Such an activity can be no other than the æsthetic, and every work of art can be conceived only as the product of such. The ideal work of art and the real world of objects are therefore products of one and the same activity; the meeting of the two (the conscious and the unconscious) without consciousness, gives the real—with consciousness, the æsthetic world.
The objective world is only the primal, still unconscious, poetry of the mind; the universal organum of philosophy, the key-stone of its whole arch, is the philosophy of art.
IV.—ORGAN OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
1. The only immediate object of transcendental consideration is the subjective (II.); the only organ for philosophizing in this manner is the inner sense, and its object is such that, unlike that of mathematics, it can never become the object of external intuition. The object of mathematics, to be sure, exists as little outside of knowledge, as that of philosophy. The whole existence of mathematics rests on intuition; it exists, therefore, only in intuition; and this intuition itself is an external one. In addition to this, the mathematician never has to deal immediately with the intuition—the construction itself—but only with the thing constructed, which, of course, can be exhibited outwardly; whereas the philosopher looks only at the act of construction itself, which is purely an internal one.
2. Moreover, the objects of the transcendental philosopher have no existence, except in so far as they are freely produced. Nothing can compel to this production, any more than the external describing of a figure can compel one to regard it internally. Just as the existence of a mathematical figure rests on the outer sense, so the whole reality of a philosophical idea rests upon the inner sense. The whole object of this philosophy is no other than the action of Intelligence according to fixed laws. This action can be conceived only by means of a peculiar, direct, inner intuition, and this again is possible only by production. But this is not enough. In philosophizing, one is not only the object considered, but always at the same time the subject considering. To the understanding of philosophy, therefore, there are two conditions indispensable: first, that the philosopher shall be engaged in a continuous internal activity, in a continuous production of those primal actions of the intelligence; second, that he shall be engaged in continuous reflection upon the productive action;—in a word, that he shall be at once the contemplated (producing) and the contemplating.
3. By this continuous duplicity of production and intuition, that must become an object which is otherwise reflected by nothing. It cannot be shown here, but will be shown in the sequel, that this becoming-reflected on the part of the absolutely unconscious and non-objective, is possible only by an æsthetic act of the imagination. Meanwhile, so much is plain from what has already been proved, that all philosophy is productive. Philosophy, therefore, no less than art, rests upon the productive faculty, and the difference between the two, upon the different direction of the productive power. For whereas production in art is directed outward, in order to reflect the unconscious by products, philosophical production is directed immediately inward, in order to reflect it in intellectual intuition. The real sense by which this kind of philosophy must be grasped, is therefore the æsthetic sense, and hence it is that the philosophy of art is the true organum of philosophy (III.)
Out of the vulgar reality there are only two means of exit—poetry, which transports us into an ideal world, and philosophy, which makes the real world vanish before us. It is not plain why the sense for philosophy should be more generally diffused than that for poetry, especially among that class of men, who, whether by memory-work (nothing destroys more directly the productive) or by dead speculation (ruinous to all imaginative power), have completely lost the æsthetic organ.
4. It is unnecessary to occupy time with common-places about the sense of truth, and about utter unconcern in regard to results, although it might be asked, what other conviction can yet be sacred to him who lays hands upon the most certain of all—that there are things outside of us? We may rather take one glance more at the so-called claims of the common understanding.
The common understanding in matters of philosophy has no claims whatsoever, except those which every object of examination has, viz., to be completely explained.
It is not, therefore, any part of our business to prove that what it considers true, is true, but only to exhibit the unavoidable character of its illusions. This implies that the objective world belongs only to the necessary limitations which render self-consciousness (which is I) possible; it is enough for the common understanding, if from this view again the necessity of its view is derived.