the Philosophy of Xature,
published in 1799, Schelling proceeds to develop,
in a more systematic way, the principle which
he had set forth in the World Soul, and which he
had there sought to prove by an examination of
the result* of physical science. This principle he
97
interprets, in accordance with the supreme prin-
ciple of the science of knowledge, as pure activ-
ity. Nature is not simply a product, but is at once
that which produces and that which is produced.
And just as the Ego is at once infinite and finite,
unlimited and limited, so nature must be regarded
as limiting its own infinite productivity, and thus as
manifesting itself in two opposite activities which
are yet in essence identical. Hence, each definite or
specific product of nature is the result of the co-
operation of those two forces and directions. The
duality which the former treatise showed to be the
condition of all natural phenomena is now derived
from the idea of nature as productive. Nature is
an infinite self-activity, realizing itself in the finite,
and yet unexhausted in that realization. The vari-
ous forms in which it manifests itself are therefore
only apparent products or completed results; in
reality, nature is an eternal process that is ever ful-
filling itself, and yet is never absolutely fulfilled, —
just as, in the sphere of self-consciousness, practical
reason consists in the perpetual striving toward an
ideal goal that is never attained.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PROBLEM OP TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
T OOKING back over Sch el ling's early develop-
~^* ment, as rapidly sketched in the preceding
chapter, we can see that there has been a gradual
advance beyond his first position. Even more
strongly than Fichte, Schelling rejects as absurd and
unthinkable any " objective " God, independent of
man and nature, and seeks to explain each entirely
from itself. As we have seen, however, the uncondi-
tioned which had been rejected as God gradually
emerges, from a contemplation of human intelligence,
in the form of an absolute Ego, which is presupposed
in all knowledge while yet it is distinct from the
knowledge of the individual subject. But while
Schelling tends to separate the absolute and the finite
Ego much more sharply than Fichte, he is not yet pre-
pared to say that the former is anything apart from
the consciousness of the latter; in other words, the
absolute is simply the supreme form of human
knowledge. Vaguely conscious, however, that this
subjective idealism was not a completely satisfactory
explanation of the unity of reality and knowledge,
PROBLEM OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. 00
Schelling endeavors to find in the conception of
nature, as self-active and as rising through various
grades up to organized and intelligent beings, an
escape from the one-sided theory which he had
adopted from Fichte. The way of escape was sug-
gested by Kant, in his " Philosophy of Nature' 1 and
his "Critique of Judgment. 11 But if the individual
man is related, on the one hand to the absolute Ego,
and on the other hand to nature, of which he is one
of the highest manifestations, it was natural for
Schelling to hold that the science of knowledge is but
one of the points of view from which the universe as
a whole may be regarded, the other point of view
being contained in the philosophy of nature. To
this conclusion the thoughts of Schelling had grad-
ually been tending ever since he had made his
44 breach to nature." At first he regarded the phi-
losophy of nature as simply the application of the
conclusions reached in the philosophy of knowledge
to external phenomena; but at length he came to
the conclusion that each led to the same point by a
different route, and hence that they were coordinate
branches of philosophy. Such a view, it is at once
evident, could not be final; for, if philosophy is to
be a single system, there must be some principle to
unite these coordinate departments, and such a
principle must be one which shall reduce intelli-
100 schelling's transcendental idealism.
gence and nature to the unity of a principle higher
than either. At a later period in his development
this became plain to Schelling himself, but at the
period to which we have now come, he was content
to coordinate the two without seeking for a unity
combining both. This, then, is the view which pre-
vails in the Transcendental Idealism, to the careful
consideration of which we must now give our
attention.
Schelling begins by distinguishing between Tran-
scendental Idealism and Philosophy of Nature. The
aim of ail philosophy is to explain that harmony of
subject and object which alone makes knowledge
possible, but which is at first held as a mere unrea-
soned conviction. Nature is not an object com-
pletely independent of all intelligence, but it is
distinguishable from intelligence as the sum-total
of objects from the complete series of acts consti-
tuting the knowing subject. As neither intelli-
gence nor nature exists in independence, philosophy
may start from either indifferently. When it
begins with nature, the problem is to explain how
nature comes to be an object of intelligence: when,
on the other hand, intelligence is made the starting
point, the question is how intelligence can have
before it an objective world which is in harmony with
it. The answer to the first question forms the con-
PROBLEM OP TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. 101
tent of the philosophy of nature, a content which
consists in an exhibition of the ideal stages through
which nature may be represented as passing until
it finally issues in man, or rather in reason as con-
stituting the essence of man. The solution of the
second question demands the derivation of the know-
able world of objects from the nature of intelli-
gence. The latter problem is the one which Trans-
cendental Idealism has to resolve.
Perhaps the easiest way of getting a more definite
notion of the point of view from which the Tran-
scendental Idealism contemplates the problem of phi-
losophy, is to state shortly the objections which
Schelling, in perfect agreement with Pichte, makes
against dogmatism. Philosophical dogmatism is,
in a word, that attitude of mind in which real ex-
istence is supposed to be constituted independently
of all activity of the intelligence which contem-
plates it. It is assumed that there is a world of
reality, all of whose relations are properties or af-
fections of things that owe absolutely nothing to
the constitutive activity of the knowing mind. And
dogmatism is equally dogmatic whether the reality
thus assumed as an independent thing is the outer
world of nature, the inner world of mind, or a
supersensible God. There is a dogmatic idealism
and spiritualism as well as a dogmatic realism. The
102 BCHETXWo's TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
former treats the mind and God just as the latter
treats the outer object — as a thing to be observed,
or an object among other objects. Both alike neg-
lect to turn back upon the spontaneous activity
which is characteristic of intelligence, and which
is the true and only clue to the explanation of actual
knowledge. The initial principle of a true philo-
I sophy is to recognize that intelligence is self-active,
and that only by reference to this self-activity can
experience as the knowledge of real existence be
explained at air. So long as we assume that intelli-
gence counts for nothing in the constitution of
objects as known, philosophy must play the sophist
in explaining the intelligible world.
It is evident from what has been said that the
starting-point of philosophy must be made by turn-
ing away from all objects of knowledge as such,
and casting the light of consciousness upon con-
sciousness itself. This primary act of abstraction
is the means by which the philosopher seeks to find
out the various factors that make real knowledge
possible for us. And while this abstraction from
all objects is the condition of finding the principle
of all knowledge, it j r et is not by means of abstract
conceptions that an}' progress in the construction
of a true system of philosophy can be made. An
abstract conception is merely a group of common
PROBLEM OP TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. 103
attributes borrowed from objects as they present
themselves in our immediate experience, and hence
it cannot be made to yield any answer to the ques-
tion as to the ultimate condition in knowledge of
those objects. I The true method is not conception,
but perception; not perception in the ordinary sense,
as the immediate apprehension of sensible things,
but perception of a kind similar to that employed
by the mathematician when he freely constructs
some mathematical figure. The points of distinction
between mathematical and philosophical perception
are (1) that the former makes outer sense its object,
while the latter deals with inner sense, and (2) that
the one lavishes its energy upon the object which it
constructs, while the other limits itself to the act
of construction itself. Thus while the perception
of mathematics is single, that of philosophy is dual,
since it not only, like mathematics, freeh' produces
its object, but contemplates the act of production
itself. The process by which philosophy carries on /
its investigations is thus in one way identical with
that by which the creations of art are evolved by
the artist; the difference being that in the process
of creation the artist is immersed in his products,
while the philosopher not only produces his objects,
but contemplates intelligence in the act of produc-
ing them. Philosophy is thus an aesthetic act
IC- £
of /
104 'schelling's transcendental idealism.
the productive imagination, demanding a special
effort and perhaps a peculiar faculty. No one who
fails or who is unable to perform that act can have
anything to say to philosophical problems, and it is
not to be wondered at that men who have overloaded
their memories with undigested facts, or who have
come under the influence of a dead speculation,
destructive of all imagination, should have entirely
lost this aesthetic organ.
It may seem that a philosophy which rests upon
intellectual perception, or a free act of the aesthetic
imagination, must be purely arbitrary. But this
objection overlooks two things: first, that the object
of philosophical perception is consciousness itself,
and therefore something necessarily real; and sec-
ondly, that philosophy, like other sciences, must
justify itself by its success in explaining what it
pretends to explain. As to the first point, it is self-
evident that we cannot know without an activity of
intelligence, and that this activity may be made an
object of philosophical contemplation. Xow, if it
can be shown that this activity presupposes another
activity, which again presupposes a third, and so on
until we have exhausted all that is implied in the
first act; and if, further, the complete series of acts
thus originated is found perfectly to harmonize with
and explain our whole knowledge, we may conclude
PROBLEM OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. 105
that what at first seemed to be an arbitrary creation
is really an account of the necessary process by
which the world has been built up for us. This
method will also have the advantage of exhibiting
all the elements of knowledge in their systematic
connection and interdependences. Just as the com-
plete knowledge of any part of a machine involves
a knowledge of all the other parts and of their rela-
tion to one another; just as to understand any organ
in a living being we must understand its function
relatively to all the other organs; — so the thorough
comprehension of the first principle of philosophy
is only possible by the comprehension of all the other
principles which it presupposes and which presup-
pose it.
That there must be a first principle, and not more
than one, is implied in the very problem which we
have set ourselves to solve. That problem is to
exhibit, in systematic order, all the necessary acts
which are implied in actual knowledge. Now there
can be no systnn in a philosophy that proceeds by
random guesses, and puts together a number of
parts that are not organically connected with one
another; and there can be no organic connection
unless there is something in the nature of the object
under investigation which will not allow us to pro-
ceed except in one definite way. But if we are to
106 SCIIELMXr.'ft TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
proceed by such a necessary method, we most start
with a single principle, since otherwise we should
have two or more disconnected systems; and this
principle must be one higher than which we cannot
go, since from it all others are to be derived.
Let us, without further preamble, state what the
supreme principle of Transcendental Idealism is.
To obtain it, we must abstract from all objects of
knowledge, both outer and inner, and bring before
our minds the pure activity which we put forth in
so abstracting. The object thus presented for intel-
lectual perception or contemplation is simply pure
self-activity, — an activity of the mind which returns
upon itself or is its own object. The activity which
the philosopher thus sets before himself, by a free act
of the aesthetic imagination, is pure self-conscious-
ness — the consciousness of consciousness. From
this pure activity we must carefully distinguish
empirical consciousness on the one hand, and the
consciousness of oneself as a particular individual
on the other. In empirical consciousness our object
is not the activity of consciousness itself, but con-
sciousness as directed on certain perpetually chang-
ing objects, which, whether belonging to the outer
or the inner world, are at least non-subjective.
Empirical consciousness, in short, is not a reflex act
in which consciousness turns back upon itself, but
PROBLEM OP TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. 107
an act proceeding out from itself and concentrating
itself upon some object not-itself. Nor, again, can
pure self-consciousness be identified with the con-
sciousness of oneself as a person; for such a con-
sciousness involves the manifold distinctions by
means of which the individual compares and con-
trasts himself, as possessed of a particular character
and disposition, with other individuals of a different
character and disposition. Pure self-consciousne.ss
is an absolutely pure act, in which there is no con-
tent whatever, but a pure activity returning upon
itself.
The philosopher freely produces the pure self-
consciousness, and mentally registers what he con-
templates in producing it. But what relation, it
must now be asked, does this pure self-returning
activity bear to knowledge? How can it be shown
to be a principle of knowledge at all, and especially
the supreme principle of all knowledge? It need
hardly be said that it is not possible to justify ;i
principle which is the ultimate condition of all
knowledge b\* reference to an}' principle higher than
itself; all that can be done is to show that unle>s it
be admitted there can be no knowledge whatever.
There are various ways in which this might be made
clear, but the simplest and most direct method is
the best While we are not entitled, in a svstem
108 schelling'* transcendental idealism.
which claims to set forth the grounds of all knowl-
edge, to begin with the assumption that any single
proposition in consciousness is objectively true, we
are at least entitled to assume that consciousness-
proves itself — that what is in consciousness actually
is in consciousness. Even the sceptic must make
this assumption, for he at least takes it for granted
that his denial of all real knowledge is a fact of
consciousness. Let his denial, then, be the proposi-
tion from which we start. It is assumed that the
proposition " there is no real knowledge" is actually
in consciousness, and this proposition we may repre-
sent by the formula A = A. It is not asserted that
A has any truth apart from its occurrence in con-
sciousness, but only that if A is true, it is true.
The proposition is therefore purely analytical:
nothing is asserted in the predicate but what is con-
tained in the subject. Prom such a proposition no
real knowledge can be extracted, since it is purely
hypothetical. It may, however, be shown that it
presupposes a synthetical act, without which it could
not be in consciousness at all. For A to be in con-
sciousness, it must be placed there by an act of con-
sciousness, and to be recognized as identical with
itself, this act of positing A must be contemplated;
in other words, consciousness must return upon
itself or become its own object, and this is self-con-
PROBLEM OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. 109
sciousness. Here, therefore, we have a synthetical
act implied in the bare consciousness of an identical
proposition. The pure activity designated self-
consciousness is an originative act in this sense,
that prior to self-consciousness it has no existence;
the self, in other words, is not an object known, but
the pure activity without which there could be no
self. While, therefore, we may still doubt whether
there is any real object, we cannot doubt the reality
of the act of self-consciousness. We have thus
established a proposition absolutely indisputable,
and maj r proceed to ask whether it presupposes an-
other proposition as certain as itself, although of
course related to and dependent upon it.
The proposition which has just been established is
the fundamental proposition of philosophy in all its
departments. It is not only the supreme condition
of knowledge, but of action as well. Assuming, in
the meantime, that a knowledge of objects is possi-
ble, and that volition also is possible, it is evident
that both alike presuppose our fundamental princi-
ple. There can be no knowledge of anything apart
from consciousness, and, as has been shown, no con-
sciousness apart from the self-activity which we call
self-consciousness; nor can there be any volition
which is not in consciousness, and therefore none
which is not made possible, and alone made possible,
110 sciielling's transcendental idealism.
by self-consciousness. Without determining at pre*
sent whether there are any objects apart from con-
sciousness, we can at least affirm that such objects,
if they exist, are nothing for consciousness.
It need hardly be added that the question as to
whether the I of self-consciousness is a thing-in-
itself or a phenomenon is utterly meaningless. To
speak of the I as a thing-in-itself is to suppose that
the I exists otherwise than for itself, which is as
absurd as to suppose that the I exists before it exists.
To speak of the I as a phenomenon is to affirm it to
be an object of consciousness, instead of being, as it
is, simply the primary activity without which no
consciousness could be. The I is a pure activity that
can only be defined as that which is not an object,
and which therefore cannot properly be said to be,
but only to be pure activity returning on itself.
The pure activity of self-consciousness has been
.shown to be the necessary presupposition of con-
sciousness. But consciousness involves the presence
to it of some object, in relation to which it is limited
or defined. There can be no consciousness which is
not a consciousness of something. The question
therefore arises, what is the relation of consciousness,
as the consciousness of an object, to pure self-con-
sciousness? The dogmatist assumes that there is a
real object existing independently of consciousness,
PROBLEM OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. Ill
and that this object as active limits or determines
consciousness. Such an explanation really explains
nothing. The question is how an object becomes
known, and it is no explanation to say that it exists
independently of knowledge. Such an unknown and
unknowable thing- in- itself, whether it exists or not,
at least can be absolutely nothing for knowledge.
The limitation of consciousness to an object must be
explained in consistency with the supreme principle
of knowledge, which, as we have seen, is self-con-
sciousness as a pure activity. The object of con-
sciousness, therefore, must be something relative to
that activity; it must, in other words, be a limita- j
tion of intelligence by itself. The consciousness of '
self as activity thus implies the opposition to self of
that which is not self, i.e. of an activity by which
the pure activity of self-consciousness is limited or
defined. The I can be conscious of itself only in
contrast from a not-self. At the same time this not-
self or limit is laid down by itself, and so in limiting
itself it recognizes that the limit is its own. Thus
the limit is one which, as posited by itself, it can
in virtue of its self-activity remove. The I is
therefore a j>erpetual process of laying down and
removing a limit. In one aspect intelligence is
unlimited only as it is limited; in another aspect it
is limited only as it is unlimited. To these two
112 schelling's transcendental idealism.
aspects correspond Theoretical and Practical Phi-
losophy. In the one the limit is ideal, or only for
the self; in the other it is real, or opposed to the
self.
We have now before us two acts of intelligence,
the consciousness of self as pure activity and the
consciousness of not-self as a limit to that activity.
But each of these, as existing in one consciousness,
must be combined in an act which is distinct
from both. And this is a synthetical act, inas-
much as both of the terms, self and not-self, must
be present in it. Here, therefore, we have com-
pleted the trinity of acts presupposed in all con-
sciousness. We are still, however, far from the
complexity of actual knowledge; and hence, tak-
ing this synthetical act as our starting-point, we
must go on to develop from it the whole series
of acts implied in knowledge. We cannot, how-
ever, present the whole infinite series of acts, but
must be contented with setting forth the main
stages in knowledge.
The first part of Transcendental Idealism seeks to
explain, in consistency with the synthetical unity
of self-consciousness, the presupposition of common
consciousness that there are objects outside of us
which we did not make for ourselves. The solu-
tion of this problem cannot be given in the way
PKOBLEM OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. 113
in which dogmatism has attempted it, namely, by
assuming the existence of such things, and sup-
posing them to act externally upon consciousness.
The nature of knowledge precludes any such solu-
tion, since the condition of any knowledge what-
ever is the synthesis of subject and object by an
intelligence that is neither the one nor the other,
but both in one. The opposition, in other words,
of a real world of objects must be a logical oppo-
sition, not an absolute separation. Still that op-
position seems to be absolute, and this appearance
of opposition is that which has to be explained.
We can see generally that the solution must con-
sist in showing how intelligence, while really lim-
iting itself, must at every stage short of the high-
est seem to be limited by something not itself.
We know that the limitation is not absolute but
relative; but so long as the opposition of subject
and object remains — so long, therefore, as we are
at the stage of consciousness or knowledge — a
final synthesis must be impossible. Thus we shall
have to set forth, on the one hand, the object as
it appears to the subject at each stage of knowl-
edge, and, on the other hand, the object as it ap-
pears to us who contemplate it from the vantage-
ground of philosophy. And of course we must
begin with the first and simplest form in which
8
114 schelling's transcendental idealism.
the relation of subject and object presents itself.
The successive "epochs" or stages of knowledge
are (1) from Sensation to Perception, (2) from
Perception to Reflection, (3) from Reflection to
Will.
CHAPTER V.
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY.
TpOLLOWING the method inaugurated by Fichte,
-^ Schelling always begins by " deducing " each
stage of consciousness, that is, by explaining it in
consistency with the principle that ail knowledge
arises from a self-limitation: and only when this
deduction has been completed does he go on to
show that the result is consistent with the actual
facts of consciousness. He begins, for example, at
the i>oint to which we have now come, by show-
ing that the simplest form of consciousness must
be the perception of a limit; and, having done so,
he draws attention to the fact that the immedi-
ate consciousness of a limit is identical with that
stage of knowledge known as sensation. It will,
however, be advisable rather to follow the reverse
method: to begin with the characterization of sen-
sation as it actually exists as a state of conscious-
ness, and then to consider the transcendental ex-
planation of it.
I. The first phase of knowledge is sensation.
What then is sensation? In sensation conscious-
ness seems to be purely passive or receptive ; it
115
116 schelling's transcendental idealism.
simply finds something in itself, which stands op-
posed to it, but which yet is felt. There is no
affirmation that that which is felt is actually inde-
pendent of feeling, but simply that what is felt is
a limit to it. The matter of sensation is some-
thing that immediately presents itself, and must
be apprehended; it is not something which can be
freely constructed. The content of sensation is,
therefore, something alien to consciousness, while
yet it is in consciousness. All sensation is the
immediate consciousness of something as present,
which cannot be made or unmade; but must sim-
ply be accepted. The ticking of the clock, and the
heat of the fire along with its red glow, are im-
mediately present in sensation, and, so long as I
am sensitive, they cannot be made or unmade,
but must be taken as they are. Nor in sensation
is there any opposition of something distinct from
that which is felt, but the sensation and that which
is felt are immediately identical or undistinguished
from one another. Just in so far as I exclude all
reflection and immerse myself in the immediate
object have I sensation. There is no thought of
any object distinct from sensation, conceived as its
cause, but subject and object are immediately identi-
cal. Just as little does sensation involve the concep-
tion of the I as the source of that which is felt.
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 117
The essential characteristics, then, of sensation
are, (1) that it is an immediate consciousness or
feeling, and (2) a consciousness or feeling of ne-
cessity. Now, when we make sensation an object
of philosophical consideration, it is natural that we
should attempt to explain it by the causal action of
a thing-in-itself, or independent reality, upon con-
sciousness. The feeling of necessity which accom-
panies ail sensation, and is essential to the reality
of what is felt, is very naturally confounded with
the existence of an object that exists independently
of consciousness. This is the solution proposed by
the dogmatic materialist. The object as active is
conceived to act upon consciousness as one billiard
ball hits upon another, and so, it is supposed, there
arises the consciousness of something not-self. Now,
even granting that any meaning can be attached
co the idea of an independent matter, the fecit ay
of necessity is not thereby explained. One billiard
ball is set in motion by another, but it has no con-
.sno h smsx of being acted upon. The materialist
overlooks the fact that the feeling of necessity exists
only for consciousness. Sensation is not a mere
limitation, but a consciousness of limitation, and
such consciousness necessarily presupjwses that there
i<, at the very least, a reaction of consciousness
against that which is opposed to it. No affection
118 SCHELLINO'g TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
produced by an independent thing can be conceived
as changing into a state of consciousness. If con-
sciousness were a mode of existence, it might be
correct to say that it is acted upon by something
from without; consciousness, however, is not a mode
of existence, but a mode of knowledge. The materi-
alist who is consistent with himself, must reduce
matter to a mere phantom, and regard mind and
matter as functions of something that is higher
than both.
The true explanation of sensation must therefore
be found within, and not without, consciousness;
and this is equivalent to saying that consciousness
is not absolutely passive in sensation, inasmuch as
passivity implies the independent reality and activity
of something distinct from consciousness. Still it
is a fact that in sensation there is a feeling of neces-
sity or compulsion, and so of limitation or depend-
ence on something unknown. How is this to be
explained consistently with the nature of knowl-
edge, which allows of nothing as real, except that
which exists in consciousness? There can be no
difficulty in seeing what the answer must be, if we
refer back to the analysis already made of self-con-
sciousness. The consciousness of self we have seen
to be a pure activity which, considered in itself, is
absolutely unlimited or infinite. But, on the other
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 119
hand, such a pare activity cannot be known unless
there is opposed to it something limiting it; there is
no consciousness of self apart from the consciousness
of some not-self. Now, this not-self is still in con-
sciousness, and so relative to the self. It must
therefore be, not an actual reality apart from con-
sciousness, but simply an activity acting in opposi-
tion to the pure activity of self-consciousness, and
therefore limiting it Self-consciousness we may
call a centripetal activity; consciousness of not-self
a centrifugal activity. If, therefore, the former
activity is opposed by the latter, the product must
necessarily be the consciousness of a limitation of
the free activity of self-consciousness. Conscious-
ness is prevented from returning upon itself, and
so feels or perceives that it is limited. And this
feeling of limitation is sensation.
It may be asked, how, if sensation is the product
of a relation between two contrary activities, the
consciousness of self and the consciousness of not-
self, it is not accompanied by the consciousness of
self. The answer is that sensation, as the first and
simplest relation of these activities, excludes all
reflection on that relation. In sensation there is
no explicit opposition of subject and object, but an
immediate unity of the two. Certainly the oppo-
sition is implicit, and must appear the moment re-
120 schelling's transcendental idealism.
flection upon sensation begins; but the condition
of such reflection is that there should be some-
thing to reflect upon. Consciousness cannot at
once perceive, and contemplate itself as perceiv-
ing; the first immediate product of the two con-
trary activities must be an undifferentiated unity.
And this explains the fact that in sensation there
is simply an immediate feeling in consciousness
that there is something we-know-not-what which
limits or opposes us. Thus we have explained at
once how there can be in sensation (1) the con-
sciousness of a limit and (2) the consciousness of
a limit. Any other explanation must deny either
the one or the other. Dogmatic idealism explains
the consciousness, but not the limit; for, in as-
suming that sensation is a purely subjective state,
it fails to explain the reality of the limit, and
makes it a mere product of arbitrary imagination.
Dogmatic materialism may account for the limit,
if it is allowed to make the perfectly gratuitous
supposition of an unknowable thing-in-itself, but
it fails to explain how there should be any con-
sciousness of a limit. The solution we have of-
fered accounts both for consciousness and for the
consciousness of a limit. The most stubborn dog-
matist must, therefore, grant that his assumption
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 121
of a subject without an object, or an object with-
out a subject, is rendered superfluous.
Sensation is the first and simplest phase of con-
sciousness. The second phase is that of perception.
In the former there is an implicit opposition of
subject and object; in the latter the opposition
becomes explicit. In perception I have a con-
sciousness, not simply of a limit, but of something
which is a limit to me. I not only feel, but know
that I feel. Perception is the act by which the
subject apprehends an object, conceived as standing
in opposition to it and limited by it. This object
is viewed as completely independent of its own
perceptive activity, and as existing apart from
that activity. At the same time the object is not
something which is regarded as the mere effect
of an object, but as an actual object of percep-
tion; while standing in opposition to the subject
it yet is in relation to it. Now, therefore, for
the first time there arises for consciousness a real
world. More exactly characterized, this real world
is a material world; it is active in itself, and
manifests itself as possessed of the attribute of
gravity. And as the object is in perception
viewed as altogether independent of the activity
of perception, matter is viewed as a real object
or thing-in-itself, not as something dependent for
122 sciielling's transcendental idealism.
its constitution upon the subject apprehending it.
It need hardly be said that the dogmatic ex-
planation of perception, which regards subject and
object as two independent things only externally
related to one another, is as inadmissible here as
in the case of sensation. For perception is not
the purely subjective apprehension of an inde-
pendent object, but the actual apprehension of an
object existing in relation to consciousness. The
opposition of subject and object is one within and
not without consciousness, and therefore it im-
plies the active relation of an object to a subject
No doubt the object is regarded as constituted
independently of perception, but on the other
hand it is assumed to be known in perception,
and therefore to exist for consciousness. A true
theory of perception must therefore explain how
the object conies to appear as independent of the
subject, while yet it exists only in our conscious-
ness of it.
Let us get a clear conception of the problem to be
explained. Sensation, or the immediate conscious-
ness of a limit, was explained as the result of a
limitation of the pure activity of self-consciousness
by the contrary activity of consciousness. In this
first act of intelligence the opposition of the Iwo
activities did not present itself in consciousness, but
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 123
only their product. At the same time these activi-
ties are actually implied in sensation, and may be
made explicit by reflection upon sensation. Sensa-
tion contains in a kind of implicit unity the opposi-
tion of subject and object. Hence the contemplation
of sensation must reveal this opposition, or bring it
into clear consciousness. Let us see how this takes
place. Sensation can only be made an object of
contemplation in an act distinct from that of sensa-
tion itself. Now sensation is the feeling of neces-
sity or limitation, and hence in the contemplation of
it, the self must apprehend it in this new act and
make it its own. In the act of contemplation here
referred to the self must transcend the limits of
mere sensation, or there would be no new act at all.
In other words, the self as ideal must contemplate
the real self as limited. Thus there is now in con-
sciousness, not as before simply a single activity,
but two distinct activities — a subjective and an
objective — in explicit relation to one another. The
difficulty here is to explain how the subjective
activity can know the limit without destroying the
objective activity. The explanation is, that while in
its ideal activity the self is independent of the limit,
it is limited in relation to the real activity ; in other
words, the contemplation of the real activity is not
a negation of it, but a limitation of the self which
124 schelling's transcendental idealism.
so contemplates it. Now this can only take place in
so far as there is a third activity which relates the
other two activities to one another, and so relates
them that in so far as the one is active the other is
passive and vice versa. This activity uniting the
other two is one which floats between both.
We have explained how it comes that in percep-
tion there is an opposition of subject and object, but
we have yet to explain how it is that the object is
supposed to be independent of the subject. The
explanation is of the same nature as that which
accounted for the absence of the consciousness of its
own activity by the self in sensation. In the con-
sciousness of the real self as limited, there is the
consciousness of something beyond the limit, and in
becoming conscious of the ideal self as limited there
is the consciousness of the self as independent of
the limit; but there can be no consciousness of the
relation of that self and the object without a new
activity, and hence they are only brought into rela-
tion at a subsequent stage in the development of
self-consciousness. The thing-in-itself is therefore
just the shadow of the ideal activity which has gone
beyond the limit, a shadow thrown back ujhhi the
self by contemplation.
From the two factors now obtained we can
explain the nature of that which presents itself as
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 125
an object in productive perception. On the one
hand we have the ideal activity going beyond the
limit, and on the other hand the objective or real
activity restrained by the limit. Both of these
must be comprehended by intelligence, for otherwise
they would have no reality for knowledge. And
each activity is relative to the other, while yet each
is infinite. But intelligence cannot comprehend
both without giving rise to a product which com-
bines them in a unity. In this unity, therefore,
there must be the implicit distinction of two con-
trary activities, each of which is infinite in itself
but yet is limited by the other, the product being
something finite. Now these contrary activities of
the object of intelligence are just what we mean by
the forces of matter, and their synthej>i> constituies
the essential nature of matter, i.e., gravity.
II. In the first stage of consciousness we have
advanced beyond sensation, as the mere conscious-
ness of a limit, to perception as the consciousness of
a real object standing in opposition to the subject.
We have now to distinguish the various phases of
perception, or, in other words, to show how nature as
an object of knowledge becomes divided for intelli-
gence into an inner and an outer world. The ques-
tion here is how intelligence separates itself from
the object which it perceives, and turns back upon
126 schellixg's transcendental idealism.
itself : how, in other words, it not only perceives but
knows itself as perceiving.
In this section Schelling seeks to show, in accord-
ance with the general principle of Transcendental
Philosophy, that the world of nature as an object
standing in contrast to the knowing subject, is
really only a product of intelligence itself, and that
perception must therefore be regarded as a process
of intelligence, not as a dead product existing apart
from intelligence. Accordingly he endeavors, in
imitation of Fichte, to connect together, in the
closest way, space- and time and the categories,
which Kant had separated. It further seems to
him that the categories are all reducible to those
classed by Kant under the head of Relation, and the
hint which Kant threw out, of a close connexion
between each group of categories, Schelling follows
up, and so is led to develop the view, that substance
and cause are simply lower forms of the category
of reciprocity.
Evidently there can be no consciousness of the
st* if as perceiving a real world unless to the subject
as perceiving there is explicitly opposed the object
perceived. The former must be distinguished from
the latter as inner from outer. And these two
perceptions — the perception of the self as perceiv-
ing, and of the object as perceived — arc mutually
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 127
determined in relation to one another; there can
be no perception of the self as inner unless there
is a perception of the object as outer. In the
contemplation of inner and outer sense there is
necessarily a comprehension of both, and therefore
the distinction between inner and outer — subject
perceiving and object perceived — is quite contin-
gent as respects the self which thus contemplates
both. While therefore the self, as perceiving a
real object, is limited to the perception of that
object, and cannot at the same time comprehend
itself as perceiving, the self, as that which knows
at once itself and the object, is a free activity.
Thus there is an immediate consciousness of the \
self as distinct from and contrasted with an outer ^
object. In this feeling of self there is therefore a
consciousness of the self as the subject of an im-
mediate feeling. How then does the self become
an object of immediate consciousness or feeling?
Only in so far as it perceives itself to be in Time,
In opposing to itself an object there arises the \
immediate consciousness of self, that is, the con- )
sciousness of self as, so to speak, concentrated in a
point, and therefore as incapable of being extended
except in one direction. In the consciousness of
myself as feeling I appear to myself as pure in-
tensity, and pure intensity is only in time, not in
128 schellixg's transcendental idealism.
space. Time is thus simply the general activity
by which intelligence relates its changing states to
one another; it is the immediate consciousness by
the self of its own independent activity. But the
consciousness of self as relating its own states in
succession is not possible apart from the conscious-
ness of something which, in contrast to the self,
is out of itself or in Sjxice. Thus arises the con-
trast of inner and outer perception, which together
form the object of the intelligence as perceptive.
In the discrimination of the subject as in time and
the object as in space an advance has . therefore
been made beyond the undifferentiated unity of
inner and outer sense which first presented itself.
The object can only appear as pure extension when
the consciousness of self as pure intension has
arisen; each therefore has to be combined in a
consciousness that includes both. Time and space
are thus necessarily correlative, and each can only be
measured by the other. To determine the quantity
of time we refer to the space passed over by a body
moving uniformly; to determine the quantity of
space, we refer to the time which a body moving
uniformly takes to pass over it.
The sensible object, therefore, is knowable not
as pure extension but as extension which is rela-
tive to intension, that is, as Force. To determine
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 129
the intensity of a force we have to measure the
space to which it can extend without becoming
zero. Conversely this space is determined by the
intensity of the force for the inner sense. Henee
that which is known as merely in time appears
not as necessary but as contingent, since it ex-
ists only ideally or for the inner sense; while that
which has a quantity in space appears as neces-
sary or substantial. As, however, there is no
outer sense except in relation to inner sense — no
extension apart from intension — substance and ac-
cident are essentially correlative. Here, then, we
have the origin of the perceptions of Substance
and Accident. That which is viewed as only in
space is substance; that which is perceived as only
in time is accident. Space and time, then, are not
empty frames into which objects apprehended inde-
pendently by perception are put, nor is substance a
notion, which first exists in the mind ready-made,
and is brought into play upon occasion of percep-
tion; both are modes of activity by which intelli-
gence constitutes the world of nature. Accordingly,
Schelling goes on to show that substance leads neces-
sarily to causality and both to reciprocity.
It has been maintained by the Kantian* that
objectivity or substantiality belongs to things in
themselves, while their successive states as only in
130 schelling's transcendental idealism.
time are supplied by the knowing subject It is
easy to show that such a view does not explain
the origin of perceived objects at all. There is
no such contrast of the subjective sequences of
mental states and the objective sequence of real
events. An objective sequence is simply one which,
as not due to the free activity of the individual,
does not seem to be produced, but to be externally
apprehended. But in truth the occurrence of the
succession and the perception of the occurrence are
the same object contemplated from different points
of view. Let us suppose for a moment that per-
ception consists in a mere succession of mental
states. Now substance is that which, as fixed or
indifferent to time, can neither come into exist-
ence nor go out of existence. The accidents of any
objects B and C, may arise or disappear, but not the
objects themselves. If, therefore, C is causally deter-
mined by B, it can only be the accidental in C that
is determined by B, not C itself. In order that
intelligence may recognize the accident B as the
ground of the accident C, B and C must be opposed
in one and the same act, and at the same time re-
lated to each other. That there is an opin>sition
between them is evident, for in a mere succession
B must be driven out of consciousness by C, and
go away into the past moment. But how they can
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 131
be related to one another is not comprehensible so
long as the self is regarded simply as a succession
of simple representations, each of which drives out
the other. Now it has been shown that only ac-
cidents can come into being or go out of being,
not substances. What, then, is substance? It is
only conceivable as fixed time. But time is not
fixed, but fleeting — fleeting of course not in itself
but for the self, — and therefore substances cannot
\>e fixed, since the self is not itself fixed, but from
the present point of view is simply this succession
itself. The supposition, therefore, that the self as
active is merely a succession of representations is
a pure hypothesis, which reflection shows to be in-
admissible. Substance, however, must be regarded
as permanent, if there is to be any opposition be-
tween C and 13. Now the succession cannot be
fixed, unless opposite directions enter into it. Mere
succession has only one direction. This one direc-
tion, taken in abstraction from the succes>ion of
feelings, is just time, which looked at externally
has only one direction. Opposite directions can
therefore only come into the succession, provided
that the self, whilst it is driven from H to 0. is
again driven back at the same time to H: for in
that case the opposite directions will negate each
other, the succession will be fixed, and conse-
132 schilling's transcendental idealism.
quently also the substances. Now, undoubtedly,
the self can be driven back from C to B, only in
the same way in which it has been driven from
13 to C. That is to say, just as B contained the
ground of a determination in C, C must again con-
tain the ground of a determination in B. This
determination in B cannot have been before C was,
for the accidental of C is to contain the ground
of that determination, and C arises for the self as
this determinate object only in the present mo-
ment, and hence also that determination in B,
whose ground C is to contain, first arises at this
stage. B and C must determine each other.
It has been shown that any two objects are deter-
mined as substances only by being known as mutu-
ally determined in one indivisible moment. But
intelligence is a perpetual process or continual pro-
duction of new objects. Can it. then, be shown that
the same principle is universally true, and that all
the substances in the world are in reciprocal causa-
tion? The mutual action of two substances implies
their co-existence, and it need not be said that such
co-existence exists only for intelligence. In the per-
ception of substance space presents itself merely as
extension or a side-by -side of exclusive parts: only
in the perception of reciprocity does it appear in the
form of eo-existecce, or a side- by-side of objects ex-
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 133
eluding one other. Space is therefore simply the
reproduction, in an act of intelligence distinct from
the actual knowledge of co-existing objects, of the
mere form of co-existence. Primarily, space has no
direction, and hence it is the possibility of all direc-
tions; in the relation of causality there is only one
direction; in the category of reciprocity all direc-
tions alike are possible. Now substance and cause
are only ideally distinguishable: actual knowledge is
possible only as a synthesis of two substances in
mutual action, which again are relative to others,
and hence there can be no knowledge of objects not
in reciprocal action: or in other words. Nature is a
synthesis of objects, all of which determine each
other.
We have so far assumed that in intelligence is to
be found the ground of the continuous production of
objects. This has now to be proved. Originally
the self implies an opposition of two diverge tenden-
cies. Hut as the nature of the <elf is pure and
absolute identity, it must continually strive to re-
turn to identity, while yet it can never completely
do so. because of it> original duality. The condition
of continuous production, i.e.. the presentation of an
object as op)>osed to the subject, is the |M?rpetual
re-estahli>hment of the original conflict of opposite
activities. Intelligence is intelligence only so long
134 schelmnu's transcendental idealism.
as the conflict continues. The opposition, to borrow
a phrase of Mr. Spencer, is one " never to be tran-
scended while consciousness lasts." Evidently, there-
fore, it cannot come to an end with the production
of any individual object; in other words, each indi-
vidual object as such is but an apparent product of
the infinite activity of intelligence. And here a diffi-
culty arises. All empirical consciousness begins with
an object immediately present, and in its first con-
sciousness intelligence sees itself seemingly involved
jn a determinate succession of representations from
which it cannot get free. On the other hand,
individual objects are only possible as part of a sin-
gle universe, and because of the causal relation
of events the succession already presupposes not
merely a multiplicity of substances, but a reciprocal
action or dynamical co-existence of all substances.
The difficulty, then, is this: Intelligence, as con-
scious of the succession, can take hold of it only at
one point, and hence, to be conscious of succession at
all. it must presuppose as independent of itself a
totality of substances and a reciprocity of action
between them. There is no nature apart from
intelligence, yet nature is apparently independent o\'
intelligence, and the necessary presupposition of any
consciousness of the* parts of nature as revealed
piecemeal. There is no way of solving this contra-
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 135
diction but by distinguishing between absolute and
finite intelligence. There must be a universe — a
system of substances all mutually related — if the
self is originally limited at all. Because of this
primary limitation — or, what is the same thing,
the original conflict of self-consciousness — the uni-
verse as a whole originates for the self, not gradually,
but by one absolute synthesis. The idea of Nature
as a whole, as Kant said, must precede the knowledge
of its parts. But this does not explain the limitation
of self-consciousness for me as a finite individual.
This particular or second limitation must appear as
occurring at a determinate moment of time. All
that is posited in this second limitation is already
posited in the first limitation, but with this differ-
ence, that in the first all is posited at once or as a
whole, while in the second it takes the form of a
successive synthesis of parts. The absolute synthe-
sis cannot be said to be limited by time, for time is
impossible apart from it. while in the empirical con-
sciousness the whole is produced only by the grad-
ual synthesis of the parts, hence by successive repre-
sentations. Now, in so far as intelligence is free
from the limitation of time, it is just that absolute
synthesis ifeelf, and as such it neither begins to pro-
duce nor ceases to produce: in so far as it is limited,
it can only appear as entering the series at a defi-
136 schelling's t&anscendbntal idealism.
nite point Not indeed as if the infinite intelli-
gence were absolutely separate from the finite; for
if we abstract from the particular limitation of the
finite intelligence, we at once obtain the absolute
intelligence, just as when we add on the limitation
thus abstracted from absolute intelligence the latter
becomes specialized as finite intelligence. It must
not be supposed, however, that the absolute synthesis
and the special or empirical synthesis are two inde-
pendent acts; on the contrary, in one and the same
primary act there arises for intelligence at once the
universe as a whole and the specification of it in the
series of particular objects. It is easy to see why
intelligence, in the point at which its consciousness
begins, must appear as determined entirely without
its own cooperation; for, just because at that point
consciousness, and with it freedom, arises, that which
lies beyond that point must appear as completely
independent of freedom.
What has just been said throws fresh light on
the nature of the problem of philosophy. Each
individual may consider luuwlf as the object of
these investigations. But. to explain himself, he
must first negate all individuality within himself,
for this is just what has to be explained. When
all limits of individuality are taken away, there
remains absolute intelligence. When all limits of
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 137
intelligence are negated, there remains simply the
absolute I as the unity of subject and object.
When we take away from the I all individuality,
and even the limits on account of which only it
is an intelligence, we yet cannot negate the funda-
mental character of the I, which makes it at once
subject and object. Hence the I in itself, and in
its very nature as its own object, is primarily
limited in its activity. From this first or primary
limitation of its activity arises immediately for
the I the absolute synthesis of the infinite conflict
which is the ground of that limitation. If now
intelligence should remain at one with the absolute
synthesis, there would indeed be a universe, but
no intelligence. Hence intelligence must come
out of that synthesis, and consciously reproduce it;
and this is impossible unless there comes into that
first limitation a particular or second limitation,
which cannot consist in intelligence being identical
with the universe as a whole, but in its perception
of the universe from a particular point of view.
The difficulty of explaining how everything is de-
pendent on the original act of intelligence, while
yet intelligence can take hold only of a determin-
ate succession, is resolved through the distinction
of absolute and finite intelligence. The empirical
succession is merely the evolution in time ui an
138 sciiklling's TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAUSlt.
absolute synthesis, in which all that happens, or
will happen, is wrapt op; and the reason why the
succession must appear as independent is simply
that the individual cannot produce it beforehand,
but must wait for its fulfilment
The determination of the universe as an infinity
of objects, all of which are in reciprocal action, is
virtually the conception of the world as an organic
unity. But this universal organism must be still
further specified, since the knowledge of the objec-
tive world as given in perception includes the recog-
nition of a particular part of it as the immediate
organ of its activity. Organization in general is
succession checked and, as it were, petrified. The
mechanical conception of the universe regards every
part as tending away out of every other to infinity,
or. subjectively, as a mere empirical series. An
organism is that which has its centre within itself,
or which forms a series that returns upon itself:
and thus only can intelligence represent to itself
organic as distinguished from inorganic beings. In
the widest sense of the term all organized existence
has an inner principle of movement, and is there-
fore living. The various stages of organization
are but phases in the ideal evolution of the universe,
.lust as intelligence is perpetually striving to repre-
sent the absolute synthesis, so organic nature pre-
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 139
sents itself as a perpetual struggle with inorganic
nature. It is only, however, in the highest organ-
ism that intelligence recognizes itself. Hence in-
telligence is not only organic, but it stands at the
apex of organization. As we have before seen that
intelligence could not determine the world as sub-
stance and accident without contemplating it as
cause and effect, nor the latter without going on
to determine it as a system of substances mutually
acting on each other, so we now see that even the
category of reciprocity must give place to the idea
of organization which, thought universally, leads
to the notion of nature as a universal organism,
in relation to which all individual organisms are
accidents.
1 1 T. AVe have now reached one of the most im-
portant sections in the whole of the Transceml-
ental Idealism — that in which Schelling endeavors
to give a final explanation of the peculiar prob-
lem of philosophy, so far as that can be done from
the point of view of knowledge. In the consider-
ation of It*- ft ret ion. the last stage of Theoretical
Philosophy, the distinction of Transcendental Ideal-
ism from the doctrine contained in Kant's Ana-
lytic is most clearly seen. Here it is that Schel-
ling. turning to good account the hints of Fichte.
tries to free the critical theory of knowledge from
140 schelling's transcendental idealism.
that appearance of dogmatism which arose mainly
from the way in which Kant, from historical
causes, was led to present his theory; to connect
the objects of perception, the schemata and the
categories, in a more intimate way; to show the
true dependence of the four groups of categories
contained in Kant's table, and the relation of the
special categories of each group to one another;
and, finally, to show the origin of that irrational
assumption of the independence of nature on intel-
ligence which is the characteristic mark of dog-
matist). This part of Schelling's work, unsatisfac-
tory as in some respects it is, undoubtedly proved
rich in suggestion to Hegel, when he came to
develop his complete system of all the categories
in the true order of their dependence, and to
transform the doctrine of Kant into a self-consist-
ent system of Absolute Idealism.
In his characterization of perception, as the sec-
ond stage of knowledge. Schelling has shown that
what we have before us in our ordinary experi-
ence is a system of objects in space and time, act-
ing and reacting on each other, and containing
among them organized beings. But while it is
evident enough to an idealist philosophy that the
world of nature is simply the other side of intel-
ligence, this insight is impossible to one who is
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 141
still at the stage of perception. It is impossible,
because, while inner and outer sense have become
for him an object which he knows, no separation
of intelligence as active from nature as something
distinct from that activity has yet been made.
That this opposition is, as a matter of fact, actu-
ally made by intelligence at a certain stage in its
progress, the existence of dogmatic systems of phi-
losophy is there to testify. It is, then, with this
seeming dualism of intelligence and nature that
we are here especially concerned. The necessary
progress of knowledge has brought us to the point
where that dualism can be accounted for, and par-
tially at least exploded.
How does it come that intelligence and nature,
thought and reality, subject and object, seem to be
mutually opposed? The first condition evidently is
that intelligence should be able to free itself from
its immersion in nature as an object, and to contem-
plate itself as active in knowing. To this power of
separating one's self from the objective world, we
may apply the common term abstraction. Now, in
considering the nature of j>erception we found that
it implies a universal and a particular element; or,
in other words, the belief in nature as a complete
whole, and the limitation to specific objects of
nature. Corresponding to this distinction we find.
142 ftTHKLLIXG's TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
as we should naturally expect, that abstraction is
either partial or complete, empirical or transcenden-
tal. And as the universal element in perception is
implicit rather than explicit, while the particular
element alone comes to the foreground, the elevation
of intelligence to the stage of reflection naturally
begins with a recognition of the relatively independ-
ent activity of intelligence in its consciousness of
particular or specific objects. Empirical abstraction
therefore consists in a separation in consciousness
from the special objects presenting themselves in
perception, and a concentration upon the activity
of thought in knowing those objects. Thus dualism
is introduced into consciousness. The immediate
identity of the act of knowledge with the object
known is destroyed, and the act is contrasted with
its object. The result of abstraction is therefore
the origination in consciousness of a perception of
the activity of thought, i.e.. conception. It is evident
that there is no propriety in asking how conceptions
harmonize with objects, if by this is meant: How
do conceptions which are completely independent of
objects come to agree with them? This way of stat-
ing the problem assumes that conceptions originate
independently of objects, whereas a "conception has
no existence except as an art of abstraction from
actual objects. There must, then, be a special act in
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 143
which conceptions and perceived objects, originally
united, are first opposed to one another, and then
combined. This is the act significantly called judg-
ment (ur-theil). And as judgment, in specifying
itself in particular judgments, must take plate ac-
cording to a rule, this rule must be capable of being
made an object of reflection. To the rule itself
Schelling gives the name employed by Kant, of a
schema. The schema differs from the image in being
a rule in accordance with which a determinate
object may be produced, whereas the image only
differs from the concrete object in not being limited
to a definite part of space.
By empirical reflection the activity of thought in
subsuming a perception under a rule is made an
object of consciousness, but complete liberation from
perception is not thereby attained. The abstraction
is essentially relative to the perception of particular
objects, and hence, while the activity of thought is
raised into consciousness and distinguished from
perception, there is still a reference to perception in
the application of the schema in judgment to a par-
ticular object. But the same power which enables
intelligence to abstract from individual perceptions
enables it to abstract from all objects, and to con-
centrate attention upon the universal modes of
activity by which objects are made possible at all.
144 bchelling's transcendental idealism.
This supreme abstraction may be called transcenden-
tal abstraction, the object of which is the pare con-
ceptions or categories that constitute the fundamental
modes of activity of intelligence as reflective. And
just as the empirical conceptions and perceived
objects are mediated by the empirical schema, so the
category is related to the world in general through
the transcendental schema.
In considering the nature of transcendental ab-
straction, Schelling's main aim is to avoid that
absolute separation of thought and reality, con-
ception and perception, which gives color to the
dualism upon which dogmatism is built. Hence
he seeks to show that the opposition of intelligence
and nature arises from the failure to apprehend
the abstracting or separative character of reflec-
tion. That " perceptions without conceptions are
blind, and conceptions without perceptions are
empty," he explains from the fact that perception is
already the indissoluble unity of thought and its
object. For (1) perception regarded as indepen-
dent of conception is the mere form of objectivity,
not objectivity itself; it is simply the purely in-
definite act by which possible objects may be
related to each other as out of each other or in
space. But the objective world is something quite
different from mere outness ; it is a congeries
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 145
of substances, all of which are in mutual action
and reaction. The determination of the objective
world thus involves those definite ways in which
thought relates objects to each other; it implies, in
short, as has been shown in considering the sec-
ond stage of knowledge, the categories of relation.
(2) Conceptions isolated from perceptions are, on
the other hand, the mere abstraction of activity in
general. When abstraction is made from the em-
pirical schemata — the modes in which intelligence
relates individual objects to one another — there
arises, on the one side, conceptionless perception, or
the mere form of space, and, on the other side, per-
ceptionless conception, or the mere form of relation.
Hence the categories come to be regarded, as they
are regarded in formal logic, merely as formal or
abstract modes of relation. From the point of
view of pure reflection or analysis, the categories
are necessarily viewed as formal determinations,
and hence the attempt of Kant to derive them
from the functions of judgment in formal logic.
Now, not to mention that these functions of judg-
ment must themselves be derived from transcenden-
tal philosophy, it is evident that, when separated
from the schematism of perception, they are no
longer conceptions making real objects possible for
knowledge, but mere abstract forms of thought.
10
146 schellixg's transcendental idealism.
Accordingly dogmatic philosophy has never been
able to explain how it conies that conceptions har-
monize with objects. When the two are absolutely
separated, the only modes of explanation possible
are to say, either that conceptions and objects are
related as cause and effect, or that conceptions agree
with objects because of a pre-established harmony
between them. If we adopt the first view, we must
suppose that objects produce conceptions, in which
case conceptions can have no claim to universality
and necessity; or that they are the formative cause
of objects, in which case we are driven to a conclu-
sion which is inconsistent with the facts, namely,
that objects are formless matter. These difficulties
all arise from not attending carefully to the way in
which the distinction of conception and object origi-
nates. Prior to the act of abstraction there is no
such distinction: perception and its object consti-
tute one indivisible act. The question as to the
harmony of conception and perception is thus
solved, the moment we see that the separation is
due to an act of abstraction. Reflection concentrates
itself upon the act by which an object of perception
arises, and hence comes to oppose the conception to
the object. But the opposition is merely relative or
logical, not real. And as the object thus contrasted
with the act is, as has been shown above, a necessary
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY, 147
product of intelligence, so also must be the act
which is inseparably bound up with it
It is then at the stage of reflection that the dis-
tinction of the unconscious and conscious production
of intelligence is clearly seen. As conceptions are
necessary acts of intelligence, they may be said to be
u priori; as they are conscious acts, they seem to be
obtained by abstraction from objects given inde-
pendently of intelligence and may be termed a pos-
teriori. The distinction is a purely relative one.
For philosophy all reality is a priori, in the sense of
being a manifestation of the activity of intelligence;
from the point of view of reflection all knowledge,
as the product of the unconscious activity of intelli-
gence, is a posteriori i or empirical. To draw a broad
line of demarcation between conceptions and percep-
tions' is utterly indefensible; the distinction exi>ts
only for the individual who has not gone beyond the
stage of reflect ion, and is forever done away in a
philosophy which derives knowledge from the origi-
nal duality of self-consciousness. Schelling claims \
that this view of reflection exhibits the true nature
of the categories shown by Kant to be implied in
experience. Their mechanism cannot be derived, as
even Kant holds, from the purely formal functions
of judgment. That mechanism can be explained
onlv from the relation of the categories to inner
148 SCHELLINO'8 TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
and outer sense. It is pointed out by Kant as a
striking peculiarity of the dynamical categories —
comprehending substance, cause and reciprocity as
the modes of relation, and possibility, actuality and
necessity, the forms of modality — that each has a
correlate; while, on the other hand, the mathemati-
cal categories of quantity and quality have no such
correlates. But this is at once explained when we
see that in the dynamical categories inner and outer
sense are as yet unseparated, while quality and
quantity, the mathematical categories, are connected
respectively with the inner .sense and the outer
sense. Substance and accident, for example, is that
mode of activity by which intelligence determines
an object in space whose accidents are in time,
although this distinction is not drawn by intelli-
gence at the stage of perception. Quality again is
the intensity of a feeling viewed as in time alone,
and quantity the extension of an object viewed as
only in space. Again, the fact that in each class
there are three categories, of which the two first are
opposed to one another, while the third is the syn-
thesis of the other two, proves that the mechanism
of the categories rests upon a higher opposition.
And as this higher opposition does not present itself
at the stand-point of reflection or analysis — since
analysis cannot go beyond the mere form of re la-
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 149
tion — there must be an opposition which belongs to
a higher sphere, or is the condition of the logical
opposition. Moreover, this opposition runs through
all the categories, and hence there must without
doubt be only one fundamental category. This cate-
gory we should expect to be that of relation, since
this is the only one which we can derive from the
original mechanism of perception. And this can
actually be proved, Apart from reflection the
objective world is not determined by the mathemati-
cal categories. No object, for example, is a unity in
itself, but only in relation to a single subject, which
at once perceives and reflects on its perception. On
the other hand, apart from any explicit reflection on
the activity of thought, the objective world, to be
known at all. must be determined in the way of
snbstance and accident. Hence the mathematical
categories are dependent hpou or presuppose the
dynamical categories. The former can only repre-
sent as separate that which by the latter is repre-
sented as united, since they belong to the inner and
outer sense as such, and therefore only originate at
the stage of reflection. The same conclusion may
be reached even more simply if we consider that, in
the original mechanism of perception, the third of
each of the two groups of mathematical categories
always presupposes the category of reciprocity.
150 schelling's transcendental idealism.
The third category of quantity, that of totality, is
not thinkable apart from the reciprocal activity of
objects on one another, nor does the third category
of quality, that of limitation, apply to an individual
object, but only to two or more objects standing to
each other in the relation of reciprocity. The fun-
damental categories are therefore the categories of
relation. Those of modality only come into opera-
tion at the stage of reflection. Possibility, actuality
and necessity express merely a relation of the object
to the complete faculty of knowledge (inner and
outer sense) so that they do not determine the
objective world in any new way. Just as the cate-
gories of relation are the highest in actual percep-
tion, so the categories of modality are the highest in
relation to knowledge as a whole. Whence it is
evident that they do not present themselves origi-
nally in perception. '
By following knowledge through all its phases we
have come back to the opposition of intelligence
and nature, subject and object, from which theoreti-
cal philosophy begins. By means of transcendental
abstraction the individual is capable of raising
himself above all objects of perception, and contem-
plating himself as purely active in relation to
knowledge. Still the world remains for him some-
thing which seems to be independent of intelligence,
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 151
and must so remain until for the individual, as for
philosophy, it is seen to be the product of intel-
ligence itself. This insight cannot, however, be
gained in a new act of knowledge, since the process
of knowledge is now complete; hence, starting
from the free activity of intelligence, we must see
how the ultimate problem of philosophy — the abso-
lute identity of subject and object — fares when
considered from the point of view of Practical Phi-
losophy.
CHAPTER VI.
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY.
TN the theoretical part of his system, Schelling
"^ has shown, by a consideration of the various
Ideal phases through which knowledge may be said
;o pass, that an ultimate explanation of intelligence,
ind therefore even of knowledge, must be sought in
. zhe nature of Will. Intelligence, regarded as
merely theoretical, never goes beyond the conception
of reality as something more or less alien to itself.
It cannot indeed be said that in knowledge we
regard ourselves as passively apprehending a world
:t objects, existing apart by themselves and acting
vQ our intelligence in a purely external or mechani-
cal way. Such a view is the distorted explanation
which is put forward by the dogmatist to explain
knowledge. Not to speak of those objections that
aave already been made against this uncritical and
unthinkable hypothesis, it utterly fails to account
for the fact of intelligence as active or willing and
as displaying its activity in a world of real objects,
▼hich passively submit to be moulded by it. It is
10 explanation of the consciousness of self as de-
^rmining itself, or at least as apparently determin-
19*
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 153
ing itself, to say that by abstracting from this and
that object we become conscious of our own prac-
tical activity, for it is just this power of abstraction
which demands explanation. The perception of self-
activity is therefore inexplicable, so long as we re-
main at the point of view of knowledge. We can
only explain the knowledge of our own mental
activity as it exists for the reflective consciousness
by supposing an absolute power of self-determina-
tion which is utterly independent of any act of
mere knowing. Even at the highest stage of knowl-
edge we do not become conscious of the activity
of intelligence as such. All knowledge implies the
direction of intelligence outward upon objects, and
hence there can be for knowledge no perception
of intelligence as self-determining or practically
active. The self is not one of the possible objects
of knowledge: it is not simply a part of nature,
but a pure self-activity which is the condition of
the knowledge of nature. It is thus evident that
to explain intelligence as knowing we must go
beyond it to intelligence as willing.
Our investigation into the nature of knowledge
has prepared us for this conclusion. As the original
condition of knowledge we found that we had to
assume a primary act of self-limitation by which
the knowledge of objects was made possible at all.
154 sciielling's transcendental idealism.
The fundamental proposition of idealism is that
nothing can exist for intelligence which is not its
own product. There can be as object of intelli-
gence nothing that is not in relation to intelligence,
aud intelligence can be acted upon by nothing but
itself. To effect the transition from the sphere
of knowledge to that of practical activity, we have
again found ourselves compelled to suppose that
intelligence is free or self-determined. It must
not be supposed, however, that we have been mov-
ing round in a circle without making any progress.
The primary act qf self-consciousness or self-limi-
tation is a hypothesis which the idealist philosopher
is compelled to assume, in order to explain the
fact of knowledge; the absolute act of abstraction,
by which a perception of intelligence as will is
obtained, is one that can be shown to be possible
for intelligence itself. Hence there is a contrast
between the original act of self-consciousness and
the act of self-determination which is now under
consideration. Both are indeed acts of self-de-
termination, or the absolute origination of an
activity which, as dependent upon nothing foreign,
is perfectly free. There are, however, two points
in which the original act by which intelligence in
limiting itself places an objective world in oppo-
sition to itself, and the act by which it raises itself
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 155
above all objects, outer and inner, differ. In the
first place, the original act of limitation does not
enter into the consciousness of the individual as
knowing, while the act of abstraction, by which
intelligence contemplates itself, is not only an ac-
tivity, but is recognized by the individual as such.
Secondly, the first act, as not entering into explicit
consciousness, is independent of time, whereas the
second act occurs at a definite point in the evolu-
tion of self-consciousness, and is therefore in time.
* But, notwithstanding these points of contrast, self-
determination or will manifestly lies at the basis
of all objectivity, whether conscious or unconscious?
and hence jvvill is in a peculiar sense of the very
essence of intelligence. There could be no knowl-
edge at all did not intelligence determine itself to
activity, and heuce will is the condition of knowl- .
edge. The activity by which a world of objects
is perceived, and the activity by which intelligence
consciously determines itself to action, are at bot-
tom identical. /
So much is plain, but a difficulty arises when
we go on to enquire into the nature of that con-
scious self-determination which is of the essence
of practical intelligence. In our explanation of
the nature of knowledge it was sufficient to point
out that there can be no object in relation to in-
156 SCHELLINu's TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
telligence that is not actively produced by it.
Thus we have determined the conditions of intelli-
gence in general. But with the transition to the
practical part of philosophy, a new difficulty arises.
The innermost nature of intelligence is will, but
will cannot be explained apart from its relation to
specific objects. ^The absolute act of abstraction
by which intelligence rises above all objects of
knowledge is the condition of the explicit distinc-
tion of intelligence and nature; in other words it,
and it alone, explains how there can be any oppo-
sition for intelligence of the active and the
knowing self./ This act as taking place in time
demands explanation, while on the other haud as
the supreme condition of all reality, outer and
inner, it apparently admits of no explanation. To
put the matter in a form that will probably t>e
more easily intelligible: in willing I contrast my-
self as purely self-determined with myself as ac-
tively knowing objects, and, thus contemplating
myself as raised above all particular perceptions,
I set before myself an object as an ideal which 1
am freely to realise. But if all reality is produced
by intelligence, how does it come that in willing
1 am determined to a certain specific object? How
is the apparent limitation of my will to be ac-
counted for? Just as in sensation, the first stage
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 157
of knowledge, intelligence found itself limited, so
here the beginning of will seems to imply that
intelligence finds itself determined in relation to
certain definite objects which it seeks to realize.
In answering this question, Schelling, in substan-
tial agreement with Fichte, finds the explanation, at
once of the fact that there are a number of finite
intelligences, and that for each of these there is a
world which is not only external, in the sense of
being in space, but also as being independent of
each finite intelligence as such, in the peculiar char-
acter of will as determining intelligence to individ-
uality. For mere knowledge there can be no con-
sciousness either of a world of finite intelligences
or of a world of objects independent of any one
of these intelligences. There can be no such con-
sciousness, because, prior to explicit self-conscious-
ness, intelligence has made no separation between
itself and objects, but contemplates its own laws in
the world that immediately presents itself, as in a
mirror. Will, however, as the determination of in-
telligence in a specific way — in other words, as the
consciousness by the individual of his own free
activity — explicitly brings up the problem: how do
I become conscious of my own self-activity as
limited or determined? The solution of this prob-
lem is briefly as follows. The dogmatist of course
158 SC'IIBLLINO'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
assumes that we first have a knowledge of other
finite intelligences besides our own, and that the
limitation of the will of each is explained by their
mutual action and reaction. Inherited disposition,
education and the force of circumstances make the
individual what he is, and explain why he acts as he
does. Such an explanation the idealist cannot possi-
bly accept. Assuming the existence of independent
intelligences, which is the very thing to be ex-
plained, dogmatism virtually denies all will or indi-
viduality by asserting that it is absolutely deter-
mined by something external to itself. It need not
be said that such a denial is of all absurdities the
most absurd, since it makes not only practical
activity but even knowledge impossible. We must
therefore in explaining the limitation of intelli-
gence proceed in exactly the reverse way. As noth-
ing can be known for me which is out of relation
to my thinking activity, so nothing can be done by
me which is out of relation to my practical activity.
No other intelligence, human or divine, can act
upon me except in so far as I act on niyse.f.
How, then, (1) do 1 know that there are other intel-
ligences besides myself? and how (2) can I be
said in any sense to be acted upon by I hem? If
these two questions can be satisfactorily answered,
we shall have explained how it is that I, as an
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 159
individual, am free and yet limited in my free
activity. (1) The answer to the first question is
implied in the fact that in willing I find myself
limited to certain specific ends. In the conscious-
ness of that limitation I become conscious of my-
self as an individual and hence of other individ-
uals as in relation to me. I cannot determine
myself or will without being conscious of myself,
and I cannot be conscious of Myself except in rela-
tion to other selves. The consciousness therefore of
myself as limited implies the correlative conscious-
ness of the activity of other selves. (2) But this
consciousness of self-limitation must not be con-
founded with any supposed consciousness of the
direct activity of other intelligent beings upon me.
There can be no such activity, simply because no in-
telligence can, so to speak, go out of itself to act
upon another intelligence. This, however, does not
hinder that there should be an indirect relation of
different intelligences to one another, a relation
which, after Leibnitz, we may call a •" pre-established
harmony." The world of nature as I know it,
exists only in relation to my knowledge: it has no
independent existence of its own. But this is not
incompatible with the recognition that to other
intelligences the world is in its essence the same as
it is to me. What this common world is, mav be
160 scuellixg's transcendental idealism.
seen if we abstract from the peculiarities of myself
as an individual. The world of nature is thus for
each finite intelligence the same in its broad out-
lines. For all it is a world of objects in space and
time, acting and reacting on each other, and form-
ing an organic unity or system. But besides this
common world, there is for each individual a con-
sciousness of his own acts, and a representation of
the acts of others. Thus others can act upon me
only in and through my representations of their acts:
their action is not direct but indirect; it does not
compel but only limits me. This limitation is
therefore compatible with my freedom, while yet it
explains the fact of my limitation as an individual.
I cannot be conscious of myself as an individual
among other individuals unless there is a common
world of objects which presents itself as the same
to us all. Moreover, my individuality must be con-
stituted through the limitations under which I am
placed by the represented activity of the individ-
uality of other individuals. Hence the eorrelativity
of the natural talent or capacities which I possess,
and the process of education to which I am sub-
jected by the indirect influence of others upon me.
Education in the widest sense is the continuous
action of one intelligence on another. The begin-
ning of actual volition as the starting-point of free
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 161
and conscious acts can only be explained when we
contemplate, not isolated intelligence, but the com-
munity of intelligences as constituting the histori-
cal life of man.
It has now to be added that the knowledge of
nature as objective or independent of individual
consciousness, is explicable solely from the nature
of practical intelligence. Knowledge, of itself, is
merely the presentation of objects in space and
time; the origination for intelligence of inde-
pendent realities is due to will. That there are
such realities can only mean that nature exists
even when it is not perceived by me, not that it
exists as a thing in itself. The only objectivity
which the world can have for the individual con-
sists in its being perceived by other individuals.
The pre-established harmony between the repre-
sentations of different individuals, which we have
shown to be implied in the consciousness of the
individual as self-determined, is therefore the only
condition under which the world can become ob-
jective for the individual. " For the individual
other intelligences arc as it were the bearers of
the universe, and there are as many indestructible
mirrors of the objective world as there are intelli-
gences/' A single individual alone by himself
would not only not become conscious of his own
11
1G2 schelling's transcendental idealism.
freedom, but he would not even become conscious
of an objective world. Will or self-determina-
tion is the necessary condition of our perception
of the world of nature as we know it.
It has been shown that in intelligence as will
is to be found the explanation of intelligence as
knowing; that the individual only knows himself
as individual in relation to other self-conscious
beings; and that the independence or objectivitj-
of nature, in the only sense in which it can be
admitted by a consistent idealism, consists in its
relations to other intelligences. What has now
to be considered is the exact nature of will or
practical intelligence. The first point to which
Schelling directs his attention is the relation of
will to the external world. By a free act of
self-determination intelligence raises itself entirely
above the world of knowable or perceptible objects.
This act can become the object of explicit conscious-
ness only if it is directed upon some definite object
of perception, which shall serve as the visible expres-
sion of it. Pure self-determination, in other words,
is thinkable only in contrast to some object pre-
sented in perception, and only so can it l>e trans-
lated into an actual volition. The act of volition,
however, cannot be absolutely identical with the
object of perception, for in that case it would be a
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 163
perception; the act and the object must remain
distinct from each other. As we saw in consider-
ing the reflective stage of knowledge, an act taken
by itself is a conception or function of thought.
To say, therefore, that the function and the object
are distinct, is to say that the latter is external to
the former; or, what is virtually the same thing,
that an object is external for me just because my
will is determined in relation to it.
This peculiarity of will, that it is always directed
upon an object external to itself, gives rise to a
contradiction which must be solved. On the one
hand, I am conscious of my freedom as pure self-
activity or infinite, while on the other hand that
self-activity can only manifest itself as in relation
to a definite object, or as finite; how, then, can
the infinity of will be reconciled with its seeming
finitude? Will does not destroy the productive ac-
tivity of perception, and hence, as having a world
opposed to it, it cannot but seem to be limited;
the two spheres touch, but the one is outside of
the other. In willing I am free: in the compulsion
to accept the world of objects as it presents itself
in my perception I am apparently necessitated or
limited. It results from this contradiction that
there must be an activity which floats between the
infinite and the finite, the object of which must be
164 schelling's transcendental idealism.
in one aspect unlimited, and in another aspect
limited. This activity, which was by Kant called
reason, and by Schelling is named imagination, is
neither purely theoretical nor purely practical, but
is the mediator between the two. The products
of this activity are ideas, which must be carefully
distinguished from the conceptions of the under-
standing. The understanding is an activity which
manifests itself only in the determination of specific
objects of perception, and hence it is a finite or
limited activity. Imagination is at once finite and
infinite. If therefore we assimilate an idea to a
conception, we destroy the. infinite aspect of the
former, and the result, as Kant has clearly shown,
is a series of contradictions or antinomies. This
free self-activity or will is finite when viewed in
relation to a particular object which is willed, but
viewed as self-activity, it is infinite or capable of
transcending all finite objects of volition. The
source of antinomy is therefore where Kant placed
it, viz.: in the limitation of the infinite activity of
freedom to limited objects. When we reflect on
the relation of an idea to a definite object, we
may say that it is finite; when we reflect on the
activity itself, we see that it is infinite; and this
just means that the object of an idea is neither
the one nor the other, but both in one.
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 165
In willing, a transition must be made from the
idea to a determinate object — a transition i. e. in
thought, not in reality. Hence the idea of an
object that is neither finite nor infinite, but is
simply the transition from the one to the other,
implies an ideal, which is a mediating element
bearing the same relation to action as the schema
to conception. By means of this ideal there arises
for intelligence an opposition between the real or
external world as given in perception, and the
object which is set up by the idealizing activity.
This opposition takes the form of impulse, which,
as a state of feeling, implies like all feelings a
contradiction that demands solution. This felt con-
tradiction is the condition of that free activity
which intelligence without reflection seeks to tran-
scend. Thus will is directed outwardly by means
of impulse, and this impulse arises immediately
from the contradiction between the idealizing and
the perceptive self, the object aimed at being the
restoration of that self-identity which has been
destroyed.
How, then, we have to ask, does this impulse lead
to the transition from the mere idea of an object to
its actual realization by will? How can a free act
determine anything in the real or objective world?
From the explanation of the nature of the idea, it
166
will be readily understood that it can never be real-
ized, but consists in the continual transcendence of
the limits in which intelligence in acting finds itself
placed. The ideal, on the other hand, as the specific
determination of the idea, is continually being
realized at each stage of action; it is simply the
particular limited end set before intelligence by
itself. The realization of the ideal leaves the idea
unrealized, and hence the consciousness of freedom
as the persistence of self-consciousness is made pos-
sible. In free activity there is a succession of per-
ceptions, but the succession is related as means and
end, not as cause and effect. Now it must be re-
membered that to transcendental idealism the object-
ive world is not a thing- in-itself, but is the system
of perceptions in which intelligence manifests its
own laws. To say that a change takes place in the
objective world, is simply to say that a change occurs
in my perceptions. The demand that something
should be determined in the objective world, there-
fore means that by a free act in me something should
be determined in my external perception. That my
free activity has causality thus means that I perceive
it as having causality. Now the distinction between
intelligence and will is a merely relative one, for
there must be a point of view from which they are
identical. The distinction is one made bv our
PRACTICAL PUILOSOPHY. 167
external reflection. In intelligence itself the I
which acts and the I which knows are one and the
same; the distinction is merely that the I as will is
an object to itself, while the I as knowing is not:
this in fact is the sole reason why we oppose the one
to the other. The self which perceives is the same
as the self which acts, the difference being that the
former simply perceives, while the latter perceives
itself as perceiving. It is in this explicit subject-
objectivity that the relative distinction of intelli-
gence and will consists; otherwise, the active self
would appear simply as knowing. Conversely, the
self knows itself as active in perception only be-
cause it not only perceives, but contemplates itself
as perceiving. The question, therefore, is not how
the self as acting comes into contact with the self as
thinking the outer world. There could be no ex-
ternal perception, were there no internal activity of
the self. My activity in forming an object must at
the same time be a perception, and conversely, my
perception must be an activity. That this is not at
once apparent arises from the nature of perception,
which is not, taken by itself, a perceiving but a per-
ceived; hence the self which is still at the phenom-
enal point of view is not aware of the identity of the
perceiving and the acting self. The change which fol-
lows from a free act in the outer world must be in
168 SCHELLING's TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
conformity with the laws of productive perception,
and as if freedom had no share in it Productive
perception acts as if it were completely isolated,
and produces in accordance with its own laws what
follows as a change. The reason why perception
does not here present itself as an activity, is that
the ideal activity, conception or function is opposed
to the object instead of being united with it. But
that the conception or activity precedes the object,
is a matter of appearance. And if the conception
does not really precede the object, the only objective
is the self as actively perceiving. Just, therefore,
as it might be said, that when I believed I was per-
ceiving I was properly acting, so it can now be said
that when I believe I am acting on the outer world I
am properly perceiving. Everything which appears
in action as outside of the perceiving self belongs
only to the appearance of the sole objective, the per-
ceiving self; and conversely, when we abstract
from the active self everything which belongs to the
appearance, nothing remains but the perception.*
This may be put in another way. Transcen-
dental idealism has shown that there is not, as
is commonly supposed, any transition from the
objective world of nature to the subjective world
• What Schclling Is here attempting to show is that in every voli-
tion proper there i* an element or perception implied. When I will
to raifc my arm (to take a very fimple case) the volition is a thought,
the actual movement a perception.
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 169
of mind, but that the objective world is simply
the subjective which has become an object to itself.
A similar difficulty arises when we endeavor to
explain action. For in action there seems to be
a transition from the subjective to the objective
world; in every act a conception is freely drawn,
which is to pass over into a world of nature ap-
parently independent of us, and yet really relative
to us. How, then, is the seeming transition to
be explained consistently with the fundamental
principle of idealism? Only on the supposition
that the world of nature becomes objective for me .
by means of action. That we act freely or inde-
pendently of all external action upon us of an
independent world of nature, and that the world
is in some sense independent of us — these two
propositions must be synthetically united. Now,
if the world is simply our perception, the world
will become objective for us when our perception
becomes objective. Hence it will be readily under-
stood how it* can be said, that i4 what appears to us
as an act on the outer world is from the idealistic
point of view simply a developed perception." Any
change which is produced in the outer world by
an act of mine is, looked at in itself, a perception
like every other perception. The perception is here
the objective; that which lies at the basis of the
170 sciielling'b transcendental idealism. >
phenomenon, that which in the perception belongs
to the phenomenon, is the act on a sensible world
thought as independent. Objectively or really there
is no transition from the subject to the object, just
as little as there is a transition from the object to
the subject The point here is simply that I can-
not appear to myself as perceiving without perceiv-
ing a subjective as passing over into an objective.
The only difficulty then is to explain how the change
of that which objectively is perception, into an act
as it presents itself phenomenally, can be made.
This may be explained by an illustration. Suppose
that by my causality a change occurs in the outer
world. If we reflect merely on the fact of this
change, we must certainly say that I produce the
change, since there is for me nothing in the outer
world at all which is not due to my productive
activity. This production of a change, so far as
it is a perception — and in reality it is nothing
else — is not preceded by any conception of change.
But if I make the act of producing the change an
object of reflection, the conception of change mutt
precede the change. The object which here is to
appear is the act of production itself. In actual
production no conception precedes the perception:
the precedence is purely ideal, or exists only for
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 171
the self as perceiving itself; in other words, it is
only an appearance.
From what has been said it evidently follows that
all action must take place in accordance with the
laws of nature. Hence I cannot know myself as
acting except by the mediation of matter, and more
particularly of that part of matter which I recog-
nize as identical with myself, viz: my own organ-
ism. And the impulse which we have seen to be
the cause of action must also appear as a natural
impulse, acting irrespectively of my freedom and
apparently compelling me to act by the pain of
want. So also the change in the outer world, in
which action consists, must appear as the conse-
quence of all the external conditions which make
it possible. The inevitable conclusion seems to be
that I am not free at all, but under the compulsion
of material law. If freedom is to be saved there
must, therefore, be some other conception of will
than that of an action upon the external world.
Will is something more than this: its distinctive
characteristic in fact is not to be found in the
determination of an external object by action, but
in pure self-determination, or the self as determin-
ing itself. It is in the ideal activity, as directed
upon the pure Ego, that the nature of will becomes
known. This pure self-determination constitutes
172 SCHELLING's TRANSCENDENTAL 1DKALI8M.
the common essence in which all intelligences are
identical. Self-determination is the primary con-
dition of all consciousness. The activity by which
the self becomes an explicit object of intelligence
cannot be deduced theoretically, but only by a
postulate, i.e., by a demand to act. The self ought
to will nothing but its own self-determination.
This " categorical imperative " is the moral law
which commands us, in Kant's words, to "will
only that which all intelligences are capable of
willing." As that which all intelligences can will
is pure self-determination or autonomy, it is by
the moral law that the self as such becomes its
own object. That law does not apply to me as
a particular individual, but only to me as intel-
ligence in general — to that which is objective or
eternal in me. But the moral law must not re-
main as a pure idea, but must be realised by the
individual in the sphere of nature; it must, in
other words, be brought into relation to natural
impulse, which of itself works blindly like pro-
ductive perception. The object of this impulse is
in the widest sense happiness. As natural im-
pulse there can be no command to be happy, for
that which takes place according to a law of na-
ture needs not to be commanded.
The immediate activity whose object is pure self-
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 173
determination can only come into consciousness as
the opposite of that merely natural impulse which
is blindly directed on an external object. But both
activities — that which is commanded by pure will,
and that which is prompted by natural impulse —
must present themselves in consciousness as equally
possible. This opposition is therefore the condition
under which alone the absolute act of will can be-
come an object to the self; it is that which makes
volition possible, and hence volition is not the
original act of will itself, but the manifestation of
absolute will in the act of freedom which has be-
come an object for the self. Of will as absolute we
cannot say that it is either free or not free, since it
can only act according to the law of its own nature;
but as volition, presenting itself as independent of
something foreign to itself, we can say that the self
as empirical may be free. Freedom thus consists in
independence on natural impulse, or identification
with the moral law as a categorical imperative.
Thus, without directly intending it, we have solved
the problem of transcendental freedom. The ques-
tion of freedom has no bearing on the absolute
Ego, which cannot but be pure self-determina-
tion, but only upon the empirical Ego ; and hence
it is only as empirical that the will can be said to be
free. The will in so far as it is absolute is lifted
174 sciiellixg's transcendental idealism.
* "
above freedom; it is not subject to law, bat is itself
the source of all law. Only as it manifests itself
does it appear as volition, and this manifestation of
the absolute will is freedom in the proper sense of
the term. And since the self in its free action
must contemplate itself to- infinity as absolute will,
and in its innermost nature is nothing other than
this contemplation of absolute will, the manifes-
tation of it is as certain and undoubted as is the
reality of the self. Conversely, volition can only
be conceived as the phenomenal appearance of an
absolute will under the limits of finitude, and
hence it is a perpetual revelation of the absolute
will in us. And as the moral law and volition
are equally essential conditions of self-conscious-
ness, intelligence in its practical activity as will
has come to have before it a world which it dis-
tinguishes from itself, and which it yet contemplates
as determined by itself.
To complete the practical part of Transcendental
Philosophy it only remains to show the bearing
of the conception of freedom which has just been
set forth upon the conception of rights, the state
and history.
We have seen that impulse, the activity of the
self as tending outward, and self-determination or
the action of self upon itself, are contrary to each
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 175
other, and must yet be harmonised in the free
action of the individual man. What, then, is the
exact relation of these two contrary activities? It
is manifest that the pure will can never become
an object for the self except in relation to an
external object, which, however, has no indepen-
dent reality, but is simply the medium in which
pure will expresses or realizes itself. Happiness,
when exactly analysed, is the identity or har-
mony of the pure will with that which is inde-
pendent of it. In other words, happiness can
only be truly realized when natural impulse and
the moral law are coincident. A happiness con-
sisting in the realization of mere natural impulse
is a dream, and not less a happiness which is pure
self-determination apart from impulse. A finite
being cannot make the mere form of morality his
end, and just as little is the end mere impulse;
the true end or highest good is self-realization in
the real or objective world, or pure will as
dominant in the realm of nature. The reciprocal
action of individuals through the outer world
must not be a matter of pure caprice or accident,
but must be controlled by inviolable law, so that
none may destroy the possibility of free self-real-
ization in another. Such a law cannot directly
control the freedom of the individual, nor can it
176 schellixg's transcendental idealism.
apply to pure will; it can only be a limitation of
natural impulse. The outer world must be so
organized as to cause an impulse which transcends
its proper limit to act against itself; and this
self-adjustment of impulse must receive the sanc-
tion of all rational beings. Now, such a law is
not to be found in the world of nature as such,
which is perfectly indifferent to the actions of men,
but only in the world of rational beings. But a
law which is for human action what the law of
causality is for external events, is the law of
justice, which is as inexorable as the laws of na-
ture, and which therefore, as perfectly distinct
from the law of morality, is an object, not of
practical, but of theoretical philosophy. The law
of justice is a sort of second nature set above the
first, under which free beings must be placed in
the interest of the freedom of each. It is the
natural mechanism by which they can be thought
as in mutual action and reaction. The purely
mechanical or inevitable character of the law of
justice is proved by experience, which shows that
any attempt to identify it with morality leads to
despotism in its most terrible form. Now, if this
law of right is the necessary condition of the real-
ization of freedom in the outer world, it is of
great importance to determine how it can be con-
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 177
ceived as originating independently of the will of
the individual. Manifestly men must have been
driven to establish it, without any clear conscious-
ness on their part, by the promptings of their im-
mediate needs and as a reaction against violence;
and it must be gradually modified in accordance
with the stage of culture at which the nation to
which they belong may have arrived. Hence the
perpetual modification of the law under the stress
of circumstances. To secure the highest form of
consciousness in each individual state, there ought,
as Kant contended, to be a subordination of all
states to a common law of justice, administered
by an areopagus of nations.
The gradual realization of law is the substance
of history. Here we re-enter the sphere of prac-
tical philosophy, since history exhibits the develop-
ment of human freedom, as the philosophy of
nature is an account of the evolution of external
existence. The idea of history is the special prob-
lem of the philosophy of history. There is, strictly
speaking, no theory of history, for a theory implies
rigid conformity to a law, from the comprehension
of which events can be determined in advance.
Such a conformity to law as is found in nature
does not obtain in history, which is the product of
freedom. At the same time there could be no
IP
178 8C HE LUNG'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
philosophy of history, if history were the mere
expression of lawless caprice, and hence it must he
shown how will and law are in it united. The
peculiarity of historical development is that its var-
ious stages are not fixed in a goal which is attained
once for all, but that it is an eternal pi ogress.
Individuals and generations pass away, but the
race of man remains ; each epoch is the condition of
a higher epoch, which includes and transcends the
one that has gone before. History is thus a con-
tinual advance toward a pre-determiued goal, an
advance which is realized in and through the will of
individuals and yet in spite of the free play of
individual caprice. That ideal goal is not culture
or science, but a jwrfect state, of which all men
shall be citizens; and to this goal the race is contin-
ually approaching. History is thus the realization
of freedom through necessity. Necessity and free-
dom are related as unconscious and conscious
action. Such necessity rules over our free acts, and
hence there arises what we do not consciously pro-
pose to ourselves, or even the opposite of that
which we intended. This necessity is more potent
than our human freedom, and prevails in spite of
it. Not only tragic art, but all high deeds, rests
upon the belief in something higher than ourselves.
How should we will anything great or good, were
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 179
we not assured that it must follow, however men
may strive against it? The power of such a belief
is rooted in the conviction of the impotence of any
man or of aTl men to fight against the progress of
the race toward its ideal goal. Such an order of
things is not the moral order of the world, which
is dependent upon freedom and can be made a
conscious end, but is something absolutely objective,
moving the will in its deepest depths and giving us
security that the highest ends will be realized.
♦Such security is a delusion, unless there is a power
which serves as the foundation and the goal of
all human development, and which converts even
the follies and crimes of men into means for its
own ends. This complete synthesis of all acts is
the absolute. In the absolute or unconditioned
there is no opposition of freedom and necessity, of
conscious and unconscious action, but perfect unity
or " absolute identity/* This unity of all the
phases of human development as lying at the
foundation of all consciousness, is the "eternally
unconscious," which can never be an object of
knowledge, but is an object only of belief, and
the eternal presupposition of all action.
The more man progresses the more apparent
Incomes the identity of freedom and law. and the
less frequent the disturbances and aberrations of
180 SCHBLLING'S TBAN8CEXDKNTAL IDBAU8M.
individual caprice. Hence the history of the world
is a continuous unfolding of the absolute, " the pro-
gressive proof of the existence of God." God is not
a personal or purely objective being, bfft the gradual
revelation of the divine in man. That revelation
can never be complete, for then all development and
with it the manifestation of freedom would come to
an end. The world is a divine poem, and history
a drama in which individuals are not merely actors
but authors; but it is one spirit which informs all
and directs the confused play of individuality to a
rational development. There are three periods in
the evolution of the absolute. In the first or tragi-
cal period, the ruling power is fate, which destroys
unconsciously the greatest and grandest : in the
second period, beginning with the spread of the
Roman Republic, the absolute appears as nature or
conformity to external law; in the third period,
which has not yet come and the time of whose
advent we cannot forestall, it will become evident
that even the two former periods were really the
imperfect manifestation of Providence or God.
CHAPTER VII.
TELEOLOGY AXD ART.
npo complete the edifice of Transcendental Ideal-
■^ ism, it only remains to lay the cope-stone. So
far Schelling has in his exposition done little more
than connect together in systematic unity the
various thoughts which with the powerful aid of
Fichte he had put into shape in his earlier writings.
And it is significant that the freshest part of his
treatise is the conclusion of the practical philoso-
phy, in which with rapid hand he sketches out the
plan of a philosophy of history to be filled in after-
ward ; for it is here that there first emerges into
clear and definite outline the idea of the absolute
as a synthesis of necessity and freedom which is
realised in the incarnate poem of human his-
tory. It was but natural therefore that Schel-
ling shonld seek to show how that unity of the
unconscious and conscious, which unrolls itself be-
fore the eyes of the philosopher in the large move-
ments of history, should become a part of the
actual self-conscious life of the individual intelli-
gence. It is not enough that the absolute should
manifest itself to the abstract vision of the philoso-
161
182 gCHELLINU'8 TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALS1M.
pher in an objective way, but it must repeat itself
in the concrete consciousness of man. In what
phase of mind, then, is self-consciousness in its full-
est sense realized? To Fichte a final answer
seemed to be implied in the nature of intelligence
as realizing itself in action, and building up around
it an objective world; but, dissatisfied with the
dualism of nature and action, theoretical and prac-
tical intelligence, which this explanation does not
perfectly resolve, Schelling seeks for a still more
intimate union. It is usual to say that the solu-
tion he was led to propose was due to his close
personal connection with the romanticists. And
no doubt the exaggerated importance which, as we
shall immediately see, Schelling attached to art.
was in some measure due to this cause. But here,
as in other cases, the main source of his inspiration
came from his intimate acquaintance with the
writings of Kant, and more particularly with the
Critique of Judgment, the work in which Kant
endeavors to transcend the dualism from which he
started. The connection between Schelling and
Kant is here peculiarly close, for in both the imma-
nent teleology of organic life and the conscious
teleology of art are brought into relation with one
another. It must not be supposed, however, that
Schelling has simply appropriated the Kantian
TELEOLOGY AND ART. 183
theory without assimilation or change: here as
always he adapts it to the new point of view arising
from a denial of the absolute limitation of intelli-
gence by something not itself, and from the persist-
ent effort to exhibit intelligence as a living process
or development.
1. All action must be conceived as an original
union of freedom and necessity, consciousness and
unconsciousness, as is shown by the fact that the
action at once of the individual and the race is
free and yet must conform to the laws of nature.
In our immediate consciousness it is we who act.
but objectively it is rather something else through
us. This something else is the unconscious,
which must be shown to be identical with the con-
scious in us. Intelligence must not only be the
identity of necessity and freedom, but it must con-
sciously perceive that identity as its own product:
or, in Schelling's phraseology, " It has to be ex-
plained how the I can itself become conscious of
the original harmony of subject and object." And
as that harmony can only consist in the reconcilia-
tion of mechanical or natural law with the con-
ception of a first cause, the product of necessity
and freedom must exhibit the adaptation of means
to ends, or at least the appearance of such adapta-
tion. Is there any object of perception which com-
184 schelling's transcendental idealism.
bines those two characteristics? There is. Organ-
isms are at once under the invincible sway of
mechanical law, and are inexplicable apart from
the idea of final cause. It is true that we have no
right to say that they have been originated by an
intelligence externally constructing them after a
pre-existing pattern or idea, but it is equally true
that their characteristic difference from other ob-
jects of perception is utterly inexplicable on merely
mechanical principles. Neither the explanation of
hylicism nor of conscious teleology will bear ex-
amination. Both fail to account for the . uncon-
scious development of organic beings. The former
is driven to suppose that matter is itself conscious
intelligence, the latter that it is acted upon ex-
ternally by an intelligence distinct and separate
from it Either supposition, it need hardly be
said, is fatal to the explanation of organized ex-
istence. The first leads to a dogmatic hylicism
which is essentially absurd and self-contradictory,
the second regards organisms as artificial products
and entirely fails to account for their possibility.
The only theory which avoids the imperfection of
both views is that which, recognizing that matter
is no independent reality or thing-in-itself, but
the unconscious product of intelligence as percep-
tive, accounts for the appearance of adaptation
TELEOLOGY AND ART. 185
in organisms from the fact that they are the pro-
duct of an intelligence which acts according to
its own necessary laws, and therefore exhibits in
its unconscious products that finality which is the
characteristic of conscious or free activity. Hence
it is that organisms are under the dominion of
natural law — which is really the law given by in-
telligence to itself — and yet appear to be formed
by conscious purpose. An organized being is pro-
duced by the natural law of blind mechanism,
and yet the product in its structure and functions
displays the character of adaptation to an end.
An organism cannot be explained by teleology, it
cannot be known without it; the teleological ex-
planation is inadmissible, the teleological percep-
tion is necessary. In organic beings, therefore, we
have objectively the fusion of consciousness and
unconsciousness, of freedom and necessity. Hence
it is that, so far as perception goes, intelligence
finds in organized existence that identity of the
unconscious and conscious, mechanism and tele-
ology » of which it was in search. In life we have
outwardly, or in the product, that which intelli-
gence is inwardly, or as productive. Our next
step must therefore be to find in intelligence it-
self the explicit consciousness of that unity. This
Schelliug finds in Art.
186 kchellixg'b transcendental idealism.
2. In the account of the immanent teleology
of organized nature Schelling differs from Kant
mainly in explaining the union of mechanism and
teleology, in accordance with the central principle
of his philosophy, as the product of the unconscious
operation of intelligence in the individual, while
Kant rather regarded the union as the form in
which we, from our limited human poinf of view,
are compelled to represent to ourselves a form of
existence that might after all be explicable on
purely mechanical principles, were our intelli-
gence one that contemplated things as a whole
and not merely in part. The distinction between
master and pupil is, in short, that the former is
haunted by the shadow projected from the dualism
of human and divine intelligence, and hence is
unable to say with any certainty that the mode
in which existence manifests itself to us is any-
thing but a sensible symbol of existence as it
truly is; while the latter is firmly convinced that
the explanation of reality given by philosophy can-
not be set aside by any hypothesis of an intel-
ligence essentially different from ours, an intelli-
gence which ex hypothesi is transcendent or un-
real. At the same time Schelling, as we shall
see more fully hereafter, does not really lay the
spectre of dualism, but reintroduces it in the form
TELEOLOGY AND AET. 187
of the unconscious; for the "unconscious" is at
bottom that which is past finding out, in a very
literal sense.
The difference between Kant and Schelling in
their views of art is similar to that implicit in
their divergent explanation of organic nature.
Here also Schelling finds an explanation of the
original production of reality, where Kant sees
nothing but such a revelation of the divine as
is possible for limited human intelligence. Every
real work of art is, according to Schelling, a prod-
uct of free and conscious activity; and yet it
is impossible to explain its characteristic quality
without reference to the necessary or uncon-
scious element which it contains, and which sep-
arates it toto cwh from what Aristotle distin-
guishes as the productive arts. The artist does
indeed put forth a conscious activity in shaping
the materials at his command into forms of grace
and beauty, but this purely technical skill is widely
different from the poetic activity itself. Let the
creative power be absent, and the product is desti-
tute of life. The "maker" is under the sway of
his genius, that wonderful faculty which is some-
times found in scientific activity, but which is
always manifest in every genuine work of art.
Genius is thus for aesthetics what intelligence is
188 schelling's transcendental idealism.
for the philosopher, the supreme reality which
never itself becomes an object of definite conscious-
ness, but is the cause of all that is objective.
There is a marked contrast between the prod-
ucts of art and the organized products of nature.
In both there is an immediate union of free-
dom and necessity; but in organisms the activity
of intelligence as productive is hidden or un-
conscious, and hence the adaptation of means to
ends presents itself only in the products, while
in art it is the productive activity which is con-
scious, and the product which contains the ele-
ment of unconsciousness. The fundamental char-
acter of every genuine work of art is its uncon-
scious infinity. The artist builds better than he
knows, and by a divine instinct expresses that which
is but half revealed to himself, and which is not
capable of being grasped by the finite understand-
ing. This contradiction of the finite and the in-
finite is for the artist an inexplicable feeling, which
will not let him rest until he has found for it an
external form, whereupon there supervenes an in-
finite satisfaction, which is the subjective expres-
sion of perfect objective harmony. This union of
necessity and freedom is the source of beauty which,
as the realization of the infinite in the finite, is
the fundamental character of artistic products.
TELEOLOGY AND ART. 189
and not for any finite end whatever, such as pleas-
ure, utility, morality, or science.
In art intelligence for the first time becomes self-
conscious in the fullest sense of the term. Philoso-
phy does indeed show that nature and history are
the unconscious products of intelligence, but, as
being merely an abstract picture of reality, it is
not an actual unity of consciousness and unconscious-
ness. It is only in art that the activity of intelli-
gence, which appears as a phenomenon beyond con-
sciousness, comes explicitly within consciousness. At
every point of our enquiry into the nature of intel-
ligence we have been compelled to suppose a pri-
mary limitation of the essential infinity of intelli-
gence, but only when we reach the realm of art
does intelligence discern the actual union of its
opposite activities. Here, therefore, we have at
last reached the goal toward which intelligence
has been slowly moving by successive steps. ( Art
is the true organon of philosophy. Nature and
history are no longer for the artist, as are action
and thought for the philosopher, an ideal world
which presents itself under continual limitations,
but they are forever reconciled. Thus our system
i> completed. The intellectual perception with
which we began, has become an explicit object of
aesthetic perception, a perception which does not I
190 8CHK LUNG'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALI8M.
merely contemplate the world like theoretical in-
telligence, or order it like practical intelligence,
but produces or creates it.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SYSTEM OF IDENTITY.
TT may be hoped that, even in the imperfect
"*" medium of a summary restatement, the stimu-
lating and suggestive character of Schelling's Trans-
cendental Idealism has been partially visible to
the reader. Especially for those who desire to see
the transition from Kant to Hegel made before
their eyes, an acquaintance with that treatise is
indispensable. At the same time, while ** naught
should be set down in malice, " so neither should
" aught be extenuated." To accept with '* child-like
faith " the dicta of the leaders of philosophy is, as
Schelling himself frequently insists, but to prove
traitor to their spirit: and we shall best show our
appreciation of the divine gift they have given to
us by subjecting their philosophy to the severest
scrutiny.
The main value of .Schelling's work, apart from
its advance in special points, consists in the em-
phasis which it everywhere places on the truth,
that the universe is not a dead, inanimate prod-
uct, but a living process, in which intelligence
creates and is conscious oi' itself in creating. All
191
192 schelling's transcendental idealism.
forms, modes, shows of things are more or less
complete manifestations of the same eternal, infi-
nite principle. Self-activity rales in nature as in
man. There are no dead products; matter, which
to the eye of sense is an inert and lifeless mass,
is instinct with the crescent life of intelligence;
and hence the various phases which it manifests
on its way to man, in whom intelligence, which
before was implicit, at last becomes explicit. Simi-
larly, if we start from the side of the subject as
knowing, the same continuous process of evolution
from lower to higher modes of activity is mani-
fest. The immediate feeling of "something not-
ourselves," which is characteristic of sensation,
breaks into the explicit opposition of subject and
object in perception, while in reflection the appre-
hension of the activity of the mind in relation to
objects is raised into the clear light of conscious-
ness. Nor does the process of ideal evolution end
here; for in the action of man there is revealed
to him that which' was vaguely present from the
first, and which became ever more apparent,
namely, the existence for him as a self-conscious
being of a world of self-conscious beings like him-
self, bound under the same moral law, and like
himself destined for a life of freedom in a free
state, or rather in that great nohreia, the world.
THE SYSTEM OP IDENTITY. 193
And, last of all, the explicit recognition of the
movement of a divine intelligence toward an end
but dimly seen, is revealed to us in the activity
adapted to ends of living beings, and more clearly
still in the intuitions of the poet, who working
consciously, creates a product that reveals more
than was present to his own mind in its creation.
In this recognition of developmen t, process, final-
ity, Schelling, is at one with Hegel; in fact the /
purposely general terms in which we have just I
summarized his theory might pass for a hurried
outline of Hegel's own system. Closer inspection,
however, makes it apparent that Schelling is only
Hegel in germ, and Hegel with much that is most i
characteristic and most valuable in him left out. !
It will, therefore, be advisable to make a few crit-
ical remarks on the Transcendental Idealism, with
the view of bringing out in clear relief, so far as
that can be done here, some of its excellences and
defects.
Comparatively short as tlfe Transcendental Ideal-
ism is, it goes over in a sense the whole ground of
philosophy. It is at once a metaphysic, a philosophy
of nature, and a philosophy of spirit; or, more ex-
actly, it sets forth the supreme conditions of know-
able reality, the grades of nature, the phases of
knowledge, the basis of ethics, the principles of art
13
194 scuelling's transcendental idealism.
and the nature of religion. A complete encyclopae-
dia of the philosophical sciences like this, no man,
however highly he may be endowed, can construct
all at once; and it is not to be wondered at that it
is in large measure vague, sketchy, and unsatisfac-
tory. The value of a philosophy must be
measured, not merely by the firmness with which it
grasps a central principle, but by the thoroughness
and consistency with which the principle is worked
out and applied to the multifarious phases of
human thought and action. Even with the labors
of Kant from which to start, and with the brilliant
light cast back upon Kant by Fichte, Schelling
could not be expected to do more than develop to
some degree that which he found ready to his hand.
And perhaps it is not unfair to say that no amount
of self-restraint could ever have enabled Schelling,
with his quick imaginative temperament, to build
up such an edifice of philosophy as his great suc-
cessor Hegel has left to us. With fiery impatience
he dashes off a philosophical treatise almost u in one
hot sitting," and immediately upon the revelation
to him of some logical consequence, which in his
haste he had not at first seen, he once more rushes
before the public with a new work, the • preface to
which explains with amusing self-deception that
what he is going to say has been kept back only
THE SYSTEM OP IDENTITY. 195
from regard for the intellectual needs of his readers.
The Transcendental Idealism, it must in justice to
Schelling be said, is less of a mere tract than most
of his other writings; but for the reasons suggested
it is very unequally worked out, and it really holds
in solution two opposite principles which arc never
perfectly reconciled, and fails to draw a clear line
of demarcation between metaphysics, as the philos-
ophy of knowable reality, and psychology, the
philosophy of the individual mind. The most de-
veloped and perhaps the most perfect part of the
treatise is .the theoretical, in which the various
phases of knowledge are described; next in impor-
tance is the practical part, which is very valuable
as a short and clear statement <5f the basis of ethics
as conceived by Fichte, and, besides, contains the
conception of historical development, which is the
most purely original part of the work, with the ex-
ception of the idea of art as the final solution of
the identity of intelligence and nature. The Trail-
wndvatal Idealism as a whole is not in the strict
sense an original work; it is not original even as
Fichtes Wissrnschaftslehre, which owed its inspira-
tion to Kant, is original, and much less in the
larger sense of the three Critiques of Kant. But it
would be unfair to Schelling not to remember that
while, especially in the theoretical part, he draws
196 8CHELLINO'8 TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
largely on Fichte, his Transcendental Idealism is
pervaded by the explicit conception of process or
development, by means of which all the elements
he has borrowed are fused into unity; and that
even the theoretical part contains a most significant
and intrinsically valuable attempt to connect the
categories of relation, — substance, cause and reci-
procity, — which in Kant had remained in stiff and
abrupt contrast, in the true order of their ideal
development.
1. In the introduction Schelling draws a strong
contrast between the philosophy of nature and
the philosophy of knowledge, which is at once the
source of the strength and of the weakness of his
system. All knowledge consists in the agreement
of the subjective and the objective, and the sum-
total of the latter is nature, of the former intelli-
gence. Hence it is as necessary, he holds, to show
how nature rises through successive stages to in-
telligence, as to explain the successive steps by
which intelligence constructs nature for itself. This
opposition of two fundamental sources or "disci-
plines" was to Fichte, as is well known, a stone of
stumbling and a rock of offence. How can there be,
he not unnaturally asked, any " object " that is not
in relation to a " subject/' and how, therefore, can
we hold the parallelism of intelligence and nature?
THE SYSTEM OP IDENTITY. 197
And undoubtedly the view of Schelling suffers
from grave defects. It is impossible to free him
from the charge of isolating in an illegitimate
way things which are indissoiubly bound together.
Nature apart from intelligence at once lapses back ]
into a mere thing-in-itself, and all Schelling's ef- <
forts to recover the ground he has lost at the
start turn out to be unavailing. His final attempt "
to combine what he had put asunder by means
of the poetic faculty as at once creative and un-
conscious is a virtual confession of failure, and
prepares the way for the leap into the dark, which
he soon felt himself compelled to make. It may
be doubted, however, how far Fichte had any just
ground of complaint against his too eager follower.
As we have seen, there is in his own theory an
inexplicit fusion of two distinct principles which
really lie at the root of Schelling's opposition of
intelligence and nature. The philosophy of Fichte
was an attempt to explain reality on the supposi-
tion that there is no intelligence other than the
sum of finite intelligences, which in Schelling^
phrase, are " the bearers of the universe." But
Fichte, almost in spite of himself, was compelled
to distinguish between the absolute Ego and the
finite Ego, and to regard the latter as eternally
striving toward a goal it is forever incapable
198 SCHELLINO'fl TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
of reaching. This " striving " is therefore some-
thing revealed in and to the individual intelligence,
something which it is compelled to submit to by
the very law of its being. Tims there gradually
emerges a distinction between the individual and
the absolute Ego, which admits on Fichte's prin-
ciples of no further explanation. It is something
we-know-not-what, or in other words, the Kantian
thing-in-itself, without the explanation by which
Kant attempted to determine it. The same tendency
is shown in Fichte's conception of knowledge as a
process by which intelligence at once gives itself
laws and submits to them. And Fichte himself
insists that knowledge and life are distinct; that
the former is a picture, the latter alone reality.
Thus in Fichte we have implicitly the two ele-
ments which afford a relative justification for Spel-
ling's contrast of intelligence and nature. On the
one hand he practically admits a "something not-
ourselves" working in and through us, and on
the other hand he opposes knowing and being. It
can hardly be said, therefore, that Schelling has
absolutely contradicted Fichte, however he may
have seemed to do so, and however he may have
failed to work out that side of Fichte's philosophy
which, as we may see in Hegel, leads to a higher
result.
THE SYSTEM OF IDENTITY. 199
To appreciate the true and the false in the oppo-
sition of nature and intelligence, as it is set forth
by Schelling, we must begin by drawing a clear
distinction between individual and absolute intelli-
gence. Nature is manifestly independent of the
individual as such, and may therefore be legiti-
mately regarded as in some sense independent of
his knowledge. But when this is said, it must be
immediately added, that there is no nature apart
from all relation to intelligence. Nor indeed does
Schelling really mean to say that there is: all that
he holds is that the "objective" world, i.e., the
world of external things, including organic beings
and even man as an organism, are separable in
thought from the self-conscious intelligence in man
and exist prior in time to it. The great imperfec-
tion of Schelling i> not in contrasting man and
nature, but in maintaining the complete parallelism /
of the two distinguishable realms. From the phe- '
nomenal point of view, in which we are tracing the
various manifestations of nature, we must rather
hold that, just as each lower phase of nature points
forward to a higher phase in which it is merged,
so nature as a whole can only be explained by
man as including and transcending it. Instead
of opposing nature and intelligence as two coordi-
nate realms, each explicable by itself, we must hold
200 schelling's transcendental idealism.
that the former is simply a lower phase of the
latter. In this way alone can we get rid cf the
dualism which, implicit in Kant and Fichte, is made
explicit in Schelling. For, when we say that
nature and intelligence are like two parallel lines,
we virtually reduce intelligence to nature. Both
must be explained as the manifestation of an
activity which appears now as nature and again as
intelligence, and this activity evidently cannot be
defined as higher in the one sphere than in the
other without its becoming at once apparent that
the one must be regarded as the imperfect or in-
complete form of the other. The essence of each
is, therefore, assimilated by Schelling, and accord-
ingly nature and intelligence are alike conceived by
him as the manifestation of pure self- activity.
Now self- activity may undoubtedly be explained as
identical with self-conscious intelligence; but for
Schelling such an explanation is precluded from the
fact that he has opposed the two worlds as parallel.
Hence as a matter of fact the "self" disappears and
all that remains is the "activity." This is evident
in his conception of the u I am " as the supreme
principle of philosophy, in his uncritical assimilation
of intelligence to two opposite forces as limiting
each other, in his supposed discovery of the unity of
nature and intelligence in the unconscious creations
THE SYSTEM OP IDENTITY. 201
of poetry, and ultimately in his leap beyond intelli-
gence and nature into the u night in which all cows
are black." The only wonder, in fact, is how Schel-
ling did not see, at the time he wrote the Transcen-
dental Idealism, that the parallelism of nature and
intelligence necessarily carried with it the implica-
tion of a unity transcending both, a unity which
for him could only be that in which they agreed, or
their " absolute indifference."
It must be said, then, that while Schelling is
justified in seeking to define the objective world of
nature more exactly than Fichte had done, he is not
justified in putting it upon the same plane with
intelligence. This in fact is the source and ratio- 1
nale of his, as of all other pantheism. For, when
intelligence and nature are so absolutely opposed,
even the assertion that nature exists only for "knowl-
edge cannot prevent intelligence from being con-
ceived as a finite subject, standing opposite to which
is a world of finite objects; and hence the unity of
both must be found in the conception of a power
which manifests itself, now as thinking subject and
again as thought object, neither the subject nor the
object having any reality except as a phase of the
Power which is over or behind both.
2. In his account of the fundamental principles
of idealism Schelling cannot be said to make any
202 schelling's transcendental idealism.
advance beyond Ficlite. Both start from the im-
mediate perception of intelligence by itself; both
find in the nature of intelligence an original
duality of opposite activities; and both connect
with the three main principles the logical laws of
identity, opposition and ground. In Schelling per-
haps the tendency to assume that "all determina-
tion is negation* 1 is most conspicuous. Hence he
finds the explanation of knowledge in the necessity
under which intelligence labors to limit its original
infinity. The infinity of intelligence, it is cer-
tainly of great importance to recognize, but it
must not be conceived, as Schelling has a ten-
dency to conceive it, as simply the negation of
all determinateness. For when the infinite is re-
garded in this way, the definite content which
makes it to be what it is, necessarily appears as
something accidental or extraneous that it must
seek to get rid of. In Hsilf intelligence is held
to be pure infinity, and only because it is to be
conscious of itself is it necessary to regard it as
limited or determined. Self-consciousness thus be-
comes an accidental determination of the pure
self, and hence, as in the opposition of nature and
intelligence, the supreme reality is to be sought
in the mere abstraction of pure being. But while
this tendency to strip intelligence of all its de-
THE SYSTEM OF IDENTITY. %i)6
terra inateness, and to set up the residuum as the
absolute Ego, is manifest in Schelling, it must be
added that his system shows a contrary tendency
as well. The Ego is not merely pure infinity, but
it is that which continually affirms itself in all
knowledge and action; it is not an inert substance,
but a self-affirming or self-perpetuating activity.
From this point of view the self is that to which
all objects must be referred, and in relation to
which only they have any reality. The various
stages of knowledge and action are but the fuller
and more perfect forms in which intelligence re-
veals its nature, and comes to an ever higher self-
consciousness. In Schelling we everywhere find
the conflict of the opposite principles of abstrac-
tion and concretion, and it can hardly be said that
either ever gains the victory. The abstract prin-
ciple we saw before in the opposition of nature
and intelligence, and the concrete principle in the
ideal evolution of nature: and here again we find
the struggle for mastery of the same principles,
the abstract being represented in the conception
of intelligence as pure identity or negative in-
finity, and the concrete in its manifestation as an
eternal process or progressive self-consciousness.
tf. The theoretical part of Schelling's philosophy
has already been characterised generally as a mix-
204 schelling's transcendental idealism.
tare of metaphysic and psychology. As a psychology
it contains a most instructive and, on the whole,
accurate characterization of the various phases of
knowledge as shown iu sensation, perception and
reflection. That for the knowing subject sensation
implies the consciousness of a limit, or of something
not made by himself, is manifestly a correct account
of its nature; and when it is added by Schelling
that it has no reality except as a self-limitation
of intelligence, the character of sensation as im-
plicit thought or self-consciousness is grasped in
a way that at once explodes its supposed passivity,
and makes the view of the empirical psychologist
manifest foolishness. So also the account of per-
ception as but sensation made explicit, together
with the explanation of the rise of the opposition
of subject and object, leaves little to be desired;
and when it is further shown that all perception —
from the simplest form which it assumes in the
determination of the object as in space and time,
to the fuller determination of it as a congeries of
objects limiting each other by their reciprocal ac-
tivity — is the manifestation of the activity of in-
telligence, we have an advance over Kant at least
in the mode of statement. , Finally in his account
of reflection as simply the further determination
of intelligence by an analytical distinction of the
THE SYSTEM OF IDENTITY. 205
product from the process of thought, we get a
clear insight into the nature of knowledge, and
of that transcendence of the abstract opposition
of thought and reality, which is the characteristic
feature of a genuine idealism.
4. Schelling, however, is unable to see that the
account he has given of the evolution of knowl-
edge has destroyed the opposition of intelligence
and nature with which he started; and hence he
goes on, in the manner of Fichte, to subordinate
theoretical to practical intelligence. Such a sub-
ordination has no truth except from the phenome-
nal point of view. If in all reality intelligence
knows only itself, there can be no propriety in
any longer denying the essential correlativity of
intelligence and nature. The reason given by
Schelling for holding that in knowledge the per-
fect unity of subject and object is not obtained,
namely, that only in the explicit recognition of
its own activity does intelligence come to a con- J
sciousness of itself, gets its force entirely from the
point of view of common sense dualism, in which
nature is regarded as something passively appre-
hended. In other words, while Schelling is justi-
fied in saying that even the highest phase of
knowledge leaves unresolved the opposition of
subject and object, so long as we do not ascend
206 schelung's transcendental idealism.
to the plane of idealist philosophy, he is not justi-
fied in treating theoretical intelligence as abso-
lutely subordinated to practical intelligence. Each
in truth is a partial manifestation of the one in-
divisible intelligence, and hence neither is higher
or lower than the other. The fact that in know-
ing the object is made more prominent, and the
subject in acting, is no reason for elevating the
one over the other. It is only an imperfect lib-
eration from the trammels of subjective idealism
that lends countenance to such a view.
5. It is virtually confessed by Schelling himself
that his explanation of objectivity as due to the
practical activity of intelligence is not satisfactory,
inasmuch as he goes on to seek in art for a final
explanation of the unconscious element implied in
both knowledge and action. His explanation can j
be satisfactory to no one who asks seriously what /
is meant by the unconsciousness of art. That the
products of artistic genius, like the great deeds
which have left an impress on the world's history,
contain in them an element of unconsciousness is
manifest enough; but it is by no means manifest \
that the "unconscious" is to be straightway iden- ;
tified with ultimate reality. The element of un-
consciousness is simply the shadow thrown by
human finitudc, a shadow which can only be dis-
THE SYSTEM OF IDENTITY. 207
placed by the light of philosophy. In all knowledge
and in all action there is a feeling of something
which we do not make for ourselves. This feeling
is in our ordinary consciousness what the recogni-
tion of human finitude or dependence is in religion
and philosophy. In other words, the unconscious
or unknown is that "thing in itself" which in
the philosophy of Kant finally emerged as God,
and which must so emerge in any philosophy which
follows out the implications of the activity of
human intelligence. Schelling, however, at the
stage which he had reached in the Transcendental
Idealism had not freed himself from the shackles
of a one-sided idealism, and hence he labors to
show that in artistic activity there is a fusion of
the infinite and the finite which in theoretical and
practical intelligence is only the hidden goad im-
pelling the mind forward to ever new self-mani-
festations. The practical idealism of Fichte he
found unsatisfactory, as he could hardly help
doing; but he seemed to find in the creative
activity of art the unity of intelligence and nature
of which he was in search. In thus at last taking
refuge in the " unconscious/' Schelling practically '
confesses his failure to solve the problem of phi- '
losophy, a failure which, as we have tried to show
above, is the inevitable consequence of the untena-
schelling's tbanscendental idealism.
ble opposition of intelligence and nature from
which he set out. His next step has already been
indicated. Finding that neither the process by
which nature advances to intelligence, nor the
process by which intelligence advances to nature,
yields that unity of both which a true instinct,
not to speak of his philosophical training, showed
him to be the goal of philosophy, he seeks for it
in the abstract identity or indifference of subject
and object To the System of Identity, which is
almost explicit in the Transcendental Idealism, a
few words must now be devoted.
It is somewhat misleading to speak of Schelling
as "leaping in a variety of directions according
to the latest goad/* There is no solution in the
continuity of his philosophical development. As
in the Transcendental Idealism he endeavored to
combine the main principles of Fichte with the
conclusions he had worked out for himself in
regard to nature, and was inevitably led in that
endeavor to go beyond the point from which he
had started; so in the Statement of my System
(Darstellung meines Systems), and the Lectures
on the Method of Academical Study, the two trea-
tises which sum up the philosophy of identity,
he takes a step which in logical consistency he
could not avoid taking. That in the former of
THE SYSTEM OP IDENTITY. 209
those works Schelling adopts the mathematical
mode of statement familiar to us in Spinoza arose
from that instinct for literary form which rarely
failed him. How could a system of identity be
better set forth? To say that he was led to the
philosophy of identity externally by a study of
Spinoza is a remark to which only a superficial
study of Schelling lends any countenance. In-
deed, apart from any deeper objections to it, the
fact that his familiarity with Spinoza dates back
to the very beginning of his philosophical career
ought to set the matter at rest.
In the introduction to the first of the works
named, Schelling virtually confesses that the paral-
lelism and independence of the philosophy of knowl-
edge and the philosophy of nature is a half-truth
which needs to be supplemented by the other half,
and that both must be united in the philosophy of
existence as a whole. This admission is made in a
way which reveals that craving for recognition as
an Original thinker, which we have seen to be char-
acteristic of Schelling, and which brings into promi-
nence a certain fragility of moral fibre that has its J
counterpart in the eagerness he displays to place
the public in possession of his newest thought be-
fore it has had time to lose its freshness. The
complete system, he says, which he had had in his
14
210 bchblling's transcendental idealism.
mind all along, and which he had presented from
various points of view, he now finds himself com-
pelled, from the prevalent state of opinion about
it, to give to the public as a whole earlier than he
had intended. This of course is mere self-delusion ;
but Schelling is undoubtedly justified when he goes
on to say that in his previous writings there ex-
ists in germ that system of identity which he now
proposes to set forth in an explicit way. Phil-
| osophy of nature and transcendental philosophy
< are the opposite poles of his philosophizing; the
philosophy of identity starts from the point of in-
difference, and goes on to show how the opposite
poles may be developed from it. The whole system
must therefore rest, not on the reflective opposi-
tion of intelligence and nature, subject and object,
but on the production of all reality by and in the
absolute. If it is correct to formulate the idealism
of Fichte in the proposition, Ego=AH, his own
idealism may be thrown into the form, All=Ego;
in other words, whereas Fichte starts from the intel-
ligence as having an objective world opposed to it,
and therefore as finite or subjective, and seeks to
show that that world exists only in relation to the
finite subject, Schelling begins with Reason as
above the dualism of subject and object, and pro-
ceeds to establish the identity of the two. Bv
THE SYSTEM OF IDENTITY. 211
reason, then, is meant not the reason of any in-
dividual intelligence, but that which is the total
indifference or absolute identity of intelligence
and nature. This idea is obtained by complete
abstraction from the ordinary dualism of subject
and object, and therefore by abstraction from one-
self as thinking reason. In this way we get
the true and only reality. Philosophy thus shows
that the only intelligible meaning of "things-in-
themselves" is the knowledge of things, or rather
of the finite, as they are in the absolute reason.
It is characteristic of philosophy that it rises above
all finite distinctions, such as those of time and
space, and in general of all the differences to which
imagination gives an apparent independence and
reality, and puts itself at the point of view of
reason. Beyond reason there cannot be any reality,
for the finite as such is not real; the finite subject
exists only in opposition to the finite object, the
finite object only in contrast to the finite subject;
tie unity of both lies in that which is both because
it is neither. It is evident that reason is one in
the most absolute sense, since outside of it there
is nothing that could possibly limit it, and within
it there is no phenomenal distinction such as that
of subject and object. The supreme law of reason,
and therefore of all reality, is the law of identity,
212 schelling's transcendental idealism.
A=A — a law which, as independent of time or
eternal, is absolutely true. Again, reason is the
same as the absolute identity; it is infinite, and
its identity can never be destroyed. From the
point of view of reason there is therefore no finite
existence, and hence it is absurd to attempt, as
all philosophers except Spinoza have attempted, to
explain how the infinite identity proceeds out of
itself; the true view is that all reality is infinite,
while the finite is merely apparent reality. The
knowledge of the absolute, which as unconditioned
does not admit of proof, but follows immediately
from the law of identity, is not separable from the
absolute in so far as it is real, but is involved in
the very nature of the absolute. This form is
given in and with the reality of the absolute, and
hence there is no sequence in time of the absolute
and its form, but both are eternally united. The
distinction of subject and predicate, in the formula
A=A, does not affect the inner nature of the ab-
solute, but is a mere formal or relative distinction;
in other words, the absolute is only under the form
of the perfect identity. The absolute cannot know
itself as absolute identity or infinite, without know-
itself as subject and object; but this distinction
affects only its form, not its inner nature or essence.
There can be no qualitative difference of subject
THE SYSTEM OF IDENTITY. 213
and object, for that would imply an opposition in
the inner nature of the absolute; all distinction
of reality is therefore purely quantitative, or im- /
plies the preponderance of subject or object, knowl-
edge or being; and only because of this distinction
in quantity is the form of subject- objectivity actual.
The distinction of finite things is not a distinction
in the nature or essence of the absolute, but merely
a formal distinction due to reflection. In relation
to the absolute totality, there is not even quan-
titative difference, but the perfect equilibrium of
subject and object; mind and matter are manifesta-
tions of the same power, the distinction being,
that in the one the real and in the other the ideal,
preponderates. The separation of subject and ;
object has no justification from the point of view ■'
of reason, and is the source of all error in phi- ,
losophy. Each individual thing has reality in
and through the absolute, and its finite differ-
ence is simply the form in which the reality of
the absolute appears as a determinate quantitative
difference. As a particular expression or mani-
festation of the absolute, each individual thing may
be regarded as relative totality, or as in a sense
infinite. The absolute as manifesting in its form
the quantitative difference which distinguishes mind
and matter, subject and object, may be represented
214 sciielling's teanscendental idealism.
by the formula A=A, the point of indifference,
while the contrast of subject and object, which
may be likened to the opposite poles of a magnet,
may be represented respectively by the formulae
+A=B and A=D+. The system thus indicated
cannot be called either idealism or realism, but,
as uniting both, it is properly distinguished as a
system of absolute identity. This general state*
nient of his main principles Schelling evidently
intended to be followed by an account of the
various phenomenal stages in which the absolute
manifests itself on the one hand as nature and on
the other hancl as mind, but as a matter of fact
he exhibited only the phases of matter. As the
statement of these does not differ substantially
from other statements of his philosophy of nature
it need not be given here. A more complete for-
mulation of his philosophy is given in the Lectures
on the Method of Academical Study, but the main
outlines of the system, apart from occasional antici-
pations of a later mysticism, are the same.
In the phase of speculation now under considera-
tion, we see in a very clear way that conflict of
two opposite principles for the mastery, which we
have seen to run through the whole of the Tran-
scendental Idealism and to vitiate its absolute
value. On the one hand, the absolute or reason is
TUB SYSTEM OF IDENTITY. 215
completely separated from its manifestations, and
thus lapses into a cold, dead identity, admitting of
no movement or life; while on the other hand, as
manifesting itself in intelligence and nature, the
concreteness which is at first denied is restored to
it. Taken literally the opening sections of the
Statement of My System, are open to the criti
cism which Fichte has directed against them with
terrible effect. A reason, as he says, which is the
"complete indifference of subject and object" is "at
once completely determined and in itself ended or
dead;" there is no possible way of "getting out of
the first proposition in any honest and logical way
a second proposition;* 1 and hence the determinations
applied to it of nothingness, totality, unity, self-
equality, etc., are perfectly gratuitous. Instead of
saying that "outside of reason is nothing and in
reason is all," Schelling ought to have said, that
"in reason and for reason there is nothing what-
ever," since there can be nothing for reason unless
it is subject or object or both, whereas it is ex-
plicitly held to l>e merely the indifference of the
two. So, also, it is utterly illogical to say that
" reason is absolutely one and absolutely self-equal ;"
the true inference from the preceding sections being,
that it is " neither one nor self-equal, as for reason
there is, as has been shown, nothing at all/' Hut
216 schelling'h transcendental idealism.
while Fichte shows very clearly the weakness of the
philosophy of identity as it is stated by Schelling,
he does not detect so well the source of that weak-
ness, and hence he is unable to do justice to the rela-
tive truth it contains. The indifference of subject
I and object is the result of the immediate negation
of subject and object, which is the first step beyond
the individualistic idealism of Fichte. There is
something higher than intelligence and nature,
conceived of as the opposition of the finite subject
and the finite object; and this "something," as the
immediate negation of the opposition, is naturally
conceived as that which is free from all distinction.
Schelling's mistake is to rest satisfied with this first
step, without advancing to the next step, in the res-
toration of the distinction of subject and object in
the higher form of a concrete unity. "The finite
as such has no independent reality" — this is the
truth in his view; " the infinite is the negation of
the finite' 1 — in this lies its falsity. The infinite
must be conceived as manifesting itself in the
finite or it necessarily remains dead. Why Schel-
ling separates the two terms of an inseparable
unity in duality we have already seen. Having
coordinated nature and intelligence, he was unable
to get rid of the dualism to which he had thus com-
mitted himself. But when it is seen that nature in
THE SYSTEM OF IDENTITY. 217
its various phases has no reality apart from intel-
ligence, or, in other words, that the distinctions
made in characterizing the world of nature and
of intelligence are not absolute but relative, the
unity of the infinite and the finite is seen to be one
which must not be sought in the pure blank of a
perfectly indeterminate absolute, but in the whole
universe as its manifestation. Nature is thus
merged in intelligence and both receive their due.
The one is no mere thing- in- itself, the other is not
an abstract I-in- itself. The absolute reveals itself
to us at the end of the ideal process of evolution,
not at the beginning: it is not selfless identity, but
self-conscious spirit But, while in words Schelling
puts the absolute away in an inaccessible realm, he
yet seeks at least to restore it by bringing it into
relation with its manifestations in nature and in
man; and, while we condemn the imperfect idealism
which leads him to seek for the absolute afar off,
when it really was " tumbling out at his feet," we
must not omit to credit him with an insight into
the problem which demanded solution, and with
taking the first step toward its solution.
CHAPTER IX.
SCHELLING'S LATER PHILOSOPHY.
rjlHE thread of speculation was taken up by
"*" Hegel at the point reached by Schelling in the
system of identity, but Schel ling's own development
took an independent course, some account of which
it seems advisable to give to prevent misunderstand-
ing. The later or mystical phase of his philosophy
is expressed mainly in Philosophy and Religion
(1804), Philosophical Enquiries into the Nature of
Human Freedom, (1809), with its supplements, the
reply to Jacobi and the letter to Eschenmeyer
(1812), and in the introduction to the Philosophy of
Mythology and the Philosophy of Revelation, made
public only after Schelling's death.
In these writings the criticism of the system of
identity, set down at the end of Chapter VIII, is vir-
tually endorsed by Schelling himself ; and the
attempt is made to show that for the indeterminate
absolute must be substituted a personal God, and
for the coordination of man and nature, the subor-
dination of nature to a system of free beings. The
transition is made in Philosophy and Religion,
which in one aspect is the completion of the system
218
219
of Identity, and in another aspect a mystical tran-
scendence of it. The absolute is, on the one hand,
completely separated from the world of finite exist-
ence as it appears in nature and in history, and on
the other hand, the finite world is the result of a
primal break or fall from the absolute. The inner
dialectic by which Schelling was driven from the
abstract opposition of subject and object to the affir-
mation of an utter void between the finite and the
infinite is here visibly at work; but not less the
burden laid upon reason to fill up the void, if not by
the steady persevering work of reason then by the
nebulous forms of imagination under the unseen
impulse of reason. Starting from the idealist solu-
tion of the reality of the known world of finite exist-
ence, Schelling could not well be satisfied with a
theory which virtually undid all the work of con-
struction in the region of knowledge, which he had
achieved: the world of nature he at least never
intended to attenuate to a ghostly thing- in- itself
existing independently of intelligence, and it was
inevitable that he should seek to restore the life
and movement which by his doctrine of the abstract
absolute he had at least in appearance destroyed.
Moreover, as Schelling at a later period expressly
avers, the pantheistic absorption of all things in the
absolute is a necessary stage towards a genuine
220 scheixing's transcendental idealism.
monotheism. The denial, in other words, of the
• finite as such is the condition of the apprehension
of the infinite, but it is folly to remain forever
in this purely negative attitude. The supersensible
nature of the universe is first apprehended as a
• withdrawal into its inner essence; but this essence
ought not to be conceived as a dead identity, but as
the spirit which enfolds the finite within itself and
yet realizes itself in the finite. This is in brief the
intuition which gives to Schelling's mysticism its
speculative value. That he can give no other than
a mystical solution results partly from the limita-
tions of his philosophical genius, and partly from
the false course on which he embarked when he
coordinated nature and spirit, instead of subordi-
nating the one to the other.
The treatise on human freedom begins with some
general remarks on pantheism, by no means the
least valuable part of the work, which are intended
to prepare the way for the monotheistic solution
that follows. It is usually held that pantheism is
destructive at once of all individuality and of all
freedom; the former because it absolutely identifies
the finite with the infinite, the latter because it
refers the volitions of men to God as their cause.
But if by pantheism is meant the immanence of all
things in God, neither of these charges can be sub-
schelling's later philosophy. 221
stantiated. The individuality of things is not
denied in any but a true sense, when things are
referred to God as the ground of their existence;
to say that the finite is nothing apart from God is \
very different from saying that the finite has no i
reality at all. Nor is the doctrine of immanence
incompatible with freedom. The supposition that
it is, arises from the base mechanical view, which
regards God and man as two separate things among
other things. The real truth is that man could not
be free were he not dependent upon God; "for only
the free can be in God, while that which is not free
is necessarily outside of God. Only in freely act-
ing beings can God reveal himself, and they are
just as truly as He is. Not the pantheism of
Spinoza, who is the typical instance of this mode of
thought, but his one-sided realism or determinism,
is responsible for the denial of human freedom.
The source of all his mistakes is the assumption
of the independent reality of things, an assumption
which leads him to conceive even of God and the
will as things outside of other things, and to regard
each volition as the mechanical effect of a precedent
cause, which again has a prior cause and so on to
infinity. His system with its dead mechanical
explanations may be compared to the statue of
Pygmalion before it was quickened into life by the
222 schelling's transcendental idealism.
breath of love. This dead and motionless panthe-
ism of Spinoza, spiritualized by idealism, is the true
philosophy of nature; which, however, must be
carried up into a philosophy of spirit resting upon
the supremacy of free will. For it is not enough
to say with Fichte that " activity, life and freedom
is the only true reality;' 1 but we must show that
this is true of nature no less than of man, and we
must advance beyond the purely formal notion of
freedom as self-activity to freedom as the faculty of
willing good and evil. Here the philosophy which
admits the immanence of all things in. God first
enters upon its life-and-death struggle, for here it is
confronted by the dilemma, that if evil is in God his
perfection seems to be destroyed, while on the other
hand, if there is no evil, as little can there be any
freedom. No half-solutions a*«* here of any avail,
such as, that God permits evil, or the Manichaean
opposition of two independent powers of good and
evil, or the doctrine of the origin of evil by succes-
sive emanations which seem to make it real and yet
independent of God.
After this striking introduction, which is still
more striking in the extended form in which Schel-
ling presents it, the sjtecial problem of the work
i* entered upon in a new mystical theodicy, the
outlines of which arc largely due to the deep in-
schellikg's later philosophy. 223
tuitions of Jacob BOhmen. The divine substance,
according to BOhmen, is primarily a formless infi-
nite, which, in the feeling of its own vague infin-
ity, shrinks into finitude in the ground of nature,
whence, gradually raised into the light of spirit,
it lives and moves as God in an eternal realm of
bliss. In agreement with this threefold ideal move-
ment, Schelling, starting from the absolute in
the shape of pure indifference or primal baseless-
ness, as it had been reached in the system of
identity, goes on to maintain that God first appears
as the diremption of existence and ground, in order
that he may finally transform his original indiffer-
ence into identity, and thus become a self-conscious
person or will.
First of ail, the possibility of evil must be recon-
ciled with the personality of God. The first phase
or potency of the divine life is that of pure indiffer-
ence, the original, undifferentiated "ground" of
existence, which is prior to all duality or disruption.
Out of this indifference break forth two equally eter- j
nal beginnings, in order that ground and existence [
may become one in love. The division takes place I
that by it the divine may become spirit or person-
ality. Since before or beyond God there is nothing,
the ground or foundation of his existence must
be within himself, but it must not be identified
224 SCHELLING'8 transcendental idealism.
with God considered absolutely, or in his real ex-
istence; it is nature in God, and as such inseparable
but distinct from him. Nature is not to be thought
as posterior either in time or in essence to the
absolute; it no doubt precedes his concrete ex-
istence, but on the other hand God is the prim of
nature, and the condition of its existence. In na-
ture, as distinguishable and yet inseparable from
God, the eternal One feels the yearning to beget
himself, the yearning after understanding or self-
revelation; and, the ground moving like a heaving
sea in obedience to some dark and indefinite law,
there arises in God himself an inner reflexive idea,
in which God contemplates himself in his own
image. This idea is God born in God himself, the
eternal word in God, which gives light or under-
standing. The understanding united with the
ground becomes freely creative and almighty will.
The work of this enlightened will is the reduction
of nature as a perfectly lawless ground to law,
order, form; and from this transformation of the
real by the ideal comes the creation of the world.
In the evolution of the world, the first stage is
the birth of light, or the gradual development from
nature to man; the second and higher stage, the
birth of spirit, or man's development in history.
Nature parts into two opposing forces, the inner-
schelling's later philosophy. 225
most bond of which only gradually unfolds itself;
and it is the task of the philosophy of nature to
exhibit the process by which the separation is grad-
ually made until at last the innermost center or
essence of nature is disclosed. Every natural ex- •
istence has a double principle within itself. That
which separates it from God originates from the
ground, and constitutes its self-will, as distin-
guished from the universal will. In merely na-
tural beings these two principles never come
together in unity, but the particular will is mere
rage and greed in them, whilst the universal will
acts independently as controlling instinct. Only
in man are the two principles united as they are
in the absolute, and in the illumination of self-
will by the universal will consists the spirituality
of man. In God, however, the two principles are
inseparable, while in man they are not only separ-
able, but opposed, and on this opposition depends
the possibility of good and evil. As spirit or will
man is no unconscious instrument of the universal
will, but stands above and beyond both of the op-
posing principles. Good is the voluntary identifi-
cation of the particular with the universal will,
evil the voluntary separation of the one from the
other. Evil is therefore not a mere negation oi-
ls
-V
&
want* but a positive inversion of the true relations
7- of particular and universal will.
Not merely the possibility of evil, but its actual
existence, has to be explained. Its existence arises
from the necessity of God's revelation of himself
to man. Did the two opposing principles exist in
indissoluble unity in man, as they exist in God,
there could be no revelation of God's nature as
love, for love is revealed only in contrast to hate,
unity only as the opposite of strife. The will of
love and the will of the ground are distinguisha-
ble and yet inseparable; the one must act, and
act independently, in order that the other may
be. The ground calls forth self-will and opposi-
tion, that spirit as will may in man actualize
itself in striving against the love. In the lower
forms of nature self-will presents itself as irra-
tionality or disorder, and more manifestly in the
animal in the form of appetite and desire. But
only in the realm of history does self-will appear
unclothed and without disguise. The history of
man is a record of the conflict of self-will and
universal will, and the various phases of this con-
flict constitute the great periods of human history.
After the period of primeval innocence came the
period when nature was triumphant in evil. Hut
the time when the earth was sunk in wickedness
6CH EL LING'S LATER PHILOSOPHY. 227
was just the time when the higher light of the
spirit was born in Christianity. God became man
in Christ, that man might return to God. The
last period of the world is the realm of the spirit, £ "
in which self-will and love are reconciled, that w
God may become all in all.
The next thing to be explained is how the in-
dividual man comes to decide for good or evil.
The ordinary explanations of human freedom lead
to absurdity. Freedom is neither to be found in
the so-called "liberty of indifference/ 1 which makes
freedom irrational, nor in determinism, which de-
stroys freedom altogether; the one gives man over
to chance, the other to an iron necessity which is
at bottom the same thing. Kant indicated the
true solution, when he pointed out that in his
intelligible character man is taken out of the
chain of mechanical causation and raised above
time. To act freely is to act from no necessity
but the necessity of our own nature, and this act
is a choice between good and evil. But this /
choice falls outside of time, and therefore is coeval
with the first creation. Empirical man is not
free, but his empirical nature is the product of
his own free act as out of time. His acts in
time are predestinated, but predestinated by him-
self. Neither Judas himself nor any other crea-
228 schelling's transcendental idealism.
ture could prevent him from betraying Christ,
and yet he was not compelled to betray him, but
did so voluntarily, and with perfect freedom.
Hence the radical evil of human nature, which is
merely raised into consciousness by the entrance
of opposition. This, however, does not mean that
moral progress is impossible, but only that such
progress is the consequence of the timeless act by
which man's nature and life in time are deter-
mined.*
The first and second waves are past, but a third
and bigger wave is upon us. Is God's revelation of
himself a blind or a conscious act? And if by his
own free act evil has originated, how shall his stain-
less perfection and holiness be preserved? Schel-
ling's solution of this old problem is not altogether
satisfactory. We must distinguish, he says, be-
^ tween Go d as the groun d and God in his perfection,
and we must observe that even as ground God is
not the author of evil as such, but merely solicits
the self-will of man, as a means of awakening him
to the distinction of good and evil. The ground
but calls forth the particular will of the individual,
that love may have a material whereon to realize
•For an acute criticism of thin part of Schilling'* doctrine, see
Schnrman** Kantian Ethic* and the Ethic* of Evolution, p. 6 ff. It
mitft of course be tindcn<tood that full Juetice cannot be done to
• Schclling'* argument in an epitome.
schelling's later philosophy. 229
itself, and hence it is indirectly the condition of
good. Evil, in short, is a necessary stage in the
process towards the complete realization of good.
If it is objected that this is a Manichaean dualism,
Schelling answers, in his reply to Jacobi, that the
perfection of God is not incompatible with this
gradual manifestation of himself. Imperfection is
perfection itself in the process of becoming.
Unless there be a dark ground or negative principle
in God, there can be no talk of his personality. It
is impossible to think of God as self-conscious
unless we think of him as limiting himself by a'
negative power within himself. In God, as in man,
true personality arises only by the realization of
feeling through understanding; the abstract unity
of reason, beautiful as it is, must be broken up by
the separative and organizing understanding before
there can be self-conscious personality.
The main interest of Sehelling's Philosophy of
Mythology and Philosophy of Revelation, apart from
their suggestiveness, lies in the application of the
idea of the self- revelation of God as realized in the
gradual development of the religious consciousness.
The introductory part in which are set forth the
doctrine of "potencies" and the various stages by
which nature rises to self-consciousness in man, is
in substantial agreement with the theosophic specu-
230 8CIIELLING'S transcendental idealism.
lations of the Enquiries into Human Freedom and
its pendants. All that need be said of this section
is, that the various stages of the human spirit on
its way to a comprehension of the idea of God are,
as in the earlier treatises, declared to be, first, its
theoretical relation to nature, secondly its practical
relation to the moral law, and, lastly, the freedom
of artistic contemplation, which consists in what is
characterized by Aristotle as thinking on thought,
and the object of which is God, as the first principle
of the world. The end of this process, however, is
not union with God, but merely the abstract com-
prehension of the idea of God. Only when religion
becomes its object, does philosophy advance from its
negative to its positive phase. For religion rests
upon the actual realization of will, and hence phi-
losophy, to come in real contact with God, must
follow up the actual realization of the religious
consciousness from its beginnings in mythology to
its completion in religion as the perfect revelation
of God. Even the pre-Christian religions are to be
regarded as phases in God's revelation of himself.
The forces by which the religious consciousness is
developed are at the same time the potencies
through which God realizes himself in the process
of the world. Mythology is the history of God in
consciousness. From the very beginning man had
sciiellixg's later philosophy. 231
a consciousness of God, although God was not an
object of definite knowledge. From this stage of
relative monotheism the religious consciousness was
carried away from God and assumed the form of
poly theism, which was a necessary stage in the tran-
sition to a free monotheism. The first form of
religion was Sabeism, the worship of God as mani-
fested in the stars; which was followed by the
Egyptian worship of the gods as individualized in
the form of animals; and this again gave way to
the religion of Greece, in which the worship of
beautiful personalities in human form prevailed.
Finally, the Greek mysteries prepared the way for
a more spiritual faith in the religion of revelation,
the absolute monotheism in which all antitheses are
reconciled. The main object of the philosophy of
revelation is to explain the personality of Christ;
and hence Schelling considers his existence prior to
his incarnation, the incarnation itself and the
mediation of man and God accomplished by it.
The completion of Christ's work allows of the
period of the spirit, through the action of which
the church exists. The two first periods of the
church, Catholicism and Protestantism, are past,
and the third, the Christianity of John, is at hand.
The philosophy of Schelling thus closes with a
vision of the new Jerusalem coming down from
heaven.
X The main value of Schelling's later philosophy,
as it seems to me, lies in its vivid presentation
of problems for solution, and in its prophecy of
a reconciliation of contradictions which it does not
itself reconcile. Starting from the denial of any
God other than the moral order of the world, and
compelled by the coordination of subject and ob-
ject to take refuge in a pantheistic absorption of
all things in an indeterminate absolute, Schelling
was at last led to see the necessity of maintaining
the personality of God, and of seeking for a recon-
ciliation of that personality with the freedom of
man. The conception of God, as by his very nature
compelled to reveal himself in the world, un-
doubtedly contains a truth of pre-eminent impor-
tance; but it is not arrived at by any rational
and well-ordered method, but is simply accepted
on the guarantee of a flash of poetic insight. The
mysticism which views all things as bathed in
the omnipresent light of the divine nature, and
dips the sharp contradictions of the analytic un-
derstanding in the medium of a rational phantasy,
has for most minds a peculiar glamour and fas-
cination. But it is not a frame of mind which
can be cultivated with impunity. It is almost in-
evitably followed by a process of enervation, which
is fatal to vigorous and sustained philosophical
schelling's later philosophy. 233
thought. Too many draughts of the divine elixir
are intoxicating. The spoils of philosophy cannot
be won by day-dreaming, but must be conquered
by energetic, persistent and long-continued toil.
Apart from this general objection to Scbelling's
later method of speculation, it must be said that
he has not solved the problems that he set himself
to solve. To talk of God as necessarily opposing
a ground to himself, by which he may come to a
consciousness of himself, is merely to say that, some-
how or other, nature is dependent upon God. Nor
can it be said that Schelling has made any decided
advance beyond his earlier position in his solution
of the problem of human freedom. One cannot
indeed be too thankful for the true insight, that
freedom is neither unmotived volition nor mechani-
cal necessitation, but the realization of one's own
inner nature. But to explain the freedom to will ,y
evil or good as due to a timeless act really explains
nothing; it is further away, indeed, from a true
explanation than the view of Kant, which it affects
to improve but really distorts. Kant held that
man as a rational will is independent of the me-
chanical law of causation, but he did not make
the extravagant attempt to show that man wills
his own empirical character before he enters the
realm of consciousness at all. No doubt the view
234 schklling's transcendental idealism.
of Schelling may be made more consonant with
the soberness of unintoxicated reason by regarding
it as merely a poetical rendering of the truth,
that autonomy, or self-determination by the pure
idea of duty, is the condition of morality; but,
thus interpreted, it lapses back into the uncolored
prose of Kant's "categorical imperative." Schel-
ling is not more successful in reconciling the fact
of evil with the goodness of God. All that he
has to say is, at bottom, that God does not directly
will evil, and that evil is a necessary stage towards
good. These may be accepted as vague intuitions
of the truth, but in the form into which they are
thrown they do not help us much. The truth is,
that there is absurdity in the very attempt to
answer the quid sit in place of the quod sit, as
Schelling expressly tells us his aim was. Such an
attempt to construct the world before it exists, is
really an attempt to derive the rational and con-
scious out of the irrational and unconscious. We
do not see things any more clearly by seeking for
them behind the mirror. The explanation of the
" what is " is all that is possible, and indeed all
that is required. Schelling's complaint that the
philosophy of Hegel was mere logic, only shows
that he was himself attempting the impossible
feat of explaining reality by that which was not
schelling's later philosophy. 235
reality; and it is not surprising that on the dark
background of the night he saw but the brilliant
shapes thrown out by his own too fervid imagina-
tion. The truth was no doubt symbolized in these
creatures of a rationalizing phantasy, but only
because Schelling did not really turn his back on
the actual, but only supposed that he had done so.
In making these remarks I do not wish to be
understood as seeking to underrate the suggest! ve-
ness of Schelling's speculations, or to throw any
discredit on their value as an important stage in
the history of human thought. Nor, I hope, am
I insensible to the great value of his lectures on
Mythology and Revelation as contributions to the
philosophy of religion, and as a powerful and, on
the whole, beneficent incentive to the study of
religion in its history. But I cannot refrain from
saying that, with all his brilliancy, fertility and
poetic insight, Schelling in his later days committed
himself to a mode of philosophizing, the form
of which is radically unsound, valuable as its sub-
stance in many respects is; and that whatever is
best in his system has been absorbed and super-
seded by a greater than he. The higher problems
of philosophy, as they were thrown down before
the world by Kant, were taken up by Hegel, after
Schelling had done his best to solve them and had
236 schblling's transcendental idealism.
in large measure failed, and were attacked anew
with a vigor, pertinacity and originality that have
never been excelled in any age. If in Hegel the
pure light of philosophy does not shine, it may
safely be said that it has not yet shone upon the
earth.
CHAPTER X.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
TN previous chapters an attempt has been made
~*~ to exhibit the phases of Schelling's philosophi-
cal development as they are registered in the
various treatises which form their vehicle. All
the elements for an independent judgment have
been supplied to the reader, together with some
hints of the weak parts of the system, but it may
be of some little use to students of Schelling to say
a word or two on the relation of his philosophy
as a whole to that of Kant, and to suggest one
or two points of analogy with the thought of our
own day.
There is a sort of dramatic interest in follow-
ing the course of Schelling's speculations that docs
not attach in quite the same way to the study of
the fully articulated system of Hegel. The start-
ing point and the goal of Schelling seem, and in
some sense are, the exact opposite of each other;
his development is not so much evolution as revo-
lution. In the one we have the unqualified denial
of God as other than the ideal of moral perfec-
tion; in the other, we have the unflinching affir-
837
238 SCHBLLINO's TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
mation of the reality of God as a being who is
the sole ground of explanation of all finite exist-
ence. To Schelling, in the first stage of his
speculation, man is all in ail; and not only so,
but it is man as a practically active or moral
being who is regarded as the centre and ground
of explanation of all things. At the end of his
career, man has ceased for Schelling to be more
than the medium through which the Divine Being
manifests his infinite perfection, although without
interfering with human freedom. The process by
which these two extremes are united constitutes
the main value of Schelling's philosophy, and the
contemplation of the manner in which the transi-
tion is effected has all the interest attaching to
an exhibition of the links, by which the three
great spheres of reality — Man, the World and
God — are bound together in unity. Whatever
may be said of Schelling's solutions, he has at
least traced for us the path by which a philoso-
phy that makes any effort to explain ail the facts
of life must proceed.
In looking back over the course of Schelling's
development, it cannot fail to suggest itself that
the point from which his philosophy begins is the
point to which the empirical philosophy, until
lately preeminent in England and elsewhere, in-
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 239
evitably tends. Many of the leaders of thought
in England seem to have come to the conclusion
that the only "supersensible" reality, if it may a>o
be designated, is the reality of moral law, and
that the only solution of the " riddle of the pain-
ful earth," is to strive manfully to do one's duty.
This is in large measure the gospel which the
followers of Comte, Carlyle, Arnold, and many
others have to deliver; and the burden of it all
is: "Cease to seek for the solution of the insolu-
ble problems of metaphysic, and concentrate your
energies on the actual which is here and now.' 1
That this should be regarded as the last word of
speculation is a presumption at least against the
truth of the method of speculation which leads to
it. For the advice " Don't speculate " is one that
cannot be taken. Agnosticism is at best a tem-
porary phase of thought, and must be replaced by
something more positive. And it throws fresh
light on the weakness of empiricism when we see
that the source of the agnosticism, which charac-
terizes the beginning of Schelling's speculations, is
to be found in that negative attitude towards the
supersensible, which is maintained by Kant in the
Critique of Pure Reason, mainly because Kant
was determined to allow full rights to the purely
secular consciousness. Caprice and arbitrariness
240 schelling's transcendental idealism.
most be banished from the realm of our every-day
life and experience, and hence no interference
with the inviolable laws of nature can be allowed.
It is this determination to recognize law and order
in that which is around us, which led Kant, as it
has led others, to deny to the theoretical faculty
any power of knowing that which is above sensi-
ble experience. In one way this tendency deserves
hearty commendation. It is the beginning of the
speculative reformation in the realm of fact and
human life, corresponding to the religious refor-
mation inaugurated by Luther. Nothing is to be
accepted that is not certified in actual sensible ex-
perience. But that only the lower side of things
is in this way taken note of, is also taught us by
Schelling, not less than by Kant. A supersensible
that is inconsistent with the absoluteness of natural
law must be cast aside, but not a supersensible
which ennobles and transfigures the sensible.
While the result of Schelling's speculation in its
first form is identical with that of empiricism, its
tendency is widely different, and it is because of
this different tendency that it gradually developed,
or at least tended to develop, into something
higher and better. The empiricist's denial of the
supersensible is but the obverse of his assumption
that all real existence is independent of inteili-
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 241
gence, and hence that man, both as intellectual
and as moral, is governed by the same law as
applies to external nature. The Absolute cannot
be confined within the frames which fit the par-
ticular and finite; it is not a sensible thing to be
determined as substance, as cause, or as in recip-
rocal activity with other things. The recognition
of this truth constitutes one of the valid claims
on our gratitude of Kant and his idealist follow-
ers. It is one thing to say that the Absolute is
unknowable because all that is knowable is condi-
tioned or sensible; another and a very different
thing to say that the Absolute is unknowable as
conditioned or sensible. The former is the empir-
ical formula, the latter the formula of a true
idealism. For one who takes up the first attitude,
there is no advance to the supersensible, so long
as he persists in it, and shuts his eyes to the pos-
sibility that the limitation is in his own formula,
rather than in real existence as a whole. If the
physical categories of substance, cause and reci-
procity are the only modes in which reality can
be thought by us, there can be no knowledge of
God, and therefore for us no God. But if we
only say with Kant that these categories are not
applicable to the Absolute, on supposition that
there is an Absolute, the outlook is of a different
16
242 ACHELUHO's TRAKSCEKBEKTAL IDEALISM.
and more hopeful kind. The denial of the finitude
or conditioned character of the Absolute is an indi-
rect tribute to its perfection. Should it be possible
to show subsequently that, while the categories
which are adequate to existence as conceived in its
parts are inadequate to the Absolute as the Totality
or Ground of existence, there yet are categories
which are adequate to it, our first or negative
attitude will be but the germ and prophecy of the
positive. Now this, as we have seen (Chap. I),
is the position taken up by Kant in respect to
the supersensible. With the calmness and caution
characteristic of all his speculations, Kant points
out that the Absolute, as the unconditioned totality
of all conditions, cannot be brought under the
rubric which is appropriate to the conditioned or
relative. The imperfection of Kant here was
that, identifying knowledge as a whole with
knowledge of the conditioned, he was driven to
the conclusion that reason in the form of knowl-
edge cannot attain to the comprehension of the
Absolute, but can only indicate what its nature
is not Hence his attempt to make reason as
practical bear up the whole weight of the Abso-
lute. The inevitable result was that God becomes
for Kant a " moral belief," not an object of
knowledge — as if belief and knowledge could thus
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 243
be sundered without suspicion being cast upon the
very possibility of God's existence. There was,
therefore, a certain justification for the negative
attitude assumed by Schelling towards an " ob-
jective" God; a justification (1) in the fact that
the God whose reality he denied was, as the tran-
scendent God of deism, really finite, and (2) in the
self-contradiction of the Kantian theory from
which he started. However little we can at-
tribute to Kant Schelling's interpretation of the
term "postulate" — the interpretation that, like
the postulates of geometry, it means something
to be done, not something to be believed in as
objective — it must be admitted that it is a fair
deduction from the letter of Kant's theory. For
if God is made merely an object of " belief," he is
as existing thrust out beyond our consciousness,
and so becomes a transcendent Being, who, as out
of all real relation to our reason, is for us "as
good as nothing." On the other hand, an inter-
pretation of Kant, based on the spirit rather than
on the letter of his doctrine, leads to a different
result God may be beyond knowledge in the
sense of being unconditioned or non-finite, and
may yet be an object of reason. This is what
Kant strove to say, however he may have failed
to say it in an unambiguous and self-consistent
244 schelling's transcendental idealism.
way; and hence we can understand how Schilling,
starting from the critical position that nothing
exists which is oat of relation to intelligence,
should first deny the reality of a transcendent
God, and should next, by the inner dialectic which
led to that denial, be compelled ultimately to
affirm his reality.
This leads us to the second period of Schelling's
speculative activity, as represented by his philoso-
phy of nature, his transcendental philosophy, and
the unity of both in the system of identity. The
ethical idealism of Schelling's first phase of
thought — an idealism without God — could not
be permanently satisfactory to one who had drunk
deep of the spring of critical idealism. " Conduct,"
as Mr. Matthew Arnold is so fond of saying, may
be " three-fourths of life, 11 but conduct cannot rest
on the bosom of nothing. When a contrast is
drawn, as it so commonly is drawn, between "con-
duct" and "thinking/' it seems to be forgotten that
the, conduct of a man is determined by the quality
of his thinking. No doubt men may have good
thoughts while their conduct is bad; but, there is
not, conversely, any good conduct that is not set in
motion and controlled by good thinking. The sup-
position that there is arises from confusing explicit
or reflective thinking with thinking in general. It
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 245
is one thing to be dominated by a true thought, and
another thing to be able to give a formal and
precise statement of what that thought is, and the
ultimate grounds of it. But the task of philosophy
just is, to state in the explicit form of reflection
that which is implicit in the life and action of good
men. Hence it is that no philosophy, which knows
what it is about, can decline the task of bringing
the scientific view of the real world into harmony
with its view of morality. The attempt to put
asunder two things so indissolubly joined together
inevitably revenges itself, as the history of philoso-
phy has shown, in agnosticism or mysticism. In a
philosophy which makes morality all in all, and
knowledge nothing, the reality of the supersensible
is naturally denied on the ground that a knowledge
of it is unnecessary to conduct; or at best it is
bodied forth as a mysterious and inaccessible region.
Schelling was therefore right when he refused to
acquiesce in the ethical idealism of Fichte, and,
under the guidance of Kant, "broke through to
nature/' But even in the very phrase of a " breach
to nature," by which he designated his difference
from Fichte, Schelling proclaims at once the weak-
ness and the strength of his peculiar position in the
march of an idealist philosophy. The strength of
the new attitude is that a knowledge of nature is
246 SCH ELLlXO's TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM.
regarded as essential to a complete solution of the
problem of philosophy: its weakness is that it still
opposes thinking and being as if they were two
separate realities of equal worth. Pass along the
line of thought, and you do indeed find that there is
no thought that has not being as its object; but, on
the other hand, this being is conceived as in some
sense merely the representation or picture of
reality, not reality itself. Follow out the evolution
of being, and you at last come to thinking, but
this thinking is somehow a product of being. Evi-
dently Schelling has not got rid of dualism, refined
as the dualism is to which he has committed him-
self. Hence he feels himself compelled to seek for
a uniting principle, which shall bind together what
he has illicitly separated. This principle or abso-
lute thus becomes a sort of "pre-established har-
mony ," accounting for the correspondence of the
"subjective subject-object" and the "objective sub-
ject-object/ 1 Now the idea of a pre-established
harmony is merely an enunciation of the problem,
not a solution of it. Two relatives are illegiti-
mately separated and then artificially united. The
source of Schelling's mistake lies, as I have tried to
show above (Chap. VIII), in his failure to subordi-
nate nature to spirit, and in the consequent elimi-
nation of self-consciousness from the universe. The
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 247
proof of this need not be repeated, but it may be of
advantage to show the relation of this second phase
of Schelling's speculation to the philosophy of
Kant
At the point reached by Kant in the second part
of his Critique of Pure Reason, the phenomenal
world is shown to lead necessarily to the idea of the
noumenal world, the conditioned to the uncondi-
tioned, the relative to the absolute, the part to the
whole. The absolute, however, is presented in a
purely negative way as that which is not condi-
tioned, relative or partial. Hence it tends to
assume the form of a pure blank identity, in which
the differences of things as yet are not. Now if we
take up the philosophy of Kant at this point, and
treat it as final, we are inevitably driven to the
pantheistic absorption of all things in the absolute.
Hence, as a matter of fact, those who like Schopen-
hauer, assume that Kant has here said the last true
word, are led to regard man and nature as manifes-
tations of an unconscious will, which is in reality
simply a blind force. Schelling, in the second
phase of his .speculation, to a certain extent does
assume the finality of this stage in the Kantian
philosophy: with the result as we have seen, of
unspiritualising nature because he has denatural-
ized spirit. Here in fact we find Schelling, with
248 schelling's transcendental idealism.
disastrous consequences to his philosophy, branching
off from Fichte in a wrong direction. In the idea
of a unity combining both mind and nature he is
perfectly right, and to that extent he is entirely at
one with Hegel; but in virtually making that unity
abstract instead of concrete he has let go of the
principle of a self-consistent idealism. For if
nature is nothing apart from its relations to intelli-
gence, as Schelling in agreement with Kant meant
to affirm, it is evident that the absolute must be
sought not in the abstract residuum which arises
from the elimination of the differences of spirit
and nature, but in the concrete unity embracing
both and therefore lifting nature into the pure
ether of spirit. It would be unjust however to
Schelling, as it is to Kant, to hold him tightly to
the bare letter of his system. His philosophy is
not a mere repetition of the philosophy of Spinoza;
for by Spinoza thought and extension are conceived
simply as the attributes of substance, mind and
nature as things in reciprocal relation to each
other; whereas Schelling never surrenders the
belief in the self-conscious activity of mind, but
rather seeks to show that both nature and mind are
manifestations of a single self-conscious activity.
Hence, while the final result of the philosophy of
Spinoza is the denial of freedom and the degrada-
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 249
tion of human actions to mere links in the chain of
a blind causality, Schelling, with a noble inconsist-
ency, holds fast by the unconditioned freedom of
man and his elevation above the ceaseless flow of
mechanical succession. In the second phase of his
philosophic development, as in the first, we see at
work two rival claimants for power, neither of
which can gain the mastery over the other.
In the last phase of his speculation Schelling
labors, with sinking spirits and only under the
guidance of stray flashes of light, to establish the
self-conscious personality of God. Judged by his
actual achievements, this final stage of his develop-
ment is very unsatisfactory. The belief in the
universe as the abode of spirit Schelling cannot
give up, feeling it to be the truth of truths; but
that belief he does not see his way to justify by
an ascent of the hard path of pure speculation,
and so he gives us not philosophy but poetry. The
fatal mistake which he made in coordinating na-
ture and spirit, when he swerved from the narrow
path of ethical idealism, he was seemingly unable
to retrieve, and he can but fall back on uncritical
intuition. Here also his relation to Kant is of
the closest kind. The critical philosophy had found
in the idea of the world as a manifestation of that
which we are compelled to figure to ourselves a«
260 schblling's transcendental idealism.
purpose, the fulcrum by which the negations of
empiricism were to be overthrown and the existence
of a supreme reason established. But Kant could
not persuade himself that the universe is actually
a teleological system; the furthest he was pre-
pared to go was that we cannot otherwise present
it to ourselves. Thus to the end the shadow thrown
by the empirical conception of the world comes
between Kant and Him who is "not far from every
one of us." For Kant's denial of teleology as an
absolute truth is mainly due to his assumption
that knowledge can only be of the finite, phenom-
enal or relative; or, what is at bottom the same
thing, that the only constitutive categories are
those which he has shown to be true of finite
things. Schelling therefore erred by taking Kant
too literally, and neglecting the spirit of his phi-
losophy. For that spirit, carried out to its fine
issues, assuredly leads to the reasoned conviction
that the world as a whole is the self-revelation of
spirit, and therefore the manifestation of purpose.
Hegel in relieving the critical philosophy of the
beggarly elements clinging to it and allowing it
to rise up to the higher zones of spirit, is the
true follower of Kant. Discarding with Fichte
the gratuitous fiction of a thing-in-itself beyond
knowledge, he agrees with Schelling in holding
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 251
that nature is nothing apart from intelligence;
but, instead of degrading intelligence by assimila-
ting it to nature, he raises nature up to intelli-
gence. Nor will he allow of any leaps from the
lowest to the highest categories, but seeks to put
every category in its place, and to connect all by
the bond of an organic movement. Hence the im-
portance he attaches to the separate consideration
of the various functions by which the world is
thought, and by which at last it is seen to be a
fully rounded system. In the same way the con-
crete world is followed up from its lowest ideal
beginnings in space and time until it issues in a
universe radiant in the light and love of a personal
God. The best fruit of the study of Schelling is
the hold it enables us to have over the infinitely
richer and fuller system of his successor Hegel.
Fichte and Schelling may perhaps be neglected
without serious loss, although the study of their
writings is not to be despised, but to neglect Kant
and Hegel is to lose the highest philosophical edu-
cation which the How of human thought has
brought down and laid at our feet.
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