INTRODUCTION
If we cast a glance back over the period just traversed, we find that in it a turning-point had been reached, that the Christian religion had placed its absolute content in the mind and will of man, and that it was thus, as a divine and supersensuous content, separated from the world and shut up within itself in the centre-point of the individual. Over against the religious life an external world stood as a natural world—a world of heart or feeling, of desire, of human nature—which had value only in as far as it was overcome. This mutual independence of the two worlds had much attention bestowed on it throughout the Middle Ages; the opposition was attacked on all quarters and in the end overcome. But since the relation of mankind to the divine life exists upon earth, this conquest at first presented the appearance of bringing with it the destruction of the church and of the eternal through the sensuous desires of man. The eternal truth was likewise grafted upon the dry, formal understanding, so that we might say that the separation of self-consciousness has in itself disappeared, and thereby a possibility has been given of obtaining reconciliation. But because this implicit union of the Beyond and the Here was of so unsatisfactory a nature that the better feelings were aroused and forced to turn against it, the Reformation made its appearance, partly, no doubt, as a separation from the Catholic Church, but partly as a reformation from within. There is a mistaken idea that the Reformation only effected a separation from the Catholic Church; Luther just as truly reformed the Catholic Church, the corruption of which one learns from his writings, and from the reports of the emperors and of the empire to the Pope; if further evidence be required, we need only read the accounts given even by the Catholic bishops, the Fathers of the councils at Constance, Basle, &c., of the condition of the Catholic priesthood and of the Roman Court. The principle of the inward reconciliation of spirit, which was in itself the very Idea of Christianity, was thus again estranged, and appeared as a condition of external, unreconciled alienation and discord; this gives us an example of the slow operation of the world-spirit in overcoming this externality. It eats away the inward substance, but the appearance, the outward form, still remains; at the end, however, it is an empty shell, the new form breaks forth. In such times this spirit appears as if it—having so far proceeded in its development at a snail’s pace, and having even retrograded and become estranged from itself—had suddenly adopted seven-leagued boots.
Since thus the reconciliation of self-consciousness with the present is implicitly accomplished, man has attained to confidence in himself and in his thought, in sensuous nature outside of and within him; he has discovered an interest and pleasure in making discoveries both in nature and the arts. In the affairs of this world the understanding developed; man became conscious of his will and his achievements, took pleasure in the earth and its soil, as also in his occupations, because right and understanding were there present. With the discovery of gunpowder the individual passion of battle was lost. The romantic impulse towards a casual kind of bravery passed into other adventures, not of hate or revenge, or the so-called deliverance from what men considered the wrongs of innocence, but more harmless adventures, the exploration of the earth, or the discovery of the passage to the East Indies. America was discovered, its treasures and people—nature, man himself; navigation was the higher romance of commerce. The present world was again present to man as worthy of the interests of mind; thinking mind was again capable of action. Now the Reformation of Luther had inevitably to come—the appeal to the sensus communis which does not recognize the authority of the Fathers or of Aristotle, but only the inward personal spirit which quickens and animates, in contradistinction to works. In this way the Church lost her power against it, for her principle was within it and no longer lacking to it. To the finite and present due honour is accorded; from this honour the work of science proceeds. We thus see that the finite, the inward and outward present, becomes a matter of experience, and through the understanding is elevated into universality; men desire to understand laws and forces, i.e. to transform the individual of perceptions into the form of universality. Worldly matters demand to be judged of in a worldly way; the judge is thinking understanding. The other side is that the eternal, which is in and for itself true, is also known and comprehended through the pure heart itself; the individual mind appropriates to itself the eternal. This is the Lutheran faith without any other accessories—works, as they were called. Everything had value only as it was grasped by the heart, and not as a mere thing. The content ceases to be an objective thing; God is thus in spirit alone, He is not a beyond but the truest reality of the individual.
Pure thought is likewise one form of inwardness; it also approaches absolute existence and finds itself justified in apprehending the same. The philosophy of modern times proceeds from the principle which ancient philosophy had reached, the standpoint of actual self-consciousness—it has as principle the spirit that is present to itself; it brings the standpoint of the Middle Ages, the diversity between what is thought and the existent universe, into opposition, and it has to do with the dissolution of this same opposition. The main interest hence is, not so much the thinking of the objects in their truth, as the thinking and understanding of the objects, the thinking this unity itself, which is really the being conscious of a presupposed object. The getting rid of the formal culture of the logical understanding and the monstrosities of which it was composed, was more essential than the extension of it: investigation in such a case becomes dissipated and diffused, and passes into the false infinite. The general points of view which in modern philosophy we reach are hence somewhat as follows:—
1. The concrete form of thought which we have here to consider on its own account, really appears as subjective with the reflection of implicitude, so that this has an antithesis in existence; and the interest is then altogether found in grasping the reconciliation of this opposition in its highest existence, i.e. in the most abstract extremes. This highest severance is the opposition between thought and Being, the comprehending of whose unity from this time forward constitutes the interest of all philosophies. Here thought is more independent, and thus we now abandon its unity with theology; it separates itself therefrom, just as with the Greeks it separated itself from mythology, the popular religion, and did not until the time of the Alexandrians seek out these forms again and fill the mythological conceptions with the form of thought. The bond remains, but for this reason it is clearly implicit: theology throughout is merely what philosophy is, for this last is simply thought respecting it. It does not help theology to strive against philosophy, or to say that it wishes to know nothing about it, and that philosophic maxims are thus to be set aside. It has always to do with the thought that it brings along with it, and these its subjective conceptions, its home and private metaphysics, are thus frequently a quite uncultured, uncritical thought—the thought of the street. These general conceptions are, indeed, connected with particular subjective conviction, and this last is said to prove the Christian content to be true in a sense all its own; but these thoughts which constitute the criterion are merely the reflections and opinions which float about the surface of the time. Thus, when thought comes forth on its own account, we thereby separate ourselves from theology; we shall, however, consider one other in whom both are still in unity. This individual is Jacob Boehme, for since mind now moves in its own domains, it is found partly in the natural and finite world, and partly in the inward, and this at first is the Christian.
While earlier than this, moreover, the spirit, distracted by outward things, had to make its influence felt in religion and in the secular life, and came to be known in the popular philosophy so-called, it was only in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the genuine Philosophy re-appeared, which seeks to grasp the truth as truth because man in thought is infinitely free to comprehend himself and nature, and along with that seeks to understand the present of rationality, reality, universal law itself. For this is ours, since it is subjectivity. The principle of modern philosophy is hence not a free and natural thought, because it has the opposition of thought and nature before it as a fact of which it is conscious. Spirit and nature, thought and Being, are the two infinite sides of the Idea, which can for the first time truly make its appearance when its sides are grasped for themselves in their abstraction and totality. Plato comprehended it as the bond, as limiting and as infinite, as one and many, simple and diverse, but not as thought and Being; when we first thinkingly overcome this opposition it signifies comprehending the unity. This is the standpoint of philosophic consciousness generally; but the way in which this unity must be thinkingly developed is a double one. Philosophy hence falls into the two main forms in which the opposition is resolved, into a realistic and an idealistic system of philosophy, i.e. into one which makes objectivity and the content of thought to arise from the perceptions, and one which proceeds to truth from the independence of thought.
a. Experience constitutes the first of these methods, viz. Realism. Philosophy now signified, or had as its main attribute, self-thought and the acceptance of the present as that in which truth lay, and which was thereby knowable. All that is speculative is pared and smoothed down in order to bring it under experience. This present is the existent external nature, and spiritual activity as the political world and as subjective activity. The way to truth was to begin from this hypothesis, but not to remain with it in its external self-isolating actuality, but to lead it to the universal.
α. The activities of that first method operate, to begin with, on physical nature, from the observation of which men derive universal laws, and on this basis their knowledge is founded; the science of nature, however, only reaches to the stage of reflection. This kind of experimental physics was once called, and is still called philosophy, as Newton’s Principia philosophiæ naturalis (Vol. I. p. 59) show. This work is one in which the methods of the finite sciences through observation and deduction are alone present—those sciences which the French still call the sciences exactes. To this, the understanding of the individual, piety was opposed, and hence in this respect philosophy was termed worldly wisdom (Vol. I. p. 60). Here the Idea in its infinitude is not itself the object of knowledge; but a determinate content is raised into the universal, or this last in its determinateness for the understanding is derived from observation, just as is, for instance, done in Keppler’s Laws. In Scholastic philosophy, on the other hand, man’s power of observation was set aside, and disputations respecting nature at that time proceeded from abstruse hypotheses.
β. In the second place, the spiritual was observed as in its realization it constitutes the spiritual world of states, in order thus to investigate from experience the rights of individuals as regards one another, and as regards rulers, and the rights of states against states. Before this popes anointed kings, just as was done in Old Testament times to those appointed by God; it was in the Old Testament that the tithe was commanded; the forbidden degrees of relationship in marriage were also adopted from the Mosaic laws. What was right and permissible for kings was demonstrated from Saul’s and David’s histories, the rights of priesthood from Samuel—in short, the Old Testament was the source of all the principles of public law, and it is in this way even now that all papal bulls have their deliverances confirmed. It may easily be conceived how much nonsense was in this manner concocted. Now, however, right was sought for in man himself, and in history, and what had been accounted right both in peace and in war was explained. In this way books were composed which even now are constantly quoted in the Parliament of England. Men further observed the desires which could be satisfied in the state and the manner in which satisfaction could be given to them, in order thus from man himself, from man of the past as well as of the present, to learn what is right.
b. The second method, that of Idealism, proceeds from what is inward; according to it everything is in thought, mind itself is all content. Here the Idea itself is made the object; that signifies the thinking it and from it proceeding to the determinate. What Realism draws from experience is now derived from thought à priori; or the determinate is also comprehended but not led back to the universal merely, but to the Idea.
The two methods overlap one another, however, because experience on its side desires to derive universal laws from observations, while, on the other side, thought proceeding from abstract universality must still give itself a determinate content; thus a priori and a posteriori methods are mingled. In France abstract universality was the more predominant; from England experience took its rise, and even now it is there held in the greatest respect; Germany proceeded from the concrete Idea, from the inwardness of mind and spirit.
2. The questions of present philosophy, the opposites, the content which occupies the attention of these modern times, are as follows:—
a. The first form of the opposition which we have already touched upon in the Middle Ages is the Idea of God and His Being, and the task imposed is to deduce the existence of God, as pure spirit, from thought. Both sides must be comprehended through thought as absolute unity; the extremest opposition is apprehended as gathered into one unity. Other subjects which engage our attention are connected with the same general aim, namely, the bringing about of the inward reconciliation in the opposition which exists between knowledge and its object.
b. The second form of opposition is that of Good and Evil—the opposition of the assertion of independent will to the positive and universal; the origin of evil must be known. Evil is plainly the “other,” the negation of God as Holiness; because He is, because He is wise, good, and at the same time almighty, evil is contradictory to Him; an endeavour is made to reconcile this contradiction.
c. The third form of opposition is that of the freedom of man and necessity.
α. The individual is clearly not determined in any other way than from himself, he is the absolute beginning of determination; in the ‘I,’ in the self, a power of decision is clearly to be found. This freedom is in opposition to the theory that God alone is really absolutely determining. Further, when that which happens is in futurity, the determining of it through God is regarded as Providence and the fore-knowledge of God. In this, however, a new contradiction is involved, inasmuch as because God’s knowledge is not merely subjective, that which God knows likewise is.
β. Further still, human freedom is in opposition to necessity as the determinateness of nature; man is dependent on nature, and the external as well as the inward nature of man is his necessity as against his freedom.
γ. Considered objectively, this opposition is that between final causes and efficient causes, i.e. between the acts of freedom and the acts of necessity.
δ. This opposition between the freedom of man and natural necessity has finally likewise the further form of community of soul and body, of commercium animi cum corpore, as it has been called, wherein the soul appears as the simple, ideal, and free, and the body as the manifold, material and necessary.
These matters occupy the attention of science, and they are of a completely different nature from the interests of ancient philosophy. The difference is this, that here there is a consciousness of an opposition, which is certainly likewise contained in the subjects with which the learning of the ancients was occupied, but which had not come to consciousness. This consciousness of the opposition, this ‘Fall,’ is the main point of interest in the conception of the Christian religion. The bringing about in thought of the reconciliation which is accepted in belief, now constitutes the whole interest of knowledge. Implicitly it has come to pass; for knowledge considers itself qualified to bring about in itself this recognition of the reconciliation. The philosophic systems are therefore no more than modes of this absolute unity, and only the concrete unity of those opposites is the truth.
3. As regards the stages which were reached in the progress of this knowledge we have to mention three of the principal.
a. First of all we find the union of those opposites stated; and to prove it genuine attempts are made, though not yet determined in purity.
b. The second stage is the metaphysical union; and here, with Descartes, the philosophy of modern times as abstract thought properly speaking begins.
α. Thinking understanding seeks to bring to pass the union, inasmuch as it investigates with its pure thought-determinations; this is in the first place the standpoint of metaphysics as such.
β. In the second place, we have to consider negation, the destruction of this metaphysics—the attempt to consider knowledge on its own account, and the determinations which proceed from it.
c. The third stage is that this union itself which is to be brought about, and which is the only subject of interest, comes to consciousness and becomes an object. As principle the union has the form of the relationship of knowledge to the content, and thus this question has been put: ‘How is, and how can thought be identical with the objective?’ With this the inward element which lies at the basis of this metaphysic is raised into explicitude and made an object; and this includes all modern philosophy in its range.
4. In respect to the external history and the lives of the philosophers, it will strike us that from this time on, these appear to be very different from those of the philosophers of ancient times, whom we regarded as self-sufficing individualities. It is required that a philosopher should live as he teaches, that he should despise the world and not enter into connection with it; this the ancients have accomplished, and they are such plastic individualities just because the inward spiritual aim of philosophy has likewise frequently determined their external relations and conditions. The object of their knowledge was to take a thoughtful view of the universe; they kept the external connection with the world all the further removed from themselves because they did not greatly approve of much therein present; or, at least, it ever proceeds on its way, according to its own particular laws, on which the individual is dependent. The individual likewise participates in the present interests of external life, in order to satisfy his personal ends, and through them to attain to honour, wealth, respect, and distinction; the ancient philosophers, however, because they remained in the Idea, did not concern themselves with things that were not the objects of their thought. Hence with the Greeks and Romans the philosophers lived in an independent fashion peculiar to themselves, and in an external mode of life which appeared suitable to and worthy of the science they professed; they conducted themselves independently as private persons, unfettered by outside trammels, and they may be compared to the monks who renounced all temporal goods.
In the Middle Ages it was chiefly the clergy, doctors of theology, who occupied themselves with philosophy. In the transition period the philosophers showed themselves to be in an inward warfare with themselves and in an external warfare with their surroundings, and their lives were spent in a wild, unsettled fashion.
In modern times things are very different; now we no longer see philosophic individuals who constitute a class by themselves. With the present day all difference has disappeared; philosophers are not monks, for we find them generally in connection with the world, participating with others in some common work or calling. They live, not independently, but in the relation of citizens, or they occupy public offices and take part in the life of the state. Certainly they may be private persons, but if so, their position as such does not in any way isolate them from their other relationships. They are involved in present conditions, in the world and its work and progress. Thus their philosophy is only by the way, a sort of luxury and superfluity. This difference is really to be found in the manner in which outward conditions have taken shape after the building up of the inward world of religion. In modern times, namely, on account of the reconciliation of the worldly principle with itself, the external world is at rest, is brought into order—worldly relationships, conditions, modes of life, have become constituted and organized in a manner which is conformable to nature and rational. We see a universal, comprehensible connection, and with that individuality likewise attains another character and nature, for it is no longer the plastic individuality of the ancients. This connection is of such power that every individuality is under its dominion, and yet at the same time can construct for itself an inward world. The external has thus been reconciled with itself in such a way that both inward and outward may be self-sufficing and remain independent of one another; and the individual is in the condition of being able to leave his external side to external order, while in the case of those plastic forms the external could only be determined entirely from within. Now, on the contrary, with the higher degree of strength attained by the inward side of the individual, he may hand the external over to chance; just as he leaves clothing to the contingencies of fashion, not considering it worth while to exert his understanding upon it. The external he leaves to be determined by the order which is present in the particular sphere in which his lot is cast. The circumstances of life are, in the true sense, private affairs, determined by outward conditions, and do not contain anything worthy of our notice. Life becomes scholarly, uniform, commonplace, it connects itself with outwardly given relationships and cannot represent or set itself forth as a form pertaining only to itself. Man must not take up the character of showing himself an independent form, and giving himself a position in the world created by himself. Because the objective power of external relationships is infinitely great, and for that reason the way in which I perforce am placed in them has become a matter of indifference to me, personality and the individual life generally are equally indifferent. A philosopher, it is said, should live as a philosopher, i.e., should be independent of the external relationships of the world, and should give up occupying himself with and troubling himself concerning them. But thus circumscribed in respect of all necessities, more especially of culture, no one can suffice for himself; he must seek to act in connection with others. The modern world is this essential power of connection, and it implies the fact that it is clearly necessary for the individual to enter into these relations of external existence; only a common mode of existence is possible in any calling or condition, and to this Spinoza forms the solitary exception. Thus in earlier times bravery was individual; while modern bravery consists in each not acting after his own fashion, but relying on his connection with others—and this constitutes his whole merit. The calling of philosopher is not, like that of the monks, an organized condition. Members of academies of learning are no doubt organized in part, but even a special calling like theirs sinks into the ordinary commonplace of state or class relationships, because admission thereinto is outwardly determined. The real matter is to remain faithful to one’s aims.
SECTION ONE
Modern Philosophy in its First Statement
The first two philosophers whom we have to consider are Bacon and Boehme; there is as complete a disparity between these individuals as between their systems of philosophy. None the less both agree that mind operates in the content of its knowledge as in its own domain, and this consequently appears as concrete Being. This domain in Bacon is the finite, natural world; in Boehme it is the inward, mystical, godly Christian life and existence; for the former starts from experience and induction, the latter from God and the pantheism of the Trinity.
[A. Bacon.]
There was already being accomplished the abandonment of the content which lies beyond us, and which through its form has lost the merit it possessed of being true, and is become of no significance to self-consciousness or the certainty of self and of its actuality; this we see for the first time consciously expressed, though not as yet in a very perfect form, by Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans. He is therefore instanced as in the fore-front of all this empirical philosophy, and even now our countrymen like to adorn their works with sententious sayings culled from him. Baconian philosophy thus usually means a philosophy which is founded on the observation of the external or spiritual nature of man in his inclinations, desires, rational and judicial qualities. From these conclusions are drawn, and general conceptions, laws pertaining to this domain, are thus discovered. Bacon has entirely set aside and rejected the scholastic method of reasoning from remote abstractions and being blind to what lies before one’s eyes. He takes as his standpoint the sensuous manifestation as it appears to the cultured man, as the latter reflects upon it; and this is conformable to the principle of accepting the finite and worldly as such.
Bacon was born in London in 1561. His progenitors and relatives held high office in the state, and his father was Keeper of the Great Seal to Queen Elizabeth. He in his turn, having been educated to follow the same vocation, at once devoted himself to the business of the state, and entered upon an important career. He early displayed great talent, and at the age of nineteen he produced a work on the condition of Europe (De statu Europæ). Bacon in his youth attached himself to the Earl of Essex, the favourite of Elizabeth, through whose support he, who as a younger son had to see his paternal estate pass to his elder brother, soon attained to better circumstances, and was elevated to a higher position. Bacon, however, sullied his fame by the utmost ingratitude and faithlessness towards his protector; for he is accused of having been prevailed upon by the enemies of the Earl after his fall to charge him publicly with High Treason. Under James I., the father of Charles I. who was beheaded, a weak man, to whom he recommended himself by his work De augmentis scientiarum, he received the most honourable offices of state by attaching himself to Buckingham: he was made Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord Chancellor of England, Baron Verulam. He likewise made a rich marriage, though he soon squandered all his means, and high though his position was, he stooped to intrigues and was guilty of accepting bribes in the most barefaced manner. Thereby he brought upon himself the ill-will both of people and of nobles, so that he was prosecuted, and his case was tried before Parliament. He was fined 40,000l., thrown into the Tower, and his name was struck out of the list of peers; during the trial and while he was in prison he showed the greatest weakness of character. He was, however, liberated from prison, and his trial was annulled, owing to the even greater hatred of the king and his minister Buckingham, under whose administration Bacon had filled these offices, and whose victim he appeared to have been; for he fell earlier than his comrade Buckingham, and was deserted and condemned by him. It was not so much his innocence as the fact that those who ruined him had made themselves hated to an equal degree through their rule, that caused the hatred and indignation against Bacon to be somewhat mitigated. But he neither recovered his own sense of self-respect nor the personal esteem of others, which he had lost through his former conduct. He retired into private life, lived in poverty, had to beg sustenance from the king, occupied himself during the remainder of his life with science only, and died in 1626.[95]
Since Bacon has ever been esteemed as the man who directed knowledge to its true source, to experience, he is, in fact, the special leader and representative of what is in England called Philosophy, and beyond which the English have not yet advanced. For they appear to constitute that people in Europe which, limited to the understanding of actuality, is destined, like the class of shopkeepers and workmen in the State, to live always immersed in matter, and to have actuality but not reason as object. Bacon won great praise by showing how attention is to be paid to the outward and inward manifestations of Nature, and the esteem in which his name is thus held is greater than can be ascribed directly to his merit. It has become the universal tendency of the time and of the English mode of reasoning, to proceed from facts, and to judge in accordance with them. Because Bacon gave expression to the tendency, and men require to have a leader and originator for any particular manner of thinking, he is credited with having given to knowledge this impulse towards experimental philosophy generally. But many cultured men have spoken and thought regarding what concerns and interests mankind, regarding state affairs, mind, heart, external nature, &c., in accordance with experience and in accordance with a cultured knowledge of the world. Bacon was just such a cultured man of the world, who had seen life in its great relations, had engaged in state affairs, had dealt practically with actual life, had observed men, their circumstances and relations, and had worked with them as cultured, reflecting, and, we may even say, philosophical men of the world. He thus did not escape the corruption of those who stood at the helm of the state. With all the depravity of his character he was a man of mind and clear perception; he did not, however, possess the power of reasoning through thoughts and notions that are universal. We do not find in him a methodical or scientific manner of regarding things, but only the external reasoning of a man of the world. Knowledge of the world he possessed in the highest degree: “rich imagination, powerful wit, and the penetrating wisdom which he displays upon that most interesting of all subjects, commonly called the world. This last appears to us to have been the characteristical quality of Bacon’s genius.... It was men rather than things that he had studied, the mistakes of philosophers rather than the errors of philosophy. In fact he was no lover of abstract reasoning,” and although it pertains to philosophy, we find as little as possible of it in him. “His writings are indeed full of refined and most acute observations, but it seldom requires any effort on our part to apprehend their wisdom.” Hence mottoes are often derived from him. “His judgments,” however, “are commonly given ex cathedra, or, if he endeavours to elucidate them, it is by similes and illustrations and pointed animadversions more than by direct and appropriate arguments. General reasoning is absolutely essential in philosophy; the want of it is marked in Bacon’s writings.”[96] His practical writings are specially interesting; but we do not find the bright flashes of genius that we expected. As during his career in the state he acted in accordance with practical utility, he now, at its conclusion, likewise applied himself in a practical way to scientific endeavours, and considered and treated the sciences in accordance with concrete experience and investigation. His is a consideration of the present, he makes the most of, and ascribes value to it as it appears; the existent is thus regarded with open eyes, respect is paid to it as to what reigns pre-eminent, and this sensuous perception is reverenced and recognized. Here a confidence on the part of reason in itself and in nature is awakened; it thinkingly applies itself to nature, certain of finding the truth in it, since both are in themselves harmonious.
Bacon likewise treated the sciences methodically; he did not merely bring forward opinions and sentiments, he did not merely express himself regarding the sciences dogmatically, as a fine gentleman might, but he went into the matter closely, and established a method in respect of scientific knowledge. It is only through this method of investigation introduced by him that he is noteworthy—it is in that way alone that he can be considered to belong to the history of the sciences and of philosophy. And through this principle of methodical knowledge he has likewise produced a great effect upon his times, by drawing attention to what was lacking in the sciences, both in their methods and in their content. He set forth the general principles of procedure in an empirical philosophy. The spirit of the philosophy of Bacon is to take experience as the true and only source of knowledge, and then to regulate the thought concerning it. Knowledge from experience stands in opposition to knowledge arising from the speculative Notion, and the opposition is apprehended in so acute a manner that the knowledge proceeding from the Notion is ashamed of the knowledge from experience, just as this again takes up a position of antagonism to the knowledge through the Notion. What Cicero says of Socrates may be said of Bacon, that he brought Philosophy down to the world, to the homes and every-day lives of men (Vol. I. p. 389). To a certain extent knowledge from the absolute Notion may assume an air of superiority over this knowledge; but it is essential, as far as the Idea is concerned, that the particularity of the content should be developed. The Notion is an essential matter, but as such its finite side is just as essential. Mind gives presence, external existence, to itself; to come to understand this extension, the world as it is, the sensuous universe, to understand itself as this, i.e. with its manifest, sensuous extension, is one side of things. The other side is the relation to the Idea. Abstraction in and for itself must determine and particularize itself. The Idea is concrete, self-determining, it has the principle of development; and perfect knowledge is always developed. A conditional knowledge in respect of the Idea merely signifies that the working out of the development has not yet advanced very far. But we have to deal with this development; and for this development and determination of the particular from the Idea, so that the knowledge of the universe, of nature, may be cultivated—for this, the knowledge of the particular is necessary. This particularity must be worked out on its own account; we must become acquainted with empirical nature, both with the physical and with the human. The merit of modern times is to have accomplished or furthered these ends; it was in the highest degree unsatisfactory when the ancients attempted the work. Empiricism is not merely an observing, hearing, feeling, etc., a perception of the individual; for it really sets to work to find the species, the universal, to discover laws. Now because it does this, it comes within the territory of the Notion—it begets what pertains to the region of the Idea; it thus prepares the empirical material for the Notion, so that the latter can then receive it ready for its use. If the science is perfected the Idea must certainly issue forth of itself; science as such no longer commences from the empiric. But in order that this science may come into existence, we must have the progression from the individual and particular to the universal—an activity which is a reaction on the given material of empiricism in order to bring about its reconstruction. The demand of a priori knowledge, which seems to imply that the Idea should construct from itself, is thus a reconstruction only, or what is in religion accomplished through sentiment and feeling. Without the working out of the empirical sciences on their own account, Philosophy could not have reached further than with the ancients. The whole of the Idea in itself is science as perfected and complete; but the other side is the beginning, the process of its origination. This process of the origination of science is different from its process in itself when it is complete, just as is the process of the history of Philosophy and that of Philosophy itself. In every science principles are commenced with; at the first these are the results of the particular, but if the science is completed they are made the beginning. The case is similar with Philosophy; the working out of the empirical side has really become the conditioning of the Idea, so that this last may reach its full development and determination. For instance, in order that the history of the Philosophy of modern times may exist, we must have a history of Philosophy in general, the process of Philosophy during so many thousand years; mind must have followed this long road in order that the Philosophy may be produced. In consciousness it then adopts the attitude of having cut away the bridge from behind it; it appears to be free to launch forth in its ether only, and to develop without resistance in this medium; but it is another matter to attain to this ether and to development in it. We must not overlook the fact that Philosophy would not have come into existence without this process, for mind is essentially a working upon something different.
1. Bacon’s fame rests on two works. In the first place, he has the merit of having in his work De augmentis scientiarum presented to us a systematic encyclopedia of the sciences, an outline which must undoubtedly have caused a sensation amongst his contemporaries. It is important to set before men’s eyes a well arranged picture such as this of the whole, when that whole has not been grasped in thought. This encyclopedia gives a general classification of the sciences; the principles of the classification are regulated in accordance with the differences in the intellectual capacities. Bacon thus divides human learning according to the faculties of memory, imagination, and reason, for he distinguishes what pertains (1) to memory; (2) to imagination; (3) to reason. Under memory he considered history; under imagination, poetry, and art; and finally, under reason, philosophy.[97] According to his favourite method of division these again are further divided, since he brings all else under these same heads; this is, however, unsatisfactory. To history belong the works of God—sacred, prophetic, ecclesiastical history; the works of men—civil and literary history; and likewise the works of nature, and so on.[98] He goes through these topics after the manner of his time, a main characteristic of which is that anything can be made plausible through examples, e.g. from the Bible. Thus, in treating of Cosmetica, he says in regard to paint that “He is surprised that this depraved custom of painting has been by the penal laws both ecclesiastical and civil so long overlooked. In the Bible we read indeed of Jezebel that she painted her face; but nothing of the kind is said of Esther or Judith.”[99] If kings, popes, etc., are being discussed, such examples as those of Ahab and Solomon must be brought forward. As formerly in civil laws—those respecting marriage, for instance—the Jewish forms held good, in Philosophy, too, the same are still to be found. In this work theology likewise appears, as also magic; there is contained in it a comprehensive system of knowledge and of the sciences.
The arrangement of the sciences is the least significant part of the work De augmentis scientiarum. It was by its criticism that its value was established and its effect produced, as also by the number of instructive remarks contained in it; all this was at that time lacking in the particular varieties of learning and modes of discipline, especially in as far as the methods hitherto adopted were faulty, and unsuitable to the ends in view: in them the Aristotelian conceptions of the schools were spun out by the understanding as though they were realities. As it was with the Schoolmen and with the ancients, this classification is still the mode adopted in the sciences, in which the nature of knowledge is unknown. In them the idea of the science is advanced beforehand, and to this idea a principle foreign to it is added, as a basis of division, just as here is added the distinction between memory, imagination and reason. The true method of division is found in the self-division of the Notion, its separating itself from itself. In knowledge the moment of self-consciousness is undoubtedly found, and the real self-consciousness has in it the moments of memory, imagination and reason. But this division is certainly not taken from the Notion of self-consciousness, but from experience, in which self-consciousness finds itself possessed of these capacities.
2. The other remarkable feature in Bacon is that in his second work, his Organon, he sought at great length to establish a new method in learning; in this regard his name is still held greatly in honour by many. What chiefly distinguishes his system is his polemical attitude towards scholastic methods as they had hitherto existed, towards syllogistic forms. He calls these methods anticipationes naturæ; in them men begin with presuppositions, definitions, accepted ideas, with a scholastic abstraction, and reason further from these without regarding that which is present in actuality. Thus regarding God and His methods of operating in nature, regarding devils, &c., they make use of passages from the Bible, such as “Sun, stand thou still,” in order to deduce therefrom certain metaphysical propositions from which they go further still. It was against this a priori method that Bacon directed his polemic; as against these anticipations of nature he called attention to the explanation, the interpretation of nature.[100] “The same action of mind,” he says, “which discovers a thing in question, judges it; and the operation is not performed by the help of any middle term, but directly, almost in the same manner as by the sense. For the sense in its primary objects at once apprehends the appearance of the object, and consents to the truth thereof.”[101] The syllogism is altogether rejected by Bacon. As a matter of fact, this Aristotelian deduction is not a knowledge through itself in accordance with its content: it requires a foreign universal as its basis, and for that reason its movement is in its form contingent. The content is not in unity with the form, and this form is hence in itself contingent, because it, considered on its own account, is the movement onwards in a foreign content. The major premise is the content existent for itself, the minor is likewise the content not through itself, for it goes back into the infinite, i.e. it has not the form in itself; the form is not the content. The opposite may always be made out equally well through the syllogism, for it is a matter of indifference to this form what content is made its basis. “Dialectic does not assist in the discovery of the arts; many arts were found out by chance.”[102]
It was not against this syllogism generally, i.e. not against the Notion of it (for Bacon did not possess this), but against deduction as it was put into operation, as it was to the scholastics—the deduction which took an assumed content as its basis—that Bacon declaimed, urging that the content of experience should be made the basis, and the method of induction pursued. He demanded that observations on nature and experiments should be made fundamental, and pointed out the objects whose investigation was of special importance in the interests of human society, and so on. From this there then resulted the establishment of conclusions through induction and analogy.[103] In fact it was only to an alteration in the content that, without being aware of it, Bacon was impelled. For though he rejected the syllogism and only permitted conclusions to be reached through induction, he unconsciously himself drew deductions; likewise all these champions of empiricism, who followed after him, and who put into practice what he demanded, and thought they could by observations, experiments and experiences, keep the matter in question pure, could neither so do without drawing deductions, nor without introducing conceptions; and they drew their deductions and formed their notions and conceptions all the more freely because they thought that they had nothing to do with conceptions at all; nor did they go forth from deduction to immanent, true knowledge. Thus when Bacon set up induction in opposition to the syllogism, this opposition is formal; each induction is also a deduction, which fact was known even to Aristotle. For if a universal is deduced from a number of things, the first proposition reads, “These bodies have these qualities;” the second, “All these bodies belong to one class;” and thus, in the third place, this class has these qualities. That is a perfect syllogism. Induction always signifies that observations are instituted, experiments made, experience regarded, and from this the universal determination is derived.
We have already called to mind how important it is to lead on to the content as the content of actuality, of the present; for the rational must have objective truth. The reconciliation of spirit with the world, the glorification of nature and of all actuality, must not be a Beyond, a Futurity, but must be accomplished now and here. It is this moment of the now and here which thereby comes into self-consciousness. But those who make experiments and observations, do not realize what they are really doing, for the sole interest taken by them in things, is owing to the inward and unconscious certainty which reason has of finding itself in actuality; and observations and experiments, if entered upon in a right way, result in showing that the Notion is the only objective existence. The sensuous individual eludes the experiments even while it is being operated upon, and becomes a universal; the best known example of this is to be found in positive and negative electricity in so far as it is positive and negative. There is another shortcoming of a formal nature, and one of which all empiricists partake,—that is that they believe themselves to be keeping to experience alone; it is to them an unknown fact that in receiving these perceptions they are indulging in metaphysics. Man does not stop short at the individual, nor can he do so. He seeks the universal, but thoughts, even if not Notions likewise, are what constitute the same. The most remarkable thought-form is that of force; we thus speak of the force of electricity, of magnetism, of gravity. Force, however, is a universal and not a perceptible; quite uncritically and unconsciously the empiricists thus permit of determinations such as these.
3. Bacon finally gives the objects with which Philosophy mainly has to deal. These objects contrast much with that which we derive from perception and experience. “In the summary which Bacon gives of what he conceives ought to be the objects of philosophical inquiry, are the following; and we select those which he principally dwells upon in his works: ‘The prolongation of life; the restitution of youth in some degree; the retardation of old age, and the altering of statures; the altering of features; versions of bodies into other bodies; making of new species; impression of the air and raising tempests; greater pleasures of the senses, &c.’” He likewise deals with objects such as these, and he seeks to direct attention upon whether in their regard the means could not be found to carry out their ends; in such powers we should be able to make some progress. “He complains that such investigations have been neglected by those whom he designates ignavi regionum exploratores. In his Natural History he gives formal receipts for making gold, and performing many wonders.”[104] Bacon thus does not by any means take the intelligent standpoint of an investigation of nature, being still involved in the grossest superstition, false magic, &c. This we find to be on the whole propounded in an intelligent way, and Bacon thus remains within the conceptions of his time. “The conversion of silver, quicksilver, or any other metal into gold is a thing difficult to believe, yet it is far more probable that a man who knows clearly the natures of weight, of the colour of yellow, of malleability and extension, of volatility and fixedness, and who has also made diligent search into the first seeds and menstruums of minerals, may at last by much and sagacious endeavour produce gold, than that a few grains of an elixir may so do.... So again a man who knows well the nature of rarefaction, of assimilation, and of alimentation, shall by diets, bathings, and the like prolong life, or in some degree renew the vigour of youth.”[105] These assertions are thus not as crude as they at first appear. In dealing with Medicine Bacon speaks amongst other things of maceration (Malacissatio per exterius)[106] and so forth.
Bacon emphasizes what has reference to the formal aspect of investigation. For he says, “Natural philosophy is divided into two parts, the first consists in the investigation of causes; the second in the production of effects; the causes to be investigated are either final or formal causes, or else material or efficient causes. The former constitutes metaphysics; the latter physics. This last Bacon looks upon as a branch of philosophy very inferior in point of dignity and importance to the other and accordingly to ascertain the most probable means of improving our knowledge of metaphysics is the great object of his Organon.”[107] He himself says: “It is a correct position that ‘true knowledge is knowledge by causes. And causes, again, are not improperly distributed into four kinds: the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final.’”[108] (Vol. I. p. 174, Vol. II. p. 138.)
But in this connection an important point is that Bacon has turned against the teleological investigation of nature, against the investigation into final causes. “The investigation of final causes is useless; they corrupt rather than advance the sciences except such as have to do with human action.”[109] To Bacon the important matter is to investigate by the study of causæ efficientes. To the consideration of final causes such assertions as these belong: “That the hairs of the eyelids are for a protection to the eyes; that the thick skins and hides of living creatures are to defend them from heat and cold; that the trees have leaves so that the fruit may not suffer from sun and wind”[110]: the hair is on the head on account of warmth; thunder and lightning are the punishment of God, or else they make fruitful the earth; marmots sleep during the winter because they can find nothing to eat; snails have a shell in order that they may be secure against attacks; the bee is provided with a sting. According to Bacon this has been worked out in innumerable different ways. The negative and external side of utility is turned round, and the lack of this adaptation to end is likewise drawn within the same embrace. It may, for example, be said that if sun or moon were to shine at all times, the police might save much money, and this would provide men with food and drink for whole months together. It was right that Bacon should set himself to oppose this investigation into final causes, because it relates to external expediency, just as Kant was right in distinguishing the inward teleology from the outward. As against the external end, there is, in fact, the inward end, i.e. the inward Notion of the thing itself, as we found it earlier in Aristotle (Vol. II. pp. 156-163). Because the organism possesses an inward adaptation to its ends, its members are indeed likewise externally adapted as regards one another; but the ends, as external ends, are heterogeneous to the individual, are unconnected with the object which is investigated. Speaking generally, the Notion of nature is not in nature itself, which would mean that the end was in nature itself; but as teleological, the Notion is something foreign to it. It does not have the end in itself in such a way that we have to accord respect to it—as the individual man has his end in himself and hence has to be respected. But even the individual man as individual has only a right to respect from the individual as such, and not from the universal. He who acts in the name of the universal, of the state, as a general does for instance, does not require to respect the individual at all; for the latter, although an end in himself, does not cease to be relative. He is this end in himself, not as excluding himself and setting himself in opposition, but only in so far as his true reality is the universal Notion. The end of the animal in itself as an individual is its own self-preservation; but its true end in itself is the species. Its self-preservation is not involved in this; for the self-preservation of its individuality is disadvantageous to the species, while the abrogation of itself is favourable thereto.
Now Bacon separates the universal principle and the efficient cause, and for that reason he removes investigation into ends from physics to metaphysics. Or he recognizes the Notion, not as universal in nature, but only as necessity, i.e. as a universal which presents itself in the opposition of its moments, not one which has bound them into a unity—in other words he only acknowledges a comprehension of one determinate from another determinate going on into infinity, and not of both from their Notion. Bacon has thus made investigation into the efficient cause more general, and he asserts that this investigation alone belongs to physics, although he allows that both kinds of investigation may exist side by side.[111] Through that view he effected a great deal, and in so far as it has counteracted the senseless superstition which in the Germanic nations far exceeded in its horrors and absurdity that of the ancient world, it has the very merit which we met with in the Epicurean philosophy. That philosophy opposed itself to the superstitious Stoics and to superstition generally—which last makes any existence that we set before ourselves into a cause (a Beyond which is made to exist in a sensuous way and to operate as a cause), or makes two sensuous things which have no relation operate on one another. This polemic of Bacon’s against spectres, astrology, magic, &c.,[112] can certainly not be regarded exactly as Philosophy like his other reflections, but it is at least of service to culture.
He also advises that attention should be directed to formal causes, the forms of things, and that they should be recognized.[113] “But to give an exact definition of the meaning which Bacon attaches to the phrase formal causes is rather difficult; because his language upon this subject is uncertain in a very remarkable degree.”[114] It may be thought that he understood by this the immanent determinations of things, the laws of nature; as a matter of fact the forms are none else than universal determinations, species, &c.[115] He says: “The discovery of the formal is despaired of. The efficient and the material (as they are investigated and received, that is as remote causes, without reference to the latent process leading to the forms) are but slight and superficial, and contribute little, if anything, to true and active science. For though in nature nothing really exists beside individual bodies, performing pure individual acts according to a fixed law, yet in philosophy this very law, and the investigation, discovery and explanation of it, is the foundation as well of knowledge as of operation. And it is this law, with its clauses, that I mean when I speak of Forms.... Let the investigation of Forms which are eternal and immutable constitute metaphysics. Whosoever is acquainted with Forms embraces the unity of nature in substances the most unlike.”[116] He goes through this in detail, and quotes many examples to illustrate it, such as that of Heat. “Mind must raise itself from differences to species. The warmth of the sun and that of the fire are diverse. We see that grapes ripen by the warmth of the sun. But to see whether the warmth of the sun is specific, we also observe other warmth, and we find that grapes likewise ripen in a warm room; this proves that the warmth of the sun is not specific.”[117]
“Physic,” he says, “directs us through narrow rugged paths in imitation of the crooked ways of nature. But he that understands a form knows the ultimate possibility of superinducing that nature upon all kinds of matter; that is to say, as he himself interprets this last expression, is able to superinduce the nature of gold upon silver,” that is to say to make gold from silver, “and to perform all those other marvels to which the alchymists pretended. The error of these last consisted alone in hoping to arrive at these ends by fabulous and fantastical methods;” the true method is to recognize these forms. “One leading object of the Instauratio Magna and of the Novum Organon is to point out the necessity of ascertaining the formal causes and logical rules.”[118] They are good rules, but not adapted to attain that end.
This is all that we have to say of Bacon. In dealing with Locke we shall have more to say of these empirical methods which were adopted by the English.
[B. Jacob Boehme.]
We now pass on from this English Lord Chancellor, the leader of the external, sensuous method in Philosophy, to the philosophus teutonicus, as he is called—to the German cobbler of Lusatia, of whom we have no reason to be ashamed. It was, in fact, through him that Philosophy first appeared in Germany with a character peculiar to itself: Boehme stands in exact antithesis to Bacon. He was also called theosophus teutonicus, just as even before this philosophia teutonica was the name given to mysticism.[119] This Jacob Boehme was for long forgotten and decried as being simply a pious visionary; the so-called period of enlightenment, more particularly, helped to render his public extremely limited. Leibnitz thought very highly of him, but it is in modern times that his profundity has for the first time been recognized, and that he has been once more restored to honour. It is certain, on the one hand, that he did not merit the disdain accorded him; on the other, however, he did not deserve the high honour into which he was elevated. To call him an enthusiast signifies nothing at all. For if we will, all philosophers may be so termed, even the Epicureans and Bacon; for they all have held that man finds his truth in something else than eating and drinking, or in the common-sense every-day life of wood-cutting, tailoring, trading, or other business, private or official. But Boehme has to attribute the high honour to which he was raised mainly to the garb of sensuous feeling and perception which he adopted; for ordinary sensuous perception and inward feeling, praying and yearning, and the pictorial element in thought, allegories and such like, are in some measure held to be essential in Philosophy. But it is only in the Notion, in thought, that Philosophy can find its truth, and that the Absolute can be expressed and likewise is as it is in itself. Looked at from this point of view, Boehme is a complete barbarian, and yet he is a man who, along with his rude method of presentation, possesses a deep, concrete heart. But because no method or order is to be found in him, it is difficult to give an account of his philosophy.
Jacob Boehme was born in 1575 of poor parents, at Altseidenburg, near Görlitz, in Upper Lusatia. In his youth he was a peasant boy who tended the cattle. He was brought up as a Lutheran, and always remained such. The account of his life which is given with his works was drawn up by a clergyman who knew him personally, from information given by Boehme himself. Much is there related as to how he attained to more profound knowledge and wisdom by means of certain experiences through which he passed. Even when a herd tending the cattle, as he tells of himself, he had these wonderful manifestations. The first marvellous awakening that occurred to him took place in a thicket in which he saw a cavern and a vessel of gold. Startled by the splendour of this sight he was inwardly awakened from a dull stupor, but afterwards he found it was impossible for him to discover the objects of his vision. Subsequently he was bound apprentice to a shoemaker. More especially “was he spiritually awakened by the words: ‘Your heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him’ (Luke xi. 13), so that, desiring to come to a knowledge of the truth, and yet retaining the simplicity of his mind, he prayed and sought, and knocked, fervently and earnestly, until, while travelling about with his master, he was, through the influence of the Father in the Son, spiritually transported into the glorious peace and the Sabbath of the soul, and thus his request was granted. According to his own account, he was then surrounded with divine light, and for seven days he remained in the supremest divine contemplation and joy.” His master for this dismissed him, saying he could not keep in his service “house-prophets such as he was.” After that he lived at Görlitz. In 1594 he rose in his trade to be master, and married. Later on, “in the year 1600, and in the twenty-fifth year of his age, once more” the light broke upon him in a second vision of the same kind. He tells that he saw a brightly scoured pewter dish in the room, and “by the sudden sight of this shining metal with its brilliant radiance” he was brought (into a meditation and a breaking free of his astral mind) “into the central point of secret nature,” and into the light of divine essence. “He went out into the open air in order that he might rid his brain of this hallucination, and none the less did he continue all the more clearly as time went on to experience the vision in this way received. Thus by means of the signatures or figures, lineaments, and colours which were depicted, he could, so to speak, look into the heart and inmost nature of all creatures (in his book De signatura rerum this reason which was impressed upon him is found and fully explained); and for this he was overwhelmed with joy, thanked God, and went peacefully about his affairs.” Later on he wrote several works. He continued to pursue his handicraft at Görlitz, and died at the same place in 1624, being then a master shoemaker.[120]
His works are especially popular with the Dutch, and for that reason most of the editions are issued from Amsterdam, though they were also surreptitiously printed in Hamburg. His first writing is the “Aurora” or “Morgenröthe im Aufgange,” and this was followed by others; the work “Von den drei Principien,” and another “Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschen,” are, along with several others, the most noteworthy. Boehme constantly read the Bible, but what other works he read is not known. A number of passages in his works, however, prove that he read much—evidently mystical, theosophic, and alchemistic writings for the most part, and he must certainly have included in his reading the works of Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus, a philosopher of a somewhat similar calibre, but much more confused, and without Boehme’s profundity of mind. He met with much persecution at the hands of the clergy, but he aroused less attention in Germany than in Holland and England, where his writings have been often printed.[121] In reading his works we are struck with wonder, and one must be familiar with his ideas in order to discover the truth in this most confused method of expression.
The matter of Jacob Boehme’s philosophy is genuinely German; for what marks him out and makes him noteworthy is the Protestant principle already mentioned of placing the intellectual world within one’s own mind and heart, and of experiencing and knowing and feeling in one’s own self-consciousness all that formerly was conceived as a Beyond. Boehme’s general conceptions thus on the one hand reveal themselves as both deep and sound, but on the other, with all his need for and struggle after determination and distinction in the development of his divine intuitions of the universe, he does not attain either to clearness or order. There is no systematic connection but the greatest confusion in his divisions—and this exists even in his tables,[122] in which three numbers are made use of.
I.
What God is beside nature and creation.
II.
| Separability: God in Love. | Mysterium magnum. | The first Principium. God in Wrath. |
III.
God in wrath and love.
Here nothing definite to hold the moments asunder is shown, and we have the sense of merely doing it by effort; now these and now other distinctions are set forth, and as they are laid down disconnectedly, they again come into confusion.
The manner and system which Boehme adopts must accordingly be termed barbarous; the expressions used in his works prove this, as when, for example, he speaks of the divine Salitter, Marcurius, &c. As Boehme places the life, the movement of absolute existence in the heart, so does he regard all conceptions as being in a condition of actuality; or he makes use of actuality as Notion, that is to say he forcibly takes natural things and sensuous qualities to express his ideas rather than the determinations of the Notion. For instance, sulphur and such like are not to him the things that we so name, but their essence; or the Notion has this form of actuality. Boehme’s profoundest interest is in the Idea, and he struggles hard to express it. The speculative truth which he desires to expound really requires, in order to be comprehended, thought and the form of thought. Only in thought can this unity be comprehended, in the central point of which his mind has its place; but it is just the form of thought that is lacking to him. The forms that he employs are really no longer determinations of the Notion at all. They are on the one hand sensuous, chemical determinations, such qualities as acid, sweet, sour, fierce, and, on the other, emotions such as wrath and love; and, further, tincture, essence, anguish, &c. For him these sensuous forms do not, however, possess the sensuous significance which belongs to them, but he uses them in order to find expression for his thought. It is, however, at once clear to us how the form of manifestation must necessarily appear forced, since thought alone is capable of unity. It thus appears strange to read of the bitterness of God, of the Flagrat, and of lightning; we first require to have the Idea, and then we certainly discern its presence here. But the other side is that Boehme utilizes the Christian form which lies nearest to him, and more especially that of the Trinity, as the form of the Idea: he intermingles the sensuous mode and the mode of popularly conceived religion, sensuous images and conceptions. However rude and barbarous this may on the one hand be, and however impossible it is to read Boehme continuously, or to take a firm grasp of his thoughts (for all these qualities, spirits and angels make one’s head swim), we must on the other hand recognize that he speaks of everything as it is in its actuality, and that he does this from his heart. This solid, deep, German mind which has intercourse with what is most inward, thus really exercises an immense power and force in order to make use of actuality as Notion, and to have what takes place in heaven around and within it. Just as Hans Sachs represented God, Christ and the Holy Ghost, as well as patriarchs and angels, in his own particular manner and as ordinary people like himself, not looking upon them as past and historic, so was it with Boehme.
To faith spirit has truth, but in this truth the moment of certainty of self is lacking. We have seen that the object of Christianity is the truth, the Spirit; it is given to faith as immediate truth. Faith possesses the truth, but unconsciously, without knowledge, without knowing it as its self-consciousness; and seeing that thought, the Notion, is necessarily in self-consciousness—the unity of opposites with Bruno—this unity is what is pre-eminently lacking to faith. Its moments as particular forms fall apart, more especially the highest moments—good and evil, or God and the Devil. God is, and the Devil likewise; both exist for themselves. But if God is absolute existence, the question may be asked, What absolute existence is this which has not all actuality, and more particularly evil within it? Boehme is hence on one side intent on leading the soul of man to the divine life, on inducing the soul to pay attention to the strife within itself, and make this the object of all its work and efforts; and then in respect of this content he strives to make out how evil is present in good—a question of the present day. But because Boehme does not possess the Notion and is so far back in intellectual culture, there ensues a most frightful and painful struggle between his mind and consciousness and his powers of expression, and the import of this struggle is the profoundest Idea of God which seeks to bring the most absolute opposites into unity, and to bind them together—but not for thinking reason. Thus if we would comprehend the matter, Boehme’s great struggle has been—since to him God is everything—to grasp the negative, evil, the devil, in and from God, to grasp God as absolute; and this struggle characterizes all his writings and brings about the torture of his mind. It requires a great and severe mental effort to bring together in one what in shape and form lie so far asunder; with all the strength that he possesses Boehme brings the two together, and therein shatters all the immediate significance of actuality possessed by both. But when thus he grasps this movement, this essence of spirit in himself, in his inward nature, the determination of the moments simply approaches more nearly to the form of self-consciousness, to the formless, or to the Notion. In the background, indeed, there stands the purest speculative thought, but it does not attain to an adequate representation. Homely, popular modes of conception likewise appear, a free out-spokenness which to us seems too familiar. With the devil, particularly, he has great dealings, and him he frequently addresses. “Come here,” he says, “thou black wretch, what dost thou want? I will give thee a potion.”[123] As Prospero in Shakespeare’s “Tempest”[124] threatens Ariel that he will “rend an oak and peg him in his knotty entrails ... twelve winters,” Boehme’s great mind is confined in the hard knotty oak of the senses—in the gnarled concretion of the ordinary conception—and is not able to arrive at a free presentation of the Idea.
I shall shortly give Boehme’s main conceptions, and then several particular forms which he in turn adopts; for he does not remain at one form, because neither the sensuous nor the religious can suffice. Now even though this brings about the result that he frequently repeats himself, the forms of his main conceptions are still in every respect very different, and he who would try to give a consistent explanation of Boehme’s ideas, particularly when they pass into further developments, would only delude himself in making the attempt. Hence we must neither expect to find in Boehme a systematic presentation nor a true method of passing over into the individual. Of his thoughts we cannot say much without adopting his manner of expression, and quoting the particular passages themselves, for they cannot otherwise be expressed. The fundamental idea in Jacob Boehme is the effort to comprise everything in an absolute unity, for he desires to demonstrate the absolute divine unity and the union of all opposites in God. Boehme’s chief, and one may even say, his only thought—the thought that permeates all his works—is that of perceiving the holy Trinity in everything, and recognizing everything as its revelation and manifestation, so that it is the universal principle in which and through which everything exists; in such a way, moreover, that all things have this divine Trinity in themselves, not as a Trinity pertaining to the ordinary conception, but as the real Trinity of the absolute Idea. Everything that exists is, according to Boehme, this three-fold alone, and this three-fold is everything.[125] To him the universe is thus one divine life and revelation of God in all things, so that when examined more closely, from the one reality of God, the sum and substance of all powers and qualities, the Son who shines forth from these powers is eternally born; the inward unity of this light with the substance of the powers is Spirit. Sometimes the presentation is vague, and then again it is clearer. What comes next is the explanation of this Trinity, and here the different forms which he uses to indicate the difference becoming evident in the same, more especially appear.
In the Aurora, the “Root or Mother of Philosophy, Astrology and Theology,” he gives a method of division in which he places these sciences in proximity, and yet appears merely to pass from one to the other without any clear definition or determination. “(1) In Philosophy divine power is treated of, what God is, and how in the Being of God nature, stars and Elementa are constituted; whence all things have their origin, what is the nature of heaven and earth, as also of angels, men and devils, heaven and hell and all that is creaturely, likewise what the two qualities in nature are, and this is dealt with out of a right ground in the knowledge of spirit, by the impulse and motion of God. (2) In astrology the powers of nature, of the stars and elements, are treated of, and how all creatures proceed from them, how evil and good are through them effected in men and animals. (3) In theology the kingdom of Christ is dealt with, as also its nature, and how it is set in opposition to hell, and how in nature it wars with the kingdom of darkness.”[126]
1. What comes first is God the Father; this first is at once divided in itself and the unity of both its parts. “God is all,” he says, “He is the Darkness and the Light, Love and Anger, Fire and Light, but He calls Himself God only as to the light of His love. There is an eternal Contrarium between darkness and light; neither comprehends the other and neither is the other, and yet there is but one essence or substance, though separated by pain; it is likewise so with the will, and yet there is no separable essence. One single principle is divided in this way, that one is in the other as a nothing which yet exists; but it is not manifest in the property of that thing in which it is.”[127] By anguish is expressed that which we know as the absolute negativity—that is the self-conscious, self-experienced, the self-relating negativity which is therefore absolute affirmation. All Boehme’s efforts were directed towards this point; the principle of the Notion is living in him, only he cannot express it in the form of thought. That is to say, all depends on thinking of the negative as simple, since it is at the same time an opposite; thus anguish [Qual] is the inward tearing asunder and yet likewise the simple. From this Boehme derives sources or springs [Quellen], a good play on the words. For pain [die Qual], this negativity, passes into life, activity, and thus he likewise connects it with quality [Qualität], which he makes into Quallity.[128] The absolute identity of difference is all through present to him.
a. Boehme thus represents God not as the empty unity, but as this self-separating unity of absolute opposites; one must not, however, here expect a clearly defined distinction. The first, the one, the Father, has likewise the mode of natural existence; thus, like Proclus, he speaks of this God being simple essence. This simple essence he calls the hidden; and he therefore names it the Temperamentum, this unity of what is different, in which all is tempered. We find him also calling it the great Salitter—now the divine and now the natural Salitter—as well as Salniter. When he talks of this great salitter as of something known to us, we cannot first of all conceive what it means. But it is a vulgar corruption of the word sal nitri, saltpetre (which is still called salniter in Austria), i.e. just the neutral and in truth universal existence. The divine pomp and state is this, that in God a more glorious nature dwells, trees, plants, &c. “In the divine pomp or state two things have principally to be considered; salitter or the divine power, which brings forth all fruits, and marcurius or the sound.”[129] This great salitter is the unrevealed existence, just as the Neo-Platonic unity is without knowledge of itself and likewise unrecognized.
b. This first substance contains all powers or qualities as not yet separated; thus this salitter likewise appears as the body of God, who embraces all qualities in Himself. Quality thus becomes an important conception, the first determination with Boehme; and he begins with qualities in his work “Morgenröthe im Aufgang.” He afterwards associates with this the conferring of quality, and in the same place says: “Quality is the mobility, boiling, springing, and driving of a thing.” These qualities he then tries to define, but the account he gives of them is vague. “As for example heat which burns, consumes and drives forth all whatsoever comes into it which is not of the same property; and again it enlightens and warms all cold, wet, and dark things; it compacts and hardens soft things. It contains likewise two other kinds in it, namely Light and Fierceness” (Negativity); “of which the light or the heart of the heat is in itself a pleasant, joyful glance or lustre, a power of life ... and a source of the heavenly kingdom of joy. For it makes all things in this world living and moving; all flesh, trees, leaves, and grass grow in this world, as in the power of the light, and have their light therein, viz. in the good. Again, it contains also a fierceness or wrath which burns, consumes and spoils. This wrath or fierceness springs, drives, and elevates itself in the light, and makes the light movable. It wrestles and fights together in its two-fold source. The light subsists in God without heat, but it does not subsist so in nature. For all qualities in nature are one in another, in the same manner as God is all. For God” (the Father) “is the Heart.” On another occasion (Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschen, chap. iv. § 68, p. 881) the Son is the heart of God; and yet again the Spirit is called the heart (Morgenröthe, chap. ii. § 13, p. 29) “or fountain of nature, and from Him comes all. Now heat reigns and predominates in all powers in nature and warms all, and is one source or spring in all. But the light in the heat gives power to all qualities, for that all grow pleasant and joyful.” Boehme goes over quite a list of qualities: cold, hot, bitter, sweet, fierce, acid, hard, dense, soft qualities, sound, etc. “The bitter quality is in God also, but not in that manner as the gall is in man, but it is an everlasting power, in an elevating, triumphing spring or source of joy. All the creatures are made from these qualities, and live therein as in their mother.”[130]
“The virtues of the stars are nature itself. Everything in this world proceeds from the stars. That I shall prove to you if you are not a blockhead and have a little reason. If the whole Curriculum or the whole circumference of the stars is considered, we soon find that this is the mother of all things, or the nature from which all things have arisen and in which all things stand and live, and through which all things move. And all things are formed from these same powers and remain eternally therein.” Thus it is said that God is the reality of all realities. Boehme continues: “You must, however, elevate your mind in the Spirit, and consider how the whole of nature, with all the powers which are in nature, also extension, depth and height, also heaven and earth and all whatsoever is therein, and all that is above the heavens, is together the Body and Corporeity of God; and the powers of the stars are the fountain veins in the natural Body of God, in this world. You must not conceive that in the Body of the stars is the whole triumphing Holy Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But we must not so conceive as if God was not at all in the Corpus or Body of the stars, and in this world.... Here now the question is, From whence has heaven, or whence borrows it this power, that it causes such mobility in nature? Here you must lift up your eyes beyond nature into the light, holy, triumphing, divine power, into the unchangeable holy Trinity, which is a triumphing, springing, movable Being, and all powers are therein, as in nature: of this heaven, earth, stars, elements, devils, angels, men, beasts, and all have their Being; and therein all stands. When we nominate heaven and earth, stars and elements, and all that is therein, and all whatsoever is above the heaven, then thereby is nominated the total God, who has made Himself creaturely in these above-mentioned” many “Beings, in His power which proceedeth forth from Him.”[131]
c. Boehme further defines God the Father as follows: “When we consider the whole nature and its property, then we see the Father: when we behold heaven and the stars, then we behold His eternal power and wisdom. So many stars as stand in the whole heaven, which are innumerable, so manifold and various is the power and wisdom of God the Father. Every star differs in its quality.” But “you must not conceive here that every power which is in the Father stands in a peculiar severed or divided part and place in the Father, as the stars do in heaven. No, but the Spirit shows that all the powers in the Father,” as the fountainhead, “are one in another as one power.” This whole is the universal power which exists as God the Father, wherein all differences are united; “creaturely” it, however, exists as the totality of stars, and thus as separation into the different qualities. “You must not think that God who is in heaven and above the heaven does there stand and hover like a power and quality which has in it neither reason nor knowledge, as the sun which turns round in its circle and shoots forth from itself heat and light, whether it be for benefit or hurt to the earth and creatures. No, the Father is not so, but He is an All-mighty, All-wise, All-knowing, All-seeing, All-hearing, All-smelling, All-tasting God, who in Himself is meek, friendly, gracious, merciful, and full of joy, yea Joy itself.”[132]
Since Boehme calls the Father all powers, he again distinguishes these as the seven first originating spirits.[133] But there is a certain confusion in this and no thought-determination, no definite reason for there being exactly seven—such precision and certainty is not to be found in Boehme. These seven qualities are likewise the seven planets which move and work in the great Salitter of God; “the seven planets signify the seven spirits of God or the princes of the angels.” But they are in the Father as one unity, and this unity is an inward spring and fermentation. “In God all spirits triumph as one spirit, and a spirit ever calms and loves the others, and nothing exists excepting mere joy and rapture. One spirit does not stand alongside the others like stars in heaven, for all seven are contained within one another as one spirit. Each spirit in the seven spirits of God is pregnant with all seven spirits of God;” thus each is in God itself a totality. “One brings forth the other in and through itself;” this is the flashing forth of the life of all qualities.[134]
2. As what came first was the source and germ of all powers and qualities, what comes second is process. This second principle is a very important conception, which with Boehme appears under very many aspects and forms, viz. as the Word, the Separator, Revelation—speaking generally the “I,” the source of all difference, and of the will and implicit Being which are in the powers of natural things; but in such a way that the light therein likewise breaks forth which leads them back to rest.
a. God as the simple absolute existence is not God absolutely; in Him nothing can be known. What we know is something different—but this “different” is itself contained in God as the perception and knowledge of God. Hence of the second step Boehme says that a separation must have taken place in this temperament. “No thing can become manifest to itself without opposition; for if it has nothing to withstand it, it always goes forward on its own account and does not go back within itself. But if it does not go back into itself as into that from which it originally arose, it knows nothing of its original state.” Original state [Urstand] he makes use of for substance; and it is a pity that we cannot use this and many other striking expressions. “Without adversity life would have no sensibility nor will nor efficacy, neither understanding nor science. Had the hidden God who is one solitary existence and will not of His own will brought Himself out of Himself, out of the eternal knowledge in the Temperamento, into divisibility of will, and introduced this same element of divisibility into an inclusiveness” (Identity) “so as to constitute it a natural and creaturely life, and had this element of separation in life not come into warfare, how was the will of God which is only one to be revealed to Himself? How could a knowledge of itself be present in a solitary will?”[135] We see that Boehme is elevated infinitely above the empty abstraction of the highest reality, etc.
Boehme continues: “The commencement of all Beings is the Word as the breath of God, and God has become the eternal One of eternity and likewise remains so in eternity. The Word is the eternal beginning and remains so eternally, for it is the revelation of the eternal One through and by which the divine power is brought into one knowledge of somewhat. By the Word we understand the revealed will of God: by the Word we mean God the hidden God, from whom the Word eternally springs forth. The Word is the efflux of the divine One, and yet God Himself as His revelation.” Λόγος is more definite than Word, and there is a delightful double significance in the Greek expression indicating as it does both reason and speech. For speech is the pure existence of spirit; it is a thing which when once heard goes back within itself. “What has flowed out is wisdom, beginning and cause of all powers, colours, virtue and qualities.”[136]
Of the Son Boehme says: “The Son is” of the Father and “in the Father, the heart of the Father or light, and the Father beareth him ever, from eternity to eternity.” Thus “the Son is” indeed “another Person from the Father, though no other,” but the same “God as the Father,” whose image he is.[137] “The Son is the Heart” or the pulsating element “in the Father; all the powers which are in the Father are the propriety of the Father; and the Son is the heart or the kernel in all the powers in the whole Father, and he is the cause of the springing joy in all powers in the whole Father. From the Son the eternal joy rises and springs in all the powers of the Father, as the sun does in the heart of the stars. It signifies the Son, as the circle of the stars signifies the manifold powers of the Father; it lightens the heavens, the stars and the deep above the earth, working in all things that are in this world; it enlightens and gives power to all the stars and tempers their power. The Son of God is continually generated from all the powers of his Father from eternity, just as the sun is born of the stars; He is ever born and is not made, and is the heart and lustre shining forth from all powers. He shines in all powers of the Father, and his power is the moving, springing joy in all the powers of the Father, and shines in the whole Father as the sun does in the whole world. For if the Son did not shine in the Father, the Father would be a dark valley; for the Father’s power would not rise from eternity to eternity, and so the divine Being would not subsist.”[138] This life of the Son is an important matter; and in regard to this issuing forth and manifestation Boehme has likewise brought forward the most important assertions.
b. “From such a revelation of powers in which the will of the eternal One contemplates itself, flows the understanding and the knowledge of the something [Ichts], since the eternal will contemplates itself in the something [Ichts].” “Ichts” is a play upon the word “Nichts” (nothing), for it is simply the negative; yet it is at the same time the opposite of nothing, since the Ich (Ego) of self-consciousness is contained in it. The Son, the something, is thus “I,” consciousness, self-consciousness: God is not only the abstract neutral but likewise the gathering together of Himself into the point of Being-for-self. The “other” of God is thus the image of God. “This similitude is the Mysterium magnum, viz. the creator of all beings and creatures; for it is the separator” (of the whole) “in the efflux of the will which makes the will of the eternal One separable—the separability in the will from which powers and qualities take their rise.” This separator is “constituted the steward of nature, by whom the eternal will rules, makes, forms and constitutes all things.” The separator is effectuating and self-differentiating, and Boehme calls this “Ichts,” likewise Lucifer, the first-born Son of God, the creaturely first-born angel who was one of the seven spirits. “But this Lucifer has fallen and Christ has come in his place.”[139] This is the connection of the devil with God, namely other-Being and then Being-for-self or Being-for-one, in such a way that the other is for one; and this is the origin of evil in God and out of God. This is the furthest point of thought reached by Jacob Boehme. He represents this Fall of Lucifer as that the “Ichts,” i.e. self-knowledge, the “I” [Ichheit] (a word which we find used by him), the inward imagining of self, the inward fashioning of self (the being-for-self), is the fire which absorbs all things. This is the negative side in the separator, the anguish; or it is the wrath of God. This divine wrath is hell and the devil, who through himself imagines himself into himself. This is very bold and speculative; Boehme here seeks to show in God Himself the sources of the divine anger. He also calls the will of the something [“Ichts”] self-hood; it is the passing over of the something [“Ichts”] into the nothing [Nichts], the “I” imagining itself within itself. He says: “Heaven and hell are as far removed from one another as day and night, as something and nothing.” Boehme has really here penetrated into the utmost depths of divine essence; evil, matter, or whatever it has been called, is the I = I, the Being-for-self, the true negativity. Before this it was the nonens which is itself positive, the darkness; but the true negativity is the “I.” It is not anything bad because it is called the evil; it is in mind alone that evil exists, because it is conceived therein as it is in itself. “Where the will of God willeth in anything, there God is manifested, and in that manifestation the angels also dwell; but where God in any thing willeth not with the will of the thing, there God is not manifested to it, but dwelleth” (there) “in Himself without the co-operating of the thing;” in that case “in that thing is its own will, and there the devil dwelleth and all whatever is without God.”[140]
Boehme in his own way sets forth the form further assumed in this process in a pictorial manner. This “Separator deduces qualities from itself, from which the infinite manifold arises, and through which the eternal One makes itself perceptible” (so that it is for others) “not according to the unity, but in accordance with the efflux of the unity.” Implicit Being and the manifold are absolutely opposed through the Notion, which Boehme did not have: Being-for-self implies Being-for-another and retrogression into the opposite. Boehme sways backwards and forwards in apparent contradictions, and does not well know how to find a way out of the difficulty. “But the efflux is carried on to the greatest extreme possible, to the generation of fire”—dark fire without light, darkness, the hidden, the self;[141]—“in which fiery nature,” however, since this fire rises and shoots up, “the eternal One becomes majestic and a light,” and this light which there breaks forth is the form which the other principle assumes. This is the return to the One. “Thereby” (through fire) “the eternal power becomes desirous and effectual and” (fire) “is the original condition” (essence) “of the sensitive” (feeling) “life, where in the Word of power an eternal sensitive life first takes its origin. For if life had no sensitiveness, it would have no will nor efficacy; but pain”—anguish, suffering—first “makes it” (all life) “effectual and endows it with will. And the light of such kindling through fire makes it joyous, for it is an anointment,” joy and loveliness “of painfulness.”[142]
Boehme turns this round in many ways in order to grasp the something [Ichts], the Separator, as it “rises”[143] from the Father. The qualities rise in the great Salitter, stir, raise, and move [rügen] themselves. Boehme has there the quality of astringency in the Father, and he then represents the process of the something [Ichts] as a sharpness, a drawing together, as a flash of lightning that breaks forth. This light is Lucifer. The Being-for-self, the self-perception, is by Boehme called the drawing together into a point. That is astringency, sharpness, penetration, fierceness; to this pertains the wrath of God, and here Boehme in this manner grasps the “other” of God in God Himself. “This source can be kindled through great motion or elevation. Through the contraction the creaturely Being is formed so that a heavenly Corpus may be” intelligibly “formed. But if it”—the sharpness—“be kindled through elevation, which those creatures only can do which are created out of the divine Salitter, then it is a burning source-vein of the wrath of God. The flash is the mother of light; for the flash generates the light, and is the Father of the fierceness; for the fierceness abides in the flash as a seed in the father, and that flash generates also the tone or sound”—the flash is, speaking generally, the absolute generator. The flash is still connected with pain; light is what brings intelligence. The divine birth is the going forth of the flash, of the life of all qualities.[144] This is all from the Aurora.
In the Quæstionibus theosophicis Boehme makes particular use of the form of Yes and No for the separator, for this opposition. He says: “The reader must know that in Yes and No all things consist, whether divine, devilish, earthly, or what they may be called. The One as the Yes is pure power and life, and it is the truth of God or God Himself. He would be unknowable in Himself, and in Him there would be no joy nor elevation, nor feeling”—life—“without the No. The No is a counterstroke of the Yes, or of the truth” (this negativity is the principle of all knowledge, comprehension), “that the truth may be manifest and be a something wherein there is a contrarium in which there is the eternal love, moving, feeling, and willing, and demanding to be loved. And yet we cannot say that the Yes is separated from the No, and that they are two things in proximity; for they are only one thing, but they separate themselves into two beginnings and make two centra, where each works and wills in itself. Without those two, which are continually in strife, all things would be a nothing, and would stand still without movement. If the eternal will did not itself flow from itself and introduce itself into receptibility, there would be no form nor distinction, for all powers would” then “be one power. Neither could there be understanding in that case, for the understanding arises” (has its substance) “in the differentiation of the manifold, where one property sees, proves and wills the others. The will which has flowed out wills dissimilarity, so that it may be distinguished from similarity and be its own something—and that something may exist, that the eternal seeing may see and feel. And from the individual will arises the No, for it brings itself into ownness, i.e. receptivity of self. It desires to be something and does not make itself in accordance with unity; for unity is a Yes which flows forth, which ever stands thus in the breathing forth of itself, being imperceptible; for it has nothing in which it can find itself excepting in the receptivity of the dissentient will, as in the No which is counterstroke to the Yes, in which the Yes is indeed revealed, and in which it possesses something which it can will. And the No is therefore called a No, because it is a desire turned inwards on itself, as if it were a shutting up into negativity. The emanated seeking will is absorbent and comprehends itself within itself, from it come forms and qualities: (1) Sharpness, (2) Motion, (3) Feeling. (4) The fourth property is Fire as the flash of light; this rises in the bringing together of the great and terrible sharpness and the unity. Thus in the contact a Flagrat [Schrack] results, and in this Flagrat [Schrack] unity is apprehended as being a Flash or Gleam, an exulting joy.” That is the bursting forth of the unity. “For thus the light arises in the midst of the darkness, for the unity becomes a light, and the receptivity of the carnal will in the qualities becomes a Spirit-fire which has its source and origin out of the sharp, cold astringency. And according to that, God is an angry” and “jealous God,” and in this we have evil. “(a) The first quality of the absorption is the No; (b) Sharpness; (c) Hardness; (d) Feeling; (e) the source of fire, hell or hollowness, Hiddenness. (5) The fifth quality, Love, makes in the fire, as in pain, another Principium as a great fire of love.”[145] These are the main points under the second head. In such depths Boehme keeps struggling on, for to him conceptions are lacking, and there are only religious and chemical forms to be found; and because he uses these in a forced sense in order to express his ideas, not only does barbarism of expression result, but incomprehensibility as well.
c. “From this eternal operation of the sensation the visible world sprang; the world is the Word which has flowed forth and has disposed itself into qualities, since in qualities the particular will has arisen. The Separator has made it a will of its own after such a fashion.”[146] The world is none other than the essence of God made creaturely.[147] Hence “If thou beholdest the Deep” of the heavens, “the Stars, the Elements and the Earth,” and what they have brought forth, “then thou” certainly “comprehendest not with thy eyes the bright and clear Deity, though indeed it is” likewise “there and in them.” Thou seest only their creaturely manifestation. “But if thou raisest thy thoughts and considerest ... God who rules in holiness in this government or dominion, then thou breakest through the heaven of heavens and apprehendest God at His holy heart. The powers of heaven ever operate in images, growths and colours, in order to reveal the holy God, so that He may be in all things known.”[148]
3. Finally what comes third in these three-fold forms is the unity of the light, of the separator and power: this is the spirit, which is already partially implied in what has preceded. “All the stars signify the power of the Father, and from them issues the sun” (they make themselves a counterstroke to unity). “And from all the stars there goes forth the power which is in every star, into the Deep, and the power, heat and shining of the sun goes likewise into the Deep”—back to the stars, into the power of the Father. “And in the Deep the power of all stars, together with the heat and lustre of the sun, are all but one thing, a moving, boiling Hovering, like a spirit or matter. Now in the whole deep of the Father, externally without the Son, there is nothing but the manifold and unmeasurable or unsearchable power of the Father and the Light of the Son. The Light of the Son is in the Deep of the Father a living, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-hearing, all-seeing, all-smelling, all-tasting, all-feeling Spirit, wherein is all power, splendour, and wisdom, as in the Father and the Son.”[149] That is Love, the softener of all powers through the light of the Son. We see that the sensuous element thus pertains to this.
Boehme really has the idea that “God’s essence” (which has proceeded from the eternal deep as world) “is thus not something far away which possesses a particular position or place, for” essence, “the abyss of nature and creation, is God Himself. Thou must not think that in heaven there was some manner of Corpus”—the seven spirits generate this Corpus or heart—“which above all other things is called God. No; but the whole divine power which itself is heaven and the heaven of all heavens, is so generated, and that is called God the Father; of whom all the holy angels are generated, in like manner also the spirit of all men. Thou canst name no place, either in heaven or in this world, where the divine birth is not. The birth of the divine Trinity likewise takes place in thine own heart; all three persons are generated in thy heart, God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. In the divine power everywhere we find the fountain spring of the divine birth; and there already are all the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of God, as if thou wouldst make a spacious creaturely circumscribed circle and hadst the deity therein.”[150] In every spirit all are contained.
To Boehme this trinity is the complete universal life in each individual, it is absolute substance. He says: “All things in this world are according to the similitude of this ternary. Ye blind Jews, Turks, and Heathens, open wide the eyes of your mind: I will show you, in your body, and in every natural thing, in men, beasts, fowls, and worms, also in wood, stone, leaves, and grass, the likeness of the holy ternary in God. You say, there is but one Being in God, and that God has no Son. Open your eyes and consider your selves: man is made according to the similitude and out of the power of God in his ternary. Behold thy inward man, and then thou wilt see it most plainly and clearly, if thou art not a fool and an irrational beast. Therefore observe, in thy heart, in thy veins, and in thy brain, thou hast thy spirit; and all the powers which move in thy heart, in thy veins, and in thy brain, wherein thy life consists, signify God the Father. From that power springs up [gebaret] thy light, so that thou seest, understandest, and knowest in the same power what thou art to do; for that light glimmers in thy whole body; and the whole body moves in the power and knowledge of the light; this is the Son which is born in thee.” This light, this seeing and understanding, is the second determination; it is the relationship to itself. “Out of thy light goes forth into the same power, reason, understanding, skill, and wisdom, to govern the whole body, and to distinguish all whatsoever is externally without the body. And both these are but one in the government of thy mind, viz. thy spirit, which signifies God the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost from God rules in this spirit in thee, if thou art a child of light and not of darkness. Now observe: in either wood, stone, or herbs there are three things contained, neither can anything be generated or grow, if but one of the three should be left out. First, there is the power, from which a body comes to be, whether wood, stone, or herbs; after that there is in that” thing “a sap which is the heart of the thing. And thirdly there is in it a springing, flowing power, smell, or taste, which is the spirit of the thing whereby it grows and increases. Now if any of these three fail, the thing cannot subsist.”[151] Thus Boehme regards everything as this ternary.
When he comes into particulars we see that he is obscure; from his detailed explanations there is therefore not much to be derived. As showing his manner of apprehending natural things I shall give one more example of the manner in which, in the further working out of the existence of nature as a counterstroke to the divine knowledge, he makes use of what we call things as Notions (supra, p. 192). The creaturely, he says, has “three kinds of powers or Spiritus in different Centris, but in one Corpore. (α) The first and external Spiritus is the coarse sulphur, salt and Mercurius, which is a substance of four elements” (fire, water, earth, air) “or of the stars. It forms the visible Corpus according to the constellation of the stars or property of the planets and now enkindled elements—the greatest power of the Spiritus mundi. The Separator makes the signature or sign”—the self. The salt, the salitter, is approximately the neutral: mercury [Merk or Mark] the operating, unrest as against nourishment; the coarse sulphur, the negative unity. (β) “The other Spiritus is found in the oil of sulphur, the fifth essence, viz. a root of the four elements. That is the softening and joy of the coarse, painful spirit of sulphur and salt; the real cause of growing life, a joy of nature as is the sun in the elements”—the direct principle of life. “In the inward ground of that coarse spirit we see a beautiful, clear Corpus in which the ideal light of nature shines from the divine efflux.” The outward separator signs what is taken up with the shape and form of the plant which receives into itself this coarse nourishment. (γ) “What comes third is the tincture, a spiritual fire and light; the highest reason for which the first separation of qualities takes place in the existence of this world. Fiat is the Word of each thing and belongs according to its peculiar quality to eternity. Its origin is the holy power of God. Smell [Ruch] is the sensation of this tincture. The elements are only a mansion and counterstroke of the inward power, a cause of the movement of the tincture.”[152] Sensuous things entirely lose the force of sensuous conceptions. Boehme uses them, though not as such, as thought determinations, that constitutes the hard and barbarous element in Boehme’s representations, yet at the same time this unity with actuality and this present of infinite existence.
Boehme describes the opposition in creation in the following way. If nature is the first efflux of the Separator, two kinds of life must yet be understood as in the counterstroke of the divine essence, beyond that temporal one there is an eternal, to which the divine understanding is given. It stands at the basis of the eternal, spiritual world, in the Mysterium Magnum of the divine counterstroke (personality)—a mansion of divine will through which it reveals itself and is revealed to no peculiarity of personal will. In this centrum man has both lives in himself, he belongs to time and eternity. He is (α) universal in the “eternal understanding of the one good will which is a temperament; (β) the original will of nature, viz. the comprehensibility of the Centra, where each centrum in the divisibility shuts itself in one place to egotism and self-will as a personal Mysterium or mind. The former only requires a counterstroke to its similarity; this latter, the self-generated natural will also requires in the place of the egotism of the dark impression a likeness, that is a counterstroke through its own comprehensibility, through which comprehension it requires nothing but its corporality as a natural ground.” Now it is this “I,” the dark, pain, fire, the wrath of God, implicitude, self-comprehension, which is broken up in regeneration; the I is shattered, painfulness brought into true rest—just as the dark fire breaks into light.[153]
Now these are the principal ideas found in Boehme; those most profound are (α) the generating of Light as the Son of God from qualities, through the most living dialectic; (β) God’s diremption of Himself. Barbarism in the working out of his system can no more fail to be recognized than can the great depths into which he has plunged by the union of the most absolute opposites. Boehme grasps the opposites in the crudest, harshest way, but he does not allow himself through their unworkableness to be prevented from asserting the unity. This rude and barbarous depth which is devoid of Notion, is always a present, something which speaks from itself, which has and knows everything in itself. We have still to mention Boehme’s piety, the element of edification, the way in which the soul is guided in his writings. This is in the highest degree deep and inward, and if one is familiar with his form these depths and this inwardness will be found. But it is a form with which we cannot reconcile ourselves, and which permits no definite conception of details, although we cannot fail to see the profound craving for speculation which existed within this man.
SECTION TWO
Period of the Thinking Understanding
After Neo-Platonism and all that is associated with it is left behind, it is not until Descartes is arrived at that we really enter upon a philosophy which is, properly speaking, independent, which knows that it comes forth from reason as independent, and that self-consciousness is an essential moment in the truth. Philosophy in its own proper soil separates itself entirely from the philosophizing theology, in accordance with its principle, and places it on quite another side. Here, we may say, we are at home, and like the mariner after a long voyage in a tempestuous sea, we may now hail the sight of land; with Descartes the culture of modern times, the thought of modern Philosophy, really begins to appear, after a long and tedious journey on the way which has led so far. It is specially characteristic of the German that the more servile he on the one hand is, the more uncontrolled is he on the other; restraint and want of restraint—originality, is the angel of darkness that buffets us. In this new period the universal principle by means of which everything in the world is regulated, is the thought that proceeds from itself; it is a certain inwardness, which is above all evidenced in respect to Christianity, and which is the Protestant principle in accordance with which thought has come to the consciousness of the world at large as that to which every man has a claim. Thus because the independently existent thought, this culminating point of inwardness, is now set forth and firmly grasped as such, the dead externality of authority is set aside and regarded as out of place. It is only through my own free thought within that thought can however be recognized and ratified by me. This likewise signifies that such free thought is the universal business of the world and of individuals; it is indeed the duty of every man, since everything is based upon it; thus what claims to rank as established in the world man must scrutinize in his own thoughts. Philosophy is thus become a matter of universal interest, and one respecting which each can judge for himself; for everyone is a thinker from the beginning.
On account of this new beginning to Philosophy we find in the old histories of Philosophy of the seventeenth century—e.g. that of Stanley—the philosophy of the Greeks and Romans only, and Christianity forms the conclusion. The idea was that neither in Christianity nor subsequently any philosophy was to be found, because there was no longer a necessity for it, seeing that the philosophic theology of the Middle Ages had not free, spontaneous thought as its principle (Vol. I. pp. 111, 112). But though it is true that this has now become the philosophic principle, we must not expect that it should be at once methodically developed out of thought. The old assumption is made, that man only attains to the truth through reflection; this plainly is the principle. But the determination and definition of God, the world of the manifold as it appears, is not yet revealed as necessarily proceeding from thought; for we have only reached the thought of a content which is given through ordinary conception, observation, and experience.
On the one hand we see a metaphysic, and, on the other, the particular sciences: on the one hand abstract thought as such, on the other its content taken from experience; these two lines in the abstract stand opposed to one another, and yet they do not separate themselves so sharply. We shall indeed come to an opposition, viz. to that between a priori thought—that the determinations which are to hold good for thought must be taken from thought itself—and the determination that we must commence, conclude and think from experience. This is the opposition between rationalism and empiricism; but it is really a subordinate one, because even the metaphysical mode in philosophy, which only allows validity to immanent thought, does not take what is methodically developed from the necessity of thought, but in the old way derives its content from inward or outward experience, and through reflection and meditation renders it abstract. The form of philosophy which is first reached through thought is metaphysics, the form of the thinking understanding; this period has, as its outstanding figures, Descartes and Spinoza, likewise Malebranche and Locke, Leibnitz and Wolff. The second form is Scepticism and Criticism with regard to the thinking understanding, to metaphysics as such, and to the universal of empiricism; here we shall go on to speak of representatives of the Scottish, German, and French philosophies; the French materialists again turn back to metaphysics.
CHAPTER I
The Metaphysics of the Understanding
Metaphysics is what reaches after substance, and this implies that one unity, one thought is maintained in opposition to dualism, just as Being was amongst the ancients. In metaphysics itself we have, however, the opposition between substantiality and individuality. What comes first is the spontaneous, but likewise uncritical, metaphysics, and it is represented by Descartes and Spinoza, who assert the unity of Being and thought. The second stage is found in Locke, who treats of the opposition itself inasmuch as he considers the metaphysical Idea of experience, that is the origin of thoughts and their justification, not yet entering on the question of whether they are absolutely true. In the third place we have Leibnitz’s monad—the world viewed as a totality.
[A. First Division.]
We here encounter the innate ideas of Descartes. The philosophy of Spinoza, in the second place, is related to the philosophy of Descartes as its necessary development only; the method is an important part of it. A method which stands alongside of Spinozism and which is also a perfected development of Cartesianism, is, in the third place, that by which Malebranche has represented this philosophy.
[1. Descartes.]
René Descartes is a bold spirit who re-commenced the whole subject from the very beginning and constituted afresh the ground-work on which Philosophy is based, and to which, after a thousand years had passed, it once more returned. The extent of the influence which this man exercised upon his times and the culture of Philosophy generally, cannot be sufficiently expressed; it rests mainly in his setting aside all former presuppositions and beginning in a free, simple, and likewise popular way, with popular modes of thought and quite simple propositions, in his leading the content to thought and extension or Being, and so to speak setting up this before thought as its opposite. This simple thought appeared in the form of the determinate, clear understanding, and it cannot thus be called speculative thought or speculative reason. There are fixed determinations from which Descartes proceeds, but only of thought; this is the method of his time. What the French called exact science, science of the determinate understanding, made its appearance at this time. Philosophy and exact science were not yet separated, and it was only later on that this separation first took place.
To come to the life of Descartes—he was born in 1596, at La Haye in Touraine, of an ancient and noble race. He received an education of the usual kind in a Jesuit school, and made great progress; his disposition was lively and restless; he extended his insatiable zeal in all directions, pursued his researches into all systems and forms; his studies, in addition to ancient literature, embraced such subjects as philosophy, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and astronomy. But the studies of his youth in the Jesuit school, and those studies which he afterwards prosecuted with the same diligence and strenuous zeal, resulted in giving him a strong disinclination for learning derived from books; he quitted the school where he had been educated, and yet his eagerness for learning was only made the keener through this perplexity and unsatisfied yearning. He went as a young man of eighteen to Paris, and there lived in the great world. But as he here found no satisfaction, he soon left society and returned to his studies. He retired to a suburb of Paris and there occupied himself principally with mathematics, remaining quite concealed from all his former friends. At last, after the lapse of two years, he was discovered by them, drawn forth from his retirement, and again introduced to the great world. He now once more renounced the study of books and threw himself into the affairs of actual life. Thereafter he went to Holland and entered the military service; soon afterwards, in 1619, and in the first year of the Thirty Years’ War, he went as a volunteer with the Bavarian troops, and took part in several campaigns under Tilly. Many have found learning unsatisfying; Descartes became a soldier—not because he found in the sciences too little, but because they were too much, too high for him. Here in his winter quarters he studied diligently, and in Ulm, for instance, he made acquaintance with a citizen who was deeply versed in mathematics. He was able to carry out his studies even better in winter quarters at Neuberg on the Danube, where once more, and now most profoundly, the desire awoke in him to strike out a new departure in Philosophy and entirely reconstruct it; he solemnly promised the Mother of God to make a pilgrimage to Loretto if she would prosper him in this design, and if he should now at last come to himself and attain to peace. He was also in the battle at Prague in which Frederick the Elector-Palatine lost the Bohemian crown. Yet since the sight of these wild scenes could not satisfy him, he gave up military service in 1621. He made several other journeys through the rest of Germany, and then proceeded to Poland, Prussia, Switzerland, Italy and France. On account of its greater freedom he withdrew to Holland, in order there to pursue his projects; here he lived in peace from 1629 to 1644—a period in which he composed and issued most of his works, and also defended them against the manifold attacks from which they suffered, and which more especially proceeded from the clergy. Queen Christina of Sweden finally called him to her court at Stockholm, which was the rendezvous for all the most celebrated men of learning of the time, and there he died in 1650.[154]
As regards his philosophic works, those which contain his first principles have in particular something very popular about their method of presentation, which makes them highly to be recommended to those commencing the study of philosophy. Descartes sets to work in a quite simple and childlike manner, with a narration of his reflections as they came to him. Professor Cousin of Paris has brought out a new edition of Descartes in eleven octavo volumes; the greater part consists of letters on natural phenomena. Descartes gave a new impetus to mathematics as well as to philosophy. Several important methods were discovered by him, upon which the most brilliant results in higher mathematics were afterwards built. His method is even now an essential in mathematics, for Descartes is the inventor of analytic geometry, and consequently the first to point out the way in this field of science to modern mathematics. He likewise cultivated physics, optics, and astronomy, and made the most important discoveries in these; we have not, however, to deal with such matters. The application of metaphysics to ecclesiastical affairs, investigations, etc., has likewise no special interest for us.
1. In Philosophy Descartes struck out quite original lines; with him the new epoch in Philosophy begins, whereby it was permitted to culture to grasp in the form of universality the principle of its higher spirit in thought, just as Boehme grasped it in sensuous perceptions and forms. Descartes started by saying that thought must necessarily commence from itself; all the philosophy which came before this, and specially what proceeded from the authority of the Church, was for ever after set aside. But since here thought has properly speaking grasped itself as abstract understanding only, in relation to which the more concrete content still stands over on the other side, the determinate conceptions were not yet deduced from the understanding, but taken up only empirically. In Descartes’ philosophy we have thus to distinguish what has, and what has not universal interest for us: the former is the process of his thoughts themselves, and the latter the mode in which these thoughts are presented and deduced. Yet we must not consider the process as a method of consistent proof; it is indeed a deep and inward progress, but it comes to us in an ingenuous and naïve form. In order to do justice to Descartes’ thoughts it is necessary for us to be assured of the necessity for his appearance; the spirit of his philosophy is simply knowledge as the unity of Thought and Being. And yet on the whole there is little to say about his philosophy.
a. Descartes expresses the fact that we must begin from thought as such alone, by saying that we must doubt everything (De omnibus dubitandum est); and that is an absolute beginning. He thus makes the abolition of all determinations the first condition of Philosophy. This first proposition has not, however, the same signification as Scepticism, which sets before it no other aim than doubt itself, and requires that we should remain in this indecision of mind, an indecision wherein mind finds its freedom. It rather signifies that we should renounce all prepossessions—that is, all hypotheses which are accepted as true in their immediacy—and commence from thought, so that from it we should in the first place attain to some fixed and settled basis, and make a true beginning. In Scepticism this is not the case, for with the sceptics doubt is the end at which they rest.[155] But the doubting of Descartes, his making no hypotheses, because nothing is fixed or secure, does not occur in the interests of freedom as such, in order that nothing should have value except freedom itself, and nothing exist in the quality of an external objective. To him everything is unstable indeed, in so far as the Ego can abstract from it or can think, for pure thought is abstraction from everything. But in consciousness the end is predominant, and it is to arrive at something fixed and objective—and not the moment of subjectivity, or the fact of being set forth, known and proved by me. Yet this last comes along with the other, for it is from the starting point of my thought that I would attain my object; the impulse of freedom is thus likewise fundamental.
In the propositions in which Descartes gives in his own way the ground of this great and most important principle, there is found a naïve and empirical system of reasoning. This is an example: “Because we were born as children, and formed all manner of judgments respecting sensuous things before we had the perfect use of our reason, we are through many preconceived ideas hindered from the knowledge of the truth. From these we appear not to be able to free ourselves in any other way but by once in our lives striving to doubt that respecting which we have the very slightest suspicion of an uncertainty. Indeed it is really desirable to hold as false everything in respect to which we have any doubt, so that we may find more clearly what is most certain and most knowable. Yet this doubt has to be limited to the contemplation of the truth, for in the conduct of our life we are compelled to choose the probable, since there the opportunity for action would often pass away before we could solve our doubts. But here, where we have only to deal with the search for truth, we may very reasonably doubt whether any thing sensuous and perceptible exists—in the first place because we find that the senses often deceive us and it is prudent not to trust in what has even once deceived us, and then because every day in dreaming we think we feel or see before ourselves innumerable things which never were, and to the doubter no signs are given by which he can safely distinguish sleeping from waking. We shall hereby likewise doubt everything else, even mathematical propositions, partly because we have seen that some err even in what we hold most certain, and ascribe value to what to us seems false, and partly because we have heard that a God exists who has created us, and who can do everything, so that He may have created us liable to err. But if we conceive ourselves not to derive our existence from God, but from some other source, perhaps from ourselves, we are all the more liable, in that we are thus imperfect, to err. But we have so far the experience of freedom within us that we can always refrain from what is not perfectly certain and well founded.”[156] The demand which rests at the basis of Descartes’ reasonings thus is that what is recognized as true should be able to maintain the position of having the thought therein at home with itself. The so-called immediate intuition and inward revelation, which in modern times is so highly regarded, has its place here. But because in the Cartesian form the principle of freedom as such is not brought into view, the grounds which are here advanced are for the most part popular.
b. Descartes sought something in itself certain and true, which should neither be only true like the object of faith without knowledge, nor the sensuous and also sceptical certainty which is without truth. The whole of Philosophy as it had been carried on up to this time was vitiated by the constant presupposition of something as true, and in some measure, as in the Neo-Platonic philosophy, by not giving the form of scientific knowledge to its matter, or by not separating its moments. But to Descartes nothing is true which does not possess an inward evidence in consciousness, or which reason does not recognize so clearly and conclusively that any doubt regarding it is absolutely impossible. “Because we thus reject or declare to be false everything regarding which we can have any doubt at all, it is easy for us to suppose that there is no God, no heaven, no body—but we cannot therefore say that we do not exist, who think this. For it is contradictory to say that what thinks does not exist. Hence the knowledge that ‘I think, therefore I am,’ is what we arrive at first of all, and it is the most certain fact that offers itself to everyone who follows after philosophy in an orderly fashion. This is the best way of becoming acquainted with the nature of spirit and its diversity from body. For if we inquire who we are who can set forth as untrue everything which is different from ourselves, we clearly see that no extension, figure, change of position, nor any such thing which can be ascribed to body, constitutes our nature, but only thought alone; which is thus known earlier and more certainly than any corporeal thing.”[157] ‘I’ has thus significance here as thought, and not as individuality of self-consciousness. The second proposition of the Cartesian philosophy is hence the immediate certainty of thought. Certainty is only knowledge as such in its pure form as self-relating, and this is thought; thus then the unwieldy understanding makes its way on to the necessity of thought.
Descartes begins, just as Fichte did later on, with the ‘I’ as indubitably certain; I know that something is presented in me. By this Philosophy is at one stroke transplanted to quite another field and to quite another standpoint, namely to the sphere of subjectivity. Presuppositions in religion are given up; proof alone is sought for, and not the absolute content which disappears before abstract infinite subjectivity. There is in Descartes likewise a seething desire to speak from strong feeling, from the ordinary sensuous point of view, just as Bruno and so many others, each in his own fashion, express as individualities their particular conceptions of the world. To consider the content in itself is not the first matter; for I can abstract from all my conceptions, but not from the ‘I.’ We think this and that, and hence it is—is to give the common would-be-wise argument of those incapable of grasping the matter in point; that a determinate content exists is exactly what we are forced to doubt—there is nothing absolutely fixed. Thought is the entirely universal, but not merely because I can abstract, but because ‘I’ is thus simple, self-identical. Thought consequently comes first; the next determination arrived at, in direct connection with it, is the determination of Being. The ‘I think’ directly involves my Being; this, says Descartes, is the absolute basis of all Philosophy.[158] The determination of Being is in my ‘I’; this connection is itself the first matter. Thought as Being and Being as thought—that is my certainty, ‘I’; in the celebrated Cogito, ergo sum we thus have Thought and Being inseparably bound together.
On the one hand this proposition is regarded as a syllogism: from thought Being is deduced. Kant more especially has objected to this that Being is not contained in thinking, that it is different from thinking. This is true, but they are still inseparable, or constitute an identity; their difference is not to the prejudice of their unity. Yet this maxim of pure abstract certainty, the universal totality in which everything implicitly exists, is not proved;[159] we must therefore not try to convert this proposition into a syllogism. Descartes himself says: “There is no syllogism present at all. For in order that there should be such, the major premise must have been ‘all that thinks exists’”—from which the subsumption would have followed in the minor premise, ‘now I am.’ By this the immediacy which rests in the proposition, would be removed. “But that major premise” is not set forth at all, being “really in the first instance derived from the original ‘I think, therefore, I am.’”[160] For arriving at a conclusion three links are required—in this case we ought to have a third through which thought and Being should have been mediated, and it is not to be found here. The ‘Therefore’ which binds the two sides together is not the ‘Therefore’ of a syllogism; the connection between Being and Thought is only immediately posited. This certainty is thus the prius; all other propositions come later. The thinking subject as the simple immediacy of being-at-home-with-me is the very same thing as what is called Being; and it is quite easy to perceive this identity. As universal, thought is contained in all that is particular, and thus is pure relation to itself, pure oneness with itself. We must not make the mistake of representing Being to ourselves as a concrete content, and hence it is the same immediate identity which thought likewise is. Immediacy is, however, a one-sided determination; thought does not contain it alone, but also the determination to mediate itself with itself, and thereby—by the mediation being at the same time the abrogation of the mediation—it is immediacy. In thought we thus have Being; Being is, however, a poor determination, it is the abstraction from the concrete of thought. This identity of Being and Thought, which constitutes the most interesting idea of modern times, has not been further worked out by Descartes; he has relied on consciousness alone, and for the time being placed it in the fore-front. For with Descartes the necessity to develop the differences from the ‘I think’ is not yet present; Fichte first applied himself to the deduction of all determinations from this culminating point of absolute certainty.
Other propositions have been set against that of Descartes. Gassendi,[161] for example, asks if we might not just as well say Ludificor, ergo sum: I am made a fool of by my consciousness, therefore I exist—or properly speaking, therefore I am made a fool of. Descartes himself recognized that this objection merited consideration, but he here repels it, inasmuch as it is the ‘I’ alone and not the other content which has to be maintained. Being alone is identical with pure thought, and not its content, be it what it may. Descartes further says: “By thought I, however, understand all that takes place in us within our consciousness, in as far as we are conscious of it; thus will, conception, and even feeling are identical with thought. For if I say ‘I see,’ or ‘I walk out,’ and ‘therefore I am,’ and understand by this the seeing and walking which is accomplished by the body, the conclusion is not absolutely certain, because, as often happens in a dream, I may imagine that I can see or walk even if I do not open my eyes nor move from my place, and I might also possibly do so supposing I had no body. But if I understand it of the subjective feeling or the consciousness of seeing or walking itself, because it is then related to the mind that alone feels or thinks that it sees or walks, this conclusion is perfectly certain.”[162] “In a dream” is an empirical mode of reasoning, but there is no other objection to it. In willing, seeing, hearing, &c., thought is likewise contained, it is absurd to suppose that the soul has thinking in one special pocket, and seeing, willing, &c., in others. But if I say ‘I see,’ ‘I walk out,’ there is present on the one hand my consciousness ‘I,’ and consequently thought, on the other hand, however, there is present willing, seeing, hearing, walking, and thus a still further modification of the content. Now because of this modification I cannot say ‘I walk, and therefore I am,’ for I can undoubtedly abstract from the modification, since it is no longer universal Thought. Thus we must merely look at the pure consciousness contained in the concrete ‘I.’ Only when I accentuate the fact that I am present there as thinking, is pure Being implied, for only with the universal is Being united.
“In this it is implied,” says Descartes, “that thought is more certain to me than body. If from the fact that I touch or see the earth I judge that it exists, I must more certainly judge from this that my thought exists. For it may very well happen that I judge the earth to exist, even if it does not exist, but it cannot be that I judge this, and that my mind which judges this does not exist.”[163] That is to say, everything which is for me I may assert to be non-existent, but when I assert myself to be non-existent, I myself assert, or it is my judgment. For I cannot set aside the fact that I judge, even if I can abstract from that respecting which I judge. In this Philosophy has regained its own ground that thought starts from thought as what is certain in itself, and not from something external, not from something given, not from an authority, but directly from the freedom that is contained in the ‘I think.’ Of all else I may doubt, of the existence of bodily things, of my body itself; or this certainty does not possess immediacy in itself. For ‘I’ is just certainty itself, but in all else this certainty is only predicate; my body is certain to me, it is not this certainty itself.[164] As against the certainty we feel of having a body, Descartes adduces the empirical phenomenon that we often hear of persons imagining they feel pain in a limb which they have lost long ago.[165] What is actual, he says is a substance, the soul is a thinking substance; it is thus for itself, separate from all external material things and independent. That it is thinking is evident from its nature: it would think and exist even if no material things were present; the soul can hence know itself more easily than its body.[166]
All else that we can hold as true rests on this certainty; for in order that anything should be held as true, evidence is requisite, but nothing is true which has not this inward evidence in consciousness. “Now the evidence of everything rests upon our perceiving it as clearly and vividly as that certainty itself, and on its so entirely depending from, and harmonizing with this principle, that if we wished to doubt it we should also have to doubt this principle likewise” (our ego).[167] This knowledge is indeed on its own account perfect evidence, but it is not yet the truth, or if we take that Being as truth, it is an empty content, and it is with the content that we have to do.
c. What comes third is thus the transition of this certainty into truth, into the determinate; Descartes again makes this transition in a naïve way, and with it we for the first time begin to consider his metaphysics. What here takes place is that an interest arises in further representations and conceptions of the abstract unity of Being and Thought; there Descartes sets to work in an externally reflective manner. “The consciousness which merely knows itself to be certain now however seeks to extend its knowledge, and finds that it has conceptions of many things—in which conceptions it does not deceive itself, so long as it does not assert or deny that something similar outside corresponds to them.” Deception in the conceptions has meaning only in relation to external existence. “Consciousness also discovers universal conceptions, and obtains from them proofs which are evident, e.g. the geometric proposition that the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles is a conception which follows incontrovertibly from others. But in reflecting whether such things really exist doubts arise.”[168] That there is such a thing as a triangle is indeed in this case by no means certain, since extension is not contained in the immediate certainty of myself. The soul may exist without the bodily element, and this last without it, they are in reality different; one is conceivable without the other. The soul thus does not think and know the other as clearly as the certainty of itself.[169]
Now the truth of all knowledge rests on the proof of the existence of God. The soul is an imperfect substance, but it has the Idea of an absolute perfect existence within itself; this perfection is not begotten in itself, just because it is an imperfect substance; this Idea is thus innate. In Descartes the consciousness of this fact is expressed by his saying that as long as the existence of God is not proved and perceived the possibility of our deceiving ourselves remains, because we cannot know whether we do not possess a nature ordered and disposed to err (supra, p. 226).[170] The form is rather a mistaken one, and it only generally expresses the opposition in which self-consciousness stands to the consciousness of what is different, of the objective; and we have to deal with the unity of both—the question being whether what is in thought likewise possesses objectivity. This unity rests in God, or is God Himself. I shall put these assertions in the manner of Descartes: “Amongst these various conceptions possessed by us there likewise is the conception of a supremely intelligent, powerful, and absolutely perfect Being; and this is the most excellent of all conceptions.” This all-embracing universal conception has therefore this distinguishing feature, that in its case the uncertainty respecting Being which appears in the other conceptions, finds no place. It has the characteristic that “In it we do not recognize existence as something merely possible and accidental, as we do the conceptions of other things which we perceive clearly, but as a really essential and eternal determination. For instance, as mind perceives that in the conception of a triangle it is implied that the three angles are equal to two right angles, the triangle has them; and in the same way from the fact that mind perceives existence to be necessarily and eternally implied in the Notion of the most perfect reality, it is forced to conclude that the most perfect reality exists.”[171] For to perfection there likewise pertains the determination of existence, since the conception of a non-existent is less perfect. Thus we there have the unity of thought and Being, and the ontological proof of the existence of God; this we met with earlier (p. 63, seq.) in dealing with Anselm.
The proof of the existence of God from the Idea of Him is in this wise: In this Notion existence is implied; and therefore it is true. Descartes proceeds further in the same direction, in so far as after the manner of empirical axioms he sets forth: (α) “There are different degrees of reality or entity, for the substance has more reality than the accident or the mode, and infinite substance has more than finite.” (β) “In the Notion of a thing existence is implied, either the merely potential or the necessary,” i.e. in the ‘I’ there is Being as the immediate certainty of an other-being, of the not-I opposed to the I. (γ) “No thing or no perfection of a thing which really exists actu can have the Nothing as original cause of its existence. For if anything could be predicated of nothing, thought could equally well be predicated of it, and I would thus say that I am nothing because I think.” Descartes here arrives at a dividing line, at an unknown relationship; the Notion of cause is reached, and this is a thought indeed, but a determinate thought. Spinoza says in his explanation, “That the conceptions contain more or less reality, and those moments have just as much evidence as thought itself, because they not only say that we think, but how we think.” These determinate modes as differences in the simplicity of thought, had, however, to be demonstrated. Spinoza adds to this step in advance that “The degrees of reality which we perceive in ideas are not in the ideas in as far as they are considered merely as kinds of thought, but in so far as the one represents a substance and the other a mere mode of substance, or, in a word, in so far as they are considered as conceptions of things.” (δ) “The objective reality of Notions” (i.e., the entity of what is represented in so far as it is in the Notion), “demands a first cause in which the same reality is contained not merely objectively” (that is to say in the Notion), “but likewise formally or even eminenter—formally, that is perfectly likewise: eminenter, more perfectly. For there must at least be as much in the cause as in the effect.” (ε) “The existence of God is known immediately”—a priori—“from the contemplation of His nature. To say that anything is contained in the nature or in the Notion of a thing is tantamount to saying that it is true: existence is directly contained in the Notion of God. Hence it is quite true to say of Him that existence pertains of necessity to Him. There is implied in the Notion of every particular thing either a possible or a necessary existence—a necessary existence in the Notion of God, i.e. of the absolutely perfect Being, for else He would be conceived as imperfect.”[172]
Descartes likewise argues after this manner: “Problem: to prove a posteriori from the mere Notion within us the existence of God. The objective reality of a Notion demands a cause in which the same reality is not merely contained objectively” (as in the finite), “but formally” (freely, purely for itself, outside of us) “or eminenter” (as original). (Axiom δ.) “We now have a Notion of God, but His objective reality is neither formally nor eminenter contained within us, and it can thus be only in God Himself.”[173] Consequently we see that with Descartes this Idea is an hypothesis. Now we should say we find this highest Idea in us. If we then ask whether this Idea exists, why, this is the Idea, that existence is asserted with it. To say that it is only a conception is to contradict the meaning of this conception. But here it is unsatisfactory to find that the conception is introduced thus: ‘We have this conception,’ and to find that it consequently appears like an hypothesis. In such a case it is not proved of this content in itself that it determines itself into this unity of thought and Being. In the form of God no other conception is thus here given than that contained in Cogito, ergo sum, wherein Being and thought are inseparably bound up—though now in the form of a conception which I possess within me. The whole content of this conception, the Almighty, All-wise, &c., are predicates which do not make their appearance until later; the content is simply the content of the Idea bound up with existence. Hence we see these determinations following one another in an empirical manner, and not philosophically proved—thus giving us an example of how in a priori metaphysics generally hypotheses of conceptions are brought in, and these become objects of thought, just as happens in empiricism with investigations, observations, and experiences.
Descartes then proceeds: “Mind is the more convinced of this when it notices that it discovers within itself the conception of no other thing wherein existence is necessarily implied. From this it will perceive that that idea of highest reality is not imagined by it, it is not chimerical, but a true and unalterable fact which cannot do otherwise than exist, seeing that existence is necessarily involved in it. Our prejudices hinder us from apprehending this with ease, for we are accustomed to distinguish in all other things the essence” (the Notion) “from the existence.” Respecting the assertion that thought is not inseparable from existence, the common way of talking is as follows: ‘If what men think really existed, things would be different.’ But in saying this men do not take into account that what is spoken of in this way is always a particular content, and that in it the essential nature of the finality of things simply signifies the fact that Notion and Being are separable. But how can one argue from finite things to the infinite? “This Notion,” Descartes continues, “is furthermore not made by us.” It is now declared to be an eternal truth which is revealed in us. “We do not find in ourselves the perfections which are contained in this conception. Thus we are certain that a first cause in which is all perfection, i.e. God as really existent, has given them to us; for it is certain to us that from nothing, nothing arises” (according to Boehme God derived the material of the world from Himself), “and what is perfect cannot be the effect of anything imperfect. From Him we must thus in true science deduce all created things.”[174] With the proof of the existence of God the validity of and evidence for all truth in its origin is immediately established. God as First Cause is Being-for-self, the reality which is not merely entity or existence in thought. An existence such as this first cause (which is not what we know as a thing) rests in the Notion of the not-I, not of each determinate thing—since these as determinate are negations—but only in the Notion of pure existence or the perfect cause. It is the cause of the truth of ideas, for the aspect that it represents is that of their Being.
d. Fourthly, Descartes goes on to assert: “We must believe what is revealed to us by God, though we cannot understand it. It is not to be wondered at, since we are finite, that there is in God’s nature as inconceivably infinite, what passes our comprehension.” This represents the entrance of a very ordinary conception. Boehme on the other hand says (supra, p. 212): ‘The mystery of the Trinity is ever born within us.’ Descartes, however, concludes: “Hence we must not trouble ourselves with investigations respecting the infinite; for seeing that we are finite, it is absurd for us to say anything about it.”[175] This matter we shall not, however, enter upon at present.
“Now the first attribute of God is that He is true and the Giver of all light; it is hence quite contrary to His nature to deceive us. Hence the light of nature or the power of acquiring knowledge given us by God can affect no object which is not really true in as far as it is affected by it” (the power of acquiring knowledge) “i.e. as it is perceived clearly and distinctly.” We ascribe truth to God. From this Descartes goes on to infer the universal bond which exists between absolute knowledge and the objectivity of what we thus know. Knowledge has objects, has a content which is known; we call this connection truth. The truth of God is just this unity of what is thought by the subject or clearly perceived, and external reality or existence. “Thereby an end is put to doubt, as if it could be the case that what appears quite evident to us should not be really true. We can thus no longer have any suspicion of mathematical truths. Likewise if we give heed to what we distinguish by our senses in waking or in sleeping, clearly and distinctly, it is easy to recognize in each thing what in it is true.” By saying that what is rightly and clearly thought likewise is, Descartes maintains that man comes to know by means of thought what in fact is in things; the sources of errors lie on the other hand in the finitude of our nature. “It is certain, because of God’s truth, that the faculty of perceiving and that of assenting through the will, if it extends no further than to that which is clearly perceived, cannot lead to error. Even if this cannot be in any way proved, it is by nature so established in all things, that as often as we clearly perceive anything, we assent to it from ourselves and can in no wise doubt that it is true.”[176]
All this is set forth very plausibly, but it is still indeterminate, formal, and shallow; we only have the assertion made to us that this is so. Descartes’ method is the method of the clear understanding merely. Certainty with him takes the first place; from it no content is deduced of necessity, no content generally, and still less its objectivity as distinguished from the inward subjectivity of the ‘I.’ At one time we have the opposition of subjective knowledge and actuality, and at another their inseparable union. In the first case the necessity of mediating them enters in, and the truth of God is asserted to be this mediating power. It consists in this, that His Notion contains reality immediately in itself. The proof of this unity then rests solely upon the fact of its being said that we find within us the idea of complete perfection; thus this conception here appears simply as one found ready to hand. With this is compared the mere conception of God which contains no existence within it, and it is found that without existence it would be imperfect. This unity of God Himself, of His Idea, with His existence, is undoubtedly the Truth; in this we find the ground for holding as true what is for us just as certain as the truth of ourselves. As Descartes proceeds further we thus find that in reality everything has truth for him only in so far as it is really an object of thought, a universal. This truth of God has been, as we shall see, expressed even more clearly and in a more concise way by a disciple of Descartes, if one may venture to call him so—I mean Malebranche (who might really be dealt with here),[177] in his Recherche de la vérité.
The first of the fundamental determinations of the Cartesian metaphysics is from the certainty of oneself to arrive at the truth, to recognize Being in the Notion of thought. But because in the thought “I think,” I am an individual, thought comes before my mind as subjective; Being is hence not demonstrated in the Notion of thought itself, for what advance has been made is merely in the direction of separation generally. In the second place the negative of Being likewise comes before self-consciousness, and this negative, united with the positive I, is so to speak implicitly united in a third, in God. God, who before this was a non-contradictory potentiality, now takes objective form to self-consciousness, He is all reality in so far as it is positive, i.e. as it is Being, unity of thought and Being, the highest perfection of existence; it is just in the negative, in the Notion of this, in its being an object of thought, that Being is contained. An objection to this identity is now old—Kant urged it likewise—that from the Notion of the most perfect existence more does not follow than that in thought existence here and now and the most perfect essence are conjoined, but not outside of thought. But the very Notion of present existence is this negative of self-consciousness, not out of thought,—but the thought of the ‘out of thought.’
2. Descartes accepts Being in the entirely positive sense, and has not the conception of its being the negative of self-consciousness: but simple Being, set forth as the negative of self-consciousness, is extension. Descartes thus separates extension from God, remains constant to this separation, unites the universe, matter, with God in such a way as to make Him its creator and first cause: and he has the true perception that conservation is a continuous creation, in so far as creation as activity is asserted to be separated. Descartes does not, however, trace extension in a true method back to thought; matter, extended substances, stand over against the thinking substances which are simple; in as far as the universe is created by God, it could not be as perfect as its cause. As a matter of fact the effect is less perfect than the cause, since it is that which is posited, if we are to remain at the conception of cause pertaining to the understanding. Hence according to Descartes extension is the less perfect. But as imperfect the extended substances cannot exist and subsist through themselves or their Notion; they thus require every moment the assistance of God for their maintenance, and without this they would in a moment sink back into nothing. Preservation is, however, unceasing reproduction.[178]
Descartes now proceeds to further particulars, and expresses himself as follows: “We consider what comes under consciousness either as things or their qualities, or as eternal truths which have no existence outside our thought”—which do not belong to this or that time, to this or that place. He calls those last something inborn within us, something not made by us or merely felt,[179] but the eternal Notion of mind itself and the eternal determinations of its freedom, of itself as itself. From this point the conception that ideas are inborn (innatæ ideæ) hence proceeds; this is the question over which Locke and Leibnitz dispute. The expression “eternal truths” is current even in these modern times, and it signifies the universal determinations and relations which exist entirely on their own account. The word ‘inborn’ is however a clumsy and stupid expression, because the conception of physical birth thereby indicated, does not apply to mind. To Descartes inborn ideas are not universal, as they are to Plato and his successors, but that which has evidence, immediate certainty, an immediate multiplicity founded in thought itself—manifold conceptions in the form of a Being, resembling what Cicero calls natural feelings implanted in the heart. We would rather say that such is implied in the nature and essence of our mind and spirit. Mind is active and conducts itself in its activity in a determinate manner; but this activity has no other ground than its freedom. Yet if this is the case more is required than merely to say so; it must be deduced as a necessary product of our mind. We have such ideas, for instance, in the logical laws: “From nothing comes nothing,” “A thing cannot both be and not be,”[180] as also in moral principles. These are facts of consciousness which Descartes however soon passes from again; they are only present in thought as subjective, and he has thus not yet inquired respecting their content.
As regards things, on which Descartes now directs his attention, the other side to these eternal verities, the universal determinations of things are substance, permanence, order, &c.[181] He then gives definitions of these thoughts, just as Aristotle draws up a list of the categories. But although Descartes laid it down formerly as essential that no hypotheses must be made, yet now he takes the conceptions, and passes on to them as something found within our consciousness. He defines substance thus: “By substance I understand none other than a thing (rem) which requires no other something for existence; and there is only one thing, namely God, which can be regarded as such a substance requiring no other thing.” This is what Spinoza says; we may say that it is likewise the true definition, the unity of Notion and reality: “All other” (things) “can only exist by means of a concurrence (concursus) of God”; what we still call substance outside of God thus does not exist for itself, does not have its existence in the Notion itself. That is then called the system of assistance (systema assistentiæ) which is, however, transcendental. God is the absolute uniter of Notion and actuality; other things, finite things which have a limit and stand in dependence, require something else. “Hence if we likewise call other things substances, this expression is not applicable both to them and to God univoce, as is said in the schools; that is to say no definite significance can be given to this word which would equally apply both to God and to the creatures.”[182]
“But I do not recognize more than two sorts of things; the one is that of thinking things, and the other that of things which relate to what is extended.” Thought, the Notion, the spiritual, the self-conscious, is what is at home with itself, and its opposite is contained in what is extended, spatial, separated, not at home with itself nor free. This is the real distinction (distinctio realis) of substances: “The one substance can be clearly and definitely comprehended without the other. But the corporeal and the thinking and creating substance can be comprehended under this common notion, for the reason that they are things which require God’s support alone in order to exist.” They are universal; other finite things require other things as conditions essential to their existence. But extended substance, the kingdom of nature, and spiritual substance, do not require one another.[183] They may be called substances, because each of them constitutes an entire range or sphere, an independent totality. But because, Spinoza concluded, each side, the kingdom of thought as well as nature, is one complete system within itself, they are likewise in themselves, that is absolutely, identical as God, the absolute substance; for thinking spirit this implicit is thus God, or their differences are ideal.
Descartes proceeds from the Notion of God to what is created, to thought and extension, and from this to the particular. “Now substances have several attributes without which they cannot be thought”—that signifies their determinateness—“but each has something peculiar to itself which constitutes its nature and essence”—a simple universal determinateness—“and to which the others all relate. Thus thought constitutes the absolute attribute of mind,” thought is its quality; “extension is” the essential determination of corporeality, and this alone is “the true nature of body. What remains are merely secondary qualities, modes, like figure and movement in what is extended, imagination, feeling and will in thinking; they may be taken away or thought away. God is the uncreated, thinking substance.”[184]
Descartes here passes to what is individual, and because he follows up extension he arrives at matter, rest, movement. One of Descartes’ main points is that matter, extension, corporeality, are quite the same thing for thought; according to him the nature of body is fulfilled in its extension, and this should be accepted as the only essential fact respecting the corporeal world. We say that body offers resistance, has smell, taste, colour, transparency, hardness, &c., since without these we can have no body. All these further determinations respecting what is extended, such as size, rest, movement, and inertia, are, however, merely sensuous, and this Descartes showed, as it had long before this been shown by the Sceptics. Undoubtedly that is the abstract Notion or pure essence, but to body or to pure existence, there likewise of necessity pertains negativity or diversity. By means of the following illustration Descartes showed that with the exception of extension, all corporeal determinations may be annihilated, and that none can be absolutely predicated. We draw conclusions respecting the solidity and hardness of matter from the resistance which a body offers to our disturbance, and by means of which it seeks to hold its place. Now if we admit that matter as we touch it always gives way to us like space, we should have no reason for ascribing to it solidity. Smell, colour, taste, are in the same way sensuous qualities merely; but what we clearly perceive is alone true. If a body is ground into small parts, it gives way, and yet it does not lose its nature; resistance is thus not essential.[185] This not-being-for-itself is however a quantitatively slighter resistance only; the resistance always remains. But Descartes desires only to think; now he does not think resistance, colour, &c., but apprehends them by the senses only. Hence he says that all this must be led back to extension as being special modifications of the same. It is undoubtedly to the credit of Descartes that he only accepts as true what is thought; but the abrogation of these sensuous qualities simply represents the negative movement of thought: the essence of body is conditioned through this thought, that is, it is not true essence.
Descartes now makes his way from the Notion of extension to the laws of motion, as the universal knowledge of the corporeal in its implicitude; he shows (α) that there is no vacuum, for that would be an extension without bodily substance, i.e. a body without body; (β) that there are no atoms (no indivisible independent existence), for the same reason, viz., because the essence of body is extension. (γ) He further shows that a body is set in motion by something outside of it, but of itself it continues in a condition of rest, and likewise it must, when in a condition of movement, be brought to rest by another outside of it—this is the property of inertia.[186] These are unmeaning propositions, for an abstraction is involved for instance in asserting simple rest and movement in their opposition.
Extension and motion are the fundamental conceptions in mechanical physics; they represent the truth of the corporeal world. It is thus that ideality comes before the mind of Descartes, and he is far elevated above the reality of the sensuous qualities, although he does not reach so far as to the separation of this ideality. He thus remains at the point of view of mechanism pure and simple. Give me matter (extension) and motion and I will build worlds for you, is what Descartes virtually says.[187] Space and time were hence to him the only determinations of the material universe. In this, then, lies the mechanical fashion of viewing nature, or the natural philosophy of Descartes is seen to be purely mechanical.[188] Hence changes in matter are due merely to motion, so that Descartes traces every relationship to the rest and movement of particles, and all material diversity such as colour, and taste—in short, all bodily qualities and animal phenomena—to mechanism. In living beings processes such as that of digestion are mechanical effects which have as principles, rest and movement. We here see the ground and origin of the mechanical philosophy; but further on we find that this is unsatisfactory, for matter and motion do not suffice to explain life. Yet the great matter in all this is that thought goes forward in its determinations, and that it constitutes from these thought-determinations the truth of nature.
In his consideration of the system of the world and the movement of the heavenly bodies, Descartes has worked out the mechanical view more fully. He thus comes to speak of the earth, the sun, &c., and of his conception of the circling motion of the heavenly bodies in the form of vortices: of metaphysical hypotheses as to how small particles pass into, out of, and through pores and act on one another; and finally to saltpetre and gunpowder.[189]
Universal reflections should have the first claim on our attention; but on the other hand the transition to the determinate is accomplished in a system of Physics which is the result of observations and experiences, and this is done entirely by means of the understanding. Descartes thus mingles many observations with a metaphysic of this nature, and to us the result is hence obscure. In this philosophy the thinking treatment of empiricism is thus predominant, and a similar method has been adopted by philosophers from this time on. To Descartes and others, Philosophy had still the more indefinite significance of arriving at knowledge through thought, reflection, and reasoning. Speculative cognition, the derivation from the Notion, the free independent development of the matter itself, was first introduced by Fichte, and consequently what is now called philosophic knowledge is not yet separated in Descartes from the rest of scientific knowledge. In those times all the knowledge of mankind was called philosophy; in Descartes’ metaphysics we thus saw quite empirical reflection and reasoning from particular grounds, from experiences, facts, phenomena, being brought into play in the naivest manner, and one has no sense of speculation in the matter. The strictly scientific element here really consisted mainly in the method of proof as it has long been made use of in geometry, and in the ordinary method of the formal logical syllogism. Hence it likewise happens that Philosophy, which ought to form a totality of the sciences, begins with logic and metaphysics; the second part is composed of ordinary physics and mathematics, mingled no doubt with metaphysical speculations, and the third part, ethics, deals with the nature of man, his duties, the state, the citizen. And this is the case with Descartes. The first part of the Principia philosophiæ treats De principiis cognitionis humanæ, the second De principiis rerum materialium. This natural philosophy, as a philosophy of extension, is, however, none other than what a quite ordinary physics or mechanics might at that time be, and it is still quite hypothetical; we, on the other hand, accurately distinguish empirical physics and natural philosophy, even though the first likewise pertains to thought.
3. Descartes never reached the third part, the philosophy of Mind, for, while he made a special study of physics, in the region of ethics he published one tract only, De passionibus. In this reference Descartes treats of thought and human freedom. He proves freedom from the fact of the soul thinking that the will is unrestrained, and of that constituting the perfection of mankind. And this is quite true. In respect to the freedom of the will he comes across the difficulty of how to reconcile it with the divine prescience. As free, man might do what is not ordained of God beforehand—this would conflict with the omnipotence and omniscience of God; and if everything is ordained of God, human freedom would thereby be done away with. Yet he does not solve the contradiction contained in these two different aspects without falling into difficulty. But conformably to the method which he adopts, and which we pointed out above (pp. 238, 239), he says: “The human mind is finite, God’s power and predetermination are infinite; we are thus not capable of judging of the relationship in which the freedom of the human soul stands to the omnipotence and omniscience of God—but in self-consciousness we have the certainty of it given us as a fact. And we must hold only to what is certain.”[190] When he proceeds further much appears to him still incapable of explanation; but we see obstinacy and caprice likewise exhibited in his stopping short at the assertion as to the best of his knowledge. The method of knowledge as set forth by Descartes, takes the form of a reasoning of the understanding, and is thus without special interest.
These, then, are the principal points in the Cartesian system. Some particular assertions made by Descartes, which have been specially instrumental in giving him fame, have still to be mentioned—particular forms which have been formerly considered in metaphysics, and likewise by Wolff. For example, in the first place we gather that Descartes regarded animals and other organisms as machines moved by another, and not possessing the principle of the spontaneity of thought within them[191]—a mechanical physiology, a cut and dry thought pertaining to the understanding, which is of no further importance. In the sharp opposition between thought and extension, the former is not considered as sensation, so that the latter can isolate itself. The organic must as body reduce itself to extension; any further development of this last thus only proves its dependence on the first determinations.
In the second place, the relation between soul and body now becomes an important question, that is, the return of the object within itself in such a way that thought posits itself in another, in matter. As to this, many systems are offered to us in metaphysics. One of these is the influxus physicus, that the relation of spirit is of a corporeal nature, that the object is related to mind as bodies are to one another—a conception like this is very crude. How does Descartes understand the unity of soul and body? The former belongs to thought, the latter to extension; and thus because both are substance, neither requires the Notion of the other, and hence soul and body are independent of one another and can exercise no direct influence upon one another. Soul could only influence body in so far as it required the same, and conversely—that is, in so far as they have actual relation to one another. But since each is a totality, neither can bear a real relation to the other. Descartes consistently denied the physical influence of one on the other; that would have signified a mechanical relation between the two. Descartes thus established the intellectual sphere in contradistinction to matter, and on it based the independent subsistence of mind; for in his cogito ‘I’ is at first only certain of itself, since I can abstract from all. Now we find the necessity of a mediator to bring about a union of the abstract and the external and individual. Descartes settles this by placing between the two what constitutes the metaphysical ground of their mutual changes, God. He is the intermediate bond of union, in as far as He affords assistance to the soul in what it cannot through its own freedom accomplish, so that the changes in body and soul may correspond with one another.[192] If I have desires, an intention, these receive corporeal realization; this association of soul and body is, according to Descartes, effected through God. For above (p. 239) we saw that Descartes says of God that He is the Truth of the conception: as long as I think rightly and consistently, something real corresponds to my thought, and the connecting link is God. God is hereby the perfect identity of the two opposites, since He is, as Idea, the unity of Notion and reality. In the Idea of Spinoza this is worked out and developed in its further moments. Descartes’ conclusion is quite correct; in finite things this identity is imperfect. Only the form employed by Descartes is inadequate; for it implies that in the beginning there are two things, thought or soul and body, and that then God appears as a third thing, outside both—that He is not the Notion of unity, nor are the two elements themselves Notion. We must not however forget that Descartes says that both those original elements are created substances. But this expression ‘created’ pertains to the ordinary conception only and is not a determinate thought; it was Spinoza, therefore, who first accomplished this return to thought.
[2. Spinoza.]
The philosophy of Descartes underwent a great variety of unspeculative developments, but in Benedict Spinoza a direct successor to this philosopher may be found, and one who carried on the Cartesian principle to its furthest logical conclusions. For him soul and body, thought and Being, cease to have separate independent existence. The dualism of the Cartesian system Spinoza, as a Jew, altogether set aside. For the profound unity of his philosophy as it found expression in Europe, his manifestation of Spirit as the identity of the finite and the infinite in God, instead of God’s appearing related to these as a Third—all this is an echo from Eastern lands. The Oriental theory of absolute identity was brought by Spinoza much more directly into line, firstly with the current of European thought, and then with the European and Cartesian philosophy, in which it soon found a place.
First of all we must, however, glance at the circumstances of Spinoza’s life. He was by descent a Portuguese Jew, and was born at Amsterdam in the year 1632; the name he received was Baruch, but he altered it to Benedict. In his youth he was instructed by the Rabbis of the synagogue to which he belonged, but he soon fell out with them, their wrath having been kindled by the criticisms which he passed on the fantastic doctrines of the Talmud. He was not, therefore, long in absenting himself from the synagogue, and as the Rabbis were in dread lest his example should have evil consequences, they offered him a yearly allowance of a thousand gulden if he would keep away from the place and hold his tongue. This offer he declined; and the Rabbis thereafter carried their persecution of him to such a pitch that they were even minded to rid themselves of him by assassination. After having made a narrow escape from the dagger, he formally withdrew from the Jewish communion, without, however, going over to the Christian Church. He now applied himself particularly to the Latin language, and made a special study of the Cartesian philosophy. Later on he went to Rhynsburg, near Leyden, and from the year 1664 he lived in retirement, first at Voorburg, a village near the Hague, and then at the Hague itself, highly respected by numerous friends: he gained a livelihood for himself by grinding optical glasses. It was no arbitrary choice that led him to occupy himself with light, for it represents in the material sphere the absolute identity which forms the foundation of the Oriental view of things. Although he had rich friends and mighty protectors, among whom even generals were numbered, he lived in humble poverty, declining the handsome gifts offered to him time after time. Nor would he permit Simon von Vries to make him his heir; he only accepted from him an annual pension of three hundred florins; in the same way he gave up to his sisters his share of their father’s estate. From the Elector Palatine, Carl Ludwig, a man of most noble character and raised above the prejudices of his time, he received the offer of a professor’s chair at Heidelberg, with the assurance that he would have liberty to teach and to write, because “the Prince believed he would not put that liberty to a bad use by interfering with the religion publicly established.” Spinoza (in his published letters) very wisely declined this offer, however, because “he did not know within what limits that philosophic liberty would have to be confined, in order that he might not appear to be interfering with the publicly established religion.” He remained in Holland, a country highly interesting in the history of general culture, as it was the first in Europe to show the example of universal toleration, and afforded to many a place of refuge where they might enjoy liberty of thought; for fierce as was the rage of the theologians there against Bekker, for example (Bruck. Hist. crit. phil. T. IV. P. 2, pp. 719, 720), and furious as were the attacks of Voetius on the Cartesian philosophy, these had not the consequences which they would have had in another land. Spinoza died on the 21st of February, 1677, in the forty-fourth year of his age. The cause of his death was consumption, from which he had long been a sufferer; this was in harmony with his system of philosophy, according to which all particularity and individuality pass away in the one substance. A Protestant divine, Colerus by name, who published a biography of Spinoza, inveighs strongly against him, it is true, but gives nevertheless a most minute and kindly description of his circumstances and surroundings—telling how he left only about two hundred thalers, what debts he had, and so on. A bill included in the inventory, in which the barber requests payment due him by M. Spinoza of blessed memory, scandalizes the parson very much, and regarding it he makes the observation: “Had the barber but known what sort of a creature Spinoza was, he certainly would not have spoken of his blessed memory.” The German translator of this biography writes under the portrait of Spinoza: characterem, reprobationis in vultu gerens, applying this description to a countenance which doubtless expresses the melancholy of a profound thinker, but is otherwise mild and benevolent. The reprobatio is certainly correct; but it is not a reprobation in the passive sense; it is an active disapprobation on Spinoza’s part of the opinions, errors and thoughtless passions of mankind.[193]
Spinoza used the terminology of Descartes, and also published an account of his system. For we find the first of Spinoza’s works entitled “An Exposition according to the geometrical method of the principles of the Cartesian philosophy.” Some time after this he wrote his Tractatus theologico-politicus, and by it gained considerable reputation. Great as was the hatred which Spinoza roused amongst his Rabbis, it was more than equalled by the odium which he brought upon himself amongst Christian, and especially amongst Protestant theologians—chiefly through the medium of this essay. It contains his views on inspiration, a critical treatment of the books of Moses and the like, chiefly from the point of view that the laws therein contained are limited in their application to the Jews. Later Christian theologians have written critically on this subject, usually making it their object to show that these books were compiled at a later time, and that they date in part from a period subsequent to the Babylonian captivity; this has become a crucial point with Protestant theologians, and one by which the modern school distinguishes itself from the older, greatly pluming itself thereon. All this, however, is already to be found in the above-mentioned work of Spinoza. But Spinoza drew the greatest odium upon himself by his philosophy proper, which we must now consider as it is given to us in his Ethics. While Descartes published no writings on this subject, the Ethics of Spinoza is undoubtedly his greatest work; it was published after his death by Ludwig Mayer, a physician, who had been Spinoza’s most intimate friend. It consists of five parts; the first deals with God (De Deo). General metaphysical ideas are contained in it, which include the knowledge of God and nature. The second part deals with the nature and origin of mind (De natura et origine mentis). We see thus that Spinoza does not treat of the subject of natural philosophy, extension and motion at all, for he passes immediately from God to the philosophy of mind, to the ethical point of view; and what refers to knowledge, intelligent mind, is brought forward in the first part, under the head of the principles of human knowledge. The third book of the Ethics deals with the origin and nature of the passions (De origine et natura affectuum); the fourth with the powers of the same, or human slavery (De servitute humana seu de affectuum viribus); the fifth, lastly, with the power of the understanding, with thought, or with human liberty (De potentia intellectus seu de libertate humana).[194] Kirchenrath Professor Paulus published Spinoza’s works in Jena; I had a share in the bringing out of this edition, having been entrusted with the collation of French translations.
As regards the philosophy of Spinoza, it is very simple, and on the whole easy to comprehend; the difficulty which it presents is due partly to the limitations of the method in which Spinoza presents his thoughts, and partly to his narrow range of ideas, which causes him in an unsatisfactory way to pass over important points of view and cardinal questions. Spinoza’s system is that of Descartes made objective in the form of absolute truth. The simple thought of Spinoza’s idealism is this: The true is simply and solely the one substance, whose attributes are thought and extension or nature: and only this absolute unity is reality, it alone is God. It is, as with Descartes, the unity of thought and Being, or that which contains the Notion of its existence in itself. The Cartesian substance, as Idea, has certainly Being included in its Notion; but it is only Being as abstract, not as real Being or as extension (supra, p. 241). With Descartes corporeality and the thinking ‘I’ are altogether independent Beings; this independence of the two extremes is done away with in Spinozism by their becoming moments of the one absolute Being. This expression signifies that Being must be grasped as the unity of opposites; the chief consideration is not to let slip the opposition and set it aside, but to reconcile and resolve it. Since then it is thought and Being, and no longer the abstractions of the finite and infinite, or of limit and the unlimited, that form the opposition (supra, p. 161), Being is here more definitely regarded as extension; for in its abstraction it would be really only that return into itself, that simple equality with itself, which constitutes thought (supra, p. 229). The pure thought of Spinoza is therefore not the simple universal of Plato, for it has likewise come to know the absolute opposition of Notion and Being.
Taken as a whole, this constitutes the Idea of Spinoza, and it is just what τὸ ὄν was to the Eleatics (Vol. I. pp. 244, 252). This Idea of Spinoza’s we must allow to be in the main true and well-grounded; absolute substance is the truth, but it is not the whole truth; in order to be this it must also be thought of as in itself active and living, and by that very means it must determine itself as mind. But substance with Spinoza is only the universal and consequently the abstract determination of mind; it may undoubtedly be said that this thought is the foundation of all true views—not, however, as their absolutely fixed and permanent basis, but as the abstract unity which mind is in itself. It is therefore worthy of note that thought must begin by placing itself at the standpoint of Spinozism; to be a follower of Spinoza is the essential commencement of all Philosophy. For as we saw above (Vol I. p. 144), when man begins to philosophize, the soul must commence by bathing in this ether of the One Substance, in which all that man has held as true has disappeared; this negation of all that is particular, to which every philosopher must have come, is the liberation of the mind and its absolute foundation. The difference between our standpoint and that of the Eleatic philosophy is only this, that through the agency of Christianity concrete individuality is in the modern world present throughout in spirit. But in spite of the infinite demands on the part of the concrete, substance with Spinoza is not yet determined as in itself concrete. As the concrete is thus not present in the content of substance, it is therefore to be found within reflecting thought alone, and it is only from the endless oppositions of this last that the required unity emerges. Of substance as such there is nothing more to be said; all that we can do is to speak of the different ways in which Philosophy has dealt with it, and the opposites which in it are abrogated. The difference depends on the nature of the opposites which are held to be abrogated in substance. Spinoza is far from having proved this unity as convincingly as was done by the ancients; but what constitutes the grandeur of Spinoza’s manner of thought is that he is able to renounce all that is determinate and particular, and restrict himself to the One, giving heed to this alone.
1. Spinoza begins (Eth. P. I pp. 35, 36) with a series of definitions, from which we take the following.
a. Spinoza’s first definition is of the Cause of itself. He says: “By that which is causa sui, its own cause, I understand that whose essence” (or Notion) “involves existence, or which cannot be conceived except as existent.” The unity of existence and universal thought is asserted from the very first, and this unity will ever be the question at issue. “The cause of itself” is a noteworthy expression, for while we picture to ourselves that the effect stands in opposition to the cause, the cause of itself is the cause which, while it operates and separates an “other,” at the same time produces only itself, and in the production therefore does away with this distinction. The establishing of itself as an other is loss or degeneration, and at the same time the negation of this loss; this is a purely speculative Notion, indeed a fundamental Notion in all speculation. The cause in which the cause is identical with the effect, is the infinite cause (infra, p. 263); if Spinoza had further developed what lies in the causa sui, substance with him would not have been rigid and unworkable.
b. The second definition is that of the finite. “That thing is said to be finite in its kind which can be limited by another of the same nature,” For it comes then to an end, it is not there; what is there is something else. This something else must, however, be of a like nature; for those things which are to limit each other must, in order to be able to limit each other, touch each other, and consequently have a relation to each other, that is to say they must be of one nature, stand on a like basis, and have a common sphere. That is the affirmative side of the limit. “Thus a thought is” only “limited by another thought, a body by another body, but thoughts are not limited by bodies nor” conversely “bodies by thoughts.” We saw this (p. 244) with Descartes: thought is an independent totality and so is extension, they have nothing to do with one another; they do not limit each other, each is included in itself.
c. The third definition is that of substance. “By substance I understand that which exists in itself and is conceived by itself, i.e. the conception of which does not require the aid of the conception of any other thing for its formation (a quo formari debeat);” otherwise it would be finite, accidental. What cannot have a conception formed of it without the aid of something else, is not independent, but is dependent upon that something else.
d. In the fourth place Spinoza defines attributes, which, as the moment coming second to substance, belong to it. “By attribute I understand that which the mind perceives as constituting the essence of substance;” and to Spinoza this alone is true. This is an important determination; the attribute is undoubtedly a determinateness, but at the same time it remains a totality. Spinoza, like Descartes, accepts only two attributes, thought and extension. The understanding grasps them as the reality of substance, but the reality is not higher than the substance, for it is only reality in the view of the understanding, which falls outside substance. Each of the two ways of regarding substance—extension and thought—contains no doubt the whole content of substance, but only in one form, which the understanding brings with it; and for this very reason both sides are in themselves identical and infinite. This is the true completion; but where substance passes over into attribute is not stated.
e. The fifth definition has to do with what comes third in relation to substance, the mode. “By mode I understand the affections of substance, or that which is in something else, through the aid of which also it is conceived.” Thus substance is conceived through itself; attribute is not conceived through itself, but has a relation to the conceiving understanding, in so far as this last conceives reality; mode, finally, is what is not conceived as reality, but through and in something else.
These last three moments Spinoza ought not merely to have established in this way as conceptions, he ought to have deduced them; they are especially important, and correspond with what we more definitely distinguish as universal, particular and individual. They must not, however, be taken as formal, but in their true concrete sense; the concrete universal is substance, the concrete particular is the concrete species; the Father and Son in the Christian dogma are similarly particular, but each of them contains the whole nature of God, only under a different form. The mode is the individual, the finite as such, which enters into external connection with what is “other.” In this Spinoza only descends to a lower stage, the mode is only the foregoing warped and stunted. Spinoza’s defect is therefore this, that he takes the third moment as mode alone, as a false individuality. True individuality and subjectivity is not a mere retreat from the universal, not merely something clearly determinate; for, as clearly determinate, it is at the same time Being-for-itself, determined by itself alone. The individual, the subjective, is even in being so the return to the universal; and in that it is at home with itself, it is itself the universal. The return consists simply and solely in the fact of the particular being in itself the universal; to this return Spinoza did not attain. Rigid substantiality is the last point he reached, not infinite form; this he knew not, and thus determinateness continually vanishes from his thought.
f. In the sixth place, the definition of the infinite is also of importance, for in the infinite Spinoza defines more strictly than anywhere else the Notion of the Notion. The infinite has a double significance, according as it is taken as the infinitely many or as the absolutely infinite (infra, p. 263). “The infinite in its kind is not such in respect of all possible attributes; but the absolutely infinite is that to whose essence all belongs that expresses an essence and contains no negation.” In the same sense Spinoza distinguishes in the nine-and-twentieth Letter (Oper. T. I. pp. 526-532) the infinite of imagination from the infinite of thought (intellectus), the actual (actu) infinite. Most men, when they wish to strive after the sublime, get no farther than the first of these; this is the false infinite, just as when one says “and so on into infinity,” meaning perhaps the infinity of space from star to star, or else the infinity of time. An infinite numerical series in mathematics is exactly the same thing. If a certain fraction is represented as a decimal fraction, it is incomplete; ⅐\u2150 is, on the contrary, the true infinite, and therefore not an incomplete expression, although the content here is of course limited. It is infinity in the incorrect sense that one usually has in view when infinity is spoken of; and even if it is looked on as sublime, it yet is nothing present, and only goes ever out into the negative, without being actual (actu). But for Spinoza the infinite is not the fixing of a limit and then passing beyond the limit fixed—the sensuous infinity—but absolute infinity, the positive, which has complete and present in itself an absolute multiplicity which has no Beyond. Philosophic infinity, that which is infinite actu, Spinoza therefore calls the absolute affirmation of itself. This is quite correct, only it might have been better expressed as: “It is the negation of negation.” Spinoza here also employs geometrical figures as illustrations of the Notion of infinity. In his Opera postuma, preceding his Ethics, and also in the letter quoted above, he has two circles, one of which lies within the other, which have not, however, a common centre.
“The inequalities of the space between A B and C D exceed every number; and yet the space which lies between is not so very great.” That is to say, if I wish to determine them all, I must enter upon an infinite series. This “beyond” always, however, remains defective, is always affected with negation; and yet this false infinite is there to hand, circumscribed, affirmative, actual and present in that plane as a complete space between the two circles. Or a finite line consists of an infinite number of points; and yet the line is present here and determined; the “beyond” of the infinite number of points, which are not complete, is in it complete and called back into unity. The infinite should be represented as actually present, and this comes to pass in the Notion of the cause of itself, which is therefore the true infinity. As soon as the cause has something else opposed to it—the effect—finitude is present; but here this something else is at the same time abrogated and it becomes once more the cause itself. The affirmative is thus negation of negation, since, according to the well-known grammatical rule, duplex negatio affirmat. In the same way Spinoza’s earlier definitions have also the infinite already implied in them, for instance in the case of the just mentioned cause of itself, inasmuch as he defines it as that whose essence involves existence (supra, p. 258). Notion and existence are each the Beyond of the other; but cause of itself, as thus including them, is really the carrying back of this “beyond” into unity. Or (supra, p. 259) “Substance is that which is in itself and is conceived from itself;” that is the same unity of Notion and existence. The infinite is in the same way in itself and has also its Notion in itself; its Notion is its Being, and its Being its Notion; true infinity is therefore to be found in Spinoza. But he has no consciousness of this; he has not recognized this Notion as absolute Notion, and therefore has not expressed it as a moment of true existence; for with him the Notion falls outside of existence, into the thought of existence.
g. Finally Spinoza says in the seventh place: “God is a Being absolutely infinite, i.e. a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essence.” Does substance, one might here ask, possess an infinite number of attributes? But as with Spinoza there are only two attributes, thought and extension, with which he invests God, “infinite” is not to be taken here in the sense of the indeterminate many, but positively, as a circle is perfect infinity in itself.
The whole of Spinoza’s philosophy is contained in these definitions, which, however, taken as a whole are formal; it is really a weak point in Spinoza that he begins thus with definitions. In mathematics this method is permitted, because at the outset we there make assumptions, such as that of the point and line; but in Philosophy the content should be known as the absolutely true. It is all very well to grant the correctness of the name-definition, and acknowledge that the word “substance” corresponds with the conception which the definition indicates, but it is quite another question to determine whether this content is absolutely true. Such a question is not asked in the case of geometrical propositions, but in philosophic investigation it is the very thing to be first considered, and this Spinoza has not done. Instead of only explaining these simple thoughts and representing them as concrete in the definitions which he makes, what he ought to have done was to examine whether this content is true. To all appearance it is only the explanation of the words that is given; but the content of the words is held to be established. All further content is merely derived from that, and proved thereby; for on the first content all the rest depends, and if it is established as a basis, the other necessarily follows. “The attribute is that which the understanding thinks of God.” But here the question is: How does it come that besides the Deity there now appears the understanding, which applies to absolute substance the two forms of thought and extension? and whence come these two forms themselves? Thus everything proceeds inwards, and not outwards; the determinations are not developed from substance, it does not resolve itself into these attributes.
2. These definitions are followed by axioms and propositions in which Spinoza proves a great variety of points. He descends from the universal of substance through the particular, thought and extension, to the individual. He has thus all three moments of the Notion, or they are essential to him. But the mode, under which head falls individuality, he does not recognize as essential, or as constituting a moment of true existence in that existence; for it disappears in existence, or it is not raised into the Notion.
a. The main point then is that Spinoza proves from these Notions that there is only One Substance, God. It is a simple chain of reasoning, a very formal proof. “Fifth Proposition: There cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or of the same attribute.” This is implied already in the definitions; the proof is therefore a useless and wearisome toil, which only serves to render Spinoza more difficult to understand. “If there were several” (substances of the same attribute) “they must be distinguished from one another either by the diversity of their attributes or by the diversity of their affections” (modes). “If they are distinguished by their attributes, it would be directly conceded that there is only one substance having the same attribute.” For the attributes are simply what the understanding grasps as the essence of the one substance, which is determined in itself, and not through anything else. “But if these substances were distinguished by their affections, since substance is by nature prior to its affections it would follow that if from substance its affections were abstracted and it were regarded in itself, i.e. in its truth, it could henceforth not be regarded as distinct from other substances.” “Eighth Proposition: All substance is necessarily infinite. Proof: For otherwise it must be limited by another substance of the same nature, in which case there would be two substances of the same attribute, which is contrary to the fifth proposition.” “Every attribute must be conceived for itself,” as determination reflected on itself. “For attribute is what the mind conceives of substance as constituting its essence, from which it follows that it must be conceived through itself,” i.e. substance is what is conceived through itself (see the fourth and third definitions). “Therefore we may not argue from the plurality of attributes to a plurality of substances, for each is conceived by itself, and they have all been, always and at the same time, in substance, without the possibility of the one being produced by the other.” “Substance is indivisible. For if the parts retained the nature of the substance, there would be several substances of the same nature, which is contrary to the fifth proposition. If not, infinite substance would cease to exist, which is absurd.”[195]
“Fourteenth Proposition: No other substance than God can either exist or be conceived. Proof: God is the absolutely infinite substance, to whom can be denied no attribute which expresses the essence of substance, and He exists necessarily; therefore if there were a substance other than God, it must be explained by means of an attribute of God.” Consequently the substance would not have its own being, but that of God, and therefore would not be a substance. Or if it were still to be substance, “then there would necessarily follow the possibility of there being two substances with the same attribute, which according to the fifth proposition is absurd. From this it then follows that the thing extended and the thing that thinks” are not substances, but “are either attributes of God, or affections of His attributes.” By these proofs and others like them not much is to be gained. “Fifteenth, proposition: What is, is in God, and cannot exist or be conceived without God.” “Sixteenth proposition: By the necessity of the divine nature infinite things must follow in infinite modes, i.e., all that can fall under the infinite understanding. God is therefore the absolute First Cause.”[196]
Spinoza then ascribes freedom and necessity to God: “God is the absolute free cause, who is determined by nothing outside of Himself, for He exists solely by the necessity of His nature. There is no cause which inwardly or outwardly moves Him to act, except the perfection of His nature. His activity is by the laws of His Being necessary and eternal; what therefore follows from His absolute nature, from His attributes, is eternal, as it follows from the nature of the triangle from eternity and to eternity that its three angles are equal to two right angles.” That is to say, His Being is His absolute power; actus and potentia, Thought and Being, are in Him one. God has not therefore any other thoughts which He could not have actualized. “God is the immanent cause of all things, not the transient (transiens),” i.e., external cause. “His essence and His existence are the same, namely, the truth. A thing which is determined to perform some action, is, since God is cause, necessarily determined thereto by God; and a thing which is thus determined cannot render itself undetermined. In nature nothing is contingent. Will is not a free cause, but only a necessary cause, only a mode; it is therefore determined by another. God acts in accordance with no final causes (sub ratione boni). Those who assert that He does so, appear to establish something apart from God, which does not depend on God, and which God in His working keeps in view, as though it were an end. If this view is taken, God is not a free cause, but is subject to fate. It is equally inadmissible to subject all things to the arbitrary pleasure of God, i.e., to His indifferent will.”[197] He is determined solely by His own nature; the activity of God is thus His power, and that is necessity. He is then absolute power in contrast to wisdom, which sets up definite aims, and consequently limitations; particular aims, thoughts of what is about to come to pass, and the like are therefore put out of the question. But beyond this universal, no advance is made; for it must be noticed as specially singular, that Spinoza in the fiftieth Letter (Oper. T. I. p. 634) says that every determination is a negation. Moreover, if God is the cause of the world, it is implied that He is finite; for the world is here put beside God as something different from Him.
b. The greatest difficulty in Spinoza is, in the distinctions to which he comes, to grasp the relation of this determinate to God, at the same time preserving the determination. “God is a thinking Being, because all individual thoughts are modes which express God’s nature in a certain and determinate manner; there pertains therefore to God an attribute the conception of which all individual thoughts involve, and by means of this they also are conceived. God is an extended Being for the same reason.” This means that the same substance, under the attribute of thought, is the intelligible world, and under the attribute of extension, is nature; nature and thought thus both express the same Essence of God. Or, as Spinoza says, “The order and system of natural things is the same as the order of the thoughts. Thus, for instance, the circle which exists in nature, and the idea of the existing circle, which is also in God, are one and the same thing” (they are one and the same content), “which is” merely “expressed by means of different attributes. If we therefore regard nature either under the attribute of extension or of thought, or under any other attribute whatever, we shall find one and the same connection of causes, i.e., the same sequence of things. The formal Being of the idea of the circle can be conceived only by means of the mode of thought, as its proximate cause, and this mode again by means of another, and so on infinitely; so that we must explain the order of the whole of nature, or the connection of causes, by the attribute of thought alone, and if things are considered by the attribute of extension, they must be considered only by the attribute of extension,—and the same holds good of other causes.”[198] It is one and the same system, which at one time appears as nature, and at another time in the form of thought.
But Spinoza does not demonstrate how these two are evolved from the one substance, nor does he prove why there can only be two of them. Neither are extension and thought anything to him in themselves, or in truth, but only externally; for their difference is a mere matter of the understanding, which is ranked by Spinoza only among affections (Eth. P. I. Prop. XXXI. Demonst. p. 62), and as such has no truth. This has in recent times been served up again by Schelling in the following form: In themselves, the intelligent world and the corporeal world are the same, only under different forms; so that the intelligent universe is in itself the whole absolute divine totality, and the corporeal universe is equally this same totality. The differences are not in themselves, but the different aspects from which the Absolute is regarded are matters external to it. We take a higher tone in saying that nature and mind are rational; but reason is for us no empty word, for it means the totality which develops itself within itself. Again, it is the standpoint of reflection to regard aspects only, and nothing in itself. This defect appears in Spinoza and Schelling in the fact that they see no necessity why the Notion, as the implicit negative of its unity, should make a separation of itself into different parts; so that out of the simple universal the real, the opposed, itself becomes known. Absolute substance, attribute and mode, Spinoza allows to follow one another as definitions, he adopts them ready-made, without the attributes being developed from the substance, or the modes from the attributes. And more especially in regard to the attributes, there is no necessity evident, why these are thought and extension in particular.
c. When Spinoza passes on to individual things, especially to self-consciousness, to the freedom of the ‘I,’ he expresses himself in such a way as rather to lead back all limitations to substance than to maintain a firm grasp of the individual. Thus we already found the attributes not to be independent, but only the forms in which the understanding grasps substance in its differences; what comes third, the modes, is that under which for Spinoza all difference of things alone falls. Of the modes he says (Ethic. P. I. Prop. XXXII. Demonst. et Coroll. II. p. 63): In every attribute there are two modes; in extension, these are rest and motion, in thought they are understanding and will (intellectus et voluntas). They are mere modifications which only exist for us apart from God; therefore whatever refers to this difference and is specially brought about by it, is not absolute, but finite. These affections Spinoza sums up (Ethices, P. I. Prop. XXIX. Schol. pp. 61, 62) under the head of natura naturata: “Natura naturans is God regarded as free cause, in so far as He is in Himself and is conceived by Himself: or such attributes of substance as express the eternal and infinite essence. By natura naturata, I understand all that follows from the necessity of the divine nature, or from any of the attributes of God, all modes of the divine attributes, in so far as they are regarded as things which are in God, and which without God can neither exist nor be conceived.” From God proceeds nothing, for all things merely return to the point whence they came, if from themselves the commencement is made.
These then are Spinoza’s general forms, this is his principal idea. Some further determinations have still to be mentioned. He gives definitions of the terms modes, understanding, will, and of the affections, such as joy and sadness.[199] We further find consciousness taken into consideration. Its development is extremely simple, or rather it is not developed at all; Spinoza begins directly with mind. “The essence of man consists of certain modifications of the attributes of God”; these modifications are only something related to our understanding. “If we, therefore, say that the human mind perceives this or that, it means nothing else than that God has this or that idea, not in so far as He is infinite, but in so far as He is expressed by the idea of the human mind. And if we say that God has this or that idea, not in so far as He constitutes the idea of the human mind, but in so far as He has, along with the human mind, the idea of another thing, then we say that the human mind perceives the thing partially or inadequately.” Truth is for Spinoza, on the other hand, the adequate.[200] The idea that all particular content is only a modification of God is ridiculed by Bayle,[201] who argues from it that God modified as Turks and Austrians, is waging war with Himself; but Bayle has not a trace of the speculative element in him, although he is acute enough as a dialectician, and has contributed to the intelligent discussion of definite subjects.
The relation of thought and extension in the human consciousness is dealt with by Spinoza as follows: “What has a place in the object” (or rather in the objective) “of the idea which constitutes the human mind must be perceived by the human mind; or there must necessarily be in the mind an idea of this object. The object of the idea which constitutes the human mind is body, or a certain mode of extension. If, then, the object of the idea which constitutes the human mind, is the body, there can happen nothing in the body which is not perceived by the mind. Otherwise the ideas of the affections of the body would not be in God, in so far as He constitutes our mind, but the idea of another thing: that is to say, the ideas of the affections of our body would not be likewise in our mind.” What is perplexing to understand in Spinoza’s system is, on the one hand, the absolute identity of thought and Being, and, on the other hand, their absolute indifference to one another, because each of them is a manifestation of the whole essence of God. The unity of the body and consciousness is, according to Spinoza, this, that the individual is a mode of the absolute substance, which, as consciousness, is the representation of the manner in which the body is affected by external things; all that is in consciousness is also in extension, and conversely. “Mind knows itself only in so far as it perceives the ideas of the affections of body,” it has only the idea of the affections of its body; this idea is synthetic combination, as we shall immediately see. “The ideas, whether of the attributes of God or of individual things, do not recognize as their efficient cause their objects themselves, or the things perceived, but God Himself, in so far as He is that which thinks.”[202] Buhle (Geschichte der neuern Philos. Vol. III. Section II. p. 524) sums up these propositions of Spinoza thus: “Thought is inseparably bound up with extension; therefore all that takes place in extension must also take place in consciousness.” Spinoza, however, also accepts both in their separation from one another. The idea of body, he writes (Epistol. LXVI. p. 673), includes only these two in itself, and does not express any other attributes. The body which it represents is regarded under the attribute of extension; but the idea itself is a mode of thought. Here we see a dividing asunder; mere identity, the undistinguishable nature of all things in the Absolute, is insufficient even for Spinoza.
The individuum, individuality itself, is thus defined by Spinoza (Ethic. P. II. Prop. XIII. Defin. p. 92): “When several bodies of the same or of different magnitudes are so pressed together that they rest on one another, or when, moving with like or different degrees of rapidity, they communicate their movement to one another in a certain measure, we say that such bodies are united to one another, and that all together they form one body or individuum, which by this union distinguishes itself from all the other bodies.” Here we are at the extreme limit of Spinoza’s system, and it is here that his weak point appears. Individuation, the one, is a mere synthesis; it is quite a different thing from the Ichts or self-hood of Boehme (supra, pp. 205-207), since Spinoza has only universality, thought, and not self-consciousness. If, before considering this in reference to the whole, we take it from the other side, namely from the understanding, the distinction really falls under that head; it is not deduced, it is found. Thus, as we have already seen (p. 270) “the understanding in act (intellectus actu), as also will, desire, love, must be referred to natura naturata, not to natura naturans. For by the understanding, as recognized for itself, we do not mean absolute thought, but only a certain mode of thought—a mode which is distinct from other modes like desire, love, etc., and on that account must be conceived by means of absolute thought, i.e. by means of an attribute of God which expresses an eternal and infinite essentiality of thought; without which the understanding, as also the rest of the modes of thought, could neither be nor be conceived to be.” (Spinoza, Ethices, P. I. Propos. XXXI. pp. 62, 63). Spinoza is unacquainted with an infinity of form, which would be something quite different from that of rigid, unyielding substance. What is requisite is to recognize God as the essence of essences, as universal substance, identity, and yet to preserve distinctions.
Spinoza goes on to say: “What constitutes the real (actuale) existence of the human mind is nothing else than the idea of a particular” (individual) “thing, that actually exists,” not of an infinite thing. “The essence of man involves no necessary existence, i.e. according to the order of nature a man may just as well be as not be.” For the human consciousness, as it does not belong to essence as an attribute, is a mode—a mode of the attribute of thought. But neither is the body, according to Spinoza, the cause of consciousness, nor is consciousness the cause of the body, but the finite cause is here only the relation of like to like; body is determined by body, conception by conception. “The body can neither determine the mind to thought, nor can the mind determine the body to motion, or rest, or anything else. For all modes of thought have God as Cause, in so far as He is a thinking thing, and not in so far as He is revealed by means of another attribute. What therefore determines the mind to thought, is a mode of thought and not of extension; similarly motion and rest of the body must be derived from another body.”[203] I might quote many other such particular propositions from Spinoza, but they are very formal, and a continual repetition of one and the same thing.
Buhle (Gesch. d. neuern Phil. Vol. III. Section 2, pp. 525-528), attributes limited conceptions to Spinoza: “The soul experiences in the body all the ‘other’ of which it becomes aware as outside of the body, and it becomes aware of this ‘other’ only by means of the conceptions of the qualities which the body perceives therein. If, therefore, the body can perceive no qualities of a thing, the soul also can come to no knowledge of it. On the other hand, the soul is equally unable to arrive at the perception of the body which belongs to it; the soul knows not that the body is there, and knows itself even in no other way than by means of the qualities which the body perceives in things which are outside of it, and by means of the conceptions of the same. For the body is an individual thing, determined in a certain manner, which can only gradually, in association with and amidst other individual things, attain to existence, and can preserve itself in existence only as thus connected, combined and associated with others,” i.e. in infinite progress; the body can by no means be conceived from itself. “The soul’s consciousness expresses a certain determinate form of a Notion, as the Notion itself expresses a determinate form of an individual thing. But the individual thing, its Notion, and the Notion of this Notion are altogether and entirely one and the same thing, only regarded under different attributes. As the soul is nothing else than the immediate Notion of the body, and is one and the same thing with this, the excellence of the soul can never be anything else than the excellence of the body. The capacities of the understanding are nothing but the capacities of the body, if they are looked at from the corporeal point of view, and the decisions of the will are likewise determinations of the body. Individual things are derived from God in an eternal and infinite manner” (i.e. once and for all), “and not in a transitory, finite and evanescent manner: they are derived from one another merely inasmuch as they mutually produce and destroy each other, but in their eternal existence they endure unchangeable. All individual things mutually presuppose each other; one cannot be thought without the other; that is to say they constitute together an inseparable whole; they exist side by side in one utterly indivisible, infinite Thing, and in no other way whatever.”
3. We have now to speak of Spinoza’s system of morals, and that is a subject of importance. Its great principle is no other than this, that the finite spirit is moral in so far as it has the true Idea, i.e. in so far as it directs its knowledge and will on God, for truth is merely the knowledge of God. It may be said that there is no morality loftier than this, since its only requisite is to have a clear idea of God. The first thing Spinoza speaks of in this regard is the affections: “Everything strives after self-preservation. This striving is the actual essence of the thing, and involves only indefinite time; when referred exclusively to mind, it is termed will; when referred to both mind and body together, it is called desire. Determination of the will (volitio) and Idea are one and the same thing. The sense of liberty rests on this, that men do not know the determining causes of their actions. The affection is a confused idea; the more clearly and distinctly, therefore, we know the affection, the more it is under our control.”[204] The influence of the affections, as confused and limited (inadequate) ideas, upon human action, constitutes therefore, according to Spinoza, human slavery; of the passionate affections the principal are joy and sorrow; we are in suffering and slavery in so far as we relate ourselves as a part.[205]
“Our happiness and liberty consist in an enduring and eternal love to God; this intellectual love follows from the nature of mind, in so far as it is regarded as eternal truth through the nature of God. The more a man recognizes God’s existence and loves Him, the less does he suffer from evil affections and the less is his fear of death.”[206] Spinoza requires in addition the true kind of knowledge. There are, according to him, three kinds of knowledge; in the first, which he calls opinion and imagination, he includes the knowledge which we obtain from an individual object through the senses—a knowledge fragmentary and ill-arranged—also knowledge drawn from signs, pictorial conceptions and memory. The second kind of knowledge is for Spinoza that which we derive from general conceptions and adequate ideas of the properties of things. The third is intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva) which rises from the adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things.[207] Regarding this last he then says: “The nature of reason is not to contemplate things as contingent, but as necessary ... to think of all things under a certain form of eternity (sub quadam specie œternitatis);” i.e. in absolutely adequate Notions, i.e. in God. “For the necessity of things is the necessity of the eternal nature of God Himself. Every idea of an individual thing necessarily includes the eternal and infinite essence of God in itself. For individual things are modes of an attribute of God; therefore they must include in themselves His eternal essence. Our mind, in so far as it knows itself and the body under the form of eternity, has to that extent necessarily the knowledge of God, and knows that it is itself in God and is conceived through God. All Ideas, in so far as they are referable to God, are true.”[208] Man must trace back all things to God, for God is the One in All; the eternal essence of God is the one thing that is, the eternal truth is the only thing for man to aim at in his actions. With Spinoza this is not a knowledge arrived at through philosophy, but only knowledge of a truth. “The mind can succeed in tracing back all affections of the body or images of things to God. In proportion as the mind regards all things as necessary, it has a greater power over its affections,” which are arbitrary and contingent. This is the return of the mind to God, and this is human freedom; as mode, on the other hand, the spirit has no freedom, but is determined from without. “From the third kind of knowledge there arises the repose of the mind; the supreme good of the mind is to know God, and this is its highest virtue. This knowledge necessarily produces the intellectual love of God; for it produces a joyfulness accompanied by the Idea of God as cause—i.e. the intellectual love of God. God Himself loves Himself with an infinite intellectual love.”[209] For God can have only Himself as aim and cause; and the end of the subjective mind is to be directed on Him. This is therefore the purest, but also a universal morality.
In the thirty-sixth Letter (pp. 581-582) Spinoza speaks of Evil. The allegation is made that God, as the originator of all things and everything, is also the originator of evil, is consequently Himself evil; in this identity all things are one, good and evil are in themselves the same thing, in God’s substance this difference has disappeared. Spinoza says in answer to this: “I assert the fact that God absolutely and truly” (as cause of Himself) “is the cause of everything that has an essential content” (i.e. affirmative reality) “be it what it may. Now if you can prove to me that evil, error, crime, etc., are something that expresses an essence, I will freely admit to you that God is the originator of crime and evil and error. But I have elsewhere abundantly demonstrated that the form of evil cannot subsist in anything that expresses an essence, and therefore it cannot be said that God is the cause of evil.” Evil is merely negation, privation, limitation, finality, mode—nothing in itself truly real. “Nero’s murder of his mother, in so far as it had positive content, was no crime. For Orestes did the same external deed, and had in doing it the same end in view—to kill his mother; and yet he is not blamed,” and so on. The affirmative is the will, the intention, the act of Nero. “Wherein then consists Nero’s criminality? In nothing else but that he proved himself ungrateful, merciless, and disobedient. But it is certain that all this expresses no essence, and therefore God was not the cause of it, though He was the cause of Nero’s action and intention.” These last are something positive, but yet they do not constitute the crime as such; it is only the negative element, such as mercilessness, etc. that makes the action a crime. “We know that whatever exists, regarded in itself and without taking anything else into consideration, contains a perfection which extends as widely as the essence of the thing itself extends, for the essence is in no way different therefrom.”—“Because then,” we find in the thirty-second letter (pp. 541, 543), “God does not regard things abstractly, or form general definitions,” (of what the thing ought to be) “and no more reality is required of things than the Divine understanding and power has given and actually meted out to them; therefore it clearly follows that such privation exists only and solely in respect to our understanding, but not in respect to God;” for God is absolutely real. It is all very well to say this, but it does not meet the case. For in this way God and the respect to our understanding are different. Where is their unity? How is this to be conceived? Spinoza continues in the thirty-sixth letter: “Although the works of the righteous (i.e. of those who have a clear idea of God, to which they direct all their actions and even their thoughts), and” also the works “of the wicked (i.e. of those who have no idea of God, but only ideas of earthly things,”—individual, personal interests and opinions,—“by which their actions and thoughts are directed), and all whatsoever exists, necessarily proceed from God’s eternal laws and counsels, and perpetually depend on God, they are yet not distinguished from one another in degree, but in essence; for although a mouse as well as an angel depends on God, and sorrow as well as joy, yet a mouse cannot be a kind of angel, and sorrow cannot be a kind of joy,”—they are different in essence.
There is therefore no ground for the objection that Spinoza’s philosophy gives the death-blow to morality; we even gain from it the great result that all that is sensuous is mere limitation, and that there is only one true substance, and that human liberty consists in keeping in view this one substance, and in regulating all our conduct in accordance with the mind and will of the Eternal One. But in this philosophy it may with justice be objected that God is conceived only as Substance, and not as Spirit, as concrete. The independence of the human soul is therein also denied, while in the Christian religion every individual appears as determined to salvation. Here, on the contrary, the individual spirit is only a mode, an accident, but not anything substantial. This brings us to a general criticism of the philosophy of Spinoza, in the course of which we shall consider it from three different points of view.
In the first place Spinozism is asserted to be Atheism—by Jacobi, for instance (Werke, Vol. IV. Section I. p. 216)—because in it no distinction is drawn between God and the world; it makes nature the real God, or lowers God to the level of nature, so that God disappears and only nature is established. But it is not so much God and nature that Spinoza sets up in mutual opposition, as thought and extension; and God is unity, not One made up of two, but absolute Substance, in which has really disappeared the limitation of the subjectivity of thought and nature. Those who speak against Spinoza do so as if it were on God’s account that they were interested; but what these opponents are really concerned about is not God, but the finite—themselves. The relationship between God and the finite, to which we belong, may be represented in three different ways: firstly, only the finite exists, and in this way we alone exist, but God does not exist—this is atheism; the finite is here taken absolutely, and is accordingly the substantial. Or, in the second place, God alone exists; the finite has no reality, it is only phenomena, appearance. To say, in the third place, that God exists and we also exist is a false synthetic union, an amicable compromise. It is the popular view of the matter that the one side has as much substantiality as the other; God is honoured and supreme, but finite things also have Being to exactly the same extent. Reason cannot remain satisfied with this “also,” with indifference like this. The philosophic requisite is therefore to apprehend the unity of these differences in such a way that difference is not let slip, but proceeds eternally from substance, without being petrified into dualism. Spinoza is raised above this dualism; religion is so also, if we turn its popular conceptions into thoughts. The atheism of the first attitude—when men set up as ultimate the arbitrariness of the will, their own vanity, the finite things of nature, and the world dwells for ever in the mind—is not the standpoint of Spinoza, for whom God is the one and only substance, the world on the contrary being merely an affection or mode of this substance. In the respect that Spinoza does not distinguish God from the world, the finite, it is therefore correct to term his theory atheism, for his words are these: Nature, the human mind, the individual, are God revealed under particular forms. It has been already remarked (pp. 257, 258, 280) that undoubtedly Substance with Spinoza does not perfectly fulfil the conception of God, since it is as Spirit that He is to be conceived. But if Spinoza is called an atheist for the sole reason that he does not distinguish God from the world, it is a misuse of the term. Spinozism might really just as well or even better have been termed Acosmism, since according to its teaching it is not to the world, finite existence, the universe, that reality and permanency are to be ascribed, but rather to God alone as the substantial. Spinoza maintains that there is no such thing as what is known as the world; it is merely a form of God, and in and for itself it is nothing. The world has no true reality, and all this that we know as the world has been cast into the abyss of the one identity. There is therefore no such thing as finite reality, it has no truth whatever; according to Spinoza what is, is God, and God alone. Therefore the allegations of those who accuse Spinoza of atheism are the direct opposite of the truth; with him there is too much God. They say: If God is the identity of mind and nature, then nature or the individual man is God. This is quite correct, but they forget that nature and the individual disappear in this same identity: and they cannot forgive Spinoza for thus annihilating them. Those who defame him in such a way as this are therefore not aiming at maintaining God, but at maintaining the finite and the worldly; they do not fancy their own extinction and that of the world. Spinoza’s system is absolute pantheism and monotheism elevated into thought. Spinozism is therefore very far removed from being atheism in the ordinary sense; but in the sense that God is not conceived as spirit, it is atheism. However, in the same way many theologians are also atheists who speak of God only as the Almighty Supreme Being, etc., who refuse to acknowledge God, and who admit the validity and truth of the finite. They are many degrees worse than Spinoza.
The second point to be considered is the method adopted by Spinoza for setting forth his philosophy; it is the demonstrative method of geometry as employed by Euclid, in which we find definitions, explanations, axioms, and theorems. Even Descartes made it his starting-point that philosophic propositions must be mathematically handled and proved, that they must have the very same evidence as mathematics. The mathematical method is considered superior to all others, on account of the nature of its evidence; and it is natural that independent knowledge in its re-awakening lighted first upon this form, of which it saw so brilliant an example. The mathematical method is, however, ill-adapted for speculative content, and finds its proper place only in the finite sciences of the understanding. In modern times Jacobi has asserted (Werke, Vol. IV. Section I. pp. 217-223) that all demonstration, all scientific knowledge leads back to Spinozism, which alone is a logical method of thought; and because it must lead thither, it is really of no service whatever, but immediate knowledge is what we must depend on. It may be conceded to Jacobi that the method of demonstration leads to Spinozism, if we understand thereby merely the method of knowledge belonging to the understanding. But the fact is that Spinoza is made a testing-point in modern philosophy, so that it may really be said: You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all. This being so, the mathematical and demonstrative method of Spinoza would seem to be only a defect in the external form; but it is the fundamental defect of the whole position. In this method the nature of philosophic knowledge and the object thereof, are entirely misconceived, for mathematical knowledge and method are merely formal in character and consequently altogether unsuited for philosophy. Mathematical knowledge exhibits its proof on the existent object as such, not on the object as conceived; the Notion is lacking throughout; the content of Philosophy, however, is simply the Notion and that which is comprehended by the Notion. Therefore this Notion as the knowledge of the essence is simply one assumed, which falls within the philosophic subject; and this is what represents itself to be the method peculiar to Spinoza’s philosophy. Of this demonstrative manner we have already seen these examples: (α) The definitions from which Spinoza takes his start—as in geometry a commencement is made with the line, triangle, &c.—concern universal determinations, such as cause of itself, the finite, substance, attribute, mode, and so on, which are solely and simply accepted and assumed, not deduced, nor proved to be necessary: for Spinoza is not aware of how he arrives at these individual determinations. (β) He further speaks of axioms, for instance (Ethic. P. I. Ax. I. p. 36): “What is, is either in itself or in another.” The determinations “in itself” and “in another” are not shown forth in their necessity: neither is this disjunction proved, it is merely assumed. (γ) The propositions have, as such, a subject and predicate which are not similar. When the predicate is proved of the subject and necessarily combined with it, the discrepancy remains that the one as universal is related to the other as particular: therefore even although the relation is proved, there is present at the same time a secondary relation. Mathematical science, in its true propositions respecting a whole, escapes from the difficulty by proving also the converse of the propositions, in this way obtaining for them a special definiteness by proving each proposition in both ways. True propositions may, therefore, be looked on as definitions, and the conversion is the proof of the proposition in the form in which it is expressed. But this means of escaping the difficulty Philosophy cannot well employ, since the subject of which something is proved is itself only the Notion or the universal, and the proposition form is therefore quite superfluous and out of place. What has the form of the subject is in the form of an existent thing, as contrasted with the universal, the content of the proposition. The existent thing is taken as signifying existent in the ordinary sense; it is the word which we use in every-day life, and of which we have a conception that has nothing of the Notion in it. The converse of a proposition would simply read like this: The Notion is that which is thus popularly conceived. This proof from the usage of language—that we also understand this to be the meaning in every-day life, or in other words that the name is correct—has no philosophic significance. But if the proposition is not one like this, but an ordinary proposition, and if the predicate is not the Notion, but some general term or other, a predicate of the subject, such propositions are really not philosophic: we might instance the statement that substance is one and not several, but only that in which substance and unity are the same. Or, in other words, this unity of the two moments is the very thing which the proof has to demonstrate, it is the Notion or the essence. In this case it looks as if the proposition were the matter of chief importance, the truth. But if in these really only so-called propositions, subject and predicate are in truth not alike, because one is individual and the other universal, their relation is essential, i.e. the reason for which they are one. The proof has here a false position indeed, as if that subject were implicit or in itself, whereas subject and predicate are, fundamentally even, moments in separation; in the judgment “God is One,” the subject itself is universal, since it resolves itself into unity. On the other side it is implied in this false position that the proof is brought in from outside merely, as in mathematics from a preceding proposition, and that the proposition is not therefore conceived through itself; thus we see the ordinary method of proof take its middle term, the principle, from anywhere it can, in the same way as in classification it takes its principle of classification. The proposition is then, as it were, a secondary affair; but we must ask if this proposition is true. The result as proposition ought to be truth, but is only knowledge. The movement of knowledge, as proof, falls therefore, in the third place, outside of the proposition, which ought to be the truth. The essential moments of the system are really already completely contained in the presuppositions of the definitions, from which all further proofs have merely to be deduced. But whence have we these categories which here appear as definitions? We find them doubtless in ourselves, in scientific culture. The existence of the understanding, the will, extension, is therefore not developed from infinite substance, but it is directly expressed in these determinations, and that quite naturally; for of a truth there exists the One into which everything enters, in order to be absorbed therein, but out of which nothing comes. For as Spinoza has set up the great proposition, all determination implies negation (supra, p. 267), and as of everything, even of thought in contrast to extension, it may be shown that it is determined and finite, what is essential in it rests upon negation. Therefore God alone is the positive, the affirmative, and consequently the one substance; all other things, on the contrary, are only modifications of this substance, and are nothing in and for themselves. Simple determination or negation belongs only to form, but is quite another thing from absolute determinateness or negativity, which is absolute form; in this way of looking at it negation is the negation of negation, and therefore true affirmation. This negative self-conscious moment, the movement of knowledge, which pursues its way in the thought which is present before us, is however certainly lacking to the content of Spinoza’s philosophy, or at least it is only externally associated with it, since it falls within self-consciousness. That is to say, thoughts form the content, but they are not self-conscious thoughts or Notions: the content signifies thought, as pure abstract self-consciousness, but an unreasoning knowledge, into which the individual does not enter: the content has not the signification of ‘I.’ Therefore the case is as in mathematics; a proof is certainly given, conviction must follow, but yet the matter fails to be understood. There is a rigid necessity in the proof, to which the moment of self-consciousness is lacking; the ‘I’ disappears, gives itself altogether up, merely withers away. Spinoza’s procedure is therefore quite correct; yet the individual proposition is false, seeing that it expresses only one side of the negation. The understanding has determinations which do not contradict one another; contradiction the understanding cannot suffer. The negation of negation is, however, contradiction, for in that it negates negation as simple determination, it is on the one hand affirmation, but on the other hand also really negation; and this contradiction, which is a matter pertaining to reason, is lacking in the case of Spinoza. There is lacking the infinite form, spirituality and liberty. I have already mentioned before this (pp. 93, 94; 129-137) that Lullus and Bruno attempted to draw up a system of form, which should embrace and comprehend the one substance which organizes itself into the universe; this attempt Spinoza did not make.
Because negation was thus conceived by Spinoza in one-sided fashion merely, there is, in the third place, in his system, an utter blotting out of the principle of subjectivity, individuality, personality, the moment of self-consciousness in Being. Thought has only the signification of the universal, not of self-consciousness. It is this lack which has, on the one side, brought the conception of the liberty of the subject into such vehement antagonism to the system of Spinoza, because it set aside the independence of the human consciousness, the so-called liberty which is merely the empty abstraction of independence, and in so doing set aside God, as distinguished from nature and the human consciousness—that is as implicit or in Himself, in the Absolute; for man has the consciousness of freedom, of the spiritual, which is the negative of the corporeal, and man has also the consciousness that his true Being lies in what is opposed to the corporeal. This has been firmly maintained by religion, theology, and the sound common sense of the common consciousness, and this form of opposition to Spinoza appears first of all in the assertion that freedom is real, and that evil exists. But because for Spinoza, on the other hand, there exists only absolute universal substance as the non-particularized, the truly real—all that is particular and individual, my subjectivity and spirituality, has, on the other hand, as a limited modification whose Notion depends on another, no absolute existence. Thus the soul, the Spirit, in so far as it is an individual Being, is for Spinoza a mere negation, like everything in general that is determined. As all differences and determinations of things and of consciousness simply go back into the One substance, one may say that in the system of Spinoza all things are merely cast down into this abyss of annihilation. But from this abyss nothing comes out; and the particular of which Spinoza speaks is only assumed and presupposed from the ordinary conception, without being justified. Were it to be justified, Spinoza would have to deduce it from his Substance; but that does not open itself out, and therefore comes to no vitality, spirituality or activity. His philosophy has only a rigid and unyielding substance, and not yet spirit; in it we are not at home with ourselves. But the reason that God is not spirit is that He is not the Three in One. Substance remains rigid and petrified, without Boehme’s sources or springs; for the individual determinations in the form of determinations of the understanding are not Boehme’s originating spirits, which energize and expand in one another (supra, pp. 202, 203). What we find regarding this particular then is that it is only a modification of absolute substance, which, however, is not declared to be such; for the moment of negativity is what is lacking to this rigid motionlessness, whose single form of activity is this, to divest all things of their determination and particularity and cast them back into the one absolute substance, wherein they are simply swallowed up, and all life in itself is utterly destroyed. This is what we find philosophically inadequate with Spinoza; distinctions are externally present, it is true, but they remain external, since even the negative is not known in itself. Thought is the absolutely abstract, and for that very reason the absolutely negative; it is so in truth, but with Spinoza it is not asserted to be the absolutely negative. But if in opposition to Spinozism we hold fast to the assertion that Spirit, as distinguishing itself from the corporeal, is substantial, actual, true, and in the same way that freedom is not something merely privative, then this actuality in formal thought is doubtless correct, yet it rests only upon feeling; but the further step is that the Idea essentially includes within itself motion and vitality, and that it consequently has in itself the principle of spiritual freedom. On the one hand, therefore, the defect of Spinozism is conceived as consisting in its want of correspondence with actuality; but on the other side it is to be apprehended in a higher sense, I mean in the sense that substance with Spinoza is only the Idea taken altogether abstractly, not in its vitality.
If, in conclusion, we sum up this criticism that we have offered, we would say that on the one hand with Spinoza negation or privation is distinct from substance; for he merely assumes individual determinations, and does not deduce them from substance. On the other hand the negation is present only as Nothing, for in the absolute there is no mode; the negative is not there, but only its dissolution, its return: we do not find its movement, its Becoming and Being. The negative is conceived altogether as a vanishing moment—not in itself, but only as individual self-consciousness; it is not like the Separator we met with in Boehme’s system (supra, p. 206). Self-consciousness is born from this ocean, dripping with the water thereof, i.e. never coming to absolute self-hood; the heart, the independence is transfixed—the vital fire is wanting. This lack has to be supplied, the moment of self-consciousness has to be added. It has the following two special aspects, which we now perceive emerging and gaining acceptance; in the first place the objective aspect, that absolute essence obtains in self-consciousness the mode of an object of consciousness for which the “other” exists, or the existent as such, and that what Spinoza understood by the “modes” is elevated to objective reality as an absolute moment of the absolute; in the second place we have the aspect of self-consciousness, individuality, independence. As was formerly the case with respect to Bacon and Boehme, the former aspect is here taken up by the Englishman, John Locke, the latter by the German Leibnitz; in the first case it did not appear as a moment, nor did it in the second appear as absolute Notion. Now while Spinoza only takes notice of these ordinary conceptions, and the highest point of view he reaches in regard to them is that they sink and disappear in the one Substance, Locke on the contrary examines the genesis of these conceptions, while Leibnitz opposes to Spinoza the infinite multiplicity of individuals, although all these monads have one monad as the basis of their Being. Both Locke and Leibnitz therefore came forward as opponents of the above-mentioned one-sidedness of Spinoza.
[3. Malebranche.]
The philosophy of Malebranche is in point of matter entirely identical with that of Spinoza, but it has another, a more religious and more theological form; on account of this form it never encountered the opposition met with by Spinoza, and for the same reason Malebranche has never been reproached with Atheism.
Nicholas Malebranche was born at Paris in 1638. He was sickly and deformed in body, and was hence brought up with great care. He was diffident and loved solitude; in his twenty-second year he entered the congrégation de l’oratoire, a sort of spiritual order, and devoted himself to the sciences. In passing a bookseller’s shop he happened accidentally to see Descartes’ work De homine; he read it, and it interested him greatly—so much so that the reading of it brought on severe palpitation and he was forced to cease. This decided his future life; there awoke in him an irrepressible inclination for Philosophy. He was a man of most noble and gentle character, and of the most genuine and unswerving piety. He died at Paris in 1715, and in the seventy-seventh year of his age.[210] His principal work bears the title: De la recherche de la vérité. One part of it is entirely metaphysical, but the greater part is altogether empirical. For instance, Malebranche in the first three books treats logically and psychologically of the errors in sight and hearing, in the imagination and understanding.
a. What is most important in this book is his idea of the origin of our knowledge. He says: “The essence of the soul is in thought, just as that of matter is in extension. All else, such as sensation, imagination and will, are modifications of thought”. He thus begins with two sides, between which he sets an absolute chasm, and then he follows out in detail the Cartesian idea of the assistance of God in knowledge. His main point is that “the soul cannot attain to its conceptions and notions from external things.” For when I and the thing are clearly independent of one another and have nothing in common, the two can certainly not enter into relation with one another nor be for one another. “Bodies are impenetrable; their images would destroy one another on the way to the organs.” But further: “The soul cannot beget ideas from itself, nor can they be inborn,” for as “Augustine has said, ‘Say not that ye yourselves are your own light.’” But how then comes extension, the manifold, into the simple, into the spirit, since it is the reverse of the simple, namely the diverse? This question regarding the association of thought and extension is always an important one in Philosophy. According to Malebranche the answer is, “That we see all things in God.” God Himself is the connection between us and them, and thus the unity between the thing and thought. “God has in Him the ideas of all things because He has created all; God is through His omnipresence united in the most intimate way with spirits. God thus is the place of spirits,” the Universal of spirit, “just as space” is the universal, “the place of bodies. Consequently the soul knows in God what is in Him,” bodies, “inasmuch as He sets forth” (inwardly conceives) “created existence, because all this is spiritual, intellectual, and present to the soul.”[211] Because things and God are intellectual and we too are intellectual, we perceive them in God as they are, so to speak, intellectual in Him. If this be further analyzed it in no way differs from Spinozism. Malebranche indeed in a popular way allows soul and things to subsist as independent, but this independence vanishes away like smoke when the principle is firmly grasped. The catechism says: “God is omnipresent,” and if this omnipresence be developed Spinozism is arrived at; and yet theologians then proceed to speak against the system of identity, and cry out about Pantheism.
b. We must further remark that Malebranche also makes the universal, thought, the essential, by placing it before the particular. “The soul has the Notion of the infinite and universal: it knows nothing excepting through the Idea which it has of the infinite; this Idea must hence come first. The universal is not a mere confusion of individual ideas, it is not a union of individual things.” According to Locke the individual from which the universal is formed precedes (infra, p. 299); according to Malebranche the universal Idea is what comes first in man. “If we wish to think of anything particular we think first of the universal;” it is the principle of the particular, as space is of things. All essentiality precedes our particular conceptions, and this essentiality comes first. “All essential existences (essences) come before our ordinary conception; they cannot be such excepting by God’s presence in the mind and spirit. He it is who contains all things in the simplicity of His nature. It seems evident that mind would not be capable of representing to itself the universal Notions of species, kind, and suchlike, if it did not see all things comprehended in one.” The universal is thus in and for itself, and it does not take its rise through the particular. “Since each existent thing is an individual, we cannot say that we see something actually created when, for example, we see a triangle in general,” for we see it through God. “No account can be given of how spirit knows abstract and common truths, excepting through the presence of Him who can enlighten spirit in an infinite way,” because He is in and for Himself the universal. “We have a clear idea of God,” of the universal: “We can have such only through union with Him, for this idea is not a created one,” but is in and for itself. As with Spinoza, the one universal is God, and in so far as it is determined, it is the particular; we see this particular only in the universal, as we see bodies in space. “We already have a conception of infinite Being, inasmuch as we have a conception of Being without regard to whether it is finite or infinite. To know a finite we must limit the infinite; and this last must thus precede. Thus spirit perceives all in the infinite; this is so far from being a confused conception of many particular things that all particular conceptions are merely participations in the universal Idea of infinitude—in the same way that God does not receive this Being from” finite “creatures, but,” on the contrary, “all creatures only subsist through Him.”[212]
c. As regards the turning of the soul to God, Malebranche says what Spinoza said from his ethical point of view: “It is impossible that God should have an end other than Himself (the Holy Scriptures place this beyond doubt);” the will of God can only have the good, what is without doubt universal as its end. “Hence not only is it essential that our natural love, i.e. the emotion which He brings forth in our spirit, should strive after Him”—“the will is really love towards God”—“but it is likewise impossible that the knowledge and the light which He gives to our spirit should make anything else known than what is in Him,” for thought only exists in unity with God. “If God were to make a spirit and give it the sun as an idea or as the immediate object of its knowledge, God would have made this spirit and the idea of this spirit for the sun and not for Himself.” All natural love, and still more knowledge, and the desire after truth, have God as their end. “All motions of the will as regards the creatures are only determinations of motion as regards the creator.” Malebranche quotes from Augustine “that we see God even from the time we first enter upon this life (dès cette vie), through the knowledge that we have of eternal truths. The truth is uncreated, unchangeable, immeasurable, eternal above all things; it is true through itself, and has its perfection from no thing. It makes the creator more perfect, and all spirits naturally seek to know it: now there is nothing that has these perfections but God, and thus the truth is God. We perceive these unchangeable and eternal truths, hence we see God.” “God indeed sees but He does not feel sensuous things. If we see something sensuous, sensation and pure thought are to be found in our consciousness. Sensation is a modification of our spirit; God occasions this because He knows that our soul is capable of it. The Idea which is bound up with the sensation is in God; we see it, etc. This relation, this union of our mind and spirit with the Word (Verbe) of God, and of our will with His love, is that we are formed after the image of God and in His likeness.”[213] Thus the love of God consists in relating one’s affections to the Idea of God; whoever knows himself and thinks his affections clearly, loves God. We further find sundry empty litanies concerning God, a catechism for children of eight years of age respecting goodness, justice, omnipresence, the moral order of the world; in all their lifetime theologians do not get any further.
We have given the principal of Malebranche’s ideas; the remainder of his philosophy is composed partly of formal logic, and partly of empirical psychology. He passes to the treatment of errors, how they arise, how the senses, the imagination, the understanding, deceive us, and how we must conduct ourselves in order to effect a remedy. Then Malebranche goes on (T. III. L. VI. P. I. chap. i. pp. 1-3) to the rules and laws for recognizing the truth. Thus here the term Philosophy was even applied to the manner in which reflections on particular objects are drawn from formal logic and external facts.
[B. Second Division.]
It was Locke who became the instrument of setting forth this entire manner of thinking in a systematic way, for he worked out Bacon’s position more fully. And if Bacon made sensuous Being to be the truth, Locke demonstrated the universal, Thought, to be present in sensuous Being, or showed that we obtained the universal, the true, from experience. From Locke a wide culture proceeds, influencing English philosophers more especially; the forms adopted by this school were various, but the principle was the same; it became a general method of regarding things in a popular way, and calls itself Philosophy, although the object of Philosophy is not to be met with here.
[1. Locke.]
When experience means that the Notion has objective actuality for consciousness, it is indeed a necessary element in the totality; but as this reflection appears in Locke, signifying as it does that we obtain truth by abstraction from experience and sensuous perception, it is utterly false, since, instead of being a moment, it is made the essence of the truth. It is no doubt true that against the hypothesis of the inward immediacy of the Idea, and against the method of setting it forth in definitions and axioms, as also against absolute substance, the demand that ideas should be represented as results, and the claims of individuality and self-consciousness, assert their rights to recognition. In the philosophy of Locke and Leibnitz, however, these necessities make themselves known in an imperfect manner only; the one fact which is common to both philosophers is that they, in opposition to Spinoza and Malebranche, take for their principle the particular, finite determinateness and the individual. According to Spinoza and Malebranche substance or the universal is the true, the sole existent, the eternal, that which is in and for itself, without origin, and of which particular things are only modifications which are conceived through substance. But hereby Spinoza has done an injury to this negative; he hence arrived at no immanent determination, for all that is determined and individual is merely annihilated in his system. Now, on the contrary, the general inclination of consciousness is to maintain the difference, partly in order to mark itself out as implicitly free in opposition to its object—Being, nature, and God, and partly in order to recognize the unity in this opposition, and from the opposition itself to make the unity emerge. But those who were the instruments of this tendency comprehended themselves but little, they had still no clear consciousness of their task, nor of the manner in which their claims could be satisfied. With Locke, this principle makes its first entrance into Philosophy in a manner so completely at variance with the inflexible undifferentiated identity of the substance of Spinoza, that the sensuous and limited, the immediate present and existent, is the main and fundamental matter. Locke does not get beyond the ordinary point of view of consciousness, viz. that objects outside of us are the real and the true. The finite is thus not grasped by Locke as absolute negativity, i.e. in its infinitude; this we shall not find until we come to deal in the third place with Leibnitz. It is in a higher sense that Leibnitz asserts individuality, the differentiated, to be self-existent and indeed objectless, to be true Being. That is to say, it is not according to him finite, but is yet distinguished; thus, each monad is itself the totality. Leibnitz and Locke hence likewise stand in a position of mutual independence and antagonism.
John Locke was born in 1632, at Wrington, in England. He studied for himself the Cartesian philosophy at Oxford, setting aside the scholastic philosophy which was still in vogue. He devoted himself to the study of medicine, which, however, on account of his delicate health, he never really practised. In 1664 he went with an English ambassador for a year to Berlin. After his return to England, he became acquainted with the intellectual Earl of Shaftesbury of that time, who availed himself of his medical advice, and in whose house he lived without requiring to give himself up to practice. When Lord Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor of England, Locke received an office from him, which, however, he soon lost by a change of ministry. Owing to his dread of falling a prey to consumption, he betook himself in 1675 to Montpellier for the benefit of his health. When his patron came into power again he once more recovered the place he had lost, only to be again deposed on a fresh overthrow of this minister, and he was now compelled to flee from England. “The act by means of which Locke was driven from Oxford” (what post he held there we are not told) “was not an enactment of the University, but of James II., by whose express command, and by the peremptory authority of a written warrant, the expulsion was carried out. From the correspondence that took place, it is evident that the college submitted itself against its will to a measure which it could not resist without compromising the peace and quiet of its members.” Locke went to Holland, which was at that time the land wherein all who were obliged to effect their escape from any oppression, whether political or religious, found protection, and in which the most famous and liberal-minded men were to be met with. The Court party persecuted him even here, and by royal warrant he was ordered to be taken prisoner and sent to England; consequently he had to remain hidden with his friends. When William of Orange ascended the English throne, after the Revolution of 1688, Locke returned with him to England. He was there made Commissioner of Trade and Plantations, gave to the world his famous treatise on the Human Understanding, and finally, having withdrawn from public office on account of the delicacy of his health, he spent his remaining years in the country houses of English nobles; he died on the 28th day of October, 1704, in the seventy-third year of his life.[214]
The philosophy of Locke is much esteemed; it is still, for the most part, the philosophy of the English and the French, and likewise in a certain sense of the Germans. To put it in a few words, it asserts on the one hand that truth and knowledge rest upon experience and observation; and on the other the analysis of and abstraction from general determinations is prescribed as the method of knowledge; it is, so to speak, a metaphysical empiricism, and this is the ordinary method adopted in the sciences. In respect of method, Locke thus employs an exactly opposite system to that of Spinoza. In the methods of Spinoza and Descartes an account of the origin of ideas may be dispensed with; they are accepted at once as definitions, such as those of substance, the infinite, mode, extension, etc., all of which constitute a quite incoherent list. But we require to show where these thoughts come in, on what they are founded, and how they are verified. Thus Locke has striven to satisfy a true necessity. For he has the merit of having deserted the system of mere definitions, which were before this made the starting point, and of having attempted to make deduction of general conceptions, inasmuch as he was, for example, at the pains to show how substantiality arises subjectively from objects. That is a further step than any reached by Spinoza, who begins at once with definitions and axioms which are unverified. Now they are derived, and no longer oracularly laid down, even if the method and manner whereby this authentication is established is not the right one. That is to say, here the matter in question is merely subjective, and somewhat psychological, since Locke merely describes the methods of mind as it appears to us to be. For in his philosophy we have more especially to deal with the derivation of the general conceptions, or ideas, as he called them, that are present in our knowledge, and with their origin as they proceed from what is outwardly and inwardly perceptible. Malebranche no doubt likewise asks how we arrive at conceptions, and thus he apparently has before him the same subject of investigation as has Locke. But firstly, this psychological element in Malebranche is merely the later development, and then to him the universal or God is plainly first, while Locke commences at once with individual perceptions, and only from them does he proceed to Notions, to God. The universal to Locke is, therefore, merely a later result, the work of our minds; it is simply something pertaining to thought, as subjective. Every man undoubtedly knows that when his consciousness develops empirically, he commences from feelings, from quite concrete conditions, and that it is only later on that general conceptions come in, which are connected with the concrete of sensation by being contained therein. Space, for example, comes to consciousness later than the spacial, the species later than the individual; and it is only through the activity of my consciousness that the universal is separated from the particular of conception, feeling, etc. Feeling undoubtedly comes lowest, it is the animal mode of spirit; but in its capacity as thinking, spirit endeavours to transform feeling into its own form. Thus the course adopted by Locke is quite a correct one, but all dialectic considerations are utterly and entirely set aside, since the universal is merely analyzed from the empirical concrete. And in this matter Kant reproaches Locke with reason, the individual is not the source of universal conceptions, but the understanding.
As to Locke’s further reflections, they are very simple. Locke considers how the understanding is only consciousness, and in being so is something in consciousness, and he only recognizes the implicit in as far as it is in the same.
a. Locke’s philosophy is more especially directed against Descartes, who, like Plato, had spoken of innate ideas. Locke likewise makes special examination of the “inborn impressions (notiones communes in foro interiori descriptæ)” which Lord Herbert assumes in his work De veritate. In the first book of his work Locke combats the so-called innate ideas, theoretic as well as practical, i.e. the universal, absolutely existent ideas which at the same time are represented as pertaining to mind in a natural way. Locke said that we arrive first at that which we call idea. By this he understands not the essential determinations of man, but conceptions which we have and which are present and exist in consciousness as such: in the same way we all have arms and legs as parts of our bodies, and the desire to eat exists in everyone. In Locke we thus have the conception of the soul as of a contentless tabula rasa which is by-and-by filled with what we call experience.[215] The expression “innate principles” was at that time common, and these innate principles have sometimes been foolishly spoken of. But their true signification is that they are implicit, that they are essential moments in the nature of thought, qualities of a germ, which do not yet exist: only in relation to this last there is an element of truth in Locke’s conclusions. As diverse conceptions essentially determined they are only legitimatized by its being shown that they are implied in the essential nature of thought; but as propositions which hold good as axioms, and conceptions which are immediately accepted as laid down in definitions, they undoubtedly possess the form of that which is present and inborn. As they are regarded they are bound to have value in and for themselves; but this is a mere assertion. From the other point of view the question of whence they come is a futile one. Mind is undoubtedly determined in itself, for it is the explicitly existent Notion; its development signifies the coming to consciousness. But the determinations which it brings forth from itself cannot be called innate, for this development must be occasioned by an external, and only on that does the activity of mind react, in order that it may for the first time become conscious of its reality.
The grounds on which Locke refutes innate ideas are empirical. “There is nothing more commonly taken for granted than that there are certain principles, both speculative and practical, universally agreed upon by all mankind: which therefore, they argue, must needs be constant impressions which the souls of men receive in their first Beings.” But this universal consent is not to be found. We may instance the proposition, “Whatsoever is, is; and It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be; which of all others I think have the most allowed title to innate.” But this proposition does not hold good for the Notion; there is nothing either in heaven or earth which does not contain Being and non-Being. Many men, “All children and idiots,” says Locke, “have not the least apprehension of these propositions.” “No proposition can be said to be in the mind which it never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of.... ’Tis usually answered, That all men know and assent to them” (the propositions) “when they come to the use of reason.... If it be meant that the use of reason assists us in the knowledge of these maxims, it would prove them not to be innate.” Reason is said to be the deriving from principles already known unknown truths. How then should the application of reason be required to discover supposed innate principles? This is a weak objection, for it assumes that by innate ideas we understand those which man possesses in consciousness as immediately present. But development in consciousness is something altogether different from any inherent determination of reason, and therefore the expression innate idea is undoubtedly quite wrong. Innate principles must be found “clearest and most perspicuous nearest the fountain, in children and illiterate people, who have received least impression from foreign opinion.” Locke gives further reasons of a similar nature, more especially employing those which are of a practical kind—the diversity in moral judgments, the case of those who are utterly wicked and depraved, devoid of sense of right or conscience.[216]
b. In the second book Locke goes on to the next stage, to the origin of ideas, and seeks to demonstrate this process from experience—this is the main object of his efforts. The reason that the positive point of view which he opposes to any derivation from within, is so false, is that he derives his conceptions only from outside and thus maintains Being-for-another, while he quite neglects the implicit. He says: “Every man being conscious to himself, that he thinks; and that which his mind is applied about, while thinking, being the ideas that are there; ’tis past doubt, that men have in their minds several ideas, such as those expressed in the words, whiteness, hardness, sweetness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others.” Idea here signifies both the ordinary conception and thought; we understand something quite different by the word idea. “It is in the first place then to be inquired, how he comes by them” (these ideas)? Innate ideas have already been refuted. “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished?... To this I answer in a word, from Experience: in that all our knowledge is founded.”[217]
As to the question in point we must in the first place say that it is true that man commences with experience if he desires to arrive at thought. Everything is experienced, not merely what is sensuous, but also what excites and stimulates my mind. Consciousness thus undoubtedly obtains all conceptions and Notions from experience and in experience; the only question is what we understand by experience. In a usual way when this is spoken of the idea of nothing particular is conveyed; we speak of it as of something quite well known. But experience is nothing more than the form of objectivity; to say that it is something which is in consciousness means that it has objective form for consciousness or that consciousness experiences it, it sees it as an objective. Experience thus signifies immediate knowledge, perception, i.e. I myself must have and be something, and the consciousness of what I have and am is experience. Now there is no question as to this, that whatever we know, of whatever kind it may be, must be experienced, that rests in the conception of the thing. It is absurd to say that one knows anything which is not in experience. I undoubtedly know men, for instance, from experience, without requiring to have seen them all, for I have, as man, activity and will, a consciousness respecting what I am and what others are. The rational exists, i.e. it is as an existent for consciousness, or this last experiences it; it must be seen and heard, it must be there or have been there as a phenomenon in the world. This connection of universal with objective is however in the second place not the only form, that of the implicit is likewise absolute and essential—that is, the apprehension of what is experienced or the abrogation of this apparent other-being and the knowledge of the necessity of the thing through itself. It is now quite a matter of indifference whether anything is accepted as something experienced, as a succession of empirical ideas, if one may so say, or conceptions; or whether the succession is a succession of thoughts, i.e. implicitly existent.
Locke treats of the various kinds of these ideas imperfectly and empirically merely.
α. According to Locke simple ideas arise partly from outward, and partly from inward experience. For experiences, he says, are in the first place sensations; the other side is reflection, the inward determinations of consciousness.[218] From sensation, from the organs of sight for instance, the conceptions of colour, light, etc., arise; there further arises from outward experience the idea of impenetrability, of figure, rest, motion and such like. From reflections come the ideas of faith, doubt, judgment, reasoning, thinking, willing, etc.; from both combined, pleasure, pain, etc. This is a very commonplace account of the matter.
β. After Locke has presupposed experience, he goes on to say that it is the understanding which now discovers and desires the universal—the complex ideas. The Bishop of Worcester made the objection that “If the idea of substance be grounded upon plain and evident reason, then we must allow an idea of substance which comes not in by sensation or reflection.” Locke replies: “General ideas come not into the mind by sensation or reflection, but are the creatures or inventions of the understanding. The mind makes them from ideas which it has got by sensation and reflection.” The work of the mind now consists in bringing forth from several simple so-called ideas a number of new ones, by means of its working upon this material through comparing, distinguishing and contrasting it, and finally through separation or abstraction, whereby the universal conceptions, such as space, time, existence, unity and diversity, capacity, cause and effect, freedom, necessity, take their rise. “The mind in respect of its simple ideas is wholly passive, and receives them all from the existence and operation of things, such as sensation or reflection offers them, without being able to make any one idea.” But “the mind often exercises an active power in making these several combinations. For it being once furnished with simple ideas it can put them together in several combinations.” According to Locke therefore thought itself is not the essence of the soul, but one of its powers and manifestations. He maintains thought to be existent in consciousness as conscious thought, and thus brings it forward as a fact in his experience, that we do not always think. Experience demonstrates dreamless sleep when the sleep is profound. Locke quotes the example of a man who remembered no dream until he had reached his twenty-fifth year. It is as in the Xenien,—[219]
Oft schon war ich, und hab’ wirklich an gar nichts gedacht.
That is to say, my object is not a thought. But sensuous perception and recollection are thought, and thought is truth.[220] Locke, however, places the reality of the understanding only in the formal activity of constituting new determinations from the simple conceptions received by means of perception, through their comparison and the combination of several into one; it is the apprehension of the abstract sensations which are contained in the objects. Locke likewise distinguishes (Bk. II. chap. xi. § 15-17) between pure and mixed modes. Pure modes are simple determinations such as power, number, infinitude; in such expressions as causality we reach, on the other hand, a mixed mode.
Locke now explains in detail the manner in which the mind, from the simple ideas of experience, reaches more complex ideas; but this derivation of general determinations from concrete perception is most unmeaning, trivial, tiresome and diffuse; it is entirely formal, an empty tautology. For instance we form the general conception of space from the perception of the distance of bodies by means of sight and feeling.[221] Or in other words, we perceive a definite space, abstract from it, and then we have the conception of space generally; the perception of distances gives us conceptions of space. This however is no deduction, but only a setting aside of other determinations; since distance itself is really space, mind thus determines space from space. Similarly we reach the notion of time through the unbroken succession of conceptions during our waking moments,[222] i.e. from determinate time we perceive time in general. Conceptions follow one another in a continual succession; if we set aside the particular element that is present we thereby receive the conception of time. Substance (which Locke does not accept in so lofty a sense as Spinoza), a complex idea, hence arises from the fact that we often perceive simple ideas such as blue, heavy, etc., in association with one another. This association we represent to ourselves as something which so to speak supports these simple ideas, or in which they exist.[223] Locke likewise deduces the general conception of power.[224] The determinations of freedom and necessity, cause and effect, are then derived in a similar way. “In the notice that our senses take of the constant vicissitude of things, we cannot but observe, that several particulars, both qualities and substance, begin to exist; and that they receive this their existence from the due application and operation of some other being. From this observation we get our ideas of cause and effect,” for instance when wax is melted by the fire.[225] Locke goes on to say: “Every one, I think, finds in himself a power to begin or forbear, continue or put an end to several actions in himself. From the consideration of the extent of this power of the mind over the actions of the man, which every one finds in himself, arise the ideas of liberty and necessity.”[226]
We may say that nothing can be more superficial than this derivation of ideas. The matter itself, the essence, is not touched upon at all. A determination is brought into notice which is contained in a concrete relationship; hence the understanding on the one hand abstracts and on the other establishes conclusions. The basis of this philosophy is merely to be found in the transference of the determinate to the form of universality, but it was just this fundamental essence that we had to explain. As to this Locke confesses of space, for example, that he does not know what it really is.[227] This so-called analysis by Locke of complex conceptions, and his so-called explanation of the same, has, on account of its uncommon clearness and lucidity of expression, found universal acceptance. For what can be clearer than to say that we have the notion of time because we perceive time, if we do not actually see it, and that we conceive of space because we see it? The French have accepted this most readily and they have carried it further still; their Idéologie contains nothing more nor less.
γ. When Locke starts by saying that everything is experience and we abstract for ourselves from this experience general conceptions regarding objects and their qualities, he makes a distinction in respect of external qualities which was before this made by Aristotle (De anima, II. 6), and which we likewise met with in Descartes (supra, pp. 245, 246). That is to say, Locke distinguishes between primary and secondary qualities; the first pertain to the objects themselves in truth, the others are not real qualities, but are founded on the nature of the organs of sensation. Primary qualities are mechanical, like extension, solidity, figure, movement, rest; these are qualities of the corporeal, just as thought is the quality of the spiritual. But the determinations of our individual feelings such as colours, sounds, smells, taste, etc., are not primary.[228] In Descartes’ case this distinction has however another form, for the second class of these determinations is defined by him in such a way as that they do not constitute the essence of body, while Locke says that they exist for sensation, or fall within existence as it is for consciousness. Locke, however, no doubt reckons figure, etc., as still pertaining to reality, but by so doing nothing is ascertained as to the nature of body. In Locke a difference here appears between the implicit and being ‘for-another,’ in which he declares the moment of ‘for-another’ to be unreal—and yet he sees all truth in the relation of ‘for-another’ only.
c. Since the universal as such, the idea of species, is, according to Locke, merely a product of our mind, which is not itself objective, but relates merely to objects which are germane to it, and from which the particular of qualities, conditions, time, place, etc., are separated, Locke distinguishes essences into real essences and nominal essences; the former of these express the true essence of things, while species on the other hand are mere nominal essences which no doubt express something which is present in the objects, but which do not exhaust these objects. They serve to distinguish species for our knowledge, but the real essence of nature we do not know.[229] Locke gives good reasons for species being nothing in themselves—for their not being in nature, or absolutely determined—instancing in exemplification the production of monstrosities (Bk. III. chap. iii. § 17): were species absolute no monster would be born. But he overlooks the fact that since it pertains to species to exist, it thereby likewise enters into relationship with other determinations; thus that is the sphere in which individual things operate upon one another, and may hence be detrimental to the existence of the species. Locke thus argues just as one would who wished to prove that the good does not exist in itself, because there are likewise evil men, that the circle does not exist absolutely in nature, because the circumference of a tree, for example, represents a very irregular circle, or because I draw a circle badly. Nature just signifies the lack of power to be perfectly adequate to the Notion; it is only in spirit that the Notion has its true existence. To say that species are nothing in themselves, that the universal is not the essential reality of nature, that its implicit existence is not the object of thought, is tantamount to saying that we do not know real existence: it is the same litany which has since been so constantly repeated that we are tired of listening to it:
Das Innere der Natur kennt kein erschaffener Geist,
and which goes on until we have perceived that Being-for-another, perception, is not implicit; a point of view which has not made its way to the positive position that the implicit is the universal. Locke is far back in the nature of knowledge, further back than Plato, because of his insistence on Being-for-another.
It is further noteworthy that from the sound understanding Locke argues (Vol. III. Bk. IV. chap. vii. § 8-11) against universal propositions or axioms such as that A = A, i.e. if anything is A it cannot be B. He says they are superfluous, of very little use or of no use at all, for nobody yet has built up a science on a proposition which asserts a contradiction. From such the true may be proved as easily as the false; they are tautological. What Locke has further achieved in respect of education, toleration, natural rights or universal state-right, does not concern us here, but has to do with general culture.
This is the philosophy of Locke, in which there is no trace of speculation. The great end of Philosophy, which is to know the truth, is in it sought to be attained in an empiric way; it thus indeed serves to draw attention to general determinations. But such a philosophy not only represents the standpoint of ordinary consciousness, to which all the determinations of its thought appear as if given, humble as it is in the oblivion of its activity, but in this method of derivation and psychological origination that which alone concerns Philosophy, the question of whether these thoughts and relationships have truth in and for themselves, is not present at all, inasmuch as the only object aimed at is to describe the manner in which thought accepts what is given to it. It may be held with Wolff that it is arbitrary to begin with concrete conceptions, as when our conception of identity is made to take its origin from such things as blue flowers and the blue heavens. One can better begin directly from universal conceptions and say that we find in our consciousness the conceptions of time, cause and effect; these are the later facts of consciousness. This method forms the basis of the Wolffian system of reasoning, only here we must still distinguish amongst the different conceptions those that are to be regarded as most essential; in Locke’s philosophy, this distinction cannot really be said to come under consideration. From this time, according to Locke, or in this particular aspect of Philosophy, there is a complete and entire change in the point of view adopted; the whole interest is limited to the form in which the objective, or individual sensations, pass into the form of conceptions. In the case of Spinoza and Malebranche, we undoubtedly likewise saw that it was made a matter of importance to recognize this relation of thought to what is sensuously perceived, and thus to know it as falling into relation, as passing into the relative; the main question hence was: How are the two related? But the question was answered to the effect that it is only this relation for itself that constitutes the point of interest, and this relation itself as absolute substance is thus identity, the true, God, it is not the related parts. The interest does not lie in the related parts; the related parts as one-sided are not the existent, presupposed and permanently established, they are accidental merely. But here the related sides, the things and the subject, have their proper value, and they are presupposed as having this value. Locke’s reasoning is quite shallow; it keeps entirely to the phenomenal, to that which is, and not to that which is true.
There is another question however: Are these general determinations absolutely true? And whence come they not alone into my consciousness, into my mind and understanding, but into the things themselves? Space, cause, effect, etc., are categories. How do these categories come into the particular? How does universal space arrive at determining itself? This point of view, the question whether these determinations of the infinite, of substance, etc., are in and for themselves true, is quite lost sight of. Plato investigated the infinite and the finite, Being and the determinate, etc., and pronounced that neither of these opposites is of itself true; they are so only as together constituting an identity, wherever the truth of this content may come from. But here the truth as it is in and for itself is entirely set aside and the nature of the content itself is made the main point. It does not matter whether the understanding or experience is its source, for the question is whether this content is in itself true. With Locke, the truth merely signifies the harmony of our conceptions with things; here relation is alone in question, whether the content is an objective thing or a content of the ordinary conception. But it is quite another matter to investigate the content itself, and to ask, “Is this which is within us true?” We must not dispute about the sources, for the Whence, the only important point to Locke, does not exhaust the whole question. The interest of the content in and for itself wholly disappears when that position is taken up, and thereby the whole of what is aimed at by Philosophy is given up. On the other hand, when thought is from the beginning concrete, when thought and the universal are synonymous with what is set before us, the question of the relation of the two which have been separated by thought is destitute of interest and incomprehensible. How does thought overcome the difficulties which itself has begotten? Here with Locke none at all have been begotten and awakened. Before the need for reconciliation can be satisfied, the pain of disunion must be excited.
The philosophy of Locke is certainly very comprehensible, but for that very reason it is likewise a popular philosophy to which the whole of the English philosophy as it exists at this day is allied; it is the thinking method of regarding things which is called philosophy carried to its perfection, the form which was introduced into the science which then took its rise in Europe. This is an important moment in culture; the sciences in general and specially the empiric sciences have to ascribe their origin to this movement. To the English, Philosophy has ever signified the deduction of experiences from observations; this has in a one-sided way been applied to physical and economic subjects. General principles of political economy such as free-trade in the present day, and all matters which rest on thinking experience, the knowledge of whatever reveals itself in this sphere as necessary and useful, signifies philosophy to the English (Vol. I. pp. 57, 58). The scholastic method of starting from principles and definitions has been rejected. The universal, laws, forces, universal matter, etc., have in natural science been derived from perceptions; thus to the English, Newton is held to be the philosopher κατ’ ἐξοχήν. The other side is that in practical philosophy regarding society or the state, thought applies itself to concrete objects such as the will of the prince, subjects and their ends and personal welfare. Inasmuch as we have an object such as that before us, the indwelling and essential universal is made evident; it must, however, be made clear which conception is the one to which the others must yield. It is in this way that rational politics took their rise in England, because the institutions and government peculiar to the English led them specially and in the first place to reflection upon their inward political and economic relationships. Hobbes must be mentioned as an exemplification of this fact. This manner of reasoning starts from the present mind, from what is our own, whether it be within or without us, since the feelings which we have, the experiences which fall directly within us, are the principles. This philosophy of reasoning thought is that which has now become universal, and through which the whole revolution in the position taken up by mind has come to pass.
[2. Hugo Grotius.]
Hugo Grotius was studying the laws of nations at the same time as Locke; and in him the very same methods may be found as those already mentioned, inasmuch as he also falls into a quite empirical system of associating nations with one another, combining with that an empirical mode of reasoning. Hugo van Groot, born 1583 at Delft, was a lawyer, fiscal general, and council pensionary; in 1619, however, he was implicated in the Barneveldt trial, and was compelled to fly the country. For a long time he remained in France, but in 1634 he entered the service of Queen Christina of Sweden. In 1635 he was made Swedish ambassador in Paris, and in 1645 he died at Rostock, while on a journey from Stockholm to Holland.[230] His principal work, De jure belli et pacis, he composed in 1625; now it is not read, but at one time it exercised a very great and important influence. In it Grotius presented a comparative historical account, the material of which was partly derived from the Old Testament, of the manner in which nations in the various relationships of war and peace have acted towards one another, and what usages they held to be binding. The following may serve as an example of his empirical method of reasoning: Prisoners ought not to be killed; for the object is to disarm the enemy, and if this end be attained nothing further should be done.[231] This empirical way of connecting facts had the effect of bringing general comprehensible and rational principles into consciousness, of making them recognized, and of causing them to be more or less acceptable. Thus we see principles set forth, respecting the righteousness of a king’s power for instance; for thought applied itself to everything. We are unsatisfied by such proofs and deductions, but we must not overlook what is thereby accomplished; and this is the establishment of principles which have their ultimate confirmation in the objects themselves, in mind and thought.
[3. Thomas Hobbes.]
Hobbes, who was celebrated and distinguished on account of the originality of his views, was tutor to the Earl of Devonshire; he was born in 1588 at Malmesbury, and died in 1679.[232] As a contemporary of Cromwell, he found in the events of that time, in the Revolution which then took place in England, an occasion for reflecting on the principles of state and law, and in fact he succeeded in making his way to quite original conceptions. He wrote much, including a treatise on Philosophy, entitled “The Elements of Philosophy.” The first section (Sectio) of this work, De corpore, appeared in London in 1655; in it he first of all treats of Logic (Pars I.), and secondly of philosophia prima (Pars II.); this last is an ontology and metaphysic. The next sub-division (Pars III.), “On the relation between motion and magnitude,” is a system of mechanism, a quite popular system of physics; and a study of the human organs. The second section was to treat of the nature of man (De homine), and the third of the state (De cive), but the intellectual sections of the work Hobbes did not entirely finish. He says in his preface that Copernicus first opened up astronomy, and Galileo physics, before them there was nothing certain in either science. Harvey worked out the science of the human body, and physics generally as well as astronomy were perfected by Keppler. All this was termed Philosophy, in accordance with the point of view which has been already given (p. 313), since in it the reflective understanding desires to know the universal. Hobbes further says concerning the philosophy of the state (philosophia civilis), that it only dates from the publication of his book De cive.[233] This work, which appeared at Paris in 1642,[234] is, like his Leviathan, a much decried book; the second mentioned writing was forbidden to be circulated, and is hence very rare. Both works contain sounder reflections on the nature of society and government than many now in circulation. Society, the state, is to Hobbes absolutely pre-eminent, it is the determining power without appeal as regards law and positive religion and their external relations; and because he placed these in subjection to the state, his doctrines were of course regarded with the utmost horror. But there is nothing speculative or really philosophic in them, and there is still less in Hugo Grotius.
Before this ideals were set before us, or Holy Scripture or positive law was quoted as authoritative. Hobbes, on the contrary, sought to derive the bond which holds the state together, that which gives the state its power, from principles which lie within us, which we recognize as our own. In this way two opposite principles arise. The first is the passive obedience of subjects, the divine authority of rulers, whose will is absolute law, and is itself elevated above all other law. All this is represented in close connection with religion, and proved by examples from the Old Testament, by such stories as those of Saul and David. Criminal and marriage laws, too, for long derived their character from the Mosaic laws, or, speaking generally, from those the provisions of which possessed their value by the fact of being established by express divine command. On the other hand we have in the second place the reasoning wherein we ourselves are the determining agents, and which was called sound reason. In the movement which Cromwell made use of there was allied with this a fanaticism, which from the written letter drew opposite conclusions to the above, and this we see exemplified in the equality of property, for instance. Hobbes, it is true, likewise maintained passive obedience, the absolute freedom of the royal will and power; but at the same time he sought to derive the principles of monarchical power, etc., from universal determinations. The views that he adopts are shallow and empirical, but the reasons he gives for them, and the propositions he makes respecting them, are original in character, inasmuch as they are derived from natural necessities and wants.
Hobbes maintained that “The origin of all society is to be found in the mutual fear of all its members;” it is hence a phenomenon in consciousness. “Each association is thus formed in its own interest or for its own renown, that is, from selfish motives.” All such matters as security of life, property, and enjoyment, are not to be found outside it. “But men have in all dissimilarity of strength a natural similarity as well.” This Hobbes proves by a characteristic reason, viz. that “each individual can make away with the other,” each is the ultimate power over the others. “Each can be supreme.”[235] Thus their similarity is not derived from the greatest strength; it is not, as in modern times, founded on the freedom of the spirit, or on an equality of merit and independence, but on the equal weakness of mankind; each man is weak as regards others.
b. Hobbes further takes up the position that this natural condition is of such a nature that all possess the desire to rule over one another. “All in their natural condition are possessed of the will to injure others,” to tyrannize over other men; each has thus to fear the other. Hobbes looks at this condition in its true light, and we find in him no idle talk about a state of natural goodness; the natural condition is really far more like that of the animals—a condition in which there is an unsubdued individual will. All thus wish to “secure themselves against the pretensions of others, to acquire for themselves advantages and superior rights. Opinions, religions, desires, arouse strife; the stronger bears away the victory. The natural condition is consequently a condition of mistrust on the part of all towards all; it is a war of all against all (bellum omnium in omnes),” and the endeavour of one to overreach another. The expression nature has a double significance: In the first place the nature of man signifies his spiritual and rational Being; but his natural condition indicates quite another condition, wherein man conducts himself according to his natural impulses. In this way he conducts himself in conformity with his desires and inclinations, while the rational, on the contrary, is the obtaining supremacy over the immediately natural. “In the condition of nature a certain irresistible power grants the right to rule over those who cannot resist; it is absurd to leave those whom we have in our power to become free and strong again.” From this Hobbes draws the conclusion that “man must go forth from the natural condition.”[236] This is true; the natural condition is not what it should be, and must hence be cast off.
c. Hobbes finally passes to the laws of reason which preserve tranquillity. This condition of law is the subjection of the natural, particular will of the individual to the universal will, which, however, is not that of all individuals, but is the will of the ruler; this is consequently not responsible to individuals, but is directed against this private will, and to it all must be obedient.[237] Thus the whole matter is now placed on quite another footing. But because the universal will is made to reside in the will of one monarch, there nevertheless proceeds from this point of view, which is really correct, a condition of absolute rule, of perfect despotism. The condition of law does not, however, mean that the arbitrary will of one man constitutes absolute law, for the universal will is no despotism, being rational, inasmuch as it is consistently expressed and determined in laws.
Rixner (Handbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, Vol. III. p. 30) says: “Law to him is nothing but the sum of the conditions of peace extorted by iron necessity from the original wickedness of mankind.” We might add that in Hobbes we at least find this, that the nature and organism of the State is established on the principle of human nature, human desire, &c. The English concerned themselves greatly with that principle of passive obedience, in accordance with which it is said that kings receive their power from God. This, in one aspect, is quite true, but in another it is falsely taken to mean that they have no responsibility, that their blind desires, their merely subjective will, is what must be obeyed.
[4. Cudworth, Clarke, Wollaston.]
Cudworth wished to revive Plato in England, but to do this after the manner of the demonstrations which we met with in Descartes, and through a trivial metaphysic of the understanding. He wrote a celebrated work: “The true intellectual System of the Universe,” but the Platonic ideas expressed are often in a clumsy form and mingled with the Christian conceptions of God and angels—all regarded as particular existent things. What in Plato is mythical, is here taken as reality in the form of existence; this is reasoned about just as we reason respecting a matter of ordinary fact, such as whether it is probable that the French seek to effect a landing in England, and if so, whether they will successfully accomplish it. The Christian intellectual world is dragged down to the form of ordinary actuality, and consequently it is ruined.
The name of Clarke is likewise famous in connection with his proof of the existence of God. There were quite a number of other English philosophers, whom we do not, however, require to notice; for Clarke, Wollaston, and others carry on their speculations within forms such as belong to a very commonplace metaphysic of the understanding. The manifold systems of moral philosophy which we find taking their rise in England are drawn up from this same mental standpoint; in them the implicitude of mind appears in a form of natural existence, namely, of desires and feelings. Their principles are found in moral sentiments, benevolent desires, sympathy, &c. That form alone is worthy of notice which, on the one hand, represents duty as something which is not foreign, given, commanded, but as clearly belonging to self-consciousness, even while, on the other hand, it represents this property as a natural, unconscious, unspiritual, and irrational existence. Impulse is blind, a solid existence which cannot get beyond itself like thinking self-consciousness. It is indeed true of impulse that its pure activity or its process, and the content, are, as in thought, immediately posited as the same; it has its content in itself, and this is not dead and passive, but self-acting and impelling. But that unity has the form of immediacy only as existent; in the first place it is not a knowledge, it is not necessary, for it is only taken from inward perception; in the second place, it is a determinate which does not abrogate itself, beyond which we cannot get, and which thus is not a universal. Impulse is no more an infinite than is the fixed category of force. Such reasoning takes the impulses in their determinate character from experience, and expresses the appearance of necessity in the same as an inward existence, as a force. For instance, the social instinct is a moment which is found in experience, because man derives all manner of utility from society. Wherein does the necessity of the State, of society, find its basis? In a social desire. This is cause, just as in the physical world a formal interpretation such as this is always to be found. The necessity of any existent fact, such as what pertains to electrical phenomena, finds its basis in a force which brings it forth; it is merely the form of returning from the external to an inward, of passing from the existent to what is thought, which is again in turn represented as an existent. Force is necessitated by reason of the manifestation, we must argue from the latter to the former. On the other hand, the manifestation takes place through the force, for it is the cause of the manifestation; we hence have force in one place as reason, and in another as cause. But in all this there is no realization of the fact that in respect of form there is a transition from the Notion into Being and the other way, while in respect of content there is a perfect contingency of manifestation; we look at electricity in the same way as we look at the fact that men have social instincts, sympathetic inclinations, and so on.
[5. Puffendorf.]
In the struggle to give to just and equitable relations in the State an independent basis of their own, and to found a judicial system of government, reflective thought put forth its efforts; and this became to it a real interest and concern. And, as in the case of Grotius, it was also true of Puffendorf, that the instinct of mankind—that is, the social instinct, &c.—was made the principle. Samuel von Puffendorf was born in 1632 in Saxony; he studied public law, philosophy, and mathematics at Leipzig and Jena; in 1661, as a professor at Heidelberg, he made natural and civil law for the first time academic studies; in 1668 he became tutor in a Swedish family, which office he later on exchanged for the service of the House of Brandenburg, and in 1694 he died at Berlin as a privy councillor. He wrote several works on political law and history; we must specially mention his work, De jure naturæ et gentium, Libr. viii., Londin. Scan. 1672, 4; and also his compendium De officio hominis, published at the same place in 1673, 8, and Elementa jurisprudentiæ universalis.[238] While the divine right of kings was here still recognized—whereby they rendered account to God alone, or, at all events, were still bound to take counsel of the Church—the impulses and necessities present in mankind were now considered as well. These were regarded as the inward principles for private and political law, and from them the duties both of the government and of rulers were deduced, so that the freedom of mankind might not be interfered with. The basis of the state in Puffendorf’s view is the social instinct: the highest end of the state is the peace and security of social life through the transformation of inward duties as prescribed by conscience into external duties as compelled by law.[239]
[6. Newton.]
The other side is that thought likewise applied itself to nature, and in this connection Isaac Newton is famous by reason of his mathematical discoveries and his work in physics. He was born in 1642 at Cambridge, made a special study of mathematics, and became professor of the same at Cambridge; later on he was made president of the Royal Society in London, and he died in 1727.[240]
Newton was indisputably the chief contributor to the popularity of the philosophy of Locke, or the English method of treating of Philosophy, and more especially did he promote its application to all the physical sciences. “Physics, beware of metaphysics,” was his maxim,[241] which signifies, Science, beware of thought; and all the physical sciences, even to the present day, have, following in his wake, faithfully observed this precept, inasmuch as they have not entered upon an investigation of their conceptions, or thought about thoughts. Physics can, however, effect nothing without thought; it has its categories and laws through thought alone, and without thought it does not effect any progress. Newton was mainly instrumental in introducing to physics the determinations respecting forces, which pertain to reflection; he raised science to the standpoint of reflection, and set the laws of forces in the place of the laws of phenomena. Regarding matters as he did, Newton derived his conclusions from his experiences; and in physics and the theory of colour-vision, he made bad observations and drew worse conclusions. He passed from experiences to general points of view, again made them fundamental, and from them constructed the individual; this is how his theories are constructed. The observation of things, the discovery of the law immanent therein, and the universal which is found within them, has become the real point of interest. In this way, Newton is so complete a barbarian as regards his conceptions that his case is like that of another of his countrymen who was surprised and rejoiced to learn that he had talked prose all his life, not having had any idea that he was so accomplished. This Newton, like all the Physicists, indeed, never learned; he did not know that he thought in, and had to deal with Notions, while he imagined he was dealing with physical facts: and he presented the extremest contrast to Boehme, who handled sensuous things as Notions, and, by sheer force of mind, obtained entire possession of their actuality and subjugated them. Instead of this Newton treated Notions like sensuous things, and dealt with them just as men deal with wood and stone. And this is even now the case. In the beginnings of physical science we read of the power of inertia, for instance, of the force of acceleration, of molecules, of centripetal and centrifugal force, as of facts which definitely exist; what are really the final results of reflection are represented as their first grounds. If we ask for the cause of there being no advance made in such sciences, we find that it is because men do not understand that they should apply themselves to Notions, but make up their minds to adopt these determinations without sense or understanding. Hence in Newton’s Optics, for instance, there are conclusions derived from his experience which are so untrue and devoid of understanding, that while they are set forth as the finest example of how men can learn to know nature by means of experiments and conclusions derived from experiments, they may also serve as an example of how we should neither experiment nor draw conclusions, of how nothing at all can be learned. A miserable kind of experience like this itself contradicts itself through nature, for nature is more excellent than it appears in this wretched experience: both nature itself and experience, when carried a little further, contradict it. Hence, of all the splendid discoveries of Newton in optics, none now remain excepting one—the division of light into seven colours. This is partly because the conception of whole and part come into play, and partly from an obdurate closing of the eyes to the opposite side. From this empirical method in Philosophy, we shall now pass on to Leibnitz.
[C. Third Section.]
The third development of the philosophy of the understanding is that represented by Leibnitz and Wolff. If Wolff’s metaphysics is divested of its rigid form, we have as a result the later popular philosophy.
[1. Leibnitz.]
As in other respects Leibnitz represents the extreme antithesis to Newton, so in respect of philosophy he presents a striking contrast to Locke and his empiricism, and also to Spinoza. He upholds thought as against the perception of the English school, and in lieu of sensuous Being he maintains Being for thought to be the essence of truth, just as Boehme at an earlier time upheld implicit Being. While Spinoza asserted the universality, the oneness of substance merely, and while with Locke we saw infinite determinations made the basis, Leibnitz, by means of his fundamental principle of individuality, brings out the essentiality of the opposite aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy, existence for self, the monad, but the monad regarded as the absolute Notion, though perhaps not yet as the “I.” The opposed principles, which were forced asunder, find their completion in each other, since Leibnitz’s principle of individuation completed Spinoza’s system as far as outward aspect goes.
Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron von Leibnitz, was born in 1646 at Leipzig, where his father was professor of Philosophy. The subject that he studied in view of a profession was jurisprudence, but first, in accordance with the fashion of the day, he made a study of Philosophy, and to it he devoted particular attention. To begin with, he picked up in Leipzig a large and miscellaneous stock of knowledge, then he studied Philosophy and mathematics at Jena under the mathematician and theosophist Weigel, and took his degree of Master of Philosophy in Leipzig. There also, on the occasion of his graduation as Doctor of Philosophy, he defended certain philosophical theses, some of which discourses are still contained in his works (ed. Dutens, T. II. P. I. p. 400). His first dissertation, and that for which he obtained the degree of doctor of philosophy, was: De principio individui,—a principle which remained the abstract principle of his whole philosophy, as opposed to that of Spinoza. After he had acquired a thorough knowledge of the subject, he wished to graduate also as Doctor of Laws. But though he died an imperial councillor, it was his ill fortune to receive from the Faculty at Leipzig a refusal to confer the doctorate upon him, his youth being the alleged reason. Such a thing could scarcely happen now-a-days. It may be that it was done because of his over-great philosophical attainments, seeing that lawyers are wont to hold the same in horror. He now quitted Leipzig, and betook himself to Altdorf, where he graduated with distinction. Shortly afterwards he became acquainted in Nürnberg with a company of alchemists, with whose ongoings he became associated. Here he made extracts from alchemistic writings, and studied the mysteries of this occult science. His activity in the pursuit of learning extended also to historical, diplomatic, mathematical and philosophical subjects. He subsequently entered the service of the Elector of Mayence, becoming a member of council, and in 1672 he was appointed tutor to a son of Von Boineburg, Chancellor of State to the Elector. With this young man he travelled to Paris, where he lived for four years. He at this time made the acquaintance of the great mathematician Huygens, and was by him for the first time properly introduced into the domain of mathematics. When the education of his pupil was completed, and the Baron Von Boineburg died, Leibnitz went on his own account to London, where he became acquainted with Newton and other scholars, at whose head was Oldenburg, who was also on friendly terms with Spinoza. After the death of the Elector of Mayence, the salary of Leibnitz ceased to be paid; he therefore left England and returned to France. The Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg then took him into his service, and gave him the appointment of councillor and librarian at Hanover, with permission to spend as much time as he liked in foreign countries. He therefore remained for some time longer in France, England, and Holland. In the year 1677 he settled down in Hanover, where he became busily engaged in affairs of state, and was specially occupied with historical matters. In the Harz Mountains he had works constructed for carrying off the floods which did damage to the mines there. Notwithstanding these manifold occupations he invented the differential calculus in 1677, on occasion of which there arose a dispute between him and Newton, which was carried on by the latter and the Royal Society of London in a most ungenerous manner. For it was asserted by the English, who gave themselves the credit of everything, and were very unfair to others, that the discovery was really made by Newton. But Newton’s Principia only appeared later, and in the first edition indeed Leibnitz was mentioned with commendation in a note which was afterwards omitted. From his headquarters in Hanover, Leibnitz, commissioned by his prince, made several journeys through Germany, and also went to Italy in order to collect historical evidence relative to the House of Este, and for the purpose of proving more clearly the relationship between this princely family and that of Brunswick-Lüneburg. At other times he was likewise much occupied with historical questions. Owing to his acquaintance with the consort of Frederick I. of Prussia, Sophia Charlotte, a Hanoverian princess, he was enabled to bring about the foundation of an Academy of Science in Berlin, in which city he lived for a considerable time. In Vienna he also became acquainted with Prince Eugène, which occasioned his being appointed finally an Imperial Councillor. He published several very important historical works as the result of this journey. His death took place at Hanover in 1716, when he was seventy years of age.[242]
It was not only on Philosophy, but also on the most varied branches of science that Leibnitz expended toil and trouble and energy; it was to mathematics, however, that he specially devoted his attention, and he is the inventor of the methods of the integral and differential calculus. His great services in regard to mathematics and physics we here leave out of consideration, and pay attention to his philosophy alone. None of his books can be exactly looked on as giving a complete systematic account of his philosophy. To the more important among them belongs his work on the human understanding (Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain) in reply to Locke; but this is a mere refutation. His philosophy is therefore scattered through various little treatises which were written in very various connections, in letters, and replies to objections which caused him to bring out one aspect of the question more strongly than another; we consequently find no elaborated systematic whole, superintended or perfected by him. The work which has some appearance of being such, his Théodicée, better known to the public than anything else he wrote, is a popular treatise which he drew up for Queen Sophia Charlotte in reply to Bayle, and in which he took pains not to present the matter in very speculative form. A Wurtemberg theologian, Pfaff by name, and others who were correspondents of Leibnitz and were themselves only too well versed in philosophy, brought it as a charge against Leibnitz—a charge which he never denied—that his philosophy was written in popular form.[243] They laughed very much afterwards at Wolff, who had taken them to be quite in earnest; his opinion was that if Leibnitz were not perfectly serious in this sense with his Théodicée, yet he had unconsciously written his best therein. Leibnitz’s Théodicée is not what we can altogether appreciate; it is a justification of God in regard to the evil in the world. His really philosophic thoughts are most connectedly expressed in a treatise on the principles of Grace (Principes de la Nature et de la Grace),[244] and especially in the pamphlet addressed to Prince Eugène of Savoy.[245] Buhle (Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, vol. iv. section 1, p. 131) says: “His philosophy is not so much the product of free, independent, original speculation, as the result of well-tested earlier” and later “systems, an eclecticism whose defects he tried to remedy in his own way. It is a desultory treatment of Philosophy in letters.”
Leibnitz followed the same general plan in his philosophy as the physicists adopt when they advance a hypothesis to explain existing data. He has it that general conceptions of the Idea are to be found, from which the particular may be derived; here, on account of existing data, the general conception, for example the determination of force or matter furnished by reflection, must have its determinations disposed in such a way that it fits in with the data. Thus the philosophy of Leibnitz seems to be not so much a philosophic system as an hypothesis regarding the existence of the world, namely how it is to be determined in accordance with the metaphysical determinations and the data and assumptions of the ordinary conception, which are accepted as valid[246]—thoughts which are moreover propounded without the sequence pertaining to the Notion and mainly in narrative style, and which taken by themselves show no necessity in their connection. Leibnitz’s philosophy therefore appears like a string of arbitrary assertions, which follow one on another like a metaphysical romance; it is only when we see what he wished thereby to avoid that we learn to appreciate its value. He really makes use of external reasons mainly in order to establish relations: “Because the validity of such relations cannot be allowed, nothing remains but to establish the matter in this way.” If we are not acquainted with these reasons, this procedure strikes us as arbitrary.
a. Leibnitz’s philosophy is an idealism of the intellectuality of the universe; and although from one point of view he stands opposed to Locke, as from another point of view he is in opposition to the Substance of Spinoza, he yet binds them both together again. For, to go into the matter more particularly, on the one hand he expresses in the many monads the absolute nature of things distinguished and of individuality; on the other hand, in contrast to this and apart from it, he expresses the ideality of Spinoza and the non-absolute nature of all difference, as the idealism of the popular conception. Leibnitz’s philosophy is a metaphysics, and in sharp contrast to the simple universal Substance of Spinoza, where all that is determined is merely transitory, it makes fundamental the absolute multiplicity of individual substances, which after the example of the ancients he named monads—an expression already used by the Pythagoreans. These monads he then proceeds to determine as follows.
Firstly “Substance is a thing that is capable of activity, it is compound or simple, the compound cannot exist without the simple. The monads are simple substances.” The proof that they constitute the truth in all things is very simple, it is a superficial reflection. For instance, one of Leibnitz’s maxims is “Because there are compound things, the principles of the same must be simple, for the compound consists of the simple.”[247] This proof is poor enough, it is an example of the favourite way of starting from something definite, say the compound, and then drawing conclusions therefrom as to the simple. It is quite light in a way, but really it is tautology. Of course, if the compound exists, so does the simple, for the compound means something in itself manifold whose connection or unity is external. From the very trivial category of the compound it is easy to deduce the simple. It is a conclusion drawn from a certain premiss, but the question is whether the premiss is true. These monads are not, however, something abstract and simple in itself, like the empty Epicurean atoms, which, as they were in themselves lacking in determination, drew all their determination from their aggregation alone. The monads are, on the contrary, substantial forms, a good expression, borrowed from the Scholastics (supra, p. 71), or the metaphysical points of the Alexandrian School (Vol II. p. 439), they are the entelechies of Aristotle taken as pure activity, which are forms in themselves (Vol II. pp. 138, 182, 183). “These monads are not material or extended, nor do they originate or decay in the natural fashion, for they can begin only by a creative act of God, and they can end only by annihilation.”[248] Thereby they are distinguished from the atoms, which are regarded simply as principles. The expression creation we are familiar with from religion, but it is a meaningless word derived from the ordinary conception; in order to be a thought and to have philosophic significance, it must be much more closely defined.
Secondly: “On account of their simplicity the monads are not susceptible of alteration by another monad in their inner essence; there is no causal connection between them.” Each of them is something indifferent and independent as regards the rest, otherwise it would not be an entelechy. Each of them is so much for itself that all its determinations and modifications go on in itself alone, and no determination from without takes place. Leibnitz says: “There are three ways in which substances are connected: (1) Causality, influence; (2) The relation of assistance; (3) The relation of harmony. The relation of influence is a relation pertaining to a commonplace or popular philosophy. But as it is impossible to understand how material particles or immaterial qualities can pass from one substance into another, such a conception as this must be abandoned.” If we accept the reality of the many, there can be no transition at all; each is an ultimate and absolutely independent entity. “The system of assistance,” according to Descartes, “is something quite superfluous, a Deus ex machina, because continual miracles in the things of nature are assumed.” If we, like Descartes, assume independent substances, no causal nexus is conceivable; for this presupposes an influence, a bearing of the one upon the other, and in this way the other is not a substance. “Therefore there remains only harmony, a unity which is in itself or implicit. The monad is therefore simply shut up in itself, and cannot be determined by another; this other cannot be set into it. It can neither get outside itself, nor can others get inside it.”[249] That is also Spinoza’s way of regarding matters: each attribute entirely represents the essence of God for itself, extension and thought have no influence on each other.
In the third place, “however, these monads must at the same time have certain qualities or determinations in themselves, inner actions, through which they are distinguished from others. There cannot be two things alike, for otherwise they would not be two, they would not be different, but one and the same.”[250] Here then Leibnitz’s axiom of the undistinguishable comes into words. What is not in itself distinguished is not distinguished. This may be taken in a trivial sense, as that there are not two individuals which are alike. To such sensuous things the maxim has no application, it is prima facie indifferent whether there are things which are alike or not; there may also be always a difference of space. This is the superficial sense, which does not concern us. The more intimate sense is, however, that each thing is in itself something determined, distinguishing itself from others implicitly or in itself. Whether two things are like or unlike is only a comparison which we make, which falls within our ken. But what we have further to consider is the determined difference in themselves. The difference must be a difference in themselves, not for our comparison, for the subject must have the difference as its own peculiar characteristic or determination, i.e. the determination must be immanent in the individual. Not only do we distinguish the animal by its claws, but it distinguishes itself essentially thereby, it defends itself, it preserves itself. If two things are different only in being two, then each of them is one; but the fact of their being two does not constitute a distinction between them; the determined difference in itself is the principal point.
Fourthly: “The determinateness and the variation thereby established is, however, an inward implicit principle; it is a multiplicity of modifications, of relations to surrounding existences, but a multiplicity which remains locked up in simplicity. Determinateness and variation such as this, which remains and goes on in the existence itself, is a perception;” and therefore Leibnitz says all monads perceive or represent (for we may translate perceptio by representation [Vorstellung]). In other words, they are in themselves universal, for universality is just simplicity in multiplicity, and therefore a simplicity which is at the same time change and motion of multiplicity. This is a very important determination; in substance itself there is negativity, determinateness, without its simplicity and its implicitude being given up. Further, in it there is this idealism, that the simple is something in itself distinguished, and in spite of its variation, that it yet remains one, and continues in its simplicity. An instance of this is found in “I,” my spirit. I have many conceptions, a wealth of thought is in me, and yet I remain one, notwithstanding this variety of state. This identity may be found in the fact that what is different is at the same time abrogated, and is determined as one; the monads are therefore distinguished by modifications in themselves, but not by external determinations. These determinations contained in the monads exist in them in ideal fashion; this ideality in the monad is in itself a whole, so that these differences are only representations and ideas. This absolute difference is what is termed the Notion; what falls asunder in the mere representation is held together. This is what possesses interest in Leibnitz’s philosophy. Such ideality in the same way pertains to the material, which is also a multiplicity of monads; therefore the system of Leibnitz is an intellectual system, in accordance with which all that is material has powers of representation and perception. As thus representing, the monad, says Leibnitz, possesses activity; for activity is to be different, and yet to be one, and this is the only true difference. The monad not only represents, it also changes; but in doing so, it yet remains in itself absolutely what it is. This variation is based on activity. “The activity of the inner principle, by means of which it passes from one perception to another, is desire (appetitus).” Variation in representation is desire, and that constitutes the spontaneity of the monad; all is now complete in itself, and the category of influence falls away. Indeed, this intellectuality of all things is a great thought on the part of Leibnitz: “All multiplicity is included in unity;”[251] determination is not a difference in respect of something else, but reflected into itself, and maintaining itself. This is one aspect of things, but the matter is not therein complete; it is equally the case that it is different in respect of other things.
Fifthly: These representations and ideas are not necessarily conscious representations and ideas, any more than all monads as forming representations are conscious. It is true that consciousness is itself perception, but a higher grade of the same; perceptions of consciousness Leibnitz calls apperceptions. The difference between the merely representing and the self-conscious monads Leibnitz makes one of degrees of clearness. The expression representation has, however, certainly something awkward about it, since we are accustomed to associate it only with consciousness, and with consciousness as such; but Leibnitz admits also of unconscious representation. When he then adduces examples of unconscious representations, he appeals to the condition of a swoon or of sleep, in which we are mere monads: and that representations without consciousness are present in such states he shows from the fact of our having perceptions immediately after awakening out of sleep, which shows that others must have been there, for one perception arises only out of others.[252] That is a trivial and empirical demonstration.
Sixthly: These monads constitute the principle of all that exists. Matter is nothing else than their passive capability. This passive capability it is which constitutes the obscurity of the representations, or a confusion which never arrives at distinction, or desire, or activity.[253] That is a correct definition of the conception; it is Being, matter, in accordance with the moment of simplicity. This is implicitly activity; “mere implicitness without actualization” would therefore be a better expression. The transition from obscurity to distinctness Leibnitz exemplifies by the state of swooning.
Seventhly: Bodies as bodies are aggregates of monads: they are mere heaps which cannot be termed substances, any more than a flock of sheep can bear this name.[254] The continuity of the same is an arrangement or extension, but space is nothing in itself;[255] it is only in another, or a unity which our understanding gives to that aggregate.[256]
b. Leibnitz goes on to determine and distinguish more clearly as the principal moments, inorganic, organic, and conscious monads, and he does it in the following way.
α. Such bodies as have no inner unity, whose elements are connected merely by space, or externally, are inorganic; they have not an entelechy or one monad which rules over the rest.[257] The continuity of space as a merely external relation has not the Notion in itself of the likeness of these monads in themselves. Continuity is in fact to be regarded in them as an arrangement, a similarity in themselves. Leibnitz therefore defines their movements as like one another, as a harmony in themselves;[258] but again, this is as much as saying that their similarity is not in themselves. In fact continuity forms the essential determination of the inorganic; but it must at the same time not be taken as something external or as likeness, but as penetrating or penetrated unity, which has dissolved individuality in itself like a fluid. But to this point Leibnitz does not attain, because for him monads are the absolute principle, and individuality does not annul itself.
β. A higher degree of Being is found in bodies with life and soul, in which one monad has dominion over the rest. The body which is bound up with the monad, of which the one monad is the entelechy or soul, is with this soul named a living creature, an animal. One such entelechy rules over the rest, yet not really, but formally: the limbs of this animal, however, are again themselves such living things, each of which has in its turn its ruling entelechy within it.[259] But ruling is here an inappropriate expression. To rule in this case is not to rule over others, for all are independent; it is therefore only a formal expression. If Leibnitz had not helped himself out with the word rule, and developed the idea further, this dominant monad would have abrogated the others, and put them in a negative position; the implicitness of the other monads, or the principle of the absolute Being of these points or individuals would have disappeared. Yet we shall later on come across this relation of the individuals to one another.
γ. The conscious monad distinguishes itself from the naked (material) monads by the distinctness of the representation. But this is of course only an indefinite word, a formal distinction; it indicates that consciousness is the very thing that constitutes the distinction of the undistinguished, and that distinction constitutes the determination of consciousness. Leibnitz more particularly defined the distinction of man as that “he is capable of the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths,”—or that he conceives the universal on the one hand, and on the other what is connected with it; the nature and essence of self-consciousness lies in the universality of the Notions. “These eternal truths rest on two maxims; the one is that of contradiction, the other is that of sufficient reason.” The former of these is unity expressed in useless fashion as a maxim, the distinction of the undistinguishable, A = A; it is the definition of thinking, but not a maxim which could contain a truth as content, or it does not express the Notion of distinction as such. The other important principle was, on the other hand: What is not distinguished in thought is not distinguished (p. 333). “The maxim of the reason is that everything has its reason,”[260]—the particular has the universal as its essential reality. Necessary truth must have its reason in itself in such a manner that it is found by analysis, i.e. through that very maxim of identity. For analysis is the very favourite plan of resolving into simple ideas and principles: a resolution which annihilates their relation, and which therefore in fact forms a transition into the opposite, though it does not have the consciousness of the same, and on that account also excludes the Notion; for every opposite it lays hold of only in its identity. Sufficient reason seems to be a pleonasm; but Leibnitz understood by this aims, final causes (causæ finales), the difference between which and the causal nexus or the efficient cause he here brings under discussion.[261]
c. The universal itself, absolute essence, which with Leibnitz is something quite different from the monads, separates itself also into two sides, namely universal Being and Being as the unity of opposites.
α. That universal is God, as the cause of the world, to the consciousness of whom the above principle of sufficient reason certainly forms the transition. The existence of God is only an inference from eternal truths; for these must as the laws of nature have a universal sufficient reason which determines itself as none other than God. Eternal truth is therefore the consciousness of the universal and absolute in and for itself; and this universal and absolute is God, who, as one with Himself, the monad of monads, is the absolute Monas. Here we again have the wearisome proof of His existence: He is the fountain of eternal truths and Notions, and without Him no potentiality would have actuality; He has the prerogative of existing immediately in His potentiality.[262] God is here also the unity of potentiality and actuality, but in an uncomprehending manner; what is necessary, but not comprehended, is transferred to Him. Thus God is at first comprehended chiefly as universal, but already in the aspect of the relation of opposites.
β. As regards this second aspect, the absolute relation of opposites, it occurs in the first place in the form of absolute opposites of thought, the good and the evil. “God is the Author of the world,” says Leibnitz; that refers directly to evil. It is round this relation that philosophy specially revolves, but to the unity of which it did not then attain; the evil in the world was not comprehended, because no advance was made beyond the fixed opposition. The result of Leibnitz’s Théodicée is an optimism supported on the lame and wearisome thought that God, since a world had to be brought into existence, chose out of infinitely many possible worlds the best possible—the most perfect, so far as it could be perfect, considering the finite element which it was to contain.[263] This may very well be said in a general way, but this perfection is no determined thought, but a loose popular expression, a sort of babble respecting an imaginary or fanciful potentiality; Voltaire made merry over it. Nor is the nature of the finite therein defined. Because the world, it is said, has to be the epitome of finite Beings, evil could not be separated from it, since evil is negation, finitude.[264] Reality and negation remain standing in opposition to one another exactly in the same way as before. That is the principal conception in the Théodicée. But something very like this can be said in every-day life. If I have some goods brought to me in the market at some town, and say that they are certainly not perfect, but the best that are to be got, this is quite a good reason why I should content myself with them. But comprehension is a very different thing from this. Leibnitz says nothing further than that the world is good, but there is also evil in it; the matter remains just the same as it was before. “Because it had to be finite” is then a mere arbitrary choice on the part of God. The next question would be: Why and how is there finitude in the Absolute and His decrees? And only then should there be deduced from the determination of finitude the evil which no doubt exists therein.
It is true that Leibnitz has a reply to the above question: “God does not will what is evil; evil comes only indirectly into the results” (blind), “because oftentimes the greater good could not be achieved if evils were not present. Therefore they are means to a good end.” But why does not God employ other means? They are always external, not in and for themselves. “A moral evil may not be regarded as a means, nor must we, as the apostle says, do evil that good may come; yet it has often the relation of a conditio sine qua non of the good. Evil is in God only the object of a permissive will (voluntatis permissivæ);” but everything that is wrong would be such. “God has therefore among the objects of His will the best possible as the ultimate object, but the good as a matter of choice (qualemcunque), also as subordinate; and things indifferent and evils often as means. Evil is, however, an object of His will only as the condition of something otherwise necessary (rei alioqui debitæ), which without it could not exist; in which sense Christ said it must needs be that offences come.”[265]
In a general sense we are satisfied with the answer: “In accordance with the wisdom of God we must accept it as a fact that the laws of nature are the best possible,” but this answer does not suffice for a definite question. What one wishes to know is the goodness of this or that particular law; and to that no answer is given. If, for example, it is said that “The law of falling bodies, in which the relation of time and space is the square, is the best possible,” one might employ, as far as mathematics are concerned, any other power whatever. When Leibnitz answers: “God made it so,” this is no answer at all. We wish to know the definite reason of this law; such general determinations sound pious, but are not satisfying.
γ. He goes on to say that the sufficient reason has reference to the representation of the monads. The principles of things are monads, of which each is for itself, without having influence on the others. If now the Monad of monads, God, is the absolute substance, and individual monads are created through His will, their substantiality comes to an end. There is therefore a contradiction present, which remains unsolved in itself—that is between the one substantial monad and the many monads for which independence is claimed, because their essence consists in their standing in no relation to one another. Yet at the same time, in order to show the harmony that exists in the world, Leibnitz understands the relation of monads to monads more generally as the unity of contrasted existences, namely of soul and body. This unity he represents as a relation without difference, and notionless, i.e. as a pre-established harmony.[266] Leibnitz uses here the illustration of two clocks, which are set to the same hour, and keep the same time;[267] in the same way the movement of the kingdom of thought goes on, determined in accordance with ends, and the movement onward of the corporeal kingdom which corresponds with it, proceeds according to a general causal connection.[268] The case is the same as with Spinoza, that these two sides of the universe have no connection with each other, the one does not influence the other, but both are entirely indifferent to one another; it is really the differentiating relation of the Notion that is lacking. In abstract thought that is without Notion, that determination now receives the form of simplicity, of implicitude, of indifference with regard to what is other, of a self-reflection that has no movement: in this way red in the abstract is in a position of indifference as regards blue, &c. Here, as before, Leibnitz forsakes his principle of individuation; it has only the sense of being exclusively one, and of not reaching to and including what is other; or it is only a unity of the popular conception, not the Notion of unity. The soul has thus a series of conceptions and ideas which are developed from within it, and this series is from the very first placed within the soul at its creation, i.e. the soul is in all immediacy this implicit determination; determination is, however, not implicit, but the reflected unfolding of this determination in the ordinary conception is its outward existence. Parallel with this series of differentiated conceptions, there now runs a series of motions of the body, or of what is external to the soul.[269] Both are essential moments of reality; they are mutually indifferent, but they have also an essential relation of difference.
Since now every monad, as shut up within itself, has no influence upon the body and its movements, and yet the infinite multitude of their atoms correspond with one another, Leibnitz places this harmony in God; a better definition of the relation and the activity of the Monad of monads is therefore that it is what pre-establishes harmony in the changes of the monads.[270] God is the sufficient reason, the cause of this correspondence; He has so arranged the multitude of atoms that the original changes which are developed within one monad correspond with the changes of the others. The pre-established harmony is to be thought of somewhat in this style; when a dog gets a beating, the pain develops itself in him, in like fashion the beating develops itself in itself, and so does the person who administers the beating: their determinations all correspond with one another, and that not by means of their objective connection, since each is independent.[271] The principle of the harmony among the monads does not consequently belong to them, but it is in God, who for that very reason is the Monad of monads, their absolute unity. We saw from the beginning how Leibnitz arrived at this conception. Each monad is really possessed of the power of representation, and is as such a representation of the universe, therefore implicitly the totality of the whole world. But at the same time this representation is not in consciousness; the naked monad is implicitly the universe, and difference is the development of this totality in it.[272] What develops itself therein is at the same time in harmony with all other developments; all is one harmony. “In the universe all things are closely knit together, they are in one piece, like an ocean: the slightest movement transmits its influence far and wide all around.”[273] From a single grain of sand, Leibnitz holds, the whole universe might be comprehended in its entire development—if we only knew the sand grain thoroughly. There is not really much in all this, though it sounds very fine; for the rest of the universe is considerably more than a grain of sand, well though we knew it, and considerably different therefrom. To say that its essence is the universe is mere empty talk: for the fact is that the universe as essence is not the universe. To the sand grain much must be added which is not present; and since thought adds more than all the grains of sand that exist, the universe and its development may in this way certainly be comprehended. Thus according to Leibnitz every monad has or is the representation of the entire universe, which is the same as saying that it is really representation in general; but at the same time it is a determinate representation, by means of which it comes to be this particular monad, therefore it is representation according to its particular situation and circumstances.[274]
The representations of the monad in itself, which constitute its universe, develop themselves from themselves, as the spiritual element in it, according to the laws of their own activity and desire, just as the movements of their outer world do according to laws of bodies; hence liberty is nothing other than this spontaneity of immanent development, but as in consciousness. The magnetic needle, on the contrary, has only spontaneity without consciousness, and consequently without freedom. For, says Leibnitz, the nature of the magnetic needle is to turn to the north; if it had consciousness it would imagine that this was its self-determination; it would thus have the will to move round in accordance with its nature.[275] But it is clear that in the course of conscious representations there is involved no necessary connection, but contingency and want of sequence are to be found, the reason of this according to Leibnitz (Oper. T. II P. I. p. 75) being “because the nature of a created substance implies that it changes incessantly according to a certain order, which order guides it spontaneously (spontanément) in all the circumstances which befall it; so that one who sees all things recognizes in the present condition of substance the past also and the future. The law of order, which determines the individuality of the particular substance, has an exact reference to what takes place in every other substance and in the whole universe.” The meaning of this is that the monad is not a thing apart, or that there are two views of it, the one making it out as spontaneously generating its representations, so far as form is concerned, and the other making it out to be a moment of the whole of necessity; Spinoza would call this regarding it from both sides. An organic whole, a human being, is thus for instance the assertion of his aim from out of himself: at the same time the being directed on something else is involved in his Notion. He represents this and that to himself, he wills this and that; his activity employs itself and brings about changes. His inward determination thus becomes corporeal determination, and then change going beyond himself; he appears as cause, influencing other monads. But this Being-for-another is only an appearance. For the other, i.e. the actual, in so far as the monad determines it or makes it negative, is the passive element which the monad has in itself: all moments are indeed contained therein, and for that very reason it has no need of other monads, but only of the laws of the monads in itself. But if the Being-for-another is mere appearance, the same may be said of Being-for-self; for this has significance only in reference to Being-for-another.
The important point in Leibnitz’s philosophy is this intellectuality of representation which Leibnitz, however, did not succeed in carrying out; and for the same reason this intellectuality is at the same time infinite multiplicity, which has remained absolutely independent, because this intellectuality has not been able to obtain mastery over the One. The separation in the Notion, which proceeds as far as release from itself, or appearance in distinct independence, Leibnitz did not succeed in bringing together into unity. The harmony of these two moments, the course of mental representations and the course of things external, appearing mutually as cause and effect, is not brought by Leibnitz into relation in and for themselves; he therefore lets them fall asunder, although each is passive as regards the other. He moreover considers both of them in one unity, to be sure, but their activity is at the same time not for themselves. Every forward advance becomes therefore incomprehensible when taken by itself, because the course of the representation as through aims in itself, requires this moment of Other-Being or of passivity; and again the connection of cause and effect requires the universal: each however lacks this its other moment. The unity which according to Leibnitz is to be brought about by the pre-established harmony, namely that the determination of the will of man and the outward change harmonize, is therefore brought about by means of another, if not indeed from without, for this other is God. Before God the monads are not to be independent, but ideal and absorbed in Him.
At this point the demand would come in that in God Himself there should be comprehended the required unity of that which before fell asunder; and God has the special privilege of having laid on Him the burden of what cannot be comprehended. The word of God is thus the makeshift which leads to a unity which itself is only hypothetical; for the process of the many out of this unity is not demonstrated. God plays therefore in the later philosophy a far greater part than in the early, because now the comprehension of the absolute opposition of thought and Being is the chief demand. With Leibnitz the extent to which thoughts advance is the extent of the universe; where comprehension ceases, the universe ceases, and God begins: so that later it was even maintained that to be comprehended was derogatory to God, because He was thus degraded into finitude. In that procedure a beginning is made from the determinate, this and that are stated to be necessary; but since in the next place the unity of these moments is not comprehended, it is transferred to God. God is therefore, as it were, the waste channel into which all contradictions flow: Leibnitz’s Théodicée is just a popular summing up such as this. There are, nevertheless, all manner of evasions to be searched out—in the opposition of God’s justice and mercy, that the one tempers the other; how the fore-knowledge of God and human freedom are compatible—all manner of syntheses which never come to the root of the matter nor show both sides to be moments.
These are the main moments of Leibnitz’s philosophy. It is a metaphysic which starts from a narrow determination of the understanding, namely, from absolute multiplicity, so that connection can only be grasped as continuity. Thereby absolute unity is certainly set aside, but all the same it is presupposed; and the association of individuals with one another is to be explained only in this way, that it is God who determines the harmony in the changes of individuals. This is an artificial system, which is founded on a category of the understanding, that of the absoluteness of abstract individuality. What is of importance in Leibnitz lies in the maxims, in the principle of individuality and the maxim of indistinguishability.
[2. Wolff.]
The philosophy of Wolff is directly connected with that of Leibnitz, for really it is a pedantic systematization of the latter, for which reason it is likewise called the Leibnitz-Wolffian system of philosophy. Wolff attained to great distinction in mathematics and made himself famous by his philosophy as well; the latter was for long predominant in Germany. In Wolff, as a teacher dealing with the understanding, we find a systematic exposition of the philosophic element present in human conceptions as a whole. As regards his connection with German culture generally, great and immortal praise is more especially due to him; before all others he may be termed the teacher of the Germans. We may indeed say that Wolff was the first to naturalize philosophy in Germany. Tschirnhausen and Thomasius likewise participated in this honour, for the special reason that they wrote upon Philosophy in the German language. In regard to the matter of the philosophy of Tschirnhausen and Thomasius we have not much to say; it is so-called healthy reason—there is in it the superficial character and the empty universality always to be found where a beginning is made with thought. In this case the universality of thought satisfies us because everything is present there, just as it is present in a moral maxim which has, however, no determinate content in its universality. Wolff, then, was the first to make, not exactly Philosophy, but thoughts in the form of thought, into a general possession, and he substituted this in Germany for mere talk originating from feeling, from sensuous perception, and from the ordinary conception. This is most important from the point of view of culture, and yet it does not really concern us here, excepting in so far as the content in this form of thought has caused itself to be recognized as Philosophy. This philosophy, as a philosophy of the understanding, became the ordinary culture of the day; in it determinate, intelligent thought is the fundamental principle, and it extends over the whole circle of objects which fall within the region of knowledge. Wolff defined the world of consciousness for Germany, and for the world in general, in the same wide sense in which we may say that this was done by Aristotle. What distinguishes him from Aristotle is that in so doing the point of view that he adopted was that of the understanding merely, while Aristotle treated the subject speculatively. The philosophy of Wolff is hence no doubt built on foundations laid by Leibnitz, but yet in such a manner that the speculative interest is quite eliminated from it. The spiritual philosophy, substantial in a higher sense, which we found emerging first in Boehme, though still in a peculiar and barbarous form, has been quite lost sight of, and has disappeared without leaving any traces or effects in Germany; his very language was forgotten.
The principal events in Christian Wolff’s life are these: He was the son of a baker, and was born at Breslau in 1679. He first studied Theology and then Philosophy, and in 1707 he became Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy at Halle. Here the pietistic theologians, and more especially Lange, treated him in the basest manner. Piety did not trust this understanding; for piety, if it is true, embodies a content which is speculative in nature, and which passes beyond the understanding. As his opponents could make no headway by their writings, they resorted to intrigues. They caused it to be conveyed to King Frederick William I., the father of Frederick II., a rough man who took an interest in nothing but soldiers, that according to the determinism of Wolff, free will was impossible, and that soldiers could not hence desert of their own free will, but by a special disposition of God (pre-established harmony)—a doctrine which, if disseminated amongst the military, would be extremely dangerous. The king, much enraged by this, immediately issued a decree that within forty-eight hours Wolff should leave Halle and the Prussian States, under penalty of the halter. Wolff thus left Halle on the 23rd of November, 1723. The theologians added to all this the scandal of preaching against Wolff and his philosophy, and the pious Franke thanked God on his knees in church for the removal of Wolff. But the rejoicings did not last long. Wolff went to Cassel, was there immediately installed first professor in the philosophic faculty at Marburg, and at the same time made a member of the Academies of Science of London, Paris, and Stockholm. By Peter the First of Russia he was made Vice-President of the newly instituted Academy in St. Petersburg. Wolff was also summoned to Russia, but this invitation he declined; he received, however, an honorary post, he was made a Baron by the Elector of Bavaria, and, in short, loaded with public honours which, more especially at that time, though even now it is the case, were very much thought of by the general public, and which were too great not to make a profound sensation in Berlin. In Berlin a commission was appointed to pass judgment on the Wolffian philosophy—for this it had not been possible to eradicate—and it declared the same to be harmless, that is to say, free from all danger to state and religion; it also forbade the theologians to make it a subject of dispute, and altogether put an end to their clamour. Frederick William now issued a recall in very respectful terms to Wolff, who, however, hesitated to comply with it owing to his lack of confidence in its sincerity. On the accession of Frederick II. in 1740 he was again recalled in terms of the highest honour (Lange had meanwhile died), and only then did he comply. Wolff became Vice-Chancellor of the University, but he outlived his repute, and his lectures at the end were very poorly attended. He died in 1754.[276]
Like Tschirnhausen and Thomasius, Wolff wrote a great part of his works in his mother tongue, while Leibnitz for the most part wrote only in Latin or French. This is an important matter, for, as we have already noticed (pp. 114 and 150), it is only when a nation possesses a science in its own language that it can really be said to belong to it; and in Philosophy most of all this is requisite. For thought has in it this very moment of pertaining to self-consciousness or of being absolutely its own; when one’s own language is the vehicle of expression, as when we talk of “Bestimmtheit” instead of “Determination,” and “Wesen” instead of “Essenz,” it is immediately present to our consciousness that the conceptions are absolutely its own; it has to deal with these at all times, and they are in no way foreign to it. The Latin language has a phraseology, a definite sphere and range of conception; it is at once taken for granted that when men write in Latin they are at liberty to be dull; it is impossible to read or write what men permit themselves to say in Latin. The titles of Wolff’s philosophic works are perpetually of this nature: “Rational thoughts on the powers of the human understanding and their right uses in the knowledge of the truth,” Halle, 1712, 8vo; “Rational thoughts on God, the world, and the soul of man, likewise on all things generally,” Frankfort and Leipzig, 1719; “On the action and conduct of men,” Halle, 1720; “On Social Life,” Halle, 1720; “On the operations of Nature,” Halle, 1723, and so on. Wolff wrote German and Latin quartos on every department of Philosophy, even on economics—twenty-three thick volumes of Latin, or about forty quartos altogether. His mathematical works make a good many more quartos. He brought into general use the differential and integral calculus of Leibnitz.
It is only in its general content and taken as a whole that Wolff’s philosophy is the philosophy of Leibnitz, that is to say, only in relation to the fundamental determinations of monads and to the theodicy—to these he remained faithful; any other content is empiric, derived from our feelings and desires. Wolff likewise accepted in their entirety all the Cartesian and other definitions of general ideas. Hence we find in him abstract propositions and their proofs mingled with experiences, on the indubitable truth of which he builds a large part of his propositions; and he must so build and derive his foundations if a content is to result at all. With Spinoza, on the contrary, no content is to be found excepting absolute substance and a perpetual return into the same. The greatness of Wolff’s services to the culture of Germany, which now appeared quite independently and without any connection with an earlier and profounder metaphysical standpoint (supra, p. 350), are in proportion to the barrenness and inward contentless condition into which Philosophy had sunk. This he divided into its formal disciplines, spinning it out into determinations of the understanding with a pedantic application of geometric methods; and, contemporaneously with the English philosophers, he made the dogmatism of the metaphysics of the understanding fashionable, that is a philosophizing which determines the absolute and rational by means of self-exclusive thought-determinations and relationships (such as one and many, simple and compound, finite and infinite, causal connection, &c.). Wolff entirely displaced the Aristotelian philosophy of the schools, and made Philosophy into an ordinary science pertaining to the German nation. But besides this he gave Philosophy that systematic and requisite division into sections which has down to the present day served as a sort of standard.
In theoretic philosophy Wolff first treats of Logic purified from scholastic interpretations or deductions; it is the logic of the understanding which he has systematized. The second stage is Metaphysics, which contains four parts: first there is Ontology, the treatment of abstract and quite general philosophic categories, such as Being (ὄν) and its being the One and Good; in this abstract metaphysic there further comes accident, substance, cause and effect, the phenomenon, &c. Next in order is Cosmology, a general doctrine of body, the doctrine of the world; here we have abstract metaphysical propositions respecting the world, that there is no chance, no leaps or bounds in nature—the law of continuity. Wolff excludes natural science and natural history. The third part of the metaphysic is rational psychology or pneumatology, the philosophy of the soul, which deals with the simplicity, immortality, immateriality of the soul. Finally, the fourth is natural theology, which sets forth the proofs of the existence of God.[277] Wolff also inserts (chap. iii.) an empirical psychology. Practical philosophy he divides into the Rights of Nature, Morality, the Rights of Nations or Politics, and Economics.
The whole is propounded in geometric forms such as definitions, axioms, theorems, scholia, corollaries, &c. In mathematics the understanding is in its proper place, for the triangle must remain the triangle. Wolff on the one hand started upon a large range of investigation, and one quite indefinite in character, and on the other, held to a strictly methodical manner with regard to propositions and their proofs. The method is really similar to that of Spinoza, only it is more wooden and lifeless than his. Wolff applied the same methods to every sort of content—even to that which is altogether empirical, such as his so-called applied mathematics, into which he introduces many useful arts, bringing the most ordinary reflections and directions into the geometric form. In many cases this undoubtedly gives his work a most pedantic aspect, especially when the content directly justifies itself to our conception without this form at all. For Wolff proceeds by first laying down certain definitions, which really rest upon our ordinary conceptions, since these he translated into the empty form of determinations of the understanding. Hence the definitions are merely nominal definitions, and we know whether they are correct only by seeing whether they correspond to conceptions which are referred to their simple thoughts. The syllogism is the form of real importance in this mode of reasoning, and with Wolff it often attains to its extreme of rigidity and formalism.
Under mathematics, which is the subject of four small volumes, Wolff also treats of architecture and military science. One of the propositions in Architecture is this: “Windows must be wide enough for two persons.” The making of a door is also propounded as a task, and the solution thereof given. The next best example comes from the art of warfare. The “Fourth proposition. The approach to the fortress must always be harder for the enemy the nearer he comes to it.” Instead of saying, because the danger is greater, which would be trivial, there follows the “Proof. The nearer the enemy comes to the fortress, the greater the danger. But the greater the danger the greater the resistance that must be offered in order to defy the attacks, and, so far as may be, avert the danger. Hence the nearer the enemy is to the fort the harder must the approach be made for him. Q.E.D.”[278] Since the increase of the danger is given as the reason, the whole is false, and the contrary may be said with equal truth. For if at the beginning all possible resistance is offered to the enemy, he cannot get nearer the fortress at all, and thus the danger cannot become greater. The greater resistance has a real cause, and not this foolish one—namely, that because the garrison is now at closer quarters, and consequently operates in a narrow field, it can offer a greater resistance. In this most trivial way Wolff proceeds with every sort of content. This barbarism of pedantry, or this pedantry of barbarism, represented as it is in its whole breadth and extent, necessarily brought itself into disrepute; and without there being a definite consciousness of the reason why the geometric method is not the only and ultimate method of knowledge, instinct and an immediate consciousness of the foolishness of its applications caused this method to be set aside.
[3. The Popular Philosophy of Germany.]
Popular philosophy flatters our ordinary consciousness, makes it the ultimate standard. Although with Spinoza we begin with presupposed definitions, the content is still profoundly speculative in nature, and it is not derived from the ordinary consciousness. In Spinoza thinking is not merely the form, for the content belongs to thinking itself; it is the content of thought in itself. In the speculative content the instinct of reason satisfies itself on its own account, because this content, as a totality which integrates itself within itself, at once in itself justifies itself to thought. The content in Spinoza is only without ground in so far as it has no external ground, but is a ground in itself. But if the content is finite, a demand for an external ground is indicated, since in such a case we desire to have a ground other than this finite. In its matter the philosophy of Wolff is indeed a popular philosophy, even if in form it still makes thought authoritative. Until the time of Kant the philosophy of Wolff was thus pre-eminent. Baumgarten, Crusius, and Moses Mendelssohn worked each of them independently on the same lines as Wolff; the philosophy of the last-mentioned was popular and graceful in form. The Wolffian philosophy was thus carried on, although it had cast off its pedantic methods: no further progress was however made. The question dealt with was how perfection could be attained—what it is possible to think and what not; metaphysic was reduced to its slightest consistency and to its completest vacuity, so that in its texture not a single thread remained secure. Mendelssohn considered himself, and was considered, the greatest of philosophers, and was lauded as such by his friends. In his “Morgenstunden” we really find a dry Wolffian philosophy, however much these gentlemen endeavoured to give their dull abstractions a bright Platonic form.
The forms of Philosophy which we have considered bear the character which pertains specially to metaphysics, of proceeding from general determinations of the understanding, but of combining therewith experience and observation, or the empiric method in general. One side of this metaphysic is that the opposites of thought are brought into consciousness, and that attention is directed upon the solution of this contradiction. Thought and Being or extension, God and the world, good and evil, the power and prescience of God on the one side, and the evil in the world and human freedom on the other: these contradictions, the opposites of soul and spirit, things conceived and things material, and their mutual relation, have occupied all men’s attention. The solution of these opposites and contradictions has still to be given, and God is set forth as the One in whom all these contradictions are solved. This is what is common to all these philosophies as far as their main elements are concerned. Yet we must likewise remark that these contradictions are not solved in themselves, i.e. that the nullity of the supposition is not demonstrated in itself, and thereby a true concrete solution has not come to pass. Even if God is recognized as solving all contradictions, God as the solution of these contradictions is a matter of words rather than something conceived and comprehended. If God is comprehended in His qualities, and prescience, omnipresence, omniscience, power, wisdom, goodness justice, &c., are considered as qualities of God Himself, they simply lead to contradictions; and these contradictions, Leibnitz (supra, p. 348) sought to remove by saying that the qualities temper one another, i.e. that they are combined in such a way that one annuls the other. This, however, is no real comprehension of such contradiction.
This metaphysic contrasts greatly with the old philosophy of a Plato or an Aristotle. To the old philosophy we can always turn again and admit its truth; it is satisfying in the stage of development it has reached—a concrete centre-point which meets all the problems set by thought as these are comprehended. In this modern metaphysic, however, the opposites are merely developed into absolute contradictions. God is indeed given as their absolute solution, but only as an abstract solution, as a Beyond; on this side all contradictions are, as regards their content, unsolved and unexplained. God is not comprehended as the One in whom these contradictions are eternally resolved; He is not comprehended as Spirit, as the Trinity. It is in Him alone as Spirit, and as Spirit which is Three in One, that this opposition of Himself and His Other, the Son, is contained, and with it the resolution of the same; this concrete Idea of God as reason, has not as yet found an entrance into Philosophy.
In order that we may now cast a retrospective glance over the philosophic efforts of other nations, we shall apply ourselves to the further progress of Philosophy. Once more we see Scepticism making its way into this arid philosophy of the understanding. But this time it is, properly speaking, in the form of Idealism, or the determinations are subjective determinations of self-consciousness. In the place of thought we consequently find the Notion now making its appearance. Just as with the Stoics determinateness is held to be an object of thought, we have in modern times this same manifestation of thought as the unmoved form of simplicity. Only here the image or inner consciousness of totality is present, the absolute spirit which the world has before it as its truth and to whose Notion it makes its way—this is another inward principle, another implicitude of mind which it endeavours to bring forth from itself and for itself, so that reason is a comprehension of the same, or has the certitude of being all reality. With the ancients reason (λόγος), as the implicit and explicit Being of consciousness, had only an ethereal and formal existence as language, but here it has certainty as existent substance. Hence with Descartes there is the unity of the Notion and Being, and with Spinoza the universal reality. The first commencement of the Notion of the movement of fixed thoughts in themselves is found in this, that the movement which, as method, simply falls outside its object, comes within it, or that self-consciousness comes within thought. Thought is implicitude without explicitude, an objective mode bearing no resemblance to a sensuous thing; and yet it is quite different from the actuality of self-consciousness. This Notion which we now find entering into thought, has the three kinds of form which we still have to consider; in the first place it has that of individual self-consciousness or the formal conception generally; secondly, that of universal self-consciousness, which applies itself to all objects whether they be objects of thought, determinate conceptions, or have the form of actuality—that is to say it applies itself to what is established in thought, to the intellectual world with the riches of its determinations and looked on as a Beyond, or to the intellectual world in as far as it is its realization, the world here and around us. It is in those two ways, and in those ways alone, that the actual Notion is present in the succeeding chapter; for not as yet is it in the third place to be found as taken back into thought, or as the self-thinking or thought-of Notion. While that universal self-consciousness is, on the whole, a thought which grasps and comprehends, this third kind of thought is the Notion itself recognized as constituting reality in its essence, that is to say as Idealism. These three aspects again divide themselves as before into the three nations which alone count in the civilized world. The empirical and perfectly finite form of Notion pertains to the English; to the French belongs its form as making an attempt at everything, as establishing itself in its reality, abolishing all determination, and therefore being universal, unlimited, pure self-consciousness; and, lastly, to the German pertains the entering into itself of this implicitude, the thought of the absolute Notion.
CHAPTER II
Transition Period
The decadence which we find in thought until the philosophy of Kant is reached, is manifested in what was at this time advocated in opposition to the metaphysic of the understanding, and which may be called a general popular philosophy, a reflecting empiricism, which to a greater or less extent becomes itself a metaphysic; just as, on the other hand, that metaphysic, in as far as it extended to particular sciences, becomes empiricism. As against these metaphysical contradictions, as against the artificialities of the metaphysical synthesis, as against the assistance of God, the pre-established harmony, the best possible world, &c., as against this merely artificial understanding, we now find that fixed principles, immanent in mind, have been asserted or maintained respecting what is felt, intuitively perceived and honoured in the cultured human breast. And in distinction to the assertion that we only find the solution in the Beyond, in God, these concrete principles of a fixed and permanent content form a reconciliation here and now, they adopt a position of independence, and assume an intellectual standing-ground which they find in what has generally been termed the healthy human understanding. Such determinations may indeed be found to be perfectly good and valid if the feelings, intuitions, heart and understanding of man be morally and intellectually fashioned; for in that case better and more noble feelings and desires may rule in men and a more universal content may be expressed in these principles. But when men make what we call sound reason—that which is by nature implanted in man’s breast—into the content and the principle, the healthy human understanding discovers itself to be identical with a feeling and knowledge belonging to nature. The Indians who worship a cow, and who expose or slay new-born children, and commit all sorts of barbarous deeds, the Egyptians who pray to a bird, the apis, &c., and the Turks as well, all possess a healthy human understanding similar in nature. But the healthy human understanding and the natural feeling of rude and barbarous Turks, when taken as a standard, result in shocking principles. When we speak of healthy human understanding, however, of natural feelings, we always have before our eyes a cultured mind; and those who make the healthy human reason, the natural knowledge, the immediate feelings and inspirations found in themselves, into a rule and standard, do not know that when religion, morality, and rectitude are discovered to be present in the human breast, this is due to culture and education, which are the first to make such principles into natural feelings. Here natural feelings and the healthy human understanding are thus made the principle; and much may be recognized as coming under these heads. This then is the form taken by Philosophy in the eighteenth century. Taken as a whole, three points of view have to be considered; in the first place, Hume must be regarded on his own account, then the Scottish, and, thirdly, the French philosophy. Hume is a sceptic; the Scottish philosophy opposes the scepticism of Hume, the French philosophy has in the “enlightenment” of Germany (by which expression is indicated that form of German philosophy which is not Wolffian metaphysics) an appendage of a feebler form. Since from the metaphysical God we can make no further progress in the concrete, Locke grounds his content on experience. But that empiricism leads thought to no fixed standpoint, Hume demonstrates by denying every universal; the Scottish philosophers, on the contrary, undoubtedly maintain universal propositions and truths, but not through thought. Hence in empiricism itself the fixed standpoint has now to be adopted; thus the French find the universal in the actuality which they call réalité. They do not, however, find its content in and from thought, but as living substance, as nature and matter. All this is a further working out of reflecting empiricism, and some more details respecting it must still be given.
[A. Idealism and Scepticism.]
Thought generally is simple, universal self-identity, but in the form of negative movement, whereby the determinate abrogates itself. This movement of Being-for-self is now an essential moment of thought, while hitherto it was outside it; and thus grasping itself as movement in itself, thought is self-consciousness—at first indeed formal, as individual self-consciousness. Such a form it has in scepticism, but this distinction marks it off from the older scepticism, that now the certainty of reality is made the starting point. With the ancients, on the contrary, scepticism is the return into individual consciousness in such a way that to it this consciousness is not the truth, in other words that scepticism does not give expression to the results arrived at, and attains no positive significance. But since in the modern world this absolute substantiality, this unity of implicitude and self-consciousness is fundamental—that is, this faith in reality generally—scepticism has here the form of idealism, i.e. of expressing self-consciousness or certainty of self as all reality and truth. The crudest form of this idealism is when self-consciousness, as individual or formal, does not proceed further than to say: All objects are our conceptions. We find this subjective idealism in Berkeley,[279] and another form of the same in Hume.
[1. Berkeley.]
This idealism, in which all external reality disappears, has before it the standpoint of Locke, and it proceeds directly from him. For we saw that to Locke the source of truth is experience, or Being as perceived. Now since this sensuous Being, as Being, has in it the quality of being for consciousness, we saw that it necessarily came to pass that in Locke’s case some qualities, at least, were so determined that they were not in themselves, but only for another; and that colour, figure, &c., had their ground only in the subject, in his particular organization. This Being-for-another, however, was not by him accepted as the Notion, but as falling within self-consciousness—i.e. self-consciousness not looked on as universal,—not within mind, but within what is opposed to the implicit.
George Berkeley was born in 1684 at Kilcrin, near Thomastown, in the county of Kilkenny, Ireland: in 1754 he died as an English Bishop.[280] He wrote the “Theory of Vision,” 1709; “A Treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge,” 1710; “Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous,” 1713. In 1784 his collected works were published in London in two quarto volumes.
Berkeley advocated an idealism which came very near to that of Malebranche. As against the metaphysic of the understanding, we have the point of view that all existence and its determinations arise from feeling, and are constituted by self-consciousness. Berkeley’s first and fundamental thought is consequently this: “The Being of whatever is called by us a thing consists alone in its being perceived,” i.e. our determinations are the objects of our knowledge. “All objects of human knowledge are ideas” (so called by Berkeley as by Locke), “which arise either from the impressions of the outward senses, or from perceptions of the inward states and activities of the mind, or finally, they are such as are constituted by means of memory and imagination through their separation and rearrangement. A union of different sensuous feelings appears to us to be a particular thing, e.g. the feeling of colour, taste, smell, figure, &c.; for by colours, smells, sounds, something of which we have a sensation is always understood.”[281] This is the matter and the object of knowledge; the knower is the percipient “I,” which reveals itself in relation to those feelings in various activities, such as imagination, remembrance, and will.
Berkeley thus indeed acknowledges the distinction between Being-for-self and Other-Being, which in his case, however, itself falls within the “I.” Of the matter on which activity is directed, it is no doubt in regard to one portion allowed that it does not exist outside of mind—that is to say, so far as our thoughts, inward feelings and states, or the operations of our imaginary powers are concerned. But in like manner the manifold sensuous conceptions and feelings can only exist in a mind. Locke certainly distinguished extension and movement, for example, as fundamental qualities, i.e. as qualities which pertain to the objects in themselves. But Berkeley very pertinently points out inconsistency here from the point of view that great and small, quick and slow, hold good as something relative; thus were extension and movement to be inherent or implicit, they could not be either large or small, quick or slow; that is, they could not be, for these determinations rest in the conception[282] of such qualities. In Berkeley the relation of things to consciousness is alone dealt with, and beyond this relationship they do not in his view come. From this it follows that it is only self-consciousness that possesses them; for a perception which is not in a conceiving mind is nothing: it is a direct contradiction. There can be no substance, he says, which neither conceives nor perceives, and which is yet the substratum of perceptions and conceptions. If it is represented that there is something outside of consciousness which is similar to the conceptions, this is likewise contradictory; a conception can alone be similar to a conception, the idea to the idea alone.[283]
Thus, while Locke’s ultimate point is abstract substance, Being generally with the real determination of a substratum of accidents, Berkeley declares this substance to be the most incomprehensible assumption of all; but the incomprehensibility does not make this Being into an absolute nullity, nor does it make it in itself incomprehensible.[284] For Berkeley brings forward against the present existence of external objects only the inconceivability of the relation of a Being to mind. This inconceivability, however, is destroyed in the Notion, for the Notion is the negative of things; and this moved Berkeley and Leibnitz to shut up the two sides in themselves. There nevertheless remains a relationship of what is “other” to us; these feelings do not develop from us as Leibnitz represents, but are determined through somewhat else. When Leibnitz speaks of development within the monads, it is nothing but empty talk; for the monads as they follow in succession have no inward connection. Each individual is thus determined through another, and not through us; and it does not matter what this external is, since it remains a contingent. Now in relation to the two sides of Leibnitz which are indifferent to one another, Berkeley says that such an “other” is quite superfluous. Berkeley calls the other the objects; but these, he says, cannot be what we call matter, for spirit and matter cannot come together.[285] But the necessity of conceptions directly contradicts this Being-within-self of the conceiver; for the Being-within-self is the freedom of the conceiver; the latter does not, however, produce the conceptions with freedom; they have for him the form and determinateness of an independent “other.” Berkeley likewise does not accept idealism in the subjective sense, but only in respect that there are spirits which impart themselves (in the other case the subject forms his own conceptions), and consequently that it is God alone who brings to pass such conceptions; thus the imaginations or conceptions which are produced by us with our individual activity remain separate from these others,[286] i.e. from the implicit.
This conception gives an instance of the difficulties which appear in regard to these questions, and which Berkeley wished to escape from in a quite original way. The inconsistency in this system God has again to make good; He has to bear it all away; to Him the solution of the contradiction is left. In this idealism, in short, the common sensuous view of the universe and the separation of actuality, as also the system of thought, of judgments devoid of Notion, remain exactly as before; plainly nothing in the content is altered but the abstract form that all things are perceptions only.[287] Such idealism deals with the opposition between consciousness and its object merely, and leaves the extension of the conceptions and the antagonisms of the empirical and manifold content quite untouched; and if we ask what then is the truth of these perceptions and conceptions, as we asked formerly of things, no answer is forthcoming. It is pretty much a matter of indifference whether we believe in things or in perceptions, if self-consciousness remains possessed entirely by finalities; it receives the content in the ordinary way, and that content is of the ordinary kind. In its individuality it stumbles about amid the conceptions of an entirely empirical existence, without knowing and understanding anything else about the content: that is to say in this formal idealism reason has no content of its own.
As to what Berkeley further states in respect of the empirical content, where the object of his investigation becomes entirely psychological, it relates in the main to finding out the difference between the sensations of sight and feeling, and to discovering which kind of sensations belong to the one and which to the other. This kind of investigation keeps entirely to the phenomenal, and only therein distinguishes the various sorts of phenomena; or comprehension only reaches as far as to distinctions. The only point of interest is that these investigations have in their course chiefly lighted on space, and a dispute is carried on as to whether we obtain the conception of distance and so on, in short all the conceptions relating to space, through sight or feeling. Space is just this sensuous universal, the universal in individuality itself, which in the empirical consideration of empirical multiplicity invites and leads us on to thought (for it itself is thought), and by it this very sensuous perception and reasoning respecting perception is in its action confused. And since here perception finds an objective thought, it really would be led on to thought or to the possession of a thought, but at the same time it cannot arrive at thought in its completion, since thought or the Notion are not in question, and it clearly cannot come to the consciousness of true reality. Nothing is thought in the form of thought, but only as an external, as something foreign to thought.
[2. Hume.]
We must add to what has preceded an account of the Scepticism of Hume, which has been given a more important place in history than it deserves from its intrinsic nature; its historic importance is due to the fact that Kant really derives the starting point of his philosophy from Hume.
David Hume was born in 1711 at Edinburgh and died there in 1776. He held a librarian’s post in that town for some time, then he became secretary to the Embassy in Paris; for quite a long period, indeed, he moved in diplomatic circles. In Paris he came to know Jean Jacques Rousseau and invited him to England, but Rousseau’s terribly distrustful and suspicious nature very soon estranged the two.[288] Hume is more celebrated as a writer of history than through his philosophic works. He wrote: “A Treatise of human nature,” 3 vols., 1739, translated into German by Jacob, Halle, 1790, 8vo; likewise “Essays and Treatises on several subjects,” 2 vols. (Vol. I. containing “Essays moral, political and literary,” printed for the first time in Edinburgh, 1742; Vol. II. containing an “Inquiry concerning human understanding,” a further development of the Treatise, and first printed separately in London, 1748, 8vo). In his “Essays,” which contributed most to his fame as far as the philosophic side is concerned, he treated philosophic subjects as an educated, thoughtful man of the world would do—not in a systematic connection, nor showing the wide range which his thoughts should properly have been able to attain; in fact in some of his treatises he merely dealt with particular points of view.
We must shortly deal with the main aspects of Hume’s philosophy. He starts directly from the philosophic standpoint of Locke and Bacon, which derives our conceptions from experience, and his scepticism has the idealism of Berkeley as its object. The sequence of thought is this: Berkeley allows all ideas to hold good as they are; in Hume the antithesis of the sensuous and universal has cleared and more sharply defined itself, sense being pronounced by him to be devoid of universality. Berkeley does not make any distinction as to whether in his sensations there is a necessary connection or not. Formerly experience was a mixture of the two elements. Hume tells us that all perceptions of the mind may be divided into two classes or species, that of impressions, i.e. sensuous perceptions, and thoughts or ideas; the latter are similar in content to the former, but less forcible and lively. All objects of reason are consequently either relations of thoughts such as mathematical axioms, or facts of experience.[289] Since Hume makes these into the content he naturally rejects innate ideas.[290]
Now when Hume goes on to consider more closely what is subsumed under experience, he finds categories of the understanding present there, and more especially the determination of the universal and of universal necessity; he took under his consideration more particularly the category of cause and effect, and in it set forth the rational element, inasmuch as in this causal relationship necessity is especially contained. Here Hume really completed the system of Locke, since he consistently drew attention to the fact that if this point of view be adhered to, experience is indeed the principle of whatever one knows, or perception itself contains everything that happens, but nevertheless the determination of universality and necessity are not contained in, nor were they given us by experience. Hume has thus destroyed the objectivity or absolute nature of thought-determinations. “Our conviction of the truth of a fact rests on feeling, memory, and the reasonings founded on the causal connection, i.e. on the relation of cause and effect. The knowledge of this relation is not attained by reasonings a priori, but arises entirely from experience; and we draw inferences, since we expect similar results to follow from similar causes, by reason of the principle of the custom or habit of conjoining different manifestations, i.e. by reason of the principle of the association of ideas. Hence there is no knowledge and no metaphysics beyond experience.”[291]
The simple thought we have here is exactly what Locke says, that we must receive the conception of cause and effect, and thus of a necessary connection, from experience; but experience, as sensuous perception, contains no necessity, has no causal connection. For in what we term such, that which we properly speaking perceive is merely the fact that something first of all happens and that then something else follows. Immediate perception relates only to a content of conditions or things which are present alongside of and in succession to one another, but not to what we call cause and effect; in time-succession there is thus no relation of cause and effect, and consequently no necessity either.[292] When we say the pressure of the water is the cause of the destruction of this house, that is no pure experience. We have merely seen the water pressing or moving along in this direction, and subsequently the house falling down; and so with other examples. Necessity is thus not justified by experience, but we carry it into experience; it is accidentally arrived at by us and is subjective merely. This kind of universality which we connect with necessity, Hume calls custom. Because we have often seen results to follow we are accustomed to regard the connection as a necessary one; the necessity to him is thus a quite contingent association of ideas, which is custom.
It is the same thing in respect of the universal. What we perceive are individual phenomena and sensations in which we see that this is now one thing and now another. It may likewise be that we perceive the same determination frequently repeated and in manifold ways. But this is still far removed from universality; universality is a determination which is not given to us through experience. It may be said that this is quite a correct remark on Hume’s part, if by experience we understand outward experience. Experience is sensible that something exists, but nevertheless the universal is not as yet present in it. Indeed, sensuous existence as such is something which is set forth as indifferent, not differentiated from anything else; but sensuous existence is likewise universal in itself, or the indifference of its determinateness is not its only determinateness. But since Hume regards necessity, the unity of opposites, as resting quite subjectively on custom, we cannot get any deeper in thought. Custom is indeed so far a necessity in consciousness, and to this extent we really see the principle of this idealism in it; but in the second place this necessity is represented as something quite devoid of thought or Notion.
This custom obtains both in our perception which relates to sensuous nature, and in relation to law and morality. The ideas of justice and morality rest upon an instinct, on a subjective, but very often deceptive moral feeling.[293] From a sceptical point of view the opposite may likewise be demonstrated. From this side Hume considers justice, morality, religious determinations, and disputes their absolute validity. That is to say when it is assumed that our knowledge arises from experience, and that we must consider only what we obtain thereby to be the truth, we find indeed in our feeling, the sentiment e.g. that the murderer, the thief, &c., must be punished; and because this is likewise felt by others it is universally allowed. But Hume, like the sceptics of former days, appeals to the various opinions of various nations: amongst different nations and in different times various standards of right have been held.[294] There are those who in this case do not have the feeling of wrong-doing in respect of stealing, e.g. the Lacedæmonians or the so-called innocent inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. What is by one nation called immoral, shameful and irreligious, is by another not considered so at all. Thus because such matters rest upon experience, one subject has such and such an experience, finds, for instance, in his religious feelings this determination which inclines him to God, while another subject has different experiences altogether. We are in the habit of allowing one thing to be just and moral, others have another mode of regarding it. Hence if the truth depends upon experience, the element of universality, of objectivity, &c., comes from elsewhere, or is not justified by experience. Hume thus declared this sort of universality, as he declared necessity, to be rather subjectively than objectively existent; for custom is just a subjective universality of this kind. This is an important and acute observation in relation to experience looked at as the source of knowledge; and it is from this point that the Kantian reflection now begins.
Hume (Essays and Treatises on several subjects, Vol. III. Sect. 8, 11) then extended his scepticism to the conceptions and doctrines of freedom and necessity, and to the proofs of the existence of God; and in fact scepticism here possesses a wide field. To such a system of reasoning from thoughts and possibilities another method of reasoning may again be opposed, and this reasoning is no better than the other. What is said to be metaphysically established regarding immortality, God, nature, &c., lacks a real ground for resting upon, such as is professed to be given; for the inferences on which men ground their proofs are subjectively formed conceptions. But where a universality is found, it does not rest in the matter in itself, but is simply a subjective necessity which is really mere custom. Hence the result which Hume arrives at is necessarily astonishment regarding the condition of human knowledge, a general state of mistrust, and a sceptical indecision—which indeed does not amount to much. The condition of human knowledge regarding which Hume so much wonders, he further describes as containing an antagonism between reason and instinct; this instinct, it is said, which embraces many sorts of powers, inclinations, &c., deceives us in many different ways, and reason demonstrates this. But on the other side it is empty, without content or principles of its own; and if a content is in question at all, it must keep to those inclinations. In itself reason thus has no criterion whereby the antagonism between individual desires, and between itself and the desires, may be settled.[295] Thus everything appears in the form of an irrational existence devoid of thought; the implicitly true and right is not in thought, but in the form of an instinct, a desire.
[B. Scottish Philosophy.]
In Scotland quite another school of thought developed, and the Scotch are the foremost of Hume’s opponents; in German philosophy, on the other hand, we have to recognize in Kant another opposing force to that of Hume. To the Scottish school many philosophers belong; English philosophy is now restricted to Edinburgh and Glasgow, in which places a number of professors belonging to this school succeeded one another. To the scepticism of Hume they oppose an inward independent source of truth for all that pertains to religion and morality. This coincides with Kant, who also maintains an inward source or spring as against external perception; but in the case of Kant this has quite another form than that which it possesses with the Scottish philosophers. To them this inward independent source is not thought or reason as such, for the content which comes to pass from this inwardness is concrete in its nature, and likewise demands for itself the external matter of experience. It consists of popular principles, which on the one hand are opposed to the externality of the sources of knowledge, and, on the other, to metaphysics as such, to abstract thought or reasoning on its own account. This sort of reasoning understanding applied itself to ethics and to politics—sciences which have been much developed by German, French, and above all by Scottish philosophers (supra, p. 320): they regarded morality as cultured men would, and sought to bring moral duties under a principle. Many of their works are translated into German; several of these on ethics or morality are translated by Garve, for instance, who also translated Cicero De Officiis, and they are written in a manner similar to that of Cicero when he uses the expression Insitum est a natura (Vol. I. p. 93). This moral sentiment and the ordinary human understanding hereafter formed the common principle to a whole succession of Scots, such as Thomas Reid, Beattie, Oswald, and others; in this way they frequently made sagacious observations, but with them speculative philosophy quite disappears. One special characteristic of these Scottish philosophers is that they have sought accurately to define the principle of knowledge; but on the whole they start from the same point as that which was in Germany likewise accepted as the principle. That is to say they represented the so-called healthy reason, or common-sense (sensus communis), as the ground of truth. The following are the principal members of this school, each of whom has some special feature distinguishing him from the rest.
[1. Thomas Reid.]
Thomas Reid, born in 1710, died as a professor in Glasgow in 1796.[296] He maintained the principle of common-sense. His endeavour was to discover the principles of knowledge, and the following are his conclusions: “(a) There are certain undemonstrated and undemonstrable fundamental truths which common-sense begets and recognizes as immediately conclusive and absolute.” This hence constitutes an immediate knowledge; in it an inward independent source is set forth which is hereby opposed to religion as revealed. “(b) These immediate truths require no support from any elaborated science, nor do they submit to its criticism;” they cannot be criticized by philosophy. “(c) Philosophy itself has no root other than that of an immediate, self-enlightening truth; whatever contradicts such truth is in itself false, contradictory, and absurd.” This is true for knowledge and “(d) Morality; the individual is moral if he acts in accordance with the perfect principles of the perfection of the whole and with his own duty as it is known to him.”[297]
[2. James Beattie.]
James Beattie, born 1735, was a professor of moral philosophy in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and died in 1803. He likewise made common-sense the source of all knowledge. “The common-sense of the plain human understanding is the source of all morality, of all religion, and all certainty. The confirmation of common-sense must be added to the testimony of our senses. The truth is what the necessities of my nature call upon me to believe. Belief signifies conviction in the case of truths which are certain, in that of those which are probable, approbation. The truth which is certain is known by means of intuition, the probable truth by means of proofs.”[298] Such convictions as are quite certain form the basis of actions.
[3. James Oswald.]
James Oswald, a Scottish clergyman, made use of an expression which indicates that we have the principles just mentioned as facts existing within us.[299] “The existence of the Divine Being is (according to him) a fact absolutely raised above all reasoning and all doubt, and immediately certain for the common-sense of morality.”[300] The same principle was likewise established in Germany at this time—an inward revelation, a knowledge of the conscience, and specially of God and His Being.
[4. Dugald Stewart.]
To this school also belong Dugald Stewart, Edward Search,[301] Ferguson, and Hutcheson, most of whom have written on morals. The political economist Adam Smith from this point of view is likewise a philosopher, and the best known of them all. This Scottish philosophy is now given forth in Germany as something new. It is a popular philosophy, which, on the one hand, has the great merit of seeking in man, and in his consciousness, for the source of all that should be held by him as true, the immanence of what should be by him esteemed. The content is at the same time a concrete content; in a certain degree, it is the antithesis of metaphysics proper, of the wandering about in abstract determinations of the understanding. Of these Scots, Dugald Stewart, who is living still,[302] appears to be the last and least significant; in them all there is the same ground-work to be found, the same circle of reflection, namely, an a priori philosophy, though not one which is to be pursued in a speculative way. The general idea which pervades their principle is that of the healthy human understanding; to this they have added benevolent desires, sympathy, a moral sense, and from such grounds composed very excellent moral writings. That is certainly all very well in order to understand approximately, up to a certain degree of culture, what universal thoughts are, in order to narrate their history, to appeal to examples, and to explain them; but further it does not extend.
In more recent times this Scottish philosophy has passed to France, and Professor Royer-Collard, now president of the Second Chamber,[303] as also his disciple, Jouffroy, in conformity with it, pass from the facts of consciousness through cultured reasoning and experience, to a further stage in development. What by the French is called Idéologie (supra, p. 308) has also its place here; it is abstract metaphysics, in so far as it is an enumeration and analysis of the most simple thought-determinations. They are not treated dialectically, but from our reflection, from our thoughts, the material is derived, and in this the determinations therein contained are demonstrated.
[C. French Philosophy.]
We pass on to the French philosophy; the relation it bears to metaphysics is this, that while man as a metaphysician stands to himself in the attitude of a layman or outsider, French philosophy does away with the lay or outside position in regard alike to politics, religion, and philosophy. Two forms have to be mentioned which are of the greatest importance in respect to culture—French philosophy and the Aufklärung. With the English we saw a certain idealism only: this was either formal, as the mere general translation of Being into Being-for-another, i.e. into perceptibility, or else what is implicit in this perceptibility, instincts, impulses, habits, &c.—blind determinate forces; a return into self-consciousness, which itself appears as a physical thing. In that first idealism the whole finitude and extension of appearances, of sensations, and likewise of thoughts and determinate fixed conceptions, remain just what they are in the unphilosophic consciousness. The scepticism of Hume makes all that is universal sink into habits and instincts, i.e. it consists in a more simple synthesis of the phenomenal world; but these simpler elements, these instincts, impulses, and forces, are just as much a fixed present existence in self-consciousness, unspiritual, and without movement. The French philosophy has more life, more movement, more spirit; it would perhaps be more correct to describe it as full of life and spirit. It is the absolute Notion, which revolts against the whole reigning system of prevalent conceptions and established ideas, which overthrows all that has settled into fixity, and acquires the consciousness of perfect liberty. At the root of this idealistic activity lies the certainty that whatever is, whatever counts for anything in itself, is all a matter of self-consciousness; and as to Notions (individual and isolated existences ruling actual self-consciousness), such as the Notions of good and evil, of power and riches, and the fixed conceptions regarding faith in God and His relation to the world, His mode of government and, further, the duties of self-consciousness towards Him—that all these are not truths in themselves, having validity beyond the bounds of self-consciousness. All these forms, the real implicitude of the actual world and also of the supersensuous world, are therefore set aside in this spirit conscious of itself. It does not trouble itself seriously about those who admit the validity of these conceptions just as they are, and accept them as true, respecting them as independent and free apart from self-consciousness, but it speaks of such conceptions with intelligence and spirit, that is to say, it asserts that self-consciousness by its activity is the first to make anything of them, and to make that a something very different from what they profess to be; for the self-conscious spirit only intellectual relations, these processes of formation and movement by means of its self-consciousness, possess validity and interest. This is the character of the Notion in its actuality; what has reality for this all-perceiving and all-comprehending consciousness is held to be valid.
We must now consider what form existence takes for this absolutely comprehending self-consciousness. In the first place this Notion is fixed as the negative movement of the Notion only; the positive and simple, or existence, falls outside of this movement. There remains to the Notion no distinction, no content; for all determinate content is lost in that negativity. This empty existence is for us pure thought generally, what the French call être suprême, or if represented objectively as existent, and as in opposition to consciousness, it is matter. Absolute Being is therefore determined as matter, as empty objectivity, through a Notion which destroys all content and determination, and has as its object this universal alone. It is a Notion which acts only destructively, and does not again construct itself out of this matter or pure thought or pure substantiality. We here see so-called materialism and atheism freely emerge, as the necessary result of the pure comprehending self-consciousness. From one point of view there perishes in this negative movement all determination which represents spirit as something beyond self-consciousness, and more especially all determinations within the spirit, and also those which express it as spirit, indeed all the conceptions formed of it by faith, for which it has validity as an existent self-consciousness beyond self-consciousness—in short, all that is traditional or imposed by authority. There remains only a present, actual Being, for self-consciousness recognizes implicit existence only in the form which it has for self-consciousness, and in which it is actually known to itself; in matter, and matter as actively extending and realizing itself in multiplicity, i.e. as nature. In the present I am conscious to myself of my reality, and consequently self-consciousness finds itself as matter, finds the soul to be material, and conceptions to be movements and changes in the inner organ of the brain, which result from external impressions on the senses. Thought is therefore a mode of the existence of matter. The One Substance of Spinoza, to which French materialism as naturalism is parallel, really finds its accomplishment here in this object as in all respects the ultimate; but while in Spinoza this category is a possession which we find ready to hand, here it appears as the result of the abstraction of the understanding proceeding from empiricism.
The other form of the Aufklärung is, on the contrary, when absolute Being is set forth as something beyond self-consciousness, so that of itself, of its implicit Being, nothing whatever can be known. It bears the empty name of God. For though God may be determined in any way whatever, all these determinations fall away; He is, like x, the altogether unknown quantity. This view is not therefore to be termed atheism, in the first place because it still employs the empty, meaningless name, and in the second place because it expresses the necessary relations of self-consciousness, duties, &c., not as necessary in an absolute sense, but as necessary through relation to another, namely to the unknown—although there can be no positive relation to an unknown except by abrogating the self as particular. Yet it is not matter, because this simple and empty something is negatively defined as non-existent for self-consciousness. This all comes to the same thing, however, for matter is the universal, and is Being-for-self represented as abrogated. But the true reflection on that unknown is this, that it exists for self-consciousness simply as a negative of the same, i.e. as matter, reality, the present; it is this negative for me, this is its Notion. The difference distinguishing this from what appears to be in its entirety something “other,” and in which any one side is not permitted to say that what it thinks is such is that particular thing, is the difference which rests on this last abstraction.
Since then the Notion is present only in its negative form, positive extension remains without a Notion; it has the form of nature, of an existent, both in the physical and in the moral sphere. The knowledge of nature remains the ordinary, scientifically unspeculative knowledge, and as to its essence, in so far as it claims to be philosophy, it is a general way of speaking that plays with the words, “forces, relations, manifold connections,” but arrives at nothing definite. Similarly, in the spiritual sphere, it is so far true that the metaphysic of the spirit is of such a nature that it is nothing more nor less than a particular organization by means of which the powers which are termed sensation, perception, &c., come into existence; but this is a wearisome way of talking, which can make nothing intelligible, which accepts appearances and perceptions and reasons about them, but none the less reduces their implicit existence to certain determinate forces, of the inward nature of which we know nothing further. The determination and knowledge of the moral sphere has similarly for its object to bring man back to his so-called natural promptings; its essence has the form of a natural impulse, and this natural impulse is termed self-love, selfishness, or benevolence. It is required that man should live in conformity with nature; but this nature does not reach further than general expressions and descriptions, such as the state of nature we find depicted by Rousseau. What is called the metaphysic of ordinary conceptions is the empiricism of Locke, which seeks to show their origin to be in consciousness, in as far as it is individual consciousness; which, when born into the world, emerges out of unconsciousness in order to acquire knowledge as sensuous consciousness. This external origin they confound with the Becoming and Notion of the matter in point. If one were to ask vaguely what is the origin and genesis of water, and the answer were to be given that it comes from the mountains or from rain, this would be a reply in the spirit of the above philosophy. In short, it is only the negative aspect that is interesting, and as for this positive French philosophy, it is out of the question. But even the negative side of it belongs properly to culture mainly, with which we have here nothing to do, and the Aufklärung likewise belongs to the same. In the French philosophic writings, which in this respect are of importance, what is worthy of admiration is the astonishing energy and force of the Notion as directed against existence, against faith, against all the power of authority that had held sway for thousands of years. On the one hand we cannot help remarking the feeling of utter rebellion against the whole state of affairs at present prevailing, a state which is alien to self-consciousness, which would fain dispense with it, and in which self-consciousness does not find itself; there is a certainty of the truth of reason, which challenges the whole intellectual world as it stands aloof, and is confident of destroying it. French atheism, materialism, or naturalism has overcome all prejudices, and has been victorious over the senseless hypotheses and assumptions of the positive element in religion, which is associated with habits, manners, opinions, determinations as to law and morality and civil institutions. With the healthy human understanding and earnestness of spirit, and not with frivolous declamations, it has rebelled against the condition of the world as legally established, against the constitution of the state, the administration of justice, the mode of government, political authority, and likewise against art.
Contrasting with this barren content there is the other and fertile side. The positive is in its turn constituted by so-called immediately enlightening truths of the healthy human understanding, which contains nothing except this truth and the claim to find itself, and beyond this form does not pass. But in so doing there arises the endeavour to grasp the absolute as something present, and at the same time as an object of thought and as absolute unity: an endeavour which, as it implies denial of the conception of design both in the natural and in the spiritual sphere—the former involving the idea of life, and the latter that of spirit and freedom—only reaches to the abstraction of a nature undetermined in itself, to sensation, mechanism, self-seeking, and utility. It is this then that we shall have to make evident in the positive side of French philosophy. In their political constitutions the French have, it is true, started from abstractions, but they have done so as from universal thoughts, which are the negative of reality; the English, on the other hand, proceed from concrete reality, from the unwieldy structure of their constitution; just as their writers even have not attained to universal principles. What Luther began in the heart only and in the feelings—the freedom of spirit which, unconscious of its simple root, does not comprehend itself, and yet is the very universal itself, for which all content disappears in the thought that fills itself with itself—these universal determinations and thoughts the French asserted and steadfastly adhered to: they are universal principles, in the form of the conviction of the individual in himself. Freedom becomes the condition of the world, connects itself with the world’s history and forms epochs in the same; it is the concrete freedom of the spirit, a concrete universality; fundamental principles as regards the concrete now take the place of the abstract metaphysic of Descartes. Among the Germans we find mere chatter; they would have liked to offer explanations also, but all they have to give is in the form of miserable phenomena and individualism. The French, from their starting-point of the thought of universality, and the German liberty of conscience starting from the conscience which teaches us to “Prove all things,” to “hold fast that which is good,” have, however, joined hands with one another, or they follow the same path. Only the French, as though they were without conscience, have made short work of everything, and have systematically adhered to a definite thought—the physiocratic system; while the Germans wish to leave themselves a free retreat, and examine from the standpoint of conscience whether a certain course is permissible. The French warred against the speculative Notion with the spirit, the Germans did so with the understanding. We find in the French a deep all-embracing philosophic need, different from anything in the English and Scotch and even in the Germans, and full of vitality: it is a universal concrete view of all that exists, with entire independence both of all authority and of all abstract metaphysics. The method employed is that of development from perception, from the heart; it is a comprehensive view of the entire matter, which keeps the whole ever in sight, and seeks to uphold and attain to it.
This healthy human understanding, this sound reason, with its content taken from the human breast, from natural feeling, has directed itself against the religious side of things in various moments: on the one hand and first of all, as French philosophy, it did so against the Catholic religion, the fetters of superstition and of the hierarchy; on the other hand, in less pronounced form, as the German “illumination,” against the Protestant religion, in as far as it has a content which it has derived from revelation, from ecclesiastical authority in general. On the one hand the form of authority in general was challenged, and on the other hand its matter. The content can be easily enough disposed of by this form of thought, which is not what we understand by reason, but which must be termed understanding; it is easy for the understanding to show objections to the ultimate principles of what can be comprehended only by means of speculation. The understanding has thus tried the content of religion by its standard, and has condemned it; the understanding proceeds in the same way against a concrete philosophy. What of religion has in many theologies been very commonly left remaining is what is termed theism, faith in general; this is the same content which is found also in Mohammedanism. But along with this attack upon religion on the part of the reasoning understanding there has been also a movement towards materialism, atheism and naturalism. It is true that we should not make the charge of atheism lightly, for it is a very common occurrence that an individual whose ideas about God differ from those of other people is charged with lack of religion, or even with atheism. But here it really is the case that this philosophy has developed into atheism, and has defined matter, nature, &c., as that which is to be taken as the ultimate, the active, and the efficient. Some Frenchmen, Rousseau for instance, are not, however, to be included with the rest; one of this author’s works, “The Confession of Faith of a Vicar,”[304] contains the very same theism which is found in German theologians. Thus French metaphysics finds a parallel not only in Spinoza (supra, p. 382) but also in the German metaphysics of Wolff. Other Frenchmen have confessedly gone over to naturalism; among them is specially to be mentioned Mirabaud, to whom the Système de la Nature is attributed.
In what has been termed French philosophy, represented by Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, d’Alembert, Diderot, and in what subsequently appeared in Germany as the Aufklärung, and has been also stigmatized as atheism, we may now distinguish three aspects, first, the negative side, to which most exception has been taken; secondly, the positive side; thirdly, the philosophical, metaphysical side.
[1. The Negative Aspect.]
Justice must be done even to this negative side, as to everything else; what is substantial in it is the attack of the reasoning instinct against a condition of degeneracy, I may even say of utter and universal falsehood; for instance, against the positive side of a religion that has become wooden and lifeless. What we call religion is firm faith, conviction that there is a God; if this is faith in the doctrines of Christianity, it is more or less abstracted from. But in this attack against religion we have to think of something quite different from the above; in what we find here, the positive of religion is the negative of reason. If we would understand the feeling of indignation to which these writers give utterance, we must keep before our eyes the state of religion in those days, with its might and magnificence, the corruption of its manners, its avarice, its ambition, its luxury, for which nevertheless reverence was claimed—a state of contradiction present and existent. We perceive into what a frightful condition of formalism and deadness positive religion had sunk, as had the bonds of society as well, the means employed for the administration of justice, the power of the state. This French philosophy also attacked the state; it assailed prejudices and superstition, especially the depravity of civic life, of court manners and of Government officials; it laid hold of and brought to light the evil, the ridiculous, the base, and exposed the whole tissue of hypocrisy and unjust power to the derision, the contempt and the hatred of the world at large, and thus brought men’s minds and hearts into a state of indifference to the idols of the world and indignation against them. Old institutions, which in the sense of self-conscious freedom and humanity that had developed, no longer found a place, and which had formerly been founded and upheld by mutual good feeling and the obtuseness of a consciousness unconscious of self, institutions which were no longer in harmony with the spirit that had established them, and now, in consequence of the advance that had been made in scientific culture, were bound to make good to reason their claim to be sacred and just,—this was the formalism that those philosophers overthrew. In making their attacks, they wrote sometimes with reasoned argument, sometimes satirically, sometimes in the language of plain common-sense, and they did not wage war on what we call religion; that was left quite unharmed, and its claims were urged with words of choicest eloquence. Those who enforced these views were therefore agents of destruction against that alone which was in itself already destroyed. We place it to our credit when we reproach the French for their attacks upon religion and on the state. We must represent to ourselves the horrible state of society, the misery and degradation in France, in order to appreciate the services that these writers rendered. Hypocrisy and cant, imbecility of mind and the tyranny which sees itself robbed of its prey, may say that attacks were made on religion, on the state, and on manners. But what a religion! Not the religion that Luther purified, but the most wretched superstition, priestly domination, stupidity, degradation of mind, and more especially the squandering of riches and the revelling in temporal possessions in the midst of public misery. And what a state! The blindest tyranny of ministers and their mistresses, wives and chamberlains; so that a vast army of petty tyrants and idlers looked upon it as a right divinely given them to plunder the revenues of the state and lay hands upon the product of the nation’s sweat. The shamelessness, the dishonesty were past belief; and morals were simply in keeping with the corruptness of the institutions. We see the law defied by individuals in respect to civil and political life; we see it likewise set at nought in respect to conscience and thought.
In regard to practical politics, the writers in question never even thought of a revolution, but desired and demanded reforms alone, and that these should be subjective mainly; they called on the Government to sweep away abuses, and appoint honourable men as ministers. The positive recommendations made by them as to the course to be pursued were, for example, that the royal children should receive a good upbringing, that princes should be of frugal habits, &c. The French Revolution was forced on by the stiff-necked obstinacy of prejudices, by haughtiness, utter want of thought, and avarice. The philosophers of whom we are speaking were able to give only a general idea of what ought to be done; they could not indicate the mode in which the reforms were to be carried out. It was the Government’s business to make arrangements and carry out reforms in concrete shape; but it did not perceive this. What the philosophers brought forward and maintained as a remedy for this horrible state of disorder was, speaking generally, that men should no longer be in the position of laymen, either with regard to religion or to law; so that in religious matters there should not be a hierarchy, a limited and selected number of priests, and in the same way that there should not be in legal matters an exclusive caste and society (not even a class of professional lawyers), in whom should reside, and to whom should be restricted, the knowledge of what is eternal, divine, true, and right, and by whom other men should be commanded and directed; but that human reason should have the right of giving its assent and its opinion. To treat barbarians as laymen is quite as it should be—barbarians are nothing but laymen; but to treat thinking men as laymen is very hard. This great claim made by man to subjective freedom, perception and conviction, the philosophers in question contended for heroically and with splendid genius, with warmth and fire, with spirit and courage, maintaining that a man’s own self, the human spirit, is the source from which is derived all that is to be respected by him. There thus manifests itself in them the fanaticism of abstract thought. We Germans were passive at first with regard to the existing state of affairs, we endured it; in the second place, when that state of affairs was overthrown, we were just as passive: it was overthrown by the efforts of others, we let it be taken away from us, we suffered it all to happen.
In Germany, Frederick II. allied himself with this culture, a rare example in those days. French court manners, operas, gardens, dresses, were widely adopted in Germany, but not French philosophy; yet in the form of wit and jest much of it found its way into this upper world, and much that was evil and barbarous was driven away. Frederick II., without having been brought up on melancholy psalms, without having had to learn one or two of them every day by heart, without the barbarous metaphysics and logic of Wolff (for what did he find to admire in Germany except Gellert?), was well acquainted with the great, although formal and abstract principles of religion and the state, and governed in accordance therewith, as far as circumstances allowed. Nothing else was at that time required in his nation; one cannot ask that he should have reformed and revolutionized it, since not a single person yet demanded representative government and the publicity of courts of justice. He introduced what there was need of, religious tolerance, legislation, improvements in the administration of justice, economy in the revenues of state; of the wretched German law there remained no longer in his states even the merest phantom. He showed what was the object and purpose of the state, and at the same time cast down all privileges, the private rights which pertained to Germans, and arbitrary statute laws. It is foolish when cant and German pseudo-patriotism pounce down upon him now, and try to disparage the greatness of a man whose influence was so enormous, and would even detract from his fame by a charge of vanity and wickedness. What German patriotism aims at should be reasonable.
[2. The Positive Aspect.]
The affirmative content of this philosophy certainly does not satisfy the requirements of profundity. A leading characteristic of its teaching, which is found also with the Scottish philosophers and with ourselves, is the assumption of primitive feelings of justice which man has in himself, as for example benevolence and social instincts which should be cultivated. The positive source of knowledge and of justice is placed in human reason and the common consciousness of mankind, in the healthy human reason, and not in the form of the Notion. It is certainly wonderful to find truths expressed in the form of universal thoughts, respecting which it is of infinite importance that they should be assumptions present in the human mind: that man has in his heart the feeling of right, of love to his fellow-creatures: that religion and faith are not matters of compulsion; that merit, talent, virtue are the true nobility, &c. An important question, especially among the Germans, was what is the end and character of man, by which was meant the nature of his mind and spirit; and certainly, as far as the spiritual is concerned, it is to this point that we must return. But in order to find the nature of spirit, to discover what this determination is, a return was made to perception, observation, experience, to the existence of certain impulses. These are certainly determinations in ourselves, but we have not known them in their necessity. Such an impulse is besides taken as natural, and thus it is here indeterminate in itself, it has its limitation only as a moment of the whole. In regard to knowledge, very abstract thoughts are to be found—though of a truth they are quite as good as ours, and more ingenious—which according to their content ought to be concrete, and also were so. But so superficially were they comprehended that they soon showed themselves far from sufficient for what had to be derived from them. They said, for instance, that Nature is a whole, that all is determined by laws, through a combination of different movements, through a chain of causes and effects, and so on; the various properties, materials, connections of things bring everything to pass. These are general phrases, with which one can fill whole books.
[a. Système de la Nature.]
To this philosophy belongs the Système de la Nature, the leading work on the subject, written in Paris by a German, Baron von Hollbach, who was the central figure of all those philosophers. Montesquieu, d’Alembert, Rousseau, were for a time in his circle; however much these men were moved to indignation at the existing state of things, they were yet in other respects very different from one another. The Système de la Nature may very easily be found tiresome to read, because it treats discursively of general conceptions, which are often repeated; it is not a French book, for vivacity is lacking and the mode of presentation is dull.
The great Whole of Nature (le grand tout de la nature) is the ultimate: “The universe displays nothing but an immense collection of matter and motion” (as with Descartes), “an unbroken chain of causes and effects, of which causes some directly affect our senses, while others are unknown to us, because their effects, which we perceive, are too remote from their causes. The different qualities of these materials, their manifold connections, and the effects which result therefrom, constitute essences for us. From the diversity of these essences arise the different orders, species, systems, under which things fall, and whose sum total, the great whole, is what we call Nature.”[305] It is like what Aristotle (vide Vol. I. p. 241) says of Xenophanes, that he gazed into the blue, i.e. into Being. According to Hollbach all is movement, matter moves itself: beer ferments, the soul is moved by its passions.[306] “The manifold variety of natural phenomena, and their incessant rise and disappearance, have their sole ground in the variety of motions and of their material.” Through different combinations and modifications, through a different arrangement, another thing is originated. “Material substances have either a tendency to combine with one another, or else they are incapable of so combining. Upon this are based by physical scientists the forces of attraction and repulsion, sympathy and antipathy, affinity and relation; and the moralists base thereon hatred and love, friendship and enmity.” Spirit, the incorporeal, contradicts or opposes itself to motion, to a change of the relations of a body in space.[307]
[b. Robinet.]
Another work of importance is the still more “dangerous” treatise, De la Nature, by Robinet. In it there reigns quite a different and a deeper spirit; one is frequently struck by the depth of earnestness which the writer displays. He begins thus: “There is a God, i.e. a cause of the phenomena of that Whole which we call Nature. Who is God? We know not, and we are so constituted that we can never know in what order of things we have been placed. We cannot know God perfectly, because the means of doing so will always be lacking to us. We too might write over the doors of our temples the words which were to be read upon the altar which the Areopagite raised, ‘To the unknown God.’” The very same thing is said now-a-days: there can be no transition from the finite to the infinite. “The order which reigns in the universe is just as little the visible type of His wisdom, as our weak mind is the image of His intelligence.” But this First Cause, God, is according to Robinet a creative God, He has brought Nature into existence; so that for him the only possible knowledge is that of Nature. “There is only One Cause. The eternal Cause, who so to speak had sown (engrainé) events one in the other, in order that they might without fail follow one upon another as He chose, in the beginning set in motion the endless chain of things. Through this permanent impression the Universe goes on living, moving and perpetuating itself. From the unity of cause there follows the unity of activity, for even it does not appear as something to be more or less admitted. By virtue of this single act all things come to pass. Since man has made Nature his study, he has found no isolated phenomenon, and no independent truth, because there are not and cannot be such. The whole sustains itself through the mutual correspondence of its parts.”[308] The activity of Nature is one, as God is One.
This activity, more particularly regarded, signifies that germs unfold themselves in everything: everywhere there are organic Beings which produce themselves; nothing is isolated, everything is combined and connected and in harmony. Robinet here goes through the plants, the animals, and also the metals, the elements, air, fire, water, &c.; and seeks from them to demonstrate the existence of the germ in whatever has life, and also how metals are organized in themselves. “The example of the polypus is convincing as to the animal nature (animalité) of the smallest portions of organized matter; for the polypus is a group of associated polypi, each of which is as much a true polypus as the first. It stands proved that from the same point of view the living consists only of the living, the animals of minute animals, every animal in particular of minute animals of the same kind, a dog of dog-germs, man of human germs.” In proof of this Robinet states in a “Recapitulation” that “animal sperm swarms with spermatic animalcules.” Since he then connects every propagation properly so-called with the co-operation of both sexes, he alleges that every individual is inwardly or also in the external organs a hermaphrodite. Of the minerals he says: “Are we not compelled to regard as organic bodies all those in which we meet with an inward structure such as this? It presupposes throughout a seed, seed-granules, germs, of which they are the development.” In the same way the air must have its germ, which does not come to reality until it is nourished by water, fire, &c. “The air, as principle, is only the germ of the air; as it impregnates or saturates itself in varying degrees with water and fire, it will gradually pass through different stages of growth: it will become first embryo, then perfect air.”[309] Robinet gives the name of germ to the simple form in itself, the substantial form, the Notion. Although he seeks to prove this too much from the sensuous side, he yet proceeds from principles in themselves concrete, from the form in itself.
He speaks also of the evil and good in the world. The result of his observation is that good and evil balance each other; this equilibrium constitutes the beauty of the world. In order to refute the assertion that there is more good than evil in the world, he says that everything to which we reduce the good consists only in an enjoyment, a pleasure, a satisfaction; but this must be preceded by a want, a lack, a pain, the removal of which constitutes satisfaction.[310] This is not only a correct thought empirically, but it also hints at the deeper idea that there is no activity except through contradiction.
[3. Idea of a Concrete Universal Unity.]
The result of the French philosophy is that it insisted on maintaining a general unity, not abstract, but concrete. Thus Robinet now propounded the theory of a universal organic life, and a uniform mode of origination; this concrete system he called Nature, over which God was set, but as the unknowable; all predicates which could be expressed of Him contained something inapplicable. We must admit that grand conceptions of concrete unity are to be found here, as opposed to the abstract metaphysical determinations of the understanding, e.g. the fruitfulness of Nature. But, on the other hand, the point of most importance with these philosophers is that what is to be accepted as valid must have presence, and that man in all knowledge must be himself the knower; for, as we may see, those philosophers made war on all external authority of state and church, and in particular on abstract thought which has no present meaning in us. Two determinations found in all philosophy are the concretion of the Idea and the presence of the spirit in the same; my content must at the same time be something concrete, present. This concrete was termed Reason, and for it the more noble of those men contended with the greatest enthusiasm and warmth. Thought was raised like a standard among the nations, liberty of conviction and of conscience in me. They said to mankind, “In this sign thou shalt conquer,” for they had before their eyes what had been done in the name of the cross alone, what had been made a matter of faith and law and religion—they saw how the sign of the cross had been degraded. For in the sign of the cross lying and deceit had been victorious, under this seal institutions had become fossilized, and had sunk into all manner of degradation, so that this sign came to be represented as the epitome and root of all evil. Thus in another form they completed the Reformation that Luther began. This concrete had manifold forms; social instincts in the practical sphere, laws of nature in the theoretical. There is present the absolute impulse to find a compass immanent in themselves, i.e. in the human mind. For the human mind it is imperative to have a fixed point such as this, if, indeed, it is to be within itself, if it is to be free in its own world at least. But this striving after really present vitality took forms which as by-paths were themselves one-sided. In this striving after unity, which was, however, concrete unity, the further varieties of the content likewise lie.
On the theoretic side of their philosophy, therefore, the French proceeded to materialism or naturalism, because the requirements of the understanding, as abstract thought, which from a firmly fixed principle allows the most monstrous consequences to be drawn, drove them to set up one principle as ultimate, and that a principle which had at the same time to be present and to lie quite close to experience. Hence they accept sensation and matter as the only truth, to which must be reduced all thought, all morality, as a mere modification of sensation. The unities which the French propounded were in this way one-sided.
[a. Opposition of Sensation and Thought.]
To this one-sidedness belongs the opposition between sentir and penser, or else, if you like, their identity, making the latter only a result of the former; there is not, however, any speculative reconciliation of this opposition in God, such as we find in Spinoza and Malebranche. This reduction of all thought to sensation, which in certain respects took place with Locke, becomes a widely extended theory. Robinet (De la Nature, T. I. P. IV. chap. iii. pp. 257-259) lights also on this opposition, beyond which he does not get, that mind and body are not separate, but that the manner in which they are united is inexplicable. The Système de la Nature (T. I. chap. x. p. 177) is marked by an especially plain reduction of thought to sensation. The leading thought is this: “Abstract thoughts are only modes in which our inmost organ views its own modifications. The words goodness, beauty, order, intelligence, virtue, &c., have no meaning for us if we do not refer and apply them to objects which our senses have shown to be capable of these qualities, or to modes of being and acting which are known to us.” Thus even psychology passed into materialism, as for instance we may find in La Mettrie’s work L’homme Machine: All thought and all conception have meaning only if they are apprehended as material; matter alone exists.
[b. Montesquieu.]
Other great writers have opposed to the above the feeling in the breast, the instinct of self-preservation, benevolent dispositions towards others, the impulse to fellowship, which last Puffendorf also made the foundation of his system of law (supra, p. 321). From this point of view much that is excellent has been said. Thus Montesquieu, in his charming book, L’Esprit des Lois, of which Voltaire said it was an esprit sur les lois, regarded the nations from this important point of view, that their constitution, their religion, in short, everything that is to be found in a state, constitutes a totality.
[c. Helvetius.]
This reduction of thought to feeling in the case of Helvetius takes the form that if in man as a moral being a single principle is sought, this ought to be called self-love, and he endeavoured to demonstrate by ingenious analysis that whatever we term virtue, all activity and law and right, has as its foundation nothing but self-love or selfishness, and is resolvable thereinto.[311] This principle is one-sided, although the “I myself” is an essential moment. What I will, the noblest, the holiest, is my aim; I must take part in it, I must agree to it, I must approve of it. With all self-sacrifice there is always conjoined some satisfaction, some finding of self; this element of self, subjective liberty, must always be present. If this is taken in a one-sided sense, there may be consequences drawn from it which overthrow all that is sacred; but it is found in equal degree in a morality as noble as any possibly can be.
[d. Rousseau.]
In connection with the practical side of things this particular must also be noted, that when the feeling of right, the concrete practical mind, and, speaking generally, humanity and happiness were made the principle, this principle, universally conceived, had certainly the form of thought; but in the case of such concrete content derived from our impulse or inward intuition, even though that content were religious, the thought itself was not the content. But now this further phase appeared, that pure thought was set up as the principle and content, even if again there was lacking to this content the true consciousness of its peculiar form; for it was not recognized that this principle was thought. We see it emerge in the sphere of will, of the practical, of the just, and so apprehended that the innermost principle of man, his unity with himself, is set forth as fundamental and brought into consciousness, so that man in himself acquired an infinite strength. It is this that Rousseau from one point of view said about the state. He investigated its absolute justification, and inquired as to its foundation. The right of ruling and associating, of the relation of order, of governing and being governed, he apprehends from his own point of view, so that it is made to rest historically on power, compulsion, conquest, private property, &c.[312]
Rousseau makes free-will the principle of this justification, and without reference to the positive right of states he made answer to the above question (chap. iv. p. 12), that man has free-will, because “liberty is the distinguishing feature of man. To renounce his liberty signifies to renounce his manhood. Not to be free is therefore a renunciation of a man’s rights as a human being, and even of his duties.” The slave has neither rights nor duties. Rousseau therefore says (chap. vi. p. 21): “The fundamental task is to find a form of association which will shield and protect with the power of the whole commonwealth combined the person and property of every one of its members, and in which each individual, while joining this association, obeys himself only, and thus remains as free as before. The solution is given by the Social Contract;” this is the association of which each is a member by his own will. These principles, thus abstractly stated, we must allow to be correct, yet the ambiguity in them soon begins to be felt. Man is free, this is certainly the substantial nature of man; and not only is this liberty not relinquished in the state, but it is actually in the state that it is first realized. The freedom of nature, the gift of freedom, is not anything real; for the state is the first realization of freedom.
The misunderstanding as to the universal will proceeds from this, that the Notion of freedom must not be taken in the sense of the arbitrary caprice of an individual, but in the sense of the rational will, of the will in and for itself. The universal will is not to be looked on as compounded of definitively individual wills, so that these remain absolute; otherwise the saying would be correct: “Where the minority must obey the majority, there is no freedom.” The universal will must really be the rational will, even if we are not conscious of the fact; the state is therefore not an association which is decreed by the arbitrary will of individuals. The wrong apprehension of these principles does not concern us. What does concern us is this, that thereby there should come into consciousness as content the sense that man has liberty in his spirit as the altogether absolute, that free-will is the Notion of man. Freedom is just thought itself; he who casts thought aside and speaks of freedom knows not what he is talking of. The unity of thought with itself is freedom, the free will. Thought, as volition merely, is the impulse to abrogate one’s subjectivity, the relation to present existence, the realizing of oneself, since in that I am endeavouring to place myself as existent on an equality with myself as thinking. It is only as having the power of thinking that the will is free. The principle of freedom emerged in Rousseau, and gave to man, who apprehends himself as infinite, this infinite strength. This furnishes the transition to the Kantian philosophy, which, theoretically considered, made this principle its foundation; knowledge aimed at freedom, and at a concrete content which it possesses in consciousness.
[D. The German Illumination.]
The Germans were at this time quietly drifting along in their Leibnitzo-Wolffian philosophy, in its definitions, axioms and proofs. Then they were gradually breathed upon by the spirit of foreign lands, they made acquaintance with all the developments which there came to pass, and took very kindly to the empiricism of Locke; on the other hand they at the same time laid aside metaphysical investigations, turned their attention to the question of how truths can be grasped by the healthy human understanding, and plunged into the Aufklärung and into the consideration of the utility of all things—a point of view which they adopted from the French. Utility as the essence of existent things signifies that they are determined as not being in themselves, but for another: this is a necessary moment, but not the only one. The German Aufklärung warred against ideas, with the principle of utility as its weapon. Philosophic investigations on this subject had degenerated into a feeble popular treatment of it which was incapable of going deeper; they displayed a rigid pedantry and an earnestness of the understanding, but were unspiritual. The Germans are busy bees who do justice to all nations, they are old-clothesmen for whom anything is good enough, and who carry on their haggling with everyone. Picked up as it was from foreign nations, all this had lost the wit and life, the energy and originality which with the French had made the content to be lost sight of in the form. The Germans, who honestly sift a matter to its root, and who would put rational arguments in the place of wit and vivacity, since wit and vivacity really prove nothing, in this way reached a content which was utterly empty, so much so that nothing could be more wearisome than this profound mode of treatment; such was the case with Eberhard, Tetens, and those like them.
Others, like Nicolai, Sulzer and their fellows, were excellent in their speculations on questions of taste and the liberal sciences; for literature and art were also to flourish among the Germans. But with all this they only arrived at a most trivial treatment of æsthetics—Lessing[313] called it shallow chatter. As a matter of fact, indeed, the poems of Gellert, Weisse and Lessing sank almost, if not quite as much into the same poetic feebleness. Moreover, previous to the philosophy of Kant, the general principle was really the theory of happiness, which we have already met with in the philosophy of the Cyrenaics (Vol. I. p. 477), and the point of view of pleasant or unpleasant sensations held good among the philosophers of that time as an ultimate and essential determination. Of this manner of philosophizing I will quote an example which Nicolai gives in the account of a conversation which he had with Mendelssohn: what is in question is the pleasure in tragic subjects which is held to be awakened even by means of the unpleasant emotions depicted in a tragedy:
Herr Moses.
“The power of having an inclination for perfections and of shunning imperfections is a reality.” Therefore the exercise of this power brings a pleasure with it, which, however, is in nature comparatively less than the displeasure which arises from the contemplation of the object.
I.
Yet even then, when the violence of passion causes us unpleasant sensations, the movement (what else is this movement than the power of loving perfections, &c.?) which it brings with it has still delights for us. It is the strength of the movement which we enjoy, even in spite of the painful sensations which oppose what is pleasant in the passion, and in a short time obtain the victory.
Herr Moses.
In a stage play, on the contrary, as the imperfect object is absent, pleasure must gain the upper hand and eclipse the small degree of displeasure.
I.
A passion therefore which is not followed by these results must be altogether pleasant. Of this sort are the imitations of the passions which the tragedy affords.”[314]
With such vapid and meaningless drivel they rambled on. In addition to these, the eternity of punishment in hell, the salvation of the heathen, the difference between uprightness and godliness, were philosophic matters on which much labour was expended among the Germans, while the French troubled themselves little about them. Finite determinations were made to hold good against the infinite; against the Trinity it was asserted that One cannot be Three; against original sin, that each must bear his own guilt, must have done his own deeds of himself, and must answer for them; in the same way against redemption, that another cannot take upon himself punishment that is due; against forgiveness of sin, that what is done cannot be rendered undone; to sum up generally, the incommensurability of the human nature with the divine. On the one side we see healthy human understanding, experience, facts of consciousness, but on the other side there was still in vogue the Wolffian metaphysics of the dry, dead understanding; thus we see Mendelssohn take his stand by the healthy human understanding, and make it his rule.
Some movement was brought into this authority, which had settled into perfect peace and security and let no dreams of other matters cross its path, by the chance dispute of Mendelssohn with Jacobi, first as to whether Lessing had been a disciple of Spinoza, and then regarding the doctrines of Spinoza himself. On this occasion it came to light how much Spinoza was really forgotten, and in what horror Spinozism was held. But while Jacobi in this way once more unexpectedly brought to remembrance in connection with Spinozism a quite different content of philosophy, faith, i.e. the simply immediate certainty of external, finite things, as well as of the divine (which faith in the divine he called reason) was certainly placed by him, as an independent thinker, in opposition to mediating knowledge, which he apprehended as mere understanding. This continued until Kant gave a new impulse in Germany to philosophy, which had died out in the rest of Europe.
As far as the transition to modern German philosophy is concerned, it is from Hume and Rousseau, as we have said (pp. 369, 374, 402), that it took its start. Descartes opposes extension to thought, as what is simply one with itself. He is charged with dualism, but, like Spinoza and Leibnitz, he did away with the independence of the two sides, and made supreme their unity, God. But, as this unity, God is first of all only the Third; and He is further determined in such a way that no determination pertains to Him. Wolff’s understanding of the finite, his school metaphysics generally, his science of the understanding, and his divergence into the observation of nature, after it has grown strong in its conformity with law and in its finite knowledge, turns against the infinite and the concrete determinations of religion, and comes to a standstill with abstractions in his theologia naturalis; for the determinate is his domain. But from this time an utterly different point of view is introduced. The infinite is transported into abstraction or incomprehensibility. This is an incomprehensible position to adopt. Nowadays it is looked on as most pious, most justifiable. But as we see the third, the unity of differences, defined as something which cannot be thought or known, this unity is not one of thought, for it is above all thought, and God is not simply thought. Nevertheless this unity is defined as the absolutely concrete, i.e. as the unity of thought and Being. Now we have come so far that this unity is a unity simply in thought, and pertaining to consciousness, so that the objectivity of thought—reason—comes forth as One and All. This is dimly conceived by the French. Whether the highest Being, this Being divested of all determination, is elevated above nature, or whether nature or matter is the highest unity, there is always present the establishing of something concrete, which at the same time belongs to thought. Since the liberty of man has been set up as an absolutely ultimate principle, thought itself has been set up as a principle. The principle of liberty is not only in thought but the root of thought; this principle of liberty is also something in itself concrete, at least in principle it is implicitly concrete. Thus far have general culture and philosophic culture advanced. Since what is knowable has now been placed entirely within the sphere of consciousness, and since the liberty of the spirit has been apprehended as absolute, this may be understood to mean that knowledge has entered altogether into the realm of the finite. The standpoint of the finite was at the same time taken as ultimate, and God as a Beyond outside consciousness; duties, rights, knowledge of nature, are finite. Man has thereby formed for himself a kingdom of truth, from which God is excluded; it is the kingdom of finite truth. The form of finitude may here be termed the subjective form; liberty, self-consciousness [Ichheit] of the mind, known as the absolute, is essentially subjective—in fact it is the subjectivity of thought. The more the human reason has grasped itself in itself, the more has it come down from God and the more has it increased the field of the finite. Reason is One and All, which is at the same time the totality of the finite; reason under these conditions is finite knowledge and knowledge of the finite. The question is, since it is this concrete that is established (and not metaphysical abstractions), how it constitutes itself in itself; and then, how it returns to objectivity, or abrogates its subjectivity, i.e. how by means of thought God is to be again brought about, who at an earlier time and at the beginning of this period was recognized as alone the true. This is what we have to consider in the last period, in dealing with Kant, Fichte, and Schelling.
SECTION THREE
Recent German Philosophy
In the philosophy of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, the revolution to which in Germany mind has in these latter days advanced, was formally thought out and expressed; the sequence of these philosophies shows the course which thought has taken. In this great epoch of the world’s history, whose inmost essence is laid hold of in the philosophy of history, two nations only have played a part, the German and the French, and this in spite of their absolute opposition, or rather because they are so opposite. The other nations have taken no real inward part in the same, although politically they have indeed so done, both through their governments and their people. In Germany this principle has burst forth as thought, spirit, Notion; in France, in the form of actuality. In Germany, what there is of actuality comes to us as a force of external circumstances, and as a reaction against the same. The task of modern German philosophy is, however, summed up in taking as its object the unity of thought and Being, which is the fundamental idea of philosophy generally, and comprehending it, that is, in laying hold of the inmost significance of necessity, the Notion (supra, p. 360). The philosophy of Kant sets forth, in the first place, the formal aspect of the task, but it has the abstract absoluteness of reason in self-consciousness as its sole result, and, in one respect, it carried with it a certain character of shallowness and want of vigour, in which an attitude of criticism and negativity is retained, and which, as far as any positive element is concerned, adheres to the facts of consciousness and to mere conjecture, while it renounces thought and returns to feeling. On the other hand, however, there sprang from this the philosophy of Fichte, which speculatively grasps the essence of self-consciousness as concrete egoism, but which does not reach beyond this subjective form pertaining to the absolute. From it again comes the philosophy of Schelling, which subsequently rejects Fichte’s teaching and sets forth the Idea of the Absolute, the truth in and for itself.
[A. Jacobi.]
In connection with Kant we must here begin by speaking of Jacobi, whose philosophy is contemporaneous with that of Kant; in both of these the advance beyond the preceding period is very evident. The result in the two cases is much the same, although both the starting point and the method of progression are somewhat different. In Jacobi’s case the stimulus was given mainly by French philosophy, with which he was very conversant, and also by German metaphysics, while Kant began rather from the English side, that is, from the scepticism of Hume. Jacobi, in that negative attitude which he preserved as well as Kant, kept before him the objective aspect of the method of knowledge, and specially considered it, for he declared knowledge to be in its content incapable of recognizing the Absolute: the truth must be concrete, present, but not finite. Kant does not consider the content, but took the view of knowledge being subjective; and for this reason he declared it to be incapable of recognizing absolute existence. To Kant knowledge is thus a knowledge of phenomena only, not because the categories are merely limited and finite, but because they are subjective. To Jacobi, on the other hand, the chief point is that the categories are not merely subjective, but that they themselves are conditioned. This is an essential difference between the two points of view, even if they both arrive at the same result.
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, born at Düsseldorf in 1743, held office first in the Duchy of Berg, and then in Bavaria. He studied in Geneva and Paris, associating in the former place with Bonnet and in the latter with Diderot. Jacobi was a man of the highest character and culture. He was long occupied with State affairs, and in Düsseldorf he held a public office which was connected with the administration of the finance department in the State. At the time of the French Revolution he was obliged to retire. As a Bavarian official he went to Munich, there became President of the Academy of Sciences in 1804, which office he, however, resigned in 1812; for in the Napoleonic period Protestants were decried as demagogues. He lived at Munich till the end of his life, and died at the same place on the 10th of March, 1819.[315]
In the year 1785, Jacobi published Letters on Spinoza, which were written in 1783, on the occasion of the dispute with Mendelssohn above-mentioned (p. 406); for in none of his writings did Jacobi develop his philosophy systematically, he set it forth in letters only. When Mendelssohn wished to write a life of Lessing, Jacobi sent to ask him if he knew that “Lessing was a Spinozist” (Jacobi’s Werke, Vol. IV. Sec. 1, pp. 39, 40). Mendelssohn was displeased at this, and it was the occasion of the correspondence. In the course of the dispute it was made evident that those who held themselves to be professed philosophers and possessed of a monopoly of Lessing’s friendship, such as Nicolai, Mendelssohn, &c., knew nothing about Spinozism; not only was there manifested in them the superficial character of their philosophic insight, but ignorance as well; with Mendelssohn, for instance, this was shown respecting even the outward history of the Spinozistic philosophy, and much more regarding the inward (Jacobi’s Werke, Vol. IV. Sec. 1, p. 91). That Jacobi asserted Lessing to be a Spinozist, and gave a high place to the French—this serious statement came to these good men as a thunderbolt from the blue. They—the self-satisfied, self-possessed, superior persons—were quite surprised that he also made pretensions to knowledge, and of such a “dead dog” as Spinoza (ibidem, p. 68). Explanations followed upon this, in which Jacobi further developed his philosophic views.
Mendelssohn is directly opposed to Jacobi, for Mendelssohn took his stand on cognition, placed true existence immediately in thought and conception, and maintained: “What I cannot think as true does not trouble me as doubt. A question which I do not understand, I cannot answer, it is for me as good as no question at all.”[316] He continued to argue on these same lines. His proof of the existence of God thus carries with it this necessity of thought, viz. that actuality must plainly be in thought, and a thinker must be presupposed, or the possibility of the actual is in the thinker. “What no thinking Being conceives as possible is not possible, and what is thought by no thinking creature as actual cannot be actual in fact. If we take away from anything whatsoever the conception formed by a thinking Being that that thing is possible or actual, the thing itself is done away with.” The Notion of the thing is thus to man the essence of the same. “No finite Being can think the actuality of a thing in its perfection as actual, and still less can he perceive the possibility and actuality of all present things. There must thus be a thinking Being or an understanding which in the most perfect way thinks the content of all possibilities as possible, and the content of all actualities as actual; i.e. there must be an infinite understanding, and this is God.”[317] Here on the one hand we see a unity of thought and Being, on the other the absolute unity as infinite understanding—the former is the self-consciousness which is apprehended as finite merely. Actuality, Being, has its possibility in thought, or its possibility is thought; it is not a process from possibility to actuality, for the possibility remains at home in the actuality.
Jacobi maintains against these demands of thought—and this in one view is the chief thought in his philosophy—that every method of their demonstration leads to fatalism, atheism, and Spinozism,[318] and presents God as derived and founded upon something else; for comprehending Him signifies demonstrating His dependence. Jacobi thus asserts that mediate knowledge consists in giving a cause of something which has in its turn a finite effect, and so on; so that a knowledge such as this can all through relate to the finite only.
Jacobi further states upon this subject, in the first place, that “Reason”—later on when he distinguished reason and understanding (of which more hereafter[319]), he altered it to understanding[320]—“can never bring to light more than the conditions of what is conditioned, natural laws and mechanism. We comprehend a thing when we can deduce it from its proximate causes,” and not from the remoter causes; the most remote and quite universal cause is always God. “Or” we know the thing if we “perceive its immediate conditions as they come in due succession. Thus, for instance, we comprehend a circle when we can clearly represent to ourselves the mechanism of its origination or its physical conditions; we know the syllogistic formulæ when we have actually come to know the laws to which the human understanding is subject in judgment and conclusion, its physical nature and its mechanism. For this reason we have no conceptions of qualities as such, but only intuitions. Even of our present existence we have a feeling only, but no conceptions. Genuine conceptions we have merely of figure, number, position, movement and the forms of thought; qualities are known and understood, if they are traced back to these and objectively annulled.” This is undoubtedly really finite knowledge, which is to give the determinate conditions of anything determinate, to demonstrate it as resulting from another cause, in such a way that each condition is again conditioned and finite. Jacobi continues: “The business of reason is really progressive union and connection, and its speculative business is union and connection in accordance with the known laws of necessity, i.e. of identity. Everything that reason can bring forth by means of analysis, combination, judgment, conclusion, and re-conception, consists in nothing but things of nature” (i.e. finite things), “and reason itself, as a limited existence, belongs to these things. But the whole of nature, the sum of all conditioned existence, cannot reveal more to the investigating understanding than what is contained in it, namely, manifold existence, changes, a succession of forms” (the conditioned), “and not an actual beginning” (of the world), “nor a real principle of any objective existence.”[321]
But Jacobi in the second place here accepts reason in a wider sense and says: “If we understand by reason the principle of knowledge generally, it is the mind from which the whole living nature of man is constituted; through it man arises; he is a form which it has adopted.” With this Jacobi’s view of the attempt to know the unconditioned is connected. “I take the whole human being, and find that his consciousness is composed of two original conceptions, the conceptions of the conditioned and the unconditioned. Both are inseparably bound up with one another, and yet in such a way that the conception of the conditioned presupposes the conception of the unconditioned, and can be given in this alone. We are just as certain of its existence as we are of our own conditioned existence, or even more so. Since our conditioned existence rests on an infinitude of mediations, there is opened up to our investigation a vast field which, for the sake of our preservation even, we are forced to work upon.” It would, however, be quite another thing to wish to know the unconditioned apart from this practical end. However Jacobi here remarks, “To try to discover the conditions of the unconditioned, to find a possibility for absolute necessity, and to construct this last in order to be able to comprehend it, is what we undertake when we endeavour to make nature an existence comprehensible to us, i.e. a merely natural existence, and to bring the mechanism of the principle of mechanism into the light of day. For if everything which can be said to arise and be present in a way comprehensible to us, must arise and be present in a conditioned way, we remain, so long as we continue to comprehend, in a chain of conditioned conditions. Where this chain breaks off, we cease to comprehend, and there the connection which we call nature likewise ceases. The conception of the possibility of the outward existence of nature would thus be the conception of an absolute beginning or origin of nature; it would be the conception of the unconditioned itself in so far as it is a conditioning of nature not naturally connected, i.e. a conditioning of nature unconnected and unconditioned for us. Now should a conception of what is thus unconditioned and unconnected, and consequently supernatural, be possible, the unconditioned must cease to be unconditioned, it must itself receive conditions; and absolute necessity must commence to be possibility in order that it may allow itself to be constructed.”[322] This is contradictory.
Jacobi then passes on from this point to the second of his main propositions, “The unconditioned is called the supernatural. Now since everything which lies outside the connection of what is conditioned, of what is naturally mediated, also lies outside the sphere of our clear and certain knowledge, and cannot be understood through conceptions, the supernatural cannot be accepted in any other way by us than that in which it is given to us—namely as a fact. It is! This supernatural, this essence of all essence, all tongues join in proclaiming to be God.”[323] God as the universal, the true, is here taken in the sense of a spiritual generally, in the sense of power, wisdom, &c. That God is, however, is to Jacobi not absolutely true; for to knowledge pertains His objective absolute existence, but He cannot be said to be known. It is thus merely a fact of my consciousness that God exists independently apart from my consciousness; this, however, is itself maintained through my consciousness; the subjective attitude of thought is thus to Jacobi the element of most importance. The consciousness of God, which is in our consciousness, is, however, of such a nature that along with the thought of God we have immediately associated the fact that He is. The existence of the supernatural and supersensuous, to which the thought of man regarding the natural and finite passes on, is just as certain to Jacobi as he is himself. This certainty is identical with his self-consciousness; as certainly as I am, so certainly is God (Jacobi’s Werke, Vol. III. p. 35). Since he thus passes back into self-consciousness, the unconditioned is only for us in an immediate way; this immediate knowledge Jacobi calls Faith, inward revelation (Werke, Vol. II. pp. 3, 4); to this appeal can be made in man. God, the absolute, the unconditioned, cannot, according to Jacobi, be proved. For proof, comprehension, means to discover conditions for something, to derive it from conditions; but a derived absolute, God, &c., would thus not be absolute at all, would not be unconditioned, would not be God (Jacobi’s Werke, Vol. III. p. 7). This immediate knowledge of God is then the point which is maintained in the philosophy of Jacobi. The faith of Kant and of Jacobi are, however, different. To Kant it is a postulate of reason, it is the demand for the solution of the contradiction between the world and goodness; to Jacobi it is represented on its own account as immediate knowledge.
Everything which has been written upon God since Jacobi’s time, by philosophers such as Fries and by theologians, rests on this conception of immediate intellectual knowledge, and men even call this revelation, though in another sense than the revelation of theology. Revelation as immediate knowledge is in ourselves, while the Church holds revelation to be something imparted from without.[324] In the theological sense, faith is faith in something which is given to us through teaching. It is a sort of deception when faith and revelation are spoken of and represented as if faith and revelation in the theological sense were here in question; for the sense in which they are used, and which may be termed philosophic, is quite a different one, however pious an air may be assumed in using the terms. This is Jacobi’s standpoint, and whatever is by philosophers and theologians said against it, this teaching is eagerly accepted and disseminated. And nowhere is there anything to be found but reflections originating from Jacobi, whereby immediate knowledge is opposed to philosophic knowledge and to reason; and people speak of reason, philosophy, &c., as a blind man speaks of colours. It is, indeed, allowed that a man cannot make shoes unless he is a shoemaker, even although he have the measure and foot, and also the hands. But when Philosophy is concerned, immediate knowledge signifies that every man as he walks and stands is a philosopher, that he can dogmatize as he chooses, and that he is completely acquainted with Philosophy.
By reason, however, mediate knowledge merely is on the one hand understood, and on the other the intellectual perception which speaks of facts (supra, pp. 413-415). In this respect it is true that reason is the knowledge and revelation of absolute truth, since the understanding is the revelation of the finite (Jacobi’s Werke, Vol. II. pp. 8-14, 101). “We maintained that two different powers of perception in man have to be accepted: a power of perception through visible and tangible and consequently corporeal organs of perception, and another kind of power, viz. through an invisible organ which in no way represents itself to the outward senses, and whose existence is made known to us through feeling alone. This organ, a spiritual eye for spiritual objects, has been called by men—generally speaking—reason. He whom the pure feelings of the beautiful and good, of admiration and love, of respect and awe, do not convince that in and with these feelings he perceives something to be present which is independent of them, and which is unattainable by the outward senses or by an understanding directed upon their perceptions alone—such an one cannot be argued with” (Jacobi’s Werke, Vol. II. pp. 74, 76). But by faith Jacobi likewise understands all that has immediacy of Being for me: “Through faith we know that we have a body, we become aware of other actual things, and that indeed with the same certainty with which we are aware of ourselves. We obtain all conceptions through the qualities which we receive and accept, and there is no other way of attaining real knowledge; for reason, when it begets objects, begets phantoms of the brain. Thus we have a revelation of nature.”[325] Hence the expression faith, which had a deep significance in religion, is made use of for different contents of every kind; this in our own time is the point of view most commonly adopted.
Jacobi here brings faith into opposition with thought. Let us compare the two, and discover whether they are separated by so great a chasm as those who thus oppose them think. On the one hand absolute existence is to faith immediate; believing consciousness feels itself penetrated by this as by its essence: that existence is its life, believing consciousness asserts itself to be in direct unity with it. Thought thinks the absolute existence; such existence is to it absolute thought, absolute understanding, pure thought; but that signifies that it is likewise immediate itself. On the other hand to faith the immediacy of absolute existence has also the significance of a Being: it is, and is another than ‘I.’ And the same is true of the thinker; to him it is absolute Being, actual in itself, and different from self-consciousness or thought as finite understanding, to use the common term. Now what is the reason that faith and thought do not understand one another, and each recognize itself in the other? In the first place faith has no consciousness of being a thought, inasmuch as it asserts absolute consciousness to be identical with it as self-consciousness, and has direct inward knowledge of the same. But it expresses this simple unity; in its consciousness it is only immediacy so to speak in the signification of Being, a unity of its unconscious substance. In the second place Being-for-self is contained in thought; to this faith opposes the immediacy of Being. Thought, on the contrary, has the immediate as absolute potentiality, as absolutely a thing of thought: and the immediacy belonging to this thing of thought is without the determination of Being, of life. On the heights of this abstraction the two stand opposed to each other, as the Aufklärung which asserts absolute existence to be a Beyond of self-consciousness, and as the materialism which makes it so to speak present matter (supra, pp. 382, 383). In the one case it is in faith and thought as positive existence or thought, and in the other it is the negative of self-consciousness, which is thus either only determined as negative, as a Beyond, or likewise as existent for self-consciousness. Hence faith and thought are both of them knowledge. We call universal knowledge thought, particular knowledge we call sensuous perception; and we term the introduction of external determinations understanding. The universal element in man is thought, but to it likewise appertains religious feeling for instance; the animal does not possess it, for it has no human feeling; and in so far as this feeling is religious, it is the feeling of a thinker, and what determines this feeling is not the determination of natural desire, &c., but a universal determination. Thus God, even though He is only felt and believed in, is yet the universal taken quite abstractly—even in His personality He is the absolutely universal personality.
As thought and faith are thus one, the same is true of the antithesis between mediated and immediate knowledge. We must, it is true, keep before our eyes the fact that what is revealed in immediate knowledge is the universal. But abstract immediate knowledge is natural, sensuous knowledge; the immediate man in his natural condition, in his desires, does not know this universal. Children, the Esquimaux, &c., know nothing of God; or what the natural man knows of Him is not a real knowledge of Him. Thus the intuitive knowledge of the Egyptians told them that God was an ox or a cat, and the Indians still possess similar sorts of knowledge. On the other hand when man has come so far as to know God as merely an object of the mind, i.e. as spiritual, it is easy to perceive that this knowledge which is asserted to be immediate is really a result mediated through instruction, through a long continued culture. It is only by means of being elevated above nature that man arrives at a consciousness of what is higher, and at a knowledge of the universal; there indeed his knowledge is immediate, but he has only arrived at this through mediation. I think, and thus I know the universal immediately, but this very thought is just process in itself, movement and life. All life is process within itself, is mediated, and this is all the more true of spiritual life; for it is the passing from one to the other, that is, from the merely natural and sensuous to the spiritual. It thus indicates a deficiency in the most simple reflection not to know that the universal is not in immediate knowledge, but is a result of the culture, the education, and the self-revelation of the human race. If immediate knowledge is to be allowed, everyone will be responsible merely to himself: this man knows this, another that, and consequently everything is justified and approved, however contrary to right and religion. This opposition between immediacy and mediacy is thus a very barren and quite empty determination; it is a platitude of the extremest type to consider anything like this to be a true opposition; it proceeds from a most wooden understanding, which thinks that an immediacy can be something on its own account, without a mediation within itself. If Philosophy were to result in this it would be a poor affair; these determinations are merely forms, none of which has intrinsic truth. The form into which Philosophy has in Jacobi’s case finally fallen, which is that immediacy is grasped as absolute, manifests a lack of all critical faculty, of all logic. The Kantian philosophy is critical philosophy, but from it the fact has been omitted that we cannot constitute the infinite with finite categories—and immediacy is such an one. When we regard this opposition more closely all knowledge may be termed immediate, but all immediate knowledge is likewise mediated in itself. This we know within our consciousness, and we may see it in the most general phenomena. I know, for example, of America immediately, and yet this knowledge is very much mediated. If I stand in America and see its soil, I must first of all have journeyed to it, Columbus must first have discovered it, ships must have been built, &c.; all these discoveries and inventions pertain to it. That which we now know immediately is consequently a result of infinitely many mediations. Likewise when I see a right-angled triangle I know that the squares of the two sides are equal to the square of the hypotenuse: I know this immediately, and yet I have merely learned it and am convinced of it through the mediation of proof. Immediate knowledge is thus everywhere mediated, and Philosophy does nothing but bring this to consciousness—demonstrating the mediation which in point of fact is already present there, e.g. in religion, &c.
The philosophy of Jacobi, inasmuch as it says: “Thought cannot proceed further than to the feeling of God,” has been accepted utiliter; it was more easily arrived at than in the case of Kant. Knowledge, however, is something very different from what Jacobi calls such; against finite knowledge his arguments are quite correct. Immediate knowledge is not knowledge, comprehension, for that implies that the content is determined in itself, i.e. is grasped as concrete. But in immediate knowledge it is the case that the only fact known of God is that He exists. For should there be determinations respecting God, they must, according to Jacobi, be grasped as a finite, and the knowledge of them would again merely be a progression from finite to finite. There thus remains only the indeterminate conception of God, an “Above me,” an indeterminate Beyond. This gives accordingly the same result as does the Aufklärung, viz. that the highest reality is ultimate: we find the same in French philosophy and in Kant—only here we still have the opinion that this emptiness is the highest philosophy possible. But if each standpoint has an aspect wherein it is justified, there always rests in the proposition that the human mind knows God immediately, the important consideration that we have here a recognition of the freedom of the human spirit: in it we have the source of the knowledge of God, and all externality of authority is thus abrogated in this principle. The principle is hereby gained, but only the principle of freedom of spirit; and the greatness of our time rests in the fact that freedom, the peculiar possession of mind whereby it is at home with itself in itself, is recognized, and that mind has this consciousness within itself. This however is merely abstract, for the next step is that the principle of freedom is again purified and comes to its true objectivity, so that not everything which strikes me or springs up within me must, because it is manifested in me, hold good as true. It is only through thought, which casts off the particular and accidental, that the principle receives this objectivity which is independent of mere subjectivity and in and for itself—though in such a way that the freedom of mind still remains respected. One’s own spirit must bear witness to spirit that God is Spirit; the content must be true. But this does not give authenticity to itself by its being revealed with certainty to me. This is the standpoint, and we have thus seen its deficiency and the greatness of the principle which is involved in it.
[B. Kant.]
The philosophy of Kant, which we have now more particularly to consider, made its appearance at the same time as the above. While Descartes asserted certainty to be the unity of thought and Being, we now have the consciousness of thought in its subjectivity, i.e. in the first place, as determinateness in contrast with objectivity, and then as finitude and progression in finite determinations. Abstract thought as personal conviction is that which is maintained as certain; its contents are experience, but the methods adopted by experience are once more formal thought and argument. Kant turns back to the standpoint of Socrates; we see in him the freedom of the subject as we saw it with the Stoics, but the task in respect of content is now placed on a higher level. An endless aiming at the concrete is required for thought, a filling up in accordance with the rule which completion prescribes, which signifies that the content is itself the Idea as the unity of the Notion and reality. With Jacobi thought, demonstration, does not in the first place reach beyond the finite and conditioned, and in the second place, even when God is likewise the metaphysical object, the demonstration is really the making Him conditioned and finite; in the third place the unconditioned, what is then immediately certain, only exists in faith, a subjectively fixed point of view but an unknowable one, that is to say an undetermined, indeterminable, and consequently an unfruitful one. The standpoint of the philosophy of Kant, on the contrary, is in the first place to be found in the fact that thought has through its reasoning got so far as to grasp itself not as contingent but rather as in itself the absolute ultimate. In the finite, in connection with the finite, an absolute standpoint is raised which acts as a connecting bond; it binds together the finite and leads up to the infinite. Thought grasped itself as all in all, as absolute in judgment; for it nothing external is authoritative, since all authority can receive validity only through thought. This thought, determining itself within itself and concrete, is, however, in the second place, grasped as subjective, and this aspect of subjectivity is the form which from Jacobi’s point of view is predominant; the fact that thought is concrete Jacobi has on the other hand for the most part set aside. Both standpoints remain philosophies of subjectivity; since thought is subjective, the capacity of knowing the absolute is denied to it. To Kant God cannot on the one hand be found in experience; He can neither be found in outward experience—as Lalande discovered when he swept the whole heavens and found no God—nor can He be discovered within; though no doubt mystics and enthusiasts can experience many things in themselves, and amongst these God, i.e. the Infinite. On the other hand Kant argues to prove the existence of God, who is to him an hypothesis necessary for the explanation of things, a postulate of practical reason. But in this connection another French astronomer made the following reply to the Emperor Napoleon: “Je n’ai pas eu besoin de cette hypothèse.” According to this the truth underlying the Kantian philosophy is the recognition of freedom. Even Rousseau represented the absolute to be found in freedom; Kant has the same principle, but taken rather from the theoretic side. The French regard it from the side of will, which is represented in their proverb: “Il a la tête près du bonnet.” France possesses the sense of actuality, of promptitude; because in that country conception passes more immediately into action, men have there applied themselves more practically to the affairs of actuality. But however much freedom may be in itself concrete, it was as undeveloped and in its abstraction that it was there applied to actuality; and to make abstractions hold good in actuality means to destroy actuality. The fanaticism which characterized the freedom which was put into the hands of the people was frightful. In Germany the same principle asserted the rights of consciousness on its own account, but it has been worked out in a merely theoretic way. We have commotions of every kind within us and around us, but through them all the German head quietly keeps its nightcap on and silently carries on its operations beneath it.
Immanuel Kant was born at Königsberg in 1724, and there studied theology to begin with; in the year 1755 he entered upon his work as an academic teacher; in 1770 he became professor of logic, and in 1804 he died at Königsberg on the 12th of February, having almost attained his eightieth year (Tennemann’s Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie by Wendt, § 380, pp. 465, 466), without ever having left his native town.
While to Wolff thought as thought was merely positive self-identity and grasped itself as such, we saw the negative self-moving thought, the absolute Notion, appear in all its power in France; and in the Aufklärung it likewise made its way to Germany in such a manner that all existence, all action, was called upon to serve a useful purpose, i.e. the implicit was done away with and everything had to be for another; and that for which everything had to be is man, self-consciousness, taken, however, as signifying all men generally. The consciousness of this action in abstract form is the Kantian philosophy. It is thus the self-thinking absolute Notion that passes into itself which we see making its appearance in Germany through this philosophy, in such a way that all reality falls within self-consciousness; it is the idealism which vindicates all moments of the implicit to self-consciousness, but which at first itself remains subject to a contradiction, inasmuch as it still separates this implicit from itself. In other words the Kantian philosophy no doubt leads reality back to self-consciousness, but it can supply no reality to this essence of self-consciousness, or to this pure self-consciousness, nor can it demonstrate Being in the same. It apprehends simple thought as having difference in itself, but does not yet apprehend that all reality rests on this difference; it does not know how to obtain mastery over the individuality of self-consciousness, and although it describes reason very well, it does this in an unthinking empiric way which again robs it of the truth it has. Theoretically the Kantian philosophy is the “Illumination” or Aufklärung reduced to method; it states that nothing true can be known, but only the phenomenal; it leads knowledge into consciousness and self-consciousness, but from this standpoint maintains it to be a subjective and finite knowledge. Thus although it deals with the infinite Idea, expressing its formal categories and arriving at its concrete claims, it yet again denies this to be the truth, making it a simple subjective, because it has once for all accepted finite knowledge as the fixed and ultimate standpoint. This philosophy made an end of the metaphysic of the understanding as an objective dogmatism, but in fact it merely transformed it into a subjective dogmatism, i.e. into a consciousness in which these same finite determinations of the understanding persist, and the question of what is true in and for itself has been abandoned. Its study is made difficult by its diffuseness and prolixity, and by the peculiar terminology found in it. Nevertheless this diffuseness has one advantage, that inasmuch as the same thing is often repeated, the main points are kept before us, and these cannot easily be lost from view.
We shall endeavour to trace the lines which Kant pursued. The philosophy of Kant has in the first place a direct relation to that of Hume as stated above (p. 370). That is to say, the significance of the Kantian philosophy, generally expressed, is from the very beginning to allow that determinations such as those of universality and necessity are not to be met with in perception, and this Hume has already shown in relation to Locke. But while Hume attacks the universality and necessity of the categories generally, and Jacobi their finitude, Kant merely argues against their objectivity in so far as they are present in external things themselves, while maintaining them to be objective in the sense of holding good as universal and necessary, as they do, for instance, in mathematics and natural science.[326] The fact that we crave for universality and necessity as that which first constitutes the objective, Kant thus undoubtedly allows. But if universality and necessity do not exist in external things, the question arises “Where are they to be found?” To this Kant, as against Hume, maintains that they must be a priori, i.e. that they must rest on reason itself, and on thought as self-conscious reason; their source is the subject, “I” in my self-consciousness.[327] This, simply expressed, is the main point in the Kantian philosophy.
In the second place the philosophy of Kant is likewise called a critical philosophy because its aim, says Kant, is first of all to supply a criticism of our faculties of knowledge; for before obtaining knowledge we must inquire into the faculties of knowledge. To the healthy human understanding that is plausible, and to it this has been a great discovery. Knowledge is thereby represented as an instrument, as a method and means whereby we endeavour to possess ourselves of the truth. Thus before men can make their way to the truth itself they must know the nature and function of their instrument. They must see whether it is capable of supplying what is demanded of it—of seizing upon the object; they must know what the alterations it makes in the object are, in order that these alterations may not be mixed up with the determinations of the object itself.[328] This would appear as though men could set forth upon the search for truth with spears and staves. And a further claim is made when it is said that we must know the faculty of knowledge before we can know. For to investigate the faculties of knowledge means to know them; but how we are to know without knowing, how we are to apprehend the truth before the truth, it is impossible to say. It is the old story of the σχολαστικός who would not go into the water till he could swim. Thus since the investigation of the faculties of knowledge is itself knowing, it cannot in Kant attain to what it aims at because it is that already—it cannot come to itself because it is already with itself; the same thing happens as happened with the Jews, the Spirit passes through the midst of them and they know it not. At the same time the step taken by Kant is a great and important one—that is, the fact that he has made knowledge the subject of his consideration.
On the one hand this critique of knowledge applies to the empirical knowledge of Locke, which asserts itself to be grounded on experience, and, on the other hand, it also deals with what claims to be on the whole a more metaphysical kind of philosophy—the Wolffian and German—which had also taken up the line of proceeding on the more empiric method which has been depicted. But this last has at the same time kept itself separate from the merely empiric method, inasmuch as its main efforts have been directed towards making such categories of thought as those of potentiality, actuality, God, &c., have as their foundation categories of the understanding, and then reasoning from them. The Kantian philosophy is in the first instance directed against both. Kant takes away the objective significance of the determinations of the Wolffian metaphysics, and shows how they must be ascribed to subjective thought alone. At the same time Jacobi likewise declared himself against this metaphysic, but since he started more especially from the standpoint of the French and Germans, his point of view was different: he asserts that our finite thought can set forth finite determinations alone, and thus can only consider God and Spirit in accordance with finite relationships. On the practical side there reigned at that time the so-called happiness theory, since man’s inherent Notion and the way to realize this Notion was apprehended in morality as a satisfaction of his desires. As against this Kant has very rightly shown that it involves a heteronomy and not an autonomy of reason—a determination through nature and consequently an absence of freedom. But because the rational principle of Kant was formal, and his successors could not make any further progress with reason, and yet morality had to receive a content, Fries and others must still be called Hedonists though they avoid giving themselves the name.
In the third place, as regards the relation of the categories to the material which is given through experience, there is according to Kant already inherent in the subjective determinations of thought, e.g. in those of cause and effect, the capacity of themselves to bind together the differences which are present in that material. Kant considers thought as in great measure a synthetic activity, and hence he represents the main question of Philosophy to be this, “How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?”[329] Judgment signifies the combination of thought-determinations as subject and predicate. Synthetic judgments a priori are nothing else than a connection of opposites through themselves, or the absolute Notion, i.e. the relations of different determinations such as those of cause and effect, given not through experience but through thought. Space and time likewise form the connecting element; they are thus a priori, i.e. in self-consciousness. Since Kant shows that thought has synthetic judgments a priori which are not derived from perception, he shows that thought is so to speak concrete in itself. The idea which is present here is a great one, but, on the other hand, quite an ordinary signification is given it, for it is worked out from points of view which are inherently rude and empirical, and a scientific form is the last thing that can be claimed for it. In the presentation of it there is a lack of philosophical abstraction, and it is expressed in the most commonplace way; to say nothing more of the barbarous terminology, Kant remains restricted and confined by his psychological point of view and empirical methods.
To mention one example only of his barbarous expressions, Kant calls his philosophy (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 19) a Transcendental philosophy, i.e. a system of principles of pure reason which demonstrate the universal and necessary elements in the self-conscious understanding, without occupying themselves with objects or inquiring what universality and necessity are; this last would be transcendent. Transcendent and transcendental have accordingly to be clearly distinguished. Transcendent mathematics signifies the mathematics in which the determination of infinitude is made use of in a pre-eminent degree: in this sphere of mathematics we say, for instance, that the circle consists of an infinitude of straight lines; the periphery is represented as straight, and since the curve is represented as straight this passes beyond the geometric category and is consequently transcendent. Kant, on the contrary, defines the transcendental philosophy as not a philosophy which by means of categories passes beyond its own sphere, but one which points out in subjective thought, in consciousness, the sources of what may become transcendent. Thought would thus be transcendent if the categories of universality, of cause and effect, were predicated of the object, for in this way men would from the subjective element ‘transcend’ into another sphere. We are not justified in so doing as regards the result nor even to begin with, since we merely contemplate thought within thought itself. Thus we do not desire to consider the categories in their objective sense, but in so far as thought is the source of such synthetic relationships; the necessary and universal thus here receive the significance of resting in our faculties of knowledge. But from this faculty of knowledge Kant still separates the implicit, the thing-in-itself, so that the universality and necessity are all the time a subjective conditionment of knowledge merely, and reason with its universality and necessity does not attain to a knowledge of the truth.[330] For it requires perception and experience, a material empirically given in order, as subjectivity, to attain to knowledge. As Kant says, these form its “constituent parts”; one part it has in itself, but the other is empirically given.[331] When reason desires to be independent, to exist in itself and to derive truth from itself, it becomes transcendent; it transcends experience because it lacks the other constituent, and then creates mere hallucinations of the brain. It is hence not constitutive in knowledge but only regulative; it is the unity and rule for the sensuous manifold. But this unity on its own account is the unconditioned, which, transcending experience, merely arrives at contradictions. In the practical sphere alone is reason constitutive. The critique of reason is consequently not the knowing of objects, but of knowledge and its principles, its range and limitations, so that it does not become transcendent.[332] This is an extremely general account of what we shall now consider in its separate details.
In dealing with this matter Kant adopts the plan of first considering theoretic reason, the knowledge which relates to outward objects. In the second place he investigates the will as self-actualization; and, in the third place, the faculty of judgment, the special consideration of the unity of the universal and individual; how far he gets in this matter we shall likewise see. But the critique of the faculty of knowledge is the matter of main importance.
1. In the first place, as to the theoretic philosophy, Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason sets to work in a psychological manner, i.e. historically, inasmuch as he describes the main stages in theoretic consciousness. The first faculty is sensuousness generally, the second understanding, the third reason. All this he simply narrates; he accepts it quite empirically, without developing it from the Notion or proceeding by necessity.
a. The a priori fact of sensuous existence, the forms of sensuous existence, constitute the beginning of this transcendentalism. Kant calls the judgment of the same the transcendental æsthetic. Nowadays æsthetic signifies the knowledge of the beautiful. But here the doctrine of intuition or perception is taken from the point of view of its universality, i.e. from what in it pertains to the subject as such. Perception, says Kant, is the knowledge of an object given to us through the senses; sensuousness, however, is the capacity of being affected by conceptions as external. Now, according to Kant, in perception there are to be found all manner of contents, and in dealing with this he first of all distinguishes feeling as external, such as redness, colour, hardness, &c., and then as internal, such as justice, wrath, love, fear, pleasurable and religious feelings, &c. He says content such as this forms the one constituent and pertains to feeling; all this is subjective and merely subjective. In this sensuous element there is, however, a universal sensuous element likewise contained, which as such does not belong to feeling in so far as it is immediately determined; in such a content this ‘other’ consists in the categories of space and time, which of themselves are void and empty. The filling in is performed by the content, by colour, softness, hardness, &c., as regards space; while as regards time, the same content, so soon as it is something transient, or again some other content, and in particular inward feelings are what causes the determination. Space and time are consequently pure, i.e. abstract perceptions in which we place outside of us the content of individual sensations, either in time as succeeding one another, or in space as separate from one another. Here we thus meet with the division between subjectivity and objectivity, for if we isolate the ‘alongside of’ and ‘after’ we have space and time. It is the act of a priori sensuousness to project the content; the forms of intuition or perception constitute this pure perception.[333] Now everything indeed is termed perception, even thought and consciousness; God, who certainly pertains to thought alone, is said to be comprehended by perception or intuition, the so-called immediate consciousness.
Kant further remarks in this regard, (1) “Space is no empirical Notion which has been derived from outward experiences.” But the Notion is never really anything empiric: it is in barbarous forms like this that Kant, however, always expresses himself: “For in order that I may relate my sensations to something outside of me, I must presuppose space.” Of time Kant speaks in similar terms: “In order that something outside of me may be represented in separate space or time, the conception of space and time must come first, or it cannot be derived from experience, for experience first becomes possible through this antecedent conception.” That is to say, time and space which may appear as objective, since their particular filling in certainly belongs to subjective feeling, are not empirical; for consciousness has time and space first of all in itself. (2) “Space is a necessary conception which lies at the basis of all external perceptions. Space and time are conceptions a priori, because we cannot represent things without space and time. Time is a necessary basis for all phenomena.” As a priori, space and time are universal and necessary, that is to say we find this to be the case; but it does not follow that they must be previously present as conceptions. They are fundamental indeed, but they are likewise an external universal. Kant however places the matter somewhat in this fashion: there are things-in-themselves outside, but devoid of time and space; consciousness now comes, and it has time and space beforehand present in it as the possibility of experience, just as in order to eat it has mouth and teeth, &c., as conditions necessary for eating. The things which are eaten have not the mouth and teeth, and as eating is brought to bear on things, so space and time are also brought to bear on them; just as things are placed in the mouth and between the teeth, so is it with space and time. (3) “Space and time are not general Notions of the relations of things, but pure intuitive perceptions. For we can only represent to ourselves one space; there are not different component parts of space.” The same is the case with time. The abstract conception tree, for example, is in its actuality a number of individual and separate trees, but spaces are not such particulars, nor are they parts; for one immediate continuity remains, and hence a simple unity. Ordinary perception has always something individual before it; space or time are always however one only, and therefore a priori. It might however be replied to Kant: The nature of space and time undoubtedly involves their being an abstract universal; but there is in like manner only one blue. (4) “Each Notion or conception certainly comprises an infinite number of conceptions under itself, but not within itself; nevertheless this last is the case in space and time, and they are therefore intuitive perceptions and not Notions or conceptions.”[334] Space and time, then, are certainly not thought-determinations, if no thoughts are there present, but a Notion, so soon as we have a Notion of them.
From the transcendental point of view it is likewise maintained that this conception of space and time contains synthetic propositions a priori, connected with the consciousness of its necessity. Examples of these synthetic propositions are sought in statements such as that of space having three dimensions, or in the definition of a straight line, that it is the shortest distance between two points, and likewise in the statement that 5 + 7 = 12.[335] All these propositions are however very analytic. Kant nevertheless in the first place holds that such propositions do not take their rise from experience, or, as we might better express it, are not an individual contingent perception; this is very true, the perception is universal and necessary. In the second place he states that we acquire them from pure sensuous perception, and not through the understanding or Notion. But Kant does not grasp the two together, and yet this comprehension of them is involved in such propositions being immediately certain even in ordinary perception. When Kant then expresses himself (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 49) to the effect that we have many sensations which constitute “the real matter,” with which we externally and inwardly “occupy our minds,” and that the mind has in itself in space and time “formal conditions of the mode in which we place them” (those manifold feelings) “in our mind,” the question of how mind arrives at having just these special forms now forces itself upon us. But what the nature of time and space is, it does not occur to the Kantian philosophy to inquire. To it what space and time are in themselves does not signify ‘What is their Notion,’ but ‘Are they external things or something in the mind?’
b. The second faculty, the understanding, is something very different from sensuousness; the latter is Receptivity, while Kant calls thought in general Spontaneity—an expression which belongs to the philosophy of Leibnitz. The understanding is active thought, I myself; it “is the faculty of thinking the object of sensuous perception.” Yet it has thoughts merely without real content: “Thoughts without content are void and empty, sensuous perceptions without Notions are blind.” The understanding thus obtains from the sensuous its matter, both empirical and a priori, time and space; and it thinks this matter, but its thoughts are very different from this matter. Or it is a faculty of a particular kind, and it is only when both occur, when the sensuous faculty has supplied material and the understanding has united to this its thoughts, that knowledge results.[336] The thoughts of the understanding as such are thus limited thoughts, thoughts of the finite only.
Now logic, as transcendental logic, likewise sets forth the conceptions which the understanding has a priori in itself and “whereby it thinks objects completely a priori.” Thoughts have a form which signifies their being the synthetic function which brings the manifold into a unity. I am this unity, the transcendental apperception, the pure apperception of self-consciousness. I = I; I must ‘accompany’ all our conceptions.[337] This is a barbarous exposition of the matter. As self-consciousness I am the completely void, general I, completely indeterminate and abstract; apperception is determination generally, the activity whereby I transplant an empirical content into my simple consciousness, while perception rather signifies feeling or conceiving. In order that a content may enter this One, it must be infected by its simplicity; it is thus that the content first becomes my content. The comprehending medium is ‘I’; whatever I have to do with must allow itself to be forced into these forms of unity. This is a great fact, an important item of knowledge; what thought produces is unity; thus it produces itself, for it is the One. Yet the fact that I am the one and, as thinking, the simplifier, is not by Kant satisfactorily set forth. The unity may likewise be called relation; for in so far as a manifold is presupposed, and as this on the one side remains a manifold while on the other side it is set forth as one, so far may it be said to be related.
Now as ‘I’ is the universal transcendental unity of self-consciousness which binds together the empirical matter of conception generally, there are various modes in this relationship, and here we have the transcendental nature of the categories or universal thought-determinations. But Kant (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 70, 77) approaches these modes of simplicity by accepting them as they are classified in ordinary logic. For he says that in common logic particular kinds of judgment are brought forward; and since judgment is a special kind of relationship of the manifold, the various functions of thought which ‘I’ has in it are shown therein. But the following kinds of judgment have been noticed, viz. Universal, Particular and Singular; Affirmative, Negative, Infinite; Categorical, Hypothetical, Disjunctive; Assertoric, Problematic and Apodictic judgments. These particular modes of relationship now brought forward are the pure forms of the understanding. There are thus, according to Kant (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 75, 76, 78-82), twelve fundamental categories, which fall into four classes; and it is noteworthy, and deserves to be recognized, that each species of judgment again constitutes a triad. (1) The first kind of categories are those of Quantity, viz. Unity, Plurality and Totality. Plurality is negation of the one, the assertion of difference; and the third, the bringing of the other two into one, plurality circumscribed, the indeterminate plurality comprehended as one, is the Totality. (2) In the second series are the categories of Quality: Reality, Negation, Limitation. Limitation is as real or positive as negation. (3) The third series comprises the categories of relation, of connection; and first of all, indeed, the relation of Substantiality, Substance and Accident: then the relation of Causality, the relation of Cause and Effect, and finally Reciprocity. (4) The categories of Modality, of the relation of the objective to our thought, come fourth, viz. Possibility, Existence (actuality) and Necessity. Possibility should come second; in abstract thought, however, the empty conception comes first. It betrays a great instinct for the Notion when Kant says that the first category is positive, the second the negative of the first, the third the synthesis of the two. The triplicity, this ancient form of the Pythagoreans, Neo-Platonists and of the Christian religion, although it here reappears as a quite external schema only, conceals within itself the absolute form, the Notion. But since Kant says that a conception can determine itself in me as accidental, as cause, effect, unity, plurality, &c., we thereby have the whole of the metaphysics of the understanding. Kant does not follow up further the derivation of these categories, and he finds them imperfect, but he says that the others are derived from them. Kant thus accepts the categories in an empiric way, without thinking of developing of necessity these differences from unity. Just as little did Kant attempt to deduce time and space, for he accepted them likewise from experience—a quite unphilosophic and unjustifiable procedure.
Thinking understanding is thus indeed the source of the individual categories, but because on their own account they are void and empty, they only have significance through their union with the given, manifold material of perception, feeling, &c. Such connection of sensuous material with categories now constitutes the facts of experience, i.e. the matter of sensation after it is brought under the categories; and this is knowledge generally.[338] The matter of perception which pertains to the feelings or sensuous perception is not left in the determination of individuality and immediacy, but I am active in relation to it, inasmuch as I bring it into connection through the categories and elevate it into universal species, natural laws, &c. The question of whether a completed sensuousness or the Notion is the higher may accordingly be easily decided. For the laws of the heavens are not immediately perceived, but merely the change in position on the part of the stars. It is only when this object of immediate perception is laid hold of and brought under universal thought-determinations that experience arises therefrom, which has a claim to validity for all time. The category which brings the unity of thought into the content of feeling is thus the objective element in experience, which receives thereby universality and necessity, while that which is perceived is rather the subjective and contingent. Our finding both these elements in experience demonstrates indeed that a correct analysis has been made. Kant (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 119, 120) however connects with this the statement that experience grasps phenomena only, and that by means of the knowledge which we obtain through, experience we do not know things as they are in themselves, but only as they are in the form of laws of perception and sensuousness. For the first component part of experience, sensation, is doubtless subjective, since it is connected with our organs. The matter of perception is only what it is in my sensation. I know of this sensation only and not of the thing. But, in the second place, the objective, which ought to constitute the opposite to this subjective side, is itself subjective likewise: it does not indeed pertain to my feeling, but it remains shut up in the region of my self-consciousness; the categories are only determinations of our thinking understanding. Neither the one nor the other is consequently anything in itself, nor are both together, knowledge, anything in itself, for it only knows phenomena—a strange contradiction.
The transition of the category to the empiric is made in the following way: “Pure conceptions of the understanding are quite of a different nature from empiric, indeed from any sensuous perceptions;” we have thus “to show how pure conceptions of the understanding can be applied to phenomena.” This is dealt with by the transcendental faculty of judgment. For Kant says that in the mind, in self-consciousness, there are pure conceptions of the understanding and pure sensuous perceptions; now it is the schematism of the pure understanding, the transcendental faculty of the imagination, which determines the pure sensuous perception in conformity with the category and thus constitutes the transition to experience.[339] The connection of these two is again one of the most attractive sides of the Kantian philosophy, whereby pure sensuousness and pure understanding, which were formerly expressed as absolute opposites, are now united. There is thus here present a perceptive understanding or an understanding perception; but Kant does not see this, he does not bring these thoughts together: he does not grasp the fact that he has here brought both sides of knowledge into one, and has thereby expressed their implicitude. Knowledge itself is in fact the unity and truth of both moments; but with Kant the thinking understanding and sensuousness are both something particular, and they are only united in an external, superficial way, just as a piece of wood and a leg might be bound together by a cord. Thus, for example, the conception of substance in the schema becomes permanent in time,[340] i.e. the pure conception of the understanding, the pure category, is brought into unity with the form of pure sensuous perception.
In as far as we have to deal with our own determinations only and as we do not reach the implicit, the true objective, the Kantian philosophy called itself Idealism. But in this connection Kant (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 200, 201) brings forward a refutation of empirical or material idealism, thus: “I am conscious of my existence as determined in time. But all time-determination presupposes something permanent in perception. This permanence cannot be” a sensuous perception “in me.” For all the determining grounds of my existence which are met with in me are conceptions, and as such themselves require a constant element different from them, and in relation to which the change taking place in them—consequently “my existence in time,” in which they change, “may be determined.” Or I am conscious of my existence as of an empirical consciousness which is only capable of being determined in relation to something which is outside of me; i.e. I am conscious of something external to me. Conversely it may be said: I am conscious of external things as determined in time and as changing; these hence presuppose something constant which is not in them but outside of them. And this is ‘I,’ the transcendental ground of their universality and necessity, of their implicitude, the unity of self-consciousness. On another occasion Kant regards it thus (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 101): These moments confuse themselves, because the constant element is itself a category. Idealism, when we regard it as signifying that nothing exists outside of my individual self-consciousness as individual, as also the refutation of this, the assertion that things exist outside of my self-consciousness as individual, are the one as bad as the other. The former is the idealism of Berkeley, in which self-consciousness as individual is alone in question, or the world of self-consciousness appears as a number of limited, sensuous, individual conceptions, which are as completely devoid of truth as though they were called things. The truth or untruth does not rest in their being things or conceptions, but in their limitation and contingency, whether as conceptions or things. The refutation of this idealism is nothing more than calling attention to the fact that this empirical consciousness does not exist in itself—just as those empiric things do not exist in themselves. But the knowing subject does not with Kant really arrive at reason, for it remains still the individual self-consciousness as such, which is opposed to the universal. As a matter of fact there is described in what we have seen only the empirical finite self-consciousness which requires a material from outside, or which is limited. We do not ask whether these facts of knowledge are in and for themselves true or untrue; the whole of knowledge remains within subjectivity, and on the other side there is the thing-in-itself as an external. This subjectivity is however concrete in itself; even the determinate categories of the thinking understanding are concrete, and much more is experience so—the synthesis of the sensation and the category.[341]
c. The third faculty Kant finds in reason, to which he advances from the understanding after the same psychological method; that is to say, he hunts through the soul’s sack to see what faculties are still to be found there; and thus by merest chance he lights on Reason. It would make no difference if there had been no Reason there, just as with physicists it is a matter of perfect indifference whether, for instance, there is such a thing as magnetism or not. “All our knowledge begins from the senses, thence proceeds to the understanding, and finishes up with reason; nothing higher than this is to be found in us, for it signifies the working up of the material of perception, and the reducing of it to the highest unity of thought.” Reason is therefore, according to Kant, the power of obtaining knowledge from principles, that is, the power of knowing the particular in the universal by means of Notions; the understanding, on the contrary, reaches its particular by means of perception. But the categories are themselves particular. The principle of reason, according to Kant, is really the universal, inasmuch as it finds the unconditioned involved in the conditioned knowledge of the understanding. Understanding is hence for him thought in finite relations; reason, on the contrary, is thought which makes the unconditioned its object. Since Kant’s time it has become customary in the language of philosophy to distinguish understanding and reason, while by earlier philosophers this distinction was not drawn. The product of reason is, according to Kant, the Idea—a Platonic expression—and he understands by it the unconditioned, the infinite.[342] It is a great step forward to say that reason brings forth Ideas; with Kant, however, the Idea is merely the abstract universal, the indeterminate.
This, the unconditioned, must now be grasped as concrete, and therein lies the main difficulty. For to know the unconditioned means to determine it and to deduce its determinations. Much has been written and said on the subject of knowledge, without a definition of it ever having been offered. But it is the business of Philosophy to see that what is taken for granted as known is really known. Now on this point Kant says that reason has certainly the desire to know the infinite, but has not the power. And the reason which Kant gives for this (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 277, 278), is on the one hand that no psychologically sensuous intuition or perception corresponds with the infinite, that it is not given in outward or inward experience; to the Idea “no congruent or corresponding object can be discovered in the sensuous world.” It depends, however, on how the world is looked at; but experience and observation of the world mean nothing else for Kant than a candlestick standing here, and a snuff-box standing there. It is certainly correct to say that the infinite is not given in the world of sensuous perception; and supposing that what we know is experience, a synthesis of what is thought and what is felt, the infinite can certainly not be known in the sense that we have a sensuous perception of it. But no one wishes to demand a sensuous proof in verification of the infinite; spirit is for spirit alone. The second reason for considering that the infinite cannot be known, lies in this, that Reason has no part in it except as supplying the forms of thought which we call categories; and these doubtless afford what Kant calls objective determinations, but in such a way that in themselves they are still only subjective. If therefore for the determination of the infinite we employ these categories which are applicable only to phenomena, we entangle ourselves in false arguments (paralogisms) and in contradictions (antinomies); and it is an important point in the Kantian philosophy that the infinite, so far as it is defined by means of categories, loses itself in contradictions. Although reason, says Kant, becomes transcendent by the exhibition of these contradictions, it still retains its claim to trace perception, experience, and knowledge pertaining to the understanding, back to the infinite. This union of the infinite, the unconditioned, with the finite and conditioned as existing in the knowledge given by the understanding, or even in perception, would signify that the acme of concreteness had been reached.
Of this Unconditioned there are several kinds, objects having special features of their own and proceeding from reason, transcendental Ideas; they are thus themselves particular in their nature. The manner in which Kant arrives at these Ideas is again derived from experience, from formal logic, according to which there are various forms of the syllogism. Because, says Kant, there are three forms of the syllogism, categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive, the Unconditioned is also three-fold in its nature: “Firstly, an Unconditioned of the categorical synthesis in a subject.” Synthesis is the concrete; but the expression is ambiguous, since it indicates an external association of independent elements. “In the second place, an Unconditioned of the hypothetical synthesis of the members of a series will have to be looked for; and in the third place, an Unconditioned of the disjunctive synthesis of the parts in a system.” We make the first connection, expressed as object of Reason or transcendental Idea, when we conceive “the thinking subject;” the second “is the sum total of all phenomena, the world;” and the third is “the thing which contains the supreme condition of the possibility of all that can be thought, the Being of all Beings,” i.e. God. When brought to an ultimate point, the question which meets us is whether Reason can bring these objects to reality, or whether they remain confined to subjective thought. Now, according to Kant, Reason is not capable of procuring reality for its Ideas—otherwise it would be transcendent, its limits would be overstepped; it produces only paralogisms, antinomies, and an ideal without reality.[343]
α. “A. paralogism is a syllogism false in its form.” Since Reason credits with reality that mode of the Unconditioned which constitutes the categorical synthesis in a subject, and therefore the thinking subject, it is termed substance. Now is the thinking ego a substance, a soul, a soul-thing? Further questions are whether it is permanent, immaterial, incorruptible, personal and immortal, and such as to have a real community with the body. The falsity of the syllogism consists in this, that the idea of the unity of the transcendental subject essential to Reason is expressed as a thing; for it is only in this way that the permanency of the same becomes substance. Otherwise I find myself permanent in my thought, of course, but only within perceiving consciousness, not outside of that. The ego is therefore the empty, transcendental subject of our thoughts, that moreover becomes known only through its thoughts; but of what it is in itself we cannot gather the least idea. (A horrible distinction! For thought is nothing more or less than the “in-itself” or implicit.) We cannot assert of it any present Being, because thought is an empty form, we have a conception of what thinking Beings are through no outward experience, but only by means of self-consciousness,—i.e. because we cannot take the “I” in our hands, nor see it, nor smell it. We therefore know very well that the ego is a subject, but if we pass beyond self-consciousness, and say that it is substance, we go farther than we are entitled to do. I cannot therefore assign any reality to the subject.[344]
We here see Kant fall into contradiction, what with the barbarity of the conceptions which he refutes, and the barbarity of his own conceptions which remain behind when the others are refuted. In the first place, he is perfectly correct when he maintains that the ego is not a soul-thing, a dead permanency which has a sensuous present existence; indeed, were it to be an ordinary thing, it would be necessary that it should be capable of being experienced. But, in the second place, Kant does not assert the contrary of this, namely that the ego, as this universal or as self-thinking, has in itself the true reality which he requires as an objective mode. For he does not get clear of the conception of reality in which reality consists in the possession of a sensuous present existence; accordingly, because the ego is given in no outward experience, it is not real. For self-consciousness, the ego as such, is not, according to Kant, reality; it is only our thought, or in other words he regards self-consciousness as being itself simply and entirely sensuous. The form which Kant accordingly bestows on Being, thing, substance, would seem to indicate that these categories of the understanding were too high for the subject, too high to be capable of being predicated of it. But really such determinations are too poor and too mean, for what possesses life is not a thing, nor can the soul, the spirit, the ego, be called a thing. Being is the least or lowest quality that one can assign to spirit, its abstract, immediate identity with itself; Being thus no doubt pertains to spirit, but it must be considered as a determination scarcely worth applying to it.
β. In the second place we have the antinomy, i.e. the contradiction in Reason’s Idea of the Unconditioned, an Idea applied to the world in order to represent it as a complete summing-up of conditions. That is to say, in the given phenomena Reason demands the absolute completeness of the conditions of their possibility, so far as these constitute a series, so that the unconditioned is contained in the world, i.e. the totality of the series. If now this completeness is expressed as existing, an antinomy is alone presented, and Reason is presented only as dialectic: i.e. in this object there is on every side a perfect contradiction found.[345] For phenomena are a finite content, and the world is a conjunction of the limited; if this content is now thought by Reason, and therefore subsumed under the unconditioned and the unlimited, we have two determinations, finite and infinite, which contradict each other. Reason demands a perfectly complete synthesis, an absolute beginning; but in phenomena we have, on the contrary, a succession of causes and effects, which never come to an end. Kant here points out four contradictions (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 320), which, however, is not enough; for in each Notion there are antinomies, since it is not simple but concrete, and therefore contains different determinations, which are direct opposites.
αα. These antinomies in the first place involve our making the one determination, limitation, just as valid as non-limitation. “Thesis: The world has a beginning and an end in time, and it is limited in regard to space. Antithesis: It has no beginning and no end in time, and also no limits in space.” The one, says Kant, can be proved just as easily as the other; and indeed he does prove each indirectly, though his are not “advocate’s proofs.”[346] The world, as the universe, is the whole; it is thus a universal idea, and therefore unlimited. The completion of the synthesis in progression as regards time and space is, however, a first beginning of time and space. If therefore the categories of limited and unlimited are applied to the world in order to attain to a knowledge of it, we fall into contradictions, because the categories are not applicable to things-in-themselves.
ββ. The second antinomy is that atoms, from which substance is composed, must necessarily be admitted to exist, therefore simplicity can be proved; but just as easy is it to prove incompleteness, the endless process of division. The thesis is accordingly stated thus: “Every compound substance consists of simple parts,” and the antithesis is as follows: “There exists nothing simple.”[347] The one is here the limit, a material self-existence, the point which is likewise the enclosing surface; the other is divisibility ad infinitum.
γγ. The third antinomy is the opposition between freedom and necessity. The first is the self-determining, the point of view pertaining to infinity: causality according to the laws of freedom is the only causality. The other is: Determinism alone is to be found: everything is determined by means of an external ground or reason.[348]
δδ. The fourth antinomy rests on what follows: On the one hand totality completes itself in freedom as a first beginning of action, or in an absolutely necessary Being, as the cause of the world, so that the process is interrupted: but there is opposed to that freedom the necessity of a process according to conditions of causes and effects, and to the necessity of a Being is opposed the consideration that everything is contingent. The absolute necessity of the conditioned world is therefore on the one hand maintained thus: “To the world belongs an absolutely necessary Being.” The opposite to this is, “There exists no absolutely necessary Being, either as part of the world or outside of the world.”[349]
One of these opposites is just as necessary as the other, and it is superfluous to carry this further here. The necessity of these contradictions is the interesting fact which Kant (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 324) has brought to consciousness; in ordinary metaphysics, however, it is imagined that one of these contradictions must hold good, and the other be disproved. The most important point involved in this assertion of Kant’s is, however, unintentional on his part. For he indeed solves these antinomies (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 385, 386), but only in the particular sense of transcendental idealism, which does not doubt or deny the existence of external things (supra, p. 442), but “allows that things are perceived in space and time” (which is the case, whether it allows it or not): for transcendental idealism, however, “space and time in themselves are not things at all,” and therefore “do not exist apart from our mind;” i.e. all these determinations of a beginning in time, and so on, do not really belong to things, to the implicitude of the phenomenal world, which has independent existence outside of our subjective thought. If such determinations belonged to the world, to God, to free agents, there would be an objective contradiction; but this contradiction is not found as absolute, it pertains only to us. Or, in other words, this transcendental idealism lets the contradiction remain, only it is not Being in itself that is thus contradictory, for the contradiction has its source in our thought alone. Thus the same antinomy remains in our mind; and as it was formerly God who had to take upon Himself all contradictions, so now it is self-consciousness. But the Kantian philosophy does not go on to grapple with the fact that it is not things that are contradictory, but self-consciousness itself. Experience teaches that the ego does not melt away by reason of these contradictions, but continues to exist; we need not therefore trouble ourselves about its contradictions, for it can bear them. Nevertheless Kant shows here too much tenderness for things: it would be a pity, he thinks, if they contradicted themselves. But that mind, which is far higher, should be a contradiction—that is not a pity at all. The contradiction is therefore by no means solved by Kant; and since mind takes it upon itself, and contradiction is self-destructive, mind is in itself all derangement and disorder. The true solution would be found in the statement that the categories have no truth in themselves, and the Unconditioned of Reason just as little, but that it lies in the unity of both as concrete, and in that alone.
γ. Kant now goes on to the Idea of God; this third idea is the Being of Beings, which the other ideas presupposed. Kant says (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 441-452), that according to the definition of Wolff, God is the most real of all Beings; the object then comes to be to prove that God is not only Thought, but that He is, that He has reality, Being. This Kant calls the Ideal of Reason, to distinguish it from the Idea, which is only the sum of all possibility. The Ideal is thus the Idea as existent; just as in art we give the name of ideal to the Idea realized in a sensuous manner. Here Kant takes into consideration the proof of the existence of God, as he asks whether reality can be assigned to this Ideal.
The ontological proof proceeds from the absolute Notion, in order from it to argue up to Being. With Anselm, Descartes, and Spinoza the transition to Being is thus made; and all of them assume in so doing the unity of Being and thought. But Kant says (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 458-466): To this Ideal of Reason just as little reality can be assigned: there is no transition from the Notion to Being. “Being is not a real predicate,” like any other, “a Notion of something which might be added to the Notion of a thing. A hundred real dollars do not contain in the very least more than a hundred possible dollars,” they are the same content, i.e. the same Notion; they are also a hundred exactly. The one is the Notion, or rather the conception, the other is the object; Being is no new determination of the Notion, otherwise my Notion of a hundred real dollars would contain something different from a hundred real dollars. But “the object, as real, is not contained in my Notion alone; or to my Notion the real hundred dollars are synthetically added.” Being cannot therefore be derived from the Notion, because it is not contained therein, but must be added to it. “We must go out of the Notion in order to arrive at existence. With regard to objects of pure thought, there are no means of coming to know of their existence, because it had to be known a priori; but our consciousness of all existence belongs entirely to experience.” That is to say, Kant does not attain to the comprehension of that very synthesis of Notion and Being, or in other words, he does not comprehend existence, i.e. he does not attain to the establishment of it as Notion; existence remains for him something absolutely different from a Notion. The content is no doubt the same for him in what exists and in the Notion: but since Being is not involved in the Notion, the attempt to derive the one from the other is unavailing.
Of course the determination of Being is not found as positive and ready-made in the Notion; the Notion is something different from reality and objectivity. If we therefore abide by the Notion, we abide by Being as something different from the Notion, and adhere to the separation of the two; we then have conception, and not Being at all. That a hundred possible dollars are something different from a hundred actual ones is a reflection of a very popular nature, so much so that no proposition has been so well received as the assertion that no transition can be made from the Notion to Being; for though I imagine to myself a hundred dollars, I do not possess them for all that. But in a like popular fashion it might be said that one must leave off imagining, for that is mere conception: i.e. what is merely imaginary is untrue, the hundred imaginary dollars are and remain imaginary. Therefore to believe in them is a proof of an unsound understanding, and is of no manner of use; and he is a foolish fellow who indulges in such fancies and wishes. One possesses a hundred dollars, when they are real only; if a man has therefore so great a desire to possess a hundred dollars, he must put his hand to work in order to obtain them: i.e. he must not come to a standstill at the imagination of them, but pass out beyond it. This subjective side is not the ultimate or the absolute; the true is that which is not merely subjective. If I possess a hundred dollars, I have them actually, and at the same time I form a conception of them to myself. But according to Kant’s representation we come to a deadlock at the difference; dualism is ultimate, and each side has independent validity as an absolute. Against this false idea of what is to be absolute and ultimate, the healthy human understanding is directed; every ordinary consciousness rises above it, every action aims at setting aside a subjective conception and making it into something objective. There is no man so foolish as that philosophy; when a man feels hungry, he does not call up the imagination of food, but sets about satisfying his hunger. All activity is a conception which does not yet exist, but whose subjectivity is abrogated. Moreover the imaginary hundred dollars become real, and the real ones imaginary: this is a frequent experience, this is their fate; it depends on circumstances entirely outward whether a hundred dollars become my property or not. Of course the mere conception is of no good, if I obstinately hold by it: for I can imagine what I will, but that does not make it exist. The only important point is what I conceive to myself, and then whether I think or comprehend the subjective and Being; by means of this each passes into the other. Thought, the Notion, of necessity implies that the Notion does not remain subjective; this subjective is on the contrary abrogated and reveals itself as objective. Now that unity is expressly affirmed by Descartes solely in reference to the Notion of God, for it is just that which is God; he speaks of no hundred dollars, as these are not an existence which has a Notion in itself. That opposition does away with itself absolutely and entirely, i.e. the finite passes away; it holds good only in the philosophy of finitude. If, therefore, there is not a Notion of existence formed, we have in it a notionless, sensuous object of perception; and what is notionless is certainly not a Notion,—therefore sensation, handling, are not Notions. Such existence has of course no Absolute, no real essence: or such existence has no truth, it is only a vanishing moment. This useless thrashing of the empty grainless straw of the common logic is termed philosophizing: it is like Issachar the strong ass, which could not be made to move from the spot where it was (Gen. xlix. 14). People of this kind say: We are good for nothing, and because we are good for nothing, we are good for nothing, and wish to be good for nothing. But it is a very false idea of Christian humility and modesty to desire through one’s abjectness to attain to excellence; this confession of one’s own nothingness is really inward pride and great self-conceit. But for the honour of true humility we must not remain in our misery, but raise ourselves above it by laying hold of the Divine.
The fact to which Kant clings most strongly (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 467) is this, that Being cannot be extracted from the Notion. The result of this is the proposition that to have the thought of the Infinite is certainly Reason; but that from the Idea of Reason is separated determination in general, and especially the determination which is known as Being. The Ideas of Reason cannot be proved from experience, or obtain from it their verification: if they are defined by means of categories, contradictions arise. If the Idea in general is to be defined as existent only, it is nothing more or less than the Notion; and the Being of the existent is still distinguished from it. This result, however, so highly important with reference to knowledge of the understanding, Kant does not, with reference to Reason, carry further than to say that Reason has on its own account nothing but formal unity for the methodical systematization of the knowledge of the understanding. Abstract thinking is adhered to; it is said that the understanding can only bring about order in things; but order is nothing in and for itself, it is only subjective. There therefore remains nothing for Reason except the form of its pure identity with itself, and this extends no further than to the arranging of the manifold laws and relations of the understanding, the classes, kinds and species which the understanding discovers.[350] I, as Reason or conception, and the things external to me, are both absolutely different from one another; and that, according to Kant, is the ultimate standpoint. The animal does not stop at this standpoint, but practically brings about unity. This is the critique of theoretical Reason which Kant gives, and in which he states the a priori and determinate character of Reason in itself, without bringing it to the determinateness of individuality.[351]
Mention should still be made of the positive philosophy or metaphysics, which Kant sets a priori above objective existence, the content of the object of experience, nature; we have here his natural philosophy, which is a demonstration of the universal conceptions of Nature. But this is on the one hand very scanty and restricted in content, containing as it does sundry general qualities and conceptions of matter and motion, and with regard to the scientific side or the a priori, as Kant calls it, it is likewise altogether unsatisfactory. For Kant assumes all such conceptions as that matter has motion and also a power of attraction and repulsion,[352] instead of demonstrating their necessity. The “Principles of Natural Philosophy” have nevertheless been of great service, inasmuch as at the commencement of a philosophy of nature, attention was called to the fact that physical science employs thought-determinations without further investigation; and these determinations constitute the real foundations of its objects. Density, for instance, is looked on by physical science as a variable quantity, as a mere quantum in space: instead of this Kant asserted it to be a certain degree of occupation of space, i.e. energy, intensity of action. He demands accordingly (Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, pp. 65-68) a construction of matter from powers and activities, not from atoms; and Schelling still holds to this without getting further. Kant’s work is an attempt to think, i.e. to demonstrate the determinations of thought, whose product consists of such conceptions as matter; he has attempted to determine the fundamental Notions and principles of this science, and has given the first impulse to a so-called dynamic theory of Nature.
“Religion within pure Reason” is also a demonstration of dogmas as aspects of Reason, just as in Nature. Thus in the positive dogmas of religion, which the Aufklärung (the clearing-up)—or the Ausklärung (the clearing-out)—made short work of, Kant called to remembrance Ideas of Reason, asking what rational and, first of all, what moral meaning lies in that which men call dogmas of religion, e.g. original sin.[353] He is much more reasonable than the Ausklärung, which thinks it beneath its dignity to speak of such matters. These are the principal points in respect to the theoretical part of Kant’s philosophy.
2. The second subject of review in Kant’s philosophy is the practical sphere, the nature and principle of the will; this subject is dealt with in the Critique of Practical Reason, in which Kant accepted Rousseau’s conclusion that the will is absolutely free. Kant’s idea of theoretic Reason is that when Reason relates itself to an object, this object must be given to it; but when the object is given by Reason to itself, it has no truth; and Reason in knowledge of this kind does not arrive at independence. As practical, on the contrary, Reason is independent in itself; as a moral Being man is free, raised above all natural law and above all phenomena. As the theoretic Reason had in itself categories, a priori distinctions, so practical Reason has in turn the moral law in general, the further determinations of which are constituted by the notions of duty and right, lawful and unlawful; and here Reason disdains all the given material which was necessary to it on the theoretic side. The will determines itself within itself; all that is right and moral rests on freedom; in this man has his absolute self-consciousness.[354] On this side self-consciousness finds essential reality in itself, as theoretical Reason found it in an “other”; and in the first place, indeed, the ego in its individuality is immediate reality, universality, objectivity; in the second place subjectivity strives after reality, but not after sensuous reality such as we had before, for here Reason holds itself to be the real. Here we have the Notion which is sensible of its own deficiency; this theoretic Reason could not be, as in it the Notion had to remain the Notion. Thus we have the standpoint of absoluteness revealed, since there is an infinite disclosed within the human breast. The satisfying part in Kant’s philosophy is that the truth is at least set within the heart; and hence I acknowledge that, and that alone, which is in conformity with my determined nature.
a. Kant divides will into lower and higher faculties of desire; this expression is not inapt. The lower faculties of desire are impulses, inclinations, etc.; the higher faculty is the will as such, which has not external, individual aims, but universal. To the question what the principle of will that should determine man in his actions is, all sorts of answers have been given; for instance, self-love, benevolence, happiness, etc. Such material principles of action, Kant now says, are all reducible to impulses, to happiness; but the rational in itself is purely formal, and consists in the maxim that what is to hold good as law, must be capable of being thought of as a law of universal application, without destroying itself. All morality of action now rests upon the conviction that the act is done with consciousness of the law, for the sake of the law and out of respect for the law and for itself, without any regard to what makes for happiness. As a moral Being man has the moral law in himself, the principle of which is freedom and autonomy of the will; for the will is absolute spontaneity. Determinations which are taken from the inclinations are heterogeneous principles as regards the will; or the will is heteronomy if it takes such determinations as its end and aim; for in that case it takes its determinations from something else than itself. But the essence of the will is to determine itself from itself; for practical Reason gives itself laws. But the empirical will is heteronomous, for it is determined by desires; and they belong to our nature, not to the realm of freedom.[355]
It is a highly important point in the Kantian philosophy that what self-consciousness esteems reality, law, and implicit Being, is brought back within itself. While a man is striving after this aim and that, according as he judges the world or history in one way or the other, what is he to take as his ultimate aim? For the will, however, there is no other aim than that derived from itself, the aim of its freedom. It is a great advance when the principle is established that freedom is the last hinge on which man turns, a highest possible pinnacle, which allows nothing further to be imposed upon it; thus man bows to no authority, and acknowledges no obligations, where his freedom is not respected. Great popularity has from one point of view been won for Kantian philosophy by the teaching that man finds in himself an absolutely firm, unwavering centre-point; but with this last principle it has come to a standstill. While the highest pinnacle of the theoretic Reason is abstract identity, because it can furnish only a canon, a rule for abstract classifications,[356] practical Reason, as law-giving, is immediately regarded as concrete; the law which it gives to itself is the moral law. But even if it is stated that it is concrete in itself, there is the further consideration that this freedom is at first only the negative of everything else; no bond, nothing external, lays me under an obligation. It is to this extent indeterminate; it is the identity of the will with itself, its at-homeness with itself. But what is the content of this law? Here we at once come back to the lack of content. For the sole form of this principle is nothing more or less than agreement with itself, universality; the formal principle of legislation in this internal solitude comes to no determination, or this is abstraction only. The universal, the non-contradiction of self, is without content, something which comes to be reality in the practical sphere just as little as in the theoretical. The universal moral law Kant therefore expresses thus (and the setting up of such a universal form was at all times the demand of the abstract understanding): “Act from maxims” (the law is also to be my particular law), “which are capable of becoming universal laws.”[357]
Thus for the determination of duty (for the question which meets us is, what is duty for the free will) Kant has contributed nothing but the form of identity, which is the law of abstract Understanding. To defend one’s fatherland, to promote the happiness of another, is a duty, not because of the content, but because it is duty; as with the Stoics, what was thought was true for the very reason that, and in so far as it was thought (Vol. II., pp. 254, 260, 263). The content as such is indeed not what holds good universally in the moral law, because it contradicts itself. For benevolence, for instance, enjoins: “Give your possessions to the poor,” but if all give away what they have, beneficence is done away with (Vol. I., pp. 417, 418). Even with abstract identity, however, we do not get a step further, for every content which is put into this form is by being so put freed from self-contradiction. But nothing would be lost if it were not put into this form at all. With regard to property, for instance, the law of my actions is this: Property ought to be respected, for the opposite of this cannot be universal law. That is correct, but it is quite a formal determination: If property is, then it is. Property is here presupposed, but this determination may also in the same way be omitted, and then there is no contradiction involved in theft: If there is no such thing as property, then it is not respected. This is the defect in the principle of Kant and Fichte, that it is really formal; chill duty is the final undigested lump left within the stomach, the revelation given to Reason.
The first postulate in practical Reason is thus free, independent will which determines itself, but this concrete is still abstract. The second and third are forms which remind us that the will is concrete in a higher sense.
b. The second point is the connection of the Notion of the will with the particular will of the individual; the concrete is here the fact that my particular will and the universal will are identical, or that I am a moral human being. The unity, that man should be moral, is postulated; but beyond the “should” and this talk of morality, no advance is made. It is not said what is moral; and no thought is given to a system of the self-realizing spirit. For really, as theoretic Reason stands opposed to the objective of the senses, so practical Reason stands opposed to the practical sensuousness, to impulses and inclinations. Perfected morality must remain a Beyond; for morality presupposes the difference of the particular and universal will. It is a struggle, the determination of the sensuous by the universal; the struggle can only take place when the sensuous will is not yet in conformity with the universal. The result is, therefore, that the aim of the moral will is to be attained in infinite progress only; on this Kant founds (Kritik der prakt. Vernunft, pp. 219-223) the postulate of the immortality of the soul, as the endless progress of the subject in his morality, because morality itself is incomplete, and must advance into infinitude. The particular will is certainly something other than the universal will; but it is not ultimate or really permanent.
c. The third point is the highest concrete, the Notion of the freedom of all men, or the natural world has to be in harmony with the Notion of freedom. That is the postulate of the existence of God, whom Reason, however, does not recognize. Will has the whole world, the whole of the sensuous, in opposition to it, and yet Reason insists on the unity of Nature or the moral law, as the Idea of the Good, which is the ultimate end of the world. Since, however, it is formal, and therefore has no content on its own account, it stands opposed to the impulses and inclinations of a subjective and an external independent Nature. Kant reconciles the contradiction of the two (Kritik der prakt. Vernunft, pp. 198-200) in the thought of the highest Good, in which Nature is conformed to rational will, and happiness to virtue;—a harmony which does not enter into the question at all, although practical reality consists therein. For happiness is only one’s own sensuous consciousness, or the actuality of a particular individual, not universal reality in itself. The unification spoken of itself therefore remains only a Beyond, a thought, which is not actually in existence, but only ought to be. Kant (Kritik der prakt. Vernunft, pp. 205-209) thus agrees entirely with the talk which alleges that in this world it often fares ill with the good, and well with the wicked, and so on; and he postulates further the existence of God as the Being, the causality, through whom this harmony comes to pass, on behalf both of the sanctity of the moral law, and of the rational end to be attained in Nature, but only in infinite progress; which postulate, like that of the immortality of the soul, allows the contradiction to remain as it is all the time, and expresses only in the abstract that the reconciliation ought to come about. The postulate itself is always there, because the Good is a Beyond with respect to Nature; the law of necessity and the law of liberty are different from one another, and placed in this dualism. Nature would remain Nature no longer, if it were to become conformed to the Notion of the Good; and thus there remains an utter opposition between the two sides, because they cannot unite. It is likewise necessary to establish the unity of the two; but this is never actual, for their separation is exactly what is presupposed. Kant employs popular language thus: evil ought to be overcome, but yet must not have been overcome. God is to him, therefore, only a faith, an opinion, which is only subjectively, and not absolutely true.[358] This result is also of a very popular character.
These postulates express nothing but the synthesis, devoid of thought, of the different moments which contradict each other on every hand; they are therefore a “nest”[359] of contradictions. For instance, the immortality of the soul is postulated on account of imperfect morality, i.e. because it is infected with sensuousness. But the sensuous is implied in moral self-consciousness; the end, perfection, is what really destroys morality as such. Similarly the other aim, the harmony of the sensuous and the rational, to an equal extent abrogates morality; for that consists in this very opposition of Reason to the sensuous. The actuality of the God who produces harmony is of such a character that it does not enter into consciousness at all; it is accepted by consciousness for the sake of harmony, just as children make some kind of scarecrow, and then agree with each other to pretend to be afraid of it. The ground on which God is accepted—that by the conception of a holy law-giver the moral law may acquire additional reverence—contradicts the fact that morality really consists in reverence for the law simply for its own sake.[360] In Practical Reason self-consciousness esteems itself to be implicit Being, as contrasted with theoretic Reason, which assigns implicitude to objective existence, but the one, we see, attains just as little as the other to unity and actuality in itself. It is hard for man to believe that Reason actually exists: but there is nothing real except Reason; it is the absolute power. The vanity of man aspires to have an ideal before him, in order to be able to find fault with everything alike. We possess all wisdom, it is within us, but is not forthcoming. That is the ultimate standpoint; it is a high standpoint, no doubt, but in it the truth is never reached. The absolute Good remains “what ought to be,” or without objectivity; and there it has to remain.
3. There is still left for us to consider the third side in Kant’s philosophy, the Critique of the Faculty of Judgment, in which the demand for the concrete comes in, the demand that the Idea of unity spoken of before should be established not as a Beyond, but as present; and this side is of special importance. Kant says that the understanding no doubt regulates in the theoretic sphere and produces categories; but these remain mere general determinations, beyond which lies the particular (the other element which belongs to every item of knowledge). The two are distinguished from one another for the understanding; for its distinctions remain in universality. In the practical sphere Reason is certainly the implicit, but its free independence, its law-giving freedom in higher form, is opposed to Nature in its freedom or to Nature’s own laws. “In the theoretic sphere Reason can draw conclusions from given laws through syllogisms, only by means of the understanding, and these conclusions never get beyond Nature; it is only in the practical sphere that Reason itself gives laws. Understanding and” (practical) “Reason have two different regulative systems on one and the same ground of experience, without the one being detrimental to the other. For if the Notion of Nature has but little influence on the giving of laws by the Notion of Freedom, just as little does the latter interfere with the legislation of Nature. The possibility of the existence side by side of the two regulative systems and of the powers belonging to them was proved in the Critique of pure Reason.” (!?) “Now if a unity is not constituted by these two different spheres, which certainly do not put a limit on each other in their regulative action, but do so incessantly in their operations in the sensuous world” (i.e. where they encounter each other), “the reason is this, that the Notion of Nature represents its objects in perception, not as things in themselves, but as mere phenomena, while the Notion of Freedom, on the other hand, represents in its object a thing in itself, no doubt, but not in perception. Consequently neither of them can attain to a theoretic knowledge of its object (and even of the thinking subject) as a thing-in-itself, which last would be the supersensuous, an unlimited and inaccessible realm for our whole faculty of knowledge. Now truly there is fixed a gulf over which the eye cannot reach, between the realm of the Notion of Nature, as the sensuous, and the realm of the Notion of Freedom, as the supersensuous, so that it is not possible to pass from the one to the other, since it is just as if there were two different worlds, the first of which could have no influence on the second. Nevertheless the latter is conceived as having an influence on the former, or, in other words, freedom is conceived as having for its mission the realization in the sensuous world of the end indicated by the laws of freedom. Consequently Nature must be so conceived that, while in form it realizes its own laws, there may yet be a possibility of ends being realized in it according to the laws of freedom. Therefore there must surely be some ground for the unity of the supersensuous which lies at the foundation of Nature with that which the Notion of Freedom practically contains, the Notion of which ground of unity, although it attains neither theoretically nor practically to a knowledge of the same, and consequently has no peculiar province, yet makes possible the transition from the mode of thought in accordance with the principles of the one, to the mode of thought in accordance with the principles of the other. Between Understanding and Reason there now comes the Faculty of Judgment, as between the powers of knowledge and desire there come pleasure and its opposite; in this faculty must therefore lie the transition from the province of the Notions of Nature to the province of the Notion of Freedom.”[361]
Adaptation to ends has its place here, i.e. a particular reality, which is determined only through the universal, the end. The understanding is the ground of this unity of the manifold; the sensuous is therefore here determined by means of the supersensuous. This idea of a universal which implicitly contains the particular is according to Kant the precise object of the faculty of judgment, which he divides as follows:—“If the universal (the rule, principle, law) is given, the faculty of judgment which subsumes the particular under that universal, is determinative,”—the immediate faculty of judgment. But here there is also a particular which is not determined by species. “If, however, only the particular is given, for which the faculty of judgment has to find the universal, it is reflective.” The reflective judgment has as its principle the unity of particularity and the abstract universal of the understanding, the idea of a legal necessity which is at the same time free, or of a freedom which is directly one with its content. “This principle can be no other but the fact that since universal laws of Nature have their foundation in our understanding, which prescribes them to nature, although only according to their general conception, the particular, empirical laws, in so far as they are undetermined by universal laws, must be viewed as containing that unity which they would contain if they had been given by some intelligence—other, it may be, than our own—with express reference to our cognitive faculties, in order to render possible a system of experience according to particular natural laws. It is not as if such an intelligence must be assumed (for it is only the reflective faculty of judgment to which this idea serves as principle): this faculty gives a law only to itself, not to Nature in addition. Now the conception of an object (if it at the same time contains the ground of the reality of this object), the end, and the harmony of a thing with that quality of things which is only possible in conformity with ends, are termed the adaptation to purpose of the form; therefore the principle of the faculty of judgment in respect to the form of the things of Nature under empirical laws in general is the adaptability to purpose of Nature in its multiplicity. That is to say, Nature is represented by this Notion as if an intelligence contained the ground of the unity in multiplicity of Nature’s empirical laws.”[362]
Aristotle already regarded Nature as in itself showing this adaptation to end, and as having in itself νοῦς, intelligence, the Universal, so that in undivided unity one element is moment of another (v. Vol. II. pp. 156-162). Purpose is the Notion, and immanent; not external form and abstraction as distinguished from a fundamental material, but penetrating, so that all that is particular is determined by this universal itself. According to Kant this is Understanding: no doubt the laws of the Understanding, which it implicitly has in knowledge, leave the objective still undetermined, but because this manifold itself must have a connection in itself, which is yet contingent for human intelligence, “the faculty of judgment must assume as a principle for its own use that what is contingent for us contains a unity, which for us indeed is not knowable, but yet thinkable, in the connection of the manifold with an implicitly possible experience.”[363] This principle hereby at once falls back again into the subjectivity of a thought, and is only a maxim of our reflection, by which nothing is to be expressed regarding the objective nature of the object,[364] because Being-in-itself is once for all fixed outside of self-consciousness, and the Understanding is conceived only in the form of the self-conscious, not in its becoming another.
Now this principle of the reflective faculty of judgment is in itself a two-fold adaptation to end, the formal and the material; the faculty of judgment is thus either æsthetic or teleological: of these the former has to do with subjective, the latter with objective, logical adaptation to end. There are thus two objects of the faculty of judgment—the beautiful in works of art and the natural products of organic life—which make known to us the unity of the Notion of Nature and the Notion of Freedom.[365] The consideration of these works involves the fact, that we see a unity of the Understanding and the particular. But as this consideration is only a subjective manner of representing such products, and does not contain the truth of the same, such things are regarded only according to this unity, and they are not in themselves of this nature; what they are in themselves lies beyond.
a. The Beautiful of the æsthetic faculty of judgment consists in the following: “Pleasure and displeasure are something subjective, which can in no way become a part of knowledge. The object has adaptation to end only to the extent that its conception is directly bound up with the feeling of pleasure; and this is an æsthetic conception. The taking up of forms into the imaginative faculty can never occur without the reflecting faculty of judgment at least comparing them, even unintentionally, by means of its power of relating perceptions to Notions.” Now if in this comparison the imaginative faculty (as a faculty of perceptions a priori?) “is, by means of a conception given”—something beautiful,—“unintentionally placed in agreement with the Understanding, as the faculty of Notions, and thereby a feeling of pleasure is awakened, the object must then be looked on as in conformity with end for the reflecting faculty of judgment. Such a judgment regarding the adaptability to end of the object, a judgment which is grounded on no previous Notion of the object, and furnishes no Notion of it, is an æsthetic judgment. An object whose form (not the material of its conception as sensation) is judged to be a cause of the pleasure which springs from the conception of such an object, is beautiful,”—the first reasonable thing said about beauty. The sensuous is one moment of the Beautiful, but it must also express the spiritual, a Notion. “The Beautiful is what is conceived without” subjective “interest,” but similarly also “without Notions” (i.e. determinations of reflection, laws) “as object of a universal pleasure. It is related to no inclination, therefore the subject feels itself quite free therein. It is not beautiful for me. The end is the object of a Notion, so far as the latter is looked on as the cause of the former” (the object); “and the causality of a Notion in respect to its object is adaptation to end.” To the ideal belongs “the Idea of reason, which makes the aims of humanity, as far as they cannot be sensuously conceived, the principle of judgment of a form through which these aims reveal themselves as their effect in the phenomenon. The ideal we may expect to find revealed only in human form.”
The sublime is the effort to give sensuous expression to an Idea in which the inconceivability of the Idea, and the impossibility of finding an adequate expression of it by means of the sensuous, are clearly evidenced.[366] Here in the æsthetic faculty of judgment we see the immediate unity of the universal and the particular; for the Beautiful is this very unity, without Notion and immediate. Because Kant, however, places it in the subject, it is limited, and as æsthetic it also ranks lower, inasmuch as it is not the unity as Notion.
b. The other manner of bringing harmony to pass is the teleological way of regarding Nature, which is found in the objective and material adaptation to end. Here the immediate unity of the Notion and reality is looked upon as objective in the organic products of Nature—this being the purpose of Nature, containing in its universality the particular, in its particularity the species. But such a mode of consideration must be practised not externally, but in conformity with internal teleology. In external adaptation to end one thing has its end in another: “Snow protects the sown crops in cold lands from frost, and facilitates the intercourse of men by permitting of sleighing.”[367] Internal adaptation to end signifies, on the contrary, that a thing is in itself end and means, its end is not therefore beyond itself. In the contemplation of the living creature we do not remain at the point of having something sensuous before us, which according to the categories of the Understanding is only brought into relation to something other than itself; for we regard it as cause of itself, as producing itself. This is the self-preservation of the living creature; as an individual it is no doubt perishable, but in living it produces itself, although for that purpose certain conditions are requisite. The end or purpose of Nature is therefore to be sought for in matter, to the extent that matter is an inwardly organized product of nature, “in which all is end, and all in turn is means;”[368] because all the members of the organism are at the same time means and end, it is an end in itself. That is the Aristotelian Notion—the infinite that returns into itself, the Idea.
Kant at this point calls to mind the following: “We should find no difference between natural mechanism and the technique of Nature, i.e. the connection of ends in the same, were our Understanding not of such a kind that it must pass from the universal to the particular, and the faculty of judgment can therefore pronounce no determining sentences, without having a universal law under which it may subsume the particular. Now the particular as such contains a contingent element in regard to the universal, but nevertheless Reason also demands unity in the connection of particular laws of Nature, and consequently a regulative character, which character when found in the contingent is termed adaptation to end: and the derivation of particular laws from universal is, in regard to the element of contingency which those particular laws contain, a priori impossible through the determination of the Notion of the object; the Notion of the adaptation to end of Nature in its products becomes thus a Notion necessary for the human faculty of judgment, but not affecting the determination of the objects themselves, and therefore a subjective principle.”[369] An organic Being is therefore, according to Kant (Kritik der Urtheilskraft, p. 354) one in which natural mechanism and end are identical. We regard it as if there dwelt in the sensuous a Notion which brings the particular into conformity with itself. In the organic products of Nature we perceive this immediate unity of the Notion and reality; for in a living creature there is perceived in one unity the soul, or the universal, and existence or particularity, which is not the case with inorganic Nature. Thus there enters into the Kantian philosophy the conception of the concrete, as that the universal Notion determines the particular. But Kant took these Ideas again in a subjective sense only, as guiding thoughts for the faculty of judgment, by which no Being-in-itself can be expressed; and thus, although he expresses the unity of the Notion and reality, he yet lays fresh emphasis on the side of the Notion. He will not therefore throw off his limitations in the moment in which he assumes them as limitations. This is the perpetual contradiction in Kant’s philosophy: Kant exhibited the extremes of opposition in their one-sidedness, and expressed also the reconciliation of the contradiction; Reason postulates unity, and this we have also in the faculty of judgment. Kant, however, says (Kritik der Urtheilskraft, pp. 355-363): This is only a mode of our reflecting faculty of judgment, life itself is not so; we are merely accustomed so to regard it. In art it is thus certainly the sensuous mode which gives us the conception of the Idea; reality and ideality are here directly in one. But at this point also Kant says that we must remain at what is one-sided, at the very moment when he is passing out beyond it. The wealth of thought therefore still unfolds itself with Kant in subjective form alone; all fulness, all content, concentrates in conceiving, thinking, postulating. The objective, according to Kant, is only what is in itself; and we know not what Things-in-themselves are. But Being-in-itself is only the caput mortuum, the dead abstraction of the “other,” the empty, undetermined Beyond.
The reason why that true Idea should not be the truth is therefore that the empty abstractions of an understanding which keeps itself in the abstract universal, and of a sensuous material of individuality standing in opposition to the same, are presupposed as the truth. Kant no doubt expressly advances to the conception of an intuitive or perceiving understanding, which, while it gives universal laws, at the same time determines the particular; and the determination thus given is deep; it is the true concrete, reality determined by the indwelling Notion, or, as Spinoza says, the adequate Idea. For “to knowledge there also belongs intuitive perception, and the possession of a perfect spontaneity of intuition would be a faculty of knowledge” specifically “distinct from the sensuous, and quite independent thereof, and therefore it would be understanding in the most universal sense. Consequently it is possible to think of an intuitive understanding which does not pass from the universal to the particular, and thus proceed through conceptions to the individual—an understanding in which we do not meet with the contingency of the harmony of Nature in her products, according to particular laws, with the understanding, a contingency which makes it so hard for our understanding to bring” together “into the unity of knowledge the manifold of Nature.” But that this “intellectus archetypus” is the true Idea of the understanding, is a thought which does not strike Kant. Strange to say, he certainly has this idea of the intuitive; and he does not know why it should have no truth—except because our understanding is otherwise constituted, namely such “that it proceeds from the analytic universal to the particular.”[370] But absolute Reason and Understanding in itself, as we have already seen (pp. 432, 461), are, in Kant’s view, of such a nature that they have no reality in themselves: the Understanding requires material to work upon, theoretic Reason spins cobwebs of the brain, practical Reason has to allow its reality to come to an end with its postulates. In spite of their directly and definitely expressed non-absoluteness, they are yet looked on as true knowledge; and intuitive Understanding, which holds Notion and sensuous perception in one unity, is looked on as a mere thought which we make for ourselves.
c. The highest form in which the conception of the concrete comes into Kant’s philosophy is this, that the end is grasped in its entire universality; and thus it is the Good. This Good is an Idea; it is my thought; but there exists the absolute demand that it should be realized also in the world, that the necessity of Nature should correspond with the laws of freedom, not as the necessity of an external Nature, but through what is right and moral in human life, through life in the State,—or in other words that the world in general should be good. This identity of the Good and reality is the demand of practical Reason; but subjective Reason cannot realize this. In every good action a man no doubt accomplishes something good, but this is only limited; universal Good, as the final object of the world, can be attained to only through a third. And this power over the world, which has as its final object the Good in the world, is God.[371] Thus the Critique of the Faculty of Judgment also ends with the postulate of God. Now, although the particular laws of Nature, as independent individual relations, have no relation to the Good, Reason consists in having and desiring unity as the essential or substantial in itself. The opposition of these two, the Good and the world, is contrary to that identity; Reason must therefore demand that this contradiction should be abrogated, that there should be a power which is good on its own account, and is a Power over Nature. This is the position which God assumes in Kant’s philosophy: no proof is possible, he says, of God’s existence, but the demand is there. The deficiency here is the impossibility of proving God’s existence, and it consists in this, that if we admit Kant’s dualism, it cannot be shown how the Good as abstract Idea in itself is the abrogating of its Idea as abstract; and how the world in itself is the abrogating of itself in its externality, and in its diversity from the Good—this being done in order that both may reveal themselves to be their truth, which in respect to them appears as the Third, but is at the same time determined as the First. Thus, therefore, according to Kant (Kritik der Urtheilskraft, pp. 460, 461), God can only be believed in. We associate the faith of Jacobi with this; for in this point Kant agrees with Jacobi.[372]
If now, in accordance with this standpoint of Kant and Jacobi, God is believed in, and we admit this standpoint for an instant, there is certainly a return to the Absolute. But the question remains: What is God? To define Him as supersensuous is not much, nor is it more to say He is universal, abstract, absolute. What then is His determination? Were we here, however, to pass over to determinations of the Absolute, the evil result would follow, as far as this standpoint is concerned, that we should pass over to knowledge; for this signifies knowledge of an object which is in itself concrete, i.e. determined. But here the furthest point reached is the general statement that God exists with the determination of being infinite, universal, indeterminate. God cannot be known in this way; for in order to be known He must as concrete possess at least two determinations. In this way mediation would be established, for a knowledge of the concrete is at once a mediate knowledge. But this standpoint lacks mediation, and thus remains at the immediate. Paul, in speaking to the Athenians, appeals to the altar which they had dedicated to the Unknown God, and declares to them what God is; but the standpoint indicated here takes us back to the Unknown God. All the life of Nature, as of Spirit, is mediation in itself; and to this mediation the philosophy of Schelling now passed on.
If we sum up the Kantian philosophy, we find on all hands the Idea of Thought, which is in itself the absolute Notion, and has in itself difference, reality. In the theoretic and practical Reason it has only abstract difference, but in the Faculty of Judgment, as the unity of the two, Kant goes so far as to establish the difference as actual, establishing not only particularity, but also individuality. But, to be sure, this Philistine conception proceeds from our human faculty of knowledge, which is valid for him in its empirical form, notwithstanding his statement that it does not know the truth, and his further description of the true idea of the same as being merely a thought which we possess. Therefore actuality counts as something sensuous, empirical, for the comprehension of which Kant takes the categories of the Understanding, giving them the same validity as they have in every-day life. This is a complete philosophy of the Understanding, which renounces Reason: the reason why it became so popular was the negative one, that men were once for all free from the old metaphysic. According to Kant something sensuous is produced, having thought-determinations, which, however, is not the thing, for if a man, for instance, feels something hard, Kant says: “I feel hardness, but I do not feel Something.” Kant’s philosophy thus ends with a dualism, with the relation which is a plainly essential “ought,” with the unreconciled contradiction. It is otherwise with Jacobi’s faith; he finds the conception of God as immediate existence, and all mediation is untrue for him. With Kant, therefore, the result is: “We know only phenomena;” with Jacobi, on the other hand, it is: “We know only the finite and conditioned.” Over these two results there has been unmingled joy among men, because the sloth of Reason (Heaven be praised!) considered itself liberated from every call to reflect, and now, being saved the trouble of penetrating to its own inward meaning and exploring the depths of Nature and Spirit, it could very well leave itself alone. The further result attending this is the autocracy of the subjective Reason, which, seeing that it is abstract and without knowledge, has only subjective certainty and not objective truth. The second cause of rejoicing was the concession to freedom of a perfect right, which I can neither understand nor justify, and need not do so; my subjective liberty of conviction and certainty holds good all round. The third cause of joy was added by Jacobi, who said that it amounted even to a crime to seek to know the truth, because the infinite was thereby only rendered finite. Truth is in a bad way, when all metaphysic is done away with, and the only philosophy acknowledged is not a philosophy at all!
But besides the general idea of synthetic judgments a priori, a universal which has difference in itself, Kant’s instinct carried this out in accordance with the scheme of triplicity, unspiritual though that was, in the whole system into which for him the entire universe was divided. This he not only practised in the three critiques, but he also followed it out in most of the sub-divisions under the categories, the ideas of Reason, &c. Kant has therefore set forth as a universal scheme the rhythm of knowledge, of scientific movement; and has exhibited on all sides thesis, antithesis and synthesis, modes of the mind by means of which it is mind, as thus consciously distinguishing itself. The first is existence, but in the form of Other-Being for consciousness; for what is only existence is object. The second is Being-for-self, genuine actuality; here the reverse relation enters in, for self-consciousness, as the negative of Being-in-itself, is itself reality. The third is the unity of the two; the absolute, self-conscious actuality is the sum of true actuality, into which are re-absorbed both the objective and the independently existent subjective. Kant has thus made an historical statement of the moments of the whole, and has correctly determined and distinguished them: it is a good introduction to Philosophy. The defect of Kant’s philosophy consists in the falling asunder of the moments of the absolute form; or, regarded from the other side, our understanding, our knowledge, forms an antithesis to Being-in-itself: there is lacking the negative, the abrogation of the “ought,” which is not laid hold of. But thought and thinking had become once for all an absolute requisite that could no longer be set aside. It was consequently in the first place demanded by consistency that particular thoughts should appear as if produced of necessity from the original unity of the ego, and in that way justified. But, in the second place, thought had spread itself over the world, had attached itself to everything, investigated everything, introduced its forms into everything, and systematized everything, so that on every hand thought-determinations had to be followed, instead of any mere feeling or routine or practical common-sense, or what is evidenced in the extraordinary lack of understanding on the part of so-called practical men. And therefore in theology, in governments and their legislation, in the object aimed at by the state, in trades and in mechanics, it is said that men ought to act according to universal determinations, i.e. rationally: and men even talk of a rational brewery, a rational brick-kiln, etc. This is the requisite of concrete thought; while in the Kantian result, which is that of phenomenon, an empty thought was alone present. It is verily also the essence of revealed religion to know what God is. There was, therefore, to be found a yearning desire for content, for truth, since man could not possibly return to the condition of a brute, nor yet sink to the form of sensation, so that this yearning was for him the only thing that held good with regard to the higher life. The first requirement—consistency—Fichte sought to satisfy; the other—content—Schelling strove to fulfil.
[C. Fichte.]
Fichte created a great sensation in his time; his philosophy is the Kantian philosophy in its completion, and, as we must specially notice, it is set forth in a more logical way. He does not pass beyond the fundamentals of Kant’s philosophy, and at first regarded his own philosophy as no more than a systematic working out of the other.[373] In addition to these systems of philosophies, and that of Schelling, there are none. Any that pretend to be such merely pick out something from these, and over this they fight and wrangle among themselves. Ils se sont battus les flancs, pour être de grands hommes. For in those times there were in Germany many systems of philosophy, such as those of Reinhold, Krug, Bouterweck, Fries, Schulze, &c.; but in them there is only an extremely limited point of view, combined with boastfulness—a strange medley of stray thoughts and conceptions or facts which I find within me. But their thoughts are all derived from Fichte, Kant, or Schelling—that is in so far as there are thoughts there present at all. Or else some slight modification is added, and this for the most part merely consists in making the great principles barren, what points in them were living are destroyed, or else subordinate forms are changed, whereby another principle is said to be set forth, though when we look closer we find that these principles are but the principles of one of those philosophies that have gone before. This may serve as a justification for my not speaking further of all these philosophies; any exposition of them would be no more than a demonstration that everything in them is taken from Kant, Fichte, or Schelling, and that the modification in form is only the semblance of a change, while really it indicates a deterioration in the principles of those philosophies.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born on the 19th of May, 1762, at Rammenau, near Bischoffswerda, in Upper Lusatia. He studied at Jena, and for some time was a private tutor in Switzerland. He wrote a treatise on Religion, termed a “Critique of all Revelation,” where the Kantian phraseology is employed throughout—so much so that it was thought to be the work of Kant. After this he was in 1793 summoned to Jena by Goethe as Professor of Philosophy, which appointment he, however, resigned in the year 1799, on account of an unpleasantness which had arisen through his essay “On the ground of our Belief in a Divine Government of the World.” For Fichte published a journal in Jena, and a paper in it which was by someone else was regarded as atheistical. Fichte might have kept silence, but he published the above-mentioned essay as an introduction to the article. The authorities wished an investigation to be made into the matter. Then Fichte wrote a letter which contained threats, and respecting it Goethe said that a Government ought not to allow itself to be threatened. Fichte now taught privately for some time in Berlin; in 1805 he became professor at Erlangen, and in 1809 at Berlin, at which place he died on the 27th January, 1814.[374] We cannot here deal more particularly with the details of his life.
In what is termed the philosophy of Fichte a distinction must be made between his properly-speaking speculative philosophy, in which the argument is most consistently worked out, and which is less well known, and his popular philosophy, to which belong the lectures delivered in Berlin before a mixed audience, and, for example, the work termed a “Guidance to a Blessed Life.” These last have much in them that is affecting and edifying—many who call themselves the disciples of Fichte know this side alone—and they are expressed in language most impressive to a cultured, religious temperament. In the history of Philosophy, however, such cannot be taken into consideration, although through their matter they may have the highest possible value; the content has to be speculatively developed, and that is done in Fichte’s earlier philosophic works alone.[375]
[1. The First Principles of Fichte’s Philosophy.]
As we mentioned above (p. 478), the shortcoming in the Kantian philosophy was its unthinking inconsistency, through which speculative unity was lacking to the whole system; and this shortcoming was removed by Fichte. It is the absolute form which Fichte laid hold of, or in other words, the absolute form is just the absolute Being-for-self, absolute negativity, not individuality, but the Notion of individuality, and thereby the Notion of actuality; Fichte’s philosophy is thus the development of form in itself. He maintained the ego to be the absolute principle, so that from it, the direct and immediate certainty of self, all the matter in the universe must be represented as produced; hence, according to Fichte, reason is in itself a synthesis of Notion and actuality. But this principle he once more in an equally one-sided manner set aside; it is from the very beginning subjective, conditioned by an opposite, and its realization is a continual rushing onward in finitude, a looking back at what has gone before. The form in which it is presented has also the disadvantage, and indeed, the real drawback of bringing the empiric ego ever before one’s eyes, which is absurd, and quite distracting to one’s point of view.
The claims of Philosophy have advanced so far that in the first place self-consciousness refuses any longer to regard absolute essence as immediate substance which does not in itself possess difference, reality, and actuality. Against this substance self-consciousness ever struggled, for it does not find its explicit Being there, and consequently feels the lack of freedom. But besides this it demanded that this essence, objectively presented, should be personal, living, self-conscious, actual, and not shut up in abstract metaphysical thoughts alone. On the other hand consciousness, for which the other is, demanded the moment of external actuality, Being as such, into which thought must pass, truth in objective existence; and this is what we more especially noticed in connection with the English. This Notion, which is immediately actuality, and this actuality which is immediately its Notion, and that indeed in such a way that there neither is a third thought above this unity, nor is it an immediate unity which does not possess difference, separation, within it, is the ego; it is the self-distinction of opposites within itself. That whereby it distinguishes itself from the simplicity of thought, and distinguishes this other, is likewise immediately for it; it is identical with, or not distinguished from it.[376] Hence it is pure thought, or the ego is the true synthetic judgment a priori, as Kant called it. This principle is apprehended actuality, for the taking back of the other-Being into self-consciousness is just apprehension. The Notion of the Notion is from this point of view found in the fact that in what is apprehended self-consciousness has the certainty of itself; what is not apprehended is something foreign to it. This absolute Notion or this absolutely existent infinitude it is which has to be developed in knowledge, and its distinction as the whole distinction of the universe has to be represented from itself, and this has in its distinction to remain reflected within itself in equal absoluteness. Nothing other than the ego anywhere exists, and the ego is there because it is there; what is there is only in the ego and for the ego.[377]
Now Fichte merely set forth this Notion; he did not bring it to a scientific realization from itself. For to him this Notion maintains and asserts itself as this Notion; it has absoluteness for him in so far as it is merely the unrealized Notion, and thus indeed comes once more into opposition with reality. The Fichtian philosophy has the great advantage of having set forth the fact that Philosophy must be a science derived from one supreme principle, from which all determinations are necessarily derived. The important point is this unity of principle and the attempt to develop from it in a scientifically consistent way the whole content of consciousness, or, as has been said, to construct the whole world.[378] Beyond this no progress was made.[379] But the great necessity in Philosophy is to possess one living Idea; the world is a flower which is eternally produced from one grain of seed. Thus Fichte does not, like Kant, throw his work into narrative form because he begins with the ego; but he has proceeded further, inasmuch as he sought to bring about a construction of determinations of knowledge from the ego. The whole extent of knowledge in all the world must be developed, and further this knowledge must be the consequence of the development of determinations; but because Fichte says that what is not for us does not concern us, he has not grasped this principle of the ego as Idea, but solely in the consciousness of the activity which we exercise in knowing, and consequently it is still laid hold of in the form of subjectivity.
Thus as Kant treats of cognition [Erkennen], so Fichte sets forth real knowledge [Wissen]. Fichte states that the task of Philosophy is to find a theory of knowledge; universal knowledge is both the object and the starting-point of Philosophy. Consciousness knows, that is its nature; the end of philosophic learning is the knowledge of this knowledge. Hence Fichte called his philosophy the Theory of Knowledge (Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre, p. 18), the science of knowledge. That is to say ordinary consciousness as the active ego finds this and that, occupies itself, not with itself, but with other objects and interests, but the necessity that I bring forth determinations, and which determinations—cause and effect, for example,—lies beyond my consciousness: I bring them forth instinctively and cannot get behind my consciousness. But when I philosophize, I make my ordinary consciousness itself my object, because I make a pure category my consciousness: I know what my ego is doing, and thus I get behind my ordinary consciousness. Fichte thus defines Philosophy as the artificial consciousness, as the consciousness of consciousness.[380]
a. Where Fichte in his system has attained the highest degree of determinateness, he begins, as we saw Kant did before (pp. 437, 438), from the transcendental unity of self-consciousness; in it I—as this—am one, this unity is to Fichte the same and the original. Ego is there a fact, says Fichte, but not yet a proposition. As proposition, as principle, the ego must not remain barren, nor be accepted as one, for to a proposition pertains a synthesis. Now Fichte proceeds in his system from the fact that Philosophy must begin with an absolutely unconditioned, certain principle, with something indubitably certain in ordinary knowledge. “It cannot be proved or defined, because it must be absolutely the first principle.”[381] According to Wendt’s account (Tennemann’s Grundriss, § 393, pp. 494, 495) Fichte gives an exposition of the necessity of such a principle as follows: “Scientific knowledge is a system of cognition obtained through a supreme principle which expresses the content and form of knowledge. The theory of knowledge is the science of knowledge which sets forth the possibility and validity of all knowledge, and proves the possibility of principles in reference to form and content, the principles themselves, and thereby the connection existing in all human knowledge. It must have a principle which can neither be proved from it nor from another science; for it is supreme. If there is a theory of knowledge there also is a system; if there is a system there is also a theory of knowledge and an absolute first principle—and so on through an inevitable circle.”[382]
The simple principle of this knowledge is certainty of myself, which is the relation of me to myself; what is in me, that I know. The supreme principle, as immediate and not derived, must be certain on its own account; that is, a determination of the ego only, for it is only from the ego that I cannot abstract.[383] Fichte thus begins, like Descartes, with ‘I think, therefore I am,’ and he expressly brings this proposition to mind. The Being of the ego is not a dead, but a concrete Being; but the highest Being is thought. Ego, as an explicitly self-existent activity of thought, is thus knowledge, even if it is only abstract knowledge, as in the beginning at least it cannot help being. At the same time Fichte begins from this absolute certainty with quite other necessities and demands; for from this ego not only Being but also the larger system of thought has to be derived (supra, p. 230). According to Fichte, the ego is the source of the categories and ideas, but all conceptions and thoughts are a manifold reduced to a synthesis through Thought. Thus while with Descartes in connection with the ego other thoughts appear which we simply find already in us, such as God, nature, &c., Fichte sought for a philosophy entirely of a piece, in which nothing empiric was to be admitted from without. With this reflection a false point of view was at once introduced, namely that contained in the old conception of knowledge, of commencing with principles in this form and proceeding from them; so that the reality which is derived from such a principle is brought into opposition with it, and hence in truth is something different, i.e. it is not derived: or that principle for this same reason expresses only the absolute certainty of itself and not the truth. The ego is certain, it cannot be doubted; but Philosophy desires to reach the truth. The certainty is subjective, and because it is made to remain the basis, all else remains subjective also without there being any possibility of this form being removed. Fichte now analyzes the ego, reducing it to three principles from which the whole of knowledge has to be evolved.
α. The first proposition must be simple, in it predicate and subject must be alike; for were they unlike, their connection—since in accordance with their diversity the determinations are not directly one—would have to be first of all proved by means of a third. The first principle must thus be identical. Fichte now proceeds further to distinguish in this first principle the form and content; but in order that this same may be immediately true through itself, form and content must be again the same, and the principle conditioned by neither. It signifies A = A, the abstract undetermined identity; that is the proposition of contradiction, wherein A is an indifferent content. Fichte says, “Thought is by no means essence, but only a particular determination of Being; there are outside of it many other determinations of our Being. I merely remark this, that when ‘I am’ is overstepped, Spinozism is necessarily reached. Its unity is something which ought to be produced through us, but which cannot be so; it is not anything that is.” The first proposition is then that I am identical with myself, Ego = Ego;[384] that undoubtedly is the definition of the ego. The subject and the predicate are the content; and this content of the two sides is likewise their relation, i.e. form. Relation requires two sides; the relating and the related are here, however, the same; for on account of the simplicity of the ego, there is nothing but a relation of the ego to the ego. I have knowledge of myself; but in so far as I am consciousness, I know of an object which is different from me, and which is then likewise mine. But the ego is in such a way identical with its difference that what is different is immediately the same, and what is identical is likewise different; we have a difference without a difference. Self-consciousness is not dead identity, or non-Being, but the object which is identical with me. This is immediately certain; all else must be as certain to me, inasmuch as it must be my relation to myself. The content must be transformed into the ego, so that in it I have my determination alone. This principle is at first abstract and deficient, because in it no difference, or a formal difference only is expressed; whereas the principle should possess a content: a subject and a predicate are indeed distinguished in it, but only for us who reflect upon it, i.e. in itself there is no difference, and consequently no true content. In the second place, this principle is indeed the immediate certainty of self-consciousness, but self-consciousness is likewise consciousness, and in it there is likewise the certainty that other things exist to which it stands in an attitude of opposition. In the third place, that principle has not the truth in it, for the very reason that the certainty of itself possessed by the ego has no objectivity; it has not the form of the differentiated content within it—or it stands in opposition to the consciousness of an “other”.
β. Now in order that determination should come to pass, i.e. a content and difference, it is essential for Fichte that a second principle should be established, which in regard to form is unconditioned, but the content of which is conditioned, because it does not belong to the ego. This second principle, set forth under the first, is, “I assert a non-ego in opposition to the ego,” and in this something other than absolute self-consciousness is set forth.[385] To this pertains the form therein present, relation; but the content is the non-ego, another content from the ego. We might say that through this content the proposition is independent, since the negative therein is an absolute, as truly as the reverse—that it is independent through the form of opposition which cannot be derived from the original. Here, then, we have no more to do with derivation, although this derivation of opposition from the first proposition was all the same demanded. Inasmuch as I posit another in opposition to the ego, I posit myself as not posited; this non-ego is the object generally, i.e. that which is opposed to me. This other is the negative of the ego; thus when Fichte called it the non-ego he was expressing himself in a very happy, suitable, and consistent manner. There has been a good deal of ridicule cast on the ego and non-ego; the expression is new, and therefore to us Germans it seems strange at first. But the French say Moi and Non-moi, without finding anything laughable in it. In this principle the positing belongs, however, to the ego; but because the non-ego is independent of the ego, we have two sides, and self-consciousness relates itself to another. This second proposition thus signifies that I posit myself as limited, as non-ego; but non-ego is something quite new to be added. On the one side we thus have before us a field which is merely appropriated from the ego; and in this way we have before us the non-ego as our object.
γ. To these is added yet a third proposition, in which I now make this division into ego and non-ego: it is the synthetic principle, the proposition of ground, which in content is unconditioned, just as in the second was the case in regard to form. This third proposition is the determination of the first two through one another, in such a way that the ego limits the non-ego. “In and through the ego both the ego and the non-ego are posited as capable of being mutually limited by means of one another, i.e. in such a way that the reality of the one abrogates the reality of the other.” In limitation both are negated, but “only in part”; only thus are synthesis and deduction possible. I posit the non-ego, which is for me, in myself, in my identity with myself; thus I take it from its non-identity, its not-being-I, that is to say I limit it. This limitation of the non-ego Fichte expresses thus: “I place in opposition to the ego,” and indeed “to the divisible ego, a divisible non-ego.” The non-ego I destroy as a complete sphere, which it was according to the second principle, and posit it as divisible; I likewise posit the ego as divisible in so far as the non-ego is present in it. The whole sphere which I have before me is supposed indeed to be the ego, but in it I have not one but two. The proposition of ground is thus the relation of reality and negation, i.e. it is limitation; it contains the ego limited by the non-ego, and the non-ego limited by the ego.[386] Of this synthesis there is nothing, properly speaking, contained in the two earlier propositions. Even this first presentation of the three principles does away with the immanence of real knowledge. Thus the presentation is here also subject to an opposite from the first, as it is with Kant, even if these are two acts of the ego merely, and we remain entirely in the ego.
Now that limitation may take place for me in two different ways: at one time the one is passive, at another time the other is so. In this limitation the ego may posit the non-ego as limiting and itself as limited, in such a way that the ego posits itself as requiring to have an object; I know myself indeed as ego, but determined by the non-ego; non-ego is here active and ego passive. Or, on the other hand, the ego, as abrogating other-being, is that which limits, and non-ego is the limited. I know myself then as clearly determining the non-ego, as the absolute cause of the non-ego as such, for I can think. The first is the proposition of the theoretic reason, of intelligence: the second the proposition of practical reason, of will.[387] The will is this, that I am conscious of myself as limiting the object; thus I make myself exercise activity upon the object and maintain myself. The theoretic proposition is that the object is before me and it determines me. The ego is, since I perceive, a content, and I have this content in me, which is thus outside of me. This is on the whole the same thing as we meet with in the experience of Kant: it comes to the same thing whether it is by matter or the non-ego that the ego is here determined.
b. In the theoretic consciousness the ego, although the assertive generally, finds itself limited by the non-ego. But it is identical with itself; hence its infinite activity ever sets itself to abrogate the non-ego and to bring forth itself. Now the different methods whereby the ego sets forth itself are the different methods of its activity; these we have to understand in their necessity. But since philosophic knowledge is the consideration of consciousness itself (supra, p. 483), I can only know knowledge, the act of the ego. Fichte thus appeals to consciousness, postulates ego and non-ego in their abstraction, and since philosophic knowledge is the consciousness of consciousness, it is not sufficient that I should find its determinations in consciousness, for I produce them with consciousness. Common consciousness, indeed, likewise brings forth all the determinations of the ordinary conception and of thought, but without—on the theoretic side at least—having any knowledge of it; for it is the fact of being limited alone that is present to it. Thus, when I see a large square object, such as a wall, my ordinary consciousness accepts these determinations as they are given to it; the object is. In so doing I do not think of seeing, but of the object; seeing, however, is my activity, the determinations of my faculty of sensation are thus posited through me.[388] The ego as theoretic is, indeed, aware in philosophic consciousness that it is the ego which posits; but here it posits that the non-ego posits somewhat in me. The ego thus posits itself as that which is limited by the non-ego. I make this limitation mine; thus is it for me in me, this passivity of the ego is itself the activity of the ego. As a matter of fact, all reality which appears in the object for the ego is a determination of the ego,[389] just as the categories and other determinations were in Kant’s case. Thus it is here more especially that we should expect Fichte to demonstrate the return of other-Being into absolute consciousness. However, because after all the other-Being was regarded as unconditioned, as implicit, this return does not come to pass. The ego determines the ‘other,’ indeed, but this unity is an altogether finite unity; non-ego has thus immediately escaped from determination once more and gone forth from this unity. What we find is merely an alternation between self-consciousness and the consciousness of another, and the constant progression of this alternation, which never reaches any end.[390]
The development of theoretic reason is the following-out of the manifold relationships between the ego and non-ego; the forms of this limitation which Fichte now goes through are the determinations of the object. These particular thought-determinations he calls categories, and he seeks to demonstrate them in their necessity; from the time of Aristotle onwards no one had thought of so doing. The first of these forms is the determination of reciprocity, which we already met with in the third proposition: “By the determination of the reality or negation of the ego, the negation or reality of the non-ego is equally determined;” the two in one is reciprocal action. In the second place, “Causality is the same degree of activity in the one as of passivity in the other.” In so far as something is considered as the reality of the non-ego, the ego is considered as passive, and, on the other hand, in so far as ‘I’ am real, the object is passive; this relation, that the passivity of the object is my activity or reality, and the opposite, is the conception of Causality. “As many parts of negation as the ego posits in itself, so many parts of reality it posits in the non-ego; it therefore posits itself as self-determining in so far as it is determined, and as suffering determination in so far as it determines itself. In so far,” in the third place, “as the ego is regarded as embracing the whole absolutely determined realm of all reality, it is substance; on the other hand when it is posited in a not absolutely determined sphere of this realm, in so far there is an accidence in the ego.”[391] That is the first rational attempt that has ever been made to deduce the categories; this progress from one determination to another is, however, only an analysis from the standpoint of consciousness, and is not in and for itself.
The ego is so far the ideal ground of all conceptions of the object; all determination of this object is a determination of the ego. But in order that it may be object, it must be placed in opposition to the ego, i.e. the determinations set forth through the ego are another, the non-ego; this placing of the object in opposition is the real ground of conceptions. The ego is, however, likewise the real ground of the object; for it is likewise a determination of the ego that the non-ego as object is set in opposition to the ego. Both, the real ground and the ideal ground of the conception, are thus one and the same.[392] Regarding the ego as ideal principle and the non-ego as real principle, Krug has likewise talked a great deal of nonsense. Regarded from the one point of view, the ego is active and the non-ego purely passive; while from the other side the ego is passive and the object active and operative. But since the ego in the non-philosophic consciousness does not have the consciousness of its activity in the conception of the object, it represents to itself its own activity as foreign, i.e. as belonging to the non-ego.
We here see the opposition adopting various forms: ego, non-ego; positing, setting in opposition; two sorts of activity of the ego, &c. The fact that I represent is undoubtedly my activity, but the matter of main importance is the content of the positing and its necessary connection through itself. If one occupies oneself only with this content, that form of subjectivity which is dominant with Fichte, and which remains in his opposition, disappears. As the ego is affirmative and determining, there now is in this determination a negative likewise present; I find myself determined and at the same time the ego is like itself, infinite, i.e. identical with itself. This is a contradiction which Fichte indeed endeavours to reconcile, but in spite of it all he leaves the false basis of dualism undisturbed. The ultimate, beyond which Fichte does not get, is only an ‘ought,’ which does not solve the contradiction; for while the ego should be absolutely at home with itself, i.e. free, it should at the same time be associated with another. To Fichte the demand for the solution of this contradiction thus adopts the attitude of being a demanded solution only, of signifying that I ever have to destroy the barriers, that I ever have to reach beyond the limitation into utter infinitude, and that I ever find a new limit; a continual alternation takes place between negation and affirmation, an identity with self which again falls into negation, and from this negation is ever again restored. To speak of the bounds of human reason is, however, an unmeaning form of words. That the reason of the subject is limited is comprehensible from the nature of the case, but when we speak of Thought, infinitude is none other than one’s own relation to self, and not to one’s limit; and the place in which man is infinite is Thought. Infinitude may then be likewise very abstract, and in this way it is also once more finite; but true infinitude remains in itself.
Fichte further deduces the ordinary conception thus: the fact that the ego in going forth at once finds its activity checked by a limitation, and returns once more into itself, brings about two opposite tendencies in me, between which I waver, and which I try to unite in the faculty of imagination. In order that a fixed determination may exist between the two, I have to make the limit a permanent one, and we have that in the understanding. All further determinations of the object are, as categories of the understanding, modes of synthesis; but each synthesis is a new contradiction. New mediations are thus once more necessary, and these are new determinations. Thus Fichte says: I can always continue to determine the non-ego, to make it my conception, i.e. to take from it its negation as regards me. I have to deal with my activity alone; but there is always an externality therein present which still remains, and which is not explained by my activity. This Beyond which alone remains to the undetermined ego Fichte calls the infinite check upon the ego, with which it ever has to deal, and beyond which it cannot get; thus the activity which proceeds into infinitude finds itself checked and driven back by this repulsive force, and then it reacts upon itself. “The ego in its self-determination has been considered both as determining and determined; if we reflect on the fact that the absolutely determined determining power must be an absolutely indeterminate, and further, that ego and non-ego are absolutely opposed to one another, in the one case ego is the indeterminate and in the other case non-ego.”[393]
Inasmuch as the ego here makes the object its conception and negates it, this philosophy is Idealism, in which philosophy all the determinations of the object are ideal. Everything determinate which the ego possesses it has through its own positing; I even make a coat or a boot because I put them on. There remains only the empty repulsive force, and that is the Kantian Thing-in-itself, beyond which even Fichte cannot get, even though the theoretic reason continues its determination into infinitude. “The ego as intelligence” ever “remains dependent on an undetermined non-ego; it is only through this that it is intelligence.”[394] The theoretic side is thus dependent. In it we have not therefore to deal with the truth in and for itself, but with a contingent, because ego is limited, not absolute, as its Notion demands: intelligence is not here considered as spirit which is free. This is Fichte’s standpoint as regards the theoretic side.
c. Practical reason comes next; the point of view from which it starts is that “The ego posits itself as determining the non-ego.” Now the contradiction has thus to be solved of ego being at home with itself, since it determines its Beyond. The ego is thus infinite activity, and, as ego = ego, the absolute ego, it is undoubtedly abstract. But in order to have a determination, a non-ego must exist; ego is thus activity, causality, the positing of the non-ego. But as with Kant sensuousness and reason remain opposed, the same contradiction is present here, only in a more abstract form, and not in the rude empiricism of Kant. Fichte here turns and twists in all sorts of ways, or he gives the opposition many different forms; the crudest form is that ego is posited as causality, for in it another is necessitated on which it exercises its activity. “The absolute ego has accordingly to be” now “the cause of the non-ego, i.e. only of that in the non-ego which remains when we abstract from all demonstrable forms of representation or conception—of that to which is ascribed the check given to the infinitely operative activity of the ego; for the fact that the intelligent ego is, in accordance with the necessary laws of the conception, the cause of the particular determinations of that which is conceived as such, is demonstrated in the theoretic science of knowledge.”[395] The limits of intelligence must be broken through, the ego must alone be active; the other side, the infinite repulsion, must be removed, in order that the ego may be liberated.
“According to our hypothesis the ego must now posit a non-ego absolutely, and without any ground, i.e. absolutely and without any ground it must limit or in part not posit itself.” This, indeed, it already does as intelligent. “It must therefore have the ground of not positing itself” only “in itself.” The ego is, however, just the ego, it posits itself, “it must” therefore “have the principle of positing itself within it, and also the principle of not positing itself. Hence the ego in its essence would be contradictory and self-repellent; there would be in it a two-fold or contradictory principle, which assumption contradicts itself, for in that case there would be no principle within it. The ego would” consequently “not exist, for it would abrogate itself. All contradictions are reconciled through the further determination of contradictory propositions. The ego must be posited in one sense as infinite, and in another as finite. Were it to be posited as infinite and finite in one and the same sense, the contradiction would be insoluble; the ego would not be one but two. In so far as the ego posits itself as infinite, its activity is directed upon itself and on nothing else but itself. In so far as the ego posits limits, and itself in these limits, its activity is not exercised directly on itself, but on a non-ego which has to be placed in opposition,” upon another and again upon another, and so on into infinitude; that is the object, and the activity of the ego “is objective activity.”[396] In this way Fichte in the practical sphere also remains at opposition, only this opposition now has the form of two tendencies in the ego, both of which are said to be one and the same activity of the ego. I am called upon to proceed to determine the other in relation to which I am negative, the non-ego, in accordance with my freedom; it has indeed all determinations through the activity of the ego, but beyond my determination the same non-ego ever continues to appear. The ego clearly posits an object, a point of limitation, but where the limitation is, is undetermined. I may transfer the sphere of my determination, and extend it to an infinite degree, but there always remains a pure Beyond, and the non-ego has no positive self-existent determination.
The last point in respect of the practical sphere is hence this, that the activity of the ego is a yearning or striving[397]—like the Kantian “ought”; Fichte treats this with great prolixity. The Fichtian philosophy consequently has the same standpoint as the Kantian; the ultimate is always subjectivity, as existent in and for itself. Yearning, according to Fichte, is divine; in yearning I have not forgotten myself, I have not forgotten that I possess a superiority in myself; and therefore it is a condition of happiness and satisfaction. This infinite yearning and desire has then been regarded as what is highest and most excellent in the Beautiful, and in religious feelings likewise; and with it is connected the irony of which we have spoken before (Vol. I. pp. 400, 401). In this return the ego is merely an effort, on its side it is fixed, and it cannot realize its endeavours. Striving is thus an imperfect or implicitly limited action. The ultimate result is consequently a “circle” which cannot be broken through, so that “the finite spirit must necessarily posit an absolute outside itself (a thing-in-itself), and yet on the other hand it must recognize that this same is only there for it (a necessary noumenon).”[398] To put it otherwise, we see the ego absolutely determined in opposition only, we see it only as consciousness and self-consciousness which does not get beyond this, and which does not reach so far as to Spirit. The ego is the absolute Notion in so far as it does not yet reach the unity of thought, or in this simplicity does not reach difference, and in motion does not have rest; that is to say, in so far as positing, or the pure activity of the ego, and setting in opposition, are not by it comprehended as the same. Or the ego does not comprehend the infinite repulsion, the non-ego; self-consciousness determines the non-ego, but does not know how to make this Beyond its own.
The deficiency in the Fichtian philosophy is thus firstly that the ego retains the significance of the individual, actual self-consciousness, as opposed to that which is universal or absolute, or to the spirit in which it is itself a moment merely; for the individual self-consciousness simply signifies standing apart as far as another is concerned. Hence, if the ego was ever called absolute existence, the most terrible offence was given, because really the ego only came before us as signifying the individual subject as opposed to the universal.
In the second place, Fichte does not attain to the idea of Reason as the perfected, real unity of subject and object, or of ego and non-ego; it is only, as with Kant, represented as the thought of a union in a belief or faith, and with this Fichte likewise concludes (Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, p. 301). This he worked out in his popular writings. For because the ego is fixed in its opposition to the non-ego, and is only as being opposed, it becomes lost in that unity. The attainment of this aim is hence sent further and further back into the false, sensuous infinitude: it is a progression implying just the same contradiction as that found in Kant, and having no present actuality in itself; for the ego has all actuality in its opposition only. The Fichtian philosophy recognizes the finite spirit alone, and not the infinite; it does not recognize spirit as universal thought, as the Kantian philosophy does not recognize the not-true; or it is formal. The knowledge of absolute unity is apprehended as faith in a moral disposition of the world, an absolute hypothesis in accordance with which we have the belief that every moral action that we perform will have a good result.[399] As in Kant’s case, this Idea belongs to universal thought. “In a word, when anything is apprehended it ceases to be God; and every conception of God that is set up is necessarily that of a false God. Religion is a practical faith in the moral government of the world; faith in a supersensuous world belongs, according to our philosophy, to the immediate verities.”[400] Fichte thus concludes with the highest Idea, with the union of freedom and nature, but a union of such a nature that, immediately regarded, it is not known; the opposition alone falls within consciousness. This union of faith he likewise finds in the Love of God. As believed and experienced, this form pertains to Religion, and not to Philosophy, and our only possible interest is to know this in Philosophy. But with Fichte it is still associated with a most unsatisfying externality of which the basis is the non-Idea, for the one determination is essential only because the other is so, and so on into infinitude. “The theory of knowledge is realistic—it shows that the consciousness of finite beings can only be explained by presupposing an independent and wholly opposite power, on which, in accordance with their empirical existence, they themselves are dependent. But it asserts nothing more than this opposed power, which by finite beings can merely be felt and not known. All possible determinations of this power or of this non-ego which can come forth into infinity in our consciousness, it pledges itself to deduce from the determining faculties of the ego, and it must actually be able to deduce these, so certainly as it is a theory of knowledge. This knowledge, however, is not transcendent but transcendental. It undoubtedly explains all consciousness from something independent of all consciousness, but it does not forget that this independent somewhat is again a product of its own power of thought, and consequently something dependent on the ego, in so far as it has to be there for the ego. Every thing is, in its ideality, dependent upon the ego; but in its reality even the ego is dependent. The fact that the finite spirit must posit for itself somewhat outside of itself, which last exists only for it, is that circle which it may infinitely extend but never break through.” The further logical determination of the object is that which in subject and object is identical, the true connection is that in which the objective is the possession of the ego; as thought, the ego in itself determines the object. But Fichte’s theory of knowledge regards the struggle of the ego with the object as that of the continuous process of determining the object through the ego as subject of consciousness, without the identity of the restfully self-developing Notion.[401]
Thirdly, because the ego is thus fixed in its one-sidedness, there proceeds from it, as representing one extreme, the whole of the progress that is made in the content of knowledge; and the deduction of the philosophy of Fichte, cognition in its content and form, is a progression from certain determinations to others which do not turn back into unity, or through a succession of finitenesses which do not have the Absolute in them at all. The absolute point of view, like an absolute content, is wanting. Thus the contemplation of nature, for instance, is a contemplation of it as of pure finitenesses from the point of view of another, as though the organic body were regarded thus: “Consciousness requires a sphere entirely its own for its activity. This sphere is posited through an original, necessary activity of the ego, in which it does not know itself as free. It is a sensuous perception, a drawing of lines; the sphere of activity thereby becomes something extended in space. As quiescent, continuous, and yet unceasingly changing, this sphere is matter, which, as body, has a number of parts which in relation to one another are called limbs. The person can ascribe to himself no body without positing it as being under the influence of another person. But it is likewise essential that I should be able to check this same influence, and external matter is also posited as resisting my influences on it, i.e. as a tough, compact matter.”[402] These tough matters must further be separated from one another—the different persons cannot hold together like one mass of dough. For “my body is my body and not that of another; it must further operate and be active without my working through it. It is only through the operation of another that I can myself be active and represent myself as a rational being who can be respected by him. But the other being should treat me immediately as a rational being, I should be for him a rational being even before my activity begins. Or my form must produce an effect through its mere existence in space, without my activity, i.e. it must be visible. The reciprocal operation of rational beings must take place without activity; thus a subtle matter must be assumed in order that it may be modified by means of the merely quiescent form. In this way are deduced first Light and then Air.”[403] This constitutes a very external manner of passing from one step to another, resembling the method of the ordinary teleology, which makes out, for instance, that plants and animals are given for the nourishment of mankind. This is how it is put: Man must eat, and thus there must be something edible—consequently plants and animals are at once deduced; plants must have their root in something, and consequently the earth is forthwith deduced. What is altogether lacking is any consideration of the object as what it is in itself; it is plainly considered only in relation to another. In this way the animal organism appears as a tough, tenacious matter which is “articulated” and can be modified; light is a subtle matter which is the medium of communication of mere existence, &c.—just as in the other case plants and animals are merely edible. As regards a philosophic consideration of the content there is nothing at all to be found.
Fichte likewise wrote both a Science of Morals and of Natural Rights, but he treats them as sciences pertaining to the understanding only, and his method of procedure is destitute of ideas and carried on by means of a limited understanding. The Fichtian deduction of the conceptions of justice and morality thus remains within the limitations and rigidity of self-consciousness, as against which Fichte’s popular presentations of religion and morality present inconsistencies. The treatise on Natural Rights is a special failure, e.g. where he, as we have just seen (p. 502), deduces even nature just as far as he requires it. The organization of the state which is described in Fichte’s Science of Rights is furthermore as unspiritual as was the deduction of natural objects just mentioned, and as were many of the French constitutions which have appeared in modern times—a formal, external uniting and connecting, in which the individuals as such are held to be absolute, or in which Right is the highest principle. Kant began to ground Right upon Freedom, and Fichte likewise makes freedom the principle in the Rights of Nature; but, as was the case with Rousseau, it is freedom in the form of the isolated individual. This is a great commencement, but in order to arrive at the particular, they have to accept certain hypotheses. The universal is not the spirit, the substance of the whole, but an external, negative power of the finite understanding directed against individuals. The state is not apprehended in its essence, but only as representing a condition of justice and law, i.e. as an external relation of finite to finite. There are various individuals; the whole constitution of the state is thus in the main characterized by the fact that the freedom of individuals must be limited by means of the freedom of the whole.[404] The individuals always maintain a cold attitude of negativity as regards one another, the confinement becomes closer and the bonds more stringent as time goes on, instead of the state being regarded as representing the realization of freedom.
This philosophy contains nothing speculative, but it demands the presence of the speculative element. As the philosophy of Kant seeks in unity its Idea of the Supreme Good, wherein the opposites have to be united, so the Fichtian philosophy demands union in the ego and in the implicitude of faith; in this self-consciousness in all its actions makes its starting-point conviction, so that in themselves its actions may bring forth the highest end and realize the good. In the Fichtian philosophy nothing can be seen beyond the moment of self-consciousness, of self-conscious Being-within-self, as in the philosophy of England we find expressed—in just as one-sided a way—the moment of Being-for-another, or of consciousness, and that not as a moment simply, but as the principle of the truth; in neither of the two is there the unity of both—or spirit.
Fichte’s philosophy constitutes a significant epoch in Philosophy regarded in its outward form. It is from him and from his methods that abstract thought proceeds, deduction and construction. Hence with the Fichtian philosophy a revolution took place in Germany. The public had penetrated as far as the philosophy of Kant, and until the Kantian philosophy was reached the interest awakened by Philosophy was general; it was accessible, and men were curious to know about it, it pertained to the ordinary knowledge of a man of culture (supra, p. 218). Formerly men of business, statesmen, occupied themselves with Philosophy; now, however, with the intricate idealism of the philosophy of Kant, their wings droop helpless to the ground. Hence it is with Kant that we first begin to find a line of separation which parts us from the common modes of consciousness; but the result, that the Absolute cannot be known, has become one generally acknowledged. With Fichte the common consciousness has still further separated itself from Philosophy, and it has utterly departed from the speculative element therein present. For Fichte’s ego is not merely the ego of the empiric consciousness, since general determinations of thought such as do not fall within the ordinary consciousness have likewise to be known and brought to consciousness; in this way since Fichte’s time few men have occupied themselves with speculation. Fichte, it is true, in his later works especially, wrote with a view to meeting the popular ear as we may see in the “Attempt to force the reader into comprehension,” but this end was not accomplished. The public was through the philosophy of Kant and Jacobi strengthened in its opinion—one which it accepted utiliter—that the knowledge of God is immediate, and that we know it from the beginning and without requiring to study, and hence that Philosophy is quite superfluous.
[2. Fichte’s System in a Re-constituted Form.]
The times called for life, for spirit. Now since mind has thus retreated within self-consciousness, but within self-consciousness as a barren ego, which merely gives itself a content or a realization through finitenesses and individualities which in and for themselves are nothing, the next stage is found in knowing this realization of self-consciousness in itself, in knowing the content in itself as a content which, penetrated throughout by spirit, is self-conscious and spiritual, or a spirit full of content. In his later popular works Fichte thus set forth faith, love, hope, religion, treating them without philosophic interest, and as for a general public: it was a philosophy calculated to suit enlightened Jews and Jewesses, councillors and Kotzebues. He places the matter in a popular form: “It is not the finite ego that is, but the divine Idea is the foundation of all Philosophy; everything that man does of himself is null and void. All existence is living and active in itself, and there is no other life than Being, and no other Being than God; God is thus absolute Being and Life. The divine essence likewise comes forth, revealing and manifesting itself—the world.”[405] This immediate unity of the self-conscious ego and its content, or spirit, which merely has an intuition of its self-conscious life and knows it as the truth immediately, manifested itself subsequently in poetic and prophetic tendencies, in vehement aspirations, in excrescences which grew out of the Fichtian philosophy.
[3. The more Important of the Followers of Fichte.]
On the one hand, in respect of the content which the ego reaches in the philosophy of Fichte, the complete absence of spirituality, the woodenness, and, to put it plainly, the utter foolishness therein evidenced, strike us too forcibly to allow us to remain at his standpoint; our philosophic perception likewise tells us of the one-sidedness and deficiencies of the principle, as also of the evident necessity that the content should prove to be what it is. But on the other hand self-consciousness was therein posited as reality or essence—not as a foreign, alien self-consciousness, but as ego—a signification which all possess, and which finds an answer in the actuality of all. The Fichtian standpoint of subjectivity has thus retained its character of being unphilosophically worked out, and arrived at its completion in forms pertaining to sensation which in part remained within the Fichtian principle, while they were in part the effort—futile though it was—to get beyond the subjectivity of the ego.
[a. Friedrich von Schlegel.]
In Fichte’s case the limitation is continually re-appearing; but because the ego feels constrained to break through this barrier, it reacts against it, and gives itself a resting-place within itself; this last ought to be concrete, but it is a negative resting-place alone. This first form, Irony, has Friedrich von Schlegel as its leading exponent. The subject here knows itself to be within itself the Absolute, and all else to it is vain; all the conclusions which it draws for itself respecting the right and good, it likewise knows how to destroy again. It can make a pretence of knowing all things, but it only demonstrates vanity, hypocrisy, and effrontery. Irony knows itself to be the master of every possible content; it is serious about nothing, but plays with all forms. The other side is this, that subjectivity has cast itself into religious subjectivity. The utter despair in respect of thought, of truth, and absolute objectivity, as also the incapacity to give oneself any settled basis or spontaneity of action, induced the noble soul to abandon itself to feeling and to seek in Religion something fixed and steadfast; this steadfast basis, this inward satisfaction, is to be found in religious sentiments and feelings. This instinct impelling us towards something fixed has forced many into positive forms of religion, into Catholicism, superstition and miracle working, in order that they may find something on which they can rest, because to inward subjectivity everything fluctuates and wavers. With the whole force of its mind subjectivity tries to apply itself to what is positively given, to bend its head beneath the positive, to cast itself, so to speak, into the arms of externality, and it finds an inward power impelling it so to do.
[b. Schleiermacher.]
On the other hand the ego finds in the subjectivity and individuality of the personal view of things the height of all its vanity—its Religion. All the various individualities have God within themselves. Dialectic is the last thing to arise and to maintain its place. As this is expressed for philosophic self-consciousness, the foreign intellectual world has lost all significance and truth for ordinary culture; it is composed of three elements, a deity pertaining to a time gone by, and individualized in space and existence, a world which is outside the actuality of self-consciousness, and a world which had yet to appear, and in which self-consciousness would first attain to its reality. The spirit of culture has deserted it, and no longer recognizes anything that is foreign to self-consciousness. In accordance with this principle, the spiritual living essence has then transformed itself into self-consciousness, and it thinks to know the unity of spirit immediately from itself, and in this immediacy to be possessed of knowledge in a poetic, or at least a prophetic manner. As regards the poetic manner, it has a knowledge of the life and person of the Absolute immediately, by an intuition, and not in the Notion, and it thinks it would lose the whole as whole, as a self-penetrating unity, were it not to express the same in poetic form; and what it thus expresses poetically is the intuition of the personal life of self-consciousness. But the truth is absolute motion, and since it is a motion of forms and figures [Gestalten], and the universe is a kingdom of spirits, the Notion is the essence of this movement, and likewise of each individual form; it is its ideal form [Form] and not the real one, or that of figure [Gestalt]. In the latter case necessity is lost sight of; individual action, life and heart, remain within themselves, and undeveloped; and this poetry vacillates betwixt the universality of the Notion and the determinateness and indifference of the figure; it is neither flesh nor fish, neither poetry nor philosophy. The prophetic utterance of truths which claim to be philosophical, thus belongs to faith, to self-consciousness, which indeed perceives the absolute spirit in itself, but does not comprehend itself as self-consciousness, since it places absolute reality above Knowledge, beyond self-conscious reason, as was done by Eschenmayer and Jacobi. This uncomprehending, prophetic manner of speech affirms this or that respecting absolute existence as from an oracle, and requires that each man should find the same immediately in his own heart. The knowledge of absolute reality becomes a matter pertaining to the heart; there are a number of would-be inspired speakers, each of whom holds a monologue and really does not understand the others, excepting by a pressure of the hands and betrayal of dumb feeling. What they say is mainly composed of trivialities, if these are taken in the sense in which they are uttered; it is the feeling, the gesture, the fulness of the heart, which first gives them their significance; to nothing of more importance is direct expression given. They outbid one another in conceits of fancy, in ardent poetry. But before the Truth vanity turns pale, spitefully sneering it sneaks back into itself. Ask not after a criterion of the truth, but after the Notion of the truth in and for itself; on that fix your gaze. The glory of Philosophy is departed, for it presupposes a common ground of thoughts and principles—which is what science demands—or at least of opinions. But now particular subjectivity was everything, each individual was proud and disdainful as regards all others. The conception of independent thought—as though there could be a thought which was not such (Vol. I. p. 60)—is very much the same; men have, it is said, to bring forth a particularity of their own, or else they have not thought for themselves. But the bad picture is that in which the artist shows himself; originality is the production of what is in its entirety universal. The folly of independent thought is that it results in each bringing forth something more preposterous than another.
[c. Novalis.]
Subjectivity signifies the lack of a firm and steady basis, but likewise the desire for such, and thus it evermore remains a yearning. These yearnings of a lofty soul are set forth in the writings of Novalis. This subjectivity does not reach substantiality, it dies away within itself, and the standpoint it adopts is one of inward workings and fine distinctions; it signifies an inward life and deals with the minutiæ of the truth. The extravagances of subjectivity constantly pass into madness; if they remain in thought they are whirled round and round in the vortex of reflecting understanding, which is ever negative in reference to itself.
[d. Fries, Bouterweck, Krug.]
Yet a last form of subjectivity is the subjectivity of arbitrary will and ignorance. It maintained this, that the highest mode of cognition is an immediate knowledge as a fact of consciousness; and that is so far right. The Fichtian abstraction and its hard understanding has a repellent effect on thought; slothful reason allowed itself to be told the result of the philosophy of Kant and Jacobi, and renounced all consistent thought, all construction. This arbitrariness gave itself entire liberty—the liberty of the Tabagie—but in doing so it regarded itself from a poetic or prophetic point of view, as we have just seen (pp. 508, 509). Then it was both more sober and more prosaic, and thus brought the old logic and metaphysic once more into evidence, though with this modification that they are made facts of consciousness. Thus Fries turns back to the faith of Jacobi in the form of immediate judgments derived from reason, and dark conceptions incapable of utterance.[406] He wished to improve the critique of pure reason by apprehending the categories as facts of consciousness; anything one chooses can in such a case be introduced. Bouterweck speaks of “The virtue, the living nature of power; the fact that subject and object are regarded as one, that is as absolute virtue. With this absolute virtue we have all Being and action, namely the eternal, absolute and pure unity; in one word we have grasped the world within us and we have grasped ourselves in the world, and that indeed not through conceptions and conclusions, but directly through the power which itself constitutes our existence and our rational nature. To know the All, or indeed to know God in any way, is, however, impossible for any mortal.”[407] Krug wrote a “Groundwork of Philosophy,” setting forth a “Transcendental Synthesis—that is a transcendental realism and a transcendental idealism inseparably bound together,” It is an “original, transcendental synthesis of the real and the ideal, the thinking subject and the corresponding outer world;” this transcendental synthesis must “be recognized and asserted without any attempt being made at explaining it.”[408]
[D. Schelling.]
It was Schelling, finally, who made the most important, or, from a philosophic point of view, the only important advance upon the philosophy of Fichte; his philosophy rose higher than that of Fichte, though undoubtedly it stood in close connection with it; indeed, he himself professes to be a Fichtian. Now the philosophy of Schelling from the first admitted the possibility of a knowledge of God, although it likewise started from the philosophy of Kant, which denies such knowledge. At the same time Schelling makes Jacobi’s principle of the unity of thought and Being fundamental, although he begins to determine it more closely.[409] To him concrete unity is this, that the finite is no more true than the infinite, the subjective idea no more than objectivity, and that combinations in which both untruths are brought together in their independence in relation to one another, are likewise combinations of untruths merely. Concrete unity can only be comprehended as process and as the living movement in a proposition. This inseparability is in God alone; the finite, on the other hand, is that which has this separability within it. In so far as it is a truth it is likewise this unity, but in a limited sphere, and for that reason in the separability of both moments.
Frederick Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, born on the 27th January, 1775, at Schorndorf,[410] in Wurtemberg, studied in Leipzig and Jena, where he came to be on terms of great intimacy with Fichte. In the year 1807 he became secretary of the Academy of Science in Munich. We cannot with propriety deal fully with his life, for he is still living.[411]
Schelling worked out his philosophy in view of the public. The series of his philosophic writings also represents the history of his philosophic development and the gradual process by which he raised himself above the Fichtian principle and the Kantian content with which he began. It does not thus contain a sequence of separately worked out divisions of Philosophy, but only successive stages in his own development. If we ask for a final work in which we shall find his philosophy represented with complete definiteness none such can be named. Schelling’s first writings are still quite Fichtian, and it is only by slow degrees that he worked himself free of Fichte’s form. The form of the ego has the ambiguity of being capable of signifying either the absolute Ego or God, or ego in my particularity;[412] this supplied the first stimulus to Schelling. His first and quite short work of four sheets which he wrote in 1795 at Tubingen, while still at the university, was called, “On the Possibility of any Form of Philosophy”; it contains propositions respecting the Fichtian philosophy only. The next work, “On the Ego as principle of Philosophy, or on the Unconditioned in Human Knowledge” (Tubingen, 1795), is likewise quite Fichtian; in this case, however, it is from a wider and more universal point of view, since the ego is therein grasped as an original identity.[413] We find, however, a summary of the Fichtian principle and the Kantian mode of presentation: “It is only by something being originally set in opposition to the ego, and by the ego being itself posited as the manifold (in time), that it is possible for the ego to get beyond the unity which belongs to it of merely being posited, and that, for example, it posits the same content on more than one occasion.”[414] Schelling then passed on to natural philosophy, adopted Kantian forms and reflective determinations, such as those of repulsion and attraction, from Kant’s “Metaphysics of Nature,” and likewise dealt with quite empirical phenomena in expressions taken from Kant. All his first works on this subject come under this category, viz.: “Ideas towards a Philosophy of Nature,” 1797; “On the World-Soul,” 1798, the second edition of which possesses appendices which are entirely inconsistent with what goes before. In the writings of Herder and Kielmeyer[415] we find sensibility, irritability, and reproduction dealt with, as also their laws, such as that the greater the sensibility the less the irritability, &c.—just as the powers or potencies were dealt with by Eschenmayer. It was only later on in relation to these that Schelling first apprehended nature in the categories of thought, and made general attempts of a more definite character in the direction of greater scientific development. It was only through what had been accomplished by these men that he was enabled to come into public notice so young. The spiritual and intellectual side, morality and the state, he represented on the other hand purely in accordance with Kantian principles: thus in his “Transcendental Idealism,” although it was written from a Fichtian point of view, he goes no further than Kant did in his “Philosophy of Rights” and his work “On Eternal Peace.” Schelling, indeed, later on published a separate treatise on Freedom, deeply speculative in character; this, however, remains isolated and independent, and deals with this one point alone; in Philosophy, however, nothing isolated can be worked out or developed. In the various presentations of his views Schelling on each occasion began again from the beginning, because, as we may see, what went before did not satisfy him; he has ever pressed on to seek a new form, and thus he has tried various forms and terminologies in succession without ever setting forth one complete and consistent whole. His principal works in this connection are the “First Sketch of a System of Natural Philosophy,” 1799; the “System of Transcendental Idealism,” 1800, one of his most carefully thought-out works; “Bruno, a Dialogue on the Divine and Natural Principle of Things,” 1802; “Journal of Speculative Physics,” 1801; “New Journal of Speculative Physics,” 1802 et In the second number of the second volume of his “Journal of Speculative Physics,” Schelling made the commencement of a detailed treatment of the whole of his philosophy. Here he likewise starts to a certain measure, though unconsciously, from the Fichtian form of construction; but the idea is already present that nature equally with knowledge is a system of reason.
It is not feasible here to go into details respecting what is called the philosophy of Schelling, even if time permitted. For it is not yet a scientific whole organized in all its branches, since it rather consists in certain general elements which do not fluctuate with the rest of his opinions. Schelling’s philosophy must still be regarded as in process of evolution, and it has not yet ripened into fruit;[416] we can hence give a general idea of it only.
When Schelling made his first appearance the demands put forward by Philosophy were as follows. With Descartes thought and extension were in some incomprehensible way united in God, with Spinoza it was as motionless substance; and beyond this point of view neither of them ever passed. Later on we saw the form develop, partly in the sciences and partly in the Kantian philosophy. Finally, in the Fichtian philosophy, the form was subjectivity on its own account, from which all determinations were held to develop. What is thus demanded is that this subjectivity of infinite form which we saw dying into irony or arbitrariness (pp. 507-510) should be delivered from its one-sidedness in order to be united with objectivity and substantiality. To put it otherwise, the substance of Spinoza should not be apprehended as the unmoved, but as the intelligent, as a form which possesses activity within itself of necessity, so that it is the forming power of nature, but at the same time knowledge and comprehension. This then is the object of Philosophy; it is not the formal union of Spinoza that is demanded, nor the subjective totality of Fichte, but totality with the infinite form. We see this developing in the philosophy of Schelling.
1. In one of his earlier writings, the “System of Transcendental Idealism,” which we shall consider first of all, Schelling represented transcendental philosophy and natural philosophy as the two sides of scientific knowledge. Respecting the nature of the two, he expressly declared himself in this work, where he once more adopts a Fichtian starting-point: “All knowledge rests on the harmony of an objective with a subjective.” In the common sense of the words this would be allowed; absolute unity, where the Notion and the reality are undistinguished in the perfected Idea, is the Absolute alone, or God; all else contains an element of discord between the objective and subjective. “We may give the name of nature to the entire objective content of our knowledge; the entire subjective content, on the other hand, is called the ego or intelligence.” They are in themselves identical and presupposed as identical. The relation of nature to intelligence is given by Schelling thus: “Now if all knowledge has two poles which mutually presuppose and demand one another, there must be two fundamental sciences, and it must be impossible to start from the one pole without being driven to the other.” Thus nature is impelled to spirit, and spirit to nature; either may be given the first place, and both must come to pass. “If the objective is made the chief,” we have the natural sciences as result, and “the necessary tendency,” the end, “of all natural science thus is to pass from nature to intelligence. This is the meaning of the effort to connect natural phenomena with theory. The highest perfection of natural science would be the perfect spiritualization of all natural laws into laws of intuitive perception and thought. The phenomenal (the material element) must entirely disappear, and laws (the formal element) alone remain. Hence it comes to pass that the more that which is in conformity with law breaks forth in nature itself, the more the outward covering disappears; the phenomena themselves become more spiritual, and finally cease altogether. The perfect theory of nature would be that by which the whole of nature should be resolved into an intelligence. The dead and unconscious products of nature are only abortive attempts on the part of nature to reflect itself, but the so-called dead nature is really an immature,” torpid, fossilized “intelligence”; it is implicit only, and thus remains in externality; “hence in its phenomena,” even though “still unconsciously, the character of intelligence shines through. Its highest end, which is to become object to itself, is first attained by nature” (instead of nature we should call it the Idea of nature), “through its highest and ultimate reflection, which is none other than man, or, more generally, it is that which we call reason, through which nature for the first time returns completely within itself, and whereby it becomes evident that nature is originally identical with what is known in us as intelligence or the conscious. Through this tendency to make nature intelligent natural science becomes the philosophy of nature.” The intelligent character of nature is thus spoken of as a postulate of science. The other point of view is “to give the subjective the foremost place.” Thus here “the problem is how to add an objective element agreeing with it. To start from the subjective as from the first and absolute, and to make the objective arise from it,” signifies a new departure; its consideration forms the content of true Transcendental Philosophy, or, as Schelling himself now named this science, “the other science fundamental to Philosophy.” The organ of transcendental philosophy is the subjective, the production of inward action. Production and reflection upon this production, the unconscious and conscious in one, is the æsthetic act of the imagination.[417] Thus these two separate processes are as a whole very clearly expressed: the process which leads from nature to the subject, and that leading from the ego to the object. But the true process could only be traced out by means of logic, for it contains pure thoughts; but the logical point of view was what Schelling never arrived at in his presentation of things.
a. In respect of the ego, as principle of the transcendental philosophy, Schelling sets to work in the same way as did Fichte, inasmuch as he begins from the fact of knowledge “in which the content is conditioned through the form, and the form through the content”; this is formal A = A. But does A exist? The ego is “the point where subject and object are one in their unmediated condition”; the ego is just Ego = Ego, subject-object; and that is the act of self-consciousness wherein I am for myself object to myself. In self-consciousness there is not to be found a distinction between me and anything else; what are distinguished are directly identical, and there is so far nothing at all in opposition to this self-consciousness. How the case stands with regard to external objects is the question which must be decided later, in the further course of development. It is only the Notion of the ego which is to be laid hold of: “The Notion of the ego, that is the act whereby thought in general becomes object to itself, and the ego itself (the object) are absolutely one; independently of this act the ego is nothing.” It is the act whereby thought makes itself objective, and wherein the ego is brought into harmony with the objective, with thought; and from this standpoint it had to be demonstrated how the ego makes its way to objectivity. “The ego, as pure act, as pure action, is not objective in knowledge itself, for the reason that it is the principle of all knowledge. If it is to be object of knowledge, this must come to pass through a very different kind of knowledge than the ordinary.” The immediate consciousness of this identity is intuition, but inwardly it becomes “intellectual intuition”; it “is a knowledge which is the production of its object: sensuous intuition or perception is perception of such a nature that the perception itself appears to be different from what is perceived. Now intellectual intuition is the organ of all transcendental thought,” the act of pure self-consciousness generally. “The ego is nothing else than a process of production which ever makes itself its own object. Science can start from nothing objective,” but from “the non-objective which itself becomes object” as an “original duplicity. Idealism is the mechanism of the origination of the objective world from the inward principle of spiritual activity.”[418]
On the one hand Schelling’s system is related to the philosophy of Fichte, and, on the other hand, he, like Jacobi, makes his principle immediate knowledge—the intelligent intuitive perception which all who wish to philosophize must have. But what comes next is that its content is no longer the indeterminate, the essence of essence, but likewise the Absolute, God, the absolutely self-existent, though expressed as concrete, i.e. as mediating itself within itself, as the absolute unity or indifference of subjective and objective. Intellectual intuition is the Fichtian imagination oscillating between two different points. We have already spoken above (p. 417) of the form of intellectual intuition; it is the most convenient manner of asserting knowledge respecting—anything one likes. But the immediate knowledge of God as spiritual is only in the consciousness of Christian nations, and not for others. This immediate knowledge appears to be still more contingent as the intellectual intuition of the concrete, or the identity of subjectivity and objectivity. This intuition is intellectual indeed, because it is a rational intuition, and as knowledge it is likewise absolutely one with the object of knowledge. But this intuition, although itself knowledge, is not as yet known; it is the unmediated, the postulated. As it is in this way an immediate we must possess it, and what may be possessed may likewise not be possessed. Thus since the immediate presupposition in Philosophy is that individuals have the immediate intuition of this identity of subjective and objective, this gave the philosophy of Schelling the appearance of indicating that the presence of this intuition in individuals demanded a special talent, genius, or condition of mind of their own, or as though it were generally speaking an accidental faculty which pertained to the specially favoured few. For the immediate, the intuitively perceived, is in the form of an existent, and is not thus an essential; and whoever does not understand the intellectual intuition must come to the conclusion that he does not possess it. Or else, in order to understand it, men must give themselves the trouble of possessing it; but no one can tell whether he has it or not—not even from understanding it, for we may merely think we understand it. Philosophy, however, is in its own nature capable of being universal; for its ground-work is thought, and it is through thought that man is man. Schelling’s principle is thus indeed clearly a universal; but if a definite intuition, a definite consciousness is demanded, such as the consciousness or intuition of the identity of subjective and objective, this determinate particular thought is not as yet to be found in it.
It was, however, in this form of knowledge of the absolute as concrete, and, further, in the form of unity of subjective and objective, that Philosophy as represented by Schelling more especially marked itself off from the ordinary conceiving consciousness and its mode of reflection. Even less than Fichte did Schelling attain to popularity (supra, pp. 504, 505), for the concrete in its nature is directly speculative. The concrete content, God, life, or whatever particular form it has, is indeed the content and object of natural consciousness; but the difficulty lies in bringing what is contained in the concrete into concrete thought in accordance with its different determinations, and in laying hold of the unity. It pertains to the standpoint of the understanding to divide and to distinguish, and to maintain the finite thought-determinations in their opposition; but Philosophy demands that these different thoughts should be brought together. Thought begins by holding apart infinite and finite, cause and effect, positive and negative; since this is the region of reflecting consciousness, the old metaphysical consciousness was able to take part in so doing: but the speculative point of view is to have this opposition before itself and to reconcile it. With Schelling the speculative form has thus again come to the front, and philosophy has again obtained a special character of its own; the principle of Philosophy, rational thought in itself, has obtained the form of thought. In the philosophy of Schelling the content, the truth, has once more become the matter of chief importance, whereas in the Kantian philosophy the point of interest was more especially stated to be the necessity for investigating subjective knowledge. This is the standpoint of Schelling’s philosophy in its general aspects.
b. Since in further analysis the distinction between subject and object comes into view and is accepted, there follows the relationship of the ego to its other; with Fichte that forms the second proposition, in which the self-limitation of the ego is posited. The ego posits itself in opposition to itself, since it posits itself as conditioned by the non-ego; that is the infinite repulsion, for this conditionment is the ego itself. Schelling, on the one hand, says: “The ego is unlimited as the ego only in so far as it is limited,” as it relates to the non-ego. Only thus does consciousness exist, self-consciousness is a barren determination; through its intuition of self the ego becomes finite to itself. “This contradiction only allows itself to be dissolved by the ego becoming in this finitude infinite to itself, i.e. by its having an intuitive perception of itself as an infinite Becoming.” The relation of the ego to itself and to the infinite check or force of repulsion is a constant one. On the other hand it is said: “The ego is limited only in so far as it is unlimited;” this limitation is thus necessary in order to be able to get beyond it. The contradiction which we find here remains even if the ego always limits the non-ego. “Both activities—that which makes for infinitude, the limitable, real, objective activity, and the limiting and ideal, mutually presuppose one another. Idealism reflects merely on the one, realism on the other, transcendental idealism on both.”[419] All this is a tangled mass of abstractions.
c. “Neither through the limiting activity nor through the limited does the ego arrive at self-consciousness. There consequently is a third activity, compounded from the other two, through which the ego of self-consciousness arises; this third is that which oscillates between the two—the struggle between opposing tendencies.” There is essential relation only, relative identity; the difference therein present thus ever remains. “This struggle cannot be reconciled by one such action, but only by an infinite succession of such,” i.e. the reconciliation of the opposition between the two tendencies of the ego, the inward and the outward, is, in the infinite course of progression, only an apparent one. In order that it may be complete, the whole inward and outward nature must be presented in all its details: but Philosophy can only set forth the epochs which are most important. “If all the intermediate links in sensation could be set forth, that would necessarily lead us to a deduction of all the qualities in nature, which last is impossible.” Now this third activity, which contains the union directly in itself, is a thought in which particularity is already contained. It is the intuitive understanding of Kant, the intelligent intuition or intuitively perceiving intelligence; Schelling, indeed, definitely names this absolute unity of contradictions intellectual intuition. The ego here is not one-sided in regard to what is different; it is identity of the unconscious and the conscious, but not an identity of such a nature that its ground rests on the ego itself.[420]
This ego must be the absolute principle: “All philosophy starts from a principle which as absolute identity is non-objective.” For if it is objective, separation is at once posited and it is confronted by another; but the principle is the reconciliation of the opposition, and therefore in and for itself it is non-objective. “Now how should a principle such as this be called forth to consciousness and understood, as is required if it is the condition attached to the comprehension of all philosophy? That it can no more be comprehended through Notions [Begriffe] than set forth, requires no proof.” Notion to Schelling signifies a category of the ordinary understanding; Notion is, however, the concrete thought which in itself is infinite. “There thus remains nothing more than that it should be set forth in an immediate intuition. If there were such an intuition which had as object the absolutely identical, that which in itself is neither subjective nor objective, and if for such, which,” however, “can be an intellectual intuition only, one could appeal to immediate experience,” the question would be: “How can this intuition be again made objective, i.e. how can it be asserted without doubt that it does not rest on a subjective deception, if there is not a universal objectivity in that intuition, which is recognized by all?” This intellectual principle in itself should thus be given in an experience so that men may be able to appeal to it. “The objectivity of intellectual intuition is art. The work of art alone reflects to me what is otherwise reflected through nothing—that absolute identical which has already separated itself in the ego itself.” The objectivity of identity and the knowledge of the same is art; in one and the same intuition the ego is here conscious of itself and unconscious.[421] This intellectual intuition which has become objective is objective sensuous intuition—but the Notion, the comprehended necessity, is a very different objectivity.
Thus a principle is presupposed both for the content of philosophy and for subjective philosophizing: on the one hand it is demanded that the attitude adopted should be one of intellectual intuition, and, on the other hand, this principle has to be authenticated, and this takes place in the work of art. This is the highest form of the objectivization of reason, because in it sensuous conception is united with intellectuality, sensuous existence is merely the expression of spirituality. The highest objectivity which the subject attains, the highest identity of subjective and objective, is that which Schelling terms the power of imagination. Art is thus comprehended as what is inmost and highest, that which produces the intellectual and real in one, and philosophizing is conceived as this genius of art. But art and power of imagination are not supreme. For the Idea, spirit, cannot be truly given expression to in the manner in which art expresses its Idea. This last is always a method pertaining to intuitive perception; and on account of this sensuous form of existence the work of art cannot correspond to the spirit. Thus because the point last arrived at is designated as the faculty of imagination, as art, even in the subject this is a subordinate point of view, and thus in itself this point is not the absolute identity of subjectivity and objectivity. In subjective thought, rational, speculative thought is thus indeed demanded, but if this appears false to you nothing farther can be said than that you do not possess intellectual intuition. The proving of anything, the making it comprehensible, is thus abandoned; a correct apprehension of it is directly demanded, and the Idea is thus assertorically pre-established as principle. The Absolute is the absolute identity of subjective and objective, the absolute indifference of real and ideal, of form and essence, of universal and particular; in this identity of the two there is neither the one nor the other. But the unity is not abstract, empty, and dry; that would signify logical identity, classification according to something common to both, in which the difference remains all the while outside. The identity is concrete: it is subjectivity as well as objectivity; the two are present therein as abrogated and ideal. This identity may easily be shown in the ordinary conception: the conception, we may for example say, is subjective; it has, too, the determinate content of exclusion in reference to other conceptions; nevertheless, the conception is simple—it is one act, one unity.
What is lacking in Schelling’s philosophy is thus the fact that the point of indifference of subjectivity and objectivity, or the Notion of reason, is absolutely presupposed, without any attempt being made at showing that this is the truth. Schelling often uses Spinoza’s form of procedure, and sets up axioms. In philosophy, when we desire to establish a position, we demand proof. But if we begin with intellectual intuition, that constitutes an oracle to which we have to give way, since the existence of intellectual intuition was made our postulate. The true proof that this identity of subjective and objective is the truth, could only be brought about by means of each of the two being investigated in its logical, i.e. essential determinations; and in regard to them, it must then be shown that the subjective signifies the transformation of itself into the objective, and that the objective signifies its not remaining such, but making itself subjective. Similarly in the finite, it would have to be shown that it contained a contradiction in itself, and made itself infinite; in this way we should have the unity of finite and infinite. In so doing, this unity of opposites is not asserted beforehand, but in the opposites themselves it is shown that their truth is their unity, but that each taken by itself is one-sided—that their difference veers round, casting itself headlong into this unity—while the understanding all the time thinks that in these differences it possesses something fixed and secure. The result of thinking contemplation would in this former case be that each moment would secretly make itself into its opposite, the identity of both being alone the truth. The understanding certainly calls this transformation sophistry, humbug, juggling, and what-not. As a result, this identity would, according to Jacobi, be one which was no doubt conditioned and of set purpose produced. But we must remark that a one-sided point of view is involved in apprehending the result of development merely as a result; it is a process which is likewise mediation within itself, of such a nature that this mediation is again abrogated and asserted as immediate. Schelling, indeed, had this conception in a general way, but he did not follow it out in a definite logical method, for with him it remained an immediate truth, which can only be verified by means of intellectual intuition. That is the great difficulty in the philosophy of Schelling. And then it was misunderstood and all interest taken from it. It is easy enough to show that subjective and objective are different. Were they not different, nothing could be made of them any more than of A = A; but they are in opposition as one. In all that is finite, an identity is present, and this alone is actual; but besides the fact that the finite is this identity, it is also true that it is the absence of harmony between subjectivity and objectivity, Notion and reality; and it is in this that finitude consists. To this principle of Schelling’s, form, or necessity, is thus lacking, it is only asserted. Schelling appears to have this in common with Plato and the Neo-Platonists, that knowledge is to be found in the inward intuition of eternal Ideas wherein knowledge is unmediated in the Absolute. But when Plato speaks of this intuition of the soul, which has freed itself from all knowledge that is finite, empirical, or reflected, and the Neo-Platonists tell of the ecstasy of thought in which knowledge is the immediate knowledge of the Absolute, this definite distinction must be noticed, viz., that with Plato’s knowledge of the universal, or with his intellectuality, wherein all opposition as a reality is abrogated, dialectic is associated, or the recognized necessity for the abrogation of these opposites; Plato does not begin with this, for with him the movement in which they abrogate themselves is present. The Absolute is itself to be looked at as this movement of self-abrogation; this is the only actual knowledge and knowledge of the Absolute. With Schelling this idea has, however, no dialectic present in it whereby those opposites may determine themselves to pass over into their unity, and in so doing to be comprehended.
2. Schelling begins with the idea of the Absolute as identity of the subjective and objective, and accordingly there evinced itself in the presentations of his system which followed, the further necessity of proving this idea; this he attempted to do in the two Journals of Speculative Physics. But if that method be once adopted, the procedure is not immanent development from the speculative Idea, but it follows the mode of external reflection. Schelling’s proofs are adduced in such an exceedingly formal manner that they really invariably presuppose the very thing that was to be proved. The axiom assumes the main point in question, and all the rest follows as a matter of course. Here is an instance: “The innermost essence of the Absolute can only be thought of as identity absolute, altogether pure and undisturbed. For the Absolute is only absolute, and what is thought in it is necessarily and invariably the same, or in other words, is necessarily and invariably absolute. If the idea of the Absolute were a general Notion” (or conception), “this would not prevent a difference being met with in it, notwithstanding this unity of the absolute. For things the most different are yet in the Notion always one and identical, just as a rectangle, a polygon and a circle are all figures. The possibility of the difference of all things in association with perfect unity in the Notion lies in the manner in which the particular in them is combined with the universal. In the Absolute this altogether disappears, because it pertains to the very idea of the Absolute that the particular in it is also the universal, and the universal the particular; and further that by means of this unity form and existence are also one in it. Consequently, in regard to the Absolute, from the fact of its being the Absolute, there likewise follows the absolute exclusion from its existence of all difference, and that at once.”[422]
In the former of the two above-named works, the “Journal of Speculative Physics,” Schelling began by again bringing forward the Substance of Spinoza, simple, absolute Existence, inasmuch as he makes his starting-point the absolute identity of the subjective and objective. Here, like Spinoza, he employed the method of geometry, laying down axioms and proving by means of propositions, then going on to deduce other propositions from these, and so on. But this method has no real application to philosophy. Schelling at this point laid down certain forms of difference, to which he gave the name of potencies, adopting the term from Eschenmayer, who made use of it (p. 514);[423] they are ready-made differences, which Schelling avails himself of. But philosophy must not take any forms from other sciences, as here from mathematics. With Schelling, the leading form is that which was brought into remembrance again by Kant, the form of triplicity as first, second, and third potency.
Schelling, like Fichte, begins with I = I, or with the absolute intuition, expressed as proposition or definition of the Absolute, that “Reason is the absolute indifference of subject and object”: so that it is neither the one nor the other, for both have in it their true determination; and their opposition, like all others, is utterly done away with. The true reality of subject and object is placed in this alone, that the subject is not posited in the determination of subject against object, as in the philosophy of Fichte; it is not determined as in itself existent, but as subject-object, as the identity of the two; in the same way the object is not posited according to its ideal determination as object, but in as far as it is itself absolute, or the identity of the subjective and objective. But the expression “indifference” is ambiguous, for it means indifference in regard to both the one and the other; and thus it appears as if the content of indifference, the only thing which makes it concrete, were indifferent. Schelling’s next requirement is that the subject must not be hampered with reflection; that would be bringing it under the determination of the understanding, which, equally with sensuous perception, implies the separateness of sensuous things. As to the form of its existence, absolute indifference is with Schelling posited as A = A; and this form is for him the knowledge of absolute identity, which, however, is inseparable from the Being or existence of the same.[424]
Thus, therefore, opposition, as form and reality or existence, no doubt appears in this Absolute, but it is determined as a merely relative or unessential opposition: “Between subject and object no other than quantitative difference is possible. For no qualitative difference as regards the two is thinkable,” because absolute identity “is posited as subject and object only as regards the form of its Being, not as regards its existence. There is consequently only a quantitative difference left,” i.e. only that of magnitude: and yet difference must really be understood as qualitative, and must thus be shown to be a difference which abrogates itself. This quantitative difference, says Schelling, is the form actu: “The quantitative difference of subjective and objective is the basis of all finitude. Each determined potency marks a determined quantitative difference of the subjective and objective. Each individual Being is the result of a quantitative difference of subjectivity and objectivity. The individual expresses absolute identity under a determined form of Being:” so that each side is itself a relative totality, A = B, and at the same time the one factor preponderates in the one, and the other factor in the other, but both remain absolute identity.[425] This is insufficient, for there are other determinations; difference is undoubtedly qualitative, although this is not the absolute determination. Quantitative difference is no true difference, but an entirely external relation; and likewise the preponderance of subjective and objective is not a determination of thought, but a merely sensuous determination.
The Absolute itself, in so far as the positing of difference is taken into account, is defined by Schelling as the quantitative indifference of subjective and objective: in respect to absolute identity no quantitative difference is thinkable. “Quantitative difference is only possible outside of absolute identity, and outside of absolute totality. There is nothing in itself outside of totality, excepting by virtue of an arbitrary separation of the individual from the whole. Absolute identity exists only under the form of the quantitative indifference of subjective and objective.” Quantitative difference, which appears outside of absolute identity and totality, is therefore, according to Schelling, in itself absolute identity, and consequently thinkable only under the form of the quantitative indifference of the subjective and objective. “This opposition does not therefore occur in itself, or from the standpoint of speculation. From this standpoint A exists just as much as B does; for A like B is the whole absolute identity, which only exists under the two forms, but under both of them alike. Absolute identity is the universe itself. The form of its Being can be thought of under the image of a line,” as shown by the following scheme:
“in which the same identity is posited in each direction, but with A or B preponderating in opposite directions.”[426] If we go into details, the main points from an elementary point of view are the following.
The first potency is that the first quantitative difference of the Absolute, or “the first relative totality is matter. Proof: A = B is not anything real either as relative identity or as relative duplicity. As identity A = B, in the individual as in the whole, can be expressed only by the line,”—the first dimension. “But in that line A is posited throughout as existent,” i.e. it is at the same time related to B. “Therefore this line presupposes A = B as relative totality throughout; relative totality is therefore the first presupposition, and if relative identity exists, it exists only through relative totality,”—this is duplicity, the second dimension. “In the same way relative duplicity presupposes relative identity. Relative identity and duplicity are contained in relative totality, not indeed actu, but yet potentia. Therefore the two opposites must mutually extinguish each other in a third” dimension. “Absolute identity as the immediate basis of the reality of A and B in matter, is the force of gravitation. If A preponderates we have the force of attraction, if B preponderates we have that of expansion. The quantitative positing of the forces of attraction and expansion passes into the infinite; their equilibrium exists in the whole, not in the individual.”[427] From matter as the first indifference in immediacy Schelling now passes on to further determinations.
The second potency (A²) is light, this identity itself posited as existent; in so far as A = B, A² is also posited. The same identity, “posited under the form of relative identity,” i.e. of the polarity which we find appearing “in A and B, is the force of cohesion. Cohesion is the impression made on matter by the self-hood” of light “or by personality, whereby matter first emerges as particular out of the universal identity, and raises itself into the realm of form.” Planets, metals and other bodies form a series which under the form of dynamic cohesion expresses particular relations of cohesion, in which on the one hand contraction preponderates, and on the other hand expansion. These potencies appear with Schelling as north and south, east and west polarity: their developments further appear as north-west, south-east, &c. He counts as the last potency Mercury, Venus, the Earth, &c. He continues: “Cohesion outside of the point of indifference I term passive. Towards the negative side” (or pole) “fall some of the metals which stand next to iron, after them the so-called precious metals,” then the “diamond, and lastly carbon, the greatest passive cohesion. Towards the positive side, again, some metals fall, in which the cohesive nature of iron gradually diminishes,” i.e. approaches disintegration, and lastly “disappears in nitrogen.” Active cohesion is magnetism, and the material universe is an infinite magnet. The magnetic process is difference in indifference, and indifference in difference, and therefore absolute identity as such. The indifference point of the magnet is the “neither nor” and the “as well as”; the poles are potentially the same essence, only posited under two factors which are opposed. Both poles depend “only upon whether + or - preponderates”; they are not pure abstractions. “In the total magnet the empirical magnet is the indifference point. The empirical magnet is iron. All bodies are mere metamorphoses of iron—they are potentially contained in iron. Every two different bodies which touch each other set up mutually in each other relative diminution and increase of cohesion. This mutual alteration of cohesion by means of the contact of two different bodies is electricity; the cohesion-diminishing factor +E is the potency of hydrogen,-E is the potency of oxygen. The totality of the dynamic process is represented only by the chemical process.”[428]
“By the positing of the dynamic totality the addition of light is directly posited as a product. The expression, the total product, therefore signifies light combined with the force of gravitation; by the positing of the relative totality of the whole potency, the force of gravity is directly reduced to the mere form of the Being of absolute identity.” Thus is the third potency (A³), the organism.[429] Schelling launched out into too many individual details, if he desired to indicate the construction of the whole universe. On the one hand, however, he did not complete this representation, and on the other hand, he has confined himself mainly to implicit existence, and has mixed therewith the formalism of external construction according to a presupposed scheme. In this representation he advanced only as far as the organism, and did not reach the presentation of the other side of knowledge, i.e. the philosophy of spirit. Schelling began time after time, in accordance with the idea implied in this construction, to work out the natural universe, and especially the organism. He banishes all such meaningless terms as perfection, wisdom, outward adaptability; or, in other words, the Kantian formula, that a thing appears so and so to our faculty of knowledge, is transformed by him into this other formula, that such and such is the constitution of Nature. Following up Kant’s meagre attempt at demonstrating spirit in nature, he devoted special attention to inaugurating anew this mode of regarding nature, so as to recognize in objective existence the same schematism, the same rhythm, as is present in the ideal. Hence nature represents itself therein not as something alien to spirit, but as being in its general aspect a projection of spirit into an objective mode.
We have further to remark that Schelling by this theory became the originator of modern Natural Philosophy, since he was the first to exhibit Nature as the sensuous perception or the expression of the Notion and its determinations. Natural Philosophy is no new science; we met with it continually—in the works of Aristotle, for instance, and elsewhere. English Philosophy is also a mere apprehension in thought of the physical; forces, laws of Nature, are its fundamental determinations. The opposition of physics and Natural Philosophy is therefore not the opposition of the unthinking and the thinking view of Nature; Natural Philosophy means, if we take it in its whole extent, nothing else than the thoughtful contemplation of Nature; but this is the work of ordinary physics also, since its determinations of forces, laws, &c., are thoughts. The only difference is that in physics thoughts are formal thoughts of the understanding, whose material and content cannot, as regards their details, be determined by thought itself, but must be taken from experience. But concrete thought contains its determination and its content in itself, and merely the external mode of appearance pertains to the senses. If, then, Philosophy passes beyond the form of the understanding, and has apprehended the speculative Notion, it must alter the determinations of thought, the categories of the understanding regarding Nature. Kant was the first to set about this; and Schelling has sought to grasp the Notion of Nature, instead of contenting himself with the ordinary metaphysics of the same. Nature is to him nothing but the external mode of existence as regards the system of thought-forms, just as mind is the existence of the same system in the form of consciousness. That for which we have to thank Schelling, therefore, is not that he brought thought to bear on the comprehension of Nature, but that he altered the categories according to which thought applied itself to Nature; he introduced forms of Reason, and applied them—as he did the form of the syllogism in magnetism, for instance—in place of the ordinary categories of the understanding. He has not only shown these forms in Nature, but has also sought to evolve Nature out of a principle of this kind.
In the “Further Exposition of the System of Philosophy” which the “New Journal for Speculative Physics” furnishes, Schelling chose other forms; for, by reason of incompletely developed form and lack of dialectic, he had recourse to various forms one after another, because he found none of them sufficient. Instead of the equilibrium of subjectivity and objectivity, he now speaks of the identity of existence and form, of universal and particular, of finite and infinite, of positive and negative, and he defines absolute indifference sometimes in one and sometimes in another form of opposition, just according to chance. All such oppositions may be employed; but they are only abstract, and refer to different stages in the development of the logical principle itself. Form and essence are distinguished by Schelling in this way, that form, regarded on its own account, is the particular, or the emerging of difference, subjectivity. But real existence is absolute form or absolute knowledge immediately in itself, a self-conscious existence in the sense of thinking knowledge, just as with Spinoza it had the form of something objective or in thought. Speculative Philosophy is to be found in this assertion, not that it asserts an independent philosophy, for it is purely organization; knowledge is based on the Absolute. Thus Schelling has again given to transcendental Idealism the significance of absolute Idealism. This unity of existence and form is thus, according to Schelling, the Absolute; or if we regard reality as the universal, and form as the particular, the Absolute is the absolute unity of universal and particular, or of Being and knowledge. The different aspects, subject and object, or universal and particular, are only ideal oppositions; they are in the Absolute entirely and altogether one. This unity as form is intellectual intuition, which posits Thinking and Being as absolutely alike, and as it formally expresses the Absolute, it becomes at the same time the expression of its essence. He who has not the power of imagination, whereby he may represent this unity to himself, is deficient in the organ of Philosophy. But in this consists the true absoluteness of all and each, that the one is not recognized as universal, and the other as particular, but the universal in this its determination is recognized as unity of the universal and particular, and in like manner the particular is recognized as the unity of both. Construction merely consists in leading back everything determined and particular into the Absolute, or regarding it as it is in absolute unity; its determinateness is only its ideal moment, but its truth is really its Being in the Absolute. These three moments or potencies—that of the passing of existence (the infinite) into form (the finite), and of form into existence (which are both relative unities), and the third, the absolute unity, thus recur anew in each individual. Hence Nature, the real or actual aspect, as the passing of existence into form or of the universal into the particular, itself again possesses these three unities in itself, and in the same way the ideal aspect does so; therefore each potency is on its own account once more absolute. This is the general idea of the scientific construction of the universe—to repeat in each individual alike the triplicity which is the scheme of the whole, thereby to show the identity of all things, and in doing so to regard them in their absolute essence, so that they all express the same unity.[430]
The more detailed explanation is extremely formal: “Existence passes into form—this taken by itself being the particular (the finite)—by means of the infinite being added to it; unity is received into multiplicity, indifference into difference.” The other assertion is: “Form passes into existence by the finite being received into the infinite, difference into indifference.” But passing into and receiving into are merely sensuous expressions. “Otherwise expressed, the particular becomes absolute form by the universal becoming one with it, and the universal becomes absolute existence by the particular becoming one with it. But these two unities, as in the Absolute, are not outside of one another, but in one another, and therefore the Absolute is absolute indifference of form and existence,” as unity of this double passing-into-one. “By means of these two unities two different potencies are determined, but in themselves they are both the exactly equal roots of the Absolute.”[431] That is a mere assertion, the continual return after each differentiation, which is perpetually again removed out of the Absolute.
“Of the first absolute transformation there are copies in phenomenal Nature; therefore Nature, regarded in itself, is nothing else than that first transformation as it exists in the absolute (unseparated from the other). For by means of the infinite passing into the finite, existence passes into form; since then form obtains reality only by means of existence, existence, when it has passed into form without form having (according to the assumption) similarly passed into existence, can be represented only as potentiality or ground of reality, but not as indifference of possibility and actuality. But that which may be described thus, namely as existence, in so far as that is mere ground of reality, and therefore has really passed into form, although form has not in turn passed into it, is what presents itself as Nature.—Existence makes its appearance in form, but in return form also makes its appearance in existence; this is the other unity,” that of mind. “This unity is established by the finite being received into the infinite. At this point form, as the particular, strikes into existence, and itself becomes absolute. Form which passes into existence places itself as absolute activity and positive cause of reality in opposition to the existence which passes into form, and which appears only as ground. The passing of absolute form into existence is what we think of as God, and the images or copies of this transformation are in the ideal world, which is therefore in its implicitude the other unity.”[432] Each of these two transformations, then, is the whole totality, not, however, posited and not appearing as totality, but with the one or the other factor preponderating; each of the two spheres has, therefore, in itself again these differences, and thus in each of them the three potencies are to be found.
The ground or basis, Nature as basis merely, is matter, gravity, as the first potency; this passing of form into existence is in the actual world universal mechanism, necessity. But the second potency is “the light which shineth in darkness, form which has passed into existence. The absolute unification of the two unities in actuality, so that matter is altogether form, and form is altogether matter, is organism, the highest expression of Nature as it is in God, and of God as He is in Nature, in the finite.” On the ideal side “Knowledge is the essence of the Absolute brought into the daylight of form; action is a transformation of form, as the particular, into the essence of the Absolute. As in the real world form that is identified with essence appears as light, so in the ideal world God Himself appears in particular manifestation as the living form which has emerged in the passing of form into essence, so that in every respect the ideal and real world are again related as likeness and symbol. The absolute unification of the two unities in the ideal, so that material is wholly form and form wholly material, is the work of art; and that secret hidden in the Absolute which is the root of all reality comes here into view, in the reflected world itself, in the highest potency and highest union of God and Nature as the power of imagination.” On account of that permeation art and poetry therefore hold the highest rank in Schelling’s estimation. But art is the Absolute in sensuous form alone. Where and what could the work of art be, which should correspond to the Idea of the spirit? “The universe is formed in the Absolute as the most perfect organic existence and the most perfect work of art: for Reason, which recognizes the Absolute in it, it possesses absolute truth; for the imagination, which represents the Absolute in it, it possesses absolute Beauty. Each of these expresses the very same unity,” regarded “from different sides; and both arrive at the absolute indifference point in the recognition of which lies both the beginning and the aim of real knowledge.”[433] This highest Idea, these differences, are grasped as a whole in a very formal manner only.
3. The relation of Nature to Spirit, and to God, the Absolute, has been stated by Schelling elsewhere, i.e. in his later expositions, as follows: he defines the existence of God as Nature—in so far as God constitutes Himself its ground or basis, as infinite perception—and Nature is thus the negative moment in God, since intelligence and thought exist only by means of the opposition of one Being. For in one of his writings, directed on some particular occasion against Jacobi, Schelling explains himself further with regard to the nature of God and His relation to Nature. He says: “God, or more properly the existence which is God, is ground: He is ground of Himself as a moral Being. But” then “it is ground that He makes Himself”—not cause. Something must precede intelligence, and that something is Being—“since thought is the exact opposite of Being. That which is the beginning of an intelligence cannot be in its turn intelligent, since there would otherwise be no distinction; but it cannot be absolutely unintelligent, for the very reason that it is the potentiality of an intelligence. It will accordingly be something between these, i.e. it will operate with wisdom, but as it were with an innate, instinctive, blind, and yet unconscious wisdom; just as we often hear those who are under a spell uttering words full of understanding, but not uttering them with comprehension of their meaning, but as it were owing to an inspiration.” God, therefore, as this ground of Himself, is Nature—Nature as it is in God; this is the view taken of Nature in Natural Philosophy.[434] But the work of the Absolute is to abrogate this ground, and to constitute itself Intelligence. On this account Schelling’s philosophy has later been termed a Philosophy of Nature, and that in the sense of a universal philosophy, while at first Natural Philosophy was held to be only a part of the whole.
It is not incumbent on us here to give a more detailed account of Schelling’s philosophy, or to show points in the expositions hitherto given by him which are far from satisfactory. The system is the latest form of Philosophy which we had to consider, and it is a form both interesting and true. In the first place special emphasis, in dealing with Schelling, must be laid on the idea that he has grasped the true as the concrete, as the unity of subjective and objective. The main point in Schelling’s philosophy thus is that its interest centres round that deep, speculative content, which, as content, is the content with which Philosophy in the entire course of its history has had to do. The Thought which is free and independent, not abstract, but in itself concrete, comprehends itself in itself as an intellectually actual world; and this is the truth of Nature, Nature in itself. The second great merit possessed by Schelling is to have pointed out in Nature the forms of Spirit; thus electricity, magnetism, &c., are for him only external modes of the Idea. His defect is that this Idea in general, its distinction into the ideal and the natural world, and also the totality of these determinations, are not shown forth and developed as necessitated in themselves by the Notion. As Schelling has not risen to this point of view, he has misconceived the nature of thought; the work of art thus becomes for him the supreme and only mode in which the Idea exists for spirit. But the supreme mode of the Idea is really its own element; thought, the Idea apprehended, is therefore higher than the work of art. The Idea is the truth, and all that is true is the Idea; the systematizing of the Idea into the world must be proved to be a necessary unveiling and revelation. With Schelling, on the other hand, form is really an external scheme, and his method is the artificial application of this scheme to external objects. This externally applied scheme takes the place of dialectic progress; and this is the special reason why the philosophy of Nature has brought itself into discredit, that it has proceeded on an altogether external plan, has made its foundation a ready-made scheme, and fitted into it Nature as we perceive it. These forms were potencies with Schelling, but instead of mathematical forms or a type of thought like this, by some other men sensuous forms have been taken as basis, just as were sulphur and mercury by Jacob Boehme. For instance, magnetism, electricity, and chemistry have been defined to be the three potencies in Nature, and thus in the organism reproduction has been termed chemistry; irritability, electricity; and sensibility, magnetism.[435] In this way there has crept into Natural Philosophy the great formalism of representing everything as a series, which is a superficial determination without necessity, since instead of Notions we find formulas. Brilliant powers of imagination are displayed, such as were exhibited by Görres. This mistake of applying forms which are taken from one sphere of Nature to another sphere of the same has been carried a long way; Oken, for example, calls wood-fibres the nerves and brain of the plant, and is almost crazy on the subject. Philosophy would in this way become a play of mere analogical reflections; and it is not with these but with thoughts that we have to do. Nerves are not thoughts, any more than such expressions as pole of contraction, of expansion, masculine, feminine, &c. The formal plan of applying an external scheme to the sphere of Nature which one wishes to observe, is the external work of Natural Philosophy, and this scheme is itself derived from the imagination. That is a most false mode of proceeding; Schelling took advantage of it to some extent, others have made a complete misuse of it. All this is done to escape thought; nevertheless, thought is the ultimate simple determination which has to be dealt with.
It is therefore of the greatest importance to distinguish Schelling’s philosophy, on the one hand, from that imitation of it which throws itself into an unspiritual farrago of words regarding the Absolute; and, on the other hand, from the philosophy of those imitators, who, owing to a failure to understand intellectual intuition, give up comprehension, and with it the leading moment of knowledge, and speak from so-called intuition, i.e. they take a glance at the thing in question, and having fastened on it some superficial analogy or definition, they fancy they have expressed its whole nature, while in point of fact they put an end to all capacity for attaining to scientific knowledge. This whole tendency places itself, in the first place, in opposition to reflective thought, or to progress in fixed, steadfast, immovable Notions. But instead of remaining in the Notion and recognizing it as the unresting ego, they have lighted on the opposite extreme of passive intuition, of immediate Being, of fixed implicitude; and they think that they can make up for the lack of fixity by superficial observation, and can render this observation intellectual by determining it once more by some fixed Notion or other; or they bring their minds to bear on the object of consideration by saying, for instance, that the ostrich is the fish among birds, because he has a long neck—fish becomes a general term, but not a Notion. This whole mode of reasoning, which has forced its way into natural history and natural science, as well as into medicine, is a miserable formalism, an irrational medley of the crudest empiricism with the most superficial ideal determinations that formalism ever descended to. The philosophy of Locke is not so crude as it is, for it is not a whit better in either its content or its form, and it is combined with foolish self-conceit into the bargain. Philosophy on this account sank into general and well-deserved contempt, such as is for the most part extended to those who assert that they have a monopoly of philosophy. Instead of earnestness of apprehension and circumspection of thought, we find in them a juggling with idle fancies, which pass for deep conceptions, lofty surmises, and even for poetry; and they think they are right in the centre of things when they are only on the surface. Five-and-twenty years ago[436] the case was the same with poetic art; a taste for ingenious conceits took possession of it, and the effusions of its poetic inspiration came forth blindly from itself, shot out as from a pistol. The results were either crazy ravings, or, if they were not ravings, they were prose so dull that it was unworthy of the name of prose. It is just the same in the later philosophies. What is not utterly senseless drivel about the indifference-point and polarity, about oxygen, the holy, the infinite, &c., is made up of thoughts so trivial that we might well doubt our having correctly apprehended their meaning, in the first place because they are given forth with such arrogant effrontery, and in the second place because we cannot help trusting that what was said was not so trivial as it seems. As in the Philosophy of Nature men forgot the Notion and proceeded in a dead unspiritual course, so here they lose sight of spirit entirely. They have strayed from the right road; for by their principle, Notion and perception are one unity, but in point of fact this unity, this spirit, itself emerges in immediacy, and is therefore in intuitive perception, and not in the Notion.
[E. Final Result.]
The present standpoint of philosophy is that the Idea is known in its necessity; the sides of its diremption, Nature and Spirit, are each of them recognized as representing the totality of the Idea, and not only as being in themselves identical, but as producing this one identity from themselves; and in this way the identity is recognized as necessary. Nature, and the world or history of spirit, are the two realities; what exists as actual Nature is an image of divine Reason; the forms of self-conscious Reason are also the forms of Nature. The ultimate aim and business of philosophy is to reconcile thought or the Notion with reality. It is easy from subordinate standpoints to find satisfaction in modes of intuitive perception and of feeling. But the deeper the spirit goes within itself, the more vehement is the opposition, the more abundant is the wealth without; the depth is to be measured by the greatness of the craving with which spirit seeks to find itself in what lies outside of itself. We saw the thought which apprehends itself appearing; it strove to make itself concrete within itself. Its first activity is formal; Aristotle was the first to say that νοῦς is the thought of thought. The result is the thought which is at home with itself, and at the same time embraces the universe therein, and transforms it into an intelligent world. In apprehension the spiritual and the natural universe are interpenetrated as one harmonious universe, which withdraws into itself, and in its various aspects develops the Absolute into a totality, in order, by the very process of so doing, to become conscious of itself in its unity, in Thought. Philosophy is thus the true theodicy, as contrasted with art and religion and the feelings which these call up—a reconciliation of spirit, namely of the spirit which has apprehended itself in its freedom and in the riches of its reality.
To this point the World-spirit has come, and each stage has its own form in the true system of Philosophy; nothing is lost, all principles are preserved, since Philosophy in its final aspect is the totality of forms. This concrete idea is the result of the strivings of spirit during almost twenty-five centuries of earnest work to become objective to itself, to know itself:
Tantæ molis erat, se ipsam cognoscere mentem.
All this time was required to produce the philosophy of our day; so tardily and slowly did the World-spirit work to reach this goal. What we pass in rapid review when we recall it, stretched itself out in reality to this great length of time. For in this lengthened period, the Notion of Spirit, invested with its entire concrete development, its external subsistence, its wealth, is striving to bring spirit to perfection, to make progress itself and to develop from spirit. It goes ever on and on, because spirit is progress alone. Spirit often seems to have forgotten and lost itself, but inwardly opposed to itself, it is inwardly working ever forward (as when Hamlet says of the ghost of his father, “Well said, old mole! canst work i’ the ground so fast?”[437]), until grown strong in itself it bursts asunder the crust of earth which divided it from the sun, its Notion, so that the earth crumbles away. At such a time, when the encircling crust, like a soulless decaying tenement, crumbles away, and spirit displays itself arrayed in new youth, the seven league boots are at length adopted. This work of the spirit to know itself, this activity to find itself, is the life of the spirit and the spirit itself. Its result is the Notion which it takes up of itself; the history of Philosophy is a revelation of what has been the aim of spirit throughout its history; it is therefore the world’s history in its innermost signification. This work of the human spirit in the recesses of thought is parallel with all the stages of reality; and therefore no philosophy oversteps its own time. The importance which the determinations of thought possessed is another matter, which does not belong to the history of Philosophy. These Notions are the simplest revelation of the World spirit: in their more concrete form they are history.
We must, therefore, in the first place not esteem lightly what spirit has won, namely its gains up to the present day. Ancient Philosophy is to be reverenced as necessary, and as a link in this sacred chain, but all the same nothing more than a link. The present is the highest stage reached. In the second place, all the various philosophies are no mere fashionable theories of the time, or anything of a similar nature; they are neither chance products nor the blaze of a fire of straw, nor casual eruptions here and there, but a spiritual, reasonable, forward advance; they are of necessity one Philosophy in its development, the revelation of God, as He knows Himself to be. Where several philosophies appear at the same time, they are different sides which make up one totality forming their basis; and on account of their one-sidedness we see the refutation of the one by the other. In the third place we do not find here feeble little efforts to establish or to criticize this or that particular point; instead of that, each philosophy sets up a new principle of its own, and this must be recognized.
If we glance at the main epochs in the whole history of Philosophy, and grasp the necessary succession of stages in the leading moments, each of which expresses a determinate Idea, we find that after the Oriental whirl of subjectivity, which attains to no intelligibility and therefore to no subsistence, the light of thought dawned among the Greeks.
1. The philosophy of the ancients had the absolute Idea as its thought; and the realization or reality of the same consisted in comprehending the existing present world, and regarding it as it is in its absolute nature. This philosophy did not make its starting-point the Idea itself, but proceeded from the objective as from something given, and transformed the same into the Idea; the Being of Parmenides.
2. Abstract thought, νοῦς, became known to itself as universal essence or existence, not as subjective thought; the Universal of Plato.
3. In Aristotle the Notion emerges, free and unconstrained, as comprehending thought, permeating and spiritualizing all the forms which the universe contains.
4. The Notion as subject, its independence, its inwardness, abstract separation, is represented by the Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics: here we have not the free, concrete form, but universality abstract and in itself formal.
5. The thought of totality, the intelligible world, is the concrete Idea as we have seen it with the Neo-Platonists. This principle is ideality generally speaking, which is present in all reality, but not the Idea which knows itself: this is not reached until the principle of subjectivity, individuality, found a place in it, and God as spirit became actual to Himself in self-consciousness.
6. But it has been the work of modern times to grasp this Idea as spirit, as the Idea that knows itself. In order to proceed from the conscious Idea to the self-conscious, we must have the infinite opposition, namely the fact that the Idea has come to the consciousness of being absolutely sundered in twain. As spirit had the thought of objective existence, Philosophy thus perfected the intellectuality of the world, and produced this spiritual world as an object existing beyond present reality, like Nature,—the first creation of spirit. The work of the spirit now consisted in bringing this Beyond back to reality, and guiding it into self-consciousness. This is accomplished by self-consciousness thinking itself, and recognizing absolute existence to be the self-consciousness that thinks itself. With Descartes pure thought directed itself on that separation which we spoke of above. Self-consciousness, in the first place, thinks of itself as consciousness; therein is contained all objective reality, and the positive, intuitive reference of its reality to the other side. With Spinoza Thought and Being are opposed and yet identical; he has the intuitive perception of substance, but the knowledge of substance in his case is external. We have here the principle of reconciliation taking its rise from thought as such, in order to abrogate the subjectivity of thought: this is the case in Leibnitz’s monad, which possesses the power of representation.
7. In the second place, self-consciousness thinks of itself as being self-consciousness; in being self-conscious it is independent, but still in this independence it has a negative relation to what is outside self-consciousness. This is infinite subjectivity, which appears at one time as the critique of thought in the case of Kant, and at another time, in the case of Fichte, as the tendency or impulse towards the concrete. Absolute, pure, infinite form is expressed as self-consciousness, the Ego.
8. This is a light that breaks forth on spiritual substance, and shows absolute content and absolute form to be identical;—substance is in itself identical with knowledge. Self-consciousness thus, in the third place, recognizes its positive relation as its negative, and its negative as its positive,—or, in other words, recognizes these opposite activities as the same, i.e. it recognizes pure Thought or Being as self-identity, and this again as separation. This is intellectual perception; but it is requisite in order that it should be in truth intellectual, that it should not be that merely immediate perception of the eternal and the divine which we hear of, but should be absolute knowledge. This intuitive perception which does not recognize itself is taken as starting-point as if it were absolutely presupposed; it has in itself intuitive perception only as immediate knowledge, and not as self-knowledge: or it knows nothing, and what it perceives it does not really know,—for, taken at its best, it consists of beautiful thoughts, but not knowledge.
But intellectual intuition is knowledge, since, in the first place, in spite of the separation of each of the opposed sides from the other, all external reality is known as internal. If it is known according to its essence, as it is, it shows itself as not existing of itself, but as essentially consisting in the movement of transition. This Heraclitean or Sceptical principle, that nothing is at rest, must be demonstrated of each individual thing; and thus in this consciousness—that the essence of each thing lies in determination, in what is the opposite of itself—there appears the apprehended unity with its opposite. Similarly this unity is, in the second place, to be recognized even in its essence; its essence as this identity is, in the same way, to pass over into its opposite, or to realize itself, to become for itself something different; and thus the opposition in it is brought about by itself. Again, it may be said of the opposition, in the third place, that it is not in the Absolute; this Absolute is existence, the eternal, &c. This is, however, itself an abstraction in which the Absolute is apprehended in a one-sided manner only, and the opposition is apprehended only as ideal (supra, p. 536); but in fact it is form, as the essential moment of the movement of the Absolute. This Absolute is not at rest, and that opposition is not the unresting Notion; for the Idea, unresting though it is, is yet at rest and satisfied in itself. Pure thought has advanced to the opposition of the subjective and objective; the true reconciliation of the opposition is the perception that this opposition, when pushed to its absolute extreme, resolves itself; as Schelling says, the opposites are in themselves identical—and not only in themselves, but eternal life consists in the very process of continually producing the opposition and continually reconciling it. To know opposition in unity, and unity in opposition—this is absolute knowledge; and science is the knowledge of this unity in its whole development by means of itself.
This is then the demand of all time and of Philosophy. A new epoch has arisen in the world. It would appear as if the World-spirit had at last succeeded in stripping off from itself all alien objective existence, and apprehending itself at last as absolute Spirit, in developing from itself what for it is objective, and keeping it within its own power, yet remaining at rest all the while. The strife of the finite self-consciousness with the absolute self-consciousness, which last seemed to the other to lie outside of itself, now comes to an end. Finite self-consciousness has ceased to be finite; and in this way absolute self-consciousness has, on the other hand, attained to the reality which it lacked before. This is the whole history of the world in general up to the present time, and the history of Philosophy in particular, the sole work of which is to depict this strife. Now, indeed, it seems to have reached its goal, when this absolute self-consciousness, which it had the work of representing, has ceased to be alien, and when spirit accordingly is realized as spirit. For it becomes such only as the result of its knowing itself to be absolute spirit, and this it knows in real scientific knowledge. Spirit produces itself as Nature, as the State; nature is its unconscious work, in the course of which it appears to itself something different, and not spirit; but in the State, in the deeds and life of History, as also of Art, it brings itself to pass with consciousness; it knows very various modes of its reality, yet they are only modes. In scientific knowledge alone it knows itself as absolute spirit; and this knowledge, or spirit, is its only true existence. This then is the standpoint of the present day, and the series of spiritual forms is with it for the present concluded.
At this point I bring this history of Philosophy to a close. It has been my desire that you should learn from it that the history of Philosophy is not a blind collection of fanciful ideas, nor a fortuitous progression. I have rather sought to show the necessary development of the successive philosophies from one another, so that the one of necessity presupposes another preceding it. The general result of the history of Philosophy is this: in the first place, that throughout all time there has been only one Philosophy, the contemporary differences of which constitute the necessary aspects of the one principle; in the second place, that the succession of philosophic systems is not due to chance, but represents the necessary succession of stages in the development of this science; in the third place, that the final philosophy of a period is the result of this development, and is truth in the highest form which the self-consciousness of spirit affords of itself. The latest philosophy contains therefore those which went before; it embraces in itself all the different stages thereof; it is the product and result of those that preceded it. We can now, for example, be Platonists no longer. Moreover we must raise ourselves once for all above the pettinesses of individual opinions, thoughts, objections, and difficulties; and also above our own vanity, as if our individual thoughts were of any particular value. For to apprehend the inward substantial spirit is the standpoint of the individual; as parts of the whole, individuals are like blind men, who are driven forward by the indwelling spirit of the whole. Our standpoint now is accordingly the knowledge of this Idea as spirit, as absolute Spirit, which in this way opposes to itself another spirit, the finite, the principle of which is to know absolute spirit, in order that absolute spirit may become existent for it. I have tried to develop and bring before your thoughts this series of successive spiritual forms pertaining to Philosophy in its progress, and to indicate the connection between them. This series is the true kingdom of spirits, the only kingdom of spirits that there is—it is a series which is not a multiplicity, nor does it even remain a series, if we understand thereby that one of its members merely follows on another; but in the very process of coming to the knowledge of itself it is transformed into the moments of the one Spirit, or the one self-present Spirit. This long procession of spirits is formed by the individual pulses which beat in its life; they are the organism of our substance, an absolutely necessary progression, which expresses nothing less than the nature of spirit itself, and which lives in us all. We have to give ear to its urgency—when the mole that is within forces its way on—and we have to make it a reality. It is my desire that this history of Philosophy should contain for you a summons to grasp the spirit of the time, which is present in us by nature, and—each in his own place—consciously to bring it from its natural condition, i.e. from its lifeless seclusion, into the light of day.
I have to express my thanks to you for the attention with which you have listened to me while I have been making this attempt; it is in great measure due to you that my efforts have met with so great a measure of success. And it has been a source of pleasure to myself to have been associated with you in this spiritual community; I ought not to speak of it as if it were a thing of the past, for I hope that a spiritual bond has been knit between us which will prove permanent. I bid you a most hearty farewell.
(The closing lecture of the series was given on the 22nd March, 1817; on the 14th March, 1818; on the 12th August, 1819; on the 23rd March, 1821; on the 30th March, 1824; on the 28th March, 1828; and on the 26th March, 1830.)