But to enter into details here would be out of place. According to this Rational Psychology, the soul was originally and in its essence a perceiving substance, and only as a consequence thereof did it become possessed of volition. According as it carried on these two modes of its activity, Perception and Volition, conjoined with the body, or incorporeal, and entirely per se, so it was endowed with a lower or higher faculty of perception, and of volition in like kind. In its higher faculty the immaterial soul was active solely by itself, and without co-operation of the body. In this case it was intellectus purus, being composed of concepts, belonging exclusively to itself, and of the corresponding acts of will, both of which were absolutely spiritual, and had nothing sensuous about them—the sensuous being derived from the body.[20] So that it perceived nothing else but pure Abstracts, Universals, innate conceptions, aeternae veritates, etc.; wherefore also its volition was entirely controlled by purely spiritual ideas like these. On the other hand, the soul's lower faculty of Perception and Volition was the result of its working in concert and close union with the various organs of the body, whereby a prejudicial effect was produced on its an mixed spiritual activity. Here, i.e., to this lower faculty, was supposed to belong every intuitive perception, which consequently would have to be obscure and confused, while the abstract, formed by separating from objects their qualities, would be clear! The will, which was determined by preceptions thus sensuously conditioned, formed the lower Volition, and it was for the most part bad; for its acts were guided by the impulse of the senses; while the other will (the higher) was untrammelled, was guided by Pure Reason, and appertained only to the immaterial soul. This doctrine of the Cartesians has been best expounded by De la Forge, in his Tractatus de Mente Humana, where in chap. 23 we read:[21] Non nisi eadem voluntas est, quae appellatur appetitus sensitivus, quando excitatur per judicia, quae formantur consequenter ad perceptiones sensuum; et quae appetitus rationalis nominatur, cum mens judicia format de propriis suis ideis, independenter a cogitationibus sensuum confusis, quae inclinationum ejus sunt causae.... Id, quod occasionem dedit, ut duae istae diversae voluntatis propensiones pro duobus diversis appetitibus sumerentur, est, quod saepissime unus alteri opponatur, quia propositum, quod mens superaedificat propriis suis perceptionibus, non semper consentit cum cogitationibus, quae menti a corporis dispositione suggeruntur, per quam saepe obligatur ad aliquid volendum, dum ratio ejus earn aliud optare facit.
Out of the dim reminiscence of such views there finally arose Kant's doctrine of the Autonomy of the Will, which, as the mouth-piece of Pure, Practical Reason, lays down the law for all rational beings as such, and recognises nothing but formal motives, as opposed to material; the latter determining only the lower faculty of desires, to which the higher is hostile. For the rest, this whole theory, which was not really systematically set forth till the time of Descartes, is nevertheless to be found as far back as Aristotle. In his De Anima I. 1, it is sufficiently clearly stated; while Plato in the Phaedo (pp. 188 and 189, edit. Bipont.) had already paved the way, with no uncertain hints. After being elaborated to great perfection by the Cartesian doctrine, we find it a hundred years later waxed bold and strong, and occupying the foremost place; but precisely for this reason forced to reveal its true nature. An excellent résumé of the view which then prevailed is presented in Muratori's Della Forza della Fantasia, chaps. 1-4 and 13. In this work the imagination is regarded as a purely material, corporeal organ of the brain (the lower faculty of perception), its function being to intuitively apprehend the external world on the data of the senses; and nought remains for the immaterial soul but thinking, reflecting, and determining. It must have been felt how obviously this position involves the whole subject in doubt. For if Matter is capable of the intuitive apprehension of the world in all its complexity, it is inconceivable that it should not also be capable of abstracting this intuition; wherefrom everything else would follow. Abstraction is of course nothing else than an elimination of the qualities attaching to things which are not necessary for general purposes, in other words, the individual and special differences. For instance, if I disregard, or abstract, that which is peculiar to the sheep, ox, stag, camel, etc., I reach the conception of ruminants. By this operation the ideas lose their intuitiveness, and as merely abstract, non-intuitive notions or concepts, they require words to fix them in the consciousness, and allow of their being adequately handled. All this shows that Kant was still under the influence of the after-effect of that old-time doctrine, when he propounded his Practical Reason with its Imperatives.
[1] These epigrams form the close of Schiller's poem "Die Philosophen," which is worth reading in this connection—(Translator.)
[2] More correctly, Huitzilopochtli: a Mexican deity.
[3] Or "shall," as in the "thou shall," of the Decalogue —(Translator.)
[4] "Des Pudels Kern"; V. Goethe's Faust, Part I. Studirzimmer. Schopenhauer means that his analysis has forced the real meaning out of Kant's language, just as Faust by his exorcism compels Mephistopheles, who was in the form of a poodle, to resume his true form.—(Translator.)
[5] ὅ,τι: i.e., the "what" a thing is; its principle, or essence.—(Translator.)
[6] διότι: i.e., the "wherefore" of a thing; its raison d'être, its underlying cause.—(Translator.)
[7] Schopenhauer was doubtless thinking of the famous myth in Plato's Symposium Chap. 23 (Teubner's edition, Leipzig, 1875), where Eros is represented as the offspring of Πόρος and Πενία, who on the birthday of Aphrodite were united in the garden of Zeus.—(Translator.)