Paradiso, iv. 1.[260]
PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY.
No part of my doctrine could I have less hoped to see corroborated by empirical science than that, in which the fundamental truth, that Kant's thing in itself (Ding an sich) is the Will, is applied by me even to inorganic Nature, and in which I show the active principle in all fundamental forces of Nature to be absolutely identical with what is known to us within ourselves as the Will.—It has therefore been particularly gratifying to me to have found that an eminent empiricist, yielding to the force of truth, had gone so far as to express this paradox in the exposition of his scientific doctrine. I allude to Sir John Herschel and to his "Treatise on Astronomy," the first edition of which appeared in 1833, and a second enlarged one in 1849, under the title "Outlines of Astronomy." Herschel,—who, as an astronomer, was acquainted with gravity, not only in the one-sided and really coarse part which it acts on earth, but also in the nobler one performed by it in universal Space, where the celestial bodies play with each other, betray mutual inclination, exchange as it were amorous glances, yet never allow themselves to come into rude contact, and thus continue dancing their dignified minuet to the music of the spheres, while they keep at a respectful distance from one another—when he comes to the statement of the law of gravitation in the seventh chapter,[261] expresses himself as follows:—
"All bodies with which we are acquainted, when raised into the air and quietly abandoned, descend to the earth's surface in lines perpendicular to it. They are therefore urged thereto by a force or effort, the direct or indirect result of a consciousness and a will existing somewhere, though beyond our power to trace, which force we term gravity."[262]
The writer who reviewed Herschel's book in the October number of the "Edinburgh Review" of 1833, anxious, as a true Englishman, before all things to prevent the Mosaic record[263] from being imperilled, takes great umbrage at this passage, rightly observing that it cannot refer to the will of God Almighty, who has called Matter and all its properties into being; he utterly refuses to recognise the validity of the proposition itself, and denies that it follows consistently from the preceding § upon which Herschel wishes to found it. My opinion is, that it undoubtedly would logically follow from that § (because the contents of a conception are determined by its origin), but that the antecedent itself is false. It asserts namely, that the origin of the conception of causality is experience, more especially such experience as we ourselves make in acting by means of our own efforts upon bodies belonging to the outer world. It is only in countries like England, where the light of Kantian philosophy has not yet begun to dawn, that the conception of causality can be thought of as originating in experience (professors of philosophy who pooh-pooh Kant's doctrines and think me beneath their notice being left out of the question); least of all can it be thought of by those who are acquainted with my proof of the à priority of that conception, which differs completely from Kant's proof and rests upon the fact, that knowledge of causality must necessarily precede all perception of the outer world itself as its condition; since perception is only brought about through the transition—effected by the understanding—from the sensation in the organ of sense to its cause, which cause now presents itself as an object in Space, itself likewise an à priori intuition. Now, as the perception of objects must be anterior to our conscious action upon them, the experience of that conscious action cannot be the origin of the conception of causality; for, before I can act upon things, they must first have acted upon me as motives. I have entered fully into all that has to do with this in my chief work,[264] and in the second edition of my treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, § 21,[265] where the assumption adopted by Herschel finds special refutation; it is therefore useless to enter into it once more here. But it would be even quite possible to refute this assumption empirically, since it would necessarily follow from it, that a man who came into the world without arms or legs, could never attain any knowledge of causality or perception of the outer world. Now Nature has effectually disproved this by a case, of which I have reproduced the account from its original source in the above-mentioned chapter of my chief work, p. 40.[266]—In this assertion of Herschel's therefore, we have another instance of a right conclusion drawn from wrong premisses. Now this always happens when we have obtained immediate insight into a truth by a right aperçu but are at a loss to find out and clearly define our reasons for knowing it, owing to our inability to bring them to clear consciousness. For, in all original insight, conviction exists before proof: the proof being invariably excogitated afterwards.
The immediate manifestation of gravity is more evident in each part of liquid, than of solid, matter, owing to the perfect freedom of motion of the parts among each other. In order therefore to penetrate into this aperçu, which is the true source of Herschel's assertion, let us look attentively at a torrent dashing headlong over rocks and ask ourselves whether so determined an impetus, so boisterous a vehemence, can arise without an exertion of strength, and whether an exertion of strength is conceivable without will. And so it is precisely in every case in which we become aware of anything moving spontaneously, of any primary, uncommunicated force: we are constrained to think its innermost essence as will.—This much at any rate is certain, that Herschel, like all the empiricists in so many different branches of science whose evidence I have quoted above, had arrived here at the limit where nothing more is left behind the Physical but the Metaphysical; that this had brought him to a standstill, and that he, as well as the rest of them, was unable to find anything beyond that limit, but the will.
Herschel moreover, like most of these empiricists, is here still hampered by the opinion that will is inseparable from consciousness. As I have expatiated enough above upon this fallacy, and its correction through my doctrine, it is needless for me to enter into it here again.
The attempt has repeatedly been made, since the beginning of this century, to ascribe vitality to the inorganic world. Quite wrongly: for living and inorganic are convertible conceptions, and with death the organic ceases to be organic. But no limit in the whole of Nature is so sharply drawn as the line which separates the organic from the inorganic: that is to say, the line between the region in which Form is the essential and permanent, Matter the accidental and changing,—and the region in which this relation is entirely reversed. This is no vacillating boundary like that perhaps between animals and plants, between solid and liquid, between gas and steam: to endeavour to destroy it therefore, is intentionally to bring confusion into our ideas. On the other hand, I am the first who has asserted that a will must be attributed to all that is lifeless and inorganic. For, with me, the will is not, as has hitherto been assumed, an accident of cognition and therefore of life: but life itself is manifestation of will. Knowledge, on the contrary, is really an accident of life, and life of Matter. But Matter itself is only the perceptibility of the phenomena of the will. Therefore we are compelled to recognise volition in every effort or tendency which proceeds from the nature of a material body, and properly speaking constitutes that nature, or manifests itself as phenomenon by means of that nature; and there can consequently be no Matter without manifestation of will. The lowest and on that account most universal manifestation of will is gravity, wherefore it has been called a primary and essential property of Matter.
The usual view of Nature assumes two fundamentally different principles of motion, therefore it supposes that the movement of a body may have two different origins: i.e., that it proceeds either from the inside, in which case it is attributed to the will; or from the outside, and then it is occasioned by causes. This principle is generally taken for granted as a matter of course and only occasionally brought explicitly into prominence; nevertheless, in order to make the case quite certain, I will point out a few passages from the earliest to the latest authors in which it is specially stated. In Phædrus,[267] Plato makes the distinction between that which moves spontaneously from inside (soul) and that which receives movement only from outside (body)—τὸ ὑφ' ἑαυτοῦ κινούμενον καὶ τό, ᾧ ἔξωθεν τὸ κινεῖσθαι.[268]—Aristotle establishes the principle in precisely the same way: ἅπαν τὸ φερόμενον ἢ ὑφ' ἑαυτοῦ κινεῖται, ἢ ὐπ' ἄλλου (quidquid fertur a se movetur, aut ab alio).[269] He returns to the subject in the next Book, chap. 4 and 5, and connects it with some explanatory details which lead him into considerable perplexity, on account precisely of the fallacy of the antithesis.[270]—In more recent times again J. J. Rousseau brings forward the same antithesis with great naïveté and candour in his famous "Profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard:"[271] "J'aperçois dans les corps deux sortes de mouvement, savoir: mouvement communiqué et mouvement spontané ou volontaire: dans le premier la cause motrice est étrangère au corps mû; et dans le second elle est en lui-même."—But even in our time and in the stilted, puffed-up style which is peculiar to it, Burdach holds forth as follows:[272] "The cause that determines a movement lies either inside or outside of that which moves. Matter is external existence; it has powers of motion, but it only brings them into play under certain spacial conditions and external oppositions: the soul alone is an ever active and internal thing, and only those bodies which have souls find within themselves inducement to move, and move of their own free will, independently of outer mechanical circumstances."