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THE 

WORLD  AS   WILL  AND  IDEA. 

BY 

ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER. 


VOLUME  II. 


THE 


WORLD  AS  WILL  AND  IDEA. 


BY 

ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER. 


TRANSLATED    FROM    THE    GERMAN   BY 
R.   B.   HALDANE,  M.A. 

AND 

J.   KEMP,   M.A. 
VOL.  II. 

CONTAINING  THE  CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY, 

AND  THE  SUPPLEMENTS  TO  THE  FIRST  AND  PART 

OF  THE  SECOND  BOOK  OF  VOL.  I. 

"  Faucis  natua  est,  qui  populum  fetatis  sure  cogitat."   -SEN. 

(Enttton. 


BOSTON: 
TICKNOR    AND    COMPANY, 

211  Fremont  Street, 
1887. 


tsH 


CONTENTS. 


APPENDIX. 

PAGE 
CttlTICISM    OF   THE    KANTIAN    PHILOSOPHY  I 


SUPPLEMENTS   TO    THE    FIRST   BOOK. 

FIRST  HALF. 
THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEA  OF  PERCEPTION. 

CHAP. 

I.  THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM 163 

.  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  PERCEPTION,  OR  KNOWLEDGE  OF  THE 

UNDERSTANDING 184 

III.  ON  THE  SENSES 193 

IV.  ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI  .  201 


SECOND  HALF. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  ABSTRACT  IDEA,  OR  OF 
THINKING. 

V.  ON  THE  IRRATIONAL  INTELLECT 228 

VI.  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  ABSTRACT  OR  RATIONAL  KNOWLEDGE  .  234 
VII.  ON   THE   RELATION    OF   THE   CONCRETE    KNOWLEDGE   OF 

PERCEPTION  TO  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE      .        .        .  244 

VIII.  ON  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  LUDICROUS         ....  270 

IX.  ON  LOGIC  IN  GENERAL 285 


viii  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAOS 

X.  ON  THE  SYLLOGISM 292 

XI.  Ox  RHETORIC 305 

XII.    OX   THE   DOCTRIXE   OP   SCIEXCE 307 

XIII.  Ox  THE  METHODS  OF  MATHEMATICS 321 

XIV.  Ox  THE  ASSOCIATION  OP  IDEAS 324 

^  XV.  Ox  THE  ESSENTIAL  IMPERFECTIONS  OP  THE  INTELLECT      .  330 

XVI.  Ox  THE  PRACTICAL  USE  OP  REASON  AXD  ON  STOICISM     .  345 

XVII.  Ox  MAX'S  NEED  OP  METAPHYSICS 359 

SUPPLEMENTS   TO    THE   SECOND    BOOK. 

XVIII.  Ox  THE  POSSIBILITY  OP  KNOWING  THE  THING  ix  ITSELF  399 

^  XIX.  Ox  THE  PRIMACY  OP  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  411 

\  XX.  OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL  IN  THE  ANIMAL  ORGANISM  468 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN   PHILOSOPHY. 


,C'est  le  privilege  du  vrai  genie,  et  surtout  du  genie  qui  ouvre  une  carriere 
de  faire  impuntknent  de  grandes  fautes. —  Voltaire. 


VOL.  II. 


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

But  a  deep-reaching  and  widespread  effect  of  this  kind 
cannot  take  place  suddenly,  because  of  the  great  difference 
between  the  genius  and  ordinary  men.  The  knowledge 
which  that  one  man  in  one  lifetime  drew  directly  from 
life  and  the  world,  won  and  presented  to  others  as  won 
and  arranged,  cannot  yet  at  once  become  the  possession  of 
mankind  ;  for  mankind  has  not  so  much  power  to  receive 
as  the  genius  has  power  to  give.  But  even  after  a  suc 
cessful  battle  with  unworthy  opponents,  who  at  its  very 
birth  contest  the  life  of  what  is  immortal  and  desire  to 
nip  in  the  bud  the  salvation  of  man  (like  the  serpents 
in  the  cradle  of  Hercules),  that  knowledge  must  then 
traverse  the  circuitous  paths  of  innumerable  false  con 
structions  and  distorted  applications,  must  overcome  the 


4        CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

attempts  to  unite  it  with  old  errors,  and  so  live  in  conflict 
till  a  new  and  unprejudiced  generation  grows  up  to  meet 
it.  Little  by  little,  even  in  youth,  this  new  generation 
partially  receives  the  contents  of  that  spring  through  a 
thousand  indirect  channels,  gradually  assimilates  it,  and 
so  participates  in  the  benefit  which  was  destined  to  flow 
to  mankind  from  that  great  mind.  So  slowly  does  the 
education  of  the  human  race,  the  weak  yet  refractory  pupil 
of  genius,  advance.  Thus  with  Kant's  teaching  also ;  its 
full  strength  and  importance  will  only  be  revealed  through 
time,  when  the  spirit  of  the  age,  itself  gradually  trans 
formed  and  altered  in  the  most  important  and  essential 
respects  by,' the  influence  of  that  teaching,  will  afford  con 
vincing  evidence  of  the  power  of  that  giant  mind.  I  have, 
however,  no  intention  of  presumptuously  anticipating  the 
spirit  of  the  age  and  assuming  here  the  thankless  rdle 
of  Calchas  and  Cassandra.  Only  I  must  be  allowed,  in 
accordance  with  what  has  been  said,  to  regard  Kant's 
works  as  still  very  new,  while  many  at  the  present  day 
look  upon  them  as  already  antiquated,  and  indeed  have 
laid  them  aside  as  done  with,  or,  as  they  express  it,  have 
left  them  behind^  and  others,  emboldened  by  this,  ignore 
them  altogether,  and  with  brazen  face  go  on  philosophising 
about  God  and  the  soul  on  the  assumption  of  the  old 
realistic  dogmatism  and  its  scholastic  teaching,  which  is 
as  if  one  sought  to  introduce  the  doctrines  of  the  alchemists 
into  modern  chemistry.  For  the  rest,  the  works  of  Kant 
do  not  stand  in  need  of  my  feeble  eulogy,  but  will  them 
selves  for  ever  praise  their  author,  and  though  perhaps 
not  in  the  letter,  yet  in  the  spirit  they  will  live  for  ever 
upon  earth. 

Certainly,  however,  if  we  look  back  at  the  first  result  of 
his  teaching,  at  the  efforts  and  events  in  the  sphere  of 
philosophy  during  the  period  that  has  elapsed  since  he 
wrote,  a  very  depressing  saying  of  Goethe  obtains  con 
firmation  :  "  As  the  water  that  is  displaced  by  a  ship 
immediately  flows  in  again  behind  it,  so  when  great  minds 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.         5 

have  driven  error  aside  and  made  room  for  themselves, 
it  very  quickly  closes  in  behind  them  again  by  the  law 
of  its  nature"  (Walirlieit  und  Dichtung,  Theil  3,  s.  521). 
Yet  this  period  has  been  only  an  episode,  which  is  to 
be  reckoned  as  part  of  the  lot  referred  to  above  that 
befalls  all  new  and  great  knowledge ;  an  episode  which  is 
now  unmistakably  near  its  end,  for  the  bubble  so  long 
blown  out  yet  bursts  at  last.  Men  generally  are  begin 
ning  to  be  conscious  that  true  and  serious  philosophy  still 
stands  where  Kant  left  it.  At  any  rate,  I  cannot  see  that 
between  Kant  and  myself  anything  has  been  done  in 
philosophy;  therefore  I  regard  myself  as  his  immediate 
successor. 

What  I  have  in  view  in  this  Appendix  to  my  work  is 
really  only  a  defence  of  the  doctrine  I  have  set  forth  in  it, 
inasmuch  as  in  many  points  that  doctrine  does  not  agree 
with  the  Kantian  philosophy,  but  indeed  contradicts  it. 
A  discussion  of  this  philosophy  is,  however,  necessary,  for 
it  is  clear  that  my  train  of  thought,  different  as  its  con 
tent  is  from  that  of  Kant,  is  yet  throughout  under  its 
influence,  necessarily  presupposes  it,  starts  from  it ;  and  I 
confess  that,  next  to  the  impression  of  the  world  of  per 
ception,  I  owe  what  is  best  in  my  own  system  to  the 
impression  made  upon  me  by  the  works  of  Kant,  by  the 
sacred  writings  of  the  Hindus,  and  by  Plato.  But  I  can 
only  justify  the  contradictions  of  Kant  which  are  never 
theless  present  in  my  work  by  accusing  him  of  error  in 
these  points,  and  exposing  mistakes  which  he  committed. 
Therefore  in  this  Appendix  I  must  proceed  against  Kant 
in  a  thoroughly  polemical  manner,  and  indeed  seriously 
and  with  every  effort ;  for  it  is  only  thus  that  his  doctrine 
can  be  freed  from  the  error  that  clings  to  it,  and  its  truth 
shine  out  the  more  clearly  and  stand  the  more  firmly. 
It  must  not,  therefore,  be  expected  that  the  sincere  rever 
ence  for  Kant  which  I  certainly  feel  shall  extend  to  his 
weaknesses  and  errors  also,  and  that  I  shall  consequently 
refrain  from  exposing  these  except  with  the  most  careful 


6         CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

indulgence,  whereby  my  language  would  necessarily  be 
come  weak  and  insipid  through  circumlocution.  Towards 
a  living  writer  such  indulgence  is  needed,  for  human 
frailty  cannot  endure  even  the  most  just  refutation  of  an 
error,  unless  tempered  by  soothing  and  flattery,  and  hardly 
even  then ;  and  a  teacher  of  the  age  and  benefactor  of 
mankind  deserves  at  least  that  the  human  weakness  he 
also  has  should  be  indulged,  so  that  he  may  not  be  caused 
pain.  But  he  who  is  dead  has  thrown  off  this  weakness ; 
his  merit  stands  firm ;  time  will  purify  it  more  and  more 
from  all  exaggeration  and  detraction.  His  mistakes  must 
be  separated  from  it,  rendered  harmless,  and  then  given 
over  to  oblivion.  Therefore  in  the  polemic  against  Kant 
I  am  about  to  begin,  I  have  only  his  mistakes  and  weak 
points  in  view.  I  oppose  them  with  hostility,  and  wage 
a  relentless  war  of  extermination  against  them,  always 
mindful  not  to  conceal  them  indulgently,  but  rather  to 
place  them  in  the  clearest  light,  in  order  to  extirpate  them 
the  more  surely.  For  the  reasons  given  above,  I  am  not 
conscious  either  of  injustice  or  ingratitude  towards  Kant 
in  doing  this.  However,  in  order  that,  in  the  eyes  of 
others  also,  I  may  remove  every  appearance  of  malice,  I 
wish  first  to  bring  out  clearly  my  sincere  reverence  for 
Kant  and  gratitude  to  him,  by  expressing  shortly  what  in 
my  eyes  appears  to  be  his  chief  merit ;  and  I  shall  do  this 
.from  a  standpoint  so  general  that  I  shall  not  require  to 
touch  upon  the  points  in  which  I  must  afterwards  contro 
vert  him. 


Kant's  greatest  merit  is  the  distinction  of  the  phenomenon 
from  the  thing  in  itself,  based  upon  the  proof  that  between 
things  and  us  there  still  always  stands  the  intellect,  so  that 
they  cannot  be  known  as  they  may  be  in  themselves.  He 
was  led  into  this  path  through  Locke  (see  Prolegomena 
zu  jcdcr  Mctaph.,§  13,  Anm.  2).  The  latter  had  shown 
that  the  secondary  qualities  of  things,  such  as  sound, 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        7 

smell,  colour,  hardness,  softness,  smoothness,  and  the  like, 
as  founded  on  the  affections  of  the  senses,  do  not  belong 
to  the  objective  body,  to  the  thing  in  itself.  To  this  he 
attributed  only  the  primary  qualities,  i.e.,  such  as  only  pre 
suppose  space  and  impenetrability  ;  thus  extension,  figure, 
solidity,  number,  mobility.  But  this  easily  discovered 
Lockeian  distinction  was,  as  it  were,  only  a  youthful  intro 
duction  to  the  distinction  of  Kant.  The  latter,  starting 
from  an  incomparably  higher  standpoint,  explains  all  that 
Locke  had  accepted  as  primary  qualities,  i.e.,  qualities 
of  the  thing  in  itself,  as  also  belonging  only  to  its  phe 
nomenal  appearance  in  our  faculty  of  apprehension,  and 
this  just  because  the  conditions  of  this  faculty,  space,  time, 
and  causality,  are  known  by  us  a  priori.  Thus  Locke  had 
abstracted  from  the  thing  in  itself  the  share  which  the 
organs  of  sense  have  in  its  phenomenal  appearance  ;  Kant, 
however,  further  abstracted  the  share  of  the  brain-functions 
(though  not  under  that  name).  Thus  the  distinction  be 
tween  the  phenomenon  and  the  thing  in  itself  now  received 
an  infinitely  greater  significance,  and  a  very  much  deeper 
meaning.  For  this  end  he  was  obliged  to  take  in  hand 

o  o 

the  important  separation  of  our  a  priori  from  our  a  pos 
teriori  knowledge,  which  before  him  had  never  been  car 
ried  out  with  adequate  strictness  and  completeness,  nor 
with  distinct  consciousness.  Accordingly  this  now  became 
the  principal  subject  of  his  profound  investigations.  Now 
here  we  would  at  once  remark  that  Kant's  philosophy  has  a 
threefold  relation  to  that  of  his  predecessors.  First,  as  we 
have  just  seen,  to  the  philosophy  of  Locke,  confirming  and 
extending  it ;  secondly,  to  that  of  Hume,  correcting  and 
making  use  of  it,  a  relation  which  is  most  distinctly  ex 
pressed  in  the  "  Prolegomena "  (that  most  beautiful  and 
comprehensible  of  all  Kant's  important  writings,  which  is 
far  too  little  read,  for  it  facilitates  immensely  the  study  of 
his  philosophy) ;  thirdly,  a  decidedly  polemical  and  de 
structive  relation  to  the  Leibnitz-Wolfian  philosophy. 
All  three  systems  ought  to  be  known  before  one  proceeds 


8        CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

to  the  study  of  the  Kantian  philosophy.  If  now,  accord 
ing  to  the  above,  the  distinction  of  the  phenomenon  from 
the  thing  in  itself,  thus  the  doctrine  of  the  complete  diver 
sity  of  the  ideal  and  the  real,  is  the  fundamental  character 
istic  of  the  Kantian  philosophy,  then  the  assertion  of  the 
absolute  identity  of  these  two  which  appeared  soon  after 
wards  is  a  sad  proof  of  the  saying  of  Goethe  quoted  above  ; 
all  the  more  so  as  it  rested  upon  nothing  but  the  empty 
boast  of  intellectual  intuition,  and  accordingly  was  only 
a  return  to  the  crudeness  of  the  vulgar  opinion,  masked 
under  bombast  and  nonsense,  and  the  imposing  impression 
of  an  air  of  importance.  It  became  the  fitting  starting- 
point  for  the  still  grosser  nonsense  of  the  clumsy  and 
stupid  Hegel.  Now  as  Kant's  separation  of  the  pheno 
menon  from  the  thing  in  itself,  arrived  at  in  the  manner 
explained  above,  far  surpassed  all  that  preceded  it  in  the 
depth  and  thoughtfulness  of  its  conception,  it  was  also 
exceedingly  important  in  its  results.  For  in  it  he  pro 
pounded,  quite  originally,  in  a  perfectly  new  way,  found 
from  a  new  side  and  on  a  new  path,  the  same  truth  which 
Plato  never  wearies  of  repeating,  and  in  his  language 
generally  expresses  thus :  This  world  which  appears  to 
the  senses  has  no  true  being,  but  only  a  ceaseless  becom 
ing  ;  it  is,  and  it  is  not,  and  its  comprehension  is  not  so 
much  knowledge  as  illusion.  This  is  also  what  he  ex 
presses  mythically  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  book 
of  the  Republic,  the  most  important  passage  in  all  his 
writings,  which  has  already  been  referred  to  in  the  third 
book  of  the  present  work.  He  says  :  Men,  firmly  chained 
in  a  dark  cave,  see  neither  the  true  original  light  nor 
real  things,  but  only  the  meagre  light  of  the  fire  in  the 
cave  and  the  shadows  of  real  things  which  pass  by  the 
fire  behind  their  backs ;  yet  they  think  the  shadows  are 
the  reality,  and  the  determining  of  the  succession  of  these 
shadows  is  true  wisdom.  The  same  truth,  again  quite 
differently  presented,  is  also  a  leading  doctrine  of  the 
Vedas  and  Puranas,  the  doctrine  of  Maya,  by  which  really 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        9 

nothing  else  is  understood  than  what  Kant  calls  the 
phenomenon  in  opposition  to  the  thing  in  itself;  for  the 
work  of  Maya  is  said  to  be  just  this  visible  world  in 
which  we  are,  a  summoned  enchantment,  an  inconstant 
appearance  without  true  being,  like  an  optical  illusion  or 
a  dream,  a  veil  which  surrounds  human  consciousness, . 
something  of  which  it  is  equally  false  and  true  to  say 
that  it  is  and  that  it  is  not.  But  Kant  not  only  expressed 
the  same  doctrine  in  a  completely  new  and  original  way, 
but  raised  it  to  the  position  of  proved  and  indisputable 
truth  by  means  of  the  calmest  and  most  temperate  ex 
position  ;  while  both  Plato  and  the  Indian  philosophers 
had  founded  their  assertions  merely  upon  a  general  per 
ception  of  the  world,  had  advanced  them  as  the  direct 
utterance  of  their  consciousness,  and  presented  them 
rather  mythically  and  poetically  than  philosophically  and 
distinctly.  In  this  respect  they  stand  to  Kant  in  the 
same  relation  as  the  Pythagoreans  Hicetas,  Philolaus, 
and  Aristarchus,  who  already  asserted  the  movement  of 
the  earth  round  the  fixed  sun,  stand  to  Copernicus.  Such 
distinct  knowledge  and  calm,  thoughtful  exposition  of 
this  dream-like  nature  of  the  whole  world  is  really  the 
basis  of  the  whole  Kantian  philosophy;  it  is  its  soul 
and  its  greatest  merit.  He  accomplished  this  by  taking 
to  pieces  the  whole  machinery  of  our  intellect  by  means 
of  which  the  phantasmagoria  of  the  objective  world  is 
brought  about,  and  presenting  it  in  detail  with  marvel 
lous  insight  and  ability.  All  earlier  Western  philosophy, 
appearing  in  comparison  with  the  Kantian  unspeakably 
clumsy,  had  failed  to  recognise  that  truth,  and  had  there 
fore  always  spoken  just  as  if  in  a  dream.  Kant  first 
awakened  it  suddenly  out  of  this  dream ;  therefore  the 
last  sleepers  (Mendelssohn)  called  him  the  "  all-destroyer." 
He  showed  that  the  laws  which  reign  with  inviolable 
necessity  in  existence,  i.e.,  in  experience  generally,  are  not 
to  be  applied  to  deduce  and  explain  existence  itself;  that 
thus  the  validity  of  these  laws  is  only  relative,  i.e.,  only 


io       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

arises  after  existence ;  the  world  of  experience  in  general 
is  already  established  and  present ;  that  consequently 
these  laws  cannot  be  our  guide  when  we  come  to  the 
explanation  of  the  existence  of  the  world  and  of  our 
selves.  All  earlier  Western  philosophers  had  imagined 
that  these  laws,  according  to  which  the  phenomena  are 
combined,  and  all  of  which — time  and  space,  as  well  as 
causality  and  inference — I  comprehend  under  the  expres 
sion  "  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,"  were  absolute 
laws  conditioned  by  nothing,  ceternce  veritates ;  that  the 
world  itself  existed  only  in  consequence  of  and  in  confor 
mity  with  them ;  and  therefore  that  under  their  guidance 
the  whole  riddle  of  the  world  must  be  capable  of  solution. 
The  assumptions  made  for  this  purpose,  which  Kant  criti 
cises  under  the  name  of  the  Ideas  of  the  reason,  only 
served  to  raise  the  mere  phenomenon,  the  work  of  Maya, 
the  shadow  world  of  Plato,  to  the  one  highest  reality,  to 
put  it  in  the  place  of  the  inmost  and  true  being  of  things, 
and  thereby  to  make  the  real  knowledge  of  this  impos 
sible  ;  that  is,  in  a  word,  to  send  the  dreamers  still  more 
soundly  to  sleep.  Kant  exhibited  these  laws,  and  there 
fore  the  whole  world,  as  conditioned  by  the  form  of  know 
ledge  belonging  to  the  subject;  from  which  it  followed, 
that  however  far  one  carried  investigation  and  reasoning 
under  the  guidance  of  these  laws,  yet  in  the  principal 
matter,  i.e.,  in  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  world  in 
itself  and  outside  the  idea,  no  step  in  advance  was  made, 
but  one  only  moved  like  a  squirrel  in  its  wheel.  Thus, 
all  the  dogmatists  may  be  compared  to  persons  who  sup 
posed  that  if  they  only  went  straight  on  long  enough  they 
would  come  to  the  end  of  the  world ;  but  Kant  then  cir 
cumnavigated  the  world  and  showed  that,  because  it  is 
round,  one  cannot  get  out  of  it  by  horizontal  movement, 
but  that  yet  by  perpendicular  movement  this  is  perhaps 
not  impossible.  We  may  also  say  that  Kant's  doctrine 
affords  the  insight  that  we  must  seek  the  end  and  beginning 
of  the  world,  not  without,  but  within  us. 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       11 

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


12       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

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

He  did  not  deduce  the  thing  in  itself  in  the  right 
way,  as  I  shall  show  presently,  but  by  means  of  an  in 
consistency,  and  he  had  to  pay  the  penalty  of  this  in 
frequent  and  irresistible  attacks  upon  this  important  part 
of  his  teaching.  He  did  not  recognise  the  thing  in  itself 
directly  in  the  will;  but  he  made  a  great  initial  step 
towards  this  knowledge  in  that  he  explained  the  undeni 
able  moral  significance  of  human  action  as  quite  different 
from  and  not  dependent  upon  the  laws  of  the  pheno 
menon,  nor  even  explicable  in  accordance  with  them,  but 
as  something  which  touches  the  thing  in7  itself  directly : 
this  is  the  second  important  point  of  view  for  estimating 
his  services. 

We  may  regard  as  the  third  the  complete  overthrow  of 
the  Scholastic  philosophy,  a  name  by  which  I  wish  here 
to  denote  generally  the  whole  period  beginning  with 
Augustine,  the  Church  Father,  and  ending  just  before 
Kant. .:.,.  For  the  chief  characteristic  of  Scholasticism  is, 
indeed,  that  which  is  very  correctly  stated  by  Tennemann, 
the  guardianship  of  the  prevailing  national  religion  over 
philosophy,  which  had  really  nothing  left  for  it  to  do 
but  to  prove  and  embellish  the  cardinal  dogmas  prescribed 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        13 

to  it  by  religion.  The  Schoolmen  proper,  down  to  Suarez, 
confess  this  openly;  the  succeeding  philosophers  do  it 
more  unconsciously,  or  at  least  unavowedly.  It  is  held 
that  Scholastic  philosophy  only  extends  to  about  a  hun 
dred  years  before  Descartes,  and  that  then  with  him 
there  begins  an  entirely  new  epoch  of  free  investigation 
independent  of  all  positive  theological  doctrine.  Such 
investigation,  however,  is  in  fact  not  to  be  attributed  to 
Descartes  and  his  successors,1  but  only  an  appearance  of  it, 
and  in  any  case  an  effort  after  it.  Descartes  was  a  man  of 
supreme  ability,  and  if  we  take  account  of  the  age  he  lived 
in,  he  accomplished  a  great  deal.  But  if  we  set  aside  this 
consideration  and  measure  him  with  reference  to  the  free 
ing  of  thought  from  all  fetters  and  the  commencement  of 
a  new  period  of  untrammelled  original  investigation  with 
which  he  is  credited,  we  are  obliged  to  find  that  with 
his  doubt  still  wanting  in  true  seriousness,  and  therefore 
surrendering  so  quickly  and  so  entirely,  he  has,  indeed, 
the  appearance  of  wishing  to  throw  off  at  once  all  the 
early  implanted  opinions  belonging  to  his  age  and  nation, 
but  does  so  only  apparently  and  for  a  moment,  to  assume 
them  again  immediately  and  hold  them  all  the  more 
firmly  ;  and  so  is  it  with  all  his  successors  down  to  Kant. 

1  Bruno  and  Spinoza  are  here  en-  age,  and  he  also  shows  a  presenti- 

tirely  to  be  excepted.     They  stand  ment  of  his  fate  which  led  him  to 

each    for    himself    and    alone,    and  delay  the  publication  of   his  views, 

belong  neither  to  their  age  nor  their  till  that  inclination  to  communicate 

quarter  of  the  globe,  which  rewarded  what  one  knows  to  be  true,   which 

the   one  with  death   and  the  other  is   so    strong   in    noble    minds,   pre- 

with  persecution  and  insult.     Their  vailed  : 

miserable  existence    and    death    in  I(  A  /         . 

this  Western  world  is  like  that  of  a  Ad  partum  P™Pc™rfc  tu»™>  ««« 

tropical  plant  in  Europe.    The  banks  ~  77'  quld,  °bstat.;  , 

<•    iv.  i    /-i  ii.  •  oea/o  luxe  induino  suit  trwuenda 

of    the    sacred    Ganges    were    their  /  •    .  ? 

true    spiritual    home  ;     there    they  TT    i              j>     t 

would    have    led    a    peaceful     and  Umlrarum  flactu  terras  mcrgente, 

,              j    ,.,                                r   ...  cacumcn 

honoured    life    among   men    of   like  A  it  n    •     ? 

mind.     In  the  following  lines,  with  AdMhmdarum,  rwster  Olympe, 

which  Bruno  begins  his  book  Delia 

Causa  Principio  et   Uno,  for  which  Whoever  has  read  this  his  prin- 

he    was    brought   to   the    stake,    he  cipal  work,  and  also  his  other  Italian 

expresses     clearly    and     beautifully  writings,    which    were    formerly   so 

how  Jonely  he  felt  himself   in    his  rare,  but  are  now  accessible  to  all 


14       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

Goethe's  lines  are,  therefore,  very  applicable  to  a  free 
independent  thinker  of  this  kind  : 

<:  Saving  Thy  gracious  presence,  he  to  me 
A  long-legged  grasshopper  appears  to  be, 
That  springing  flies,  and  flying  springs, 
And  in  the  grass  the  same  old  ditty  sings."  l 

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

Kant,  then,  ventured  to  show  by  his  teaching  that  all 
those  dogmas  which  had  been  so  often  professedly  proved 
were  incapable  of  proof.  Speculative  theology,  and  the 
rational  psychology  connected  with  it,  received  from  him 
their  deathblow.  Since  then  they  have  vanished  from 
German  philosophy,  and  one  must  not  allow  oneself  to  be 
misled  by  the  fact  that  here  and  there  the  word  is  retained 
after  the  thing  has  been  given  up,  or  some  wretched  pro 
fessor  of  philosophy  has  the  fear  of  his  master  in  view, 
and  lets  truth  take  care  of  itself.  Only  he  who  has  ob 
served  the  pernicious  influence  of  these  conceptions  upon 
natural  science,  and  upon  philosophy  in  all,  even  the  best 
writers  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  can 
estimate  the  extent  of  this  service  of  Kant's.  The  change 
of  tone  and  of  metaphysical  background  which  has  ap 
peared  in  German  writing  upon  natural  science  since  Kant 

through  a  German  edition,  will  find,  this  work  of  his,  in  the  hands  of 

as  I  have  done,  that  he  alone  of  all  coarse,  furious  priests  as  his  judges 

philosophers    in    some    degree    ap-  and  executioners,  and  thank  Time 

preaches  to  Plato,  in  respect  of  the  which    brought   a   brighter    and    a 

strong  blending   of   poetical   power  gentler  age,  so  that  the  after-world 

and  tendency  along  with  the  philo-  whose   curse  was   to   fall    on   those 

sophical,  and  this  he  also  shows  espe-  fiendish    fanatics    is    the    world   we 

cially  in  a  dramatic  form.     Imagine  now  live  in. 

the    tender,     spiritual,     thoughtful  l  Bayard  Taylor's  translation   of 

being,  as  he  shows  himself  to  us  in  "Faust,"  vol.  i.  p.  14. — TRB. 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       15 

is  remarkable;  before  him  it  was  in  the  same  position  as 
it  still  occupies  in  England.  This  merit  of  Kant's  is  con 
nected  with  the  fact  that  the  unreflecting  pursuit  of  the 
laws  of  the  phenomenon,  the  elevation  of  these  to  the 
position  of  eternal  truths,  and  thus  the  raising  of  the 
fleeting  appearance  to  the  position  of  the  real  being  of  the 
world,  in  short,  realism  undisturbed  in  its  illusion  by  any 
reflection,  had  reigned  throughout  all  preceding  philo 
sophy,  ancient,  mediaeval,  and  modern.  Berkeley,  who, 
like  Malebranche  before  him,  recognised  its  one-sidedness , 
and  indeed  falseness,  was  unable  to  overthrow  it,  for  his 
attack  was  confined  to  one  point.  Thus  it  was  reserved 
for  Kant  to  enable  the  idealistic  point  of  view  to  obtain 
the  ascendancy  in  Europe,  at  least  in  philosophy;  the 
point  of  view  which  throughout  all  non-Mohammedan 
Asia,  and  indeed  essentially,  is  that  of  religion.  Before 
Kant,  then,  we  were  in  time ;  now  time  is  in  us,  and  so  on. 
Ethics  also  were  treated  by  that  realistic  philosophy 
according  to  the  laws  of  the  phenomenon,  which  it  re 
garded  as  absolute  and  valid  also  for  the  thing  in  itself. 
They  were  therefore  based  now  upon  a  doctrine  of  hap 
piness,  now  upon  the  will  of  the  Creator,  and  finally  upon 
the  conception  of  perfection ;  a  conception  which,  taken 
by  itself,  is  entirely  empty  and  void  of  content,  for  it 
denotes  a  mere  relation  that  only  receives  significance 
from  the  things  to  which  il  is  applied.  "  To  be  perfect " 
means  nothing  more  than  "  to  correspond  to  some  concep 
tion  which  is  presupposed  and  given,"  a  conception  which 
must  therefore  be  previously  framed,  and  without  which 
the  perfection  is  an  unknown  quantity,  and  consequently 
has  no  meaning  when  expressed  alone.  If,  however,  it  is 
intended  tacitly  to  presuppose  the  conception  "  humanity," 
and  accordingly  to  make  it  the  principle  of  morality  to 
strive  after  human  perfection,  this  is  only  saying :  "  Men 
ought  to  be  as  they  ought  to  be," — and  we  are  just  as 
wise  as  before.  In  fact  "  perfect "  is  very  nearly  a  mere 
synonym  of  "  complete,"  for  it  signifies  that  in  one  given 


16       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

case  or  individual,  all  the  predicates  which  lie  in  the 
conception  of  its  species  appear,  thus  are  actually  present. 
Therefore  the  conception  "  perfection,"  if  used  absolutely 
and  in  the  abstract,  is  a  word  void  of  significance,  and  this  is 
also  the  case  with  the  talk  about  the  "  most  perfect  being," 
and  other  similar  expressions.  All  this  is  a  mere  jingle 
of  words.  Nevertheless  last  century  this  conception  of  per 
fection  and  imperfection  had  become  current  coin ;  indeed 
it  was  the  hinge  upon  which  almost  all  speculation  upon 
ethics,  and  even  theology,  turned.  It  was  in  every  one's 
mouth,  so  that  at  last  it  became  a  simple  nuisance.  We 
see  even  the  best  writers  of  the  time,  for  example  Lessing, 
entangled  in  the  most  deplorable  manner  in  perfections 
and  imperfections,  and  struggling  with  them.  At  the 
same  time,  every  thinking  man  must  at  least  dimly  have 
felt  that  this  conception  is  void  of  all  positive  content,  be 
cause,  like  an  algebraical  symbol,  it  denotes  a  mere  relation 
in  dbstracto.  Kant,  as  we  have  already  said,  entirely 
separated  the  undeniably  great  ethical  signiiicance  of 
actions  from  the  phenomenon  and  its  laws,  and  showed 
that  the  former  directly  concerned  the  thing  in  itself,  the 
inner  nature  of  the  world,  while  the  latter,  i.e.,  time, 
space,  and  all  that  fills  them,  and  disposes  itself  in  them 
according  to  the  law  of  causality,  is  to  be  regarded  as  a 
changing  and  unsubstantial  dream. 

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


It  may  be  inferred,  upon  purely  historical  grounds,  that 
Kant's  great  achievements  must  have  been  accompanied 
by  great  errors.  For  although  he  effected  the  greatest 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        17 

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

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

Since,  now,  in  philosophy,  a  crisis  precisely  similar  to 
this,  and  an  age  of  fearful  abortions,  was,  as  we  all  know, 
introduced  by  Kant,  it  may  be  concluded  that  the  ser- 

VOL.  II.  B 


1 8       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

vices  lie  rendered  were  not  complete,  but  must  have  been 
negative  and  one-sided,  and  burdened  with  great  defects. 
These  defects  \ve  now  desire  to  search  out. 


First  of  all  we  shall  present  to  ourselves  clearly  and 
examine  the  fundamental  thought  in  which  the  aim  of 
the  whole  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  "  lies.  Kant  placed 
himself  at  the  standpoint  of  his  predecessors,  the  dog 
matic  philosophers,  and  accordingly  he  started  with  them 
from  the  following  assumptions: — (i.)  Metaphysics  is  the 
science  of  that  which  lies  beyond  the  possibility  of  all 
experience.  (2.)  Such  a  science  can  never  be  attained  by 
applying  principles  which  must  first  themselves  be  drawn 
from  experience  (Prolegomena,  §  i) ;  but  only  what  we 
know  before,  and  thus  independently  of  all  experience,  can 
reach  further  than  possible  experience.  (3.)  In  our  reason 
certain  principles  of  this  kind  are  actually  to  be  found : 
they  are  comprehended  under  the  name  of  Knowledge  of 
pure  reason.  So  far  Kant  goes  with  his  predecessors,  but 
here  he  separates  from  them.  They  say:  "These  prin 
ciples,  or  this  knowledge  of  pure  reason,  are  expressions 
of  the  absolute  possibility  of  things,  ceternce  vcritatcs, 
sources  of  ontology ;  they  stand  above  the  system  of  the 
world,  as  fate  stood  above  the  gods  of  the  ancients." 
Kant  says,  they  are  mere  forms  of  our  intellect,  laws, 
not  of  the  existence  of  things,  but  of  our  idea  of  them ; 
they  are  therefore  valid  merely  for  our  apprehension  of 
things,  and  hence  they  cannot  extend  beyond  the  possi 
bility  of  experience,  which,  according  to  assumption  i, 
is  what  was  aimed  at ;  for  the  a  priori  nature  of  these 
forms  of  knowledge,  since  it  can  only  rest  on  their  sub 
jective  origin,  is  just  what  cuts  us  off  for  ever  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  nature  of  things  in  themselves,  and  con 
fines  us  to  a  world  of  mere  phenomena,  so  that  we  cannot 
know  things  as  they  may  be  in  themselves,  even  a  pos 
teriori,  not  to  speak  of  a  priori.  Accordingly  metaphysics 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        19 

is  impossible,  and  criticism  of  pure  reason  takes  its  place. 
As  opposed  to  the  old  dogmatism,  Kant  is  here  completely 
victorious;  therefore  all  dogmatic  attempts  which  have 
since  appeared  have  been  obliged  to  pursue  an  entirely 
different  path  from  the  earlier  systems ;  and  I  shall  now 
go  on  to  the  justification  of  my  own  system,  according  to 
the  expressed  intention  of  this  criticism.  A  more  care 
ful  examination,  then,  of  the  reasoning  given  above  will 
oblige  one  to  confess  that  its  first  fundamental  assumption 
is  a  petitio  principii.  It  lies  in  the  proposition  (stated 
with  particular  clearness  in  the  Prolegomena,^  i) :  "The 
source  of  metaphysics  must  throughout  be  non-empirical ; 
its  fundamental  principles  and  conceptions  must  never 
be  taken  from  either  inner  or  outer  experience."  Yet 
absolutely  nothing  is  advanced  in  proof  of  tins  cardinal 
assertion  except  the  etymological  argument  from  the  word 
metaphysic.  In  truth,  however,  the  matter  stands  thus  : 
The  world  and  our  own  existence  presents  itself  to  us 
necessarily  as  a  riddle.  It  is  now  assumed,  without  more 
.ado,  that  the  solution  of  this  riddle  cannot  be  arrived  at 
from  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  world  itself,  but 
must  be  sought  in  something  entirely  different  from  the 
world  (for  that  is  the  meaning  of  "  beyond  the  possibility 
of  all  experience  ") ;  and  that  everything  must  be  excluded 
from  that  solution  of  which  we  can  in  any  way  have 
immediate  knowledge  (for  that  is  the  meaning  of  possible 
experience,  both  inner  and  outer) ;  the  solution  must 
rather  be  sought  only  in  that  at  which  we  can  arrive 
merely  indirectly,  that  is,  by  means  of  inferences  from 
universal  principles  a  priori.  After  the  principal  source 
of  all  knowledge  has  in  this  way  been  excluded,  and  the 
direct  way  to  truth  has  been  closed,  we  must  not  wonder 
that  the  dogmatic  systems  failed,  and  that  Kant  was  able 
to  show  the  necessity  of  this  failure ;  for  metaphysics  and 
knowledge  a  priori  had  been  assumed  beforehand  to  be 
identical.  But  for  this  it  was  first  necessary  to  prove  that 
the  material  for  the  solution  of  the  riddle  absolutely  can- 


20        CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

not  be  contained  in  the  world  itself,  but  must  be  sought 
for  only  outside  the  world  in  something  we  can  only 
attain  to  under  the  guidance  of  those  forms  of  which  we 
are  conscious  a  priori.  But  so  long  as  this  is  not  proved, 
we  have  no  grounds  for  shutting  ourselves  off,  in  the  case 
of  the  most  important  and  most  difficult  of  all  questions, 
from  the  richest  of  all  sources  of  knowledge,  inner  and 
outer  experience,  in  order  to  work  only  with  empty  forms. 
I  therefore  say  that  the  solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  world 
must  proceed  from  the  understanding  of  the  world  itself ; 
that  thus  the  task  of  metaphysics  is  not  to  pass  beyond 
the  experience  in  which  the  world  exists,  but  to  understand 
it  thoroughly,  because  outer  and  inner  experience  is  at 
any  rate  the  principal  source  of  all  knowledge ;  that  there 
fore  the  solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  world  is  only  possible 
through  the  proper  connection  of  outer  with  inner  expe 
rience,  effected  at  the  right  point,  and  the  combination 
thereby  produced  of  these  two  very  different  sources  of 
knowledge.  Yet  this  solution  is  only  possible  within  cer 
tain  limits  which  are  inseparable  from  our  finite  nature, 
so  that  we  attain  to  a  right  understanding  of  the  world 
itself  without  reaching  a  final  explanation  of  its  existence 
abolishing  all  further  problems.  Therefore  est  guadam 
prodire  tenus,  and  my  path  lies  midway  between  the 
omniscience  of  the  earlier  dogmatists  and  the  despair  of 
the  Kantian  Critique.  The  important  truths,  however, 
which  Kant  discovered,  and  through  which  the  earlier 
metaphysical  systems  were  overthrown,  have  supplied  my 
system  with  data  and  materials.  Compare  what  I  have 
said  concerning  my  method  in  chap.  xvii.  of  the  Supple 
ments.  So  much  for  the  fundamental  thought  of  Kant ; 
we  shall  now  consider  his  working  out  of  it  and  its 
details. 


Kant's   style   bears   throughout   the    stamp  of   a  pre 
eminent  mind,  genuine  strong  individuality,  and  quite 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY,        21 

exceptional  power  of  thought.  Its  characteristic  quality 
may  perhaps  be  aptly  described  as  a  brilliant  dryness,  by 
virtue  of  which  he  was  able  to  grasp  firmly  and  select  the 
conceptions  with  great  certainty,  and  then  to  turn  them 
about  with  the  greatest  freedom,  to  the  astonishment  of  the 
reader.  I  find  the  same  brilliant  dryness  in  the  style  of 
Aristotle,  though  it  is  much  simpler.  Nevertheless  Kant's 
language  is  often  indistinct,  indefinite,  inadequate,  and 
sometimes  obscure.  Its  obscurity,  certainly,  is  partly 
excusable  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  the  subject  and 
the  depth  of  the  thought ;  but  he  who  is  himself  clear  to 
the  bottom,  and  knows  with  perfect  distinctness  what  he 
thinks  and  wishes,  will  never  write  indistinctly,  will  never 
set  up  wavering  and  indefinite  conceptions,  compose  most 
difficult  and  complicated  expressions  from  foreign  lan 
guages  to  denote  them,  and  use  these  expressions  constantly 
afterwards,  as  Kant  took  words  and  formulas  from  earlier 
philosophy,  especially  Scholasticism,  which  he  combined 
with  each  other  to  suit  his  purposes;  as,  for  example, 
"  transcendental  synthetic  unity  of  apperception,"  and 
in  general  "  unity  of  synthesis  "  (Einlicit  dcr  Synthesis}, 
always  used  where  "  union  "  ( V&r&inigung)  would  be  quite 
sufficient  by  itself.  Moreover,  a  man  who  is  himself 
quite  clear  will  not  be  always  explaining  anew  what  has 
once  been  explained,  as  Kant  does,  for  example,  in  the 
case  of  the  understanding,  the  categories,  experience,  and 
other  leading  conceptions.  In  general,  such  a  man  will 
not  incessantly  repeat  himself,  and  yet  in  every  new  ex 
position  of  the  thought  already  expressed  a  hundred  times 
leave  it  in  just  the  same  obscure  condition,  but  he  will 
express  his  meaning  once  distinctly,  thoroughly,  and  ex 
haustively,  and  then  let  it  alone.  "  Quo  enim  melius  rein 
aliquam  concipimus  co  magis  ddcrminati  sumus-  ad  eaiu 
unico  modo  cxprimcndam"  says  Descartes  in  his  fifth 
letter.  But  the  most  injurious  result  of  Kant's  occasion 
ally  obscure  language  is,  that  it  acted  as  exemplar  vitiis 
imitabile ;  indeed,  it  was  misconstrued  as  a  pernicious 


22        CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

authorisation.  The  public  was  compelled  to  see  that  what 
is  obscure  is  not  always  without  significance ;  conse 
quently,  what  was  without  significance  took  refuge  behind 
obscure  language.  Fichte  was  the  first  to  seize  this  new 
privilege  and  use  it  vigorously  ;  Schelling  at  least  equalled 
him ;  and  a  host  of  hungry  scribblers,  without  talent 
and  without  honesty,  soon  outbade  them  both.  But  the 
height  of  audacity,  in  serving  up  pure  nonsense,  in  string 
ing  together  senseless  and  extravagant  mazes  of  words, 
such  as  had  previously  only  been  heard  in  madhouses, 
was  finally  reached  in  Hegel,  and  became  the  instrument 
of  the  most  barefaced  general  mystification  that  has  ever 
taken  place,  with  a  result  which  will  appear  fabulous  to 
posterity,  and  will  remain  as  a  monument  of  German  stu 
pidity.  In  vain,  meanwhile,  Jean  Paul  wrote  his  beautiful 
paragraph,  "  Higher  criticism  of  philosophical  madness  in 
the  professorial  chair,  and  poetical  madness  in  the  theatre  " 
(^Esthctisclie  Naclischulc) ;  for  in  vain  Goethe  had  already 
said — 

"  They  prate  and  teach,  and  no  one  interferes  ; 
All  from  the  fellowship  of  fools  are  shrinking  ; 
Man  usually  believes,  if  only  words  he  hears, 
That  also  with  them  goes  material  for  thinking." 1 

But  let  us  return  to  Kant.  We  are  compelled  to  admit 
that  he  entirely  lacks  grand,  classical  simplicity,  na/ivctt, 
inyenultt,  candeur.  His  philosophy  has  no  analogy  with 
Grecian  architecture,  which  presents  large  simple  propor 
tions  revealing  themselves  at  once  to  the  glance;  on  the 
contrary,  it  reminds  us  strongly  of  the  Gothic  style  of 
building.  For  a  purely  individual  characteristic  of  Kant's 
mind  is  a  remarkable  love  of  symmetry,  which  delights  in 
a  varied  multiplicity,  so  that  it  may  reduce  it  to  order, 
and  repeat  this  order  in  subordinate  orders,  and  so  on 
indefinitely,  just  as  happens  in  Gothic  churches.  Indeed, 
lie  sometimes  carries  this  to  the  extent  of  trifling,  and 
from  love  of  this  tendency  he  goes  so  far  as  to  do  open 

1  "Faust,"  scene  vi.,  Bayard  Taylor'^  translation,  vol.  i.  p.  134. — TRS. 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        23 

violence  to  truth,  and  to  deal  with  it  as  Nature  was  dealt 
with  by  the  old-fashioned  gardeners,  whose  work  we  see 
in  symmetrical  alleys,  squares,  and  triangles,  trees  shaped 
like  pyramids  and  spheres,  and  hedges  winding  in  regular 
curves.  I  will  support  this  with  facts. 

After  he  has  treated  space  and  time  isolated  from  every 
thing  else,  and  has  then  dismissed  this  whole  world  of 
perception  which  fills  space  and  time,  and  in  which  we 
live  and  are,  with  the  meaningless  words  "the  empirical 
content  of  perception  is  given  us,"  he  immediately  arrives 
with  one  spring  at  the  logical  basis  of  his  whole  philoso])hy, 
the  table  of  judgments.  From  this  table  he  deduces  an 
exact  dozen  of  categories,  symmetrically  arranged  under 
four  heads,  which  afterwards  become  the  fearful  pro- 
crustean  bed  into  which  he  violently  forces  all  things  in 
the  world  and  all  that  goes  on  in  man,  shrinking  from  no 
violence  and  disdaining  no  sophistry  if  only  he  is  able  to 
repeat  everywhere  the  symmetry  of  that  table.  The  first 
that  is  symmetrically  deduced  from  it  is  the  pure  physio 
logical  table  of  the  general  principles  of  natural  science — 
the  axioms  of  intuition,  anticipations  of  perception,  ana 
logies  of  experience,  and  postulates  of  empirical  thought 
in  general.  Of  these  fundamental  principles,  the  first  two 
are  simple;  but  each  of  the  last  two  sends  out  symme 
trically  three  shoots.  The  mere  categories  were  what  he 
calls  conceptions ;  but  these  principles  of  natural  science  are 
judgments.  Iii  accordance  with  his  highest  guide  to  all 
wisdom,  symmetry,  the  series  must  now  prove  itself  fruit 
ful  in  the  syllogisms,  and  this,  indeed,  is  done  symme 
trically  and  regularly.  For,  as  by  the  application  of  the 
categories  to  sensibility,  experience  with  all  its  a  priori 
principles  arose  for  the  understanding,  so  by  the  applica 
tion  of  syllogisms  to  the  categories,  a  task  performed  by 
the  reason  in  accordance  with  its  pretended  principle  of 
seeking  the  unconditioned,  the  Ideas  of  the  reason  arise. 
Now  this  takes  place  in  the  following  manner :  The  three 
categories  of  relation  supply  to  syllogistic  reasoning  the 


24        CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

three  only  possible  kinds  of  major  premisses,  and  syllogistic 
reasoning  accordingly  falls  into  three  kinds,  each  of  which 

O  O    »/ 

is  to  be  regarded  as  an  egg  out  of  which  the  reason 
hatches  an  Idea;  out  of  the  categorical  syllogism  the 
Idea  of  the  soul,  out  of  the  hypothetical  the  Idea  of  the 
world,  and  out  of  the  disjunctive  the  Idea  of  God.  In  the 
second  of  these,  the  Idea  of  the  world,  the  symmetry  of 
the  table  of  the  categories  now  repeats  itself  again,  for 
its  four  heads  produce  four  theses,  each  of  which  has  its 
antithesis  as  a  symmetrical  pendant. 

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


It  is  astonishing  how  Kant,  without  further  reflection, 
pursues  his  way,  following  his  symmetry,  ordering  every 
thing  in  accordance  with  it,  without  ever  taking  one  of 
the  subjects  so  handled  into  consideration  on  its  own 
account.  I  will  explain  myself  more  fully.  After  he  has 
considered  intuitive  knowledge  in  a  mathematical  refer 
ence  only,  he  neglects  altogether  the  rest  of  knowledge  of 
perception  in  which  the  world  lies  before  us,  and  confines 
himself  entirely  to  abstract  thinking,  although  this  receives 
the  whole  of  its  significance  and  value  from  the  world  of 
perception  alone,  which  is  infinitely  more  significant,  gene 
rally  present,  and  rich  in  content  than  the  abstract  part 
of  our  knowledge.  Indeed,  and  this  is  an  important 
point,  he  has  nowhere  clearly  distinguished  perception 
from  abstract  knowledge,  and  just  on  this  account,  as  we 
shall  afterwards  see,  he  becomes  involved  in  irresolvable 
contradictions  with  himself.  After  he  has  disposed  of  the 
whole  sensible  world  with  the  meaningless  "  it  is  given," 
he  makes,  as  we  have  said,  the  logical  table  of  judgments 
the  foundation-stone  of  his  building.  But  here  again  he 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        25 

does  not  reflect  for  a  moment  upon  that  which  really  lies 
before  him.  These  forms  of  judgment  are  indeed  words 
and  combinations  of  words;  yet  it  ought  first  to  have 
been  asked  what  these  directly  denote :  it  would  have 
been  found  that  they  denote  conceptions.  The  next  question 
would  then  have  been  as  to  the  nature  of  conceptions.  It 
would  have  appeared  from  the  answer  what  relation  these 
have  to  the  ideas  of  perception  in  which  the  world  exists  ; 
for  perception  and  reflection  would  have  been  distin 
guished.  It  would  now  have  become  necessarv  to  examine, 

»/ 

not  merely  how  pure  and  merely  formal  intuition  or  per 
ception  a  priori,  but  also  how  its  content,  the  empirical 
perception,  comes  into  consciousness.  But  then  it  would 
have  become  apparent  what  part  the  understanding  has  in 
this,  and  thus  also  in  general  what  the  understanding  is,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  what  the  reason  properly  is,  the  critique 
of  which  is  being  written.  It  is  most  remarkable  that  he 
does  not  once  properly  and  adequately  define  the  latter, 
but  merely  gives  incidentally,  and  as  the  context  in  each 
case  demands,  incomplete  and  inaccurate  explanations  of 
it,  in  direct  contradiction  to  the  rule  of  Descartes  given 
above.1  For  example,  at  p.  1 1  ;  V.  24,  of  the  "  Critique  of 
Pure  Eeason,"  it  is  the  faculty  of  principles  a  priori;  but 
at  p.  299;  V.  356,  it  is  said  that  reason  is  the  faculty  of 
principles,  and  it  is  opposed  to  the  understanding,  which  is 
the  faculty  of  rules  !  One  would  now  think  that  there 
must  be  a  very  wide  difference  between  principles  and 
rules,  since  it  entitles  us  to  assume  a  special  faculty  of 
knowledge  for  each  of  them.  But  this  great  distinction  is 
made  to  lie  merely  in  this,  that  what  is  known  a  priori 
through  pure  perception  or  through  the  forms  of  the 
understanding  is  a  rule,  and  only  what  results  from  mere 

1  Observe  here  that  I  always  quote  sides  this,  I  add  the  paging  of  the 

the  "  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft  "  fifth  edition,  preceded  by  a  V.  ;  all 

according  to  the  paging  of  the  first  the  other  editions,  from  the  second 

edition,  for  in  Rosenkranz's  edition  onwards,  are  the  same  as  the  fifth, 

of  Kant's  collected  works  this  pag-  and  so  also  is  their  paging, 
ing  is  always  given  in  addition.    Be- 


26       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

conceptions  is  a  principle.  We  shall  return  to  this  arbi 
trary  and  inadmissible  distinction  later,  when  we  come  to 
the  Dialectic.  On  p.  330 ;  V.  386,  reason  is  the  faculty  of 
inference ;  mere  judging  (p.  69 ;  V.  94)  he  often  explains  as 
the  work  of  the  understanding.  Now,  this  really  amounts 
to  saying  :  Judging  is  the  work  of  the  understanding  so 
long  as  the  ground  of  the  judgment  is  empirical,  trans 
cendental,  or  metalogical  (Essay  on  the  Principle  of 
Sufficient  Beason,  §  31,  32,  33);  but  if  it  is  logical,  as  is 
the  case  with  the  syllogism,  then  we  are  here  concerned 
with  a  quite  special  and  much  more  important  faculty  of 
knowledge — the  reason.  Nay,  what  is  more,  on  p.  303 ; 
V.  360,  it  is  explained  that  what  follows  directly  from  a 
proposition  is  still  a  matter  of  the  understanding,  and  that 
only  those  conclusions  which  are  arrived  at  by  the  use  of 
a  mediating  conception  are  the  work  of  the  reason,  and  the 
example  given  is  this :  From  the  proposition,  "  All  men 
are  mortal,"  the  inference,  "  Some  mortals  are  men,"  may 
be  drawn  by  the  mere  understanding.  On  the  other  hand, 
to  draw  the  conclusion,  "All  the  learned  are  mortal," 
demands  an  entirely  different  and  far  more  important 
faculty — the  reason.  How  was  it  possible  for  a  great 
thinker  to  write  the  like  of  this!  On  p.  553;  V.  581, 
reason  is  all  at  once  the  constant  condition  of  all  voluntary 
action.  On  p.  614;  V.  642,  it  consists  in  the  fact  that 
we  can  give  an  account  of  our  assertions ;  on  pp.  643, 
644;  V.  671,  672,  in  the  circumstance  that  it  brings  unity 
into  the  conceptions  of  the  understanding  by  means  of 
Ideas,  as  the  understanding  brings  unity  into  the  multi 
plicity  of  objects  by  means  of  conceptions.  On  p.  646  ;  V. 
674,  it  is  nothing  else  than  the  faculty  which  deduces  the 
particular  from  the  general. 

The  understanding  also  is  constantly  being  explained 
anew.  In  seven  passages  of  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Bea 
son  "  it  is  explained  in  the  following  terms.  On  p.  5 1  ; 
V.  75,  it  is  the  faculty  which  of  itself  produces  ideas  of 
perception.  On  p.  69 ;  Y.  94,  it  is  the  faculty  of  judging, 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        27 

i.e.,  of  thinking,  i.e.,  of  knowing  through  conceptions.  On 
p.  1 37  of  the  fifth  edition,  it  is  the  faculty  of  knowledge 
generally.  On  p.  132;  V.  171,  it  is  the  faculty  of  rules. 
On  p.  158  ;  V.  197,  however,  it  is  said  :  "  It  is  not  only  the 
faculty  of  rules,  but  the  source  of  principles  (Grundsdtzc) 
according  to  which  everything  comes  under  rules  ; "  and 
yet  above  it  was  opposed  to  the  reason  because  the  latter 
alone  was  the  faculty  of  principles  (Principieri).  On  p. 
1 60;  V.  199,  the  understanding  is  the  faculty  of  concep 
tions  ;  but  on  p.  302 ;  V.  359,  it  is  the  faculty  of  the  unity 
of  phenomena  by  means  of  rules. 

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

Now,  as  I  have  said  above,  if  Kant  had  seriously 
examined  how  far  two  such  different  faculties  of  know 
ledge,  one  of  which  is  the  specific  difference  of  man,  may 
be  known,  and  what,  in  accordance  with  the  language  of 
all  nations  and  all  philosophers,  reason  and  understand 
ing  are,  he  would  never,  without  further  authority  than 
the  intcllectus  theoreticus  and  practicus  of  the  Schoolmen, 
which  is  used  in  an  entirely  different  sense,  have  divided 
the  reason  into  theoretical  and  practical,  and  made  the 
latter  the  source  of  virtuous  conduct.  In  the  same  way, 
before  Kant  separated  so  carefully  conceptions  of  the 
understanding  (by  which  he  sometimes  means  his  cate 
gories,  sometimes  all  general  conceptions)  and  conceptions 
of  the  reason  (his  so-called  Ideas),  and  made  them  both 
the  material  of  his  philosophy,  which  for  the  most  part 
deals  only  with  the  validity,  application,  and  origin  of  all 
these  conceptions ; — first,  I  say,  he  ought  to  have  really 


28        CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

examined  what  in  general  a  conception  is.  But  this  very 
necessary  investigation  has  unfortunately  been  also  ne 
glected,  and  has  contributed  much  to  the  irremediable 
confusion  of  intuitive  and  abstract  knowledge  which  I 
shall  soon  refer  to.  The  same  want  of  adequate  reflection 
with  which  he  passed  over  the  questions :  what  is  per 
ception  ?  what  is  reflection  ?  what  is  conception  ?  what 
is  reason  ?  what  is  understanding  ?  allowed  him  to  pass 
over  the  following  investigations,  which  were  just  as  in 
evitably  necessary :  what  is  it  that  I  call  the  object,  which 
I  distinguish  from  the  idea  ?  what  is  existence  ?  what  is 
object  ?  what  is  subject  ?  what  is  truth,  illusion,  error  ? 
But  he  follows  his  logical  schema  and  his  symmetry  with 
out  reflecting  or  looking  about  him.  The  table  of  judg 
ments  ought  to,  and  must,  be  the  key  to  all  wisdom. 


I  have  given  it  above  as  the  chief  merit  of  Kant  that  he 
distinguished  the  phenomenon  from  the  thing  in  itself, 
explained  the  whole  visible  world  as  phenomenon,  and 
therefore  denied  all  validity  to  its  laws  beyond  the  phe 
nomenon.  It  is  certainly  remarkable  that  he  did  not 
deduce  this  merely  relative  existence  of  the  phenomenon 
from  the  simple  undeniable  truth  which  lay  so  near  him, 
"No  object  without  a  subject,"  in  order  thus  at  the  very 
root  to  show  that  the  object,  because  it  always  exists 
merely  in  relation  to  a  subject,  is  dependent  upon  it, 
conditioned  by  it,  and  therefore  conditioned  as  mere 
phenomenon,  which  does  not  exist  in  itself  nor  uncon 
ditioned.  Berkeley,  to  whose  merits  Kant  did  not  do 
justice,  had  already  made  this  important  principle  the 
foundation-stone  of  his  philosophy,  and  thereby  established 
an  immortal  reputation.  Yet  he  himself  did  not  draw  the 
proper  conclusions  from  this  principle,  and  so  he  was 
both  misunderstood  and  insufficiently  attended  to.  In 
my  first  edition  I  explained  Kant's  avoidance  of  this 
Berkeleian  principle  as  arising  from  an  evident  shrink- 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        29 

ing  from  decided  idealism ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  I 
found  idealism  distinctly  expressed  in  many  passages  of 
the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  and  accordingly  I  charged 
Kant  with  contradicting  himself.  And  this  charge  was 
well  founded,  if,  as  was  then  my  case,  one  only  knew  the 
"  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason  "  in  the  second  or  any  of  the  five 
subsequent  editions  printed  from  it.  But  when  later  I 
read  Kant's  great  work  in  the  first  edition,  which  is  already 
so  rare,  I  saw,  to  my  great  pleasure,  all  these  contradic 
tions  disappear,  and  found  that  although  Kant  does  not 
use  the  formula,  "  No  object  without  a  subject,"  he  yet  ex 
plains,  with  just  as  much  decision  as  Berkeley  and  I  do,  the 
outer  world  lying  before  us  in  space  and  time  as  the  mere 
idea  of  the  subject  that  knows  it.  Therefore,  for  example, 
he  says  there  without  reserve  (p.  383):  "If  I  take  away 
the  thinking  subject,  the  whole  material  world  must  dis 
appear,  for  it  is  nothing  but  a  phenomenon  in  the  sensi 
bility  of  our  subject,  and  a  class  of  its  ideas."  But  the 
whole  passage  from  p.  348-392,  in  which  Kant  expounded 
his  pronounced  idealism  with  peculiar  beauty  and  clear 
ness,  was  suppressed  by  him  in  the  second  edition,  and 
instead  of  it  a  number  of  remarks  controverting  it  were 
introduced.  In  this  way  then  the  text  of  the  "  Critique 
of  Pure  Eeason,"  as  it  has  circulated  from  the  year  1787 
to  the  year  1838,  was  disfigured  and  spoilt,  and  it  became 
a  self-contradictory  book,  the  sense  of  which  could  not 
therefore  be  thoroughly  clear  and  comprehensible  to  any 
one.  The  particulars  about  this,  and  also  my  conjectures 
as  to  the  reasons  and  the  weaknesses  which  may  have 
influenced  Kant  so  to  disfigure  his  immortal  work,  I 
have  given  in  a  letter  to  Professor  Piosenkranz,  and  he  has 
quoted  the  principal  passage  of  it  in  his  preface  to  the 
second  volume  of  the  edition  of  Kant's  collected  works 
edited  by  him,  to  which  I  therefore  refer.  In  consequence 
of  my  representations,  Professor  Eosenkranz  was  induced 
in  the  year  1838  to  restore  the  "Critique  of  Pure  Eeason" 
to  its  original  form,  for  in  the  second  volume  referred  to 


30        CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

he  had  it  printed  according  to  ihe  first  edition  of  1781,  by 
which  he  has  rendered  an  inestimable  service  to  philo 
sophy  ;  indeed,  he  has  perhaps  saved  from  destruction  the 
most  important  work  of  German  literature  ;  and^this  should 
always  be  remembered  to  his  credit.  But  let  no  one 
imagine  that  he  knows  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason " 
and  has  a  distinct  conception  of  Kant's  teaching  if  he  has 
only  read  the  second  or  one  of  the  later  editions.  That 
is  altogether  impossible,  for  he  has  only  read  a  mutilated, 
spoilt,  and  to  a  certain  extent  ungenuine  text.  It  is  my 
duty  to  say  this  here  decidedly  and  for  every  one's  warning. 
Yet  the  way  in  which  Kant  introduces  the  thing  in 
itself  stands  in  undeniable  contradiction  with  the  dis 
tinctly  idealistic  point  of  view  so  clearly  expressed  in  the 
first  edition  of  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Pteason,"  and  without 
doubt  this  is  the  chief  reason  why,  in  the  second  edition, 
he  suppressed  the  principal  idealistic  passage  we  have 
referred  to,  and  directly  declared  himself  opposed  to  the 
Berkeleian  idealism,  though  by  doing  so  he  only  intro 
duced  inconsistencies  into  his  work,  without  being  able  to 
remedy  its  principal  defect.  This  defect,  as  is  known,  is 
the  introduction  of  the  thing  in  itself  in  the  way  chosen 
by  him,  the  inadmissibleness  of  which  was  exposed  at 
length  by  G.  E.  Schulze  in  "  dSncsidemus"  and  was  soon 
recognised  as  the  untenable  point  of  his  system.  The 
matter  may  be  made  clear  in  a  very  few  words.  Kant 
based  the  assumption  of  the  thing  in  itself,  though 
concealed  under  various  modes  of  expression,  upon  an 
inference  from  the  law  of  causality — an  inference  that  the 
empirical  perception,  or  more  accurately  the  sensation,  in 
our  organs  of  sense,  from  which  it  proceeds,  must  have  an 
external  cause.  But  according  to  his  own  account,  which 
is  correct,  the  law  of  causality  is  known  to  us  a  priori, 
consequently  is  a  function  of  our  intellect,  and  is  thus  of 
subjective  origin ;  further,  sensation  itself,  to  which  we  here 
apply  the  law  of  causality,  is  undeniably  subjective;  and 
finally,  even  space,  in  which,  by  means  of  this  application, 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        31 

we  place  the  cause  of  this  sensation  as  object,  is  a  form  of 
our  intellect  given  a  priori,  and  is  consequently  subjective. 
Therefore  the  whole  empirical  perception  remains  always 
upon  a  subjective  foundation,  as  a  mere  process  in  us,  and 
nothing  entirely  different  from  it  and  independent  of  it 
can  be  brought  in  as  a  thing  in  itself,  or  shown  to  be  a 
necessary  assumption.  The  empirical  perception  actually 
is  and  remains  merely  our  idea :  it  is  the  world  as  idea. 
An  inner  nature  of  this  we  can  only  arrive  at  on  the 
entirely  different  path  followed  by  me,  by  means  of  calling 
in  the  aid  of  self-consciousness,  which  proclaims  the  .will 
as  the  inner  nature  of  our  own  phenomenon ;  but  then  the 
thing  in  itself  will  be  one  which  is  toto  genere  different 
from  the  idea  and  its  elements,  as  I  have  explained. 

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

I  now  return  to  the  great  mistake  of  Kant,  already 


32         CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

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


The  "  Transcendental  ^Esthetic  "  is  a  work  of  such  extra 
ordinary  merit  that  it  alone  would  have  been  sufficient 
to  immortalise  the  name  of  Kant.  Its  proofs  carry  such 
perfect  conviction,  that  I  number  its  propositions  among 
incontestable  truths,  and  without  doubt  they  are  also 
among  those  that  are  richest  in  results,  and  are,  therefore, 
to  be  regarded  as  the  rarest  thing  in  the  world,  a  real 
and  great  discovery  in  metaphysics.  The  fact,  strictly 
proved  by  him,  that  a  part  of  our  knowledge  is  known  to 
us  a  priori,  admits  of  no  other  explanation  than  that  this 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       33 

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

Therefore  from  the  doctrine  of  the  Transcendental 
^Esthetic  I  knew  of  nothing  to  take  away,  only  of  some 
thing  to  add.  Kant  did  not  carry  out  his  thought  to  the 
end,  especially  in  this  respect,  that  he  did  not  reject 
Euclid's  whole  method  of  demonstration,  even  after  having 
said  on  p.  87 ;  V.  1 20,  that  all  geometrical  knowledge 
has  direct  evidence  from  perception.  It  is  most  remark 
able  that  one  of  Kant's  opponents,  and  indeed  the  acutest 
of  them,  G.  E.  Schulze  (Kritik  der  theorctischen  Philo 
sophic,  ii.  241),  draws  the  conclusion  that  from  his  doc 
trine  an  entirely  different  treatment  of  geometry  from 
that  which  is  actually  in  use  would  arise ;  and  thus  he 
thought  to  bring  an  apagogical  argument  against  Kant, 
but,  in  fact,  without  knowing  it,  he  only  began  the  war 
against  the  method  of  Euclid.  Let  me  refer  to  §  15  of 
the  first  book  of  this  work. 

After  the  full  exposition  of  the  universal  forms  of  per 
ception  given  in  the  Transcendental  Esthetic,  one  neces 
sarily  expects  to  receive  some  explanation  as  to  its  content, 
as  to  the  way  in  \vhich  the  empirical  perception  comes 
into  our  consciousness,  how  the  knowledge  of  this  whole 
world,  which  is  for  us  so  real  and  so  important,  arises  in 

VOL.  II.  C 


34       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

us.  But  the  whole  teaching  of  Kant  contains  really 
nothing  more  about  this  than  the  oft-repeated  meaning 
less  expression  :  "  The  empirical  element  in  perception  is 
given  from  without."  Consequently  here  also  from  the 
pure  forms  of  perception  Kant  arrives  with  one  spring  at 
thinking  at  the  Transcendental  Logic.  Just  at  the  begin 
ning  of  the  Transcendental  Logic  (Critique  of  Pure 
Eeason,  p.  50 ;  V.  74),  where  Kant  cannot  avoid  touch 
ing  upon  the  content  of  the  empirical  perception,  he  takes 
the  first  false  step ;  he  is  guilty  of  the  Trpcorov  -^euSo?. 
"  Our  knowledge,"  he  says,  "  has  two  sources,  receptivity 
of  impressions  and  spontaneity  of  conceptions  :  the  first  is 
the  capacity  for  receiving  ideas,  the  second  that  of  know 
ing  an  object  through  these  ideas :  through  the  first  an 
object  is  given  us,  through  the  second  it  is  thought." 
This  is  false ;  for  according  to  it  the  impression,  for  which 
alone  we  have  mere  receptivity,  which  thus  comes  from 
without  and  alone  is  properly  "  given,"  would  be  already 
an  idea,  and  indeed  an  object.  But  it  is  nothing  more 
than  a  mere  sensation  in  the  organ  of  sense,  and  only  by 
the  application  of  the  understanding  (i.e.,  of  the  law  of 
causality)  and  the  forms  of  perception,  space  and  time, 
does  our  intellect  change  this  mere  sensation  into  an  idea, 
which  now  exists  as  an  object  in  space  and  time,  and  can 
not  be  distinguished  from  the  latter  (the  object)  except  in 
so  far  as  we  ask  after  the  thing  in  itself,  but  apart  from 
this  is  identical  with  it.  I  have  explained  this  point  fully 
in  the  essay  on  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  §  21. 
With  this,  however,  the  work  of  the  understanding  and  of 
the  faculty  of  perception  is  completed,  and  no  conceptions 
and  no  thinking  are  required  in  addition;  therefore  the 
brute  also  has  these  ideas.  If  conceptions  are  added,  if 
thinking  is  added,  to  which  spontaneity  may  certainly  be 
attributed,  then  knowledge  of  perception  is  entirely  aban 
doned,  and  a  completely  different  class  of  ideas  comes  into 
consciousness,  non-perceptible  abstract  conceptions.  This 
is  the  activity  of  the  reason,  which  vet  obtains  the  whole 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       35 

-content  of  its  thinking  only  from  the  previous  perception, 
and  the  comparison  of  it  with  other  perceptions  and  con 
ceptions.  But  thus  Kant  brings  thinking  into  the  percep 
tion,  and  lays  the  foundation  for  the  inextricable  confusion 
of  intuitive  and  abstract  knowledge  which  I  am  now  en 
gaged  in  condemning.  He  allows  the  perception,  taken  by 
itself,  to  be  without  understanding,  purely  sensuous,  and 
thus  quite  passive,  and  only  through  thinking  (category 
of  the  understanding)  does  he  allow  an  object  to  be  appre 
hended  :  thus  he  brings  thought  into  the  perception.  But 
then,  again,  the  object  of  thinking  is  an  individual  real 
object ;  and  in  this  way  thinking  loses  its  essential  char 
acter  of  universality  and  abstraction,  and  instead  of  gene 
ral  conceptions  receives  individual  things  as  its  object : 
thus  again  he  brings  perception  into  thinking.  From  this 
springs  the  inextricable  confusion  referred  to,  and  the 
consequences  of  this  first  false  step  extend  over  his  whole 
theory  of  knowledge.  Through  the  whole  of  his  theory 
the  utter  confusion  of  the  idea  of  perception  with  the 
abstract  idea  tends  towards  a  something  between  the  two 
which  he  expounds  as  the  object  of  knowledge  through 
the  understanding  and  its  categories,  and  calls  this  know 
ledge  experience.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  Kant  really 
figured  to  himself  something  fully  determined  and  really 
distinct  in  this  object  of  the  understanding ;  I  shall  now 
prove  this  through  the  tremendous  contradiction  which 
runs  through  the  whole  Transcendental  Logic,  and  is  the 
real  source  of  the  obscurity  in  which  it  is  involved. 

In  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  p.  67-69 ;  V.  92-94 ; 
p.  89,  90;  V.  122,  123;  further,  V.  135,  139,  153,  he 
repeats  and  insists :  the  understanding  is  no  faculty  of 
perception,  its  knowledge  is  not  intuitive  but  discursive ; 
the  understanding  is  the  faculty  of  judging  (p.  69 ;  V.  94), 
and  a  judgment  is  indirect  knowledge,  an  idea  of  an  idea 
(p.  68 ;  V.  93) ;  the  understanding  is  the  faculty  of  thinking, 
and  thinking  is  knowledge  through  conceptions  (p.  69 ;  V. 
•94) ;  the  categories  of  the  understanding  are  by  no  means 


36       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  conditions  under  which  objects  are  given  in  percep 
tion  (p.  89;  V.  122),  and  perception  in  no  way  requires 
the  functions  of  thinking  (p.  91  ;  V.  123) ;  our  under 
standing  can  only  think,  not  perceive  (V.  pp.  135,  139). 
Further,  in  the  "Prolegomena,"  §  20,  he  says  that  percep 
tion,  sensation,  pcrceptio,  belongs  merely  to  the  senses; 
judgment  to  the  understanding  alone ;  and  in  §  22,  that 
the  work  of  the  senses  is  to  perceive,  that  of  the  under 
standing  to  think,  i.e.,  to  judge.  Finally,  in  the  "  Critique 
of  Practical  Eeason,"  fourth  edition,  p.  247  ;  Eosenkranz's 
edition,  p.  281,  he  says  that  the  understanding  is  discur 
sive;  its  ideas  are  thoughts,  not  perceptions.  All  this  is  in 
Kant's  own  words. 

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

Now  all  that  has  been  quoted  is  contradicted  in  the 
most  glaring  manner  by  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  his 
doctrine  of  the  understanding,  of  its  categories,  and  of  the 
possibility  of  experience  as  he  explains  it  in  the  Trans 
cendental  Logic.  Thus  (Critique  of  Pure  Eeason,  p.  79  ;  V. 
105),  the  understanding  through  its  categories  brings  unity 
into  the  manifold  of  perception,  and  the  pure  conceptions 
of  the  understanding  refer  a  priori  to  objects  of  per 
ception.  P.  94  ;  V.  1 26,  the  "  categories  are  the  condition 
of  experience,  whether  of  perception,  which  is  found  in 
it,  or  of  thought."  V.  p.  127,  the  understanding  is  the 
originator  of  experience.  V.  p.  128,  the  categories  deter 
mine  the  perception  of  objects.  V.  p.  130,  all  that  we  pre 
sent  to  ourselves  as  connected  in  the  object  (which  is  yet 
certainly  something  perceptible  and  not  an  abstraction),  has 
been  so  connected  by  an  act  of  the  understanding.  V.  p.. 
135,  the  understanding  is  explained  anew  as  the  faculty  of 
combining  a  priori,  and  of  bringing  the  multiplicity  of  given. 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       37 

ideas  under  the  unity  of  apperception  ;  but  according  to  all 
ordinary  use  of  words,  apperception  is  not  the  thinking  of 
a  conception,  but  is  perception.  V.  p.  136,  we  find  a  first 
principle  of  the  possibility  of  all  perception  in  connection 
with  the  understanding.  V.  p.  143,  it  stands  as  the 
heading,  that  all  sense  perception  is  conditioned  by  the 
categories.  At  the  same  place  the  logical  function  of  the 
judgment  also  brings  the  manifold  of  given  perceptions 
under  an  apperception  in  general,  and  the  manifold  of  a 
given  perception  stands  necessarily  under  the  categories. 
V.  p.  144,  unity  comes  into  perception,  by  means  of  the 
categories,  through  the  understanding.  V.  p.  145,  the 
thinking  of  the  understanding  is  very  strangely  explained 
as  synthetically  combining,  connecting,  and  arranging 
the  manifold  of  perception.  V.  p.  161,  experience  is  only 
possible  through  the  categories,  and  consists  in  the  con 
nection  of  sensations,  which,  however,  are  just  perceptions. 
V.  P-  T59>  tne  categories  are  a  priori  knowledge  of  the 
objects  of  perception  in  general.  Further,  here  and  at  V.  p. 
163  and  165,  a  chief  doctrine  of  Kant's  is  given,  this  :  tlmt 
the  understanding  first  makes  Nature  possible,  because  it  pre 
scribes  laws  for  it  a  priori,  and  Nature  adapts  itself  to  the 
system  of  the  understanding,  and  so  on.  Nature,  however, 
is  certainly  perceptible  and  not  an  abstraction ;  therefore, 
the  understanding  must  be  a  faculty  of  perception.  V.  p. 
1 68,  it  is  said,  the  conceptions  of  the  understanding  are  the 
principles  of  the  possibility  of  experience,  and  the  latter  is 
the  condition  of  phenomena  in  space  and  time  in  general ; 
phenomena  which,  however,  certainly  exist  in  perception. 
Finally,  p.  189-211  ;  V.  232-265,  the  long  proof  is  given 
(the  incorrectness  of  which  is  shown  in  detail  in  my  essay 
on  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  §  23)  that  the  ob 
jective  succession  and  also  the  coexistence  of  objects  of 
experience  are  not  sensuously  apprehended,  but  are  only 
brought  into  Nature  by  the  understanding,  and  that  Nature 
itself  first  becomes  possible  in  this  way.  Yet  it  is  certain 
that  Nature,  the  course  of  events,  and  the  coexistence 


38       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  states,  is  purely  perceptible,  and  no  mere  abstract 
thought. 

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

If,  now,  we  endeavour  to  investigate  Kant's  inmost 
meaning,  not  clearly  expressed  by  himself,  we  find  that 
in  reality  such  an  object,  different  from  the  perception, 
but  which  is  by  no  means  a  conception,  is  for  him  the 
proper  object  for  the  understanding ;  indeed  that  it  must 
be  by  means  of  the  strange  assumption  of  such  an  object, 
which  cannot  be  presented  in  perception,  that  the  per- 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       39 

ception  first  becomes  experience.  I  believe  that  an  old 
deeply-rooted  prejudice  in  Kant,  dead  to  all  investigation, 
is  the  ultimate  reason  of  the  assumption  of  such  an  absolute 
object,  which  is  an  object  in  itself,  i.e.,  without  a  subject. 
It  is  certainly  not  the  perceived  object,  but  through  the 
conception  it  is  added  to  the  perception  by  thought,  as 
something  corresponding  to  it ;  and  now  the  perception  is 
experience,  and  has  value  and  truth,  which  it  thus  only 
receives  through  the  relation  to  a  conception  (in  diametrical 
opposition  to  my  exposition,  according  to  which  the  con 
ception  only  receives  value  and  truth  from  the  perception). 
It  is  then  the  proper  function  of  the  categories  to  add  on 
in  thought  to  the  perception  this  directly  non-perceptible 
object.  "  The  object  is  given  only  through  perception,  and 
is  afterwards  thought  in  accordance  with  the  category  " 
(Critique  of  Pure  Beason,  first  edition,  p.  399).  This  is 
made  specially  clear  by  a  passage  on  p.  125  of  the  fifth 
edition  :  "  Now  the  question  arises  whether  conceptions  a 
priori  do  not  also  come  first  as  conditions  under  which 
alone  a  thing  can  be,  not  perceived  certainly,  but  yet 
thought  as  an  object  in  general,"  which  he  answers  in  the 
affirmative.  Here  the  source  of  the  error  and  the  con 
fusion  in  which  it  is  involved  shows  itself  distinctly.  For 
the  object  as  such  exists  always  only  for  perception  and  in 
it ;  it  may  now  be  completed  through  the  senses,  or,  when 
it  is  absent,  through  the  imagination.  What  is  thought, 
on  the  contrary,  is  always  an  universal  non-perceptible 
conception,  which  certainly  can  be  the  conception  of  an 
object  in  general ;  but  only  indirectly  by  means  of  con 
ceptions  does  thought  relate  itself  to  objects,  which  always 
are  and  remain  perceptible.  For  our  thinking  is  not  able 
to  impart  reality  to  perceptions ;  this  they  have,  so  far  as 
they  are  capable  of  it  (empirical  reality)  of  themselves; 
but  it  serves  to  bring  together  the  common  element  and 
the  results  of  perceptions,  in  order  to  preserve  them,  and 
to  be  able  to  use  them  more  easily.  But  Kant  ascribes 
the  objects  themselves  to  thought,  in  order  to  make  expe- 


40       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

rience  and  the  objective  world  dependent  upon  under 
standing,  yet  without  allowing  understanding  to  be  a 
faculty  of  perception.  In  this  relation  he  certainly  dis 
tinguishes  perception  from  thought,  but  he  makes  par 
ticular  things  sometimes  the  object  of  perception  and 
sometimes  the  object  of  thought.  In  reality,  however, 
they  are  only  the  object  of  the  former;  our  empirical 
perception  is  at  once  objective,  just  because  it  proceeds 
from  the  causal  nexus.  Things,  not  ideas  different  from 
them,  are  directly  its  object.  Particular  things  as  such 
are  perceived  in  the  understanding  and  through  the  senses; 
the  one-sided  impression  upon  the  latter  is  at  once  com 
pleted  by  the  imagination.  But,  on  the  contrary,  as  soon 
as  we  pass  over  to  thought,  we  leave  the  particular  things, 
and  have  to  do  with  general  conceptions,  which  cannot 
be  presented  in  perception,  although  we  afterwards  apply 
the  results  of  our  thought  to  particular  things.  If  we 
hold  firmly  to  this,  the  inadmissibleness  of  the  assumption 
becomes  evident  that  the  perception  of  things  only  obtains 
reality  and  becomes  experience  through  the  thought  of 
these  very  things  applying  its  twelve  categories.  Bather 
in  perception  itself  the  empirical  reality,  and  consequently 
experience,  is  already  given ;  but  the  perception  itself  can 
only  come  into  existence  by  the  application  to  sensation 
of  the  ^knowledge  of  the  causal  nexus,  which  is  the  one 
function  of  the  understanding.  Perception  is  accordingly 
in  reality  intellectual,  which  is  just  what  Kant  denies. 

Besides  in  the  passages  quoted,  the  assumption  of  Kant 
here  criticised  will  be  found  expressed  with  admirable 
clearness  in  the  "  Critique  of  Judgment,"  §  36,  just  at 
the  beginning;  also  in  the  "Metaphysical  Principles  of 
Natural  Science,"  in  the  note  to  the  first  explanation  of 
"  Phenomenology."  But  with  a  naivete  which  Kant  ven 
tured  upon  least  of  all  with  reference  to  this  doubtful 
point,  it  is  to  be  found  most  distinctly  laid  down  in  the 
book  of  a  Kantian,  Kiesewetter's  "  Grundriss  einer  alge- 
meinen  Logik"  third  edition,  part  i.,  p.  434  of  the  exposi- 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       41 

tion,  and  part  ii.,  §  52  and  53  of  the  exposition;  similarly 
in  Tieftrunk's  " Denldehrc  in  rein  Dcutschem  Gewande" 
(1825).  It  there  appears  so  clearly  how  those  disciples 
who  do  not  themselves  think  become  a  magnifying  mirror 
of  the  errors  of  every  thinker.  Once  having  determined 
his  doctrine  of  the  categories,  Kant  was  always  cautious 
when  expounding  it,  but  his  disciples  on  the  contrary 
were  quite  bold,  and  thus  exposed  its  falseness. 

According  to  what  has  been  said,  the  object  of  the  cate 
gories  is  for  Kant,  not  indeed  the  thing  in  itself,  but  yet 
most  closely  akin  to  it.  It  is  the  object  in  itself ;  it  is  an 
object  that  requires  no  subject;  it  is  a  particular  thing,  and 
yet  not  in  space  and  time,  because  not  perceptible  ;  it  is 
an  object  of  thought,  and  yet  not  an  abstract  conception. 
Accordingly  Kant  really  makes  a  triple  division:  (i.)  the 
idea ;  (2.)  the  object  of  the  idea ;  (3.)  the  thing  in  itself. 
The  first  belongs  to  the  sensibility,  which  in  its  case,  as 
in  that  of  sensation,  includes  the  pure  forms  of  perception, 
space  and  time.  The  second  belongs  to  the  understand 
ing,  which  thinks  it  through  its  twelve  categories.  The 
third  lies  beyond  the  possibility  of  all  knowledge.  (In 
support  of  this,  cf.  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  first  edition, 
p.  1 08  and  109.)  The  distinction  of  the  idea  from  the 
object  of  the  idea  is  however  unfounded  ;  this  had  already 
been  proved  by  Berkeley,  and  it  appears  from  my  whole 
exposition  in  the  first  book,  especially  chap.  i.  of  the  sup 
plements;  nay,  even  from  Kant's  own  completely  idea 
listic  point  of  view  in  the  first  edition.  But  if  we  should 
not  wish  to  count  the  object  of  the  idea  as  belonging  to 
the  idea  and  identify  it  with  the  idea,  it  would  be  neces 
sary  to  attribute  it  to  the  thing  in  itself :  this  ultimately 
depends  on  the  sense  which  is  attached  to  the  word  object. 
This,  however,  always  remains  certain,  that,  when  we 
think  clearly,  nothing  more  can  be  found  than  idea  and 
thing  in  itself.  The  illicit  introduction  of  that  hybrid,  the 
object  of  the  idea,  is  the  source  of  Kant's  errors ;  yet  when 
it  is  taken  away,  the  doctrine  of  the  categories  as  concep- 


42       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

tions  a  priori  also  falls  to  the  ground;  for  they  bring 
nothing  to  the  perception,  and  are  not  supposed  to  hold 
good  of  the  thing  in  itself,  but  by  means  of  them  we  only 
think  those  "  objects  of  the  ideas,"  and  thereby  change  ideas 
into  experience.  For  every  empirical  perception  is  already 
experience;  but  every  perception  which  proceeds  from 
sensation  is  empirical:  this  sensation  is  related  by  the 
understanding,  by  means  of  its  sole  function  (knowledge 
a  priori  of  the  law  of  causality),  to  its  cause,  which  just 
on  this  account  presents  itself  in  space  and  time  (forms  of 
pure  perception)  as  object  of  experience,  material  object, 
enduring  in  space  through  all  time,  yet  as  such  always 
remains  idea,  as  do  space  and  time  themselves.  If  we 
desire  to  go  beyond  this  idea,  then  we  arrive  at  the  ques 
tion  as  to  the  thing  in  itself,  the  answer  to  which  is  the 
theme  of  my  whole  work,  as  of  all  metaphysics  in  general. 
Kant's  error  here  explained  is  connected  with  his  mistake, 
which  we  condemned  before,  that  he  gives  no  theory  of 
the  origin  of  empirical  perception,  but,  without  saying 
more,  treats  it  as  given,  identifying  it  with  the  mere  sen 
sation,  to  which  he  only  adds  the  forms  of  intuition  or  per 
ception,  space  and  time,  comprehending  both  under  the 
name  sensibility.  But  from  these  materials  no  objective 
idea  arises :  this  absolutely  demands  the  relation  of  the  idea 
to  its  cause,  thus  the  application  of  the  law  of  causality, 
and  thus  understanding;  for  without  this  the  sensation 
still  remains  always  subjective,  and  does  not  take  the 
form  of  an  object  in  space,  even  if  space  is  given  with  it. 
But  according  to  Kant,  the  understanding  must  not  be 
assigned  to  perception  ;  it  is  supposed  merely  to  think,  so 
as  to  remain  within  the  transcendental  logic.  "With  this 
again  is  connected  another  mistake  of  Kant's  :  that  he 
left  it  to  me  to  adduce  the  only  valid  proof  of  the  a  priori 
nature  of  the  law  of  causality  which  he  rightly  recognised, 
the  proof  from  the  possibility  of  objective  empirical  per 
ception  itself,  and  instead  of  it  gives  a  palpably  false  one, 
as  I  have  already  shown  in  my  essay  on  the  principle  of 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       43 

sufficient  reason,  §  23.  From  the  above  it  is  clear  that 
Kant's  "object  of  the  idea"  (2)  is  made  up  of  what 
he  has  stolen  partly  from  the  idea  (i),  and  partly  from 
the  thing  in  itself  (3 ).  If,  in  reality,  experience  were 
only  brought  about  by  the  understanding  applying  its 
twelve  different  functions  in  order  to  think  through  as 
many  conceptions  a  priori,  the  objects  which  were  pre 
viously  merely  perceived,  then  every  real  thing  would 
necessarily  as  such  have  a  number  of  determinations, 
which,  as  given  a  priori,  absolutely  could  not  be  thought 
away,  just  like  space  and  time,  but  would  belong  quite 
essentially  to  the  existence  of  the  thing,  and  yet  could 
not  be  deduced  from  the  properties  of  space  and  time. 
But  only  one  such  determination  is  to  be  found — that  of 
causality.  Upon  this  rests  materiality,  for  the  essence  of 
matter  consists  in  action,  and  it  is  through  and  through 
causality  (cf.  Bk.  II.  ch.  iv.)  But  it  is  materiality  alone 
that  distinguishes  the  real  thing  from  the  picture  of  the 
imagination,  which  is  then  only  idea.  For  matter,  as  per 
manent,  gives  to  the  thing  permanence  through  all  time, 
in  respect  of  its  matter,  while  the  forms  change  in  con 
formity  with  causality.  Everything  else  in  the  thing 
consists  either  of  determinations  of  space  or  of  time,  or  of 
its  empirical  properties,  which  are  all  referable  to  its 
activity,  and  are  thus  fuller  determinations  of  causality. 
But  causality  enters  already  as  a  condition  into  the  em 
pirical  perception,  and  this  is  accordingly  a  thing  of  the 
understanding,  which  makes  even  perception  possible,  and 
yet  apart  from  the  law  of  causality  contributes  nothing  to 
experience  and  its  possibilty.  What  fills  the  old  ontolo 
gies  is,  with  the  exception  of  what  is  given  here,  nothing 
more  than  relations  of  things  to  each  other,  or  to  our  re 
flection,  and  a  farrago  of  nonsense. 

The  language  in  which  the  doctrine  of  the  categories 
is  expressed  affords  an  evidence  of  its  baselessness.  What 
a  difference  in  this  respect  between  the  Transcenden 
tal  Esthetic  and  the  Transcendental  Analytic !  IQ  the 


44       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

former,  what  clearness,  definiteness,  certainty,  firm  con 
viction  which  is  freely  expressed  and  infallibly  com 
municates  itself !  All  is  full  of  light,  no  dark  lurking- 
places  are  left :  Kant  knows  what  he  wants  and  knows 
that  he  is  right.  In  the  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  all 
is  obscure,  confused,  indefinite,  wavering,  uncertain,  the 
language  anxious,  full  of  excuses  and  appeals  to  what  is 
coming,  or  indeed  of  suppression.  Moreover,  the  whole 
second  and  third  sections  of  the  Deduction  of  the  Pure 
Conceptions  of  the  Understanding  are  completely  changed 
in  the  second  edition,  because  they  did  not  satisfy  Kant 
himself,  and  they  have  become  quite  different  from  the 
first  edition,  though  not  clearer.  We  actually  see  Kant  in 
conflict  with  the  truth  in  order  to  carry  out  his  hypothe 
sis  which  he  has  once  fixed  upon.  In  the  Transcenden 
tal  .^Esthetic  all  his  propositions  are  really  proved  from 
undeniable  facts  of  consciousness  ;  in  the  Transcenden 
tal  Analytic,  on  the  contrary,  we  find,  if  we  consider  it 
closely,  mere  assertions  that  thus  it  is  and  must  be.  Here, 
then,  as  everywhere,  the  language  bears  the  stamp  of  the 
thought  from  which  it  has  proceeded,  for  style  is  the 
physiognomy  of  the  mind.  We  have  still  to  remark,  that 
whenever  Kant  wishes  to  give  an  example  for  the  purpose 
of  fuller  explanation,  he  almost  always  takes  for  this  end 
the  category  of  causality,  and  then  what  he  has  said  turns 
out  correct ;  for  the  law  of  causality  is  indeed  the  real 
form  of  the  understanding,  but  it  is  also  its  only  form, 
and  the  remaining  eleven  categories  are  merely  blind 
windows.  The  deduction  of  the  categories  is  simpler 
and  less  involved  in  the  first  edition  than  in  the  second. 
He  labours  to  explain  how,  according  to  the  perception 
given  by  sensibility,  the  understanding  produces  experi 
ence  by  means  of  thinking  the  categories.  In  doing  so, 
the  wrords  recognition,  reproduction,  association,  appre 
hension,  transcendental  unity  of  apperception,  are  re 
peated  to  weariness,  and  yet  no  distinctness  is  attained. 
It  is  well  worth  noticing,  however,  that  in  this  explana- 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       45 

tion  he  does  not  once  touch  upon  what  must  nevertheless 
first  occur  to  every  one — the  relation  of  the  sensation  to 
its  external  cause.  If  he  did  not  intend  this  relation  to 
hold  good,  he  ought  to  have  expressly  denied  it ;  but 
neither  does  he  do  this.  Thus  in  this  way  he  evades  the 
point,  and  all  the  Kantians  have  in  like  manner  evaded 
it.  The  secret  motive  of  this  is,  that  he  reserves  the 
causal  nexus,  under  the  name  "ground  of  the  phenome 
non,"  for  his  false  deduction  of  the  thing  in  itself ;  and  also 
that  perception  would  become  intellectual  through  the 
relation  to  the  cause,  which  he  dare  not  admit.  Besides 
this,  he  seems  to  have  been  afraid  that  if  the  causal  nexus 
were  allowed  to  hold  good  between  sensation  and  object, 
the  latter  would  at  once  become  the  thing  in  itself,  and 
introduce  the  empiricism  of  Locke.  But  this  difficulty 
is  removed  by  reflection,  which  shows  us  that  the  law  of 
causality  is  of  subjective  origin,  as  well  as  the  sensation 
itself ;  and  besides  this,  our  own  body  also,  inasmuch  as 
it  appears  in  space,  already  belongs  to  ideas.  But  Kant 
was  hindered  from  confessing  this  by  his  fear  of  the 
Berkeleian  idealism. 

"  The  combination  of  the  manifold  of  perception "  is 
repeatedly  given  as  the  essential  operation  of  the  under 
standing,  by  means  of  its  twelve  categories.  Yet  this  is 
never  adequately  explained,  nor  is  it  shown  what  this 
manifold  of  perception  is  before  it  is  combined  by  the 
understanding.  But  time  and  space,  the  latter  in  all  its 
three  dimensions,  are  contimia,  i.e.,  all  their  parts  are 
originally  not  separate  but  combined.  Thus,  then,  every 
thing  that  exhibits  itself  in  them  (is  given)  appears  origi 
nally  as  a  continuum,  i.e.,  its  parts  appear  already  com 
bined  and  require  no  adventitious  combination  of  a 
manifold.  If,  however,  some  one  should  seek  to  interpret 
that  combining  of  the  manifold  of  perception  by  saying 
that  I  refer  the  different  sense-impressions  of  one  object 
to  this  one  only — thus,  for  example,  perceiving  a  bell,  I 
recognise  that  what  affects  my  eye  as  yellow,  my  hand  as 


46        CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

smooth  and  hard,  my  ear  as  sounding,  is  yet  only  one  and 
the  same  body, — then  I  reply  that  this  is  rather  a  conse 
quence  of  the  knowledge  a  priori  of  the  causal  nexus  (this 
actual  and  only  function  of  the  understanding),  by  virtue 
of  which  all  those  different  effects  upon  my  different 
organs  of  sense  yet  lead  me  only  to  one  common  cause  of 
them,  the  nature  of  the  body  standing  before  me,  so  that 
my  understanding,  in  spite  of  the  difference  and  multi 
plicity  of  the  effects,  still  apprehends  the  unity  of  the 
cause  as  a  single  object,  which  just  on  that  account  ex 
hibits  itself  in  perception.  In  the  beautiful  recapitulation 
of  his  doctrine  which  Kant  gives  at  p.  719-726  or  V. 
747-754  of  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason,"  he  explains  the 
categories,  perhaps  more  distinctly  than  anywhere  else,  as 
"  the  mere  rule  of  the  synthesis  of  that  which  empirical 
apprehension  has  given  a  posteriori."  It  seems  as  if  here 
he  had  something  in  his  mind,  such  as  that,  in  the  construc 
tion  of  the  triangle,  the  angles  give  the  rule  for  the  com 
position  of  the  lines ;  at  least  by  this  image  one  can  best 
explain  to  oneself  what  he  says  of  the  function  of  the  cate 
gories.  The  preface  to  the  "  Metaphysical  First  Principles 
of  Natural  Science  "  contains  a  long  note  which  likewise 
gives  an  explanation  of  the  categories,  and  says  that  they 
"  differ  in  no  respect  from  the  formal  acts  of  the  under 
standing  in  judging,"  except  that  in  the  latter  subject  and 
predicate  can  always  change  places ;  then  the  judgment 
in  general  is  defined  in  the  same  passage  as  "an  act 
through  which  given  ideas  first  become  knowledge  of 
an  object."  According  to  this,  the  brutes,  since  they  do 
not  judge,  must  also  have  no  knowledge  of  objects.  In 
general,  according  to  Kant,  there  are  only  conceptions  of 
objects,  no  perceptions.  I,  on  the  contrary,  say  :  Objects 
exist  primarily  only  for  perception,  and  conceptions  are 
always  abstractions  from  this  perception.  Therefore  ab 
stract  thinking  must  be  conducted  exactly  according  to 
the  world  present  in  perception,  for  it  is  only  their  rela 
tion  to  this  that  gives  content  to  conceptions ;  and  we  must 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       47 

assume  for  the  conceptions  no  other  a  priori  determined 
form  than  the  faculty  of  reflection  in  general,  the  nature  of 
which  is  the  construction  of  conceptions,  i.e.,  of  abstract 
non-perceptible  ideas,  which  constitutes  the  sole  function  of 
the  reason,  as  I  have  shown  in  the  first  book.  I  therefore 
require  that  we  should  reject  eleven  of  the  categories,  and 
only  retain  that  of  causality,  and  yet  that  we  should 
see  clearly  that  its  activity  is  indeed  the  condition  of 
empirical  perception,  which  accordingly  is  not  merely 
sensuous  but  intellectual,  and  that  the  object  so  per 
ceived,  the  object  of  experience,  is  one  with  the  idea, 
from  which  there  remains  nothing  to  distinguish  except 
the  thing  in  itself. 

After  repeated  study  of  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason  " 
at  different  periods  of  my  life,  a  conviction  has  forced 
itself  upon  me  with  regard  to  the  origin  of  the  Transcen 
dental  Logic,  which  I  now  impart  as  very  helpful  to  an 
understanding  of  it.  Kant's  only  discovery,  which  is 
based  upon  objective  comprehension  and  the  highest 
human  thought,  is  the  appcr^u  that  time  and  space  are 
known  by  us  a  priori.  Gratified  by  this  happy  hit,  he 
wished  to  pursue  the  same  vein  further,  and  his  love  of 
architectonic  symmetry  afforded  him  the  clue.  As  he 
had  found  that  a  pure  intuition  or  perception  a  priori 
underlay  the  empirical  perception  as  its  condition,  he 
thought  that  in  the  same  way  certain  pure  conceptions 
as  presuppositions  in  our  faculty  of  knowledge  must  lie  at 
the  foundation  of  the  empirically  obtained  conceptions,  and 
that  real  empirical  thought  must  be  only  possible  through 
a  pure  thought  a  priori,  which,  however,  would  have  no 
objects  in  itself,  but  would  be  obliged  to  take  them  from 
perception.  So  that  as  the  Transcendental  ^Esthetic  estab 
lishes  an  a  priori  basis  of  mathematics,  there  must,  he 
supposed,  also  be  a  similar  basis  for  logic ;  and  thus,  then 
for  the  sake  of  symmetry,  the  former  received  a  pendant 
in  a  Transcendental  Logic.  From  this  point  onwards  Kant 
was  no  more  free,  no  more  in  the  position  of  purely, 


48       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

investigating  and  observing  what  is  present  in  conscious 
ness;  but  he  was  guided  by  an  assumption  and  pursued 
a  purpose — the  purpose  of  finding  what  he  assumed,  in 
order  to  add  to  the  Transcendental  ^Esthetic  so  happily 
discovered  a  Transcendental  Logic  analogous  to  it,  and 
thus  symmetrically  corresponding  to  it,  as  a  second  storey. 
Now  for  this  purpose  he  hit  upon  the  table  of  judgments, 
out  of  which  he  constructed,  as  well  as  he  could,  the  table 
of  categories,  the  doctrine  of  twelve  pure  a  priori  con 
ceptions,  which  are  supposed  to  be  the  conditions  of  our 
thinking  those  very  things  the  perception  of  which  is  con 
ditioned  by  the  two  a  priori  forms  of  sensibility :  thus 
a  pure  understanding  now  corresponded  symmetrically  to 
a  pure  sensibility.  Then  another  consideration  occurred 
to  him,  which  offered  a  means  of  increasing  the  plausi 
bility  of  the  thing,  by  the  assumption  of  the  schematism 
of  the  pure  conceptions  of  the  understanding.  But  just 
through  this  the  way  in  which  his  procedure  had,  uncon 
sciously  indeed,  originated  betrayed  itself  most  distinctly. 
For  because  he  aimed  at  finding  something  a  priori 
analogous  to  every  empirical  function  of  the  faculty  of 
knowledge,  he  remarked  that  between  our  empirical  per 
ception  and  our  empirical  thinking,  conducted  in  abstract 
non-perceptible  conceptions,  a  connection  very  frequently, 
though  not  always,  takes  place,  because  every  now  and 
then  we  try  to  go  back  from  abstract  thinking  to  percep 
tion  ;  but  try  to  do  so  merely  in  order  really  to  convince 
ourselves  that  our  abstract  thought  has  not  strayed  far 
from  the  safe  ground  of  perception,  and  perhaps  become 
exaggeration,  or,  it  may  be,  mere  empty  talk ;  much  in  the 
same  way  as,  when  we  are  walking  in  the  dark,  we  stretch 
out  our  hand  every  now  and  then  to  the  guiding  wall. 
We  go  back,  then,  to  the  perception  only  tentatively  and 
for  the  moment,  by  calling  up  in  imagination  a  perception 
corresponding  to  the  conceptions  which  are  occupying  us 
at  the  time — a  perception  which  can  yet  never  be  quite 
adequate  to  the  conception,  but  is  merely  a  temporary 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      49 

representative  of  it.  I  have  already  adduced  what  is 
needful  on  this  point  in  my  essay  on  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason,  §  28.  Kant  calls  a  fleeting  phantasy 
of  this  kind  a  schema,  in  opposition  to  the  perfected 
picture  of  the  imagination.  He  says  it  is  like  a  mono 
gram  of  the  imagination,  and  asserts  that  just  as  such 
a  schema  stands  midway  between  our  abstract  thinking 
of  empirically  obtained  conceptions,  and  our  clear  percep 
tion  which  comes  to  us  through  the  senses,  so  there  are 
a  priori  schemata  of  the  pure  conceptions  of  the  under 
standing  between  the  faculty  of  perception  a  priori  of 
pure  sensibility  and  the  faculty  of  thinking  a  priori  of 
the  pure  understanding  (thus  the  categories).  These 
schemata,  as  monograms  of  the  pure  imagination  a  priori, 
he  describes  one  by  one,  and  assigns  to  each  of  them  its 
corresponding  category,  in  the  wonderful  "  Chapter  on 
the  Schematism  of  the  Pure  Conceptions  of  the  Under 
standing,"  which  is  noted  as  exceedingly  obscure,  because 
no  man  has  ever  been  able  to  make  anything  out  of  it. 
Its  obscurity,  however,  vanishes  if  it  is  considered  from 
the  point  of  view  here  indicated,  but  there  also  comes 
out  more  clearly  in  it  than  anywhere  else  the  intentional 
nature  of  Kant's  procedure,  and  of  the  determination 
formed  beforehand  of  finding  what  would  correspond  to 
the  analogy,  and  could  assist  the  architectonic  symmetry ; 
indeed  this  is  here  the  case  to  such  a  degree  as  to  be 
almost  comical.  For  when  he  assumes  schemata  of  the 
pure  (empty)  a  priori  conceptions  of  the  understanding 
(categories)  analogous  to  the  empirical  schemata  (or  re 
presentatives  through  the  fancy  of  our  actual  conceptions), 
he  overlooks  the  fact  that  the  end  of  such  schemata  is  here 
entirely  wanting.  For  the  end  of  the  schemata  in  the  case 
of  empirical  (real)  thinking  is  entirely  connected  with 
the  material  content  of  such  conceptions.  For  since  these 
conceptions  are  drawn  from  empirical  perception,  we  assist 
and  guide  ourselves  when  engaged  in  abstract  thinking 
by  now  and  then  casting  a  momentary  glance  back  at 

VOL.  II.  1> 


50       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  perception  out  of  which  the  conceptions  are  framed,  in 
order  to  assure  ourselves  that  our  thought  has  still  real 
content.  This,  however,  necessarily  presupposes  that  the 
conceptions  which  occupy  us  are  sprung  from  perception, 
and  it  is  merely  a  glance  back  at  their  material  content, 
indeed  a  mere  aid  to  our  weakness.  But  in  the  case  of 
a  priori  conceptions  which  as  yet  have  no  content  at  all, 
clearly  this  is  necessarily  omitted.  For  these  conceptions 
are  not  sprung  from  perception,  but  come  to  it  from 
within,  in  order  to  receive  a  content  first  from  it.  Thus 
they  have  as  yet  nothing  on  which  they  could  look  back. 
I  speak  fully  upon  this  point,  because  it  is  just  this  that 
throws  light  upon  the  secret  origin  of  the  Kantian  philo 
sophising,  which  accordingly  consists  in  this,  that  Kant, 
after  the  happy  discovery  of  the  two  forms  of  intuition 
or  perception  a  priori,  exerted  himself,  under  the  guidance 
of  the  analogy,  to  prove  that  for  every  determination  of 
our  empirical  knowledge  there  is  an  a  priori  analogue, 
and  this  finally  extended,  in  the  schemata,  even  to  a  mere 
psychological  fact.  Here  the  apparent  depth  and  the 
difficulty  of  the  exposition  just  serve  to  conceal  from 
the  reader  that  its  content  remains  a  wholly  undemon- 
strable  and  merely  arbitrary  assumption.  But  he  who 
has  penetrated  at  last  to  the  meaning  of  such  an  ex 
position  is  then  easily  induced  to  mistake  this  under 
standing  so  painfully  attained  for  a  conviction  of  the 
truth  of  the  matter.  If,  on  the  contrary,  Kant  had  kept 
himself  here  as  unprejudiced  and  purely  observant  as  in 
the  discovery  of  a  priori  intuition  or  perception,  he  must 
have  found  that  what  is  added  to  the  pure  intuition  or 
perception  of  space  and  time,  if  an  empirical  perception 
arises  from  it,  is  on  the  one  hand  the  sensation,  and  on  the 
other  hand  the  knowledge  of  causality,  which  changes  the 
mere  sensation  into  objective  empirical  perception,  but 
just  on  this  account  is  not  first  derived  and  learned  from 
sensation,  but  exists  a  priori,  and  is  indeed  the  form  and 
function  of  the  pure  understanding.  It  is  also,  however, 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        51 

its  sole  form  and  function,  yet  one  so  rich  in  results  that 
all  our  empirical  knowledge  rests  upon  it.  If,  as  has 
often  been  said,  the  refutation  of  an  error  is  only  complete 
when  the  way  it  originated  has  been  psychologically 
demonstrated,  I  believe  I  have  achieved  this,  with  regard 
to  Kant's  doctrine  of  the  categories  and  their  schemata, 
in  what  I  have  said  above. 


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


52        CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  the  brain  converge.     Therefore,  to  avoid  repetition,  I 
now  refer  to  that  chapter. 


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


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       53 

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

Now  as  concerns  the  specified  method  and  fundamental 
maxim  itself,  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  it,  and  it  is  a 
brilliant  thought.  The  nature  of  all  science  indeed  con 
sists  in  this,  that  we  comprehend  the  endless  manifold  of 


54       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

perceptible  phenomena  under  comparatively  few  abstract 
conceptions,  and  out  of  these  construct  a  system  by  means 
of  which  we  have  all  those  phenomena  completely  in  the 
power  of  our  knowledge,  can  explain  the  past  and  deter 
mine  the  future.  The  sciences,  however,  divide  the  wide 
sphere  of  phenomena  among  them  according  to  the  special 
and  manifold  classes  of  the  latter.  Now  it  was  a  bold 
and  happy  thought  to  isolate  what  is  absolutely  essential 
to  the  conceptions  as  such  and  apart  from  their  content,  in 
order  to  discover  from  these  forms  of  all  thought  found  in 
this  way  what  is  essential  to  all  intuitive  knowledge  also, 
and  consequently  to  the  world  as  phenomenon  in  general ; 
and  because  this  would  be  found  a  priori  on  account  of 
the  necessity  of  those  forms  of  thought,  it  would  be  of 
subjective  origin,  and  would  just  lead  to  the  ends  Kant 
had  in  view.  Here,  however,  before  going  further,  the 
relation  of  reflection  to  knowledge  of  perception  ought 
to  have  been  investigated  (which  certainly  presupposes 
the  clear  separation  of  the  two,  which  was  neglected  by 
Kant).  He  ought  to  have  inquired  in  what  way  the 
former  really  repeats  and  represents  the  latter,  whether 
quite  pure,  or  changed  and  to  some  extent  disguised  by 
being  taken  up  into  its  special  forms  (forms  of  reflection) ; 
whether  the  form  of  abstract  reflective  knowledge  becomes 
more  determined  through  the  form  of  knowledge  of  percep 
tion,  or  through  the  nature  or  constitution  which  unalter 
ably  belongs  to  itself,  i.e.,  to  reflective  knowledge,  so  that 
even  what  is  very  heterogeneous  in  intuitive  knowledge  can 
no  longer  be  distinguished  when  it  has  entered  reflective 
knowledge,  and  conversely  many  distinctions  of  which  we 
are  conscious  in  the  reflective  method  of  knowledge  have 
also  sprung  from  this  knowledge  itself,  and  by  no  means 
point  to  corresponding  differences  in  intuitive  knowledge. 
As  the  result  of  this  investigation,  however,  it  would  have 
appeared  that  knowledge  of  perception  suffers  very  nearly 
as  much  change  when  it  is  taken  up  into  reflection  as 
food  when  it  is  taken  into  the  animal  organism  whose 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        55 

forms  and  compounds  are  determined  by  itself,  so  that  the 
nature  of  the  food  can  no  longer  be  recognised  from  the 
result  they  produce.  Or  (for  this  is  going  a  little  too  far) 
at  least  it  would  have  appeared  that  reflection  is  by  no 
means  related  to  knowledge  of  perception  as  the  reflection 
in  water  is  related  to  the  reflected  objects,  but  scarcely 
even  as  the  mere  shadow  of  these  objects  stands  to  the 
objects  themselves  ;  which  shadow  repeats  only  a  few 
external  outlines,  but  also  unites  the  most  manifold  in 
the  same  form  and  presents  the  most  diverse  through  the 
same  outline ;  so  that  it  is  by  no  means  possible,  starting 
from  it,  to  construe  the  forms  of  things  with  completeness 
and  certainty. 

The  whole  of  reflective  knowledge,  or  the  reason,  has 
only  one  chief  form,  and  that  is  the  abstract  conception.  It 
is  proper  to  the  reason  itself,  and  has  no  direct  necessary 
connection  with  the  world  of  perception,  which  therefore 
exists  for  the  brutes  entirely  without  conceptions,  and  in 
deed,  even  if  it  were  quite  another  world  from  what  it  is, 
that  form  of  reflection  would  suit  it  just  as  well.  But 
the  combination  of  conceptions  for  the  purpose  of  judging 
has  certain  definite  and  normal  forms,  which  have  been 
found  by  induction,  and  constitute  the  table  of  judgments. 
These  forms  are  for  the  most  part  deducible  from  the 
nature  of  reflective  knowledge  itself,  thus  directly  from 
the  reason,  because  they  spring  from  the  four  laws  of 
thought  (called  by  me  metalogical  truths)  and  the  dictum 
de  omni  et  nullo.  Certain  others  of  these  forms,  however, 
have  their  ground  in  the  nature  of  knowledge  of  percep 
tion,  thus  in  the  understanding ;  yet  they  by  no  means 
point  to  a  like  number  of  special  forms  of  the  under 
standing,  but  can  all  be  fully  deduced  from  the  sole 
function  which  the  understanding  has — the  direct  know 
ledge  of  cause  and  effect.  Lastly,  still  others  of  these 
forms  have  sprung  from  the  concurrence  and  combination 
of  the  reflective  and  intuitive  modes  of  knowledge,  or 
more  properly  from  the  assumption  of  the  latter  into  the 


56       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

former.  I  shall  now  go  through  the  moments  of  the 
judgment  one  by  one,  and  point  out  the  origin  of  each  of 
them  in  the  sources  referred  to ;  and  from  this  it  follows 
of  itself  that  a  deduction  of  categories  from  them  is  want 
ing,  and  the  assumption  of  this  is  just  as  groundless  as 
its  exposition  was  found  to  be  entangled  and  self- con 
flicting. 

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

Finally,  a  concept  may  also  be  used  in  order  to  arrive 
by  means  of  it  at  a  definite  particular  idea  of  perception, 
from  which,  as  well  as  from  many  others,  this  concept 
itself  is  drawn;  this  happens  in  the  singular  judgment. 
Such  a  judgment  merely  indicates  the  boundary -line 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       57 

between  abstract  knowledge  and  knowledge  of  perception, 
and  passes  directly  to  the  latter,  "This  tree  here  bears 
gall-nuts."  Kant  has  made  of  this  also  a  special  cate 
gory. 

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

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


58       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

on  this  account  remains  always  in  the  province  of  abstract 
thought. 

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

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

(a.)  The  hypothetical  judgment  in  general  is  the  abstract 
expression  of  that  most  universal  form  of  all  our  know 
ledge,  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason.  In  my  essay  on 
this  principle,  I  already  showed  in  1813  that  it  has  four 
entirely  different  meanings,  and  in  each  of  these  originally 
originates  in  a  different  faculty  of  knowledge,  and  also 
concerns  a  different  class  of  ideas.  It  clearly  follows  from 
this,  that  the  source  of  the  hypothetical  judgment  in 
general,  of  that  universal  form  of  thought,  cannot  be,  as 
Kant  wishes  to  make  it,  merely  the  understanding  and  its 
category  of  causality ;  but  that  the  law  of  causality  which, 
according  to  my  exposition,  is  the  one  form  of  knowledge 
of  the  pure  understanding,  is  only  one  of  the  forms  of  that 
principle  which  embraces  all  pure  or  a  priori  knowledge — 
the  principle  of  sufficient  reason — which,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  each  of  its  meanings  has  this  hypothetical  form  of  judg 
ment  as  its  expression.  We  see  here,  however,  very  dis 
tinctly  how  kinds  of  knowledge  which  are  quite  different 
in  their  origin  and  significance  yet  appear,  if  thought  in 
abstracto  by  the  reason,  in  one  and  the  same  form  of  com 
bination  of  concepts  and  judgments,  and  then  in  this  form 
can  no  longer  be  distinguished,  but,  in  order  to  distinguish 
them,  we  must  go  back  to  knowledge  of  perception,  leaving 
abstract  knowledge  altogether.  Therefore  the  path  which 
was  followed  by  Kant,  starting  from  the  point  of  view  of 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        59 

abstract  knowledge,  to  find  the  elements  and  the  inmost 
spring  of  intuitive  knowledge  also,  was  quite  a  wrong  one. 
For  the  rest,  my  whole  introductory  essay  on  the  principle 
of  sufficient  reason  is,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  be  regarded 
merely  as  a  thorough  exposition  of  the  significance  of  the 
hypothetical  form  of  judgment ;  therefore  I  do  not  dwell 
upon  it  longer  here. 

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

Categorical  judgments  have  as  their  metalogical  prin 
ciple  the  laws  of  thought  of  identity  and  contradiction. 


60       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

But  the  ground  of  the  connection  of  the  concept-spheres 
which  gives  truth  to  the  judgment,  which  is  nothing  but 
this  connection,  may  be  of  very  different  kinds;  and, 
according  to  this,  the  truth  of  the  judgment  is  either 
logical,  or  empirical,  or  metaphysical,  or  metalogical,  as 
is  explained  in  the  introductory  essay.  §  30-33,  and  does 
not  require  to  be  repeated  here.  But  it  is  apparent  from 
this  how  very  various  the  direct  cognitions  may  be,  all 
of  which  exhibit  themselves  in  the  abstract,  through  the 
combination  of  the  spheres  of  two  concepts,  as  subject  and 
predicate,  and  that  we  can  by  no  means  set  up  the  sole 
function  of  the  understanding  as  corresponding  to  them 
and  producing  them.  For  example,  the  judgments,  "Water 
boils,  the  sine  measures  the  angle,  the  will  resolves,  busi 
ness  distracts,  distinction  is  difficult,"  express  through  the 
same  logical  form  the  most  different  kinds  of  relations ; 
but  from  this  we  obtain  the  right,  however  irregular  the 
beginning  may  be,  of  placing  ourselves  at  the  standpoint 
of  abstract  knowledge  to  analyse  direct  intuitive  know 
ledge.  For  the  rest,  the  categorical  judgment  springs 
from  knowledge  of  the  understanding  proper,  in  my  sense, 
only  when  causation  is  expressed  by  it ;  this  is,  however, 
the  case  in  all  judgments  which  refer  to  a  physical  quality. 
For  if  I  say,  "  This  body  is  heavy,  hard,  fluid,  green,  sour, 
alkaline,  organic,  &c.,  &c.,"  this  always  refers  to  its  effect, 
and  thus  is  knowledge  which  is  only  possible  through  the 
pure  understanding.  Now,  after  this,  like  much  which  is 
quite  different  from  it  (for  example,  the  subordination  of 
very  abstract  concepts),  has  been  expressed  in  the  abstract 
through  subject  and  predicate,  these  mere  relations  of 
concepts  have  been  transferred  back  to  knowledge  of  per 
ception,  and  it  has  been  supposed  that  the  subject  and 
predicate  of  the  judgment  must  have  a  peculiar  and  special 
correlative  in  perception,  substance  and  accident.  But  I 
shall  show  clearly  further  on  that  the  conception  substance 
has  no  other  true  content  than  that  of  the  conception 
matter.  Accidents,  however,  are  quite  ^ synonymous  with 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       61 

kinds  of  effects,  so  that  the  supposed  knowledge  of  sub 
stance  and  accident  is  never  anything  more  than  the 
knowledge  of  cause  and  effect  by  the  understanding.  But 
the  special  manner  in  which  the  idea  of  matter  arises  is 
explained  partly  in  §  4  of  the  first  book,  and  still  more 
clearly  in  the  essay  on  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason 
at  the  end  of  §  21,  p.  77  (3d  ed.,  p.  82),  and  in  some 
respects  we  shall  see  it  still  more  closely  when  we  in 
vestigate  the  principle  of  the  permanence  of  substance. 

(c.)  Disjunctive  judgments  spring  from  the  law  of 
thought  of  excluded  third,  which  is  a  metalogical  truth ; 
they  are,  therefore,  entirely  the  property  of  the  reason, 
and  have  not  their  origin  in  the  understanding.  The 
deduction  of  the  category  of  community  or  reciprocity 
from  them  is,  however,  a  glaring  example  of  the  violence 
which  Kant  sometimes  allowed  to  be  done  to  truth, 
merely  in  order  to  satisfy  his  love  of  architectonic  sym 
metry.  The  illegitimacy  of  that  deduction  has  already 
often  been  justly  condemned  and  proved  upon  various 
grounds,  especially  by  G.  E.  Schulze  in  his  "  Kritik  der 
theoretischen  Philosophic"  and  by  Berg  in  his  "  Epikritik 
der  Philosophic."  What  real  analogy  is  there,  indeed, 
between  the  problematical  determination  of  a  concept  by 
disjunctive  predicates  and  the  thought  of  reciprocity? 
The  two  are  indeed  absolutely  opposed,  for  in  the  dis 
junctive  judgment  the  actual  affirmation  of  one  of  the  two 
alternative  propositions  is  also  necessarily  the  negation  of 
the  other ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  we  think  two  things  in 
the  relation  of  reciprocity,  the  affirmation  of  one  is  also 
necessarily  the  affirmation  of  the  other,  and  vice  versa. 
Therefore,  unquestionably,  the  real  logical  analogue  of 
reciprocity  is  the  vicious  circle,  for  in  it,  as  nominally  in 
the  case  of  reciprocity,  what  is  proved  is  also  the  proof, 
and  conversely.  And  just  as  logic  rejects  the  vicious 
circle,  so  the  conception  of  reciprocity  ought  to  be  ban 
ished  from  metaphysics.  For  I  now  intend,  quite  seri 
ously,  to  prove  that  there  is  no  reciprocity  in  the  strict 


62       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

sense,  and  this  conception,  which  people  are  so  fond  of 
using,  just  on  account  of  the  indefiniteness  of  the  thought, 
is  seen,  if  more  closely  considered,  to  be  empty,  false, 
and  invalid.  First  of  all,  the  reader  must  call  to  mind 
what  causality  really  is,  and  to  assist  my  exposition,  see 
upon  this  subject  §  20  of  the  introductory  essay,  also  my 
prize-essay  on  the  freedom  of  the  will,  chap.  iii.  p.  27  scq., 
and  lastly  the  fourth  chapter  of  the  second  book  of  this 
work.  Causality  is  the  law  according  to  which  the  con 
ditions  or  states  of  matter  which  appear  determine  their 
position  in  time.  Causality  has  to  do  merely  with  con 
ditions  or  states,  indeed,  properly,  only  with  changes,  and 
neither  with  matter  as  such,  nor  with  permanence  with 
out  change.  Matter,  as  such,  does  not  come  under  the 
law  of  causality,  for  it  neither  comes  into  being  nor 
passes  away;  thus  neither  does  the  whole  thing,  as  we 
commonly  express  ourselves,  come  under  this  law,  but 
only  the  conditions  or  states  of  matter.  Further,  the  law 
of  causality  has  nothing  to  do  with  permanence,  for  where 
nothing  changes  there  is  no  producing  of  effects  and  no 
causality,  but  a  continuing  quiet  condition  or  state.  But 
if,  now,  such  a  state  is  changed,  then  the  new  state  is 
either  again  permanent  or  it  is  not,  but  immediately  intro 
duces  a  third  state,  and  the  necessity  with  which  this 
happens  is  just  the  law  of  causality,  which  is  a  form  of 
the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  and  therefore  cannot 
be  further  explained,  because  the  principle  of  sufficient 
reason  is  the  principle  of  all  explanation  and  of  all  neces 
sity.  From  this  it  is  clear  that  cause  and  effect  stand  in 
intimate  connection  with,  and  necessary  relation  to,  the 
course  of  time.  Only  because  the  state  A.  precedes  in 
time  the  state  B.,  and  their  succession  is  necessary  and 
not  accidental,  i.e.,  no  mere  sequence  but  a  consequence — 
only  because  of  this  is  the  state  A.  cause  and  the  state  B. 
effect.  The  conception  reciprocity,  however,  contains  this, 
that  both  are  cause  and  both  are  effect  of  each  other;  but 
this  really  amounts  to  saying  that  each  of  the  two  is  the 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       63 

earlier  and  also  the  later ;  thus  it  is  an  absurdity.  For 
that  both  states  are  simultaneous,  and  indeed  necessarily 
simultaneous,  cannot  be  admitted  ;  because,  as  necessarily 
belonging  to  each  other  and  existing  at  the  same  time, 
they  constitute  only  one  state.  For  the  permanence  of 
this  state  there  is.  certainly  required  the  continued  exis 
tence  of  all  its  determinations,  but  we  are  then  no  longer 
concerned  with  change  and  causality,  but  with  duration 
and  rest,  and  nothing  further  is  said  than  that  if  one 
determination  of  the  whole  state  be  changed,  the  new 
state  which  then  appears  cannot  continue,  but  becomes 
the  cause  of  the  change  of  all  the  other  determinations  of 
the  first  state,  so  that  a  new  third  state  appears ;  which 
all  happens  merely  in  accordance  with  the  simple  law  of 
causality,  and  does  not  establish  a  new  law,  that  of  reci 
procity. 

I  also  definitely  assert  that  the  conception  reciprocity 
cannot  be  supported  by  a  single  example.  Everything 
that  one  seeks  to  pass  off  as  such  is  either  a  state  of  rest, 
to  which  the  conception  of  causality,  which  has  only  sig 
nificance  with  reference  to  changes,  finds  no  application 
at  all,  or  else  it  is  an  alternating  succession  of  states 
of  the  same  name  which  condition  each  other,  for  the 
explanation  of  which  simple  causality  is  quite  sufficient. 
An  example  of  the  first  class  is  afforded  by  a  pair  of 
scales  brought  to  rest  by  equal  weights.  Here  there  is 
no  effect  produced,  for  there  is  no  change;  it  is  a  state 
of  rest;  gravity  acts,  equally  divided,  as  in  every  body 
which  is  supported  at  its  centre  of  gravity,  but  it  cannot 
show  its  force  by  any  effect.  That  the  taking  away  of 
one  weight  produces  a  second  state,  which  at  once  be 
comes  the  cause  of  the  third,  the  sinking  of  the  other 
scale,  happens  according  to  the  simple  law  of  cause  and 
effect,  and  requires  no  special  category  of  the  under 
standing,  and  not  even  a  special  name.  An  example  of 
the  second  class  is  the  continuous  burning  of  a  fire.  The 
combination  of  oxygen  with  the  combustible  body  is  the 


64       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

cause  of  heat,  and  heat,  again,  is  the  cause  of  the  renewed 
occurrence  of  the  chemical  combination.  But  this  is 
nothing  more  than  a  chain  of  causes  and  effects,  the  links 
of  which  have  alternately  the  same  name.  The  burning, 
A.,  produces  free  heat,  B.,  this  produces  new  burning,  C. 
(i.e.,  a  new  effect  which  has  the  same  name  as  the  cause 
A.,  but  is  not  individually  identical  with  it),  this  pro 
duces  new  heat,  D.  (which  is  not  really  identical  with 
the  effect  B.,  but  only  according  to  the  concept,  i.e.,  it  has 
the  same  name),  and  so  on  indefinitely.  A  good  example 
of  what  in  ordinary  life  is  called  reciprocity  is  afforded 
by  a  theory  about  deserts  given  by  Humboldt  (Ansichten 
dcr  Natur,  2d  ed.,  vol.  ii.  p.  79).  In  the  sandy  deserts 
it  does  not  rain,  but  it  rains  upon  the  wooded  mountains 
surrounding  them.  The  cause  is  not  the  attraction  of  the 
clouds  by  the  mountains ;  but  it  is  the  column  of  heated 
air  rising  from  the  sandy  plain  which  prevents  the  par 
ticles  of  vapour  from  condensing,  and  drives  the  clouds 
high  into  the  heavens.  On  the  mountains  the  perpen 
dicular  rising  stream  of  air  is  weaker,  the  clouds  descend, 
and  the  rainfall  ensues  in  the  cooler  air.  Thus,  want  of 
rain  and  the  absence  of  plants  in  the  desert  stand  in  the 
relation  of  reciprocity ;  it  does  not  rain  because  the  heated 
sand-plain  sends  out  more  heat ;  the  desert  does  not  be 
come  a  steppe  or  prairie  because  it  does  not  rain.  But 
clearly  we  have  here  again,  as  in  the  example  given 
above,  only  a  succession  of  causes  and  effects  -of  the  same 
names,  and  throughout  nothing  essentially  different  from 
simple  causality.  This  is  also  the  case  with  the  swinging 
of  the  pendulum,  and  indeed  also  with  the  self-conserva 
tion  of  the  organised  body,  in  which  case  likewise  every 
state  introduces  a  new  one,  which  is  of  the  same  kind  as 
that  by  which  it  was  itself  brought  about,  but  indivi 
dually  is  new.  Only  here  the  matter  is  complicated, 
because  the  chain  no  longer  consists  of  links  of  two 
kinds,  but  of  many  kinds,  so  that  a  link  of  the  same  name 
only  recurs  after  several  others  have  intervened.  Bui  we 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       65 

always  see  before  us  only  an  application  of  the  single 
and  simple  law  of  causality  which  gives  the  rule  to  the 
sequence  of  states,  but  never  anything  which  must  be 
comprehended  by  means  of  a  new  and  special  function 
of  the  understanding. 

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


66       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  no  corresponding  form  of  the  understanding,  is 
the  ground  of  the  assertion  that  perpetual  motion  is 
impossible. 

Aristotle  also  denies  reciprocity  in  the  strict  sense ;  for 
lie  remarks  that  two  things  may  certainly  be  reciprocal 
causes  of  each  other,  but  only  if  this  is  understood  in  a 
different  sense  of  each  of  them;  for  example,  that  one 
acts  upon  the  other  as  the  motive,  but  the  latter  acts 
iipon  the  former  as  the  cause  of  its  movement.  We  find 
in  two  passages  the  same  words :  Physic.,  lib.  ii.  c.  3,  and 
Metaph.,  lib.  v.  c.  2.  Eari  Se  rtva  tcai  aXX^Xcyy  atria'  olov 
TO  Troveiv  ainov  XT;?  eye^ta?,  teat  avrr)  TOV  iroveiv  aXX'  ov 
TOV  aurov  rpoirov,  aXXa  TO  fjbev  &>?  TeXo?,  TO  Se  &>?  ap%Tj 
Kivrja-ecos.  (Sunt  prceterea  qucc  sibi  sunt  mutuo  causes,  ut 
exercitium  bonce  lidbitudinis,  et  hccc  exercitii :  at  non  eodem 
modo,  sed  hcec  ut  finis,  aliud  ut  principium  motus.)  If, 
besides  this,  he  had  accepted  a  reciprocity  proper,  he 
would  have  introduced  it  here,  for  in  both  passages  he  is 
concerned  with  enumerating  all  the  possible  kinds  of 
causes.  In  the  Analyt.  post.,  lib.  ii.  c.  1 1,  he  speaks  of  a 
circle  of  causes  and  effects,  but  not  of  reciprocity. 

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

Thus  that  it  is  the  conceptions  of  the  possible,  the  actual, 
and  the  necessary  which  occasion  the  problematic,  asserta- 
tory,  and  apodictic  forms  of  judgment,  is  perfectly  true ; 
but  that  those  conceptions  are  special,  original  forms  of 
knowledge  of  the  understanding  which  cannot  be  further 
deduced  is  not  true.  On  the  contrary,  they  spring  from 
the  single  original  form  of  all  knowledge,  which  is,  there 
fore,  known  to  us  a  priori,  the  principle  of  sufficient  rea 
son;  and  indeed  out  of  this  the  knowledge  of  necessity 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       67 

springs  directly.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  only  because 
reflection  is  applied  to  this  that  the  conceptions  of  con 
tingency,  possibility,  impossibility,  and  actuality  arise. 
Therefore  all  these  do  not  by  any  means  spring  from  one 
faculty  of  the  mind,  the  understanding,  but  arise  through 
the  conflict  of  abstract  and  intuitive  knowledge,  as  will  be 
seen  directly. 

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

The  contradictory  opposite,  i.e.,  the  denial  of  necessity, 
is  contingency.  The  content  of  this  conception  is,  therefore, 
negative — nothing  more  than  this  :  absence  of  the  con 
nection  expressed  by  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason. 
Consequently  the  contingent  is  also  always  merely  rela 
tive.  It  is  contingent  in  relation  to  something  which  is 


68       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

not  its  reason.  Every  object,  of  whatever  kind  it  may  be 
— for  example,  every  event  in  the  actual  world — is  always 
at  once  necessary  and  contingent ;  necessary  in  relation  to 
the  one  condition  which  is  its  cause  :  contingent  in  relation 
to  everything  else.  For  its  contact  in  time  and  space 
with  everything  else  is  a  mere  coincidence  without  neces 
sary  connection :  hence  also  the  words  chance,  crvfj.Trrco/jLa, 
contingens.  Therefore  an  absolute  contingency  is  just  as 
inconceivable  as  an  absolute  necessity.  For  the  former 
would  be  simply  an  object  which  stood  to  no  other  in  the 
relation  of  consequent  to  its  reason.  But  the  incon 
ceivability  of  such  a  thing  is  just  the  content  of  the 
principle  of  sufficient  reason  negatively  expressed,  and 
therefore  this  principle  must  first  be  upset  before  we  can 
think  an  absolute  contingency;  and  even  then  it  itself 
would  have  lost  all  significance,  for  the  conception  of  con 
tingency  has  meaning  only  in  relation  to  that  principle, 
and  signifies  that  two  objects  do  not  stand  to  each  other 
in  the  relation  of  reason  and  consequent. 

In  nature,  which  consists  of  ideas  of  perception,  every 
thing  that  happens  is  necessary ;  for  it  proceeds  from  its 
cause.  If,  however,  we  consider  this  individual  with  re 
ference  to  everything  else  which  is  not  its  cause,  we 
know  it  as  contingent ;  but  this  is  already  an  abstract 
reflection.  Now,  further,  let  us  abstract  entirely  from  a 
natural  object  its  causal  relation  to  everything  else,  thus 
its  necessity  and  its  contingency ;  then  this  kind  of  know 
ledge  comprehends  the  conception  of  the  actual,  in  which 
one  only  considers  the  effect,  without  looking  for  the  cause,, 
in  relation  to  which  one  would  otherwise  have  to  call  it 
necessary,  and  in  relation  to  everything  else  contingent. 
All  this  rests  ultimately  upon  the  fact  that  the  modality 
of  the  judgment  does  not  indicate  so  much  the  objective 
nature  of  things  as  the  relation  of  our  knowledge  to  them. 
Since,  however,  in  nature  everything  proceeds  from  a 
cause,  everything  actual  is  also  necessary,  yet  only  so  far 
as  it  is  at  this  time,  in  this  place;  for  only  so  far  does 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       69 

determination  by  the  law  of  causality  extend.  Let  us 
leave,  however,  concrete  nature  and  pass  over  to  abstract 
thinking;  then  we  can  present  to  ourselves  in  reflection 
all  the  natural  laws  which  are  known  to  us  partly  a 
priori,  partly  only  a  posteriori,  and  this  abstract  idea 
contains  all  that  is  in  nature  at  any  time,  in  any  place, 
but  with  abstraction  from  every  definite  time  and  place ; 
and  just  in  this  way,  through  such  reflection,  we  have 
entered  the  wide  kingdom  of  the,  possible.  But  what  finds 
no  place  even  here  is  the  impossible.  It  is  clear  that 
possibility  and  impossibility  exist  only  for  reflection,  for 
abstract  knowledge  of  the  reason,  not  for  knowledge  of 
perception ;  although  it  is  the  pure  forms  of  perception 
which  supply  the  reason  with  the  determination  of  the 
possible  and  impossible.  According  as  the  laws  of  nature, 
from  which  we  start  in  the  thought  of  the  possible  and 
impossible,  are  known  a  priori  or  a  posteriori,  is  the  pos 
sibility  or  impossibility  metaphysical  or  physical. 

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

To  this,  however,  we  have  to  add  the  other  great  mistake, 
that,  certainly  according  to  the  procedure  of  earlier  philo 
sophy,  he  has  confounded  the  conceptions  of  necessity  and 
contingency  with  each  other.  That  earlier  philosophy 
lias  applied  abstraction  to  the  following  mistaken  use.  It 
was  clear  that  that  of  which  the  reason  is  given  inevitably 
follows,  i.e.,  cannot  not  be,  and  thus  necessarily  is.  But 
that  philosophy  held  to  this  last  determination  alone,  and 
said  that  is  necessary  which  cannot  be  otherwise,  or  the 
opposite  of  which  is  impossible.  It  left,  however,  the 


70       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

ground  and  root  of  such  necessity  out  of  account,  over 
looked  the  relativity  of  all  necessity  which  follows  from 
it,  and  thereby  made  the  quite  unthinkable  fiction  of  an 
absolute  necessity,  i.e.,  of  something  the  existence  of  which 
would  be  as  inevitable  as  the  consequent  of  a  reason,  but 
which  yet  was  not  the  consequent  of  a  reason,  and 
therefore  depended  upon  nothing;  an  addition  which  is 
an  absurd  petitio,  for  it  conflicts  with  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason.  Now,  starting  from  this  fiction,  it  ex 
plained,  in  diametrical  opposition  to  the  truth,  all  that 
is  established  by  a  reason  as  contingent,  because  it  looked 
at  the  relative  nature  of  its  necessity  and  compared  this 
with  that  entirely  imaginary  absolute  necessity,  which 
is  self-contradictory  in  its  conception.1  Now  Kant  ad 
heres  to  this  fundamentally  perverse  definition  of  the 
contingent  and  gives  it  as  explanation.  (Critique  of  Pure 
Eeason,  V.  p.  289-291 ;  243.  V.  301  ;  419.  V.  447,  486, 
488.)  He  falls  indeed  into  the  most  evident  contra 
diction  with  himself  upon  this  point,  for  on  p.  301  he 
says :  "  Everything  contingent  has  a  cause,"  and  adds, 
"  That  is  contingent  which  might  possibly  not  be."  But 
whatever  has  a  cause  cannot  possibly  not  be :  thus  it  is 
necessary.  For  the  rest,  the  source  of  the  whole  of  this 
false  explanation  of  the  necessary  and  the  contingent  is 
to  be  found  in  Aristotle  in  "De  Generatione  et  Corrupt-zone," 
lib.  ii.  c.  9  et  n,  where  the  necessary  is  explained  as 
that  which  cannot  possibly  not  be  :  there  stands  in  opposi- 

1  Cf.  Christian  Wolf's  "Vcrniin-  matical  truths.     The  reason  he  as- 

ftige  Gcdanken   von  Gott,  Welt  und  signs  for  this  is,  that  only  the  law 

Seele"    §    577~579-      It    is    strange  of    causality   gives    infinite    series, 

that  he  only  explains  as  contingent  while  the   other   kinds   of   grounds 

what  is  necessary  according  to  the  give  only  finite  series.     Yet  this  is 

principle  of  sufficient  reason  of  be-  by  no  means  the  case  with  the  forms 

coming,  i.e.,  what  takes  place  from  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason 

causes,  and  on  the  contrary  recog-  in  pure   space   and  time,    but   only 

nises  as  necessary  that  which  is  so  holds  good  of  the  logical  ground  of 

according  to  the  other  forms  of  the  knowledge  ;    but    he    held    mathe- 

principle    of   sufficient   reason ;  for  matical  necessity  to  be   such  also, 

example,    what    follows    from    the  Compare  the  essay  on  the  principle 

essentia  (definition),  thus  analytical  of  sufficient  reason,  §  50. 
judgments,  and  further  also  mathe- 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       71 

tion  to  it  that  which  caiinot  possibly  be,  and  between  these 
two  lies  that  which  can  both  be  and  not  be, — thus  that 
which  comes  into  being  and  passes  away,  and  this  would 
then  be  the  contingent.  In  accordance  with  what  has 
been  said  above,  it  is  clear  that  this  explanation,  like  so 
many  of  Aristotle's,  has  resulted  from  sticking  to  abstract 
conceptions  without  going  back  to  the  concrete  and  per 
ceptible,  in  which,  however,  the  source  of  all  abstract 
conceptions  lies,  and  by  which  therefore  they  must  al 
ways  be  controlled.  "  Something  which  cannot  possibly 
not  be "  can  certainly  be  thought  in  the  abstract,  but  if 
we  go  with  it  to  the  concrete,  the  real,  the  perceptible 
we  find  nothing  to  support  the  thought,  even  as  possible, 
— as  even  merely  the  asserted  consequent  of  a  given 
reason,  whose  necessity  is  yet  relative  and  conditioned. 

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

What  in  general  (as  a  rule)  is  apodictic  (a  law  of  nature), 
is  in  reference  to  a  particular  case  only  problematical, 
because  the  condition  must  actually  appear  which  brings 
the  case  under  the  rule.  And  conversely,  what  in  the 
particular  as  such  is  necessary  (apodictic)  (every  particular 
change  necessary  through  the  cause),  is  again  in  general, 
and  predicated  universally,  only  problematical  ;  because 
the  causes  which  appear  only  concern  the  particular  case, 
and  the  apodictic,  always  hypothetical  judgment,  always 
expresses  merely  the  general  law,  not  the  particular  case 
directly.  All  this  has  its  ground  in  the  fact  that  possi 
bility  exists  only  in  the  province  of  reflection  and  for  the 
reason  ;  the  actual,  in  the  province  of  perception  and  for 


72       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  understanding ;  the  necessary,  for  both.  Indeed,  the 
distinction  between  necessary,  actual,  and  possible  really 
exists  only  in  the  abstract  and  according  to  the  concep 
tion  ;  in  the  real  world,  on  the  other  hand,  all  three  fall 
into  one.  For  all  that  happens,  happens  necessarily,  be 
cause  it  happens  from  causes ;  but  these  themselves  have 
again  causes,  so  that  the  whole  of  the  events  of  the  world, 
great  and  small,  are  a  strict  concatenation  of  necessary 
occurrences.  Accordingly  everything  actual  is  also  neces 
sary,  and  in  the  real  world  there  is  no  difference  between 
actuality  and  necessity,  and  in  the  same  way  no  difference 
between  actuality  and  possibility ;  for  what  has  not  hap 
pened,  i.e.,  has  not  become  actual,  was  also  not  possible, 
because  the  causes  without  which  it  could  never  appear 
ha.ve  not  themselves  appeared,  nor  could  appear,  in  the 
great  concatenation  of  causes  ;  thus  it  was  an  impossibility. 
Every  event  is  therefore  either  necessary  or  impossible. 
All  this  holds  good  only  of  the  empirically  real  world, 
i.e.,  the  complex  of  individual  things,  thus  of  the  whole 
particular  as  such.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  consider 
things  generally,  comprehending  them  in  abstracto,  neces 
sity,  actuality,  and  possibility  are  again  separated;  we 
then  know  everything  which  is  in  accordance  with  the  a 
priori  laws  which  belong  to  our  intellect  as  possible  in 
general ;  that  which  corresponds  to  the  empirical  laws  of 
nature  as  possible  in  this  world,  even  if  it  has  never  become 
actual;  thus  we  distinguish  clearly  the  possible  from  the 
actual.  The  actual  is  in  itself  always  also  necessary,  but 
is  only  comprehended  as  such  by  him  who  knows  its  cause  ; 
regarded  apart  from  this,  it  is  and  is  called  contingent. 
This  consideration  also  gives  us  the  key  to  that  contentio 
irept,  Swarwu  between  the  Megaric  Diodorus  and  Chry- 
sippus  the  Stoic  which  Cicero  refers  to  in  his  book  De 
Fato.  Diodorus  says :  "  Only  what  becomes  actual  was 
possible,  and  all  that  is  actual  is  also  necessary."  Chry- 
sippus  on  the  other  hand  says:  "Much  that  is  possible 
never  becomes  actual;  for  only  the  necessary  becomes 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       73 

actual."  We  may  explain  this  thus :  Actuality  is  the 
conclusion  of  a  syllogism  to  which  possibility  gives  the 
premises.  But  for  this  is  required  not  only  the  major  but 
also  the  minor;  only  the  two  give  complete  possibility. 
The  major  gives  a  merely  theoretical,  general  possibility 
in  abstracto,  but  this  of  itself  does  not  make  anything 
possible,  i.e.,  capable  of  becoming  actual.  For  this  the 
minor  also  is  needed,  which  gives  the  possibility  for  the 
particular  case,  because  it  brings  it  under  the  rule,  and 
thereby  it  becomes  at  once  actual.  For  example : 

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

Min.  My  house  is  on  fire. 

Concl.  My  house  is  being  destroyed  by  fire. 

For  every  general  proposition,  thus  every  major,  always 
determines  things  with  reference  to  actuality  only  under 
a  presupposition,  therefore  hypothetically  ;  for  example, 
the  capability  of  being  burnt  down  has  as  a  presupposition 
the  catching  fire.  This  presupposition  is  produced  in  the 
minor.  The  major  always  loads  the  cannon,  but  only  if 
the  minor  brings  the  match  does  the  shot,  i.e.,  the  con 
clusion,  follow.  This  holds  good  throughout  of  the  rela 
tion  of  possibility  to  actuality.  Since  now  the  conclusion, 
which  is  the  assertion  of  actuality,  always  follows  neces 
sarily,  it  is  evident  from  this  that  all  that  is  actual  is 
also  necessary,  which  can  also  be  seen  from  the  fact  that 
necessity  only  means  being  the  consequent  of  a  given 
reason :  this  is  in  the  case  of  the  actual  a  cause :  thus 
everything  actual  is  necessary.  Accordingly,  we  see  here 
the  conceptions  of  the  possible,  the  actual,  and  the  neces 
sary  unite,  and  not  merely  the  last  presuppose  the  first, 
but  also  the  converse.  What  keeps  them  apart  is  the  limi 
tation  of  our  intellect  through  the  form  of  time ;  for  time  is 
the  mediator  between  possibility  and  actuality.  The  neces 
sity  of  the  particular  event  may  be  fully  seen  from  the 
knowledge  of  all  its  causes ;  but  the  concurrence  of  the 
whole  of  these  different  and  independent  causes  seems  to 


74       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

us  contingent ;  indeed  their  independence  of  each  other  is 
just  the  conception  of  contingency.  Since,  however,  each 
of  them  was  the  necessary  effect  of  its  causes,  the  chain  of 
which  has  no  beginning,  it  is  evident  that  contingency  is 
merely  a  subjective  phenomenon,  arising  from  the  limita 
tion  of  the  horizon  of  our  understanding,  and  just  as  sub 
jective  as  the  optical  horizon  at  which  the  heavens  touch 
the  earth. 

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


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       75 

through  relation  to  the  concepts  of  reflection :  for  example, 
"  A  triangle  may  be  right-angled,  obtuse-angled,  or  equi 
angular  ;  its  three  angles  must  be  equal  to  two  right-angles." 
Thus  here  we  only  arrive  at  the  possible  through  the  tran 
sition  from  the  perceptible  to  the  abstract. 

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

Kant  himself  betrays  his  consciousness  of  the  unten 
able  nature  of  his  doctrine  of  the  categories  by  the  fact 
that  in  the  third  chapter  of  the  Analytic  of  Principles 
(phenomena  et  noumena)  several  long  passages  of  the  first 
edition  (p.  241,  242,  244-246,  248-253)  are  omitted  in 
the  second — passages  which  displayed  the  weakness  of  that 
doctrine  too  openly.  So,  for  example,  he  says  there  (p. 
241)  that  he  has  not  denned  the  individual  categories, 
because  he  could  not  define  them  even  if  he  had  wished 
to  do  so,  inasmuch  as  they  were  susceptible  of  no  defini 
tion.  In  saying  this  he  forgot  that  at  p.  82  of  the  same 
first  edition  he  had  said :  "  I  purposely  dispense  with  the 
definition  of  the  categories  although  I  may  be  in  possession 
of  it."  This  then  was,  sit  venia  verbo,  wind.  But  this 
last  passage  he  has  allowed  to  stand.  And  so  all  those 
passages  wisely  omitted  afterwards  betray  the  fact  that 


76       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

nothing  distinct  can  be  thought  in  connection  with  the 
categories,  and  this  whole  doctrine  stands  upon  a  weak 
foundation. 

This  table  of  the  categories  is  now  made  the  guiding 
clue  according  to  which  every  metaphysical,  and  indeed 
every  scientific  inquiry  is  to  be  conducted  (Prolegomena, 
§  39).  And,  in  fact,  it  is  not  only  the  foundation  of  the 
whole  Kantian  philosophy  and  the  type  according  to  which 
its  symmetry  is  everywhere  carried  out,  as  I  have  already 
shown  above,  but  it  has  also  really  become  the  procrustean 
bed  into  which  Kant  forces  every  possible  inquiry,  by 
means  of  a  violence  which  I  shall  now  consider  somewhat 
more  closely.  But  with  such  an  opportunity  what  must 
not  the  imitatores  servumpecus  have  done !  We  have  seen. 
That  violence  then  is  applied  in  this  way.  The  meaning 
of  the  expressions  denoted  by  the  titles,  forms  of  judgment 
and  categories,  is  entirely  set  aside  and  forgotten,  and  the 
expressions  alone  are  retained.  These  have  their  source 
partly  in  Aristotle's  Analyt.  priora,  i.  23  (irepi  TrotoT^ro? 
Kai  TTOCTOT^TO?  T(av  Tov  av\\ojtcr/j,ov  opwv  '.  de  qualitatc 
ct  quantitate  terminorum  syllogismi),  but  are  arbitrarily 
chosen ;  for  the  extent  of  the  concepts  might  certainly  have 
been  otherwise  expressed  than  through  the  word  quantity, 
though  this  word  is  more  suited  to  its  object  than  the 
rest  of  the  titles  of  the  categories.  Even  the  word  quality 
has  obviously  been  chosen  on  account  of  the  custom  of 
opposing  quality  to  quantity ;  for  the  name  quality  is 
certainly  taken  arbitrarily  enough  for  affirmation  and 
negation.  But  now  in  every  inquiry  instituted  by  Kant, 
every  quantity  in  time  and  space,  and  every  possible 
quality  of  things,  physical,  moral,  &c.,  is  brought  by  him 
under  those  category  titles,  although  between  these  things 
and  those  titles  of  the  forms  of  judgment  and  of  thought 
there  is  absolutely  nothing  in  common  except  the  acci 
dental  and  arbitrary  nomenclature.  It  is  needful  to  keep 
in  mind  all  the  respect  which  in  other  regards  is  due  to 
Kant  to  enable  one  to  refrain  from  expressing  in  hard 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       77 

terms  one's  repugnance  to  this  procedure.  The  nearest 
example  is  afforded  us  at  once  by  the  pure  physiological 
table  of  the  general  principles  of  natural  science.  What 
in  all  the  world  has  the  quantity  of  judgments  to  do  with 
the  fact  that  every  perception  has  nn  extensive  magni 
tude  ?  What  has  the  quality  of  judgments  to  do  with 
the  fact  that  every  sensation  has  a  degree  ?  The  former 
rests  rather  on  the  fact  that  space  is  the  form  of  our 
external  perception,  and  the  latter  is  nothing  more  than 
an  empirical,  and,  moreover,  entirely  subjective  feeling, 
drawn  merely  from  the  consideration  of  the  nature  of  our 
organs  of  sense.  Further,  in  the  table  which  gives  the 
basis  of  rational  psychology  (Critique  of  Pure  Eeason, 
p.  344 ;  V.  402),  the  simplicity  of  the  soul  is  cited  under 
quality ;  but  this  is  just  a  quantitative  property,  and  has 
absolutely  no  relation  to  the  affirmation  or  negation  in 
the  judgment.  But  quantity  had  to  be  completed  by  the 
unity  of  the  soul,  which  is,  however,  already  included  in 
its  simplicity.  Then  modality  is  forced  in  in  an  absurd 
way ;  the  soul  stands  in  connection  with  possible  objects ; 
but  connection  belongs  to  relation,  only  this  is  already 
taken  possession  of  by  substance.  Then  the  four  cosmo- 
logical  Ideas,  which  are  the  material  of  the  antinomies, 
are  referred  to  the  titles  of  the  categories ;  but  of  this  we 
shall  speak  more  fully  further  on,  when  we  come  to  the 
examination  of  these  antinomies.  Several,  if  possible,  still 
more  glaring  examples  are  to  be  found  in  the  table  of 
the  Categories  of  Freedom  !  in  the  "  Critique  of  Practical 
Reason ; "  also  in  the  first  book  of  the  "  Critique  of 
Judgment,"  which  goes  through  the  judgment  of  taste 

O  '  O  O  v  O 

according  to  the  four  titles  of  the  categories  ;  and,  finally, 
in  the  "  Metaphysical  First  Principles  of  Natural  Science," 
which  are  entirely  adapted  to  the  table  of  the  categories, 
whereby  the  false  that  is  mingled  here  and  there  with 
what  is  true  and  excellent  in  this  important  work  is  for 
the  most  part  introduced.  See,  for  example,  at  the  end  of 
the  first  chapter  how  the  unity,  the  multiplicity,  and  the 


78       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

totality  of  the  directions  of  lines  are  supposed  to  corre 
spond  to  the  categories,  which  are  so  named  according  to 
the  quantity  of  judgments. 


The  principle  of  the  Permanence  of  Substance  is  deduced 
from  the  category  of  subsistence  and  inherence.  This, 
however,  we  know  only  from  the  form  of  the  categorical 
judgment,  i.e.,  from  the  connection  of  two  concepts  as 
subject  and  predicate.  With  what  violence  then  is  that 
great  metaphysical  principle  made  dependent  upon  this 
simple,  purely  logical  form  !  Yet  this  is  only  done  pro 
forma,  and  for  the  sake  of  symmetry.  The  proof  of  this 
principle,  which  is  given  here,  sets  entirely  aside  its  sup 
posed  origin  in  the  understanding  and  in  the  category,  and 
is  based  upon  the  pure  intuition  or  perception  of  time. 
But  this  proof  also  is  quite  incorrect.  It  is  false  that  in 
mere  time  there  is  simultaneity  and  duration;  these  ideas 
only  arise  from  the  union  of  space  with  time,  as  I  have 
already  shown  in  the  essay  on  the  principle  of  sufficient 
reason,  §  18,  and  worked  out  more  fully  in  §  4  of 
the  present  work.  I  must  assume  a  knowledge  of  both 
these  expositions  for  the  understanding  of  what  follows. 
It  is  false  that  time  remains  the  same  through  all  change  ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  just  time  itself  that  is  fleeting;  a 
permanent  time  is  a  contradiction.  Kant's  proof  is  un 
tenable,  strenuously  as  he  has  supported  it  with  sophisms; 
indeed,  he  falls  into  the  most  palpable  contradictions. 
Thus,  after  he  has  falsely  set  up  co-existence  as  a  mode  of 
time  (p.  177;  V.  219),  he  says,  quite  rightly  (p.  183;  V.  226), 
"  Co-existence  is  not  a  mode  of  time,  for  in  time  there  are 
absolutely  no  parts  together,  but  all  in  succession."  In 
truth,  space  is  quite  as  much  implicated  in  co-existence  as 
time.  For  if  two  things  are  co-existent  and  yet  not  one, 
they  are  different  in  respect  of  space ;  if  two  states  of  one 
thing  are  co-existent  (e.g.,  the  glow  and  the  heat  of  iron), 
then  they  are  two  contemporaneous  effects  of  one  thing, 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       79 

therefore  presuppose  matter,  and  matter  presupposes  space. 
Strictly  speaking,  co-existence  is  a  negative  determination, 
which  merely  signifies  that  two  things  or  states  are  not 
different  in  respect  of  time ;  thus  their  difference  is  to  be 
sought  for  elsewhere.  But  in  any  case,  our  knowledge  of 
the  permanence  of  substance,  i.e.,  of  matter,  must  be  based 
upon  insight  a  priori;  for  it  is  raised  above  all  doubt, 
and  therefore  cannot  be  drawn  from  experience.  I  deduce 
it  from  the  fact  that  the  principle  of  all  becoming  and 
passing  away,  the  law  of  causality,  of  which  we  are  con 
scious  a  priori,  is  essentially  concerned  only  with  the 
changes,  i.e.,  the  successive  states  of  matter,  is  thus  limited 
to  the  form,  and  leaves  the  matter  untouched,  which 
therefore  exists  in  our  consciousness  as  the  foundation  of 
all  things,  which  is  not  subject  to  becoming  or  passing 
away,  which  has  therefore  always  been  and  will  always 
continue  to  be.  A  deeper  proof  of  the  permanence  of 
substance,  drawn  from  the  analysis  of  our  perception  of 
the  empirical  world  in  general,  is  to  be  found  in  the  first 
book  of  this  work,  §  4,  where  it  is  shown  that  the 
nature  of  matter  consists  in  the  absolute  union  of  space  and 
time,  a  union  which  is  only  possible  by  means  of  the  idea  of 
causality,  consequently  only  for  the  understanding,  which 
is  nothing  but  the  subjective  correlative  of  causality. 
Hence,  also,  matter  is  never  known  otherwise  than  as 
producing  effects,  i.e.,  as  through  and  through  causality ; 
to  be  and  to  act  are  with  it  one,  which  is  indeed  signified 
by  the  word  actuality.  Intimate  union  of  space  and 
time — causality,  matter,  actuality — are  thus  one,  and  the 
subjective  correlative  of  this  one  is  the  understanding. 
Matter  must  bear  in  itself  the  conflicting  properties  of 
both  factors  from  which  it  proceeds,  and  it  is  the  idea  of 
causality  which  abolishes  what  is  contradictory  in  both, 
and  makes  their  co-existence  conceivable  by  the  under 
standing,  through  which  and  for  which  alone  matter  is, 
and  whose  whole  faculty  consists  in  the  knowledge  of 
cause  and  effect.  Thus  for  the  understanding  there  is 


So       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

united  in  matter  the  inconstant  flux  of  time,  appearing  as 
change  of  the  accidents,  with  the  rigid  immobility  of  space, 
which  exhibits  itself  as  the  permanence  of  substance.  For 
if  the  substance  passed  away  like  the  accidents,  the  pheno 
menon  would  be  torn  away  from  space  altogether,  and 
would  only  belong  to  time ;  the  world  of  experience  would 
be  destroyed  by  the  abolition  of  matter,  annihilation. 
Thus  from  the  share  which  space  has  in  matter,  i.e.,  in  all 
phenomena  of  the  actual — in  that  it  is  the  opposite  and 
counterpart  of  time,  and  therefore  in  itself  and  apart  from 
the  union  with  the  latter  knows  absolutely  no  change — the 
principle  of  the  permanence  of  substance,  which  recognises 
everything  as  a  priori  certain,  had  to  be  deduced  and  ex 
plained  ;  but  not  from  mere  time,  to  which  for  this  purpose 
and  quite  erroneously  Kant  has  attributed  permanence. 

In  the  essay  on  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  §  23, 
I  have  fully  explained  the  incorrectness  of  the  following 
proof  of  the  a  priori  nature  and  of  the  necessity  of  the 
law  of  causality  from  the  mere  succession  of  events  in  time ; 
I  must,  therefore,  content  myself  here  by  referring  to  that 
passage.1  This  is  precisely  the  case  with  the  proof  of 
reciprocity  also,  the  concept  of  which  I  was  obliged  to 
explain  above  as  invalid.  What  is  necessary  has  also 
been  said  of  modality,  the  working  out  of  the  principles  of 
which  now  follows. 

There  are  still  a  few  points  in  the  further  course  of  the 
transcendental  analytic  which  I  should  have  to  refute  were 
it  not  that  I  am  afraid  of  trying  the  patience  of  the  reader; 
I  therefore  leave  them  to  his  own  reflection.  But  ever 
anew  in  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason  "  we  meet  that  prin 
cipal  and  fundamental  error  of  Kant's,  which  I  have 
copiously  denounced  above,  the  complete  failure  to  dis 
tinguish  abstract,  discursive  knowledge  from  intuitive.  It 
is  this  that  throws  a  constant  obscurity  over  Kant's  whole 

_  *  With  my  refutation  of  the  Kan-  Zcit,  Raum  und  Kausalitcit,  §  28 ;  and 
tian  proof  may  be  compared  the  ear-  by  G.  E.  Schulze,  Kritik  der  thcoret- 
lier  attacks  upon  it  by  Feder,  Ueber  ischen  Philosophic,  Bd.  ii.  S.  422-442 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       Si 

theory  of  the  faculty  of  knowledge,  and  never  allows  the 
reader  to  know  what  he  is  really  speaking  about  at  any 
time,  so  that  instead  of  understanding,  he  always  merely 
conjectures,  for  he  alternately  tries  to  understand  what  is 
said  as  referring  to  thought  and  to  perception,  and  remains 
always  in  suspense.  In  the  chapter  "  On  the  Division  of 
all  Objects  into  Phenomena  and  ISToumena,"  Kant  carries 
that  incredible  want  of  reflection  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
idea  of  perception  and  the  abstract  idea,  as  I  shall  explain 
more  fully  immediately,  so  far  as  to  make  the  monstrous 
assertion  that  without  thought,  that  is,  without  abstract 
conceptions,  there  is  no  knowledge  of  an  object ;  and  that 
perception,  because  it  is  not  thought,  is  also  not  know 
ledge,  and,  in  general,  is  nothing  but  a  mere  affection  of 
sensibility,  mere  sensation !  Nay,  more,  that  perception 
without  conception  is  absolutely  void ;  but  conception 
without  perception  is  yet  always  something  (p.  253;  V. 
309).  Now  this  is  exactly  the  opposite  of  the  truth ;  for 
concepts  obtain  all  significance,  all  content,  only  from 
their  relation  to  ideas  of  perception,  from  which  they 
have  been  abstracted,  derived,  that  is,  constructed  through 
the  omission  of  all  that  is  unessential :  therefore  if  the 
foundation  of  perception  is  taken  away  from  them,  they 
are  empty  and  void.  Perceptions,  on  the  contrary,  have 
in  themselves  immediate  and  very  great  significance  (in 
them,  indeed,  the  thing  in  itself  objectifies  itself);  they 
represent  themselves,  express  themselves,  have  no  mere 
borrowed  content  like  concepts.  For  the  principle  of  suf 
ficient  reason  governs  them  only  as  the  law  of  causality, 
and  determines  as  such  only  their  position  in  space  and 
time ;  it  does  not,  however,  condition  their  content  and 
their  significance,  as  is  the  case  with  concepts,  in  which  it 
appears  as  the  principle  of  the  ground  of  knowing.  For 
the  rest,  it  looks  as  if  Kant  really  wished  here  to  set  about 
distinguishing  the  idea  of  perception  and  the  abstract 
idea.  He  objects  to  Leibnitz  and  Locke  that  the  former 
reduced  everything  to  abstract  ideas,  and  the  latter  every  - 

VOL.  II.  F 


82       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

thing  to  ideas  of  perception.  But  yet  he  arrives  at  no 
distinction ;  and  although  Locke  and  Leibnitz  really  com 
mitted  these  errors,  Kant  himself  is  burdened  with  a  third 
error  which  includes  them  both — the  error  of  having  so 
mixed  up  knowledge  of  perception  and  abstract  knowledge 
that  a  monstrous  hybrid  of  the  two  resulted,  a  chimera  of 
which  no  distinct  idea  is  possible,  and  which  therefore 
necessarily  only  confused  and  stupefied  students,  and  set 
them  at  variance. 

Certainly  thought  and  perception  are  separated  more  in 
the  chapter  referred  to  "  On  the  Division  of  all  Objects 
into  Phenomena  and  Noumena "  than  anywhere  else,  but 
the  nature  of  this  distinction  is  here  a  fundamentally  false 
one.  On  p.  253;  V.  309,  it  is  said:  "If  I  take  away  all 
thought  (through  the  categories)  from  empirical  know 
ledge,  there  remains  absolutely  no  knowledge  of  an  object, 
for  through  mere  perception  nothing  at  all  is  thought,  and 
that  this  affection  of  sensibility  is  in  me  establishes  really 
no  relation  of  such  ideas  to  any  object."  This  sentence 
contains,  in  some  degree,  all  the  errors  of  Kant  in  a  nut 
shell  ;  for  it  brings  out  clearly  that  he  has  falsely  con 
ceived  the  relation  between  sensation,  perception,  and 
thought,  and  accordingly  identifies  the  perception,  whose 
form  he  yet  supposes  to  be  space,  and  indeed  space  in  all 
its  three  dimensions,  with  the  mere  subjective  sensation 
in  the  organs  of  sense,  but  only  allows  the  knowledge  of 
an  object  to  be  given  through  thought,  which  is  different 
from  perception.  I,  on  the  contrary,  say :  Objects  are 
first  of  all  objects  of  perception,  not  of  thought,  and  all 
knowledge  of  objects  is  originally  and  in  itself  perception. 
Perception,  however,  is  by  no  means  mere  sensation,  but 
the  understanding  is  already  active  in  it.  The  thought, 
which  is  added  only  in  the  case  of  men,  not  in  the  case  of 
the  brutes,  is  mere  abstraction  from  perception,  gives  no 
fundamentally  new  knowledge,  does  not  itself  establish 
objects  which  were  not  before,  but  merely  changes  the 
form  of  the  knowledge  already  won  through  perception, 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       83 

makes  it  abstract  knowledge  in  concepts,  whereby  its  con 
crete  or  perceptible  character  is  lost,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  combination  of  it  becomes  possible,  which  immeasur 
ably  extends  the  range  of  its  applicability.  The  material 
of  our  thought  is,  on  the  other  hand,  nothing  else  than  our 
perceptions  themselves,  and  not  something  which  the  per 
ceptions  did  not  contain,  and  which  was  added  by  the 
thought ;  therefore  the  material  of  everything  that  appears 
in  our  thought  must  be  capable  of  verification  in  our  per 
ception,  for  otherwise  it  would  be  an  empty  thought. 
Although  this  material  is  variously  manipulated  and 
transformed  by  thought,  it  must  yet  be  capable  of  being 
reduced  to  perception,  and  the  thought  traced  back  to 
this — just  as  a  piece  of  gold  can  be  reduced  from  all 
its  solutions,  oxides,  sublimates,  and  combinations,  and 
presented  pure  and  undiminished.  This  could  not  happen 
if  thought  itself  had  added  something,  and,  indeed,  the 
principal  thing,  to  the  object. 

The  whole  of  the  chapter  on  the  Amphiboly,  which  fol 
lows  this,  is  merely  a  criticism  of  the  Leibnitzian  philo 
sophy,  and  as  such  is  on  the  whole  correct,  though  the 
form  or  pattern  on  which  it  is  constructed  is  chosen  merely 
for  the  sake  of  architectonic  symmetry,  which  here  also  is 
the  guiding  clue.  Thus,  to  carry  out  the  analogy  with  the 
Aristotelian  Organon,  a  transcendental  Topic  is  set  up, 
which  consists  in  this,  that  every  conception  is  to  be  con 
sidered  from  four  points  of  view,  in  order  to  make  out  to 
which  faculty  of  knowledge  it  belongs.  But  these  four 
points  of  view  are  quite  arbitrarily  selected,  and  ten  others 
might  be  added  to  them  with  just  as  much  right ;  but 
their  fourfold  number  corresponds  to  the  titles  of  the 
categories,  and  therefore  the  chief  doctrine  of  Leibnitz  is 
divided  among  them  as  best  it  may  be.  By  this  critique, 
also,  to  some  extent,  certain  errors  are  stamped  as  natural 
to  the  reason,  whereas  they  were  merely  false  abstractions 
of  Leibnitz's,  who,  rather  than  learn  from  his  great  philo 
sophical  contemporaries,  Spinoza  and  Locke,  preferred  to 


84       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

serve  up  his  own  strange  inventions.  In  the  chapter  on 
the  Amphiboly  of  Eeflection  it  is  finally  said  that  there 
may  possibly  be  a  kind  of  perception  entirely  different 
from  ours,  to  which,  however,  our  categories  are  appli 
cable  ;  therefore  the  objects  of  that  supposed  perception 
would  be  noumena,  things  which  can  only  be  thought  by 
us ;  but  since  the  perception  which  would  give  that  thought 
meaning  is  wanting  to  us,  and  indeed  is  altogether  quite 
problematical,  the  object  of  that  thought  would  also  merely 
be  a  wholly  indefinite  possibility.  I  have  shown  above  by 
quotations  that  Kant,  in  utter  contradiction  with  himself, 
sets  up  the  categories  now  as  the  condition  of  knowledge  of 
perception,  now  as  the  function  of  merely  abstract  thought. 
Here  they  appear  exclusively  in  the  latter  sense,  and  it 
seems  quite  as  if  he  wished  to  attribute  them  merely  to 
discursive  thought.  But  if  this  is  really  his  opinion,  then 
necessarily  at  the  beginning  of  the  Transcendental  Logic, 
before  specifying  the  different  functions  of  thought  at  such 
length,  he  was  necessarily  bound  to  characterise  thought 
in  general,  and  consequently  to  distinguish  it  from  per 
ception  ;  he  ought  to  have  shown  what  knowledge  is  given 
by  mere  perception,  and  what  that  is  new  is  added  by 
thought.  Then  we  would  have  known  what  he  was  really 
speaking  about ;  or  rather,  he  would  then  have  spoken 
quite  differently,  first  of  perception,  and  then  of  thought ; 
instead  of  which,  as  it  is,  he  is  always  dealing  with  some 
thing  between  the  two,  which  is  a  mere  delusion.  There 
would  not  then  be  that  great  gap  between  the  transcen 
dental  ^Esthetic  and  the  transcendental  Logic,  where,  after 
the  exposition  of  the  mere  form  of  perception,  he  simply 
dismisses  its  content,  all  that  is  empirically  apprehended* 
with  the  phrase  "  It  is  given,"  and  does  not  ask  how  it 
came  about,  ivhether  with  or  without  understanding ;  but, 
with  one  spring,  passes  over  to  abstract  thought ;  and  not 
even  to  thought  in  general,  but  at  once  to  certain  forms  of 
thought,  and  does  not  say  a  word  about  what  thought  is, 
what  the  concept  is,  what  is  the  relation  of  abstract  and 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       85 

discursive  to  concrete  and  intuitive,  what  is  the  difference 
between  the  knowledge  of  men  and  that  of  brutes,  and 
what  is  reason. 

Yet  it  was  just  this  distinction  between  abstract  know 
ledge  and  knowledge  of  perception,  entirely  overlooked 
by  Kant,  which  the  ancients  denoted  by  fyaivopeva  and 
voovpeva,1  and  whose  opposition  and  incommensurability 
occupied  them  so  much  in  the  philosophemes  of  the 
Eleatics,  in  Plato's  doctrine  of  Ideas,  in  the  dialectic  of 
the  Megarics,  and  later  the  Scholastics  in  the  controversy 
between  Nominalism  and  Realism,  the  seed  of  which,  so 
late  in  developing,  was  already  contained  in  the  opposite 
mental  tendencies  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.  But  Kant,  who, 
in  an  inexcusable  manner,  entirely  neglected  the  thing 
to  denote  which  the  words  <f)aivofj,eva  and  voovpeva  had 
already  been  taken,  took  possession  of  the  words,  as  if 
they  were  still  unappropriated,  in  order  to  denote  by 
them  his  thing  in  itself  and  his  phenomenon. 


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

Grammar  is  related  to  logic  as  clothes  to  the  body. 
Should  not,  therefore,  these  primary  conceptions,  the  ground- 
bass  of  the  reason,  which  is  the  foundation  of  all  special 
thought,  without  whose  application,  therefore,  no  thought 
can  take  place,  ultimately  lie  in  those  conceptions  which 

1  See  Sext.  Empir.  Pyrrhon.  ky-  vois  avrtTidti  \va.%OLyopa.s(inteUi<jibilia, 
l>otyp.,  lib.  i.  c.  13,  vooviJ.(.va.  ifiaivcfj.:-  apparcntibus  Ojijiosuit  Amixagoras. 


86       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

just  on  account  of  their  exceeding  generality  (transcen 
dentalism)  have  their  expression  not  in  single  words,  but 
in  whole  classes  of  words,  because  one  of  them  is  thought 
along  with  every  word  whatever  it  may  be,  whose  de 
signation  would  therefore  have  to  be  looked  for,  not  in 
the  lexicon  but  in  the  grammar  ?  In  fact,  should  they  not 
be  those  distinctions  of  conceptions  on  account  of  which 
the  word  which  expresses  them  is  either  a  substantive  or 
an  adjective,  a  verb  or  an  adverb,  a  pronoun,  a  preposition, 
or  some  other  particle — in  short,  the  parts  of  speech  ?  For 
undoubtedly  these  denote  the  forms  which  all  thought 
primarily  assumes,  and  in  which  it  directly  moves;  ac 
cordingly  they  are  the  essential  forms  of  speech,  the 
fundamental  constituent  elements  of  every  language,  so 
that  we  cannot  imagine  any  language  which  would  not 
consist  of  at  least  substantives,  adjectives,  and  verbs. 
These  fundamental  forms  would  then  have  subordinated 
to  them  those  forms  of  thought  which  are  expressed 
through  their  inflections,  that  is,  through  declension  and 
conjugation,  and  it  is  unessential  to  the  chief  concern 
whether  in  denoting  them  we  call  in  the  assistance  of 
the  article  and  the  pronoun.  We  will  examine  the  thing, 
however,  somewhat  more  closely,  and  ask  the  question 
anew  :  What  are  the  forms  of  thought  ? 

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

(2.)  Every  judgment  consists  in  the  recognition  of  the 
relation  between  subject  and  predicate,  which  it  separates 
or  unites  with  various  restrictions.  It  unites  them  from 
the  recognition  of  the  actual  identity  of  the  two,  which 
can  only  happen  in  the  case  of  synonyms;  then  in  the 
recognition  that  the  one  is  always  thought  along  with  the 
other,  though  the  converse  does  not  hold — in  the  universal 
affirmative  proposition;  up  to  the  recognition  that  the 
one  is  sometimes  thought  along  with  the  other,  in  the 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       87 

particular  affirmative  proposition.  The  negative  propo 
sitions  take  the  opposite  course.  Accordingly  in  every 
judgment  the  subject,  the  predicate,  and  the  copula,  the 
latter  affirmative  or  negative,  must  be  to  be  found ;  even 
although  each  of  these  is  not  denoted  by  a  word  of  its 
own,  as  is  however  generally  the  case.  The  predicate 
and  the  copula  are  often  denoted  by  one  word,  as  "  Caius 
ages ; "  sometimes  one  word  denotes  all  three,  as  con- 
curritur,  i.e.,  "the  armies  engage."  From  this  it  is  evi 
dent  that  the  forms  of  thought  are  not  to  be  sought  for 
precisely  and  directly  in  words,  nor  even  in  the  parts  of 
speech,  for  even  in  the  same  language  the  same  judgment 
may  be  expressed  in  different  words,  and  indeed  in 
different  parts  of  speech,  yet  the  thought  remains  the 
same,  and  consequently  also  its  form ;  for  the  thought 
could  not  be  the  same  if  the  form  of  thought  itself  were 
different.  But  with  the  same  thought  and  the  same  form 
of  thought  the  form  of  words  may  very  well  be  different, 
for  it  is  merely  the  outward  clothing  of  the  thought, 
which,  on  the  other  hand,  is  inseparable  from  its  form. 
Thus  grammar  only  explains  the  clothing  of  the  forms  of 
thought.  The  parts  of  speech  can  therefore  be  deduced 
from  the  original  forms  of  thought  themselves  which  are 
independent  of  all  language ;  their  work  is  to  express 
these  forms  of  thought  in  all  their  modifications.  They 
are  the  instrument  and  the  clothing  of  the  forms  of 
thought,  and  must  be  accurately  adapted  to  the  structure 
of  the  latter,  so  that  it  may  be  recognised  in  them. 

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

(a.)  Quality  :  affirmation  and  negation,  i.e.,  combination 
and  separation  of  concepts :  two  forms.  It  depends  on 
the  copula. 

(6.)  Quantity :   the  subject-concept  is  taken  either  in 


88       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

whole  or  in  part :  totality  or  multiplicity.  To  the  first 
belong  also  individual  subjects :  Socrates  means  "  all 
Socrateses."  Thus  two  forms.  It  depends  on  the  subject. 

(c.)  Modality :  has  really  three  forms.  It  determines 
the  quality  as  necessary,  actual,  or  contingent.  It  con 
sequently  depends  also  on  the  copula. 

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

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

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


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       89 

the  expression  of  the  forms  of  thought,  as  it  is  the  task  of 
logic  to  teach  the  operations  with  the  forms  of  thought 
themselves. 

Note. — As  a  warning  against  a  false  path  and  to  illus 
trate  the  above,  I  mention  S.  Stern's  "  Vorlaufige  Grund- 
laye  zur  Sprachpliilosopliie"  1835,  which  is  an  utterly 
abortive  attempt  to  construct  the  categories  out  of  the 
grammatical  forms.  He  has  entirely  confused  thought 
with  perception,  and  therefore,  instead  of  the  categories  of 
thought,  he  has  tried  to  deduce  the  supposed  categories 
of  perception  from  the  grammatical  forms,  and  conse 
quently  has  placed  the  grammatical  forms  in  direct  rela 
tion  to  perception.  He  is  involved  in  the  great  error  that 
language  is  immediately  related  to  perception,  instead  of 
being  directly  related  only  to  thought  as  such,  thus  to 
the  abstract  concepts,  and  only  by  means  of  these  to  per 
ception,  to  which  they,  however,  have  a  relation  which 
introduces  an  entire  change  of  the  form.  What  exists 
in  perception,  thus  also  the  relations  which  proceed 
from  time  and  space,  certainly  becomes  an  object  of 
thought;  thus  there  must  also  be  forms  of  speech  to 
express  it,  yet  always  merely  in  the  abstract,  as  concepts. 
Concepts  are  always  the  primary  material  of  thought,  and 
the  forms  of  logic  are  always  related  to  these,  never 
directly  to  perception.  Perception  always  determines  only 
the  material,  never  the  formal  truth  of  the  proposition, 
for  the  formal  truth  is  determined  according  to  the  logical 
rules  alone. 


I  return  to  the  Kantian  philosophy,  and  come  now  to 
the  Transcendental  Dialectic.  Kant  opens  it  with  the 
explanation  of  reason,  the  faculty  which  is  to  play  the 
principal  part  in  it,  for  hitherto  only  sensibility  and 
understanding  were  on  the  scene.  When  considering  his 
different  explanations  of  reason,  I  have  already  spoken 
above  of  the  explanation  he  gives  here  that  "it  is  the 


90       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

faculty  of  principles."  It  is  now  taught  here  that  all  the 
a  priori  knowledge  hitherto  considered,  which  makes  pure 
mathematics  and  pure  natural  science  possible,  affords 
only  rules,  and  no  principles;  because  it  proceeds  from 
perceptions  and  forms  of  knowledge,  and  not  from  mere 
conceptions,  which  is  demanded  if  it  is  to  be  called  a 
principle.  Such  a  principle  must  accordingly  be  know 
ledge  from  pure  conceptions  and  yet  synthetical.  But  this 
is  absolutely  impossible.  From  pure  conceptions  nothing 
but  analytical  propositions  can  ever  proceed.  If  concep 
tions  are  to  be  synthetically  and  yet  a  priori  combined, 
this  combination  must  necessarily  be  accomplished  by 
some  third  thing,  through  a  pure  perception  of  the  formal 
possibility  of  experience,  just  as  synthetic  judgments 
a  posteriori  are  brought  about  through  empirical  percep 
tion  ;  consequently  a  synthetic  proposition  a  priori  can 
never  proceed  from  pure  conceptions.  In  general,  how 
ever,  we  are  a  priori  conscious  of  nothing  more  than  the 
principle  of  sufficient  reason  in  its  different  forms,  and 
therefore  no  other  synthetic  judgments  a  priori  are  pos 
sible  than  those  which  proceed  from  that  which  receives 
its  content  from  that  principle. 

However,  Kant  finally  comes  forward  with  a  pretended 
principle  of  the  reason  answering  to  his  demand,  yet  only 
with  this  one,  from  which  others  afterwards  follow  as 
corollaries.  It  is  the  principle  which  Chr.  Wolf  set  up 
and  explained  in  his  "  Cosmologia"  sect.  i.  c.  2,  §  93,  and 
in  his  "  Ontologia,"  §  178.  As  now  above,  under  the  title 
of  the  Amphiboly,  mere  Leibnitzian  philosophemes  were 
taken  for  natural  and  necessary  aberrations  of  the  reason, 
and  were  criticised  as  such,  so  here  precisely  the  same 
thing  happens  with  the  philosophemes  of  Wolf.  Kant 
still  presents  this  principle  of  the  reason  in  an  obscure 
light,  through  indistinctness,  indefiniteness,  and  breaking 
of  it  up  (p.  307;  V.  361,  and  322;  V.  379).  Clearly  ex 
pressed,  however,  it  is  as  follows :  "  If  the  conditioned  is 
given,  the  totality  of  its  conditions  must  also  be  given, 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       91 

and  therefore  also  the  unconditioned,  through  which  alone 
that  totality  becomes  complete."  We  become  most  vividly 
aware  of  the  apparent  truth  of  this  proposition  if  we 
imagine  the  conditions  and  the  conditioned  as  the  links 
of  a  suspended  chain,  the  upper  end  of  which,  however,  is 
not  visible,  so  that  it  might  extend  ad  infinitum;  since,  how 
ever,  the  chain  does  not  fall,  but  hangs,  there  must  be  above 
one  link  which  is  the  first,  and  in  some  way  is  fixed.  Or, 
more  briefly :  the  reason  desires  to  have  a  point  of  attach 
ment  for  the  causal  chain  which  reaches  back  to  infinity ; 
it  would  be  convenient  for  it.  But  we  will  examine  the 
proposition,  not  in  figures,  but  in  itself.  Synthetic  it  cer 
tainly  is  ;  for,  analytically,  nothing  more  follows  from  the 
conception  of  the  conditioned  than  that  of  the  condition.  It 
has  not,  however,  a  priori  truth,  nor  even  a  posteriori,  but 
it  surreptitiously  obtains  its  appearance  of  truth  in  a  very 
subtle  way,  which  I  must  now  point  out.  Immediately, 
and  a  priori,  we  have  the  knowledge  which  the  principle 
of  sufficient  reason  in  its  four  forms  expresses.  From 
this  immediate  knowledge  all  abstract  expressions  of  the 
principle  of  sufficient  reason  are  derived,  and  they  are 
thus  indirect ;  still  more,  however,  is  this  the  case  with 
inferences  or  corollaries  from  them.  I  have  already  ex 
plained  above  how  abstract  knowledge  often  unites  a 
variety  of  intuitive  cognitions  in  one  form  or  one  concept 
in  such  a  way  that  they  can  no  longer  be  distinguished ; 
therefore  abstract  knowledge  stands  to  intuitive  knowledge 
as  the  shadow  to  the  real  objects,  the  great  multiplicity  of 
which  it  presents  through  one  outline  comprehending  them 
all.  Now  the  pretended  principle  of  the  reason  makes  use 
of  this  shadow.  In  order  to  deduce  from  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason  the  unconditioned,  which  directly  contra 
dicts  it,  it  prudently  abandons  the  immediate  concrete 
knowledge  of  the  content  of  the  principle  of  sufficient 
reason  in  its  particular  forms,  and  only  makes  use  of 
abstract  concepts  which  are  derived  from  it,  and  have 
value  and  significance  only  through  it,  in  order  to  smuggle 


92       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

its  unconditioned  somehow  or  other  into  the  wide  sphere 
of  those  concepts.  Its  procedure  becomes  most  distinct 
when  clothed  in  dialectical  form ;  for  example,  thus  :  "  If 
the  conditioned  exists,  its  condition  must  also  be  given, 
and  indeed  all  given,  thus  completely,  thus  the  totality  of  its 
conditions  ;  consequently,  if  they  constitute  a  series,  the 
M'hole  series,  consequently  also  its  first  beginning,  thus 
the  unconditioned."  Here  it  is  false  that  the  conditions 
of  a  conditioned  can  constitute  a  series.  Bather  must  the 
totality  of  the  conditions  of  everything  conditioned  be 
contained  in  its  nearest  ground  or  reason  from  which  it 
directly  proceeds,  and  which  is  only  thus  a  sufficient  ground 
or  reason.  For  example,  the  different  determinations  of  the 
state  which  is  the  cause,  all  of  which  must  be  present 
together  before  the  effect  can  take  place.  But  the  series, 
for  example,  the  chain  of  causes,  arises  merely  from  the 
fact  that  we  regard  what  immediately  before  was  the  con 
dition  as  now  a  conditioned ;  but  then  at  once  the  whole 
operation  begins  again  from  the  beginning,  and  the  prin 
ciple  of  sufficient  reason  appears  anew  with  its  claim. 
But  there  can  never  be  for  a  conditioned  a  properly  suc 
cessive  scries  of  conditions,  which  exist  merely  as  such, 
and  on  account  of  that  which  is  at  last  conditioned ;  it  is 
always  an  alternating  series  of  conditioneds  and  condi 
tions  ;  as  each  link  is  laid  aside  the  chain  is  broken,  and 
the  claim  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason  entirely 
satisfied,  it  arises  anew  because  the  condition  becomes 
the  conditioned.  Thus  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason 
always  demands  only  the  completeness  of  the  immediate 
or  next  condition,  never  the  completeness  of  a  series.  But 
just  this  conception  of  the  completeness  of  the  condition 
leaves  it  undetermined  whether  this  completeness  should 
be  simultaneous  or  successive ;  and  since  the  latter  is 
chosen,  the  demand  now  arises  for  a  complete  series  of 
conditions  following  each  other.  Only  through  an  arbi 
trary  abstraction  is  a  series  of  causes  and  effects  regarded 
as  a  series  of  causes  alone,  which  exists  merely  on  account 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       93 

of  the  last  effect,  and  is  therefore  demanded  as  its  sufficient 
reason.  From  closer  and  more  intelligent  consideration, 
and  by  rising  from  the  indefinite  generality  of  abstraction 
to  the  particular  definite  reality,  it  appears,  on  the  con 
trary,  that  the  demand  for  a  sufficient  reason  extends  only 
to  the  completeness  of  the  determinations  of  the  immediate 
cause,  not  to  the  completeness  of  a  series.  The  demand 
of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason  is  completely  extin 
guished  in  each  sufficient  reason  given.  It  arises,  however, 
immediately  anew,  because  this  reason  is  again  regarded 
as  a  consequent ;  but  it  never  demands  directly  a  series  of 
reasons.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  instead  of  going  to  the 
thing  itself,  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  abstract  concepts, 
these  distinctions  vanish.  Then  a  chain  of  alternating 
causes  and  effects,  or  of  alternating  logical  reasons  and 
consequents,  is  given  out  as  simply  a  chain  of  causes  of 
the  last  effect,  or  reasons  of  the  last  consequent,  and  the 
completeness  of  the  conditions,  through  which  alone  a  reason 
becomes  sufficient,  appears  as  the  completeness  of  that  as 
sumed  series  of  reasons  alone,  which  only  exist  on  account 
of  the  last  consequent.  There  then  appears  the  abstract 
principle  of  the  reason  very  boldly  with  its  demand  for 
the  unconditioned.  But,  in  order  to  recognise  the  in 
validity  of  this  claim,  there  is  no  need  of  a  critique  of 
reason  by  means  of  antinomies  and  their  solution,  but 
only  of  a  critique  of  reason  understood  in  my  sense,  an 
examination  of  the  relation  of  abstract  knowledge  to 
direct  intuitive  knowledge,  by  means  of  ascending  from 
the  indefinite  generality  of  the  former  to  the  fixed  de- 
finiteness  of  the  latter.  From  such  a  critique,  then,  it 
here  appears  that  the  nature  of  the  reason  by  no  means 
consists  in  the  demand  for  an  unconditioned ;  for,  when 
ever  it  proceeds  with  full  deliberation,  it  must  itself  find 
that  an  unconditioned  is  an  absurdity.  The  reason  as  a 
faculty  of  knowledge  can  always  have  to  do  only  with 
objects  ;  but  every  object  for  the  subject  is  necessarily 
and  irrevocably  subordinated  to  the  principle  of  sufficient 


94       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

reason,  both  a  parte  ante  and  a  parte  post.  The  validity  of 
the  principle  of  sufficient  reason  is  so  involved  in  the 
form  of  consciousness  that  we  absolutely  cannot  imagine 
anything  objective  of  which  no  why  could  further  be  de 
manded  ;  thus  we  cannot  imagine  an  absolute  absolute, 
like  a  blind  wall  in  front  of  us.  That  his  convenience 
should  lead  this  or  that  person  to  stop  at  some  point,  and 
assume  such  an  absolute  at  pleasure,  is  of  no  avail  against 
that  incontestable  certainty  a  priori,  even  if  he  should  put 
on  an  air  of  great  importance  in  doing  so.  In  fact,  the 
whole  talk  about  the  absolute,  almost  the  sole  theme  of 
philosophies  since  Kant,  is  nothing  but  the  cosmological 
proof  incognito.  This  proof,  in  consequence  of  the  case 
brought  against  it  by  Kant,  deprived  of  all  right  and 
declared  outlawed,  dare  no  longer  show  itself  in  its  true 
form,  and  therefore  appears  in  all  kinds  of  disguises — now 
in  distinguished  form,  concealed  under  intellectual  intui 
tion  or  pure  thought ;  now  as  a  suspicious  vagabond,  half 
begging,  half  demanding  what  it  wants  in  more  unpre 
tending  philosophemes.  If  an  absolute  must  absolutely 
be  had,  then  I  will  give  one  which  is  far  better  fitted  to 
meet  all  the  demands  which  are  made  on  such  a  thing 
than  these  visionary  phantoms ;  it  is  matter.  It  has  no 
beginning,  and  it  is  imperishable ;  thus  it  is  really  inde 
pendent,  and  quod  per  se  est  et  per  se  concipitur  ;  from  its 
womb  all  proceeds,  and  to  it  all  returns ;  what  more  can 
be  desired  of  an  absolute  ?  But  to  those  with  whom  no 
critique  of  reason  has  succeeded,  we  should  rather  say — 

"  Are  not  ye  like  unto  women,  who  ever 
Return  to  the  point  from  which  they  set  out, 
Though  reason  should  have  been  talked  by  the  hour  1 " 

That  the  return  to  an  unconditioned  cause,  to  a  first 
beginning,  by  no  means  lies  in  the  nature  of  reason,  is, 
moreover,  practically  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  primi 
tive  religions  of  our  race,  which  even  yet  have  the 
greatest  number  of  followers  upon  earth,  Brahmanism  and 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       95 

Buddhaism,  neither  know  nor  admit  such  assumptions, 
but  carry  the  series  of  phenomena  conditioning  each 
other  into  infinity.  Upon  this  point,  I  refer  to  the  note 
appended  to  the  criticism  of  the  first  antinomy,  which 
occurs  further  on ;  and  the  reader  may  also  see  Upham's 
"  Doctrine  of  Buddhaism"  (p.  9),  and  in  general  all  genuine 
accounts  of  the  religions  of  Asia.  Judaism  and  reason 
ought  not  to  be  identified. 

Kant,  who  by  no  means  desires  to  maintain  his  pre 
tended  principle  of  reason  as  objectively  valid,  but  merely 
as  subjectively  necessary,  deduces  it  even  as  such  only  by 
means  of  a  shallow  sophism,  p.  307 ;  V.  364.  He  says 
that  because  we  seek  to  subsume  every  truth  known  to  us 
under  a  more  general  truth,  as  far  as  this  process  can  be 
carried,  this  is  nothing  else  than  the  pursuit  of  the  uncon 
ditioned,  which  we  already  presuppose.  But,  in  truth,  in 
this  endeavour  we  do  nothing  more  than  apply  reason,  and 
intentionally  make  use  of  it  to  simplify  our  knowledge  by 
enabling  us  to  survey  it — reason,  which  is  that  faculty  of 
abstract,  general  knowledge  that  distinguishes  the  reflec 
tive,  thinking  man,  endowed  with  speech,  from  the  brute, 
which  is  the  slave  of  the  present.  For  the  use  of  reason 
just  consists  in  this,  that  we  know  the  particular  through 
the  universal,  the  case  through  the  rule,  the  rule  through 
the  more  general  rule  ;  thus  that  we  seek  the  most  general 
points  of  view.  Through  such  survey  or  general  view 
our  knowledge  is  so  facilitated  and  perfected  that  from  it 
arises  the  great  difference  between  the  life  of  the  brutes 
and  that  of  men,  and  again  between  the  life  of  educated 
and  that  of  uneducated  men.  Now,  certainly  the  series  of 
grounds  of  knowledge,  which  exist  only  in  the  sphere  of 
the  abstract,  thus  of  reason,  always  finds  an  end  in  what 
is  indemonstrable,  i.e.,  in  an  idea  which  is  not  further 
conditioned  according  to  this  form  of  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason,  thus  in  the  a  priori  or  a  posteriori 
directly  perceptible  ground  of  the  first  proposition  of  the 
train  of  reasoning.  I  have  already  shown  in  the  essay  on 


96       CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  §  50,  that  here  the  series 
of  grounds  of  knowledge  really  passes  over  into  grounds 
of  becoming  or  of  being.  But  one  can  only  desire  to  make 
this  circumstance  hold  good  as  a  proof  of  an  unconditioned 
according  to  the  law  of  causality,  or  even  of  the  mere 
demand  for  such  an  unconditioned,  if  one  has  not  yet  dis 
tinguished  the  forms  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason 
at  all,  but,  holding  to  the  abstract  expression,  has  con 
founded  them  all.  Kant,  however,  seeks  to  establish  that 
confusion,  through  a  mere  play  upon  words,  with  Univer- 
salitas  and  Universitas,  p.  322  ;  V.  379.  Thus  it  is  fun 
damentally  false  that  our  search  for  higher  grounds  of 
knowledge,  more  general  truths,  springs  from  the  pre 
supposition  of  an  object  unconditioned  in  its  being,  or 
has  anything  whatever  in  common  with  this.  Moreover, 
how  should  it  be  essential  to  the  reason  to  presuppose 
something  which  it  must  know  to  be  an  absurdity  as  soon 
as  it  reflects  ?  The  source  of  that  conception  of  the  un 
conditioned  is  rather  to  be  found  only  in  the  indolence  of 
the  individual  who  wishes  by  means  of  it  to  get  rid  of  all 
further  questions,  whether  his  own  or  of  others,  though 
entirely  without  justification. 

Now  Kant  himself  denies  objective  validity  to  this 
pretended  principle  of  reason ;  he  gives  it,  however,  as  a 
necessary  subjective  assumption,  and  thus  introduces  an 
irremediable  split  into  our  knowledge,  which  he  soon 
allows  to  appear  more  clearly.  With  this  purpose  he 
unfolds  that  principle  of  reason  further,  p.  322;  V,  379, 
in  accordance  with  the  method  of  architectonic  symmetry 
of  which  he  is  so  fond.  From  the  three  categories  of 
relation  spring  three  kinds  of  syllogisms,  each  of  which 
gives  the  clue  for  the  discovery  of  a  special  unconditioned, 
of  which  again  there  are  three :  the  soul,  the  world  (as  an 
object  in  itself  and  absolute  totality),  and  God.  Now  here 
we  must  at  once  note  a  great  contradiction,  of  which 
Kant,  however,  takes  no  notice,  because  it  would  be  very 
dangerous  to  the  symmetry.  Two  of  these  unconditioneds 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       97 

are  themselves  conditioned  by  the  third,  the  soul  and  the 
world  by  God,  who  is  the  cause  of  their  existence.  Thus 
the  two  former  have  by  no  means  the  predicate  of  uncon- 
ditionedness  in  common  with  the  latter,  though  this  is 
really  the  point  here,  but  only  that  of  inferred  being 
according  to  the  principles  of  experience,  beyond  the 
sphere  of  the  possibility  of  experience. 

Setting  this  aside,  we  recognise  in  the  three  uncon- 
ditioneds,  to  which,  according  to  Kant,  reason,  following 
its  essential  laws,  must  come,  the  three  principal  subjects 
round  which  the  whole  of  philosophy  under  the  influence 
of  Christianity,  from  the  Scholastics  down  to  Christian 
Wolf,  has  turned.  Accessible  and  familiar  as  these  con 
ceptions  have  become  through  all  these  philosophers,  and 
now  also  through  the  philosophers  of  pure  reason,  this  by 
no  means  shows  that,  without  revelation,  they  would 
necessarily  have  proceeded  from  the  development  of  all 
reason  as  a  production  peculiar  to  its  very  nature.  In 
order  to  prove  this  it  would  be  necessary  to  call  in  the 
aid  of  historical  criticism,  and  to  examine  whether  the 
ancient  and  non-European  nations,  especially  the  peoples 
of  Hindostan  and  many  of  the  oldest  Greek  philosophers, 
really  attained  to  those  conceptions,  or  whether  it  is  only 
we  who,  by  quite  falsely  translating  the  Brahma  of  the 
Hindus  and  the  Tien  of  the  Chinese  as  "God,"  good- 
naturedly  attribute  such  conceptions  to  them,  just  as  the 
Greeks  recognised  their  gods  everywhere ;  whether  it  is 
not  rather  the  case  that  theism  proper  is  only  to  be  found 
in  the  religion  of  the  Jews,  and  in  the  two  religions  which 
have  proceeded  from  it,  whose  followers  just  on  this 
account  comprise  the  adherents  of  all  other  religions  on 
earth  under  the  name  of  heathen,  which,  by  the  way,  is 
a  most  absurd  and  crude  expression,  and  ought  to  be 
banished  at  least  from  the  writings  of  the  learned,  because 
it  identifies  and  jumbles  together  Brahmanists,  Buddhists, 
Egyptians,  Greeks,  Eomans,  Germans,  Gauls,  Iroquois, 
Patagonians,  Caribbeans,  Otaheiteans,  Australians,  and 

VOL.  II.  G 


98        CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

many  others.  Such  an  expression  is  all  very  well  for 
priests,  but  in  the  learned  world  it  must  at  once  be 
shown  the  door:  it  can  go  to  England  and  take  up  its 
abode  at  Oxford.  It  is  a  thoroughly  established  fact  that 
Buddhism,  the  religion  which  numbers  more  followers 
than  any  other  on  earth,  contains  absolutely  no  theism, 
indeed  rejects  it.  As  regards  Plato,  it  is  my  opinion  that 
he  owes  to  the  Jews  the  theism  with  which  he  is 
periodically  seized.  On  this  account  Numenius  (accord 
ing  to  Clem.  Alex.,  Strom.,  i.  c.  22,  Euseb.  prcep.  cvang., 
xiii.  12,  and  Suidas  under  Numenius)  called  him  the 
Moses  grcccisans :  Ti  jap  eari  HXarwv,  rj  Ma)ar)$  arriKi^tov  ; 
and  he  accuses  him  of  having  stolen  (aTroa-vX.fjo-a^)  his 
doctrine  of  God  and  the  creation  from  the  Mosaical 
writings.  Clemens  often  repeats  that  Plato  knew  and 
made  use  of  Moses,  e.g.,  Strom.,  i.  25. — v.  c.  14,  §  90,  &c., 
&c. ;  Pccdarjog.,  ii.  IO,  and  iii.  n;  also  in  the  Cohortatio 
ad  gentes,  c.  6,  where,  after  he  has  bitterly  censured  and 
derided  the  whole  of  the  Greek  philosophers  in  the  pre 
ceding  chapter  because  they  were  not  Jews,  he  bestows 
on  Plato  nothing  but  praise,  and  breaks  out  into  pure 
exultation  that  as  Plato  had  learnt  his  geometry  from 
the  Egyptians,  his  astronomy  from  the  Babylonians, 
magic  from  the  Thracians,  and  much  also  from  the 
Assyrians,  so  he  had  learnt  his  theism  from  the  Jews : 
OiSa  crov  TOU?  SiSaavcaAou?,  /cav  aTTOKpVTrreiv  e0e\.f)$,  .  .  . 
§o%av  TIJV  rov  deov  Trap'  aviwv  co^eXtjaet  rcov  Efipaiwv  (Tuos 
Qiiayistros  novi,  licet  cos  celare  velis,  .  .  .  ilia  de  Deo  sentcntia 
wppeditata  tibi  est  db  Hebrcels).  A  pathetic  scene  of 
recognition.  But  I  see  a  remarkable  confirmation  of  the 
matter  in  what  follows.  According  to  Plutarch  (in  Mario), 
and,  better,  according  to  Lactantius  (i.  3,  19),  Plato 
thanked  Nature  that  he  had  been  born  a  human  being 
and  not  a  brute,  a  man  and  not  a  woman,  a  Greek  and 
not  a  barbarian.  Now  in  Isaac  Euchel's  "  Prayers  of  the 
Jews,"  from  the  Hebrew,  second  edition,  1799,  p.  7,  there 
is  a  morning  prayer  in  which  God  is  thanked  and  praised 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.        99 

that  the  worshipper  was  born  a  Jew  and  not  a  heathen, 
a  free  man  and  not  a  slave,  a  man  and  not  a  woman. 
Such  an  historical  investigation  would  have  spared  Kant 
an  unfortunate  necessity  in  which  he  now  becomes 
involved,  in  that  he  makes  these  three  conceptions  spring 
necessarily  from  the  nature  of  reason,  and  yet  explains 
that  they  are  untenable  and  unverifiable  by  the  reason, 
and  thus  makes  the  reason  itself  a  sophisticator ;  for  he 
says,  p.  339;  V.  397:  "There  are  sophistications,  not  of 
man,  but  of  pure  reason  itself,  from  which  even  the  wisest 
cannot  free  himself,  and  although  after  much  trouble  he 
may  be  able  to  avoid  error,  yet  he  never  can  escape  from 
the  illusion  which  unceasingly  torments  and  mocks  him." 
Therefore  these  Kantian  "  Ideas  of  the  Reason "  might 
be  compared  to  the  focus  in  which  the  converging  re 
flected  rays  from  a  concave  mirror  meet  several  inches 
before  its  surface,  in  consequence  of  which,  by  an  inevit 
able  process  of  the  understanding,  an  object  presents  itself 
to  us  there  which  is  a  thing  without  reality. 

But  the  name  "  Idea  "  is  very  unfortunately  chosen  for 
these  pretended  necessary  productions  of  the  pure  theo 
retical  reason,  and  violently  appropriated  from  Plato,  who 
used  it  to  denote  the  eternal  forms  which,  multiplied 
through  space  and  time,  become  partially  visible  in  the 
innumerable  individual  fleeting  things.  Plato's  "  Ideas  " 
are  accordingly  throughout  perceptible,  as  indeed  the 
word  which  he  chose  so  definitely  signifies,  for  it  could 
only  be  adequately  translated  by  means  of  perceptible  or 
visible  things;  and  Kant  has  appropriated  it  to  denote 
that  which  lies  so  far  from  all  possibility  of  perception 
that  even  abstract  thought  can  only  half  attain  to  it. 
The  word  "  Idea,"  which  Plato  first  introduced,  has,  more 
over,  since  then,  through  two-and-t\venty  centuries,  always 
retained  the  significance  in  which  he  used  it;  for  not 
only  all  ancient  philosophers,  but  also  all  the  Scholastics, 
and  indeed  the  Church  Fathers  and  the  theologians  of 

o 

the  Middle  Ages,  used  it  only  in  that  Platonic  sense,  the 


ioo      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

sense  of  the  Latin  word  exemplar,  as  Suarez  expressly 
mentions  in  his  twenty-fifth  Disputation,  sect.  i.  That 
Englishmen  and  Frenchmen  were  later  induced  by  the 
poverty  of  their  languages  to  misuse  this  word  is  bad 
enough,  but  not  of  importance.  Kant's  misuse  of  the 
word  idea,  by  the  substitution  of  a  new  significance 
introduced  by  means  of  the  slender  clue  of  not  being 
object  of  experience,  which  it  has  in  common  with  Plato's 
ideas,  but  also  in  common  with  every  possible  chimera,  is 
thus  altogether  unjustifiable.  Now,  since  the  misuse  of  a 
few  years  is  not  to  be  considered  against  the  authority  of 
many  centuries,  I  have  always  used  the  word  in  its  old, 
original,  Platonic  significance. 


The  refutation  of  rational  psychology  is  much  fuller 
and  more  thorough  in  the  first  edition  of  the  "  Critique  of 
Pure  Pieason  "  than  in  the  second  and  following  editions, 
and  therefore  upon  this  point  we  must  make  use  of  the 
first  edition  exclusively.  This  refutation  has  as  a  whole 
very  great  merit  and  much  truth.  Yet  I  am  clearly  of 
opinion  that  it  was  merely  from  his  love  of  symmetry 
that  Kant  deduced  as  necessary  the  conception  of  the 
soul  from  the  paralogism  of  substantiality  by  applying 
the  demand  for  the  unconditioned  to  the  conception 
substance,  which  is  the  first  category  of  relation,  and 
accordingly  maintained  that  the  conception  of  a  soul 
arose  in  this  way  in  every  speculative  reason.  If  this 
conception  really  had  its  origin  in  the  presupposition  of  a 
final  subject  of  all  predicates  of  a  thing,  one  would  have 
assumed  a  soul  not  in  men  alone,  but  also  just  as  neces 
sarily  in  every  lifeless  thing,  for  such  a  thing  also  requires 
a  final  subject  of  all  its  predicates.  Speaking  generally, 
however.  Kant  makes  use  of  a  quite  inadmissible  ex 
pression  when  he  talks  of  something  which  can  exist 
only  as  subject  and  not  as  predicate  (e.g.,  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason,  p.  323;  V.  412;  Prolegomena,  §  4  and 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      101 

47) ;  though  a  precedent  for  this  is  to  be  found  in 
Aristotle's  "  Metaphysics,"  iv.  ch.  8.  Nothing  whatever 
exists  as  subject  and  predicate,  for  these  expressions 
belong  exclusively  to  logic,  and  denote  the  relations  of 
abstract  conceptions  to  each  other.  Now  their  correlative 
or  representative  in  the  world  of  perception  must  be 
substance  and  accident.  But  then  we  need  not  look 
further  for  that  which  exists  always  as  substance  and 
never  as  accident,  but  have  it  directly  in  matter.  It  is 
the  substance  corresponding  to  all  properties  of  things 
which  are  their  accidents.  It  is,  in  fact,  if  one  wishes  to 
retain  the  expression  of  Kant  which  has  just  been  con 
demned,  the  final  subject  of  all  predicates  of  that  empiri 
cally  given  thing,  that  which  remains  after  the  abstraction 
of  all  its  properties  of  every  kind.  And  this  holds  good 
of  man  as  of  a  brute,  a  plant,  or  a  stone,  and  is  so  evident, 
that  in  order  not  to  see  it  a  determined  desire  not  to  see 
is  required.  That  it  is  really  the  prototype  of  the  con 
ception  substance,  I  will  show  soon.  But  subject  and 
predicate  are  related  to  substance  and  accident  rather  as 
the  principle  of  sufficient  reason  in  logic  to  the  law  of 
causality  in  nature,  and  the  substitution  or  identification 
of  the  former  is  just  as  inadmissible  as  that  of  the  latter. 
Yet  in  the  "  Prolegomena,"  §  46,  Kant  carries  this  sub 
stitution  and  identification  to  its  fullest  extent  in  order 
to  make  the  conception  of  the  soul  arise  from  that  of  the 
final  subject  of  all  predicates  and  from  the  form  of  the 
categorical  syllogism.  In  order  to  discover  the  sophistical 
nature  of  this  paragraph,  one  only  needs  to  reflect  that 
subject  and  predicate  are  purely  logical  determinations, 
which  concern  abstract  conceptions  solely  and  alone,  and 
that  according  to  their  relation  in  the  judgment.  Sub 
stance  and  accident,  on  the  other  hand,  belong  to  the 
world  of  perception  and  its  apprehension  in  the  under 
standing,  and  are  even  there  only  as  identical  with  matter 
and  form  or  quality.  Of  this  more  shortly. 

The  antithesis  which  has  given  occasion  for  the  assump- 


102      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

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

With  the  first  class  of  ideas,  i.e.,  the  real  world  of  per 
ception,  the  idea  of  matter  is  also  given ;  because  the  law 
governing  this  class  of  ideas,  the  law  of  causality,  deter 
mines  the  change  of  the  states  or  conditions,  and  these 
conditions  themselves  presuppose  something  permanent, 
whose  changes  they  are.  When  speaking  above  of  the 
principle  of  the  permanence  of  substance,  I  showed,  by 
reference  to  earlier  passages,  that  this  idea  of  matter 
arises  because  in  the  understanding,  for  which  alone  it 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       103 

exists,  time  and  space  are  intimately  united,  and  the 
share  of  space  in  this  product  exhibits  itself  as  the  per 
manence  of  matter,  while  the  share  of  time  appears  as  the 
change  of  states.  Purely  in  itself,  matter  can  only  be 
thought  in  dbstracto,  and  not  perceived ;  for  to  perception 
it  always  appears  already  in  form  and  quality.  From 
this  conception  of  matter,  substance  is  again  an  abstraction, 
consequently  a  higher  genus,  and  arose  in  this  way.  Of 
the  conception  of  matter,  only  the  predicate  of  permanence 
was  allowed  to  remain,  while  all  its  other  essential  pro 
perties,  extension,  impenetrability,  divisibility,  &c.,  were 
thought  away.  Like  every  higher  genus,  then,  the  concept 
substance  contains  less  in  itself  than  the  concept  matter, 
but,  unlike  every  other  higher  genus,  it  does  not  contain 
more  under  it,  because  it  does  not  include  several  lower 
genera  besides  matter ;  but  this  remains  the  one  true 
species  of  the  concept  substance,  the  only  assignable  thing 
by  which  its  content  is  realised  and  receives  a  proof. 
Thus  the  aim  with  which  in  other  cases  the  reason  pro 
duces  by  abstraction  a  higher  conception,  in  order  that  in 
it  several  subordinate  species  may  be  thought  at  once 
through  common  determinations,  has  here  no  place ;  con 
sequently  that  abstraction  is  either  undertaken  idly  and 
entirely  without  aim,  or  it  has  a  secret  secondary  purpose. 
This  secret  purpose  is  now  brought  to  light ;  for  under 
the  conception  substance,  along  with  its  true  sub-species 
matter,  a  second  species  is  co-ordinated — the  immaterial, 
simple,  indestructible  substance,  soul.  But  the  surrep 
titious  introduction  of  this  last  concept  arose  from  the 
fact  that  the  higher  concept  substance  was  framed  illogi- 
cally,  and  in  a  manner  contrary  to  law.  In  its  legitimate 
procedure  the  reason  always  frames  the  concept  of  a  higher 
genus  by  placing  together  the  concepts  of  several  species, 
and  now  comparing  them,  proceeds  discursively,  and  by 
omitting  their  differences  and  retaining  the  qualities  in 
which  they  agree,  obtains  the  generic  concept  which 
includes  them  all  but  has  a  smaller  content.  From  this 


104      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

it  follows  that  the  concepts  of  the  species  must  always 
precede  the  concept  of  the  genus.  But,  in  the  present 
case,  the  converse  is  true.  Only  the  concept  matter 
existed  before  the  generic  concept  substance.  The  latter 
was  without  occasion,  and  consequently  without  justifica 
tion,  as  it  were  aimlessly  framed  from  the  former  by  the 
arbitrary  omission  of  all  its  determinations  except  one. 
Not  till  afterwards  was  the  second  ungenuine  species 
placed  beside  the  concept  matter,  and  so  foisted  in.  But 
for  the  framing  of  this  second  concept  nothing  more  was 
now  required  than  an  express  denial  of  what  had  already 
been  tacitly  omitted  in  the  higher  generic  concept,  exten 
sion,  impenetrability,  arid  divisibility.  Thus  the  concept 
substance  was  framed  merely  to  be  the  vehicle  for  the  sur 
reptitious  introduction  of  the  concept  of  the  immaterial 
substance.  Consequently,  it  is  very  far  from  being  capable 
of  holding  good  as  a  category  or  necessary  function  of  the 
understanding ;  rather  is  it  an  exceedingly  superfluous 
concept,  because  its  only  true  content  lies  already  in  the 
concept  of  matter,  besides  which  it  contains  only  a  great 
void,  which  can  be  filled  up  by  nothing  but  the  illicitly 
introduced  species  immaterial  substance ;  and,  indeed,  it 
was  solely  for  the  purpose  of  containing  this  that  it  was 
framed.  Accordingly,  in  strictness,  the  concept  substance 
must  be  entirely  rejected,  and  the  concept  matter  every 
where  put  in  its  place. 


The  categories  were  a  procrustean  bed  for  every  possible 
thing,  but  the  three  kinds  of  syllogisms  are  so  only  for  the 
three  so-called  Ideas.  The  Idea  of  the  soul  was  compelled 
to  find  its  origin  in  the  form  of  the  categorical  syllogism. 
It  is  now  the  turn  of  the  dogmatic  ideas  concerning  the 
universe,  so  far  as  it  is  thought  as  an  object  in  itself,  be 
tween  two  limits — that  of  the  smallest  (atom),  and  that  of 
the  largest  (limits  of  the  universe  in  time  and  space).  These 
must  now  proceed  from  the  form  of  the  hypothetical 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      105 

syllogism.  Nor  for  this  in  itself  is  any  special  violence 
necessary.  For  the  hypothetical  judgment  has  its  form 
from  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  and  not  the  cosmo- 
logical  alone  but  all  those  so-called  Ideas  really  have 
their  origin  in  the  inconsiderate  and  unrestricted  applica 
tion  of  that  principle,  and  the  laying  aside  of  it  at  pleasure. 
For,  in  accordance  with  that  principle,  the  mere  dependence 
of  an  object  upon  another  is  ever  sought  for,  till  finally 
the  exhaustion  of  the  imagination  puts  an  end  to  the 
journey;  and  thus  it  is  lost  sight  of  that  every  object,  and 
indeed  the  whole  chain  of  objects  and  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason  itself,  stand  in  a  far  closer  and  greater 
dependence,  the  dependence  upon  the  knowing  subject, 
for  whose  objects  alone,  i.e.,  ideas,  that  principle  is  valid, 
for  their  mere  position  in  space  and  time  is  determined 
by  it.  Thus,  since  the  form  of  knowledge  from  which 
here  merely  the  cosmological  Ideas  are  derived,  the 
principle  of  sufficient  reason,  is  the  source  of  all  subtle 
hypostases,  in  this  case  no  sophisms  need  be  resorted 
to  ;  but  so  much  the  more  is  sophistry  required  in  order 
to  classify  those  Ideas  according  to  the  four  titles  of  the 
categories. 

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

(2.)  Yet  more  boldly  does  Kant  link  to  quality,  i.e.,  the 
affirmation  or  negation  in  a  judgment,  the  transcendent 
Ideas  concerning  matter;  a  procedure  which  has  not  even 
an  accidental  similarity  of  words  as  a  basis.  For  it  is  just 


io6      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

to  the  quantity,  and  not  to  the  quality  of  matter  that  its 
mechanical  (not  chemical)  divisibility  is  related.  But, 
M'hat  is  more,  this  whole  idea  of  divisibility  by  no  means 
belongs  to  those  inferences  according  to  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason,  from  which,  however,  as  the  content  of 
the  hypothetical  form,  all  cosmological  Ideas  ought  to 
flow.  For  the  assertion  upon  which  Kant  there  relies, 
that  the  relation  of  the  parts  to  the  whole  is  that  of  the 
condition  to  the  conditioned,  thus  a  relation  according  to 
the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  is  certainly  an  ingenious 
but  yet  a  groundless  sophism.  That  relation  is  rather  based 
upon  the  principle  of  contradiction ;  for  the  whole  is  not 
through  the  part,  nor  the  parts  through  the  whole,  but 
both  are  necessarily  together  because  they  are  one,  and 
their  separation  is  only  an  arbitrary  act.  It  depends  upon 
this,  according  to  the  principle  of  contradiction,  that  if  the 
parts  are  thought  away,  the  whole  is  also  thought  away, 
and  conversely ;  and  by  no  means  upon  the  fact  that  the 
parts  as  the  reason  conditioned  the  whole  as  the  consequent, 
and  that  therefore,  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  suf 
ficient  reason,  we  were  necessarily  led  to  seek  the  ultimate 
parts,  in  order,  as  its  reason,  to  understand  from  them  the 
whole.  Such  great  difficulties  are  here  overcome  by  the 
love  of  symmetry. 

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


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      107 

here.  The  third  and  fourth  conflicts  are  at  bottom  tauto 
logical. 

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

The  theses  and  antitheses  which  here  appear  in  such 
conflict  remind  one  of  the  SIKO.IOS  and  aSiKos  \oyos  which 
Socrates,  in  the  "  Clouds  "  of  Aristophanes,  brings  forward 
as  contending.  Yet  this  resemblance  extends  only  to  the 
form  and  not  to  the  content,  though  this  would  gladly  be 
asserted  by  those  who  ascribe  to  these  most  speculative  of 
all  questions  of  theoretical  philosophy  an  influence  upon 
morality,  and  therefore  seriously  regard  the  thesis  as  the 


io8      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

&tfcaio<;,  and  the  antithesis  as  the  aSi«o?  \oyos.  I  shall 
not,  however,  accommodate  myself  here  with  reference 
to  such  small,  narrow,  and  perverse  minds;  and,  giving 
honour  not  to  them,  but  to  the  truth,  I  shall  show  that 
the  proofs  which  Kant  adduced  of  the  individual  theses 
are  sophisms,  while  those  of  the  antitheses  are  quite  fairly 
and  correctly  drawn  from  objective  grounds.  I  assume 
that  in  this  examination  the  reader  has  always  before  him 
the  Kantian  antinomy  itself. 

If  the  proof  of  the  thesis  in  the  first  conflict  is  to  be 
held  as  valid,  then  it  proves  too  much,  for  it  would  be 
just  as  applicable  to  time  itself  as  to  change  in  time,  and 
would  therefore  prove  that  time  itself  must  have  had  a 
beginning,  which  is  absurd.  Besides,  the  sophism  consists 
in  this,  that  instead  of  the  beginninglessness  of  the  series 
of  states,  which  was  at  first  the  question,  suddenly  the 
endlessness  (infinity)  of  the  series  is  substituted ;  and  now 
it  is  proved  that  this  is  logically  contradicted  by  com 
pleteness,  and  yet  every  present  is  the  end  of  the  past, 
which  no  one  doubted.  The  end  of  a  beginningless  series 
can,  however,  always  be  tJwught,  without  prejudice  to  the 
fact  that  it  has  no  beginning ;  just  as,  conversely,  the  be 
ginning  of  an  endless  series  can  also  be  thought.  But 
against  the  real,  true  argument  of  the  antithesis,  that  the 
changes  of  the  world  necessarily  presuppose  an  infinite 
series  of  changes  backwards,  absolutely  nothing  is  ad 
vanced.  We  can  think  the  possibility  that  the  causal 
chain  will  some  day  end  in  an  absolute  standstill,  but 
we  can  by  no  means  think  the  possibility  of  an  absolute 
beginning.1 

1  That  the  assumption  of  a  limit  this   fleeting   and    baseless   web   of 

of  the  world  in  time  is  certainly  not  Maya,    for  they  at  once   bring  out 

a  necessary  thought  of   the  reason  very  ingeniously  the  relativity  of  all 

may  be  also  proved  historically,  for  periods  of  time  in  the  following  my- 

the    Hindus   teach   nothing   of   the  thus  (Polier,  Mythologie  des  Jndous, 

kind,  even   in   the  religion   of   the  vol.  ii.  p.  585).      The  four  ages,  in 

people,  much  less  in  the  Vedas,  but  the  last  of  which  we  live,  embrace 

try    to    express    mythologically   by  together  4,320,000  years.    Each  day 

means  of  a  monstrous  chronology  the  of    the    creating   Brahma    has   looo 

infinity  of  this  phenomenal  world,  such  periods  of  four  ages,  and  his 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      109 

With  reference  to  the  spatial  limits  of  the  world,  it  is 
proved  that,  if  it  is  to  he  regarded  as  a  given  whole,  it  must 
necessarily  have  limits.  The  reasoning  is  correct,  only 
it  was  just  the  first  link  of  it  that  was  to  be  proved,  and 
that  remains  unproved.  Totality  presupposes  limits,  and 
limits  presuppose  totality ;  but  here  both  together  are 
arbitrarily  presupposed.  For  this  second  point,  however, 
the  antithesis  affords  no  such  satisfactory  proof  as  for  the 
first,  because  the  law  of  causality  provides  us  with  neces 
sary  determinations  only  with  reference  to  time,  not  to 
space,  and  affords  us  a  priori  the  certainty  that  no 
occupied  time  can  ever  be  bounded  by  a  previous  empty 
time,  and  that  no  change  can  be  the  first  change,  but  not 
that  an  occupied  space  can  have  no  empty  space  beside 
it.  So  far  no  a  priori  decision  on  the  latter  point  would 
be  possible  ;  yet  the  difficulty  of  conceiving  the  world  in 
space  as  limited  lies  in  the  fact  that  space  itself  is  neces 
sarily  infinite,  and  therefore  a  limited  finite  world  in  space, 
however  large  it  may  be,  becomes  an  infinitely  small 
magnitude ;  and  in  this  incongruity  the  imagination  finds 
an  insuperable  stumbling-block,  because  there  remains 
for  it  only  the  choice  of  thinking  the  world  either  as 
infinitely  large  or  infinitely  small.  This  was  already  seen 
by  the  ancient  philosophers  :  MyrpoScopos,  6 
Ejrucovpov,  (f>r]<7iv  aroTrov  etvai  ev  fj^e^aXw  TreSib)  e 
<yevvr]dr]vai,  /cat  eva  Kocrpov  ev  ry  aTreipat  (MetrodoTUS,  caput 
scliolcc  Epicuri,  absurdum  ait,  in  magno  campo  spicam  unam 
produci,  et  unum  in  infinite  munduni)  Stob.  Eel.,  i.  c.  23. 
Therefore  many  of  them  taught  (as  immediately  follows), 
aTret/aoi"?  Kocrpovs  ev  rw  aTreipw  (infinites  mundos  in  inftnito). 
This  is  also  the  sense  of  the  Kantian  argument  for  the 

nights  have  also   1000.      His  year  Polier's  work,  vol.  ii.  p.  594,   from 

has   365  days  and  as  many  nights,  the  Puranas.     In  it  a  Kajah,  after  a 

He  lives   100  of   his    years,   always  visit  of  a  few  seconds  to  Vishnu  in 

creating  ;  and  if  he  dies,  at  once  a  his  heaven,   finds   on   his   return  to 

new  Brahma  is  born,  and  so  on  from  earth  that  several  millions  of  years 

eternity  to  eternity.     The  same  re-  have   elapsed,   and   a  new  age  has 

lativity  of  time  is  also  expressed  in  begun  ;  for  every  day  of  Vishnu  is 

the  special  myth  which  is  quoted  in  100  recurrences  of  the  four  ages. 


no      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

antithesis,  only  he  has  disfigured  it  by  a  scholastic  and 
ambiguous  expression.  The  same  argument  might  be 
used  against  the  limitation  of  the  world  in  time,  only  we 
have  a  far  better  one  under  the  guidance  of  causality.  In 
the  case  of  the  assumption  of  a  world  limited  in  space, 
there  arises  further  the  unanswerable  question,  What 
advantage  has  the  filled  part  of  space  enjoyed  over  the 
infinite  space  that  has  remained  empty  ?  In  the  fifth 
dialogue  of  his  book,  "Del  Infinite,  Univcrso  e  Mondi," 
Giordano  Bruno  gives  a  full  account  of  the  arguments  for 
and  against  the  finiteness  of  the  world,  which  is  very 
well  worth  reading.  For  the  rest,  Kant  himself  asserts 
seriously,  and  upon  objective  grounds,  the  infinity  of  the 
world  in  space  in  his  "  Natural  History  of  the  Theory  of 
the  Heavens,"  part  ii.  ch.  7.  Aristotle  also  acknow 
ledges  the  same,  "  Phys.,"  iii.  ch.  4,  a  chapter  which, 
together  with  the  following  one,  is  very  well  worth  reading 
with  reference  to  this  antinomy. 

In  the  second  conflict  the  thesis  is  at  once  guilty  of  a 
very  palpable  petitio  principii,  for  it  commences,  "  Every 
compound  substance  consists  of  simple  parts."  From  the 
compoundness  here  arbitrarily  assumed,  no  doubt  it  after 
wards  very  easily  proves  the  simple  parts.  But  the  pro 
position,  "All  matter  is  compound,"  which  is  just  the 
point,  remains  unproved,  because  it  is  simply  a  groundless 
assumption.  The  opposite  of  simple  is  not  compound, 
but  extended,  that  which  has  parts  and  is  divisible.  Here, 
however,  it  is  really  tacitly  assumed  that  the  parts  existed 
before  the  whole,  and  were  brought  together,  whence  the 
whole  has  arisen :  for  this  is  the  meanin^  of  the  word 

'  o 

"  compound."  Yet  this  can  just  as  little  be  asserted  as 
the  opposite.  Divisibility  means  merely  the  possibility 
of  separating  the  whole  into  parts,  and  not  that  the  whole 
is  compounded  out  of  parts  and  thus  came  into  being. 
Divisibility  merely  asserts  the  parts  a  parte  post;  com 
poundness  asserts  them  a  parte  ante.  For  there  is  essen 
tially  no  temporal  relation  between  the  parts  and  the 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY,      in 

whole  ;  they  rather  condition  each  other  reciprocally,  and 
thus  always  exist  at  the  same  time,  for  only  so  far  as  both 
are  there  is  there  anything  extended  in  space.  Therefore 
what  Kant  says  in  the  observations  on  the  thesis,  "  Space 
ought  not  to  be  called  a  compositum,  but  a  totum"  &c., 
holds  good  absolutely  of  matter  also,  which  is  simply 
space  become  perceptible.  On  the  other  hand,  the  infinite 
divisibility  of  matter,  which  the  antithesis  asserts,  follows 
a  priori  and  incontrovertibly  from  that  of  space,  which  it 
fills.  This  proposition  has  absolutely  nothing  against  it ; 
and  therefore  Kant  also  (p.  513  ;  V.  541),  when  he  speaks 
seriously  and  in  his  own  person,  no  longer  as  the  mouth 
piece  of  the  aSt/co?  ^0709,  presents  it  as  objective  truth ; 
and  also  in  the  "  Metaphysical  First  Principles  of  Natural 
.Science"  (p.  108,  first  edition),  the  proposition,  "Matter  is 
infinitely  divisible,"  is  placed  at  the  beginning  of  the  proof 
of  the  first  proposition  of  mechanics  as  established  truth, 
having  appeared  and  been  proved  as  the  fourth  proposition 
in  the  Dynamics.  But  here  Kant  spoils  the  proof  of  the 
antithesis  by  the  greatest  obscurity  of  style  and  useless 
accumulation  of  words,  with  the  cunning  intention  that 
the  evidence  of  the  antithesis  shall  not  throw  the  sophisms 
of  the  thesis  too  much  into  the  shade.  Atoms  are  no 
necessary  thought  of  the  reason,  but  merely  an  hypothesis 
for  the  explanation  of  the  difference  of  the  specific  gravity 
of  bodies.  But  Kant  himself  has  shown,  in  the  dynamics 
of  his  "  Metaphysical  First  Principles  of  Natural  Science," 
that  this  can  be  otherwise,  and  indeed  better  and  more 
simply  explained  than  by  atomism.  In  this,  however,  he 
was  anticipated  by  Priestley,  "  On  Matter  and  Spirit," 
sect.  i.  Indeed,  even  in  Aristotle,  "  Phys."  iv.  9,  the 
fundamental  thought  of  this  is  to  be  found. 

The  argument  for  the  third  thesis  is  a  very  fine 
sophism,  and  is  really  Kant's  pretended  principle  of  pure 
reason  itself  entirely  unadulterated  and  unchanged.  It 
tries  to  prove  the  finiteness  of  the  series  of  causes  by 
saying  that,  in  order  to  be  sufficient,  a  cause  must  contain 


ii2      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  complete  sum  of  the  conditions  from  which  the  suc 
ceeding  state,  the  effect,  proceeds.  For  the  completeness 
of  the  determinations  present  together  in  the  state  which  is 
the  cause,  the  argument  now  substitutes  the  completeness 
of  the  series  of  causes  by  which  that  state  itself  was  brought 
to  actuality;  and  because  completeness  presupposes  the 
condition  of  being  rounded  off  or  closed  in,  and  this  again 
presupposes  finiteness,  the  argument  infers  from  this  a 
first  cause,  closing  the  series  and  therefore  unconditioned. 
But  the  juggling  is  obvious.  In  order  to  conceive  the 
state  A.  as  the  sufficient  cause  of  the  state  B.,  I  assume 
that  it  contains  the  sum  of  the  necessary  determinations 
from  the  co-existence  of  which  the  estate  B.  inevitably 
follows.  Now  by  this  my  demand  upon  it  as  a  sufficient 
cause  is  entirely  satisfied,  and  has  no  direct  connection 
with  the  question  how  the  state  A.  itself  came  to  be ; 
this  rather  belongs  to  an  entirely  different  consideration, 
in  which  I  regard  the  said  state  A.  no  more  as  cause,  but 
as  itself  an  effect ;  in  which  case  another  state  again 
must  be  related  to  it,  just  as  it  was  related  to  B.  The 
assumption  of  the  finiteness  of  the  series  of  causes  and 
effects,  and  accordingly  of  a  first  beginning,  appears 
nowhere  in  this  as  necessary,  any  more  than  the  present- 
ness  of  the  present  moment  requires  us  to  assume  a 
beginning  of  time  itself.  It  only  comes  to  be  added  on 
account  of  the  laziness  of  the  speculating  individual. 
That  this  assumption  lies  in  the  acceptance  of  a  cause  as 
a  sufficient  reason  is  thus  unfairly  arrived  at  and  false,  as 
I  have  shown  at  length  above  when  considering  the 
Kantian  principle  of  pure  reason  which  coincides  with 
this  thesis.  In  illustration  of  the  assertion  of  this  false 
thesis,  Kant  is  bold  enough  in  his  observations  upon  it  to 
give  as  an  example  of  an  unconditioned  be^innino-  his 

o  j.  o          '      o 

rising  from  his  chair ;  as  if  it  were  not  just  as  impossible 
for  him  to  rise  without  a  motive  as  for  a  ball  to  roll 
without  a  cause.  I  certainly  do  not  need  to  prove  the 
baselessness  of  the  appeal  which,  induced  by  a  sense  of 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      113 

weakness,  he  makes  to  the  philosophers  of  antiquity,  by 
quoting  from  Ocellus  Lucanus,  the  Eleatics,  &c.,  not  to 
speak  of  the  Hindus.  Against  the  proof  of  this  anti 
thesis,  as  in  the  case  of  the  previous  ones,  there  is  nothing 
to  advance. 

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

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

If  we  examine  the  real  meaning  of  Kant's  Critical  Solu 
tion  of  the  cosmological  problem  which  now  follows,  we 
find  that  it  is  not  what  he  gives  it  out  to  be,  the  solution 
of  the  problem  by  the  disclosure  that  both  sides,  starting 
from  false  assumptions,  are  wrong  in  the  first  and  second 

VOL.  II.  H 


114      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

conflicts,  and  that  in  the  third  and  fourth  both,  are  right. 
It  is  really  the  confirmation  of  the  antitheses  by  the  ex 
planation  of  their  assertions. 

First  Kant  asserts,  in  this  solution,  obviously  wrongly, 
that  both  sides  started  from  the  assumption,  as  their  first 
principle,  that  with  the  conditioned  the  completed  (thus 
rounded  off)  series  of  its  conditions  is  given.  Only  the 
thesis  laid  down  this  proposition,  Kant's  principle  of  pure 
reason,  as  the  ground  of  its  assertions ;  the  antithesis,  on 
the  other  hand,  expressly  denied  it  throughout,  and  asserted 
the  contrary.  Further,  Kant  charges  both  sides  with  this 
assumption,  that  the  world  exists  in  itself,  i.e.,  indepen 
dently  of  being  known  and  of  the  forms  of  this  knowledge, 
but  this  assumption  also  is  only  made  by  the  thesis ;  in 
deed,  it  is  so  far  from  forming  the  ground  of  the  assertions 
of  the  antithesis  that  it  is  absolutely  inconsistent  with 
them.  For  that  it  should  all  be  given  is  absolutely  con 
tradictory  of  the  conception  of  an  infinite  series.  It  is 
therefore  essential  to  it  that  it  should  always  exist  only 
with  reference  to  the  process  of  going  through  it,  and  not 
independently  of  this.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  assump 
tion  of  definite  limits  also  lies  that  of  a  whole  which 
exists  absolutely  and  independently  of  the  process  of 
completely  measuring  it.  Thus  it  is  only  the  thesis  that 
makes  the  false  assumption  of  a  self-existent  universe, 
i.e.,  a  universe  given  prior  to  all  knowledge,  and  to  which 
knowledge  came  as  to  something  external  to  itself.  The 
antithesis  from  the  outset  combats  this  assumption  abso 
lutely  ;  for  the  infinity  of  the  series  which  it  asserts  merely 
under  the  guidance  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason 
can  only  exist  if  the  regressus  is  fully  carried  out,  but 
not  independently  of  it.  As  the  object  in  general  pre 
supposes  the  subject,  so  also  the  object  which  is  determined 
as  an  endless  chain  of  conditions  necessarily  presupposes 
in  the  subject  the  kind  of  knowledge  corresponding  to 
this,  that  is,  the  constant  folloiving  of  the  links  of  that 
chain.  But  this  is  just  what  Kant  gives  as  the  solution 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      115 

of  the  problem,  and  so  often  repeats  :  "  The  infinity  of  the 
world  is  only  through  the  regressus,  not  "before  it."  This 
his  solution  of  the  conflict  is  thus  really  only  the  decision 
in  favour  of  the  antithesis  in  the  assertion  of  which  this 
truth  already  lies,  while  it  is  altogether  inconsistent  with 
the  assertions  of  the  thesis.  If  the  antithesis  had  asserted 
that  the  world  consisted  of  infinite  series  of  reasons  and 
consequents,  and  yet  existed  independently  of  the  idea 
and  its  regressive  series,  thus  in  itself,  and  therefore  con 
stituted  a  given  whole,  it  would  have  contradicted  not 
only  the  thesis  but  also  itself.  For  an  infinite  can  never 
be  given  as  a  whole,  nor  an  endless  series  exist,  except  as 
an  endless  progress ;  nor  can  what  is  boundless  constitute 
.a  whole.  Thus  this  assumption,  of  which  Kant  asserts 
that  it  led  both  sides  into  error,  belongs  only  to  the  thesis. 

It  is  already  a  doctrine  of  Aristotle's  that  an  infinity 
can  never  be  actu,  i.e.,  actual  and  given,  but  only  potentid. 
OVK  ecmi>  evepyeta  etvai  ro  aireipov  ,  .  .  a\X'  abvvaTov  TO 
evTe\€^eta  ov  cnreipov  (infinitum  non  potest  esse  actu:  .  .  . 
sed  impossibile,  actu  esse  infinitum),  Metaph.  K.  i  o.  Further : 
KCUT  evepyeiav  pev  yap  ovbev  ecrriv  cnreipov,  SvvctfMei  Se  eiri, 
TTJV  Siaipeaiv  (nihil  cnim  actu  infinitum  est,  sed  potentia 
tantum,  nempe  divisione  ipsa).  De  generat,  et  corrupt., 
i.,  3.  He  develops  this  fully  in  the  "Physics,"  iii.  5  and 
6,  where  to  a  certain  extent  he  gives  the  perfectly  correct 
solution  of  the  whole  of  the  antinomies.  He  expounds 
the  antinomies  in  his  short  way,  and  then  says,  "  A  medi 
ator  (SiaiTijTov)  is  required;"  upon  which  he  gives  the 
solution  that  the  infinite,  both  of  the  world  in  space  and 
in  time  and  in  division,  is  never  before  the  regressus,  or 
progressus,  but  in  it.  Tiiis  truth  lies  then  in  the  rightly 
apprehended  conception  of  the  infinite.  Thus  one  mis 
understands  himself  if  he  imagines  that  he  can  think  the 
infinite,  of  whatever  kind  it  may  be,  as  something  objec 
tively  present  and  complete,  and  independent  of  the  re 
gressus. 

Indeed   if,   reversing   the   procedure,  we   take   as  the 


ii6      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

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

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

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


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      117 

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

Kant  has  nowhere  made  the  thing  in  itself  the  subject 
of  a  special  exposition  or  distinct  deduction ;  but,  when 
ever  he  wants  it,  he  introduces  it  at  once  by  means  of  the 
conclusion  that  the  phenomenon,  thus  the  visible  world, 


ii8      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

must  have  a  reason,  an  intelligible  cause,  which  is  not  a 
phenomenon,  and  therefore  belongs  to  no  possible  expe 
rience.  He  does  this  after  having  assiduously  insisted 
that  the  categories,  and  thus  causality  also,  had  a  use 
which  was  absolutely  confined  to  possible  experience ; 
that  they  were  merely  forms  of  the  understanding,  which, 
served  to  spell  out  the  phenomena  of  the  world  of  sense, 
beyond  which,  on  the  other  hand,  they  had  no  signifi 
cance,  &c.,  &c.  Therefore,  he  denies  in  the  most  uncom 
promising  manner  their  application  to  things  beyond 
experience,  and  rightly  explains  and  at  once  rejects  all 
earlier  dogmatism  as  based  upon  the  neglect  of  this  law. 
The  incredible  inconsistency  which  Kant  here  fell  into 
was  soon  noticed,  and  used  by  his  first  opponents  to 
make  attacks  on  his  philosophy  to  which  it  could  offer  no 
resistance.  For  certainly  we  apply  the  law  of  causality 
entirely  a  priori  and  before  all  experience  to  the  changes 
felt  in  our  organs  of  sense.  But,  on  this  very  account, 
this  law  is  just  as  much  of  subjective  origin  as  these 
sensations  themselves,  and  thus  does  not  lead  to  a  thing 
in  itself.  The  truth  is,  that  upon  the  path  of  the  idea  one 
can  never  get  beyond  the  idea ;  it  is  a  rounded-off  whole, 
and  has  in  its  own  resources  no  clue  leading  to  the  nature 
of  the  thing  in  itself,  which  is  toto  genere  different  from 
it.  If  we  were  merely  perceiving  beings,  the  way  to  the 
thing  in  itself  would  be  absolutely  cut  off  from  us.  Only 
the  other  side  of  our  own  being  can  disclose  to  us  the 
other  side  of  the  inner  being  of  things.  This  path  I  have 
followed.  But  Kant's  inference  to  the  thing  in  itself, 
contrary  as  it  is  to  his  own  teaching,  obtains  some  excuse 
from  the  following  circumstance.  He  does  not  say,  as 
truth  required,  simply  and  absolutely  that  the  object  is 
conditioned  by  the  subject,  and  conversely  ;  but  only  that 
the  manner  of  the  appearance  of  the  object  is  conditioned 
by  the  forms  of  knowledge  of  the  subject,  which,  there 
fore,  also  come  a  priori  to  consciousness.  But  that  now 
which  in  opposition  to  this  is  only  known  a  posteriori  is 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      119 

for  him  the  immediate  effect  of  the  thing  in  itself,  which 
becomes  phenomenon  only  in  its  passage  through  these 
forms  which  are  given  a  priori.  From  this  point  of  view 
it  is  to  some  extent  explicable  how  it  could  escape  him 
that  objectivity  in  general  belongs  to  the  form  of  the 
phenomenon,  and  is  just  as  much  conditioned  by  subjec 
tivity  in  general  as  the  mode  of  appearing  of  the  object 
is  conditioned  by  the  forms  of  knowledge  of  the  subject ; 
that  thus  if  a  thing  in  itself  must  be  assumed,  it  abso 
lutely  cannot  be  an  object,  which  however  he  always 
assumes  it  to  be,  but  such  a  thing  in  itself  must  neces 
sarily  lie  in  a  sphere  toto  genere  different  from  the  idea 
(from  knowing  and  being  known),  and  therefore  could 
least  of  all  be  arrived  at  through  the  laws  of  the  com 
bination  of  objects  among  themselves. 

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

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

And  it  is  also  this  immediate  knowledge  of  his  own 
will  out  of  which  in  human  consciousness  the  concep 
tion  of  freedom  springs  ;  for  certainly  the  will,  as  world- 
creating,  as  thing  in  itself,  is  free  from  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason,  and  therewith  from  all  necessity,  thus  is 
completely  independent,  free,  and  indeed  almighty.  Yet, 
in  truth,  this  only  holds  good  of  the  will  in  itself,  not  of 
its  manifestations,  the  individuals,  who,  just  through  the 


120      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

will  itself,  are  unalterably  determined  as  its  manifestations 
in  time.  But  in  the  ordinary  consciousness,  unenlightened 
by  philosophy,  the  will  is  at  once  confused  with  its  mani 
festation,  and  what  belongs  only  to  the  former  is  attributed 
to  the  latter,  whence  arises  the  illusion  of  the  uncondi 
tioned  freedom  of  the  individual.  Therefore  Spinoza  says 
rightly  that  if  the  projected  stone  had  consciousness,  it 
would  believe  that  it  flew  of  its  own  free  will.  For  cer 
tainly  the  in-itself  of  the  stone  also  is  the  will,  which  alone 
is  free  ;  but,  as  in  all  its  manifestations,  here  also,  where  it 
appears  as  a  stone,  it  is  already  fully  determined.  But  of 
all  this  enough  has  already  been  said  in  the  text  of  this 
work. 

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

It  follows,  then,  from  all  that  has  been  said,  that  the 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      121 

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

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

For  the  rest,  it  is  just  this  predetermined  solution  of  the 
sham  third  conflict  that  affords  Kant  the  opportunity  of 
expressing  very  beautifully  the  deepest  thoughts  of  his 
whole  philosophy.  This  is  the  case  in  the  whole  of  the 


122      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

"  Sixth  Section  of  the  Antinomy  of  Pure  Eeason  ; "  but, 
above  all,  in  the  exposition  of  the  opposition  between  the 
empirical  and  the  intelligible  character,  p.  534-550;  V. 
562-578,  which  I  number  among  the  most  admirable 
things  that  have  ever  been  said  by  man.  (As  a  supple 
mental  explanation  of  this  passage,  compare  a  parallel 
passage  in  the  Critique  of  Practical  Eeasou,  p.  169-179 
of  the  fourth  edition,  or  p.  224-231  of  Eosenkranz's  edi 
tion.)  It  is  yet  all  the  more  to  be  regretted  that  this  is 
here  not  in  its  right  place,  partly  because  it  is  not  found 
in  the  way  which  the  exposition  states,  and  therefore 
could  be  otherwise  deduced  than  it  is,  partly  because  it 
does  not  fulfil  the  end  for  which  it  is  there — the  solution 
of  the  sham  antinomy.  The  intelligible  character,  the 
thing  in  itself,  is  inferred  from  the  phenomenon  by  the 
inconsistent  use  of  the  category  of  causality  beyond  the 
sphere  of  all  phenomena,  which  has  already  been  suffi 
ciently  condemned.  In  this  case  the  will  of  man  (which 
Kant  entitles  reason,  most  improperly,  and  with  an  un 
pardonable  breach  of  all  use  of  language)  is  set  up  as  the 
thing  in  itself,  with  an  appeal  to  an  unconditioned  ought, 
the  categorical  imperative,  which  is  postulated  without 
more  ado. 

Now,  instead  of  all  this,  the  plain  open  procedure  would 
have  been  to  start  directly  from  the  will,  and  prove  it  to 
be  the  in-itself  of  our  own  phenomenal  being,  recognised 
without  any  mediation  ;  and  then  to  give  that  exposition  of 
the  empirical  and  the  intelligible  character  to  explain  how 
all  actions,  although  necessitated  by  motives,  yet,  both  by 
their  author  and  by  the  disinterested  judge,  are  necessarily 
and  absolutely  ascribed  to  the  former  himself  and  alone,  as 
depending  solely  upon  him,  to  whom  therefore  guilt  and 
merit  are  attributed  in  respect  of  them.  This  alone  was 
the  straight  path  to  the  knowledge  of  that  which  is  not 
phenomenon,  and  therefore  will  not  be  found  by  the  help 
of  the  laws  of  the  phenomenon,  but  is  that  which  reveals 
itself  through  the  phenomenon,  becomes  knowable,  objec- 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      123 

tifies  itself — the  will  to  live.  It  would  then  have  had  to 
be  exhibited  merely  by  analogy  as  the  inner  nature  of 
every  phenomenon.  Then,  however,  it  certainly  could  not 
have  been  said  that  in  lifeless  or  even  animal  nature  no 
faculty  can  be  thought  except  as  sensuously  conditioned 
(p.  546;  V.  574),  which  in  Kant's  language  is  simply 
saying  that  the  explanation,  according  to  the  law  of 
causality,  exhausts  the  inner  nature  of  these  phenomena, 
and  thus  in  their  case,  very  inconsistently,  the  thing  in 
itself  disappears.  Through  the  false  position  and  the 
roundabout  deduction  according  with  it  which  the  exposi 
tion  of  the  thing  in  itself  has  received  from  Kant,  the 
whole  conception  of  it  has  also  become  falsified.  For  the 
will  or  the  thing  in  itself,  found  through  the  investigation 
of  an  unconditioned  cause,  appears  here  related  to  the 
phenomenon  as  cause  to  effect.  But  this  relation  exists 
only  within  the  phenomenal  world,  therefore  presupposes 
it,  and  cannot  connect  the  phenomenal  world  itself  with 
what  lies  outside  it,  and  is  toto  gencre  different  from  it. 

Further,  the  intended  end,  the  solution  of  the  third 
antinomy  by  the  decision  that  both  sides,  each  in  a  diffe 
rent  sense,  are  right,  is  not  reached  at  all.  For  neither  the 
thesis  nor  the  antithesis  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
thing  in  itself,  but  entirely  with  the  phenomenon,  the 
objective  world,  the  world  as  idea.  This  it  is,  and  abso 
lutely  nothing  else,  of  which  the  thesis  tries  to  show,  by 
means  of  the  sophistry  we  have  laid  bare,  that  it  contains 
unconditioned  causes,  and  it  is  also  this  of  which  the 
antithesis  rightly  denies  that  it  contains  such  causes. 
Therefore  the  whole  exposition  of  the  transcendental  free 
dom  of  the  will,  so  far  as  it  is  a  thing  in  itself,  which  is 
given  here  in  justification  of  the  thesis,  excellent  as  it  is 
in  itself,  is  yet  here  entirely  a  ^era/Sacri?  eta  a\\o  <yevo$. 
For  the  transcendental  freedom  of  the  will  which  is  ex 
pounded  is  by  no  means  the  unconditioned  causality  of  a 
cause,  which  the  thesis  asserts,  because  it  is  of  the  essence 
of  a  cause  that  it  must  be  a  phenomenon,  and  not  some- 


124      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

thing  which  lies  beyond  all  phenomena  and  is  toto  genere 
different. 

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

The  fourth  conflict  is,  as  has  already  been  said,  in  its 
real  meaning  tautological  with  the  third.  In  its  solution 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      125 

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


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

Moreover,  I  do  not  doubt  that  Kant  was  compelled  to 
write  this  extraordinary  chapter,  so  unworthy  of  him, 
simply  by  his  fondness  for  architectonic  symmetry.  The 
three  principal  objects  of  the  Scholastic  philosophy  (which, 
as  we  have  said,  if  understood  in  the  wider  sense,  may  be 
regarded  as  continuing  down  to  Kant),  the  soul,  the  world, 
and  God,  are  supposed  to  be  deduced  from  the  three  pos 
sible  major  propositions  of  syllogisms,  though  it  is  plain 
that  they  have  arisen,  and  can  arise,  simply  and  solely 
through  the  unconditioned  application  of  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason.  Kow,  after  the  soul  had  been  forced 
into  the  categorical  judgment,  and  the  hypothetical  was 


126      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

set  apart  for  the  world,  there  remained  for  the  third 
Idea  nothing  but  the  disjunctive  major.  Fortunately 
there  existed  a  previous  work  in  this  direction,  the  ens 
rcalissimum  of  the  Scholastics,  together  with  the  onto- 
logical  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  set  up  in  a  rudi 
mentary  form  by  Anselm  of  Canterbury  and  then  per 
fected  by  Descartes.  This  was  joyfully  made  use  of  by 
Kant,  with  some  reminiscence  also  of  an  earlier  Latin 
work  of  his  youth.  However,  the  sacrifice  which  Kant 
makes  to  his  love  of  architectonic  symmetry  in  this 
chapter  is  exceedingly  great.  In  defiance  of  all  truth, 
what  one  must  regard  as  the  grotesque  idea  of  an  essence 
of  all  possible  realities  is  made  an  essential  and  necessary 
thought  of  the  reason.  For  the  deduction  of  this  Kant 
makes  use  of  the  false  assertion  that  our  knowledge  of 
particular  things  arises  from  a  progressive  limitation  of 
general  conceptions  ;  thus  also  of  a  most  general  concep 
tion  of  all  which  contains  all  reality  in  itself.  In  this  he 
stands  just  as  much  in  contradiction  with  his  own  teach 
ing  as  with  the  truth,  for  exactly  the  converse  is  the  case. 
Our  knowledge  starts  with  the  particular  and  is  extended 
to  the  general,  and  all  general  conceptions  arise  by  abstrac 
tion  from  real,  particular  things  known  by  perception,  and 
this  can  be  carried  on  to  the  most  general  of  all  concep 
tions,  which  includes  everything  under  it,  but  almost 
nothing  in  it.  Thus  Kant  has  here  placed  the  procedure 
of  our  faculty  of  knowledge  just  upside  down,  and  thus 
might  well  be  accused  of  having  given  occasion  to  a  philo 
sophical  charletanism  that  has  become  famous  in  our 
day,  which,  instead  of  recognising  that  conceptions  are 
thoughts  abstracted  from  things,  makes,  on  the  contrary 
the  conceptions  first,  and  sees  in  things  only  concrete 
conceptions,  thus  bringing  to  market  the  world  turned 
upside  down  as  a  philosophical  buffoonery,  which  of 
course  necessarily  found  great  acceptance. 

Even  if  we  assume  that  every  reason  must,  or  at  least 
can,  attain  to  the  conception  of  God,  even  without  revela- 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      127 

tion,  this  clearly  takes  place  only  under  the  guidance  of 
causality.  This  is  so  evident  that  it  requires  no  proof. 
Therefore  Chr.  Wolf  says  (Oosmologia  Generates,  prcef., 
p.  i) :  Sane  in  theologia  naturdli  existentiam  Numinis  e 
principiis  cosmologicis  demonstramus.  Contingentia  uni- 
versi  ct  ordinis  natures,  una  cum  impossibilitate  casus,  sunt 
scala,  per  quam  a  mundo  hoc  adspectabili  ad  Dcum  asccn- 
ditur.  And,  before  him,  Leibnitz  said,  in  connection 
with  the  law  of  causality :  Sans  ce  grand  principe  on  nc 
saurait  venir  a  la  preuve  de  I 'existence  de  Dieu.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  thought  which  is  worked  out  in  this 
chapter  is  so  far  from  being  essential  and  necessary  to 
reason,  that  it  is  rather  to  be  regarded  as  a  veritable 
masterpiece  of  the  monstrous  productions  of  an  age 
which,  through  strange  circumstances,  fell  into  the  most 

*  o  o  * 

singular  aberrations  and  perversities,  such  as  the  age  of 
the  Scholastics  was — an  age  which  is  unparalleled  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  and  can  never  return  again.  This 
Scholasticism,  as  it  advanced  to  its  final  form,  certainly 
derived  the  principal  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  from 
the  conception  of  the  ens  realissimum,  and  only  then  used 
the  other  proofs  as  accessory.  This,  however,  is  mere 
methodology,  and  proves  nothing  as  to  the  origin  of 
theology  in  the  human  mind.  Kant  has  here  taken  the 
procedure  of  Scholasticism  for  that  of  reason — a  mistake 
which  indeed  he  has  made  more  than  once.  If  it  were 
true  that  according  to  the  essential  laws  of  reason  the  Idea 
of  God  proceeds  from  the  disjunctive  syllogism  under  the 
form  of  an  Idea  of  the  most  real  being,  this  Idea  would 
also  have  existed  in  the  philosophy  of  antiquity ;  but  of 
the  ens  realissimum  there  is  nowhere  a  trace  in  any  of 
the  ancient  philosophers,  although  some  of  them  certainly 
teach  that  there  is  a  Creator  of  the  world,  yet  only  as  the 
giver  of  form  to  the  matter  which  exists  without  him, 
Sepiovp'yos,  a  being  whom  they  yet  infer  simply  and  solely 
in  accordance  with  the  law  of  causality.  It  is  true  that 
Sextus  Empiricus  (adv.  Math.,  ix.  §  88)  quotes  an  argu- 


128      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

ment  of  Cleanthes,  which  some  have  held  to  be  the 
ontological  proof.  This,  however,  it  is  not,  but  merely  an 
inference  from  analogy ;  because  experience  teaches  that 
upon  earth  one  being  is  always  better  than  another,  and 
man,  indeed,  as  the  best,  closes  the  series,  but  yet  has 
many  faults  ;  therefore  there  must  exist  beings  who  are  still 
better,  and  finally  one  being  who  is  best  of  all  ( 
apia-rov),  and  this  would  be  God. 


On  the  detailed  refutation  of  speculative  theology  which 
now  follows  I  have  only  briefly  to  remark  that  it,  and  in 
general  the  whole  criticism  of  the  three  so-called  Ideas  of 
reason,  thus  the  whole  Dialectic  of  Pure  Eeason,  is  indeed 
to  a  certain  extent  the  goal  and  end  of  the  whole  work ; 
yet  this  polemical  part  has  not  really  an  absolutely  uni 
versal,  permanent,  and  purely  philosophical  interest,  such 
as  is  possessed  by  the  preceding  doctrinal  part,  i.e.,  the 
aesthetic  and  analytic ;  but  rather  a  temporary  and  local 
interest,  because  it  stands  in  a  special  relation  to  the 
leading  points  of  the  philosophy  which  prevailed  in  Europe 
up  till  the  time  of  Kant,  the  complete  overthrow  of  which 
was  yet,  to  his  immortal  credit,  achieved  by  him  through 
this  polemic.  He  has  eliminated  theism  from  philosophy; 
for  in  it,  as  a  science  and  not  a  system  of  faith,  only  that 
can  find  a  place  which  is  either  empirically  given  or  estab 
lished  by  valid  proofs.  Naturally  we  only  mean  here  the 
real  seriously  understood  philosophy  which  is  concerned 
with  the  truth,  and  nothing  else ;  and  by  no  means  the 
jest  of  philosophy  taught  in  the  universities,  in  which,  after 
Kant  as  before  him,  speculative  theology  plays  the  principal 
part,  and  where,  also,  after  as  before  him,  the  soul  appears 
without  ceremony  as  a  familiar  person.  For  it  is  the  philo 
sophy  endowed  with  salaries  and  fees,  and,  indeed,  also 
with  titles  of  Hofrath,  which,  looking  proudly  down  from 
its  height,  remains  for  forty  years  entirely  unaware  of  the 
existence  of  little  people  like  me,  and  would  be  thoroughly 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      129 

glad  to  be  rid  of  the  old  Kant  with  his  Critiques,  that 
they  might  drink  the  health  of  Leibnitz  with  all  their 
hearts.  It  is  further  to  be  remarked  here,  that  as  Kant 
was  confessedly  led  to  his  doctrine  of  the  a  priori  nature 
of  the  conception  of  causality  by  Hume's  scepticism  with 
regard  to  that  conception,  it  may  be  that  in  the  same  way 
Kant's  criticism  of  all  speculative  theology  had  its  occasion 
in  Hume's  criticism  of  all  popular  theology,  which  he  had 
given  in  his  "  Natural  History  of  Eeligion,"  a  book  so  well 
worth  reading,  and  in  the  "  Dialogues  on  Natural  Eeligion." 
Indeed,  it  may  be  that  Kant  wished  to  a  certain  extent  to 
supplement  this.  For  the  first-named  work  of  Hume  is 
really  a  critique  of  popular  theology,  the  pitiable  condi 
tion  of  which  it  seeks  to  show  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  points  to  rational  or  speculative  theology  as  the  genuine, 
and  that  which  is  worthy  of  respect.  But  Kant  now  dis 
closes  the  groundlessness  of  the  latter,  and  leaves,  on  the 
other  hand,  popular  theology  untouched,  nay,  even  estab 
lishes  it  in  a  nobler  form  as  a  faith  based  upon  moral 
feeling.  This  was  afterwards  distorted  by  the  philoso- 
phasters  into  rational  apprehensions,  consciousness  of 
God,  or  intellectual  intuitions  of  the  supersensible,  of  the 
divine,  &c.,  &c. ;  while  Kant,  as  he  demolished  old  and 
revered  errors,  and  knew  the  danger  of  doing  so,  rather 
wished  through  the  moral  theology  merely  to  substitute  a 
few  weak  temporary  supports,  so  that  the  ruin  might  not 
fall  on  him,  but  that  he  might  have  time  to  escape. 

Now,  as  regards  the  performance  of  the  task,  no  critique 
of  reason  was  necessary  for  the  refutation  of  the  ontological 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God ;  for  without  presupposing 
the  aesthetic  and  analytic,  it  is  quite  easy  to  make  clear 
that  that  ontological  proof  is  nothing  but  a  subtle  playing 
with  conceptions  which  is  quite  powerless  to  produce  con 
viction.  There  is  a  chapter  in  the  "Organon  "  of  Aristotle 
which  suffices  as  fully  for  the  refutation  of  the  ontological 
proof  as  if  it  had  been  written  intentionally  with  that 
purpose.  It  is  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  second  book  of 

VOL.  II.  I 


130      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  " Analyt.  Post"  Among  other  things,  it  is  expressly 
said  there  :  "  TO  Se  etvai  OVK  ovcna  ovbevi,"  i.e.,  existentia 
nunquam  ad  essentiam  rei  pertinct. 

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

In  the  criticism  of  this  proof  Kant  has  only  to  do, 
as  we  have  already  said,  with  speculative  theology,  and 
limits  himself  to  the  School.  If,  on  the  contrary,  he  had 
had  life  and  popular  theology  also  in  view,  he  would  have 
been  obliged  to  add  a  fourth  proof  to  the  three  he  has 
considered — that  proof  which  is  really  the  effective  one 
with  the  great  mass  of  men,  and  which  in  Kant's  technical 
language  might  best  be  called  the  keraunological.  It  is 
the  proof  which  is  founded  upon  the  needy,  impotent,  and 
dependent  condition  of  man  as  opposed  to  natural  forces, 
which  are  infinitely  superior,  inscrutable,  and  for  the  most 
part  threatening  evil ;  to  which  is  added  man's  natural 
inclination  to  personify  everything,  and  finally  the  hope 
of  effecting  something  by  prayers  and  flattery,  and  even 
by  gifts.  In  every  human  undertaking  there  is  something 
which  is  not  in  our  power  and  does  not  come  within  our 
calculations ;  the  wish  to  win  this  for  oneself  is  the  origin 
of  the  gods.  "  Primus  in  orbe  Deos  fecit  timor  "  is  an  old 
and  true  saying  of  Petronius.  It  is  principally  this  proof 
which  is  criticised  by  Hume,  who  throughout  appears  as 
Kant's  forerunner  in  the  writings  referred  to  above.  But 
those  whom  Kant  has  placed  in  a  position  of  permanent 
embarrassment  by  his  criticism  of  speculative  theology 
are  the  professors  of  philosophy.  Salaried  by  Christian 
governments,  they  dare  not  give  up  the  chief  article  of 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      131 

faith.1  Now,  how  do  these  gentlemen  help  themselves  ? 
They  simply  declare  that  the  existence  of  God  is  self- 
evident.  Indeed  !  After  the  ancient  world,  at  the  expense 
of  its  conscience,  had  worked  miracles  to  prove  it,  and 
the  modern  world,  at  the  expense  of  its  understanding, 
had  brought  into  the  field  ontological,  cosmological,  and 
physico-theological  proofs — to  these  gentlemen  it  is  self- 
evident.  And  from  this  self-evident  God  they  then  explain 
the  world  :  that  is  their  philosophy. 

Till  Kant  came  there  was  a  real  dilemma  between 
materialism  and  theism,  i.e.,  between  the  assumption  that 
a  blind  chance,  or  that  an  intelligence  working  from  with 
out  in  accordance  with  purposes  and  conceptions,  had 
brought  about  the  world,  neque  dabaiur  tertium.  There 
fore  atheism  and  materialism  were  the  same ;  hence  the 
doubt  whether  there  really  could  be  an  atheist,  i.e.,  a  man 
•who  really  could  attribute  to  blind  chance  the  disposition 
of  nature,  so  full  of  design,  especially  organised  nature. 
See,  for  example,  Bacon's  Essays  (sermones  fideles),  Essay 
1 6,  on  Atheism.  In  the  opinion  of  the  great  mass  of 
men,  and  of  the  English,  who  in  such  things  belong 
entirely  to  the  great  mass  (the  mob),  this  is  still  the  case, 
even  with  their  most  celebrated  men  of  learning.  One 
has  only  to  look  at  Owen's  "  Ostfologie  Compare'e,"  of  1855, 
preface,  p.  11,  12,  where  he  stands  always  before  the  old 
dilemma  between  Democritus  and  Epicurus  on  the  one 
side,  and  an  intelligence  on  the  other,  in  which  la  con- 

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


132      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

naissance  dun  6tre  tel  que  I'homme  a  exists  avant  que 
I'homme  Jit  son  apparition.  All  design  must  have  pro 
ceeded  from  an  intelligence ;  he  has  never  even  dreamt  of 
doubting  this.  Yet  in  the  lecture  based  upon  this  now 
modified  preface,  delivered  in  the  Academic  des  Sciences  on 
the  5th  September  1853,  he  says,  with  childish  naivete: 
"La  iiUologie,  ou  la  the"ologie  scientiftque"  (Comptes  Rendus, 
Sept.  1853),  that  is  for  him  precisely  the  same  thing!  Is 
anything  in  nature  designed  ?  then  it  is  a  work  of  inten 
tion,  of  reflection,  of  intelligence.  Yet,  certainly,  what 
has  such  an  Englishman  and  the  Academic  des  Sciences 
to  do  with  the  "  Critique  of  Judgment,"  or,  indeed,  with 
my  book  upon  the  Will  in  Nature  ?  These  gentlemen 
do  not  see  so  far  below  them.  These  illustres  confreres 
disdain  metaphysics  and  the  philosophic  allemande:  they 
confine  themselves  to  the  old  woman's  philosophy.  The 
validity  of  that  disjunctive  major,  that  dilemma  between 
materialism  and  theism,  rests,  however,  upon  the  assump 
tion  that  the  present  given  world  is  the  world  of  things  in 
themselves ;  that  consequently  there  is  no  other  order  of 
things  than  the  empirical.  But  after  the  world  and  its 
order  had  through  Kant  become  mere  phenomenon,  the 
laws  of  which  rest  principally  upon  the  forms  of  our 
intellect,  the  existence  and  nature  of  things  and  of  the 
world  no  longer  required  to  be  explained  according  to  the 
analogy  of  the  changes  perceived  or  effected  by  us  in  the 
world  ;  nor  must  that  which  we  comprehend  as  means  and 
end  have  necessarily  arisen  as  the  consequence  of  a  similar 
knowledge  Thus,  inasmuch  as  Kant,  through  his  impor 
tant  distinction  between  phenomenon  and  thing  in  itself, 
withdrew  the  foundation  from  theism,  he  opened,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  way  to  entirely  different  and  more  profound 
explanations  of  existence. 

In  the  chapter  on  the  ultimate  aim  of  the  natural  dia 
lectic  of  reason  it  is  asserted  that  the  three  transcendent 
Ideas  are  of  value  as  regulative  principles  for  the  advance 
ment  of  the  knowledge  of  nature.  But  Kant  can  barelv 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      133 

have  been  serious  in  making  this  assertion.  At  least  its 
opposite,  that  these  assumptions  are  restrictive  and  fatal 
to  all  investigation  of  nature,  is  to  every  natural  philo 
sopher  beyond  doubt.  To  test  this  by  an  example,  let  any 
one  consider  whether  the  assumption  of  the  soul  as  an 
immaterial,  simple,  thinking  substance  would  have  been 
necessarily  advantageous  or  in  the  highest  degree  impeding 
to  the  truths  which  Cabanis  has  so  beautifully  expounded, 
or  to  the  discoveries  of  Flourens,  Marshall  Hall,  and  Ch. 
Bell.  Indeed  Kant  himself  says  (Prolegomena,  §  -M), 
"  The  Ideas  of  the  reason  are  opposed  and  hindering  to 
the  maxims  of  the  rational  knowlege  of  nature." 

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


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

On  account  of  Kant's  love  of  architectonic  symmetry, 
the  theoretical  reason  had  also  to  have  a  pendant.  The 
intcllectus  pradicus  of  the  Scholastics,  which  again  springs 
from  the  vovs  irpaKTUcos  of  Aristotle  (De  Anima,  iii.  10, 
and  Polit.,  vii.  c.  14:  o  t*ev  'yap  irpaKTiKos  ecrrt  \oyos,  o  Se 
6€Q)pr)TiKo<i),  provides  the  word  ready  made.  Yet  here 
something  quite  different  is  denoted  by  it — not  as  there, 


134      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  reason  directed  to  technical  skill.  Here  the  practical 
reason  appears  as  the  source  and  origin  of  the  undeniable 
ethical  significance  of  human  action,  and  of  all  virtue,  all 
nobleness,  and  every  attainable  degree  of  holiness.  All 
this  accordingly  should  come  from  mere  reason,  and  de 
mand  nothing  but  this.  To  act  rationally  and  to  act  vir 
tuously,  nobly,  holily,  would  be  one  and  the  same ;  and 
to  act  selfishly,  wickedly,  viciously,  would  be  merely  to 
act  irrationally.  However,  all  times  and  peoples  and 
languages  have  distinguished  the  two,  and  held  them  to  be 
quite  different  things ;  and  so  does  every  one  even  at  the 
present  day  who  knows  nothing  of  the  language  of  the  new 
school,  i.e.,  the  whole  world,  with  the  exception  of  a  small 
company  of  German  savants.  Every  one  but  these  last 
understands  by  virtuous  conduct  and  a  rational  course  of 
life  two  entirely  different  things.  To  say  that  the  sublime 
founder  of  the  Christian  religion,  whose  life  is  presented 
to  us  as  the  pattern  of  all  virtue,  was  the  most  rational  of 
all  men  would  be  called  a  very  unbecoming  and  even  a 
blasphemous  way  of  speaking ;  and  almost  as  much  so 
if  it  were  said  that  His  precepts  contained  all  the  best 
directions  for  a  perfectly  rational  life.  Further,  that  he 
who,  in  accordance  with  these  precepts,  instead  of  taking 
thought  for  his  own  future  needs,  always  relieves  the 
greater  present  wants  of  others,  without  further  motive, 
nay,  gives  all  his  goods  to  the  poor,  in  order  then,  desti 
tute  of  all  means  of  subsistence,  to  go  and  preach  to 
others  also  the  virtue  which  he  practises  himself;  this 
every  one  rightly  honours ;  but  who  ventures  to  extol  it 
as  the  highest  pitch  of  reasonableness?  And  finally,  who 
praises  it  as  a  rational  deed  that  Arnold  von  Winkelried, 
with  surpassing  courage,  clasped  the  hostile  spears  against 
his  own  body  in  order  to  gain  victory  and  deliverance  for 
his  countrymen  ?  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  see  a  man 
who  from  his  youth  upwards  deliberates  with  exceptional 
foresight  how  he  may  procure  for  himself  an  easy  compe 
tence,  the  means  for  the  support  of  wife  and  children,  a 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      135 

good  name  among  men,  outward  honour  and  distinction, 
and  in  doing  so  never  allows  himself  to  be  led  astray  or 
induced  to  lose  sight  of  his  end  by  the  charm  of  present 
pleasures  or  the  satisfaction  of  defying  the  arrogance  of 
the  powerful,  or  the  desire  of  revenging  insults  and  un 
deserved  humiliations  he  has  suffered,  or  the  attractions  of 
useless  aesthetic  or  philosophical  occupations  of  the  mind, 
or  travels  in  interesting  lands,  but  with  great  consistency 
works  towards  his  one  end, — who  ventures  to  deny  that 
such  a  philistine  is  in  quite  an  extraordinary  degree  rational, 
even  if  he  has  made  use  of  some  means  which  are  not  praise 
worthy  but  are  yet  without  danger  ?  Nay,  more,  if  a  bad 
man,  with  deliberate  shrewdness,  through  a  well-thought- 
out  plan  attains  to  riches  and  honours,  and  even  to  thrones 
and  crowns,  and  then  with  the  acutest  cunning  gets  the 
better  of  neighbouring  states,  overcomes  them  one  by 
one,  and  now  becomes  a  conqueror  of  the  world,  and  in 
doing  so  is  not  led  astray  by  any  respect  for  right,  any 
sense  of  humanity,  but  with  sharp  consistency  tramples 
down  and  dashes  to  pieces  everything  that  opposes  his 
plan,  without  compassion  plunges  millions  into  misery  of 
every  kind,  condemns  millions  to  bleed  and  die,  yet  royally 
rewards  and  always  protects  his  adherents  and  helpers, 
never  forgetting  anything,  and  thus  reaches  his  end, — who 
does  not  see  that  such  a  man  must  go  to  work  in  a  most, 
rational  manner  ? — that,  as  a  powerful  understanding  was 
needed  to  form  the  plans,  their  execution  demanded  the 
complete  command  of  the  reason,  and  indeed  properly  ot 
practical  reason  ?  Or  are  the  precepts  which  the  pru 
dent  and  consistent,  the  thoughtful  and  far-seeing  Machia- 
velli  prescribes  to  the  prince  irrational?1 

1  By  the  way,  Machiavelli's  prob-  purely  the  political  one  how,  if  he  so 

lem  was  the  solution  of  the  question  wills,  he  can  carry  it  out.      And  the 

how  the  prince,  as  a  prince,  was  to  solution  of  this  problem  he  gives  just 

keep  himself  on  the  throne  in  spite  of  as  one  writes  directions  for  playing 

internal  and  external  enemies.     His  chess,  with  which  it  would  be  folly 

problem  was  thus  by  no  means  the  to  mix  up  the  answer  to  the  ques- 

ethical  problem  whether  a  prince,  as  tion  whether  from    an  ethical  point 

a  man,  ought  to  will  such  things,  but  of  view  it  is  advisable  to  play  chess 


136     CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

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

In  agreement  with  what  we  have  said,  we  see  the 
writers  who  appeared  just  before  Kant  place  the  con 
science,  as  the  seat  of  the  moral  impulses,  in  opposition  to 
the  reason.  Thus  Eousseau,  in  the  fourth  book  of  "  Umile," 
says  :  "  La  raison  nous  trompe,  mais  la  conscience  ne  trompe 
jamais;"  and  further  on:  "II  est  impossible  d'expliquer  par 
les  consciences  de  notre  nature  leprincipe  imme'diat  de  la  con 
science  indepcndant  de  la  raison  meme."  Still  further :  "  Mes 
sentimens  naturds  parlaient  pour  I'inte'ret  commun,  ma  raison 
rapportait  tout  a  moi.  .  .  .  On  a  beau  ixniloir  etablir  la  vertu 

at   all.      To    reproach    Machiavelli  not  begin  his   instructions    with   a, 

with   the    immorality   of    his    writ-  moral  lecture   against    murder  and 

ing  is  just  the  same  as  to  reproach  slaughter. 
a    fencing-master  because  he  does 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      137 

par  la  raison  seul,  quelle  solide  base  peut-on  lui  donner  ?  "  In 
the  "  Reveries  du  Promeneur,"  prom.  4  erne,  he  says :  "  Dans 
toutes  les  questions  de  morale  difficilesje  me  suis  toujours  lien 
trouve"  de  les  resoudre  par  le  dictamen  de  la  conscience,  plutot 
que  par  les  lumieres  de  la  raison."  Indeed  Aristotle  already 
says  expressly  (Eih.  Magna,  i.  5)  that  the  virtues  have 
their  seat  in  the  aXoyw  p,opiw  T???  ^1/^779  (in  parte  irra- 
tionali  animi],  and  not  in  the  \oyov  e^ovrt  (in  parte 
rationali).  In  accordance  with  this,  Stobseus  says  (Ed., 
ii.,  c.  7),  speaking  of  the  Peripatetics  :  "  Trjv  rjOiKyv  aperrjv 
epi  TO  a\oyov  /iepo<?  yi'yveadai  TT??  "^f^S", 
Trpos  TIJV  Trapovcrav  Oewpiav  inreOevTO  TTJV 
,  TO  ftev  \OJIKOV  e%ovcrav,  TO  8'  aXoyov.  Kat  irept, 
fiev  TO  \oyifcoi>  Tffv  KaXotcayaOiav  ^i^veadav,  icai  Trjv  (j)povr]- 
<riv,  Kai  Tfjv  a^^ivoiav,  /cat  crotyiav,  KCLI  evp.a6eiav,  Kai 
[jbvrifjLr)v,  Kai  Ta?  o/iotof?'  -nepi  8e  TO  a\oyov,  ( 
Kai  SiKaioo-vvrjV,  Kai  av&petav,  Kat  Ta?  aXXa?  Ta? 
Ka\ovp. ej^a?  apeTa?."  (Ethicam  virtutem  circa  partem  animce 
ratione  carentem  vcrsari  putant,  cum  duplicem,  ad  hanc 
disqitisitionem,  animam  ponant,  ratione  prccditam,  et  ea 
carentem.  In  parte  vero  ratione  prcedita  collocant  inyenui- 
tatem,  prudentiam,  perspicacitatem,  sapientiam,  docilitatem, 
memoriam  et  reliqua  ;  in  parte  vero  ratione,  destituta  tem- 
perantiam,justitiam,fortitudinem,  et  reliquas  virtutes,  quas 
ethicas  vocant.)  And  Cicero  (De  Nat.  Deor.,  iii.,  c.  26-31) 
explains  at  length  that  reason  is  the  necessary  means,  the 
tool,  of  all  crime. 

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


138      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

This  enables  him  easily  to  survey  as  a  whole  his  life  and 
the  course  of  the  world,  looking  before  and  after ;  it  makes 
him  independent  of  the  present,  enables  him  to  go  to 
work  deliberately,  systematically,  and  with  foresight,  to 
do  evil  as  well  as  to  do  good.  But  what  he  does  he  does 
with  complete  self-consciousness  ;  he  knows  exactly  how 
his  will  decides,  what  in  each  case  he  chooses,  and  what 
other  choice  was  in  the  nature  of  the  case  possible ;  and 
from  this  self-conscious  willing  he  comes  to  know  himself 
and  mirrors  himself  in  his  actions.  In  all  these  relations 
to  the  conduct  of  men  reason  is  to  be  called  practical; 
it  is  only  theoretical  so  far  as  the  objects  with  which 
it  is  concerned  have  no  relation  to  the  action  of  the 
thinker,  but  have  purely  a  theoretical  interest,  which 
very  few  men  are  capable  of  feeling.  What  in  this  sense 
is  called  practical  reason  is  very  nearly  what  is  signi 
fied  by  the  Latin  word  prudentia,  which,  according  to 
Cicero  (De  Nat.  Deor.  ii.,  22),  is  a  contraction  of  provi- 
dentia  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  ratio,  if  used  of  a  faculty 
of  the  mind,  signifies  for  the  most  part  theoretical  reason 
proper,  though  the  ancients  did  not  observe  the  distinction 
strictly.  In  nearly  all  men  reason  has  an  almost  exclusively 
practical  tendency ;  but  if  this  also  is  abandoned  thought 
loses  the  control  of  action,  so  that  it  is  then  said,  "  Scio 
meliora,  proboque,  deteriora  sequor,"  or  "  Le  matin  je  fais 
des  projets,  et  le  soirjefais  des  sottises."  Thus  the  man  does 
not  allow  his  conduct  to  be  guided  by  his  thought,  but  by 
the  impression  of  the  moment,  after  the  manner  of  the 
brute  ;  and  so  he  is  called  irrational  (without  thereby  im 
puting  to  him  moral  turpitude),  although  he  is  not  really 
wanting  in  reason,  but  in  the  power  of  applying  it  to  his 
action  ;  and  one  might  to  a  certain  extent  say  his  reason  is 
theoretical  and  not  practical.  He  may  at  the  same  time 
be  a  really  good  man,  like  many  a  one  who  can  never  see 
any  one  in  misfortune  without  helping  him,  even  making 
sacrifices  to  do  so,  and  yet  leaves  his  debts  unpaid.  Such  an 
irrational  character  is  quite  incapable  of  committing  great 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      139 

crimes,  because  the  systematic  planning,  the  discrimina 
tion  and  self-control,  which  this  always  requires  are  quite 
impossible  to  him.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  he  will  hardly 
attain  to  a  very  high  degree  of  virtue,  for,  however  much 
inclined  to  good  he  may  be  by  nature,  those  single  vicious 
and  wicked  emotions  to  which  every  one  is  subject  can 
not  be  wanting ;  and  where  reason  does  not  manifest  it 
self  practically,  and  oppose  to  them  unalterable  maxims 
and  firm  principles,  they  must  become  deeds. 

Finally,  reason  manifests  itself  very  specially  as  practi 
cal  in  those  exceedingly  rational  characters  who  on  this 
account  are  called  in  ordinary  life  practical  philosophers, 
and  who  are  distinguished  by  an  unusual  equanimity  in 
disagreeable  as  in  pleasing  circumstances,  an  equable 
disposition,  and  a  determined  perseverance  in  resolves 
once  made.  In  fact,  it  is  the  predominance  of  reason  in 
them,  i.e.,  the  more  abstract  than  intuitive  knowledge,  and 
therefore  the  survey  of  life  by  means  of  conceptions,  in 
general  and  as  a  whole,  which  has  enabled  them  once  for 
all  to  recognise  the  deception  of  the  momentary  impres 
sion,  the  fleeting  nature  of  all  things,  the  shortness  of  life, 
the  emptiness  of  pleasures,  the  fickleness  of  fortune,  and 
the  great  and  little  tricks  of  chance.  Therefore  nothing 
comes  to  them  unexpectedly,  and  what  they  know  in  the 
abstract  does  not  surprise  nor  disturb  them  when  it  meets 
them  in  the  actual  and  in  the  particular  case,  though  it 
does  so  in  the  case  of  those  less  reasonable  characters 
upon  whom  the  present,  the  perceptible,  the  actual,  exerts 
such  an  influence  that  the  cold,  colourless  conceptions  are 
thrown  quite  into  the  background  of  consciousness,  and 
forgetting  principles  and  maxims,  they  are  abandoned 
to  emotions  and  passions  of  every  kind.  I  have  already 
explained  at  the  end  of  the  first  book  that  in  my  opinion 
the  ethics  of  Stoicism  were  simply  a  guide  to  a  truly 
reasonable  life,  in  this  sense.  Such  a  life  is  also  re 
peatedly  praised  by  Horace  in  very  many  passages.  This 
is  the  significance  of  his  nil  admirari,  and  also  of  the 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 


Delphic  Mri^ev  ayav.  To  translate  nil  admirari  "to 
admire  nothing"  is  quite  wrong.  This  Horatian  rnaxim 
does  not  concern  the  theoretical  so  much  as  the  practical, 
and  its  real  meaning  is  :  "  Prize  no  object  unconditionally. 
Do  not  fall  in  love  with  anything  ;  do  not  believe  that  the 
possession  of  anything  can  give  you  happiness.  Every 
intense  longing  for  an  object  is  only  a  delusive  chimera, 
which  one  may  just  as  well,  and  much  more  easily,  get 
quit  of  by  fuller  knowledge  as  by  attained  possession." 
Cicero  also  uses  admirari  in  this  sense  (De  Divinatione, 
ii.  2).  What  Horace  means  is  thus  the  aOa/j,/3ca  and 
aKara'jr'Xr]^,  also  a6av/^acria,  which  Democritus  before 
him  prized  as  the  highest  good  (see  Clem.  Alex.  Strom.,  ii. 
21,  and  cf.  Strabo,  i.  p.  98  and  105).  Such  reasonableness 
of  conduct  has  properly  nothing  to  do  with  virtue  and 
vice  ;  but  this  practical  use  of  reason  is  what  gives  man 
his  pre-eminence  over  the  brute,  and  only  in  this  sense 
has  it  any  meaning  and  is  it  permissible  to  speak  of  a 
dignity  of  man. 

In  all  the  cases  given,  and  indeed  in  all  conceivable 
cases,  the  distinction  between  rational  and  irrational 
action  runs  back  to  the  question  whether  the  motives  are 
abstract  conceptions  or  ideas  of  perception.  Therefore 
the  explanation  which  I  have  given  of  reason  agrees 
exactly  with  the  use  of  language  at  all  times  and  among 
all  peoples  —  a  circumstance  which  will  not  be  regarded  as 
merely  accidental  or  arbitrary,  but  will  be  seen  to  arise 
from  the  distinction  of  which  every  man  is  conscious,  of 
the  different  faculties  of  the  mind,  in  accordance  with 
which  consciousness  he  speaks,  though  certainly  he  does 
not  raise  it  to  the  distinctness  of  an  abstract  definition. 
Our  ancestors  did  not  make  the  words  without  attaching 
to  them  a  definite  meaning,  in  order,  perhaps,  that  they 
might  lie  ready  for  philosophers  who  might  possibly 
come  centuries  after  and  determine  what  ought  to  be 
thought  in  connection  with  them  ;  but  they  denoted  by 
them  quite  definite  conceptions.  Thus  the  words  are  no 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      141 

longer  unclaimed,  and  to  attribute  to  them  an  entirely  dif 
ferent  sense  from  that  which  they  have  hitherto  had  means 
to  misuse  them,  means  to  introduce  a  licence  in  accordance 
with  which  every  one  might  use  any  word  in  any  sense 
he  chose,  and  thus  endless  confusion  would  necessarily 
arise.  Locke  has  already  shown  at  length  that  most  dis 
agreements  in  philosophy  arise  from  a  false  use  of  words. 
For  the  sake  of  illustration  just  glance  for  a  moment  at 
the  shameful  misuse  which  philosophers  destitute  of 
thoughts  make  at  the  present  day  of  the  words  substance, 
consciousness,  truth,  and  many  others.  Moreover,  the 
utterances  and  explanations  concerning  reason  of  all  philo 
sophers  of  all  ages,  with  the  exception  of  the  most  modern, 
agree  no  less  with  my  explanation  of  it  than  the  concep 
tions  which  prevail  among  all  nations  of  that  prerogative 
of  man.  Observe  what  Plato,  in  the  fourth  book  of  the 
Republic,  and  in  innumerable  scattered  passages,  calls  the 
\oyi/M)v,  or  \o<yioriKov  TT??  ^u^?,  what  Cicero  says  (De 
Nat.  Deor.,  iii.  26—31),  what  Leibnitz  and  Locke  say  upon 
this  in  the  passages  already  quoted  in  the  first  book.  There 
would  be  no  end  to  the  quotations  here  if  one  sought  to  show 
how  all  philosophers  before  Kant  have  spoken  of  reason  in 
general  in  my  sense,  although  they  did  not  know  how  to 
explain  its  nature  with  complete  definiteness  and  distinct 
ness  by  reducing  it  to  one  point.  What  was  understood 
by  reason  shortly  before  Kant's  appearance  is  shown  in 
general  by  two  essays  of  Sulzer  in  the  first  volume  of 
his  miscellaneous  philosophical  writings,  the  one  entitled 
"  Analysis  of  the  Conception  of  Reason,"  the  other,  "  On 
the  Reciprocal  Influence  of  Reason  and  Language."  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  read  how  reason  is  spoken  about  in 
the  most  recent  times,  through  the  influence  of  the 
Kantian  error,  which  after  him  increased  like  an  ava 
lanche,  we  are  obliged  to  assume  that  the  whole  of  the 
wise  men  of  antiquity,  and  also  all  philosophers  before 
Kant,  had  absolutely  no  reason  at  all ;  for  the  immediate 
perceptions,  intuitions,  apprehensions,  presentiments  of  the 


142      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

reason  now  discovered  were  as  utterly  unknown  to  them 
as  the  sixth  sense  of  the  bat  is  to  us.  And  as  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  I  must  confess  that  I  also,  in  my  weakness,  can 
not  comprehend  or  imagine  that  reason  which  directly 
perceives  or  apprehends,  or  has  an  intellectual  intuition  of 
the  super-sensible,  the  absolute,  together  with  long  yarns 
that  accompany  it,  in  any  other  way  than  as  the  sixth 
sense  of  the  bat.  This,  however,  must  be  said  in  favour 
of  the  invention  or  discovery  of  such  a  reason,  which  at 
once  directly  perceives  whatever  you  choose,  that  it  is  an 
incomparable  expedient  for  withdrawing  oneself  from  the 
affair  in  the  easiest  manner  in  the  world,  along  with  one's 
favourite  ideas,  in  spite  of  all  Kants,  with  their  Critiques 
of  Reason.  The  invention  and  the  reception  it  has  met 
with  do  honour  to  the  age. 

Thus,  although  what  is  essential  in  reason  (TO  Xoyi/jiov,  77 
<j}povr]ai$,  ratio,  raison,  Vernuuft)  was,  on  the  whole  and 
in  general,  rightly  understood  by  all  philosophers  of  all 
ages,  though  not  sharply  enough  defined  nor  reduced  to 
one  point,  yet  it  was  not  so  clear  to  them  what  the 
understanding  (you?,  Siavoia,  intellectus,  esprit,  Verstand)  is. 
Therefore  they  often  confuse  it  with  reason,  and  just  on 
this  account  they  did  not  attain  to  a  thoroughly  complete, 
pure,  and  simple  explanation  of  the  nature  of  the  latter. 
With  the  Christian  philosophers  the  conception  of  reason 
received  an  entirely  extraneous,  subsidiary  meaning  through 
the  opposition  of  it  to  revelation.  Starting,  then,  from  this, 
many  are  justly  of  opinion  that  the  knowledge  of  the  duty  of 
virtue  is  possible  from  mere  reason,  i.e.,  without  revelation. 
Indeed  this  aspect  of  the  matter  certainly  had  influence 
upon  Kant's  exposition  and  language.  But  this  opposition 
is  properly  of  positive,  historical  significance,  and  is  there 
fore  for  philosophy  a  foreign  element,  from  which  it  must 
keep  itself  free. 

We  might  have  expected  that  in  his  critiques  of  theo 
retical  and  practical  reason  Kant  would  have  started  with 
an  exposition  of  the  nature  of  reason  in  general,  and,  after 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      143 

he  had  thus  defined  the  genus,  would  have  gone  on  to  the 
explanation  of  the  two  species,  showing  how  one  and  the 
same  reason  manifests  itself  in  two  such  different  ways, 
and  yet,  hy  retaining  its  principal  characteristic,  proves 
itself  to  be  the  same.  But  we  find  nothing  of  all  this.  I 
have  already  shown  how  inadequate,  vacillating,  and  in 
consistent  are  the  explanations  of  the  faculty  he  is  criti 
cising,  which  he  gives  here  and  there  by  the  way  in  the 
"  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason."  The  practical  reason  appears 
in  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  "  without  any  introduction, 
and  afterwards  stands  in  the  "  Critique  "  specially  devoted 
to  itself  as  something  already  established.  No  further 
account  of  it  is  given,  and  the  use  of  language  of  all  times 
and  peoples,  which  is  treated  with  contempt,  and  the  defini 
tions  of  the  conception  given  by  the  greatest  of  earlier 
philosophers,  dare  not  lift  up  their  voices.  In  general, 
we  may  conclude  from  particular  passages  that  Kant's 
opinion  amounts  to  this  :  the  knowledge  of  principles 
a  priori  is  the  essential  characteristic  of  reason :  since 
now  the  knowledge  of  the  ethical  significance  of  action  is 
not  of  empirical  origin,  it  also  is  an  a  priori  principle,  and 
accordingly  proceeds  from  the  reason,  and  therefore  thus 
far  the  reason  is  practical.  I  have  already  spoken  enough 
of  the  incorrectness  of  this  explanation  of  reason.  But, 
independently  of  this,  how  superficial  it  is,  and  what  a 
want  of  thoroughness  it  shows,  to  make  use  here  of  the 
single  quality  of  being  independent  of  experience  in  order 
to  combine  the  most  heterogeneous  things,  while  over 
looking  their  most  essential  and  immeasurable  difference 
in  other  respects.  For,  even  assuming,  though  we  do  not 
admit  it,  that  the  knowledge  of  the  ethical  significance  of 
action  springs  from  an  imperative  lying  in  us,  an  uncon 
ditioned  ought,  yet  how  fundamentally  different  would 
such  an  imperative  be  from  those  universal  forms  of  know 
ledge  of  which,  in  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  Kant 
proves  that  we  are  conscious  a  priori,  and  by  virtue  of 
which  consciousness  we  can  assert  beforehand  an  uncoil- 


144      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

ditioned  must,  valid  for  all  experience  possible  for  us. 
But  the  difference  between  this  must,  this  necessary  form 
of  all  objects  which  is  already  determined  in  the  subject, 
and  that  ought  of  morality  is  so  infinitely  great  and 
palpable  that  the  mere  fact  that  they  agree  in  the  one 
particular  that  neither  of  them  is  empirically  known 
may  indeed  be  made  use  of  for  the  purpose  of  a  witty 
comparison,  but  not  as  a  philosophical  justification  for 
regarding  their  origin  as  the  same. 

Moreover,  the  birthplace  of  this  child  of  practical  reason, 
the  absolute  ought  or  the  categorical  imperative,  is  not  in 
the  "  Critique  of  Practical  Eeason,"  but  in  that  of  "  Pure 
Eeason,"  p.  802 ;  V.  830.  The  birth  is  violent,  and  is  only 
accomplished  by  means  of  the  forceps  of  a  therefore,  which 
stands  boldly  and  audaciously,  indeed  one  might  say 
shamelessly,  between  two  propositions  which  are  utterly 
foreign  to  each  other  and  have  no  connection,  in  order  to 
combine  them  as  reason  and  consequent.  Thus,  that  not 
merely  perceptible  but  also  abstract  motives  determine 
us,  is  the  proposition  from  which  Kant  starts,  expressing 
it  in  the  following  manner :  "  Not  merely  what  excites, 
i.e.,  what  affects  the  senses  directly,  determines  human 
will,  but  we  have  a  power  of  overcoming  the  impressions 
made  upon  our  sensuous  appetitive  faculty  through  ideas 
of  that  which  is  itself  in  a  more  remote  manner  useful 
or  hurtful.  These  deliberations  as  to  what  is  worthy  of 
desire,  with  reference  to  our  whole  condition,  i.e.,  as  to 
what  is  good  and  useful,  rest  upon  reason."  (Perfectly 
right;  would  that  he  only  always  spoke  so  rationally  of 
reason  !)  "  Eeason  therefore  gives !  also  laws,  which  are 
imperatives,  i.e.,  objective  laws  of  freedom,  and  say  what 
ought  to  take  place,  though  perhaps  it  never  does  take 
place"  !  Thus,  without  further  authentication,  the  cate 
gorical  imperative  comes  into  the  world,  in  order  to  rule 
there  with  its  unconditioned  ought — a  sceptre  of  wooden 
iron.  For  in  the  conception  "  ought "  there  lies  always 
and  essentially  the  reference  to  threatened  punishment,  or 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      145 

promised  reward,  as  a  necessary  condition,  and  cannot  be 
separated  from  it  without  abolishing  the  conception  itself 
and  taking  all  meaning  from  it.  Therefore  an  uncondi 
tioned  ought  is  a  contradictio  in  adj'ecto.  It  was  necessary 
to  censure  this  mistake,  closely  as  it  is  otherwise  con 
nected  with  Kant's  great  service  to  ethics,  which  consists 
in  this,  that  he  has  freed  ethics  from  all  principles  of  the 
world  of  experience,  that  is,  from  all  direct  or  indirect 
doctrines  of  happiness,  and  has  shown  in  a  quite  special 
manner  that  the  kingdom  of  virtue  is  not  of  this  world. 
This  service  is  all  the  greater  because  all  ancient  philo 
sophers,  with  the  single  exception  of  Plato,  thus  the  Peri 
patetics,  the  Stoics,  and  the  Epicureans,  sought  by  very 
different  devices  either  to  make  virtue  and  happiness  de 
pendent  on  each  other  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason,  or  to  identify  them  in  accordance  with  the 
principle  of  contradiction.  This  charge  applies  with  equal 
force  to  all  modern  philosophers  down  to  Kant.  His 
merit  in  this  respect  is  therefore  very  great ;  yet  justice 
demands  that  we  should  also  remember  here  first  that  his 
exposition  and  elaboration  often  does  not  correspond  with 
the  tendency  and  spirit  of  his  ethics,  and  secondly  that, 
even  so,  he  is  not  really  the  first  who  separated  virtue 
from  all  principles  of  happiness.  For  Plato,  especially  in 
the  "  Republic,"  the  principal  tendency  of  which  is  just 
this,  expressly  teaches  that  virtue  is  to  be  chosen  for  itself 
alone,  even  if  unhappiness  and  ignominy  are  inevitably 
connected  with  it.  Still  more,  however,  Christianity 
preaches  a  perfectly  unselfish  virtue,  which  is  practised 
not  on  account  of  the  reward  in  a  life  after  death,  but 
quite  disinterestedly  from  love  to  God,  for  works  do  not 
justify,  but  only  faith,  which  accompanies  virtue,  so  to 
speak,  as  its  symptom,  and  therefore  appears  quite  irre 
spective  of  reward  and  of  its  own  accord.  See  Luther's 
" De  Libertate  Christiana"  I  will  not  take  into  account  at 
all  the  Indians,  in  whose  sacred  books  the  hope  of  a  re 
ward  for  our  works  is  everywhere  described  as  the  way 

VOL.  II.  K 


146      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  darkness,  which  can  never  lead  to  blessedness.  Kant's 
doctrine  of  virtue,  however,  we  do  not  find  so  pure ;  or 
rather  the  exposition  remains  far  behind  the  spirit  of  it, 
and  indeed  falls  into  inconsistency.  In  his  highest  good, 
which  he  afterwards  discussed,  we  find  virtue  united  to 
happiness.  The  ought  originally  so  unconditioned  does  yet 
afterwards  postulate  one  condition,  in  order  to  escape  from 
the  inner  contradiction  with  which  it  is  affected  and  with 
which  it  cannot  live.  Happiness  in  the  highest  good  is 
not  indeed  really  meant  to  be  the  motive  for  virtue ;  yet 
there  it  is,  like  a  secret  article,  the  existence  of  which 
reduces  all  the  rest  to  a  mere  sham  contract.  It  is  not 
really  the  reward  of  virtue,  but  yet  it  is  a  voluntary  gift 
for  which  virtue,  after  work  accomplished,  stealthily  opens 
the  hand.  One  may  convince  oneself  of  this  from  the 
"  Critique  of  Practical  Beason"  (p.  223-266  of  the  fourth, 
or  p.  264-295  of  Eosenkranz's,  edition).  The  whole  of 
Kant's  moral  theology  has  also  the  same  tendency,  and 
just  on  this  account  morality  really  destroys  itself  through 
moral  theology.  For  I  repeat  that  all  virtue  which  in  any 
way  is  practised  for  the  sake  of  a  reward  is  based  upon  a 
prudent,  methodical,  far-seeing  egoism. 

The  content  of  the  absolute  ought,  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  practical  reason,  is  the  famous :  "  So  act 
that  the  maxim  of  your  will  might  always  be  also  valid 
as  the  principle  of  a  universal  legislation."  This  principle 
presents  to  him  who  desires  a  rule  for  his  own  will  the 
task  of  seeking  such  a  rule  for  the  wills  of  all.  Then  the 
question  arises  how  such  a  rule  is  to  be  found.  Clearly, 
in  order  to  discover  the  rule  of  my  conduct,  I  ought  not 
to  have  regard  to  myself  alone,  but  to  the  sum  of  all  in 
dividuals.  Then,  instead  of  my  own  well-being,  the  well- 
being  of  all  without  distinction  becomes  my  aim.  Yet 
the  aim  still  always  remains  well-being.  I  find,  then,  that 
all  can  be  equally  well  off  only  if  each  limits  his  own 
egoism  by  that  of  others.  From  this  it  certainly  follows 
that  I  must  injure  no  one,  because,  since  this  principle  is 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      147 

assumed  to  be  universal,  I  also  will  not  be  injured.  This, 
however,  is  the  sole  ground  on  account  of  which  I,  who 
do  not  yet  possess  a  moral  principle,  but  am  only  seeking 
one,  can  wish  this  to  be  a  universal  law.  But  clearly  in 
this  way  the  desire  of  well-being,  i.e.,  egoism,  remains  the 
source  of  this  ethical  principle.  As  the  basis  of  politics 
it  would  be  excellent,  as  the  basis  of  ethics  it  is  worthless. 
For  he  who  seeks  to  establish  a  rule  for  the  wills  of  all, 
as  is  demanded  by  that  moral  principle,  necessarily  stands 
in  need  of  a  rule  himself ;  otherwise  everything  would  be 
alike  to  him.  But  this  rule  can  only  be  his  own  egoism, 
since  it  is  only  this  that  is  affected  by  the  conduct  of 
others  ;  and  therefore  it  is  only  by  means  of  this  egoism, 
and  with  reference  to  it,  that  each  one  can  have  a  will 
concerning  the  conduct  of  others,  and  that  it  is  not  a 
matter  of  indifference  to  him.  Kant  himself  very  naively 
intimates  this  (p.  123  of  the  "Critique  of  Practical 
Eeason ;  '  Eosenkranz's  edition,  p.  192),  where  he  thus 
prosecutes  the  search  for  maxims  for  the  will :  "  If  every 
one  regarded  the  need  of  others  with  complete  indiffe- 
ence,  and  thou  also  didst  belong  to  such  an  order  of  things, 
wouldst  thou  consent  thereto  ? "  Quam  temere  in  nosmet 
legem  sancimus  iniquam  I  would  be  the  rule  of  the  consent 
inquired  after.  So  also  in  the  "  Fundamental  Principles  of 
the  Metaphysic  of  Morals  "  (p.  56  of  the  third,  and  p.  50 
of  Eosenkranz's,  edition) :  "  A  will  which  resolved  to  assist 
no  one  in  distress  would  contradict  itself,  for  cases  might 
arise  in  which  it  required  the  love  and  sympathy  of  others" 
&c.  &c.  This  principle  of  ethics,  which  when  light  is 
thrown  upon  it  is  therefore  nothing  else  than  an  indirect 
and  disguised  expression  of  the  old,  simple  principle, 
"  Quod  tibi  fieri  non  vis,  alteri  ne  feceris,"  is  related  first 
and  directly  to  passivity,  suffering,  and  then  only  by  means 
of  this  to  action.  Therefore,  as  we  have  said,  it  would  be 
thoroughly  serviceable  as  a  guide  for  the  constitution  of 
the  State,  which  aims  at  the  prevention  of  the  suffering  of 
wrong,  and  also  desires  to  procure  for  all  and  each  the 


I48      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

greatest  sum  of  well-being.  But  in  ethics,  where  the  object 
of  investigation  is  action  as  action,  and  in  its  direct  signifi 
cance  for  the  actor — not  its  consequences,  suffering,  or  its 
relation  to  others — in  this  reference,  I  say,  it  is  altogether 
inadmissible,  because  at  bottom  it  really  amounts  to  a 
principle  of  happiness,  thus  to  egoism. 

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

Another  mistake  which,  because  it  offends  the  feelings  of 
every  one,  has  often  been  condemned,  and  was  satirised  by 
Schiller  in  an  epigram,  is  the  pedantic  rule  that  for  an  act 
to  be  really  good  and  meritorious  it  must  be  done  simply  and 
solely  out  of  respect  for  the  known  law  and  the  conception 
of  duty,  and  in  accordance  with  a  maxim  known  to  the 
reason  in  dbstracto,  and  not  from  any  inclination,  not  from 
benevolence  felt  towards  others,  not  from  tender-hearted 
compassion,  sympathy,  or  emotion  of  the  heart,  which 
(according  to  the  "  Critique  of  Practical  Eeason,"  p.  213; 
Eosenkranz's  edition,  p.  257)  to  right-thinking  persons 
are  indeed  very  burdensome,  as  confusing  their  deliberate 
maxims.  The  act  must  be  performed  unwillingly  and  with 
self-compulsion.  Eemember  that  nevertheless  the  hope 
of  reward  is  not  allowed  to  enter,  and  estimate  the  great 
absurdity  of  the  demand.  But,  what  is  saying  more,  this 
is  directly  opposed  to  the  true  spirit  of  virtue ;  not  the 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      149 

act,  but  the  willingness  to  do  it,  the  love  from  which  it 
proceeds,  and  without  which  it  is  a  dead  work,  consti 
tutes  its  merit.  Therefore  Christianity  rightly  teaches 
that  all  outward  works  are  worthless  if  they  do  not  pro 
ceed  from  that  genuine  disposition  which  consists  in  true 
goodwill  and  pure  love,  and  that  what  makes  blessed  and 
saves  is  not  the  works  done  (opera  operata),  but  the  faith, 
the  genuine  disposition,  which  is  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  alone,  and  which  the  free,  deliberative  will,  having 
only  the  law  in  view,  does  not  produce.  This  demand  of 
Kant's,  that  all  virtuous  conduct  shall  proceed  from  pure, 
deliberate  respect  for  the  law  and  in  accordance  with  its 
abstract  maxims,  coldly  and  without  inclination,  nay, 
opposed  to  all  inclination,  is  just  the  same  thing  as  if 
he  asserted  that  every  work  of  art  must  be  accomplished 
by  a  well-considered  application  of  aesthetical  rules.  The 
one  is  just  as  perverse  as  the  other.  The  question,  already 
handled  by  Plato  and  Seneca,  whether  virtue  can  be  taught, 
is  to  be  answered  in  the  negative.  We  must  finally  make 
up  our  minds  to  see,  what  indeed  was  the  source  of  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  election  by  grace,  that  as  regards 
its  chief  characteristic  and  its  inner  nature,  virtue,  like 
genius,  is  to  a  certain  extent  inborn ;  and  that  just  as 
little  as  all  the  professors  of  aesthetics  could  impart  to  any 
one  the  power  of  producing  works  of  genius,  i.e.,  genuine 
works  of  art,  so  little  could  all  the  professors  of  ethics 
and  preachers  of  virtue  transform  an  ignoble  into  a  vir 
tuous  and  noble  character,  the  impossibility  of  which  is 
very  much  more  apparent  than  that  of  turning  lead  into 
gold.  The  search  for  a  system  of  ethics  and  a  first  prin 
ciple  of  the  same,  which  would  have  practical  influence 
and  would  actually  transform  and  better  the  human  race, 
is  just  like  the  search  for  the  philosopher's  stone.  Yet  I 
have  spoken  at  length  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  book  of 
the  possibility  of  an  entire  change  of  mind  or  conversion 
of  man  (new  birth),  not  by  means  of  abstract  (ethics)  but 
of  intuitive  knowledge  (the  work  of  grace).  The  contents 


ISO      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  that  book  relieve  me  generally  of  the  necessity  of  dwell 
ing  longer  upon  this  point. 

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

Kant's  love  of  architectonic  symmetry  meets  us  also  in 
the  "  Critique  of  Practical  Eeason,"  for  he  has  given  it  the 
shape  of  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason,"  and  has  again 
introduced  the  same  titles  and  forms  with  manifest  inten 
tion,  which  becomes  specially  apparent  in  the  table  of  the 
categories  of  freedom. 


The  "  Philosophy  of  Law  "  is  one  of  Kant's  latest  works, 
and  is  so  poor  that,  although  I  entirely  disagree  with  it,  I 
think  a  polemic  against  it  is  superfluous,  since  of  its  own 
weakness  it  must  die  a  natural  death,  just  as  if  it  were 
not  the  work  of  this  great  man,  but  the  production  of  an 
ordinary  mortal.  Therefore,  as  regards  the  "  Philosophy  of 
Law,"  I  give  up  the  negative  mode  of  procedure  and  refer 
to  the  positive,  that  is,  to  the  short  outline  of  it  given  in 
the  fourth  book.  Just  one  or  two  general  remarks  on 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.       151 

Kant's  "  Philosophy  of  Law "  may  be  made  here.  The 
errors  which  I  have  condemned  in  considering  the  "  Cri 
tique  of  Pure  Eeason,"  as  clinging  to  Kant  throughout, 
appear  in  the  "  Philosophy  of  Law  "  in  such  excess  that 
one  often  believes  he  is  reading  a  satirical  parody  of  the 
Kantian  style,  or  at  least  that  he  is  listening  to  a  Kantian. 
Two  principal  errors,  however,  are  these.  He  desires  (and 
many  have  since  then  desired)  to  separate  the  Philosophy 
of  Law  sharply  from  ethics,  and  yet  not  to  make  the 
former  dependent  upon  positive  legislation,  i.e.,  upon  arbi 
trary  sanction,  but  to  let  the  conception  of  law  exist  for 
itself  pure  and  a  priori.  But  this  is  not  possible ;  because 
conduct,  apart  from  its  ethical  significance,  and  apart  from 
the  physical  relation  to  others,  and  thereby  from  external 
sanction,  does  not  admit  even  of  the  possibility  of  any 
third  view.  Consequently,  when  he  says,  "  Legal  obliga 
tion  is  that  which  can  be  enforced,"  this  can  is  either  to 
be  understood  physically,  and  then  all  law  is  positive  and 
arbitrary,  and  again  all  arbitrariness  that  achieves  its  end 
is  law  ;  or  the  can  is  to  be  understood  ethically,  and  we  are 
again  in  the  province  of  ethics.  With  Kant  the  conception 
of  legal  right  hovers  between  heaven  and  earth,  and  has  no 
ground  on  which  to  stand ;  with  me  it  belongs  to  ethics. 
Secondly,  his  definition  of  the  conception  law  is  entirely 
negative,  and  thereby  inadequate.1  Legal  right  is  that 
which  is  consistent  with  the  compatibility  of  the  respec 
tive  freedom  of  individuals  together,  according  to  a  general 
law."  Freedom  (here  the  empirical,  i.e.,  physical,  not  the 
moral  freedom  of  the  will)  signifies  not  being  hindered  or 
interfered  with,  and  is  thus  a  mere  negation ;  compati 
bility,  again,  has  exactly  the  same  significance.  Thus  we 
remain  with  mere  negations  and  obtain  no  positive  concep 
tion,  indeed  do  not  learn  at  all,  what  is  really  being  spoken 
about,  unless  we  know  it  already  from  some  other  source. 

1  Although  the  conception  of  legal  planation  of  these  conceptions  must 
right  is  properly  negative  in  opposi-  not  on  this  account  be  entirely  nega 
tion  to  that  of  wrong,  which  is  the  tive. 
positive  starting-point,  yet  the  ex- 


152      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

In  the  course  of  the  exposition  the  most  perverse  views 
afterwards  develop  themselves,  such  as  that  in  the  state 
of  nature,  i.e.,  outside  the  State,  there  is  no  right  to  pro 
perty  at  all,  which  really  means  that  all  right  or  law  is 
positive,  and  involves  that  natural  law  is  based  upon 
positive  law,  instead  of  which  the  case  ought  to  be  reversed. 
Further,  the  founding  of  legal  acquisition  on  possession ; 
the  ethical  obligation  to  establish  the  civil  constitution ; 
the  ground  of  the  right  of  punishment,  &c.,  &c.,  all  of 
which,  as  I  have  said,  I  do  not  regard  as  worth  a  special 
refutation.  However,  these  Kantian  errors  have  exercised 
a  very  injurious  influence.  They  have  confused  and  ob 
scured  truths  long  known  and  expressed,  and  have  occa 
sioned  strange  theories  and  much  writing  and  controversy. 
This  certainly  cannot  last,  and  we  see  already  how  truth 
and  sound  reason  again  make  way  for  themselves.  Of  the 
latter,  the  "  Naturrecht "  of  J.  C.  F.  Meister  specially  bears 
evidence,  and  is  thus  a  contrast  to  many  a  preposterous 
theory,  though  I  do  not  regard  it  as  on  this  account  a 
pattern  of  perfection. 


On  the  "  Critique  of  Judgment "  also,  after  what  has 
been  said,  I  must  be  very  short.  We  cannot  but  be  sur 
prised  that  Kant,  to  whom  art  certainly  was  very  foreign, 
and  who  to  all  appearance  had  little  susceptibility  for 
the  beautiful,  indeed  probably  never  had  the  opportunity 
of  seeing  an  important  work  of  art,  and  who  seems,  finally, 
to  have  had  no  knowledge  of  Goethe,  the  only  man  of  his 
century  and  nation  who  was  fit  to  be  placed  by  his  side 
as  his  giant  equal. — it  is,  I  say,  surprising  how,  notwith 
standing  all  this,  Kant  was  able  to  render  a  great  and 
permanent  service  to  the  philosophical  consideration  of 
art  and  the  beautiful.  His  merit  lies  in  this,  that  much 
as  men  had  reflected  upon  the  beautiful  and  upon  art, 
they  had  yet  really  always  considered  it  only  from  the 
empirical  point  of  view,  and  had  investigated  upon  a  basis 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      153 

of  facts  what  quality  distinguished  the  object  of  any  kind 
which  was  called  beautiful  from  other  objects  of  the  same 
kind.  On  this  path  they  first  arrived  at  quite  special 
principles,  and  then  at  more  general  ones.  They  sought 
to  separate  true  artistic  beauty  from  false,  and  to  discover 
marks  of  this  genuineness,  which  could  then  serve  again 
as  rules.  What  gives  pleasure  as  beautiful  and  what 
does  not,  what  therefore  is  to  be  imitated,  what  is  to  be 
striven  against,  what  is  to  be  avoided,  what  rules,  at  least 
negative  rules,  are  to  be  established,  in  short,  what  are 
the  means  of  exciting  aesthetic  satisfaction,  i.e.,  what  are 
the  conditions  of  this  residing  in  the  object — this  was 
almost  exclusively  the  theme  of  all  treatises  upon  art. 
This  path  was  followed  by  Aristotle,  and  in  the  most  re 
cent  times  we  find  it  chosen  by  Home,  Burke,  Winckel- 
inann,  Lessing,  Herder,  and  many  others.  It  is  true  that 
the  universality  of  the  sesthetical  principles  discovered 
finally  led  back  to  the  subject,  and  it  was  observed  that 
if  the  effect  upon  the  subject  were  adequately  known  we 
would  then  also  be  able  to  determine  a  priori  the  causes 
of  this  which  lie  in  the  object,  and  thus  alone  this  method 
of  treatment  could  attain  to  the  certainty  of  a  science. 
This  occasioned  once  and  again  psychological  disquisitions. 
Specially  however,  Alexander  Baumgarten  produced  with 
this  intention  a  general  aesthetic  of  all  beauty,  in  which 
he  started  from  the  conception  of  the  perfection  of  sensu 
ous  knowledge,  that  is,  of  knowledge  of  perception.  With 
him  also,  however,  the  subjective  part  is  done  with  as 
soon  as  this  conception  has  been  established,  and  he  passes 
on  to  the  objective  part  and  to  the  practical,  which  is  con 
nected  with  it.  But  here  also  the  merit  was  reserved  for 
Kant  of  investigating  seriously  and  profoundly  the  feeling 
itself,  in  consequence  of  which  we  call  the  object  occasioning 
it  beautiful,  in  order  to  discover,  wherever  it  was  possible, 
the  constituent  elements  and  conditions  of  it  in  our  nature. 
His  investigation,  therefore,  took  an  entirely  subjective 
direction.  This  path  was  clearly  the  right  one,  for  iu 


154      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

order  to  explain  a  phenomenon  which  is  given  in  its 
effects,  one  must  know  accurately  this  effect  itself,  if  one 
is  to  determine  thoroughly  the  nature  of  the  cause.  Yet 
Kant's  merit  in  this  regard  does  not  really  extend  much 
further  than  this,  that  he  has  indicated  the  right  path,  and 
by  a  provisional  attempt  has  given  an  example  of  how, 
more  or  less,  it  is  to  be  followed.  For  what  he  gave  can 
not  be  regarded  as  objective  truth  and  as  a  real  gain.  He 
gave  the  method  for  this  investigation,  he  broke  ground 
in  the  right  direction,  but  otherwise  he  missed  the  mark. 

In  the  "  Critique  of  ^Esthetical  Judgment "  the  observa 
tion  first  of  all  forces  itself  upon  us  that  Kant  retains  the 
method  which  is  peculiar  to  his  whole  philosophy,  and  which 
I  have  considered  at  length  above — I  mean  the  method  of 
starting  from  abstract  knowledge  in  order  to  establish 
knowledge  of  perception,  so  that  the  former  serves  him,  so 
to  speak,  as  a  camera  obscura  in  which  to  receive  and  sur 
vey  the  latter.  As  in  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason"  the 
forms  of  judgment  are  supposed  to  unfold  to  him  the 
knowledge  of  our  whole  world  of  perception,  so  in  this 
"  Critique  of  JEsthetical  Judgment "  he  does  not  start 
from  the  beautiful  itself,  from  the  perceptible  and  imme 
diately  beautiful,  but  from  the  judgment  of  the  beautiful, 
the  so-called,  and  very  badly  so-called,  judgment  of  taste. 
This  is  his  problem.  His  attention  is  especially  aroused 
by  the  circumstance  that  such  a  judgment  is  clearly  the 
expression  of  something  that  takes  place  in  the  subject, 
but  yet  is  just  as  universally  valid  as  if  it  concerned  a 
quality  of  the  object.  It  is  this  that  struck  him,  not  the 
beautiful  itself.  He  starts  always  merely  from  the  asser 
tions  of  others,  from  the  judgment  of  the  beautful,  not 
from  the  beautiful  itself.  It  is  therefore  as  if  he  knew  it 
simply  from  hearsay,  not  directly.  A  blind  man  of  high 
understanding  could  almost  in  the  same  way  make  up  a 
theory  of  colours  from  very  accurate  reports  which  he  had 
heard  concerning  them.  And  really  we  can  only  venture 
to  regard  Kant's  philosophemes  concerning  the  beautiful  as 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      155 

in  almost  the  same  position.  Then  we  shall  find  that 
his  theory  is  very  ingenious  indeed,  that  here  and  there 
telling  and  true  observations  are  made ;  but  his  real  solu 
tion  of  the  problem  is  so  very  insufficient,  remains  so  far 
below  the  dignity  of  the  subject,  that  it  can  never  occur 
to  us  to  accept  it  as  objective  truth.  Therefore  I  consider 
myself  relieved  from  the  necessity  of  refuting  it ;  and 
here  also  I  refer  to  the  positive  part  of  my  work. 

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

By  far  the  best  part  of  the  "  Critique  of  ^Esthetical  Judg- 


156      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

merit"  is  the  theory  of  the  sublime.  It  is  incomparably 
more  successful  than  that  of  the  beautiful,  and  does  not 
only  give,  as  that  does,  the  general  method  of  investiga 
tion,  but  also  a  part  of  the  right  way  to  it — so  much  so 
that  even  though  it  does  not  give  the  real  solution  of  the 
problem,  it  yet  touches  very  closely  upon  it. 

In  the  "  Critique  of  the  Teleological  Judgment,"  on  ac 
count  of  the  simplicity  of  the  matter,  we  can  recognise 
perhaps  more  than  anywhere  else  Kant's  rare  talent  of 
turning  a  thought  this  way  and  that  way,  and  expressing 
it  in  a  multitude  of  different  ways,  until  out  of  it  there 
grows  a  book.  The  whole  book  is  intended  to  say  this 
alone :  although  organised  bodies  necessarily  appear  to  us 
as  if  they  were  constructed  in  accordance  with  a  conceived 
design  of  an  end  which  preceded  them,  yet  we  are  not 
justified  in  assuming  that  this  is  objectively  the  case. 
For  our  intellect,  to  which  things  are  given  from  without 
and  indirectly,  which  thus  never  knows  their  inner  nature 
through  which  they  arise  and  exist,  but  merely  their  out 
ward  side,  cannot  otherwise  comprehend  a  certain  quality 
peculiar  to  organised  productions  of  nature  than  by 
analogy,  for  it  compares  it  with  the  intentionally  accom 
plished  works  of  man,  the  nature  of  which  is  determined 
by  a  design  and  the  conception  of  this  design.  This 
analogy  is  sufficient  to  enable  us  to  comprehend  the 
agreement  of  all  the  parts  with  the  whole,  and  thus  indeed 
to  give  us  the  clue  to  their  investigation ;  but  it  must  by 
no  means  on  this  account  be  made  the  actual  ground  of 
explanation  of  the  origin  and  existence  of  such  bodies. 
For  the  necessity  of  so  conceiving  them  is  of  subjective 
origin.  Somewhat  in  this  way  I  would  epitomise  Kant's 
doctrine  on  this  question.  In  its  most  important  aspect  he 
had  expounded  it  already  in  the  "Critique  of  Pure  Eeason," 
p.  692-702;  V.,  720-730.  But  in  the  knowledge  of  this 
truth  also  we  find  David  Hume  to  be  Kant's  worthy  fore 
runner.  He  also  had  keenly  controverted  that  assumption 
in  the  second  part  of  his  "  Dialogues  concerning  Natural 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      157 

Religion."  The  difference  between  Hume's  criticism  of 
that  assumption  and  Kant's  is  principally  this,  that  Hume 
criticised  it  as  an  assumption  based  upon  experience,  while 
Kant,  on  the  other  hand,  criticised  it  as  an  a  priori  assump 
tion.  Both  are  right,  and  their  expositions  supplement  each 
other.  Indeed  what  is  really  essential  in  the  Kantian 
doctrine  on  this  point  we  find  already  expressed  in  the 
commentary  of  Simplicius  on  Aristotle's  Physics :  "  77  Se 
Tr\avr)  yeyovev  avrois  CLTCO  TOV  rjyeicrdai,  Travra  ra  eve/ca 
rov  yivojAeva  Kara  Trpoaipecriv  yeve&Oai  KCLI  \oryia/j.ov)  ra 
Be  (frvcrei  /JLTJ  oirrco?  opav  <yivo/jieva"  {Error  Us  ortus  est  ex  eo, 
quod  credebant,  omnia,  quce  propter  finem  aliquem  fierent,  ex 
proposito  et  ratiocinio  fieri,  dam  videbant,  naturce  opera  non 
ita  fieri.)  Schol.  in  Arist.,  ex  edit.  Berol.,  p.  354.  Kant 
is  perfectly  right  in  the  matter ;  and  it  was  necessary  that 
after  it  had  been  shown  that  the  conception  of  cause  and 
effect  is  inapplicable  to  the  whole  of  nature  in  general,  in 
respect  of  its  existence,  it  should  also  be  shown  that  in 
respect  of  its  qualities  it  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  the 
effect  of  a  cause  guided  by  motives  (designs).  If  we  con 
sider  the  great  plausibility  of  the  physico-theological  proof, 
which  even  Voltaire  held  to  be  irrefragable,  it  was  clearly 
of  the  greatest  importance  to  show  that  what  is  subjective 
in  our  comprehension,  to  which  Kant  had  relegated  space, 
time,  and  causality,  extends  also  to  our  judgment  of 
natural  bodies ;  and  accordingly  the  compulsion  which  we 
feel  to  think  of  them  as  having  arisen  as  the  result  of  pre 
meditation,  according  to  designs,  thus  in  such  a  way  that 
the  idea  of  them  preceded  their  existence,  is  just  as  much  of 
subjective  origin  as  the  perception  of  space,  which  presents 
itself  so  objectively,  and  that  therefore  it  must  not  be  set 
up  as  objective  truth.  Kant's  exposition  of  the  matter, 
apart  fron  its  tedious  prolixity  and  repetitions,  is  excel 
lent.  He  rightly  asserts  that  we  can  never  succeed  in 
explaining  the  nature  of  organised  bodies  from  merely 
mechanical  causes,  by  which  he  understands  the  unde 
signed  and  regular  effect  of  all  the  universal  forces  of 


158      CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

nature.  Yet  I  find  here  another  flaw.  He  denies  the 
possibility  of  such  an  explanation  merely  with  regard  to 
the  teleology  and  apparent  adaptation  of  organised  bodies. 
But  we  find  that  even  where  there  is  no  organisation  the 
grounds  of  explanation  which  apply  to  one  province  of 
nature  cannot  be  transferred  to  another,  but  forsake  us  as 
soon  as  we  enter  a  new  province,  and  new  fundamental 
laws  appear  instead  of  them,  the  explanation  of  which  is 
by  no  means  to  be  expected  from  the  laws  of  the  former 
province.  Thus  in  the  province  of  the  mechanical,  properly 
so  called,  the  laws  of  gravitation,  cohesion,  rigidity,  fluidity, 
and  elasticity  prevail,  which  in  themselves  (apart  from  my 
explanation  of  all  natural  forces  as  lower  grades  of  the 
objectification  of  will)  exist  as  manifestations  of  forces 
which  cannot  be  further  explained,  but  themselves  consti 
tute  the  principles  of  all  further  explanation,  which  merely 
consists  in  reduction  to  them.  If  we  leave  this  province 
and  come  to  the  phenomena  of  chemistry,  of  electricity, 
magnetism,  crystallisation,  the  former  principles  are  ab 
solutely  of  no  use,  indeed  the  former  laws  are  no  longer 
valid,  the  former  forces  are  overcome  by  others,  and  the 
phenomena  take  place  in  direct  contradiction  to  them, 
according  to  new  laws,  which,  just  like  the  former  ones, 
are  original  and  inexplicable,  i.e.,  cannot  be  reduced  to 
more  general  ones.  Thus,  for  example,  no  one  will  ever 
succeed  in  explaining  even  the  dissolving  of  a  salt  in 
water  in  accordance  with  the  laws  proper  to  mechanics, 
much  less  the  more  complicated  phenomena  of  chemistry. 
All  this  has  already  been  explained  at  length  in  the  second 
book  of  the  present  work.  An  exposition  of  this  kind 
would,  as  it  seems  to  me,  have  been  of  great  use  in  the 
"  Critique  of  the  Teleological  Judgment,"  and  would  have 
thrown  much  light  upon  what  is  said  there.  Such  an 
exposition  would  have  been  especially  favourable  to  his 
excellent  remark  that  a  more  profound  knowledge  of  the 
real  being,  of  which  the  things  of  nature  are  the  manifes 
tation,  would  recognise  both  in  the  mechanical  (according 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      159 

to  law)  and  the  apparently  intentional  effects  of  nature 
one  and  the  same  ultimate  principle,  which  might  serve 
a3  the  more  general  ground  of  explanation  of  them  both. 
Such  a  principle  I  hope  I  have  given  by  establishing  the 
will  as  the  real  thing  in  itself;  and  in  accordance  with  it 
generally  in  the  second  book  and  the  supplements  to  it, 
but  especially  in  my  work  "  On  the  Will  in  Nature,"  the 
insight  into  the  inner  nature  of  the  apparent  design  and 
of  the  harmony  and  agreement  of  the  whole  of  nature  has 
perhaps  become  clearer  and  deeper.  Therefore  I  have 
nothing  more  to  say  about  it  here. 

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


Supplements  to  tfjc  jfirst  Book, 


1  Warum  willst  du  dich  von  uns  Allen 
Und  unsrer  Meinung  entfernen  ? ' 
Teh  schreibe  nicht  ench  zu  gefallen, 
Ihr  sollt  was  lernen." 

— GOETHE. 


VOL.  II. 


SUPPLEMENTS  TO  THE  FIRST  BOOK, 


JFirst  f&ali 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEA  OF  PERCEPTION. 
(To  §  1-7  of  the  First  Volume.} 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   STANDPOINT   OF   IDEALISM. 

IN  boundless  space  countless  shining  spheres,  about  each 
of  which,  and  illuminated  by  its  light,  there  revolve  a 
dozen  or  so  of  smaller  ones,  hot  at  the  core  and  covered 
with  a  hard,  cold  crust,  upon  whose  surface  there  have 
been  generated  from  a  mouldy  film  beings  which  live  and 
know — this  is  what  presents  itself  to  us  in  experience  as 
the  truth,  the  real,  the  world.  Yet  for  a  thinking  being 
it  is  a  precarious  position  to  stand  upon  one  of  those 
numberless  spheres  moving  freely  in  boundless  space 
without  knowing  whence  or  whither,  and  to  be  only  one 
of  innumerable  similar  beings  who  throng  and  press  and 
toil,  ceaselessly  and  quickly  arising  and  passing  away  in 
time,  which  has  no  beginning  and  no  end ;  moreover, 
nothing  permanent  but  matter  alone  and  the  recurrence 
of  the  same  varied  organised  forms,  by  means  of  certain 
ways  and  channels  which  are  there  once  for  all.  All  that 
empirical  science  can  teach  is  only  the  more  exact  nature 
and  law  of  these  events.  But  now  at  last  modern  philo 
sophy,  especially  through  Berkeley  and  Kant,  has  called 


1 64  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  I. 

to  mind  that  all  this  is  first  of  all  merely  a  phenomenon 
of  the  brain,  and  is  affected  with  such  great,  so  many, 
and  such  different  subjective  conditions  that  its  supposed 
absolute  reality  vanishes  away,  and  leaves  room  for  an 
entirely  different  scheme  of  the  world,  which  consists  of 
what  lies  at  the  foundation  of  that  phenomenon,  i.e.,  what 
is  related  to  it  as  the  thing  in  itself  is  related  to  its  mere 
manifestation. 

"  The  world  is  my  idea "  is,  like  the  axioms  of  Euclid, 
a  proposition  which  every  one  must  recognise  as  true  as 
soon  as  he  understands  it ;  although  it  is  not  a  propo 
sition  which  every  one  understands  as  soon  as  he  hears 
it.  To  have  brought  this  proposition  to  clear  conscious 
ness,  and  in  it  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  the  ideal 
and  the  real,  i.e.,  of  the  world  in  the  head  to  the  world 
outside  the  head,  together  with  the  problem  of  moral 
freedom,  is  the  distinctive  feature  of  modern  philosophy. 
For  it  was  only  after  men  had  spent  their  labour  for 
thousands  of  years  upon  a  mere  philosophy  of  the  object 
that  they  discovered  that  among  the  many  things  that 
make  the  world  so  obscure  and  doubtful  the  first  and 
chiefest  is  this,  that  however  immeasurable  and  massive 
it  may  be,  its  existence  yet  hangs  by  a  single  thread ;  and 
this  is  the  actual  consciousness  in  which  it  exists.  This 
condition,  to  which  the  existence  of  the  world  is  irrevocably 
subject,  marks  it,  in  spite  of  all  empirical  reality,  with 
the  stamp  of  ideality,  and  therefore  of  mere  phenomenal 
appearance.  Thus  on  one  side  at  least  the  world  must  be 
recognised  as  akin  to  dreams,  and  indeed  to  be  classified 
along  with  them.  For  the  same  function  of  the  brain 
which,  during  sleep,  conjures  up  before  us  a  completely 
objective,  perceptible,  and  even  palpable  world  must  have 
just  as  large  a  share  in  the  presentation  of  the  objective 
world  of  waking  life.  Both  worlds,  although  different  as 
regards  their  matter,  are  yet  clearly  moulded  in  the  one 
form.  This  form  is  the  intellect,  the  function  of  the  brain. 
Descartes  was  probably  the  first  who  attained  to  the 


THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM.  165 

degree  of  reflection  which  this  fundamental  truth  de 
mands,  and  consequently  he  made  it  the  starting-point 
of  his  philosophy,  though  provisionally  only  in  the 
form  of  a  sceptical  doubt.  When  he  took  his  cogito 
ergo  sum  as  alone  certain,  and  provisionally  regarded  the 
existence  of  the  world  as  problematical,  he  really  dis 
covered  the  essential  and  only  right  starting-point  of  all 
philosophy,  and  at  the  same  time  its  true  foundation. 
This  foundation  is  essentially  and  inevitably  the  subjective, 
the  individual  consciousness.  For  this  alone  is  and  remains 
immediate  ;  everything  else,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  medi 
ated  and  conditioned  through  it,  and  is  therefore  depen 
dent  upon  it.  Therefore  modern  philosophy  is  rightly 
regarded  as  starting  with  Descartes,  who  was  the  father 
of  it.  Not  long  afterwards  Berkeley  followed  the  same 
path  further,  and  attained  to  idealism  proper,  i.e.,  to  the 
knowledge  that  the  world  which  is  extended  in  space, 
thus  the  objective,  material  world  in  general,  exists  as 
such  simply  and  solely  in  our  idea,  and  that  it  is  false, 
and  indeed  absurd,  to  attribute  to  it,  as  such,  an  existence 
apart  from  all  idea  and  independent  of  the  knowing  sub 
ject,  thus  to  assume  matter  as  something  absolute  and 
possessed  of  real  being  in  itself.  But  his  correct  and  pro 
found  insight  into  this  truth  really  constitutes  Berkeley's 
whole  philosophy ;  in  it  he  had  exhausted  himself. 

Thus  true  philosophy  must  always  be  idealistic ;  indeed, 
it  must  be  so  in  order  to  be  merely  honest.  For  nothin^ 
is  more  certain  than  that  no  man  ever  came  out  of  him 
self  in  order  to  identify  himself  directly  with  things 
which  are  different  from  him ;  but  everything  of  which 
he  has  certain,  and  therefore  immediate,  knowledge  lies 
within  his  own  consciousness.  Beyond  this  consciousness, 
therefore,  there  can  be  no  immediate  certainty ;  but  the 
first  principles  of  a  science  must  have  such  certainty. 
For  the  empirical  standpoint  of  the  other  sciences  it  is 
quite  right  to  assume  the  objective  world  as  something 
absolutely  given  ;  but  not  so  for  the  standpoint  of  philo- 


1 66  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  I. 

sophy,  which  has  to  go  back  to  what  is  first  and  original. 
Only  consciousness  is  immediately  given;  therefore  the 
basis  of  philosophy  is  limited  to  facts  of  consciousness,  i.e., 
it  is  essentially  idealistic.  Realism  which  commends  it 
self  to  the  crude  understanding,  by  the  appearance  which 
it  assumes  of  being  matter-of-fact,  really  starts  from  an 
arbitrary  assumption,  and  is  therefore  an  empty  castle  in 
the  air,  for  it  ignores  or  denies  the  first  of  all  facts,  that 
all  that  we  know  lies  within  consciousness.  For  that 
the  objective  existence  of  things  is  conditioned  through  a 
subject  whose  ideas  they  are,  and  consequently  that  the 
objective  world  exists  only  as  idea,  is  no  hypothesis,  and 
still  less  a  dogma,  or  even  a  paradox  set  up  for  the  sake 
of  discussion ;  but  it  is  the  most  certain  and  the  simplest 
truth ;  and  the  knowledge  of  it  is  only  made  difficult  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  indeed  so  simple,  and  that  it  is  not 
every  one  who  has  sufficient  power  of  reflection  to  go  back 
to  the  first  elements  of  his  consciousness  of  things.  There 
can  never  be  an  absolute  and  independent  objective  exis 
tence  ;  indeed  such  an  existence  is  quite  unintelligible. 
For  the  objective,  as  such,  always  and  essentially  has  its 
existence  in  the  consciousness  of  a  subject,  is  thus  the 
idea  of  this  subject,  and  consequently  is  conditioned  by  it, 
and  also  by  its  forms,  the  forms  of  the  idea,  which  depend 
upon  the  subject  and  not  on  the  object. 

That  the  objective  world  would  exist  even  if  there  existed 
no  conscious  being  certainly  seems  at  the  first  blush  to 
be  unquestionable,  because  it  can  be  thought  in  the  ab 
stract,  without  bringing  to  light  the  contradiction  which 
it  carries  within  it.  But  if  we  desire  to  realise  this  abstract 
thought,  that  is,  to  reduce  it  to  ideas  of  perception,  from 
which  alone  (like  everything  abstract)  it  can  have  con 
tent  and  truth,  and  if  accordingly  we  try  to  imagine  an 
objective  world  ivithout  a  knowing  subject,  we  become  aware 
that  what  we  then  imagine  is  in  truth  the  opposite  of 
what  we  intended,  is  in  fact  nothing  else  than  the  process 
in  the  intellect  of  a  knowing  subject  who  perceives  an 


THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM.  167 

objective  world,  is  thus  exactly  what  we  desired  to  exclude. 
For  this  perceptible  and  real  world  is  clearly  a  pheno 
menon  of  the  brain ;  therefore  there  lies  a  contradiction 
in  the  assumption  that  as  such  it  ought  also  to  exist  in 
dependently  of  all  brains. 

The  principal  objection  to  the  inevitable  and  essential 
ideality  of  all  objects,  the  objection  which,  distinctly  or  in 
distinctly,  arises  in  every  one,  is  certainly  this :  My  own 
person  also  is  an  object  for  some  one  else,  is  thus  his  idea, 
and  yet  I  know  certainly  that  I  would  continue  to  exist 
even  if  he  no  longer  perceived  me.  But  all  other  objects 
also  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  his  intellect  as  I  do ; 
consequently  they  also  would  continue  to  exist  \vithout 
being  perceived  by  him.  The  answer  to  this  is:  That 
other  being  as  whose  object  I  now  regard  my  person  is 
not  absolutely  the  subject,  but  primarily  is  a  knowing 
individual.  Therefore,  if  he  no  longer  existed,  nay,  even 
if  there  existed  no  other  conscious  being  except  myself, 
yet  the  subject,  in  whose  idea  alone  all  objects  exist, 
would  by  no  means  be  on  that  account  abolished.  For  I 
myself  indeed  am  this  subject,  as  every  conscious  being 
is.  Consequently,  in  the  case  assumed,  my  person  would 
certainly  continue  to  exist,  but  still  as  idea,  in  my  own 
knowledge.  For  even  by  me  myself  it  is  always  known 
only  indirectly,  never  immediately ;  because  all  existence 
as  idea  is  indirect.  As  object,  i.e.,  as  extended,  occupying 
space  and  acting,  I  know  my  body  only  in  the  perception 
of  my  brain.  This  takes  place  by  means  of  the  senses, 
upon  data  supplied  by  which  the  percipient  understanding- 
performs  its  function  of  passing  from  effect  to  cause,  and 
thereby,  in  that  the  eye  sees  the  body  or  the  hands  touch 
it,  it  constructs  that  extended  figure  which  presents  itself  in 
space  as  my  body.  By  no  means,  however,  is  there  directly 
given  me,  either  in  some  general  feeling  of  bodily  existence 
or  in  inner  self-consciousness,  any  extension,  form,  or 
activity,  which  would  then  coincide  with  my  nature  itself, 
which  accordingly,  in  order  so  to  exist,  would  require  no 


1 68  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  I. 

other  being  in  whose  knowledge  it  might  exhibit  itself.  On 
the  contrary,  that  general  feeling  of  bodily  existence,  and 
also  self-consciousness,  exists  directly  only  in  relation  to  the 
will,  that  is,  as  agreeable  or  disagreeable,  and  as  active  in 
the  acts  of  will,  which  for  external  perception  exhibit 
themselves  as  actions  of  the  body.  From  this  it  follows 
that  the  existence  of  my  person  or  body  as  something 
extended  and  acting  always  presupposes  a  Jcnoiving  being 
distinct  from  it ;  because  it  is  essentially  an  existence  in 
apprehension,  in  the  idea,  thus  an  existence  for  another. 
In  fact,  it  is  a  phenomenon  of  brain,  just  as  much  whether 
the  brain  in  which  it  exhibits  itself  is  my  own  or  belongs 
to  another  person.  In  the  first  case  one's  own  person 
divides  itself  into  the  knowing  and  the  known,  into  object 
and  subject,  which  here  as  everywhere  stand  opposed  to 
each  other,  inseparable  and  irreconcilable.  If,  then,  my 
own  person,  in  order  to  exist  as  such,  always  requires  a 
knowing  subject,  this  will  at  least  as  much  hold  good  of 
the  other  objects  for  which  it  was  the  aim  of  the  above 
objection  to  vindicate  an  existence  independent  of  know 
ledge  and  its  subject. 

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

We  have  further  to  remark  here  that  Kant  also,  so  Ion*? 

'  O 

at  least  as  he  remained  consistent,  can  have  thought  no 


THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM.  169 

objects  among  his  things  in  themselves.  For  this  follows 
from  the  fact  that  he  proves  that  space,  and  also  time,  are 
mere  forms  of  our  perception,  which  consequently  do  not 
belong  to  things  in  themselves.  What  is  neither  in  space 
nor  in  time  can  be  no  object ;  thus  the  being  of  things  in 
themselves  cannot  be  objective,  but  of  quite  a  different 
kind,  a  metaphysical  being.  Consequently  that  Kantian 
principle  already  involves  this  principle  also,  that  the 
objective  world  exists  only  as  idea. 

In  spite  of  all  that  one  may  say,  nothing  is  so  per 
sistently  and  ever  anew  misunderstood  as  Idealism,  because 
it  is  interpreted  as  meaning  that  one  denies  the  empirical 
reality  of  the  external  world.  Upon  this  rests  the  per 
petual  return  to  the  appeal  to  common  sense,  which 
appears  in  many  forms  and  guises  ;  for  example,  as  an 
"  irresistible  conviction "  in  the  Scotch  school,  or  as 
Jacobi's  faith  in  the  reality  of  the  external  world.  The 
external  world  by  no  means  presents  itself,  as  Jacobi 
declares,  upon  credit,  and  is  accepted  by  us  upon  trust 
and  faith.  It  presents  itself  as  that  which  it  is,  and  per 
forms  directly  what  it  promises.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  Jacobi,  who  set  up  such  a  credit  or  faith  theory  of  the 
world,  and  had  the  fortune  to  impose  it  upon  a  few  pro 
fessors  of  philosophy,  who  for  thirty  years  have  philoso 
phised  upon  the  same  lines  lengthily  and  at  their  ease,  is 
the  same  man  who  once  denounced  Lessing  as  a  Spino/ist, 
and  afterwards  denounced  Schelling  as  an  atheist,  and 
who  received  from  the  latter  the  well-known  and  well- 
deserved  castigation.  In  keeping  with  such  zeal,  when  he 
reduced  the  external  world  to  a  mere  matter  of  faith  he 
only  wished  to  open  the  door  to  faith  in  general,  and  to 
prepare  belief  for  that  which  was  afterwards  really  to  be 
made  a  matter  of  belief ;  as  if,  in  order  to  introduce  a 
paper  currency,  one  should  seek  to  appeal  to  the  fact  that 
the  value  of  the  ringing  coin  also  depends  merely  on  the 
stamp  which  the  State  has  set  upon  it.  Jacobi,  in  his 
doctrine  that  the  reality  of  the  external  world  is  assumed 


170  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  I. 

upon  faith,  is  just  exactly  "  the  transcendental  realist  who 
plays  the  empirical  idealist"  censured  by  Kant  in  the 
"  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  first  edition,  p.  369. 

The  true  idealism,  on  the  contrary,  is  not  the  empirical 
but  the  transcendental.  This  leaves  the  empirical  reality  of 
the  world  untouched,  but  holds  fast  to  the  fact  that  every 
object,  thus  the  empirically  real  in  general,  is  conditioned 
in  a  twofold  manner  by  the  subject ;  in  the  first  place 
materially  or  as  object  generally,  because  an  objective 
existence  is  only  conceivable  as  opposed  to  a  subject,  and 
as  its  idea;  in  the  second  place  formally,  because  the 
mode  of  existence  of  an  object,  i.e.,  its  being  perceived 
(space,  time,  causality),  proceeds  from  the  subject,  is  pre 
arranged  in  the  subject.  Therefore  with  the  simple  or 
Berkeleian  idealism,  which  concerns  the  object  in  general, 
there  stands  in  immediate  connection  the  Kantian  idealism, 
which  concerns  the  specially  given  mode  or  manner  of 
objective  existence.  This  proves  that  the  whole  material 
world,  with  its  bodies,  which  are  extended  in  space  and, 
by  means  of  time,  have  causal  relations  to  each  other,  and 
everything  that  depends  upon  this — that  all  this  is  not 
something  which  is  there  independently  of  our  head,  but 
essentially  presupposes  the  functions  of  our  brain  by  means 
of  which  and  in  which  alone  such  an  objective  arrangement 
of  things  is  possible.  For  time,  space,  and  causality,  upon 
which  all  those  real  and  objective  events  rest,  are  them 
selves  nothing  more  than  functions  of  the  brain ;  so  that 
thus  the  unchangeable  order  of  things  which  affords  the 
criterion  and  clue  to  their  empirical  reality  itself  proceeds 
only  from  the  brain,  and  has  its  credentials  from  this  alone. 
All  this  Kant  has  expounded  fully  and  thoroughly ;  only 
he  does  not  speak  of  the  brain,  but  calls  it  "  the  faculty 
of  knowledge."  Indeed  he  has  attempted  to  prove  that 
when  that  objective  order  in  time,  space,  causality,  matter, 
&c.,  upon  which  all  the  events  of  the  real  world  ultimately 
rest,  is  properly  considered,  it  cannot  even  be  conceived 
as  a  self-existing  order,  i.e.,  an  order  of  the  thing  in  itself, 


THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM.  171 

or  as  something  absolutely  objective  and  unconditionally 
given,  for  if  one  tries  to  think  this  out  it  leads  to  contra 
dictions.  To  accomplish  this  was  the  object  of  the  anti 
nomies,  but  in  the  appendix  to  my  work  I  have  proved 
the  failure  of  the  attempt.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Kantian 
doctrine,  even  without  the  antinomies,  leads  to  the  insight 
that  things  and  the  whole  mode  of  their  existence  are 
inseparably  bound  up  with  our  consciousness  of  them. 
Therefore  whoever  has  distinctly  grasped  this  soon  attains 
to  the  conviction  that  the  assumption  that  things  also 
exist  as  such,  apart  from  and  independently  of  our  con 
sciousness,  is  really  absurd.  That  we  are  so  deeply  in 
volved  in  time,  space,  causality,  and  the  whole  regular 
process  of  experience  which  rests  upon  them,  that  we  (and 
indeed  the  brutes)  are  so  perfectly  at  home,  and  know 
how  to  find  our  way  from  the  first — this  would  not  be 
possible  if  our  intellect  were  one  thing  and  things  another, 
but  can  only  be  explained  from  the  fact  that  both  con 
stitute  one  whole,  the  intellect  itself  creates  that  order, 
and  exists  only  for  things,  while  they,  on  the  other  hand, 
exist  only  for  it. 

But  even  apart  from  the  deep  insight,  which  only 
the  Kantian  philosophy  gives,  the  inadmissibility  of  the 
assumption  of  absolute  realism  which  is  so  obstinately 
clung  to  may  be  directly  shown,  or  at  least  made  capable 
of  being  felt,  by  the  simple  exhibition  of  its  meaning  in  the 
light  of  such  considerations  as  the  following.  According 
to  realism,  the  world  is  supposed  to  exist,  as  we  know  it, 
independently  of  this  knowledge.  Let  us  once,  then,  remove 
all  percipient  beings  from  it,  and  leave  only  unorganised 
and  vegetable  nature.  Rock,  tree,  and  brook  are  there,  and 
the  blue  heaven  ;  sun,  moon,  and  stars  light  this  world,  as 
before ;  yet  certainly  in  vain,  for  there  is  no  eye  to  see  it. 
Let  us  now  in  addition  place  in  it  a  percipient  being.  Now 
that  world  presents  itself  again  in  his  brain,  and  repeats 
itself  within  it  precisely  as  it  was  formerly  without  it.  Thus 
to  the  first  world  a  second  has  been  added,  which,  although 


172  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  I. 

completely  separated  from  it,  resembles  it  to  a  nicety.  And 
now  the  subjective  world  of  this  perception  is  precisely  so 
constituted  in  subjective,  known  space  as  the  objective  world 
in  objective,  infinite  space.  But  the  subjective  world  has 
this  advantage  over  the  objective,  the  knowledge  that  that 
space,  outside  there,  is  infinite ;  indeed  it  can  also  give 
beforehand  most  minutely  and  accurately  the  whole  con 
stitution  or  necessary  properties  of  all  relations  which  are 
possible,  though  not  yet  actual,  in  that  space,  and  does  not 
require  to  examine  them.  It  can  tell  just  as  much  with 
regard  to  the  course  of  time,  and  also  with  regard  to  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect  which  governs  the  changes  in 
that  external  world.  I  think  all  this,  when  closely  con 
sidered,  turns  out  absurd  enough,  and  hence  leads  to  the 
conviction  that  that  absolute  objective  world  outside  the 
head,  independent  of  it  and  prior  to  all  knowledge,  which 
at  first  we  imagined  ourselves  to  conceive,  is  really  no 
other  than  the  second,  the  world  which  is  known  sub 
jectively,  the  world  of  idea,  as  which  alone  we  are  actually 
able  to  conceive  it.  Thus  of  its  own  accord  the  assumption 
forces  itself  upon  us,  that  the  world,  as  we  know  it,  exists 
also  only  for  our  knowledge,  therefore  in  the  idea  alone, 
and  not  a  second  time  outside  of  it.1  In  accordance,  then, 
with  this  assumption,  the  thing  in  itself,  i.e.,  that  which 
exists  independently  of  our  knowledge  and  of  every  know 
ledge,  is  to  be  regarded  as  something  completely  different 
from  the  idea  and  all  its  attributes,  thus  from  objectivity  in 
general.  What  this  is  will  be  the  subject  of  our  second  book. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  controversy  concerning  the 
reality  of  the  external  world  considered  in  §  5  of  the  first 

1  I  specially  recommend  here  the  expression,  but  I  must  confess  that 

passage   in   Lichtenberg's   "  Miscel-  it  has  never  been  easy  for  me  com- 

laneous  Writings  "  (Gothingen,  1801,  pletely  to  comprehend  it.    It  always 

vol.  ii.  p.  12)  :   "  Euler  says,  in  his  seems  to  me   as  if    the    conception 

letters  upon  various  subjects  in  con-  being  were  something  derived  from 

nection  with  natural  science  (vol.  ii.  our  thought,  and  thus,  if   there  are 

p.  228),  that  it  would  thunder  and  no  longer  any  sentient  and  thinking 

lighten  just  as  well  if  there  were  no  creatures,  then  there  is  nothing  more 

man   present    whom   the    lightning  whatever." 
might  strike.     It  is  a  very  common 


THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM.  173 

volume  rests  upon  the  assumption,  which  has  just  been 
criticised,  of  an  objective  and  a  subjective  world  both  in 
space,  and  upon  the  impossibility  which  arises  in  con 
nection  with  this  presupposition  of  a  transition  from,  one 
to  the  other,  a  bridge  between  the  two.  Upon  this  con 
troversy  I  have  still  to  add  the  following  remarks. 

The  subjective  and  the  objective  do  not  constitute  a  con 
tinuous  whole.  That  of  which  we  are  immediately  con 
scious  is  bounded  by  the  skin,  or  rat  her  by  the  extreme 
ends  of  the  nerves  which  proceed  from  the  cerebral  sys 
tem.  Beyond  this  lies  a  world  of  which  we  have  no 
knowledge  except  through  pictures  in  our  head.  Now  the 
question  is,  whether  and  how  far  there  is  a  world  inde 
pendent  of  us  which  corresponds  to  these  pictures.  The 
relation  between  the  two  could  only  be  brought  about  by 
means  of  the  law  of  causality ;  for  this  law  alone  leads 
from  what  is  given  to  something  quite  different  from  it. 
But  this  law  itself  has  first  of  all  to  prove  its  validity. 
Now  it  must  either  be  of  objective  or  of  subjective  origin  ; 
but  in  either  case  it  lies  upon  one  or  the  other  side,  and 
therefore  cannot  supply  the  bridge  between  them.  If,  as 
Locke  and  Hume  assume,  it  is  a  posteriori,  thus  drawn 
from  experience,  it  is  of  objective,  origin,  and  belongs  then 
itself  to  the  external  world  which  is  in  question.  There 
fore  it  cannot  attest  the  reality  of  this  world,  for  then, 
according  to  Locke's  method,  causality  would  be  proved 
from  experience,  and  the  reality  of  experience  from  causa 
lity.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  given  a  priori,  as  Kant  has 
more  correctly  taught  us,  then  it  is  of  subjective  origin,  and 
in  that  case  it  is  clear  that  with  it  we  remain  always  in  the 
subjective  sphere.  For  all  that  is  actually  given  empiri 
cally  in  perception  is  the  occurrence  of  a  sensation  in  the 
organ  of  sense  ;  and  the  assumption  that  this,  even  in 
general,  must  have  a  cause  rests  upon  a  law  which  is 
rooted  in  the  form  of  our  knowledge,  i.e.,  in  the  functions 
of  our  brain.  The  origin  of  this  law  is  therefore  just  as 
subjective  as  that  of  the  sensation  itself.  The  cause  of  the 


174  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  I. 

given  sensation,  which  is  assumed  in  consequence  of  this 
law,  presents  itself  at  once  in  perception  as  an  object, 
which  has  space  and  time  for  the  form  of  its  manifesta 
tion.  But  these  forms  themselves  again  are  entirely  of 
subjective  origin  ;  for  they  are  the  mode  or  method  of  our 
faculty  of  perception.  That  transition  from  the  sensation 
to  its  cause  which,  as  I  have  repeatedly  pointed  out,  lies 
at  the  foundation  of  all  sense-perception  is  certainly  suf 
ficient  to  give  us  the  empirical  presence  in  space  and 
time  of  an  empirical  object,  and  is  therefore  quite  enough 
for  the  practical  purposes  of  life ;  but  it  is  by  no  means 
sufficient  to  afford  us  any  conclusion  as  to  the  existence 
and  real  nature,  or  rather  as  to  the  intelligible  substratum, 
of  the  phenomena  which  in  this  way  arise  for  us.  Thus 
that  on  the  occasion  of  certain  sensations  occurring  in  my 
organs  of  sense  there  arises  in  my  head  a  perception  of 
things  which  are  extended  in  space,  permanent  in  time, 
and  causally  efficient  by  no  means  justifies  the  assump 
tion  that  they  also  exist  in  themselves,  i.e.,  that  such 
things  with  these  properties  belonging  absolutely  to  them 
selves  exist  independently  and  outside  of  my  head.  This 
is  the  true  outcome  of  the  Kantian  philosophy.  It  coin 
cides  with  an  earlier  result  of  Locke's,  which  is  just  as 
true,  but  far  more  easily  understood.  For  although,  as 
Locke's  doctrine  permits,  external  things  are  absolutely 
assumed  as  the  causes  of  sensations,  yet  there  can  be  no 
resemblance  between  the  sensation  in  which  the  effect  con 
sists  and  the  objective  nature  of  the  cause  which  occasions 
it.  For  the  sensation,  as  organic  function,  is  primarily 
determined  by  the  highly  artificial  and  complicated 
nature  of  our  organs  of  sense.  It  is  therefore  merely 
excited  by  the  external  cause,  but  is  then  perfected  en 
tirely  in  accordance  with  its  own  laws,  and  thus  is  com 
pletely  subjective.  Locke's  philosophy  was  the  criticism 
of  the  functions  of  sense ;  Kant  has  given  us  the  criticism 
of  the  functions  of  the  brain.  But  to  all  this  we  have  yet 
to  add  the  Berkeleian  result,  which  has  been  revised  by  me, 


THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM.  175 

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

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

But,  besides  this,  a  firm  grasp  of  the  point  of  view  of 
idealism  is  a  necessary  counterpoise  to  that  of  materialism. 
The  controversy  concerning  the  real  and  the  ideal  may  also 
be  regarded  as  a  controversy  concerning  the  existence  of 
matter.  For  it  is  the  reality  or  ideality  of  this  that  is 
ultimately  in  question.  Does  matter,  as  such,  exist  only 
in  our  idea,  or  does  it  also  exist  independently  of  it  ?  In 
the  latter  case  it  would  be  the  thing  in  itself ;  and  who 
ever  assumes  a  self-existent  matter  must  also,  consistently, 
be  a  materialist,  i.e.,  he  must  make  matter  the  principle 
of  explanation  of  all  things.  Whoever,  on  the  contrary, 
denies  its  existence  as  a  thing  in  itself  is  eo  ipso  an 
idealist.  Among  the  moderns  only  Locke  has  definitely 
and  without  ambiguity  asserted  the  reality  of  matter ;  and 
therefore  his  teaching  led,  in  the  hands  of  Condillac, 
to  the  sensualism  and  materialism  of  the  French.  Only 
Berkeley  directly  and  without  modifications  denies  matter. 
The  complete  antithesis  is  thus  that  of  idealism  and  ma 
terialism,  represented  in  its  extremes  by  Berkeley  and  the 


176  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  I. 

French  materialists  (Hollbach).  Fichte  is  not  to  be  men 
tioned  here :  he  deserves  no  place  among  true  philosophers  ; 
among  those  elect  of  mankind  who,  with  deep  earnestness, 
seek  not  their  own  things  but  the  truth,  and  therefore  must 
not  be  confused  with  those  who,  under  this  pretence,  have 
only  their  personal  advancement  in  view.  Fichte  is  the 
father  of  the  sham  philosophy,  of  the  disingenuous  method 
which,  through  ambiguity  in  the  use  of  words,  incompre 
hensible  language,  and  sophistry,  seeks  to  deceive,  and 
tries,  moreover,  to  make  a  deep  impression  by  assuming 
an  air  of  importance — in  a  word,  the  philosophy  which 
seeks  to  bamboozle  and  humbug  those  who  desire  to  learn. 
After  this  method  had  been  applied  by  Schelling,  it  reached 
its  height,  as  every  one  knows,  in  Hegel,  in  whose  hands 
it  developed  into  pure  charlatanism.  But  whoever  even 
names  this  Fichte  seriously  along  with  Kant  shows  that 
he  has  not  even  a  dim  notion  of  what  Kant  is.  On  the 
other  hand,  materialism  also  has  its  warrant.  It  is  just 
as  true  that  the  knower  is  a  product  of  matter  as  that 
matter  is  merely  the  idea  of  the  knower ;  but  it  is  also 
just  as  one-sided.  For  materialism  is  the  philosophy  of 
the  subject  that  forgets  to  take  account  of  itself.  And, 
accordingly,  as  against  the  assertion  that  I  am  a  mere 
modification  of  matter,  this  must  be  insisted  upon,  that 
all  matter  exists  merely  in  my  idea;  and  it  is  no  less 
right.  A  knowledge,  as  yet  obscure,  of  these  relations 
seems  to  have  been  the  origin  of  the  saying  of  Plato,  "  v\ij 
a\T]0ivov  tyevbos  "  (materiel  mendacium  verax). 

Realism  necessarily  leads,  as  we  have  said,  to  material 
ism.  For  if  empirical  perception  gives  us  things  in  them 
selves,  as  they  exist  independently  of  our  knowledge, 
experience  also  gives  us  the  order  of  things  in  themselves, 
i.e.,  the  true  and  sole  order  of  the  world.  But  this  path 
leads  to  the  assumption  that  there  is  only  one  thing  in 
itself,  matter;  of  which  all  other  things  are  modifications; 
for  the  course  of  nature  is  here  the  absolute  and  only  order 
of  the  world.  To  escape  from  these  consequences,  while 


THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM.  177 

realism  remained  in  undisputed  acceptance,  spiritualism 
was  set  up,  that  is,  the  assumption  of  a  second  substance 
outside  of  and  along  with  matter,  an  immaterial  substance. 
This  dualism  and  spiritualism,  equally  unsupported  by 
experience  and  destitute  of  proof  and  comprehensibility, 
was  denied  by  Spinoza,  and  was  proved  to  be  false  by 
Kant,  who  dared  to  do  so  because  at  the  same  time  he 
established  idealism  in  its  rights.  For  with  realism  ma 
terialism,  as  the  counterpoise  of  which  spiritualism  had 
been  devised,  falls  to  the  ground  of  its  own  accord,  because 
then  matter  and  the  course  of  nature  become  mere  pheno 
mena,  which  are  conditioned  by  the  intellect,  as  they  have 
their  existence  only  in  its  idea.  Accordingly  spiritualism 
is  the  delusive  and  false  safeguard  against  materialism, 
while  the  real  and  true  safeguard  is  idealism,  which,  by 
making  the  objective  world  dependent  upon  us,  gives  the 
needed  counterpoise  to  the  position  of  dependence  upon 
the  objective  world,  in  which  we  are  placed  by  the  course 
of  nature.  The  world  from  which  I  part  at  death  is,  in 
another  aspect,  only  my  idea.  The  centre  of  gravity  of 
existence  falls  back  into  the  subject.  What  is  proved  is 
not,  as  in  spiritualism,  that  the  knower  is  independent  of 
matter,  but  that  all  matter  is  dependent  on  him.  Cer 
tainly  this  is  not  so  easy  to  comprehend  or  so  convenient 
to  handle  as  spiritualism,  with  its  two  substances ;  but 
^aXe-Tro.  ra  Ka\a. 

In  opposition  to  the  subjective  starting-point,  "  the  world 
is  my  idea,"  there  certainly  stands  provisionally  with 
equal  justification  the  objective  starting-point,  "  the  world 
is  matter,"  or  "  matter  alone  is  absolute  "  (since  it  alone  is 
not  subject  to  becoming  and  passing  away),  or  "  all  that 
exists  is  matter."  This  is  the  starting-point  of  Democritus, 
Leucippus,  and  Epicurus.  But,  more  closely  considered, 
the  departure  from  the  subject  retains  a  real  advantage ; 
it  has  the  start  by  one  perfectly  justified  step.  For  con 
sciousness  alone  is  the  immediate:  but  we  pass  over  this 
if  we  go  at  once  to  matter  and  make  it  our  starting-point. 

VOL.  II.  M 


178  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  I. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  would  certainly  be  possible  to  con 
struct  the  world  from  matter  and  its  properties  if  these 
were  correctly,  completely,  and  exhaustively  known  to  us 
(which  is  far  from  being  the  case  as  yet).  For  all  that 
has  come  to  be  has  become  actual  through  causes,  which 
could  operate  and  come  together  only  by  virtue  of  the 
fundamental  forces  of  matter.  But  these  must  be  perfectly 
capable  of  demonstration  at  least  objectively,  even  if  sub 
jectively  we  never  attain  to  a  knowledge  of  them.  But 
such  an  explanation  and  construction  of  the  world  would 
not  only  have  at  its  foundation  the  assumption  of  an  exist 
ence  in  itself  of  matter  (while  in  truth  it  is  conditioned 
by  the  subject),  but  it  would  also  be  obliged  to  allow  all 
the  original  qualities  in  this  matter  to  pass  current  and 
remain  absolutely  inexplicable,  thus  as  gualitates  occultce. 
(Of.  §  26,  27  of  the  first  volume.)  For  matter  is  only  the 
vehicle  of  these  forces,  just  as  the  law  of  causality  is  only 
the  arranger  of  their  manifestations.  Therefore  such  an 
explanation  of  the  world  would  always  remain  merely 
relative  and  conditioned,  properly  the  work  of  a  physical 
science,  which  at  every  step  longed  for  a  metapliysic.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  is  also  something  inadequate  about 
the  subjective  starting-point  and  first  principle,  "  the  world 
is  my  idea,"  partly  because  it  is  one-sided,  since  the  world 
is  far  more  than  that  (the  thing  in  itself,  will),  and  indeed 
its  existence  as  idea  is  to  a  certain  extent  only  accidental 
to  it ;  but  partly  also  because  it  merely  expresses  the  fact 
that  the  object  is  conditioned  by  the  subject,  without  at 
the  same  time  saying  that  the  subject,  as  such,  is  also  con 
ditioned  by  the  object.  For  the  assertion,  "  the  subject 
would  still  remain  a  knowing  being  if  it  had  no  object,  i.e., 
if  it  had  absolutely  no  idea,"  is  just  as  false  as  the  asser 
tion  of  the  crude  understanding,  "  the  world,  the  object, 
would  still  exist,  even  if  there  were  no  subject."  A  con 
sciousness  without  an  object  is  no  consciousness.  A  think 
ing  subject  has  conceptions  for  its  object;  a  subject  of 
sense  perception  has  objects  with  the  qualities  correspond- 


THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM.  179 

ing  to  its  organisation.  If  we  rob  the  subject  of  all  special 
characteristics  and  forms  of  its  knowledge,  all  the  pro 
perties  of  the  object  vanish  also,  and  nothing  remains  but 
matter  without  form  and  quality,  which  can  just  as  little 
occur  in  experience  as  a  subject  without  the  forms  of  its 
knowledge,  but  which  remains  opposed  to  the  naked  sub 
ject  as  such,  as  its  reflex,  which  can  only  disappear  along 
with  it,  Although  materialism  pretends  to  postulate 
nothing  more  than  this  matter — for  instance,  atoms — yet 
it  unconsciously  adds  to  it  not  only  the  subject,  but  also 
space,  time,  and  causality,  which  depend  upon  special  pro 
perties  of  the  subject. 

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


i So  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  I. 

at  only  by  abstraction,  and  are  not  given  immediately, 
pure  and  for  themselves. 

The  fundamental  error  of  all  systems  is  the  failure  to 
understand  this  truth.  Intelligence  and  matter  are  corre 
lates,  i.e.,  the  one  exists  only  for  the  other,  both  stand  and 
fall  together,  the  one  is  only  the  reflex  of  the  other.  In 
deed  they  are  really  one  and  the  same  thing  regarded  from 
two  opposite  points  of  view ;  and  this  one  thing,  I  am  here 
anticipating,  is  the  manifestation  of  the  will,  or  the  thing 
in  itself.  Consequently  both  are  secondary,  and  therefore 
the  origin  of  the  world  is  not  to  be  sought  in  either  of  the 
two.  But  because  of  their  failure  to  understand  this,  all 
systems  (with  the  exception  perhaps  of  that  of  Spinoza) 
sought  the  origin  of  all  things  in  one  of  these  two.  Some 
of  them,  on  the  one  hand,  suppose  an  intelligence,  vovs, 
as  the  absolutely  First  and  STj/j^ovpyo^,  and  accordingly  in 
this  allow  an  idea  of  things  and  of  the  world  to  precede 
their  actual  existence;  consequently  they  distinguish  the 
real  world  from  the  world  of  idea  ;  which  is  false.  There 
fore  matter  now  appears  as  that  through  which  the  two 
are  distinguished,  as  the  thing  in  itself.  Hence  arises  the 
difficulty  of  procuring  this  matter,  the  v\r],  so  that  when 
added  to  the  mere  idea  of  the  world  it  may  impart  reality 
to  it.  That  original  intelligence  must  now  either  find  it 
ready  to  hand,  in  which  case  it  is  just  as  much  an  absolute 
First  as  that  intelligence  itself,  and  we  have  then  two 
absolute  Firsts,  the  Sr)/j,ioupyos  and  the  v\r) ;  or  the  abso 
lute  intelligence  must  create  this  matter  out  of  nothing, 
an  assumption  which  our  understanding  refuses  to  make, 
for  it  is  only  capable  of  comprehending  changes  in  matter, 
and  not  that  matter  itself  should  come  into  being  or  pass 
away.  This  rests  ultimately  upon  the  fact  that  matter  is 
essential,  the  correlate  of  the  understanding.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  systems  opposed  to  these,  which  make  the  other 
of  the  two  correlates,  that  is,  matter,  the  absolute  First, 
suppose  a  matter  which  would  exist  without  being  per 
ceived  ;  and  it  has  been  made  sufficiently  clear  by  all  that 


THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM.  iSr 

has  been  said  above  that  this  is  a  direct  contradiction,  for 
by  the  existence  of  matter  we  always  mean  simply  its 
being  perceived.  But  here  they  encounter  the  difficulty 
of  bringing  to  this  matter,  which  alone  is  their  absolute 
First,  the  intelligence  which  is  finally  to  experience  it. 
I  have  shown  this  weak  side  of  materialism  in  §  7  of 
the  first  volume.  For  me,  on  the  contrary,  matter  and 
intelligence  are  inseparable  correlates,  which  exist  only 
for  each  other,  and  therefore  merely  relatively.  Matter 
is  the  idea  of  the  intelligence ;  the  intelligence  is  that  in 
whose  idea  alone  matter  exists.  The  two  together  con 
stitute  the  world  as  idea,  which  is  just  Kant's  phenomenon, 
and  consequently  something  secondary.  What  is  primary 
is  that  which  manifests  itself,  the  thing  in  itself,  which  we 
shall  afterwards  discover  is  the  will.  This  is  in  itself 
neither  the  perceiver  nor  the  perceived,  but  is  entirely 
different  from  the  mode  of  its  manifestation. 

As  a  forcible  conclusion  of  this  important  and  difficult 
discussion  I  shall  now  personify  these  two  abstractions, 
and  present  them  in  a  dialogue  after  the  fashion  of  Pra- 
bodha  Tschandro  Daya.  It  may  also  be  compared  with  a 
similar  dialogue  between  matter  and  form  in  the  "Duodccim 
Principia  Philosophies, "  of  Eaymund  Lully,  c.  I  and  2. 

The  Subject. 

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

Matter. 

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

The  Subject. 

What  insane  arrogance !  Neither  thou  nor  thy  form 
would  exist  without  me ;  ye  are  conditioned  by  me. 
Whosoever  thinks  me  away,  and  believes  he  can  still  think 


1 82  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  I. 

ye  there,  is  involved  in  gross  delusion,  for  your  existence 
apart  from  my  idea  is  a  direct  contradiction,  a  meaningless 
form  of  words.  Ye  are  simply  means  ye  are  perceived  by 
me.  My  idea  is  the  sphere  of  your  existence;  therefore  I 
am  its  first  condition. 

Matter. 

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

•/  o       o 

The  Subject. 

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

Matter. 

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


THE  STANDPOINT  OF  IDEALISM.  183 

and  fancies  of  thy  individuals,  which  have  yet  borrowed 
from  me  even  the  illusive  content  they  possess. 

The  Subject. 

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

Both. 

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


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


1 84 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   DOCTRINE   OF   PERCEPTION   OR   KNOWLEDGE   OF 
THE   UNDERSTANDING. 

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

Without  application  of  the  law  of  causality,  however, 
perception  of  an  objective  world  could  never  be  arrived  at ; 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  PERCEPTION.  185 

for  this  perception  is,  as  I  have  often  explained,  essentially 
matter  of  the  intellect,  and  not  merely  of  the  senses.  The 
senses  afford  us  mere  sensation,  which  is  far  from  being 
perception.  The  part  played  by  sensations  of  the  senses 
in  perception  was  distinguished  by  Locke  under  the 
name  secondary  qualities,  which  he  rightly  refused  to 
ascribe  to  things  in  themselves.  But  Kant,  carrying 
Locke's  method  further,  distinguished  also,  and  refused 
to  ascribe  to  things  in  themselves  what  belongs  to  the 
working  up  of  this  material  (the  sensations)  by  the  brain. 
The  result  was,  that  in  this  was  included  all  that  Locke 
had  left  to  things  in  themselves  as  primary  qualities 
— extension,  form,  solidity,  &c. — so  that  with  Kant  the 
thing  in  itself  was  reduced  to  a  completely  unknown 
quantity  =  x.  With  Locke  accordingly  the  thing  in  itself 
is  certainly  without  colour,  sound,  smell,  taste,  neither 
warm  nor  cold,  neither  soft  nor  hard,  neither  smooth  nor 
rough ;  yet  it  has  still  extension  and  form,  it  is  impene 
trable,  at  rest  or  in  motion,  and  has  mass  and  number. 
With  Kant,  on  the  other  hand,  it  has  laid  aside  all  these 
latter  qualities  also,  because  they  are  only  possible  by 
means  of  time,  space,  and  causality,  and  these  spring  from 
an  intellect  (brain),  just  as  colours,  tones,  smells,  &c., 
originate  in  the  nerves  of  the  organs  of  sense.  The  thing 
in  itself  has  with  Kant  become  spaceless,  unextended,  and 
incorporeal.  Thus  what  the  mere  senses  bring  to  the 
perception,  in  which  the  objective  world  exists,  stands  to 
what  is  supplied  by  the  functions  of  the  brain  (space,  time, 
causality)  as  the  mass  of  the  nerves  of  sense  stand  to  the 
mass  of  the  brain,  after  subtracting  that  part  of  the  latter 
which  is  further  applied  to  thinking  proper,  i.e.,  to  abstract 
ideas,  and  is  therefore  not  possessed  by  the  brutes.  Eor 
as  the  nerves  of  the  organs  of  sense  impart  to  the  pheno 
menal  objects  colour,  sound,  taste,  smell,  temperature,  &c., 
so  the  brain  imparts  to  them  extension,  form,  impenetra 
bility,  the  power  of  movement,  &c.,  in  short  all  that  can 
only  be  presented  in  perception  by  means  of  time,  space, 


186  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  II. 

and  causality.  How  small  is  the  share  of  the  senses  in 
perception,  compared  with  that  of  the  intellect,  is  also 
shown  by  a  comparison  of  the  nerve  apparatus  for  receiv 
ing  impressions  with  that  for  working  them  up.  The  mass 
of  the  nerves  of  sensation  of  the  whole  of  the  organs  of 
sense  is  very  small  compared  with  that  of  the  brain,  even 
in  the  case  of  the  brutes,  whose  brain,  since  they  do  not, 
properly  speaking,  i.e.,  in  the  abstract,  think,  is  merely 
used  for  effecting  perception,  and  yet  when  this  is  com 
plete,  thus  in  the  case  of  mammals,  has  a  very  considerable 
mass,  even  after  the  cerebellum,  whose  function  is  the 
systematic  guidance  of  movements,  has  been  taken  away. 

That  excellent  book  by  Thomas  Eeid,  the  "  Inquiry  into 
the  Human  Mind"  (first  edition,  1764;  6th  edition,  1810), 
as  a  negative  proof  of  the  Kantian  truths,  affords  us  a  very 
thorough  conviction  of  the  inadequacy  of  the  senses  to  pro 
duce  the  objective  perception  of  things,  and  also  of  the  non- 
empirical  origin  of  the  perception  of  space  and  time.  Eeid 
refutes  Locke's  doctrine  that  perception  is  a  product  of 
the  senses,  by  a  thorough  and  acute  demonstration  that  the 
collective  sensations  of  the  senses  do  not  bear  the  least  re 
semblance  to  the  world  as  known  in  perception,  and  espe 
cially  that  the  five  primary  qualities  of  Locke  (extension, 
form,  solidity,  movement,  and  number)  absolutely  could  not 
be  afforded  us  by  any  sensation  of  the  senses.  Accordingly 
he  gives  up  the  question  as  to  the  mode  of  origination 
and  the  source  of  perception  as  completely  insoluble ;  and 
although  altogether  unacquainted  with  Kant,  he  gives  us, 
as  it  were,  according  to  the  regula  falsi,  a  thorough  proof  of 
the  intellectual  nature  of  perception  (really  first  explained 
by  me  as  a  consequence  of  the  Kantian  doctrine),  and  also 
of  the  a  priori  source,  discovered  by  Kant,  of  its  consti 
tuent  elements,  space,  time,  and  causality,  from  which 
those  primary  qualities  of  Locke  first  proceed,  but  by 
means  of  which  they  are  easily  constructed.  Thomas 
Eeid's  book  is  very  instructive  and  well  worth  reading — 
ten  times  more  so  than  all  the  philosophy  together  that  has 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  PERCEPTION.  187 

been  written  since  Kant.  Another  indirect  proof  of  the 
same  doctrine,  though  in  the  way  of  error,  is  afforded  by 
the  French  sensational  philosophers,  who,  since  Condillac 
trod  in  the  footsteps  of  Locke,  have  laboured  to  show 
once  for  all  that  the  whole  of  our  perception  and  thinking 
can  be  referred  to  mere  sensations  (penser  cest  sentir), 
which,  after  Locke's  example,  they  call  iddes  simples,  and 
through  the  mere  coming  together  and  comparison  of  which 
the  whole  objective  world  is  supposed  to  build  itself  up 
in  our  heads.  These  gentlemen  certainly  have  des  ide'es 
lien  simples.  It  is  amusing  to  see  how,  lacking  alike 
the  profundity  of  the  German  and  the  honesty  of  the 
English  philosopher,  they  turn  the  poor  material  of  sensa 
tion  this  way  and  that  way,  and  try  to  increase  its  impor 
tance,  in  order  to  construct  out  of  it  the  deeply  significant 
phenomena  of  the  world  of  perception  and  thought.  But 
the  man  constructed  by  them  would  necessarily  be  an 
Anencephalus,  a  T6te  de  crapaud,  with  only  organs  of  sense 
and  without  a  brain.  To  take  only  a  couple  of  the  better 
attempts  of  this  sort  out  of  a  multitude  of  others,  I  may 
mention  as  examples  Condorcet  at  the  beginning  of  hi* 
book,  "Des  Progress  de  V Esprit  Humain"  and  Tourtual 
on  Sight,  in  the  second  volume  of  the  "  Scriptores  Ophthal- 
mologici  Minores"  edidit  Justus  Radius  (1828). 

The  feeling  of  the  insufficiency  of  a  purely  sensational- 
istic  explanation  of  perception  is  in  like  manner  shown  in 
the  assertion  which  was  made  shortly  before  the  appear 
ance  of  the  Kantian  philosophy,  that  we  not  only  have 
ideas  of  things  called  forth  by  sensation,  but  apprehend 
the  things  themselves  directly,  although  they  lie  outside  us 
— which  is  certainly  inconceivable.  And  this  was  not 
meant  in  some  idealistic  sense,  but  was  said  from  the 
point  of  view  of  common  realism.  This  assertion  is  well 
and  pointedly  put  by  the  celebrated  Euler  in  his  "  Letters 
to  a  German  Princess,"  vol.  ii.  p.  68.  He  says  :  "  I  there 
fore  believe  that  the  sensations  (of  the  senses)  contain 
something  more  than  philosophers  imagine.  They  are  not 


1 88  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  II. 

merely  empty  perceptions  of  certain  impressions  made  in 
the  brain.  They  do  not  give  the  soul  mere  ideas  of  things, 
but  actually  place  before  it  objects  which  exist  outside 
it,  although  we  cannot  conceive  how  this  really  hap 
pens."  This  opinion  is  explained  by  the  following  facts. 
Although,  as  I  have  fully  proved,  perception  is  brought 
about  by  application  of  the  law  of  causality,  of  which  we 
are  conscious  a  priori,  yet  in  sight  the  act  of  the  under 
standing,  by  means  of  which  we  pass  from  the  effect  to 
the  cause,  by  no  means  appears  distinctly  in  conscious 
ness  ;  and  therefore  the  sensation  does  not  separate  itself 
clearly  from  the  idea  which  is  constructed  out  of  it,  as  the 
raw  material,  by  the  understanding.  Still  less  can  a  dis 
tinction  between  object  and  idea,  which  in  general  does 
not  exist,  appear  in  consciousness ;  but  we  feel  the  things 
themselves  quite  directly,  and  indeed  as  lying  outside  us, 
although  it  is  certain  that  what  is  immediate  can  only  be 
the  sensation,  and  this  is  confined  to  the  sphere  of  the  body 
enclosed  by  our  skin.  This  can  be  explained  from  the  fact 
that  outside  us  is  exclusively  a  spatial  determination.  But 
space  itself  is  a  form  of  our  faculty  of  perception,  i.e.,  a 
function  of  our  brain.  Therefore  that  externality  to  us  to 
which  we  refer  objects,  on  the  occasion  of  sensations  of 
sight,  is  itself  really  within  our  heads  ;  for  that  is  its 
whole  sphere  of  activity.  Much  as  in  the  theatre  we  see 
the  mountains,  the  woods,  and  the  sea,  but  yet  everything 
is  inside  the  house.  From  this  it  becomes  intelligible  that 
we  perceive  things  in  the  relation  of  externality,  and  yet 
in  every  respect  immediately,  but  have  not  within  us  an 
idea  of  the  things  which  lie  outside  us,  different  from  these 
things.  For  things  are  in  space,  and  consequently  also 
external  to  us  only  in  so  far  as  we  perceive  them.  There 
fore  those  things  which  to  this  extent  we  perceive  directly, 
and  not  mere  images  of  them,  are  themselves  only  our 
ideas,  and  as  such  exist  only  in  our  heads.  Therefore  we 
do  not,  as  Euler  says,  directly  perceive  the  things  them 
selves  which  are  external  to  us,  but  rather  the  things 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  PERCEPTION.  189 

which  are  perceived  by  us  as  external  to  us  are  only  our 
ideas,  and  consequently  are  apprehended  by  us  imme 
diately.  The  whole  observation  given  above  in  Euler's 
words,  and  which  is  quite  correct,  affords  a  fresh  proof  of 
Kant's  Transcendental  ^Esthetic,  and  of  my  theory  of  per 
ception  which  is  founded  upon  it,  as  also  of  idealism  in 
general.  The  directness  and  unconsciousness  referred  to 
above,  with  which  in  perception  we  make  the  transition 
from  the  sensation  to  its  cause,  may  be  illustrated  by  an 
analogous  procedure  in  the  use  of  abstract  ideas  or  think 
ing.  When  we  read  or  hear  we  receive  mere  words,  but 
we  pass  from  these  so  immediately  to. the  conceptions  de 
noted  by  them,  that  it  is  as  if  we  received  the  conceptions 
directly  ;  for  we  are  absolutely  unconscious  of  the  tran 
sition  from  the  words  to  the  conceptions.  Therefore  it 
sometimes  happens  that  we  do  not  know  in  what  language 
it  was  that  we  read  something  yesterday  which  we  now 
remember.  Yet  that  such  a  transition  always  takes  place 
becomes  apparent  if  it  is  once  omitted,  that  is,  if  in  a  fit  of 
abstraction  we  read  without  thinking,  and  then  become 
aware  that  we  certainly  have  taken  in  all  the  words  but 
no  conceptions.  Only  when  we  pass  from  abstract  con 
ceptions  to  pictures  of  the  imagination  do  we  become 
conscious  of  the  transposition  we  have  made. 

Further,  it  is  really  only  in  perception  in  the  narrowest 
sense,  that  is,  in  sight,  that  in  empirical  apprehension  the 
transition  from  the  sensation  to  its  cause  takes  place  quite 
unconsciously.  In  every  other  kind  of  sense  perception, 
on  the  contrary,  the  transition  takes  place  with  more 
or  less  distinct  consciousness;  therefore,  in  the  case  of 
apprehension  through  the  four  coarser  senses,  its  reality  is 
capable  of  being  established  as  an  immediate  fact.  Thus 
in  the  dark  we  feel  a  thing  for  a  long  time  on  all 
sides  until  from  the  different  effects  upon  our  hands 
we  are  able  to  construct  its  definite  form  as  their  cause. 
Further,  if  something  feels  smooth  we  sometimes  reflect 
whether  we  may  not  have  fat  or  oil  upon  our  hands;  and 


190  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  II. 

again,  if  something  feels  cold  we  ask  ourselves  whether  it 
may  not  be  that  we  have  very  warm  hands.  When  we 
hear  a  sound  we  sometimes  doubt  whether  it  was  really 
an  affection  of  our  sense  of  hearing  from  without  or  merely 
an  inner  affection  of  it ;  then  whether  it  sounded  near  and 
weak  or  far  off  and  strong,  then  from  what  direction  it 
came,  and  finally  whether  it  was  the  voice  of  a  man  or  of 
a  brute,  or  the  sound  of  an  instrument ;  thus  we  investi 
gate  the  cause  of  each  effect  we  experience.  In  the  case 
of  smell  and  taste  uncertainty  as  to  the  objective  nature 
of  the  cause  of  the  effect  felt  is  of  the  commonest  oc 
currence,  so  distinctly  are  the  two  separated  here.  The 
fact  that  in  sight  the  transition  from  the  effect  to  the 
cause  occurs  quite  unconsciously,  and  hence  the  illusion 
arises  that  this  kind  of  perception  is  perfectly  direct,  and 
consists  simply  in  the  sensation  alone  without  any  opera 
tion  of  the  understanding — this  has  its  explanation  partly 
in  the  great  perfection  of  the  organ  of  vision,  and  partly 
in  the  exclusively  rectilineal  action  of  light.  On  account 
of  the  latter  circumstance  the  impression  itself  leads 
directly  to  the  place  of  the  cause,  and  since  the  eye  is 
capable  of  perceiving  with  the  greatest  exactness  and  at  a 
glance  all  the  fine  distinctions  of  light  and  shade,  colour 
and  outline,  and  also  the  data  in  accordance  with  which 
the  understanding  estimates  distance,  it  thus  happens  that 
in  the  case  of  impressions  of  this  sense  the  operation  of 
the  understanding  takes  place  with  such  rapidity  and 
certainty  that  we  are  just  as  little  conscious  of  it  as  of 
spelling  when  we  read.  Hence  arises  the  delusion  that 
the  sensation  itself  presents  us  directly  with  the  objects. 
Yet  it  is  just  in  sight  that  the  operation  of  the  under 
standing,  consisting  in  the  knowledge  of  the  cause  from 
the  effect,  is  most  significant.  By  means  of  it  what  is  felt 
doubly,  with  two  eyes,  is  perceived  as  single ;  by  means  of 
it  the  impression  which  strikes  the  retina  upside  down,  in 
consequence  of  the  crossing  of  the  rays  in  the  pupils,  is 
put  right  by  following  back  the  cause  of  this  in  the  same 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  PERCEPTION.  191 

direction,  or  as  we  express  ourselves,  we  see  things  upright 
although  their  image  in  the  eye  is  reversed ;  and  finally 
by  means  of  the  operation  of  the  understanding  magni 
tude  and  distance  are  estimated  by  us  in  direct  perception 
from  five  different  data,  which  are  very  clearly  and  beau 
tifully  described  by  Dr.  Thomas  Reid.  I  expounded  all 
this,  and  also  the  proofs  which  irrefutably  establish  the 
intellectual  nature  of  perception,  as  long  ago  as  1 8 1 6,  in  my 
essay  "On  Sight  and  Colour"  (second  edition,  1854;  third 
edition,  1870),  and  with  important  additions  fifteen  years 
later  in  the  revised  Latin  version  of  it  which  is  given 
under  the  title,  "  Theoria  Colorum  Physiologica  Eademque 
Primaria,"  in  the  third  volume  of  the  "  Script&res  Oplithal- 
mologici  Minores"  published  by  Justus  Eadius  in  1830 ;  yet 
most  fully  and  thoroughly  in  the  second  (and  third)  edition 
of  my  essay  "  On  the  Principle  of  Sufficient  Reason,"  §  21. 
Therefore  on  this  important  subject  I  refer  to  these  works, 
so  as  not  to  extend  unduly  the  present  exposition. 

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

The  apparent  immediacy  of  perception,  depending  on 


192  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  II. 

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


(    193    ) 


CHAPTER   III. 

ON   THE   SENSES. 

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

The  senses  are  merely  the  channels  through  which  the 
brain  receives  from  without  (in  the  form  of  sensations) 
the  materials  which  it  works  up  into  ideas  of  perception. 
Those  sensations  which  principally  serve  for  the  objective 
comprehension  of  the  external  world  must  in  themselves 
be  neither  agreeable  nor  disagreeable.  This  really  means 
that  they  must  leave  the  will  entirely  unaffected.  Other 
wise  the  sensation  itself  would  attract  our  attention,  and 
we  would  remain  at  the  effect  instead  of  passing  to  the 
cause,  which  is  what  is  aimed  at  here.  For  it  would 
bring  with  it  that  marked  superiority,  as  regards  our 
consideration,  which  the  will  always  has  over  the  mere 
idea,  to  which  we  only  turn  when  the  will  is  silent. 
Therefore  colours  and  sounds  are  in  themselves,  and  so 
long  as  their  impression  does  not  pass  the  normal  degree, 
neither  painful  nor  pleasurable  sensations,  but  appear 
with  the  indifference  that  fits  them  to  be  the  material 
of  pure  objective  perception.  This  is  as  far  the  case  as 
was  possible  in  a  body  which  is  in  itself  through  and 
through  will;  and  just  in  this  respect  it  is  worthy  of 
admiration.  Physiologically  it  rests  upon  the  fact  that 
in  the  organs  of  the  nobler  senses,  thus  in  sight  and  hear 
ing,  the  nerves  which  have  to  receive  the  specific  outward 
impression  are  quite  insusceptible  to  any  sensation  of  pain, 
"VOL.  n. 


i94  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  III. 

and  know  no  other  sensation  than  that  which  is  specifi 
cally  peculiar  to  them,  and  which  serves  the  purpose  of 
mere  apprehension.  Thus  the  retina,  as  also  the  optic 
nerve,  is  insensible  to  every  injury;  and  this  is  also  the 
case  with  the  nerve  of  hearing.  In  both  organs  pain  is 
only  felt  in  their  other  parts,  the  surroundings  of  the 
nerve  of  sense  which  is  peculiar  to  them,  never  in  this 
nerve  itself.  In  the  case  of  the  eye  such  pain  is  felt 
principally  in  the  conjunctiva ;  in  the  case  of  the  ear,  in 
the  meatus  auditorius.  Even  with  the  brain  this  is  the 
case,  for  if  it  is  cut  into  directly,  thus  from  above,  it  has 
no  feeling.  Thus  only  on  account  of  this  indifference 
with  regard  to  the  will  which  is  peculiar  to  them  are  the 
sensations  of  the  eye  capable  of  supplying  the  understand 
ing  with  such  multifarious  and  finely  distinguished  data, 
out  of  which  it  constructs  in  our  head  the  marvellous  ob 
jective  world,  by  the  application  of  the  law  of  causality 
upon  the  foundation  of  the  pure  perceptions  of  space  and 
time.  Just  that  freedom  from  affecting  the  will  which  is 
characteristic  of  sensations  of  colour  enables  them,  when 
their  energy  is  heightened  by  transparency,  as  in  the  glow 
of  an  evening  sky,  in  painted  glass,  and  the  like,  to  raise 
us  very  easily  into  the  state  of  pure  objective  will-less 
perception,  which,  as  I  have  shown  in  my  third  book,  is 
one  of  the  chief  constituent  elements  of  the  aesthetic  im 
pression.  Just  this  indifference  with  regard  to  the  will 
fits  sounds  to  supply  the  material  for  denoting  the  in 
finite  multiplicity  of  the  conceptions  of  the  reason. 

Outer  sense,  that  is,  receptivity  for  external  impressions 
as  pure  data  for  the  understanding,  is  divided  into  Jive 
senses,  and  these  accommodate  themselves  to  the  four 
elements,  i.e.,  the  four  states  of  aggregation,  together  with 
that  of  imponderability.  Thus  the  sense  for  what  is  firm 
(earth)  is  touch ;  for  what  is  fluid  (water),  taste ;  for  what 
is  in  the  form  of  vapour,  i.e.,  volatile  (vapour,  exhalation), 
smell;  for  what  is  permanently  elastic  (air),  hearing;  for 
what  is  imponderable  (fire,  light),  sight.  The  second  im- 


ON  THE  SENSES.  195 

ponderable,  heat,  is  not  properly  an  object  of  the  senses, 
but  of  general  feeling,  and  therefore  always  affects  the 
will  directly,  as  agreeable  or  disagreeable.  From  this 
classification  there  also  follows  the  relative  dignity  of  the 
senses.  Sight  has  the  highest  rank,  because  its  sphere  is 
the  widest  and  its  susceptibility  the  finest.  This  rests 
upon  the  fact  that  what  affects  it  is  an  imponderable, 
that  is,  something  which  is  scarcely  corporeal,  but  is  quasi 
spiritual.  Hearing  has  the  second  place,  corresponding 
to  air.  However,  touch  is  a  more  thorough  and  well- 
informed  sense.  For  while  each  of  the  other  senses  gives 
us  only  an  entirely  one-sided  relation  to  the  object,  as  its 
sound,  or  its  relation  to  light,  touch,  which  is  closely 
bound  up  with  general  feeling  and  muscular  power,  sup 
plies  the  understanding  with  the  data  at  once  for  the  form, 
magnitude,  hardness,  softness,  texture,  firmness,  tempera 
ture,  and  weight  of  bodies,  and  all  this  with  the  least 
possibility  of  illusion  and  deception,  to  which  all  the 
other  senses  are  far  more  subject.  The  two  lowest  senses, 
smell  and  taste,  are  no  longer  free  from  a  direct  affection 
of  the  will,  that  is,  they  are  always  agreeably  or  disagree 
ably  affected,  and  are  therefore  more  subjective  than 
objective. 

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

Sight  is  the  sense  of  the  understanding  which  perceives ; 
hearing  is  the  sense  of  the  reason  which  thinks  and  ap 
prehends.  Words  are  only  imperfectly  represented  by 
visible  signs ;  and  therefore  I  doubt  whether  a  deaf  and 
dumb  man,  who  can  read,  but  has  no  idea  of  the  sound  of 
the  words,  works  as  quickly  in  thinking  with  the  mere 
visible  signs  of  conceptions  as  we  do  with  the  real,  i.e., 


196  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  III. 

the  audible  words.  If  he  cannot  read,  it  is  well  known 
that  he  is  almost  like  an  irrational  animal,  while  the  man 
born  blind  is  from  the  first  a  thoroughly  rational  being. 

Sight  is  an  active,  hearing  a  passive  sense.  Therefore 
sounds  affect  our  mind  in  a  disturbing  and  hostile  manner, 
and  indeed  they  do  so  the  more  in  proportion  as  the 
mind  is  active  and  developed ;  they  distract  all  thoughts 
and  instantly  destroy  the  power  of  thinking.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  no  analogous  disturbance  through  the 
eye,  no  direct  effect  of  what  is  seen,  as  such,  upon  the 
activity  of  thought  (for  naturally  we  are  not  speaking 
here  of  the  influence  which  the  objects  looked  at  have 
upon  the  will) ;  but  the  most  varied  multitude  of  things 
before  our  eyes  admits  of  entirely  unhindered  and  quiet 
thought.  Therefore  the  thinking  mind  lives  at  peace  with 
the  eye,  but  is  always  at  war  with  the  ear.  This  oppo 
sition  of  the  two  senses  is  also  confirmed  by  the  fact  that 
if  deaf  and  dumb  persons  are  cured  by  galvanism  they 
become  deadly  pale  with  terror  at  the  first  sounds  they 
hear  (Gilbert's  "  Annalen  der  PkysiJc,"  vol.  x.  p.  382), 
while  blind  persons,  on  the  contrary,  who  have  been 
operated  upon,  behold  with  ecstasy  the  first  light,  and 
unwillingly  allow  the  bandages  to  be  put  over  their  eyes 
again.  All  that  has  been  said,  however,  can  be  explained 
from  the  fact  that  hearing  takes  place  by  means  of  a 
mechanical  vibration  of  the  nerve  of  hearing  which  is  at 
once  transmitted  to  the  brain,  while  seeing,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  a  real  action  of  the  retina  which  is  merely  stimu 
lated  and  called  forth  by  light  and  its  modifications  ;  as  I 
have  shown  at  length  in  my  physiological  theory  of 
colours.  But  this  whole  opposition  stands  in  direct  con 
flict  with  that  coloured-ether,  drum-beating  theory  which 
is  now  everywhere  unblushingly  served  up,  and  which 
seeks  to  degrade  the  eye's  sensation  of  light  to  a  mechanical 
vibration,  such  as  primarily  that  of  hearing  actually  is, 
while  nothing  can  be  more  different  than  the  still,  gentle 
effect  of  light  and  the  alarm-drum  of  hearing.  If  we  add 


ON  THE  SENSES.  197 

to  this  the  remarkable  circumstance  that  although  we 
hear  with  two  ears,  the  sensibility  of  which  is  often  very 
different,  yet  we  never  hear  a  sound  double,  as  we  often 
see  things  double  with  our  two  eyes,  we  are  led  to  the 
conjecture  that  the  sensation  of  hearing  does  not  arise 
in  the  labyrinth  or  in  the  cochlea,  but  deep  in  the  brain 
where  the  two  nerves  of  hearing  meet,  and  thus  the  im 
pression  becomes  simple.  But  this  is  where  the  pons 
Varolii  encloses  the  medulla  oblongata,  thus  at  the  ab 
solutely  lethal  spot,  by  the  injury  of  which  every  animal 
is  instantly  killed,  and  from  which  the  nerve  of  hearing 
has  only  a  short  course  to  the  labyrinth,  the  seat  of 
acoustic  vibration.  Now  it  is  just  because  its  source  is 
here,  in  this  dangerous  place,  in  which  also  all  movement 
of  the  limbs  originates,  that  we  start  at  a  sudden  noise ; 
which  does  not  occur  in  the  least  degree  when  we  sud 
denly  see  a  light ;  for  example,  a  flash  of  lightning.  The 
optic  nerve,  on  the  contrary,  proceeds  from  its  thalami 
much  further  forward  (though  perhaps  its  source  lies 
behind  them),  and  throughout  its  course  is  covered  by  the 
anterior  lobes  of  the  brain,  although  always  separated 
from  them  till,  having  extended  quite  out  of  the  brain, 
it  is  spread  out  in  the  retina,  upon  which,  on  stimulation 
by  light,  the  sensation  first  arises,  and  where  it  is  really 
localised.  This  is  shown  in  my  essay  upon  sight  and 
colour.  This  origin  of  the  auditory  nerve  explains,  then, 
the  great  disturbance  which  the  power  of  thinking  suffers 
from  sound,  on  account  of  which  thinking  men,  and  in 
general  all  people  of  much  intellect,  are  without  excep 
tion  absolutely  incapable  of  enduring  any  noise.  For  it 
disturbs  the  constant  stream  of  their  thoughts,  interrupts 
and  paralyses  their  thinking,  just  because  the  vibration 
of  the  auditory  nerve  extends  so  deep  into  the  brain,  the 
whole  mass  of  which  feels  the  oscillations  set  up  through 
this  nerve,  and  vibrates  along  with  them,  and  because  the 
brains  of  such  persons  are  more  easily  moved  than  those 
of  ordinary  men.  On  the  same  readiness  to  be  set  in 


198  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  III. 

motion,  and  capacity  for  transmission,  which  characterises 
their  brains  depends  the  fact  that  in  the  case  of  persons 
like  these  every  thought  calls  forth  so  readily  all  those 
analogous  or  related  to  it  whereby  the  similarities,  ana 
logies,  and  relations  of  things  in  general  come  so  quickly 
and  easily  into  their  minds ;  that  the  same  occasion  which 
millions  of  ordinary  minds  have  experienced  before  brings 
them  to  the  thought,  to  the  discovery,  that  other  people 
are  subsequently  surprised  they  did  not  reach  themselves, 
for  they  certainly  can  think  afterwards,  but  they  cannot 
think  before.  Thus  the  sun  shone  on  all  statues,  but 
only  the  statue  of  Memnon  gave  forth  a  sound.  For 
this  reason  Kant,  Gcethe,  and  Jean  Paul  were  highly 
sensitive  to  every  noise,  as  their  biographers  bear  wit 
ness.1  Gcethe  in  his  last  years  bought  a  house  which  had 
fallen  into  disrepair  close  to  his  own,  simply  in  order  that 
he  might  not  have  to  endure  the  noise  that  would  be 
made  in  repairing  it.  Thus  it  was  in  vain  that  in  his 
youth  he  followed  the  drum  in  order  to  harden  himself 
against  noise.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  custom.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  truly  stoical  indifference  to  noise  of 
ordinary  minds  is  astonishing.  No  noise  disturbs  them 
in  their  thinking,  reading,  writing,  or  other  occupations, 
while  the  finer  mind  is  rendered  quite  incapable  by  it. 
But  just  that  which  makes  them  so  insensible  to  noise  of 
every  kind  makes  them  also  insensible  to  the  beautiful 
in  plastic  art,  and  to  deep  thought  or  fine  expression  in 
literary  art;  in  short,  to  all  that  does  not  touch  their 
personal  interests.  The  following  remark  of  Lichtenberg's 
applies  to  the  paralysing  effect  which  noise  has  upon 
highly  intellectual  persons :  "  It  is  always  a  good  sign 
\vhen  an  artist  can  be  hindered  by  trifles  from  exercising 

his  art.     ~F used  to  stick  his  fingers  into  sulphur  if 

he  wished  to  play  the  piano.  .  .  .  Such  things  do  not 

1  Lichtenberg  says  in  his  "  Xach-  "  I   am    extremely  sensitive    to   all 

richtcn   und  Bcmerkungcn  von   und  noise,  but  it  entirely  loses  its  dis- 

iiber  sich  sclbst "  ( Vermisckte  Schrif-  agreeable  character  as  soon  as  it  is 

ten,  Gottinyen,  1800,  vol.  i.  p.  43)  :  associated  with  a  rational  purpose." 


ON  THE  SENSES.  199 

interfere  with  the  average  mind  ;  ...  it  acts  like  a  coarse 
sieve"  (Vermischte  Schriften,  vol.  i.  p.  398).  I  have  long 
really  held  the  opinion  that  the  amount  of  noise  which 
any  one  can  bear  undisturbed  stands  in  inverse  propor 
tion  to  his  mental  capacity,  and  therefore  may  be  regarded 
as  a  pretty  fair  measure  of  it.  Therefore,  if  I  hear  the 
dogs  barking  for  hours  together  in  the  court  of  a  house 
without  being  stopped,  I  know  what  to  think  of  the  intel 
lectual  capacity  of  the  inhabitants.  The  man  who  habitu 
ally  slams  the  door  of  a  room,  instead  of  shutting  it  with 
his  hand,  or  allows  this  to  go  on  in  his  house,  is  not  only 
ill-bred,  but  is  also  a  coarse  and  dull-minded  fellow. 
That  in  English  "  sensible  "  also  means  gifted  with  under 
standing  is  based  upon  accurate  and  fine  observation. 
We  shall  only  become  quite  civilised  when  the  ears  are 
no  longer  unprotected,  and  when  it  shall  no  longer  be 
the  right  of  everybody  to  sever  the  consciousness  of  each 
thinking  being,  in  its  course  of  a  thousand  steps,  with 
whistling,  howling,  bellowing,  hammering,  whip-cracking, 
barking,  &c.  &c.  The  Sybarites  banished  all  noisy  trades 
without  the  town;  the  honourable  sect  of  the  Shakers 
in  North  America  permit  no  unnecessary  noise  in  their 
villages,  and  the  Moravians  have  a  similar  rule.  Some 
thing  more  is  said  upon  this  subject  in  the  thirtieth 
chapter  of  the  second  volume  of  the  "  Parerga." 

The  effect  of  music  upon  the  mind,  so  penetrating,  so 
direct,  so  unfailing,  may  be  explained  from  the  passive 
nature  of  hearing  which  has  been  discussed;  also  the 
after  effect  which  sometimes  follows  it,  and  which  consists 
in  a  specially  elevated  frame  of  mind.  The  vibrations  of 
the  tones  following  in  rationally  combined  numerical 
relations  set  the  fibre  of  the  brain  itself  in  similar  vibra 
tion.  On  the  other  hand,  the  active  nature  of  sight, 
opposed  as  it  is  to  the  passive  nature  of  hearing,  makes 
it  intelligible  why  there  can  be  nothing  analogous  to 
music  for  the  eye,  and  the  piano  of  colours  was  an  absurd 
mistake.  Further,  it  is  just  on  account  of  the  active 


200  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  III. 

nature  of  the  sense  of  sight  that  it  is  remarkably  acute  in 
the  case  of  Leasts  that  hunt,  i.e.,  beasts  of  prey,  while 
conversely  the  passive  sense  of  hearing  is  specially  acute 
in  those  beasts  that  are  hunted,  that  flee,  and  are  timid, 
so  that  it  may  give  them  timely  warning  of  the  pursuer 
that  is  rushing  or  creeping  upon  them. 

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


(      201      ) 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OX  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI. 

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

Cogito,  ergo  sum,  is  an  analytical  judgment.  Indeed 
Parrnenides  held  it  to  be  an  identical  judgment :  "  TO  <yap 
avro  voeiv  ean  re  KO.I  eivat "  (nam  intelliyere  et  esse  idem 
est,  Clem.  Alex.  Strom.,  vi.  2,  §  23).  As  such,  however,  or 
indeed  even  as  an  analytical  judgment,  it  cannot  contain 
any  special  wisdom ;  nor  yet  if,  to  go  still  deeper,  we 
seek  to  deduce  it  as  a  conclusion  from  the  major  premise, 
non-entis  nulla  sunt  prcedicata.  But  with  this  proposition 
what  Descartes  really  wished  to  express  was  the  great 
truth  that  immediate  certainty  belongs  only  to  self- 
consciousness,  to  what  is  subjective.  To  what  is  objective, 
OTI  the  other  hand,  thus  to  everything  else,  only  indirect 
certainty  belongs ;  for  it  is  arrived  at  through  self- 
consciousness  ;  and  being  thus  merely  at  second  hand,  it 
is  to  be  regarded  as  problematical.  Upon  this  depends 
the  value  of  this  celebrated  proposition.  As  its  opposite 
we  may  set  up,  in  the  sense  of  the  Kantian  philosophy, 
cogito,  ergo  est,  that  is,  exactly  as  I  think  certain  relations 
iu  things  (the  mathematical),  they  must  always  occur  in 


202  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 

all  possible  experience ; — this  was  an  important,  profound, 
and  a  late  appergu,  which  appeared  in  the  form  of  the 
problem  as  to  the  possibility  of  synthetic  judgments  a  priori, 
and  has  actually  opened  up  the  way  to  a  deeper  know 
ledge.  This  problem  is  the  watchword  of  the  Kantian 
philosophy,  as  the  former  proposition  is  that  of  the 
Cartesian,  and  shows  ef  olwv  et?  ola. 

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

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

"  A  right-angled  equilateral  triangle  "  contains  no  logical 
contradiction ;  for  the  predicates  do  not  by  any  means 
cancel  the  subject,  nor  are  they  inconsistent  with  each 
other.  It  is  only  when  their  object  is  constructed  in  pure 
perception  that  the  impossibility  of  their  union  in  it 
appears.  Now  if  on  this  account  we  were  to  regard 
this  as  a  contradiction,  then  so  would  every  physical 
impossibility,  only  discovered  to  be  such  after  the  lapse 
of  centuries,  be  a  contradiction;  for  example,  the  com 
position  of  a  metal  from  its  elements,  or  a  mammal  with 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  203 

more  or  fewer  than  seven  cervical  vertebra,1  or  horns 
and  upper  incisors  in  the  same  animal.  But  only  logical 
impossibility  is  a  contradiction,  not  physical,  and  just  as 
little  mathemathical.  Equilateral  and  rectangled  do  not 
contradict  each  other  (they  coexist  in  the  square),  nor 
does  either  of  them  contradict  a  triangle.  Therefore  the 
incompatibility  of  the  above  conceptions  can  never  be 
known  by  mere  thinking,  but  is  only  discovered  by  percep 
tion — merely  mental  perception,  however,  which  requires 
no  experience,  no  real  object.  We  should  also  refer  here 
to  the  proposition  of  Giordano  Bruno,  which  is  also  found 
in  Aristotle  :  "  An  infinitely  large  body  is  necessarily  im 
movable" — a  proposition  which  cannot  rest  either  upon 
experience  or  upon  the  principle  of  contradiction,  since  it 
speaks  of  things  which  cannot  occur  in  any  experience,  and 
the  conceptions  "  infinitely  large  "  and  "  movable  "  do  not 
contradict  each  other ;  but  it  is  only  pure  perception  that 
informs  us  that  motion  demands  a  space  outside  the  body, 
while  its  infinite  size  leaves  no  space  over.  Suppose,  now. 
it  should  be  objected  to  the  first  mathematical  example 
that  it  is  only  a  question  of  how  complete  a  conception 
of  a  triangle  the  person  judging  has :  if  the  conception 
is  quite  complete  it  will  also  contain  the  impossibility 
of  a  triangle  being  rectangular  and  also  equilateral.  The 
answer  to  this  is :  assume  that  his  conception  is  not  so 
complete,  yet  without  recourse  to  experience  he  can,  by 
the  mere  construction  of  the  triangle  in  his  imagination, 
extend  his  conception  of  it  and  convince  himself  for  ever 
of  the  impossibility  of  this  combination  of  these  con 
ceptions.  This  process,  however,  is  a  synthetic  judgment 
a  priori,  that  is,  a  judgment  through  which,  independently 
of  all  experience,  and  yet  with  validity  for  all  experience, 
we  form  and  perfect  our  conceptions.  For,  in  general, 
whether  a  given  judgment  is  analytical  or  synthetical  can 
only  be  determined  in  the  particular  case  according  as 

1  That  the  three-toed   sloth  has    yet  Owen  still  states  this,  "  Osteologie 
nine  must  be  regarded  as  a  mistake ;     Comp."  p.  405. 


204  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 

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

That  Arithmetic  rests  on  the  pure  intuition  or  perception 
of  time  is  not  so  evident  as  that  Geometry  is  based  upon 
that  of  space.1  It  can  be  proved,  however,  in  the  following 
manner.  All  counting  consists  in  the  repeated  affirmation 
of  unity.  Only  for  the  purpose  of  always  knowing  how 
often  we  have  already  affirmed  unity  do  we  mark  it  each 
time  with  another  word :  these  are  the  numerals.  Now 
repeti'tion  is  only  possible  through  succession.  But  suc 
cession,  that  is,  being  after  one  another,  depends  directly 
upon  the  intuition  or  perception  of  time.  It  is  a  con 
ception  which  can  only  be  understood  by  means  of  this ; 

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


"  ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  205 

and  thus  counting  also  is  only  possible  by  means  of  time. 
This  dependence  of  all  counting  upon  time  is  also  be 
trayed  by  the  fact  that  in  all  languages  multiplication 
is  expressed  by  "  time,"  thus  by  a  time-concept :  sexies, 
ega/cis,  sixfois,  sex  mal.  But  simple  counting  is  already  a 
multiplication  by  one,  and  for  this  reason  in  Pestalozzi's 
educational  establishment  the  children  are  always  made 
to  multiply  thus  :  "  Two  times  two  is  four  times  one." 
Aristotle  already  recognised  the  close  relationship  of 
number  and  time,  and  expounded  it  in  the  fourteenth 
chapter  of  the  fourth  book  of  the  "  Physics."  Time  is  for 
him  "  the  number  of  motion  "  ("  6  'xpovos  api0/j,os  eart  K.W- 
Tjcreco?").  He  very  profoundly  suggests  the  question  whether 
time  could  be  if  the  soul  were  not,  and  answers  it  in  the 
negative.  If  arithmetic  had  not  this  pure  intuition  or 
perception  of  time  at  its  foundation,  it  would  be  no  science 
a  priori,  and  therefore  its  propositions  would  not  have 
infallible  certainty. 

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

Time  is  primarily  the  form  of  inner  sense.  Anticipat 
ing  the  following  book,  I  remark  that  the  only  object  of 
inner  sense  is  the  individual  will  of  the  knowing  subject. 
Time  is  therefore  the  form  by  means  of  which  self-con 
sciousness  becomes  possible  for  the  individual  will,  which 
originally  and  in  itself  is  without  knowledge.  In  it  the 


206  FIRST  BOOK.    'CHAPTER  IV. 

nature  of  the  will,  which  in  itself  is  simple  and  identical, 
appears  drawn  out  into  a  course  of  life.  But  just  on 
account  of  this  original  simplicity  and  identity  of  what 
thus  exhibits  itself,  its  character  remains  always  precisely 
the  same,  and  hence  also  the  course  of  life  itself  retains 
throughout  the  same  key-note,  indeed  its  multifarious 
events  and  scenes  are  at  bottom  just  like  variations  of  one 
and  the  same  theme. 

The  a  priori  nature  of  the  law  of  causality  has,  by  Eng 
lishmen  and  Frenchmen,  sometimes  not  been  seen  at  all, 
sometimes  not  rightly  conceived  of ;  and  therefore  some 
of  them  still  prosecute  the  earlier  attempts  to  find  for  it 
an  empirical  origin.  Maine  de  Biran  places  this  in  the 
experience  that  the  act  of  will  as  cause  is  followed  by  the 
movement  of  the  body  as  effect.  But  this  fact  itself  is 
untrue.  We  certainly  do  not  recognise  the  really  imme 
diate  act  of  will  as  something  different  from  the  action  of 
the  body,  and  the  two  as  connected  by  the  bond  of  causa 
lity  ;  but  both  are  one  and  indivisible.  Between  them  there 
is  no  succession  ;  they  are  simultaneous.  They  are  one  and 
the  same  thing,  apprehended  in  a  double  manner.  That 
which  makes  itself  known  to  inner  apprehension  (self-con 
sciousness)  as  the  real  act  of  will  exhibits  itself  at  once  in 
external  perception,  in  which  the  body  exists  objectively 
as  an  action  of  the  body.  That  physiologically  the  action 
of  the  nerve  precedes  that  of  the  muscle  is  here  imma 
terial,  for  it  does  not  come  within  self-consciousness;  and 
we  are  not  speaking  here  of  the  relation  between  muscle 
and  nerve,  but  of  that  between  the  act  of  will  and  the  action 
of  the  body.  Now  this  does  not  present  itself  as  a  causal 
relation.  If  these  two  presented  themselves  to  us  as 
cause  and  effect  their  connection  would  not  be  so  incom 
prehensible  to  us  as  it  actually  is ;  for  what  we  under 
stand  from  its  cause  we  understand  as  far  as  there  is  an 
understanding  of  things  generally.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  movement  of  our  limbs  by  means  of  mere  acts  of  will 
is  indeed  a  miracle  of  such  common  occurrence  that  we 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  207 

no  longer  observe  it ;  but  if  we  once  turn  our  attention  to 
it  we  become  keenly  conscious  of  the  incomprehensibility 
of  the  matter,  just  because  in  this  we  have  something 
before  us  which  we  do  not  understand  as  the  effect  of  a 
cause.  This  apprehension,  then,  could  never  lead  us  to 
the  idea  of  causality,  for  that  never  appears  in  it  at  all. 
Maine  de  Biran  himself  recognises  the  perfect  simultane- 
ousness  of  the  act  of  will  and  the  movement  (Nouvelles 
Considerations  des  Rapports  du  Physique  au  Moral,  p. 
377>  378)-  In  England  Thomas  Eeid  (On  the  First 
Principles  of  Contingent  Truths,  Essay  IV.  c.  5)  already 
asserted  that  the  knowledge  of  the  causal  relation  has 
its  ground  in  the  nature  of  the  faculty  of  knowledge  it 
self.  Quite  recently  Thomas  Brown,  in  his  very  tediously 
composed  book,  "  Inquiry  into  the  Eelation  of  Cause  and 
Effect,"  4th  edit,  1835,  says  much  the  same  thing,  that 
that  knowledge  springs  from  an  innate,  intuitive,  and 
instinctive  conviction ;  thus  he  is  at  bottom  upon  the 
right  path.  Quite  unpardonable,  however,  is  the  crass 
ignorance  on  account  of  which  in  this  book  of  476  pages, 
of  which  130  are  devoted  to  the  refutation  of  Hume, 
absolutely  no  mention  is  made  of  Kant,  who  cleared  up 
the  question  more  than  seventy  years  ago.  If  Latin  had 
remained  the  exclusive  language  of  science  such  a  thing 
would  not  have  occurred.  In  spite  of  Brown's  exposition, 
which  in  the  main  is  correct,  a  modification  of  the  doctrine 
set  up  by  Maine  de  Biran,  of  the  empirical  origin  of  the 
fundamental  knowledge  of  the  causal  relation,  has  yet 
found  acceptance  in  England ;  for  it  is  not  without  a 
certain  degree  of  plausibility.  It  is  this,  that  we  abstract 
the  law  of  causality  from  the  perceived  effect  of  our  own 
body  upon  other  bodies.  This  was  already  refuted  by 
Hume.  I,  however,  have  shown  that  it  is  untenable  in 
my  work,  "  Ueber  den  Willen  in  dcr  Natur"  (p.  75  of  the 
second  edition,  p.  82  of  the  third),  from  the  fact  that  since 
we  apprehend  both  our  own  and  other  bodies  objectively 
in  spatial  perception,  the  knowledge  of  causality  must 


208  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 

already  be  there,  because  it  is  a  condition  of  such  percep 
tion.  The  one  genuine  proof  that  we  are  conscious  of 
the  law  of  causalty  before  all  experience  lies  in  the  neces 
sity  of  making  a  transition  from  the  sensation,  which  is 
only  empirically  given,  to  its  cause,  in  order  that  it  may 
become  perception  of  the  external  world.  Therefore  I 
have  substituted  this  proof  for  the  Kantian,  the  incorrect 
ness  of  which  I  have  shown.  A  most  full  and  thorough 
exposition  of  the  whole  of  this  important  subject,  which 
is  only  touched  on  here,  the  a  priori  nature  of  the  law  of 
causality  and  the  intellectual  nature  of  empirical  percep 
tion,  will  be  found  in  my  essay  on  the  principle  of  suffi 
cient  reason,  §  21,  to  which  I  refer,  in  order  to  avoid  the 
necessity  of  repeating  here  what  is  said  there.  I  have 
also  shown  there  the  enormous  difference  between  the 
mere  sensation  of  the  senses  and  the  perception  of  an 
objective  world,  and  discovered  the  wide  gulf  that  lies 
between  the  two.  The  law  of  causality  alone  can  bridge 
across  this  gulf,  and  it  presupposes  for  its  application  the 
two  other  forms  which  are  related  to  it,  space  and  time. 
Only  by  means  of  these  three  combined  is  the  objective 
idea  attained  to.  Now  whether  the  sensation  from  which 
we  start  to  arrive  at  apprehension  arises  through  the 
resistance  which  is  suffered  by  our  muscular  exertion,  or 
through  the  impression  of  light  upon  the  retina,  or  of 
sound  upon  the  nerves  of  the  brain,  &c.  &c.,  is  really  a 
matter  of  indifference.  The  sensation  always  remains  a 
mere  datum  for  the  understanding,  which  alone  is  capable 
of  apprehending  it  as  the  effect  of  a  cause  different  from 
itself,  which  the  understanding  now  perceives  as  external, 
i.e.,  as  something  occupying  and  filling  space,  which  is 
also  a  form  inherent  in  the  intellect  prior  to  all  experi 
ence.  Without  this  intellectual  operation,  for  which  the 
forms  must  lie  ready  in  us,  the  perception  of  an  objective, 
external  world  could  never  arise  from  a  mere  sensation 
within  our  skin.  How  can  it  ever  be  supposed  that  the 
mere  feeling  of  being  hindered  in  intended  motion,  which 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  209 

occurs  also  in  lameness,  could  be  sufficient  for  this  ?  We 
may  add  to  this  that  before  I  attempt  to  affect  external 
things  they  must  necessarily  have  affected  me  as  motives. 
But  this  almost  presupposes  the  apprehension  of  the  ex 
ternal  world.  According  to  the  theory  in  question  (as  I 
have  remarked  in  the  place  referred  to  above),  a  man 
born  without  arms  and  legs  could  never  attain  to  the 
idea  of  causality,  and  consequently  could  never  arrive  at 
the  apprehension  of  the  external  world.  But  that  this 
is  not  the  case  is  proved  by  a  fact  communicated  in 
Froriep's  Notizen,  July  1838,  No.  133  —  the  detailed 
account,  accompanied  by  a  likeness,  of  an  Esthonian  girl, 
Eva  Lauk,  then  fourteen  years  old,  who  was  born  entirely 
without  arms  or  legs.  The  account  concludes  with  these 
words :  "  According  to  the  evidence  of  her  mother,  her 
mental  development  had  been  quite  as  quick  as  that  of 
her  brothers  and  sisters ;  she  attained  just  as  soon  as  they 
did  to  a  correct  judgment  of  size  and  distance,  yet  without 
the  assistance  of  hands. — Dorpat,  ist  March  1838,  Dr.  A. 
Hueck." 

Hume's  doctrine  also,  that  the  conception  of  causality 
arises  from  the  custom  of  seeing  two  states  constantly 
following  each  other,  finds  a  practical  refutation  in  the 
oldest  of  all  successions,  that  of  day  and  night,  which  no 
one  has  ever  held  to  be  cause  and  effect  of  each  other. 
And  the  same  succession  also  refutes  Kant's  false  asser 
tion  that  the  objective  reality  of  a  succession  is  only 
known  when  we  apprehend  the  two  succeeding  events  as 
standing  in  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  to  each  other. 
Indeed  the  converse  of  this  doctrine  of  Kant's  is  true. 
We  know  which  of  the  two  connected  events  is  the  cause 
and  which  the  effect,  empirically,  only  in  the  succession. 
Again,  on  the  other  hand,  the  absurd  assertion  of  several 
professors  of  philosophy  in  our  own  day  that  cause  and 
effect  are  simultaneous  can  be  refuted  by  the  fact  that  in 
cases  in  which  the  succession  cannot  be  perceived  on 
account  of  its  great  rapidity,  we  yet  assume  it  with 

VOL.  II.  0 


210  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 

certainty  a  priori,  and  with  it  the  lapse  of  a  certain  time. 
Thus,  for  example,  we  know  that  a  certain  time  must 
elapse  between  the  falling  of  the  flint  and  the  projection 
of  the  bullet,  although  we  cannot  perceive  it,  and  that 
this  time  must  further  be  divided  between  several  events 
that  occur  in  a  strictly  determined  succession — the  fall 
ing  of  the  flint,  the  striking  of  the  spark,  ignition,  the 
spread  of  the  fire,  the  explosion,  and  the  projection  of  the 
bullet.  No  man  ever  perceived  this  succession  of  events ; 
but  because  we  know  which  is  the  cause  of  the  others,  we 
thereby  also  know  which  must  precede  the  others  in  time, 
and  consequently  also  that  during  the  course  of  the  whole 
series  a  certain  time  must  elapse,  although  it  is  so  short 
that  it  escapes  our  empirical  apprehension ;  for  no  one 
will  assert  that  the  projection  of  the  bullet  is  actually 
simultaneous  with  the  falling  of  the  flint.  Thus  not  only 
the  law  of  causality,  but  also  its  relation  to  time,  and  the 
necessity  of  the  succession  of  cause  and  effect,  is  known  to 
us  a  priori.  If  we  know  which  of  two  events  is  the  cause 
and  which  is  the  effect,  we  also  know  which  precedes  the 
other  in  time  ;  if,  on  the  contrary,  we  do  not  know  which 
is  cause  and  which  effect,  but  only  know  in  general  that 
they  are  causally  connected,  we  seek  to  discover  the  suc 
cession  empirically,  and  according  to  that  we  determine 
which  is  the  cause  and  which  the  effect.  The  falseness  of 
the  assertion  that  cause  and  effect  are  simultaneous  further 
appears  from  the  following  consideration.  An  unbroken 
chain  of  causes  and  effects  fills  the  whole  of  time.  (For 
if  this  chain  were  broken  the  world  would  stand  still,  or 
in  order  to  set  it  in  motion  again  an  effect  without  a  cause 
would  have  to  appear.)  Now  if  every  effect  were  simul 
taneous  with  its  cause,  then  every  effect  would  be  moved 
up  into  the  time  of  its  cause,  and  a  chain  of  causes  and 
effects  containing  as  many  links  as  before  would  fill  no 
time  at  all,  still  less  an  infinite  time,  but  would  be  all 
together  in  one  moment.  Thus,  under  the  assumption  that 
cause  and  effect  are  simultaneous,  the  course  of  the  world 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  211 

shrinks  up  into  an  affair  of  a  moment.  This  proof  is 
analogous  to  the  proof  that  every  sheet  of  paper  must 
have  a  certain  thickness,  because  otherwise  the  whole 
book  would  have  none.  To  say  when  the  cause  ceases 
and  the  effect  begins  is  in  almost  all  cases  difficult,  and 
often  impossible.  For  the  changes  (i.e.,  the  succession  of 
states)  are  continuous,  like  the  time  which  they  fill,  and 
therefore  also,  like  it,  they  are  infinitely  divisible.  But 
their  succession  is  as  necessarily  determined  and  as  un 
mistakable  as  that  of  the  moments  of  time  itself,  and  each 
of  them  is  called,  writh  reference  to  the  one  which  precedes 
it,  "  effect,"  and  with  reference  to  the  one  which  follows 
it,  "  cause." 

Every  change  in  the  material  world  can  only  take  place  be 
cause  another  has  immediately  preceded  it:  this  is  the  true  and 
the  whole  content  of  the  law  of  causality.  But  no  concep 
tion  has  been  more  misused  in  philosophy  than  that  of  cause, 
by  means  of  the  favourite  trick  or  blunder  of  conceiving  it 
too  widely,  taking  it  too  generally,  through  abstract  think 
ing.  Since  Scholasticism,  indeed  properly  since  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  philosophy  has  been  for  the  most  part  a  systematic 
misuse  of  general  conceptions.  Such,  for  example,  are  sub 
stance,  ground,  cause,  the  good,  perfection,  necessity,  and 
very  many  others.  A  tendency  of  the  mind  to  work  with 
such  abstract  and  too  widely  comprehended  conceptions 
has  shown  itself  almost  at  all  times.  It  may  ultimately 
rest  upon  a  certain  indolence  of  the  intellect,  which  finds 
it  too  difficult  a  task  to  be  constantly  controlling  thought 
by  perception.  By  degrees  such  unduly  wide  conceptions 
come  to  be  used  almost  like  algebraical  symbols,  and  tossed 
about  like  them,  and  thus  philosophy  is  reduced  to  a  mere 
process  of  combination,  a  kind  of  reckoning  which  (like  all 
calculations)  employs  and  demands  only  the  lower  facul 
ties.  Indeed  there  finally  results  from  this  a  mere  juggling 
with  words,  of  which  the  most  shocking  example  is  afforded 
us  by  the  mind-destroying  Hegelism,  in  which  it  is  carried 
to  the  extent  of  pure  nonsense.  But  Scholasticism  also 


212  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 

often  degenerated  into  word-juggling.  Nay,  even  the 
"  Topi "  of  Aristotle — very  abstract  principles,  conceived 
with  absolute  generality,  which  one  could  apply  to  the 
most  different  kinds  of  subjects,  and  always  bring  into  the 
field  in  arguing  either  pro  or  contra — have  also  their  origin 
in  this  misuse  of  general  conceptions.  We  find  innumer 
able  examples  of  the  way  the  Schoolmen  worked  with  such 
abstractions  in  their  writings,  especially  in  those  of  Thomas 
Aquinas.  But  philosophy  really  pursued  the  path  which 
was  entered  on  by  the  Schoolmen  down  to  the  time  of 
Locke  and  Kant,  who  at  last  bethought  themselves  as  to 
the  origin  of  conceptions.  Indeed  we  find  Kant  himself, 
in  his  earlier  years,  still  upon  that  path,  in  his  "  Proof  of 
the  Existence  of  God"  (p.  191  of  the  first  volume  of 
Eosenkranz's  edition),  where  the  conceptions  substance, 
ground,  reality,  are  used  in  such  a  way  as  would  never 
have  been  possible  if  he  had  gone  back  to  the  source  of 
these  conceptions  and  to  their  true  content  which  is  deter 
mined  thereby.  For  then  he  would  have  found  as  the 
source  and  content  of  substance  simply  matter,  of  ground 
(if  things  of  the  real  world  are  in  question)  simply  cause, 
that  is,  the  prior  change  which  brings  about  the  later 
change,  &c.  It  is  true  that  in  this  case  such  an  investi 
gation  would  not  have  led  to  the  intended  result.  But 
everywhere,  as  here,  such  unduly  wide  conceptions,  under 
which,  therefore,  more  was  subsumed  than  their  true  con 
tent  would  have  justified,  there  have  arisen  false  principles, 
and  from  these  false  systems.  Spinoza's  whole  method 
of  demonstration  rests  upon  such  uninvestigated  and  too 
widely  comprehended  conceptions.  Now  here  lies  the 
great  merit  of  Locke,  who,  in  order  to  counteract  all  that 
dogmatic  unreality,  insisted  upon  the  investigation  of  the 
origin  of  the  conceptions,  and  thus  led  back  to  perception 
and  experience.  Bacon  had  worked  in  a  similar  frame  of 
mind,  yet  more  with  reference  to  Physics  than  to  Meta 
physics.  Kant  followed  the  path  entered  upon  by  Locke, 
but  in  a  higher  sense  and  much  further,  as  has  already  been 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  213 

mentioned  above.  To  the  men  of  mere  show  who  succeeded 
in  diverting  the  attention  of  the  public  from  Kant  to 
themselves  the  results  obtained  by  Locke  and  Kant  were 
inconvenient.  But  in  such  a  case  they  know  how  to 
ignore  both  the  dead  and  the  living.  Thus  without 
hesitation  they  forsook  the  only  right  path  which  had 
at  last  been  found  by  those  wise  men,  and  philosophised 
at  random  with  all  kinds  of  indiscriminately  collected 
conceptions,  unconcerned  as  to  their  origin  and  content, 
till  at  last  the  substance  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  wise 
beyond  measure,  was  that  the  conceptions  had  no  origin 
at  all,  but  were  rather  themselves  the  origin  and  source  of 
things.  But  Kant  has  erred  in  this  respect.  He  has  too 
much  neglected  empirical  perception  for  the  sake  of  pure 
perception — a  point  which  I  have  fully  discussed  in  my 
criticism  of  his  philosophy.  With  me  perception  is  through 
out  the  source  of  all  knowledge.  I  early  recognised  the 
misleading  and  insidious  nature  of  abstractions,  and  in 
1813,  in  my  essay  on  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  I 
pointed  out  the  difference  of  the  relations  which  are  thought 
under  this  conception.  General  conceptions  must  indeed  be 
the  material  in  which  philosophy  deposits  and  stores  up 
its  knowledge,  but  not  the  source  from  which  it  draws 
it ;  the  terminus  ad  quern,  not  a  quo.  It  is  not,  as  Kant 
defines  it,  a  science  drawn  from  conceptions,  but  a  science 
in  conceptions.  Thus  the  conception  of  causality  also, 
with  which  we  are  here  concerned,  has  always  been  taken 
far  too  widely  by  philosophers  for  the  furtherance  of  their 
dogmatic  ends,  and  much  was  imported  into  it  which  does 
not  belong  to  it  at  all.  Hence  arose  propositions  such  as 
the  following :  "  All  that  is  has  its  cause  " — "  the  effect 
cannot  contain  more  than  the  cause,  thus  nothing  that 
was  not  also  in  the  cause " — " causa  est  ndbilior suo effectu" 
and  many  others  just  as  unwarranted.  The  following 
subtilty  of  that  insipid  gossip  Proclus  affords  an  elaborate 
and  specially  lucid  example  of  this.  It  occurs  in  his 
"  Institutio  Thcologica,"  §  76 :  "  Hav  ro  airo  aKivr^rov  ycyvo- 


214  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 


ama?,  a^era^Krjrov  e^ei  TIJV  vTrapfyv'  irav  Se  TO  CLTCO 
,  fj,6ra(3\r)Tr)v'  ei  jap  a/avrjTOV  e<JTi  TcavTrj  TO 
TTotovv,  ov  8ia  Kiwrjcreays,  a\\'  avrw  T&>  eivai  Trapayei  TO 
SevTepov  a<f>  eavTov."  (Quidquid  db  immobili  causa  manat, 
immutdbilem  habet  essentiam  [substantiam"].  Quidquid  vero 
a  mobili  causa  manat,  essentiam  habet  mutdbilem.  Si  enim 
illud,  quod  aliquid  facit,  est  prorsus  immobile,  non  per 
inotum,  sed  per  ipsum  Esse  producit  ipsum  secundum  ex  se 
ipso.~)  Excellent  !  But  just  show  me  a  cause  which  is  not 
itself  set  in  motion  :  it  is  simply  impossible.  But  here, 
as  in  so  many  cases,  abstraction  has  thought  away  all 
determinations  down  to  that  one  which  it  is  desired  to 
make  use  of  without  regard  to  the  fact  that  the  latter 
cannot  exist  without  the  former.  The  only  correct  ex 
pression  of  the  law  of  causality  is  this  :  Every  change  has 
its  cause  in  another  change  which  immediately  precedes  it. 
If  something  happens,  i.e.,  if  a  new  state  of  things  appears, 
i.e.,  if  something  is  changed,  then  something  else  must 
have  changed  immediately  before,  and  something  else  again 
before  this,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum,  for  a  first  cause  is  as 
impossible  to  conceive  as  a  beginning  of  time  or  a  limit 
of  space.  More  than  this  the  law  of  causality  does  not 
assert.  Thus  its  claims  only  arise  in  the  case  of  changes. 
So  long  as  nothing  changes  there  can  be  no  question  of 
a  cause.  For  there  is  no  a  priori  ground  for  inferring 
from  the  existence  of  given  things,  i.e.,  states  of  matter, 
their  previous  non-existence,  and  from  this  again  their 
coming  into  being,  that  is  to  say,  there  is  no  a  priori 
ground  for  inferring  a  change.  Therefore  the  mere  exist 
ence  of  a  thing  does  not  justify  us  in  inferring  that  it 
has  a  cause.  Yet  there  may  be  a  posteriori  reasons, 
that  is,  reasons  drawn  from  previous  experience,  for  the 
assumption  that  the  present  state  or  condition  did  not 
always  exist,  but  has  only  come  into  existence  in  con 
sequence  of  another  state,  and  therefore  by  means  of  a 
change,  the  cause  of  which  is  then  to  be  sought,  and  also 
the  cause  of  this  cause.  Here  then  we  are  involved  in 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  215 

the  infinite  regressus  to  which  the  application  of  the  law 
of  causality  always  leads.  We  said  above  :  "  Things,  i.e., 
states  or  conditions  of  matter"  for  change  and  causality 
have  only  to  do  with  states  or  conditions.  It  is  these 
states  which  we  understand  by  form,  in  the  wider  sense  ; 
and  only  the  forms  change,  the  matter  is  permanent. 
Thus  it  is  only  the  form  which  is  subject  to  the  law  of 
causality.  But  the  form  constitutes  the  thing,  i.e.,  it  is 
the  ground  of  the  difference  of  things  ;  while  matter  must 
be  thought  as  the  same  in  all.  Therefore  the  School 
men  said,  "Forma  dat  esse  rei;"  more  accurately  this 
proposition  would  run  :  Forma  dat  rei  essentiam,  materia 
existentiam.  Therefore  the  question  as  to  the  cause  of  a 
thing  always  concerns  merely  its  form,  i.e.,  its  state  or 
quality,  and  not  its  matter,  and  indeed  only  the  former  so 
far  as  we  have  grounds  for  assuming  that  it  has  not  always 
existed,  but  has  come  into  being  by  means  of  a  change.  The 
union  of  form  and  matter,  or  of  essentia  and  existentia,  gives 
the  concrete,  which  is  always  particular ;  thus,  the  thing. 
And  it  is  the  forms  whose  union  with  matter,  i.e.,  whose 
appearance  in  matter  by  means  of  a  change,  are  subject  to 
the  law  of  causality.  By  taking  the  conception  too  widely 
in  the  abstract  the  mistake  slipped  in  of  extending  causality 
to  the  thing  absolutely,  that  is,  to  its  whole  inner  nature 
and  existence,  thus  also  to  matter,  and  ultimately  it  was 
thought  justifiable  to  ask  for  a  cause  of  the  world  itself. 
This  is  the  origin  of  the  cosmological  proof.  This  proof 
begins  by  inferring  from  the  existence  of  the  world  its 
non-existence,  which  preceded  its  existence,  and  such  an 
inference  is  quite  unjustifiable  ;  it  ends,  however,  with  the 
most  fearful  inconsistency,  for  it  does  away  altogether  with 
the  law  of  causality,  from  which  alone  it  derives  all  its 
evidencing  power,  for  it  stops  at  a  first  cause,  and  will  not 
go  further ;  thus  ends,  as  it  were,  by  committing  parricide, 
as  the  bees  kill  the  drones  after  they  have  served  their 
end.  All  the  talk  about  the  absolute  is  referable  to  a 
shaniefast,  and  therefore  disguised  cosmological  proof, 


216  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 

which,  in  the  face  of  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  has 
passed  for  philosophy  in  Germany  for  the  last  sixty  years. 
What  does  the  absolute  mean  ?  Something  that  is,  and  of 
which  (under  pain  of  punishment)  we  dare  not  ask  further 
whence  and  why  it  is.  A  precious  rarity  for  professors  of 
philosophy  !  In  the  case,  however,  of  the  honestly  ex 
pressed  cosmological  proof,  through  the  assumption  of  a 
first  cause,  and  therefore  of  a  first  beginning  in  a  time 
which  has  absolutely  no  beginning,  this  beginning  is  always 
pushed  further  back  by  the  question :  Why  not  earlier  ? 
And  so  far  back  indeed  that  one  never  gets  down  from 
it  to  the  present,  but  is  always  marvelling  that  the  present 
itself  did  not  occur  already  millions  of  years  ago.  In 
general,  then,  the  law  of  causality  applies  to  all  things  in 
the  world,  but  not  to  the  world  itself,  for  it  is  immanent 
in  the  world,  not  transcendent ;  with  it  it  comes  into 
action,  and  with  it  it  is  abolished.  This  depends  ultimately 
upon  the  fact  that  it  belongs  to  the  mere  form  of  our 
understanding,  like  the  whole  of  the  objective  world, 
which  accordingly  is  merely  phenomenal,  and  is  con 
ditioned  by  the  understanding.  Thus  the  law  of  causality 
has  full  application,  without  any  exception,  to  all  things  in 
the  world,  of  course  in  respect  of  their  form,  to  the  variation 
of  these  forms,  and  thus  to  their  changes.  It  is  valid  for 
the  actions  of  men  as  for  the  impact  of  a  stone,  yet,  as  we 
have  said  always,  merely  with  regard  to  events,  to  changes. 
But  if  we  abstract  from  its  origin  in  the  understanding 
and  try  to  look  at  it  as  purely  objective,  it  will  be  found 
in  ultimate  analysis  to  depend  upon  the  fact  that  every 
thing  that  acts  does  so  by  virtue  of  its  original,  and 
therefore  eternal  or  timeless,  power ;  therefore  its  present 
effect  would  necessarily  have  occurred  infinitely  earlier, 
that  is,  before  all  conceivable  time,  but  that  it  lacked  the 
temporal  condition.  This  temporal  condition  is  the  occa 
sion,  i.e.,  the  cause,  on  account  of  which  alone  the  effect 
only  takes  place  now,  but  now  takes  place  necessarily ; 
the  cause  assigns  it  its  place  in  time. 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  217 

But  in  consequence  of  that  unduly  wide  view  in  abstract 
thought  of  the  conception  cause,  which  was  considered 
above,  it  has  been  confounded  with  the  conception  offeree. 
This  is  something  completely  different  from  the  cause, 
but  yet  is  that  which  imparts  to  every  cause  its  causality, 
i.e.,  the  capability  of  producing  au  effect.  I  have  ex 
plained  this  fully  and  thoroughly  in  the  second  book  of 
the  first  volume,  also  in  "  The  Will  in  Nature,"  and 
finally  also  in  the  second  edition  of  the  essay  on  the  prin 
ciple  of  sufficient  reason,  §  20,  p.  44  (third  edition,  p.  45). 
This  confusion  is  to  be  found  in  its  most  aggravated  form 
in  Maine  de  Biran's  book  mentioned  above,  and  this  is 
dealt  with  more  fully  in  the  place  last  referred  to ;  but 
apart  from  this  it  is  also  very  common  ;  for  example,  when 
people  seek  for  the  cause  of  any  original  force,  such  as 
gravitation.  Kant  himself  (Uber  den  Einzig  Moglichen 
Beweisgrund,  vol.  i.  p.  211-215  of  Eosenkranz's  edition) 
calls  the  forces  of  nature  "efficient  causes,"  and  says 
"  gravity  is  a  cause."  Yet  it  is  impossible  to  see  to  the 
bottom  of  his  thought  so  long  as  force  and  cause  are  not 
distinctly  recognised  as  completely  different.  But  the 
use  of  abstract  conceptions  leads  very  easily  to  their  con 
fusion  if  the  consideration  of  their  origin  is  set  aside.  The 
knowledge  of  causes  and  effects,  always  perceptive,  which 
rests  on  the  form  of  the  understanding,  is  neglected  in 
order  to  stick  to  the  abstraction  cause.  In  this  way  alone 
is  the  conception  of  causality,  with  all  its  simplicity,  so 
very  frequently  wrongly  apprehended.  Therefore  even 
in  Aristotle  ("  Metaph.,"  iv.  2)  we  find  causes  divided  into 
four  classes  which  are  utterly  falsely,  and  indeed  crudely 
conceived.  Compare  with  it  my  classification  of  causes 
as  set  forth  for  the  first  time  in  my  essay  on  sight  and 
colour,  chap.  I ,  and  touched  upon  briefly  in  the  sixth  para 
graph  of  the  first  volume  of  the  present  work,  but  ex 
pounded  at  full  length  in  my  prize  essay  on  the  freedom 
of  the  will,  p.  30-33.  Two  things  in  nature  remain  un 
touched  by  that  chain  of  causality  which  stretches  into 


218  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 

infinity  in  both  directions ;  these  are  matter  and  the  forces 
of  nature.  They  are  both  conditions  of  causality,  while 
everything  else  is  conditioned  by  it.  For  the  one  (matter) 
is  that  in  which  the  states  and  their  changes  appear ;  the 
other  (forces  of  nature)  is  that  by  virtue  of  which  alone 
they  can  appear  at  all.  Here,  however,  one  must  remem 
ber  that  in  the  second  book,  and  later  and  more  thoroughly 
in  "  The  Will  in  Nature,"  the  natural  forces  are  shown  to 
be  identical  with  the  will  in  us;  but  matter  appears  as 
the  mere  visibility  of  the  will ;  so  that  ultimately  it  also 
may  in  a  certain  sense  be  regarded  as  identical  with  the 
will. 

On  the  other  hand,  not  less  true  and  correct  is  what  is  ex 
plained  in  §  4  of  the  first  book,  and  still  better  in  the  second 
edition  of  the  essay  on  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason 
at  the  end  of  §  21,  p.  77  (third  edition,  p.  82),  that  matter 
is  causality  itself  objectively  comprehended,  for  its  entire 
nature  consists  in  acting  in  general,  so  that  it  itself  is  thus 
the  activity  (evepyeut  =  reality)  of  things  generally,  as  it 
were  the  abstraction  of  all  their  different  kinds  of  acting. 
Accordingly,  since  the  essence,  essentia,  of  matter  consists 
in  action  in  general,  and  the  reality,  existentia,  of  things 
consists  in  their  materiality,  which  thus  again  is  one  with 
action  in  general,  it  may  be  asserted  of  matter  that  in  it 
existentia  and  essentia  unite  and  are  one,  for  it  has  no 
other  attribute  than  existence  itself  in  general  and  inde 
pendent  of  all  fuller  definitions  of  it.  On  the  other  hand, 
all  empirically  given  matter,  thus  all  material  or  matter 
in  the  special  sense  (which  our  ignorant  materialists  at 
the  present  day  confound  with  matter),  has  already  entered 
the  framework  of  the  forms  and  manifests  itself  onlv 

v  */ 

through  their  qualities  and  accidents,  because  in  experience 
every  action  is  of  quite  a  definite  and  special  kind,  and  is 
never  merely  general.  Therefore  pure  matter  is  an  object 
of  thought  alone,  not  of  perception,  which  led  Plotinus 
(Enneas  II.,  lib.  iv.,  c.  8  &  9)  and  Giordano  Bruno  (Delia 
Causa,  dial.  4)  to  make  the  paradoxical  assertion  that 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  219 

matter  has  no  extension,  for  extension  is  inseparable  from 
the  form,  and  that  therefore  it  is  incorporeal.  Yet  Aristotle 
had  already  taught  that  it  is  not  a  body  although  it  is 
corporeal :  "crcof^a  /j,ev  OVK  av  eirj,  aco/nart/cr]  Se"  (Stob.  Ed., 
lib.  i.,  c.  12,  §  5).  In  reality  we  think  under  pure  matter 
only  action,  in  the  abstract,  quite  independent  of  the  kind 
of  action,  thus  pure  causality  itself;  and  as  such  it  is  not 
an  object  but  a  condition  of  experience,  just  like  space  and 
time.  This  is  the  reason  why  in  the  accompanying  table 
of  our  pure  a  priori  knowledge  matter  is  able  to  take  the 
place  of  causality,  and  therefore  appears  along  with  space 
and  time  as  the  third  pure  form,  and  therefore  as  de 
pendent  on  our  intellect. 

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


220  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 

provided  the  first  example  of  such  a  science,  for  in  the 
fifth  and  sixth  books  of  his  "  Physics "  he  determined 
a  priori  the  laws  of  rest  and  motion. 

Now  this  table  may  be  regarded  at  pleasure  either  as  a 
collection  of  the  eternal  laws  of  the  world,  and  therefore 
as  the  basis  of  our  ontology,  or  as  a  chapter  of  the  physio 
logy  of  the  brain,  according  as  one  assumes  the  realistic 
or  the  idealistic  point  of  view ;  but  the  second  is  in  the 
last  instance  right.  On  this  point,  indeed,  we  have  already 
come  to  an  understanding  in  the  first  chapter ;  yet  I  wish 
further  to  illustrate  it  specially  by  an  example.  Aristotle's 
book  "De  Xenophane"  &c.,  commences  with  these  weighty 
words  of  Xenophanes :  "  A'iSiov  eivai  tyrja-iv,  ei  TI  ea-nv, 
enrep  //,?;  evBe-^erai  yeveadai  jjurj^ev  etc  fjujSevos"  (Sternum 
esse,  inquit,  quicquid  est,  siquidem  fieri  non  potest,  ut  ex 
nihilo  quippiam  existat.)  Here,  then,  Xenophanes  judges 
as  to  the  origin  of  things,  as  regards  its  possibility,  and 
of  this  origin  he  can  have  had  no  experience,  even  by 
analogy;  nor  indeed  does  he  appeal  to  experience,  but 
judges  apodictically,  and  therefore  a  priori.  How  can 
he  do  this  if  as  a  stranger  he  looks  from  without  into  a 
world  that  exists  purely  objectively,  that  is,  independently 
of  his  knowledge  ?  How  can  he,  an  ephemeral  being 
hurrying  past,  to  whom  only  a  hasty  glance  into  such  a 
world  is  permitted,  judge  apodictically,  a  priori  and 
without  experience  concerning  that  world,  the  possibility 
of  its  existence  and  origin  ?  The  solution  of  this  riddle 
is  that  the  man  has  only  to  do  with  his  own  ideas,  which 
as  such  are  the  work  of  his  brain,  and  the  constitution 
of  which  is  merely  the  manner  or  mode  in  which  alone 
the  function  of  his  brain  can  be  fulfilled,  i.e.,  the  form 
of  his  perception.  He  thus  judges  only  as  to  the  pheno 
mena  of  his  own  brain,  and  declares  what  enters  into  its 
forms,  time,  space,  and  causality,  and  what  does  not.  In 
this  he  is  perfectly  at  home  and  speaks  apodictically. 
In  a  like  sense,  then,  the  following  table  of  the  Prcedica- 
liilia  a  priori  of  time,  space,  and  matter  is  to  be  taken : — 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI. 


221 


PPwEDICABILIA  A  PRIORI. 


Of  Time. 

Of  Space. 

Of  Matter. 

(i)  There  is  only  one 

(i)  There  is  only  one 

(i)  There  is  only  one  Mat 

Time,  and  all  different 

Space,  and  all  different 

ter,  and  all  different  mate 

times  are  parts  of  it. 

spaces  are  parts  of  it. 

rials  are  different  states  of 

matter  ;  as  such  it  is  called 

Substance. 

(2)  Different     times 

(2)  Different    spaces 

(2)  Different  matters  (ma 

are    not    simultaneous 

are  not  successive  but 

terials)  are  not  so  through 

but  successive. 

simultaneous. 

substance  but  through  acci 

dents. 

(3)  Time    cannot  be 

(3)  Space  cannot  be 

(3)  Annihilation  of  matter 

thought      away,      but 

ihought      away,      but 

is  inconceivable,  but  anni 

everything      can      be 

everything      can      be 

hilation  of  all  its  forms  and 

thought  away  from  it. 

thought  away  from  it. 

qualities  is  conceivable. 

(4)  Time    has    three 

(4)  Space  has    three 

(4)  Matter  exists,  i.e.,  acts 

divisions,  the  past,  the 

dimensions  —  height, 

in    all    the    dimensions   of 

present,  and  the  future, 

breadth,  and  length. 

space   and   throughout  the 

which    constitute   two 

whole  length  of  time,  and 

directions  and  a  centre 

thus   these  two  are  united 

of  indifference. 

and  thereby  filled.     In  this 

consists  the  true  nature  of 

matter  :  thus  it  is  through 

and  through  causality. 

(5)  Time  is  infinitely 

(5)  Space  is  infinitely 

(5)  Matter  is  infinitely  di 

divisible. 

divisible. 

visible. 

(6)  Time  is  homogene 

(6)  Space    is    homo 

(6)  Matter  is  homogeneous 

ous  and  a  Continuum, 

geneous  and  a  Continu 

and  a  Continuum,    i.e.,   it 

i.e.,  no  one  of  its  parts 

um,  i.e.,  no  one  of  its 

does  not  consist  of  originally 

is    different    from   the 

parts  is  different  from 

different    (homoiomeria)   or 

rest,  nor  separated  from 

the  rest,  nor  separated 

originally    separated    parts 

it  by  anything  that  is 

from    it    by   anything 

(atoms)  ;  it  is  therefore  not 

not  time. 

that  is  not  space. 

composed   of  parts,    which 

would  necessarily  be   sepa 

rated  by  something  that  was 

not  matter. 

(7)  Time  has  no  be 

(7)  Space  has  no  lim 

(7)  Matter  has  no   origin 

ginning  and  no  end,  but 

its,   but  all  limits  are 

and  no  end,  but  all  coming 

all  beginning  and  end 

in  it. 

into  being  and  passing  away 

is  in  it. 

are  in  it. 

(8)  By  reason  of  time 

(8)  By  reason  of  space 

(8)  15y   reason   of    matter 

•we  count. 

we  measure. 

we  weigh. 

(9)  Rhythm   is   only 

(9)  Symmetry  is  only 

(9)  Equilibrium  is  only  in 

in  time. 

in  space. 

matter. 

(10)  We    know    the 

(10)  We    know    the 

(10)  We  know  the  laws  of 

laws  of  time  a  priori. 

laws  of  space  a  priori. 

the  substance  of  all  acci 

dents  a  priori. 

222 


FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 


Of  Time. 

Of  Space. 

Of  Matter. 

(n)  Time  can  be  per 

(n)  Space  is  imme 

(n)  Matter  can    only   be 

ceived    a    priori,     al 

diately  perceptible    a 

thought  a  priori. 

though    only    in    the 

priori. 

form  of  a  line. 

(12)  Time  has  no  per 

(12)  Space  can  never 

(12)  The  accidents  change; 

manence,     but    passes 

pass  away,  but  endures 

the  substance  remains. 

away   as  soon  as  it  is 

through  all  time. 

there. 

(13)  Time  never  rests. 

(13)  Space  is  immov 

(13)  Matter  is  indifferent 

able. 

to  rest  and  motion  ;  i.  e.  ,  it 

is    originally    disposed    to 

wards  neither  of  the  two. 

(14)  Everything  that 

(14)  Everything  that 

(14)  Everything    material 

exists  in  time  has  dura 

exists   in  space  has  a 

has  the  capacity  for  action. 

tion. 

position. 

(15)  Time  has  no  dura 

(15)  Space  has  no  mo 

(15)  Matter  is  what  is  per 

tion,   but  all  duration 

tion,  but  all  motion  is 

manent  in  time  and  mov 

is    in    it,   and    is    the 

in    it,    and    it  is  the 

able  in  space  ;  by  the  com 

persistence  of  what  is 

change  of  position  of 

parison  of  what  rests  with 

permanent  in  contrast 

what  is  moved,  in  con 

what  is  moved  we  measure 

with  its  restless  course. 

trast  with  its  unbroken 

duration. 

rest. 

(16)  All    motion    is 

(16)  All    motion    is 

(16)  All   motion    is    only 

only  possible  in  time. 

only  possible  in  space. 

possible  to  matter. 

(17)  Velocity    is,   in 

(17)  Velocity    is,    in 

(17)  The  magnitude  of  the 

equal  spaces,  in  inverse 

equal  times,  in  direct 

motion,  the  velocity  being 

proportion  to  the  time. 

proportion  to  the  space. 

equal,  is  in  direct  geometri 

cal  proportion  to  the  matter 

(mass). 

(18)  Time  is  not  meas 

(18)  Space  is  measur 

(18)  Matter  as  such  (mass) 

urable  directly  through 

able  directly  through 

is  measurable,    i.e.,   deter- 

itself,  but  only  indirect 

itself,    and   indirectly 

minable  as  regards  its  quan 

ly     through      motion, 

through  motion,  which 

tity    only   indirectly,    only 

which  is  in  space  and 

is  in   time  and  space 

through  the  amount  of  the 

time     together  :     thus 

together  :    hence,    for 

motion    which    it    receives 

the  motion  of  the  sun 

example,     an     hour's 

and  imparts  when  it  is  re 

and  of  the  clock  meas 

journey,   and  the  dis 

pelled  or  attracted. 

ure  time. 

tance  of  the  fixed  stars 

expressed  as  the  tra 

velling  of  light  for  so 

many  years. 

(19)  Time    is    omni 

(19)  Space  is  eternal. 

(19)  Matter    is    absolute. 

present.      Every    part 

Every  part  of  it  exists 

That  is,   it   neither  comes 

of  time  is  everywhere, 

always. 

into  being  nor  passes  away, 

i.e.,    in    all    space,   at 

and  thus  its   quantity  can 

once. 

neither    be    increased    nor 

diminished. 

ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI. 


223 


Of  Time. 

Of  Space. 

Of  Matter. 

(20)  In    time    taken 

(20)  In   space   taken 

(20,  21)  Matter  unites  the 

by    itself     everything 

by    itself    everything 

ceaseless  flight  of  time  with 

would  be  in  succession. 

would    be    simultane 

the     rigid    immobility    of 

ous. 

space  ;   therefore  it  is  the 

(21)  Time  makes  the 

(21)  Space  makes  the 

permanent  substance  of  the 

change  of  accidents  pos 

permanence    of     sub 

changing  accidents.    Causa 

sible. 

stance  possible. 

lity  determines  this  change 

for   every  place    at    every 

time,  and  thereby  combines 

time  and  space,  and  consti 

tutes  the  whole  nature  of 

matter. 

(22)  Every    part    of 

(22)  No  part  of  space 

(22)  For  matter    is    both 

time  contains  all  parts 

contains  the  same  mat 

permanent     and     impene 

of  matter. 

ter  as  another. 

trable. 

(23)  Time  is  the  prin- 

(23)  Space  is  the  prin- 

(23)  Individuals    are   ma 

cipium  individuationis. 

cipiumindii'iduationis. 

terial. 

(24)  The  now  has  no 

(24)  The  point  has  no 

(24)  The    atom     has     no 

duration. 

extension. 

reality. 

(25)  Time  in  itself  is 

(25)  Space  in  itself  is 

(25)  Matter    in    itself    is 

empty  and  without  pro 

empty  and  without  pro 

without  form  and  quality, 

perties. 

perties. 

and  likewise  inert,  i.e.,  in 

different  to  rest  or  motion, 

thus  without  properties. 

(26)  Every    moment 

(26)  By  the  position 

(26)  Every  change  in  mat 

is   conditioned  by   the 

of  every  limit  in  space 

ter  can  take  place  only  on 

preceding  moment,  and 

with  reference  to  any 

account  of  another  change 

is  only  because  the  lat 

other  limit,  its  position 

which    preceded    it  ;     and 

ter   has  ceased  to  be. 

with  reference  to  every 

therefore    a    first    change, 

(Principle  of  sufficient 

possible  limit   is   pre 

and  thus  also  a  first  state 

reason  of  existence  in 

cisely  determined. 

of  matter,  is  just  as  incon 

time.  —  See  my  essay  on 

(Principle  of  sufficient 

ceivable  as  a  beginning   of 

the   principle   of  suffi 

reason  of  existence  in 

time   or  a   limit   of   space. 

cient  reason.  ) 

space.  ) 

(Principle  of  sufficient  reason 

of  becoming.) 

(27)  Time  makes  ar 

(27)  Space  makes  geo 

(27)  Matter,  as  that  which 

ithmetic  possible. 

metry  possible. 

is  movable  in  space,  makes 

phoronomy  possible. 

(28)  The  simple  ele 

(28)  The  simple  ele 

(28)  The    simple   element 

ment   in   arithmetic  is 

ment   in   geometry  is 

in  phoronomy  is  the  atom. 

unity. 

the  point. 

224  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 

NOTES  TO  THE  ANNEXED  TABLE. 


(i)  To  No.  4  of  Matter. 

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

I  must  not,  however,  omit  to  mention  that  the  doctrine  of  Kant  referred 
to,  which  forms  the  fundamental  thought  of  the  second  part  of  his  "Meta 
physical  First  Principles  of  Natural  Science,"  thus  of  the  Dynamics,  was 
distinctly  and  fully  expounded  before  Kant  by  Priestley,  in  his  excellent 
"Disquisitions  on  Matter  and  Spirit,''  §  i  and  2,  a  book  which  appeared 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  225 

in  1777,  and  the  second  edition  in  1782,  while  Kant's  work  was  published  in 
1786.     Unconscious  recollection  may  certainly  be  assumed  in  the  case  of 
subsidiary  thoughts,  flashes  of  wit,  comparisons,  &c.,  but  not  in  the  case  of 
the  principal  and  fundamental  thought.     Shall  we  then  believe  that  Kant 
silently  appropriated  such  important  thoughts  of  another  man?  and  this 
from  a  book  which  at  that  time  was  new?     Or  that  this  book  was  unknown 
to  him,  and  that  the  same  thoughts  sprang  up  in  two  minds  within  a  short 
time?    The  explanation,  also,  which  Kant  gives,  in  the  "Metaphysical  First 
Principles  of  Natural  Science  "  (first  edition,  p.  88  ;  Rosenkranz's  edition, 
p.  384),  of  the  real  difference  between  fluids  and  solids,  is  in  substance  already 
to  be  found  in  Kaspar  Freidr.  "Wolffs  "Theory  of  Generation,"  Berlin  1764, 
p.   132.     But  what  are  we  to  say  if  we  find  Kant's  most  important  and 
brilliant  doctrine,  that  of  the  ideality  of  space  and  the  merely  phenomenal 
existence  of  the  corporeal  world,  already  expressed  by  Maupertuis  thirty 
years  earlier  ?    This  will  be  found  more  fully  referred  to  in  Frauenstiidt's 
letters  on  my  philosophy,  Letter  14.     Maupertuis  expresses  this  paradoxical 
doctrine  so  decidedly,  and  yet  without  adducing  any  proof  of  it,  that  one 
must  suppose  that  he  also  took  it  from  somewhere  else.     It  is  very  desirable 
that  the  matter  should  be  further  investigated,  and  as  this  would  demand 
tiresome  and  extensive  researches,  some  German  Academy  might  very  well 
make  the  question  the  subject  of  a  prize  essay.     Now  in  the  same  relation 
as  that  in  which  Kant  here  stands  to  Priestley,  and  perhaps  also  to  Kaspar 
Wolff,  and  Maupertuis  or  his  predecessor,  Laplace  stands  to  Kant.      For 
the  principal  and  fundamental  thought  of  Laplace's  admirable  and  certainly 
correct  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  planetary  system,  which  is  set  forth  in 
his  "Exposition  du  Systeme  du  Monde,"  liv.  v.  c.  2,  was  expressed  by  Kant 
nearly  fifty  years  before,  in  1755,  in  his  "  Naturgeschichte  und  Theorie  des 
Himmels,"  and  more  fully  in  1763  in  his  "  Einzig  moglichen  Beiccisgrund  des 
Daseyns  Gottes"  ch.  7.     Moreover,  in  the  later  work  he  gives  us  to  under 
stand  that  Lambert  in  his  " Kosmologischcn  Briefen,"  1761,  tacitly  adopted 
that  doctrine  from  him,  and  these  letters  at  the  same  time  also  appeared  in 
French  (Lettres  Cosmologiqv.es  sur  la  Constitution   de   VUntiers}.     We  are 
therefore   obliged   to   assume   that   Laplace   knew  that   Kantian   doctrine. 
Certainly  he  expounds  the  matter  more  thoroughly,  strikingly,  and  full}', 
and  at  the  same  time  more  simply  than  Kant,  as  is  natural  from  his  more 
profound  astronomical  knowledge  ;  yet  in  the  main  it  is  to  be  found  clearly 
expressed  in  Kant,  and  on  account  of  the  importance  of  the  matter,  would 
alone  have  been  sufficient  to  make   his   name   immortal.     It  cannot  but 
disturb  us  very  much  if  we  find  minds  of  the  first  order  under  suspicion  of 
dishonesty,  which  would  be  a  scandal  to  those  of  the  lowest  order.     For  we 
feel  that  theft  is  even  more  inexcusable  in  a  rich  man  than  in  a  poor  one. 
We  dare  not,  however,  be  silent ;  for  here  we  are  posterity,  and  must  be  just, 
as  we  hope  that  posterity  will  some  day  be  just  to  us.     Therefore,  as  a  third 
example,  I  will  add  to  these  cases,  that  the  fundamental  thoughts  of  the 
"Metamorphosis  of  Plants,"  by  Goethe,  were  already  expressed  by  Kaspar 
Wolff  in  1764  in  his  "Theory  of  Generation,"  p.  148,  229,  243,  &c.     Indeed, 
is  it  otherwise  with  the  system  of  gravitation  ?  the  discovery  of  which  is  on 
the  Continent  of  Europe  always  ascribed  to  Newton,  while  in  England  the 
learned  at  least  know  very  well  that  it  belongs  to  Robert  Hooke,  who  in 
the  year  1666,   in  a  "Communication  to  the  Royal  Society,"  expounds  it 
quite  distinctly,  although  only  as  an  hypothesis  and  without  proof.     The 
VOL.  II.  P 


226  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IV. 

principal  passage  of  this  communication  is  quoted  in  Dugalcl  Stewart's 
' '  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind, "  and  is  probably  taken  from  Robert  Hooke's 
Posthumous  Works.  The  history  of  the  matter,  and  how  Newton  got  into 
difficulty  by  it,  is  also  to  be  found  in  the  "Biographic  UniverseUe,"  article 
Newton.  Hooke's  priority  is  treated  as  an  established  fact  in  a  short 
history  of  astronomy,  Quarterly  Review,  August  1828.  Further  details  on 
this  subject  are  to  be  found  in  my  " Parerga,"  vol.  ii.,  §  86  (second  edition, 
§  88).  The  story  of  the  fall  of  an  apple  is  a  fable  as  groundless  as  it  is 
popular,  and  is  quite  without  authority. 

(2)  To  No.  1 8  of  Matter. 

The  quantity  of  a  motion  (quantitas  motus,  already  in  Descartes)  is  the 
product  of  the  mass  into  the  velocity. 

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

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

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

The  quantity  of  a  given  matter  can  only  be  estimated  in  general  according 
to  its  force,  and  its  force  can  only  be  known  in  its  expression.  Now  when 
we  are  considering  matter  only  as  regards  its  quantity,  not  its  quality,  this 
expression  can  only  be  mechanical,  i.e.,  it  can  only  consist  in  motion  which 
it  imparts  to  other  matter.  For  only  in  motion  does  the  force  of  matter 
become,  so  to  speak,  alive  ;  hence  the  expression  vis  viva  for  the  manifesta 
tion  of  force  of  matter  in  motion.  Accordingly  the  only  measure  of  the 
quantity  of  a  given  matter  is  the  quantity  of  its  motion,  or  its  momentum. 
In  this,  however,  if  it  is  given,  the  quantity  of  matter  still  appears  in  cou- 


ON  KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI.  227 

junction  and  amalgamated  with  its  other  factor,  velocity.  Therefore  if  we 
waut  to  know  the  quantity  of  matter  (the  mass)  this  other  factor  must  be 

C1 

eliminated.  Now  the  velocity  is  known  directly  ;  for  it  is  y.  But  the  other 
factor,  which  remains  when  this  is  eliminated,  can  always  be  known  only 
relatively  in  comparison  with  other  masses,  which  again  can  only  be  known 
themselves  by  means  of  the  quantity  of  their  motion,  or  their  momentum, 
thus  in  their  combination  with  velocity.  "We  must  therefore  compare  one 
quantity  of  motion  with  the  other,  and  then  subtract  the  velocity  from  both, 
in  order  to  see  how  much  each  of  them  owed  to  its  mass.  This  is  done  by 
weighing  the  masses  against  each  other,  in  which  that  quantity  of  motion  is 
compared  which,  in  each  of  the  two  masses,  calls  forth  the  attractive  power 
of  the  earth  that  acts  upon  both  only  in  proportion  to  their  quantity. 
Therefore  there  are  two  kinds  of  weighing.  Either  we  impart  to  the  two 
masses  to  be  compared  equal  velocity,  in  order  to  find  out  which  of  the  two 
now  communicates  motion  to  the  other,  thus  itself  has  a  greater  quantity  of 
motion,  which,  since  the  velocity  is  the  same  on  both  sides,  is  to  be  ascribed 
to  the  other  factor  of  the  quantity  of  motion  or  the  momentum,  thus  to  the 
mass  (common  balance).  Or  we  weigh,  by  investigating  how  much  more 
velocity  the  one  mass  must  receive  than  the  other  has,  in  order  to  be  equal 
to  the  latter  in  quantity  of  motion  or  momentum,  and  therefore  allow  no 
more  motion  to  be  communicated  to  itself  by  the  other  ;  for  then  in  propor 
tion  as  its  velocity  must  exceed  that  of  the  other,  its  mass,  i.e. ,  the  quantity 
of  its  matter,  is  less  than  that  of  the  other  (steelyard).  This  estimation  of 
masses  by  weighing  depends  upon  the  favourable  circumstance  that  the 
moving  force,  in  itself,  acts  upon  both  quite  equally,  and  each  of  the  two  is 
in  a  position  to  communicate  to  the  other  directly  its  surplus  quantity  of 
motion  or  momentum,  so  that  it  becomes  visible. 

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


(      228      ), 


ScconU  f&aif. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  ABSTRACT  IDEA,  OR 
THINKING. 


CHAPTER  V.1 
ON   THE    IRKATIONAL   INTELLECT. 

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

The  brutes  have  understanding  without  having  reason, 
and  therefore  they  have  knowledge  of  perception  but  no 
abstract  knowledge.  They  apprehend  correctly,  and  also 
grasp  the  immediate  causal  connection,  in  the  case  of  the 
higher  species  even  through  several  links  of  its  chain,  but 
they  do  not,  properly  speaking,  think.  For  they  lack  con 
ceptions,  that  is,  abstract  ideas.  The  first  consequence  of 
this,  however,  is  the  want  of  a  proper  memory,  which 
applies  even  to  the  most  sagacious  of  the  brutes,  and  it 
is  just  this  which  constitutes  the  principal  difference  be 
tween  their  consciousness  and  that  of  men.  Perfect  in 
telligence  depends  upon  the  distinct  consciousness  of  the 

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


ON  THE  IRRATIONAL  INTELLECT.  229 

past  and  of  the  eventual  future,  as  such,  and  in  connection 
with  the  present.  The  special  memory  which  this  de 
mands  is  therefore  an  orderly,  connected,  and  thinking 
retrospective  recollection.  This,  however,  is  only  possible 
by  means  of  general  conceptions,  the  assistance  of  which  is 
required  by  what  is  entirely  individual,  in  order  that  it 
may  be  recalled  in  its  order  and  connection.  For  the 
boundless  multitude  of  things  and  events  of  the  same 
and  similar  kinds,  in  the  course  of  our  life,  does  not  admit 
directly  of  a  perceptible  and  individual  recollection  of 
each  particular,  for  which  neither  the  powers  of  the  most 
comprehensive  memory  nor  our  time  would  be  sufficient. 
Therefore  all  this  can  only  be  preserved  by  subsuming  it 
under  general  conceptions,  and  the  consequent  reference  to 
relatively  few  principles,  by  means  of  which  we  then  have 
always  at  command  an  orderly  and  adequate  survey  of 
our  past.  We  can  only  present  to  ourselves  in  perception 
particular  scenes  of  the  past,  but  the  time  that  has  passed 
since  then  and  its  content  we  are  conscious  of  only  in  the 
abstract  by  means  of  conceptions  of  things  and  numbers 
which  now  represent  days  and  years,  together  with  their 
content.  The  memory  of  the  brutes,  on  the  contrary,  like 
their  whole  intellect,  is  confined  to  what  they  perceive,  and 
primarily  consists  merely  in  the  fact  that  a  recurring  im 
pression  presents  itself  as  having  already  been  experienced, 
for  the  present  perception  revivifies  the  traces  of  an  earlier 
one.  Their  memory  is  therefore  always  dependent  upon 
what  is  now  actually  present.  Just  on  this  account,  how 
ever,  this  excites  anew  the  sensation  and  the  mood  which 
the  earlier  phenomenon  produced.  Thus  the  dog  recog 
nises  acquaintances,  distinguishes  friends  from  enemies, 
easily  finds  again  the  path  it  has  once  travelled,  the  houses 
it  has  once  visited,  and  at  the  sight  of  a  plate  or  a  stick 
is  at  once  put  into  the  mood  associated  with  them.  All 
kinds  of  training  depend  upon  the  use  of  this  perceptive 
memory  and  on  the  force  of  habit,  which  in  the  case  of 
animals  is  specially  strong.  It  is  therefore  just  as  diffe- 


250  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  V. 

rent  from  human  education  as  perception  is  from  thinking. 
We  ourselves  are  in  certain  cases,  in  which  memory  proper 
refuses  us  its  service,  confined  to  that  merely  perceptive 
recollection,  and  thus  we  can  measure  the  difference  be 
tween  the  two  from  our  own  experience.  For  example, 
at  the  sight  of  a  person  whom  it  appears  to  us  we  know, 
although  we  are  not  able  to  remember  when  or  where 
we  saw  him ;  or  again,  when  we  visit  a  place  where  we 
once  were  in  early  childhood,  that  is,  while  our  reason 
was  yet  undeveloped,  and  which  we  have  therefore 
entirely  forgotten,  and  yet  feel  that  the  present  impres 
sion  is  one  which  we  have  already  experienced.  This 
is  the  nature  of  all  the  recollections  of  the  brutes.  We 
have  only  to  add  that  in  the  case  of  the  most  saga 
cious  this  merely  perceptive  memory  rises  to  a  certain 
degree  of  phantasy,  which  again  assists  it,  and  by  virtue 
of  which,  for  example,  the  image  of  its  absent  master 
floats  before  the  mind  of  the  dog  and  excites  a  longing 
after  him,  so  that  when  he  remains  away  long  it  seeks  for 
him  everywhere.  Its  dreams  also  depend  upon  this  phan 
tasy.  The  consciousness  of  the  brutes  is  accordingly  a 
mere  succession  of  presents,  none  of  which,  however,  exist 
as  future  before  they  appear,  nor  as  past  after  they  have 
vanished;  which  is  the  specific  difference  of  human  con 
sciousness.  Hence  the  brutes  have  infinitely  less  to  suffer 
than  we  have,  because  they  know  no  other  pains  but  those 
which  the  present  directly  brings.  But  the  present  is  with 
out  extension,  while  the  future  and  the  past,  which  contain 
most  of  the  causes  of  our  suffering,  are  widely  extended, 
and  to  their  actual  content  there  is  added  that  which  is 
merely  possible,  which  opens  up  an  unlimited  field  for 
desire  and  aversion.  The  brutes,  on  the  contrary,  undis 
turbed  by  these,  enjoy  quietly  and  peacefully  each  present 
moment,  even  if  it  is  only  bearable.  Human  beings  of 
very  limited  capacity  perhaps  approach  them  in  this. 
Further,  the  sufferings  which  belong  purely  to  the  present 
can  only  be  physical.  Indeed  the  brutes  do  not  properly 


OiV  THE  IRRATIONAL  INTELLECT.  231 

speaking  feel  death :  they  can  only  know  it  when  it  ap 
pears,  and  then  they  are  already  no  more.  Thus  then  the 
life  of  the  brute  is  a  continuous  present.  It  lives  on 
without  reflection,  and  exists  wholly  in  the  present ;  even 
the  great  majority  of  men  live  with  very  little  reflection. 
Another  consequence  of  the  special  nature  of  the  intellect 
of  the  brutes,  which  we  have  explained  is  the  perfect 
accordance  of  their  consciousness  with  their  environment. 
Between  the  brute  and  the  external  world  there  is 
nothing,  but  between  us  and  the  external  world  there  is 
always  our  thought  about  it,  which  makes  us  often  inap 
proachable  to  it,  and  it  to  us.  Only  in  the  case  of  children 
and  very  primitive  men  is  this  wall  of  partition  so  thin 
that  in  order  to  see  what  goes  on  in  them  we  only  need  to 
see  what  goes  on  round  about  them.  Therefore  the  brutes 
are  incapable  alike  of  purpose  and  dissimulation ;  they 
reserve  nothing.  In  this  respect  the  dog  stands  to  the 
man  in  the  same  relation  as  a  glass  goblet  to  a  metal  one, 
and  this  helps  greatly  to  endear  the  dog  so  much  to  us, 
for  it  affords  us  great  pleasure  to  see  all  those  inclinations 
and  emotions  which  we  so  often  conceal  displayed  simply 
and  openly  in  him.  In  general,  the  brutes  always  play,  as 
it  were,  with  their  hand  exposed ;  and  therefore  we  con 
template  with  so  much  pleasure  their  behaviour  towards 
each  other,  both  when  they  belong  to  the  same  and  to 
different  species.  It  is  characterised  by  a  certain  stamp 
of  innocence,  in  contrast  to  the  conduct  of  men,  which  is 
withdrawn  from  the  innocence  of  nature  by  the  entrance 
of  reason,  and  with  it  of  prudence  or  deliberation.  Hence 
human  conduct  has  throughout  the  stamp  of  intention  or 
deliberate  purpose,  the  absence  of  which,  and  the  conse 
quent  determination  by  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  is  the 
fundamental  characteristic  of  all  the  action  of  the  brutes. 
No  brute  is  capable  of  a  purpose  properly  so-called.  To 
conceive  and  follow  out  a  purpose  is  the  prerogative  of  man, 
and  it  is  a  prerogative  which  is  rich  in  consequences. 
Certainly  an  instinct  like  that  of  the  bird  of  passage  or  the 


232  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER   V. 

bee,  still  more  a  permanent,  persistent  desire,  a  longing  like 
that  of  the  dog  for  its  absent  master,  may  present  the 
appearance  of  a  purpose,  with  which,  however,  it  must 
not  be  confounded.  Now  all  this  has  its  ultimate  ground 
in  the  relation  between  the  human  and  the  brute  in 
tellect,  which  may  also  be  thus  expressed  :  The  brutes 
have  only  direct  knowledge,  while  we,  in  addition  to 
this,  have  indirect  knowledge  ;  and  the  advantage  which 
in  many  things — for  example,  in  trigonometry  and 
analysis,  in  machine  work  instead  of  hand  work,  &c. — 
indirect  has  over  direct  knowledge  appears  here  also. 
Thus  again  we  may  say :  The  brutes  have  only  a  single 
intellect,  we  a  double  intellect,  both  perceptive  and  thinking, 
and  the  operation  of  the  two  often  go  on  independently  of 
each  other.  We  perceive  one  thing,  and  we  think  another. 
Often,  again,  they  act  upon  each  other.  This  way  of  put 
ting  the  matter  enables  us  specially  to  understand  that 
natural  openness  and  naivete  of  the  brutes,  referred  to 
above,  as  contrasted  with  the  concealment  of  man. 

However,  the  law  natura  nonfacit  saltus  is  not  entirely 
suspended  even  with  regard  to  the  intellect  of  the  brutes, 
though  certainly  the  step  from  the  brute  to  the  human 
intelligence  is  the  greatest  which  nature  has  made  in  the 
production  of  her  creatures.  In  the  most  favoured  indi 
viduals  of  the  highest  species  of  the  brutes  there  certainly 
sometimes  appears,  always  to  our  astonishment,  a  faint 
trace  of  reflection,  reason,  the  comprehension  of  words,  of 
thought,  purpose,  and  deliberation.  The  most  striking 
indications  of  this  kind  are  afforded  by  the  elephant,  whose 
highly  developed  intelligence  is  heightened  and  supported 
by  an  experience  of  a  lifetime  which  sometimes  extends 
to  two  hundred  years.  He  has  often  given  unmistakable 
signs,  recorded  in  well-known  anecdotes,  of  premeditation, 
which,  in  the  case  of  brutes,  always  astonishes  us  more 
than  anything  else.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the  story  of  the 
tailor  on  whom  an  elephant  revenged  himself  for  pricking 
him  with  a  needle.  I  wish,  however,  to  rescue  from 


ON  THE  IRRATIONAL  INTELLECT.  233 

oblivion  a  parallel  case  to  this,  because  it  has  the  advan 
tage  of  being  authenticated  by  judicial  investigation.  On 
the  2/th  of  August  1830  there  was  held  at  Morpeth,  in 
England,  a  coroner's  inquest  on  the  keeper,  Baptist  Bern- 
hard,  who  was  killed  by  his  elephant.  It  appeared  from 
the  evidence  that  two  years  before  he  had  offended  the 
elephant  grossly,  and  now,  without  any  occasion,  but  on 
a  favourable  opportunity,  the  elephant  had  seized  him  and 
crushed  him.  (See  the  Spectator  and  other  English  papers 
of  that  day.)  For  special  information  on  the  intelligence 
of  brutes  I  recommend  Leroy's  excellent  book,  "  Sur 
V Intelligence  des  Animaux"  nouv.  ed.  1802. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ON   THE   DOCTRINE   OF   ABSTKACT   OR   RATIONAL 
KNOWLEDGE. 

THE  outward  impression  upon  the  senses,  together  with 
the  mood  which  it  alone  awakens  in  us,  vanishes  with 
the  presence  of  the  thing.  Therefore  these  two  cannot  of 
themselves  constitute  experience  proper,  whose  teaching  is 
to  guide  our  conduct  for  the  future.  The  image  of  that 
impression  which  the  imagination  preserves  is  originally 
weaker  than  the  impression  itself,  and  becomes  weaker 
and  weaker  daily,  until  in  time  it  disappears  altogether. 
There  is  only  one  thing  which  is  not  subject  either  to  the 
instantaneous  vanishing  of  the  impression  or  to  the  gradual 
disappearance  of  its  image,  and  is  therefore  free  from  the 
power  of  time.  This  is  the  conception.  In  it,  then,  the  teach 
ing  of  experience  must  be  stored  up,  and  it  alone  is  suited 
to  be  a  safe  guide  to  our  steps  in  life.  Therefore  Seneca 
says  rightly,  "Si  vis  tibi  omnia  siibjicere,  te  subjice  rationi" 
(Ep.  37).  And  I  add  to  this  that  the  essential  condition  of 
surpassing  others  in  actual  life  is  that  we  should  reflect 
or  deliberate.  Such  an  important  tool  of  the  intellect  as 
the  concept  evidently  cannot  be  identical  with  the  word, 
this  mere  sound,  which  as  an  impression  of  sense  passes 
with  the  moment,  or  as  a  phantasm  of  hearing  dies  away 
with  time.  Yet  the  concept  is  an  idea,  the  distinct  con 
sciousness  and  preservation  of  which  are  bound  up  with 
the  word.  Hence  the  Greeks  called  word,  concept,  rela 
tion,  thought,  and  reason  by  the  name  of  the  first,  6  \oyos. 
Yet  the  concept  is  perfectly  different  both  from  the  word, 


ON  ABSTRACT  OR  RATIONAL  KNOWLEDGE.      235 

to  which  it  is  joined,  and  from  the  perceptions,  from  which 
it  has  originated.  It  is  of  an  entirely  different  nature 
from  these  impressions  of  the  senses.  Yet  it  is  able  to 
take  up  into  itself  all  the  results  of  perception,  and  give 
them  back  again  unchanged  and  undiminished  after  the 
longest  period  of  time ;  thus  alone  does  experience  arise. 
But  the  concept  preserves,  not  what  is  perceived  nor  what 
is  then  felt,  but  only  what  is  essential  in  these,  in  an 
entirely  altered  form,  and  yet  as  an  adequate  representa 
tive  of  them.  Just  as  flowers  cannot  be  preserved,  but 
their  ethereal  oil,  their  essence,  with  the  same  smell  and 
the  same  virtues,  can  be.  The  action  that  has  been  guided 
by  correct  conceptions  will,  in  the  result,  coincide  with  the 
real  object  aimed  at.  We  may  judge  of  the  inestimable  i 
value  of  conceptions,  and  consequently  of  the  reason,  if  we  i 
glance  for  a  moment  at  the  infinite  multitude  and  variety 
of  the  things  and  conditions  that  coexist  and  succeed  each 
other,  and  then  consider  that  speech  and  writing  (the 
signs  of  conceptions)  are  capable  of  affording  us  accurate 
information  as  to  everything  and  every  relation  when 
and  wherever  it  may  have  been ;  for  comparatively  few 
conceptions  can  contain  and  represent  an  infinite  number 
of  things  and  conditions.  In  our  own  reflection  abstrac 
tion  is  a  throwing  off  of  useless  baggage  for  the  sake 
of  more  easily  handling  the  knowledge  which  is  to  be 
compared,  and  has  therefore  to  be  turned  about  in  all 
directions.  We  allow  much  that  is  unessential,  and 
therefore  only  confusing,  to  fall  away  from  the  real 
things,  and  work  with  few  but  essential  determinations 
thought  in  the  abstract.  But  just  because  general  con 
ceptions  are  only  formed  by  thinking  away  and  leaving 
out  existing  qualities,  and  are  therefore  the  emptier  the 
more  general  they  are,  the  use  of  this  procedure  is  confined 
to  the  working  iip  of  knowledge  which  we  have  already 
acquired.  This  working  up  includes  the  drawing  of  con 
clusions  from  premisses  contained  in  our  knowledge.  New 
insight,  on  the  contrary,  can  only  be  obtained  by  the  help 


236  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VI. 

of  the  faculty  of  judgment,  from  perception,  which  alone 
is  complete  and  rich  knowledge.  Further,  because  the 
content  and  the  extent  of  the  concepts  stand  in  inverse 
relation  to  each  other,  and  thus  the  more  is  thought  un 
der  a  concept,  the  less  is  thought  in  it,  concepts  form  a 
graduated  series,  a  hierarchy,  from  the  most  special  to  the 
most  general,  at  the  lower  end  of  which  scholastic  realism 
is  almost  right,  and  at  the  upper  end  nominalism.  For  the 
most  special  conception  is  almost  the  individual,  thus 
almost  real ;  and  the  most  general  conception,  e.g.,  being 
(i.e.,  the  infinitive  of  the  copula),  is  scarcely  anything  but 
a  word.  Therefore  philosophical  systems  which  confine 
themselves  to  such  very  general  conceptions,  without 
going  down  to  the  real,  are  little  more  than  mere  jug 
gling  with  words.  For  since  all  abstraction  consists  in 
thinking  away,  the  further  we  push  it  the  less  we  have 
left  over.  Therefore,  if  I  read  those  modern  philoso- 
phemes  which  move  constantly  in  the  widest  abstrac 
tions,  I  am  soon  quite  unable,  in  spite  of  all  attention, 
to  think  almost  anything  more  in  connection  with  them ; 
for  I  receive  no  material  for  thought,  but  am  supposed  to 
work  with  mere  empty  shells,  which  gives  me  a  feeling  like 
that  which  we  experience  when  we  try  to  throw  very  light 
bodies;  the  strength  and  also  the  exertion  are  there,  but 
there  is  no  object  to  receive  them,  so  as  to  supply  the  other 
moment  of  motion.  If  any  one  wants  to  experience  this 
let  him  read  the  writings  of  the  disciples  of  Schelling,  or 
still  better  of  the  Hegelians.  .ffLffljifc  -iwtircj^rV??"  would 
necessarily  be  such  as  could  not  be  broken  up.  Accordingly 
they  could  never  be  the  subject  of  an  analytical  judgment. 
This  I  hold  to  be  impossible,  for  if  we  think  a  conception 
we  must  also  be  able  to  give  its  content.  What  are  com 
monly  adduced  as  examples  of  simple  conceptions  are  really 
not  conceptions  at  all,  but  partly  mere  sensations — as,  for 
instance,  those  of  some  special  colour ;  partly  the  forms 
of  perception  which  are  known  to  us  a  priori,  thus  pro 
perly  the  ultimate  elements  of  perceptive  knowledge.  But 


ON  ABSTRACT  OR  RATIONAL  KNOWLEDGE.     237 

this  itself  is  for  the  whole  system  of  our  thought  what 
granite  is  for  geology,  the  ultimate  firm  basis  which  sup 
ports  all,  and  beyond  which  we  cannot  go.     The  distinct 
ness  of  a  conception  demands  not  only  that  we  should  be 
able  to  separate  its  predicates,  but  also  that  we  should  be 
able  to  analyse  these  even  if  they  are  abstractions,  and  so 
on  until  we  reach  knowledge  of  perception,  and  thus  refer 
to  concrete  things  through  the  distinct  perception  of  which 
the  final   abstractions   are   verffiecT  and   reality  guaran 
teed  to  them,  as  well   as  to  all  the   higher   abstractions 
which  rest  upon  them.     Therefore  the  ordinary  explana 
tion  that  the  conception  is  distinct  as   soon  as  we  can 
give  its  predicates  is  not  sufficient.     For  the  separating 
of   these   predicates   may   lead  perhaps  to  more  concep 
tions  ;  and  so  on  again  without  there  being  that  ultimate 
basis  of  perceptions  which  imparts  reality  to  all   those 
conceptions.     Take,  for  example,  the  conception  "  spirit," 
and  analyse  it  into  its   predicates  :   "  A  thinking,  will 
ing,   immaterial,    simple,   indestructible  being   that  does 
not  occupy  space."      Nothing   is   yet  distinctly  thought 
about    it,    because    the    elements  of    these    conceptions 
cannot  be  verified  by  means  of  perceptions,  for  a  thinking 
being  without  a  brain  is  like  a  digesting  being  without 
a    stomach.     Only   perceptions    are,   properly    speaking, 
clear,  not  conceptions ;   these   at  the  most  can  only  be 
distinct.     Hence  also,  absurd  as  it  was,  "  clear  and  con 
fused"  were  coupled  together  and  used  as  synonymous 
when  knowledge  of  perception  was  explained  as  merely 
a  confused  abstract  knowledge,  because  the  latter  kind 
of  knowledge  alone  was  distinct.     This  was   first  done 
by  Duns  Scotus,  but  Leibnitz  has  substantially  the  same 
view,  upon  which  his  "Identitas  Indiscernibilium"  depends. 
(See  Kant's  refutation  of  this,  p.  275  of  the  first  edition 
of  the  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason.) 

The  close  connection  of  the  conception  with  the  word, 
thus  of  speech  with  reason,  which  was  touched  on  above 
rests  ultimately  upon  the  following  ground.  Time  is 
throughout  the  form  of  our  whole  consciousness,  with  its 


238  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VI. 

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

"Words  and  speech  are  thus  the  indispensable  means 
of  distinct  thought.     But  as  every  means,  every  machine, 


ON  ABSTRACT  OR  RATIONAL  KNOWLEDGE.      239 

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

Burke,  in  his  "  Inquiry  into  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful," 
p.  5,  §  4  and  5,  has  given  a  perfectly  correct  and  very 
elaborate  exposition  of  what  I  laid  down  in  §  9  of  the  first 
volume,  that  the  words  of  a  speech  are  perfectly  under 
stood  without  calling  up  ideas  of  perception,  pictures  in 
our  heads.  But  he  draws  from  this  the  entirely  false  con 
clusion  that  we  hear,  apprehend,  and  make  use  of  words 
without  connecting  with  them  any  idea  whatever;  whereas 
he  ought  to  have  drawn  the  conclusion  that  all  ideas  are 
not  perceptible  images,  but  that  precisely  those  ideas  which 
must  be  expressed  by  means  of  words  are  abstract  notions 


240  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VI. 

or  conceptions,  and  these  from  their  very  nature  are  not 
perceptible.  Just  because  words  impart  only  general 
conceptions,  which  are  perfectly  different  from  ideas  of 
perception,  when,  for  example,  an  event  is  recounted  all 
the  hearers  will  receive  the  same  conceptions  ;  but  if  after 
wards  they  wish  to  make  the  incident  clear  to  themselves, 
each  of  them  will  call  up  in  his  imagination  a  different 
image  of  it,  which  differs  considerably  from  the  correct 
image  that  is  possessed  only  by  the  eye-witness.  This  is 
the  primary  reason  (which,  however,  is  accompanied  by 
others)  why  every  fact  is  necessarily  distorted  by  being 
repeatedly  told.  The  second  recounter  communicates  con 
ceptions  which  he  has  abstracted  from  the  image  of  his 
own  imagination,  and  from  these  conceptions  the  third 
now  forms  another  image  differing  still  more  widely  from 
the  truth,  and  this  again  he  translates  into  conceptions, 
and  so  the  process  goes  on.  Whoever  is  sufficiently  matter 
of  fact  to  stick  to  the  conceptions  imparted  to  him,  and 
repeat  them,  will  prove  the  most  truthful  reporter. 

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

The  princely  scholastic  Pico  de  Mirandula  already  saw 
that  reason  is  the  faculty  of  abstract  ideas,  and  under 
standing  the  faculty  of  ideas  of  perception.  For  in  his 
book,  "  De  Imaginatione,"  ch.  u,  he  carefully  distinguishes 
understanding  and  reason,  and  explains  the  latter  as  the 
discursive  faculty  peculiar  to  man,  and  the  former  as  the 
intuitive  faculty,  allied  to  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  is 


ON  ABSTRACT  OR  RATIONAL  KNOWLEDGE.     241 

proper  to  the  angels,  and  indeed  to  God.  Spinoza  also 
characterises  reason  quite  correctly  as  the  faculty  of 
framing  general  conceptions  (Eth.,  ii.  prop.  40,  schol.  2). 
Such  facts  would  not  need  to  be  mentioned  if  it  were  not 
for  the  tricks  that  have  been  played  in  the  last  fifty  years 
by  the  whole  of  the  philosophasters  of  Germany  with  the 
conception  reason.  For  they  have  tried,  with  shameless 
audacity,  to  smuggle  in  under  this  name  an  entirely 
spurious  faculty  of  immediate,  metaphysical,  so-called 
super-sensuous  knowledge.  The  reason  proper,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  call  understanding,  and  the  understand 
ing  proper,  as  something  quite  strange  to  them,  they  over 
look  altogether,  and  ascribe  its  intuitive  functions  to 
sensibility. 

In  the  case  of  all  things  in  this  world  new  drawbacks 
or  disadvantages  cleave  to  every  source  of  aid,  to  every 
gain,  to  every  advantage  ;  and  thus  reason  also,  which  gives 
to  man  such  great  advantages  over  the  brutes,  carries  with 
it  its  special  disadvantages,  and  opens  for  Mm  paths  of 
error  into  which  the  brutes  can  never  stray.  Through 
it  a  new  species  of  motives,  to  which  the  brute  is  not 
accessible,  obtains  power  over  his  will.  These  are  the 
abstract  motives,  the  mere  thoughts,  which  are  by  no 
means  always  drawn  from  his  own  experience,  but  often 
come  to  him  only  through  the  talk  and  example  of  others, 
through  tradition  and  literature.  Having  become  accessible 
to  thought,  he  is  at  once  exposed  to  error.  But  every  error 
must  sooner  or  later  do  harm,  and  the  greater  the  error 
the  greater  the  harm  it  will  do.  The  individual  error 
must  be  atoned  for  by  him  who  cherishes  it,  and  often  he 
has  to  pay  dearly  for  it.  And  the  same  thing  holds  good 
on  a  large  scale  of  the  common  errors  of  whole  nations. 
Therefore  it  cannot  too  often  be  repeated  that  every  error 
wherever  we  meet  it,  is  to  be  pursued  and  rooted  out  as 
an  enemy  of  mankind,  and  that  there  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  privileged  or  sanctioned  error.  The  thinker 
ought  to  attack  it,  even  if  humanity  should  cry  out  with 

VOL.  II.  Q 


242  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VI. 

pain,  like  a  sick  man  whose  ulcer  the  physician  touches. 
The  brute  can  never  stray  far  from  the  path  of  nature ; 
for  its  motives  lie  only  in  the  world  of  perception,  where 
only  the  possible,  indeed  only  the  actual,  finds  room.     On 
the  other  hand,  all  that  is  only  imaginable,  and  therefore 
also  the  false,  the  impossible,  the  absurd,  and  senseless, 
enters  into  abstract  conceptions,  into  thoughts  and  words. 
Since  now  all  partake  of  reason,  but  few  of  judgment,  the 
consequence  is  that  man  is  exposed  to  delusion,  for  he  is 
abandoned  to  every  conceivable  chimera  which  any  one 
talks  him  into,  and  which,  acting  on  his  will  as  a  motive, 
may  influence  him  to  perversities  and  follies  of  every  kind, 
to  the  most  unheard-of  extravagances,  and  also  to  actions 
most  contrary  to   his  animal  nature.     True  culture,  in 
which  knowledge  and  judgment  go  hand  in  hand,  can 
only  be  brought  to  bear  on  a  few ;  and  still  fewer  are 
capable  of   receiving   it.      For   the   great   mass   of   men 
a  kind  of   training    everywhere  takes  its  place.      It   is 
effected  by  example,  custom,  and  the  very  early  and  firm 
impression  of  certain  conceptions,  before  any  experience, 
understanding,  or  judgment  were   there   to  disturb   the 
work.      Thus   thoughts  are   implanted,  which  afterward 
cling   as  firmly,  and  are  as  incapable  of  being  shaken 
by  any  instruction  as  if  they  were  inborn;  and  indeed 
they  have   often   been   regarded,  even   by   philosophers, 
as  such.     In  this  way  we  can,  with  the  same  trouble, 
imbue   men  with  what   is   right    and    rational,  or  with 
what   is   most  absurd.     For  example,  we  can  accustom 
them  to  approach  this  or  that  idol  with  holy  dread,  and  at 
the  mention  of  its  name  to  prostrate  in  the  dust  not  only 
their  bodies  but  their  whole  spirit ;  to  sacrifice  their  pro 
perty  and  their  lives  willingly  to  words,  to  names,  to  the 
defence  of  the  strangest  whims  ;  to  attach  arbitrarily  the 
greatest  honour  or  the  deepest  disgrace  to  this  or  that,  and 
to  prize  highly  or  disdain  everything  accordingly  with 
full  inward  conviction  ;  to  renounce  all  animal  food,  as  in 
Hindustan,  or  to  devour  still  warm  and  quivering  pieces, 


ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  243 

cut  from  the  living  animal,  as  in  Abyssinia  ;  to  eat  men,  as 
in  New  Zealand,  or  to  sacrifice  their  children  to  Moloch  ; 
to  castrate  themselves,  to  fling  themselves  voluntarily  on 
the  funeral  piles  of  the  dead — in  a  word,  to  do  anything 
we  please.  Hence  the  Crusades,  the  extravagances  of 
fanatical  sects ;  hence  Chiliasts  and  Flagellants,  persecu 
tions,  autos  da  fe,  and  all  that  is  offered  by  the  long 
register  of  human  perversities.  Lest  it  should  be  thought 
that  only  the  dark  ages  afford  such  examples,  I  shall  add 
a  couple  of  more  modern  instances.  In  the  year  1818 
there  went  from  "Wurtemberg  7000  Chiliasts  to  the  neigh 
bour1""^,  of  Ararat,  because  the  new  kingdom  of  God, 
specially  announced  by  Jung  Stilling,  was  to  appear  there.1 
Gall  relates  that  in  his  time  a  mother  killed  her  child  and 
roasted  it  in  order  to  cure  her  husband's  rheumatism  with 
its  fat.2  The  tragical  side  of  error  lies  in  the  practical,  the 
comical  is  reserved  for  the  theoretical.  For  example,  if 
we  could  firmly  persuade  three  men  that  the  sun  is  not 
the  cause  of  daylight,  we  might  hope  to  see  it  soon 
established  as  the  general  conviction.  In  Germany  it 
was  possible  to  proclaim  as  the  greatest  philosopher  of  all 
ages  Hegel,  a  repulsive,  mindless  charlatan,  an  unparalleled 
scribbler  of  nonsense,  and  for  twenty  years  many  thou 
sands  have  believed  it  stubbornly  and  firmly ;  and  indeed, 
outside  Germany,  the  Danish  Academy  entered  the  lists 
against  myself  for  his  fame,  and  sought  to  have  him  re 
garded  as  a  summits  philosophus.  (Upon  this  see  the 
preface  to  my  Grundproblemen  der  Ethik)  These,  then, 
are  the  disadvantages  which,  on  account  of  the  rarity  of 
judgment,  attach  to  the  existence  of  reason.  We  must 
add  to  them  the  possibility  of  madness.  The  brutes  do 
not  go  mad,  although  the  carnivora  are  subject  to  fury, 
and  the  ruminants  to  a  sort  of  delirium. 

1  Illgen's    "  Zcitschrift  far   His-         2  Gall   et   Spurzhcim,  "  Des   Dis- 
torische    Theoloyic,"    1839,    part   i.    positions  Inntes,"  1811,  p.  253. 
p.  182. 


244 


CHAPTER  VII.1 

ON   THE   RELATION   OF   THE   CONCRETE   KNOWLEDGE   OF 
PERCEPTION    TO   ABSTRACT   KNOWLEDGE. 

IT  has  been  shown  that  conceptions  derive  their  material 

from  knowledge  of  perception,  and  therefore  the  entire 

structure  of  our  world  of  thought  rests  upon  the  world 

of  perception.      We  must  therefore  be  able  to  go  back 

from  every  conception,  even  if  only  indirectly  through 

intermediate  conceptions,  to  the  perceptions  from  which  it 

is  either  itself  directly  derived  or  those  conceptions  are 

derived  of  which  it  is  again  an  abstraction.     That  is  to 

say,  we  must  be  able  to  support  it  with  perceptions  which 

stand   to   the    abstractions  in  the  relation  of  examples. 

These  perceptions  thus  afford  the  real  content  of  all  our 

thought,  and  whenever  they  are  wanting  we  have  not  had 

conceptions  but  mere  words  in  our  heads.     In  this  respect 

our  intellect  is  like  a  bank,  which,  if  it  is  to  be  sound, 

must  have  cash  in  its  safe,  so  as  to  be  able  to  meet  all 

the  notes  it  has  issued,  in  case  of  demand ;  the  perceptions 

are  the  cash;  the  conceptions  are  the  notes.     In  this  sense 

the  perceptions  might  very  appropriately  be  called  primary, 

and  the  conceptions,  on  the  other  hand,  secondary  ideas. 

Not  quite  so  aptly,  the  Schoolmen,  following  the  example 

of   Aristotle   (MctapJi.,  vi.   n,  xi.   i),   called   real   things 

substantial  primes,  and  the  conceptions  substantice  secundce. 

Books  impart  only  secondary  ideas.     MRI^  Conceptions  of 

a  thing  without  perception  give  only  a  general  knowledge 

of  it.     We  only  have  a  thorough  understanding  of  things 

and  their  relations  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  represent  them 

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


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE,       245 

to  ourselves  in  pure,  _distinct  perceptions,  without  the  aid 
of  words.  To  explain  words  by  words,  to  compare  concepts 
with  concepts,  in  which  most  philosophising  consists,  is  a 
trivial  shifting  about  of  the  concept-spheres  in  order  to 
see  which  goes  into  the  other  and  which  does  not.  At  the 
best  we  can  in  this  way  only  arrive  at  conclusions ;  but 
even  conclusions  give  no  really  new  knowledge,  but  only 
show  us  all  that  lay  in  the  knowledge  we  already  pos 
sessed,  and  what  part  of  it  perhaps  might  be  applicable 
to  the  particular  case.  On  the  other  hand,  to  perceive,  to 
allow  the  things  themselves  to  speak  to  us,  to  apprehend 
new  relations  of  them,  and  then  to  take  up  and  deposit  all 
this  in  conceptions,  in  order  to  possess  it  with  certainty — 
that  gives  new  knowledge.  But,  while  almost  every  one  is 
capable  of  comparing  conceptions  with  conceptions,  to  com 
pare  conceptions  with  perceptions  is  a  gift  of  the  select  few. 
It  is  the  condition,  according  to  the  degree  of  its  perfection, 
of  wit,  judgment,  ingenuity,  genius.  The  former  faculty, 
on  the  contrary,  results  in  little  more  than  possibly  rational 
reflections.  The  inmost  kernel  of  all  genuine  and  actual 
knowledge  is  a  perception ;  and  every  new  truth  is  the 
profit  or  gain  yielded  by  a  perception.  All  original  think 
ing  takes  place  in  images,  and  this  is  why  imagination  is 
so  necessary  an  instrument  of  thought,  and  minds  that 
lack  imagination  will  never  accomplish  much,  unless  it 
be  in  mathematics.  On  the  other  hand,  merely  abstract 
thoughts,  which  have  no  kernel  of  perception,  are  like 
cloud-structures,  without  reality.  Even  writing  and  speak 
ing,  whether  didactic  or  poetical,  has  for  its  final  aim  to 
guide  the  reader  to  the  same  concrete  knowledge  from 
which  the  author  started ;  if  it  has  not  this  aim  it  is  bad. 
This  is  why  the  contemplation  and  observing  of  every 
real  thing,  as  soon  as  it  presents  something  new  to 
the  observer,  is  more  instructive  than  any  reading  or 
hearing.  For  indeed,  if  we  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter, 
all  truth  and  wisdom,  nay,  the  ultimate  secret  of  things,  is 
contained  in  each  real  object,  yet  certainly  only  in  concrete, 


246  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER   VII. 

just  as  gold  lies  hidden  iii  the  ore ;  the  difficulty  is  to  ex 
tract  it.  From  a  book,  on  the  contrary,  at  the  best  we  only 
receive  the  truth  at  second  hand,  and  oftener  not  at  all. 

In  most  books,  putting  out  of  account  those  that  are 
thoroughly  bad,  the  author,  when  their  content  is  not 
altogether  empirical,  has  certainly  thought  but  not  per 
ceived  ;  he  has  written  from  reflection,  not  from  intuition, 
and  it  is  this  that  makes  them  commonplace  and  tedious. 
For  what  the  author  has  thought  could  always  have  been 
thought  by  the  reader  also,  if  he  had  taken  the  same 
trouble ;  indeed  it  consists  simply  of  intelligent  thought, 
full  exposition  of  what  is  implicite  contained  in  the  theme. 
But  no  actually  new  knowledge  comes  in  this  way  into 
the  world ;  this  is  only  created  in  the  moment  of  percep 
tion,  of  direct  comprehension  of  a  new  side  of  the  thing. 
When,  therefore,  on  the  contrary,  sight  has  formed  the 
foundation  of  an  author's  thought,  it  is  as  if  he  wrote 
from  a  land  where  the  reader  has  never  been,  for  all  is 
fresh  and  new,  because  it  is  drawn  directly  from  the 
original  source  of  all  knowledge.  Let  me  illustrate  the 
distinction  here  touched  upon  by  a  perfectly  easy  and 
simple  example.  Any  commonplace  writer  might  easily 
describe  profound  contemplation  or  petrifying  astonish 
ment  by  saying :  "  He  stood  like  a  statue  ;  "  but  Cervantes 
says  :  "  Like  a  clothed  statue,  for  the  wind  moved  his  gar 
ments"  (Don  Quixote,  book  vi.  ch.  19).  It  is  thus  that  all 
great  minds  have  ever  thought  in  presence  of  the  perception, 
and  kept  their  gaze  steadfastly  upon  it  in  their  thought. 
We  recognise  this  from  this  fact,  among  others,  that  even 
the  most  opposite  of  them  so  often  agree  and  coincide 
in  some  particular ;  because  they  all  speak  of  the  same 
thing  which  they  all  had  before  their  eyes,  the  world,  the 
perceived  reality;  indeed  in  a  certain  degree  they  all  say 
the  same  thing,  and  others  never  believe  them.  We 
recognise  it  further  in  the  appropriateness  and  originality 
of  the  expression,  which  is  always  perfectly  adapted  to 
the  subject  because  it  has  been  inspired  by  perception,  in 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.       247 

the  naivete  of  the  language,  the  freshness  of  the  imagery, 
and  the  impressiveness  of  the  similes,  all  of  which  quali 
ties,  without  exception,  distinguish  the  works  of  great 
minds,  and,  on  the  contrary,  are  always  wanting  in  the 
works  of  others.  Accordingly  only  commonplace  forms 
of  expression  and  trite  figures  are  at  the  service  of  the 
latter,  and  they  never  dare  to  allow  themselves  to  be 
natural,  under  penalty  of  displaying  their  vulgarity  in  all 
its  dreary  barrenness ;  instead  of  this  they  are  affected 
mannerists.  Hence  Buffon  says :  "  Le  style  est  I'homme 
menu."  If  men  of  commonplace  mind  write  poetry  they 
have  certain  traditional  conventional  opinions,  passions, 
noble  sentiments,  &c.,  which  they  have  received  in  the 
abstract,  and  attribute  to  the  heroes  of  their  poems,  who 
are  in  this  way  reduced  to  mere  personifications  of  those 
opinions,  and  are  thus  themselves  to  a  certain  extent 
abstractions,  and  therefore  insipid  and  tiresome.  If  they 
philosophise,  they  have  taken  in  a  few  wide  abstract 
conceptions,  which  they  turn  about  in  all  directions,  as  if 
they  had  to  do  with  algebraical  equations,  and  hope  that 
something  will  come  of  it ;  at  the  most  we  see  that  they 
have  all  read  the  same  things.  Such  a  tossing  to  and  fro 
of  abstract  conceptions,  after  the  manner  of  algebraical 
equations,  which  is  now-a-days  called  dialectic,  does  not, 
like  real  algebra,  afford  certain  results ;  for  here  the  con 
ception  which  is  represented  by  the  word  is  not  a  fixed 
and  perfectly  definite  quality,  such  as  are  symbolised  by 
the  letters  in  algebra,  but  is  wavering  and  ambiguous, 
and  capable  of  extension  and  contraction.  Strictly  speak 
ing,  all  thinking,  i.e.,  combining  of  abstract  conceptions, 
has  at  the  most  the  recollections  of  earlier  perceptions  for 
its  material,  and  this  only  indirectly,  so  far  as  it  consti 
tutes  the  foundation  of  all  conceptions.  Real  knowledge, 
on  the  contrary,  that  is,  immediate  knowledge,  is  percep 
tion  alone,  new,  fresh  perception  itself.  Now  the  concepts 
which  the  reason  has  framed  and  the  memory  has  pre 
served  cannot  all  be  present  to  consciousness  at  once,  but 


248  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER   VII. 

only  a  very  small  number  of  them  at  a  time.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  energy  with  which  we  apprehend  what  is  present 
in  perception,  in  which  really  all  that  is  essential  in  all 
things  generally  is  virtually  contained  and  represented,  is 
apprehended,  fills  the  consciousness  in  one  moment  with 
its  whole  power.  Upon  this  depends  the  infinite  superiority 
of  genius  to  learning ;  they  stand  to  each  other  as  the  text 
of  an  ancient  classic  to  its  commentary.  All  truth  and 
all  wisdom  really  lies  ultimately  in  perception.  But  this 
unfortunately  can  neither  be  retained  nor  communicated. 
The  objective,  conditions  of  such  communication  can  cer 
tainly  be  presented  to  others  purified  and  illustrated 
through  plastic  and  pictorial  art,  and  even  much  more 
directly  through  poetry  ;  but  it  depends  so  much  upon  sub 
jective  conditions,  which  are  not  at  the  command  of  every 
one,  and  of  no  one  at  all  times,  nay,  indeed  in  the  higher 
degrees  of  perfection,  are  only  the  gift  of  the  favoured 
few.  Only  the  worst  knowledge,  abstract,  secondary 
knowledge,  the  conception,  the  mere  shadow  of  true  know 
ledge,  is  unconditionally  communicable.  If  perceptions 
were  communicable,  that  would  be  a  communication  worth 
the  trouble  ;  but  at  last  every  one  must  remain  in  his  o\vn 
skin  and  skull,  and  no  one  can  help  another.  To  enrich 
the  conception  from  perception  is  the  unceasing  endeavour 
of  poetry  and  philosophy.  However,  the  aims  of  man  are 
essentially  practical ;  and  for  these  it  is  sufficient  that 
what  he  has  apprehended  through  perception  should  leave 
traces  in  him,  by  virtue  of  which  he  will  recognise  it  in 
the  next  similar  case ;  thus  he  becomes  possessed  of 
worldly  wisdom.  Thus,  as  a  rule,  the  man  of  the  world 
cannot  teach  his  accumulated  truth  and  wisdom,  but 
only  make  use  of  it ;  he  rightly  comprehends  each  event 
as  it  happens,  and  determines  what  is  in  conformity  with 
it.  That  books  will  not  take  the  place  of  experience  nor 
learning  of  genius  are  two  kindred  phenomena.  Their 
common  ground  is  that  the  abstract  can  never  take  the 
place  of  the  concrete.  Books  therefore  do  not  take  the 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.       249 

place  of  experience,  because  conceptions  always  remain 
general,  and  consequently  do  not  get  down  to  the  par 
ticular,  which,  however,  is  just  what  has  to  be  dealt  with 
in  life ;  and,  besides  this,  all  conceptions  are  abstracted 
from  what  is  particular  and  perceived  in  experience,  and 
therefore  one  must  have  come  to  know  these  in  order 
adequately  to  understand  even  the  general  conceptions 
which  the  books  communicate.  Learning  cannot  take  the 
place  of  genius,  because  it  also  affords  merely  conceptions, 
but  the  knowledge  of  genius  consists  in  the  apprehension 
of  the  (Platonic)  Ideas  of  things,  and  therefore  is  essentially 
intuitive.  Thus  in  the  first  of  these  phenomena  the 
objective  condition  of  perceptive  or  intuitive  knowledge  is 
wanting ;  in  the  second  the  subjective ;  the  former  may 
be  attained,  the  latter  cannot. 

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


250  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VII. 

exist  in  the  root,  in  the  perceptive  or  intuitive  appre 
hension,  and  do  not  first  appear  in  the  abstract.  Hence 
original  mental  superiority  shows  itself  so  easily  when 
the  occasion  arises,  and  is  at  once  felt  and  hated  by 
others. 

In  practical  life  the  intuitive  knowledge  of  the  under 
standing  is  able  to  guide  our  action  and  behaviour  directly, 
while  the  abstract  knowledge  of  the  reason  can  only  do  so 
by  means  of  the  memory.  Hence  arises  the  superiority  of 
intuitive  knowledge  in  all  cases  which  admit  of  no  time 
for  reflection  ;  thus  for  daily  intercourse,  in  which,  just  on 
this  account,  women  excel.  Only  those  who  intuitively 
know  the  nature  of  men  as  they  are  as  a  rule,  and  thus 
comprehend  the  individuality  of  the  person  before  them, 
will  understand  how  to  manage  him  with  certainty  and 
rightly.  Another  may  know  by  heart  all  the  three  hun 
dred  maxims  of  Gracian,  but  this  will  not  save  him  from 
stupid  mistakes  and  misconceptions  if  he  lacks  that  in 
tuitive  knowledge.  For  all  abstract  knowledge  affords 
us  primarily  mere  general  principles  and  rules  ;  but  the 
particular  case  is  almost  never  to  be  carried  out  exactly 
according  to  the  rule ;  then  the  rule  itself  has  to  be  pre 
sented  to  us  at  the  right  time  by  the  memory,  which 
seldom  punctually  happens ;  then  the  propositio  minor  has 
to  be  formed  out  of  the  present  case,  and  finally  the  con 
clusion  drawn.  Before  all  this  is  done  the  opportunity 
has  generally  turned  its  back  upon  us,  and  then  those 
excellent  principles  and  rules  serve  at  the  most  to  enable 
us  to  measure  the  magnitude  of  the  error  we  have  com 
mitted.  Certainly  with  time  we  gain  in  this  way  experi 
ence  and  practice,  which  slowly  grows  to  knowledge  of 
the  world,  and  thus,  in  connection  with  this,  the  abstract 
rules  may  certainly  become  fruitful.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  intuitive  knowledge,  which  always  apprehends  only  the 
particular,  stands  in  immediate  relation  to  the  present 
case.  Rule,  case,  and  application  are  for  it  one,  and  action 
follows  immediately  upon  it.  This  explains  why  in  real 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.       251 

life  the  scholar,  whose  pre-eminence  lies  in  the  province 
of  abstract  knowledge,  is  so  far  surpassed  by  the  man  of 
the  world,  whose  pre-eminence  consists  in  perfect  intuitive 
knowledge,  which  original  disposition  conferred  on  him, 
and  a  rich  experience  has  developed.  The  two  kinds  of 
knowledge  always  stand  to  each  other  in  the  relation  of 
paper  money  and  hard  cash ;  and  as  there  are  many  cases 
and  circumstances  in  which  the  former  is  to  be  preferred 
to  the  latter,  so  there  are  also  things  and  situations  for 
which  abstract  knowledge  is  more  useful  than  intuitive. 
If,  for  example,  it  is  a  conception  that  in  some  case  guides 
our  action,  when  it  is  once  grasped  it  has  the  advantage 
of  being  unalterable,  and  therefore  under  its  guidance  we  go 
to  work  with  perfect  certainty  and  consistency.  But  this 
certainty  which  the  conception  confers  on  the  subjective 
side  is  outweighed  by  the  uncertainty  which  accompanies 
it  on  the  objective  side.  The  whole  conception  may  be 
false  and  groundless,  or  the  object  to  be  dealt  with  may 
not  come  under  it,  for  it  may  be  either  not  at  all  or  not 
altogether  of  the  kind  which  belongs  to  it.  Now  if  in  the 
particular  case  we  suddenly  become  conscious  of  some 
thing  of  this  sort,  we  are  put  out  altogether ;  if  we  do  not 
become  conscious  of  it,  the  result  brings  it  to  light.  There 
fore  Vauvenargue  says:  "Personne  nest  suj'et  a  plus  def antes, 
que  ceux  qui  nagissent  que  par  reflexion."  If,  on  the  con 
trary,  it  is  direct  perception  of  the  objects  to  be  dealt  with 
and  their  relations  that  guides  our  action,  we  easily  hesitate 
at  every  step,  for  the  perception  is  always  modifiable,  is  am 
biguous,  has  inexhaustible  details  in  itself,  and  shows  many 
sides  in  succession ;  we  act  therefore  without  full  confi 
dence.  But  the  subjective  uncertainty  is  compensated  by 
the  objective  certainty,  for  here  there  is  no  conception 
between  the  object  and  us,  we  never  lose  sight  of  it ;  if 
therefore  we  only  see  correctly  what  we  have  before  us 
and  what  we  do,  we  shall  hit  the  mark.  Our  action  then 
is  perfectly  sure  only  when  it  is  guided  by  a  conception 
the  right  ground  of  which,  its  completeness,  and  applica- 


252  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER   VII. 

bility  to  the  given  cause  is  perfectly  certain.  Action 
in  accordance  with  conceptions  may  pass  into  pedantry, 
action  in  accordance  with  the  perceived  impression  into 
levity  and  folly. 

Perception  is  not  only  the  source  of  all  knowledge,  but 
is  itself  knowledge  KCLT  e^o^rjv,  is  the  only  unconditionally 
true,  genuine  knowledge  completely  worthy  of  the  name. 
For  it  alone  imparts  insight  properly  so  called,  it  alone  is 
actually  assimilated  by  man,  passes  into  his  nature,  and 
can  with  full  reason  be  called  his ;  while  the  conceptions 
merely  cling  to  him.  In  the  fourth  book  we  see  indeed 
that  true  virtue  proceeds  from  knowledge  of  perception  or 
intuitive  knowledge ;  for  only  those  actions  which  are 
directly  called  forth  by  this,  and  therefore  are  performed 
purely  from  the  impulse  of  our  own  nature,  are  properly 
symptoms  of  our  true  and  unalterable  character;  not  so 
those  which,  resulting  from  reflection  and  its  dogmas, 
are  often  extorted  from  the  character,  and  therefore  have 
no  unalterable  ground  in  us.  But  wisdom  also,  the  true 
view  of  life,  the  correct  eye,  and  the  searching  judgment, 
proceeds  from  the  way  in  which  the  man  apprehends  the 
perceptible  world,  but  not  from  his  mere  abstract  know 
ledge,  i.e.,  not  from  abstract  conceptions.  The  basis  or 
ultimate  content  of  every  science  consists,  not  in  proofs, 
nor  in  what  is  proved,  but  in  the  unproved  foundation 
of  the  proofs,  which  can  finally  be  apprehended  only 
through  perception.  So  also  the  basis  of  the  true  wisdom 
and  real  insight  of  each  man  does  not  consist  in  concep 
tions  and  in  abstract  rational  knowledge,  but  in  what  is 
perceived,  and  in  the  degree  of  acuteness,  accuracy,  and 
profundity  with  which  he  has  apprehended  it.  He  who 
excels  here  knows  the  (Platonic)  Ideas  of  the  world  and 
life ;  every  case  he  has  seen  represents  for  him  innumer 
able  cases ;  he  always  apprehends  each  being  according 
to  its  true  nature,  and  his  action,  like  his  judgment, 
corresponds  to  his  insight.  By  degrees  also  his  coun 
tenance  assumes  the  expression  of  penetration,  of  true 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.       253 

intelligence,  and,  if  it  goes  far  enough,  of  wisdom.     For 
it  is  pre-eminence  in  knowledge  of  perception  alone  that 
stamps   its   impression   upon    the    features    also ;    while 
pre-eminence  in  abstract  knowledge  cannot  do  this.     In 
accordance  with  what  has  been  said,  we  find  in  all  classes 
men  of  intellectual  superiority,  and  often  quite  without 
learning.     Natural  understanding  can  take  the  place  of 
almost  every  degree  of  culture,  but  no  culture  can  take 
the  place  of  natural  understanding.     The  scholar  has  the 
advantage  of  such  men  in  the  possession  of  a  wealth  of 
cases    and    facts    (historical    knowledge)    and   of    causal 
determinations  (natural  science),  all  in  well-ordered  con 
nection,  easily  surveyed ;  but  yet  with  all  this  he  has  not 
a  more  accurate  and  profound  insight  into  what  is  truly 
essential  in  all  these  cases,  facts,  and  causations.     The 
unlearned  man  of  acuteness  and  penetration  knows  how 
to  dispense  with  this  wealth  ;  we  can  make  use  of  much ; 
we  can  do  with  little.     One  case  in  his  own  experience 
teaches  him  more  than   many  a  scholar  is  taught  by  a 
thousand  cases  which   he   knows,  but  does  not,  properly 
speaking,  understand.     For  the  little  knowledge  of  that 
unlearned  man  is  living,  because  every  fact  that  is  known 
to  him   is  supported  by  accurate   and  well-apprehended 
perception,    and    thus    represents    for    him    a   thousand 
similar  facts.     On  the  contrary,  the  much  knowledge  of 
the  ordinary  scholar  is  dead,  because  even  if  it  does  not 
consist,  as  is  often  the  case,  in  mere  words,  it  consists  en 
tirely  in  abstract  knowledge.      This,  however,  receives  its 
value  only  through  the  perceptive  knowledge  of  the  indivi 
dual  with  which  it  must  connect  itself,  and  which  must  ulti 
mately  realise  all  the  conceptions.     If  now  this  perceptive 
knowledge  is  very  scanty,  such  a  mind  is  like  a  bank  with 
liabilities  tenfold  in  excess  of  its  cash  reserve,  whereby  in 
the  end  it  becomes  bankrupt.     Therefore,  while  the  right 
apprehension  of  the  perceptible  world  has  impressed  the 
stamp  of  insight  and  wisdom  on  the  brow  of  many  an  un 
learned  man,  the  face  of  many  a  scholar  bears  no  other 


254  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VII. 

trace  of  his  much  study  than  that   of   exhaustion  and 
weariness   from    excessive   and   forced    straining  of   the 
memory  in  the  unnatural  accumulation  of  dead  concep 
tions.     Moreover,  the  insight  of  such  a  man  is  often  so 
puerile,  so  weak  and  silly,  that  we  must  suppose  that  the 
excessive  strain  upon  the  faculty  of  indirect  knowledge, 
which  is   concerned  with  abstractions,  directly  weakens 
the  power  of  immediate  perceptive  knowledge,  and   the 
natural  and  clear  vision  is  more  and  more  blinded  by  the 
light  of  books.      At  any  rate  the  constant  streaming  in  of 
the  thoughts  of   others   must   confine  and   suppress  our 
own,  and  indeed  in  the  long  run  paralyse  the  power  of 
thought  if  it  has  not  that  high  degree  of  elasticity  which 
is    able  to  withstand  that   unnatural  stream.     Therefore 
ceaseless  reading  and  study  directly  injures  the  mind — 
the  more  so  that  completeness  and  constant  connection  of 
the  system  of  our  own  thought  and  knowledge  must  pay 
the  penalty  if  we  so  often  arbitrarily  interrupt  it  in  order 
to  gain  room  for  a  line  of  thought  entirely  strange  to  us. 
To  banish  my  own  thought  in  order  to  make  room  for 
that  of  a  book  would  seem  to  me  like  what  Shakespeare 
censures  in  the  tourists  of  his  time,  that  they  sold  their 
own  land  to  see  that  of  others.     Yet  the  inclination  for 
reading  of  most  scholars  is  a  kind  of  fuga  vacui,  from  the 
poverty  of  their  own  minds,  which  forcibly  draws  in  the 
thoughts  of  others.     In  order  to  have  thoughts  they  must 
read  something;  just  as  lifeless  bodies  are  only  moved 
from  without ;  while  the  man  who  thinks  for  himself  is 
like  a  living  body  that  moves  of  itself.     Indeed  it  is  dan 
gerous  to  read  about  a  subject  before  we  have  thought 
about  it  ourselves.     For  along  with  the  new  material  the 
old  point  of  view  and  treatment  of  it  creeps  into  the  mind, 
all  the  more  so  as  laziness  and  apathy  counsel  us  to  accept 
what  has  already  been  thought,  and  allow  it  to  pass  for 
truth.     This  now  insinuates  itself,  and  henceforward  our 
thought  on  the  subject  always  takes  the  accustomed  path, 
like  brooks  that  are  guided  by  ditches ;  to  find  a  thought 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.       255 

of  our  own,  a  new  thought,  is  then  doubly  difficult.  This 
contributes  much  to  the  want  of  originality  on  the  part  of 
scholars.  Add  to  this  that  they  supposethat,  like  other  people, 
they  must  divide  their  time  between  pleasure  and  work. 
Now  they  regard  reading  as  their  work  and  special  calling, 
and  therefore  they  gorge  themselves  with  it,  beyond  what 
they  can  digest.  Then  reading  no  longer  plays  the  part  of 
the  mere  initiator  of  thought,  but  takes  its  place  altogether ; 
for  they  think  of  the  subject  just  as  long  as  they  are  read 
ing  about  it,  thus  with  the  mind  of  another,  not  with  their 
own.  But  when  the  book  is  laid  aside  entirely  different 
things  make  much  more  lively  claims  upon  their  interest ; 
their  private  affairs,  and  then  the  theatre,  card-playing, 
skittles,  the  news  of  the  day,  and  gossip.  The  man  of 
thought  is  so  because  such  things  have  no  interest  for 
him.  He  is  interested  only  in  his  problems,  with  which 
therefore  he  is  always  occupied,  by  himself  and  without 
a  book.  To  give  ourselves  this  interest,  if  we  have  not 
got  it,  is  impossible.  This  is  the  crucial  point.  And 
upon  this  also  depends  the  fact  that  the  former  always 
speak  only  of  what  they  have  read,  while  the  latter,  on 
the  contrary,  speaks  of  what  he  has  thought,  and  that  they 
are,  as  Pope  says  : 

"For  ever  reading,  never  to  be  read." 

The  mind  is  naturally  free,  not  a  slave ;  only  what  it 
does  willingly,  of  its  own  accord,  succeeds.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  compulsory  exertion  of  a  mind  in  studies  for 
which  it  is  not  qualified,  or  when  it  has  become  tired,  or 
in  general  too  continuously  and  invita  Minerva,  dulls  the 
brain,  just  as  reading  by  moonlight  dulls  the  eyes.  This  is 
especially  the  case  with  the  straining  of  the  immature 
brain  in  the  earlier  years  of  childhood.  I  believe  that  the 
learning  of  Latin  and  Greek  grammar  from  the  sixth  to  the 
twelfth  year  lays  the  foundation  of  the  subsequent  stupidity 
of  most  scholars.  At  any  rate  the  mind  requires  the 
nourishment  of  materials  from  without.  All  that  we  eat 
is  not  at  once  incorporated  in  the  organism,  but  only  so 


256  FIRST  BOOK.    CHAPTER  VII. 

much  of  it  as  is  digested  ;  so  that  only  a  small  part  of  it 
is  assimilated,  and  the  remainder  passes  away ;  and  thus 
to  eat  more  than  we  can  assimilate  is  useless  and  injurious. 
It  is  precisely  the  same  with  what  we  read.  Only  so  far 
as  it  gives  food  for  thought  does  it  increase  our  insight 
and  true  knowledge.  Therefore  Heracleitus  says  :  "  TTO\V- 

o  «/ 

fj,a0ia  vow  ov  StSacr/cet."  (multiscitia  non  dat  intellectum) . 
It  seems,  however,  to  me  that  learning  may  be  compared 
to  a  heavy  suit  of  armour,  which  certainly  makes  the 
strong  man  quite  invincible,  but  to  the  weak  man  is  a 
burden  under  which  he  sinks  altogether. 

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

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

Upon  the  truth  set  forth  here,  that  the  kernel  of  all 
knowledge  is  the  perceptive  or  intuitive  apprehension,  de 
pends  the  true  and  profound  remark  of  Helvetius,  that 
the  really  characteristic  and  original  views  of  which  a 
gifted  individual  is  capable,  and  the  working  up,  develop- 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.       257 

ment,  and  manifold  application  of  which  is  the  material 
of  all  his  works,  even  if  written  much  later,  can  arise  in 
him  only  up  to  the  thirty-fifth  or  at  the  latest  the  fortieth 
year  of  his  life,  and  are  really  the  result  of  combinations 
he  has  made  in  his  early  youth.  For  they  are  not  mere 
connections  of  abstract  conceptions,  but  his  own  intuitive 
comprehension  of  the  objective  world  and  the  nature  of 
things.  Now,  that  this  intuitive  apprehension  must  have 
completed  its  work  by  the  age  mentioned  above  depends 
partly  on  the  fact  that  by  that  time  the  ectypes  of  all 
(Platonic)  Ideas  must  have  presented  themselves  to  the 
man,  and  therefore  cannot  appear  later  with  the  strength 
of  the  first  impression ;  partly  on  this,  that  the  highest 
energy  of  brain  activity  is  demanded  for  this  quintessence 
of  all  knowledge,  for  this  proof  before  the  letter  of  the 
apprehension,  and  this  highest  energy  of  the  brain  is  depen 
dent  on  the  freshness  and  flexibility  of  its  fibres  and  the 
rapidity  with  which  the  arterial  blood  flows  to  the  brain. 
But  this  again  is  at  its  strongest  only  as  long  as  the  arte 
rial  system  has  a  decided  predominance  over  the  venous 
system,  which  begins  to  decline  after  the  thirtieth  year, 
until  at  last,  after  the  forty-second  year,  the  venous 
system  obtains  the  upper  hand,  as  Cabanis  has  admirably 
and  instructively  explained.  Therefore  the  years  between 
twenty  and  thirty  and  the  first  few  years  after  thirty  are 
for  the  intellect  what  May  is  for  the  trees ;  only  then  do 
the  blossoms  appear  of  which  all  the  later  fruits  are  the 
development.  The  world  of  perception  has  made  its 
impression,  and  thereby  laid  the  foundation  of  all  the 
subsequent  thoughts  of  the  individual.  He  may  by 
reflection  make  clearer  what  he  has  apprehended ;  he 
may  yet  acquire  much  knowledge  as  nourishment  for  the 
fruit  which  has  once  set ;  he  may  extend  his  views,  correct 
his  conceptions  and  judgments,  it  may  be  only  through 
endless  combinations  that  he  becomes  completely  master 
of  the  materials  he  has  gained  ;  indeed  he  will  generally 
produce  his  best  works  much  later,  as  the  greatest  heat 
VOL.  n.  it 


258  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER   VII. 

begins  with  the  decline  of  the  day,  but  he  can  no  longer 
hope  for  new  original  knowledge  from  the  one  living  foun 
tain  of  perception.  It  is  this  that  Byron  feels  when  he 
breaks  forth  into  his  wonderfully  beautiful  lament : 

"  No  more — no  more — oh  !  never  more  on  me 
The  freshness  of  the  heart  can  fall  like  dew, 

Which  out  of  all  the  lovely  things  we  see 
Extracts  emotions  beautiful  and  new, 

Hived  in  our  bosoms  like  the  bag  o'  the  bee  : 
Think'st  thou  the  honey  with  those  objects  grew  1 

Alas  !  'twas  not  in  them,  but  in  thy  power 

To  double  even  the  sweetness  of  a  flower." 

Through  all  that  I  have  said  hitherto  I  hope  I  have 
placed  in  a  clear  light  the  important  truth  that  since  all 
abstract  knowledge  springs  from  knowledge  of  perception, 
it  obtains  its  whole  value  from  its  relation  to  the  latter, 
thus  from  the  fact  that  its  conceptions,  or  the  abstractions 
which  they  denote,  can  be  realised,  i.e.,  proved,  through 
perceptions ;  and,  moreover,  that  most  depends  upon  the 
quality  of  these  perceptions.  Conceptions  and  abstrac 
tions  which  do  not  ultimately  refer  to  perceptions  are 
like  paths  in  the  wood  that  end  without  leading  out  of  it. 
The  great  value  of  conceptions  lies  in  the  fact  that  by 
means  of  them  the  original  material  of  knowledge  is  more 
easily  handled,  surveyed,  and  arranged.  But  although 
many  kinds  of  logical  and  dialectical  operations  are  pos 
sible  with  them,  yet  no  entirely  original  and  new  know 
ledge  will  result  from  these  ;  that  is  to  say,  no  knowledge 
whose  material  neither  lay  already  in  perception  nor  was 
drawn  from  self-consciousness.  This  is  the  true  meaning 
of  the  doctrine  attributed  to  Aristotle  :  Nihil  est  in  in- 
tdlectu,  nisi  quod  antea  fuerit  in  sensu.  It  is  also  the 
meaning  of  the  Lockeian  philosophy,  which  made  for  ever 
an  epoch  in  philosophy,  because  it  commenced  at  last  the 
serious  discussion  of  the  question  as  to  the  origin  of  our 
knowledge.  It  is  also  principally  what  the  "  Critique  of 
Pure  Eeason  "  teaches.  It  also  desires  that  we  should  not 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.       259 

remain  at  the  conceptions,  but  go  back  to  their  source,  thus 
to  perception  ;  only  with  the  true  and  important  addition 
that  what  holds  good  of  the  perception  also  extends  to  its 
subjective  conditions,  thus  to  the  forms  which  lie  pre 
disposed  in  the  perceiving  and  thinking  brain  as  its 
natural  functions ;  although  these  at  least  virtualiter 
precede  the  actual  sense-perception,  i.e.,  are  a  priori,  and 
therefore  do  not  depend  upon  sense-perception,  but  it  upon 
them.  For  these  forms  themselves  have  indeed  no  other 
end,  nor  service,  than  to  produce  the  empirical  perception 
on  the  nerves  of  sense  being  excited,  as  other  forms  are 
determined  afterwards  to  construct  thoughts  in  the  ab 
stract  from  the  material  of  perception.  The  "  Critique 
of  Pure  Eeason"  is  therefore  related  to  the  Lockeian 
philosophy  as  the  analysis  of  the  infinite  to  elementary 
geometry,  but  is  yet  throughout  to  be  regarded  as  the 
continuation  of  the  Lockeian  philosophy.  The  given  mate 
rial  of  every  philosophy  is  accordingly  nothing  else  than 
the  empirical  consciousness,  which  divides  itself  into  the 
consciousness  of  one's  own  self  (self-consciousness)  and 
the  consciousness  of  other  things  (external  perception). 
For  this  alone  is  what  is  immediately  and  actually  given. 
Every  philosophy  which,  instead  of  starting  from  this, 
takes  for  its  starting-point  arbitrarily  chosen  abstract 
conceptions,  such  as,  for  example,  absolute,  absolute  sub 
stance,  God,  infinity,  finitude,  absolute  identity,  being, 
essence,  &c.,  &c.,  moves  in  the  air  without  support,  and 
can  therefore  never  lead  to  a  real  result.  Yet  in  all  ages 
philosophers  have  attempted  it  with  such  materials ;  and 
hence  even  Kant  sometimes,  according  to  the  common 
usage,  and  more  from  custom  than  consistency,  defines 
philosophy  as  a  science  of  mere  conceptions.  But  such 
a  science  would  really  undertake  to  extract  from  the 
partial  ideas  (for  that  is  what  the  abstractions  are)  what 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  complete  ideas  (the  perceptions), 
from  which  the  former  were  drawn  by  abstraction.  The 
possibility  of  the  syllogism  leads  to  this  mistake,  because 


26o  FIRST  BOOK.    CHAPTER  VII. 

here  the  combination  of  the  judgments  gives  a  new  result, 
although  more  apparent  than  real,  for  the  syllogism  only 
brings  out  what  already  lay  in  the  given  judgments ;  for 
it  is  true  the  conclusion  cannot  contain  more  than  the 
premisses.  Conceptions  are  certainly  the  material  of 
philosophy,  but  only  as  marble  is  the  material  of  the 
sculptor.  It  is  not  to  work  out  of  them  but  in  them ;  that 
is  to  say,  it  is  to  deposit  its  results  in  them,  but  not  to 
start  from  them  as  what  is  given.  Whoever  wishes  to 
see  a  glaring  example  of  such  a  false  procedure  from 
mere  conceptions  may  look  at  the  "  Institutio  Theologica  " 
of  Proclus  in  order  to  convince  himself  of  the  vanity 
of  that  whole  method.  There  abstractions  such  as  "  ev, 
,  ayaOov,  Trapayov  Kat,  Trapayopevov,  avTapKes,  aircov, 
v,KivriTov,  aKivr)Tov,KivovfAevov"(unum,  multa,  bonum, 
producens  et  produdum,  sibi  sufficiens,  causa,  melius,  mobile, 
immobile,  motum),  &c.,  are  indiscriminately  collected,  but 
the  perceptions  to  which  alone  they  owe  their  origin 
and  content  ignored  and  contemptuously  disregarded.  A 
theology  is  then  constructed  from  these  conceptions,  but 
its  goal,  the  0eo<?,  is  kept  concealed ;  thus  the  whole  pro 
cedure  is  apparently  unprejudiced,  as  if  the  reader  did  not 
know  at  the  first  page,  just  as  well  as  the  author,  what 
it  is  all  to  end  in.  I  have  already  quoted  a  fragment  of 
this  above.  This  production  of  Proclus  is  really  quite 
peculiarly  adapted  to  make  clear  how  utterly  useless  and 
illusory  such  combinations  of  abstract  conceptions  are,  for 
we  can  make  of  them  whatever  we  will,  especially  if  we 
further  take  advantage  of  the  ambiguity  of  many  words, 
such,  for  example,  as  /cpeiTrov.  If  such  an  architect  of 
conceptions  wrere  present  in  person  we  would  only  have 
to  ask  naively  where  all  the  things  are  of  which  he  has 
so  much  to  tell  us,  and  whence  he  knows  the  laws  from 
which  he  draws  his  conclusions  concerning  them.  He 
would  then  soon  be  obliged  to  turn  to  empirical  percep 
tion,  in  which  alone  the  real  world  exhibits  itself,  from 
which  those  conceptions  are  drawn.  Then  we  would  only 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.        261 

have  to  ask  further  why  he  did  not  honestly  start  from 
the  given  perception  of  such  a  world,  so  that  at  every 
step  his  assertions  could  be  proved  by  it,  instead  of  opera 
ting  with  conceptions,  which  are  yet  drawn  from  percep 
tion  alone,  and  therefore  can  have  no  further  validity 
than  that  which  it  imparts  to  them.  But  of  course  this 
is  just  his  trick.  Through  such  conceptions,  in  which, 
by  virtue  of  abstraction,  what  is  inseparable  is  thought 
as  separate,  and  what  cannot  be  united  as  united,  he  goes 
far  beyond  the  perception  which  was  their  source,  and  thus 
beyond  the  limits  of  their  applicability,  to  an  entirely 
different  world  from  that  which  supplied  the  material 
for  building,  but  just  on  this  account  to  a  world  of 
chimeras.  I  have  here  referred  to  Proclus  because  in  him 
this  procedure  becomes  specially  clear  through  the  frank 
audacity  with  which  he  carries  it  out.  But  in  Plato  also 
we  find  some  examples  of  this  kind,  though  not  so  glar 
ing;  and  in  general  the  philosophical  literature  of  all 
ages  affords  a  multitude  of  instances  of  the  same  thing. 
That  of  our  own  time  is  rich  in  them.  Consider,  for  ex 
ample,  the  writings  of  the  school  of  Schelling,  and  observe 
the  constructions  that  are  built  up  out  of  abstractions  like 
finite  and  infinite — being,  non-being,  other  being — activity, 
hindrance,  product — determining,  being  determined,  deter- 
minateness — limit,  limiting,  being  limited — unity,  plurality, 
multiplicity — identity,  diversity,  indifference — thinking, 
being,  essence,  &c.  Not  only  does  all  that  has  been  said 
above  hold  good  of  constructions  out  of  such  materials, 
but  because  an  infinite  amount  can  be  thought  through 
such  wide  abstractions,  only  very  little  indeed  can  be 
thought  in  them ;  they  are  empty  husks.  But  thus  the 
matter  of  the  whole  philosophising  becomes  astonishingly 
trifling  and  paltry,  and  hence  arises  that  unutterable  and 
excruciating  tediousness  which  is  characteristic  of  all  such 
writings.  If  indeed  I  now  chose  to  call  to  mind  the  way 
in  which  Hegel  and  his  companions  have  abused  such 
wide  and  empty  abstractions,  I  should  have  to  fear  that 


262  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER   VII. 

"both  the  reader  and  I  myself  would  be  ill ;  for  the  most 
nauseous  tediousness  hangs  over  the  empty  word-juggling 
of  this  loathsome  philophaster. 

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

Now  although,  in  accordance  with  all  that  has  been 
said,  wide,  abstract  conceptions,  which  can  be  realised  in 
no  perception,  must  never  be  the  source  of  knowledge,  the 
starting-point  or  the  proper  material  of  philosophy,  yet 
sometimes  particular  results  of  philosophy  are  such  as  can 
only  be  thought  in  the  abstract,  and  cannot  be  proved  by 
any  perception.  Knowledge  of  this  kind  will  certainly 
only  be  half  knowledge ;  it  will,  as  it  were,  only  point 
out  the  place  where  what  is  to  be  known  lies ;  but  this 
remains  concealed.  Therefore  we  should  only  be  satisfied 
with  such  conceptions  in  the  most  extreme  case,  and  when 
we  have  reached  the  limit  of  the  knowledge  possible  to 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.       263 

our  faculties.  An  example  of  this  might  perhaps  be  the 
conception  of  a  being  out  of  time ;  such  as  the  proposi 
tion  :  the  indestructibility  of  our  true  being  by  death  is 
not  a  continued  existence  of  it.  With  conceptions  of  this 
sort  the  firm  ground  which  supports  our  whole  knowledge, 
the  perceptible,  seems  to  waver.  Therefore  philosophy 
may  certainly  at  times,  and  in  case  of  necessity,  extend  to 
such  knowledge,  but  it  must  never  begin  with  it. 

The  working  with  wide  abstractions,  which  is  con 
demned  above,  to  the  entire  neglect  of  the  perceptive 
knowledge  from  which  they  are  drawn,  and  which  is 
therefore  their  permanent  and  natural  controller,  was  at 
all  times  the  principal  source  of  the  errors  of  dogmatic 
philosophy.  A  science  constructed  from  the  mere  com 
parison  of  conceptions,  that  is,  from  general  principles, 
could  only  be  certain  if  all  its  principles  were  synthetical 
a  priori,  as  is  the  case  in  mathematics  :  for  only  such 
admit  of  no  exceptions.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  prin 
ciples  have  any  empirical  content,  we  must  keep  this  con 
stantly  at  hand,  to  control  the  general  principles.  For  no 
truths  which  are  in  any  way  drawn  from  experience  are 
ever  unconditionally  true.  They  have  therefore  only  an 
approximately  universal  validity ;  for  here  there  is  no 
rule  without  an  exception.  If  now  I  link  these  principles 
together  by  means  of  the  intersection  of  their  concept- 
spheres,  one  conception  might  very  easily  touch  the  other 
precisely  where  the  exception  lies.  But  if  this  happens 
even  only  once  in  the  course  of  a  long  train  of  reasoning, 
the  whole  structure  is  loosed  from  its  foundation  and 
moves  in  the  air.  If,  for  example,  I  say,  "  The  ruminants 
have  no  front  incisors,"  and  apply  this  and  what  follows 
from  it  to  the  camel,  it  all  becomes  false,  for  it  only  holds 
good  of  horned  ruminants.  What  Kant  calls  das  Ver- 
nunfteln,  mere  abstract  reasoning,  and  so  often  condemns, 
is  just  of  this  sort.  For  it  consists  simply  in  subsuming 
conceptions  under  conceptions,  without  reference  to  their 
origin,  and  without  proof  of  the  correctness  and  exclusive- 


264  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VII. 

ness  of  such  subsumption — a  method  whereby  we  can 
arrive  by  longer  or  shorter  circuits  at  almost  any  result 
we  choose  to  set  before  us  as  our  goal.  Hence  this  mere 
abstract  reasoning  differs  only  in  degree  from  sophistica 
tion  strictly  so  called.  But  sophistication  is  in  the  theo 
retical  sphere  exactly  what  chicanery  is  in  the  practical. 
Yet  even  Plato  himself  has  very  frequently  permitted 
such  mere  abstract  reasoning;  and  Proclus,  as  we  have 
already  mentioned,  has,  after  the  manner  of  all  imitators, 
carried  this  fault  of  his  model  much  further.  Dionysius  the 
Areopagite,  "  De  Divinis  Nominibus"  is  also  strongly  af 
fected  with  this.  But  even  in  the  fragments  of  the  Eleatic 
Melissus  we  already  find  distinct  examples  of  such  mere 
abstract  reasoning  (especially  §  2-5  in  Brandis'"  Comment. 
Meat.)  His  procedure  with  the  conceptions,  which  never 
touch  the  reality  from  which  they  have  their  content,  but, 
moving  in  the  atmosphere  of  abstact  universality,  pass 
away  beyond  it,  resembles  blows  which  never  hit  the  mark. 
A  good  pattern  of  such  mere  abstract  reasoning  is  the  "  De 
Diis  et  Mundo  "  of  the  philosopher  Sallustius  Biichelchen  ; 
especially  chaps.  7,  12,  and  17.  But  a  perfect  gem  of 
philosophical  mere  abstract  reasoning  passing  into  decided 
sophistication  is  the  following  reasoning  of  the  Platonist, 
Maximus  of  Tyre,  which  I  shall  quote,  as  it  is  short : 
"  Every  injustice  is  the  taking  away  of  a  good.  There  is 
no  other  good  than  virtue :  but  virtue  cannot  be  taken 
away  :  thus  it  is  not  possible  that  the  virtuous  can  suffer 
injustice  from  the  wicked.  It  now  remains  either  that 
no  injustice  can  be  suffered,  or  that  it  is  suffered  by  the 
wicked  from  the  wicked.  But  the  wicked  man  possesses 
no  good  at  all,  for  only  virtue  is  a  good ;  therefore  none 
can  be  taken  from  him.  Thus  he  also  can  suffer  no  in 
justice.  Thus  injustice  is  an  impossible  thing."  The 
original,  which  is  less  concise  through  repetitions,  runs 
thus  :  "  ABiKia  ecm  a<j)aipecris  ayadov'  TO  Be  a^aOov  n  av 
etrj  a\\o  77  apery  ; — f)  8e  apery  ava(f>aiperov.  OVK  a 
rai  TOLVVV  o  rrjv  aperrjv  e^a>v,  f]  OVK  eariv  aSircia 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.        265 


ayadov'  ovSev  <yap  cvyadov  a(f>ai,peTov,  ov^'-^aTro^XTjTOV,  ov 
eXerov,  ov8e  \7)icnov.  Etev  ovv,  ouS'  aSifceir 
To?,  ovS  VTTO  TOV  fjto%0i)pov'  ava(j)aipeTO<>  yap. 
TOLVVV  TJ  fjLrjSeva  aSiKeicrdat,  Kada7ra£,  77  rov  no^drjpov  VTTO 
TOV  o/Jbotov'  aXXa  -T&)  fjio^drjpa)  ofSe^o?  /ierecrrty  ayadow 
TI  Se  aSiKta  rjv  ajadov  affxtipecris'  6  Se  /j,rj  e^cof  o,  ri  a<f>ai,- 
peadij,  ovSe  ei?  6,  TI  aSifcrjcrOrj,  e^et"  (Scrmo  2).  I  shall 
add  further  a  modern  example  of  such  proofs  from 
abstract  conceptions,  by  means  of  which  an  obviously 
absurd  proposition  is  set  up  as  the  truth,  and  I  shall  take 
it  from  the  works  of  a  great  man,  Giordano  Bruno.  In 
his  book,  "Del  Infinite*  Universo  &  Mondi"  (p.  87  of  the 
edition  of  A.  Wagner),  he  makes  an  Aristotelian  prove 
(with  the  assistance  and  exaggeration  of  the  passage 
of  Aristotle's  De  Casio,  i.  5)  that  there  can  loe.no  space 
beyond  the  world.  The  world  is  enclosed  by  the  eight 
spheres  of  Aristotle,  and  beyond  these  there  can  be 
no  space.  For  if  beyond  these  there  were  still  a  body, 
it  must  either  be  simple  or  compound.  It  is  now 
proved  sophistically,  from  principles  which  are  obviously 
begged,  that  no  simple  body  could  be  there  ;  and  therefore, 
also,  no  compound  body,  for  it  would  necessarily  be  com 
posed  of  simple  ones.  Thus  in  general  there  can  be  no 
body  there  —  but  if  not,  then  no  space.  For  space  is  defined 
as  "  that  in  which  bodies  can  be  ;  "  and  it  has  just  been 
proved  that  no  body  can  be  there.  Thus  there  is  also 
there  no  space.  This  last  is  the  final  stroke  of  this  proof 
from  abstract  conceptions.  It  ultimately  rests  on  the 
fact  that  the  proposition,  "  Where  no  space  is,  there  can 
be  no  body  "  is  taken  as  a  universal  negative,  and  there 
fore  converted  simply,  "  Where  no  body  can  be  there  is  no 
space."  But  the  former  proposition,  when  properly  re 
garded,  is  a  universal  affirmative  :  "  Everything  that  has 
no  space  has  no  body,"  thus  it  must  not  be  converted 
simply.  Yet  it  is  not  every  proof  from  abstract  con 
ceptions,  with  a  conclusion  which  clearly  contradicts 
perception  (as  here  the  fmiteness  of  space),  that  can  thus 


266  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VII. 

be  referred  to  a  logical  error.  For  the  sophistry  does  not 
always  lie  in  the  form,  but  often  in  the  matter,  in  the 
premisses,  and  in  the  indefiniteness  of  the  conceptions  and 
their  extension.  We  find  numerous  examples  of  this  in 
Spinoza,  whose  method  indeed  it  is  to  prove  from  concep 
tions.  See,  for  example,  the  miserable  sophisms  in  his 
"  Ethics,"  P.  iv.,  prop.  29-31,  by  means  of  the  ambiguity  of 
the  uncertain  conceptions  convenire  and  commune  habere, 
Yet  this  does  not  prevent  the  neo-Spinozists  of  our  own 
day  from  taking  all  that  he  has  said  for  gospel.  Of  these 
the  Hegelians,  of  whom  there  are  actually  still  a  few,  are 
specially  amusing  on  account  of  their  traditional  reverence 
for  his  principle,  omnis  determinatio  est  negatio,  at  which, 
according  to  the  charlatan  spirit  of  the  school,  they  put 
on  a  face  as  if  it  was  able  to  unhinge  the  world ;  whereas 
it  is  of  no  use  at  all,  for  even  the  simplest  can  see  for 
himself  that  if  I  limit  anything  by  determinations,  I 
thereby  exclude  and  thus  negate  what  lies  beyond  these 
limits. 

Thus  in  all  mere  reasonings  of  the  above  kind  it  be 
comes  very  apparent  what  errors  that  algebra  with  mere 
conceptions,  uncontrolled  by  perception,  is  exposed  to, 
and  that  therefore  perception  is  for  our  intellect  what  the 
firm  ground  upon  which  it  stands  is  for  our  body  :  if  we 
forsake  perception  everything  is  instabilis  tellus,  innabilis 
unda.  The  reader  will  pardon  the  fulness  of  these  exposi 
tions  and  examples  on  account  of  their  instructiveness.  I 
have  sought  by  means  of  them  to  bring  forward  and 
support  the  difference,  indeed  the  opposition,  between  per 
ceptive  and  abstract  or  reflected  knowledge,  which  has 
hitherto  been  too  little  regarded,  and  the  establishment  of 
which  is  a  fundamental  characteristic  of  my  philosophy. 
For  many  phenomena  of  our  mental  life  are  only  ex 
plicable  through  this  distinction.  The  connecting  link 
between  these  two  such  different  kinds  of  knowledge 
is  the  faculty  of  judgment,  as  I  have  shown  in  §  14  of 
the  first  volume.  This  faculty  is  certainly  also  active 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.       267 

in  the  province  of  mere  abstract  knowledge,  in  which 
it  compares  conceptions  only  with  conceptions ;  therefore 
every  judgment,  in  the  logical  sense  of  the  word,  is  cer 
tainly  a  work  of  the  faculty  of  judgment,  for  it  always 
consists  in  the  subsumption  of  a  narrower  conception  under 
a  wider  one.  Yet  this  activity  of  the  faculty  of  judgment, 
in  which  it  merely  compares  conceptions  with  each  other, 
is  a  simpler  and  easier  task  than  when  it  makes  the  transi 
tion  from  what  is  quite  particular,  the  perception,  to  the 
essentially  general,  the  conception.  For  by  the  analysis 
of  conceptions  into  their  essential  predicates  it  must  be 
possible  to  decide  upon  purely  logical  grounds  whether 
they  are  capable  of  being  united  or  not,  arid  for  this  the 
mere  reason  which  every  one  possesses  is  sufficient.  The 
faculty  of  judgment  is  therefore  only  active  here  in  short 
ening  this  process,  for  he  who  is  gifted  with  it  sees  at  a 
glance  what  others  only  arrive  at  through  a  series  of  re 
flections.  But  its  activity  in  the  narrower  sense  really 
only  appears  when  what  is  known  through  perception, 
thus  the  real  experience,  has  to  be  carried  over  into  distinct 
abstract  knowledge,  subsumed  under  accurately  corre 
sponding  conceptions,  and -thus  translated  into  reflected 
rational  knowledge.  It  is  therefore  this  faculty  which 
has  to  establish  the  firm  basis  of  all  sciences,  which  always 
consists  of  what  is  known  directly  and  cannot  be  further 
denied.  Therefore  here,  in  the  fundamental  judgments, 
lies  the  difficulty  of  the  sciences,  not  in  the  inferences 
from  these.  To  infer  is  easy,  to  judge  is  difficult.  False 
inferences  are  rare,  false  judgments  are  always  the  order 
of  the  day.  Not  less  in  practical  life  has  the  faculty  of 
judgment  to  give  the  decision  in  all  fundamental  conclu 
sions  and  important  determinations.  Its  office  is  in  the 
main  like  that  of  the  judicial  sentence.  As  the  burning- 
glass  brings  to  a  focus  all  the  sun's  rays,  so  when  the 
understanding  works,  the  intellect  has  to  bring  together 
all  the  data  which  it  has  upon  the  subject  so  closely  that 
the  understanding  comprehends  them  at  a  glance,  which 


268  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VII. 

it  now  rightly  fixes,  and  then  carefully  makes  the  result 
distinct  to  itself.  Further,  the  great  difficulty  of  judging 
in  most  cases  depends  upon  the  fact  that  we  have  to 
proceed  from  the  consequent  to  the  reason,  a  path  which 
is  always  uncertain ;  indeed  I  have  shown  that  the  source 
of  all  error  lies  here.  Yet  in  all  the  empirical  sciences, 
and  also  in  the  affairs  of  real  life,  this  way  is  for  the  most 
part  the  only  one  open  to  us.  The  experiment  is  an 
attempt  to  go  over  it  again  the  other  way;  therefore  it 
is  decisive,  and  at  least  brings  out  error  clearly ;  provided 
always  that  it  is  rightly  chosen  and  honestly  carried  out;  not 
like  Newton's  experiments  in  connection  with  the  theory 
of  colours.  But  the  experiment  itself  must  also  again  be 
judged.  The  complete  certainty  of  the  a  priori  sciences, 
logic  and  mathematics,  depends  principally  upon  the  fact 
that  in  them  the  path  from  the  reason  to  the  consequent 
is  open  to  us,  and  it  is  always  certain.  This  gives  them 
the  character  of  purely  objective  sciences,  i.e.,  sciences  with 
regard  to  whose  truths  all  who  understand  them  must 
judge  alike ;  and  this  is  all  the  more  remarkable  as  they 
are  the  very  sciences  which  rest  on  the  subjective  forms 
of  the  intellect,  while  the  empirical  sciences  alone  have 
to  do  with  what  is  palpably  objective. 

Wit  and  ingenuity  are  also  manifestations  of  the  faculty 
of  judgment;  in  the  former  its  activity  is  reflective,  in  the 
latter  subsuming.  In  most  men  the  faculty  of  judgment 
is  only  nominally  present ;  it  is  a  kind  of  irony  that  it  is 
reckoned  with  the  normal  faculties  of  the  mind,  instead 
of  being  only  attributed  to  the  monstris  per  excessum. 
Ordinary  men  show  even  in  the  smallest  affairs  want  of 
confidence  in  their  own  judgment,  just  because  they  know 
from  experience  that  it  is  of  no  service.  With  them  pre 
judice  and  imitation  take  its  place ;  and  thus  they  are  kept 
in  a  state  of  continual  non-age,  from  which  scarcely  one  in 
many  hundreds  is  delivered.  Certainly  this  is  not  avowed, 
for  even  to  themselves  they  appear  to  judge ;  but  all  the 
time  they  are  glancing  stealthily  at  the  opinion  of  others, 


CONCRETE  AND  ABSTRACT  KNOWLEDGE.        269 

which  is  their  secret  standard.  While  each  one  would  be 
ashamed  to  go  about  in  a  borrowed  coat,  hat,  or  mantle, 
they  all  have  nothing  but  borrowed  opinions,  which  they 
eagerly  collect  wherever  they  can  find  them,  and  then 
strut  about  giving  them  out  as  their  own.  Others  borrow 
them  again  from  them  and  do  the  same  thing.  This  ex 
plains  the  rapid  and  wide  spread  of  errors,  and  also  the 
fame  of  what  is  bad ;  for  the  professional  purveyors  of 
opinion,  such  as  journalists  and  the  like,  give  as  a  rule 
only  false  wares,  as  those  who  hire  out  masquerading 
dresses  give  only  false  jewels. 


(    270    ) 


CHAPTEE  VIII.1 

ON  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  LUDICROUS. 

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

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

According  to  my  explanation  given  in  the  first  volume, 

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


ON  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  LUDICROUS.          271 

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

In  the  first  volume  I  regarded  it  as  superfluous  to  illus 
trate  this  theory  by  examples,  for  every  one  can  do  this 
for  himself  by  a  little  reflection  upon  cases  of  the  ludicrous 
which  he  remembers.  Yet,  in  order  to  come  to  the  assist 
ance  of  the  mental  inertness  of  those  readers  who  prefer 
always  to  remain  in  a  passive  condition,  I  will  accommodate 


272  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VIII. 

myself  to  them.  Indeed  in  tins  third  edition  I  wish  to 
multiply  and  accumulate  examples,  so  that  it  may  be 
indisputable  that  here,  after  so  many  fruitless  earlier 
attempts,  the  true  theory  of  the  ludicrous  is  given,  and 
the  problem  which  was  proposed  and  also  given  up  by 
Cicero  is  definitely  solved. 

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


ON  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  LUDICROUS.          273 

howling,  so  that  at  last  a  commissary  of  police  in  uniform 
came  upon  the  stage  and  explained  that  it  was  not  allowed 
that  anything  should  be  .given  in  the  theatre  except  what 
was  in  the  playbill.  Upon  this  a  voice  cried :  "  Et  vous, 
Monsieur,  etes-vous  aussi  sur  Hafficke,  ? " — a  hit  which 
was  received  with  universal  laughter.  For  here  the  sub- 
sumption  of  what  is  heterogeneous  is  at  once  distinct  and 
unforced.  The  epigramme  : 

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

subsumes,  under  the  conception  of  a  sleeping  flock  and  a 
waking  shepherd,  the  tedious  preacher  who  still  bellows 
on  unheard  when  he  has  sent  all  the  people  to  sleep. 
Analogous  to  this  is  the  epitaph  on  a  doctor  :  "  Here  lies 
he  like  a  hero,  and  those  he  has  slain  lie  around  him ; "  it 
subsumes  under  the  conception,  honourable  to  the  hero, 
of  "  lying  surrounded  by  dead  bodies,"  the  doctor,  who  is 
supposed  to  preserve  life.  Very  commonly  the  witticism 
consists  in  a  single  expression,  through  which  only  the 
conception  is  given,  under  which  the  case  presented  can 
be  subsumed,  though  it  is  very  different  from  everything 
else  that  is  thought  under  it.  So  is  it  in  "  Romeo  "  when 
the  vivacious  Mercutio  answers  his  friends  who  promise 
to  visit  him  on  the  morrow  :  "  Ask  for  me  to-morrow,  and 
you  shall  find  me  a  grave  man."  Under  this  conception 
a  dead  man  is  here  subsumed  ;  but  in  English  there  is  also 
a  play  upon  the  words,  for  "  a  grave  man  "  means  both  a 
serious  man  and  a  man  of  the  grave.  Of  this  kind  is 
also  the  well-known  anecdote  of  the  actor  Unzelmaun. 
In  the  Berlin  theatre  he  was  strictly  forbidden  to  im 
provise.  Soon  afterwards  he  had  to  appear  on  the  stage 
on  horseback,  and  just  as  he  came  on  the  stage  the  horse 
dunged,  at  which  the  audience  began  to  laugh,  but  laughed 
much  more  when  Unzelmann  said  to  the  horse :  "  What 
are  you  doing  ?  Don't  you  know  we  are  forbidden  to 
improvise  ?  "  Here  the  subsumption  of  the  heterogeneous 
VOL.  ii.  s 


274  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VIII. 

under  the  more  general  conception  is  very  distinct,  but 
the  witticism  is  exceedingly  happy,  and  the  ludicrous  effect 
produced  by  it  excessively  strong.  To  this  class  also 
belongs  the  following  announcement  from  Hall  in  a  news 
paper  of  March  1851:  "  The  band  of  Jewish  swindlers  to 
which  we  have  referred  were  again  delivered  over  to  us 
with  obligate  accompaniment."  This  subsuming  of  a 
police  escort  under  a  musical  term  is  very  happy,  though 
it  approaches  the  mere  play  upon  words.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  exactly  a  case  of  the  kind  we  are  considering 
when  Saphir,  in  a  paper-war  with  the  actor  Angeli,  de 
scribes  him  as  "  Angeli,  who  is  equally  great  in  mind  and 
body."  The  small  statue  of  the  actor  was  known  to  the 
whole  town,  and  thus  under  the  conception  "  great " 
unusual  smallness  was  presented  to  the  mind.  Also  when 
the  same  Saphir  calls  the  airs  of  a  new  opera  "  good  old 
friends,"  and  so  brings  the  quality  which  is  most  to  be 
condemned  under  a  conception  which  is  usually  employed 
to  commend.  Also,  if  we  should  say  of  a  lady  whose 
favour  could  be  influenced  by  presents,  that  she  knew 
how  to  combine  the  utile  with  the  dulci.  For  here  we 
bring  the  moral  life  tinder  the  conception  of  a  rule 
which  Horace  has  recommended  in  an  aesthetical  refer 
ence.  Also  if  to  signify  a  brothel  we  should  call  it  the 
"  modest  abode  of  quiet  joys."  Good  society,  in  order  to 
be  thoroughly  insipid,  has  forbidden  all  decided  utter 
ances,  and  therefore  all  strong  expressions.  Therefore  it 
is  wont,  when  it  has  to  signify  scandalous  or  in  any 
way  indecent  things,  to  mitigate  or  extenuate  them  by 
expressing  them  through  general  conceptions.  But  in  this 
way  it  happens  that  they  are  more  or  less  incongruously 
subsumed,  and  in  a  corresponding  degree  the  effect  of 
the  ludicrous  is  produced.  To  this  class  belongs  the  use 
of  utile  dulci  referred  to  above,  and  also  such  expressions 
as  the  following :  "  He  had  unpleasantness  at  the  ball '' 
when  he  w as  thrashed  and  kicked  out ;  or,  "  He  has  done 
too  well "  when  he  is  drunk ;  and  also,  "  The  woman  has 


ON  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  LUDICROUS.          275 

weak  moments  "  if  she  is  unfaithful  to  her  husband,  &c. 
Equivocal  sayings  also  belong  to  the  same  class.  They 
are  conceptions  which  in  themselves  contain  nothing 
improper,  but  yet  the  case  brought  under  them  leads  to 
an  improper  idea.  They  are  very  common  in  society. 
But  a  perfect  example  of  a  full  and  magnificent  equi 
vocation  is  Shenstone's  incomparable  epitaph  on  a  justice 
of  the  peace,  which,  in  its  high-flown  lapidary  style,  seems 
to  speak  of  noble  and  sublime  things,  while  under  each  of 
their  conceptions  something  quite  different  is  to  be  sub 
sumed,  which  only  appears  in  the  very  last  word  as  the 
unexpected  key  to  the  whole,  and  the  reader  discovers 
with  loud  laughter  that  he  has  only  read  a  very  obscene 
equivocation.  In  this  smooth-combed  age  it  is  altogether 
impossible  to  quote  this  here,  not  to  speak  of  translating 
it ;  it  will  be  found  in  Shenstone's  poetical  works,  under 
the  title  "  Inscription."  Equivocations  sometimes  pass 
over  into  mere  puns,  about  which  all  that  is  necessary  has 
been  said  in  the  text. 

Further,  the  ultimate  subsumption,  ludicrous  to  all,  of 
what  in  one  respect  is  heterogeneous,  under  a  conception 
which  in  other  respects  agrees  with  it,  may  take  place 
contrary  to  our  intention.  Eor  example,  one  of  the  free 
negroes  in  North  America,  who  take  pains  to  imitate  the 
whites  in  everything,  quite  recently  placed  an  epitaph 
over  his  dead  child  which  begins,  "  Lovely,  early  broken 
lily."  If,  on  the  contrary,  something  real  and  perceptible 
is,  with  direct  intention,  brought  under  the  conception 
of  its  opposite,  the  result  is  plain,  common  irony.  For 
example,  if  when  it  is  raining  hard  we  say,  "  Nice  weather 
we  are  having  to-day ; "  or  if  we  say  of  an  ugly  bride, 
"  That  man  has  found  a  charming  treasure  ; "  or  of  a  knave, 
"  This  honest  man,"  &c.  &c.  Only  children  and  quite  un 
educated  people  will  laugh  at  such  things ;  for  here  the 
incongruity  between  what  is  thought  and  what  is  per 
ceived  is  total.  Yet  just  in  this  direct  exaggeration  in 
the  production  of  the  ludicrous  its  fundamental  character, 


276  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VIII. 

incongruity,  appears  very  distinctly.  This  species  of  the 
ludicrous  is,  on  account  of  its  exaggeration  and  distinct 
intention,  in  some  respects  related  to  parody.  The  pro 
cedure  of  the  latter  consists  in  this.  It  substitutes  for  the 
incidents  and  words  of  a  serious  poem  or  drama  insignifi 
cant  low  persons  or  trifling  motives  and  actions.  It  thus 
subsumes  the  commonplace  realities  which  it  sets  forth 
under  the  lofty  conceptions  given  in  the  theme,  under 
which  in  a  certain  respect  they  must  come,  while  in  other 
respects  they  are  very  incongruous ;  and  thereby  the  con 
trast  between  what  is  perceived  and  what  is  thought 
appears  very  glaring.  There  is  no  lack  of  familiar  ex 
amples  of  this,  and  therefore  I  shall  only  give  one,  from 
the  "  Zobeide  "  of  Carlo  Gozzi,  act  iv.,  scene  3,  where  the 
famous  stanza  of  Ariosto  (Orl.  Fur.,  i.  22),  "  Oh  gran  bonta 
de'  cavalicri  antichi,"  &c.,  is  put  word  for  word  into  the 
mouth  of  two  clowns  who  have  just  been  thrashing  each 
other,  and  tired  with  this,  lie  quietly  side  by  side.  This 
is  also  the  nature  of  the  application  so  popular  in  Ger 
many  of  serious  verses,  especially  of  Schiller,  to  trivial 
events,  which  clearly  contains  a  subsumption  of  hetero 
geneous  things  under  the  general  conception  which  the 
verse  expresses.  Thus,  for  example,  when  any  one  has 
displayed  a  very  characteristic  trait,  there  will  rarely  be 
wanting  some  one  to  say,  "  From  that  I  know  with  whom 
I  have  to  do."  But  it  was  original  and  very  witty  of  a 
man  who  was  in  love  with  a  young  bride  to  quote  to  the 
newly  married  couple  (I  know  not  how  loudly)  the  con 
cluding  words  of  Schiller's  ballad,  "  The  Surety :  " 

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

The  effect  of  the  ludicrous  is  here  strong  and  inevitable, 
because  under  the  conceptions  through  which  Schiller 
presents  to  the  mind  a  moral  and  noble  relation,  a  for 
bidden  and  immoral  relation  is  subsumed,  and  yet  cor 
rectly  and  without  change,  thus  is  thought  through  it. 


ON  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  LUDICROUS.          277 

In  all  the  examples  of  wit  given  here  we  find  that  under 
a  conception,  or  in  general  an  abstract  thought,  a  real 
thing  is,  directly,  or  by  means  of  a  narrower  conception, 
subsumed,  which  indeed,  strictly  speaking,  comes  under 
it,  and  yet  is  as  different  as  possible  from  the  proper  and 
original  intention  and  tendency  of  the  thought.  Accord 
ingly  wit,  as  a  mental  capacity,  consists  entirely  in  a 
facility  for  finding  for  every  object  that  appears  a  concep 
tion  under  which  it  certainly  can  be  thought,  though  it  is 
very  different  from  all  the  other  objects  which  come  under 
this  conception. 

The  second  species  of  the  ludicrous  follows,  as  we  have 
mentioned,  the  opposite  path  from  the  abstract  conception 
to  the  real  or  perceptible  things  thought  through  it.  But 
this  now  brings  to  light  any  incongruity  with  the  concep 
tion  which  was  overlooked,  and  hence  arises  an  absurdity, 
and  therefore  in  the  practical  sphere  a  foolish  action. 
Since  the  play  requires  action,  this  species  of  the  ludicrous 
is  essential  to  comedy.  Upon  this  depends  the  observa 
tion  of  Voltaire  :  "  J*ai  cru  remarquer  aux  spectacles,  qu'il 
ne  s'e'leve  presque  jamais  de  ccs  Eclats  de  rire  universels,  qu'a 
I' occasion  d'une  M^PRISE"  (Preface  de  I! Enfant  Prodiyue). 
The  following  may  serve  as  examples  of  this  species  of  the 
ludicrous.  When  some  one  had  declared  that  he  was  fond 
of  walking  alone,  an  Austrian  said  to  him :  "  You  like 
walking  alone ;  so  do  I :  therefore  we  can  go  together." 
He  starts  from  the  conception,  "A  pleasure  which  two 
love  they  can  enjoy  in  common,"  and  subsumes  under 
it  the  very  case  which  excludes  community.  Further, 
the  servant  who  rubbed  a  worn  sealskin  in  his  master's 
box  with  Macassar  oil,  so  that  it  might  become  covered 
with  hair  again ;  in  doing  which  he  started  from  the  con 
ception,  "  Macassar  oil  makes  hair  grow."  The  soldiers  in 
the  guard-room  who  allowed  a  prisoner  who  was  brought 
in  to  join  in  their  game  of  cards,  then  quarrelled  with 
him  for  cheating,  and  turned  him  out.  They  let  them 
selves  be  led  by  the  general  conception,  "  Bad  companions 


278  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VIII. 

are  turned  out,"  and  forget  that  he  is  also  a  prisoner,  i.e., 
one  whom  they  ought  to  hold  fast.  Two  young  peasants 
had  loaded  their  gun  with  coarse  shot,  which  they  wished 
to  extract,  in  order  to  substitute  fine,  without  losing  the 
powder.  So  one  of  them  put  the  mouth  of  the  barrel  in 
his  hat,  which  he  took  between  his  legs,  and  said  to  the 
other :  "  Now  you  pull  the  trigger  slowly,  slowly,  slowly  ; 
then  the  shot  will  come  first."  He  starts  from  the  concep 
tion,  "  Prolonging  the  cause  prolongs  the  effect."  Most  of 
the  actions  of  Don  Quixote  are  also  cases  in  point,  for  he 
subsumes  the  realities  he  encounters  under  conceptions 
drawn  from  the  romances  of  chivalry,  from  which  they 
are  very  different.  For  example,  in  order  to  support  the 
oppressed  he  frees  the  galley  slaves.  Properly  all  Munch- 
hausenisms  are  also  of  this  nature,  only  they  are  not 
actions  which  are  performed,  but  impossibilities,  which  are 
passed  off  upon  the  hearer  as  having  really  happened.  In 
them  the  fact  is  always  so  conceived  that  when  it  is 
thought  merely  in  the  abstract,  and  therefore  compara 
tively  a  priori,  it  appears  possible  and  plausible ;  but 
afterwards,  if  we  come  down  to  the  perception  of  the  parti 
cular  case,  thus  a  posteriori  the  impossibility  of  the  thing, 
indeed  the  absurdity  of  the  assumption,  is  brought  into 
prominence,  and  excites  laughter  through  the  evident 
incongruity  of  what  is  perceived  and  what  is  thought. 
For  example,  when  the  melodies  frozen  up  in  the  post- 
horn  are  thawed  in  the  warm  room — when  Miinchhausen, 
sitting  upon  a  tree  during  a  hard  frost,  draws  up  his 
knife  which  has  dropped  to  the  ground  by  the  frozen  jet 
of  his  own  water,  &c.  Such  is  also  the  story  of  the  two 
lions  who  broke  down  the  partition  between  them  during 
the  night  and  devoured  each  other  in  their  rage,  so  that  in 
the  morning  there  was  nothing  to  be  found  but  the  two 
tails. 

There  are  also  cases  of  the  ludicrous  where  the  concep 
tion  under  which  the  perceptible  facts  are  brought  does 
not  require  to  be  expressed  or  signified,  but  comes  into 


ON  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  LUDICROUS.          279 

consciousness  itself  through  the  association  of  ideas.  The 
laughter  into  which  Garrick  burst  in  the  middle  of  playing 
tragedy  because  a  butcher  in  the  front  of  the  pit,  who 
had  taken  off  his  wig  to  wipe  the  sweat  from  his  head, 
placed  the  wig  for  a  while  upon  his  large  dog,  who  stood 
facing  the  stage  with  his  fore  paws  resting  on  the  pit 
railings,  was  occasioned  by  the  fact  that  Garrick  started 
from  the  conception  of  a  spectator,  which  was  added  in. 
his  own  mind.  This  is  the  reason  why  certain  animal 
forms,  such  as  apes,  kangaroos,  jumping-hares,  &c.,  some 
times  appear  to  us  ludicrous  because  something  about 
them  resembling  man  leads  us  to  subsume  them  under 
the  conception  of  the  human  form,  and  starting  from  this 
we  perceive  their  incongruity  with  it. 

Now  the  conceptions  whose  observed  incongruity  with 
the  perceptions  moves  us  to  laughter  are  either  those  of 
others  or  our  own.  In  the  first  case  we  laugh  at  others, 
in  the  second  we  feel  a  surprise,  often  agreeable,  at 
the  least  amusing.  Therefore  children  and  uneducated 
people  laugh  at  the  most  trifling  things,  even  at  misfor 
tunes,  if  they  were  unexpected,  and  thus  convicted  their 
preconceived  conception  of  error.  As  a  rule  laughing  is 
a  pleasant  condition ;  accordingly  the  apprehension  of  the 
incongruity  between  what  is  thought  and  what  is  perceived, 
that  is,  the  real,  gives  us  pleasure,  and  we  give  ourselves 
up  gladly  to  the  spasmodic  convulsions  which  this  ap 
prehension  excites.  The  reason  of  this  is  as  follows.  In 
every  suddenly  appearing  conflict  between  what  is  per 
ceived  and  what  is  thought,  what  is  perceived  is  always 
unquestionably  right ;  for  it  is  not  subject  to  error  at  all, 
requires  no  confirmation  from  without,  but  answers  for 
itself.  Its  conflict  with  what  is  thought  springs  ultimately 
from  the  fact  that  the  latter,  with  its  abstract  concep 
tions,  cannot  get  down  to  the  infinite  multifariousness  and 
fine  shades  of  difference  of  the  concrete.  This  victory  of 
knowledge  of  perception  over  thought  affords  us  pleasure. 
For  perception  is  the  original  kind  of  knowledge  insepar- 


28o  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VIII. 

able  from  animal  nature,  in  which  everything  that  gives 
direct  satisfaction  to  the  will  presents  itself.  It  is  the 
medium  of  the  present,  of  enjoyment  and  gaiety ;  more 
over  it  is  attended  with  no  exertion.  With  thinking  the 
opposite  is  the  case  ;  it  is  the  second  power  of  knowledge, 
the  exercise  of  which  always  demands  some,  and  often 
considerable,  exertion.  Besides,  it  is  the  conceptions  of 
thought  that  often  oppose  the  gratification  of  our  imme 
diate  desires,  for,  as  the  medium  of  the  past,  the  future,  and 
of  seriousness,  they  are  the  vehicle  of  our  fears,  our  re 
pentance,  and  all  our  cares.  It  must  therefore  be  divert 
ing  to  us  to  see  this  strict,  untiring,  troublesome  governess, 
the  reason,  for  once  convicted  of  insufficiency.  On  this 
account  then  the  mien  or  appearance  of  laughter  is  very 
closely  related  to  that  of  joy. 

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

The  opposite  of  laughing  and  joking  is  seriousness. 
Accordingly  it  consists  in  the  consciousness  of  the  perfect 
agreement  and  congruity  of  the  conception,  or  thought, 
with  what  is  perceived,  or  the  reality.  The  serious  man 
is  convinced  that  he  thinks  the  things  as  they  are,  and 
that  they  are  as  he  thinks  them.  This  is  just  why  the 
transition  from  profound  seriousness  to  laughter  is  so  easy, 
and  can  be  effected  by  trifles.  For  the  more  perfect  that 
agreement  assumed  by  seriousness  may  seem  to  be,  the 
more  easily  is  it  destroyed  by  the  unexpected  discovery 


ON  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  LUDICROUS.          281 

of  even  a  slight  incongruity.  Therefore  the  more  a  man 
is  capable  of  entire  seriousness,  the  more  heartily  can  he 
laugh.  Men  whose  laughter  is  always  affected  and  forced 
are  intellectually  and  morally  of  little  worth ;  and  in 
general  the  way  of  laughing,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
occasions  of  it,  are  very  characteristic  of  the  person.  That 
the  relations  of  the  sexes  afford  the  easiest  materials  for 
jokes  always  ready  to  hand  and  within  the  reach  of  the 
weakest  wit,  as  is  proved  by  the  abundance  of  obscene 
jests,  could  not  be  if  it  were  not  that  the  deepest  serious 
ness  lies  at  their  foundation. 

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

The  intentionally  ludicrous  is  the  joke.  It  is  the  effort 
to  bring  about  a  discrepancy  between  the  conceptions  of 
another  and  the  reality  by  disarranging  one  of  the  two ; 
while  its  opposite,  seriousness,  consists  in  the  exact  con 
formity  of  the  two  to  each  other,  which  is  at  least  aimed 
at.  But  if  now  the  joke  is  concealed  behind  serious 
ness,  then  we  have  irony.  For  example,  if  with  apparent 
seriousness  we  acquiesce  in  the  opinions  of  another  which 
are  the  opposite  of  our  own,  and  pretend  to  share  them 
with  him,  till  at  last  the  result  perplexes  him  both  as  to 
us  and  them.  This  is  the  attitude  of  Socrates  as  opposed 
to  Hippias,  Protagoras,  Gorgias,  and  other  sophists,  and 


282  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VIII. 

indeed  often  to  his  collocutors  in  general.  The  converse 
of  irony  is  accordingly  seriousness  concealed  behind  a 
joke,  and  this  is  humour.  It  might  be  called  the  double 
counterpoint  of  irony.  Explanations  such  as  "  Humour  is 
the  interpenetration  of  the  finite  and  the  infinite  "  express 
nothing  more  than  the  entire  incapacity  for  thought  of 
those  who  are  satisfied  with  such  empty  phrases.  Irony 
is  objective,  that  is,  intended  for  another ;  but  humour  is 
subjective,  that  is,  it  primarily  exists  only  for  one's  own 
self.  Accordingly  we  find  the  masterpieces  of  irony  among 
the  ancients,  but  those  of  humour  among  the  moderns. 
For,  more  closely  considered,  humour  depends  upon  a 
subjective,  yet  serious  and  sublime  mood,  which  is  in 
voluntarily  in  conflict  with  a  common  external  world 
very  different  from  itself,  which  it  cannot  escape  from  and 
to  which  it  will  not  give  itself  up  ;  therefore,  as  an  accom 
modation,  it  tries  to  think  its  own  point  of  view  and  that 
external  world  through  the  same  conceptions ;  and  thus  a 
double  incongruity  arises,  sometimes  on  the  one  side, 
sometimes  on  the  other,  between  these  concepts  and  the 
realities  thought  through  them.  Hence  the  impression  of 
the  intentionally  ludicrous,  thus  of  the  joke,  is  produced, 
behind  which,  however,  the  deepest  seriousness  is  con 
cealed  and  shines  through.  Irony  begins  with  a  serious 
air  and  ends  with  a  smile ;  with  humour  the  order  is 
reversed.  The  words  of  Mercutio  quoted  above  may 
serve  as  an  example  of  humour.  Also  in  "Hamlet" — 
Polonius :  "  My  honourable  lord,  I  will  most  humbly  take 
my  leave  of  you.  Hamlet :  You  cannot,  sir,  take  from 
me  anything  that  I  will  more  willingly  part  withal,  except 
my  life,  except  my  life,  except  my  life."  Again,  before 
the  introduction  of  the  play  at  court,  Hamlet  says  to 
Ophelia :  "  What  should  a  man  do  but  be  merry  ?  for, 
look  you,  how  cheerfully  my  mother  looks,  and  my  father 
died  within  these  two  hours.  Ophelia:  Nay,  'tis  twice 
two  months,  my  lord.  Hamlet :  So  long  ?  Nay,  then  let 
the  devil  wear  black,  for  I'll  have  a  suit  of  sables." 


ON  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  LUDICROUS.          283 

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

"  If  them  hast  lost  possession  of  a  world, 

Be  not  distressed,  for  it  is  nought ; 
Or  hast  thou  gained  possession  of  a  world, 

Be  not  o'erjoyed,  for  it  is  nought. 
Our  pains,  our  gains,  all  pass  away  ; 

Get  thee  beyond  the  world,  for  it  is  nought." 

That  at  the  present  day  the  word  homorous  is  generally 
iised  in  German  literature  in  the  sense  of  comical  arises 
from  the  miserable  desire  to  give  things  a  more  distin- 


284  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  VIII. 

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


CHAPTEE  IX.1 

ON  LOGIC  IN   GENERAL. 

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

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

In  Ehetoric  the  rhetorical  figures  are  very  much  what 
the  syllogistic  figures  are  in  Logic ;  at  all  events  they  are 
worth  considering.  In  Aristotle's  time  they  seem  to  have 
not  yet  become  the  object  of  theoretical  investigation,  for 
he  does  not  treat  of  them  in  any  of  his  rhetorics,  and  in 

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


286  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IX. 

this  reference  we  are  referred  to  Eutilius  Lupus,  the  epito- 
miser  of  a  later  Gorgias. 

All  the  three  sciences  have  this  in  common,  that  with 
out  having  learned  them  we  follow  their  rules,  which 
indeed  are  themselves  first  abstracted  from  this  natural 
employment  of  them.  Therefore,  although  they  are  of 
great  theoretical  interest,  they  are  of  little  practical  use ; 
partly  because,  though  they  certainly  give  the  rule,  they 
do  not  give  the  case  of  its  application ;  partly  because  in 
practice  there  is  generally  no  time  to  recollect  the  rules. 
Thus  they  teach  only  what  every  one  already  knows  and 
practises  of  his  own  accord ;  but  yet  the  abstract  know 
ledge  of  this  is  interesting  and  important.  Logic  will  not 
easily  have  a  practical  value,  at  least  for  our  own  thinking. 
For  the  errors  of  our  own  reasoning  scarcely  ever  lie  in 
the  inferences  nor  otherwise  in  the  form,  but  in  the  judg 
ments,  thus  in  the  matter  of  thought.  In  controversy,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  can  sometimes  derive  some  practical 
use  from  logic,  by  taking  the  more  or  less  intentionally 
deceptive  argument  of  our  opponent,  which  he  advances 
under  the  garb  and  cover  of  continuous  speech,  and 
referring  it  to  the  strict  form  of  regular  syllogisms,  and 
thus  convicting  it  of  logical  errors ;  for  example,  simple 
conversion  of  universal  affirmative  judgments,  syllogisms 
with  four  terms,  inferences  from  the  consequent  to  the 
reason,  syllogisms  in  the  second  figure  with  merely  affir 
mative  premisses,  and  many  such. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  doctrine  of  the  laws  of  thought 
might  be  simplified  if  we  were  only  to  set  up  two,  the 
law  of  excluded  middle  and  that  of  sufficient  reason.  The 
former  thus :  "  Every  predicate  can  either  be  affirmed  or 
denied  of  every  subject."  Here  it  is  already  contained  in 
the  "  either,  or  "  that  both  cannot  occur  at  once,  and  con 
sequently  just  what  is  expressed  by  the  laws  of  identity 
and  contradiction.  Thus  these  would  be  added  as  corol 
laries  of  that  principle  which  really  says  that  every  two 
concept-spheres  must  be  thought  either  as  united  or  as 


ON  LOGIC  IN  GENERAL.  287 

separated,  but  never  as  both  at  once ;  and  therefore,  even 
although  words  are  brought  together  which  express  the 
latter,  these  words  assert  a  process  of  thought  which  can 
not  be  carried  out.  The  consciousness  of  this  infeasibility 
is  the  feeling  of  contradiction.  The  second  law  of  thought, 
the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  would  affirm  that  the 
above  attributing  or  denying  must  be  determined  by  some 
thing  different  from  the  judgment  itself,  which  may  be  a 
(pure  or  empirical)  perception,  or  merely  another  judg 
ment.  This  other  and  different  thing  is  then  called  the 
ground  or  reason  of  the  judgment.  So  far  as  a  judgment 
satisfies  the  first  law  of  thought,  it  is  thinkable  ;  so  far  as 
it  satisfies  the  second,  it  is  true,  or  at  least  in  the  case  in 
which  the  ground  of  a  judgment  is  only  another  judgment 
it  is  logically  or  formally  true.  But,  finally,  material  or 
absolute  truth  is  always  the  relation  between  a  judgment 
and  a  perception,  thus  between  the  abstract  and  the  con 
crete  or  perceptible  idea.  This  is  either  an  immediate 
relation  or  it  is  brought  about  by  means  of  other  judg 
ments,  i.e.,  through  other  abstract  ideas.  From  this  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  one  truth  can  never  overthrow  another, 
but  all  must  ultimately  agree ;  because  in  the  concrete  or 
perceptible,  which  is  their  common  foundation,  no  contra 
diction  is  possible.  Therefore  no  truth  has  anything  to 
fear  from  other  truths.  Illusion  and  error  have  to  fear 
every  truth,  because  through  the  logical  connection  of  all 
truths  even  the  most  distant  must  some  time  strike  its 
blow  at  every  error.  This  second  law  of  thought  is  there 
fore  the  connecting  link  between  logic  and  what  is  no 

o  o 

longer  logic,  but  the  matter  of  thought.  Consequently 
the  agreement  of  the  conceptions,  thus  of  the  abstract 
idea  with  what  is  given  in  the  perceptible  idea,  is,  on 
the  side  of  the  object  truth,  and  on  the  side  of  the  subject 
knowledge. 

To  express  the  union  or  separation  of  two  concept- 
spheres  referred  to  above  is  the  work  of  the  copula,  "  is 
— is  not."  Through  this  every  verb  can  be  expressed  by 


288  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IX. 

means  of  its  participle.  Therefore  all  judging  consists  in 
the  use  of  a  verb,  and  vice  versd.  Accordingly  the  signi 
ficance  of  the  copula  is  that  the  predicate  is  to  be  thought 
in  the  subject,  nothing  more.  Now,  consider  what  the 
content  of  the  infinitive  of  the  copula  "  to  be "  amounts 
to.  But  this  is  a  principal  theme  of  the  professors  of 
philosophy  of  the  present  time.  However,  we  must  not 
be  too  strict  with  them ;  most  of  them  wish  to  express 
by  it  nothing  but  material  things,  the  corporeal  world,  to 
which,  as  perfectly  innocent  realists  at  the  bottom  of  their 
hearts,  they  attribute  the  highest  reality.  To  speak,  how 
ever,  of  the  bodies  so  directly  appears  to  them  too  vulgar ; 
and  therefore  they  say  "  being,"  which  they  think  sounds 
better,  and  think  in  connection  with  it  the  tables  and 
chairs  standing  before  them. 

"  For,  because,  why,  therefore,  thus,  since,  although,  in 
deed,  yet,  but,  if,  then,  either,  or,"  and  more  like  these,  are 
properly  logical  particles,  for  their  only  end  is  to  express 
the  form  of  the  thought  processes.  They  are  therefore  a 
valuable  possession  of  a  language,  and  do  not  belong  to  all 
in  equal  numbers.  Thus  "zwar"  (the  contracted  "  es  ist 
wahr ")  seems  to  belong  exclusively  to  the  German  lan 
guage.  It  is  always  connected  with  an  "aler"  which 
follows  or  is  added  in  thought,  as  "  if  "  is  connected  with 
"  then." 

The  logical  rule  that,  as  regards  quantity,  singular  judg 
ments,  that  is,  judgments  which  have  a  singular  conception 
(notio  singularis)  for  their  subject,  are  to  be  treated  as 
universal  judgments,  depends  upon  the  circumstance  that 
they  are  in  fact  universal  judgments,  which  have  merely 
the  peculiarity  that  their  subject  is  a  conception  which 
can  only  be  supported  by  a  single  real  object,  and  there 
fore  only  contains  a  single  real  object  under  it ;  as  when 
the  conception  is  denoted  by  a  proper  name.  This,  how 
ever,  has  really  only  to  be  considered  when  we  proceed 
from  the  abstract  idea  to  the  concrete  or  perceptible,  thus 
seek  to  realise  the  conceptions.  In  thinking  itself,  in 


ON  LOGIC  IN  GENERAL.  289 

operating  with  judgments,  this  makes  no  difference,  simply 
because  between  singular  and  universal  conceptions  there 
is  no  logical  difference.  "  Immanuel  Kant "  signifies  logi 
cally,  "  all  Immanuel  Kant."  Accordingly  the  quantity 
of  judgments  is  really  only  of  two  kinds — universal  and 
particular.  An  individual  idea  cannot  be  the  subject  of  a 
judgment,  because  it  is  not  an  abstraction,  it  is  not  some 
thing  thought,  but  something  perceived.  Every  concep 
tion,  on  the  other  hand,  is  essentially  universal,  and  every 
judgment  must  have  a  conception  as  its  subject. 

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

The  liyijotlictical  and  disjunctive  judgments  are  assertions 
as  to  the  relation  of  two  (in  the  case  of  the  disjunctive 
judgment  even  several)  categorical  judgments  to  each  other. 
The  hypothetical  judgment  asserts  that  the  truth  of  the 
second  of  the  two  categorical  judgments  here  linked  to 
gether  depends  upon  the  truth  of  the  first,  arid  the 

VOL.  n.  T 


290  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  IX. 

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

The  e7ra7&>7?7,  inductio,  is  with  Aristotle  the  opposite 
of  the  aTraycayr}.  The  latter  proves  a  proposition  to  be 
false  by  showing  that  what  would  follow  from  it  is  not 
true  ;  thus  by  the  instantia  in  contrarium.  The  eTraywyr), 
on  the  other  hand,  proves  the  truth  of  a  proposition  by 
showing  that  what  would  follow  from  it  is  true.  Thus  it 
leads  by  means  of  examples  to  our  accepting  something 
while  the  cnrarywyr)  leads  to  our  rejecting  it.  Therefore 
the  eTraywyrj,  or  induction,  is  an  inference  from  the  con 
sequents  to  the  reason,  and  indeed  modo  ponente  ;  for  from 
many  cases  it  establishes  the  rule,  from  which  these  cases 
then  in  their  turn  follow.  On  this  account  it  is  never 
perfectly  certain,  but  at  the  most  arrives  at  very  great 
probability.  However,  this  formal  uncertainty  may  yet 
leave  room  for  material  certainty  through  the  number  of 
the  sequences  observed  ;  in  the  same  way  as  in  mathe 
matics  the  irrational  relations  are  brought  infinitely 
near  to  rationality  by  means  of  decimal  fractions.  The 
aTrajwyTj,  on  the  contrary,  is  primarily  an  inference  from 
the  reason  to  the  consequents,  though  it  is  afterwards 
carried  out  modo  tollente,  in  that  it  proves  the  non- 
existence  of  a  necessary  consequent,  and  thereby  destroys 


ON  LOGIC  IN  GENERAL.  291 

the  truth  of  the  assumed  reason.  On  this  account  it  is 
always  perfectly  certain,  and  accomplishes  more  by  a 
single  example  in  contrarium  than  the  induction  does  by 
innumerable  examples  in  favour  of  the  proposition  pro 
pounded.  So  much  easier  is  it  to  refute  than  to  prove,  to 
overthrow  than  to  establish. 


(      292      ) 


CHAPTER  X. 

OX   THE   SYLLOGISM. 

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

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

We  may  ask  in  passing  whether  he  who  draws  an  infer 
ence  really  learns  something  new  from  the  new  propo 
sition,  something  previously  unknown  to  him  ?  Not 
absolutely;  but  yet  to  a  certain  extent  he  does.  What 
he  learns  lay  in  what  he  knew :  thus  he  knew  it  also,  but 
he  did  not  know  that  he  knew  it ;  which  is  as  if  he  had 
something,  but  did  not  know  that  he  had  it,  and  this  is 


ON  THE  SYLLOGISM.  293 

just  the  same  as  if  he  had  it  not.  He  knew  it  only  im- 
plicite,  now  he  knows  it  explicite ;  but  this  distinction 
may  be  so  great  that  the  conclusion  appears  to  him  a 
new  truth.  For  example  : 

All  diamonds  are  stones ; 
All  diamonds  are  combustible  : 
Therefore  some  stones  are  combustible. 
The  nature  of  inference  consequently  consists  in  this,  that 
we  bring  it  to  distinct  consciousness  that  we  have  already 
thought  in  the  premisses  what  is  asserted  in  the  con 
clusion.  It  is  therefore  a  means  of  becoming  more  dis 
tinctly  conscious  of  one's  own  knowledge,  of  learning 
more  fully,  or  becoming  aware  of  what  one  knows.  The 
knowledge  which  is  afforded  by  the  conclusion  was  latent, 
and  therefore  had  just  as  little  effect  as  latent  heat  has 
on  the  thermometer.  Whoever  has  salt  has  also  chlorine ; 
but  it  is  as  if  he  had  it  not,  for  it  can  only  act  as  chlorine 
if  it  is  chemically  evolved ;  thus  only,  then,  does  he  really 
possess  it.  It  is  the  same  with  the  gain  which  a  mere 
conclusion  from  already  known  premisses  affords  :  a  previ 
ously  bound  or  latent  knowledge  is  thereby  set/ree.  These 
comparisons  may  indeed  seem  to  be  somewhat  strained,  but 
yet  they  really  are  not.  For  because  we  draw  many  of  the 
possible  inferences  from  our  knowledge  very  soon,  very 
rapidly,  and  without  formality,  and  therefore  have  no  dis 
tinct  recollection  of  them,  it  seems  to  us  as  if  no  premisses 
for  possible  conclusions  remained  long  stored  up  unused, 
but  as  if  we  already  had  also  conclusions  prepared  for  all 
the  premisses  within  reach  of  our  knowledge.  But  this  is 
not  always  the  case  ;  on  the  contrary,  two  premisses  may 
have  for  a  long  time  an  isolated  existence  in  the  same  mind, 
till  at  last  some  occasion  brings  them  together,  and  then 
the  conclusion  suddenly  appears,  as  the  spark  conies  from 
the  steel  and  the  stone  only  when  they  are  struck  together. 
In  reality  the  premisses  assumed  from  without,  both  for 
theoretical  insight  and  for  motives,  which  bring  about  re 
solves,  often  lie  for  a  long  time  in  us,  and  become,  partly 


294  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  X. 

through  half-conscious,  and  even  inarticulate,  processes  of 
thought,  compared  with  the  rest  of  our  stock  of  knowledge, 
reflected  upon,  and,  as  it  were,  shaken  up  together,  till  at 
last  the  right  major  finds  the  right  minor,  and  these  imme 
diately  take  up  their  proper  places,  and  at  once  the  conclu 
sion  exists  as  a  light  that  has  suddenly  arisen  for  us,  without 
any  action  on  our  part,  as  if  it  were  an  inspiration ;  for  we 
cannot  comprehend  how  we  and  others  have  so  long  been 
in  ignorance  of  it.  It  is  true  that  in  a  happily  organised 
mind  this  process  goes  on  more  quickly  and  easily  than  in 
ordinary  minds ;  and  just  because  it  is  carried  on  spon 
taneously  and  without  distinct  consciousness  it  cannot  be 
learned.  Therefore  Goethe  says  :  "  How  easy  anything  is 
he  knows  who  has  discovered  it,  he  knows  who  has  attained 
to  it."  As  an  illustration  of  the  process  of  thought  here 
described  we  may  compare  it  to  those  padlocks  which  con 
sist  of  rings  with  letters ;  hanging  on  the  box  of  a  travelling 
carriage,  they  are  shaken  so  long  that  at  last  the  letters  of 
the  word  come  together  in  their  order  and  the  lock  opens. 
For  the  rest,  we  must  also  remember  that  the  syllogism 
consists  in  the  process  of  thought  itself,  and  the  words 
and  propositions  through  which  it  is  expressed  only 
indicate  the  traces  it  has  left  behind  it — they  are  related 
to  it  as  the  sound-figures  of  sand  are  related  to  the  notes 
whose  vibrations  they  express.  When  we  reflect  upon 
something,  we  collect  our  data,  reduce  them  to  judgments, 
which  are  all  quickly  brought  together  and  compared,  and 
thereby  the  conclusions  which  it  is  possible  to  draw  from 
them  are  instantly  arrived  at  by  means  of  the  use  of  all 
the  three  syllogistic  figures.  Yet  on  account  of  the  great 
rapidity  of  this  operation  only  a  few  words  are  used,  and 
sometimes  none  at  all,  and  only  the  conclusion  is  formally 
expressed.  Thus  it  sometimes  happens  that  because  in 
this  way,  or  even  merely  intuitively,  i.e.,  by  a  happy 
apperqu,  we  have  brought  some  new  truth  to  consciousness, 
we  now  treat  it  as  a  conclusion  and  seek  premisses  for  it, 
that  is,  we  desire  to  prove  it,  for  as  a  rule  knowledge 


ON  THE  SYLLOGISM.  295 

exists  earlier  than  its  proofs.  We  then  go  through  our 
stock  of  knowledge  in  order  to  see  whether  we  can  find 
some  truth  in  it  in  which  the  newly  discovered  truth  was 
already  implicitly  contained,  or  two  propositions  which 
would  give  this  as  a  result  if  they  were  brought  together 
according  to  rule.  On  the  other  hand,  every  judicial 
proceeding  affords  a  most  complete  and  imposing  syllo 
gism,  a  syllogism  in  the  first  figure.  The  civil  or  criminal 
transgression  complained  of  is  the  minor ;  it  is  established 
by  the  prosecutor.  The  law  applicable  to  the  case  is  the 
major.  The  judgment  is  the  conclusion,  which  therefore, 
as  something  necessary,  is  "merely  recognised"  by  the 
judge. 

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

Judging,  this  elementary  and  most  important  process 
of  thought,  consists  in  the  comparison  of  two  concep 
tions  ;  inference  in  the  comparison  of  two  judgments.  Yet 
ordinarily  in  text-books  inference  is  also  referred  to 
the  comparison  of  conceptions,  though  of  three,  because 
from  the  relation  which  two  of  these  conceptions  have 
to  a  third  their  relation  to  each  other  may  be  known. 
Truth  cannot  be  denied  to  this  view  also ;  and  since  it 
affords  opportunity  for  the  perceptible  demonstration  of 
syllogistic  relations  by  means  of  drawn  concept-spheres, 
a  method  approved  of  by  me  in  the  text,  it  has  the 
advantage  of  making  the  matter  easily  comprehensible. 
But  it  seems  to  me  that  here,  as  in  so  many  cases,  com- 
prehensibility  is  attained  at  the  cost  of  thoroughness. 
The  real  process  of  thought  in  inference,  with  which  the 
three  syllogistic  figures  and  their  necessity  precisely  agree, 
is  not  thus  recognised.  In  inference  we  operate  not  with 
mere  conceptions  but  with  whole  judgments,  to  which 
quality,  which  lies  only  in  the  copula  and  not  in  the 
conceptions,  and  also  quantity  are  absolutely  essential, 
and  indeed  we  have  further  to  add  modality.  That 
exposition  of  inference  as  a  relation  of  three  conceptions 


296  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  X. 

fails  in  this,  that  it  at  once  resolves  the  judgments  into 
their  ultimate  elements  (the  conceptions),  and  thus  the 
means  of  combining  these  is  lost,  and  that  which  is 
peculiar  to  the  judgments  as  such  and  in  their  complete 
ness,  which  is  just  what  constitutes  the  necessity  of  the 
conclusion  which  follows  from  them,  is  lost  sight  of.  It 
thus  falls  into  an  error  analogous  to  that  which  organic 
chemistry  would  commit  if,  for  example,  in  the  analysis 
of  plants  it  were  at  once  to  reduce  them  to  their  ultimate 
elements,  when  it  would  find  in  all  plants  carbon,  hydro 
gen,  and  oxygen,  but  would  lose  the  specific  differences,  to 
obtain  which  it  is  necessary  to  stop  at  their  more  special 
elements,  the  so-called  alkaloids,  and  to  take  care  to 
analyse  these  in  their  turn.  From  three  given  concep 
tions  no  conclusion  can  as  yet  be  drawn.  It  may  certainly 
be  said :  the  relation  of  two  of  them  to  the  third  must 
be  given  with  them.  But  it  is  just  the  judgments  which 
combine  these  conceptions,  that  are  the  expression  of 
this  relation;  thus  judgments,  not  mere  conceptions,  are 
the  material  of  the  inference.  Accordingly  inference  is 
essentially  a  comparison  of  two  judgments.  The  process 
of  thought  in  our  mind  is  concerned  with  these  and  the 
thoughts  expressed  by  them,  not  merely  with  three  con 
ceptions.  This  is  the  case  even  when  this  process  is 
imperfectly  or  not  at  all  expressed  in  words ;  and  it  is 
as  such,  as  a  bringing  together  of  the  complete  and  un- 
analysed  judgments,  that  we  must  consider  it  in  order 
properly  to  understand  the  technical  procedure  of  infer 
ence.  From  this  there  will  then  also  follow  the  necessity 
for  three  really  rational  syllogistic  figures. 

As  in  the  exposition  of  syllogistic  reasoning  by  means 
of  concept- spheres  these  are  presented  to  the  mind  under 
the  form  of  circles,  so  in  the  exposition  by  means  of 
entire  judgments  we  have  to  think  these  tinder  the  form 
of  rods,  which,  for  the  purpose  of  comparison,  are  held 
together  now  by  one  end,  now  by  the  other.  The  different 
ways  in  which  this  can  take  place  give  the  three  figures. 


ON  THE  SYLLOGISM.  297 

Since  now  every  premiss  contains  its  subject  and  its 
predicate,  these  two  conceptions  are  to  be  imagined  as 
situated  at  the  two  ends  of  each  rod.  The  two  judgments 
are  now  compared  with  reference  to  the  two  different 
conceptions  in  them ;  for,  as  has  already  been  said,  the 
third  conception  must  be  the  same  in  both,  and  is  there 
fore  subject  to  no  comparison,  but  is  that  with  which,  that 
is,  in  reference  to  which,  the  other  two  are  compared ;  it 
is  the  middle.  The  latter  is  accordingly  always  only  the 
means  and  not  the  chief  concern.  The  two  different  con 
ceptions,  on  the  other  hand,  are  the  subject  of  reflection, 
and  to  find  out  their  relation  to  each  other  by  means  of 
the  judgments  in  which  they  are  contained  is  the  aim  of 
the  syllogism.  Therefore  the  conclusion  speaks  only  of 
them,  not  of  the  middle,  which  was  only  a  means,  a 
measuring  rod,  which  we  let  fall  as  soon  as  it  has  served 
its  end.  Now  if  this  conception  which  is  identical  in  both 
propositions,  thus  the  middle,  is  the  subject  of  one  pre 
miss,  the  conception  to  be  compared  with  it  must  be  the 
predicate,  and  conversely.  Here  at  once  is  established  a 
priori  the  possibility  of  three  cases ;  either  the  subject  of 
one  premiss  is  compared  with  the  predicate  of  the  other, 
or  the  subject  of  the  one  with  the  subject  of  the  other, 
or,  finally,  the  predicate  of  the  one  with  the  predicate  of 
the  other.  Hence  arise  the  three  syllogistic  figures  of 
Aristotle  ;  the  fourth,  which  was  added  somewhat  im 
pertinently,  is  ungenuine  and  a  spurious  form.  It  is  attri 
buted  to  Galenus,  but  this  rests  only  on  Arabian  authority. 
Each  of  the  three  figures  exhibits  a  perfectly  different,  cor 
rect,  and  natural  thought-process  of  the  reason  in  inference. 
If  in  the  two  judgments  to  be  compared  the  relation  be 
tween  the  predicate  of  the  one  and  the  subject  of  the  other 
is  the  object  of  the  comparison,  the  first  figure  appears. 
This  figure  alone  has  the  advantage  that  the  conceptions 
which  in  the  conclusion  are  subject  and  predicate  both 
appear  already  in  the  same  character  in  the  premisses ; 
while  in  the  two  other  figures  one  of  them  must  always 


298  FIRST  BOOK     CHAPTER  X. 

change  its  roll  in  the  conclusion.  But  thus  in  the  first 
figure  the  result  is  always  less  novel  and  surprising  than 
in  the  other  two.  Now  this  advantage  in  the  first  figure  is 
obtained  by  the  fact  that  the  predicate  of  the  major  is 
compared  with  the  subject  of  the  minor,  but  not  conversely, 
which  is  therefore  here  essential,  and  involves  that  the 
middle  should  assume  both  the  positions,  i.e.,  it  is  the  sub 
ject  in  the  major  and  the  predicate  in  the  minor.  And  from 
this  again  arises  its  subordinate  significance,  for  it  appears 
as  a  mere  weight  which  we  lay  at  pleasure  now  in  one 
scale  and  now  in  the  other.  The  course  of  thought  in 
this  figure  is,  that  the  predicate  of  the  major  is  attributed 
to  the  subject  of  the  minor,  because  the  subject  of  the 
major  is  the  predicate  of  the  minor,  or,  in  the  negative 
case,  the  converse  holds  for  the  same  reason.  Thus  here  a 
property  is  attributed  to  the  things  thought  through  a  con 
ception,  because  it  depends  upon  another  property  which 
we  already  know  they  possess ;  or  conversely.  Therefore 
here  the  guiding  principle  is  :  Nota  notcc  est  nota  rei  ipsius, 
et  repugnans  notce  repugnat  rei  ipsi. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  compare  two  judgments  with 
the  intention  of  bringing  out  the  relation  which  the  sub 
jects  of  both  may  have  to  each  other,  we  must  take  as  the 
common  measure  their  predicate.  This  will  accordingly 
be  here  the  middle,  and  must  therefore  be  the  same  in 
both  judgments.  Hence  arises  the  second  figure.  In  it 
the  relation  of  two  subjects  to  each  other  is  determined 
by  that  which  they  have  as  their  common  predicate.  But 
this  relation  can  only  have  significance  if  the  same  predi 
cate  is  attributed  to  the  one  subject  and  denied  of  the 
other,  for  thus  it  becomes  an  essential  ground  of  distinc 
tion  between  the  two.  For  if  it  were  attributed  to  both 
the  subjects  this  could  decide  nothing  as  to  their  relation 
to  each  other,  for  almost  every  predicate  belongs  to  innu 
merable  subjects.  Still  less  would  it  decide  this  relation 
if  the  predicate  were  denied  of  both  the  subjects.  From 
this  follows  the  fundamental  characteristic  of  the  second 


ON  THE  SYLLOGISM  299 

figure,  that  the  premisses  must  be  of  opposite  quality  ;  the 
one  must  affirm  and  the  other  deny.  Therefore  here  the 
principal  rule  is  :  Sit  altcra  neyans  ;  the  corollary  of  which 
is :  E  meris  affirmativis  nihil  sequiter;  a  rule  which  is  some 
times  transgressed  in  a  loose  argument  obscured  by  many 
parenthetical  propositions.  The  course  of  thought  which 
this  figure  exhibits  distinctly  appears  from  what  has  been 
said.  It  is  the  investigation  of  two  kinds  of  things  with 
the  view  of  distinguishing  them,  thus  of  establishing  that 
they  are  not  of  the  same  species ;  which  is  here  decided  by 
showing  that  a  certain  property  is  essential  to  the  one 
kind,  which  the  other  lacks.  That  this  course  of  thought 
assumes  the  second  figure  of  its  own  accord,  and  ex 
presses  itself  clearly  only  in  it,  will  be  shown  by  an 
example : 

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

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

Nothing  that  has  cold  blood  is  a  whale ; 
All  fishes  have  cold  blood  : 
Thus  no  fish  is  a  whale, 
And  consequently  no  whale  is  a  fish. 
Take  also  an  example  with  an  affirmative  minor : 
No  Mohamedan  is  a  Jew  ; 
Some  Turks  are  Jews  : 
Therefore  some  Turks  are  not  Mohamedans. 
As  the  guiding   principle  for  this   figure    I  therefore 
give,  for  the  mood  with  the  negative  minor  :  Cui  repugnat 
nota,  etiam  rcpugnat  notatum;  and  for  the  mood  with  the 
affirmative  minor :  Notato  rcpugnat  id  cui  nota  repugnat. 
Translated  these   may  be  thus  combined  :  Two  subjects 
which  stand  in  opposite  relations  to  one  predicate  have  a 
negative  relation  to  each  other. 

The  third  case  is  that  in  which  we  place  two  judgments 


300  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  X. 

together  in  order  to  investigate  the  relation  of  their  predi 
cates.  Hence  arises  the  third  figure,in  which  accordingly  the 
middle  appears  in  both  premisses  as  the  subject.  It  is  also 
here  the  tertium  comparationis,  the  measure  which  is  ap 
plied  to  both  the  conceptions  which  are  to  be  investigated, 
or,  as  it  were,  a  chemical  reagent,  with  which  we  test 
them  both  in  order  to  learn  from  their  relation  to  it  what 
relation  exists  between  themselves.  Thus,  then,  the  con 
clusion  declares  whether  a  relation  of  subject  and  predi 
cate  exists  between  the  two,  and  to  what  extent  this  is 
the  case.  Accordingly,  what  exhibits  itself  in  this  figure 
is  reflection  concerning  two  properties  which  we  are  in 
clined  to  regard  either  as  incompatible,  or  else  as  insepa 
rable,  and  in  order  to  decide  this  we  attempt  to  make 
them  the  predicates  of  one  subject  in  two  judgments. 
From  this  it  results  either  that  both  properties  belong 
to  the  same  thing,  consequently  their  compatibility,  or  else 
that  a  thing  has  the  one  but  not  the  other,  consequently 
their  separableness.  The  former  in  all  moods  with  two 
affirmative  premisses,  the  latter  in  all  moods  with  one 
negative  ;  for  example  : 

Some  brutes  can  speak  ; 

All  brutes  are  irrational : 

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

"  All  brutes  are  irrational ; 

Some  beings  that  can  speak  are  brutes," 
which  is  clearly  not  the  natural  course  of  thought;  in 
deed  the  conclusion  which  would   then   follow,   "  Some 
beings  that  can  speak  are  irrational,"  would  have  to  be 
converted  in  order  to  preserve  the  conclusion  which  the 


ON  THE  SYLLOGISM.  301 

third  figure  gives  of  itself,  and  at  which  the  whole  course 
of  thought  has  aimed.     Let  us  take  another  example : 
All  alkalis  float  in  water ; 
All  alkalis  are  metals  : 
Therefore  some  metals  float  in  water. 
When  this  is  transposed  into  the  first  figure  the  minor 
must  be  converted,  and  thus  runs :   "  Some  metals  are 
alkalis."     It  therefore  merely  asserts  that  some  metals  lie 

in  the   sphere  "alkalis,"  thus  I AikaiiB.(  ) Metais. ),  while  our 
actual  knowledge  is   that  all  alkalis  lie  in  the   sphere 

/    Metala.    >. 

"  metals,"  thus :    (    /• — .      ]     It  follows  that  if  the  first 


figure  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  only  normal  one,  in  order 
to  think  naturally  we  would  have  to  think  less  than  we 
know,  and  to  think  indefinitely  while  we  know  definitely. 
This  assumption  has  too  much  against  it.  Thus  in  general 
it  must  be  denied  that  when  we  draw  inferences  in  the 
second  and  third  figures  we  tacitly  convert  a  proposition. 
On  the  contrary,  the  third,  and  also  the  second,  figure 
exhibits  just  as  rational  a  process  of  thought  as  the  first. 
Let  us  now  consider  another  example  of  the  other  class 
of  the  third  figure,  in  which  the  separableness  of  two 
predicates  is  the  result ;  on  account  of  which  one  premiss 
must  here  be  negative  : 

No  Buddhist  believes  in  a  God ; 

Some  Buddhists  are  rational : 

Therefore  some  rational  beings  do  not  believe  in  a  God. 

As  in  the  examples  given  above  the  compatibility  of 
two  properties  is  the  problem  of  reflection,  now  their 
separableness  is  its  problem,  which  here  also  must  be  de 
cided  by  comparing  them  with  one  subject  and  showing 


3o2  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  X. 

that  one  of  tliern  is  present  in  it  without  the  other.  Thus 
the  end  is  directly  attained,  while  by  means  of  the  first 
figure  it  could  only  be  attained  indirectly.  For  in  order 
to  reduce  the  syllogism  to  the  first  figure  we  must  convert 
the  minor,  and  therefore  say :  "  Some  rational  beings  are 
Buddhists,"  which  would  be  only  a  faulty  expression  of 
its  meaning,  which  really  is :  "  Some  Buddhists  are  yet 
certainly  rational." 

As  the  guiding  principle  of  this  figure  I  therefore  give : 
for  the  affirmative  moods:  Ejusdem  rei  notce,  modo  sit 
altera  univcrsalis,  sibi  invicem  sunt  notce  particular -es  ;  and 
for  the  negative  moods :  Nota  rei  competens,  notce  eidem 
repugnanti,  particulariter  repugnat,  modo  sit  altera  univer- 
salis.  Translated :  If  two  predicates  are  affirmed  of  one 
subject,  and  at  least  one  of  them  universally,  they  are 
also  affirmed  of  each  other  particularly ;  and,  on  the  con 
trary,  they  are  denied  of  each  other  particularly  when 
ever  one  of  them  contradicts  the  subject  of  which  the 
other  is  affirmed ;  provided  always  that  either  the  con 
tradiction  or  the  affirmation  be  universal. 

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

On  the  other  hand,  the  first  three  figures  are  the  ectypes 
of  three  real  and  essentially  different  operations  of  thought. 
They  have  this  in  common,  that  they  consist  in  the  com 
parison  of  two  judgments ;  but  such  a  comparison  only 
becomes  fruitful  when  these  judgments  have  one  con 
ception  in  common.  If  we  present  the  premisses  to  our 
imagination  under  the  sensible  form  of  two  rods,  we  can 


ON  THE  SYLLOGISM.  303 

think  of  this  conception  as  a  clasp  that  links  them  to 
each  other ;  indeed  in  lecturing  one  might  provide  oneself 
with  such  rods.     On  the  other  hand,  the  three  figures  are 
distinguished  by  this,  that  those  judgments  are  compared 
either  with  reference  to  the  subjects  of  both,  or  to  the  pre 
dicates  of  both,  or  lastly,  with  reference  to  the  subject  of 
the  one  and  the  predicate  of  the  other.     Since  now  every 
conception  has  the  property  of  being  subject  or  predicate 
only  because  it  is  already  part  of  a  judgment,  this  con 
firms  my  view  that  in  the  syllogism  only  judgments  are 
primarily  compared,  and  conceptions  only  because  they 
are  parts  of  judgments.     In  the  comparison  of  two  judg 
ments,  however,  the  essential  question  is,  in  respect  of 
what  are  they  compared  ?  not  ly  what  means  are  they 
compared  ?     The  former  consists  of  the  concepts  which 
are  different  in  the  two  judgments ;  the  latter  consists  of 
the  middle,  that  is,  the  conception  which  is  identical  in 
both.     It  is  therefore  not  the  right  point  of  view  which 
Lambert,  and  indeed  really  Aristotle,  and  almost  all  the 
moderns  have  taken  in  starting  from  the  middle  in  the 
analysis  of  syllogisms,  and  making  it  the  principal  matter 
and  its  position  the  essential  characteristic  of  the  syllo 
gisms.     On  the  contrary,  its  roll  is  only  secondary,  and 
its  position  a  consequence  of   the  logical  value  of  the 
conceptions  which  are  really  to  be  compared  in  the  syllo 
gism.     These  may  be  compared  to  two  substances  which 
are  to  be  chemically  tested,  and  the  middle  to  the  reagent 
by  which  they  are  tested.     It  therefore  always  takes  the 
place  which  the  conceptions  to  be  compared  leave  vacant, 
and  does  not  appear  again  in  the  conclusion.    It  is  selected 
according  to  our  knowledge  of  its  relation  to  both  the 
conceptions  and  its  suitableness  for  the  place  it  has  to 
take  up.     Therefore  in  many  cases  we  can  change  it  at 
pleasure  for  another  without  affecting  the  syllogism.     For 
example,  in  the  syllogism : 

All  men  are  mortal ; 
Caius  is  a  man : 


304  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  X. 

I  can  exchange  the  middle  "  man "  for  "  animal  exist 
ence."  In  the  syllogism : 

All  diamonds  are  stones  ; 
All  diamonds  are  combustible  : 

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

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

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


CHAPTER    XT.1 

OX   RHETORIC. 

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

In  order  to  convince  another  of  a  truth  which  conflicts 
with  an  error  he  firmly  holds,  the  first  rule  to  be  observed, 
is  an  easy  and  natural  one :  let  the  premisses  come  first,  and 
the  conclusion  follow.  Yet  this  rule  is  seldom  observed, 
but  reversed ;  for  zeal,  eagerness,  and  dogmatic  positive- 
ness  urge  us  to  proclaim  the  conclusion  loudly  and  noisily 
against  him  who  adheres  to  the  opposed  error.  This  easily 
makes  him  shy,  and  now  he  opposes  his  will  to  all  reasons 
and  premisses,  knowing  already  to  what  conclusion  they 
lead.  Therefore  we  ought  rather  to  keep  the  conclusion 
completely  concealed,  and  only  advance  the  premisses 

1  This  chapter  is  connected  with  the  conclusion  of  §  9  of  the  first  volume. 
VOL.  II.  U 


306  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XI. 

distinctly,  fully,  and  in  different  lights.  Indeed,  if  possible, 
we  ought  not  to  express  the  conclusion  at  all.  It  will 
come  necessarily  and  regularly  of  its  own  accord  into  the 
reason  of  the  hearers,  and  the  conviction  thus  born  in 
themselves  will  be  all  the  more  genuine,  and  will  also 
be  accompanied  by  self-esteem  instead  of  shame.  In 
difficult  cases  we  may  even  assume  the  air  of  desiring  to 
arrive  at  a  quite  opposite  conclusion  from  that  which  we 
really  have  in  view.  An  example  of  this  is  the  famous 
speech  of  Antony  in  Shakspeare's  "  Julius  Csesar." 

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


(     307     ) 


CHAPTER  XII. i 

ON  THE  DOCTRINE   OF   SCIENCE. 

FROM  the  analysis  of  the  different  functions  of  our  intellect 
given  in  the  whole  of  the  preceding  chapters,  it  is  clear 
that  for  a  correct  use  of  it,  either  in  a  theoretical  or  a 
practical  reference,  the  following  conditions  are  demanded: 
(i.)  The  correct  apprehension  through  perception  of  the 
real  things  taken  into  consideration,  and  of  all  their 
essential  properties  and  relations,  thus  of  all  data.  (2.) 
The  construction  of  correct  conceptions  out  of  these ;  thus 
the  connotation  of  those  properties  under  correct  abstrac 
tions,  which  now  become  the  material  of  the  subsequent 
thinking.  (3.)  The  comparison  of  those  conceptions  both 
with  the  perceived  object  and  among  themselves,  and 
with  the  rest  of  our  store  of  conceptions,  so  that  correct 
judgments,  pertinent  to  the  matter  in  hand,  and  fully 
comprehending  and  exhausting  it,  may  proceed  from  them ; 
thus  the  right  estimation  of  the  matter.  (4.)  The  placing 
together  or  combination  of  those  judgments  as  the  premisses 
of  syllogisms.  This  may  be  done  very  differently  accord 
ing  to  the  choice  and  arrangement  of  the  judgments,  and 
yet  the  actual  result  of  the  whole  operation  primarily 
depends  upon  it.  What  is  really  of  importance  here  is 
that  from  among  so  many  possible  combinations  of  those 
different  judgments  which  have  to  do  with  the  matter 
free  deliberation  should  hit  upon  the  very  ones  which 
serve  the  purpose  and  are  decisive.  But  if  in  the  first 
function,  that  is,  in  the  apprehension  through  perception 

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


308  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XII. 

of  the  things  and  relations,  any  single  essential  point  lias 
been  overlooked,  the  correctness  of  all  the  succeeding 
operations  of  the  mind  cannot  prevent  the  result  from 
being  false;  for  there  lie  the  data,  the  material  of  the 
whole  investigation.  Without  the  certainty  that  these  are 
correctly  and  completely  collected,  one  ought  to  abstain, 
iu  important  matters,  from  any  definite  decision. 

A  conception  is  correct ;  a  judgment  is  true;  a  body  is 
real;  and  a  relation  is  evident.     A  proposition  of  immedi 
ate  certainty  is  an  axiom.    Only  the  fundamental  principles 
of  logic,  and  those  of  mathematics  drawn  a  priori  from  in 
tuition  or  perception,  and  finally  also  the  law  of  causality, 
have   immediate    certainty.      A   proposition   of   indirect 
certainty  is   a  maxim,   and  that  by   means  of  which  it 
obtains  its  certainty  is  the  proof.     If  immediate  certainty 
is  attributed  to  a  proposition  which  has  no  such  certainty, 
this  is  a  petitio  principii.     A  proposition  which  appeals 
directly  to  the  empirical  perception  is  an  assertion:  to 
confront   it   with   such   perception    demands    judgment. 
Empirical  perception  can  primarily  afford  us  only  par 
ticular,  not  universal  truths.    Through  manifold  repetition 
and  confirmation  such  truths  indeed  obtain  a  certain  uni 
versality  also,    but   it   is    only   comparative   and   preca 
rious,  because  it  is  still  always  open  to  attack.     But  if  a 
proposition  has  absolute  universality,  the  perception  to 
which  it  appeals  is  not  empirical  but  a  priori.     Thus 
Logic    and    Mathematics    alone    are    absolutely    certain 
sciences ;  but  they  really  teach  us  only  what  we  already 
knew  beforehand.     For  they  are  merely  explanations  of 
that  of  which  we  are  conscious  a  priori,  the  forms  of  our 
own  knowledge,  the  one  being  concerned  with  the  forms 
of  thinking,  the  other  with  those  of  perceiving.    Therefore 
we  spin  them  entirely  out  of  ourselves.     All  other  scien 
tific  knowledge  is  empirical. 

A  proof  proves  too  much  if  it  extends  to  things  or  cases 
of  which  that  which  is  to  be  proved  clearly  does  not  hold 
good  ;  therefore  it  is  refuted  apagogically  by  these.  The 


ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SCIENCE.  309 

dedudio  ad  dbsurdum  properly  consists  in  this,  that  we 
take  a  false  assertion  which  has  been  made  as  the  major 
proposition  of  a  syllogism,  then  add  to  it  a  correct  minor, 
and  arrive  at  a  conclusion  which  clearly  contradicts  facts 
of  experience  or  unquestionable  truths.  But  by  some 
round-about  way  such  a  refutation  must  be  possible  of 
every  false  doctrine.  For  the  defender  of  this  will  yet 
certainly  recognise  and  admit  some  truth  or  other,  and 
then  the  consequences  of  this,  and  on  the  other  hand 
those  of  the  false  assertion,  must  be  followed  out  until 
we  arrive  at  two  propositions  which  directly  contradict 
each  other.  We  find  many  examples  in  Plato  of  this 
beautiful  artifice  of  genuine  dialectic. 

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

The  opposition  of  the  analytical  and  synthetical  methods 
we  find  already  indicated  by  Aristotle,  yet  perhaps  first 
distinctly  described  by  Proclus,  who  says  quite  correctly : 
"  M edoSoc  Se  TrapaSiSovrai'  KaXXiarr]  p.ev  1}  Sta  TTJS  ava- 
Xucreo)?  e-Tr'  ap^v  6/J,o\oyov/J.evrjv  avayovcra  TO  fyrov^evov  • 
r]v  KCLI  nXcnwv,  a>9  fyacn,  Aao8a/j,avri  -TrapeSw/cev.  K.  r.  \." 
(Methodi  tradunlur  sequences :  pulcherrima  quidem  ea,  qua; 
per  analysin  qucesitum  refert  ad  principium,  de  quo  jam 
convenit ;  quam  etiain  Plato  Laodamanti  tradidisse  dicitur.") 
"  In  Primuin  Eaclidis  Librum,"  L.  iii.  Certainly  the  ana 
lytical  method  consists  in  referring  what  is  given  to  an 
admitted  principle ;  the  synthetical  method,  on  the  con 
trary,  in  deduction  from  such  a  principle.  They  are  there 
fore  analogous  to  the  eTra^cojTj  and  aTra^ojyt]  explained 
in  chapter  ix. ;  only  the  latter  are  not  used  to  establish 
propositions,  but  always  to  overthrow  them.  The  analy 
tical  method  proceeds  from  the  facts ;  the  particular,  to  the 
principle  or  rule ;  the  universal,  or  from  the  consequents 
to  the  reasons ;  the  other  conversely.  Therefore  it  would 


3io  riRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XII. 

be  much  more  correct  to  call  them  the  inductive  and  the 
deductive  methods,  for  the  customary  names  are  unsuitable 
and  do  not  fully  express  the  things. 

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

This  is  a  fitting  place  to  make,  in  passing,  a  remark  by 
means  of  which  I  should  like  to  check  a  growing  evil 
while  there  is  yet  time.  That  Latin  has  ceased  to  be  the 
language  of  all  scientific  investigations  has  the  disad 
vantage  that  there  is  no  longer  an  immediately  common 
scientific  literature  for  the  whole  of  Europe,  but  national 
literatures.  And  thus  every  scholar  is  primarily  limited 
to  a  much  smaller  public,  and  moreover  to  a  public  ham 
pered  with  national  points  of  view  and  prejudices.  Then 
he  must  now  learn  the  four  principal  European  languages, 
as  well  as  the  two  ancient  languages.  In  this  it  will  be  a 
great  assistance  to  him  that  the  termini  technici  of  all 
sciences  (with  the  exception  of  mineralogy)  are,  as  an  in 
heritance  from  our  predecessors,  Latin  or  Greek.  Therefore 
all  nations  wisely  retain  these.  Only  the  Germans  have 
hit  upon  the  unfortunate  idea  of  wishing  to  Germanise 
the  termini  technici  of  all  the  sciences.  This  has  two 
great  disadvantages.  First,  the  foreign  and  also  the  Ger 
man  scholar  is  obliged  to  learn  all  the  technical  terms 
of  his  science  twice,  which,  when  there  are  many — for 


ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SCIENCE.  311 

example,  in  Anatomy — is  an  incredibly  tiresome  and 
lengthy  business.  If  the  other  nations  were  not  in  this 
respect  wiser  than  the  Germans,  we  would  have  the 
trouble  of  learning  every  terminus  technicus  five  times. 
If  the  Germans  carry  this  further,  foreign  men  of  learning 
will  leave  their  books  altogether  unread  ;  for  besides  this 
fault  they  are  for  the  most  part  too  diffuse,  and  are  writ 
ten  in  a  careless,  bad,  and  often  affected  and  objectionable 
style,  and  besides  are  generally  conceived  with  a  rude 
disregard  of  the  reader  and  his  requirements.  Secondly, 
those  Germanised  forms  of  the  termini  technici  are  almost 
throughout  long,  patched-up,  stupidly  chosen,  awkward, 
jarring  words,  not  clearly  separated  from  the  rest  of  the 
language,  which  therefore  impress  themselves  with  diffi 
culty  upon  the  memory,  while  the  Greek  and  Latin  ex 
pressions  chosen  by  the  ancient  and  memorable  founders 
of  the  sciences  possess  the  whole  of  the  opposite  good 
qualities,  and  easily  impress  themselves  on  the  memory 
by  their  sonorous  sound.  What  an  ugly,  harsh-sound 
ing  word,  for  instance,  is  "  Stickstoff"  instead  of  azot  ! 
"  Verbum,"  "  siibstantiv"  "  adjectiv"  are  remembered  and 
distinguished  more  easily  than  "  Zeitwort,"  " Nennwort" 
"  Beiwort"  or  even  "  Umstandswort "  instead  of  "  adver- 
bium."  In  Anatomy  it  is  quite  unsupportable,  and  more 
over  vulgar  and  low.  Even  "  Pidsader  "  and  "  Blutader  " 
are  more  exposed  to  momentary  confusion  than  "  Arterie  " 
and  "  Vene  ;  "  but  utterly  bewildering  are  such  expressions 
as  "  Fruchthdlter,"  "  Fruclitgang"  and  "  Fruchtleiter  "  in 
stead  of  " uterus,"  " vagina"  and  "  tuba  Faloppii"  which  yet 
every  doctor  must  know,  and  which  he  will  find  sufficient 
in  all  European  languages.  In  the  same  way  "Speiche  "  and 
"  Ellcnbogenrohre  "  instead  of  "  radius  "  and  "  ulna,"  which 
all  Europe  has  understood  for  thousands  of  years.  Where 
fore  then  this  clumsy,  confusing,  drawling,  and  awkward 
Germanising  ?  Not  less  objectionable  is  the  translation 
of  the  technical  terms  in  Logic,  in  which  our  gifted  profes 
sors  of  philosophy  are  the  creators  of  a  new  terminology, 


312  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XII. 

and  almost  every  one  of  them  has  his  own.  With 
G.  E.  Schulze,  for  example,  the  subject  is  called  "  Grund- 
legriff"  the  predicate  "  Beilegunysbegriff ;  "  then  there  are 
" Beilegungsschlusse"  "  Voraussctzungssclilusse," and  "Untge- 
gensetzungsschlilsse ;  "  the  judgments  have  "  Grosse,"  "  Be- 
schaffenheit,"  "  Verhaltniss"  and  " Zuverldssigkeit"  i.e., 
quantity,  quality,  relation,  and  modality.  The  same  per 
verse  influence  of  this  Germanising  mania  is  to  be  found 
in  all  the  sciences.  The  Latin  and  Greek  expressions  have 
the  further  advantage  that  they  stamp  the  scientific  con 
ception  as  such,  and  distinguish  it  from  the  words  of 
common  intercourse,  and  the  ideas  which  cling  to  them 
through  association  ;  while,  for  example,  "  Speisebrei  "  in 
stead  of  chyme  seems  to  refer  to  the  food  of  little  children, 
arid  "  Lungensack  "  instead  of  pleura,  and  "  Herzbeutel  " 
instead  of  pericardium  seem  to  have  been  invented  by 
butchers  rather  than  anatomists.  Besides  this,  the  most 
immediate  necessity  of  learning  the  ancient  languages  de 
pends  upon  the  old  termini  technici,  and  they  are  more 
and  more  in  danger  of  being  neglected  through  the  use  of 
living  languages  in  learned  investigations.  But  if  it  comes 
to  this,  if  the  spirit  of  the  ancients  bound  up  with  their 
languages  disappears  from  a  liberal  education,  then  coarse 
ness,  insipidity,  and  vulgarity  will  take  possession  of  the 
whole  of  literature.  For  the  works  of  the  ancients  are 
the  pole-star  of  every  artistic  or  literary  effort ;  if  it  sets 
they  are  lost.  Even  now  we  can  observe  from  the  miser 
able  and  puerile  style  of  most  writers  that  they  have 
never  written  Latin.1  The  study  of  the  classical  authors 
is  very  properly  called  the  study  of  Humanity,  for  through 
it  the  student  first  becomes  a  man  again,  for  he  enters 

1  A  principal  use  of  the  study  of  Therefore  we  ought  to  pursue   the 

the    ancients    is    that    it    preserves  study   of  the  ancients  all  our   life, 

us  from  verbosity  ;  for  the  ancients  although  reducing  the  time  devoted 

always  take  pains  to  write  concisely  to  it.     The  ancients   knew  that  we 

and  pregnantly,  and  the  error  of  al-  ought  not    to    write    as    we    speak, 

most  all  moderns  is  verbosity,  which  The    moderns,  on   the    other   hand, 

the  most  recent  try  to  make  up  for  are   not  even  ashamed  to  print  lec- 

by  suppressing  syllables  and  letters,  tures  they  have  delivered. 


ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SCIENCE.  513 

into  the  world  which  was  still  free  from  all  the  absurdities 
of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of  romanticism,  which  afterwards 
penetrated  so  deeply  into  mankind  in  Europe  that  even 
now  every  one  comes  into  the  world  covered  with  it,  and 
has  first  to  strip  it  off  simply  to  become  a  man  again. 
Think  not  that  your  modern  wisdom  can  ever  supply  the 
place  of  that  initiation  into  manhood ;  ye  are  not,  like 
the  Greeks  and  Eomans,  born  freemen,  unfettered  sons  of 
nature.  Ye  are  first  the  sous  and  heirs  of  the  barbarous 
Middle  Ages  and  of  their  madness,  of  infamous  priestcraft, 
and  of  half-brutal,  half-childish  chivalry.  Though  both 
now  gradually  approach  their  end,  yet  ye  cannot  yet  stand 
on  your  own  feet.  Without  the  school  of  the  ancients 
your  literature  will  degenerate  into  vulgar  gossip  and  dull 
philistinism.  Thus  for  all  these  reasons  it  is  my  well- 
intended  counsel  that  an  end  be  put  at  once  to  the 
Germanising  mania  condemned  above. 

I  shall  further  take  the  opportunity  of  denouncing  here 
the  disorder  which  for  some  years  has  been  introduced 
into  German  orthography  in  an  unprecedented  manner. 
Scribblers  of  every  species  have  heard  something  of 
conciseness  of  expression,  but  do  not  know  that  this 
consists  in  the  careful  omission  of  everything  super 
fluous  (to  which,  it  is  true,  the  whole  of  their  writings 
belong),  but  imagine  they  can  arrive  at  it  by  clipping  the 
words  as  swindlers  clip  coin ;  and  every  syllable  which 
appears  to  them  superfluous,  because  they  do  not  feel  its 
value,  they  cut  off  without  more  ado.  For  example,  our 
ancestors,  with  true  tact,  said  " Beweis"  and  "  Verweis;" 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  "  Nacliweisung."  The  fine  distinc 
tion  analogous  to  that  between  "  Versuch"  and  "  Versu- 
chung"  "Betraclit  "  and  "£etrachtung"  is  not  perceptible  to 
dull  ears  and  thick  skulls ;  therefore  they  have  invented 
the  word  "  Nachiucis,"  which  has  come  at  once  into  gene 
ral  use,  for  this  only  requires  that  an  idea  should  be 
thoroughly  awkward  and  a  blunder  very  gross.  Accord 
ingly  a  similar  amputation  has  already  been  proposed  in  in- 


314  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XII. 

numerable  words;  for  example,  instead  of  "  Dnter&uchung" 
is  written  "  Untersuch  ;  "  nay,  even  instead  of  "  allmdlig" 
'*  mdlig;"  instead  of  "beinahe,"  "nahe;"  instead  of  "  be- 
stdndig"  " standig."  If  a  Frenchman  took  npon  himself 
to  write  "pres"  instead  of  "presque,"  or  if  an  Englishman 
wrote  "  most "  instead  of  "  almost,"  they  would  be  laughed 
at  by  every  one  as  fools ;  but  in  Germany  whoever  does 
this  sort  of  thing  passes  for  a  man  of  originality.  Chemists 
already  write  "  loslich"  and  "  unloslich "  instead  of  "  ujiauf- 
loslich,"  and  if  the  grammarians  do  not  rap  them  over 
the  knuckles  they  will  rob  the  language  of  a  valuable 
word.  Knots,  shoe-strings,  and  also  conglomerates  of 
which  the  cement  is  softened,  and  all  analogous  things 
are  "  loslich "  (can  be  loosed) ;  but  what  is  "  aufloslick" 
(soluble),  on  the  other  hand,  is  whatever  vanishes  in  a 
liquid,  like  salt  in  water.  "  Aufloscn  "  (to  dissolve)  is  the 
terminus  ad  hoc,  which  says  this  and  nothing  else,  marking 
out  a  definite  conception ;  but  our  acute  improvers  of  the 
language  wish  to  empty  it  into  the  general  rinsing-pan 
"  losen  "  (to  loosen)  ;  they  would  therefore  in  consistency  be 
obliged  to  make  "  losen "  also  take  the  place  everywhere 
of  "ablosen"  (to  relieve,  used  of  guards),  " auslosen "  (to 
release),  "  einlosen"  (to  redeem),  &c.,  and  in  these,  as  in 
the  former  case,  deprive  the  language  of  definiteness  of 
expression.  But  to  make  the  language  poorer  by  a  word 
means  to  make  the  thought  of  the  nation  poorer  by  a 
conception.  Yet  this  is  the  tendency  of  the  united  efforts 
of  almost  all  our  writers  of  books  for  the  last  ten  or 
twenty  years.  For  what  I  have  shown  here  by  one  ex 
ample  can  be  supported  by  a  hundred  others,  and  the 
meanest  stinting  of  syllables  prevails  like  a  disease.  The 
miserable  wretches  actually  count  the  letters,  and  do  not 
hesitate  to  mutilate  a  word,  or  to  use  one  in  a  false  sense, 
whenever  by  doing  so  they  can  gain  two  letters.  He 
who  is  capable  of  no  new  thoughts  will  at  least  bring  new 
words  to  market,  and  every  ink-slinger  regards  it  as  his 
vocation  to  improve  the  language.  Journalists  practise 


ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SCIENCE.  315 

this  most  shamelessly ;  and  since  their  papers,  on  account 
of  the  trivial  nature  of  their  contents,  have  the  largest 
public,  indeed  a  public  which  for  the  most  part  reads 
nothing  else,  a  great  danger  threatens  the  language 
through  them.  I  therefore  seriously  advise  that  they 
should  be  subjected  to  an  orthographical  censorship,  or 
that  they  should  be  made  to  pay  a  fine  for  every  unusual 
or  mutilated  word;  for  what  could  be  more  improper 
than  that  changes  of  language  should  proceed  from  the 
lowest  branch  of  literature  ?  Language,  especially  a 
relatively  speaking  original  language  like  German,  is  the 
most  valuable  inheritance  of  a  nation,  and  it  is  also  an 
exceedingly  complicated  work  of  art,  easily  injured,  and 
which  cannot  again  be  restored,  therefore  a  noli  me  tangere. 
Other  nations  have  felt  this,  and  have  shown  great  piety 
towards  their  languages,  although  far  less  complete  than 
German.  Therefore  the  language  of  Dante  and  Petrarch 
differs  only  in  trifles  from  that  of  to-day;  Montaigne  is 
still  quite  readable,  and  so  also  is  Shakspeare  in  his 
oldest  editions.  For  a  German  indeed  it  is  good  to  have 
somewhat  long  words  in  his  mouth ;  for  he  thinks  slowly, 
and  they  give  him  time  to  reflect.  But  this  prevailing 
economy  of  language  shows  itself  in  yet  more  character 
istic  phenomena.  For  example,  in  opposition  to  all  logic 
and  grammar,  they  use  the  imperfect  for  the  perfect  and 
pluperfect ;  they  often  stick  the  auxiliary  verb  in  their 
pocket ;  they  use  the  ablative  instead  of  the  genitive ;  for 
the  sake  of  omitting  a  couple  of  logical  particles  they 
make  such  intricate  sentences  that  one  has  to  read  them 
four  times  over  in  order  to  get  at  the  sense ;  for  it  is  only 
the  paper  and  not  the  reader's  time  that  they  care  to 
spare.  In  proper  names,  after  the  manner  of  Hotten 
tots,  they  do  not  indicate  the  case  either  by  inflection  or 
article :  the  reader  may  guess  it.  But  they  are  specially 
fond  of  contracting  the  double  vowel  and  dropping  the 
lengthening  h,  those  letters  sacred  to  prosody ;  which  is 
just  the  same  thing  as  if  we  wanted  to  banish  77  and  to 


316  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XII. 

from  Greek,  and  make  e  and  o  take  their  place.  Whoever 
writes  Scham,  Mdrchcn,  Mass,  Spass,  ought  also  to  write 
Lon,  Son,  Stat,  Sat,  Jar,  Al,  &c.  But  since  writing  is  the 
copy  of  speech,  posterity  will  imagine  that  one  ought 
to  speak  as  one  writes;  and  then  of  the  German  language 
there  will  only  remain  a  narrow,  mouth-distorting,  jarring 
noise  of  consonants,  and  all  prosody  will  be  lost.  The 
spelling  "  Literatur "  instead  of  the  correct  "Litteratur" 
is  also  very  much  liked,  because  it  saves  a  letter.  In 
defence  of  this  the  participle  of  the  verb  linere  is  given 
as  the  root  of  the  word.  But  linere  means  to  smear; 
therefore  the  favoured  spelling  might  actually  be  correct 
for  the  greater  part  of  German  bookmaking ;  so  that  one 
could  distinguish  a  very  small  "  Litteratur  "  from  a  very 
extensive  "  Literatur!'  In  order  to  \vrite  concisely  let  a 
man  improve  his  style  and  shun  all  useless  gossip  and 
chatter,  and  then  he  will  not  need  to  cut  out  syllables 
and  letters  on  account  of  the  dearness  of  paper.  But 
to  write  so  many  useless  pages,  useless  sheets,  useless 
books,  and  then  to  want  to  make  up  this  waste  of 
time  and  paper  at  the  cost  of  the  innocent  syllables  and 
letters — that  is  truly  the  superlative  of  what  is  called 
in  English  being  penny  wise  and  pound  foolish.  It  is  to 
be  regretted  that  there  is  no  German  Academy  to  take 
charge  of  the  language  against  literary  sans-culottism, 
especially  in  an  age  when  even  those  who  are  ignorant 
of  the  ancient  language  venture  to  employ  the  press. 
I  have  expressed  my  mind  more  fully  on  the  whole  sub 
ject  of  the  inexcusable  mischief  being  done  at  the  present 
day  to  the  German  language  in  my  "  Parerga,"  vol.  ii. 
chap.  23. 

In  my  essay  on  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  §  51, 
I  already  proposed  a  first  classification  of  the  sciences  in 
accordance  with  the  form  of  the  principle  of  sufficient 
reason  which  reigns  in  them ;  and  I  also  touched  upon 
it  again  in  §§  7  and  1 5  of  the  first  volume  of  this  work. 

Ot)    *  » 

I  will  give  here  a  small  attempt  at  such  a  classification, 


ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SCIENCE.  317 

which  will  yet  no  doubt  be  susceptible  of  much  improve 
ment  and  perfecting : — 

I.  Pure  a  priori  Sciences. 

1.  The  doctrine  of  the  ground  of  being. 

(a.)  In  space  :  Geometry. 

(&.)  In  time  :  Arithmetic  and  Algebra. 

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

II.  Empirical  or  a  posteriori  Sciences.     All  based  upon 
the  ground  of  becoming,  i.e.,  the  law  of  causalty,  and  upon 
the  three  modes  of  that  law. 

1.  The  doctrine  of  causes. 

(a.)  Universal :  Mechanics,  Hydrodynamics, 
Physics,  Chemistry. 

(&.)  Particular :  Astronomy,  Mineralogy,  Geo 
logy,  Technology,  Pharmacy. 

2.  The  doctrine  of  stimuli. 

(a.)  Universal :     Physiology   of    plants    and 

animals,   together   with  the   ancillary 

science,  Anatomy. 
(?>.)  Particular :     P>otany,   Zoology,    Zootomy, 

Comparative     Physiology,    Pathology, 

Therapeutics. 

3.  The  doctrine  of  motives. 

(a.)  Universal :  Ethics,  Psychology. 
(&.)  Particular :  Jurisprudence,  History. 

Philosophy  or  Metaphysics,  as  the  doctrine  of  conscious 
ness  and  its  contents  in  general,  or  of  the  whole  of  expe 
rience  as  such,  does  not  appear  in  the  list,  because  it  does 
not  at  once  pursue  the  investigation  which  the  principle 
of  sufficient  reason  prescribes,  but  first  has  this  principle 
itself  as  its  object.  It  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  thorough 
bass  of  all  sciences,  but  belongs  to  a  higher  class  than 
they  do,  and  is  almost  as  much  related  to  art  as  to  science. 
As  in  music  every  particular  period  must  correspond  to 
the  tonality  to  which  thorough  bass  has  advanced,  so  every 


318  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XII. 

author,  in  proportion  to  the  line  he  follows,  must  bear  the 
stamp  of  the  philosophy  which  prevails  in  his  time.  But 
besides  this,  every  science  has  also  its  special  philosophy ; 
and  therefore  we  speak  of  the  philosophy  of  botany,  of  zo 
ology,  of  history,  &c.  By  this  we  must  reasonably  under 
stand  nothing  more  than  the  chief  results  of  each  science 
itself,  regarded  and  comprehended  from  the  highest,  that  is 
the  most  general,  point  of  view  which  is  possible  within 
that  science.  These  general  results  connect  themselves 
directly  with  general  philosophy,  for  they  supply  it  with 
important  data,  and  relieve  it  from  the  labour  of  seeking 
these  itself  in  the  philosophically  raw  material  of  the 
special  sciences.  These  special  philosophies  therefore 
stand  as  a  mediating  link  between  their  special  sciences 
and  philosophy  proper.  For  since  the  latter  has  to  give 
the  most  general  explanations  concerning  the  whole  of 
things,  these  must  also  be  capable  of  being  brought  down 
and  applied  to  the  individual  of  every  species  of  thing. 
The  philosophy  of  each  science,  however,  arises  indepen 
dently  of  philosophy  in  general,  from  the  data  of  its  own 
science  itself.  Therefore  it  does  not  need  to  wait  till  that 
philosophy  at  last  be  found ;  but  if  worked  out  in  advance 
it  will  certainly  agree  with  the  true  universal  philosophy. 
This,  on  the  other  hand,  must  be  capable  of  receiving 
confirmation  and  illustration  from  the  philosophies  of 
the  particular  sciences  ;  for  the  most  general  truth  must 
be  capable  of  being  proved  through  the  more  special 
truths.  Goethe  has  afforded  a  beautiful  example  of 
the  philosophy  of  zoology  in  his  reflections  on  Dalton's 
and  Pander's  skeletons  of  rodents  (Hefte  zur  Morphologic, 
1824).  And  like  merit  in  connection  with  the  same  science 
belongs  to  Kielmayer,  Delamark,  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire, 
Cuvier,  and  many  others,  in  that  they  have  all  brought 
out  clearly  the  complete  analogy,  the  inner  relation 
ship,  the  permanent  type,  and  systematic  connection  of 
animal  forms.  Empirical  sciences  pursued  purely  for 
their  own  sake  and  without  philosophical  tendency  are 


ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SCIENCE.  319 

like  a  face  without  eyes.  They  are,  however,  a  suitable 
occupation  for  men  of  good  capacity  who  yet  lack  the 
highest  faculties,  which  would  even  be  a  hindrance  to 
minute  investigations  of  such  a  kind.  Such  men  concen 
trate  their  whole  power  and  their  whole  knowledge  upon 
one  limited  field,  in  which,  therefore,  on  condition  of  re 
maining  in  entire  ignorance  of  everything  else,  they  can 
attain  to  the  most  complete  knowledge  possible;  while 
the  philosopher  must  survey  all  fields  of  knowledge,  and 
indeed  to  a  certain  extent  be  at  home  in  them;  and 
thus  that  complete  knowledge  which  can  only  be  at 
tained  by  the  study  of  detail  is  necessarily  denied  him. 
Therefore  the  former  may  be  compared  to  those  Geneva 
workmen  of  whom  one  makes  only  wheels,  another  only 
springs,  and  a  third  only  chains.  The  philosopher,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  like  the  watchmaker,  who  alone  pro 
duces  a  whole  out  of  all  these  which  has  motion  and 
significance.  They  may  also  be  compared  to  the  musi 
cians  of  an  orchestra,  each  of  whom  is  master  of  his  own 
instrument ;  and  the  philosopher,  on  the  other  hand,  to  the 
conductor,  who  must  know  the  nature  and  use  of  every 
instrument,  yet  without  being  able  to  play  them,  all,  or 
even  one  of  them,  with  great  perfection.  Scotus  Erigena 
includes  all  sciences  under  the  name  Scientia,  in  opposi 
tion  to  philosophy,  which  he  calls  Sapientia.  The  same 
distinction  was  already  made  by  the  Pythagoreans ;  as 
may  be  seen  from  Stobseus  (Floril,  vol.  i.  p.  20),  where 
it  is  very  clearly  and  neatly  explained.  But  a  much 
happier  and  more  piquant  comparison  of  the  relation  of 
the  two  kinds  of  mental  effort  to  each  other  has  been 
so  often  repeated  by  the  ancients  that  we  no  longer  know 
to  whom  it  belongs.  Diogenes  Laertius  (ii.  79)  attributes 
it  to  Aristippus,  Stobseus  {Floril.,  tit.  iv.  no)  to  Aristo  of 
Chios ;  the  Scholiast  of  Aristotle  ascribes  it  to  him  (p.  8  of 
the  Berlin  edition),  but  Plutarch  (De  Puer.  Educ.,  c.  10) 
attributes  it  to  Bio — "  Qui  ajebat,  sicut  Penelopes  prod, 


320  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XII. 

quum  non  possent  cum  Penelope  concumbere,  rem  cum  ejus 
ancillis  habuissent ;  ita  qui  philosophiam  nequeunt  appre- 
hendere  eos  in  alliis  nullius  pretii  diciplinis  sese  conterere." 
In  our  predominantly  empirical  and  historical  age  it  can 
do  no  harm  to  recall  this. 


(      321       ) 


CHAPTER  XIII.1 

OX  THE  METHODS  OF  MATHEMATICS. 

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

"  For  years  I  have  used  my  nose  for  smelling.  Have  I, 
then,  actually  a  right  to  it  that  can  be  proved  ? "  Indeed 
it  seenis  to  me  that  the  logical  method  is  hereby  reduced 
to  absurdity.  Yet  it  is  just  through  the  controversies 
about  this,  together  with  the  vain  attempts  to  prove  what 
is  directly  certain  as  merely  indirectly  certain,  that  the 
self-sufficingness  and  clearness  of  intuitive  evidence  ap 
pears  in  contrast  with  the  uselessness  and  difficulty  of 
logical  proof — a  contrast  which  is  no  less  instructive  than 
amusing.  The  direct  certainty  is  not  allowed  to  be  valid 
here,  because  it  is  no  mere  logical  certainty  following  from 
the  conceptions,  thus  resting  only  upon  the  relation  of  the 

1  This  chapter  is  connected  with  §  15  of  the  first  volume. 
VOL.  II.  X 


322  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIII. 

predicate  to  the  subject,  according  to  the  principle  of 
contradiction.  That  axiom,  however,  is  a  synthetical 
proposition  a  priori,  and  as  such  has  the  guarantee  of 
pure,  not  empirical,  perception,  which  is  just  as  immediate 
and  certain  as  the  principle  of  contradiction  itself,  from 
which  all  demonstrations  first  derive  their  certainty. 
Ultimately  this  holds  good  of  every  geometrical  theorem, 
and  it  is  quite  arbitrary  where  we  draw  the  line  between 
what  is  directly  certain  and  what  has  first  to  be  demon 
strated.  It  surprises  me  that  the  eighth  axiom  is  not 
rather  attacked.  "Figures  which  coincide  with  each 
other  are  equal  to  each  other."  For  "  coinciding  with 
each  other "  is  either  a  mere  tautology  or  something 
purely  empirical  which  does  not  belong  to  pure  percep 
tion  but  to  external  sensuous  experience.  It  presupposes 
that  the  figures  may  be  moved  ;  but  only  matter  is  mov 
able  in  space.  Therefore  this  appeal  to  coincidence  leaves 
pure  space — the  one  element  of  geometry — in  order  to 
pass  over  to  what  is  material  and  empirical. 

The  reputed  motto  of  the  Platonic  lecture-room,  "  Ayeca- 
fjieTptyros  /i^Sei?  eicrmo,"  of  which  mathematicians  are  so 
proud,  was  no  doubt  inspired  by  the  fact  that  Plato  re 
garded  the  geometrical  figures  as  intermediate  existences 
between  the  eternal  Ideas  and  particular  things,  as 
Aristotle  frequently  mentions  in  his  "  Metaphysics  "  (espe 
cially  i.  c.  6,  p.  887,  998,  d  Scholia,  p.  827,  ed.  Berol.) 
Moreover,  the  opposition  between  those  self-existent 
eternal  forms,  or  Ideas,  and  the  transitory  individual 
things,  was  most  easily  made  comprehensible  in  geometri 
cal  figures,  and  thereby  laid  the  foundation  of  the  doc 
trine  of  Ideas,  which  is  the  central  point  of  the  philosophy 
of  Plato,  and  indeed  his  only  serious  and  decided  theo 
retical  dogma.  In  expounding  it,  therefore,  he  started  from 
geometry.  In  the  same  sense  we  are  told  that  he  regarded 
geometry  as  a  preliminary  exercise  through  which  the 
mind  of  the  pupil  accustomed  itself  to  deal  with  incorpo 
real  objects,  having  hitherto  in  practical  life  had  only  to 


ON  THE  METHODS  OF  MATHEMATICS.  323 

do  with  corporeal  things  (Sclwl.  inAristot.,  p.  12,  15).  This, 
then,  is  the  sense  in  which  Plato  recommended  geometry 
to  the  philosopher;  and  therefore  one  is  not  justified  in 
extending  it  further.  I  rather  recommend,  as  an  investi 
gation  of  the  influence  of  mathematics  upon  our  mental 
powers,  and  their  value  for  scientific  culture  in  general, 
a  very  thorough  and  learned  discussion,  in  the  form  of 
a  review  of  a  book  by  Whewell  in  the  Edinburgh  Review 
of  January  1836.  Its  author,  who  afterwards  published 
it  with  some  other  discussions,  with  his  name,  is  Sir  W. 
Hamilton,  Professor  of  Logic  and  Metaphysics  in  Scot 
land.  This  work  has  also  found  a  German  translator, 
and  has  appeared  by  itself  under  the  title,  "  Ueber  den 
Werth  und  Univerth  dcr  Matliematik  "  aus  detn  Englishen, 
1836.  The  conclusion  the  author  arrives  at  is  that  the 
value  of  mathematics  is  only  indirect,  and  lies  in  the 
application  to  ends  which  are  only  attainable  through 
them;  but  in  themselves  mathematics  leave  the  mind 
where  they  find  it,  and  are  by  no  means  conducive  to 
its  general  culture  and  development,  nay,  even  a  decided 
hindrance.  This  conclusion  is  not  only  proved  by  tho 
rough  dianoiological  investigation  of  the  mathematical 
activity  of  the  mind,  but  is  also  confirmed  by  a  very 
learned  accumulation  of  examples  and  authorities.  The 
only  direct  use  which  is  left  to  mathematics  is  that  it 
can  accustom  restless  and  unsteady  minds  to  fix  their 
attention.  Even  Descartes,  who  was  yet  himself  famous 
as  a  mathematician,  held  the  same  opinion  with  regard 
to  mathematics.  In  the  "  Vie  de  Descartes  par  Baillet" 
1693,  it  is  said,  Liv.  ii.  c.  6,  p.  54:  "  Sa  propre  experience 
I'avait  convaincu  du  pen  dutilite"  des  mathe'matiques,  surtout 
lorsqu'on  ne  les  cultive  que  pour  dies  memes.  .  .  .  II  ne 
voyait  rien  de  moins  solide,  que  de  soccuper  de  noinbres  tout 
simples  et  de  figures  imaginaires"  &c. 


(     324    ) 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

ON   THE   ASSOCIATION   OF   IDEAS. 

THE  presence  of  ideas  and  thoughts  in  our  consciousness 
is  as  strictly  subordinated  to  the  principle  of  sufficient 
reason  in  its  different  forms  as  the  movement  of  bodies 
to  the  law  of  causality.  It  is  just  as  little  possible  that 
a  thought  can  appear  in  the  mind  without  an  occasion 
as  that  a  body  can  be  set  in  motion  without  a  cause. 
Now  this  occasion  is  either  external,  thus  an  impression 
of  the  senses,  or  internal,  thus  itself  also  a  thought  which 
introduces  another  thought  by  means  of  association.  This 
again  depends  either  upon  a  relation  of  reason  and  con 
sequent  between  the  two ;  or  upon  similarity,  even  mere 
analogy ;  or  lastly  upon  the  circumstance  that  they  were 
both  first  apprehended  at  the  same  time,  which  again 
may  have  its  ground  in  the  proximity  in  space  of  their 
objects.  The  last  two  cases  are  denoted  by  the  word 
a  propos.  The  predominance  of  one  of  these  three  bonds 
of  association  of  thoughts  over  the  others  is  characteristic 
of  the  intellectual  worth  of  the  man.  The  first  named 
will  predominate  in  thoughtful  and  profound  minds,  the 
second  in  witty,  ingenious,  and  poetical  minds,  and  the 
third  in  minds  of  limited  capacity.  Not  less  characteristic 
is  the  degree  of  facility  with  which  one  thought  recalls 
others  that  stand  in  any  kind  of  relation  to  it ;  this 
constitutes  the  activeness  of  the  mind.  But  the  im 
possibility  of  the  appearance  of  a  thought  without  its 
sufficient  occasion,  even  when  there  is  the  strongest  desire 
to  call  it  up,  is  proved  by  all  the  cases  in  which  we  weary 


ON  THE  ASSOCIATION  OF  IDEAS.  325 

ourselves  in  vain  to  recollect  something,  and  go  through 
the  whole  store  of  our  thoughts  in  order  to  find  any  one 
that  may  be  associated  with  the  one  we  seek;  if  we 
find  the  former,  the  latter  is  also  found.  Whoever  wishes 
to  call  up  something  in  his  memory  first  seeks  for  a 
thread  with  which  it  is  connected  by  the  association 
of  thoughts.  Upon  this  depends  mnemonics :  it  aims  at 
providing  us  with  easily  found  occasioners  or  causes  for 
all  the  conceptions,  thoughts,  or  words  which  are  to  be 
preserved.  But  the  worst  of  it  is  that  these  occasioners 
themselves  have  first  to  be  recalled,  and  this  again  re 
quires  an  occasioner.  How  much  the  occasion  accom 
plishes  in  memory  may  be  shown  in  this  way.  If  we  have 
read  in  a  book  of  anecdotes  say  fifty  anecdotes,  and  then 
have  laid  it  aside,  immediately  afterwards  we  will  some 
times  be  unable  to  recollect  a  single  one  of  them.  But 
if  the  occasion  comes,  or  if  a  thought  occurs  to  us  which 
has  any  analogy  with  one  of  those  anecdotes,  it  imme 
diately  comes  back  to  us ;  and  so  with  the  whole  fifty 
as  opportunity  offers.  The  same  thing  holds  good  of 
all  that  we  read.  Our  immediate  remembrance  of 
words,  that  is,  our  remembrance  of  them  without  the 
assistance  of  mnemonic  contrivances,  and  with  it  our 
whole  faculty  of  speech,  ultimately  depends  upon  the 
direct  association  of  thoughts.  For  the  learning  of  lan 
guage  consists  in  this,  that  once  for  all  we  so  connect  a 
conception  with  a  word  that  this  word  will  always  occur 
to  us  along  with  this  conception,  and  this  conception  will 
always  occur  to  us  along  with  this  word.  We  have  after 
wards  to  repeat  the  same  process  in  learning  every  new 
language  ;  yet  if  we  learn  a  language  for  passive  and  not 
for  active  use — that  is,  to  read,  but  not  to  speak,  as,  for 
example,  most  of  us  learn  Greek — then  the  connection  is 
one-sided,  for  the  conception  occurs  to  us  along  with  the 
word,  but  the  word  does  not  always  occur  to  us  along  with 
the  conception.  The  same  procedure  as  in  language  be 
comes  apparent  in  the  particular  case,  in  the  learning  of 


326  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIV. 

every  new  proper  name.  But  sometimes  we  do  not  trust 
ourselves  to  connect  directly  the  name  of  this  person,  or 
town,  river,  mountain,  plant,  animal,  &c.,  with  the  thought 
of  each  so  firmly  that  it  will  call  each  of  them  up  of  it 
self  ;  and  then  we  assist  ourselves  mnemonically,  and  con 
nect  the  image  of  the  person  or  thing  with  any  perceptible 
quality  the  name  of  which  occurs  in  that  of  the  person 
or  thing.  Yet  this  is  only  a  temporary  prop  to  lean  on ; 
later  we  let  it  drop,  for  the  association  of  thoughts  be 
comes  an  immediate  support. 

The  search  of  memory  for  a  clue  shows  itself  in  a 
peculiar  manner  in  the  case  of  a  dream  which  we  have 
forgotten  on  awaking,  for  in  this  case  we  seek  in  vain  for 
that  which  a  few  minutes  before  occupied  our  minds  with 
the  strength  of  the  clearest  present,  but  now  has  entirely 
disappeared.  We  grasp  at  any  lingering  impression  by 
which  may  hang  the  clue  that  by  virtue  of  association 
would  call  that  dream  back  again  into  our  conscious 
ness.  According  to  Kieser,  "  Tellurismus,"  Bd.  ii.  §  271, 
memory  even  of  what  passed  in  magnetic-somnambular 
sleep  may  possibly  sometimes  be  aroused  by  a  sensible 
sign  found  when  awake.  It  depends  upon  the  same 
impossibility  of  the  appearance  of  a  thought  without 
its  occasion  that  if  we  propose  to  do  anything  at  a  defi 
nite  time,  this  can  only  take  place  if  we  either  think  of 
nothing  else  till  then,  or  if  at  the  determined  time  we 
are  reminded  of  it  by  something,  which  may  either  be 
an  external  impression  arranged  beforehand  or  a  thought 
which  is  itself  again  brought  about  in  the  regular  way. 
Both,  then,  belong  to  the  class  of  motives.  Every  morning 
when  wre  awake  our  consciousness  is  a  tabula  rasa,  which, 
however,  quickly  fills  itself  again.  First  it  is  the  sur 
roundings  of  the  previous  evening  which  now  reappear, 
and  remind  us  of  what  we  thought  in  these  surroundings ; 
to  this  the  events  of  the  previous  day  link  themselves  on ; 
and  so  one  thought  rapidly  recalls  the  others,  till  all  that 
occupied  us  yesterday  is  there  again.  Upon  the  fact  that 


ON  THE  ASSOCIATION  OF  IDEAS.  327 

this  takes  place  properly  depends  the  health  of  the  mind, 
as  opposed  to  madness,  which,  as  is  shown  in  the  third 
book,  consists  in  the  existence  of  great  blanks  in  the 
memory  of  past  events.  But  how  completely  sleep  breaks 
the  thread  of  memory,  so  that  each  morning  it  has  to  be 
taken  up  again,  we  see  in  particular  cases  of  the  incom 
pleteness  of  this  operation.  For  example,  sometimes  we 
cannot  recall  in  the  morning  a  melody  which  the  night 
before  ran  in  our  head  till  we  were  tired  of  it. 

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

In  general  our  internal  process  of  thought  is  in  reality 
not  so  simple  as  the  theory  of  it ;  for  here  it  is  involved  in 
many  ways.  To  make  the  matter  clear  to  our  imagination, 
let  us  compare  our  consciousness  to  a  sheet  of  water  of 
some  depth.  Then  the  distinctly  conscious  thoughts  are 
merely  the  surface ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  indis 
tinct  thoughts,  the  feelings,  the  after  sensation  of  percep 
tions  and  of  experience  generally,  mingled  with  the  special 
disposition  of  our  own  will,  which  is  the  kernel  of  our 
being,  is  the  mass  of  the  water.  Now  the  mass  of  the 
whole  consciousness  is  more  or  less,  in  proportion  to  the 
intellectual  activity,  in  constant  motion,  and  what  rise  to 
the  surface,  in  consequence  of  this,  are  the  clear  pictures 
of  the  fancy  or  the  distinct,  conscious  thoughts  expressed 
in  words  and  the  resolves  of  the  will.  The  whole  process 
of  our  thought  and  purpose  seldom  lies  on  the  surface, 
that  is,  consists  in  a  combination  of  distinctly  thought 


328  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIV. 

judgments  ;  although  we  strive  against  this  in  order  that  we 
may  be  able  to  explain  our  thought  to  ourselves  and  others. 
But  ordinarily  it  is  in  the  obscure  depths  of  the  mind  that 
the  rumination  of  the  materials  received  from  without  takes 
place,  through  which  they  are  worked  up  into  thoughts ; 
and  it  goes  on  almost  as  unconsciously  as  the  conversion  of 
nourishment  into  the  humours  and  substance  of  the  body. 
Hence  it  is  that  we  can  often  give  no  account  of  the  origin 
of  our  deepest  thoughts.  They  are  the  birth  of  our  myste 
rious  inner  life.  Judgments,  thoughts,  purposes,  rise  from 
out  that  deep  unexpectedly  and  to  our  own  surprise.  A 
letter  brings  us  unlooked-for  and  important  news,  in  con 
sequence  of  which  our  thoughts  and  motives  are  disordered ; 
we  get  rid  of  the  matter  for  the  present,  and  think  no 
more  about  it ;  but  next  day,  or  on  the  third  or  fourth 
day  after,  the  whole  situation  sometimes  stands  distinctly 
before  us,  with  what  we  have  to  do  in  the  circumstances. 
Consciousness  is  the  mere  surface  of  our  mind,  of  which, 
as  of  the  earth,  we  do  not  know  the  inside,  but  only  the 
crust. 

But  in  the  last  instance,  or  in  the  secret  of  our  inner 
being,  what  sets  in  activity  the  association  of  thought 
itself,  the  laws  of  which  were  set  forth  above,  is  the  will, 
which  urges  its  servant  the  intellect,  according  to  the 
measure  of  its  powers,  to  link  thought  to  thought,  to  re 
call  the  similar,  the  contemporaneous,  to  recognise  reasons 
and  consequents.  For  it  is  to  the ,  interest  of  the  will 
that,  in  general,  one  should  think,  so  that  one  may  be 
well  equipped  for  all  cases  that  may  arise.  Therefore  the 
form  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason  which  governs 
the  association  of  thoughts  and  keeps  it  active  is  ulti 
mately  the  law  of  motivation.  For  that  which  rules  the 
sensorium,  and  determines  it  to  follow  the  analogy  or  other 
association  of  thoughts  in  this  or  that  direction,  is  the 
will  of  the  thinking  subject.  Now  just  as  here  the  laws 
of  the  connection  of  ideas  subsist  only  upon  the  basis  of 
the  will,  so  also  in  the  real  world  the  causal  connection 


ON  THE  ASSOCIATION  OF  IDEAS.  329 

cf  bodies  really  subsists  only  upon  the  basis  of  the  will, 
which  manifests  itself  in  the  phenomena  of  this  world. 
On  this  account  the  explanation  from  causes  is  never 
absolute  and  exhaustive,  but  leads  back  to  forces  of  nature 
as  their  condition,  and  the  inner  being  of  the  latter  is  just 
the  will  as  thing  in  itself.  In  saying  this,  however,  I 
have  certainly  anticipated  the  following  book. 

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


(     330     ) 


CHAPTER  XV. 

ON   THE   ESSENTIAL  IMPERFECTIONS   OF  THE   INTELLECT. 

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

Upon  this  imperfection  of  the  intellect  depends  the 
disconnected  and  often  fragmentary  nature  of  our  course 
of  thought,  which  I  have  already  touched  on  at  the  close 
of  last  chapter ;  and  from  this  again  arises  the  unavoidable 
distraction  of  our  thinking.  Sometimes  external  iinpres- 


ON  THE  IMPERFECTIONS  OF  THE  INTELLECT.    331 

sions  of  sense  throng  in  upon  it,  disturbing  and  interrupt 
ing  it,  forcing  different  kinds  of  things  upon  it  every 
moment ;  sometimes  one  thought  draws  in  another  by  the 
bond  of  association,  and  is  now  itself  dislodged  by  it ; 
sometimes,  lastly,  the  intellect  itself  is  not  capable  of 
fixing  itself  very  long  and  continuously  at  a  time  upon 
one  thought,  but  as  the  eye  when  it  gazes  long  at  one 
object  is  soon  unable  to  see  it  any  more  distinctly,  because 
the  outlines  run  into  each  other  and  become  confused, 
until  finally  all  is  obscure,  so  through  long-continued 
reflection  upon  one  subject  our  thinking  also  is  gradually 
confused,  becomes  dull,  and  ends  in  complete  stupor. 
Therefore  after  a  certain  time,  which  varies  with  the 
individual,  we  must  for  the  present  give  up  every  medita 
tion  or  deliberation  which  has  had  the  fortune  to  remain 
undisturbed,  but  yet  has  not  been  brought  to  an  end, 
even  if  it  concerns  a  matter  which  is  most  important  and 
pertinent  to  us ;  and  we  must  dismiss  from  our  conscious 
ness  the  subject  which  interests  us  so  much,  however 
heavily  our  anxiety  about  it  may  weigh  upon  us,  in  order 
to  occupy  ourselves  now  with  insignificant  and  indifferent 
things.  During  this  time  that  important  subject  no 
longer  exists  for  us;  it  is  like  the  heat  in  cold  water, 
latent.  If  now  we  resume  it  again  at  another  time,  we 
approach  it  like  a  new  thing,  with  which  we  become 
acquainted  anew,  although  more  quickly,  and  the  agree 
able  or  disagreeable  impression  of  it  is  also  produced 
anew  upon  our  will.  We  ourselves,  however,  do  not 
come  back  quite  unchanged.  For  with  the  physical 
composition  of  the  humours  and  tension  of  the  nerves, 
which  constantly  changes  with  the  hours,  days,  and  years, 
our  mood  and  point  of  view  also  changes.  Moreover,  the 
different  kinds  of  ideas  which  have  been  there  in  the 
meantime  have  left  an  echo  behind  them,  the  tone  of 
which  influences  the  ideas  which  follow.  Therefore  the 
same  thing  appears  to  us  at  different  times,  in  the  morn 
ing,  in  the  evening,  at  mid-day,  or  on  another  day,  often 


332  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XV. 

very  different;  opposite  views  of  it  now  press  upon  each 
other  and  increase  our  doubt.  Hence  we  speak  of  sleeping 
upon  a  matter,  and  for  important  determinations  we  de 
mand  a  long  time  for  consideration.  Now,  although  this 
quality  of  our  intellect,  as  springing  from  its  weakness, 
has  its  evident  disadvantages,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
affords  the  advantage  that  after  the  distraction  and  the 
physical  change  we  return  to  our  subject  as  comparatively 
new  beings,  fresh  and  strange,  and  thus  are  able  to  see 
it  repeatedly  in  very  different  lights.  From  all  this  it 
is  plain  that  human  consciousness  and  thought  is  in  its 
nature  necessarily  fragmentary,  on  account  of  which  the 
theoretical  and  practical  results  which  are  achieved  by 
piecing  together  such  fragments  are  for  the  most  part 
defective.  In  this  our  thinking  consciousness  is  like  a 
magic  lantern,  in  the  focus  of  which  only  one  picture  can 
appear  at  a  time,  and  each,  even  if  it  represents  the 
noblest  objects,  must  yet  soon  pass  away  in  order  to  make 
room  for  others  of  a  different,  and  even  most  vulgar, 
description.  In  practical  matters  the  most  important 
plans  and  resolutions  are  formed  in  general;  but  others 
are  subordinated  to  these  as  means  to  an  end,  and  others 
again  are  subordinated  to  these,  and  so  on  down  to  the 
particular  case  that  has  to  be  carried  out  in  concrete. 
They  do  not,  however,  come  to  be  carried  out  in  the  order 
of  their  dignity,  but  while  we  are  occupied  with  plans 
which  are  great  and  general,  we  have  to  contend  with  the 
most  trifling  details  and  the  cares  of  the  moment.  In 
this  way  our  consciousness  becomes  still  more  desultory. 
In  general,  theoretical  occupations  of  the  mind  unfit  us 
for  practical  affairs,  and  vice  versd. 

In  consequence  of  the  inevitably  distracted  and  frag 
mentary  nature  of  all  our  thinking,  which  has  been  pointed 
out,  and  the  mingling  of  ideas  of  different  kinds  thereby 
introduced,  to  which  even  the  noblest  human  minds  are 
subject,  we  really  have  only  half  a  consciousness  with 
which  to  grope  about  in  the  labyrinth  of  our  life  and  the 


ON  THE  IMPERFECTIONS  OF  THE  INTELLECT.    333 

obscurity  of  our  investigations ;  bright  moments  some 
times  illuminate  our  path  like  lightning.  But  what  is 
to  be  expected  of  heads  of  which  even  the  wisest  is  every 
night  the  scene  of  the  strangest  and  most  senseless  dreams, 
and  which  has  to  take  up  its  meditations  again  on  awaken 
ing  from  these  ?  Clearly  a  consciousness  which  is  subject 
to  such  great  limitations  is  little  suited  for  solving  the 
riddle  of  the  world ;  and  such  an  endeavour  would  neces 
sarily  appear  strange  and  pitiful  to  a  being  of  a  higher 
order  whose  intellect  had  not  time  as  its  form,  and  whose 
thinking  had  thus  true  completeness  and  unity.  Indeed 
it  is  really  wonderful  that  we  are  not  completely  confused 
by  the  very  heterogeneous  mixture  of  ideas  and  fragments 
of  thought  of  every  kind  which  are  constantly  crossing  eacli 
other  in  our  minds,  but  are  yet  always  able  to  see  our 
way  again  and  make  everything  agree  together.  Clearly 
there  must  exist  a  simpler  thread  upon  \vhich  everything 
ranges  itself  together :  but  what  is  this  ?  Memory  alone 
is  not  sufficient,  for  it  has  essential  limitations  of  which 
I  shall  speak  shortly,  and  besides  this,  it  is  exceedingly 
imperfect  and  untrustworthy.  The  logical  ego  or  even 
the  transcendental  synthetic  unity  of  apperception  are  ex 
pressions  and  explanations  which  will  not  easily  serve 
to  make  the  matter  comprehensible;  they  will  rather 
suggest  to  many : 

"'Tis  true  your  beard  is  curly,  yet  it  will  not  draw  you  the  bolt." 

Kant's  proposition,  "The  /  think  must  accompany  all 
our  ideas,"  is  insufficient ;  for  the  "  I "  is  an  unknown 
quantity,  i.e.,  it  is  itself  a  secret.  That  which  gives  unity 
and  connection  to  consciousness  in  that  it  runs  through 
all  its  ideas,  and  is  thus  its  substratum,  its  permanent 
supporter,  cannot  itself  be  conditioned  by  consciousness, 
therefore  cannot  be  an  idea.  Rather  it  must  be  the  prius 
of  consciousness,  and  the  root  of  the  tree  of  which  that 
is  the  fruit.  This,  I  say,  is  the  will.  It  alone  is  un 
changeable  and  absolutely  identical,  and  has  brought 


334  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XV. 

forth  consciousness  for  its  own  ends.  Therefore  it  is  also 
the  will  which  gives  it  imity  and  holds  together  all  its 
ideas  and  thoughts,  accompanying  them  like  a  continuous 
harmony.  Without  it  the  intellect  would  no  longer  have 
the  unity  of  consciousness,  as  a  mirror  in  which  now  this 
and  now  that  successively  presents  itself,  or  at  the  most 
only  so  much  as  a  convex  mirror  whose  rays  unite  in  an 
imaginary  point  behind  its  surface.  But  the  will  alone  is 
that  which  is  permanent  and  unchangeable  in  conscious 
ness.  It  is  the  will  which  holds  together  all  thoughts 
and  ideas  as  means  to  its  ends,  and  tinges  them  with  the 
colour  of  its  own  character,  its  mood,  and  its  interests, 
commands  the  attention,  and  holds  in  its  hand  the  train 
of  motives  whose  influence  ultimately  sets  memory  and 
the  association  of  ideas  in  activity  ;  at  bottom  it  is  the 
will  that  is  spoken  of  whenever  "  I "  appears  in  a  judg 
ment.  Thus  it  is  the  true  and  final  point  of  unity  of 
consciousness,  and  the  bond  of  all  its  functions  and  acts  ; 
it  does  not  itself,  however,  belong  to  the  intellect,  but  is 
only  its  root,  source,  and  controller. 

From  the  form  of  time  and  the  single  dimension  of 
the  series  of  ideas,  on  account  of  which,  in  order  to  take 
up  one,  the  intellect  must  let  all  the  others  fall,  there 
follows  not  only  its  distraction,  but  also  its  foryetfulness. 
Most  of  what  it  lets  fall  it  never  takes  up  again  ;  especi 
ally  since  the  taking  up  again  is  bound  to  the  principle 
of  sufficient  reason,  and  thus  demands  an  occasion  which 
the  association  of  thoughts  and  motivation  have  first  to 
supply;  an  occasion,  however,  which  may  be  the  more 
remote  and  smaller  in  proportion  as  our  sensibility  for 
it  is  heightened  by  our  interest  in  the  subject.  But 
memory,  as  I  have  already  shown  in  the  essay  on  the 
principle  of  sufficient  reason,  is  not  a  store-house,  but 
merely  a  faculty  acquired  by  practice  of  calling  up  ideas 
at  pleasure,  which  must  therefore  constantly  be  kept 
in  practice  by  use;  for  otherwise  it  will  gradually  be 
lost.  Accordingly  the  knowledge  even  of  the  learned 


ON  THE  IMPERFECTIONS  OF  THE  INTELLECT.    335 

man  exists  only  virtualiter  as  an  acquired  facility  in 
calling  up  certain  ideas ;  actualiter,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  also  is  confined  to  one  idea,  and  is  only  conscious  of 
this  one  at  a  time.  Hence  arises  a  strange  contrast 
between  what  he  knows  potentid  and  what  he  knows 
actu ;  that  is,  between  his  knowledge  and  what  he  thinks 
at  any  moment :  the  former  is  an  immense  and  always 
somewhat  chaotic  mass,  the  latter  is  a  single  distinct 
thought.  The  relation  resembles  that  between  the  in 
numerable  stars  of  the  heavens  and  the  limited  field  of 
vision  of  the  telescope ;  it  appears  in  a  striking  manner 
when  upon  some  occasion  he  wishes  to  call  distinctly 
to  his  remembrance  some  particular  circumstance  in  his 
knowledge,  and  time  and  trouble  are  required  to  produce 
it  from  that  chaos.  Rapidity  in  doing  this  is  a  special 
gift,  but  is  very  dependent  upon  day  and  hour ;  therefore 
memory  sometimes  refuses  us  its  service,  even  in  things 
which  at  another  time  it  has  readily  at  hand.  This 
consideration  calls  us  in  our  studies  to  strive  more  to 
attain  to  correct  insight  than  to  increase  our  learning, 
and  to  lay  it  to  heart  that  the  quality  of  knowledge  is 
more  important  than  its  quantity.  The  latter  imparts  to 
books  only  thickness,  the  former  thoroughness  and  also 
style  ;  for  it  is  an  intensive  quantity,  while  the  other  is 
merely  extensive.  It  consists  in  the  distinctness  and  com 
pleteness  of  the  conceptions,  together  with  the  purity  and 
accuracy  of  the  knowledge  of  perception  which  forms 
their  foundation ;  therefore  the  whole  of  knowledge  in 
all  its  parts  is  penetrated  by  it,  and  in  proportion  as  it  is 
so  is  valuable  or  trifling.  With  a  small  quantity,  but  of 
good  quality,  one  achieves  more  than  with  a  very  large 
quantity  of  bad  quality. 

The  most  perfect  and  satisfactory  knowledge  is  that  of 
perception,  but  it  is  limited  absolutely  to  the  particular, 
the  individual.  The  combination  of  the  many  and  the 
different  in  one,  idea  is  only  possible  through  the  conception, 
that  is,  through  the  omission  of  the  differences ;  therefore 


336  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XV. 

this  is  a  very  imperfect  manner  of  presenting  things  to 
the  mind.  Certainly  the  particular  also  can  be  directly 
comprehended  as  a  universal,  if  it  is  raised  to  the  (Pla 
tonic)  Idea ;  but  in  this  process,  which  I  have  analysed 
in  the  third  book,  the  intellect  already  passes  beyond 
the  limits  of  individuality,  and  therefore  of  time ;  more 
over  it  is  only  an  exception. 

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

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

The  defective  nature  of  the  intellect  here  set  forth 
will  not,  however,  surprise  us  if  we  look  back  at  its  origin 
and  destiny  as  established  by  me  in  the  second  book. 
Nature  has  produced  it  for  the  service  of  an  individual 
will.  Therefore  it  is  only  designed  to  know  things  so  far 
as  they  afford  the  motives  of  such  a  will,  but  not  to 
fathom  them  or  comprehend  their  true  being.  Human 
intellect  is  only  a  higher  gradation  of  the  intellect  of 
the  brutes ;  and  as  this  is  entirely  confined  to  the  present, 
our  intellect  also  bears  strong  traces  of  this  limitation. 


ON  THE  IMPERFECTIONS  OF  THE  INTELLECT.    337 

Therefore  our  memory  and  recollection  is  something  very 
imperfect.  How  little  of  all  that  we  have  done,  experi 
enced,  learnt,  or  read,  can  we  recall !  And  even  this 
little  for  the  most  part  only  laboriously  and  imperfectly. 
For  the  same  reasons  is  it  so  very  difficult  for  us  to  keep 
ourselves  free  from  the  impressions  of  the  present.  Un 
consciousness  is  the  original  and  natural  condition  of  all 
things,  and  therefore  also  the  basis  from  which,  in  par 
ticular  species  of  beings,  consciousness  results  as  their 
highest  efflorescence ;  wherefore  even  then  unconscious 
ness  always  continues  to  predominate.  Accordingly  most 
existences  are  without  consciousness ;  but  yet  they  act 
according  to  the  laws  of  their  nature,  i.e.,  of  their  will. 
Plants  have  at  most  a  very  weak  analogue  of  conscious 
ness  ;  the  lowest  species  of  animals  only  the  dawn  of  it. 
But  even  after  it  has  ascended  through  the  whole  series 
of  animals  to  man  and  his  reason,  the  unconsciousness  of 
plants,  from  which  it  started,  still  remains  the  foundation, 
and  may  be  traced  in  the  necessity  for  sleep,  and  also  in 
all  those  essential  and  great  imperfections,  here  set  forth, 
of  every  intellect  produced  through  physiological  functions; 
and  of  another  intellect  we  have  no  conception. 

The  imperfections  here  proved  to  be  essential  to  the 
intellect  are  constantly  increased,  however,  in  particular 
cases,  by  non-essential  imperfections.  The  intellect  is 
never  in  every  respect  what  it  possibly  might  be.  The 
perfections  possible  to  it  are  so  opposed  that  they  exclude 
each  other.  Therefore  no  man  can  be  at  once  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  or  Shakspeare  and  Newton,  or  Kant  and  Goethe. 
The  imperfections  of  the  intellect,  on  the  contrary,  consort 
very  well  together ;  therefore  in  reality  it  for  the  most  part 
remains  far  below  what  it  might  be.  Its  functions  depend 
upon  so  very  many  conditions,  which  we  can  only  compre 
hend  as  anatomical  and  physiological,  in  the  phenomenon 
in  which  alone  they  are  given  us,  that  a  decidedly  excelling 
intellect,  even  in  one  respect  alone,  is  among  the  rarest  of 
natural  phenomena.  Therefore  the  productions  of  such  an 

VOL.  II.  Y 


338  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XV. 

intellect  are  preserved  through  thousands  of  years,  indeed 
every  relic  of  such  a  highly  favoured  individual  becomes 
a  most  valuable  treasure.  From  such  an  intellect  down 
to  that  which  approaches  imbecility  the  gradations  are 
innumerable.  And  primarily,  in  conformity  with  these 
gradations,  the  mental  horizon  of  each  of  us  varies  very 
much  from  the  mere  comprehension  of  the  present,  which 
even  the  brute  has,  to  that  which  also  embraces  the  next 
hour,  the  day,  even  the  morrow,  the  week,  the  year,  the 
life,  the  century,  the  thousand  years,  up  to  that  of  the  con 
sciousness  which  has  almost  always  present,  even  though 
obscurely  dawning,  the  horizon  of  the  infinite,  and  whose 
thoughts  therefore  assume  a  character  in  keeping  with 
this.  Further,  that  difference  among  intelligences  shows 
itself  in  the  rapidity  of  their  thinking,  which  is  very  im 
portant,  and  which  may  be  as  different  and  as  finely  gradu 
ated  as  that  of  the  points  in  the  radius  of  a  revolving  disc. 
The  remoteness  of  the  consequents  and  reasons  to  which 
any  one's  thought  can  extend  seems  to  stand  in  a  certain 
relation  to  the  rapidity  of  his  thinking,  for  the  greatest 
exertion  of  thought-power  in  general  can  only  last  quite 
a  short  time,  and  yet  only  while  it  lasts  can  a  thought  be 
thought  out  in  its  complete  unity.  It  therefore  amounts 
to  this,  how  far  the  intellect  can  pursue  it  in  so  short  a 
time,  thus  what  length  of  path  it  can  travel  in  it.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  the  case  of  some,  rapidity  may  be  made 
up  for  by  the  greater  duration  of  that  time  of  perfectly 
concentrated  thought.  Probably  the  slow  and  lasting 
thought  makes  the  mathematical  mind,  while  rapidity  of 
thought  makes  the  genius.  The  latter  is  a  flight,  the 
former  a  sure  advance  upon  firm  ground,  step  by  step. 
Yet  even  in  the  sciences,  whenever  it  is  no  longer  a 
question  of  mere  quantities,  but  of  understanding  the 
nature  of  phenomena,  this  last  kind  of  thinking  is  in 
adequate.  This  is  shown,  for  example,  by  Newton's  theory 
of  colour,  and  later  by  Biot's  nonsense  about  colour  rings, 
which  yet  agrees  with  the  whole  atomistic  method  of 


ON  THE  IMPERFECTIONS  OF  THE  INTELLECT.    339 

treating  light  among  the  French,  with  its  molecules  de 
lumiere,  and  in  general  with  their  fixed  idea  of  reducing 
everything  in  nature  to  mere  mechanical  effects.  Lastly, 
the  great  individual  diversity  of  intelligence  we  are 
speaking  about  shows  itself  excellently  in  the  degrees 
of  the  clearness  of  understanding,  and  accordingly  in 
the  distinctness  of  the  whole  thinking.  To  one  man  that 
is  to  understand  which  to  another  is  only  in  some 
degree  to  observe ;  the  one  is  already  done  and  at  the 
goal  while  the  other  is  only  at  the  beginning ;  to  the 
one  that  is  the  solution  which  to  the  other  is  only  the 
problem.  This  depends  on  the  quality  of  thought  and 
knowledge,  which  was  already  referred  to  above.  As 
in  rooms  the  degree  of  light  varies,  so  does  it  in  minds. 
We  can  detect  this  quality  of  the  whole  thought  as  soon 
as  we  have  read  only  a  few  pages  of  an  author.  For 
in  doing  so  we  have  been  obliged  to  understand  both 

o  o 

with  his  understanding  and  in  his  sense ;  and  there 
fore  before  we  know  all  that  he  has  thought  we  see 
already  how  he  thinks,  what  is  the  formal  nature,  the 
texture  of  his  thinking,  which  remains  the  same  in  every 
thing  about  which  he  thinks,  and  whose  expression  is 
the  train  of  thought  and  the  style.  In  this  we  feel  at 
once  the  pace,  the  flexibleness  and  lightness,  even  indeed 
the  soaring  power  of  his  mind;  or,  on  the  contrary,  its 
dulness,  formality,  lameness  and  leaden  quality.  For,  as 
language  is  the  expression  of  the  mind  of  a  nation,  style 
is  the  more  immediate  expression  of  the  mind  of  an 
author  than  even  his  physiognomy.  We  throw  a  book 
aside  when  we  observe  that  in  it  we  enter  an  obscurer 
region  than  our  own,  unless  we  have  to  learn  from  it 
mere  facts,  not  thoughts.  Apart  from  mere  facts,  only 
that  author  will  afford  us  profit  whose  understanding 
is  keener  and  clearer  than  our  own,  who  forwards  our 
thinking  instead  of  hindering  it,  like  the  dull  mind  that 

O  o 

will  force  us  to  keep  pace  with  the  toad-like  course  of 
its  thought ;  thus  that  author  with  whose  mind  it  gives 


340  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XV. 

us  sensible  relief  and  assistance  sometimes  to  think,  by 
whom  we  feel  ourselves  borne  where  we  could  not  have 
gone  alone.  Goethe  once  said  to  me  that  if  he  read  a 
page  of  Kant  he  felt  as  if  he  entered  a  brightly  lighted 
room.  Inferior  minds  are  so  not  merely  because  they 
are  distorted,  and  therefore  judge  falsely,  but  primarily 
through  the  indistinctness  of  their  whole  thinking,  which 
may  be  compared  to  seeing  through  a  bad  telescope, 
when  all  the  outlines  appear  indistinct  and  as  if  ob 
literated,  and  the  different  objects  run  into  each  other. 
The  weak  understanding  of  such  minds  shrinks  from 
the  demand  for  distinctness  of  conceptions,  and  therefore 
they  do  not  themselves  make  this  claim  upon  it,  but  put 
up  with  haziness ;  and  to  satisfy  themselves  with  this  they 
gladly  have  recourse  to  words,  especially  such  as  denote 
indefinite,  very  abstract,  unusual  conceptions  which  are 
hard  to  explain ;  such,  for  example,  as  infinite  and  finite, 
sensible  and  supersensible,  the  Idea  of  being,  Ideas  of 
the  reason,  the  absolute,  the  Idea  of  the  good,  the 
divine,  moral  freedon,  power  of  spontaneous  generation, 
the  absolute  Idea,  subject-object,  &c.  The  like  of  these 
they  confidently  fling  about,  imagine  they  really  express 
thoughts,  and  expect  every  one  to  be  content  with  them ; 
for  the  highest  summit  of  wisdom  which  they  can  see  is 
to  have  at  command  such  ready-made  words  for  every 
possible  question.  This  immense  satisfaction  in  words  is 
thoroughly  characteristic  of  inferior  minds.  It  depends 
simply  upon  their  incapacity  for  distinct  conceptions, 
whenever  these  must  rise  above  the  most  trivial  and 
simple  relations.  Hence  upon  the  weakness  and  indolence 
of  their  intellect,  and  indeed  upon  the  secret  conscious 
ness  of  this,  which  in  the  case  of  scholars  is  bound  up 
with  the  early  learnt  and  hard  necessity  of  passing  them 
selves  off  as  thinking  beings,  to  meet  which  demand  in 
all  cases  they  keep  such  a  suitable  store  of  ready-made 
words.  It  must  really  be  amusing  to  see  a  professor  of 
philosophy  of  this  kind  in  the  chair,  who  bond  fide  delivers 


O.V  THE  IMPERFECTIONS  OF  THE  INTELLECT.    341 

such  a  juggle  of  words  destitute  of  thoughts,  quite  sin 
cerely,  under  the  delusion  that  they  are  really  thoughts, 
and  in  front  of  him  the  students,  who  just  as  land  fide,  i.e., 
under  the  same  delusion,  listen  attentively  and  take  notes, 
while  yet  in  reality  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  goes 
beyond  the  words,  but  rather  these  words  themselves,  to 
gether  with  the  audible  scratching  of  pens,  are  the  only 
realities  iu  the  whole  matter.  This  peculiar  satisfaction  in 
words  has  more  than  anything  else  to  do  with  the  per 
petuation  of  errors.  For,  relying  on  the  words  and  phrases 
received  from  his  predecessors,  each  one  confidently  passes 
over  obscurities  and  problems,  and  thus  these  are  pro 
pagated  through  centuries  from  book  to  book ;  and  the 
thinking  man,  especially  in  youth,  is  in  doubt  whether  it 
may  be  that  he  is  incapable  of  understanding  it,  or  that 
there  is  really  nothing  here  to  understand ;  and  similarly, 
whether  for  others  the  problem  which  they  all  slink  past 
with  such  comical  seriousness  by  the  same  path  is  no 
problem  at  all,  or  whether  it  is  only  that  they  will  not 
see  it.  Many  truths  remain  undiscovered  simply  on  this 
account,  that  no  one  has  the  courage  to  look  the  problem 
in  the  face  and  grapple  with  it.  On  the  contrary,  the 
distinctness  of  thought  and  clearness  of  conceptions 
peculiar  to  eminent  minds  produces  the  effect  that  even 
known  truths  when  brought  forward  by  them  gain  new 
light,  or  at  least  a  new  stimulus.  If  we  hear  them  or  read 
them,  it  is  as  if  we  exchanged  a  bad  telescope  for  a  good 
one.  Let  one  only  read,  for  example,  in  Euler's  "  Letters 
to  the  Princess,"  his  exposition  of  the  fundamental  truths 
of  mechanics  and  optics.  Upon  this  rests  the  remark  of 
Diderot  in  the  Neveu  de  Earneau,  that  only  the  perfect 
masters  are  capable  of  teaching  really  well  the  elements  of 
a  science ;  just  because  it  is  only  they  who  really  under 
stand  the  questions,  and  for  them  words  never  take  the 
place  of  thoughts. 

But   we  ought   to   know  that  inferior  minds   are  the 
rule,  good  minds  the  exception,  eminent  minds  very  rare, 


342  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XV. 

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

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

— Proph.  of  Dante,  c.  I. 


ON  THE  IMPERFECTIONS  OF  THE  INTELLECT.    343 

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

But  the  public  could  be  benefited  by  nothing  so  much 
as  by  the  recognition  of  that  intellectual  aristocracy  of 
nature.  By  virtue  of  such  recognition  it  would  compre 
hend  that  when  facts  are  concerned,  thus  when  the 
matter  has  to  be  decided  from  experiments,  travels,  codes, 
histories,  and  chronicles,  the  normal  mind  is  certainly 
sufficient;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  when  mere  thoughts 
are  in  question,  especially  those  thoughts  the  material  or 
data  of  which  are  within  reach  of  every  one,  thus  when  it 
is  really  only  a  question  of  thinking  before  others,  decided 
reflectiveness,  native  eminence,  which  only  nature  bestows, 
and  that  very  seldom,  is  inevitably  demanded,  and  no  one 
deserves  to  be  heard  who  does  not  at  once  give  proofs 
of  this.  If  the  public  could  be  brought  to  see  this  for 
itself,  it  would  no  longer  waste  the  time  which  is  sparingly 


344  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XV. 

measured  out  to  it  for  its  culture  on  the  productions  of 
ordinary  minds,  thus  on  the  innumerable  botches  of  poetry 
and  philosophy  which  are  produced  every  day.  It  would 
no  longer  seize  always  what  is  newest,  in  the  childish 
delusion  that  books,  like  eggs,  must  be  enjoyed  while 
they  are  fresh,  but  would  confine  itself  to  the  works  of 
the  few  select  and  chosen  minds  of  all  ages  and  nations, 
would  strive  to  learn  to  know  and  understand  them,  and 
might  thus  by  degrees  attain  to  true  culture.  And  then, 
also,  those  thousands  of  uncalled-for  productious  which, 
like  tares,  hinder  the  growth  of  the  good  wheat  would 
be  discontinued. 


(    345    ) 


CHAPTER  XVI.1 

ON  THE   PRACTICAL  USE   OF  REASON  AND   ON   STOICISM. 

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

It  is  not  easy,  however,  to  let  oneself  be  determined 
by  conceptions  alone;  for  the  directly  present  external 
world,  with  its  perceptible  reality,  intrudes  itself  forcibly 
even  on  the  strongest  mind.  But  it  is  just  in  con 
quering  this  impression,  in  destroying  its  illusion,  that 
the  human  spirit  shows  its  worth  and  greatness.  Thus 
if  incitements  to  lust  and  pleasure  leave  it  unaffected, 
if  the  threats  and  fury  of  enraged  enemies  do  not  shake 
it,  if  the  entreaties  of  erring  friends  do  not  make  its 

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


346  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVI. 

purpose  waver,  and  the  delusive  forms  with  which  pre 
concerted  plots  surround  it  leave  it  unmoved,  if  the  scorn 
of  fools  and  of  the  vulgar  herd  does  not  disturb  it  nor 
trouble  it  as  to  its  own  worth,  then  it  seems  to  stand 
under  the  influence  of  a  spirit-world,  visible  to  it  alone 
(and  this  is  the  world  of  conceptions),  before  which  that 
perceptibly  present  world  which  lies  open  to  all  dissolves 
like  a  phantom.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  what  gives  to 
the  external  world  and  visible  reality  their  great  power 
over  the  mind  is  their  nearness  and  directness.  As  the 
magnetic  needle,  which  is  kept  in  its  position  by  the 
combined  action  of  widely  distributed  forces  of  nature 
embracing  the  whole  earth,  can  yet  be  perturbed  and  set 
in  violent  oscillation  by  a  small  piece  of  iron,  if  only  it 
comes  quite  close  to  it,  so  even  a  great  mind  can  some 
times  be  disconcerted  and  perturbed  by  trifling  events  and 
insignificant  men,  if  only  they  affect  it  very  closely,  and 
the  deliberate  purpose  can  be  for  the  moment  shaken 
by  a  trivial  but  immediately  present  counter  motive. 
For  the  influence  of  the  motives  is  subject  to  a  law  which 
is  directly  opposed  to  the  law  according  to  which  weights 
act  on  a  balance,  and  in  consequence  of  it  a  very  small 
motive,  which,  however,  lies  very  near  to  us,  can  out 
weigh  one  which  in  itself  is  much  stronger,  but  which 
only  affects  us  from,  a  distance.  But  it  is  this  quality 
of  the  mind,  by  reason  of  which  it  allows  itself  to  be 
determined  in  accordance  with  this  law,  and  does  not 
withdraw  itself  from  it  by  the  strength  of  actual  practical 
reason,  which  the  ancients  denoted  by  animi  impotentia, 
which  really  signifies  ratio  regendce  voluntatis  impotens. 
Every  emotion  (animi  perturbatio)  simply  arises  from  the 
fact  that  an  idea  which  affects  our  will  comes  so  exces 
sively  near  to  us  that  it  conceals  everything  else  from 
us,  and  we  can  no  longer  see  anything  but  it,  so  that 
for  the  moment  we  become  incapable  of  taking  account 
of  things  of  another  kind.  It  would  be  a  valuable  safe 
guard  against  this  if  we  were  to  bring  ourselves  to  regard 


ON  THE  USE  OF  REASON  AND  STOICISM.        347 

the  present,  by  the  assistance  of  imagination,  as  if  it 
were  past,  and  should  thus  accustom  our  apperception 
to  the  epistolary  style  of  the  Romans.  Yet  conversely 
we  are  very  well  able  to  regard  what  is  long  past  as  so 
vividly  present  that  old  emotions  which  have  long  been 
asleep  are  thereby  reawakened  in  their  full  strength. 
Thus  also  no  one  would  be  irritated  or  disconcerted 
by  a  misfortune,  a  disappointment,  if  reason  always  kept 
present  to  him  what  man  really  is :  the  most  needy  of 
creatures,  daily  and  hourly  abandoned  to  innumerable 
misfortunes,  great  and  small,  TO  BeiXoTarov  faov,  who  has 
therefore  to  live  in  constant  care  and  fear.  Herodotus 
already  says,  "  Hav  €<TTI  avOpwnos  avpfyopa "  (homo  totus 
cst  calamitas). 

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

I  am  again  reminded  here  of  Seneca's  saying :  "  Si  vis 
tibi  omnia  subjicere,  te  siibjice  rationi."  Since,  however, 
as  was -shown  in  the  fourth  book,  the  nature  of  suffering 
is  positive,  and  that  of  pleasure  negative,  he  who  takes 
abstract  or  rational  knowledge  as  the  rule  of  his  conduct, 
and  therefore  constantly  reilects  on  its  consequences  and 
on  the  future,  will  very  frequently  have  to  practise 
sustine  et  abstine,  for  in  order  to  obtain  the  life  that  is 
most  free  from  pain  he  generally  sacrifices  its  keenest 
joys  and  pleasures,  mindful  of  Aristotle's  "  o  <ppovt/jios  TO 
$i(0K€i,  ov  TO  ijov"  (quod  dolore  vacat,  non  quod 


348  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVI. 

suave  est,  persequitur  vir  prudens).  Therefore  with  him 
the  future  constantly  borrows  from  the  present,  instead 
of  the  present  borrowing  from  the  future,  as  is  the  case 
with  a  frivolous  fool,  who  thus  becomes  impoverished  and 
finally  bankrupt.  In  the  case  of  the  former  reason  must, 
for  the  most  part,  assume  the  role  of  a  churlish  mentor, 
and  unceasingly  call  for  renunciations,  without  being  able 
to  promise  anything  in  return,  except  a  fairly  painless 
existence.  This  rests  on  the  fact  that  reason,  by  means 
of  its  conceptions,  surveys  the  whole  of  life,  whose  outcome, 
in  the  happiest  conceivable  case,  can  be  no  other  than 
what  we  have  said. 

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

All  ancient  moral  systems,  with  the  single  exception  of 
that  of  Plato,  were  guides  to  a  happy  life.  Accordingly 
in  them  the  end  of  virtue  was  entirely  in  this  life,  not 
beyond  death.  For  to  them  it  is  only  the  right  path  to 
a  truly  happy  life ;  and  on  this  account  the  wise  choose 
it.  Hence  arise  those  lengthy  debates  chiefly  preserved 
for  us  by  Cicero,  those  keen  and  constantly  renewed 
investigations,  whether  virtue  quite  alone  and  in  itself 
is  really  sufficient  for  a  happy  life,  or  whether  this 
further  requires  some  external  condition ;  whether  the 
virtuous  and  wise  may  also  be  happy  on  the  rack  and  the 
wheel,  or  in  the  bull  of  Phalaris ;  or  whether  it  does  not 
go  as  far  as  this.  For  certainly  this  would  be  the  touch 
stone  of  an  ethical  system  of  this  kind ;  the  practice  of 
it  must  give  happiness  directly  and  unconditionally.  If 
it  cannot  do  this  it  does  not  accomplish  what  it  ought, 


ON  THE  USE  OF  REASON  AND  STOICISM.        349 

and  must  be  rejected.  It  is  therefore  with  truth  and 
in  accordance  with  the  Christian  point  of  view  that 
Augustine  prefaces  his  exposition  of  the  moral  systems 
of  the  ancients  (De  Civ.  Dei,  Lib.  xix.  c.  i)  with  the 
explanation :  "  Exponenda  sunt  ndbis  argumenta  morta- 
lium,  quibus  sibi  ipsi  beatitudinem  facere  IN  HUJUS  VlT^E 
INFELIGITATE  moliti  sunt ;  ut  ab  eorum  rebus  vanis  spes 
nostra  quid  differ  at  clarescat.  De  finibus  bonorum  et 
malorum  multa  inter  se  philosophi  disputarunt ;  quam 
quccstionem  maxima  intentione  versantes,  invenire  conati 
sunt,  quid  efficiat  liominem  beatum:  illud  enim  est  finis 
bonorum."  I  wish  to  place  beyond  all  doubt  the  eu- 
dsemonistic  end  which  we  have  ascribed  to  all  ancient 
ethics  by  several  express  statements  of  the  ancients  them 
selves.  Aristotle  says  in  the  "  Uth.  Magna,"  i.  4:  "'H 

ev  rw  ev  tyjv  eari,  TO  Se  ev  fyv  ev  TCO  Kara  ra<? 

"  (Felicitas  in  bene  vivendo  posita  est :  verum 
bene  vivere  est  in  eo  positum,  ut  secundum  virtutem  vivamus), 
with  which  may  be  compared  " Eth.  Nicom."  i.  5.  "  Cic. 
Tusc."  v.  i  :  " Nam,  quum  ea  causa  impulerit  eos,  qui primi 
se  ad  philosophies  studia  contulerunt,ut,  omnibus  rebus  post- 
habitis,  totos  se  in  optima  vitas,  statu  exquirendo  collocarent ; 
profecto  spe  beate  vivendi  tantam  in  eo  studio  curam  operam- 
que  posuemnt.  According  to  Plutarch  (De  Eepugn.  Stoic., 
c.  xviii.)  Chrysippus  said  :  "  To  Kara  Kaiciav  tyv  rw  fca/co- 
&aifj,ov(as  tyjv  ravrov  eari."  ( Vitiose  vivere  idem  est  quod 
vivcre  infeliciter.}  Ibid.,  c.  26 :  "'JET  fypovrjais  ov%  erepov 
ecrTi  TT;?  evSai/jiovcas  /cad'  kavro,  a\\'  ev8ai/j,ovia."  (Pru- 
dentia  nihil  differt  a  felicitate,  estque  ipsa  adeo  felicitas.) 
"  Stob.  Eel.,"  Lib.  ii.  c.  7  :  "  TeXo?  Se  (fraaiv  eivai  TO  evBai- 
fjioveiv,  6u  eveica,  Travra  irparrerai."  (Finem  esse  dicunt 
felicitatem,  cvjus  causa  fiunt  omnia.)  "  EvSatpoviav  a-vvw- 
vvpew  TW  re\ei  \eyovai,."  (Finem  bonorum  et  felicita 
tem  synonyma  esse  dicunt.}  "  Arrian  Diss.  Epict.,"  i.  4 :  "  'H 
aperr)  ravTijv  e^et  TTJV  eTrayje^iav,  evSatfj-oviav  Troirjcrai." 
(Virtus  profitetur,  se  felicitatem  prwstare.)  Sen.,  Ep.  90: 
"  Ceterum  (sapientia)  ad  beatum  statum  tendit,  illo  ducit, 


350  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVI. 

illo  vias  aperit." — Id.,  Ep.  108  :  "  Illud  admoneo  audit  ionem 
philosophorum,  lectionemque,  ad  proposition  beatce  vitce  tra- 
hendum" 

The  ethics  of  the  C}rnics  also  adopted  this  end  of  the 
happiest  life,    as  the  Emperor  Julian  expressly  testifies 
(Orat.  vi.)  :  "  Trjs  Kuvi/crj<;  Se  (^iXocro^ta?  CT/COTTO?  fjuev  ecrn 
teat  reXo?,  axnrep  8ij  Kai  Tracnjs  <f)i\oa'o<j)ia<;,  TO   evbai/Aoveiv' 
ro  Sc  ev8ai/jtoveiv  ev  ru>  fyv  Kara  (frvaiv,  d\Xa  p.rj  Trpo?  ra? 
rwv  7To\\(ov  So£a?."     (Cynicce  philosophic  ut  etiam  omnis 
philosophic^,  scopus  et  finis  est  feliciter  vivere :  felicitas  vitce 
autem  in  eo  posita  est,  ut  secundum  naturam  vivatur,  nee 
vero  secundum  opiniones  multitudinis.)     Only  the  Cynics 
followed  quite  a  peculiar  path  to  this  end,  a  path  directly 
opposed  to  the  ordinary  one — the  path  of  extreme  priva 
tion.     They  start  from  the  insight  that  the  motions  of  the 
will  which  are  brought  about  by  the  objects  which  attract 
and  excite  it,  and  the  wearisome,  and  for  the  most  part 
vain,  efforts  to  attain  these,  or,  if  they  are  attained,  the 
fear  of  losing  them,  and  finally  the  loss  itself,  produce  far 
greater  pain  than  the  want  of  all  these  objects  ever  can. 
Therefore,  in  order  to  attain  to  the  life  that  is  most  free 
from  pain,  they  chose  the  path  of  the  extremest  desti 
tution,   and   fled   from   all   pleasures  as  snares    through 
which  one   was   afterwards    handed  over   to  pain.     But 
after   this   they   could   boldly   scorn   happiness   and    its 
caprices.     This   is  the   spirit   of  cynicism.      Seneca  dis 
tinctly  expresses  it  in  the  eighth  chapter,  "  De  Tranquili- 
tate  Animi : "  "  Cogitandum  est,  quanto  levior  dolor  sit,  non 
habere,  quam  perdere :  et  intelligemus  paupertati  eo  mino- 
rem  tormentorum,  quo  minorem  damnorum  esse  materiam." 
Then :  "  Tolerabilius  est,  faciliusque,  non  acquirere,  quam 
amittere.  .  .  .  Diogenes  effecit,  ne  quid  sibi  eripi  posset,  .  .  . 
qui  se  fortuitis  omnibus  exuit.  .  .  .    Videtur  mihi  dixisse ; 
age   tuum   ner/otium,  fortuna :  nihil  apud  Diogenem  jam 
tuum  est."     The  parallel  passage  to  this  last  sentence  is 
the  quotation  of  Stobasus  (Eel.  ii.  /) :  "Aioyevr]?  e^  vofju- 
%eiv  opav  rrjv  Tvyr,v  evopwcrav  avrov  Kai  Xeyovcrav'  TOVTOV 


ON  THE  USE  OF  REASON  AND  STOICISM.        351 

S'ov  Svva/jiai  fBaXeeiv  Kvva  'Xvcra^rrj  pa."  (Diogenes  credere 
se  dixit,  videre  Fortunam,  ipsum  intuentem,  ac  dicentem  : 
aut  hunc  non  potui  tetiyisse  canem  rabiosum.)  The  same 
spirit  of  cynicism  is  also  shown  in  the  epitaph  on  Diogenes, 
in  Suidas,  under  the  word  ^iTuoveo?,  and  in  "  Diogenes 
Laertius,"  vi.  2  : 


"  TrjpaffKfi  fjifv  %aX«os  VTTO  XPOVOV' 

KvSos  a  was  aiuv,  Aioyevij^, 
M  owes  firei  pioTris  avrapKea  5o£ac  eSetfas 
QVTJTOLS,  /ecu  fco?;s  OI/JLOV  f\a.(j)pora.rt)V," 

{JEra  quidem  absumit  tempus,  sed  tempore  numquam 

Interitura  tua  est  gloria,  Diogenes  : 
Quandoquidem  ad  vitam  miseris  mortalibus  cequam 

Monstrata  estfacilis,  te  duce,  et  ampla  via.) 

Accordingly  the  fundamental  thought  of  cynicism  is  that 
life  in  its  simplest  and  nakedest  form,  with  the  hardships 
that  belong  to  it  by  nature,  is  the  most  endurable,  and  is 
therefore  to  be  chosen  ;  for  every  assistance,  convenience, 
gratification,  and  pleasure  by  means  of  which  men  seek  to 
make  life  more  agreeable  only  brings  with  it  new  and 
greater  ills  than  originally  belonged  to  it.  Therefore  we 
may  regard  the  following  sentence  as  the  expression  of  the 
kernel  of  the  doctrine  of  cynicism:  "  Awyevris  efioq  TTO\- 
\a/a<?  Xeyayv,  rov  iwv  avOwjrwv  ftiov  pa&iov  inro  TWV  decov 
&6$oa6ai,  aTro/ceKpv(J)9ai  8e  avrov  ^rjTowroov  fJ,€\L7rrjKTa 
Kat  fjivpa  teat  ra  7rapcnr\r)aria."  (Diogenes  clamabat  sccpius, 
hominum  vitam  facilcm  a  diis  dari,  verum  occultari  illam 
qucerentibus  mellita  cibaria,  ungucnta  et  his  similia.  (Diog., 
Laert.,  vi.  2.)  And  further  :  "  Aeov,  avrt,  rwv  a^prjarcav 
TTOVCOV,  TOU?  Kara  (j>v<riv  e\o(j,evovs,  "C^v  euSat/Ltoyo)?'  jrapa  rrjv 
avoiav  Ka/toScufiovovcn.  .  •  .  rov  avrov  %apa/crr)pa  rov  ftiov 
\e<ya)v  Siej^aryeiv,  ovrrep  Kat,  'HpaKkys,  firj&ev  eXevdijpia? 
rrpoKpivwv"  (Quum  igitur,  repudiatis  inutilibus  laborious, 
naturales  insequi,  ac  vivere  beate  dcbcamus,  per  summam  de- 
mentiam  infelices  sumus.  .  .  .  eandem  vitce  formam,  quam 
Hercules,  se  vivere  affirmans,  nihil  libertati  prccferens. 
Ibid.)  Therefore  the  old,  genuine  Cynics,  Antisthenes, 


352  FIRST  BOOK.    CHAPTER  XVI. 

Diogenes,  Krates,  and  their  disciples  had  once  for  all  re 
nounced  every  possession,  all  conveniences  and  pleasures, 
in  order  to  escape  for  ever  from  the  troubles  and  cares, 
the  dependence  and  the  pains,  which  are  inevitably 
bound  up  with  them  and  are  not  counterbalanced  by 
them.  Through  the  bare  satisfaction  of  the  most  press 
ing  wants  and  the  renunciation  of  everything  superfluous 
they  thought  they  would  come  off  best.  Accordingly  they 
contented  themselves  with  what  in  Athens  or  Corinth 
was  to  be  had  almost  for  nothing,  such  as  lupines,  water, 
an  old  threadbare  cloak,  a  wallet,  and  a  staff.  They 
begged  occasionally,  as  far  as  was  necessary  to  supply 
such  wants,  but  they  never  worked.  Yet  they  accepted 
absolutely  nothing  that  exceeded  the  wants  referred  to 
above.  Independence  in  the  widest  sense  was  their  aim. 
They  occupied  their  time  in  resting,  going  about,  talking 
with  all  men,  and  much  mocking,  laughing,  and  joking ; 
their  characteristic  was  carelessness  and  great  cheerful 
ness.  Since  now  in  this  manner  of  life  they  had  no  aims 
of  their  own,  no  purposes  or  ends  to  pursue,  thus  were 
lifted  above  the  sphere  of  human  action,  and  at  the  same 
time  always  enjoyed  complete  leisure,  they  were  admir 
ably  fitted,  as  men  of  proved  strength  of  mind,  to  be  the 
advisers  and  admonishers  of  the  rest.  Therefore  Apuleius 
says  (Florid.,  iv.) :  "  Crates,  ut  lar  familiaris  apud  homines 
suoe  cctatis  cultus  est.  Nulla  domus  ei  unquam  clausa  erat : 
nee  erat  patrisfamilias  tarn  absconditum  secretum,  quin  co 
tempestive  Crates  interveniret,  litium  omnium  et  jurgiorum 
inter propinquos  disceptator  et  arbiter"  Thus  in  this,  as  in 
so  many  other  respects,  they  show  a  great  likeness  to  the 
mendicant  friars  of  modern  times,  that  is,  to  the  better 
and  more  genuine  among  them,  whose  ideal  may  be  seen 
in  the  Capucine  Christoforo  in  Manzoni's  famous  romance. 
Yet  this  resemblance  lies  only  in  the  effects,  not  in  the 
cause.  They  agree  in  the  result,  but  the  fundamental 
thought  of  the  two  is  quite  different.  With  the  friars,  as 
with  the  Sannyasis,  who  are  akin  to  them,  it  is  an  aim 


ON  THE  USE  OF  REASON  AND  STOICISM.        353 

which  transcends  life ;  but  with  the  Cynics  it  is  only  the 
conviction  that  it  is  easier  to  reduce  their  wishes  and 
their  wants  to  the  minimum,  than  to  attain  to  the  maxi 
mum  in  their  satisfaction,  which  indeed  is  impossible,  for 
with  their  satisfaction  the  wishes  and  wants  grow  ad 
infinitum;  therefore,  in  order  to  reach  the  goal  of  all 
ancient  ethics,  the  greatest  happiness  possible  in  this 
life,  they  took  the  path  of  renunciation  as  the  shortest 
and  easiest :  "  odev  /cat  rov  Kvvt,cr[j.ov  eiprjKaaiv  (rvvro^ov 
GTT  apeTTjv  o&ov."  (Unde  Cynismum  dixere  compendiosam 
ad  virtutem  viam.}  Diog.  Laert.,  vi.  9.  The  fundamental 
difference  between  the  spirit  of  cynicism  and  that  of 
asceticism  comes  out  very  clearly  in  the  humility  which 
is  essential  to  the  ascetic,  but  is  so  foreign  to  the  Cynic 
that,  on  the  contrary,  he  is  distinguished  beyond  every 
thing  else  for  pride  and  scorn : — 

"  Sapiens  uno  minor  est  Jove,  dives, 
Liber,  honoratua,  pulcher,  rex  denique  regum." — Hor. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  view  of  life  held  by  the  Cynics 
agrees  in  spirit  wyith  that  of  J.  J.  Eousseau  as  he  expounds 
ijb  in  the  "  Discours  sur  I'Origine  de  I'Indgalitt"  For  he 
also  would  wish  to  lead  us  back  to  the  crude  state  of 
nature,  and  regards  the  reduction  of  our  wants  to  the 
minimum  as  the  surest  path  to  happiness.  For  the  rest, 
the  Cynics  were  exclusively  practical  philosophers :  at 
least  no  account  of  their  theoretical  philosophy  is  known 
to  me. 

Now  the  Stoics  proceeded  from  them  in  this  way — they 
changed  the  practical  into  the  theoretical.  They  held 
that  the  actual  dispensing  with  everything  that  can  be 
done  without  is  not  demanded,  but  that  it  is  sufficient 
that  we  should  regard  possessions  and  pleasures  constantly 
as  dispensable,  and  as  held  in  the  hand  of  chance ;  for 
then  the  actual  deprivation  of  them,  if  it  should  chance 
to  occur,  would  neither  be  unexpected  nor  fall  heavily. 
One  might  always  have  and  enjoy  everything ;  only  one 

VOL.  II.  Z 


354  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVI 

must  ever  keep  present  the  conviction  of  the  worthless- 
ness  and  dispensableness  of  these  good  things  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  their  uncertainty  and  perishableness  on  the 
other,  and  therefore  prize  them  all  very  little,  and  be 
always  ready  to  give  them  up.  Nay  more,  he  who  must 
actually  dispense  with  these  things  in  order  not  to  be 
moved  by  them,  thereby  shows  that  in  his  heart  he 
holds  them  to  be  truly  good  things,  which  one  must  put 
quite  out  of  sight  if  one  is  not  to  long  after  them.  The 
wise  man,  on  the  other  hand,  knows  that  they  are  not 
good  things  at  all,  but  rather  perfectly  indifferent  things, 
aSia^opa,  in  any  case  Trpoiyy/j.eva.  Therefore  if  they 
present  themselves  he  will  accept  them,  but  yet  is  always 
ready  to  let  them  go  again,  if  chance,  to  which  they  be 
long,  should  demand  them  back ;  for  they  are  TWV  OVK  e</>' 
rj/jiiv.  In  this  sense,  Epictetus,  chap,  vii.,  says  that  the 
wise  man,  like  one  who  has  landed  from  a  ship,  &c.,  will 
also  let  himself  be  comforted  by  a  wife  or  a  child,  but  yet 
will  always  be  ready,  whenever  the  captain  calls,  to  let 
them  go  again.  Thus  the  Stoics  perfected  the  theory  of 
equanimity  and  independence  at  the  cost  of  the  practice, 
for  they  reduced  everything  to  a  mental  process,  and  by 
arguments,  such  as  are  presented  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Epictetus,  sophisticated  themselves  into  all  the  amenities 
of  life.  But  in  doing  so  they  left  out  of  account  that 
everything  to  which  one  is  accustomed  becomes  a  need, 
and  therefore  can  only  be  given  up  with  pain ;  that  the 
will  does  not  allow  itself  to  be  played  with,  cannot  enjoy 
without  loving  the  pleasures ;  that  a  dog  does  not  remain 
indifferent  if  one  draws  a  piece  of  meat  through  its  mouth, 
and  neither  does  a  wise  man  if  he  is  hungry;  and  that 
there  is  no  middle  path  between  desiring  and  renouncing. 
But  they  believed  that  they  satisfied  their  principles  if, 
sitting  at  a  luxurious  Roman  table,  they  left  no  dish 
untasted,  yet  at  the  same  time  protested  that  they  were 
each  and  all  of  them  mere  Trpoiufieva,  not  ajaOa ;  or  in 
plain  English,  if  they  eat,  drank,  and  were  merry,  yet 


ON  THE  USE  OF  REASON  AND  STOICISM.        355 

gave  no  thanks  to  God  for  it  all,  but  rather  made  fastidious 
faces,  and  persisted  in  boldly  asserting  that  they  gained 
nothing  whatever  from  the  whole  feast.  This  was  the 
expedient  of  the  Stoics ;  they  were  therefore  mere  brag 
garts,  and  stand  to  the  Cynics  in  much  the  same  relation 
as  well-fed  Benedictines  and  Augustines  stand  to  Francis 
cans  and  Capucines.  Now  the  more  they  neglected 
practice,  the  more  they  refined  the  theory.  I  shall  here 
add  a  few  proofs  and  supplementary  details  to  the  exposi 
tion  of  it  given  at  the  close  of  our  first  book. 

If  we  search  in  the  writings  of  the  Stoics  which  re 
main  to  us,  all  of  which  are  unsystematically  composed, 
for  the  ultimate  ground  of  that  irrefragible  equanimity 
which  is  unceasingly  demanded  of  us,  we  find  no  other 
than  the  knowledge  that  the  course  of  the  world  is  entirely 
independent  of  our  will,  and  consequently,  that  the  evil 
which  befalls  us  is  inevitable.  If  we  have  regulated  our 
claims  by  a  correct  insight  into  this,  then  mourning, 
rejoicing,  fearing,  and  hoping  are  follies  of  which  we  are 
no  longer  capable.  Further,  especially  in  the  commen 
taries  of  Arrian,  it  is  surreptitiously  assumed  that  all  that 
is  OVK  €<f>  r^jiiv  (i.e.,  does  not  depend  upon  us)  is  at  once 
also  ov  7r/3o<?  r}/jLas  (i.e.,  does  not  concern  us).  Yet  it 
remains  true  that  all  the  good  things  of  life  are  in  the 
power  of  chance,  and  therefore  whenever  it  makes  use  of 
this  power  to  deprive  us  of  them,  we  are  unhappy  if  we 
have  placed  our  happiness  in  them.  From  this  unworthy 
fate  we  are,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Stoics,  delivered  by  the 
right  use  of  reason,  by  virtue  of  which  we  regard  all  these 
things,  never  as  ours,  but  only  as  lent  to  us  for  an  in 
definite  time ;  only  thus  can  we  never  really  lose  them. 
Therefore  Seneca  says  (Ep.  98) :  "  Si,  quid  humanarum 
rerum  varietas  possit,  cogitaverit,  ante  quam  senserit,"  and 
Diogenes  Laertius  (vii.  I.  87) :  "  Icrov  Se  ecrrt  TO  KCLT  aperrjv 
%r)v  TO)  Ka-f  €fj,TT€ipiav  ra)v  (£ucra  av^aivovrwu  "C^v"  (Secun 
dum  virtutem  vivere  idem  est,  quod  secundum  experientiam 
eorum,  quce  secundum  naturam  accidunt,  vivere.~)  The  pas- 


356  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVI. 

sage  in  Arrian's  "Discourses  of  Epictetus,"  B.  iii.,  c.  24, 
84-89,  is  particularly  in  point  here;  and  especially,  as 
a  proof  of  what  I  have  said  in  this  reference  in  §  16  of 
the  first  volume,  the  passage :  "  TOVTO  709  ecrrt  TO  airiov 
TOL<?  avOpoTTOLS  TTavrwv  Twv  KdKWV  TO  T<Z?  TrpoX.rjtyeis  Ta<? 
icoLvas  fjiT)  &vvacr0ai  e<f)ap/j,ot,6iv  rot?  67U  /jiepovs,"  Ibid,  iv., 
I.  42.  (If ax  enim  causa  est  hominibus  omnium  malorum, 
quod  anticipationes  generates  rebus  singularibus  accom- 
modare  non  possuntS)  Similarly  the  passage  in  "  Marcus 
Aurelius "  (iv.  29) :  "  Et  %evo<;  KOO-/JLOV  6  fjii 
TO,  €v  avro)  ovra,  ov%  rjrrov  £evo<;  /cat  o  ^ 
ra  ryLyvofieva ; "  that  is :  "  If  he  is  a  stranger  to  the 
universe  who  does  not  know  what  is  in  it,  no  less 
is  he  a  stranger  who  does  not  know  how  things  go 
on  in  it."  Also  Seneca's  eleventh  chapter,  "  De  Tran- 
guilitate  Animi,"  is  a  complete  proof  of  this  view.  The 
opinion  of  the  Stoics  amounts  on  the  whole  to  this, 
that  if  a  man  has  watched  for  awhile  the  juggling  illusion 
of  happiness  and  then  uses  his  reason,  he  must  recognise 
both  the  rapid  changes  of  the  dice  and  the  intrinsic  worth- 
lessness  of  the  counters,  and  therefore  must  henceforth 
remain  unmoved.  Taken  generally  the  Stoical  point  of 
view  may  be  thus  expressed :  our  suffering  always  arises 
from  the  want  of  agreement  between  our  wishes  and  the 
course  of  the  world.  Therefore  one  of  these  two  must 
be  changed  and  adapted  to  the  other.  Since  now  the 
course  of  things  is  not  in  our  power  (OVK  €<$>  ^^iv),  we 
must  direct  our  volitions  and  desires  according  to  the 
course  of  things :  for  the  will  alone  is  e<£'  TJ^IV.  This 
adaptation  of  volition  to  the  course  of  the  external  world, 
thus  to  the  nature  of  things,  is  very  often  understood 
under  the  ambiguous  Kara  fyvanv  %gv.  See  the  "  Discourses 
of  Epictetus,"  ii.  17,  21,  22.  Seneca  also  denotes  this 
point  of  view  (E^.  119)  when  he  says:  " Nihil  interest, 
utrum  non  desideres,  an  habeas.  Summa  rei  in  utroque  est 
eadem:  non  torqueberis."  Also  Cicero  (Tusc.  iv.  26)  by 
the  words :  "  Solum  halere  velle,  summa  dementia  est," 


ON  THE  USE  OF  REASON  AND  STOICISM.         357 

Similarly  Arrian  (iv.  i.  175):  "  Ov  yap  eKTrXrjpcoa-ei  rtav 
€7ridvfj,ov/jiei'0)v  e\.6v0epia  irapaaKeva^erai,  aXka  avaarcevr) 
TT;?  €7ri6v/ALa<;."  (Non  cnim  explcndis  desideriis  libertas 
comparatur,  sed  tollenda  cupiditate.) 

The  collected  quotations  in  the  "  Historia  Philosophies 
Grceco-Romance"  of  Hitter  and  Preller  may  be  taken  as 
proofs  of  what  I  have  said,  in  the  place  referred  to  above, 
about  the  o/j,o\o<yoviievws  tyv  of  the  Stoics.  Also  the 
saying  of  Seneca  (Ep.  31,  and  again  Ep.  74):  "  Perfecta 
virtus  cst  cequalitas  et  tenor  mice  per  omnia  consonans  sibi." 
The  following  passage  of  Seneca's  indicates  the  spirit 
of  the  Stoa  generally  (Ep.  92) :  "  Quid  est  beata  vita  ? 
Securitas  et  perpetua  tranquillitas.  Hanc  dabit  animi 
magnitude,  dabit  constantia  bene  judicati  tenax"  A  sys 
tematical  study  of  the  Stoics  will  convince  every  one  that 
the  end  of  their  ethics,  like  that  of  the  ethics  of  Cynicism 
from  which  they  sprang,  is  really  nothing  else  than  a  life 
as  free  as  possible  from  pain,  and  therefore  as  happy  as 
possible.  Whence  it  follows  that  the  Stoical  morality 
is  only  a  special  form  of  Eudccmonism.  It  has  not,  like 
the  Indian,  the  Christian,  and  even  the  Platonic  ethics, 
a  metaphysical  tendency,  a  transcendental  end,  but  a 
completely  immanent  end,  attainable  in  this  life;  the 
steadfast  serenity  (arapa^ta)  and  unclouded  happiness  of 
the  wise  man,  whom  nothing  can  disturb.  Yet  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  the  later  Stoics,  especially  Arrian,  some 
times  lose  sight  of  this  end,  and  show  a  really  ascetic 
tendency,  which  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  Christian  and 
Oriental  spirit  in  general  which  was  then  already  spreading. 
If  we  consider  closely  and  seriously  the  goal  of  Stoicism, 
that  arapa^ia,  we  find  in  it  merely  a  hardening  and  in 
sensibility  to  the  blow  of  fate  which  a  man  attains  to 
because  he  keeps  ever  present  to  his  mind  the  short 
ness  of  life,  the  emptiness  of  pleasure,  the  instability  of 
happiness,  and  has  also  discerned  that  the  difference  be 
tween  happiness  and  unhappiness  is  very  much  less  than 
our  anticipation  of  both  is  wont  to  represent.  But  this  is 


358  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVI. 

yet  no  state  of  happiness  ;  it  is  only  the  patient  endur 
ance  of  sufferings  which  one  has  foreseen  as  irremedi 
able.  Yet  magnanimity  and  worth  consist  in  this,  that 
one  should  bear  silently  and  patiently  what  is  irremedi 
able,  in  melancholy  peace,  remaining  always  the  same, 
while  others  pass  from  rejoicing  to  despair  and  from  des 
pair  to  rejoicing.  Accordingly  one  may  also  conceive  of 
Stoicism  as  a  spiritual  hygiene,  in  accordance  with  which, 
just  as  one  hardens  the  body  against  the  influences  of 
wind  and  weather,  against  fatigue  and  exertion,  one  has 
also  to  harden  one's  mind  against  misfortune,  danger,  loss, 
injustice,  malice,  perfidy,  arrogance,  and  the  folly  of  men. 
I  remark  further,  that  the  KaOyrcovra  of  the  Stoics, 
which  Cicero  translates  officia,  signify  as  nearly  as  pos 
sible  Oblicgenheiten,  or  that  which  it  befits  the  occasion 
to  do ;  English,  incumbencies  ;  Italian,  quel  che  tocca  a  me  di 
fare,  o  di  lasciare,  thus  what  it  behoves  a  reasonable  man 
to  do.  Cf.  Diog.  Laert,  vii.  i.  109.  Finally,  the  panthe 
ism  of  the  Stoics,  though  absolutely  inconsistent  with 
many  an  exhortation  of  Arrian,  is  most  distinctly  ex 
pressed  by  Seneca  :  "  Quid  est  Deus  ?  Mens  universi.  Quid 
est  Deus  ?  Quod  vides  totum,  et  quod  non  vides  totum.  Sic 
dem.um  magnitudo  sua  illi  redditur,  qua  nihil  majus  ex- 
cogitari  potest :  si  solus  est  omnia,  opus  suum  et  extra  et 
intra  tenet."  (Qucest.  Natur.  i,prcefatio  12.) 


(    359    ) 


CHAPTEE  XVII.1 

ON   MAN'S    NEED    OF   METAPHYSICS. 

WITH  the  exception  of  man,  no  being  wonders  at  its  own 
existence ;  but  it  is  to  them  all  so  much  a  matter  of  course 
that  they  do  not  observe  it.  The  wisdom  of  nature  speaks 
out  of  the  peaceful  glance  of  the  brutes ;  for  in  them,  the 
will  and  the  intellect  are  not  yet  so  widely  separated 
that  they  can  be  astonished  at  each  other  when  they  meet 
again.  Thus  here  the  whole  phenomenon  is  still  firmly 
attached  to  the  stem  of  nature  from  which  it  has  come, 
and  is  partaker  of  the  unconscious  omniscience  of  the 
great  mother.  Only  after  the  inner  being  of  nature  (the 
will  to  live  in  its  objectification)  has  ascended,  vigorous 
and  cheerful,  through  the  two  series  of  unconscious  exist 
ences,  and  then  through  the  long  and  broad  series  of  ani 
mals,  does  it  attain  at  last  to  reflection  for  the  first  time 
on  the  entrance  of  reason,  thus  in  man.  Then  it  marvels 
at  its  own  works,  and  asks  itself  what  it  itself  is.  Its 
wonder  however  is  the  more  serious,  as  it  here  stands  for 
the  first  time  consciously  in  the  presence  of  death,  and 
besides  the  finiteness  of  all  existence,  the  vanity  of  all 
effort  forces  itself  more  or  less  upon  it.  With  this  reflec 
tion  and  this  wonder  there  arises  therefore  for  man  alone, 
the  need  for  a  mdaphysic ;  he  is  accordingly  an  animal 
metapJiysicum.  At  the  beginning  of  his  consciousness  cer 
tainly  he  also  accepts  himself  as  a  matter  of  course.  This 
does  not  last  long  however,  but  very  early,  with  the  first 
dawn  of  reflection,  that  wonder  already  appears,  which  is 

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


360  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

some  day  to  become  the  mother  of  metaphysics.  In  agree 
ment  with  this  Aristotle  also  says  at  the  beginning  of  his 
metaphysics  :  "  Ata  <yap  TO  Oavfj,a^eiv  olavOpwjroi,  Kai  vvv  /cat 
TO  TTpatTov  r)p£avTO  <f}iXocro(f)eiv."  (Propter  admirationem 
enim  et  nunc  et  primo  inceperunt  homines  philosophari.} 
Moreover,  the  special  philosophical  disposition  consists 
primarily  in  this,  that  a  man  is  capable  of  wonder  beyond 
the  ordinary  and  everyday  degree,  and  is  thus  induced  to 
make  the  universal  of  the  phenomenon  his  problem,  while 
the  investigators  in  the  natural  sciences  wonder  only  at 
exquisite  or  rare  phenomena,  and  their  problem  is  merely 
to  refer  these  to  phenomena  which  are  better  known. 
The  lower  a  man  stands  in  an  intellectual  regard  the  less 
of  a  problem  is  existence  itself  for  him ;  everything,  how 
it  is,  and  that  it  is,  appears  to  him  rather  a  matter  of 
course.  This  rests  upon  the  fact  that  his  intellect  still 
remains  perfectly  true  to  its  original  destiny  of  being  ser 
viceable  to  the  will  as  the  medium  of  motives,  and  therefore 
is  closely  bound  up  with  the  world  and  nature,  as  an  inte 
gral  part  of  them.  Consequently  it  is  very  far  from  com 
prehending  the  world  in  a  purely  objective  manner,  freeing 
itself,  so  to  speak,  from  the  whole  of  things,  opposing 
itself  to  this  whole,  and  so  for  a  while  becoming  as  if  self- 
existent.  On  the  other  hand,  the  philosophical  wonder 
which  springs  from  this  is  conditioned  in  the  individual 
by  higher  development  of  the  intellect,  yet  in  general  not 
by  this  alone;  but  without  doubt  it  is  the  knowledge 
of  death,  and  along  with  this  the  consideration  of  the 
suffering  and  misery  of  life,  which  gives  the  strongest 
impulse  to  philosophical  reflection  and  metaphysical 
explanation  of  the  world.  If  our  life  were  endless  and 
painless,  it  would  perhaps  occur  to  no  one  to  ask  why  the 
world  exists,  and  is  just  the  kind  of  world  it  is ;  but 
everything  would  just  be  taken  as  a  matter  of  course.  In 
accordance  with  this  we  find  that  the  interest  which 
philosophical  and  also  religious  systems  inspire  has 
always  its  strongest  hold  in  the  dogma  of  some  kind  of 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  361 

existence  after  death ;  and  although  the  most  recent 
systems  seem  to  make  the  existence  of  their  gods  the 
main  point,  and  to  defend  this  most  zealously,  yet  in 
reality  this  is  only  because  they  have  connected  their 
special  dogma  of  immortality  with  this,  and  regard  the  one 
as  inseparable  from  the  other :  only  on  this  account  is  it 
of  importance  to  them.  For  if  one  could  establish  their 
doctrine  of  immortality  for  them  in  some  other  way,  their 
lively  zeal  for  their  gods  would  at  once  cool,  and  it  would 
give  place  almost  to  complete  indifference  if,  conversely, 
the  absolute  impossibility  of  immortality  were  proved  to 
them ;  for  the  interest  in  the  existence  of  the  gods  would 
vanish  with  the  hope  of  a  closer  acquaintance  with 
them,  to  the  residuum  which  might  connect  itself  with 
their  possible  influence  on  the  events  of  this  present  life. 
But  if  one  could  prove  that  continued  existence  after 
death  is  incompatible  with  the  existence  of  gods,  because, 
let  us  say,  it  pre-supposes  originality  of  being,  they  would 
soon  sacrifice  the  gods  to  their  own  immortality  and  be 
come  zealous  for  Atheism.  The  fact  that  the  materialistic 
systems,  properly  so-called,  and  also  absolute  scepticism, 
have  never  been  able  to  obtain  a  general  or  lasting  in 
fluence,  depends  upon  the  same  grounds. 

Temples  and  churches,  pagodas  and  mosques,  in  all 
lands  and  in  all  ages,  in  splendour  and  vastness,  testify  to 
the  metaphysical  need  of  man,  which,  strong  and  ineradic 
able,  follows  close  upon  his  physical  need.  Certainly 
whoever  is  satirically  inclined  might  add  that  this  meta 
physical  need  is  a  modest  fellow  who  is  content  with  poor 
fare.  It  sometimes  allows  itself  to  be  satisfied  with 
clumsy  fables  and  insipid  tales.  If  only  imprinted  early 
enough,  they  are  for  a  man  adequate  explanations  of  his 
existence  and  supports  of  his  morality.  Consider,  for 
example,  the  Koran.  This  wretched  book  was  sufficient 
to  found  a  religion  of  the  world,  to  satisfy  the  metaphysical 
need  of  innumerable  millions  of  men  for  twelve  hundred 
years,  to  become  the  foundation  of  their  morality,  and  of 


362  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

no  small  contempt  for  death,  and  also  to  inspire  them  to 
bloody  wars  and  most  extended  conquests.  We  find  in  it 
the  saddest  and  the  poorest  form  of  Theism.  Much  may 
be  lost  through  the  translations ;  but  I  have  not  been  able 
to  discover  one  single  valuable  thought  in  it.  Such  things 
show  that  metaphysical  capacity  does  not  go  hand  in  hand 
with  the  metaphysical  need.  Yet  it  will  appear  that  in 
the  early  ages  of  the  present  surface  of  the  earth  this  was 
not  the  case,  and  that  those  who  stood  considerably  nearer 
than  we  do  to  the  beginning  of  the  human  race  and  the 
source  of  organic  nature,  had  also  both  greater  energy  of 
the  intuitive  faculty  of  knowledge,  and  a  truer  disposition 
of  mind,  so  that  they  were  capable  of  a  purer,  more  direct 
comprehension  of  the  inner  being  of  nature,  and  were 
thus  in  a  position  to  satisfy  the  metaphysical  need  in  a 
more  worthy  manner.  Thus  originated  in  the  primitive 
ancestors  of  the  Brahmans,  the  Eishis,  the  almost  super 
human  conceptions  which  were  afterwards  set  down  in  the 
Upanishads  of  the  Vedas. 

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

A  second,  though  not  a  numerous  class  of  persons,  who 
derive  their  support  from  the  metaphysical  need  of  man, 
is  constituted  by  those  who  live  by  philosophy.  By  the 
Greeks  they  were  called  Sophists,  by  the  moderns  they 
are  called  Professors  of  Philosophy.  Aristotle  (Metaph., 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  363 

ii.  2)  without  hesitation  numbers  Aristippus  among  the 
Sophists.  In  Diogenes  Laertius  (ii.  65)  we  find  that  the 
reason  of  this  is  that  he  was  the  first  of  the  Socratics 
who  accepted  payment  for  his  philosophy  ;  on  account  of 
which  Socrates  also  returned  him  his  present.  Among 
the  moderns  also  those  who  live  "by  philosophy  are  not 
only,  as  a  rule,  and  with  the  rarest  exceptions,  quite 
different  from  those  who  live  for  philosophy,  but  they 
are  very  often  the  opponents,  the  secret  and  irreconcilable 
enemies  of  the  latter.  For  every  true  and  important 
philosophical  achievement  will  overshadow  their  own  too 
much,  and,  moreover,  cannot  adapt  itself  to  the  views  and 
limitations  of  their  guild.  Therefore  it  is  always  their 
endeavour  to  prevent  such  a  work  from  making  its  way  ; 
and  for  this  purpose,  according  to  the  age  and  circum 
stances  in  each  case,  the  customary  means  are  suppressing, 
concealing,  hushing  up,  ignoring  and  keeping  secret,  or 
denying,  disparaging,  censuring,  slandering  and  distorting, 
or,  finally,  denouncing  and  persecuting.  Hence  many  a 
great  man  has  had  to  drag  himself  wearily  through  life 
unknown,  unhonoured,  unrewarded,  till  at  last,  after  his 
death,  the  world  became  undeceived  as  to  him  and  as  to 
them.  In  the  meanwhile  they  had  attained  their  end, 
had  been  accepted  by  preventing  him  from  being  accepted, 
and,  with  wife  and  child,  had  lived  "by  philosophy,  while 
he  lived  for  it.  But  if  he  is  dead,  then  the  thing  is 
reversed ;  the  new  generation  of  the  former  class,  which 
always  exists,  now  becomes  heir  to  his  achievements,  cuts 
them  down  to  its  own  measure,  and  now  lives  "by  him. 
That  Kant  could  yet  live  both  "by  and  for  philosophy 
depended  on  the  rare  circumstance  that,  for  the  first  time 
since  Divus  Antoninus  and  Divus  Julianus,  a  philosopher 
sat  on  the  throne.  Only  under  such  auspices  could  the 
"  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  "  have  seen  the  light.  Scarcely 
was  the  king  dead  than  we  see  that  Kant  also,  seized  with 
fear,  because  he  belonged  to  the  guild,  modified,  expur 
gated,  and  spoiled  his  masterpiece  in  the  second  edition, 


364  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

and  yet  was  soon  in  danger  of  losing  bis  place ;  so  that 
Campe  invited  him  to  come  to  him,  in  Brunswick,  and 
live  with  him  as  the  instructor  of  his  family  (Iling., 
Ansichten  aus  Kant's  Leben,  p.  68).  University  philosophy 
is,  as  a  rule,  mere  juggling.  Its  real  aim  is  to  impart  to 
the  students,  in  the  deepest  ground  of  their  thought,  that 
tendency  of  mind  which  the  ministry  that  appoints  to  the 
professorships  regards  as  consistent  with  its  views.  The 
ministry  may  also  be  perfectly  right  in  this  from  a  states 
man's  point  of  view;  only  the  result  of  it  is  that  such 
philosophy  of  the  chair  is  a  nervis  alienis  mobile  lignum, 
and  cannot  be  regarded  as  serious  philosophy,  but  as  the 
mere  jest  of  it.  Moreover,  it  is  at  any  rate  just  that  such 
inspection  or  guidance  should  extend  only  to  the  philo 
sophy  of  the  chair,  and  not  to  the  real  philosophy  that  is 
in  earnest.  For  if  anything  in  the  world  is  worth  wishing 
for — so  well  worth  wishing  for  that  even  the  ignorant  and 
dull  herd  in  its  more  reflective  moments  would  prize  it 
more  than  silver  and  gold — it  is  that  a  ray  of  light  should 
fall  on  the  obscurity  of  our  being,  and  that  we  should  gain 
some  explanation  of  our  mysterious  existence,  in  which 
nothing  is  clear  but  its  misery  and  its  vanity.  But  even 
if  this  is  in  itself  attainable,  it  is  made  impossible  by 
imposed  and  compulsory  solutions. 

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

By  metaphysics  I  understand  all  knowledge  that  pre 
tends  to  transcend  the  possibility  of  experience,  thus  to 
transcend  nature  or  the  given  phenomenal  appearance  of 
things,  in  order  to  give  an  explanation  of  that  by  which, 
in  some  sense  or  other,  this  experience  or  nature  is  con 
ditioned  ;  or,  to  speak  in  popular  language,  of  that  which 
is  behind  nature,  and  makes  it  possible.  But  the  great 
original  diversity  in  the  power  of  understanding,  besides 
the  cultivation  of  it,  which  demands  much  leisure,  makes 
so  great  a  difference  between  men,  that  as  soon  as  a  people 
has  emerged  from  the  state  of  savages,  no  one  metaphysic 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  365 

can  serve  for  them  all.  Therefore  among  civilised  nations 
we  find  throughout  two  different  kinds  of  metaphysics, 
which  are  distinguished  by  the  fact  that  the  one  has  its 
evidence  in  itself,  the  other  outside  itself.  Since  the  meta 
physical  systems  of  the  first  kind  require  reflection,  culture, 
and  leisure  for  the  recognition  of  their  evidence,  they  can 
be  accessible  only  to  a  very  small  number  of  men ;  and, 
moreover,  they  can  only  arise  and  maintain  their  existence 
in  the  case  of  advanced  civilisation.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  systems  of  the  second  kind  exclusively  are  for  the  great 
majority  of  men  who  are  not  capable  of  thinking,  but  only 
of  believing,  and  who  are  not  accessible  to  reasons,  but  only 
to  authority.  fThese  systems  may  therefore  be  called 
metaphysics  of  the  people,  after  the  analogy  of  poetry  of 
the  people,  and  also  wisdom  of  the  people,  by  which  is 
understood  proverbs.  These  systems,  however,  are  known 
under  the  name  of  religions,  and  are  found  among  all  na 
tions,  not  excepting  even  the  most  savage.  Their  evidence 
is,  as  has  been  said,  external,  and  as  such  is  called  revela 
tion,  which  is  authenticated  by  signs  and  miracles.  Their 
arguments  are  principally  threats  of  eternal,  and  indeed 
also  temporal  evils,  directed  against  unbelievers,  and  even 
against  mere  doubters.  As  ultima  ratio  theologorum,  we 
find  among  many  nations  the  stake  or  things  similar  to  it. 
If  they  seek  a  different  authentication,  or  if  they  make  use 
of  other  arguments,  they  already  make  the  transition  into 
the  systems  of  the  first  kind,  and  may  degenerate  into  a 
mixture  of  the  two,  which  brings  more  danger  than  advan 
tage,  for  their  invaluable  prerogative  of  being  imparted  to 
children  gives  them  the  surest  guarantee  of  the  permanent 
possession  of  the  mind,  for  thereby  their  dogmas  grow  into 
a  kind  of  second  inborn  intellect,  like  the  twig  upon  the 
grafted  tree ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  systems  of  the 
first  kind  only  appeal  to  grown-up  people,  and  in  them 
always  find  a  system  of  the  second  kind  already  in  pos 
session  of  their  convictions.  Both  kinds  of  metaphysics, 
whose  difference  may  be  briefly  expressed  by  the  words 


366  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

reasoned  conviction  and  faith,  have  this  in  common,  that 
every  one  of  their  particular  systems  stands  in  a  hostile  re 
lation  to  all  the  others  of  its  kind.  Between  those  of  the 
first  kind  war  is  waged  only  with  word  and  pen ;  between 
those  of  the  second  with  fire  and  sword  as  well.  Several 
of  the  latter  owe  their  propagation  in  part  to  this  last 
kind  of  polemic,  and  all  have  by  degrees  divided  the  earth 
between  them,  and  indeed  with  such  decided  authority 
that  the  peoples  of  the  earth  are  distinguished  and  sepa 
rated  more  according  to  them  than  according  to  nation 
ality  or  government.  They  alone  reign,  each  in  its  own 
province.  The  systems  of  the  first  kind,  on  the  contrary, 
are  at  the  most  tolerated,  and  even  this  only  because,  on 
account  of  the  small  number  of  their  adherents,  they  are 
for  the  most  part  not  considered  worth  the  trouble  of  com 
bating  with  fire  and  sword — although,  where  it  seemed 
necessary,  these  also  have  been  employed  against  them 
with  effect ;  besides,  they  occur  only  in  a  sporadic  form. 
Yet  in  general  they  have  only  been  endured  in  a  tamed 
and  subjugated  condition,  for  the  system  of  the  second 
kind  which  prevailed  in  the  country  ordered  them  to  con 
form  their  teaching  more  or  less  closely  to  its  own.  Some 
times  it  not  only  subjugated  them,  but  even  employed 
their  services  and  used  them  as  a  support,  which  is  how 
ever  a  dangerous  experiment.  For  these  systems  of  the 
first  kind,  since  they  are  deprived  of  power,  believe  they 
may  advance  themselves  by  craft,  and  never  entirely  lay 
aside  a  secret  ill-will  which  at  times  comes  unexpectedly 
into  prominence  and  inflicts  injuries  which  are  hard  to  heal. 
For  they  are  further  made  the  more  dangerous  by  the  fact 
that  all  the  real  sciences,  not  even  excepting  the  most 
innocent,  are  their  secret  allies  against  the  systems  of  the 
second  kind,  and  without  themselves  being  openly  at  war 
with  the  latter,  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  do  great  mis 
chief  in  their  province.  Besides,  the  attempt  which  is 
aimed  at  by  the  enlistment  referred  to  of  the  services  of 
the  systems  of  the  first  kind  by  the  second — the  attempt 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  367 

to  add  an  inner  authentication  to  a  system  whose  original 
authentication  was  external,  is  in  its  nature  perilous ;  for, 
if  it  were  capable  of  such  an  authentication,  it  would  never 
have  required  an  external  one.  And  in  general  it  is 
always  a  hazardous  thing  to  attempt  to  place  a  new  foun 
dation  under  a  finished  structure.  Moreover,  how  should 
a  religion  require  the  suffrage  of  a  philosophy  ?  It  has 
everything  upon  its  side — revelation,  tradition,  miracles, 
prophecies,  the  protection  of  the  government,  the  highest 
rank,  as  is  due  to  the  truth,  the  consent  and  reverence  of 
all,  a  thousand  temples  in  which  it  is  proclaimed  and 
practised,  bands  of  sworn  priests,  and,  what  is  more  than 
all,  the  invaluable  privilege  of  being  allowed  to  imprint 
its  doctrines  on  the  mind  at  the  tender  age  of  childhood, 
whereby  they  became  almost  like  innate  ideas.  With 
such  wealth  of  means  at  its  disposal,  still  to  desire  the 
assent  of  poor  philosophers  it  must  be  more  covetous,  or 
to  care  about  their  contradiction  it  must  be  more  fearful, 
than  seems  to  be  compatible  with  a  good  conscience. 

To  the  distinction  established  above  between  metaphy 
sics  of  the  first  and  of  the  second  kind,  we  have  yet  to  add 
the  following : — A  system  of  the  first  kind,  thus  a  philo 
sophy,  makes  the  claim,  and  has  therefore  the  obligation, 
in  everything  that  it  says,  sensu  strict o  et  proprio,  to  be 
true,  for  it  appeals  to  thought  and  conviction.  A  religion, 
on  the  other  hand,  being  intended  for  the  innumerable 
multitude  who,  since  they  are  incapable  of  examination 
and  thought,  would  never  comprehend  the  profoundest 
and  most  difficult  truths  sensu  proprio,  has  only  the  obli 
gation  to  be  true  sensu  alleyorico.  Truth  cannot  appear 
naked  before  the  people.  A  symptom  of  this  allegorical 
nature  of  religions  is  the  mysteries  which  are  to  be  found 
perhaps  in  them  all,  certain  dogmas  which  cannot  even  be 
distinctly  thought,  not  to  speak  of  being  literally  true. 
Indeed,  perhaps  it  might  be  asserted  that  some  absolute 
contradictions,  some  actual  absurdities,  are  an  essential 
ingredient  in  a  complete  religion,  for  these  are  just  the 


368  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

stamp  of  its  allegorical  nature,  and  the  only  adequate 
means  of  making  the  ordinary  mind  and  the  uncultured 
understanding  feel  what  would  be  incomprehensible  to  it, 
that  religion  has  ultimately  to  do  with  quite  a  different 
order  of  things,  with  an  order  of  things  in  themselves,  in 
the  presence  of  which  the  laws  of  this  phenomenal  world, 
in  conformity  with  which  it  must  speak,  vanish  ;  and  that 
therefore  not  only  the  contradictory  but  also  the  compre 
hensible  dogmas  are  really  only  allegories  and  accommo 
dations  to  the  human  power  of  comprehension.  It  seems 
to  me  that  it  was  in  this  spirit  that  Augustine  and  even 
Luther  adhered  to  the  mysteries  of  Christianity  in  opposi- 
sition  to  Pelagianism,  which  sought  to  reduce  everything 
to  the  dull  level  of  comprehensibility.  From  this  point  of 
view  it  is  also  conceivable  how  Tertullian  could  say  in  all 
seriousness  :  "Prorsus  credibile  est,  quia  ineptum  est :  .  . .  cer- 
tum  est,  quia  impossible  "  (De  Carne  Christi,  c.  5).  This  alle 
gorical  nature  of  religions  makes  them  independent  of  the 
proofs  which  are  incumbent  on  philosophy,  and  in  general 
withdraws  them  from  investigation.  Instead  of  this 
they  require  faith,  that  is,  a  voluntary  admission  that 
such  is  the  state  of  the  case.  Since,  then,  faith  guides 
action,  and  the  allegory  is  always  so  framed  that,  as 
regards  the  practical,  it  leads  precisely  to  that  which 
the  truth  sensu  proprio  would  also  lead  to,  religion  is 
justified  in  promising  to  those  who  believe  eternal  salva 
tion.  Thus  we  see  that  in  the  main,  and  for  the  great  ma 
jority,  who  cannot  apply  themselves  to  thought,  religions 
very  well  supply  the  place  of  metaphysics  in  general,  the 
need  of  which  man  feels  to  be  imperative.  They  do  this 
partly  in  a  practical  interest,  as  the  guiding  star  of  their 
action,  the  unfurled  standard  of  integrity  and  virtue,  as 
Kant  admirably  expresses  it ;  partly  as  the  indispensable 
comfort  in  the  heavy  sorrows  of  life,  in  which  capacity 
they  fully  supply  the  place  of  an  objectively  true  meta- 
physic,  because  they  lift  man  above  himself  and  his  exist 
ence  in  time,  as  well  perhaps  as  such  a  metaphysic  ever 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  369 

could.  In  this  their  great  value  and  indeed  necessity 
shows  itself  very  clearly.  For  Plato  says,  and  says  rightly, 
"  <f>i\6ao(f)ov  7r\r)6o<?  aSvvarov  elvai "  (vulgus  philosophum 
esse  impossible  est.  De  Rep.,  vi.  p.  89,  Bip.}  On  the  other 
hand,  the  only  stumbling-stone  is  this,  that  religions  never 
dare  to  confess  their  allegorical  nature,  but  have  to  assert 
that  they  are  true  sensu  proprio.  They  thereby  encroach 
on  the  province  of  metaphysics  proper,  and  call  forth  the 
antagonism  of  the  latter,  which  has  therefore  expressed 
itself  at  all  times  when  it  was  not  chained  up.  The  con 
troversy  which  is  so  perseveringly  carried  on  in  our  own 
day  between  supernaturalists  and  rationalists  also  rests  on 
the  failure  to  recognise  the  allegorical  nature  of  all  religion. 

o  o  o 

Both  wish  to  have  Christianity  true  sensu  proprio ;  in  this 
sense  the  former  wish  to  maintain  it  without  deduction, 
as  it  were  with  skin  and  hair ;  and  thus  they  have  a  hard 
stand  to  make  against  the  knowledge  and  general  culture 
of  the  age.  The  latter  wish  to  explain  away  all  that 
is  properly  Christian ;  whereupon  they  retain  something 
which  is  neither  sensu  proprio  nor  sensu  allegorico  true, 
but  rather  a  mere  platitude,  little  better  than  Judaism, 
or  at  the  most  a  shallow  Pelagianism,  and,  what  is  worst, 
an  abject  optimism,  absolutely  foreign  to  Christianity 
proper.  Moreover,  the  attempt  to  found  a  religion  upon 
reason  removes  it  into  the  other  class  of  metaphysics, 
that  which  has  its  authentication  in  itself,  thus  to  the 
foreign  ground  of  the  philosophical  systems,  and  into  the 
conflict  which  these  wage  against  each  other  in  their  own 
arena,  and  consequently  exposes  it  to  the  light  fire  of 
scepticism  and  the  heavy  artillery  of  the  "  Critique  of 
Pure  Eeason ; "  but  for  it  to  venture  there  would  be  clear 
presumption. 

It  would  be  most  beneficial  to  both  kinds  of  meta 
physics  that  each  of  them  should  remain  clearly  separated 
from  the  other  and  confine  itself  to  its  own  province,  that 
it  may  there  be  able  to  develop  its  nature  fully.  Instead 
of  which,  through  the  whole  Christian  era,  the  endeavour 

VOL.  n.  2  A 


370  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

has  been  to  bring  about  a  fusion  of  the  two,  for  the  dogmas 
and  conceptions  of  the  one  have  been  carried  over  into  the 
other,  whereby  both  are  spoiled.  This  has  taken  place  in 
the  most  open  manner  in  our  own  day  in  that  strange  her 
maphrodite  or  centaur,  the  so-called  philosophy  of  religion, 
which,  as  a  kind  of  gnosis,  endeavours  to  interpret  the 
given  religion,  and  to  explain  what  is  true  sensu  allegorico 
through  something  which  is  true  sensu  proprio.  But  for 
this  we  would  have  to  know  and  possess  the  truth  sensu 
proprio  already ;  and  in  that  case  such  an  interpretation 
would  be  superfluous.  For  to  seek  first  to  find  meta 
physics,  i.e.,  the  truth  sensu  proprio,  merely  out  of  religion 
by  explanation  and  interpretation  would  be  a  doubtful 
and  dangerous  undertaking,  to  which  one  would  only 
make  up  one's  mind  if  it  were  proved  that  truth,  like 
iron  and  other  base  metals,  could  only  be  found  in  a 
mixed,  not  in  a  pure  form,  and  therefore  one  could  only 
obtain  it  by  reduction  from  the  mixed  ore. 

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

Eeligions,  being  calculated  with  reference  to  the  power 
of  comprehension  of  the  great  mass  of  men,  can  only  have 
indirect,  not  immediate  truth.  To  require  of  them  the 
latter  is  as  if  one  wished  to  read  the  letters  set  up  in  the 
form-chase,  instead  of  their  impression.  The  value  of  a 
religion  will  accordingly  depend  upon  the  greater  or  less 
content  of  truth  which  it  contains  under  the  veil  of  alle 
gory,  and  then  upon  the  greater  or  less  distinctness  with 
which  it  becomes  visible  through  this  veil,  thus  upon  the 
transparency  of  the  latter.  It  almost  seems  that,  as  the 
oldest  languages  are  the  most  perfect,  so  also  are  the  oldest 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  371 

religions.  If  I  were  to  take  the  results  of  my  philosophy 
as  the  standard  of  truth,  I  would  be  obliged  to  concede  to 
Buddhism  the  pre-eminence  over  the  rest.  In  any  case 
it  must  be  a  satisfaction  to  me  to  see  my  teaching  in  such 
close  agreement  with  a  religion  which  the  majority  of 
men  upon  the  earth  hold  as  their  own;  for  it  numbers 
far  more  adherents  than  any  other.  This  agreement, 
p  however,  must  be  the  more  satisfactory  to  me  because 
in  my  philosophising  I  have  certainly  not  been  under 
its  influence.  For  up  till  1818,  when  my  work  appeared, 
there  were  very  few,  exceedingly  incomplete  and  scanty, 
accounts  of  Buddhism  to  be  found  in  Europe,  which  were 
almost  entirely  limited  to  a  few  essays  in  the  earlier 
volumes  of  "Asiatic  Eesearches,"  and  were  principally 
concerned  with  the  Buddhism  of  the  Burmese.  Only 
since  then  has  fuller  information  about  this  religion 
gradually  reached  us,  chiefly  through  the  profound  and 
instructive  essays  of  the  meritorious  member  of  the  St. 
Petersburg  Academy,  J.  J.  Schmidt,  in  the  proceedings 
of  his  Academy,  and  then  little  by  little  through  several 
English  and  French  scholars,  so  that  I  was  able  to  give 
a  fairly  numerous  list  of  the  best  works  on  this  religion 
in  my  work,  "  Ueber  den  Willen  in  der  Natur"  under  the 
heading  Sinologie.  Unfortunately  Csoma  Korosi,  that  per 
severing  Hungarian,  who,  in  order  to  study  the  language 
and  sacred  writings  of  Buddhism,  spent  many  years  in 
Tibet,  and  for  the  most  part  in  Buddhist  monasteries, 
was  carried  off  by  death  just  as  he  was  beginning  to  work 
out  for  us  the  results  of  his  researches.  I  cannot,  how 
ever,  deny  the  pleasure  with  which  I  read,  in  his  pro 
visional  accounts,  several  passages  cited  directly  from  the 
Kahgyur  itself;  for  example,  the  following  conversation 
of  the  dying  Buddha  with  Brahma,  who  is  doing  him 
homage :  "  There  is  a  description  of  their  conversation  on 
the  subject  of  creation, — by  whom  was  the  world  made  ? 
Shakya  asks  several  questions  of  Brahma, — whether  was 
it  he  who  made  or  produced  such  and  such  things,  and 


372  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

endowed  or  blessed  them  with  such  and  such  virtues  or 
properties, — whether  was  it  he  who  caused  the  several 
revolutions  in  the  destruction  and  regeneration  of  the 
world.  He  denies  that  he  had  ever  done  anything  to 
that  effect.  At  last  he  himself  asks  Shaky  a  how  the 
world  was  made, — by  whom  ?  Here  are  attributed  all 
changes  in  the  world  to  the  moral  works  of  the  animal 
beings,  and  it  is  stated  that  in  the  world  all  is  illusion,  • 
there  is  no  reality  in  the  things ;  all  is  empty.  Brahma, 
being  instructed  in  his  doctrine,  becomes  his  follower" 
(Asiatic  Researches,  vol.  xx.  p.  434). 

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

I  turn  to  a  general  consideration  of  the  other  kind  of 
metaphysics,  that  which  has  its  authentication  in  itself, 
and  is  called  philosophy.  I  remind  the  reader  of  its  origin, 
mentioned  above,  in  a  wonder  concerning  the  world  and 
our  own  existence,  inasmuch  as  these  press  upon  the  intel 
lect  as  a  riddle,  the  solution  of  which  therefore  occupies 
mankind  without  intermission.  Here,  then,  I  wish  first 
of  all  to  draw  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  could  not  be 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  373 

the  case  if,  in  Spinoza's  sense,  which  in  our  own  day  has 
so  often  been  brought  forward  again  under  modern  forms 
and  expositions  as  pantheism,  the  world  were  an  "  absolute 
substance,"  and  therefore  an  absolutely  necessary  existence. 
For  this  means  that  it  exists  with  so  great  a  necessity 
that  beside  it  every  other  necessity  comprehensible  to  our 
understanding  as  such  must  appear  as  an  accident.  It 
would  then  be  something  which  comprehended  in  itself 
not  only  all  actual  but  also  all  possible  existence,  so  that, 
as  Spinoza  indeed  declares,  its  possibility  and  its  actuality 
would  be  absolutely  one.  Its  non-being  would  therefore 
be  impossibility  itself;  thus  it  would  be  something  the 
non-being  or  other-being  of  which  must  be  completely 
inconceivable,  and  which  could  therefore  just  as  little  be 
thought  away  as,  for  example,  space  or  time.  And  since, 
further,  loe  ourselves  would  be  parts,  modes,  attributes,  or 
accidents  of  such  an  absolute  substance,  which  would  be 
the  only  thing  that,  in  any  sense,  could  ever  or  anywhere 
exist,  our  and  its  existence,  together  with  its  properties, 
would  necessarily  be  very  far  from  presenting  itself  to  us 
as  remarkable,  problematical,  and  indeed  as  an  unfathom 
able  and  ever-disquieting  riddle,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
would  be  far  more  self-evident  than  that  two  and  two 
make  four.  For  we  would  necessarily  be  incapable  of 
thinking  anything  else  than  that  the  world  is,  and  is, 
as  it  is ;  and  therefore  we  would  necessarily  be  as  little 
conscious  of  its  existence  as  such,  i.e.,  as  a  problem  for 
reflection,  as  we  are  of  the  incredibly  fast  motion  of  our 
planet. 

All  this,  however,  is  absolutely  not  the  case.  Only  to 
the  brutes,  who  are  without  thought,  does  the  world  and 
existence  appear  as  a  matter  of  course;  to  man,  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  a  problem,  of  which  even  the  most  unedu 
cated  and  narrow-minded  becomes  vividly  conscious  in 
certain  brighter  moments,  but  which  enters  more  distinctly 
and  more  permanently  into  the  consciousness  of  each  one 
of  us  the  clearer  and  more  enlightened  that  conscious- 


374  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

ness  is,  and  the  more  material  for  thought  it  has  acquired 
through  culture,  which  all  ultimately  rises,  in  minds  that 
are  naturally  adapted  for  philosophising,  to  Plato's  "  dav^a- 
%ew,  yu-aXa  <f)i\o<ro<f)iKov  TraOos  "  (mirari,  valde  philosophicus 
affectus),  that  is,  to  that  wonder  which  comprehends  in  its 
whole  magnitude  that  problem  which  unceasingly  occupies 
the  nobler  portion  of  mankind  in  every  age  and  in  every 
land,  and  gives  it  no  rest.  In  fact,  the  pendulum  which 
keeps  in  motion  the  clock  of  metaphysics,  that  never  runs 
down,  is  the  consciousness  that  the  non-existence  of  this 
world  is  just  as  possible  as  its  existence.  Thus,  then,  the 
Spinozistic  view  of  it  as  an  absolutely  necessary  existence, 
that  is,  as  something  that  absolutely  and  in  every  sense 
ought  to  and  must  be,  is  a  false  one.  Even  simple  Theism, 
since  in  its  cosmological  proof  it  tacitly  starts  by  inferring 
the  previous  non-existence  of  the  world  from  its  existence, 
thereby  assumes  beforehand  that  the  world  is  something 
contingent.  Nay,  what  is  more,  we  very  soon  apprehend 
the  world  as  something  the  non-existence  of  which  is  not 
only  conceivable,  but  indeed  preferable  to  its  existence. 
Therefore  our  wonder  at  it  easily  passes  into  a  brooding 
over  the  fatcdity  which  could  yet  call  forth  its  existence, 
arid  by  virtue  of  which  such  stupendous  power  as  is  de 
manded  for  the  production  and  maintenance  of  such  a 
world  could  be  directed  so  much  against  its  own  interest. 
The  philosophical  astonishment  is  therefore  at  bottom  per 
plexed  and  melancholy ;  philosophy,  like  the  overture  to 
"  Don  Juan,"  commences  with  a  minor  chord.  It  follows 
from  this  that  it  can  neither  be  Spinozism  nor  optimism. 
The  more  special  nature,  which  has  just  been  indicated, 
of  the  astonishment  which  leads  us  to  philosophise  clearly 
springs  from  the  sight  of  the  suffering  and  the  wickedness 
in  the  world,  which,  even  if  they  were  in  the  most  just 
proportion  to  each  other,  and  also  were  far  outweighed 
by  good,  are  yet  something  which  absolutely  and  in  gene 
ral  ought  not  to  be.  But  since  now  nothing  can  come 
out  of  nothing,  these  also  must  have  their  germ  in  the 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  375 

origin  or  in  the  kernel  of  the  world  itself.  It  is  hard  for 
us  to  assume  this  if  we  look  at  the  magnitude,  the  order 
and  completeness,  of  the  physical  world,  for  it  seems  to  us 
that  what  had  the  power  to  produce  such  a  world  must 
have  been  able  to  avoid  the  suffering  and  the  wickedness. 
That  assumption  (the  truest  expression  of  which  is  Or- 
muzd  and  Ahrimines),  it  is  easy  to  conceive,  is  hardest  of 
all  for  Theism.  Therefore  the  freedom  of  the  will  was 
primarily  invented  to  account  for  wickedness.  But  this 
is  only  a  concealed  way  of  making  something  out  of 
nothing,  for  it  assumes  an  Operari  that  proceeded  from 
no  Esse  (see  Die  beiden  Grrundprobleme  der  Ethik,  p.  58, 
et  seq.  ;  second  edition,  p.  57  et  seq.)  Then  it  was  sought  to 
get  rid  of  evil  by  attributing  it  to  matter,  or  to  unavoid 
able  necessity,  whereby  the  devil,  who  is  really  the  right 
Expedicns  ad  hoc,  was  unwillingly  set  aside.  To  evil  also 
belongs  death;  but  wickedness  is  only  the  throwing  of  the 
existing  evil  from  oneself  on  to  another.  Thus,  as  was  said 
above,  it  is  wickedness,  evil,  and  death  that  qualify  and 
intensify  the  philosophical  astonishment.  Not  merely 
that  the  world  exists,  but  still  more  that  it  is  such  a 
wretched  world,  is  the  punctum  pruriens  of  metaphysics, 
the  problem  which  awakens  in  mankind  an  unrest  that 
cannot  be  quieted  by  scepticism  nor  yet  by  criticism. 

We  find  physics  also  (in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word) 
occupied  with  the  explanation  of  the  phenomena  in  the 
world.  But  it  lies  in  the  very  nature  of  its  explanations 
themselves  that  they  cannot  be  sufficient.  Physics  cannot 
stand  on  its  own  feet,  but  requires  a  metaphysic  to  lean 
upon,  whatever  airs  it  may  give  itself  towards  the  latter. 
For  it  explains  the  phenomena  by  something  still  more 
unknown  than  they  are  themselves ;  by  laws  of  nature, 
resting  upon  forces  of  nature,  to  which  the  power  of  life 
also  belongs.  Certainly  the  whole  present  condition  of 
all  things  in  the  world,  or  in  nature,  must  necessarily  be 
explicable  from  purely  physical  causes.  But  such  an  ex 
planation — supposing  one  actually  succeeded  so  far  as  to 


3?6  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

be  able  to  give  it — must  always  just  as  necessarily  be 
tainted  with  two  imperfections  (as  it  were  with  two  sores, 
or  like  Achilles  with  the  vulnerable  heel,  or  the  devil 
with  the  horse's  hoof),  on  account  of  which  everything  so 
explained  really  remains  still  unexplained.  First  with 
this  imperfection,  that  the  'beginning  of  every  explanatory 
chain  of  causes  and  effects,  i.e.,  of  connected  changes,  can 
absolutely  never  be  reached,  but,  just  like  the  limits  of  the 
world  in  space  and  time,  unceasingly  recedes  in  infinite. 
Secondly  with  this,  that  the  whole  of  the  efficient  causes 
out  of  which  everything  is  explained  constantly  rest  upon 
something  which  is  completely  inexplicable,  the  original 
qualities  of  things  and  the  natural  forces  which  play  a 
prominent  part  among  them,  by  virtue  of  which  they  pro 
duce  a  specific  kind  of  effect,  e.g.,  weight,  hardness,  impul 
sive  force,  elasticity,  warmth,  electricity,  chemical  forces 
&c.,  and  which  now  remain  in  every  explanation  which  is 
given,  like  an  unknown  quantity,  which  absolutely  cannot 
be  eliminated,  in  an  otherwise  perfectly  solved  algebraical 
equation.  Accordingly  there  is  no  fragment  of  clay,  how 
ever  little  worth,  that  is  not  entirely  composed  of  inex 
plicable  qualities.  Thus  these  .two  inevitable  defects  in 
every  purely  physical,  i.e.,  causal,  explanation  show  that 
such  an  explanation  can  only  be  relative,  and  that  its 
whole  method  and  nature  cannot  be  the  only  one,  the 
ultimate  and  thus  the  sufficient  one,  i.e.,  cannot  be  the 
method  of  explanation  that  can  ever  lead  to  the  satis 
factory  solution  of  the  difficult  riddle  of  things,  and  to  the 
true  understanding  of  the  world  and  existence ;  but  that 
the  physical  explanation  in  general  and  as  such  requires 
further  a  metaphysical  explanation,  which  affords  us  the 
key  to  all  its  assumptions,  but  just  on  this  account  must 
necessarily  follow  quite  a  different  path.  The  first  step 
to  this  is  that  one  should  bring  to  distinct  consciousness 
and  firmly  retain  the  difference  of  the  two,  hence  the 
difference  between  physics  and  metaphysics.  It  rests  in 
general  on  the  Kantian  distinction  between  phenomenon 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  377 

and  thing  in  itself.  'Just  because  Kant  held  the  latter  to 
be  absolutely  unknowable,  there  was,  according  to  him, 
no  metaphysics,  but  merely  immanent  knowledge,  i.e.,  phy 
sics,  which  throughout  can  speak  only  of  phenomena,  and 
also  a  critique  of  the  reason  which  strives  after  metaphy 
sics.  Here,  however,  in  order  to  show  the  true  point  of 
connection  between  my  philosophy  and  that  of  Kant,  I 
shall  anticipate  the  second  book,  and  give  prominence  to 
the  fact  that  Kant,  in  his  beautiful  exposition  of  the  com 
patibility  of  freedom  and  necessity  (Critique  of  Pure 
Eeason,  first  edition,  p.  532-554;  and  Critique  of  Prac 
tical  Pieason,  p.  224-231  of  Rosenkranz's  edition),  shows 
how  one  and  the  same  action  may  in  one  aspect  be  per 
fectly  explicable  as  necessarily  arising  from  the  character 
of  the  man,  the  influence  to  which  he  has  been  subject  in 
the  course  of  his  life,  and  the  motives  which  are  now  pre 
sent  to  him,  but  yet  in  another  aspect  must  be  regarded 
as  the  work  of  his  free  will ;  and  in  the  same  sense  he 
says,  §  53  of  the  "  Prolegomena  :"  "  Certainly  natural  neces 
sity  will  belong  to  every  connection  of  cause  and  effect  in 
the  world  of  sense  ;  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  freedom  will  be 
conceded  to  that  cause  which  is  not  itself  a  phenomenon 
(though  indeed  it  is  the  ground  of  phenomena),  thus 
nature  and  freedom  may  without  contradiction  be  attri 
buted  to  the  same  thing,  but  in  a  different  reference — in 
the  one  case  as  a  phenomenon,  in  the  other  case  as  a  thing 
in  itself."  What,  then,  Kant  teaches  of  the  phenomenon  of 
man  and  his  action  my  teaching  extends  to  all  phenomena 
in  nature,  in  that  it  makes  the  will  as  a  thing  in  itself 
their  foundation.  This  proceeding  is  justified  first  of  all 
by  the  fact  that  it  must  not  be  assumed  that  man  is 
specifically  toto  genere  radically  different  from  the  other 
beings  and  things  in  nature,  but  rather  that  he  is  different 
only  in  degree.  I  turn  back  from  this  premature  digres 
sion  to  our  consideration  of  the  inadequacy  of  physics  to 
afford  us  the  ultimate  explanation  of  things.  I  say,  then, 
everything  certainly  is  physical,  but  yet  nothing  is  explic- 


378  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

able  physically.  As  for  the  motion  of  the  projected  bullet,  so 
also  for  the  thinking  of  the  brain,  a  physical  explanation 
must  ultimately  be  in  itself  possible,  which  would  make  the 
latter  just  as  comprehensible  as  is  the  former.  But  even 
the  former,  which  we  imagine  we  understand  so  perfectly, 
is  at  bottom  as  obscure  to  us  as  the  latter ;  for  what  the 
inner  nature  of  expansion  in  space  may  be — of  impenetra 
bility,  mobility,  hardness,  elasticity,  and  gravity  remains, 
after  all  physical  explanations,  a  mystery,  just  as  much  as 
thought.  But  because  in  the  case  of  thought  the  inexplic 
able  appears  most  immediately,  a  spring  was  at  once  made 
here  from  physics  to  metaphysics,  and  a  substance  of  quite 
a  different  kind  from  all  corporeal  substances  was  hypos- 
tatised — a  soul  was  set  up  in  the  brain.  But  if  one  had 
not  been  so  dull  as  only  to  be  capable  of  being  struck  by 
the  most  remarkable  of  phenomena,  one  would  have  had 
to  explain  digestion  by  a  soul  in  the  stomach,  vegetation 
by  a  soul  in  the  plant,  affinity  by  a  soul  in  the  reagents, 
nay,  the  falling  of  a  stone  by  a  soul  in  the  stone.  For  the 
quality  of  every  unorganised  body  is  just  as  mysterious  as 
the  life  in  the  living  body.  In  the  same  way,  therefore, 
the  physical  explanation  strikes  everywhere  upon  what  is 
metaphysical,  by  which  it  is  annihilated,  i.e.,  it  ceases  to 
be  explanation.  Strictly  speaking,  it  may  be  asserted  that 
no  natural  science  really  achieves  anything  more  than 
what  is  also  achieved  by  Botany :  the  bringing  together  of 
similars,  classification.  A  physical  system  which  asserted 
that  its  explanations  of  things — in  the  particular  from 
causes,  and  in  general  from  forces — were  really  sufficient, 
and  thus  exhausted  the  nature  of  the  world,  would  be 
the  true  Naturalism.  From  Leucippus,  Dernocritus,  and 
Epicurus  down  to  the  Systeme  de  la  Nature,  and  further, 
to  Delamark,  Cabanis,  and  to  the  materialism  that  has 
again  been  warmed  up  in  the  last  few  years,  we  can  trace 
the  persistent  attempt  to  set  up  a  system  of  physics  without 
metaphysics,  that  is,  a  system  which  would  make  the 
phenomenon  the  thing  in  itself.  But  all  their  explana- 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  379 

tions  seek  to  conceal  from  the  explainers  themselves  and 
from  others  that  they  simply  assume  the  principal  matter 
without  more  ado.  They  endeavour  to  show  that  all 
phenomena,  even  those  of  mind,  are  physical.  And  they 
are  right ;  only  they  do  not  see  that  all  that  is  physical  is 
in  another  aspect  also  metaphysical.  But,  without  Kant, 
this  is  indeed  difficult  to  see,  for  it  presupposes  the  dis 
tinction  of  the  phenomenon  from  the  thing  in  itself.  Yet 
without  this  Aristotle,  much  as  he  was  inclined  to  empiri 
cism,  and  far  as  he  was  removed  from  the  Platonic  hyper- 
physics,  kept  himself  free  from  this  limited  point  of  view. 
He  says  :  "  Ei  /ACV  ovv  pi)  can  T*<?  erepa  ovaia  Trapa  ret? 
(f>va€i  avveo-Trj/cvias,  rj  (frvcriKi}  av  eirj  TrpUtTTj  eTTiarrj/j-Tf]'  et  Be 
eari  T*$  ovcria  afctvrjTos,  avrr)  TT  pore  pa  Kai  <f>i\ocro(f>ia  Trpayrfj, 
Kai  Kado\ov  euro)?,  <m  irpatTr)'  KCLI  irept,  TOV  ovros  77  ov, 
TCIVTIJS  av  en)  OeatpTja-ai."  (Si  igitur  non  est  aliqua  alia  sub- 
stantia,  prceter  eas,  quce  natura  consistunt,  physica  profecto 
prima  scientia  esset :  quodsi  autem  est  aliqua  substantia 
immobilis,  hcec  prim*  et  philosopliia  prima,  et  universalis  sic, 
quod  prima  ;  et  de  ente,  prout  ens  est,  speculari  hujus  est), 
"Metaph.,"v.  I.  Such  an  absolute  system  of  physics  as  is 
described  above,  which  leaves  room  for  no  metaphysics, 
would  make  the  Natura  naturata  into  the  Natura  natu- 
rans ;  it  would  be  physics  established  on  the  throne  of 
metaphysics,  yet  it  would  comport  itself  in  this  high 
position  almost  like  Holberg's  theatrical  would-be  poli 
tician  who  was  made  burgomaster.  Indeed  behind  the 
reproach  of  atheism,  in  itself  absurd,  and  for  the  most 
part  malicious,  there  lies,  as  its  inner  meaning  and  truth, 
which  gives  it  strength,  the  obscure  conception  of  such  an 
absolute  system  of  physics  without  metaphysics.  Certainly 
such  a  system  would  necessarily  be  destructive  of  ethics ; 
and  while  Theism  has  falsely  been  held  to  be  inseparable 
from  morality,  this  is  really  true  only  of  metaphysics  in 
general,  i.e.,  of  the  knowledge  that  the  order  of  nature  is 
not  the  only  and  absolute  order  of  things.  Therefore  we 
may  set  up  this  as  the  necessary  Credo  of  all  just  and 


380  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

good  men  :  "  I  believe  in  metaphysics."     In  this  respect  it 
is  important  and  necessary  that  one  should  convince  one 
self  of  the  untenable  nature  of  an  absolute  system  of  physics, 
all  the  more  as  this,  the  true  naturalism,  is  a  point  of  view 
which  of  its  own  accord  and  ever  anew  presses  itself  upon 
a  man,  and  can  only  be  done  away  with  through  profound 
speculation.    In  this  respect,  however,  all  kinds  of  systems 
and  faiths,  so  far  and  so  long  as  they  are  accepted,  certainly 
serve  as  a  substitute  for  such  speculation.     But  that  a 
fundamentally  false  view  presses  itself  upon  man  of  its 
own  accord,  and  must  first  be  skilfully  removed,  is  explic 
able  from  the  fact  that  the  intellect  is  not   originally 
intended  to  instruct  us  concerning  the  nature  of  things, 
but  only  to  show  us  their  relations,  with  reference  to  our 
will ;  it  is,  as  we  shall  find  in  the  second  book,  only  the 
medium  of  motives.     Now,  that  the  world  schematises 
itself  in  the  intellect  in  a  manner  which  exhibits  quite  a 
different  order  of  things  from  the  absolutely  true  one, 
because  it  shows  us,  not  their  kernel,  but  only  their  outer 
shell,   happens   accidentally,   and   cannot   be   used   as    a 
reproach  to  the  intellect;  all  the  less  as  it  nevertheless 
finds  in  itself  the  means  of  rectifying  this  error,  in  that  it 
arrives  at  the  distinction  between  the  phenomenal  appear 
ance  and  the  inner  being  of    things,   which   distinction 
existed  in  substance  at  all  times,  only  for  the  most  part 
was  very  imperfectly  brought  to  consciousness,  and  there 
fore  was  inadequately  expressed,  indeed  often  appeared  in 
strange  clothing.     The  Christian  mystics,  when  they  call 
it  the  light  of  nature,  declare  the  intellect  to  be  inadequate 
to  the  comprehension  of  the  true  nature  of  things.     It  is, 
as  it  were,  a  mere  surface  force,  like  electricity,  and  does 
not  penetrate  to  the  inner  being. 

The  insufficiency  of  pure  naturalism  appears,  as  we  have 
said,  first  of  all,  on  the  empirical  path  itself,  through  the 
circumstance  that  every  physical  explanation  explains  the 
particular  from  its  cause ;  but  the  chain  of  these  causes,  as 
we  know  a  priori,  and  therefore  with  perfect  certainty, 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  381 

runs  back  to  infinity,  so  that  absolutely  no  cause  could 

ever  be  the  first.     Then,  however,  the  effect  of  every  cause 

is  referred  to  a  law  of  nature,  and  this  finally  to  a  force  of 

nature,  which  now  remains  as  the  absolutely  inexplicable. 

But  this  inexplicable,  to  which  all  phenomena  of  this  so 

clearly  given  and  naturally  explicable  world,  from   the 

highest  to  the  lowest,  are  referred,  just  shows  that  the 

whole  nature  of  such  explanation  is  only  conditional,  as 

it  were  only  ex  concessis,  and  by  no  means  the  true  and 

sufficient   one ;    therefore  I  said   above   that   physically 

everything  and  nothing  is   explicable.     That   absolutely 

inexplicable  element  which  pervades  all  phenomena,  which 

is  most  striking  in  the  highest,  e.g.,  in  generation,  but  yet 

is  just  as  truly  present  in  the  lowest,  e.g.,  in  mechanical 

phenomena,  points  to  an  entirely  different  kind  of  order 

of  things  lying  at  the  foundation  of  the  physical  order, 

which  is  just  what  Kant  calls  the  order  of   things  in 

themselves,  and  which  is  the  goal  of  metaphysics.     But, 

secondly,  the  insufficiency  of  pure  naturalism  comes  out 

clearly  from  that  fundamental  philosophical  truth,  which 

we  have  fully  considered  in  the  first  half  of  this  book,  and 

which  is  also  the  theme  of  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason ;" 

the  truth  that  every  object,  both  as  regards  its  objective 

existence  in  general  and  as  regards  the  manner  (forms)  of 

this  existence,  is  throughout  conditioned  by  the  knowing 

subject,  hence  is  merely  a  phenomenon,  not  a  thing  in 

itself.     This  is  explained  in  §  7  of  the  first  volume,  and  it 

is  there  shown  that  nothing  can  be  more  clumsy  than  that, 

after  the  manner  of  all  materialists,  one  should  blindly  take 

the  objective  as  simply  given  in  order  to  derive  everything 

from  it  without  paying  any  regard  to  the  subjective,  through 

which,  however,  nay,  in  which  alone  the  former  exists. 

Samples  of  this  procedure  are  most  readily  afforded  us 

by  the  fashionable  materialism  of  our  own  day,  which 

has  thereby  become  a  philosophy  well  suited  for  barbers' 

and  apothecaries'  apprentices.      For  it,  in  its  innocence, 

matter,  assumed  without  reflection  as  absolutely  real,  is 


382  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

the  thing  in  self,  and  the  one  capacity  of  a  thing  in  itself 
is  impulsive  force,  for  all  other  qualities  can  only  be  mani 
festations  of  this. 

With  naturalism,  then,  or  the  purely  physical  way  of 
looking  at  things,  we  shall  never  attain  our  end ;  it  is  like 
a  sum  that  never  comes  out.  Causal  series  without  begin 
ning  or  end,  fundamental  forces  which  are  inscrutable, 
endless  space,  beginningless  time,  infinite  divisibility  of 
matter,  and  all  this  further  conditioned  by  a  knowing 
brain,  in  which  alone  it  exists  just  like  a  dream,  and 
without  which  it  vanishes — constitute  the  labyrinth  in 
which  naturalism  leads  us  ceaselessly  round.  The  height 
to  which  in  our  time  the  natural  sciences  have  risen  in 
this  respect  entirely  throws  into  the  shade  all  previous 
centuries,  and  is  a  summit  which  mankind  reaches  for  the 
first  time.  But  however  great  are  the  advances  which 
physics  (understood  in  the  wide  sense  of  the  ancients) 
may  make,  not  the  smallest  step  towards  metaphysics  is 
thereby  taken,  just  as  a  plane  can  never  obtain  cubical 
content  by  being  indefinitely  extended.  For  all  such 
advances  will  only  perfect  our  knowledge  of  the  pheno 
menon;  while  metaphysics  strives  to  pass  beyond  the 
phenomenal  appearance  itself,  to  that  which  so  appears. 
And  if  indeed  it  had  the  assistance  of  an  entire  and  com 
plete  experience,  it  would,  as  regards  the  main  point,  be 
in  no  way  advantaged  by  it.  Nay,  even  if  one  wandered 
through  all  the  planets  and  fixed  stars,  one  would  thereby 
have  made  no  step  in  metaphysics.  It  is  rather  the  case 
that  the  greatest  advances  of  physics  will  make  the  need 
of  metaphysics  ever  more  felt ;  for  it  is  just  the  corrected, 
extended,  and  more  thorough  knowledge  of  nature  which, 
on  the  one  hand,  always  undermines  and  ultimately  over 
throws  the  metaphysical  assumptions  which  till  then  have 
prevailed,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  presents  the  problem 
of  metaphysics  itself  more  distinctly,  more  correctly,  and 
more  fully,  and  separates  it  more  clearly  from  all  that 
is  merely  physical;  moreover,  the  more  perfectly  and 


OiV  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  383 

accurately  known  nature  of  the  particular  thing  more 
pressingly  demands  the  explanation  of  the  whole  and  the 
general,  which,  the  more  correctly,  thoroughly,  and  com 
pletely  it  is  known  empirically,  only  presents  itself  as  the 
more  mysterious.  Certainly  the  individual,  simple  inves 
tigator  of  nature,  in  a  special  branch  of  physics,  does  not  at 
once  become  clearly  conscious  of  all  this  ;  he  rather  sleeps 
contentedly  by  the  side  of  his  chosen  maid,  in  the  house 
of  Odysseus,  banishing  all  thoughts  of  Penelope  (cf.  ch.  12 
at  the  end).  Hence  we  see  at  the  present  day  the  husk 
of  nature  investigated  in  its  minutest  details,  the  intes 
tines  of  intestinal  worms  and  the  vermin  of  vermin  known 
to  a  nicety.  But  if  some  one  comes,  as,  for  example,  I 
do,  and  speaks  of  the  kernel  of  nature,  they  will  not  listen  ; 
they  even  think  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter,  and 
go  on  sifting  their  husks.  One  finds  oneself  tempted  to 
call  that  over-microscopical  and  micrological  investigator 
of  nature  the  cotquean  of  nature.  But  those  persons  who 
believe  that  crucibles  and  retorts  are  the  true  and  only 
source  of  all  wisdom  are  in  their  own  way  just  as  per 
verse  as  were  formerly  their  antipodes  the  Scholastics. 
As  the  latter,  absolutely  confined  to  their  abstract  con 
ceptions,  used  these  as  their  weapons,  neither  knowing 
nor  investigating  anything  outside  them,  so  the  former, 
absolutely  confined  to  their  empiricism,  allow  nothing  to 
be  true  except  what  their  eyes  behold,  and  believe  they 
can  thus  arrive  at  the  ultimate  ground  of  things,  not 
discerning  that  between  the  phenomenon  and  that  which 
manifests  itself  in  it,  the  thing  in  itself,  there  is  a  deep 
gulf,  a  radical  difference,  which  can  only  be  cleared  up  by 
the  knowledge  and  accurate  delimitation  of  the  subjective 
element  of  the  phenomenon,  and  the  insight  that  the 
ultimate  and  most  important  conclusions  concerning  the 
nature  of  things  can  only  be  drawn  from  self-conscious 
ness  ;  yet  without  all  this  one  cannot  advance  a  step 
beyond  what  is  directly  given  to  the  senses,  thus  can  get 
no  further  than  to  the  problem.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand, 


384  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  most  perfect  possible  know 
ledge  of  nature  is  the  corrected  statement  of  the  problem  of 
metaphysics.  Therefore  no  one  ought  to  venture  upon 
this  without  having  first  acquired  a  knowledge  of  all  the 
branches  of  natural  science,  which,  though  general,  shall 
be  thorough,  clear,  and  connected.  For  the  problem  must 
precede  its  solution.  Then,  however,  the  investigator 
must  turn  his  glance  inward ;  for  the  intellectual  and 
ethical  phenomena  are  more  important  than  the  physical, 
in  the  same  proportion  as,  for  example,  animal  magnetism 
is  a  far  more  important  phenomenon  than  mineral  mag 
netism.  The  last  fundamental  secret  man  carries  within 
himself,  and  this  is  accessible  to  him  in  the  most  imme 
diate  manner ;  therefore  it  is  only  here  that  he  can  hope 
to  find  the  key  to  the  riddle  of  the  world  and  gain  a  clue 
to  the  nature  of  all  things.  The  special  province  of  meta 
physics  thus  certainly  lies  in  what  has  been  called  mental 
philosophy. 

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

Then  to  the  cave  secure  thou  leadest  me, 

Then  show'st  me  mine  own  self,  and  in  my  breast 

The  deep,  mysterious  miracles  unfold." 1 

Finally,  then,  as  regards  the  source  or  the  foundation  of 
metaphysical  knowledge,  I  have  already  declared  myself 
above  to  be  opposed  to  the  assumption,  which  is  even  re 
peated  by  Kant,  that  it  must  lie  in  mere  conceptions.  In 
no  knowledge  can  conceptions  be  what  is  first ;  for  they 
are  always  derived  from  some  perception.  What  has 
led,  however,  to  that  assumption  is  probably  the  example 
of  mathematics.  Mathematics  can  leave  perception  alto 
gether,  and,  as  is  especially  the  case  in  algebra,  trigono 
metry,  and  analysis,  can  operate  with  purely  abstract 
conceptions,  nay,  with  conceptions  which  are  represented 

:  [Bayard  Taylor's  translation  of  Faust,  vol.  i.  180.     Trs.] 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  385 

only  by  signs  instead  of  words,  and  can  yet  arrive  at  a 
perfectly  certain  result,  which  is  still  so  remote  that  any 
one  who  adhered  to  the  firm  ground  of  perception  could 
not  arrive  at  it.  But  the  possibility  of  this  depends,  as 
Kant  has  clearly  shown,  on  the  fact  that  the  conceptions 
of  mathematics  are  derived  from  the  most  certain  and 
definite  of  all  perceptions,  from  the  a  priori  and  yet  in 
tuitively  known  relations  of  quantity,  and  can  therefore 
be  constantly  realised  again  and  controlled  by  these,  either 
arithmetically,  by  performing  the  calculations  which  are 
merely  indicated  by  those  signs,  or  geometrically,  by  means 
of  what  Kant  calls  the  construction  of  the  conceptions. 
This  advantage,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not  possessed  by  the 
conceptions  out  of  which  it  was  believed  metaphysics  could 
be  built  up  ;  such,  for  example,  as  essence,  being,  substance, 
perfection,  necessity,  reality, finite, infinite,  absolute, ground, 
&c.  For  such  conceptions  are  by  no  means  original,  as 
fallen  from  heaven,  or  innate ;  but  they  also,  like  all  con 
ceptions,  are  derived  from  perceptions  ;  and  as,  unlike  the 
conceptions  of  mathematics,  they  do  not  contain  the  mere 
form  of  perception,  but  more,  empirical  perceptions  must 
lie  at  their  foundation.  Thus  nothing  can  be  drawn  from 
them  which  the  empirical  perceptions  did  not  also  contain, 
that  is,  nothing  which  was  not  a  matter  of  experience,  and 
which,  since  these  conceptions  are  very  wide  abstractions, 
we  would  receive  with  much  greater  certainty  at  first 
hand  from  experience.  For  from  conceptions  nothing 
more  can  ever  be  drawn  than  the  perceptions  from  which 
they  are  derived  contain.  If  we  desire  pure  conceptions, 
i.e.,  such  as  have  no  empirical  source,  the  only  ones  that 
can  be  produced  are  those  which  concern  space  and  time, 
i.e.,  the  merely  formal  part  of  perception,  consequently 
only  the  mathematical  conceptions,  or  at  most  also  the 
conception  of  causality,  which  indeed  does  not  originate 
in  experience,  but  yet  only  comes  into  consciousness  by 
means  of  it  (first  in  sense-perception) ;  therefore  experience 
indeed  is  only  possible  by  means  of  it ;  but  it  also  is  only 

VOL.  II.  2  B 


386  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

valid  in  the  sphere  of  experience,  on  which  account  Kant 
has  shown  that  it  only  serves  to  communicate  the  connec 
tion  of  experience,  and  not  to  transcend  it ;  that  thus  it 
admits  only  of  physical  application,  not  of  metaphysical. 
Certainly  only  its  a  priori  origin  can  give  apodictic  certainty 
to  any  knowledge  ;  but  this  limits  it  to  the  mere  form  of 
experience  in  general,  for  it  shows  that  it  is  conditioned 
by  the  subjective  nature  of  the  intellect.  Such  knowledge, 
then,  far  from  taking  us  beyond  experience,  gives  only  one 
part  of  experience  itself,  the  formal  part,  which  belongs 
to  it  throughout,  and  therefore  is  universal,  consequently 
mere  form  without  content.  Since  now  metaphysics  can 
least  of  all  be  confined  to  this,  it  must  have  also  empirical 
sources  of  knowledge ;  therefore  that  preconceived  idea  of 
a  metaphysic  to  be  found  purely  a  priori  is  necessarily  vain. 
It  is  really  a  petitio  principii  of  Kant's,  which  he  expresses 
most  distinctly  in  §  i  of  the  Prolegomena,  that  metaphysics 
must  not  draw  its  fundamental  conceptions  and  principles 
from  experience.  In  this  it  is  assumed  beforehand  that 
only  what  we  knew  before  all  experience  can  extend 
beyond  all  possible  experience.  Supported  by  this,  Kant 
then  comes  and  shows  that  all  such  knowledge  is  nothing 
more  than  the  form  of  the  intellect  for  the  purpose  of 
experience,  and  consequently  can  never  lead  beyond  ex 
perience,  from  which  he  then  rightly  deduces  the  impossi 
bility  of  all  metaphysics.  But  does  it  not  rather  seem 
utterly  perverse  that  in  order  to  discover  the  secret  of 
experience,  i.e.,  of  the  world  which  alone  lies  before  us,  we 
should  look  quite  away  from  it,  ignore  its  content,  and 
take  and  use  for  its  material  only  the  empty  forms  of 
which  we  are  conscious  a  priori  ?  Is  it  not  rather  in 
keeping  with  the  matter  that  the  science  of  experience  in 
general,  and  as  such,  should  also  be  drawn  from  experience  ? 
Its  problem  itself  is  given  it  empirically;  why  should 
not  the  solution  of  it  call  in  the  assistance  of  experience  ? 
Is  it  not  senseless  that  he  who  speaks  of  the  nature  of 
things  should  not  look  at  things  themselves,  but  should 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  387 

confine  himself  to  certain  abstract  conceptions  ?  The  task 
of  metaphysics  is  certainly  not  the  observation  of  particular 
experiences,  but  yet  it  is  the  correct  explanation  of  experi 
ence  as  a  whole.  Its  foundation  must  therefore,  at  any 
rate,  be  of  an  empirical  nature.  Indeed  the  a  priori 
nature  of  a  part  of  human  knowledge  will  be  apprehended 
by  it  as  a  given  fact,  from  which  it  will  infer  the  sub 
jective  origin  of  the  same.  Only  because  the  conscious 
ness  of  its  a  priori  nature  accompanies  it  is  it  called  by 
Kant  transcendental  as  distinguished  from  transcendent, 
which  signifies  "  passing  beyond  all  possibility  of  experi 
ence,"  and  has  its  opposite  in  immanent,  i.e.,  remaining 
within  the  limits  of  experience.  I  gladly  recall  the 
original  meaning  of  this  expression  introduced  by  Kant, 
with  which,  as  also  with  that  of  the  Categories,  and  many 
others,  the  apes  of  philosophy  carry  on  their  game  at  the 
present  day.  Now,  besides  this,  the  source  of  the  know 
ledge  of  metaphysics  is  not  outer  experience  alone,  but 
also  inner.  Indeed,  what  is  most  peculiar  to  it,  that  by 
which  the  decisive  step  which  alone  can  solve  the  great 
question  becomes  possible  for  it,  consists,  as  I  have  fully 
and  thoroughly  proved  in  "  Ueber  den  Willen  in  der  Natur" 
under  the  heading,  " Physische  Astronomie"  in  this,  that 
at  the  right  place  it  combines  outer  experience  with  inner, 
and  uses  the  latter  as  a  key  to  the  former. 

The  origin  of  metaphysics  in  empirical  sources  of 
knowledge,  which  is  here  set  forth,  and  which  cannot 
fairly  be  denied,  deprives  it  certainly  of  that  kind  of 
apodictic  certainty  which  is  only  possible  through  know 
ledge  a  priori.  This  remains  the  possession  of  logic  and 
mathematics — sciences,  however,  which  really  only  teach 
what  every  one  knows  already,  though  not  distinctly.  At 
most  the  primary  elements  of  natural  science  may  also  be 
deduced  from  knowledge  a  priori.  By  this  confession 
metaphysics  only  surrenders  an  ancient  claim,  which, 
according  to  what  has  been  said  above,  rested  upon  mis 
understanding,  and  against  which  the  great  diversity  and 


388  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

changeableness  of  metaphysical  systems,  and  also  the  con 
stantly  accompanying  scepticism,  in  every  age  has  testified. 
Yet  against  the  possibility  of  metaphysics  in  general  this 
changeableness  cannot  be  urged,  for  the  same  thing  affects 
just  as  much  all  branches  of  natural  science,  chemistry, 
physics,  geology,  zoology,  &c.,  and  even  history  has  not 
remained  exempt  from  it.  But  when  once,  as  far  as  the 
limits  of  human  intellect  allow,  a  true  system  of  meta 
physics  shall  have  been  found,  the  unchangeableuess  of  a 
science  which  is  known  a  priori  will  yet  belong  to  it ;  for 
its  foundation  can  only  be  experience  in  general,  and  not 
the  particular  and  special  experiences  by  which,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  natural  sciences  are  constantly  modified 
and  new  material  is  always  being  provided  for  history. 
For  experience  as  a  whole  and  in  general  will  never 
change  its  character  for  a  new  one. 

The  next  question  is :  How  can  a  science  drawn  from 
experience  pass  beyond  it  and  so  merit  the  name  of  meta 
physics  ?  It  cannot  do  so  perhaps  in  the  same  way  as  we 
find  a  fourth  number  from  three  proportionate  ones,  or  a 
triangle  from  two  sides  and  an  angle.  This  was  the  way 
of  the  pre-Kantian  dogmatism,  which,  according  to  certain 
laws  known  to  us  a  priori,  sought  to  reason  from  the  given 
to  the  not  given,  from  the  consequent  to  the  reason,  thus 
from  experience  to  that  which  could  not  possibly  be  given 
in  any  experience.  Kant  proved  the  impossibility  of  a 
metaphysic  upon  this  path,  in  that  he  showed  that  although 
these  laws  were  not  drawn  from  experience,  they  were  only 
valid  for  experience.  He  therefore  rightly  taught  that  in 
such  a  way  we  cannot  transcend  the  possibility  of  all  ex 
perience.  But  there  are  other  paths  to  metaphysics.  The 
whole  of  experience  is  like  a  cryptograph,  and  philosophy 
the  deciphering  of  it,  the  correctness  of  which  is  proved 
by  the  connection  appearing  everywhere.  If  this  whole 
is  only  profoundly  enough  comprehended,  and  the  inner 
experience  is  connected  with  the  outer,  it  must  be  capable 
of  being  interpreted,  explained  from  itself.  Since  Kant 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  389 

has  irrefutably  proved  to  us  that  experience  in  general 
proceeds  from  two  elements,  the  forms  of  knowledge  and 
the  inner  nature  of  things,  and  that  these  two  may  be  dis 
tinguished  in  experience  from  each  other,  as  that  of  which 
we  are  conscious  a  priori  and  that  which  is  added  a  pos 
teriori,  it  is  possible,  at  least  in  general,  to  say,  what  in 
the  given  experience,  which  is  primarily  merely  phenome 
nal,  belongs  to  the  form  of  this  phenomenon,  conditioned 
by  the  intellect,  and  what,  after  deducting  this,  remains 
over  for  the  thing  in  itself.  And  although  no  one  can  dis 
cern  the  thing  in  itself  through  the  veil  of  the  forms  of 
perception,  on  the  other  hand  every  one  carries  it  in  him 
self,  indeed  is  it  himself;  therefore  in  self-consciousness 
it  must  be  in  some  way  accessible  to  him,  even  though 
only  conditionally.  Thus  the  bridge  by  which  meta 
physics  passes  beyond  experience  is  nothing  else  than 
that  analysis  of  experience  into  phenomenon  and  thing 
in  itself  in  which  I  have  placed  Kant's  greatest  merit. 
For  it  contains  the  proof  of  a  kernel  of  the  phenomenon 
different  from  the  phenomenon  itself.  This  can  indeed 
never  be  entirely  separated  from  the  phenomenon  and 
regarded  in  itself  as  an  ens  extramundanum,  but  is  always 
known  only  in  its  relations  to  and  connections  with  the 
phenomenon  itself.  But  the  interpretation  and  explana 
tion  of  the  latter,  in  relation  to  the  former,  which  is  its 
inner  kernel,  is  capable  of  affording  us  information  with 
regard  to  it  which  does  not  otherwise  come  into  conscious 
ness.  In  this  sense,  then,  metaphysics  goes  beyond  the 
phenomenon,  i.e.,  nature,  to  that  which  is  concealed  in  or 
behind  it  (TO  //.era  TO  (fivaiKov),  always  regal-ding  it,  how 
ever,  merely  as  that  which  manifests  itself  in  the  pheno 
menon,  not  as  independent  of  all  phenomenal  appearance  ; 
it  therefore  remains  immanent,  and  does  not  become  tran 
scendent.  For  it  never  disengages  itself  entirelv  from 

o    o  •/ 

experience,  but  remains  merely  its  interpretation  and 
explanation,  since  it  never  speaks  of  the  thing  in  itself 
otherwise  than  in  its  relation  to  the  phenomenon.  This 


390  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XV II. 

at  least  is  the  sense  in  which  I,  with  reference  through 
out  to  the  limitations  of  human  knowledge  proved  by 
Kant,  have  attempted  to  solve  the  problem  of  metaphysics. 
Therefore  his  Prolegomena  to  future  metaphysics  will  be 
valid  and  suitable  for  mine  also.  Accordingly  it  never 
really  goes  beyond  experience,  but  only  discloses  the  true 
understanding  of  the  world  which  lies  before  it  in  experi 
ence.  It  is  neither,  according  to  the  definition  of  meta 
physics  which  even  Kant  repeats,  a  science  of  mere  con 
ceptions,  nor  is  it  a  system  of  deductions  from  a  priori 
principles,  the  uselessness  of  which  for  the  end  of  meta 
physics  has  been  shown  by  Kant.  But  it  is  rational 
knowledge,  drawn  from  perception  of  the  external  actual 
world  and  the  information  which  the  most  intimate  fact 
of  self-consciousness  affords  us  concerning  it,  deposited  in 
distinct  conceptions.  It  is  accordingly  the  science  of  ex 
perience  ;  but  its  subject  and  its  source  is  not  particular 
experiences,  but  the  totality  of  all  experience.  I  com 
pletely  accept  Kant's  doctrine  that  the  world  of  experience 
is  merely  phenomenal,  and  that  the  a  priori  knowledge  is 
valid  only  in  relation  to  phenomena ;  but  I  add  that  just 
as  phenomenal  appearance,  it  is  the  manifestation  of  that 
which  appears,  and  with  him  I  call  this  the  thing  in  itself. 
This  must  therefore  express  its  nature  and  character  in 
the  world  of  experience,  and  consequently  it  must  be 
possible  to  interpret  these  from  this  world,  and  indeed 
from  the  matter,  not  the  mere  form,  of  experience.  Accord 
ingly  philosophy  is  nothing  but  the  correct  and  universal 
understanding  of  experience  itself,  the  true  exposition  of  its 
meaning  and  content.  To  this  the  metaphysical,  i.e.,  that 
which  is  merely  clothed  in  the  phenomenon  and  veiled  in 
its  forms,  is  that  which  is  related  to  it  as  thought  to  words. 
Such  a  deciphering  of  the  world  with  reference  to  that 
which  manifests  itself  in  it  must  receive  its  confirmation 
from  itself,  through  the  agreement  with  each  other  in 
which  it  places  the  very  diverse  phenomena  of  the  world, 
and  which  without  it  we  do  not  perceive.  If  we  find  a 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  391 

document  the  alphabet  of  which  is  unknown,  we  endea 
vour  to  make  it  out  until  we  hit  upon  an  hypothesis  as  to 
the  significance  of  the  letters  in  accordance  with  which 
they  make  up  comprehensible  words  and  connected  sen 
tences.  Then,  however,  there  remains  no  doubt  as  to  the 
correctness  of  the  deciphering,  because  it  is  not  possible 
that  the  agreement  and  connection  in  which  all  the  letters 
of  that  writing  are  placed  by  this  explanation  is  merely 
accidental,  and  that  by  attributing  quite  a  different  value 
to  the  letters  we  could  also  recognise  words  and  sentences 
in  this  arrangement  of  them.  In  the  same  way  the  de 
ciphering  of  the  world  must  completely  prove  itself  from 
itself.  It  must  throw  equal  light  upon  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  world,  and  also  bring  the  most  heterogeneous  into 
agreement,  so  that  the  contradiction  between  those  which 
are  most  in  contrast  may  be  abolished.  This  proof  from 
itself  is  the  mark  of  genuineness.  For  every  false  de 
ciphering,  even  if  it  is  suitable  for  some  phenomena,  will 
conflict  all  the  more  glaringly  with  the  rest.  So,  for 
example,  the  optimism  of  Leibnitz  conflicts  with  the  pal 
pable  misery  of  existence  ;  the  doctrine  of  Spinoza,  that 
the  world  is  the  only  possible  and  absolutely  necessary 
substance,  is  incompatible  with  our  wonder  at  its  exist 
ence  and  nature ;  the  Wolfian  doctrine,  that  man  obtains 
his  Existentia  and  Essentia  from  a  will  foreign  to  himself, 
is  contradicted  by  our  moral  responsibility  for  the  actions 
which  proceed  with  strict  necessity  from  these,  in  conflict 
with  the  motives ;  the  oft-repeated  doctrine  of  the  progres 
sive  development  of  man  to  an  ever  higher  perfection,  or 
in  general  of  any  kind  of  becoming  by  means  of  the  pro 
cess  of  the  world,  is  opposed  to  the  a  priori  knowledge 
that  at  any  point  of  time  an  infinite  time  has  already  run 
its  course,  and  consequently  all  that  is  supposed  to  come 
with  time  would  necessarily  have  already  existed  ;  and  in 
this  way  an  interminable  list  might  be  given  of  the  con 
tradictions  of  dogmatic  assumptions  with  the  given  reality 
of  things.  On  the  other  hand,  I  must  deny  that  any  doc- 


392  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

trine  of  my  philosophy  could  fairly  be  added  to  such  a 
list,  because  each  of  them  has  been  thought  out  in  the 
presence  of  the  perceived  reality,  and  none  of  them  has 
its  root  in  abstract  conceptions  alone.  There  is  yet  in  it 
a  fundamental  thought  which  is  applied  to  all  the  phe 
nomena  of  the  world  as  their  key ;  but  it  proves  itself 
to  be  the  right  alphabet  at  the  application  of  which  all 
words  and  sentences  have  sense  and  significance.  The 
discovered  answer  to  a  riddle  shows  itself  to  be  the  right 
one  by  the  fact  that  all  that  is  said  in  the  riddle  is 
suitable  to  it.  In  the  same  way  my  doctrine  introduces 
agreement  and  connection  into  the  confusion  of  the  con 
trasting  phenomena  of  this  world,  and  solves  the  innume 
rable  contradictions  which,  when  regarded  from  any  other 
point  of  view,  it  presents.  Therefore,  so  far,  it  is  like 
a  sum  that  comes  out  right,  yet  by  no  means  in  the 
sense  that  it  leaves  no  problem  over  to  solve,  no  possible 
question  unanswered.  To  assert  anything  of  that  sort 
would  be  a  presumptuous  denial  of  the  limits  of  human 
knowledge  in  general.  Whatever  torch  we  may  kindle, 
and  whatever  space  it  may  light,  our  horizon  will  always 
remain  bounded  by  profound  night.  For  the  ultimate 
solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  world  must  necessarily  be 
concerned  with  the  things  in  themselves,  no  longer  with 
the  phenomena.  But  all  our  forms  of  knowledge  are 
adapted  to  the  phenomena  alone ;  therefore  we  must  com 
prehend  everything  through  coexistence,  succession,  and 
causal  relations.  These  forms,  however,  have  meaning 
and  significance  only  with  reference  to  the  phenomenon  ; 
the  things  in  themselves  and  their  possible  relations  can 
not  be  apprehended  by  means  of  those  forms.  Therefore 
the  actual,  positive  solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  world 
must  be  something  that  human  intellect  is  absolutely 
incapable  of  grasping  and  thinking ;  so  that  if  a  being  of 
a  higher  kind  were  to  come  and  take  all  pains  to  impart 
it  to  us,  we  would  be  absolutely  incapable  of  understand 
ing  anything  of  his  expositions.  Those,  therefore,  who  pro- 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  393 

fess  to  know  the  ultimate,  i.e.,  the  first  ground  of  things, 
thus  a  primordial  being,  an  absolute,  or  whatever  else 
they  choose  to  call  it,  together  with  the  process,  the 
reasons,  motives,  or  whatever  it  may  be,  in  consequence 
of  which  the  world  arises  from  it,  or  springs,  or  falls,  or 
is  produced,  set  in  existence,  "discharged,"  and  ushered 
forth,  are  playing  tricks,  are  vain  boasters,  when  indeed 
they  are  not  charlatans. 

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

If,  as  so  often  happens,  metaphysics  is  reproached  with 
having  made  so  little  progress,  it  ought  also  to  be  con 
sidered  that  no  other  science  has  grown  up  like  it  under 


394  FIRST  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVII. 

constant  oppression,  none  has  been  so  hampered  and 
hindered  from  without  as  it  has  always  been  by  the 
religion  of  every  land,  which,  everywhere  in  possession  of 
a  monopoly  of  metaphysical  knowledge,  regards  meta 
physics  as  a  weed  growing  beside  it,  as  an  unlicensed 
worker,  as  a  horde  of  gipsies,  and  as  a  rule  tolerates  it 
only  under  the  condition  that  it  accommodates  itself  to 
serve  and  follow  it.  For  where  has  there  ever  been  true 
freedom  of  thought  ?  It  has  been  vaunted  sufficiently ; 
but  whenever  it  wishes  to  go  further  than  perhaps  to 
differ  about  the  subordinate  dogmas  of  the  religion  of  the 
country,  a  holy  shudder  seizes  the  prophets  of  tolerance, 
and  they  say :  "  Not  a  step  further !  "  What  progress  of 
metaphysics  was  possible  under  such  oppression  ?  Nay, 
this  constraint  which  the  privileged  metaphysics  exercises 
is  not  confined  to  the  communication  of  thoughts,  but 
extends  to  thinking  itself,  for  its  dogmas  are  so  firmly 
imprinted  in  the  tender,  plastic,  trustful,  and  thoughtless 
age  of  childhood,  with  studied  solemnity  and  serious  airs, 
that  from  that  time  forward  they  grow  with  the  brain,  and 
almost  assume  the  nature  of  innate  thoughts,  which  some 
philosophers  have  therefore  really  held  them  to  be,  and 
still  more  have  pretended  to  do  so.  Yet  nothing  can  so 
firmly  resist  the  comprehension  of  even  the  problem  of 
metaphysics  as  a  previous  solution  of  it  intruded  upon 
and  early  implanted  in  the  mind.  For  the  necessary 
starting-point  for  all  genuine  philosophy  is  the  deep 
feeling  of  the  Socratic :  "  This  one  thing  I  know,  that  I 
know  nothing."  The  ancients  were  in  this  respect  in  a 
better  position  than  we  are,  for  their  national  religions 
certainly  limited  somewhat  the  imparting  of  thoughts ;  but 
they  did  not  interfere  with  the  freedom  of  thought  itself, 
because  they  were  not  formally  and  solemnly  impressed 
upon  children,  and  in  general  were  not  taken  so  seriously. 
Therefore  in  metaphysics  the  ancients  are  still  our 
teachers. 

Whenever  metaphysics  is  reproached  with  its  small  pro- 


ON  MAN'S  NEED  OF  METAPHYSICS.  395 

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

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


"  '  Ihr  folget  falscher  Spur, 

Denkt  nicht,  wir  scherzen  ! 
1st  nicht  der  Kern  der  Natur 
Menschen  im  Herzen  ?  ' ': 

— GOETHE. 


SUPPLEMENTS  TO  THE  SECOND  BOOK. 

CHAPTER  XVIII.1 

ON   THE   POSSIBILITY   OF  KNOWING   THE  THING  IN  ITSELF. 

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

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


4co  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVIII. 

them;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  I  here  take  for  granted 
that  it  is  known,  for  otherwise  the  very  best  would  be 
wanting. 

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

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

Whether,  on  the  other  hand,  through  further  processes 


ON  KNOWING  THE  THING  IN  ITSELF.  401 

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

If,  however,  it  should  be  said :  "  The  perception  is  itself 
the  knowledge  of  the  thing  in  itself:  for  it  is  the  effect  of  that 
which  is  outside  of  us,  and  as  this  acts,  so  it  is :  its  action 
is  just  its  being;"  to  this  we  reply:  (i.)  that  the  law  of 
causality,  as  has  been  sufficiently  proved,  is  of  subjective 
origin,  as  well  as  the  sensation  from  which  the  perception 
arises ;  (2.)  that  at  any  rate  time  and  space,  in  which  the 
object  presents  itself,  are  of  subjective  origin ;  (3.)  that  if 
the  being  of  the  object  consists  simply  in  its  action,  this 

VOL.  II.  2  C 


402  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVIII. 

means  that  it  consists  merely  in  the  changes  which  it 
brings  about  in  others ;  therefore  itself  and  in  itself  it  is 
nothing  at  all.  Only  of  matter  is  it  true,  as  I  have  said  in 
the  text,  and  worked  out  in  the  essay  on  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason,  at  the  end  of  §  21,  that  its  being  consists 
in  its  action,  that  it  is  through  and  through  only  causa 
lity,  thus  is  itself  causality  objectively  regarded ;  hence, 
however,  it  is  also  nothing  in  itself  (77  V\T}  TO  a\rjdivov 
•\|ret>So9,  materiel  mendacium  verax),  but  as  an  ingredient 
in  the  perceived  object,  is  a  mere  abstraction,  which 
for  itself  alone  can  be  given  in  no  experience.  It  will 
be  fully  considered  later  on  in  a  chapter  of  its  own. 
But  the  perceived  object  must  be  something  in  itself, 
and  not  merely  something  for  others.  For  otherwise  it 
would  be  altogether  merely  idea,  and  we  would  have  an 
absolute  idealism,  which  would  ultimately  become  theo 
retical  egoism.,  with  which  all  reality  disappears  and  the 
world  becomes  a  mere  subjective  phantasm.  If,  however, 
without  further  question,  we  stop  altogether  at  the  world 
as  idea,  then  certainly  it  is  all  one  whether  I  explain 
objects  as  ideas  in  my  head  or  as  phenomena  exhibiting 
themselves  in  time  and  space ;  for  time  and  space  them 
selves  exist  only  in  my  head.  In  this  sense,  then,  an 
identity  of  the  ideal  and  the  real  might  always  be  affirmed  ; 
only,  after  Kant,  this  would  not  be  saying  anything  new. 
Besides  this,  however,  the  nature  of  things  and  of  the  phe 
nomenal  world  would  clearly  not  be  thereby  exhausted ; 
but  with  it  we  would  always  remain  still  upon  the  ideal 
side.  The  real  side  must  be  something  toto  genere  diffe 
rent  from  the  world  as  idea,  it  must  be  that  which  things 
are  in  themselves;  and  it  is  this  entire  diversity  between 
the  ideal  and  the  real  which  Kant  has  proved  in  the  most 
thorough  manner. 

Locke  had  denied  to  the  senses  the  knowledge  of  things 
as  they  are  in  themselves ;  but  Kant  denied  this  also  to 
the  perceiving  understanding,  under  which  name  I  here 
comprehend  what  he  calls  the  pure  sensibility,  and,  as  it 


ON  KNOWING  THE  THING  IN  ITSELF.  403 

is  given  a  priori,  the  law  of  causality  which  brings  abcmt 
the  empirical  perception.     Not  only  are  both  right,  but  we 
can  also  see  quite  directly  that  a  contradiction  lies  in  the 
assertion  that  a  thing  is  known  as  it  is  in  and  for  itself,  i.e., 
outside  of  knowledge.     For  all  knowing  is,  as  we  have  said, 
essentially  a  perceiving  of  ideas ;  but  my  perception  of  ideas, 
just  because  it  is  mine,  can  never  be  identical  with  the  inner 
nature  of  the  thing  outside  of  me.     The  being  in  and  for 
itself,  of  everything,  must  necessarily  be  subjective  ;  in  the 
idea  of  another,  however,  it  exists  just  as  necessarily  as 
objective — a  difference  which  can  never  be  fully  reconciled. 
For  by  it  the  whole  nature  of  its  existence  is  fundamentally 
changed ;  as  objective  it  presupposes  a  foreign  subject,  as 
whose  idea  it  exists,  and,  moreover,  as  Kant  has  shown, 
has  entered  forms  which  are  foreign  to  its  own  nature, 
just  because  they  belong  to  that  foreign  subject,  whose 
knowledge  is  only  possible  by  means  of  them.     If  I,  ab 
sorbed  in  this  reflection,  perceive,  let  us  say  lifeless  bodies, 
of  easily  surveyed  magnitude  and  regular,  comprehensible 
form,  and  now  attempt  to  conceive  this  spatial  existence, 
in  its  three  dimensions,  as  their  being  in  itself,  consequently 
as  the  existence  which  to  the  things  is  subjective,  the  im 
possibility  of  the  thing  is  at  once  apparent  to  me,  for  I  can 
never  think  those  objective  forms  as  the  being  which  to 
the  things  is  subjective,  rather  I  become  directly  conscious 
that  what  I  there  perceive  is  only  a  picture  produced  in 
my  brain,  and  existing  only  for  me  as  the  knowing  subject, 
which  cannot  constitute  the  ultimate,  and  therefore  sub 
jective,  being  in  and  for  itself  of  even  these  lifeless  bodies. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  I  must  not  assume  that  even  these 
lifeless  bodies  exist  only  in  my  idea,  but,  since  they  have 
inscrutable  qualities,  and,  by  virtue  of  these,  activity,  I 
must  concede  to  them  a  being  in  itself  of  some  kind.     But 
this  very  inscrutableness  of  the  properties,  while,  on  the 
one  hand,  it  certainly  points  to  something  which  exists 
independently  of  our  knowledge,  gives  also,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  empirical  proof  that  our  knowledge,  because  it 


404  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVIII. 

consists  simply  in  framing  ideas  by  means  of  subjective 
forms,  affords  us  always  mere  phenomena,  not  the  true 
being  of  things.  This  is  the  explanation  of  the  fact  that 
in  all  that  we  know  there  remains  hidden  from  us  a  certain 
something,  as  quite  inscrutable,  and  we  are  obliged  to  con 
fess  that  we  cannot  thoroughly  understand  even  the  com 
monest  and  simplest  phenomena.  For  it  is  not  merely  the 
highest  productions  of  nature,  living  creatures,  or  the  com 
plicated  phenomena  of  the  unorganised  world  that  remain 
inscrutable  to  us,  but  even  every  rock-crystal,  every  iron- 
pyrite,  by  reason  of  its  crystallographical,  optical,  chemical, 
and  electrical  properties,  is  to  the  searching  consideration 
and  investigation  an  abyss  of  incomprehensibilities  and 
mysteries.  This  could  not  be  the  case  if  we  knew  things 
as  they  are  in  themselves  ;  for  then  at  least  the  simpler  phe 
nomena,  the  path  to  whose  qualities  was  not  barred  for  us 
by  ignorance,  would  necessarily  be  thoroughly  compre 
hensible  to  us,  and  their  whole  being  and  nature  would 
be  able  to  pass  over  into  our  knowledge.  Thus  it  lies  not 
in  the  defectiveness  of  our  acquaintance  with  things,  but 
in  the  nature  of  knowledge  itself.  For  if  our  perception, 
and  consequently  the  whole  empirical  comprehension  of 
the  things  that  present  themselves  to  us,  is  already  essen 
tially  and  in  the  main  determined  by  our  faculty  of  know 
ledge,  and  conditioned  by  its  forms  and  functions,  it  can 
not  but  be  that  things  exhibit  themselves  in  a  manner 
which  is  quite  different  from  their  own  inner  nature,  and 
therefore  appear  as  in  a  mask,  which  allows  us  merely 
to  assume  what  is  concealed  beneath  it,  but  never  to 
know  it ;  hence,  then,  it  gleams  through  as  an  inscrutable 
mystery,  and  never  can  the  nature  of  anything  entire  and 
without  reserve  pass  over  into  knowledge ;  but  much  less 
can  any  real  thing  be  construed  a  priori,  like  a  mathema 
tical  problem.  Thus  the  empirical  inscrutableness  of  all 
natural  things  is  a  proof  a  posteriori  of  the  ideality  and 
merely  phenomenal-actuality  of  their  empirical  existence. 
According  to  all  this,  upon  the  path  of  objective  know- 


ON  KNOWING  THE  THING  IN  ITSELF.  405 

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

Kant's  chief  result  may  in  substance  be  thus  concisely 
stated  :  "  All  conceptions  which  have  not  at  their  founda 
tion  a  perception  in  space  and  time  (sensuous  intuition), 
that  is  to  say  then,  whi'h  have  not  been  drawn  from 
such  a  perception,  are  absolutely  empty,  i.e.,  give  no 
knowledge.  But  since  now  perception  can  afford  us  only 
phenomena,  not  things  in  themselves,  we  have  also  abso 
lutely  no  knowledge  of  things  in  themselves."  I  grant 
this  of  everything,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  know 
ledge  which  each  of  us  has  of  his  own  willing:  this  is 
neither  a  perception  (for  all  perception  is  spatial)  nor  is  it 
empty ;  rather  it  is  more  real  than  any  other.  Further,  it 
is  not  a  priori,  like  merely  formal  knowledge,  but  entirely 
a  posteriori;  hence  also  we  cannot  anticipate  it  in  the 
particular  case,  but  are  hereby  often  convicted  of  error 
concerning  ourselves.  In  fact,  our  willing  is  the  one 
opportunity  which  we  have  of  understanding  from  within 


406  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVIII. 

any  event  which  exhibits  itself  without,  consequently  the 
one  thing  which  is  known  to  us  immediately,  and  not,  like 
all  the  rest,  merely  given  in  the  idea.  Here,  then,  lies  the 
datum  which  alone  is  able  to  become  the  key  to  everything 
else,  or,  as  I  have  said,  the  single  narrow  door  to  the  truth. 
Accordingly  we  must  learn  to  understand  nature  from  our 
selves,  not  conversely  ourselves  from  nature.  What  is 
known  to  us  immediately  must  give  us  the  explanation  of 
what  we  only  know  indirectly,  not  conversely.  Do  we 
perhaps  understand  the  rolling  of  a  ball  when  it  has  re 
ceived  an  impulse  more  thoroughly  than  our  movement 
when  we  feel  a  motive  ?  Many  may  imagine  so,  but  I 
say  it  is  the  reverse.  Yet  we  shall  attain  to  the  know 
ledge  that  what  is  essential  in  both  the  occurrences  just 
mentioned  is  identical;  although  identical  in  the  same 
way  as  the  lowest  audible  note  of  harmony  is  the  same  as 
the  note  of  the  same  name  ten  octaves  higher. 

Meanwhile  it  should  be  carefully  observed,  and  I  have 
always  kept  it  in  mind,  that  even  the  inward  experience 
which  we  have  of  our  own  will  by  no  means  affords  us  an 
exhaustive  and  adequate  knowledge  of  the  thing  in  itself. 
This  would  be  the  case  if  it  were  entirely  an  immediate 
experience ;  but  it  is  effected  in  this  way :  the  will,  with 
and  by  means  of  the  corporisation,  provides  itself  also  with 
an  intellect  (for  the  sake  of  its  relations  to  the  external 
world),  and  through  this  now  knows  itself  as  will  in  self- 
consciousness  (the  necessary  counterpart  of  the  external 
world);   this  knowledge   therefore  of  the  thing  in  itself 
is  not  fully  adequate.     First  of  all,  it  is  bound  to  the 
form   of   the  idea,  it  is  apprehension,  and  as  such  falls 
asunder  into  subject  and  object.     For  even  in  self-con 
sciousness  the  I  is  not  absolutely  simple,  but  consists  of  a 
knower,  the  intellect,  and  a  known,  the  will.     The  former 
is  not  known,  and  the  latter  does  not  know,  though  both 
unite  in  the  consciousness  of  an  I.     But  just  on  this 
account  that  I  is  not  thoroughly  intimate  with  itself,  as  it 
were  transparent,  but  is  opaque,  and  therefore  remains  a 


ON  KNOWING  THE  THING  IN  ITSELF.  407 

riddle  to  itself,  thus  even  in  inner  knowledge  there  also 
exists  a  difference  between  the  true  being  of  its  object  and 
the  apprehension  of  it  in  the  knowing  subject.  Yet  inner 
knowledge  is  free  from  two  forms  which  belong  to  outer 
knowledge,  the  form  of  space  and  the  form  of  causality, 
which  is  the  means  of  effecting  all  sense-perception.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  still  remains  the  form  of  time,  and 
that  of  being  known  and  knowing  in  general.  Accord 
ingly  in  this  inner  knowledge  the  thing  in  itself  has 
indeed  in  great  measure  thrown  off  its  veil,  but  still  does 
not  yet  appear  quite  naked.  In  consequence  of  the  form 
of  time  which  still  adheres  to  it,  every  one  knows  his  will 
only  in  its  successive  acts,  and  not  as  a  whole,  in  and  for 
itself:  therefore  no  one  knows  his  character  a  priori,  but 
only  learns  it  through  experience  and  always  incom 
pletely.  But  yet  the  apprehension,  in  which  we  know 
the  affections  and  acts  of  our  own  will,  is  far  more  imme 
diate  than  any  other.  It  is  the  point  at  which  the  thing 
in  itself  most  directly  enters  the  phenomenon  and  is  most 
closely  examined  by  the  knowing  subject ;  therefore  the 
event  thus  intimately  known  is  alone  fitted  to  become  the 
interpreter  of  all  others. 

For  in  every  emergence  of  an  act  of  will  from  the  ob 
scure  depths  of  our  inner  being  into  the  knowing  con 
sciousness  a  direct  transition  occurs  of  the  thing  in  itself, 
which  lies  outside  time,  into  the  phenomenal  world.  Ac 
cordingly  the  act  of  will  is  indeed  only  the  closest  and 
most  distinct  manifestation  of  the  thing  in  itself ;  yet  it 
follows  from  this  that  if  all  other  manifestations  or  phe 
nomena  could  be  known  by  us  as  directly  and  inwardly, 
we  would  be  obliged  to  assert  them  to  be  that  which  the 
will  is  in  us.  Thus  in  this  sense  I  teach  that  the  inner 
nature  of  everything  is  will,  and  I  call  will  the  thing  in 
itself.  Kant's  doctrine  of  the  unknowableness  of  the 
thing  in  itself  is  hereby  modified  to  this  extent,  that  the 
thing  in  itself  is  only  not  absolutely  and  from  the  very 
foundation  knowable,  that  yet  by  far  the  most  immediate 


408  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVIII. 

of  its  phenomena,  which  by  this  immediateness  is  toto 
genere  distinguished  from  all  the  rest,  represents  it  for  us ; 
and  accordingly  we  have  to  refer  the  whole  world  of  phe 
nomena  to  that  one  in  which  the  thing  in  itself  appears 
in  the  very  thinnest  of  veils,  and  only  still  remains  pheno 
menon  in  so  far  as  my  intellect,  which  alone  is  capable 
of  knowledge,  remains  ever  distinguished  from  me  as  the 
willing  subject,  and  moreover  does  not  even  in  inner  per 
fection  put  off  the  form  of  knowledge  of  time. 

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

I  now  proceed  to  supplement  with  a  few  considerations 
pertinent  to  the  subject  the  exposition  given  both  in  our 
second  book  and  in  the  work  "  Ueber  den  Willen  in  der 
Natur"  of  the  doctrine  that  what  makes  itself  known  to 
us  in  the  most  immediate  knowledge  as  will  is  also  that 
which  objectifies  itself  at  different  grades  in  all  the  phe- 


ON  KNOWING  THE  THING  IN  ITSELF.  409 

nomena  of  this  world  ;  and  I  shall  begin  by  citing  a  num 
ber  of  psychological  facts  which  prove  that  first  of  all  in 
our  own  consciousness  the  will  always  appears  as  primary 
and  fundamental,  and  throughout  asserts  its  superiority  to 
the  intellect,  which,  on  the  other  hand,  always  presents 
itself  as  secondary,  subordinate,  and  conditioned.  This 
proof  is  the  more  necessary  as  all  philosophers  before 
me,  from  the  first  to  the  last,  place  the  true  being  or 
the  kernel  of  man  in  the  knowing  consciousness,  and 
accordingly  have  conceived  and  explained  the  I,  or, 
in  the  case  of  many  of  them,  its  transcendental  hypo- 
stasis  called  soul,  as  primarily  and  essentially  knowing, 
nay,  thinking,  and  only  in  consequence  of  this,  secondarily 
and  derivatively,  as  willing.  This  ancient  and  universal 
radical  error,  this  enormous  wpwrov  tyevSos  and  fundamen 
tal  varepov  irporepov,  must  before  everything  be  set  aside, 
and  instead  of  it  the  true  state  of  the  case  must  be 
brought  to  perfectly  distinct  consciousness.  Since,  how 
ever,  this  is  done  here  for  the  first  time,  after  thousands  of 
years  of  philosophising,  some  fulness  of  statement  will  be 
appropriate.  The  remarkable  phenomenon,  that  in  this 
most  essential  point  all  philosophers  have  erred,  nay,  have 
exactly  reversed  the  truth,  might,  especially  in  the  case 
of  those  of  the  Christian  era,  be  partly  explicable  from  the 
fact  that  they  all  had  the  intention  of  presenting  man  as 
distinguished  as  widely  as  possible  from  the  brutes,  yet  at 
the  same  time  obscurely  felt  that  the  difference  between 
them  lies  in  the  intellect,  not  in  the  will ;  whence  there 
arose  unconsciously  within  them  an  inclination  to  make 
the  intellect  the  essential  and  principal  thing,  and  even 
to  explain  volition  as  a  mere  function  of  the  intellect. 
Hence  also  the  conception  of  a  soul  is  not  only  inadmis 
sible,  because  it  is  a  transcendent  hypostasis,  as  is  proved 
by  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason,"  but  it  becomes  the 
source  of  irremediable  errors,  because  in  its  "  simple  sub 
stance  "  it  establishes  beforehand  an  indivisible  unity  of 
knowledge  and  will,  the  separation  of  which  is  just  the 


410  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XVIII. 

path  to  the  truth.  That  conception  must  therefore  appear 
no  more  in  philosophy,  but  may  be  left  to  German  doc 
tors  and  physiologists,  who,  after  they  have  laid  aside 
scalpel  and  spattle,  amuse  themselves  by  philosophising 
with  the  conceptions  they  received  when  they  were  con 
firmed.  They  might  certainly  try  their  luck  in  England. 
The  Trench  physiologists  and  zootomists  have  (till  lately) 
kept  themselves  free  from  that  reproach. 

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


CHAPTEE  XIX.1 

ON   THE   PRIMACY    OF   THE   WILL   IN    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

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

1  This  chapter  is  coonected  with  §  19  of  the  first  volume. 


412  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

thus  by  way  of  simile  :  The  will  is  the  substance  of  man, 
the  intellect  the  accident ;  the  will  is  the  matter,  the 
intellect  is  the  form  ;  the  will  is  warmth,  the  intellect 
is  light. 

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

I.  Not  only  the  consciousness  of  other  things,  i.e.,  the 
apprehension  of  the  external  world,  but  also  self-conscious 
ness,  contains,  as  was  mentioned  already  above,  a  knower 
and  a  known ;  otherwise  it  would  not  be  consciousness. 
For  consciousness  consists  in  knowing;  but  knowing  re 
quires  a  knower  and  a  known ;  therefore  there  could  be 
no  self-consciousness  if  there  were  not  in  it  also  a  known 
opposed  to  the  knower  and  different  from  it.  As  there 
can  be  no  object  without  a  subject,  so  also  there  can 
be  no  subject  without  an  object,  i.e.,  no  knower  without 
something  different  from  it  which  is  known.  Therefore 
a  consciousness  which  is  through  and  through  pure  in 
telligence  is  impossible.  The  intelligence  is  like  the  sun, 
which  does  not  illuminate  space  if  there  is  no  object  from 
which  its  rays  are  reflected.  The  knower  himself,  as  such, 
cannot  be  known ;  otherwise  he  would  be  the  known  of 
another  knower.  But  now,  as  the  knoivn  in  self-conscious 
ness  we  find  exclusively  the  will.  For  not  merely  willing 
and  purposing  in  the  narrowest  sense,  but  also  all  striving, 
wishing,  shunning,  hoping,  fearing,  loving,  hating,  in  short, 
all  that  directly  constitutes  our  own  weal  and  woe,  desire 
and  aversion,  is  clearly  only  affection  of  the  will,  is  a  mov 
ing,  a  modification  of  willing  and  not-willing,  is  just  that 
which,  if  it  takes  outward  effect,  exhibits  itself  as  an  act  of 
will  proper.1  In  all  knowledge,  however,  the  known  is  first 

1  It  is  remarkable  that  Augustine  preceding  book  he  had  brought  under 

already  knew  this.    In  the  fourteenth  four  categories,  cupiditas,  timor,  lat- 

book,  "De  Civ.  Dei''  c.  6,  he  speaks  of  titia,  tristitia,  and  says :  "  Voluntas  est 

the  affectionibus  animi,  which  in  the  quippe  in  omnibus,  imo  omncs  nihil 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        413 

and  essential,  not  the  knower ;  for  the  former  is  the  irpw- 
TOTVTTOS,  the  latter  the  €KTVTTO<S.  Therefore  in  self-con 
sciousness  also  the  known,  thus  the  will,  must  be  what  is 
first  and  original ;  the  knower,  on  the  other  hand,  only  what 
is  secondary,  that  which  has  been  added,  the  mirror.  They 
are  related  very  much  as  the  luminous  to  the  reflecting 
body  ;  or,  again,  as  the  vibrating  strings  to  the  resounding- 
board,  in  which  case  the  note  produced  would  be  conscious 
ness.  We  may  also  regard  the  plant  as  a  like  symbol  of 
consciousness.  It  has,  we  know,  two  poles,  the  root  and  the 
corona  :  the  former  struggling  into  darkness,  moisture,  and 
cold,  the  latter  into  light,  dryness,  and  warmth;  then, 
as  the  point  of  indifference  of  the  two  poles,  where  they 
part  asunder,  close  to  the  ground,  the  collum  (rhizoma,  le 
collet}.  The  root  is  what  is  essential,  original,  perennial, 
the  death  of  which  involves  that  of  the  corona,  is  thus  the 
primary ;  the  corona,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  ostensible, 
but  it  has  sprung  from  something  else,  and  it  passes  away 
without  the  root  dying ;  it  is  thus  secondary.  The  root 
represents  the  will,  the  corona  the  intellect,  and  the  point . 
of  indifference  of  the  two,  the  collum,  would  be  the  /, 
which,  as  their  common  termination,  belongs  to  both.  This 
I  is  the  pro  tempore  identical  subject  of  knowing  and  will 
ing,  whose  identity  I  called  in  my  very  first  essay  (on  the 
principle  of  sufficient  reason),  and  in  rny  first  philosophical 
wonder,  the  miracle  KO.T  e£o%7?f.  It  is  the  temporal  start 
ing-point  and  connecting-link  of  the  whole  phenomenon, 
i.e.,  of  the  objectification  of  the  will :  it  conditions  indeed 
the  phenomenon,  but  is  also  conditioned  by  it.  This  com 
parison  may  even  be  carried  to  the  individual  nature  of 
men.  As  a  large  corona  commonly  springs  only  from  a 
large  root,  so  the  greatest  intellectual  capabilities  are  only 
found  in  connection  with  a  vehement  and  passionate  will. 
A  genius  of  a  phlegmatic  character  and  weak  passions 

aliud,  quam  voluntates  sunt:  nam  volumus?  et  quid  est  mctus  atque  tris- 
quid  est  cupiditas  et  Icetitia,  nisi  vo-  titia,  nisi  voluntas  in  dissensionem  ab 
luntan  in  eorum  consensionem,  quce  his,  qua  nolumus?  cet." 


4H  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

would  resemble  those  succulent  plants  that,  with  a  con 
siderable  corona  consisting  of  thick  leaves,  have  very  small 
roots ;  will  not,  however,  be  found.  That  vehemence  of 
will  and  passionateness  of  character  are  conditions  of 
heightened  intelligence  exhibits  itself  physiologically 
through  the  fact  that  the  activity  of  the  brain  is  condi 
tioned  by  the  movement  which  the  great  arteries  running 
towards  the  basis  cerebri  impart  to  it  with  each  pulsation ; 
therefore  an  energetic  pulse,  and  even,  according  to  Bichat, 
a  short  neck,  is  a  requisite  of  great  activity  of  the  brain. 
But  the  opposite  of  the  above  certainly  occurs :  vehement 
desires,  passionate,  violent  character,  along  with  weak  in 
tellect,  i.e.,  a  small  brain  of  bad  conformation  in  a  thick 
skull.  This  is  a  phenomenon  as  common  as  it  is  repulsive  : 
we  might  perhaps  compare  it  to  beetroot. 

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

Consciousness  is  positively  only  known  to  us  as  a  pro 
perty  of  animal  nature ;  therefore  we  must  not,  and  indeed 
cannot,  think  of  it  otherwise  than  as  animal  consciousness, 
so  that  this  expression  is  tautological.  Now,  that  which 
in  every  animal  consciousness,  even  the  most  imperfect 
and  the  weakest,  is  always  present,  nay,  lies  at  its  founda 
tion,  is  an  immediate  sense  of  longing,  and  of  the  alternate 
satisfaction  and  non-satisfaction  of  it,  in  very  different 
degrees.  This  we  know  to  a  certain  extent  a  priori.  For 
marvellously  different  as  the  innumerable  species  of  animals 
are,  and  strange  as  some  new  form,  never  seen  before, 
appears  to  us,  we  yet  assume  beforehand  its  inmost  nature, 
with  perfect  certainty,  as  well  known,  and  indeed  fully 
confided  to  us.  We  know  that  the  animal  wills,  indeed 
also  what  it  wills,  existence,  well-being,  life,  and  propaga- 


ON  THE   WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        415- 

tion ;  and  since  in  this  we  presuppose  with  perfect  certainty 
identity  with  us,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  attribute  to  it  un 
changed  all  the  affections  of  will  which  we  know  in  our 
selves,  and  speak  at  once  of  its  desire,  aversion,  fear,  anger, 
hatred,  love,  joy,  sorrow,  longing,  &c.  On  the  other  hand, 
whenever  phenomena  of  mere  knowledge  come  to  be  spoken 
of  we  fall  at  once  into  uncertainty.  We  do  not  venture 
to  say  that  the  animal  conceives,  thinks,  judges,  knows : 
we  only  attribute  to  it  with  certainty  ideas  in  general; 
because  without  them  its  will  could  not  have  those  emo 
tions  referred  to  above.  But  with  regard  to  the  definite 
manner  of  knowing  of  the  brutes  and  the  precise  limits  of 
it  in  a  given  species,  we  have  only  indefinite  conceptions, 
and  make  conjectures.  Hence  our  understanding  with 
them  is  also  often  difficult,  and  is  only  brought  about  by 
skill,  in  consequence  of  experience  and  practice.  Here 
then  lie  distinctions  of  consciousness.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  longing,  desiring,  wishing,  or  a  detesting,  shunning,  and 
not  wishing,  is  proper  to  every  consciousness:  man  has 
it  in  common  with  the  polyp.  This  is  accordingly  the 
essential  element  in  and  the  basis  of  every  consciousness. 
The  difference  of  the  manifestations  of  this  in  the  different 
species  of  animal  beings  depends  upon  the  various  exten 
sion  of  their  sphere  of  knowledge,  in  which  the  motives  of 
those  manifestations  lie.  We  understand  directly  from 
our  own  nature  all  actions  and  behaviour  of  the  brutes 
which  express  movements  of  the  will ;  therefore,  so  far, 
we  sympathise  with  them  in  various  ways.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  gulf  between  us  and  them  results  simply  and 
solely  from  the  difference  of  intellect.  The  gulf  which 
lies  between  a  very  sagacious  brute  and  a  man  of  very 
limited  capacity  is  perhaps  not  much  greater  than  that 
which  exists  between  a  blockhead  and  a  man  of  genius ; 
therefore  here  also  the  resemblance  between  them  in 
another  aspect,  which  springs  from  the  likeness  of  their 
inclinations  and  emotions,  and  assimilates  them  again 
to  each  other,  sometimes  appears  with  surprising  promi- 


416  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

nence,  and  excites  astonishment.    This  consideration  makes 
it  clear  that  in  all  animal  natures  the  will  is  what  is 
primary  and  substantial,  the  intellect  again  is  secondary, 
adventitious,  indeed  a  mere  tool  for  the  service  of   the 
former,  and  is  more  or  less  complete  and  complicated, 
according  to  the  demands  of  this  service.     As  a  species  of 
animals  is  furnished  with  hoofs,  claws,  hands,  wings,  horns, 
or  teeth  according  to  the  aims  of  its  will,  so  also  is  it  fur 
nished  with  a  more  or  less  developed  brain,  whose  function 
is  the  intelligence  necessary  for  its  endurance.     The  more 
complicated  the  organisation  becomes,  in  the  ascending 
series  of  animals,  the  more  numerous  also  are  its  wants, 
and  the  more  varied  and  specially  determined  the  objects 
which  are  capable  of  satisfying  them  ;  hence  the  more  com 
plicated  and  distant  the  paths  by  which  these  are  to  be 
obtained,  which  must  now  be  all  known  and  found  :  there 
fore  in  the  same  proportion  the  ideas  of  the  animal  must 
be  more  versatile,  accurate,  definite,  and  connected,  and 
also  its  attention  must  be  more  highly  strung,  more  sus 
tained,  and  more  easily  roused,  consequently  its  intellect 
must  be  more  developed  and  perfect.     Accordingly  we 
see  the  organ  of  intelligence,  the  cerebral  system,  together 
with  all  the  organs  of  sense,  keep  pace  with  the  increasing 
wants  and  the  complication  of  the  organism ;  and  the  in 
crease  of  the  part  of  consciousness  that  has  to  do  with 
ideas  (as  opposed  to  the  willing  part)  exhibits  itself  in  a 
bodily  form  in  the  ever-increasing  proportion  of  the  brain 
in  general  to  the  rest  of  the  nervous  system,  and  of  the 
cerebrum  to  the  cerebellum ;  for  (according  to  Flourens) 
the  former  is  the  workshop  of  ideas,  while  the  latter  is  the 
disposer  and  orderer  of  movements.     The  last  step  which 
nature  has  taken  in  this  respect  is,  however,  dispropor 
tionately  great.     For   in  man  not  only  does  the  faculty 
of    ideas   of   perception,  which    alone    existed    hitherto, 
reach  the  highest  degree  of   perfection,  but  the  abstract 
idea,  thought,  i.e.,  reason,  and  with  it  reflection,  is  added. 
Through  this  important  advance  of   the  intellect,  thus 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        417 

of  the  secondary  part  of  consciousness,  it  now  gains  a 
preponderance  over  the  primary  part,  in  so  far  as  it 
becomes  henceforward  the  predominantly  active  part. 
While  in  the  brute  the  immediate  sense  of  its  satisfied 
or  unsatisfied  desire  constitutes  by  far  the  most  important 
part  of  its  consciousness,  and  the  more  so  indeed  the 
lower  the  grade  of  the  animal,  so  that  the  lowest  animals 
are  only  distinguished  from  plants  by  the  addition  of  a 
dull  idea,  in  man  the  opposite  is  the  case.  Vehement  as  are 
his  desires,  even  more  vehement  than  those  of  any  brute, 
rising  to  the  level  of  passions,  yet  his  consciousness 
remains  continuously  and  predominantly  occupied  and 
filled  with  ideas  and  thoughts.  Without  doubt  this  has 
been  the  principal  occasion  of  that  fundamental  error  of 
all  philosophers  on  account  of  which  they  make  thought 
that  which  is  essential  and  primary  in  the  so-called  soul, 
i.e.,  in  the  inner  or  spiritual  life  of  man,  always  placing  it 
first,  but  will,  as  a  mere  product  of  thought,  they  regard 
as  only  a  subordinate  addition  and  consequence  of  it. 
But  if  willing  merely  proceeded  from  knowing,  how  could 
the  brutes,  even  the  lower  grades  of  them,  with  so  very 
little  knowledge,  often  show  such  an  unconquerable  and 
vehement  will  ?  Accordingly,  since  that  fundamental 
error  of  the  philosophers  makes,  as  it  were,  the  accident 
the  substance,  it  leads  them  into  mistaken  paths,  which 
there  is  afterwards  no  way  of  getting  out  of.  Now  this 
relative  predominance  of  the  knowing  consciousness  over 
the  desiring,  consequently  of  the  secondary  part  over 
the  primary,  which  appears  in  man,  may,  in  particular 
exceptionally  favoured  individuals,  go  so  far  that  at  the 
moments  of  its  highest  ascendancy,  the  secondary  or 
knowing  part  of  consciousness  detaches  itself  altogether 
from  the  willing  part,  and  passes  into  free  activity  for  itself, 
i.e.,  untouched  by  the  will,  and  consequently  no  longer 
serving  it.  Thus  it  becomes  purely  objective,  and  the  clear 
mirror  of  the  world,  and  from  it  the  conceptions  of  genius 
then  arise,  which  are  the  subject  of  our  third  book. 

VOL.  II.  2  D 


4i 8  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

3.  If  we  run  through  the  series  of  grades  of  animals 
downwards,  we  see  the  intellect  always  becoming  weaker 
and  less  perfect,  but  we  by  no  means  observe  a  corre 
sponding  degradation  of  the  will.  Eather  it  retains  every 
where  its  identical  nature  and  shows  itself  in  the  form  of 
great  attachment  to  life,  cave  for  the  individual  and  the 
species,  egoism  and  regardlessness  of  all  others,  together 
with  the  emotions  that  spring  from  these.  Even  in  the 
smallest  insect  the  will  is  present,  complete  and  entire ;  it 
wills  what  it  wills  as  decidedly  and  completely  as  the 
man.  The  difference  lies  merely  in  what  it  wills,  i.e.,  in 
the  motives,  which,  however,  are  the  affair  of  the  intellect. 
It  indeed,  as  the  secondary  part  of  consciousness,  and 
bound  to  the  bodily  organism,  has  innumerable  degrees  of 
completeness,  and  is  in  general  essentially  limited  and 
imperfect.  The  will,  on  the  contrary,  as  original  and  the 
thing  in  itself,  can  never  be  imperfect,  but  every  act  of 
will  is  all  that  it  can  be.  On  account  of  the  simplicity 
which  belongs  to  the  will  as  the  thing  in  itself,  the  meta 
physical  in  the  phenomenon,  its  nature  admits  of  no 
degrees,  but  is  always  completely  itself.  Only  its  excite 
ment  has  degrees,  from  the  weakest  inclination  to  the 
passion,  and  also  its  susceptibility  to  excitement,  thus  its 
vehemence  from  the  phlegmatic  to  the  choleric  tempera 
ment.  The  intellect,  on  the  other  hand,  has  not  merely 
degrees  of  excitement,  from  sleepiness  to  being  in  the  vein, 
and  inspiration,  but  also  degrees  of  its  nature,  of  the  com 
pleteness  of  this,  which  accordingly  rises  gradually  from 
the  lowest  animals,  which  can  only  obscurely  apprehend, 
up  to  man,  and  here  again  from  the  fool  to  the  genius. 
The  will  alone  is  everywhere  completely  itself.  For  its 
function  is  of  the  utmost  simplicity ;  it  consists  in  willing 
and  not  willing,  which  goes  on  with  the  greatest  ease, 
without  effort,  and  requires  no  practice.  Knowing,  on  the 
contrary,  has  multifarious  functions,  and  never  takes 
place  entirely  without  effort,  which  is  required  to  fix  the 
attention  and  to  make  clear  the  object,  and  at  a  higher 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        419 

stage  is  certainly  needed  for  thinking  and  deliberation  ; 
therefore  it  is  also  capable  of  great  improvement  through 
exercise  and  education.  If  the  intellect  presents  a  simple, 
perceptible  object  to  the  will,  the  latter  expresses  at  once 
its  approval  or  disapproval  of  it,  and  this  even  if  the 
intellect  has  laboriously  inquired  and  pondered,  in  order 
from  numerous  data,  by  means  of  difficult  combinations, 
ultimately  to  arrive  at  the  conclusion  as  to  which  of  the 
two  seems  to  be  most  in  conformity  with  the  interests  of 
the  will.  The  latter  has  meanwhile  been  idly  resting,  and 
when  the  conclusion  is  arrived  at  it  enters,  as  the  Sultan 
enters  the  Divan,  merely  to  express  again  its  monotonous 
approval  or  disapproval,  which  certainly  may  vary  in 
degree,  but  in  its  nature  remains  always  the  same. 

This  fundamentally  different  nature  of  the  will  and  the 
intellect,  the  essential  simplicity  and  originality  of  the 
former,  in  contrast  to  the  complicated  and  secondary  char 
acter  of  the  latter,  becomes  still  more  clear  to  us  if  we 
observe  their  remarkable  interaction  within  us,  and  now 
consider  in  the  particular  case,  how  the  images  and 
thoughts  which  arise  in  the  intellect  move  the  will,  and 
how  entirely  separated  and  different  are  the  parts  which 
the  two  play.  We  can  indeed  perceive  this  even  in 
actual  events  which  excite  the  will  in  a  lively  manner, 
while  primarily  and  in  themselves  they  are  merely  objects 
of  the  intellect.  But,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  here  not  so 
evident  that  this  reality  primarily  existed  only  in  the 
intellect;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  change  does  not 
generally  take  place  so  rapidly  as  is  necessary  if  the  thing 
is  to  be  easily  surveyed,  and  thereby  become  thoroughly 
comprehensible.  Both  of  these  conditions,  however,  are 
fulfilled  if  it  is  merely  thoughts  and  phantasies  which  we 
allow  to  act  on  the  will.  If,  for  example,  alone  with  our 
selves,  we  think  over  our  personal  circumstances,  and  now 
perhaps  vividly  present  to  ourselves  the  menace  of  an 
actually  present  danger  and  the  possibility  of  an  unfortu 
nate  issue,  anxiety  at  once  compresses  the  heart,  and  the 


420  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

blood  ceases  to  circulate  in  the  veins.  But  if  then  the 
intellect  passes  to  the  possibility  of  an  opposite  issue,  and 
lets  the  imagination  picture  the  long  hoped  for  happiness 
thereby  attained,  all  the  pulses  quicken  at  once  with  joy 
and  the  heart  feels  light  as  a  feather,  till  the  intellect 
awakes  from  its  dream.  Thereupon,  suppose  that  an  occa 
sion  should  lead  the  memory  to  an  insult  or  injury  once 
suffered  long  ago,  at  once  anger  and  bitterness  pour  into 
the  breast  that  was  but  now  at  peace.  But  then  arises, 
called  up  by  accident,  the  image  of  a  long-lost  love,  with 
which  the  whole  romance  and  its  magic  scenes  is  con 
nected;  then  that  auger  will  at  once  give  place  to  pro 
found  longing  and  sadness.  Finally,  if  there  occurs  to  us 
some  former  humiliating  incident,  we  shrink  together 
would  like  to  sink  out  of  sight,  blush  with  shame,  and 
often  try  forcibly  to  distract  and  divert  our  thoughts  by 
some  loud  exclamation,  as  if  to  scare  some  evil  spirit. 
One  sees,  the  intellect  plays,  and  the  will  must  dance  to 
it.  Indeed  the  intellect  makes  the  will  play  the  part  of  a 
child  which  is  alternately  thrown  at  pleasure  into  joyful 
or  sad  moods  by  the  chatter  and  tales  of  its  nurse.  This 
depends  upon  the  fact  that  the  will  is  itself  without 
knowledge,  and  the  understanding  which  is  given  to  it  is 
without  will.  Therefore  the  former  is  like  a  body  which 
is  moved,  the  latter  like  the  causes  which  set  it  in  motion, 
for  it  is  the  medium  of  motives.  Yet  in  all  this  the  pri 
macy  of  the  will  becomes  clear  again,  if  this  will,  which, 
as  we  have  shown,  becomes  the  sport  of  the  intellect  as 
soon  as  it  allows  the  latter  to  control  it,  once  makes  its 
supremacy  in  the  last  instance  felt  by  prohibiting  the 
intellect  from  entertaining  certain  ideas,  absolutely  pre 
venting  certain  trains  of  thought  from  arising,  because 
it  knows,  i.e.,  learns  from  4that  very  intellect,  that  they 
would  awaken  in  it  some  one  of  the  emotions  set  forth 
above.  It  now  bridles  the  intellect,  and  compels  it  to  turn 
to  other  things.  Hard  as  this  often  may  be,  it  must  yet 
be  accomplished  as  soon  as  the  will  is  in  earnest  about  it, 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        421 

for  the  resistance  in  this  case  does  not  proceed  from  the 
intellect,  which  always  remains  indifferent,  but  from  the 
will  itself,  which  in  one  respect  has  an  inclination  towards 
an  idea  that  in  another  respect  it  abhors.  It  is  in  itself 
interesting  to  the  will  simply  because  it  excites  it,  but  at 
the  same  time  abstract  knowledge  tells  it  that  this  idea 
will  aimlessly  cause  it  a  shock  of  painful  or  unworthy 
emotion  :  it  now  decides  in  conformity  with  this  abstract 
knowledge,  and  compels  the  obedience  of  the  intellect. 
This  is  called  "  being  master  of  oneself."  Clearly  the 
master  here  is  the  will,  the  servant  the  intellect,  for  in  the 
last  instance  the  will  always  keeps  the  upper  hand,  and 
therefore  constitutes  the  true  core,  the  inner  being  of 
man.  In  this  respect  the  title  Hye^ovifcov  would  belong 
to  the  will ;  yet  it  seems,  on  the  other  hand,  to  apply  to  the 
intellect,  because  it  is  the  leader  and  guide,  like  the  valet 
de  place  who  conducts  a  stranger.  In  truth,  however,  the 
happiest  figure  of  the  relation  of  the  two  is  the  strong 
blind  man  who  carries  on  his  shoulders  the  lame  man  who 
can  see. 

The  relation  of  the  will  to  the  intellect  here  explained 
may  also  be  further  recognised  in  the  fact  that  the  intel 
lect  is  originally  entirely  a  stranger  to  the  purposes  of  the 
will.  It  supplies  the  motives  to  the  will,  but  it  only  learns 
afterwards,  completely  a  posteriori,  how  they  have  affected 
it,  as  one  who  makes  a  chemical  experiment  applies  the 
reagents  and  awaits  the  result.  Indeed  the  intellect 
remains  so  completely  excluded  from  the  real  decisions 
and  secret  purposes  of  its  own  will  that  sometimes  it  can 
only  learn  them  like  those  of  a  stranger,  by  spying  upon 
them  •  and  surprising  them,  and  must  catch  the  will  in 
the  act  of  expressing  itself  in  order  to  get  at  its  real 
intentions.  For  example,  I  have  conceived  a  plan,  about 
which,  however,  I  have  still  some  scruple,  but  the  feasible 
ness  of  which,  as  regards  its  possibility,  is  completely 
uncertain,  for  it  depends  upon  external  and  still  unde 
cided  circumstances.  It  would  therefore  certainly  be  un- 


422  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

necessary  to  come  to  a  decision  about  it  at  present,  and  so 
for  the  time  I  leave  the  matter  as  it  is.  Now  in  such  a  case 
I  often  do  not  know  how  firmly  I  am  already  attached  to 
that  plan  in  secret,  and  how  much,  in  spite  of  the  scruple, 
I  wish  to  carry  it  out :  that  is,  my  intellect  does  not 
know.  But  now  only  let  me  receive  news  that  it  is  prac 
ticable,  at  once  there  rises  within  me  a  jubilant,  irresis 
tible  gladness,  that  passes  through  my  whole  being  and 
takes  permanent  possession  of  it,  to  my  own  astonishment. 
For  now  my  intellect  learns  for  the  first  time  how  firmly 
my  will  had  laid  hold  of  that  plan,  and  how  thoroughly 
the  plan  suited  it,  while  the  intellect  had  regarded  it  as 
entirely  problematical,  and  had  with  difficulty  been  able 
to  overcome  that  scruple.  Or  in  another  case,  I  have 
entered  eagerly  into  a  contract  which  I  believed  to  be 
very  much  in  accordance  with  my  wishes.  But  as  the 
matter  progresses  the  disadvantages  and  burdens  of  it  are 
felt,  and  I  begin  to  suspect  that  I  even  repent  of  what  I 
so  eagerly  pursued  ;  yet  I  rid  myself  of  this  feeling  by 
assuring  myself  that  even  if  I  were  not  bound  I  would 
follow  the  same  course.  Now,  however,  the  contract  is 
unexpectedly  broken  by  the  other  side,  and  I  perceive  with 
astonishment  that  this  happens  to  my  great  satisfaction 
and  relief.  Often  we  don't  know  what  we  wish  or  what 
we  fear.  We  may  entertain  a  wish  for  years  without  even 
confessing  it  to  ourselves,  or  even  allowing  it  to  come  to 
clear  consciousness  ;  for  the  intellect  must  know  nothing 
about  it,  because  the  good  opinion  which  we  have  of  our 
selves  might  thereby  suffer.  But  if  it  is  fulfilled  we  learn 
from  our  joy,  not  without  shame,  that  we  have  wished  this. 
For  example,  the  death  of  a  near  relation  whose  heir  we 
are.  And  sometimes  we  do  not  know  what  we  really  fear, 
because  we  lack  the  courage  to  bring  it  to  distinct  con- 
sciousnesss.  Indeed  we  are  often  in  error  as  to  the  real 
motive  from  which  we  have  done  something  or  left  it 
undone,  till  at  last  perhaps  an  accident  discovers  to  us  the 
secret,  and  we  know  that  what  we  have  held  to  be  the 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        423 

motive  was  not  the  true  one,  but  another  which  we  had 
not  wished  to  confess  to  ourselves,  because  it  by  no  means 
accorded  with  the  good  opinion  we  entertained  of  our 
selves.  For  example,  we  refrain  from  doing  something 
on  purely  moral  grounds,  as  we  believe,  but  afterwards  we 
discover  that  we  were  only  restrained  by  fear,  for  as  soon 
as  all  danger  is  removed  we  do  it.  In  particular  cases 
this  may  go  so  far  that  a  man  does  not  even  guess  the 
true  motive  of  his  action,  nay,  does  not  believe  himself 
capable  of  being  influenced  by  such  a  motive  ;  and  yet  it 
is  the  true  motive  of  his  action.  We  may  remark  in 
passing  that  in  all  this  we  have  a  confirmation  and  ex 
planation  of  the  rule  of  Larochefoucauld  :  "  L' amour-propre 
est  plus  habile  que  le  plus  habile  homme  du  monde;"  nay, 
even  a  commentary  on  the  Delphic  yvcoOi,  aavrov  and  its 
difficulty.  If  now,  on  the  contrary,  as  all  philosophers 
imagine,  the  intellect  constituted  our  true  nature  and  the 
purposes  of  the  will  were  a  mere  result  of  knowledge,  then 
only  the  motive  from  which  we  imagined  that  we  acted 
would  be  decisive  of  our  moral  worth ;  in  analogy  with 
the  fact  that  the  intention,  not  the  result,  is  in  this  respect 
decisive.  But  really  then  the  distinction  between  imagined 
and  true  motive  would  be  impossible.  Thus  all  cases  here 
set  forth,  to  which  every  one  who  pays  attention  may 
observe  analogous  cases  in  himself,  show  us  how  the 
intellect  is  so  strange  to  the  will  that  it  is  sometimes 
even  mystified  by  it :  for  it  indeed  supplies  it  with 
motives,  but  does  not  penetrate  into  the  secret  workshop 
of  its  purposes.  It  is  indeed  a  confidant  of  the  will,  but 
a  confidant  that  is  not  told  everything.  This  is  also 
further  confirmed  by  the  fact,  which  almost  every  one  will 
some  time  have  the  opportunity  of  observing  in  himself, 
that  sometimes  the  intellect  does  not  thoroughly  trust  the 
will.  If  we  have  formed  some  great  and  bold  purpose, 
which  as  such  is  yet  really  only  a  promise  made  by  the 
will  to  the  intellect,  there  often  remains  within  us  a  slight 
unconfessed  doubt  whether  we  are  quite  in  earnest  about 


424  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

it,  whether  in  carrying  it  out  we  will  not  waver  or  draw 
back,  but  will  have  sufficient  firmness  and  persistency  to 
fulfil  it.  It  therefore  requires  the  deed  to  convince  us 
ourselves  of  the  sincerity  of  the  purpose. 

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

4.  The  intellect  becomes  tired ;  the  will  is  never  tired. 
After  sustained  work  with  the  head  we  feel  the  tiredness 
of  the  brain,  just  like  that  of  the  arm  after  sustained 
bodily  work.  All  knowing  is  accompanied  with  effort ; 
willing,  on  the  contrary,  is  our  very  nature,  whose  mani 
festations  take  place  without  any  weariness  and  entirely 
of  their  own  accord.  Therefore,  if  our  will  is  .strongly 
excited,  as  in  all  emotions,  thus  in  anger,  fear,  desire, 
grief,  &c.,  and  we  are  now  called  upon  to  know,  perhaps 
with  the  view  of  correcting  the  motives  of  that  emotion, 
the  violence  which  we  must  do  ourselves  for  this  purpose 
is  evidence  of  the  transition  from  the  original  natural 
activity  proper  to  ourselves  to  the  derived,  indirect,  and 
forced  activity.  For  the  will  alone  is  avroparos,  and 
therefore  a/co/taro?  Kai  ayrjparos  y^ara,  Travra  (lassitu- 
dinis  et  senii  expers  in  sempiternum).  It  alone  is  active 
without  being  called  upon,  and  therefore  often  too  early 
and  too  much,  and  it  knows  no  weariness.  Infants  who 
scarcely  show  the  first  weak  trace  of  intelligence  are 
already  full  of  self-will :  through  unlimited,  aimless  roar 
ing  and  shrieking  they  show  the  pressure  of  will  with 
which  they  swell,  while  their  willing  has  yet  no  object, 
i.e.,  they  will  without  knowing  what  they  will.  What 
Cabanis  has  observed  is  also  in  point  here :  "  Toutes  ces 
passions,  qui  se  succedent  d'une  manniere  si  rapide,  et  se 
peignent  avec  tant  de  naivete",  sur  le  visage  mobile  des  enfants. 
Tandis  que  les  foibles  muscles  de  leurs  bras  et  de  leurs  jambes 
savent  encore  a  peine  former  quelque  mouvemens  inde'cis,  les 
muscles  dc  la  face  expriment  deja  par  des  mouvemens  dis- 
tincts  presque  toute  la  suite  des  affections  ge'ne'rales  propres  a 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        425 

la  nature  humaine:  etVobscrvateurattentifreconnaitfacile- 
ment  dans  ce  tableau  les  traits  caracte'ristiques  de  I'homme 
futur  "  (Rapports  du  Physique  et  Moral,  vol.  i.  p.  1 23).  The 
intellect,  on  the  contrary,  develops  slowly,  following  the 
completion  of  the  brain  and  the  maturity  of  the  whole 
organism,  which  are  its  conditions,  just  because  it  is 
merely  a  somatic  function.  It  is  because  the  brain 
attains  its  full  size  in  the  seventh  year  that  from  that 
time  forward  children  become  so  remarkably  intelligent, 
inquisitive,  and  reasonable.  But  then  comes  puberty ;  to 
a  certain  extent  it  affords  a  support  to  the  brain,  or  a 
resounding-board,  and  raises  the  intellect  at  once  by  a 
large  step,  as  it  were  by  an  octave,  corresponding  to  the 
lowering  of  the  voice  by  that  amount.  But  at  once  the 
animal  desires  and  passions  that  now  appear  resist  the 
reasonableness  that  has  hitherto  prevailed  and  to  which 
they  have  been  added.  Further  evidence  is  given  of  the 
indefatigable  nature  of  the  will  by  the  fault  which  is, 
more  or  less,  peculiar  to  all  men  by  nature,  and  is  only 
overcome  by  education — precipitation.  It  consists  in  this, 
that  the  will  hurries  to  its  work  before  the  time.  This 
work  is  the  purely  active  and  executive  part,  which  ought 
only  to  begin  when  the  explorative  and  deliberative  part, 
thus  the  work  of  knowing,  has  been  completely  and 
thoroughly  carried  out.  But  this  time  is  seldom  waited 
for.  Scarcely  are  a  few  data  concerning  the  circumstances 
before  us,  or  the  event  that  has  occurred,  or  the  opinion 
of  others  conveyed  to  us,  superficially  comprehended  and 
hastily  gathered  together  by  knowledge,  than  from  the 
depths  of  our  being  the  will,  always  ready  and  never  weary, 
comes  forth  unasked,  and  shows  itself  as  terror,  fear,  hope, 
joy,  desire,  envy,  grief,  zeal,  anger,  or  courage,  and  leads 
to  rash  words  and  deeds,  which  are  generally  followed  by 
repentance  when  time  has  taught  us  that  the  hegemoni- 
con,  the  intellect,  has  not  been  able  to  finish  half  its  work 
of  comprehending  the  circumstances,  reflecting  on  their 
connection,  and  deciding  what  is  prudent,  because  the  will 


426  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

did  not  wait  for  it,  but  sprang  forward  long  before  its 
time  with  "  Now  it  is  my  turn  ! "  and  at  once  began  the 
active  work,  without  the  intellect  being  able  to  resist,  as 
it  is  a  mere  slave  and  bondman  of  the  will,  and  not,  like 
it,  avTofMaros,  nor  active  from  its  own  power  and  its  own 
impulse  ;  therefore  it  is  easily  pushed  aside  and  silenced 
by  a  nod  of  the  will,  while  on  its  part  it  is  scarcely  able, 
with  the  greatest  efforts,  to  bring  the  will  even  to  a  brief 
pause,  in  order  to  speak.  This  is  why  the  people  are  so 
rare,  and  are  found  almost  only  among  Spaniards,  Turks, 
and  perhaps  Englishmen,  who  even  under  circumstances 
of  provocation  keep  the  head  uppermost,  imperturbably  pro 
ceed  to  comprehend  and  investigate  the  state  of  affairs, 
and  when  others  would  already  be  beside  themselves,  con 
mucho  sosiego,  still  ask  further  questions,  which  is  some 
thing  quite  different  from  the  indifference  founded  upon 
apathy  and  stupidity  of  many  Germans  and  Dutchmen. 
Iffland  used  to  give  an  excellent  representation  of  this 
admirable  quality,  as  Hetmann  of  the  Cossacks,  in  Ben- 
jowski,  when  the  conspirators  have  enticed  him  into  their 
tent  and  hold  a  rifle  to  his  head,  with  the  warning  that 
they  will  fire  it  if  he  utters  a  cry,  Iffland  blew  into  the 
mouth  of  the  rifle  to  try  whether  it  was  loaded.  Of  ten 
things  that  annoy  us,  nine  would  not  be  able  to  do  so  if 
we  understood  them  thoroughly  in  their  causes,  and  there 
fore  knew  their  necessity  and  true  nature ;  but  we  would 
do  this  much  oftener  if  we  made  them  the  object  of  re 
flection  before  making  them  the  object  of  wrath  and 
indignation.  For  what  bridle  and  bit  are  to  an  unmanage 
able  horse  the  intellect  is  for  the  will  in  man ;  by  this 
bridle  it  must  be  controlled  by  means  of  instruction, 
exhortation,  culture,  &c.,  for  in  itself  it  is  as  wild  and 
impetuous  an  impulse  as  the  force  that  appears  in  the 
descending  waterfall,  nay,  as  we  know,  it  is  at  bottom 
identical  with  this.  In  the  height  of  anger,  in  intoxica 
tion,  in  despair,  it  has  taken  the  bit  between  its  teeth,  has 
run  away,  and  follows  its  original  nature.  In  the  Mania 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        427 

sincjdelirio  it  has  lost  bridle  and  bit  altogether,  and  shows 
now  most  distinctly  its  original  nature,  and  that  the  in 
tellect  is  as  different  from  it  as  the  bridle  from  the  horse. 
In  this  condition  it  may  also  be  compared  to  a  clock 
which,  when  a  certain  screw  is  taken  away,  runs  down 
without  stopping. 

Thus  this  consideration  also  shows  us  the  will  as  that 
which  is  original,  and  therefore  metaphysical ;  the  intel 
lect,  on  the  other  hand,  as  something  subordinate  and 
physical.  For  as  such  the  latter  is,  like  everything  physi 
cal,  subject  to  vis  inertice,  consequently  only  active  if  it  is 
set  agoing  by  something  else,  the  will,  which  rules  it, 
manages  it,  rouses  it  to  effort,  in  short,  imparts  to  it  the 
activity  which  does  not  originally  reside  in  it.  Therefore 
it  willingly  rests  whenever  it  is  permitted  to  do  so,  often 
declares  itself  lazy  and  disinclined  to  activity;  through 
continued  effort  it  becomes  weary  to  the  point  of  complete 
stupefaction,  is  exhausted,  like  the  voltaic  pile,  through 
repeated  shocks.  Hence  all  continuous  mental  work  de 
mands  pauses  and  rest,  otherwise  stupidity  and  incapacity 
ensue,  at  first  of  course  only  temporarily ;  but  if  this  rest 
is  persistently  denied  to  the  intellect  it  will  become  ex 
cessively  and  continuously  fatigued,  and  the  consequence 
is  a  permanent  deterioration  of  it,  which  in  an  old  man 
may  pass  into  complete  incapacity,  into  childishness,  im 
becility,  and  madness.  It  is  not  to  be  attributed  to  age 
in  and  for  itself,  but  to  long-continued  tyrannical  over- 
exertion  of  the  intellect  or  brain,  if  this  misfortune  ap 
pears  in  the  last  years  of  life.  This  is  the  explanation 
of  the  fact  that  Swift  became  mad,  Kant  became 
childish,  Walter  Scott,  and  also  Wordsworth,  Southey, 
and  many  minorum  gentium,  became  dull  and  incapable. 
Goethe  remained  to  the  end  clear,  strong,  and  active- 
minded,  because  he,  who  was  always  a  man  of  the  world 
and  a  courtier,  never  carried  on  his  mental  occupations 
with  self-compulsion.  The  same  holds  good  of  Wieland 
and  of  Kuebel,  who  lived  to  the  age  of  ninety-one,  and  also 


428  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

of  Voltaire.  Now  all  this  proves  how  very  subordinate 
and  physical  and  what  a  mere  tool  the  intellect  is.  Just 
on  this  account  it  requires,  during  almost  a  third  part  of 
its  lifetime,  the  entire  suspension  of  its  activity  in  sleep, 
i.e.,  the  rest  of  the  brain,  of  which  it  is  the  mere  func 
tion,  and  which  therefore  just  as  truly  precedes  it  as  the 
stomach  precedes  digestion,  or  as  a  body  precedes  its  impul 
sion,  and  with  which  in  old  age  it  flags  and  decays.  The 
will,  on  the  contrary,  as  the  thing  in  itself,  is  never  lazy, 
is  absolutely  untiring,  its  activity  is  its  essence,  it  never 
ceases  willing,  and  when,  during  deep  sleep,  it  is  forsaken 
of  the  intellect,  and  therefore  cannot  act  outwardly  in 
accordance  with  motives,  it  is  active  as  the  vital  force, 
cares  the  more  uninterruptedly  for  the  inner  economy  of 
the  organism,  and  as  vis  naturae  medicatrix  sets  in  order 
again  the  irregularities  that  have  crept  into  it.  For  it  is 
not,  like  the  intellect,  a  function  of  the  body ;  ~but  the  body 
is  its  function ;  therefore  it  is,  ordine  rerum,  prior  to  the 
body,  as  its  metaphysical  substratum,  as  the  in-itself  of 
its  phenomenal  appearance.  It  shares  its  unwearying 
nature,  for  the  time  that  life  lasts,  with  the  heart,  that 
primum  mobile  of  the  organism,  which  has  therefore  be 
come  its  symbol  and  synonym.  Moreover,  it  does  not 
disappear  in  the  old  man,  but  still  continues  to  will  what 
it  has  willed,  and  indeed  becomes  firmer,  more  inflexible, 
than  it  was  in  youth,  more  implacable,  self-willed,  and 
unmanageable,  because  the  intellect  has  become  less  sus 
ceptible  :  therefore  in  old  age  the  man  can  perhaps  only 
be  matched  by  taking  advantage  of  the  weakness  of  his 
intellect. 

Moreover,  the  prevailing  weakness  and  imperfection  of 
the  intellect,  as  it  is  shown  in  the  want  of  judgment, 
narrow-mindedness,  perversity,  and  folly  of  the  great 
majority  of  men,  would  be  quite  inexplicable  if  the  in 
tellect  were  not  subordinate,  adventitious,  and  merely 
instrumental,  but  the  immediate  and  original  nature  of 
the  so-called  soul,  or  in  general  of  the  inner  man :  as  all 


O.V  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        429 

philosophers  have  hitherto  assumed  it  to  be.  For  how 
could  the  original  nature  in  its  immediate  and  peculiar 
function  so  constantly  err  and  fail  ?  The  truly  original 
in  human  consciousness,  the  willing,  always  goes  on  with 
perfect  success;  every  being  wills  unceasingly,  capably, 
and  decidedly.  To  regard  the  immorality  in  the  will  as  an 
imperfection  of  it  would  be  a  fundamentally  false  point  of 
view.  For  morality  has  rather  a  source  which  really  lies 
above  nature,  and  therefore  its  utterances  are  in  contra 
diction  with  it.  Therefore  morality  is  in  direct  opposition 
to  the  natural  will,  which  in  itself  is  completely  egoistic ; 
indeed  the  pursuit  of  the  path  of  morality  leads  to  the 
abolition  of  the  will.  On  this  subject  I  refer  to  our  fourth 
book  and  to  my  prize  essay,  "  Uebcr  das  Fundament  der 
Moral." 

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

A  great  fright  often  deprives  us  of  our  senses  to  such 
an  extent  that  we  are  petrified,  or  else  do  the  most  absurd 
things ;  for  example,  when  fire  has  broken  out  run  right 
into  the  flames.  Anger  makes  us  no  longer  know  what 
we  do,  still  less  what  we  say.  Zeal,  therefore  called  blind, 
makes  us  incapable  of  weighing  the  arguments  of  others, 
or  even  of  seeking  out  and  setting  in  order  our  own.  Joy 
makes  us  inconsiderate,  reckless,  and  foolhardy,  and  desire, 
acts  almost  in  the  same  way.  Fear  prevents  us  from  see 
ing  and  laying  hold  of  the  resources  that  are  still  present, 


430  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

and  often  lie  close  beside  us.  Therefore  for  overcoming 
sudden  dangers,  and  also  for  fighting  with  opponents  and 
enemies,  the  most  essential  qualifications  are  coolness  and 
presence  of  mind.  The  former  consists  in  the  silence  of 
the  will  so  that  the  intellect  can  act ;  the  latter  in  the 
undisturbed  activity  of  the  intellect  under  the  pressure  of 
events  acting  on  the  will ;  therefore  the  former  is  the  con 
dition  of  the  latter,  and  the  two  are  nearly  related ;  they 
are  seldom  to  be  found,  and  always  only  in  a  limited 
degree.  But  they  are  of  inestimable  advantage,  because 
they  permit  the  use  of  the  intellect  just  at  those  times 
when  we  stand  most  in  need  of  it,  and  therefore  confer 
decided  superiority.  He  who  is  without  them  only  knows 
what  he  should  have  done  or  said  when  the  opportunity 
has  passed.  It  is  very  appropriately  said  of  him  who  is 
violently  moved,  i.e.,  whose  will  is  so  strongly  excited  that 
it  destroys  the  purity  of  the  function  of  the  intellect,  he  is 
disarmed ;  for  the  correct  knowledge  of  the  circumstances 
and  relations  is  our  defence  and  weapon  in  the  conflict 
with  things  and  with  men.  In  this  sense  Balthazar  Gra- 
ciau  says  :  "  Es  la  passion  enemiga  declarada  de  la  cordura  " 
(Passion  is  the  declared  enemy  of  prudence).  If  now  the 
intellect  were  not  something  completely  different  from  the 
will,  but,  as  has  been  hitherto  supposed,  knowing  and  will 
ing  had  the  same  root,  and  were  equally  original  functions 
of  an  absolutely  simple  nature,  then  with  the  rousing  and 
heightening  of  the  will,  in  which  the  emotion  consists,  the 
intellect  would  necessarily  also  be  heightened ;  but,  as  we 
have  seen,  it  is  rather  hindered  and  depressed  by  this ; 
whence  the  ancients  called  emotion  animi  perturlatio. 
The  intellect  is  really  like  the  reflecting  surface  of  water, 
but  the  water  itself  is  like  the  will,  whose  disturbance 
therefore  at  once  destroys  the  clearness  of  that  mirror  and 
the  distinctness  of  its  images.  The  organism  is  the  will 
itself,  is  embodied  will,  i.e.,  will  objectively  perceived  in 
the  brain.  Therefore  many  of  its  functions,  such  as  res 
piration,  circulation,  secretion  of  bile,  and  muscular  power, 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        431 

are  heightened  and  accelerated  by  the  pleasurable,  and  in 
general  the  healthy,  emotions.  The  intellect,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  the  mere  function  of  the  brain,  which  is  only 
nourished  and  supported  by  the  organism,  as  a  parasite. 
Therefore  every  perturbation  of  the  will,  and  with  it  of 
the  organism,  must  disturb  and  paralyse  the  function  of 
the  brain,  which  exists  for  itself  and  for  no  other  wants 
than  its  own,  which  are  simply  rest  and  nourishment. 

But  this  disturbing  influence  of  the  activity  of  the  will 
upon  the  intellect  can  be  shown,  not  only  in  the  perturba 
tions  brought  about  by  emotions,  but  also  in  many  other, 
more  gradual,  and  therefore  more  lasting  falsifications  of 
thought  by  our  inclinations.  Hope  makes  us  regard  what 
we  wish,  and  fear  what  we  are  apprehensive  of,  as  pro 
bable  and  near,  and  both  exaggerate  their  object.  Plato 
(according  to  vElian,  V.H.,  13,  28)  very  beautifully  called 
hope  the  dream  of  the  waking.  Its  nature  lies  in  this, 
that  the  will,  when  its  servant  the  intellect  is  not  able  to 
produce  what  it  wishes,  obliges  it  at  least  to  picture  it 
before  it,  in  general  to  undertake  the  roll  of  comforter,  to 
appease  its  lord  with  fables,  as  a  nurse  a  child,  and  so  to 
dress  these  out  that  they  gain  an  appearance  of  likelihood. 
Now  in  this  the  intellect  must  do  violence  to  its  own  nature, 
which  aims  at  the  truth,  for  it  compels  it,  contrary  to  its 
own  laws,  to  regard  as  true  things  which  are  neither  true 
nor  probable,  and  often  scarcely  possible,  only  in  order  to 
appease,  quiet,  and  send  to  sleep  for  a  while  the  restless 
and  unmanageable  will.  Here  we  see  clearly  who  is  master 
and  who  is  servant.  Many  may  well  have  observed  that 
if  a  matter  which  is  of  importance  to  them  may  turn  out 
in  several  different  ways,  and  they  have  brought  all  of 
these  into  one  disjunctive  judgment  which  in  their  opinion 
is  complete,  the  actual  result  is  yet  quite  another,  and  one 
wholly  unexpected  by  them :  but  perhaps  they  will  not 
have  considered  this,  that  this  result  was  then  almost 
always  the  one  which  was  unfavourable  to  them.  The  ex 
planation  of  this  is,  that  while  their  intellect  intended  to 


432  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

survey  the  possibilities  completely,  the  worst  of  all  remained 
quite  invisible  to  it ;  because  the  will,  as  it  were,  covered 
it  with  its  hand,  that  is,  it  so  mastered  the  intellect  that 
it  was  quite  incapable  of  glancing  at  the  worst  case  of  all, 
although,  since  it  actually  came  to  pass,  this  was  also  the 
most  probable  case.  Yet  in  very  melancholy  dispositions, 
or  in  those  that  have  become  prudent  through  experi 
ence  like  this,  the  process  is  reversed,  for  here  apprehen 
sion  plays  the  part  which  was  formerly  played  by  hope. 
The  first  appearance  of  danger  throws  them  into  ground 
less  anxiety.  If  the  intellect  begins  to  investigate  the 
matter  it  is  rejected  as  incompetent,  nay,  as  a  deceitful 
sophist,  because  the  heart  is  to  be  believed,  whose  fears 
are  now  actually  allowed  to  pass  for  arguments  as  to  the 
reality  and  greatness  of  the  danger.  So  then  the  intellect 
dare  make  no  search  for  good  reasons  on  the  other  side, 
which,  if  left  to  itself,  it  would  soon  recognise,  but  is 
obliged  at  once  to  picture  to  them  the  most  unfortunate 
issue,  even  if  it  itself  can  scarcely  think  this  issue  possible  : 

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

— BYRON  (Lara,  c.  1). 

Love  and  hate  falsify  our  judgment  entirely.  In  our 
enemies  we  see  nothing  but  faults — in  our  loved  ones  no 
thing  but  excellences,  and  even  their  faults  appear  to  us 
amiable.  Our  interest,  of  whatever  kind  it  may  be,  exer 
cises  a  like  secret  power  over  our  judgment ;  what  is  in 
conformity  with  it  at  once  seems  to  us  fair,  just,  and 
reasonable  ;  what  runs  contrary  to  it  presents  itself  to  us, 
in  perfect  seriousness,  as  unjust  and  outrageous,  or  injudi 
cious  and  absurd.  Hence  so  many  prejudices  of  position, 
profession,  nationality,  sect,  and  religion.  A  conceived 
hypothesis  gives  us  lynx-eyes  for  all, that  confirms  it,  and 
makes  us  blind  to  all  that  contradicts  it.  What  is  opposed 
to  our  party,  our  plan,  our  wish,  our  hope,  we  often  can 
not  comprehend  and  grasp  at  all,  while  it  is  clear  to  every 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        433 

one  else ;  but  what  is  favourable  to  these,  on  the  other 
hand,  strikes  our  eye  from  afar.  What  the  heart  opposes 
the  head  will  not  admit.  We  firmly  retain  many  errors 
all  through  life,  and  take  care  never  to  examine  their 
ground,  merely  from  a  fear,  of  which  we  ourselves  are  con 
scious,  that  we  might  make  the  discovery  that  we  had  so 
long  believed  and  so  often  asserted  what  is  false.  Thus 
then  is  the  intellect  daily  befooled  and  corrupted  by  the 
impositions  of  inclination.  This  has  been  very  beauti 
fully  expressed  by  Bacon  of  Verulam  in  the  words :  Intel- 
lectus  LUMINIS  sicci  non  est ;  sed  recipit  infusionem  a  volun- 
tate  et  affectibus :  id  quod  general  ad  quod  vult  scientias  : 
quod  enim  mavult  homo,  id  potius  credit.  Innumeris  modis, 
Usque  interdum  imperceptibilibus,  affectus  intellectum  im- 
luit  et  inftcit  (Onj.  Nov.,  i.  14).  Clearly  it  is  also  this  that 
opposes  all  new  fundamental  opinions  in  the  sciences  and 
all  refutations  of  sanctioned  errors,  for  one  will  not  easily 
see  the  truth  of  that  which  convicts  one  of  incredible  want 
of  thought.  It  is  explicable,  on  this  ground  alone,  that  the 
truths  of  Goethe's  doctrine  of  colours,  which  are  so  clear 
and  simple,  are  still  denied  by  the  physicists ;  and  thus 
Goethe  himself  has  had  to  learn  what  a  much  harder  posi 
tion  one  has  if  one  promises  men  instruction  than  if  one 
promises  them  amusement.  Hence  it  is  much  more  for 
tunate  to  be  born  a  poet  than  a  philosopher.  But  the 
more  obstinately  an  error  was  held  by  the  other  side,  the 
more  shameful  does  the  conviction  afterwards  become. 
In  the  case  of  an  overthrown  system,  as  in  the  case  of  a 
conquered  army,  the  most  prudent  is  he  who  first  runs 
away  from  it. 

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

VOL.  II.  2  E 


434  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

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

I  wish  in  a  single  word  to  point  out  here  what  will  be 
fully  explained  in  the  following  book,  that  the  most  per 
fect  knowledge,  thus  the  purely  objective  comprehension 
of  the  world,  i.e.,  the  comprehension  of  genius,  is  condi 
tioned  by  a  silence  of  the  will  so  profound  that  while  it 
lasts  even  the  individuality  vanishes  from  consciousness 
and  the  man  remains  as  the  pure  subject  of  knowing,  which 
is  the  correlative  of  the  Idea. 

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

There  is  no  direct  disturbance  of  the  will  by  the  intel 
lect  corresponding  to  the  disturbance  and  clouding  of 
knowledge  by  the  will  that  has  been  shown.  Indeed  we 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        435 

cannot  well  conceive  such  a  thing.  No  one  will  wish  to 
construe  as  such  the  fact  that  motives  wrongly  taken  up 
lead  the  will  astray,  for  this  is  a  fault  of  the  intellect  in 
its  own  function,  which  is  committed  quite  within  its 
own  province,  and  the  influence  of  which  upon  the  will 
is  entirely  indirect.  It  would  be  plausible  to  attribute 
irresolution  to  this,  for  in  its  case,  through  the  conflict  of 
the  motives  which  the  intellect  presents  to  the  will,  the 
latter  is  brought  to  a  standstill,  thus  is  hindered.  But 
when  we  consider  it  more  closely,  it  becomes  very  clear 
that  the  cause  of  this  hindrance  does  not  lie  in  the  ac 
tivity  of  the  intellect  as  such,  but  entirely  in  external 
objects  which  are  brought  about  by  it,  for  in  this  case  they 
stand  in  precisely  such  a  relation  to  the  will,  which  is  here 
interested,  that  they  draw  it  with  nearly  equal  strength  in 
different  directions.  This  real  cause  merely  acts  through 
the  intellect  as  the  medium  of  motives,  though  certainly 
under  the  assumption  that  it  is  keen  enough  to  compre 
hend  the  objects  in  their  manifold  relations.  Irresolu 
tion,  as  a  trait  of  character,  is  just  as  much  conditioned 
by  qualities  of  the  will  as  of  the  intellect.  It  is  certainly 
not  peculiar  to  exceedingly  limited  minds,  for  their  weak 
understanding  does  not  allow  them  to  discover  such  mani 
fold  qualities  and  relations  in  things,  and  moreover  is  so 
little  fitted  for  the  exertion  of  reflection  and  pondering 
these,  and  then  the  probable  consequences  of  each  step, 
that  they  rather  decide  at  once  according  to  the  first 
impression,  or  according  to  some  simple  rule  of  conduct. 
The  converse  of  this  occurs  in  the  case  of  persons  of  con 
siderable  understanding.  Therefore,  whenever  such  per 
sons  also  possess  a  tender  care  for  their  own  well-being, 
i.e.,  a  very  sensitive  egoism,  which  constantly  desires  to 
come  off  well  and  always  to  be  safe,  this  introduces  a  cer 
tain  anxiety  at  every  step,  and  thereby  irresolution.  This 
quality  therefore  indicates  throughout  not  a  want  of 
understanding  but  a  want  of  courage.  Yet  very  eminent 
minds  survey  the  relations  and  their  probable  develop- 


436  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

inents  with  such  rapidity  and  certainty,  that  if  they  are 
only  supported  by  some  courage  they  thereby  acquire 
that  quick  decision  and  resolution  that  fits  them  to  play 
an  important  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  if  time  and 
circumstances  afford  them  the  opportunity. 

The  only  decided,  direct  restriction  and  disturbance 
which  the  will  can  suffer  from  the  intellect  as  such  may 
indeed  be  the  quite  exceptional  one,  which  is  the  conse 
quence  of  an  abnormally  preponderating  development  of 
the  intellect,  thus  of  that  high  endowment  which  has  been 
defined  as  genius.  This  is  decidedly  a  hindrance  to  the 

o  v 

energy  of  the  character,  and  consequently  to  the  power  of 
action.  Hence  it  is  not  the  really  great  minds  that  make 
historical  characters,  because  they  are  capable  of  bridling 
and  ruling  the  mass  of  men  and  carrying  out  the  affairs 
of  the  world ;  but  for  this  persons  of  much  less  capacity 
of  mind  are  qualified  when  they  have  great  firmness, 
decision,  and  persistency  of  will,  such  as  is  quite  incon 
sistent  with  very  high  intelligence.  Accordingly,  where 
this  very  high  intelligence  exists  we  actually  have  a  case 
in  which  the  intellect  directly  restricts  the  will. 

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

A  motive  which  affects  us  strongly,  such  as  a  yearning 
desire  or  a  pressing  need,  sometimes  raises  the  intellect 
to  a  degree  of  which  we  had  not  previously  believed  it 
capable.  Difficult  circumstances,  which  impose  upon  us 
the  necessity  of  certain  achievements,  develop  entirely 
new  talents  in  us,  the  germs  of  which  were  hidden  from 
us,  and  for  which  we  did  not  credit  ourselves  with  any 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        437 

capacity.  The  understanding  of  the  stupidest  man  be 
comes  keen  when  objects  are  in  question  that  closely 
concern  his  wishes ;  he  now  observes,  weighs,  and  dis 
tinguishes  with  the  greatest  delicacy  even  the  smallest 
circumstances  that  have  reference  to  his  wishes  or  fears. 
This  has  much  to  do  with  the  cunning  of  half-witted 
persons,  which  is  often  remarked  with  surprise.  On  this 
account  Isaiah  rightly  says,  vexatio  dat  intellectum,  which 
is  therefore  also  used  as  a  proverb.  Akin  to  it  is  the 
German  proverb,  "  Die  Noth  ist  die  Mutter  der  Kunste  " 
("  Necessity  is  the  mother  of  the  arts  ") ;  when,  however,  the 
fine  arts  are  to  be  excepted,  because  the  heart  of  every 
one  of  their  works,  that  is,  the  conception,  must  proceed 
from  a  perfectly  will-less,  and  only  thereby  purely  objective, 
perception,  if  they  are  to  be  genuine.  Even  the  under 
standing  of  the  brutes  is  increased  considerably  by  neces 
sity,  so  that  in  cases  of  difficulty  they  accomplish  things 
at  which  we  are  astonished.  For  example,  they  almost  all 
calculate  that  it  is  safer  not  to  run  away  when  they 
believe  they  are  not  seen ;  therefore  the  hare  lies  still  in 
the  furrow  of  the  field  and  lets  the  sportsman  pass  close 
to  it;  insects,  when  they  cannot  escape,  pretend  to  be 
dead,  &c.  We  may  obtain  a  fuller  knowledge  of  this 
influence  from  the  special  history  of  the  self-education  of 
the  wolf,  under  the  spur  of  the  great  difficulty  of  its 
position  in  civilised  Europe ;  it  is  to  be  found  in  the 
second  letter  of  Leroy's  excellent  book,  "  Lettres  sur  V in 
telligence  et  la  perfectibility  des  animaux."  Immediately 
afterwards,  in  the  third  letter,  there  follows  the  high 
school  of  the  fox,  which  in  an  equally  difficult  position 
has  far  less  physical  strength.  In  its  case,  however,  this 
is  made  up  for  by  great  understanding ;  yet  only  through 
the  constant  struggle  with  want  on  the  one  hand  and 
danger  on  the  other,  thus  under  the  spur  of  the  will,  does 
it  attain  that  high  degree  of  cunning  which  distinguishes 
it  especially  in  old  age.  In  all  these  enhancements  of  the 
intellect  the  will  plays  the  part  of  a  rider  who  with  the 


438  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

spur  urges  the  horse  beyond  the  natural  measure  of  its 
strength. 

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

Self-consideration  affords  opportunity  for  finer  observa 
tions  in  this  regard.  Sometimes,  through  an  interruption, 
it  has  entirely  escaped  me  what  I  have  just  been  thinking 
about,  or  even  what  news  I  have  just  heard.  Now  if  the 
matter  had  in  any  way  even  the  most  distant  personal 
interest,  the  after-feeling  of  the  impression  which  it  made 
upon  the  will  has  remained.  I  am  still  quite  conscious 
how  far  it  affected  me  agreeably  or  disagreeably,  and  also 
of  the  special  manner  in  which  this  happened,  whether, 
even  in  the  slightest  degree,  it  vexed  me,  or  made  me 
anxious,  or  irritated  me,  or  depressed  me,  or  produced  the 
opposite  of  these  affections.  Thus  the  mere  relation  of 
the  thing  to  my  will  is  retained  in  the  memory  after  the 
thing  itself  has  vanished,  and  this  often  becomes  the  clue 
to  lead  us  back  to  the  thing  itself.  The  sight  of  a  man 
sometimes  affects  us  in  an  analogous  manner,  for  we 
remember  merely  in  general  that  we  have  had  something 
to  do  with  him,  yet  without  knowing  where,  when,  or 
what  it  was,  or  who  he  is.  But  the  sight  of  him  still 
recalls  pretty  accurately  the  feeling  which  our  dealings 
with  him  excited  in  us,  whether  it  was  agreeable  or  dis- 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS,        439 

agreeable,  and  also  in  what  degree  and  in  what  way. 
Thus  our  memory  has  preserved  only  the  response  of 
the  will,  and  not  that  which  called  it  forth.  We  might 
call  what  lies  at  the  foundation  of  this  process  the 
memory  of  the  heart ;  it  is  much  more  intimate  than  that 
of  the  head.  Yet  at  bottom  the  connection  of  the  two  is 
so  far-reaching  that  if  we  reflect  deeply  upon  the  matter 
we  will  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  memory  in  general 
requires  the  support  of  a  will  as  a  connecting  point,  or 
rather  as  a  thread  upon  which  the  memories  can  range 
themselves,  and  which  holds  them  firmly  together,  or  that 
the  will  is,  as  it  were,  the  ground  to  which  the  individual 
memories  cleave,  and  without  which  they  could  not  last ; 
and  that  therefore  in  a  pure  intelligence,  i.e.,  in  a  merely 
knowing  and  absolutely  will-less  being,  a  memory  cannot 
well  be  conceived.  Accordingly  the  improvement  of  the 
memory  under  the  spur  of  the  ruling  passion,  which  has 
been  shown  above,  is  only  the  higher  degree  of  that  which 
takes  place  in  all  retention  and  recollection ;  for  its  basis 
and  condition  is  always  the  will.  Thus  in  all  this  also  it 
becomes  clear  how  very  much  more  essential  to  us  the 
will  is  than  the  intellect.  The  following  facts  may  also 
serve  to  confirm  this. 

The  intellect  often  obeys  the  will ;  for  example,  if  we 
wishto  remember  something,  and  after  some  effort  succeed; 
so  also  if  we  wish  now  to  ponder  something  carefully  and 
deliberately,  and  in  many  such  cases.  Sometimes,  again, 
the  intellect  refuses  to  obey  the  will ;  for  example,  if  we 
try  in  vain  to  fix  our  minds  upon  something,  or  if  we  call 
in  vain  upon  the  memory  for  something  that  was  intrusted 
to  it.  The  anger  of  the  will  against  the  intellect  on  such 
occasions  makes  its  relation  to  it  and  the  difference  of  the 
two  very  plain.  Indeed  the  intellect,  vexed  by  this  anger, 
sometimes  officiously  brings  what  was  asked  of  it  hours 
afterwards,  or  even  the  following  morning,  quite  unex 
pectedly  and  unseasonably.  On  the  other  hand,  the  will 
never  really  obeys  the  intellect ;  but  the  latter  is  only  the 


440  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

ministerial  council  of  that  sovereign ;  it  presents  all  kinds 
of  things  to  the  will,  which  then  selects  what  is  in  con 
formity  with  its  nature,  though  in  doing  so  it  determines 
itself  with  necessity,  because  this  nature  is  unchangeable 
and  the  motives  now  lie  before  it.  Hence  no  system  of 
ethics  is  possible  which  moulds  and  improves  the  will 
itself.  For  all  teaching  only  affects  knowledge,  and  know 
ledge  never  determines  the  will  itself,  i.e.,  the  fundamental 
character  of  willing,  but  only  its  application  to  the  circum 
stances  present.  Eectified  knowledge  can  only  modify 
conduct  so  far  as  it  proves  more  exactly  and  judges  more 
correctly  what  objects  of  the  will's  choice  are  within  its 
reach ;  so  that  the  will  now  measures  its  relation  to  things 
more  correctly,  sees  more  clearly  what  it  desires,  and  con 
sequently  is  less  subject  to  error  in  its  choice.  But  over  the 
will  itself,  over  the  main  tendency  or  fundamental  maxim 
of  it,  the  intellect  has  no  power.  To  believe  that  know 
ledge  really  and  fundamentally  determines  the  will  is  like 
believing  that  the  lantern  which  a  man  carries  by  night  is 
the  primum  mobile  of  his  steps.  Whoever,  taught  by  experi 
ence  or  the  admonitions  of  others,  knows  and  laments  a  fun 
damental  fault  of  his  character,  firmly  and  honestly  forms 
the  intention  to  reform  and  give  it  up;  but  in  spite  of  this,  on 
the  first  opportunity,  the  fault  receives  free  course.  New  re 
pentance,  new  intentions,  new  transgressions.  When  this 
has  been  gone  through  several  times  he  becomes  conscious 
that  he  cannot  improve  himself,  that  the  fault  lies  in  his 
nature  and  personality,  indeed  is  one  with  this.  Now  he 
will  blame  and  curse  his  nature  and  personality,  will  have 
a  painful  feeling,  which  may  rise  to  anguish  of  conscious 
ness,  but  to  change  these  he  is  not  able.  Here  we  see  that 
which  condemns  and  that  which  is  condemned  distinctly 
separate :  we  see  the  former  as  a  merely  theoretical  faculty, 
picturing  and  presenting  the  praiseworthy,  and  therefore 
desirable,  course  of  life,  but  the  other  as  something  real 
and  unchangeably  present,  going  quite  a  different  way  in 
spite  of  the  former :  and  then  again  the  first  remaining 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        441 

behind  with  impotent  lamentations  over  the  nature  of 
the  other,  with  which,  through  this  very  distress,  it  again 
identifies  itself.  Will  and  intellect  here  separate  very 
distinctly.  But  here  the  will  shows  itself  as  the  stronger, 
the  invincible,  unchangeable,  primitive,  and  at  the  same 
time  as  the  essential  thing  in  question,  for  the  intellect 
deplores  its  errors,  and  finds  no  comfort  in  the  correctness 
of  the  knowledge,  as  its  own  function.  Thus  the  intellect 
shows  itself  entirely  secondary,  as  the  spectator  of  the 
deeds  of  another,  which  it  accompanies  with  impotent 
praise  and  blame,  and  also  as  determinable  from  without, 
because  it  learns  from  experience,  weighs  and  alters  its 
precepts.  Special  illustrations  of  this  subject  will  be  found 
in  the  "Parcrga,"  vol.  ii.  §  1 18  (second  ed.,  §  1 19.)  Accord 
ingly,  a  comparison  of  our  manner  of  thinking  at  different 
periods  of  our  life  will  present  a  strange  mixture  of  per 
manence  and  changeableness.  On  the  one  hand,  the  moral 
tendency  of  the  man  in  his  prime  and  the  old  man  is  still 
the  same  as  was  that  of  the  boy  ;  on  the  other  hand,  much 
has  become  so  strange  to  him  that  he  no  longer  knows 
himself,  and  wonders  how  he  ever  could  have  done  or  said 
this  and  that.  In  the  first  half  of  life  to-day  for  the  most 
part  laughs  at  yesterday,  indeed  looks  down  on  it  with 
contempt;  in  the  second  half,  on  the  contrary,  it  more 
and  more  looks  back  at  it  with  envy.  But  on  closer 
examination  it  will  be  found  that  the  changeable  element 
was  the  intellect,  with  its  functions  of  insight  and  know 
ledge,  which,  daily  appropriating  new  material  from  with 
out,  presents  a  constantly  changing  system  of  thought, 
while,  besides  this,  it  itself  rises  and  sinks  with  the  growth 
and  decay  of  the  organism.  The  will,  on  the  contrary,  the 
basis  of  this,  thus  the  inclinations,  passions,  and  emotions, 
the  character,  shows  itself  as  what  is  unalterable  in  con 
sciousness.  Yet  we  have  to  take  account  of  the  modifica 
tions  that  depend  upon  physical  capacities  for  enjoyment, 
and  hence  upon  age.  Thus,  for  example,  the  eagerness 
for  sensuous  pleasure  will  show  itself  in  childhood  as  a 


442  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

love  of  dainties,  in  youth  and  manhood  as  the  tendency 
to  sensuality,  and  in  old  age  again  as  a  love  of  dainties. 

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

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

The  intellect,  as  the  mere  tool  of  the  will,  is  as  different 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        443 

from  it  as  the  hammer  from  the  smith.  So  long  as  in  a 
conversation  the  intellect  alone  is  active  it  remains  cold. 
It  is  almost  as  if  the  man  himself  were  not  present.  More 
over,  he  cannot  then,  properly  speaking,  compromise  him 
self,  but  at  the  most  can  make  himself  ridiculous.  Only 
when  the  will  comes  into  play  is  the  man  really  present : 
now  he  becomes  warm,  nay,  it  often  happens,  hot.  It  is 
always  the  will  to  which  we  ascribe  the  warmth  of  life  ; 
on  the  other  hand,  we  say  the  cold  understanding,  or  to 
investigate  a  thing  coolly,  i.e.,  to  think  without  being  influ 
enced  by  the  will.  If  we  attempt  to  reverse  the  relation, 
and  to  regard  the  will  as  the  tool  of  the  intellect,  it  is  as 
if  we  made  the  smith  the  tool  of  the  hammer. 

Nothing  is  more  provoking,  when  we  are  arguing  against 
a  man  with  reasons  and  explanations,  and  taking  all  pains 
to  convince  him,  under  the  impression  that  we  have  only 
to  do  with  his  understanding,  than  to  discover  at  last  that 
he  will  not  understand ;  that  thus  we  had  to  do  with  his 
will,  which  shuts  itself  up  against  the  truth  and  brings 
into  the  field  wilful  misunderstandings,  chicaneries,  and 
sophisms  in  order  to  intrench  itself  behind  its  understand 
ing  and  its  pretended  want  of  insight.  Then  he  is  cer 
tainly  not  to  be  got  at,  for  reasons  and  proofs  applied 
against  the  will  are  like  the  blows  of  a  phantom  pro 
duced  by  mirrors  against  a  solid  body.  Hence  the  saying 
so  often  repeated,  "  Stat  pro  ratione  voluntas."  Sufficient 
evidence  of  what  has  been  said  is  afforded  by  ordinary 
life.  But  unfortunately  proofs  of  it  are  also  to  be  found 
on  the  path  of  the  sciences.  The  recognition  of  the  most 
important  truths,  of  the  rarest  achievements,  will  be 
looked  for  in  vain  from  those  who  have  an  interest  in 
preventing  them  from  being  accepted,  an  interest  which 
either  springs  from  the  fact  that  such  truths  contradict 
what  they  themselves  daily  teach,  or  else  from  this,  that 
they  dare  not  make  use  of  them  and  teach  them;  or  if 
all  this  be  not  the  case  they  will  not  accept  them,  because 
the  watchword  of  mediocrity  will  always  be,  Si  quelqu'un 


444  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

excelle  parmi  nous,  quil  aille  exceller  ailleurs,  as  Helvetius 
has  admirably  rendered  the  saying  of  the  Ephesian  in  the 
fifth  book  of  Cicero's  "  Tusculance  "  (c.  36),  or  as  a  saying 
of  the  Abyssinian  Fit  Arari  puts  it,  "  Among  quartzes 
adamant  is  outlawed."  Thus  whoever  expects  from  this 
always  numerous  band  a  just  estimation  of  what  he  has 
done  will  find  himself  very  much  deceived,  and  perhaps 
for  a  while  he  will  not  be  able  to  understand  their  be 
haviour,  till  at  last  he  finds  out  that  while  he  applied 
himself  to  knowledge  he  had  to  do  with  the  will,  thus  is 
precisely  in  the  position  described  above,  nay,  is  really 
like  a  man  who  brings  his  case  before  a  court  the  judges 
of  which  have  all  been  bribed.  Yet  in  particular  cases  he 
will  receive  the  fullest  proof  that  their  will  and  not  their 
insight  opposed  him,  when  one  or  other  of  them  makes  up 
his  mind  to  plagiarism.  Then  he  will  see  with  astonish 
ment  what  good  judges  they  are,  what  correct  perception 
of  the  merit  of  others  they  have,  and  how  well  they  know 
how  to  find  out  the  best,  like  the  sparrows,  who  never 
miss  the  ripest  cherries. 

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

8.  But  now  we  shall  take  into  consideration  the  indi 
vidual  qualities,  thus  excellences  and  faults  of  the  will 
and  character  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  intellect  on  the 
other,  in  order  to  make  clear,  in  their  relation  to  each 
other,  and  their  relative  worth,  the  complete  difference 
of  the  two  fundamental  faculties.  History  and  experi 
ence  teach  that  the  two  appear  quite  independently  of 
each  other.  That  the  greatest  excellence  of  mind  will  not 
easily  be  found  combined  with  equal  excellence  of  char- 


ON  THE  WILL  IX  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        445 

acter  is  sufficiently  explained  by  the  extraordinary  rarity 
of  both,  while  their  opposites  are  everywhere  the  order  of 
the  day ;  hence  we  also  daily  find  the  latter  in  union. 
However,  we  never  infer  a  good  will  from  a  superior  mind, 
nor  the  latter  from  the  former,  nor  the  opposite  from  the 
opposite,  but  every  unprejudiced  person  accepts  them 
as  perfectly  distinct  qualities,  the  presence  of  which 
each  for  itself  has  to  be  learned  from  experience.  Great 
narrowness  of  mind  may  coexist  with  great  goodness  of 
heart,  and  I  do  not  believe  Balthazar  Gracian  was  right 
in  saying  (Discrete,  p.  406),  "No  ay  simple,  que  no  sea 
malicioso  "  ("  There  is  no  simpleton  who  would  not  be  mali 
cious  "),  though  he  has  the  Spanish  proverb  in  his  favour, 
" Nunca  la  necedad  anduvo  sin  malicia"  ("Stupidity  is 
never  without  malice").  Yet  it  may  be  that  many  stupid 
persons  become  malicious  for  the  same  reason  as  many 
hunchbacks,  from  bitterness  on  account  of  the  neglect 
they  have  suffered  from  nature,  and  because  they  think 
they  can  occasionally  make  up  for  what  they  lack  in 
understanding  through  malicious  cunning,  seeking  in  this 
a  brief  triumph.  From  this,  by  the  way,  it  is  also  com 
prehensible  why  almost  every  one  easily  becomes  mali 
cious  in  the  presence  of  a  very  superior  mind.  On  the 
other  hand,  again,  stupid  people  have  very  often  the  repu 
tation  of  special  good-heartedness,  which  yet  so  seldom 
proves  to  be  the  case  that  I  could  not  help  wondering 
how  they  had  gained  it,  till  I  was  able  to  flatter  myself 
that  I  had  found  the  key  to  it  in  what  follows.  Moved 
by  a  secret  inclination,  every  one  likes  best  to  choose 
for  his  more  intimate  intercourse  some  one  to  whom 
he  is  a  little  superior  in  understanding,  for  only  in  this 
case  does  he  find  himself  at  his  ease,  because,  according  to 
Hobbes,  "  Omnis  animi  voluptas,  omnisque  alacritas  in  eo 
sita  est,  quod  quis  haleat,  quibuscum  conferens  sc,  possit 
magnifice  scntire  de  se  ipso "  (De  Cive,  i.  5).  For  the 
same  reason  every  one  avoids  him  who  is  superior  to  him 
self;  wherefore  Lichtenberg  quite  rightly  observes:  "To 


446  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

certain  men  a  man  of  mind  is  a  more  odious  production 
than  the  most  pronounced  rogue."  And  similarly  Helve- 
tius  says  :  "  Les  gens  mddiocres  out  un  instinct  sur  et  prompt, 
pour  connditre  et  fuir  les  gens  d'esprit."  And  Dr.  Johnson 
assures  us  that  "  there  is  nothing  by  which  a  man  exas 
perates  most  people  more  than  by  displaying  a  superior 
ability  of  brilliancy  in  conversation.  They  seem  pleased 
at  the  time,  but  their  envy  makes  them  curse  him 
in  their  hearts "  (Boswell ;  aet.  anno  74).  In  order  to 
bring  this  truth,  so  universal  and  so  carefully  concealed, 
more  relentlessly  to  light,  I  add  the  expression  of  it  by 
Merck,  the  celebrated  friend  of  Goethe's  youth,  from  his 
story  "  Lindor :  "  "  He  possessed  talents  which  were  given 
him  by  nature  and  acquired  by  himself  through  learning ; 
and  thus  it  happened  that  in  most  society  he  left  the 
worthy  members  of  it  far  behind.  If,  in  the  moment  of 
delight  at  the  sight  of  an  extraordinary  man,  the  public 
swallows  these  superiorities  also,  without  actually  at  once 
putting  a  bad  construction  upon  them,  yet  a  certain  im 
pression  of  this  phenomenon  remains  behind,  which,  if  it  is 
often  repeated,  may  on  serious  occasions  have  disagreeable 
future  consequences  for  him  who  is  guilty  of  it.  Without 
any  one  consciously  noting  that  on  this  occasion  he  was 
insulted,  no  one  is  sorry  to  place  himself  tacitly  in  the 
way  of  the  advancement  of  this  rnan.  Thus  on  this  ac 
count  great  mental  superiority  isolates  more  than  any 
thing  else,  and  makes  one,  at  least  silently,  hated.  Now 
it  is  the  opposite  of  this  that  makes  stupid  people  so  gene 
rally  liked ;  especially  since  many  can  only  find  in  them 
what,  according  to  the  law  of  their  nature  referred  to 
above,  they  must  seek.  Yet  this  the  true  reason  of  such 
an  inclination  no  one  will  confess  to  himself,  still  less  to 
others ;  and  therefore,  as  a  plausible  pretext  for  it,  will 
impute  to  those  he  has  selected  a  special  goodness  of 
heart,  which,  as  we  have  said,  is  in  reality  only  very 
rarely  and  accidentally  found  in  combination  with  mental 
incapacity.  Want  of  understanding  is  accordingly  by  no 


07V  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        447 

means  favourable  or  akin  to  goodness  of  character.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  asserted  that  great  understand 
ing  is  so ;  nay,  rather,  no  scoundrel  has  in  general  been 
without  it.  Indeed  even  the  highest  intellectual  emi 
nence  can  coexist  with  the  worst  moral  depravity.  An 
example  of  this  is  afforded  by  Bacon  of  Verulam  :  "  Un 
grateful,  filled  with  the  lust  of  power,  wicked  and  base,  he 
at  last  went  so  far  that,  as  Lord  Chancellor  and  the  highest 
judge  of  the  realm,  he  frequently  allowed  himself  to  be 
bribed  in  civil  actions.  Impeached  before  his  peers,  he 
confessed  himself  guilty,  was  expelled  by  them  from  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  condemned  to  a  fine  of  forty  thousand 
pounds  and  imprisonment  in  the  Tower  "  (see  the  review 
of  the  latest  edition  of  Bacon's  Works  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review,  August  1837).  Hence  also  Pope  called  him  "the 
wisest,  brightest,  meanest  of  mankind  "  ("  Essay  on  Man," 
iv.  282).  A  similar  example  is  afforded  by  the  historian 
Guicciardini,  of  whom  Eosini  says  in  the  Notizie  Storiche, 
drawn  from  good  contemporary  sources,  which  is  given  in 
his  historical  romance  "  Luisa  Strozzi :  "  "  Da  coloro,  die 
pongono  I'ingegno  e  il  sapere  al  di'  sopra  di  tutte  le  umane 
qualita,  questo  uomo  sard  riguardato  come  fra  i  piu  grandi 
del  suo  secolo :  ma  da  quelli,  eke  reputano  la  virtu  dovere 
andare  innanzi  a  tutto,  non  potra  esecrarsi  abbastanza  la 
sua  memoria.  Esso  fu  il  piu  crudele  fra  i  cittadini  a 
perseguitare,  uccidere  e  corifinare,"  &C.1 

If  now  it  is  said  of  one  man,  "  He  has  a  good  heart, 
though  a  bad  head,"  but  of  another,  "  He  has  a  very  good 
head,  yet  a  bad  heart,"  every  one  feels  that  in  the  first  case 
the  praise  far  outweighs  the  blame — in  the  other  case  the 
reverse.  Answering  to  this,  we  see  that  if  some  one  has 
done  a  bad  deed  his  friends  and  he  himself  try  to  remove 
the  guilt  from  the  will  to  the  intellect,  and  to  give  out  that 

1  By  those  who  place  mind    and  dence  of  everything  else  his  memory 

learning    above    all     other    human  can  never  be  execrated  enough.    He 

qualities  this  man  will  be  reckoned  was  the  crudest   of  the  citizens  in 

the    greatest  of   his  century.      But  persecuting,  putting   to   death,  and 

by  those  who  let  virtue  take  prece-  banishing. 


448  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

faults  of  the  heart  were  faults  of  the  head ;  roguish  tricks 
they  will  call  errors,  will  say  they  were  merely  want  of 
understanding,  want  of  reflection,  light-mindedness,  folly ; 
nay,  if  need  be,  they  will  plead  a  paroxysm,  momentary 
mental  aberration,  and  if  a  heavy  crime  is  in  question, 
even  madness,  only  in  order  to  free  the  will  from  the  guilt. 
And  in  the  same  way,  we  ourselves,  if  we  have  caused 
a  misfortune  or  injury,  will  before  others  and  ourselves 
willingly  impeach  our  stultitia,  simply  in  order  to  escape 
the  reproach  of  malitia.  In  the  same  way,  in  the  case  of 
the  equally  unjust  decision  of  the  judge,  the  difference, 
whether  he  has  erred  or  been  bribed,  is  so  infinitely  great. 
All  this  sufficiently  proves  that  the  will  alone  is  the  real 
and  essential,  the  kernel  of  the  man,  and  the  intellect 
is  merely  its  tool,  which  may  be  constantly  faulty  without 
the  will  being  concerned.  The  accusation  of  want  of 
understanding  is,  at  the  moral  judgment-seat,  no  accusa 
tion  at  all ;  on  the  contrary,  it  even  gives  privileges. 
And  so  also,  before  the  courts  of  the  world,  it  is  every 
where  sufficient  to  deliver  a  criminal  from  all  punishment 
that  his  guilt  should  be  transferred  from  his  will  to  his 
intellect,  by  proving  either  unavoidable  error  or  mental 
derangement,  for  then  it  is  of  no  more  consequence  than 
if  hand  or  foot  had  slipped  against  the  will.  I  have  fully 
discussed  this  in  the  appendix,  "  Ueber  die  Intellelduelle, 
Freiheit"  to  my  prize  essay  on  the  freedom  of  the  will, 
to  which  I  refer  to  avoid  repetition. 

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

If  a  man  is  stupid,  we  excuse  him  by  saying  that  he 
cannot  help  it ;  but  if  we  were  to  excuse  a  bad  man  on 
the  same  grounds  we  would  be  laughed  at.  And  yet  the 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        449 

one,  like  the  other,  is  innate.  This  proves  that  the  will  is 
the  man  proper,  the  intellect  merely  its  tool. 

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

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

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

Connection,  communion,  intercourse  among  men  is  based, 
as  a  rule,  upon  relations  which  concern  the  will,  not  upon 
such  as  concern  the  intellect.  The  first  kind  of  communion 
may  be  called  the  material,  the  other  the  formal.  Of  the 

VOL.  II.  2  F 


450  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

former  kind  are  the  bonds  of  family  and  relationship,  and 
further,  all  connections  that  rest  upon  any  common  aim  or 
interest,  such  as  that  of  trade  or  profession,  of  the  corpora 
tion,  the  party,  the  faction,  &c.  In  these  it  merely  amounts 
to  a  question  of  views,  of  aims ;  along  with  which  there 
may  be  the  greatest  diversity  of  intellectual  capacity  and 
culture.  Therefore  not  only  can  any  one  live  in  peace  and 
unity  with  any  one  else,  but  can  act  with  him  and  be  allied 
to  him  for  the  common  good  of  both.  Marriage  also  is  a 
bond  of  the  heart,  not  of  the  head.  It  is  different,  how 
ever,  with  merely  formal  communion,  which  aims  only  at 
an  exchange  of  thought ;  this  demands  a  certain  equality 
of  intellectual  capacity  and  culture.  Great  differences  in 
this  respect  place  between  man  and  man  an  impassable 
gulf :  such  lies,  for  example,  between  a  man  of  great  mind 
and  a  fool,  between  a  scholar  and  a  peasant,  between  a 
courtier  and  a  sailor.  Natures  as  heterogeneous  as  this 

o 

have  therefore  trouble  in  making  themselves  intelligible 
so  long  as  it  is  a  question  of  exchanging  thoughts,  ideas, 
and  views.  Nevertheless  close  material  friendship  may 
exist  between  them,  and  they  may  be  faithful  allies,  con 
spirators,  or  men  under  mutual  pledges.  For  in  all  that 
concerns  the  will  alone,  which  includes  friendship,  enmity, 
honesty,  fidelity,  falseness,  and  treachery,  they  are  perfectly 
homogeneous,  formed  of  the  same  clay,  and  neither  mind 
nor  culture  make  any  difference  here;  indeed  here  the 
ignorant  man  often  shames  the  scholar,  the  sailor  the 
courtier.  For  at  the  different  grades  of  culture  there  are 
the  same  virtues  and  vices,  emotions  and  passions ;  and 
although  somewhat  modified  in  their  expression,  they  very 
soon  mutually  recognise  each  other  even  in  the  most 
heterogeneous  individuals,  upon  which  the  similarly  dis 
posed  agree  and  the  opposed  are  at  enmity. 

Brilliant  qualities  of  mind  win  admiration,  but  never 
affection ;  this  is  reserved  for  the  moral,  the  qualities  of 
j;he  character.  Every  one  will  choose  as  his  friend  the 
honest,  the  good-natured,  and  even  the  agreeable,  com- 


ON  THE   WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        451 

plaisant  man,  who  easily  concurs,  rather  than  the  merely 
able  man.  Indeed  many  will  be  preferred  to  the  latter, 
on  account  of  insignificant,  accidental,  outward  qualities 
which  just  suit  the  inclination  of  another.  Only  the  man 
who  has  much  mind  himself  will  wish  able  men  for  his 
society ;  his  friendship,  on  the  other  hand,  he  will  bestow 
with  reference  to  moral  qualities ;  for  upon  this  depends  his 
really  high  appreciation  of  a  man  in  whom  a  single  good 
trait  of  character  conceals  and  expiates  great  want  of  un 
derstanding.  The  known  goodness  of  a  character  makes 
us  patient  and  yielding  towards  weaknesses  of  understand 
ing,  as  also  towards  the  dulness  and  childishness  of  age. 
A  distinctly  noble  character  along  with  the  entire  absence 
of  intellectual  excellence  and  culture  presents  itself  as 
lacking  nothing ;  while,  on  the  contrary,  even  the  greatest 
mind,  if  affected  with  important  moral  faults,  will  always 
appear  blamable.  For  as  torches  and  fireworks  become 
pale  and  insignificant  in  the  presence  of  the  sun,  so  intel 
lect,  nay,  genius,  and  also  beauty,  are  outshone  and  eclipsed 
by  the  goodness  of  the  heart.  When  this  appears  in  a  high 
degree  it  can  make  up  for  the  want  of  those  qualities  to 
such  an  extent  that  one  is  ashamed  of  having  missed  them. 
Even  the  most  limited  understanding,  and  also  grotesque 
ugliness,  whenever  extraordinary  goodness  of  heart  declares 
itself  as  accompanying  them,  become  as  it  were  transfigured, 
outshone  by  a  beauty  of  a  higher  kind,  for  now  a  wisdom 
speaks  out  of  them  before  which  all  other  wisdom  must 
be  dumb.  For  goodness  of  heart  is  a  transcendent  quality  ; 
it  belongs  to  an  order  of  things  that  reaches  beyond  this 
life,  and  is  incommensurable  with  any  other  perfection. 
When  it  is  present  in  a  high  degree  it  makes  the  heart  so 
large  that  it  embraces  the  world,  so  that  now  everything 
lies  within  it,  no  longer  without ;  for  it  identifies  all  natures 
with  its  own.  It  then  extends  to  others  also  that  bound 
less  indulgence  which  otherwise  each  one  only  bestows  on 
himself.  Such  a  man  is  incapable  of  becoming  angry  ;  even 
if  the  malicious  mockery  and  sneers  of  others  have  drawn 


452  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

attention  to  his  own  intellectual  or  physical  faults,  he  only 
reproaches  himself  in  his  heart  for  having  been  the  occa 
sion  of  such  expressions,  and  therefore,  without  doing  vio 
lence  to  his  own  feelings,  proceeds  to  treat  those  persons 
in  the  kindest  manner,  confidently  hoping  that  they  will 
turn  from  their  error  with  regard  to  him,  and  recognise 
themselves  in  him  also.  What  is  wit  and  genius  against 
this  ? — what  is  Bacon  of  Verulam  ? 

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


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        453 

function  of  the  brain;  the  will,  on  the  contrary, is  that  whose 
function  is  the  whole  man,  according  to  his  being  and  nature. 

If,  looking  without  us,  we  reflect  that  6  /3to?  /3/ja^u?,  17 
Se  re^yrj  fj,arcpa  (vita  brevis,  ars  longa),  and  consider  how 
the  greatest  and  most  beautiful  minds,  often  when  they 
have  scarcely  reached  the  summit  of  their  power,  and  the 
greatest  scholars,  when  they  have  only  just  attained  to  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  their  science,  are  snatched  away 
by  death,  we  are  confirmed  in  this,  that  the  meaning  and 
end  of  life  is  not  intellectual  but  moral. 

The  complete  difference  between  the  mental  and  moral 
qualities  displays  itself  lastly  in  the  fact  that  the  intellect 
suffers  very  important  changes  through  time,  while  the 
will  and  character  remain  untouched  by  it.  The  new 
born  child  has  as  yet  no  use  of  its  understanding,  but 
obtains  it  within  the  first  two  months  to  the  extent  of 
perception  and  apprehension  of  the  things  in  the  external 
world — a  process  which  I  have  described  more  fully  in  my 
essay,  "  Ueber  das  Sehn  und  die  Farben,"  p.  10  of  the 
second  (and  third)  edition.  The  growth  of  reason  to  the 
point  of  speech,  and  thereby  of  thought,  follows  this  first 
and  most  important  step  much  more  slowly,  generally 
only  in  the  third  year;  yet  the  early  childhood  remains 
hopelessly  abandoned  to  silliness  and  folly,  primarily 
because  the  brain  still  lacks  physical  completeness,  which, 
both  as  regards  its  size  and  texture,  it  only  attains  in  the 
seventh  year.  But  then  for  its  energetic  activity  there  is 
still  wanting  the  antagonism  of  the  genital  system ;  it 
therefore  only  begins  with  puberty.  Through  this,  how 
ever,  the  intellect  has  only  attained  to  the  capacity  for  its 
psychical  improvement ;  this  itself  can  only  be  won  by 
practice,  experience,  and  instruction.  Thus  as  soon  as  the 
mind  has  escaped  from  the  folly  of  childhood  it  falls  into 
the  snares  of  innumerable  errors,  prejudices,  and  chimeras, 
sometimes  of  the  absurdest  and  crudest  kind,  which  it 
obstinately  sticks  to,  till  experience  gradually  removes 
them,  and  many  of  them  also  are  insensibly  lost.  All 


454  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

this  takes  many  years  to  happen,  so  that  one  grants  it 
majority  indeed  soon  after  the  twentieth  year,  yet  has 
placed  full  maturity,  years  of  discretion,  not  before  the 
fortieth  year.  But  while  this  psychical  education,  rest 
ing  upon  help  from  without,  is  still  in  process  of  growth, 
the  inner  physical  energy  of  the  brain  already  begins  to 
sink  again.  This  has  reached  its  real  calminating  point 
about  the  thirtieth  year,  on  account  of  its  dependence  upon 
the  pressure  of  blood  and  the  effect  of  the  pulsation  upon 
the  brain,  and  through  this  again  upon  the  predominance 
of  the  arterial  over  the  venous  system,  and  the  fresh  ten 
derness  of  the  brain  fibre,  and  also  on  account  of  the  energy 
of  the  genital  system.  After  the  thirty-fifth  year  a  slight 
diminution  of  the  physical  energy  of  the  brain  becomes 
noticeable,  which,  through  the  gradually  approaching  pre 
dominance  of  the  venous  over  the  arterial  system,  and  also 
through  the  increasing  firmer  and  drier  consistency  of  the 
brain  fibre,  more  and  more  takes  place,  and  would  be  much 
more  observable  if  it  were  not  that,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
psychical  perfecting,  through  exercise,  experience,  increase 
of  knowledge,  and  acquired  skill  in  the  use  of  it,  counter 
acts  it — an  antagonism  which  fortunately  lasts  to  an  ad 
vanced  age,  for  the  brain  becomes  more  and  more  like  a 
worn-out  instrument.  But  yet  the  diminution  of  the 
original  energy  of  the  intellect,  resting  entirely  upon 
organic  conditions,  continues,  slowly  indeed,  but  unceas 
ingly  :  the  faculty  of  original  conception,  the  imagination, 
the  plastic  power,  the  memory,  become  noticeably  weaker  ; 
and  so  it  goes  on  step  by  step  downwards  into  old  age, 
garrulous,  without  memory,  half-unconscious,  and  ulti 
mately  quite  childish. 

The  will,  on  the  contrary,  is  not  affected  by  all  this 
becoming,  this  change  and  vicissitude,  but  is  from  begin 
ning  to  end  unalterably  the  same.  Willing  does  not 
require  to  be  learned  like  knowing,  but  succeeds  perfectly 
at  once.  The  new-born  child  makes  violent  movements, 
rages,  and  cries ;  it  wills  in  the  most  vehement  manner, 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        455 

though  it  does  not  yet  know  what  it  wills.  For  the 
medium  of  motives,  the  intellect,  is  not  yet  fully  de 
veloped.  The  will  is  in  darkness  concerning  the  external 
world,  in  which  its  objects  lie,  and  now  rages  like  a 
prisoner  against  the  walls  and  bars  of  his  dungeon.  But 
little  by  little  it  becomes  light:  at  once  the  fundamental 
traits  of  universal  human  willing,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
the  individual  modification  of  it  here  present,  announce 
themselves.  The  already  appearing  character  shows  itself 
indeed  at  first  in  weak  and  uncertain  outline,  on  account 
of  the  defective  service  of  the  intellect,  which  has  to 
present  it  with  motives ;  but  to  the  attentive  observer  it 
soon  declares  its  complete  presence,  and  in  a  short  time  it 
becomes  unmistakable.  The  characteristics  appear  which 
last  through  the  whole  of  life ;  the  principal  tendencies  of 
the  will,  the  easily  excited  emotions,  the  ruling  passion, 
declare  themselves.  Therefore  the  events  at  school  stand 
to  those  of  the  future  life  for  the  most  part  as  the  dumb- 
show  in  "  Hamlet"  that  precedes  the  play  to  be  given  at  the 
court,  and  foretells  its  content  in  the  form  of  pantomime, 
stands  to  the  play  itself.  But  it  is  by  no  means  possible 
to  prognosticate  in  the  same  way  the  future  intellectual 
capacities  of  the  man  from  those  shown  in  the  boy  ;  rather 
as  a  rule  the  ingenia  prcecocia,  prodigies,  turn  out  block 
heads  ;  genius,  on  the  contrary,  is  often  in  childhood  of 
slow  conception,  and  comprehends  with  difficulty,  just 
because  it  comprehends  deeply.  This  is  how  it  is  that 
every  one  relates  laughing  and  without  reserve  the  follies 
and  stupidities  of  his  childhood.  For  example,  Goethe, 
how  he  threw  all  the  kitchen  crockery  out  of  the  window 
(Dichtung  und  Wahrheit,  vol.  i.  p.  7) ;  for  we  know  that 
all  this  only  concerns  what  changes.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  prudent  man  will  not  favour  us  with  the  bad  features, 
the  malicious  or  deceitful  actions,  of  his  youth,  for  he  feels 
that  they  also  bear  witness  to  his  present  character.  1 
have  been  told  that  when  Gall,  the  phrenologist  and 
investigator  of  man,  had  to  put  himself  into  connection 


456  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

with  a  man  as  yet  unknown  to  him,  he  used  to  get  him  to 
speak  about  his  youthful  years  and  actions,  in  order,  if 
possible,  to  gather  from  these  the  distinctive  traits  of  his 
character ;  because  this  must  still  be  the  same  now.  This 
is  the  reason  why  we  are  indifferent  to  the  follies  and 
want  of  understanding  of  our  youthful  years,  and  even 
look  back  on  them  with  smiling  satisfaction,  while  the 
bad  features  of  character  even  of  that  time,  the  ill-natured 
actions  and  the  misdeeds  then  committed  exist  even  in  old 
age  as  inextinguishable  reproaches,  and  trouble  our  con 
sciences.  Now,  just  as  the  character  appears  complete,  so 
it  remains  unaltered  to  old  age.  The  advance  of  age,  which 
gradually  consumes  the  intellectual  powers,  leaves  the 
moral  qualities  untouched.  The  goodness  of  the  heart 
still  makes  the  old  man  honoured  and  loved  when  his 
head  already  shows  the  weaknesses  which  are  the  com 
mencement  of  second  childhood.  Gentleness,  patience, 
honesty,  veracity,  disinterestedness,  philanthropy,  &c.,  re 
main  through  the  whole  life,  and  are  not  lost  through  the 
weaknesses  of  old  age ;  in  every  clear  moment  of  the  worn- 
out  old  man  they  come  forth  undiminished,  like  the  sun 
from  the  winter  clouds.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  malice, 
spite,  avarice,  hard-heartedness,  infidelity,  egoism,  and 
baseness  of  every  kind  also  remain  undiminished  to  our 
latest  years.  We  would  not  believe  but  would  laugh  at 
any  one  who  said  to  us,  "  In  former  years  I  was  a  mali 
cious  rogue,  but  now  I  am  an  honest  and  noble-minded 
man."  Therefore  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  the  "  Fortunes  of 
Nigel,"  has  shown  very  beautifully,  in  the  case  of  the  old 
usurer,  how  burning  avarice,  egoism,  and  injustice  are  still 
in  their  full  strength,  like  a  poisonous  plant  in  autumn, 
when  the  intellect  has  already  become  childish.  The  only 
alterations  that  take  place  in  our  inclinations  are  those 
which  result  directly  from  the  decrease  of  our  physical 
strength,  and  with  it  of  our  capacities  for  enjoyment. 
Thus  voluptuousness  will  make  way  for  intemperance,  the 
love  of  splendour  for  avarice,  and  vanity  for  ambition ; 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        457 

just  like  the  man  who  before  he  has  a  beard  will  wear  a 
false  one,  and  later,  when  his  own  beard  has  become  grey, 
will  dye  it  brown.  Thus  while  all  organic  forces,  muscu 
lar  power,  the  senses,  the  memory,  wit,  understanding, 
genius,  wear  themselves  out,  and  in  old  age  become  dull, 
the  will  alone  remains  undecayed  and  unaltered  :  the 
strength  and  the  tendency  of  willing  remains  the  same. 
Indeed  in  many  points  the  will  shows  itself  still  more 
decided  in  age :  thus,  in  the  clinging  to  life,  which,  it  is 
well  known,  increases  ;  also  in  the  firmness  and  persistency 
with  regard  to  what  it  has  once  embraced,  in  obstinacy ; 
which  is  explicable  from  the  fact  that  the  susceptibility  of 
the  intellect  for  other  impressions,  and  thereby  the  move 
ment  of  the  will  by  motives  streaming  in  upon  it,  has 
diminished.  Hence  the  implacable  nature  of  the  anger 
and  hate  of  old  persons — 

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

— Old  Ballad. 

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

9.  The  universally  used  and  generally  very  well  under 
stood  expressions  heart  and  head  have  sprung  from  a  true 
feeling  of  the  fundamental  distinction  here  in  question; 
therefore  they  are  also  apt  and  significant,  and  occur  in 
all  languages.  Nee  cor  nee  caput  halet,  says  Seneca  of  the 
Emperor  Claudius  (Ludus  de  morte  Glaudii  Ccesaris,  c.  8). 


458  SECOND  BOOK.    CHAPTER  XIX. 

The  heart,  this  primum  mobile  of  the  animal  life,  has 
with  perfect  justice  been  chosen  as  the  symbol,  nay,  the 
synonym,  of  the  will,  as  the  primary  kernel  of  our  pheno 
menon,  and  denotes  this  in  opposition  to  the  intellect, 
which  is  exactly  identical  with  the  head.  All  that,  in  the 
widest  sense,  is  matter  of  the  will,  as  wish,  passion,  joy, 
grief,  goodness,  wickedness,  also  what  we  are  wont  to 
understand  under  "  Gemiith,"  and  what  Homer  expresses 
through  <f)tXov  rjrop,  is  attributed  to  the  heart.  Accord 
ingly  we  say :  He  has  a  bad  heart ; — his  heart  is  in  the 
thing  ; — it  comes  from  his  heart ; — it  cut  him  to  the 
heart ; — it  breaks  his  heart ; — his  heart  bleeds  ; — the 
heart  leaps  for  joy  ; — who  can  see  the  heart  of  man  ? — it 
is  heart-rending,  heart-crushing,  heart-breaking,  heart- 

O'  G'  O7 

inspiring,  heart  -  touching  ; — he  is  good-hearted,  hard 
hearted,  heartless,  stout-hearted,  faint-hearted,  &c.  &c. 
Quite  specially,  however,  love  affairs  are  called  affairs  of 
the  heart,  affaires  de  cceur  ;  because  the  sexual  impulse  is 
the  focus  of  the  will,  and  the  selection  with  reference  to  it 
constitutes  the  chief  concern  of  natural,  human  volition, 
the  ground  of  which  I  shall  show  in  a  full  chapter  sup 
plementary  to  the  fourth  book.  Byron  in  "  Don  Juan," 
c.  xi.  v.  34,  is  satirical  about  love  being  to  women  an  affair 
of  the  head  instead  of  an  affair  of  the  heart.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  head  denotes  everything  that  is  matter  of  know 
ledge.  Hence  a  man  of  head,  a  good  head,  a  fine  head,  a 
bad  head,  to  lose  one's  head,  to  keep  one's  head  upper 
most,  &c.  Heart  and  head  signifies  the  whole  man.  But 
the  head  is  always  the  second,  the  derived ;  for  it  is  not 
the  centre  but  the  highest  efflorescence  of  the  body. 
When  a  hero  dies  his  heart  is  embalmed,  not  his  brain ; 
on  the  other  hand,  we  like  to  preserve  the  skull  of  the 
poet,  the  artist,  and  the  philosopher.  So  Raphael's  skull 
was  preserved  in  the  Academia  di  S.  Luca  at  Rome,  though 
it  has  lately  been  proved  not  to  be  genuine  ;  in  Stockholm 
in  1820  the  skull  of  Descartes  was  sold  by  auction.1 

1  The  Times  of  iSth  October  1845  ;  from  the  AthencEum. 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        459 

A  true  feeling  of  the  real  relation  between  will,  in 
tellect,  and  life  is  also  expressed  in  the  Latin  language. 
The  intellect  is  mens,  vovs  ;  the  will  again  is  animus, 
which  comes  from  anima,  and  this  from  avejj,(ov.  Anima 
is  the  life  itself,  the  breath,  ^f%7/ ;  but  animus  is  the 
living  principle,  and  also  the  will,  the  subject  of  inclina 
tions,  intentions,  passions,  emotions ;  hence  also  est  mihi 
animus, — fert  animus, — for  "  I  have  a  desire  to,"  also 
animi  causa,  &c. ;  it  is  the  Greek  QV/AOS,  the  German 
"  Gemiith,"  thus  the  heart  but  not  the  head.  Animi 
perturbatio  is  an  emotion  ;  mentis perturbatio  would  signify 
insanity.  The  predicate  immortalis  is  attributed  to  ani 
mus,  not  to  mens.  All  this  is  the  rule  gathered  from  the 
great  majority  of  passages ;  though  in  the  case  of  con 
ceptions  so  nearly  related  it  cannot  but  be  that  the  words 
are  sometimes  interchanged.  Under  •^rv^ij  the  Greeks 
appear  primarily  and  originally  to  have  understood  the 
vital  force,  the  living  principle,  whereby  at  once  arose 
the  dim  sense  that  it  must  be  something  metaphysical, 
which  consequently  would  not  be  reached  by  death. 
Among  other  proofs  of  this  are  the  investigations  of  the 
relation  between  vows  and  ^v^r)  preserved  by  Stobseus 
(Eel,  Lib.  i.  c.  51,  §  7,  8). 

10.  Upon  what  depends  the  identity  of  the  person? 
Not  upon  the  matter  of  the  body ;  it  is  different  after  a 
few  years.  Not  upon  its  form,  which  changes  as  a  whole 
and  in  all  its  parts ;  all  but  the  expression  of  the  glance, 
by  which,  therefore,  we  still  know  a  man  even  after  many 
years ;  which  proves  that  in  spite  of  all  changes  time  pro 
duces  in  him  something  in  him  remains  quite  untouched 
by  it.  It  is  just  this  by  which  we  recognise  him  even  after 
the  longest  intervals  of  time,  and  find  the  former  man 
entire.  It  is  the  same  with  ourselves,  for,  however  old  we 
become,  we  yet  feel  within  that  we  are  entirely  the  same 
as  we  were  when  we  were  young,  nay,  when  we  were  still 
children.  This,  which  unaltered  always  remains  quite  the 
same,  and  does  not  grow  old  along  with  us,  is  really  the 


460  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

kernel  of  our  nature,  which  does  not  lie  in  time.  It  is 
assumed  that  the  identity  of  the  person  rests  upon  that  of 
consciousness.  But  by  this  is  understood  merely  the  con 
nected  recollection  of  the  course  of  life ;  hence  it  is  not 
sufficient.  We  certainly  know  something  more  of  our  life 
than  of  a  novel  we  have  formerly  read,  yet  only  very  little. 
The  principal  events,  the  interesting  scenes,  have  impressed 
themselves  upon  us  ;  in  the  remainder  a  thousand  events 
are  forgotten  for  one  that  has  been  retained.  The  older 
we  become  the  more  do  things  pass  by  us  without  leaving 
any  trace.  Great  age,  illness,  injury  of  the  brain,  madness, 
may  deprive  us  of  memory  altogether,  but  the  identity  of 
the  person  is  not  thereby  lost.  It  rests  upon  the  identical 
will  and  the  unalterable  character  of  the  person.  It  is  it 
also  which  makes  the  expression  of  the  glance  unchange 
able.  In  the  heart  is  the  man,  not  in  the  head.  It  is  true 
that,  in  consequence  of  our  relation  to  the  external  world, 
we  are  accustomed  to  regard  as  our  real  self  the  subject  of 
knowledge,  the  knowing  I,  which  wearies  in  the  evening, 
vanishes  in  sleep,  and  in  the  morning  shines  brighter  with 
renewed  strength.  This  is,  however,  the  mere  function  of 
the  brain,  and  not  our  own  self.  Our  true  self,  the  kernel 
of  our  nature,  is  what  is  behind  that,  and  really  knows 
nothing  but  willing  and  not  willing,  being  content  and  not 
content,  with  all  the  modifications  of  this,  which  are  called 
feelings,  emotions,  and  passions.  This  is  that  which  pro 
duces  the  other,  does  not  sleep  with  it  when  it  sleeps,  and 
in  the  same  way  when  it  sinks  in  death  remains  uninjured. 
Everything,  on  the  contrary,  that  belongs  to  knowledge  is 
exposed  to  oblivion ;  even  actions  of  moral  significance  can 
sometimes,  after  years,  be  only  imperfectly  recalled,  and 
we  no  longer  know  accurately  and  in  detail  how  we  acted 
on  a  critical  occasion.  But  the  character  itself,  to  which 
the  actions  only  testify,  cannot  be  forgotten  by  us ;  it  is 
now  still  quite  the  same  as  then.  The  will  itself,  alone 
and  for  itself,  is  permanent,  for  it  alone  is  unchangeable, 
indestructible,  not  growing  old,  not  physical,  but  nieta- 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        461 

physical,  not  belonging  to  the  phenomenal  appearance,  but 
to  that  itself  which  so  appears.  How  the  identity  of 
consciousness  also,  so  far  as  it  goes,  depends  upon  it  I 
have  shown  above  in  chapter  15,  so  I  need  not  dwell  upon 
it  further  here. 

ii.  Aristotle  says  in  passing,  in  his  book  on  the  com 
parison  of  the  desirable,  "To  live  well  is  better  than  to 
live  "  (j3e\Tiov  rov  fyv  TO  ev  fyv,  Top.  iii.  2).  From  this 
we  might  infer,  by  double  contraposition,  not  to  live  is 
better  than  to  live  badly.  This  is  also  evident  to  the  in 
tellect  ;  yet  the  great  majority  live  very  badly  rather  than 
not  at  all.  This  clinging  to  life  cannot  therefore  have  its 
ground  in  the  object  of  life,  since  life,  as  was  shown  in  the 
fourth  book,  is  really  a  constant  suffering,  or  at  the  least, 
as  will  be  shown  further  on  in  the  28th  chapter,  a  business 
which  does  not  cover  its  expenses ;  thus  that  clinging  to 
life  can  only  be  founded  in  the  subject  of  it.  But  it  is  not 
founded  in  the  intellect,  it  is  no  result  of  reflection,  and  in 
general  is  not  a  matter  of  choice  ;  but  this  willing  of  life 
is  something  that  is  taken  for  granted :  it  is  a  prius  of  the 
intellect  itself.  We  ourselves  are  the  will  to  live,  and 
therefore  we  must  live,  well  or  ill.  Only  from  the  fact 
that  this  clinging  to  a  life  which  is  so  little  worth  to  them 
is  entirely  a  priori  and  not  a  posteriori  can  we  explain 
the  excessive  fear  of  death  that  dwells  in  every  living 
thing,  which  Eochefoucauld  has  expressed  in  his  last  re 
flection,  with  rare  frankness  and  naivete,  and  upon  which 
the  effect  of  all  tragedies  and  heroic  actions  ultimately  rest, 
for  it  would  be  lost  if  we  prized  life  only  according  to  its 
objective  worth.  Upon  this  inexpressible  horror  mortis  is 
also  founded  the  favourite  principle  of  all  ordinary  minds, 
that  whosoever  takes  his  own  life  must  be  mad ;  yet  not 
less  the  astonishment,  mingled  with  a  certain  admiration, 
which  this  action  always  excites  even  in  thinking  minds, 
because  it  is  so  opposed  to  the  nature  of  all  living  beings 
that  in  a  certain  sense  we  are  forced  to  admire  him  who  is 
able  to  perform  it.  For  suicide  proceeds  from  a  purpose 


462  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

of  the  intellect,  but  our  will  to  live  is  a  prius  of  the  in 
tellect.  Thus  this  consideration  also,  which  will  be  fully 
discussed  in  chapter  28,  confirms  the  primacy  of  the  will 
in  self-consciousness. 

12.  On  the  other  hand,  nothing  proves  more  clearly 
the  secondary,  dependent,  conditioned  nature  of  the  intellect 
than  its  periodical  intermittance.  In  deep  sleep  all  know 
ing  and  forming  of  ideas  ceases.  But  the  kernel  of  our 
nature,  the  metaphysical  part  of  it  which  the  organic 
functions  necessarily  presuppose  as  their  prim/urn  mobile, 
must  never  pause  if  life  is  not  to  cease,  and,  moreover, 
as  something  metaphysical  and  therefore  incorporeal,  it 
requires  no  rest.  Therefore  the  philosophers  who  set  up 
a  soul  as  this  metaphysical  kernel,  i.e.,  an  originally  and 
essentially  knowing  being,  see  themselves  forced  to  the 
assertion  that  this  soul  is  quite  untiring  in  its  perceiving 
and  knowing,  therefore  continues  these  even  in  deep  sleep ; 
only  that  we  have  no  recollection  of  this  when  we  awake. 
The  falseness  of  this  assertion,  however,  was  easy  to  see 
whenever  one  had  rejected  that  soul  in  consequence  of 
Kant's  teaching.  For  sleep  and  waking  prove  to  the  un 
prejudiced  mind  in  the  clearest  manner  that  knowing  is  a 
secondary  function  and  conditioned  by  the  organism,  just 
like  any  other.  Only  the  heart  is  untiring,  because  its 
beating  and  the  circulation  of  the  blood  are  not  directly 
conditioned  by  nerves,  but  are  just  the  original  manifesta 
tion  of  the  will.  Also  all  other  physiological  functions 
governed  merely  by  ganglionic  nerves,  which  have  only  a 
very  indirect  and  distant  connection  with  the  brain,  are 
carried  on  during  sleep,  although  the  secretions  take  place 
more  slowly ;  the  beating  of  the  heart  itself,  on  account  of 
its  dependence  upon  respiration,  which  is  conditioned  by 
the  cerebral  system  (medulla  oblongata),  becomes  with  it  a 
little  slower.  The  stomach  is  perhaps  most  active  in  sleep, 
which  is  to  be  attributed  to  its  special  consensus  with  the 
now  resting  brain,  which  occasions  mutual  disturbances. 
The  brain  alone,  and  with  it  knowing,  pauses  entirely  in 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        463 

deep  sleep.  For  it  is  merely  the  minister  of  foreign  affairs, 
as  the  ganglion  system  is  the  minister  of  the  interior.  The 
brain,  with  its  function  of  knowing,  is  only  a  vedette  estab 
lished  by  the  will  for  its  external  ends,  which,  up  in  the 
watch-tower  of  the  head,  looks  round  through  the  windows 
of  the  senses  and  marks  where  mischief  threatens  and 
where  advantages  are  to  be  looked  for,  and  in  accordance 
with  whose  report  the  will  decides.  This  vedette,  like 
every  one  engaged  on  active  service,  is  then  in  a  condition 
of  strain  and  effort,  and  therefore  it  is  glad  when,  after  its 
watch  is  completed,  it  is  again  withdrawn,  as  every  watch 
gladly  retires  from  its  post.  This  withdrawal  is  going  to 
sleep,  which  is  therefore  so  sweet  and  agreeable,  and  to 
which  we  are  so  glad  to  yield;  on  the  other  hand,  being 
roused  from  sleep  is  unwelcome,  because  it  recalls  the 
vedette  suddenly  to  its  post.  One  generally  feels  also  after 
the  beneficent  systole  the  reappearance  of  the  difficult 
diastole,  the  reseparation  of  the  intellect  from  the  will. 
A  so-called  soul,  which  was  originally  and  radically  a 
knowing  being,  would,  on  the  contrary,  necessarily  feel  on 
awaking  like  a  fish  put  back  into  water.  In  sleep,  when 
merely  the  vegetative  life  is  carried  on,  the  will  works 
only  according  to  its  original  and  essential  nature,  undis 
turbed  from  without,  with  no  diminution  of  its  power 
through  the  activity  of  the  brain  and  the  exertion  of 
knowing,  which  is  the  heaviest  organic  function,  yet  for  the 
organism  merely  a  means,  not  an  end ;  therefore,  in  sleep 
the  whole  power  of  the  will  is  directed  to  the  mainten 
ance  and,  where  it  is  necessary,  the  improvement  of  the 
organism.  Hence  all  healing,  all  favourable  crises,  take 
place  in  sleep ;  for  the  vis  naturae  mcdicatrix  has  free  play 
only  when  it  is  delivered  from  the  burden  of  the  function 
of  knowledge.  The  embryo  which  has  still  to  form  the 
body  therefore  sleeps  continuously,  and  the  new-born 
child  the  greater  part  of  its  time.  In  this  sense  Burdach 
(Physiologic,  vol.  iii.  p.  484)  quite  rightly  declares  sleep 
to  be  the  original  state. 


464  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

With  reference  to  the  brain  itself,  I  account  to  myself 
for  the  necessity  of  sleep  more  fully  through  an  hypothesis 
which  appears  to  have  been  first  set  up  in  Neumann's 
book,  "  Von  den  Krankheiten  dcs  Menschen,"  1834,  vol.  4, 
§  2 1 6.  It  is  this,  that  the  nutrition  of  the  brain,  thus  the 
renewal  of  its  substance  from  the  blood,  cannot  go  on 
while  we  are  awake,  because  the  very  eminent  organic 
function  of  knowing  and  thinking  would  be  disturbed  or 
put  an  end  to  by  the  low  and  material  function  of  nutri 
tion.  This  explains  the  fact  that  sleep  is  not  a  purely 
negative  condition,  a,  mere  pausing  of  the  activity  of  the 
brain,  but  also  shows  a  positive  character.  This  makes 
itself  known  through  the  circumstance  that  between  sleep 
and  waking  there  is  no  mere  difference  of  degree,  but  a 
fixed  boundary,  which,  as  soon  as  sleep  intervenes, 
declares  itself  in  dreams  which  are  completely  different 
from  our  immediately  preceding  thoughts.  A  further 
proof  of  this  is  that  when  we  have  dreams  which  frighten 
us  we  try  in  vain  to  cry  out,  or  to  ward  off  attacks,  or 
to  shake  off  sleep ;  so  that  it  is  as  if  the  connecting-link 
between  the  brain  and  the  motor  nerves,  or  between  the 
cerebrum  and  the  cerebellum  (as  the  regulator  of  move 
ments)  were  abolished ;  for  the  brain  remains  in  its  iso 
lation  and  sleep  holds  us  fast  as  with  brazen  claws. 
Finally,  the  positive  character  of  sleep  can  be  seen  in 
the  fact  that  a  certain  degree  of  strength  is  required  for 
sleeping.  Therefore  too  great  fatigue  or  natural  weakness 
prevent  us  from  seizing  it,  capere  somnum.  This  may  be 
explained  from  the  fact  that  the  process  of  nutrition  must 
be  introduced  if  sleep  is  to  ensue :  the  brain  must,  as  it 
were,  begin  to  feed.  Moreover,  the  increased  flow  of  blood 
into  the  brain  during  sleep  is  explicable  from  the  nutritive 
process ;  and  also  the  position  of  the  arms  laid  together 
above  the  head,  which  is  instinctively  assumed  because  it 
furthers  this  process :  also  why  children,  so  long  as  their 
brain  is  still  growing,  require  a  great  deal  of  sleep,  while 
in  old  age,  on  the  other  hand,  when  a  certain  atrophy  of 


ON  THE   WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        465 

the  brain,  as  of  all  the  parts,  takes  place,  sleep  is 
short ;  and  finally  why  excessive  sleep  produces  a  certain 
dulness  of  consciousness,  the  consequence  of  a  certain 
hypertrophy  of  the  brain,  which  in  the  case  of  habitual 
excess  of  sleep  may  become  permanent  and  produce 
imbecility :  avirj  teat,  TroXu?  VTTVOS  (noxce  est  etiam  multus 
somnus),  Od.  15,  394.  The  need  of  sleep  is  therefore 
directly  proportionate  to  the  intensity  of  the  brain-life, 
thus  to  the  clearness  of  the  consciousness.  Those  animals 
whose  brain-life  is  weak  and  dull  sleep  little  and  lightly ; 
for  example,  reptiles  and  fishes :  and  here  I  must  remind 
the  reader  that  the  winter  sleep  is  sleep  almost  only  in 
name,  for  it  is  not  an  inaction  of  the  brain  alone,  but 
of  the  whole  organism,  thus  a  kind  of  apparent  death. 
Animals  of  considerable  intelligence  sleep  deeply  and 
long.  Men  also  require  more  sleep  the  more  developed, 
both  as  regards  quantity  and  quality,  and  the  more  active 
their  brain  is.  Montaigne  relates  of  himself  that  he  had 
always  been  a  long  sleeper,  that  he  had  passed  a  large  part 
of  his  life  in  sleeping,  and  at  an  advanced  age  still  slept 
from  eight  to  nine  hours  at  a  time  (Liv.  iii.,  chap.  13). 
Descartes  also  is  reported  to  have  slept  a  great  deal 
(Baillet,  Vie  de  Descartes,  1693,  p.  288).  Kant  allowed 
himself  seven  hours  for  sleep,  but  it  was  so  hard  for  him 
to  do  with  this  that  he  ordered  his  servant  to  force  him 
against  his  will,  and  without  listening  to  his  remonstrances, 
to  get  up  at  the  set  time  (Jachmann,  Immanuel  Kant,  p. 
162).  For  the  more  completely  awake  a  man  is,  i.e.,  the 
clearer  and  more  lively  his  consciousness,  the  greater  for 
him  is  the  necessity  of  sleep,  thus  the  deeper  and  longer 
he  sleeps.  Accordingly  much  thinking  or  hard  brain-work 
increases  the  need  of  sleep.  That  sustained  muscular 
exertion  also  makes  us  sleepy  is  to  be  explained  from 
the  fact  that  in  this  the  brain  continuously,  by  means  of 
the  medulla  oblongata,  the  spinal  marrow,  and  the  motor 
nerves,  imparts  the  stimulus  to  the  muscles  which  affects 
their  irritability,  and  in  this  way  it  exhausts  its  strength. 

VOL.  II.  2  G 


466  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XIX. 

The  fatigue  which  we  observe  in  the  arms  and  legs  has 
accordingly  its  real  seat  in  the  brain ;  just  as  the  pain 
which  these  parts  feel  is  really  experienced  in  the  brain  ; 
for  it  is  connected  with  the  motor  nerves,  as  with  the 
nerves  of  sense.  The  muscles  which  are  not  actuated  from 
the  brain — for  example,  those  of  the  heart — accordingly 
never  tire.  The  same  grounds  explain  the  fact  that  both 
during  and  after  great  muscular  exertion  we  cannot  think 
acutely.  That  one  has  far  less  energy  of  mind  in  summer 
than  in  winter  is  partly  explicable  from  the  fact  that  in 
summer  one  sleeps  less ;  for  the  deeper  one  has  slept,  the 
more  completely  awake,  the  more  lively,  is  one  afterwards. 
This,  however,  must  not  mislead  us  into  extending  sleep 
unduly,  for  then  it  loses  in  intension,  i.e.,  in  deepness  and 
soundness,  what  it  gains  in  extension  ;  whereby  it  becomes 
mere  loss  of  time.  This  is  what  Goethe  means  when  he 
says  (in  the  second  part  of  "  Faust ")  of  morning  slumber : 
"  Sleep  is  husk :  throw  it  off."  Thus  in  general  the  phe 
nomenon  of  sleep  most  specially  confirms  the  assertion 
that  consciousness,  apprehension,  knowing,  thinking,  is 
nothing  original  in  us,  but  a  conditioned  and  secondary- 
state.  It  is  a  luxury  of  nature,  and  indeed  its  highest, 
which  it  can  therefore  the  less  afford  to  pursue  without 
interruption  the  higher  the  pitch  to  which  it  has  been 
brought.  It  is  the  product,  the  efflorescence  of  the  cerebral 
nerve-system,  which  is  itself  nourished  like  a  parasite  by 
the  rest  of  the  organism.  This  also  agrees  with  what  is 
shown  in  our  third  book,  that  knowing  is  so  much  the 
purer  and  more  perfect  the  more  it  has  freed  and  severed 
itself  from  the  will,  whereby  the  purely  objective,  the 
aesthetic  comprehension  appears.  Just  as  an  extract  is  so 
much  the  purer  the  more  it  has  been  separated  from  that 
out  of  which  it  is  extracted  and  been  cleared  of  all  sedi 
ment.  The  opposite  is  shown  by  the  will,  whose  most 
immediate  manifestation  is  the  whole  organic  life,  and 
primarily  the  untiring  heart. 

This  last  consideration  is  related  to  the  theme  of  the 


ON  THE  WILL  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.        467 

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


(     468     ) 


CHAPTEE  XX.1 

OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL  IN  THE  ANIMAL  ORGANISM. 

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

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

To  the  evidence  which  is  given  in  support  of  this  pro 
position,  both  in  our  second  book  and  in  the  first  two 
chapters  of  the  treatise  "  Ueber  den  Willen  in  der  Natur," 

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


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  469 

I  add  the  following  supplementary  remarks  and  illustra 
tions. 

Nearly  all  that  is  necessary  to  establish  the  first  part  of 
this  thesis  has  already  been  brought  forward  in  the  pre 
ceding  chapter,  for  in  the  necessity  of  sleep,  in  the  altera 
tions  that  arise  from  age,  and  in  the  differences  of  the 
anatomical  conformation,  it  was  proved  that  the  intellect 
is  of  a  secondary  nature,  and  depends  absolutely  upon  a 
single  organ,  the  brain,  whose  function  it  is,  just  as  grasp 
ing  is  the  function  of  the  hand  ;  that  it  is  therefore 
physical,  like  digestion,  not  metaphysical,  like  the  will. 
As  good  digestion  requires  a  healthy,  strong  stomach,  as 
athletic  power  requires  muscular  sinewy  arms,  so  extra 
ordinary  intelligence  requires  an  unusually  developed, 
beautifully  formed  brain  of  exquisitely  fine  texture  and 
animated  by  a  vigorous  pulse.  The  nature  of  the  will,  on 
the  contrary,  is  dependent  upon  no  organ,  and  can  be 
prognosticated  from  none.  The  greatest  error  in  Gall's 
phrenology  is  that  he  assigns  organs  of  the  brain  for  moral 
qualities  also.  Injuries  to  the  head,  with  loss  of  brain  sub 
stance,  affect  the  intellect  as  a  rule  very  disadvantageously : 
they  result  in  complete  or  partial  imbecility  or  forgetful- 
ness  of  language,  permanent  or  temporary,  yet  sometimes 
only  of  one  language  out  of  several  which  were  known, 
also  in  the  loss  of  other  knowledge  possessed,  &c.,  &c. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  never  read  that  after  a  misfortune 
of  this  kind  the  character  has  undergone  a  change,  that  the 
man  has  perhaps  become  morally  worse  or  better,  or  has 
lost  certain  inclinations  or  passions,  or  assumed  new  ones ; 
never.  For  the  will  has  not  its  seat  in  the  brain,  and 
moreover,  as  that  which  is  metaphysical,  it  is  the  prius  of 
the  brain,  as  of  the  whole  body,  and  therefore  cannot  be 
altered  by  injuries  of  the  brain.  According  to  an  experi 
ment  made  by  Spallanzaui  and  repeated  by  Voltaire,1  a 

1  Spattanzani,   Risultati  di  espe-  Societa   Italiana,    Tom.    i.    p.    58 !- 

rienze   sopra   la   riproduzione   della  Voltaire,  Les  colima<;ons  du  reverend 

testa  nclie  lumache  terrestri  :    in  the  pere  L'escarbotier. 
Memorie  di  matematica  efisica  della 


470  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

snail  that  has  had  its  head  cut  off  remains  alive,  and  after 
some  weeks  a  new  head  grows  on,  together  with  horns ; 
with  this  consciousness  and  ideas  again  appear;  while  till 
then  the  snail  had  only  given  evidence  of  blind  will 
through  unregulated  movements.  Thus  here  also  we  find 
the  will  as  the  substance  which  is  permanent,  the  intellect, 
on  the  contrary,  conditioned  by  its  organ,  as  the  changing 
accident.  It  may  be  defined  as  the  regulator  of  the  will. 

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


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  471 

The  second  part  of  our  thesis,  stated  above,  will  require 
a  fuller  exposition  even  after  all  that  I  have  said  about  it 
in  the  writings  referred  to.  I  have  shown  above,  in  chapter 
1 8,  that  the  thing  in  itself,  which  must  lie  at  the  foun 
dation  of  every  phenomenon,  and  therefore  of  our  own 
phenomenal  existence  also,  throws  off  in  self-consciousness 
one  of  its  phenomenal  forms — space,  and  only  retains  the 
other — time.  On  this  account  it  presents  itself  here  more 
immediately  than  anywhere  else,  and  we  claim  it  as  will, 
according  to  its  most  undisguised  manifestation.  But  no 
permanent  substance,  such  as  matter  is,  can  present  itself 
in  time  alone,  because,  as  §  4  of  the  first  volume  showed, 
such  a  substance  is  only  possible  through  the  intimate 
union  of  space  and  time.  Therefore,  in  self-consciousness 
the  will  is  not  apprehended  as  the  enduring  substratum  of 
its  impulses,  therefore  is  not  perceived  as  a  permanent 
substance ;  but  only  its  individual  acts,  such  as  purposes, 
wishes,  and  emotions,  are  known  successively  and  during 
the  time  they  last,  directly,  yet  not  perceptibly.  The 
knowledge  of  the  will  in  self-consciousness  is  accordingly 
not  a  perception  of  it,  but  a  perfectly  direct  becoming 
aware  of  its  successive  impulses.  On  the  other  hand,  for 
the  knowledge  which  is  directed  outwardly,  brought  about 
by  the  senses  and  perfected  in  the  understanding,  which, 
besides  time,  has  also  space  for  its  form,  which  two  it  con 
nects  in  the  closest  manner  by  means  of  the  function  of 
the  understanding,  causality,  whereby  it  really  becomes 
perception — this  knowledge  presents  to  itself  perceptibhj 
what  in  inner  immediate  apprehension  was  conceived  as 
will,  as  organic  body,  M'hose  particular  movements  visibly 
present  to  us  the  acts,  and  whose  parts  and  forms  visibly 
present  to  us  the  sustained  efforts,  the  fundamental  char 
acter,  of  the  individually  given  will,  nay,  whose  pain  and 
comfort  are  perfectly  immediate  affections  of  this  will 
itself. 

We  first  become  aware  of  this  identity  of  the  body  with 
the  will  in  the  individual  actions  of  the  two,  for  in,  these 


472  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

what  is  known  in  self-consciousness  as  an  immediate,  real 
act  of  will,  at  the  same  time  and  unseparated,  exhibits 
itself  outwardly  as  movement  of  the  body ;  and  every  one 
beholds  the  purposes  of  his  will,  which  are  instantaneously 
brought  about  by  motives  which  just  as  instantaneously 
appear  at  once  as  faithfully  copied  in  as  many  actions  of 
his  body  as  his  body  itself  is  copied  in  his  shadow ;  and 
from  this,  for  the  unprejudiced  man,  the  knowledge  arises  in 
the  simplest  manner  that  his  body  is  merely  the  outward 
manifestation  of  his  will,  i.e.,  the  way  in  which  his  will 
exhibits  itself  in  his  perceiving  intellect,  or  his  will  itself 
under  the  form  of  the  idea.  Only  if  we  forcibly  deprive 
ourselves  of  this  primary  and  simple  information  can  we 
for  a  short  time  marvel  at  the  process  of  our  own  bodily 
action  as  a  miracle,  which  then  rests  on  the  fact  that 
between  the  act  of  will  and  the  action  of  the  body  there  is 
really  no  causal  connection,  for  they  are  directly  identical, 
and  their  apparent  difference  only  arises  from  the  circum 
stance  that  here  what  is  one  and  the  same  is  apprehended 
in  two  different  modes  of  knowledge,  the  outer  and  the 
inner.  Actual  willing  is,  in  fact,  inseparable  from  doing ; 
and  in  the  strictest  sense  only  that  is  an  act  of  will  which 
the  deed  sets  its  seal  to.  Mere  resolves  of  the  will,  on  the 
contrary,  till  they  are  carried  out,  are  only  intentions,  and 
are  therefore  matter  of  the  intellect  alone;  as  such  they 
have  their  place  merely  in  the  brain,  and  are  nothing  more 
than  completed  calculations  of  the  relative  strength  of  the 
different  opposing  motives.  They  have,  therefore,  certainly 
great  probability,  but  no  infallibility.  They  may  turn  out 
false,  not  only  through  alteration  of  the  circumstances,  but 
also  from  the  fact  that  the  estimation  of  the  effect  of  the 
respective  motives  upon  the  will  itself  was  erroneous,  which 
then  shows  itself,  for  the  deed  is  untrue  to  the  purpose : 
therefore  before  it  is  carried  out  no  resolve  is  certain.  The 
will  itself,  then,  is  operative  only  in  real  action;  hence  in 
muscular  action,  and  consequently  in  irritability.  Thus  the 
will  proper  objectifies  itself  in  this.  The  cerebrum  is  the 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  473 

place  of  motives,  where,  through  these,  the  will  becomes 
choice,  i.e.,  becomes  more  definitely  determined  by  motives. 
These  motives  are  ideas,  which,  on  the  occasion  of  external 
stimuli  of  the  organs  of  sense,  arise  by  means  of  the  func 
tions  of  the  brain,  and  are  also  worked  up  into  conceptions, 
and  then  into  resolves.  When  it  comes  to  the  real  act  of 
will  these  motives,  the  workshop  of  which  is  the  cerebrum, 
act  through  the  medium  of  the  cerebellum  upon  the  spinal 
cord  and  the  motor  nerves  which  proceed  from  it,  which 
then  act  upon  the  muscles,  yet  merely  as  stimuli  of  their 
irritability;  for  galvanic,  chemical,  and  even  mechanical 
stimuli  can  effect  the  same  contraction  which  the  motor 
nerve  calls  forth.  Thus  what  was  motive  in  the  brain  acts, 
when  it  reaches  the  muscle  through  the  nerves,  as  mere 
stimulus.  Sensibility  in  itself  is  quite  unable  to  contract  a 
muscle.  This_can  only  be  done  by  the  muscle  itself,  and  its 
capacity  for  doing  so  is  called  irritability,  i.e.,  susceptibility 
to  stimuli.  It  is  exclusively  a  property  of  the  muscle,  as  sen 
sibility  is  exclusively  a  property  of  the  nerve.  The  latter 
indeed  gives  the  muscle  the  occasion  for  its  contraction,  but 
it  is  by  no  means  it  that,  in  some  mechanical  way,  draws  the 
muscle  together;  but  this  happens  simply  and  solely  on  ac 
count  of  the  irritability,  which  is  a  power  of  the  muscle  itself. 
Apprehended  from  without  this  is  a  Qualitas  occulta,  and 
only  self-consciousness  reveals  it  as  the  will.  In  the  causal 
chain  here  briefly  set  forth,  from  the  effect  of  the  motive 
lying  outside  us  to  the  contraction  of  the  muscle,  the  will 
does  not  in  some  way  come  in  as  the  last  link  of  the  chain ; 
but  it  is  the  metaphysical  substratum  of  the  irritability  of 
the  muscle :  thus  it  plays  here  precisely  the  same  part 
which  in  a  physical  or  chemical  chain  of  causes  is  played  by 
the  mysterious  forces  of  nature  which  lie  at  the  foundation 
of  the  process — forces  which  as  such  are  not  themselves  in 
volved  as  links  in  the  causal  chain,  but  impart  to  all  the 
links  of  it  the  capacity  to  act,  as  I  have  fully  shown  in 
§  26  of  the  first  volume.  Therefore  we  would  ascribe  the 
contraction  of  the  muscle  also  to  a  similar  mysterious 


474  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

force  of  nature,  if  it  were  not  that  this  contraction  is 
disclosed  to  us  by  an  entirely  different  source  of  know 
ledge — self-consciousness  as  will.  Hence,  as  was  said 
above,  if  we  start  from  the  will  our  own  muscular  move 
ment  appears  to  us  a  miracle ;  for  indeed  there  is  a  strict 
causal  chain  from  the  external  motive  to  the  muscular 
action  ;  but  the  will  itself  is  not  included  as  a  link  in  it, 
but,  as  the  metaphysical  substratum  of  the  possibility  of 
an  action  upon  the  muscle  through  brain  and  nerve,  lies  at 
the  foundation  of  the  present  muscular  action  also ;  there 
fore  the  latter  is  not  properly  its  effect  but  its  manifesta 
tion.  As  such  it  enters  the  world  of  idea,  the  form  of 
which  is  the  law  of  causality,  a  world  which  is  entirely 
different  from  the  will  in  itself  :  and  thus,  if  we  start  from 
the  will,  this  manifestation  has,  for  attentive  reflection,  the 
appearance  of  a  miracle,  but  for  deeper  investigation  it 
affords  the  most  direct  authentication  of  the  great  truth 
that  what  appears  in  the  phenomenon  as  body  and  its 
action  is  in  itself  will.  If  now  perhaps  the  motor  nerve 
that  leads  to  my  hand  is  severed,  the  will  can  no  longer 
move  it.  This,  however,  is  not  because  the  hand  has 
ceased  to  be,  like  every  part  of  my  body,  the  objectivity, 
the  mere  visibility,  of  my  will,  or  in  other  words,  that  the 
irritability  has  vanished,  but  because  the  effect  of  the 
motive,  in  consequence  of  which  alone  I  can  move  my 
hand,  cannot  reach  it  and  act  on  its  muscles  as  a  stimulus, 
for  the  line  of  connection  between  it  and  the  brain  is 
broken.  Thus  really  my  will  is,  in  this  part,  only  de 
prived  of  the  effect  of  the  motive.  The  will  objectifies 
itself  directly,  in  irritability,  not  in  sensibility. 

In  order  to  prevent  all  misunderstandings  about  this 
important  point,  especially  such  as  proceed  from  physio 
logy  pursued  in  a  purely  empirical  manner,  I  shall  explain 
the  whole  process  somewhat  more  thoroughly.  My  doc 
trine  asserts  that  the  whole  body  is  the  will  itself,  exhibit 
ing  itself  in  the  perception  of  the  brain ;  consequently, 
having  entered  into  its  forms  of  knowledge.  From  this  it 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  475 

follows  that  the  will  is  everywhere  equally  present  in  the 
whole  body,  as  is  also  demonstrably  the  case,  for  the  orga 
nic  functions  are  its  work  no  less  than  the  animal.  But 
how,  then,  can  we  reconcile  it  with  this,  that  the  voluntary 
actions,  those  most  undeniable  expressions  of  the  will, 
clearly  originate  in  the  brain,  and  thus  only  through  the 
spinal  cord  reach  the  nerve  fibres,  which  finally  set  the 
limbs  in  motion,  and  the  paralysis  or  severing  of  which 
therefore  prevents  the  possibility  of  voluntary  movement  ? 
This  would  lead  one  to  think  that  the  will,  like  the_intgl- 
-lect,  has  its  seat  only  in  the  brain,  and,  like  it,  is  a  mere 
function  of  the  brain. 

Yet  this  is  not  the  case:  but  the  whole  body  is  and 
remains  the  exhibition  of  the  will  in  perception,  thus  the 
will  itself  objectively  perceived  by  means  of  the  functions 
of  the  brain.  That  process,  however,  in  the  case  of  the 
acts  of  will,  depends  upon  the  fact  that  the  will,  which, 
according  to  my  doctrine,  expresses  itself  in  every  phe 
nomenon  of  nature,  even  in  vegetable  and  inorganic  phe 
nomena,  appears  in  the  bodies  of  men  and  animals  as  a 
conscious  will.  A  consciousness,  however,  is  essentially  a 
unity,  and  therefore  always  requires  a  central  point  of 
unity.  The  necessity  of  consciousness  is,  as  I  have  often 
explained,  occasioned  by  the  fact  that  in  consequence  of 
the  increased  complication,  and  thereby  more  multifarious 
wants,  of  an  organism,  the  acts  of  its  will  must  be  guided 
by  motives,  no  longer,  as  in  the  lower  grades,  by  mere 
stimuli.  For  this  purpose  it  had  at  this  stage  to  appear 
provided  with  a  knowing  consciousness,  thus  with  an 
intellect,  as  the  medium  and  place  of  the  motives.  This 
intellect,  if  itself  objectively  perceived,  exhibits  itself  as 
the  brain,  together  with  its  appendages,  spinal  cord,  and 
nerves.  It  is  the  brain  now  in  which,  on  the  occasion  of 
external  impressions,  the  ideas  arise  which  become  motives 
for  the  will.  But  in  the  rational  intellect  they  undergo 
besides  this  a  still  further  working  up,  through  reflection 
and  deliberation.  Thus  such  an  intellect  must  first  of  all 


476  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

unite  in  one  point  all  impressions,  together  with  the 
working  up  of  them  by  its  functions,  whether  to  mere 
perception  or  to  conceptions,  a  point  which  will  be,  as  it 
were,  the  focus  of  all  its  rays,  in  order  that  that  unity  of 
consciousness  may  arise  which  is  the  theoretical  ego,  the 
supporter  of  the  whole  consciousness,  in  which  it  presents 
itself  as  identical  with  the  willing  ego,  whose  mere  function 
of  knowledge  it  is.  That  point  of  unity  of  consciousness, 
or  the  theoretical  ego,  is  just  Kant's  synthetic  unity  of 
apperception,  upon  which  all  ideas  string  themselves  as 
on  a  string  of  pearls,  and  on  account  of  which  the  "  I 
think,"  as  the  thread  of  the  string  of  pearls,  "  must  be 
capable  of  accompanying  all  our  ideas."1  This  assembling- 
place  of  the  motives,  then,  where  their  entrance  into  the 
single  focus  of  consciousness  takes  place,  is  the  brain. 
Here,  in  the  non-rational  consciousness,  they  are  merely 
perceived ;  in  the  rational  consciousness  they  are  elucidated 
by  conceptions,  thus  are  first  thought  in  the  abstract  and 
compared ;  upon  which  the  will  chooses,  in  accordance 
with  its  individual  and  immutable  character,  and  so  the 
purpose  results  which  now,  by  means  of  the  cerebellum, 
the  spinal  cord,  and  the  nerves,  sets  the  outward  limbs  in 
motion.  For  although  the  will  is  quite  directly  present  in 
these,  inasmuch  as  they  are  merely  its  manifestation,  yet 
when  it  has  to  move  according  to  motives,  or  indeed 
according  to  reflection,  it  requires  such  an  apparatus  for 
the  apprehension  and  working  up  of  ideas  into  such 
motives,  in  conformity  with  which  its  acts  here  appear  as 
resolves :  just  as  the  nourishment  of  the  blood  with  chyle 
requires  a  stomach  and  intestines,  in  which  this  is  pre 
pared,  and  then  as  such  is  poured  into  the  blood  through 
the  ductus  thoracicus,  which  here  plays  the  part  which  the 
spinal  cord  plays  in  the  former  case.  The  matter  may  be 
most  simply  and  generally  comprehended  thus  :  the  will  is 
immediately  present  as  irritability  in  all  the  muscular 
fibres  of  the  whole  body,  as  a  continual  striving  after 
1  Cf.  Ch.  22. 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  477 

activity  in  general.  Now  if  this  striving  is  to  realise 
itself,  thus  to  manifest  itself  as  movement,  this  movement 
must  as  such  have  some  direction  ;  but  this  direction  must 
be  determined  by  something,  i.e.,  it  requires  a  guide,  and 
this  is  the  nervous  system.  For  to  the  mere  irritability, 
as  it  lies  in  the  muscular  fibres  and  in  itself  is  pure  will, 
all  directions  are  alike ;  thus  it  determines  itself  in  no 
direction,  but  behaves  like  a  body  which  is  equally  drawn 
in  all  directions ;  it  remains  at  rest.  Since  the  activity  of 
the  nerves  comes  in  as  motive  (in  the  case  of  reflex  move 
ments  as  a  stimulus),  the  striving  force,  i.e.,  the  irritability, 
receives  a  definite  direction,  and  now  produces  the  move 
ments.  Yet  those  external  acts  of  will  which  require  no 
motives,  and  thus  also  no  working  up  of  mere  stimuli  into 
ideas  in  the  brain,  from  which  motives  arise,  but  which 
follow  immediately  upon  stimuli,  for  the  most  part  inward 
stimuli,  are  the  reflex  movements,  starting  only  from  the 
spinal  cord,  as,  for  example,  spasms  and  cramp,  in  which 
the  will  acts  without  the  brain  taking  part.  In  an  analo 
gous  manner  the  will  carries  on  the  organic  life,  also  by 
nerve  stimulus,  which  does  not  proceed  from  the  brain. 
Thus  the  will  appears  in  every  muscle  as  irritability,  and 
is  consequently  of  itself  in  a  position  to  contract  them,  yet 
only  in  general;  in  order  that  some  definite  contraction 
should  take  place  at  a  given  moment,  there  is  required 
here,  as  everywhere,  a  cause,  which  in  this  case  must  be 
a  stimulus.  This  is  everywhere  given  by  the  nerve  which 
goes  into  the  muscle.  If  this  nerve  is  in  connection  with 
the  brain,  then  the  contraction  is  a  conscious  act  of  will, 
i.e.,  takes  place  in  accordance  with  motives,  which,  in  con 
sequence  of  external  impressions,  have  arisen  as  ideas  in  the 
brain.  If  the  nerve  is  not  in  connection  with  the  brain, 
but  with  the  sympathicus  maximus,  then  the  contraction  is 
involuntary  and  unconscious,  an  act  connected  with  the 
maintenance  of  the  organic  life,  and  the  nerve  stimulus 
which  causes  it  is  occasioned  by  inward  impressions ;  for 
example,  by  the  pressure  upon  the  stomach  of  the  food 


4/8  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

received,  or  of  the  chyme  upon  the  intestines,  or  of  the 
in-flowing  blood  upon  the  walls  of  the  heart,  in  accordance 
with  which  the  act  is  digestion,  or  motus  peristalticus,  or 
beating  of  the  heart,  &c. 

But  if  now,  in  this  process,  we  go  one  step  further,  we 
find  that  the  muscles  are  the  product  of  the  blood,  the 
result  of  its  work  of  condensation,  nay,  to  a  certain  extent 
they  are  merely  solidified,  or,  as  it  were,  clotted  or  crystal 
lised  blood ;  for  they  have  taken  up  into  themselves,  almost 
unaltered,  its  fibrin  (cruor}  and  its  colouring  matter  (Bur- 
dach's  Physiologic,  Bd.  v.  §  686).      But  the  force  which 
forms  the  muscle  out  of  the  blood  must  not  be  assumed  to 
be  different  from  that  which  afterwards  moves  it  as  irrita 
bility,  upon  nerve  stimulus,  which  the  brain  supplies ;  in 
which  case  it  then  presents  itself  in  self-consciousness  as 
that  which  we  call  will.     The  close  connection  between 
the  blood  and  irritability  is  also  shown  by  this,  that  where, 
on  account  of  imperfection  of  the  lesser  circulation,  part  of 
the  blood  returns  to  the  heart  unoxidised,  the  irritability 
is  also  uncommonly  weak,  as  in  the  batrachia.     Moreover, 
the  movement  of  the  blood,  like  that  of  the  muscle,  is 
independent  and  original ;  it  does  not,  like  irritation,  re 
quire  the  influence  of  the  nerve,  and  is  even  independent 
of  the  heart,  as  is  shown  most  clearly  by  the  return  of  the 
blood  through  the  veins  to  the  heart ;  for  here  it  is  not 
propelled  by  a  vis  a  teryo,  as  in  the  case  of  the  arterial 
circulation ;  and  all  other  mechanical  explanations,  such 
as  a  power  of  suction  of  the  right  ventricle  of  the  heart, 
are  quite  inadequate.     (See  Burdachls  Physiologic,  Bd.  4, 
§  763,  and  Rosch,  Ueber  die  Bedeutung  des  Blutcs,  §  1 1,  seq.) 
It  is  remarkable  to  see  how  the  French,  who  recognise 
nothing  but  mechanical  forces,  controvert  each  other  with 
insufficient  grounds  upon  both  sides  ;  and  Bichat  ascribes 
the  flowing  back  of  the  blood  through  the  veins  to  the 

O  C3 

pressure  of  the  walls  of  the  capillary  tubes,  and  Magendie, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  the  continued  action  of  the  impulse 
of  the  heart  (Precis  de  Physiologie  par  Magendie,  vol.  ii.  p. 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  479 

389).  That  the  movement  of  the  blood  is  also  independent 
of  the  nervous  system,  at  least  of  the  cerebral  nervous 
system,  is  shown  by  the  fetus,  which  (according  to  Mutter's 
Physiologic},  without  brain  and  spinal  cord,  has  yet  circula 
tion  of  the  blood.  And  Flourens  also  says  :  "  Lc  mouvement 
du  cceur,  pris  en  soi,  et  abstraction  faite  de  tout  ce  qui  n'est 
pas  essentiellement  lui,  comme  sa  durde,  son  dnergie,  ne  depend 
ni  imme'diatement,  ni  coinstantane'nient,  du  systeme  nervcux 
central,  et  conse'quemment  cest  dans  tout  autre  point  de  ce 
syst&me  que  dans  les  centres  nerveux  eux-m&nies,  qu'il  faut 
chercher  le  principe  primitif  ct  imme'diat  de  ce  mouvement " 
(Annales  des  sciences  naturdles  p.  Audouin  et  Brougniard, 
1828,  vol.  13).  Cuvier  also  says  :  "  La  circulation  survit  a 
la  destruction  de  tout  I'ence'phale  et  de  toute  la  moelle  e'pini- 
aire  (Me'm.  de  I'acad.  d.  sc.,  1823,  vol.  6;  Hist.  d.  Vacad.p. 
Cuvier" p.  cxxx).  "  Cor primum  vivens et  ultimum  moriens," 
says  Haller.  The  beating  of  the  heart  ceases  at  last  in 
death.  The  blood  has  made  the  vessels  themselves  ;  for  it 
appears  in  the  ovum  earlier  than  they  do ;  they  are  only 
its  path,  voluntarily  taken,  then  beaten  smooth,  and  finally 
gradually  condensed  and  closed  up ;  as  Kaspar  Wolff 
has  already  taught:  "  Theorie  dcr  Generation,"  §  30-35. 
The  motion  of  the  heart  also,  which  is  inseparable  from 
that  of  the  blood,  although  occasioned  by  the  necessity  of 
sending  blood  into  the  lungs,  is  yet  an  original  motion,  for 
it  is  independent  of  the  nervous  system  and  of  sensibility, 
as  Burdach  fully  shows.  "  In  the  heart,"  he  says,  "  appears 
with  the  maximum  of  irritability,  a  minimum  of  sensi 
bility  "  (loc.  cit.,  §  769).  The  heart  belongs  to  the  muscular 
system  as  well  as  to  the  blood  or  vascular  system ;  from 
which,  however,  it  is  clear  that  the  two  are  closely  related, 
indeed  constitute  one  whole.  Since  now  the  metaphysical 
substratum  of  the  force  which  moves  the  muscle,  thus  of 
irritability,  is  the  will,  the  will  must  also  be  the  meta 
physical  substratum  of  the  force  which  lies  at  the  founda 
tion  of  the  movement  and  the  formations  of  the  blood,  as 
that  by  which  the  muscles  are  produced.  The  course  of 


480  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

the  arteries  also  determines  the  form  and  size  of  all  the 
limbs ;  consequently  the  whole  form  of  the  body  is  deter 
mined  by  the  course  of  the  blood.  Thus  in  general  the 
blood,  as  it  nourishes  all  the  parts  of  the  body,  has  also, 
as  the  primary  fluidity  of  the  organism,  produced  and 
framed  them  out  of  itself.  And  the  nourishment  which 
confessedly  constitutes  the  principal  function  of  the  blood 
is  only  the  continuance  of  that  original  production  of 
them.  This  truth  will  be  found  thoroughly  and  excellently 
explained  in  the  work  of  Eosch  referred  to  above :  "  Ueber 
die  Bedeutung  des  Blutes"  1839.  He  shows  that  the  blood 
is  that  which  first  has  life  and  is  the  source  both  of  the 
existence  and  of  the  maintenance  of  all  the  parts ;  that  all 
the  organs  have  sprung  from  it  through  secretion,  and 
together  with  them,  for  the  management  of  their  functions, 
the  nervous  system,  which  appears  now  as  plastic,  ordering 
and  arranging  the  life  of  the  particular  parts  within,  now 
as  cerebral,  controlling  the  relation  to  the  external  world. 
"  The  blood,"  he  says,  p.  25,  "  was  flesh  and  nerve  at  once, 
and  at  the  same  moment  at  which  the  muscle  freed  itself 
from  it  the  nerve,  severed  in  like  manner,  remained 
opposed  to  the  flesh."  Here  it  is  a  matter  of  course  that 
the  blood,  before  those  solid  parts  have  been  secreted  from 
it,  has  also  a  somewhat  different  character  from  afterwards ; 
it  is  then,  as  Eosch  defines  it,  the  chaotic,  animated,  slimy, 
primitive  fluid,  as  it  were  an  organic  emulsion,  in  which 
all  subsequent  parts  are  implicite  contained :  moreover,  it 
has  not  the  red  colour  quite  at  the  beginning.  This  dis 
poses  of  the  objection  which  might  be  drawn  from  the  fact 
that  the  brain  and  the  spinal  cord  begin  to  form  before  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  is  visible  or  the  heart  appears. 
In  this  reference  also  Schultz  says  (System  der  Circulation, 
§  297) :  "  We  do  not  believe  that  the  view  of  Baumgarteu, 
according  to  which  the  nervous  system  is  formed  earlier 
than  the  blood,  can  consistently  be  carried  out;  for 
Baumgarten  reckons  the  appearance  of  the  blood  only  from 
the  formation  of  the  corpuscles,  while  in  the  embryo  and 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  481 

in  the  series  of  animals  blood  appears  much  earlier  in  the 
form  of  a  pure  plasma."  The  blood  of  invertebrate  animals 
never  assumes  the  red  colour ;  but  we  do  not  therefore, 
with  Aristotle,  deny  that  they  have  any.  It  is  well 
worthy  of  note  that,  according  to  the  account  of  Justiuus 
Kerner  (Geschichte  zweier  Somnambulen,  §  78),  a  somnam 
bulist  of  a  very  high  degree  of  clairvoyance,  says :  "  I  am 
as  deep  in  myself  as  ever  a  man  can  be  led ;  the  force  of 
my  mortal  life  seems  to  me  to  have  its  source  in  the  blood, 
whereby,  through  the  circulation  in  the  veins,  it  communi 
cates  itself,  by  means  of  the  nerves,  to  the  whole  body,  and 
to  the  brain,  which  is  the  noblest  part  of  the  body,  and 
above  the  blood  itself." 

From  all  this  it  follows  that  the  will  objectifies  itself 
most  immediately  in  the  blood  as  that  which  originally 
makes  and  forms  the  organism,  perfects  it  by  growth,  and 
afterwards  constantly  maintains  it,  both  by  the  regular 
renewal  of  all  the  parts  and  by  the  extraordinary  restora 
tion  of  any  part  that  may  have  been  injured.  The  first 
productions  of  the  blood  are  its  own  vessels,  and  then  the 
musclec,  in  the  irritability  of  which  the  will  makes  itself 
known  to  self-consciousness  ;  but  with  this  also  the  heart, 
which  is  at  once  vessel  and  muscle,  and  therefore  is  the 
true  centre  and  primum  mobile  of  the  whole  life.  But  for 
the  individual  life  and  subsistence  in  the  external  world  the 
will  now  requires  two  assistant  systems  :  one  to  govern  and 
order  its  inner  and  outer  activity,  and  another  for  the  con 
stant  renewal  of  the  mass  of  the  blood ;  thus  a  controller 
and  a  sustainer.  It  therefore  makes  for  itself  the  nervous 
and  the  intestinal  systems ;  thus  the  functiones  animalcs 
and  the  functiones  naturales  associate  themselves  in  a  sub 
sidiary  manner  with  the  functiones  vitales,  which  are  the 
most  original  and  essential.  In  the  nervous  system,  accord 
ingly,  the  will  only  objectifies  itself  in  an  indirect  and 
secondary  way ;  for  this  system  appears  as  a  mere  auxiliary 
organ,  as  a  contrivance  by  means  of  which  the  will  attains 
to  a  knowledge  of  those  occasions,  internal  and  external, 

VOL.  II.  2  II 


482  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

upon  which,  in  conformity  with  its  aims,  it  must  express 
itself;  the  internal  occasions  are  received  by  the  plastic 
nervous  system,  thus  by  the  sympathetic  nerve,  this  cere 
brum  abdominale,  as  mere  stimuli,  and  the  will  thereupon 
reacts  on  the  spot  without  the  brain  being  conscious ;  the 
outward  occasions  are  received  by  the  brain,  as  motives, 
and  the  will  reacts  through  conscious  actions  directed  out 
wardly.     Therefore  the  whole  nervous  system  constitutes, 
as  it  were,  the  antennae  of  the  will,  which  it  stretches 
towards  within  and  without.     The  nerves  of  the  brain  and 
spinal  cord  separate  at  their  roots  into  sensory  and  motory 
nerves.     The  sensory  nerves  receive  the  knowledge  from 
without,  which  now  accumulates  in  the  thronging  brain, 
and  is  there  worked  up  into  ideas,  which  arise  primarily  as 
motives.     But  the  motory  nerves  bring  back,  like  couriers, 
the  result  of  the  brain  function  to  the  muscle,  upon  which 
it  acts  as  a  stimulus,  and  the  irritability  of  which  is  the 
immediate   manifestation  of   the   will.     Presumably  the 
plastic  nerves  also  divide  into  sensory  and  motory,  although 
on  a  subordinate  scale.     The  part  which  the  ganglia  play 
in  the  organism  we  must  think  of  as  that  of  a  diminutive 
brain,  and  thus  the  one  throws  light  upon  the  other.     The 
ganglia  lie  wherever  the  organic  functions  of  the  vegetative 
system  require  care.     It  is  as  if  there  the  will  was  not 
able  by  its  direct  and  simple  action  to  carry  out  its  aims, 
but  required  guidance,  and  consequently  control ;  just  as 
when  in  some  business  a  man's  own  memory  is  not  suffi 
cient,  and  he  must  constantly  take  notes  of  what  he  does. 
For  this  end  mere  knots  of  nerves  are  sufficient  for  the 
interior  of  the  organism,  because  everything  goes  on  within 
its  own  compass.     For  the  exterior,  on  the  other  hand, 
a  very  complicated  contrivance  of  the  same  kind  is  re 
quired.      This   is   the   brain   with   its   feelers,  which   it 
stretches  into  the  outer  world,  the  nerves  of  sense.     But 
even  in  the  organs  which  are  in  communication  with  this 
great  nerve  centre,  in  very  simple  cases  the  matter  does 
not  need  to  be  brought  before  the  highest  authority,  but  a 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  483 

subordinate  one  is  sufficient  to  determine  what  is  needed  ; 
such  is  the  spinal  cord,  in  the  reflex  actions  discovered  by 
Marshall  Hall,  such  as  sneezing,  yawning,  vomiting,  the 
second  half  of  swallowing,  &c.  &c.  The  will  itself  is  pre 
sent  in  the  whole  organism,  since  this  is  merely  its  visible 
form;  the  nervous  system  exists  everywhere  merely  for 
the  purpose  of  making  the  direction  of  an  action  possible 
by  a  control  of  it,  as  it  were  to  serve  the  will  as  a  mirror, 
so  that  it  may  see  what  it  does,  just  as  we  use  a  mirror  to 
shave  by.  Hence  small  sensoria  arise  within  us  for  special, 
and  consequently  simple,  functions,  the  ganglia ;  but  the 
chief  sensorium,  the  brain,  is  the  great  and  skilfully  con 
trived  apparatus  for  the  complicated  and  multifarious 
functions  which  have  to  do  with  the  ceaselessly  and 
irregularly  changing  external  world.  Wherever  in  the 
organism  the  nerve  threads  run  together  in  a  ganglion, 
there,  to  a  certain  extent,  an  animal  exists  for  itself  and 
shut  off,  which  by  means  of  the  ganglion  has  a  kind  of 
weak  knowledge,  the  sphere  of  which  is,  however,  limited 
to  the  part  from  which  these  nerves  directly  come.  But 
what  actuates  these  parts  to  such  quasi  knowledge  is 
clearly  the  will ;  indeed  we  are  utterly  unable  to  conceive 
it  otherwise.  Upon  this  depends  the  vita  propria  of  each 
part,  and  also  in  the  case  of  insects,  which,  instead  of  a 
spinal  cord,  have  a  double  string  of  nerves,  with  ganglia  at 
regular  intervals,  the  capacity  of  each  part  to  continue 
alive  for  days  after  being  severed  from  the  head  and  the 
rest  of  the  trunk ;  and  finally  also  the  actions  which 
in  the  last  instance  do  not  receive  their  motives  from 
the  brain,  i.e.,  instinct  and  natural  mechanical  skill. 
Marshall  Hall,  whose  discovery  of  the  reflex  movements 
I  have  mentioned  above,  has  given  us  in  this  the  theory  of 
involuntary  movements.  Some  of  these  are  normal  or  physio 
logical  ;  such  are  the  closing  of  the  places  of  ingress  to 
and  egress  from  the  body,  thus  of  the  sphincteres  vesicce  et 
ani  (proceeding  from  the  nerves  of  the  spinal  cord) ;  the 
closing  of  the  eyelids  in  sleep  (from  the  fifth  pair  of 


484  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

nerves),  of  the  larynx  (from  N.  vagus)  if  food  passes  over 
it  or  carbonic  acid  tries  to  enter;  also  swallowing,  from 
the  pharynx,  yawning  and  sneezing,  respiration,  entirely 
in  sleep  and  partly  when  awake ;  and,  lastly,  the  erection, 
ejaculation,  as  also  conception,  and  many  more.  Some, 
again,  are  abnormal  and  pathological;  such  are  stammer 
ing,  hiccoughing,  vomiting,  also  cramps  and  convulsions  of 
every  kind,  especially  in  epilepsy,  tetanus,  in  hydrophobia 
and  otherwise  ;  finally,  the  convulsive  movements  produced 
by  galvanic  or  other  stimuli,  and  which  take  place  without 
feeling  or  consciousness  in  paralysed  limbs,  i.e.,  in  limbs 
which  are  out  of  connection  with  the  brain,  also  the  con 
vulsions  of  beheaded  animals,  and,  lastly,  all  movements 
and  actions  of  children  born  without  brains.  All  cramps 
are  a  rebellion  of  the  nerves  of  the  limbs  against  the 
sovereignty  of  the  brain ;  the  normal  reflex  movements,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  the  legitimate  autocracy  of  the  sub 
ordinate  officials.  These  movements  are  thus  all  involun 
tary,  because  they  do  not  proceed  from  the  brain,  and 
therefore  do  not  take  place  in  accordance  with  motives, 
but  follow  upon  mere  stimuli.  The  stimuli  which  occasion 
them  extend  only  to  the  spinal  cord  or  the  medulla  oblon- 
gata,  and  from  there  the  reaction  directly  takes  place  which 
effects  the  movement.  The  spinal  cord  has  the  same  re 
lation  to  these  involuntary  movements  as  the  brain  has  to 
motive  and  action,  and  what  the  sentient  and  voluntary 
nerve  is  for  the  latter  the  incident  and  motor  nerve  is 
for  the  former.  That  yet,  in  the  one  as  in  the  other,  that 
which  really  moves  is  the  will  is  brought  all  the  more 
clearly  to  light  because  the  involuntarily  moved  muscles 
are  for  the  most  part  the  same  which,  under  other  circum 
stances,  are  moved  from  the  brain  in  the  voluntary  actions, 
in  which  their  primum  mobile  is  intimately  known  to  us 
through  self-consciousness  as  the  will.  Marshall  Hall's 
excellent  book  "  On  the  Diseases  of  the  Nervous  System  " 
is  peculiarly  fitted  to  bring  out  clearly  the  difference  be- 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  485 

tween  volition  and  will,  and  to  confirm  the  truth  of  my 
fundamental  doctrine. 

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

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


486  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

tion  of  the  will.  The  will  objectifies  itself  also  in  it,  as 
will  to  apprehend  the  external  world,  thus  as  will  to  know. 
Therefore  great  and  fundamental  as  is  the  difference  in 
us  between  .willing  and  knowing,  the  ultimate  substratum 
of  both  is  yet  the  same,  the  will,  as  the  real  inner  nature 
of  the  whole  phenomenon.  But  knowing,  the  intellect, 
which  presents  itself  in  self-consciousness  entirely  as 
secondary,  is  to  be  regarded  not  only  as  the  accident  of 
the  will,  but  also  as  its  work,  and  thus,  although  in  a 
circuitous  manner,  is  yet  to  be  referred  to  it.  As  the 
intellect  presents  itself  physiologically  as  the  function  of 
an  organ  of  the  body,  metaphysically  it  is  to  be  regarded 
as  a  work  of  the  will,  whose  objectification  or  visible 
appearance  is  the  whole  body.  Thus  the  will  to  know, 
objectively  perceived,  is  the  brain;  as  the  will  to  go, 
objectively  perceived,  is  the  foot;  the  will  to  grasp,  the 
hand ;  the  will  to  digest,  the  stomach ;  the  will  to  beget,  the 
genitals,  &c.  This  whole  objectification  certainly  ulti 
mately  exists  only  for  the  brain,  as  its  perception  :  in  this 
the  will  exhibits  itself  as  organised  body.  But  so  far  as 
the  brain  knows,  it  is  itself  not  known,  but  is  the  knower, 
the  subject  of  all  knowledge.  So  far,  however,  as  in  objec 
tive  perception,  i.e.,  in  the  consciousness  of  other  things,  thus 
secondarily,  it  is  known,  it  belongs,  as  an  organ  of  the  body, 
to  the  objectification  of  the  will.  For  the  whole  process 
is  the  self-knowledge  of  the  will ;  it  starts  from  this  and 
returns  to  it,  and  constitutes  what  Kant  has  called  the 
phenomenon  in  opposition  to  the  thing  in  itself.  Therefore 
that  which  is  known,  that  which  is  idea,  is  the  will ;  and 
this  idea  is  what  we  call  body,  which,  as  extended  in  space 
and  moving  in  time,  exists  only  by  means  of  the  functions  of 
the  brain,  thus  only  in  it.  That,  on  the  other  hand,  which 
knows,  which  has  that  idea,  is  the  brain,  which  yet  does 
not  know  itself,  but  only  becomes  conscious  of  itself  sub 
jectively  as  intellect,  i.e.,  as  the  knower.  That  which 
when  regarded  from  within  is  the  faculty  of  knowledge  is 
when  regarded  from  without  the  brain.  This  brain  is  a 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  487 

part  of  that  body,  just  because  it  itself  belongs  to  the 
objectification  of  the  will,  the  will's  will  to  know  is  objec 
tified  in  ic,  its  tendency  towards  the  external  world. 
Accordingly  the  brain,  and  therefore  the  intellect,  is 
certainly  conditioned  immediately  by  the  body,  and  this 
again  by  the  brain,  yet  only  indirectly,  as  spatial  and 
corporeal,  in  the  world  of  perception,  not  in  itself,  i.e.,  as 
will.  Thus  the  whole  is  ultimately  the  will,  which  itself 
becomes  idea,  and  is  that  unity  which  we  express  by  I. 
The  brain  itself,  so  far  as  it  is  perceived — thus  in  the 
consciousness  of  other  things,  and  hence  secondarily — is 
only  idea.  But  in  itself,  and  so  far  as  it  perceives,  it  is  the 
will,  because  this  is  the  real  substratum  of  the  whole 
phenomenon  ;  its  wrill  to  know  objectifies  itself  as  brain 
and  its  functions.  We  may  take  the  voltaic  pile  as  an 
illustration,  certainly  imperfect,  but  yet  to  some  extent 
throwing  light  upon  the  nature  of  the  human  phenomenon, 
as  we  here  regard  it.  The  metals,  together  with  the  fluid, 
are  the  body  ;  the  chemical  action,  as  the  basis  of  the 
whole  effect,  is  the  will,  and  the  electric  current  resulting 
from  it,  which  produces  shock  and  spark,  is  the  intellect. 
But  omne  simile  claudicat. 

Quite  recently  the  physiatrical  point  of  view  has  at  last 
prevailed  in  pathology.  According  to  it  diseases  are  them 
selves  a  curative  process  of  nature,  which  it  introduces  to 
remove,  by  overcoming  its  causes,  a  disorder  which  in 
some  way  has  got  into  the  organism.  Thus  in  the  decisive 
battle,  the  crisis,  it  is  either  victorious  and  attains  its 
end,  or  else  is  defeated.  This  view  only  gains  its  full 
rationality  from  our  standpoint,  which  shows  the  will  in 
the  vital  force,  that  here  appears  as  vis  naturae  medicatrix, 
the  will  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  organic  func 
tions  in  a  healthy  condition,  but  now,  when  disorder  has 
entered,  threatening  its  whole  work,  assumes  dictatorial 
power  in  order  to  subdue  the  rebellious  forces  by  quite 
extraordinary  measures  and  entirely  abnormal  operations 
(the  disease),  and  bring  everything  back  to  the  right  track. 


488  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

On  the  other  hand,  that  the  will  itself  is  sick,  as  Brandis 
repeatedly  expresses  himself  in  his  book,  "  Ueber  die 
Anwendung  der  Kalte"  which  I  have  quoted  in  the  first 
part  of  my  essay,  "  Ucber  den  Willen  in  der  Natur"  is  a 
gross  misunderstanding.  When  I  weigh  this,  and  at  the 
same  time  observe  that  in  his  earlier  "book,  "  Ueber  die 
Lebenskraft,"  of  1795,  Brandis  betrayed  no  suspicion  that 
this  force  is  in  itself  the  will,  but,  on  the  contrary,  says 
there,  page  1 3  :  "  It  is  impossible  that  the  vital  force  can  be 
that  which  we  only  know  through  our  consciousness,  for 
most  movements  take  place  without  our  consciousness. 
The  assertion  that  this,  of  which  the  only  characteristic 
known  to  us  is  consciousness,  also  affects  the  body  with 
out  consciousness  is  at  the  least  quite  arbitrary  and 
unproved;"  and  page  14:  "  Haller's  objections  to  the 
opinion  that  all  living  movements  are  the  effect  of  the 
soul  are,  as  I  believe,  quite  unanswerable ; "  when  I  fur 
ther  reflect  that  he  wrote  his  book,  "  Ueber  die  Anwendung 
der  Ktilte,"  in  which  all  at  once  the  will  appears  so  decidedly 
as  the  vital  force,  in  his  seventieth  year,  an  age  at  which 
no  one  as  yet  has  conceived  for  the  first  time  original 
fundamental  thoughts ;  when,  lastly,  I  bear  in  mind  that 
he  makes  use  of  my  exact  expressions,  "  will  and  idea," 
and  not  of  those  which  are  far  more  commonly  used  by 
others,  "  the  faculties  of  desire  and  of  knowledge,"  I  am 
now  convinced,  contrary  to  my  earlier  supposition,  that  he 
borrowed  his  fundamental  thought  from  me,  and  with  the 
usual  honesty  which  prevails  at  the  present  day  in  the 
learned  world,  said  nothing  about  it.  The  particulars 
about  this  will  be  found  in  the  second  (and  third)  edition 
of  my  work,  "  Ueber  den  Willen  in  der  Natur"  p.  14. 

Nothing  is  more  fitted  to  confirm  and  illustrate  the 
thesis  with  which  we  are  occupied  in  this  chapter  than 
Bichat's  justly  celebrated  book,  "  Sur  la  vie  et  la  mort." 
His  reflections  and  mine  reciprocally  support  each  other, 
for  his  are  the  physiological  commentary  on  mine,  and 
mine  are  the  philosophical  commentary  on  his,  and  one 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  489 

will  best  understand  us  both  by  reading  us  together.  This 
refers  specially  to  the  first  half  of  his  work,  entitled  "  Re- 
cherches pliysiologiques  sur  la  vie"  He  makes  the  founda 
tion  of  his  expositions  the  opposition  of  the  organic  to  the 
animal  life,  which  corresponds  to  mine  of  the  will  to  the 
intellect.  Whoever  looks  at  the  sense,  not  at  the  words, 
will  not  allow  himself  to  be  led  astray  by  the  fact  that 
he  ascribes  the  will  to  the  animal  life ;  for  by  will,  as 
is  usual,  he  only  understands  conscious  volition,  which 
certainly  proceeds  from  the  brain,  where,  however,  as  was 
shown  above,  it  is  not  yet  actual  willing,  but  only  delibera 
tion  upon  and  estimation  of  the  motives,  the  conclusion  or 
product  of  which  at  last  appears  as  the  act  of  will.  All 
that  I  ascribe  to  the  will  proper  he  ascribes  to  the  organic 
life,  and  all  that  I  conceive  as  intellect  is  with  him  the 
animal  life  :  the  latter  has  with  him  its  seat  in  the  brain 
alone,  together  with  its  appendages :  the  former,  again,  in 
the  whole  of  the  remainder  of  the  organism.  The  com 
plete  opposition  in  which  he  shows  that  the  two  stand 
to  each  other  corresponds  to  that  which  with  me  exists 
between  the  will  and  the  intellect.  As  anatomist  and 
physiologist  he  starts  from  the  objective,  that  is,  from  the 
consciousness  of  other  things;  I,  as  a  philosopher,  start 
from  the  subjective,  self-consciousness ;  and  it  is  a  pleasure 
to  see  how,  like  the  two  voices  in  a  duet,  we  advance  in 
harmony  with  each  other,  although  each  expresses  some 
thing  different.  Therefore,  let  every  one  who  wishes  to  un 
derstand  me  read  him ;  and  let  every  one  who  wishes  to  un 
derstand  him,  better  than  he  understood  himself,  read  me. 
Bichat  shows  us,  in  article  4,  that  the  organic  life  begins 
earlier  and  ends  later  than  the  animal  life  ;  consequently, 
since  the  latter  also  rests  in  sleep,  has  nearly  twice  as  long 
a  duration ;  then,  in  articles  8  and  9,  that  the  organic  life 
performs  everything  perfectly,  at  once,  and  of  its  own 
accord ;  the  animal  life,  on  the  other  hand,  requires  long 
practice  and  education.  But  he  is  most  interesting  in  the 
sixth  article,  where  he  shows  that  the  animal  life  is  com- 


490  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

pletely  limited  to  the  intellectual  operations,  therefore 
goes  on  coldly  and  indifferently,  while  the  emotions  and 
passions  have  their  seat  in  the  organic  life,  although  the 
occasions  of  them  lie  in  the  animal,  i.e.,  the  cerebral,  life. 
Here  he  has  ten  valuable  pages  which  I  wish  I  could 
quote  entire.  On  page  50  he  says  :  "//  est  sans  doute  eto%- 
nant,  que  Us  passions  nayent  jamais  leur  terme  ni  leur 
origine  dans  les  divers  organs  de  la  vie  animale ;  qu'au 
contraire  les  parties  servant  aux  fonctions  internes,  soient 
constamment  affeetdes  par  elles,  et  meme  les  determinant  sui- 
vant  I'dtat  oil  elles  se  trouvent.  Tel  est  cependant  ce  que  la 
stride  observation  nous  prouve.  Je  dis  d'abord  qite  I'effet  de 
toute  espece  de  passion,  constamment  Stranger  a  la  vie  animale, 
est  defaire  naitre  un  cfiangement,  une  alteration  quelconque 
dans  la  vie  organique."  Then  he  shows  in  detail  how  anger 
acts  on  the  circulation  of  the  blood  and  the  beating  of  the 
heart,  then  how  joy  acts,  and  lastly  how  fear  ;  next,  how  the 
lungs,  the  stomach,  the  intestines,  the  liver,  glands,  and  pan 
creas  are  affected  by  these  and  kindred  emotions,  and  how 
grief  diminishes  the  nutrition ;  and  then  how  the  animal, 
that  is,  the  brain  life,  is  untouched  by  all  this,  and  quietly 
goes  on  its  way.  He  refers  to  the  fact  that  to  signify  intel 
lectual  operations  we  put  the  hand  to  the  head,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  we  lay  it  on  the  heart,  the  stomach,  the  bowels, 
if  we  wish  to  express  our  love,  joy,  sorrow,  or  hatred  ;  and 
he  remarks  that  he  must  be  a  bad  actor  who  when  he 
spoke  of  his  grief  would  touch  his  head,  and  when  he 
spoke  of  his  mental  effort  would  touch  his  heart ;  and 
also  that  while  the  learned  make  the  so-called  soul  reside 
in  the  head,  the  common  people  always  indicate  the  well- 
felt  difference  between  the  affections  of  the  intellect  and 
the  will  by  the  right  expression,  and  speak,  for  example, 
of  a  capable,  clever,  fine  head ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
say  a  good  heart,  a  feeling  heart,  and  also  "Anger  boils  in 
my  veins,"  "  Stirs  my  gall,"  "  My  bowels  leap  with  joy," 
"  Jealousy  poisons  my  blood,"  &c.  "  Les  chants  sont  le  Ian- 
gage  des  passions,  de  la  vie  organique,  comme  la  parole  ordi- 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  491 

naire  est  celui  de  I'entendement,  de  la  vie  animalc  :  la  de"cla- 
mation,  tient  le  milieu,  elle  anime  la  languefroide  du  cerveau 
par  la  langue  expressive  des  organes  inte'rieurs,  du  coeur,  du 
foie,  de  I'estomac,"  &c.  His  conclusion  is  :  "La  vie  organique 
est  le  terme  ou  aboutissent,  et  le  centre  d'ou  partent  les  pas 
sions."  Nothing  is  better  fitted  than  this  excellent  and 
thorough  book  to  confirm  and  bring  out  clearly  that  the 
body  is  only  the  embodied  (i.e.,  perceived  by  means  of  the 
brain  functions,  time,  space,  and  causality)  will  itself,  from 
which  it  follows  that  the  will  is  the  primary  and  original, 
the  intellect,  as  mere  brain  function,  the  subordinate  and 
derived.  But  that  which  is  most  worthy  of  admiration, 
and  to  me  most  pleasing,  in  Bichat's  thought  is,  that  this 
great  anatomist,  on  the  path  of  his  purely  physiological 
investigations,  actually  got  so  far  as  to  explain  the  un 
alterable  nature  of  the  moral  character  from  the  fact  that 
only  the  animal  life,  thus  the  functions  of  the  brain,  are 
subject  to  the  influence  of  education,  practice,  culture,  and 
habit,  but  the  moral  character  belongs  to  the  organic  Hie,  i.e., 
to  all  the  other  parts,  which  cannot  be  modified  from  with 
out.  I  cannot  refrain  from  giving  the  passage ;  it  occurs 
in  article  9,  §  2  :  "  Telle  est  done  la  grandc  difference  des 
deux  vies  de  I' animal "  (cerebral  or  animal  and  organic  life) 
"par  rapport  d  I'ine'galite'  de  perfection  des  divers  systemcs 
defonctions,  dont  chacune  re'sulte;  savoir,  que  dans  I'une  la 
predominance  ou  linfe'riorite'  d'un  systeme  relativement  aux 
autres,  tient  presque  toujours  d  I'activite"  ou  d  I'inertie  plus 
grandes  de  ce  systdme,  d  r habitude  d'agir  ou  de  ne  pas  agir  ; 
que  dans  I'autre,  au  contraire,  cette  predominance  ou  cette 
inferiority  sont  imme'diatement  lie'es  a  la  texture  des  or 
ganes,  et  jamais  d  leur  Education.  Voila  pourquoi  le 
temperament  physique  et  le  CHARACTERS  MORAL  ne  sont 
point  susceptible  de  changer  par  F Education,  qui  modifie 
si  prodigieusem.ent  les  actes  de  la  vie  animale ;  car, 
comme  nous  I'avons  vu,  tous  deux  APPARTIENNENT  A  LA  VIE 
ORGANIQUPL  La  charactere  est,  si  je  puis  mexprimer  ainsi,  la 
physionomie  des  passions  ;  le  temperament  est  celle  des  f one- 


492  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

tions  internes :  or  les  unes  et  les  autres  e'tant  toujours  Us 
mimes,  ayant  une  direction  que  I'habitude  et  I'exercice  ne 
de'rangent  jamais,  il  est  manifeste  que  le  temperament  et  Le 
characters  doivent  etre  aussi  soustraits  a  V  empire  de  Ve'du- 
cation.  Ellepeut  mode'rer  I' influence  du  second,  perfectionner 
assez  le  jugement  et  la  reflection,  pour  rendre  leur  empire 
supe'rieur  au  sien,  fortifier  la  vie  animal  afln  qu'elle  resiste 
aux  impulsions  de  I'organique.  Mais  vouloir  par  elle  de- 
naturer  le  character e,  adoucir  ou  exalter  les  passions  dont  il 
est  I 'expression  habituelle,  agrandir  ou  resserrer  leur  sphere, 
c'est  une  entreprise  analogue  a  celle  d'un  me'decin  qui  essaie- 
rait  d'e'lever  ou  d'abaisser  de  quelque  degre's,  et  pour  toute  la 
vie,  la  force  de  contraction  ordinaire  au  coeur  dans  I'e'tat  de 
sante",  de  pre"cipiter  ou  de  ralentir  habituellement  le  mouve- 
ment  naturel  aux  arteres,  et  qui  est  ne'cessaire  d  leur  action, 
etc.  Nous  observerions  d  ce  me'decin,  que  la  circulation,  la 
respiration,  etc.,  ne  sont  point  sous  le  domaine  de  la  volonte' 
(volition),  quelles  ne  peuvent  Stre  modifiers  par  I'homme,  sans 
passer  d  I'e'tat  maladif,  etc.  Faisons  la  mtime  observation  d 
eeux  qui  croient  qu'on  change  le  charactere,  et  par-Id  meme 
les  PASSIONS,  puisque  celles-ci  sont  un  PKODUIT  DE  L' ACTION 
DE  TOUS  LES  ORGANES  INTERNES,  ou  quelles  y  ont  au  moins 
spe'cialcment  leur  siege."  The  reader  who  is  familiar  with 
my  philosophy  may  imagine  how  great  was  my  joy  when 
I  discovered,  as  it  were,  the  proof  of  my  own  convictions  in 
those  which  were  arrived  at  upon  an  entirely  different  field, 
by  this  extraordinary  man,  so  early  taken  from  the  world. 
A  special  authentication  of  the  truth  that  the  organism 
is  merely  the  visibility  of  the  will  is  also  afforded  us  by 
the  fact  that  if  dogs,  cats,  domestic  cocks,  and  indeed  other 
animals,  bite  when  violently  angry,  the  wounds  become 
mortal ;  nay,  if  they  come  from  a  dog,  may  cause  hydro 
phobia  in  the  man  who  is  bitten,  without  the  dog  being 
mad  or  afterwards  becoming  so.  For  the  extremest  anger 
is  only  the  most  decided  and  vehement  will  to  annihilate 
its  object ;  this  now  appears  in  the  assumption  by  the 
saliva  of  an  injurious,  and  to  a  certain  extent  magically 


OBJECTIFICATION  OF  THE  WILL.  493 

acting,  power,  and  springs  from  the  fact  that  the  will 
and  the  organism  are  in  truth  one.  This  also  appears  from 
the  fact  that  intense  vexation  may  rapidly  impart  to  the 
mother's  milk  such  a  pernicious  quality  that  the  sucking 
child  dies  forthwith  in  convulsions  (Most,  Ueber  sympa- 
thetische  Mittel,  p.  16). 


NOTE  ON  WHAT  HAS  BEEN  SAID  ABOUT  BICHAT. 


BICHAT  has,  as  we  have  shown  above,  cast  a  deep  glance  into  human 
nature,  and  in  consequence  has  given  an  exceedingly  admirable  ex 
position,  which  is  one  of  the  most  profound  works  in  the  whole  of 
French  literature.  Now,  sixty  years  later,  M.  Flourens  suddenly 
appears  with  a  polemic  against  it  in  his  work,  "  De  la  vie  et  de  I'in- 
telligence"  and  makes  so  bold  as  to  declare  without  ceremony  that  all 
that  Bichat  has  brought  to  light  on  this  important  subject,  which 
was  quite  his  own,  is  false.  And  what  does  he  oppose  to  him  in  the 
field  ?  Counter  reasons  ?  No,  counter  assertions  l  and  authorities, 
indeed,  which  are  as  inadmissible  as  they  are  remarkable — Descartes 
and  Gall  !  M.  Flourens  is  by  conviction  a  Cartesian,  and  to  him 
Descartes,  in  the  year  1858,  is  still  "  le  philosophe  par  excellence." 
Now  Descartes  was  certainly  a  great  man,  yet  only  as  a  forerunner. 
In  the  whole  of  his  dogmas,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  not  a  word 
of  truth  ;  and  to  appeal  to  these  as  authorities  at  this  time  of  day  is 
simply  absurd.  For  in  the  nineteenth  century  a  Cartesian  in  philo 
sophy  is  just  what  a  follower  of  Ptolemy  would  be  in  astronomy,  or 
a  follower  of  Stahl  in  chemistry.  But  for  M.  Flourens  the  dogmas 
of  Descartes  are  articles  of  faith.  Descartes  has  taught,  les  volonte's 
sont  des  pensees  :  therefore  this  is  the  case,  although  every  one  feels 
within  himself  that  willing  and  thinking  are  as  different  as  white 
and  black.  Hence  I  have  been  able  above,  in  chapter  19,  to  prove 
and  explain  this  fully  and  thoroughly,  and  always  under  the  guidance 
of  experience.  But  above  all,  according  to  Descartes,  the  oracle  of 
M.  Flourens,  there  are  two  fundamentally  different  substances,  body 
and  soul.  Consequently  M.  Flourens,  as  an  orthodox  Cartesian,  says  : 
"  Le  premier  point  est  de  separer,  meme  par  les  mots,  ce  qui  est  du  corps  de 
ce  qui  est  de  I'dme  "  (i.  72).  He  informs  us  further  that  this  "  amere- 
side  uniquement  et  exclusivement  dans  le  cerveau"  (ii.  137) ;  from  whence, 
according  to  a  passage  of  Descartes,  it  sends  the  spiritus  animales  as 
couriers  to  the  muscles,  yet  can  only  itself  be  affected  by  the  brain  ; 

1  "  Tout  ce  qui  est  relatifa  I'entende-  appartient  a  la  vie  organique" — et 

ment  appartient  a  la  vie  animate,"  dit  ceci  est  absolument  faux.      Indeed! 

Bichat,  et  jusque-la  point   de  doute;  — decrevit  Florentius  magnus. 
''  tout  ce  qui  est  relatif  aux  passions 


NOTE  ABOUT  BICHAT.  495 

therefore  the  passions  have  their  seat  (siege)  in  the  heart,  which  is 
altered  by  them,  yet  their  place  (place)  in  the  brain.  Thus,  really  thus, 
speaks  the  oracle  of  M.  Flourens,  who  is  so  much  edified  by  it,  that 
he  even  utters  it  twice  after  him  (i.  33  and  ii.  135),  for  the  unfailing 
conquest  of  the  ignorant  Bichat,  who  knows  neither  soul  nor  body, 
but  merely  an  animal  and  an  organic  life,  and  whom  he  then  here  con 
descendingly  informs  that  we  must  thoroughly  distinguish  the  parts 
where  the  passions  have  their  seat  (sieyent)  from  those  which  they 
affect.     According  to  this,  then,  the  passions  act  in  one  place  while 
they  are  in  another.     Corporeal  things  are  wont  to  act  only  where 
they  are,  but  with  an  immaterial  soul  the  case  may  be  different. 
But  what  in  general  may  he  and  his  oracle  really  have  thought  in 
this  distinction  of  place  aud  siege,  of  sieger  and  affecter  ?    The  funda 
mental  error  of  M.  Flourens  and  Descartes  springs  really  from  the  fact 
that  they  confound  the  motives  or  occasions  of  the  passions,  which, 
as  ideas,  certainly  lie  in  the  intellect,  i.e.,   in  the  brain,  with  the 
passions  themselves,  which,  as  movements  of  the  will,  lie  in  the  whole 
body,  which  (as  we  know)  is  the  perceived  will  itself.     M.  Flourens' 
second  authority  is,  as  we  have  said,  Gall.     I  certainly  have  said, 
at  the  beginning  of  this  twentieth  chapter  (and  already  in  the  earlier 
edition)  :  "  The  greatest  error  in  Gall's  phrenology  is,  that  he  makes 
the  brain  the  organ  of  moral  qualities  also."     But  what  I  censure  and 
reject  is  precisely  what  M.  Flourens  praises  and  admires,  for  he  bears 
in  his  heart  the  doctrine  of  Descartes  :  "  Les  volontes  sont  des  pense'es." 
Accordingly  he  says,  p.  144:  "  Le  premier  service  que  Gall  a  rendu 
a,  la  physiologic  (?)  a  e'te  de  rammener  le  moral  d  Vintellectuel,  et  de 
faire  voir  que  les  faculte's  morales  et  les  faculte's  inlellectuelles  sont 
du  mdme  ordre,  et  de  les  placer  toutes,  autant  les  unes  que  les  autres, 
uniquement  et  exclusivement  dans  le  cerveau."     To  a  certain  extent 
my  whole   philosophy,  but   especially   the   nineteenth   chapter  of 
this  volume,  consists  of  the  refutation  of  this  fundamental  error. 
M.  Flourens,  on  the  contrary,  is  never  tired  of  extolling  this  as  a 
great  truth  and  Gall  as  its  discoverer;   for  example,  p.  147  :  "Si 
j'en  e'tais  a  classer  les  services  que  nous  a  rendu  Gall,  je  dirais  que  le 
premier  a  e'te  de  rammener  les  qualites  morales  au  cerveau j" — p.  153  : 
"  Le  cerveau  seul  est  Vorgane  de  I'dme,  et  de  I'dme  dans  toute  la  pleni 
tude  de  ses  fonctions  "  (we  see  the  simple  soul  of  Descartes  still  always 
lurks  in  the  background,  as  the  kernel  of  the  matter)  ;  "il  est  le 
siege  de  toutes  les  faculte's  intellectuelles.  .  .  .  Gall  a  rammene  LE  MORAL 
A  L'INTELLECTUEL,  il  a  rammene  les  qualites  morales  au  mSme  siege,  au 
meme  organe,  que  les  faculte's  intellectuelles."     Oh  how  must  Bichat  and 
I  be  ashamed  of  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  such  wisdom  !     But,  to 
speak  seriously,  what  can  be  more  disheartening,  or  rather  more 
shocking,  than  to  see  the  true  and  profound  rejected  and  the  false 


496  SECOND  BOOK.     CHAPTER  XX. 

and  perverse  extolled  ;  to  live  to  find  that  important  truths,  deeply 
hidden,  and  extracted  late  and  with  difficulty,  are  to  be  torn  down, 
and  the  old,  stale,  and  late  conquered  errors  set  up  in  their  place  ; 
nay,  to  be  compelled  to  fear  that  through  such  procedure  the  ad 
vances  of  human  knowledge,  so  hardly  achieved,  will  be  broken  off  ! 
But  let  us  quiet  our  fears;    for  magna  est  vis  veritatis  et  prcevalebit. 
M.  Flourens  is  unquestionably  a  man  of  much  merit,  but  he   has 
chiefhr  acquired  it  upon  the  experimental  path.     Just  those  truths, 
however,  which  are  of  the  greatest  importance  cannot  be  brought 
out  by  experiments,  but  only  by  reflection  and  penetration.     Now 
Bichat  by  his  reflection  and  penetration  has  here  brought  a  truth  to 
light  which  is  of  the  number  of  those  which  are  unattainable  by  the 
experimental  efforts  of  M.  Flourens,  even  if,  as  a  true  and  consistent 
Cartesian,  he  tortures  a  hundred  more  animals  to  death.     But  he 
ought  betimes  to  have  observed  and  thought  something   of  this  : 
"  Take  care,  friend,  for  it  burns."      The   presumption   and    self- 
sufficiency,  however,  such  as  is  only  imparted  by  superficiality  com 
bined  with  a  false  obscurity,  with  which  M.  Flourens  undertakes  to 
refute  a  thinker  like  Bichat  by  counter  assertions,  old  wives'  beliefs, 
and  futile  authorities,  indeed  to  reprove  and  instruct  him,  and  even 
almost  to  mock  at  him,  has  its  origin  in  the  nature  of  the  Academy 
and  its  fauteuils.      Throned  upon  these,  and  saluting  each  other 
mutually  as  illustre  confrere,  gentlemen  cannot  avoid  making  them 
selves  equal  with  the  best  who  have  ever  lived,  regarding  them 
selves  as  oracles,  and  therefore  fit  to  decree   what  shall   be   false 
and  what  true.     This  impels  and  entitles  me  to  say  out  plainly  for 
once,  that  the  really  superior  and  privileged  minds,  who  now  and 
then  are  born  for  the  enlightenment  of  the  rest,  and  to  whom  cer 
tainly  Bichat  belongs,  are  so  "  by  the  grace  of  God,"  and  accordingly 
stand  to  the  Academy  (in  which  they  have  generally  occupied  only 
the  forty-first  fauteuil)  and  to  its  illustres  confreres,  as  born  princes 
to  the   numerous  representatives  of  the  people,  chosen  from  the 
crowd.     Therefore  a  secret  awe  should  warn  these  gentlemen  of  the 
Academy  (who  always  exist  by  the  score)  before  they  attack  such  a 
man, — unless  they  have  most  cogent  reasons  to  present,  and  not 
mere  contradictions  and  appeals  to  placita  of  Descartes,  which  at  the 
present  day  is  quite  absurd. 


END   OF   VOL.   II. 


FEINTED  BY  BALLANTYNE.   HANSON  AND  CO 
EDINBURGH  AND  LONDON. 


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B  Schopenhauer,   Arthur 
3138  The  world  as  will 

E5II2  and  idea 

188?  (3rd  ed.) 
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