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.