I think this or that object! Now what does this mean, and how do I appear to myself in this Thinking? Not otherwise than thus: I produce certain conditions within myself, if the object is a mere invention; but if the objects are real and exist without my invention, I simply contemplate, as a spectator, the production of those conditions within me. They are within me only in so far as I contemplate them; my contemplation and their Being are inseparably united.
A Thing, on the contrary, is to be this or that; but as soon as the question is put: For whom is it this? Nobody, who but comprehends the word, will reply: For itself! But he will have to add the thought of an Intelligence, for which the Thing is to be; while, on the contrary, the Intelligence is self-sufficient and requires no additional thought. By thinking it as the Intelligence you include already that for which it is to be. Hence, there is in the Intelligence, to express myself figuratively, a twofold—Being and Seeing, the Real and the Ideal; and in the inseparability of this twofold the nature of the Intelligence consists, while the Thing is simply a unit—the Real. Hence Intelligence and Thing are directly opposed to each other; they move in two worlds, between which there is no bridge.
The nature of the Intelligence and its particular determinations Dogmatism endeavors to explain by the principle of Causality; the Intelligence is to be a production, the second link in a series.
But the principle of causality applies to a real series, and not to a double one. The power of the cause goes over into an Other opposed to it, and produces therein a Being, and nothing further; a Being for a possible outside Intelligence, but not for the thing itself. You may give this Other even a mechanical power, and it will transfer the received impression to the next link, and thus the movement proceeding from the first may be transferred through as long a series as you choose to make; but nowhere will you find a link which reacts back upon itself. Or give the Other the highest quality which you can give a thing—Sensibility—whereby it will follow the laws of its own inner nature, and not the law given to it by the cause—and it will, to be sure, react upon the outward cause; but it will, nevertheless, remain a mere simple Being, a Being for a possible intelligence outside of it. The Intelligence you will not get, unless you add it in thinking as the primary and absolute, the connection of which, with this your independent Being, you will find it very difficult to explain.
The series is and remains a simple one; and you have not at all explained what was to be explained. You were to prove the connection between Being and Representation; but this you do not, nor can you do it; for your principle contains merely the ground of a Being, and not of a Representation, totally opposed to Being. You take an immense leap into a world, totally removed from your principle. This leap they seek to hide in various ways. Rigorously—and this is the course of consistent dogmatism, which thus becomes materialism;—the soul is to them no Thing at all, and indeed nothing at all, but merely a production, the result of the reciprocal action of Things amongst themselves. But this reciprocal action produces merely a change in the Things, and by no means anything apart from the Things, unless you add an observing intelligence. The similes which they adduce to make their system comprehensible, for instance, that of the harmony resulting from sounds of different instruments, make its irrationality only more apparent. For the harmony is not in the instruments, but merely in the mind of the hearer, who combines within himself the manifold into One; and unless you have such a hearer there is no harmony at all.
But who can prevent Dogmatism from assuming the Soul as one of the Things, per se? The soul would thus belong to what it has postulated for the solution of its problem, and, indeed, would thereby be made the category of cause and effect applicable to the Soul and the Things—materialism only permitting a reciprocal action of the Things amongst themselves—and thoughts might now be produced. To make the Unthinkable thinkable, Dogmatism has, indeed, attempted to presuppose Thing or the Soul, or both, in such a manner, that the effect of the Thing was to produce a representation. The Thing, as influencing the Soul, is to be such, as to make its influences representations; God, for instance, in Berkley’s system, was such a thing. (His system is dogmatic, not idealistic.) But this does not better matters; we understand only mechanical effects, and it is impossible for us to understand any other kind of effects. Hence, that presupposition contains merely words, but there is no sense in it. Or the soul is to be of such a nature that every effect upon the Soul turns into a representation. But this also we find it impossible to understand.
In this manner Dogmatism proceeds everywhere, whatever phase it may assume. In the immense gulf, which in that system remains always open between Things and Representations, it places a few empty words instead of an explanation, which words may certainly be committed to memory, but in saying which nobody has ever yet thought, nor ever will think, anything. For whenever one attempts to think the manner in which is accomplished what Dogmatism asserts to be accomplished, the whole idea vanishes into empty foam. Hence Dogmatism can only repeat its principle, and repeat it in different forms; can only assert and re-assert the same thing; but it cannot proceed from what it asserts to what is to be explained, nor ever deduce the one from the other. But in this deduction Philosophy consists. Hence Dogmatism, even when viewed from a speculative stand-point, is no Philosophy at all, but merely an impotent assertion. Idealism is the only possible remaining Philosophy. What we have here said can meet with no objection; but it may well meet with incapability of understanding it. That all influences are of a mechanical nature, and that no mechanism can produce a representation, nobody will deny, who but understands the words. But this is the very difficulty. It requires a certain degree of independence and freedom of spirit to comprehend the nature of the intelligence, which we have described, and upon which our whole refutation of Dogmatism is founded. Many persons have not advanced further with their Thinking than to comprehend the simple chain of natural mechanism, and very naturally, therefore, the Representation, if they choose to think it at all, belongs, in their eyes, to the same chain of which alone they have any knowledge. The Representation thus becomes to them a sort of Thing of which we have divers examples in some of the most celebrated philosophical writers. For such persons Dogmatism is sufficient: for them there is no gulf, since the opposite does not exist for them at all. Hence you cannot convince the Dogmatist by the proof just stated, however clear it may be, for you cannot bring the proof to his knowledge, since he lacks the power to comprehend it.
Moreover, the manner in which Dogmatism is treated here, is opposed to the mild way of thinking which characterizes our age, and which, though it has been extensively accepted in all ages, has never been converted to an express principle except in ours; i. e. that philosophers must not be so strict in their logic; in philosophy one should not be so particular as, for instance, in Mathematics. If persons of this mode of thinking see but a few links of the chain and the rule, according to which conclusions are drawn, they at once fill up the remaining part through their imagination, never investigating further of what they may consist. If, for instance, an Alexander Von Ioch tells them: “All things are determined by natural necessity; now our representations depend upon the condition of Things, and our will depends upon our representations: hence all our will is determined by natural necessity, and our opinion of a free will is mere deception!”—then these people think it mightily comprehensible and clear, although there is no sense in it; and they go away convinced and satisfied at the stringency of this his demonstration.
I must call to mind, that the Science of Knowledge does not proceed from this mild way of thinking, nor calculate upon it. If only a single link in the long chain it has to draw does not fit closely to the following, this Science does not pretend to have established anything.
VII. Idealism, as we have said above, explains the determinations of consciousness from the activity of the Intelligence, which, in its view, is only active and absolute, not passive; since it is postulated as the first and highest, preceded by nothing, which might explain its passivity. From the same reason actual Existence cannot well be ascribed to the Intelligence, since such Existence is the result of reciprocal causality, but there is nothing wherewith the Intelligence might be placed in reciprocal causality. From the view of Idealism, the Intelligence is a Doing, and absolutely nothing else; it is even wrong to call it an Active, since this expression points to something existing, in which the activity is inherent.