The World as Will and Idea Volume II Part 5

With him also, however, the subjective part is done with as soon as this conception has been established, and he pa.s.ses on to the objective part and to the practical, which is connected with it. But here also the merit was reserved for Kant of investigating seriously and profoundly _the feeling itself_, in consequence of which we call the object occasioning it beautiful, in order to discover, wherever it was possible, the const.i.tuent elements and conditions of it in our nature. His investigation, therefore, took an entirely subjective direction. This path was clearly the right one, for in order to explain a phenomenon which is given in its effects, one must know accurately this effect itself, if one is to determine thoroughly the nature of the cause. Yet Kant's merit in this regard does not really extend much further than this, that he has indicated the right path, and by a provisional attempt has given an example of how, more or less, it is to be followed. For what he gave cannot be regarded as objective truth and as a real gain. He gave the method for this investigation, he broke ground in the right direction, but otherwise he missed the mark.

In the "Critique of aesthetical Judgment" the observation first of all forces itself upon us that Kant retains the method which is peculiar to his whole philosophy, and which I have considered at length above-I mean the method of starting from abstract knowledge in order to establish knowledge of perception, so that the former serves him, so to speak, as a _camera obscura_ in which to receive and survey the latter. As in the "Critique of Pure Reason" the forms of judgment are supposed to unfold to him the knowledge of our whole world of perception, so in this "Critique of aesthetical Judgment" he does not start from the beautiful itself, from the perceptible and immediately beautiful, but from the _judgment_ of the beautiful, the so-called, and very badly so-called, judgment of taste.

This is his problem. His attention is especially aroused by the circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.sertions of others, from the judgment of the beautiful, not from the beautiful itself.

It is therefore as if he knew it simply from hearsay, not directly. A blind man of high understanding could almost in the same way make up a theory of colours from very accurate reports which he had heard concerning them. And really we can only venture to regard Kant's philosophemes concerning the beautiful as in almost the same position. Then we shall find that his theory is very ingenious indeed, that here and there telling and true observations are made; but his real solution of the problem is so very insufficient, remains so far below the dignity of the subject, that it can never occur to us to accept it as objective truth. Therefore I consider myself relieved from the necessity of refuting it; and here also I refer to the positive part of my work.

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

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

In the "Critique of the Teleological Judgment," on account of the simplicity of the matter, we can recognise perhaps more than anywhere else Kant's rare talent of turning a thought this way and that way, and expressing it in a mult.i.tude 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 a.s.suming that this is objectively the case. For our intellect, to which things are given from without and indirectly, which thus never knows their inner nature through which they arise and exist, but merely their outward side, cannot otherwise comprehend a certain quality peculiar to organised productions of nature than by a.n.a.logy, for it compares it with the intentionally accomplished works of man, the nature of which is determined by a design and the conception of this design. This a.n.a.logy is sufficient to enable us to comprehend the agreement of all the parts with the whole, and thus indeed to give us the clue to their investigation; but it must by no means on this account be made the actual ground of explanation of the origin and existence of such bodies. For the necessity of so conceiving them is of subjective origin.

Somewhat in this way I would epitomise Kant's doctrine on this question.

In its most important aspect he had expounded it already in the "Critique of Pure Reason," p. 692-702; V., 720-730. But in the knowledge of _this_ truth also we find David Hume to be Kant's worthy forerunner. He also had keenly controverted that a.s.sumption in the second part of his "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion." The difference between Hume's criticism of that a.s.sumption and Kant's is princ.i.p.ally this, that Hume criticised it as an a.s.sumption based upon experience, while Kant, on the other hand, criticised it as an _a priori_ a.s.sumption. 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: "? de p?a?? ?e???e? a?t??? ap? t??

??e?s?a?, pa?ta ta ??e?a t?? ????e?a ?ata p??a??es?? ?e?es?a? ?a?

????s??, ta de f?se? ? ??t?? ??a? ????e?a." (_Error iis ortus est ex eo, quod credebant, omnia, quae propter finem aliquem fierent, ex proposito et ratiocinio fieri, dum videbant, naturae opera non ita fieri._) _Schol.

in Arist., ex edit. Berol._, p. 354. Kant is perfectly right in the matter; and it was necessary that after it had been shown that the conception of cause and effect is inapplicable to the whole of nature in general, in respect of its existence, it should also be shown that in respect of its qualities it is not to be thought of as the effect of a cause guided by motives (designs). If we consider the great plausibility of the physico-theological proof, which even Voltaire held to be irrefragable, it was clearly of the greatest importance to show that what is subjective in our comprehension, to which Kant had relegated s.p.a.ce, time, and causality, extends also to our judgment of natural bodies; and accordingly the compulsion which we feel to think of them as having arisen as the result of premeditation, according to designs, thus in such a way that _the idea of them preceded their existence_, is just as much of subjective origin as the perception of s.p.a.ce, which presents itself so objectively, and that therefore it must not be set up as objective truth.

Kant's exposition of the matter, apart from its tedious prolixity and repet.i.tions, is excellent. He rightly a.s.serts that we can never succeed in explaining the nature of organised bodies from merely mechanical causes, by which he understands the undesigned and regular effect of all the universal forces of nature. Yet I find here another flaw. He denies the possibility of such an explanation merely with regard to the teleology and apparent adaptation of _organised_ bodies. But we find that even where there is no organisation the grounds of explanation which apply to _one_ province of nature cannot be transferred to another, but forsake us as soon as we enter a new province, and new fundamental laws appear instead of them, the explanation of which is by no means to be expected from the laws of the former province. Thus in the province of the mechanical, properly so called, the laws of gravitation, cohesion, rigidity, fluidity, and elasticity prevail, which in themselves (apart from my explanation of all natural forces as lower grades of the objectification of will) exist as manifestations of forces which cannot be further explained, but themselves const.i.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 absolutely of no use, indeed the former laws are no longer valid, the former forces are overcome by others, and the phenomena take place in direct contradiction to them, according to new laws, which, just like the former ones, are original and inexplicable, _i.e._, cannot be reduced to more general ones. Thus, for example, no one will ever succeed in explaining even the dissolving of a salt in water in accordance with the laws proper to mechanics, much less the more complicated phenomena of chemistry. All this has already been explained at length in the second book of the present work. An exposition of this kind would, as it seems to me, have been of great use in the "Critique of the Teleological Judgment," and would have thrown much light upon what is said there. Such an exposition would have been especially favourable to his excellent remark that a more profound knowledge of the real being, of which the things of nature are the manifestation, would recognise both in the mechanical (according to law) and the apparently intentional effects of nature one and the same ultimate principle, which might serve as the more general ground of explanation of them both. Such a principle I hope I have given by establishing the will as the real thing in itself; and in accordance with it generally in the second book and the supplements to it, but especially in my work "On the Will in Nature," the insight into the inner nature of the apparent design and of the harmony and agreement of the whole of nature has perhaps become clearer and deeper. Therefore I have nothing more to say about it here.

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

SUPPLEMENTS TO THE FIRST BOOK.

" 'Warum willst du dich von uns Allen Und unsrer Meinung entfernen?'

Ich schreibe nicht euch zu gefallen, Ihr sollt was lernen."

-GOETHE.

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

Chapter I. The Standpoint of Idealism.

In boundless s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sing away in time, which has no beginning and no end; moreover, nothing permanent but matter alone and the recurrence of the same varied organised forms, by means of certain ways and channels which are there once for all.

All that empirical science can teach is only the more exact nature and law of these events. But now at last modern philosophy especially through Berkeley and Kant, has called to mind that all this is first of all merely a _phenomenon of the brain_, and is affected with such great, so many, and such different _subjective_ conditions that its supposed absolute reality vanishes away, and leaves room for an entirely different scheme of the world, which consists of what lies at the foundation of that phenomenon, _i.e._, what is related to it as the thing in itself is related to its mere manifestation.

"The world is my idea" is, like the axioms of Euclid, a proposition which every one must recognise as true as soon as he understands it; although it is not a proposition which every one understands as soon as he hears it.

To have brought this proposition to clear consciousness, and in it the problem of the relation of the ideal and the real, _i.e._, of the world in the head to the world outside the head, together with the problem of moral freedom, is the distinctive feature of modern philosophy. For it was only after men had spent their labour for thousands of years upon a mere philosophy of the object that they discovered that among the many things that make the world so obscure and doubtful the first and chiefest is this, that however immeasurable and ma.s.sive 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 cla.s.sified along with them. For the same function of the brain which, during sleep, conjures up before us a completely objective, perceptible, and even palpable world must have just as large a share in the presentation of the objective world of waking life. Both worlds, although different as regards their matter, are yet clearly moulded in the one form. This form is the intellect, the function of the brain. Descartes was probably the first who attained to the degree of reflection which this fundamental truth demands, and consequently he made it the starting-point of his philosophy, though provisionally only in the form of a sceptical doubt. When he took his _cogito ergo sum_ as alone certain, and provisionally regarded the existence of the world as problematical, he really discovered the essential and only right starting-point of all philosophy, and at the same time its _true_ foundation. This foundation is essentially and inevitably the _subjective_, the _individual consciousness_. For this alone is and remains immediate; everything else, whatever it may be, is mediated and conditioned through it, and is therefore dependent upon it. Therefore modern philosophy is rightly regarded as starting with Descartes, who was the father of it. Not long afterwards Berkeley followed the same path further, and attained to _idealism_ proper, _i.e._, to the knowledge that the world which is extended in s.p.a.ce, thus the objective, material world in general, exists as such simply and solely in our _idea_, and that it is false, and indeed absurd, to attribute to it, _as such_, an existence apart from all idea and independent of the knowing subject, thus to a.s.sume matter as something absolute and possessed of real being in itself. But his correct and profound insight into this truth really const.i.tutes Berkeley's whole philosophy; in it he had exhausted himself.

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

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

The princ.i.p.al objection to the inevitable and essential _ideality of all objects_, the objection which, distinctly or indistinctly, arises in every one, is certainly this: My own person also is an object for some one else, is thus his idea, and yet I know certainly that I would continue to exist even if he no longer perceived me. But all other objects also stand in the same relation to his intellect as I do; consequently they also would continue to exist without being perceived by him. The answer to this is: That other being as whose object I now regard my person is not absolutely _the subject_, but primarily is a knowing individual. Therefore, if he no longer existed, nay, even if there existed no other conscious being except myself, yet the subject, in whose idea alone all objects exist, would by no means be on that account abolished. For I myself indeed am this subject, as every conscious being is. Consequently, in the case a.s.sumed, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sing 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 s.p.a.ce as my body. By no means, however, is there directly given me, either in some general feeling of bodily existence or in inner self-consciousness, any extension, form, or activity, which would then coincide with my nature itself, which accordingly, in order so to exist, would require no other being in whose knowledge it might exhibit itself. On the contrary, that general feeling of bodily existence, and also self-consciousness, exists directly only in relation to the _will_, that is, as agreeable or disagreeable, and as active in the acts of will, which for external perception exhibit themselves as actions of the body.

From this it follows that the existence of my person or body as _something extended and acting_ always presupposes a _knowing being_ distinct from it; because it is essentially an existence in apprehension, in the idea, thus an existence _for another_. In fact, it is a phenomenon of brain, just as much whether the brain in which it exhibits itself is my own or belongs to another person. In the first case one's own person divides itself into the knowing and the known, into object and subject, which here as everywhere stand opposed to each other, inseparable and irreconcilable.

If, then, my own person, in order to exist as such, always requires a knowing subject, this will at least as much hold good of the other objects for which it was the aim of the above objection to vindicate an existence independent of knowledge and its subject.

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

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

Consequently that Kantian principle already involves this principle also, that the _objective_ world exists only as _idea_.

In spite of all that one may say, nothing is so persistently and ever anew misunderstood as _Idealism_, because it is interpreted as meaning that one denies the _empirical_ reality of the external world. Upon this rests the perpetual return to the appeal to common sense, which appears in many forms and guises; for example, as an "irresistible conviction" in the Scotch school, or as Jacobi's _faith_ in the reality of the external world. The external world by no means presents itself, as Jacobi declares, upon credit, and is accepted by us upon trust and faith. It presents itself as that which it is, and performs directly what it promises. It must be remembered that Jacobi, who set up such a credit or faith theory of the world, and had the fortune to impose it upon a few professors of philosophy, who for thirty years have philosophised upon the same lines lengthily and at their ease, is the same man who once denounced Lessing as a Spinozist, and afterwards denounced Sch.e.l.ling 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 a.s.sumed 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 (s.p.a.ce, 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 s.p.a.ce 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, s.p.a.ce, and causality, upon which all those real and objective events rest, are themselves nothing more than functions of the brain; so that thus the unchangeable _order_ of things which affords the criterion and clue to their empirical reality itself proceeds only from the brain, and has its credentials from this alone. All this Kant has expounded fully and thoroughly; only he does not speak of the brain, but calls it "the faculty of knowledge." Indeed he has attempted to prove that when that objective order in time, s.p.a.ce, causality, matter, &c., upon which all the events of the real world ultimately rest, is properly considered, it cannot even be conceived as a self-existing order, _i.e._, an order of the thing in itself, or as something absolutely objective and unconditionally given, for if one tries to think this out it leads to contradictions. To accomplish this was the object of the antinomies, but in the appendix to my work I have proved the failure of the attempt. On the other hand, the Kantian doctrine, even without the antinomies, leads to the insight that things and the whole mode of their existence are inseparably bound up with our consciousness of them. Therefore whoever has distinctly grasped this soon attains to the conviction that the a.s.sumption that things also exist as such, apart from and independently of our consciousness, is really absurd. That we are so deeply involved in time, s.p.a.ce, 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 const.i.tute 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 a.s.sumption of absolute realism which is so obstinately clung to may be directly shown, or at least made capable of being felt, by the simple exhibition of its meaning in the light of such considerations as the following. According to realism, the world is supposed to exist, as we know it, independently of this knowledge. Let us once, then, remove all percipient beings from it, and leave only unorganised and vegetable nature. Rock, tree, and brook are there, and the blue heaven; sun, moon, and stars light this world, as before; yet certainly in vain, for there is no eye to see it. Let us now in addition place in it a percipient being. Now that world presents itself _again_ in his brain, and repeats itself within it precisely as it was formerly without it. Thus to the _first_ world a _second_ has been added, which, although completely separated from it, resembles it to a nicety. And now the _subjective_ world of this perception is precisely so const.i.tuted in _subjective_, known s.p.a.ce as the _objective_ world in _objective_, infinite s.p.a.ce. But the subjective world has this advantage over the objective, the knowledge that that s.p.a.ce, outside there, is infinite; indeed it can also give beforehand most minutely and accurately the whole const.i.tution or necessary properties of all relations which are possible, though not yet actual, in that s.p.a.ce, and does not require to examine them. It can tell just as much with regard to the course of time, and also with regard to the relation of cause and effect which governs the changes in that external world. I think all this, when closely considered, turns out absurd enough, and hence leads to the conviction that that absolute objective world outside the head, independent of it and prior to all knowledge, which at first we imagined ourselves to conceive, is really no other than the second, the world which is known _subjectively_, the world of idea, as which alone we are actually able to conceive it. Thus of its own accord the a.s.sumption forces itself upon us, that the world, as we know it, exists also only for our knowledge, therefore in the _idea_ alone, and not a second time outside of it.(12) In accordance, then, with this a.s.sumption, the thing in itself, _i.e._, that which exists independently of our knowledge and of every knowledge, is to be regarded as something completely different from the _idea_ and all its attributes, thus from objectivity in general. What this is will be the subject of our second book.

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

The subjective and the objective do not const.i.tute a continuous whole.

That of which we are immediately conscious is bounded by the skin, or rather by the extreme ends of the nerves which proceed from the cerebral system. Beyond this lies a world of which we have no knowledge except through pictures in our head. Now the question is, whether and how far there is a world independent of us which corresponds to these pictures.

The relation between the two could only be brought about by means of the law of causality; for this law alone leads from what is given to something quite different from it. But this law itself has first of all to prove its validity. Now it must either be of _objective_ or of _subjective_ origin; but in either case it lies upon one or the other side, and therefore cannot supply the bridge between them. If, as Locke and Hume a.s.sume, it is _a posteriori_, thus drawn from experience, it is of _objective_ origin, and belongs then itself to the external world which is in question.

Therefore it cannot attest the reality of this world, for then, according to Locke's method, causality would be proved from experience, and the reality of experience from causality. If, on the contrary, it is given _a priori_, as Kant has more correctly taught us, then it is of _subjective_ origin, and in that case it is clear that with it we remain always in the _subjective_ sphere. For all that is actually given _empirically_ in perception is the occurrence of a sensation in the organ of sense; and the a.s.sumption that this, even in general, must have a cause rests upon a law which is rooted in the form of our knowledge, _i.e._, in the functions of our brain. The origin of this law is therefore just as subjective as that of the sensation itself. The cause of the given sensation, which is a.s.sumed in consequence of this law, presents itself at once in perception as an _object_, which has s.p.a.ce and time for the form of its manifestation. But _these forms_ themselves again are entirely of subjective origin; for they are the mode or method of our faculty of perception. That transition from the sensation to its cause which, as I have repeatedly pointed out, lies at the foundation of all sense-perception is certainly sufficient to give us the empirical presence in s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce, permanent in time, and causally efficient by no means justifies the a.s.sumption that they also exist in themselves, _i.e._, that such things with these properties belonging absolutely to themselves exist independently and outside of my head. This is the true outcome of the Kantian philosophy. It coincides with an earlier result of Locke's, which is just as true, but far more easily understood. For although, as Locke's doctrine permits, external things are absolutely a.s.sumed as the causes of sensations, yet there can be no _resemblance_ between the sensation in which the _effect_ consists and the objective nature of the _cause_ which occasions it. For the sensation, as organic function, is primarily determined by the highly artificial and complicated nature of our organs of sense. It is therefore merely excited by the external cause, but is then perfected entirely in accordance with its own laws, and thus is completely subjective. Locke's philosophy was the criticism of the functions of sense; Kant has given us the criticism of the functions of the brain. But to all this we have yet to add the Berkeleian result, which has been revised by me, that every object, whatever its origin may be, is _as object_ already conditioned by the subject, is in fact merely its _idea_. The aim of realism is indeed the object without subject; but it is impossible even to conceive such an object distinctly.

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

But, besides this, a firm grasp of the point of view of _idealism_ is a necessary counterpoise to that of _materialism_. The controversy concerning the _real_ and the _ideal_ may also be regarded as a controversy concerning the existence of _matter_. For it is the reality or ideality of this that is ultimately in question. Does matter, as such, exist only in our _idea_, or does it also exist independently of it? In the latter case it would be the thing in itself; and whoever a.s.sumes 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 a.s.serted 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 ant.i.thesis is thus that of idealism and materialism, represented in its extremes by Berkeley and the French materialists (Hollbach). Fichte is not to be mentioned here: he deserves no place among true philosophers; among those elect of mankind who, with deep earnestness, seek not their own things but the _truth_, and therefore must not be confused with those who, under this pretence, have only their personal advancement in view. Fichte is the father of the _sham philosophy_, of the _disingenuous_ method which, through ambiguity in the use of words, incomprehensible language, and sophistry, seeks to deceive, and tries, moreover, to make a deep impression by a.s.suming 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 Sch.e.l.ling, 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 a.s.sertion 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, "??? a??????? ?e?d??" (_materia mendacium verax_).

_Realism_ necessarily leads, as we have said, to _materialism_. For if empirical perception gives us things in themselves, as they exist independently of our knowledge, experience also gives us the _order_ of things in themselves, _i.e._, the true and sole order of the world. But this path leads to the a.s.sumption that there is only _one_ thing in itself, matter; of which all other things are modifications; for the course of nature is here the absolute and only order of the world. To escape from these consequences, while realism remained in undisputed acceptance, spiritualism was set up, that is, the a.s.sumption of a second substance outside of and along with matter, an _immaterial substance_.

This dualism and spiritualism, equally unsupported by experience and dest.i.tute of proof and comprehensibility, was denied by Spinoza, and was proved to be false by Kant, who dared to do so because at the same time he established idealism in its rights. For with realism materialism, as the counterpoise of which spiritualism had been devised, falls to the ground of its own accord, because then matter and the course of nature become mere phenomena, which are conditioned by the intellect, as they have their existence only in its _idea_. Accordingly spiritualism is the delusive and false safeguard against materialism, while the real and true safeguard is idealism, which, by making the objective world dependent upon us, gives the needed counterpoise to the position of dependence upon the objective world, in which we are placed by the course of nature. The world from which I part at death is, in another aspect, only my idea. The centre of gravity of existence falls back into the _subject_. What is proved is not, as in spiritualism, that the knower is independent of matter, but that all matter is dependent on him. Certainly this is not so easy to comprehend or so convenient to handle as spiritualism, with its two substances; but ?a?epa ta ?a?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 pa.s.sing away), or "all that exists is matter." This is the starting-point of Democritus, Leucippus, and Epicurus. But, more closely considered, the departure from the subject retains a real advantage; it has the start by one perfectly justified step. For consciousness alone is the _immediate_: but we pa.s.s over this if we go at once to matter and make it our starting-point. On the other hand, it would certainly be possible to construct the world from matter and its properties if these were correctly, completely, and exhaustively known to us (which is far from being the case as yet). For all that has come to be has become actual through _causes_, which could operate and come together only by virtue of the _fundamental forces of matter_. But these must be perfectly capable of demonstration at least objectively, even if subjectively we never attain to a knowledge of them.

But such an explanation and construction of the world would not only have at its foundation the a.s.sumption of an existence in itself of matter (while in truth it is conditioned by the subject), but it would also be obliged to allow all the _original qualities_ in this matter to pa.s.s current and remain absolutely inexplicable, thus as _qualitates occultae_.

(Cf. -- 26, 27 of the first volume.) For matter is only the vehicle of these forces, just as the law of causality is only the arranger of their manifestations. Therefore such an explanation of the world would always remain merely relative and conditioned, properly the work of a _physical science_, which at every step longed for a _metaphysic_. On the other hand, there is also something inadequate about the subjective starting-point and first principle, "the world is my idea," partly because it is one-sided, since the world is far more than that (the thing in itself, will), and indeed its existence as idea is to a certain extent only accidental to it; but partly also because it merely expresses the fact that the object is conditioned by the subject, without at the same time saying that the subject, as such, is also conditioned by the object.

For the a.s.sertion, "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 a.s.sertion of the crude understanding, "the world, the object, would still exist, even if there were no subject." A consciousness without an object is no consciousness. A thinking subject has conceptions for its object; a subject of sense perception has objects with the qualities corresponding to its organisation. If we rob the subject of all special characteristics and forms of its knowledge, all the properties of the object vanish also, and nothing remains but _matter without form and quality_, which can just as little occur in experience as a subject without the forms of its knowledge, but which remains opposed to the naked subject as such, as its reflex, which can only disappear along with it.

Although materialism pretends to postulate nothing more than this matter-for instance, atoms-yet it unconsciously adds to it not only the subject, but also s.p.a.ce, time, and causality, which depend upon special properties of the subject.

The world as idea, the objective world, has thus, as it were, two poles; the simple knowing subject without the forms of its knowledge, and crude matter without form and quality. Both are completely unknowable; the subject because it is that which knows, matter because without form and quality it cannot be perceived. Yet both are fundamental conditions of all empirical perception. Thus the knowing subject, merely as such, which is a presupposition of all experience, stands opposed as its pure counterpart to the crude, formless, and utterly dead (_i.e._, will-less) matter, which is given in no experience, but which all experience presupposes. This subject is not in time, for time is only the more definite form of all its ideas. The matter which stands over against it is, like it, eternal and imperishable, endures through all time, but is, properly speaking, not extended, for extension gives form, thus it has no spatial properties.

Everything else is involved in a constant process of coming into being and pa.s.sing away, while these two represent the unmoved poles of the world as idea. The permanence of matter may therefore be regarded as the reflex of the timelessness of the pure subject, which is simply a.s.sumed as the condition of all objects. Both belong to phenomena, not to the thing in itself, but they are the framework of the phenomenon. Both are arrived at only by abstraction, and are not given immediately, pure and for themselves.

The fundamental error of all systems is the failure to understand this truth. _Intelligence and matter are correlates_, _i.e._, the one exists only for the other, both stand and fall together, the one is only the reflex of the other. Indeed they are really _one and the same thing_ regarded from two opposite points of view; and this one thing, I am here antic.i.p.ating, 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, ????, as the absolutely First and d????????, and accordingly in this allow an idea of things and of the world to precede their actual existence; consequently they distinguish the real world from the world of idea; which is false.

Therefore matter now appears as that through which the two are distinguished, as the thing in itself. Hence arises the difficulty of procuring this matter, the ???, 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 d???????? and the ???; or the absolute intelligence must create this matter out of nothing, an a.s.sumption 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 pa.s.s away. This rests ultimately upon the fact that matter is essential, the correlate of the understanding. On the other hand, the systems opposed to these, which make the other of the two correlates, that is, matter, the absolute First, suppose a matter which would exist without being perceived; and it has been made sufficiently clear by all that has been said above that this is a direct contradiction, for by the existence of matter we always mean simply its being perceived. But here they encounter the difficulty of bringing to this matter, which alone is their absolute First, the intelligence which is finally to experience it. I have shown this weak side of materialism in -- 7 of the first volume. For me, on the contrary, matter and intelligence are inseparable correlates, which exist only for each other, and therefore merely relatively. Matter is the idea of the intelligence; the intelligence is that in whose idea alone matter exists.

The two together const.i.tute _the world as idea_, which is just Kant's _phenomenon_, and consequently something secondary. What is primary is that which manifests itself, _the thing in itself_, which we shall afterwards discover is the will. This is in itself neither the perceiver nor the perceived, but is entirely different from the mode of its manifestation.

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