CHAPTER II

TRANSITION PERIOD

The decadence which we find in thought until the philosophy of Kant is

reached, is manifested in what was at this time advocated in opposition

to the metaphysic of the understanding, and which may be called a general

popular philosophy, a reflecting empiricism, which to a greater or less

extent becomes itself a metaphysic; just as, on the other hand, that

metaphysic, in as far as it extended to particular sciences, becomes

empiricism. As against these metaphysical contradictions, as against the

artificialities of the metaphysical synthesis, as against the assistance

of God, the pre-established harmony, the best possible world, &c., as

against this merely artificial understanding, we now find that fixed

principles, immanent in mind, have been asserted or maintained respecting

what is felt, intuitively perceived and honoured in the cultured human

breast. And in distinction to the assertion that we only find the

solution in the Beyond, in God, these concrete principles of a fixed

and permanent content form a reconciliation here and now, they adopt a

position of independence, and assume an intellectual standing-ground

which they find in what has generally been termed the healthy human

understanding. Such determinations may indeed be found to be perfectly

good and valid if the feelings, intuitions, heart and understanding of

man be morally and intellectually fashioned; for in that case better

and more noble feelings and desires may rule in men and a more universal

content may be expressed in these principles. But when men make what we

call sound reason—that which is by nature implanted in man’s breast—into

the content and the principle, the healthy human understanding discovers

itself to be identical with a feeling and knowledge belonging to nature.

The Indians who worship a cow, and who expose or slay new-born children,

and commit all sorts of barbarous deeds, the Egyptians who pray to a

bird, the apis, &c., and the Turks as well, all possess a healthy human

understanding similar in nature. But the healthy human understanding

and the natural feeling of rude and barbarous Turks, when taken as a

standard, result in shocking principles. When we speak of healthy human

understanding, however, of natural feelings, we always have before our

eyes a cultured mind; and those who make the healthy human reason, the

natural knowledge, the immediate feelings and inspirations found in

themselves, into a rule and standard, do not know that when religion,

morality, and rectitude are discovered to be present in the human breast,

this is due to culture and education, which are the first to make

such principles into natural feelings. Here natural feelings and the

healthy human understanding are thus made the principle; and much may be

recognized as coming under these heads. This then is the form taken by

Philosophy in the eighteenth century. Taken as a whole, three points of

view have to be considered; in the first place, Hume must be regarded on

his own account, then the Scottish, and, thirdly, the French philosophy.

Hume is a sceptic; the Scottish philosophy opposes the scepticism of

Hume, the French philosophy has in the “enlightenment” of Germany (by

which expression is indicated that form of German philosophy which is

not Wolffian metaphysics) an appendage of a feebler form. Since from the

metaphysical God we can make no further progress in the concrete, Locke

grounds his content on experience. But that empiricism leads thought to

no fixed standpoint, Hume demonstrates by denying every universal; the

Scottish philosophers, on the contrary, undoubtedly maintain universal

propositions and truths, but not through thought. Hence in empiricism

itself the fixed standpoint has now to be adopted; thus the French find

the universal in the actuality which they call _réalité_. They do not,

however, find its content in and from thought, but as living substance,

as nature and matter. All this is a further working out of reflecting

empiricism, and some more details respecting it must still be given.

A. IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM.

Thought generally is simple, universal self-identity, but in the form

of negative movement, whereby the determinate abrogates itself. This

movement of Being-for-self is now an essential moment of thought,

while hitherto it was outside it; and thus grasping itself as movement

in itself, thought is self-consciousness—at first indeed formal, as

individual self-consciousness. Such a form it has in scepticism, but

this distinction marks it off from the older scepticism, that now the

certainty of reality is made the starting point. With the ancients, on

the contrary, scepticism is the return into individual consciousness in

such a way that to it this consciousness is not the truth, in other words

that scepticism does not give expression to the results arrived at, and

attains no positive significance. But since in the modern world this

absolute substantiality, this unity of implicitude and self-consciousness

is fundamental—that is, this faith in reality generally—scepticism has

here the form of idealism, _i.e._ of expressing self-consciousness or

certainty of self as all reality and truth. The crudest form of this

idealism is when self-consciousness, as individual or formal, does not

proceed further than to say: All objects are our conceptions. We find

this subjective idealism in Berkeley,[279] and another form of the same

in Hume.

1. BERKELEY.

This idealism, in which all external reality disappears, has before it

the standpoint of Locke, and it proceeds directly from him. For we saw

that to Locke the source of truth is experience, or Being as perceived.

Now since this sensuous Being, as Being, has in it the quality of being

for consciousness, we saw that it necessarily came to pass that in

Locke’s case some qualities, at least, were so determined that they were

not in themselves, but only for another; and that colour, figure, &c.,

had their ground only in the subject, in his particular organization.

This Being-for-another, however, was not by him accepted as the Notion,

but as falling within self-consciousness—i.e. self-consciousness not

looked on as universal,—not within mind, but within what is opposed to

the implicit.

George Berkeley was born in 1684 at Kilcrin, near Thomastown, in the

county of Kilkenny, Ireland: in 1754 he died as an English Bishop.[280]

He wrote the “Theory of Vision,” 1709; “A Treatise concerning the

principles of human knowledge,” 1710; “Three Dialogues between Hylas and

Philonous,” 1713. In 1784 his collected works were published in London in

two quarto volumes.

Berkeley advocated an idealism which came very near to that of

Malebranche. As against the metaphysic of the understanding, we have

the point of view that all existence and its determinations arise from

feeling, and are constituted by self-consciousness. Berkeley’s first

and fundamental thought is consequently this: “The Being of whatever is

called by us a thing consists alone in its being perceived,” _i.e._ our

determinations are the objects of our knowledge. “All objects of human

knowledge are ideas” (so called by Berkeley as by Locke), “which arise

either from the impressions of the outward senses, or from perceptions

of the inward states and activities of the mind, or finally, they are

such as are constituted by means of memory and imagination through their

separation and rearrangement. A union of different sensuous feelings

appears to us to be a particular thing, _e.g._ the feeling of colour,

taste, smell, figure, &c.; for by colours, smells, sounds, something of

which we have a sensation is always understood.”[281] This is the matter

and the object of knowledge; the knower is the percipient “I,” which

reveals itself in relation to those feelings in various activities, such

as imagination, remembrance, and will.

Berkeley thus indeed acknowledges the distinction between Being-for-self

and Other-Being, which in his case, however, itself falls within the

“I.” Of the matter on which activity is directed, it is no doubt in

regard to one portion allowed that it does not exist outside of mind—that

is to say, so far as our thoughts, inward feelings and states, or the

operations of our imaginary powers are concerned. But in like manner the

manifold sensuous conceptions and feelings can only exist in a mind.

Locke certainly distinguished extension and movement, for example, as

fundamental qualities, _i.e._ as qualities which pertain to the objects

in themselves. But Berkeley very pertinently points out inconsistency

here from the point of view that great and small, quick and slow, hold

good as something relative; thus were extension and movement to be

inherent or implicit, they could not be either large or small, quick or

slow; that is, they could not be, for these determinations rest in the

conception[282] of such qualities. In Berkeley the relation of things

to consciousness is alone dealt with, and beyond this relationship

they do not in his view come. From this it follows that it is only

self-consciousness that possesses them; for a perception which is not in

a conceiving mind is nothing: it is a direct contradiction. There can

be no substance, he says, which neither conceives nor perceives, and

which is yet the substratum of perceptions and conceptions. If it is

represented that there is something outside of consciousness which is

similar to the conceptions, this is likewise contradictory; a conception

can alone be similar to a conception, the idea to the idea alone.[283]

Thus, while Locke’s ultimate point is abstract substance, Being generally

with the real determination of a substratum of accidents, Berkeley

declares this substance to be the most incomprehensible assumption

of all; but the incomprehensibility does not make this Being into an

absolute nullity, nor does it make it in itself incomprehensible.[284]

For Berkeley brings forward against the present existence of external

objects only the inconceivability of the relation of a Being to mind.

This inconceivability, however, is destroyed in the Notion, for the

Notion is the negative of things; and this moved Berkeley and Leibnitz

to shut up the two sides in themselves. There nevertheless remains a

relationship of what is “other” to us; these feelings do not develop from

us as Leibnitz represents, but are determined through somewhat else.

When Leibnitz speaks of development within the monads, it is nothing but

empty talk; for the monads as they follow in succession have no inward

connection. Each individual is thus determined through another, and

not through us; and it does not matter what this external is, since it

remains a contingent. Now in relation to the two sides of Leibnitz which

are indifferent to one another, Berkeley says that such an “other” is

quite superfluous. Berkeley calls the other the objects; but these, he

says, cannot be what we call matter, for spirit and matter cannot come

together.[285] But the necessity of conceptions directly contradicts

this Being-within-self of the conceiver; for the Being-within-self is

the freedom of the conceiver; the latter does not, however, produce the

conceptions with freedom; they have for him the form and determinateness

of an independent “other.” Berkeley likewise does not accept idealism

in the subjective sense, but only in respect that there are spirits

which impart themselves (in the other case the subject forms his own

conceptions), and consequently that it is God alone who brings to

pass such conceptions; thus the imaginations or conceptions which are

produced by us with our individual activity remain separate from these

others,[286] _i.e._ from the implicit.

This conception gives an instance of the difficulties which appear in

regard to these questions, and which Berkeley wished to escape from in

a quite original way. The inconsistency in this system God has again

to make good; He has to bear it all away; to Him the solution of the

contradiction is left. In this idealism, in short, the common sensuous

view of the universe and the separation of actuality, as also the system

of thought, of judgments devoid of Notion, remain exactly as before;

plainly nothing in the content is altered but the abstract form that all

things are perceptions only.[287] Such idealism deals with the opposition

between consciousness and its object merely, and leaves the extension

of the conceptions and the antagonisms of the empirical and manifold

content quite untouched; and if we ask what then is the truth of these

perceptions and conceptions, as we asked formerly of things, no answer

is forthcoming. It is pretty much a matter of indifference whether we

believe in things or in perceptions, if self-consciousness remains

possessed entirely by finalities; it receives the content in the ordinary

way, and that content is of the ordinary kind. In its individuality it

stumbles about amid the conceptions of an entirely empirical existence,

without knowing and understanding anything else about the content: that

is to say in this formal idealism reason has no content of its own.

As to what Berkeley further states in respect of the empirical content,

where the object of his investigation becomes entirely psychological, it

relates in the main to finding out the difference between the sensations

of sight and feeling, and to discovering which kind of sensations

belong to the one and which to the other. This kind of investigation

keeps entirely to the phenomenal, and only therein distinguishes the

various sorts of phenomena; or comprehension only reaches as far as to

distinctions. The only point of interest is that these investigations

have in their course chiefly lighted on space, and a dispute is carried

on as to whether we obtain the conception of distance and so on, in short

all the conceptions relating to space, through sight or feeling. Space

is just this sensuous universal, the universal in individuality itself,

which in the empirical consideration of empirical multiplicity invites

and leads us on to thought (for it itself is thought), and by it this

very sensuous perception and reasoning respecting perception is in its

action confused. And since here perception finds an objective thought,

it really would be led on to thought or to the possession of a thought,

but at the same time it cannot arrive at thought in its completion, since

thought or the Notion are not in question, and it clearly cannot come

to the consciousness of true reality. Nothing is thought in the form of

thought, but only as an external, as something foreign to thought.

2. HUME.

We must add to what has preceded an account of the Scepticism of Hume,

which has been given a more important place in history than it deserves

from its intrinsic nature; its historic importance is due to the fact

that Kant really derives the starting point of his philosophy from Hume.

David Hume was born in 1711 at Edinburgh and died there in 1776. He

held a librarian’s post in that town for some time, then he became

secretary to the Embassy in Paris; for quite a long period, indeed,

he moved in diplomatic circles. In Paris he came to know Jean Jacques

Rousseau and invited him to England, but Rousseau’s terribly distrustful

and suspicious nature very soon estranged the two.[288] Hume is more

celebrated as a writer of history than through his philosophic works.

He wrote: “A Treatise of human nature,” 3 vols., 1739, translated into

German by Jacob, Halle, 1790, 8vo; likewise “Essays and Treatises on

several subjects,” 2 vols. (Vol. I. containing “Essays moral, political

and literary,” printed for the first time in Edinburgh, 1742; Vol.

II. containing an “Inquiry concerning human understanding,” a further

development of the Treatise, and first printed separately in London,

1748, 8vo). In his “Essays,” which contributed most to his fame as far

as the philosophic side is concerned, he treated philosophic subjects as

an educated, thoughtful man of the world would do—not in a systematic

connection, nor showing the wide range which his thoughts should properly

have been able to attain; in fact in some of his treatises he merely

dealt with particular points of view.

We must shortly deal with the main aspects of Hume’s philosophy. He

starts directly from the philosophic standpoint of Locke and Bacon,

which derives our conceptions from experience, and his scepticism

has the idealism of Berkeley as its object. The sequence of thought

is this: Berkeley allows all ideas to hold good as they are; in Hume

the antithesis of the sensuous and universal has cleared and more

sharply defined itself, sense being pronounced by him to be devoid of

universality. Berkeley does not make any distinction as to whether in his

sensations there is a necessary connection or not. Formerly experience

was a mixture of the two elements. Hume tells us that all perceptions of

the mind may be divided into two classes or species, that of impressions,

_i.e._ sensuous perceptions, and thoughts or ideas; the latter are

similar in content to the former, but less forcible and lively. All

objects of reason are consequently either relations of thoughts such as

mathematical axioms, or facts of experience.[289] Since Hume makes these

into the content he naturally rejects innate ideas.[290]

Now when Hume goes on to consider more closely what is subsumed under

experience, he finds categories of the understanding present there, and

more especially the determination of the universal and of universal

necessity; he took under his consideration more particularly the

category of cause and effect, and in it set forth the rational element,

inasmuch as in this causal relationship necessity is especially

contained. Here Hume really completed the system of Locke, since he

consistently drew attention to the fact that if this point of view be

adhered to, experience is indeed the principle of whatever one knows, or

perception itself contains everything that happens, but nevertheless the

determination of universality and necessity are not contained in, nor

were they given us by experience. Hume has thus destroyed the objectivity

or absolute nature of thought-determinations. “Our conviction of the

truth of a fact rests on feeling, memory, and the reasonings founded on

the causal connection, _i.e._ on the relation of cause and effect. The

knowledge of this relation is not attained by reasonings _a priori_, but

arises entirely from experience; and we draw inferences, since we expect

similar results to follow from similar causes, by reason of the principle

of the custom or habit of conjoining different manifestations, _i.e._ by

reason of the principle of the association of ideas. Hence there is no

knowledge and no metaphysics beyond experience.”[291]

The simple thought we have here is exactly what Locke says, that we must

receive the conception of cause and effect, and thus of a necessary

connection, from experience; but experience, as sensuous perception,

contains no necessity, has no causal connection. For in what we term

such, that which we properly speaking perceive is merely the fact that

something first of all happens and that then something else follows.

Immediate perception relates only to a content of conditions or things

which are present alongside of and in succession to one another, but not

to what we call cause and effect; in time-succession there is thus no

relation of cause and effect, and consequently no necessity either.[292]

When we say the pressure of the water is the cause of the destruction of

this house, that is no pure experience. We have merely seen the water

pressing or moving along in this direction, and subsequently the house

falling down; and so with other examples. Necessity is thus not justified

by experience, but we carry it into experience; it is accidentally

arrived at by us and is subjective merely. This kind of universality

which we connect with necessity, Hume calls custom. Because we have

often seen results to follow we are accustomed to regard the connection

as a necessary one; the necessity to him is thus a quite contingent

association of ideas, which is custom.

It is the same thing in respect of the universal. What we perceive are

individual phenomena and sensations in which we see that this is now

one thing and now another. It may likewise be that we perceive the same

determination frequently repeated and in manifold ways. But this is

still far removed from universality; universality is a determination

which is not given to us through experience. It may be said that this is

quite a correct remark on Hume’s part, if by experience we understand

outward experience. Experience is sensible that something exists, but

nevertheless the universal is not as yet present in it. Indeed, sensuous

existence as such is something which is set forth as indifferent, not

differentiated from anything else; but sensuous existence is likewise

universal in itself, or the indifference of its determinateness is not

its only determinateness. But since Hume regards necessity, the unity of

opposites, as resting quite subjectively on custom, we cannot get any

deeper in thought. Custom is indeed so far a necessity in consciousness,

and to this extent we really see the principle of this idealism in it;

but in the second place this necessity is represented as something quite

devoid of thought or Notion.

This custom obtains both in our perception which relates to sensuous

nature, and in relation to law and morality. The ideas of justice

and morality rest upon an instinct, on a subjective, but very often

deceptive moral feeling.[293] From a sceptical point of view the opposite

may likewise be demonstrated. From this side Hume considers justice,

morality, religious determinations, and disputes their absolute validity.

That is to say when it is assumed that our knowledge arises from

experience, and that we must consider only what we obtain thereby to be

the truth, we find indeed in our feeling, the sentiment _e.g._ that the

murderer, the thief, &c., must be punished; and because this is likewise

felt by others it is universally allowed. But Hume, like the sceptics of

former days, appeals to the various opinions of various nations: amongst

different nations and in different times various standards of right have

been held.[294] There are those who in this case do not have the feeling

of wrong-doing in respect of stealing, _e.g._ the Lacedæmonians or the

so-called innocent inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. What is by

one nation called immoral, shameful and irreligious, is by another not

considered so at all. Thus because such matters rest upon experience,

one subject has such and such an experience, finds, for instance, in his

religious feelings this determination which inclines him to God, while

another subject has different experiences altogether. We are in the

habit of allowing one thing to be just and moral, others have another

mode of regarding it. Hence if the truth depends upon experience, the

element of universality, of objectivity, &c., comes from elsewhere,

or is not justified by experience. Hume thus declared this sort of

universality, as he declared necessity, to be rather subjectively than

objectively existent; for custom is just a subjective universality of

this kind. This is an important and acute observation in relation to

experience looked at as the source of knowledge; and it is from this

point that the Kantian reflection now begins.

Hume (Essays and Treatises on several subjects, Vol. III. Sect. 8, 11)

then extended his scepticism to the conceptions and doctrines of freedom

and necessity, and to the proofs of the existence of God; and in fact

scepticism here possesses a wide field. To such a system of reasoning

from thoughts and possibilities another method of reasoning may again be

opposed, and this reasoning is no better than the other. What is said to

be metaphysically established regarding immortality, God, nature, &c.,

lacks a real ground for resting upon, such as is professed to be given;

for the inferences on which men ground their proofs are subjectively

formed conceptions. But where a universality is found, it does not rest

in the matter in itself, but is simply a subjective necessity which is

really mere custom. Hence the result which Hume arrives at is necessarily

astonishment regarding the condition of human knowledge, a general state

of mistrust, and a sceptical indecision—which indeed does not amount

to much. The condition of human knowledge regarding which Hume so much

wonders, he further describes as containing an antagonism between reason

and instinct; this instinct, it is said, which embraces many sorts of

powers, inclinations, &c., deceives us in many different ways, and reason

demonstrates this. But on the other side it is empty, without content

or principles of its own; and if a content is in question at all, it

must keep to those inclinations. In itself reason thus has no criterion

whereby the antagonism between individual desires, and between itself and

the desires, may be settled.[295] Thus everything appears in the form of

an irrational existence devoid of thought; the implicitly true and right

is not in thought, but in the form of an instinct, a desire.

B. SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY.

In Scotland quite another school of thought developed, and the Scotch

are the foremost of Hume’s opponents; in German philosophy, on the other

hand, we have to recognize in Kant another opposing force to that of

Hume. To the Scottish school many philosophers belong; English philosophy

is now restricted to Edinburgh and Glasgow, in which places a number

of professors belonging to this school succeeded one another. To the

scepticism of Hume they oppose an inward independent source of truth for

all that pertains to religion and morality. This coincides with Kant, who

also maintains an inward source or spring as against external perception;

but in the case of Kant this has quite another form than that which it

possesses with the Scottish philosophers. To them this inward independent

source is not thought or reason as such, for the content which comes to

pass from this inwardness is concrete in its nature, and likewise demands

for itself the external matter of experience. It consists of popular

principles, which on the one hand are opposed to the externality of the

sources of knowledge, and, on the other, to metaphysics as such, to

abstract thought or reasoning on its own account. This sort of reasoning

understanding applied itself to ethics and to politics—sciences which

have been much developed by German, French, and above all by Scottish

philosophers (_supra_, p. 320): they regarded morality as cultured men

would, and sought to bring moral duties under a principle. Many of their

works are translated into German; several of these on ethics or morality

are translated by Garve, for instance, who also translated Cicero _De

Officiis_, and they are written in a manner similar to that of Cicero

when he uses the expression _Insitum est a natura_ (Vol. I. p. 93). This

moral sentiment and the ordinary human understanding hereafter formed the

common principle to a whole succession of Scots, such as Thomas Reid,

Beattie, Oswald, and others; in this way they frequently made sagacious

observations, but with them speculative philosophy quite disappears. One

special characteristic of these Scottish philosophers is that they have

sought accurately to define the principle of knowledge; but on the whole

they start from the same point as that which was in Germany likewise

accepted as the principle. That is to say they represented the so-called

healthy reason, or common-sense (_sensus communis_), as the ground of

truth. The following are the principal members of this school, each of

whom has some special feature distinguishing him from the rest.

1. THOMAS REID.

Thomas Reid, born in 1710, died as a professor in Glasgow in 1796.[296]

He maintained the principle of common-sense. His endeavour was to

discover the principles of knowledge, and the following are his

conclusions: “(a) There are certain undemonstrated and undemonstrable

fundamental truths which common-sense begets and recognizes as

immediately conclusive and absolute.” This hence constitutes an immediate

knowledge; in it an inward independent source is set forth which is

hereby opposed to religion as revealed. “(b) These immediate truths

require no support from any elaborated science, nor do they submit to

its criticism;” they cannot be criticized by philosophy. “(c) Philosophy

itself has no root other than that of an immediate, self-enlightening

truth; whatever contradicts such truth is in itself false, contradictory,

and absurd.” This is true for knowledge and “(d) Morality; the individual

is moral if he acts in accordance with the perfect principles of the

perfection of the whole and with his own duty as it is known to him.”[297]

2. JAMES BEATTIE.

James Beattie, born 1735, was a professor of moral philosophy in

Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and died in 1803. He likewise made common-sense

the source of all knowledge. “The common-sense of the plain human

understanding is the source of all morality, of all religion, and

all certainty. The confirmation of common-sense must be added to the

testimony of our senses. The truth is what the necessities of my

nature call upon me to believe. Belief signifies conviction in the

case of truths which are certain, in that of those which are probable,

approbation. The truth which is certain is known by means of intuition,

the probable truth by means of proofs.”[298] Such convictions as are

quite certain form the basis of actions.

3. JAMES OSWALD.

James Oswald, a Scottish clergyman, made use of an expression which

indicates that we have the principles just mentioned as facts existing

within us.[299] “The existence of the Divine Being is (according to

him) a fact absolutely raised above all reasoning and all doubt, and

immediately certain for the common-sense of morality.”[300] The same

principle was likewise established in Germany at this time—an inward

revelation, a knowledge of the conscience, and specially of God and His

Being.

4. DUGALD STEWART.

To this school also belong Dugald Stewart, Edward Search,[301] Ferguson,

and Hutcheson, most of whom have written on morals. The political

economist Adam Smith from this point of view is likewise a philosopher,

and the best known of them all. This Scottish philosophy is now given

forth in Germany as something new. It is a popular philosophy, which,

on the one hand, has the great merit of seeking in man, and in his

consciousness, for the source of all that should be held by him as

true, the immanence of what should be by him esteemed. The content is

at the same time a concrete content; in a certain degree, it is the

antithesis of metaphysics proper, of the wandering about in abstract

determinations of the understanding. Of these Scots, Dugald Stewart, who

is living still,[302] appears to be the last and least significant; in

them all there is the same ground-work to be found, the same circle of

reflection, namely, an _a priori_ philosophy, though not one which is to

be pursued in a speculative way. The general idea which pervades their

principle is that of the healthy human understanding; to this they have

added benevolent desires, sympathy, a moral sense, and from such grounds

composed very excellent moral writings. That is certainly all very well

in order to understand approximately, up to a certain degree of culture,

what universal thoughts are, in order to narrate their history, to appeal

to examples, and to explain them; but further it does not extend.

In more recent times this Scottish philosophy has passed to France,

and Professor Royer-Collard, now president of the Second Chamber,[303]

as also his disciple, Jouffroy, in conformity with it, pass from the

facts of consciousness through cultured reasoning and experience, to a

further stage in development. What by the French is called _Idéologie_

(_supra_, p. 308) has also its place here; it is abstract metaphysics,

in so far as it is an enumeration and analysis of the most simple

thought-determinations. They are not treated dialectically, but from our

reflection, from our thoughts, the material is derived, and in this the

determinations therein contained are demonstrated.

C. FRENCH PHILOSOPHY.

We pass on to the French philosophy; the relation it bears to

metaphysics is this, that while man as a metaphysician stands to

himself in the attitude of a layman or outsider, French philosophy does

away with the lay or outside position in regard alike to politics,

religion, and philosophy. Two forms have to be mentioned which are of

the greatest importance in respect to culture—French philosophy and

the _Aufklärung_. With the English we saw a certain idealism only:

this was either formal, as the mere general translation of Being

into Being-for-another, _i.e._ into perceptibility, or else what is

implicit in this perceptibility, instincts, impulses, habits, &c.—blind

determinate forces; a return into self-consciousness, which itself

appears as a physical thing. In that first idealism the whole finitude

and extension of appearances, of sensations, and likewise of thoughts

and determinate fixed conceptions, remain just what they are in the

unphilosophic consciousness. The scepticism of Hume makes all that is

universal sink into habits and instincts, _i.e._ it consists in a more

simple synthesis of the phenomenal world; but these simpler elements,

these instincts, impulses, and forces, are just as much a fixed present

existence in self-consciousness, unspiritual, and without movement. The

French philosophy has more life, more movement, more spirit; it would

perhaps be more correct to describe it as full of life and spirit. It

is the absolute Notion, which revolts against the whole reigning system

of prevalent conceptions and established ideas, which overthrows all

that has settled into fixity, and acquires the consciousness of perfect

liberty. At the root of this idealistic activity lies the certainty that

whatever is, whatever counts for anything in itself, is all a matter of

self-consciousness; and as to Notions (individual and isolated existences

ruling actual self-consciousness), such as the Notions of good and evil,

of power and riches, and the fixed conceptions regarding faith in God

and His relation to the world, His mode of government and, further, the

duties of self-consciousness towards Him—that all these are not truths

in themselves, having validity beyond the bounds of self-consciousness.

All these forms, the real implicitude of the actual world and also of the

supersensuous world, are therefore set aside in this spirit conscious of

itself. It does not trouble itself seriously about those who admit the

validity of these conceptions just as they are, and accept them as true,

respecting them as independent and free apart from self-consciousness,

but it speaks of such conceptions with intelligence and spirit, that is

to say, it asserts that self-consciousness by its activity is the first

to make anything of them, and to make that a something very different

from what they profess to be; for the self-conscious spirit only

intellectual relations, these processes of formation and movement by

means of its self-consciousness, possess validity and interest. This is

the character of the Notion in its actuality; what has reality for this

all-perceiving and all-comprehending consciousness is held to be valid.

We must now consider what form existence takes for this absolutely

comprehending self-consciousness. In the first place this Notion is

fixed as the negative movement of the Notion only; the positive and

simple, or existence, falls outside of this movement. There remains to

the Notion no distinction, no content; for all determinate content is

lost in that negativity. This empty existence is for us pure thought

generally, what the French call _être suprême_, or if represented

objectively as existent, and as in opposition to consciousness, it

is matter. Absolute Being is therefore determined as matter, as

empty objectivity, through a Notion which destroys all content and

determination, and has as its object this universal alone. It is a Notion

which acts only destructively, and does not again construct itself

out of this matter or pure thought or pure substantiality. We here

see so-called materialism and atheism freely emerge, as the necessary

result of the pure comprehending self-consciousness. From one point

of view there perishes in this negative movement all determination

which represents spirit as something beyond self-consciousness, and

more especially all determinations within the spirit, and also those

which express it as spirit, indeed all the conceptions formed of it

by faith, for which it has validity as an existent self-consciousness

beyond self-consciousness—in short, all that is traditional or

imposed by authority. There remains only a present, actual Being, for

self-consciousness recognizes implicit existence only in the form which

it has for self-consciousness, and in which it is actually known to

itself; in matter, and matter as actively extending and realizing itself

in multiplicity, _i.e._ as nature. In the present I am conscious to

myself of my reality, and consequently self-consciousness finds itself as

matter, finds the soul to be material, and conceptions to be movements

and changes in the inner organ of the brain, which result from external

impressions on the senses. Thought is therefore a mode of the existence

of matter. The One Substance of Spinoza, to which French materialism

as naturalism is parallel, really finds its accomplishment here in

this object as in all respects the ultimate; but while in Spinoza this

category is a possession which we find ready to hand, here it appears

as the result of the abstraction of the understanding proceeding from

empiricism.

The other form of the _Aufklärung_ is, on the contrary, when absolute

Being is set forth as something beyond self-consciousness, so that

of itself, of its implicit Being, nothing whatever can be known. It

bears the empty name of God. For though God may be determined in any

way whatever, all these determinations fall away; He is, like _x_,

the altogether unknown quantity. This view is not therefore to be

termed atheism, in the first place because it still employs the empty,

meaningless name, and in the second place because it expresses the

necessary relations of self-consciousness, duties, &c., not as necessary

in an absolute sense, but as necessary through relation to another,

namely to the unknown—although there can be no positive relation to

an unknown except by abrogating the self as particular. Yet it is not

matter, because this simple and empty something is negatively defined as

non-existent for self-consciousness. This all comes to the same thing,

however, for matter is the universal, and is Being-for-self represented

as abrogated. But the true reflection on that unknown is this, that it

exists for self-consciousness simply as a negative of the same, _i.e._

as matter, reality, the present; it is this negative for me, this is its

Notion. The difference distinguishing this from what appears to be in its

entirety something “other,” and in which any one side is not permitted

to say that what it thinks is such is that particular thing, is the

difference which rests on this last abstraction.

Since then the Notion is present only in its negative form, positive

extension remains without a Notion; it has the form of nature, of an

existent, both in the physical and in the moral sphere. The knowledge

of nature remains the ordinary, scientifically unspeculative knowledge,

and as to its essence, in so far as it claims to be philosophy, it is a

general way of speaking that plays with the words, “forces, relations,

manifold connections,” but arrives at nothing definite. Similarly, in

the spiritual sphere, it is so far true that the metaphysic of the

spirit is of such a nature that it is nothing more nor less than a

particular organization by means of which the powers which are termed

sensation, perception, &c., come into existence; but this is a wearisome

way of talking, which can make nothing intelligible, which accepts

appearances and perceptions and reasons about them, but none the less

reduces their implicit existence to certain determinate forces, of the

inward nature of which we know nothing further. The determination and

knowledge of the moral sphere has similarly for its object to bring

man back to his so-called natural promptings; its essence has the form

of a natural impulse, and this natural impulse is termed self-love,

selfishness, or benevolence. It is required that man should live in

conformity with nature; but this nature does not reach further than

general expressions and descriptions, such as the state of nature we

find depicted by Rousseau. What is called the metaphysic of ordinary

conceptions is the empiricism of Locke, which seeks to show their origin

to be in consciousness, in as far as it is individual consciousness;

which, when born into the world, emerges out of unconsciousness in order

to acquire knowledge as sensuous consciousness. This external origin

they confound with the Becoming and Notion of the matter in point. If

one were to ask vaguely what is the origin and genesis of water, and

the answer were to be given that it comes from the mountains or from

rain, this would be a reply in the spirit of the above philosophy. In

short, it is only the negative aspect that is interesting, and as for

this positive French philosophy, it is out of the question. But even the

negative side of it belongs properly to culture mainly, with which we

have here nothing to do, and the _Aufklärung_ likewise belongs to the

same. In the French philosophic writings, which in this respect are of

importance, what is worthy of admiration is the astonishing energy and

force of the Notion as directed against existence, against faith, against

all the power of authority that had held sway for thousands of years.

On the one hand we cannot help remarking the feeling of utter rebellion

against the whole state of affairs at present prevailing, a state which

is alien to self-consciousness, which would fain dispense with it, and

in which self-consciousness does not find itself; there is a certainty

of the truth of reason, which challenges the whole intellectual world

as it stands aloof, and is confident of destroying it. French atheism,

materialism, or naturalism has overcome all prejudices, and has been

victorious over the senseless hypotheses and assumptions of the positive

element in religion, which is associated with habits, manners, opinions,

determinations as to law and morality and civil institutions. With the

healthy human understanding and earnestness of spirit, and not with

frivolous declamations, it has rebelled against the condition of the

world as legally established, against the constitution of the state, the

administration of justice, the mode of government, political authority,

and likewise against art.

Contrasting with this barren content there is the other and fertile

side. The positive is in its turn constituted by so-called immediately

enlightening truths of the healthy human understanding, which contains

nothing except this truth and the claim to find itself, and beyond

this form does not pass. But in so doing there arises the endeavour

to grasp the absolute as something present, and at the same time as

an object of thought and as absolute unity: an endeavour which, as it

implies denial of the conception of design both in the natural and in

the spiritual sphere—the former involving the idea of life, and the

latter that of spirit and freedom—only reaches to the abstraction of a

nature undetermined in itself, to sensation, mechanism, self-seeking,

and utility. It is this then that we shall have to make evident in the

positive side of French philosophy. In their political constitutions

the French have, it is true, started from abstractions, but they have

done so as from universal thoughts, which are the negative of reality;

the English, on the other hand, proceed from concrete reality, from the

unwieldy structure of their constitution; just as their writers even have

not attained to universal principles. What Luther began in the heart

only and in the feelings—the freedom of spirit which, unconscious of its

simple root, does not comprehend itself, and yet is the very universal

itself, for which all content disappears in the thought that fills itself

with itself—these universal determinations and thoughts the French

asserted and steadfastly adhered to: they are universal principles, in

the form of the conviction of the individual in himself. Freedom becomes

the condition of the world, connects itself with the world’s history and

forms epochs in the same; it is the concrete freedom of the spirit, a

concrete universality; fundamental principles as regards the concrete

now take the place of the abstract metaphysic of Descartes. Among the

Germans we find mere chatter; they would have liked to offer explanations

also, but all they have to give is in the form of miserable phenomena

and individualism. The French, from their starting-point of the thought

of universality, and the German liberty of conscience starting from

the conscience which teaches us to “Prove all things,” to “hold fast

that which is good,” have, however, joined hands with one another, or

they follow the same path. Only the French, as though they were without

conscience, have made short work of everything, and have systematically

adhered to a definite thought—the physiocratic system; while the Germans

wish to leave themselves a free retreat, and examine from the standpoint

of conscience whether a certain course is permissible. The French warred

against the speculative Notion with the spirit, the Germans did so with

the understanding. We find in the French a deep all-embracing philosophic

need, different from anything in the English and Scotch and even in the

Germans, and full of vitality: it is a universal concrete view of all

that exists, with entire independence both of all authority and of all

abstract metaphysics. The method employed is that of development from

perception, from the heart; it is a comprehensive view of the entire

matter, which keeps the whole ever in sight, and seeks to uphold and

attain to it.

This healthy human understanding, this sound reason, with its content

taken from the human breast, from natural feeling, has directed itself

against the religious side of things in various moments: on the one hand

and first of all, as French philosophy, it did so against the Catholic

religion, the fetters of superstition and of the hierarchy; on the other

hand, in less pronounced form, as the German “illumination,” against the

Protestant religion, in as far as it has a content which it has derived

from revelation, from ecclesiastical authority in general. On the one

hand the form of authority in general was challenged, and on the other

hand its matter. The content can be easily enough disposed of by this

form of thought, which is not what we understand by reason, but which

must be termed understanding; it is easy for the understanding to show

objections to the ultimate principles of what can be comprehended only

by means of speculation. The understanding has thus tried the content

of religion by its standard, and has condemned it; the understanding

proceeds in the same way against a concrete philosophy. What of religion

has in many theologies been very commonly left remaining is what is

termed theism, faith in general; this is the same content which is

found also in Mohammedanism. But along with this attack upon religion

on the part of the reasoning understanding there has been also a

movement towards materialism, atheism and naturalism. It is true that we

should not make the charge of atheism lightly, for it is a very common

occurrence that an individual whose ideas about God differ from those

of other people is charged with lack of religion, or even with atheism.

But here it really is the case that this philosophy has developed into

atheism, and has defined matter, nature, &c., as that which is to be

taken as the ultimate, the active, and the efficient. Some Frenchmen,

Rousseau for instance, are not, however, to be included with the rest;

one of this author’s works, “The Confession of Faith of a Vicar,”[304]

contains the very same theism which is found in German theologians.

Thus French metaphysics finds a parallel not only in Spinoza (_supra_,

p. 382) but also in the German metaphysics of Wolff. Other Frenchmen

have confessedly gone over to naturalism; among them is specially to be

mentioned Mirabaud, to whom the _Système de la Nature_ is attributed.

In what has been termed French philosophy, represented by Voltaire,

Montesquieu, Rousseau, d’Alembert, Diderot, and in what subsequently

appeared in Germany as the _Aufklärung_, and has been also stigmatized as

atheism, we may now distinguish three aspects, first, the negative side,

to which most exception has been taken; secondly, the positive side;

thirdly, the philosophical, metaphysical side.

1. THE NEGATIVE ASPECT.

Justice must be done even to this negative side, as to everything else;

what is substantial in it is the attack of the reasoning instinct

against a condition of degeneracy, I may even say of utter and universal

falsehood; for instance, against the positive side of a religion that

has become wooden and lifeless. What we call religion is firm faith,

conviction that there is a God; if this is faith in the doctrines of

Christianity, it is more or less abstracted from. But in this attack

against religion we have to think of something quite different from the

above; in what we find here, the positive of religion is the negative

of reason. If we would understand the feeling of indignation to which

these writers give utterance, we must keep before our eyes the state of

religion in those days, with its might and magnificence, the corruption

of its manners, its avarice, its ambition, its luxury, for which

nevertheless reverence was claimed—a state of contradiction present and

existent. We perceive into what a frightful condition of formalism and

deadness positive religion had sunk, as had the bonds of society as

well, the means employed for the administration of justice, the power of

the state. This French philosophy also attacked the state; it assailed

prejudices and superstition, especially the depravity of civic life, of

court manners and of Government officials; it laid hold of and brought to

light the evil, the ridiculous, the base, and exposed the whole tissue

of hypocrisy and unjust power to the derision, the contempt and the

hatred of the world at large, and thus brought men’s minds and hearts

into a state of indifference to the idols of the world and indignation

against them. Old institutions, which in the sense of self-conscious

freedom and humanity that had developed, no longer found a place, and

which had formerly been founded and upheld by mutual good feeling and the

obtuseness of a consciousness unconscious of self, institutions which

were no longer in harmony with the spirit that had established them,

and now, in consequence of the advance that had been made in scientific

culture, were bound to make good to reason their claim to be sacred and

just,—this was the formalism that those philosophers overthrew. In making

their attacks, they wrote sometimes with reasoned argument, sometimes

satirically, sometimes in the language of plain common-sense, and they

did not wage war on what we call religion; that was left quite unharmed,

and its claims were urged with words of choicest eloquence. Those who

enforced these views were therefore agents of destruction against that

alone which was in itself already destroyed. We place it to our credit

when we reproach the French for their attacks upon religion and on the

state. We must represent to ourselves the horrible state of society, the

misery and degradation in France, in order to appreciate the services

that these writers rendered. Hypocrisy and cant, imbecility of mind

and the tyranny which sees itself robbed of its prey, may say that

attacks were made on religion, on the state, and on manners. But what a

religion! Not the religion that Luther purified, but the most wretched

superstition, priestly domination, stupidity, degradation of mind, and

more especially the squandering of riches and the revelling in temporal

possessions in the midst of public misery. And what a state! The blindest

tyranny of ministers and their mistresses, wives and chamberlains; so

that a vast army of petty tyrants and idlers looked upon it as a right

divinely given them to plunder the revenues of the state and lay hands

upon the product of the nation’s sweat. The shamelessness, the dishonesty

were past belief; and morals were simply in keeping with the corruptness

of the institutions. We see the law defied by individuals in respect to

civil and political life; we see it likewise set at nought in respect to

conscience and thought.

In regard to practical politics, the writers in question never even

thought of a revolution, but desired and demanded reforms alone, and

that these should be subjective mainly; they called on the Government to

sweep away abuses, and appoint honourable men as ministers. The positive

recommendations made by them as to the course to be pursued were, for

example, that the royal children should receive a good upbringing, that

princes should be of frugal habits, &c. The French Revolution was forced

on by the stiff-necked obstinacy of prejudices, by haughtiness, utter

want of thought, and avarice. The philosophers of whom we are speaking

were able to give only a general idea of what ought to be done; they

could not indicate the mode in which the reforms were to be carried

out. It was the Government’s business to make arrangements and carry

out reforms in concrete shape; but it did not perceive this. What the

philosophers brought forward and maintained as a remedy for this horrible

state of disorder was, speaking generally, that men should no longer be

in the position of laymen, either with regard to religion or to law; so

that in religious matters there should not be a hierarchy, a limited and

selected number of priests, and in the same way that there should not

be in legal matters an exclusive caste and society (not even a class

of professional lawyers), in whom should reside, and to whom should be

restricted, the knowledge of what is eternal, divine, true, and right,

and by whom other men should be commanded and directed; but that human

reason should have the right of giving its assent and its opinion. To

treat barbarians as laymen is quite as it should be—barbarians are

nothing but laymen; but to treat thinking men as laymen is very hard.

This great claim made by man to subjective freedom, perception and

conviction, the philosophers in question contended for heroically and

with splendid genius, with warmth and fire, with spirit and courage,

maintaining that a man’s own self, the human spirit, is the source from

which is derived all that is to be respected by him. There thus manifests

itself in them the fanaticism of abstract thought. We Germans were

passive at first with regard to the existing state of affairs, we endured

it; in the second place, when that state of affairs was overthrown, we

were just as passive: it was overthrown by the efforts of others, we let

it be taken away from us, we suffered it all to happen.

In Germany, Frederick II. allied himself with this culture, a rare

example in those days. French court manners, operas, gardens, dresses,

were widely adopted in Germany, but not French philosophy; yet in the

form of wit and jest much of it found its way into this upper world,

and much that was evil and barbarous was driven away. Frederick II.,

without having been brought up on melancholy psalms, without having had

to learn one or two of them every day by heart, without the barbarous

metaphysics and logic of Wolff (for what did he find to admire in Germany

except Gellert?), was well acquainted with the great, although formal and

abstract principles of religion and the state, and governed in accordance

therewith, as far as circumstances allowed. Nothing else was at that time

required in his nation; one cannot ask that he should have reformed and

revolutionized it, since not a single person yet demanded representative

government and the publicity of courts of justice. He introduced what

there was need of, religious tolerance, legislation, improvements in

the administration of justice, economy in the revenues of state; of the

wretched German law there remained no longer in his states even the

merest phantom. He showed what was the object and purpose of the state,

and at the same time cast down all privileges, the private rights which

pertained to Germans, and arbitrary statute laws. It is foolish when

cant and German pseudo-patriotism pounce down upon him now, and try to

disparage the greatness of a man whose influence was so enormous, and

would even detract from his fame by a charge of vanity and wickedness.

What German patriotism aims at should be reasonable.

2. THE POSITIVE ASPECT.

The affirmative content of this philosophy certainly does not satisfy

the requirements of profundity. A leading characteristic of its

teaching, which is found also with the Scottish philosophers and with

ourselves, is the assumption of primitive feelings of justice which man

has in himself, as for example benevolence and social instincts which

should be cultivated. The positive source of knowledge and of justice

is placed in human reason and the common consciousness of mankind, in

the healthy human reason, and not in the form of the Notion. It is

certainly wonderful to find truths expressed in the form of universal

thoughts, respecting which it is of infinite importance that they should

be assumptions present in the human mind: that man has in his heart the

feeling of right, of love to his fellow-creatures: that religion and

faith are not matters of compulsion; that merit, talent, virtue are the

true nobility, &c. An important question, especially among the Germans,

was what is the end and character of man, by which was meant the nature

of his mind and spirit; and certainly, as far as the spiritual is

concerned, it is to this point that we must return. But in order to find

the nature of spirit, to discover what this determination is, a return

was made to perception, observation, experience, to the existence of

certain impulses. These are certainly determinations in ourselves, but

we have not known them in their necessity. Such an impulse is besides

taken as natural, and thus it is here indeterminate in itself, it has

its limitation only as a moment of the whole. In regard to knowledge,

very abstract thoughts are to be found—though of a truth they are quite

as good as ours, and more ingenious—which according to their content

ought to be concrete, and also were so. But so superficially were they

comprehended that they soon showed themselves far from sufficient for

what had to be derived from them. They said, for instance, that Nature

is a whole, that all is determined by laws, through a combination of

different movements, through a chain of causes and effects, and so on;

the various properties, materials, connections of things bring everything

to pass. These are general phrases, with which one can fill whole books.

a. SYSTÈME DE LA NATURE.

To this philosophy belongs the _Système de la Nature_, the leading work

on the subject, written in Paris by a German, Baron von Hollbach, who was

the central figure of all those philosophers. Montesquieu, d’Alembert,

Rousseau, were for a time in his circle; however much these men were

moved to indignation at the existing state of things, they were yet

in other respects very different from one another. The _Système de la

Nature_ may very easily be found tiresome to read, because it treats

discursively of general conceptions, which are often repeated; it is not

a French book, for vivacity is lacking and the mode of presentation is

dull.

The great Whole of Nature (_le grand tout de la nature_) is the ultimate:

“The universe displays nothing but an immense collection of matter and

motion” (as with Descartes), “an unbroken chain of causes and effects, of

which causes some directly affect our senses, while others are unknown

to us, because their effects, which we perceive, are too remote from

their causes. The different qualities of these materials, their manifold

connections, and the effects which result therefrom, constitute essences

for us. From the diversity of these essences arise the different orders,

species, systems, under which things fall, and whose sum total, the great

whole, is what we call Nature.”[305] It is like what Aristotle (_vide_

Vol. I. p. 241) says of Xenophanes, that he gazed into the blue, _i.e._

into Being. According to Hollbach all is movement, matter moves itself:

beer ferments, the soul is moved by its passions.[306] “The manifold

variety of natural phenomena, and their incessant rise and disappearance,

have their sole ground in the variety of motions and of their material.”

Through different combinations and modifications, through a different

arrangement, another thing is originated. “Material substances have

either a tendency to combine with one another, or else they are incapable

of so combining. Upon this are based by physical scientists the forces of

attraction and repulsion, sympathy and antipathy, affinity and relation;

and the moralists base thereon hatred and love, friendship and enmity.”

Spirit, the incorporeal, contradicts or opposes itself to motion, to a

change of the relations of a body in space.[307]

b. ROBINET.

Another work of importance is the still more “dangerous” treatise, _De la

Nature_, by Robinet. In it there reigns quite a different and a deeper

spirit; one is frequently struck by the depth of earnestness which the

writer displays. He begins thus: “There is a God, _i.e._ a cause of the

phenomena of that Whole which we call Nature. Who is God? We know not,

and we are so constituted that we can never know in what order of things

we have been placed. We cannot know God perfectly, because the means of

doing so will always be lacking to us. We too might write over the doors

of our temples the words which were to be read upon the altar which the

Areopagite raised, ‘To the unknown God.’” The very same thing is said

now-a-days: there can be no transition from the finite to the infinite.

“The order which reigns in the universe is just as little the visible

type of His wisdom, as our weak mind is the image of His intelligence.”

But this First Cause, God, is according to Robinet a creative God, He

has brought Nature into existence; so that for him the only possible

knowledge is that of Nature. “There is only One Cause. The eternal Cause,

who so to speak had sown (_engrainé_) events one in the other, in order

that they might without fail follow one upon another as He chose, in

the beginning set in motion the endless chain of things. Through this

permanent impression the Universe goes on living, moving and perpetuating

itself. From the unity of cause there follows the unity of activity, for

even it does not appear as something to be more or less admitted. By

virtue of this single act all things come to pass. Since man has made

Nature his study, he has found no isolated phenomenon, and no independent

truth, because there are not and cannot be such. The whole sustains

itself through the mutual correspondence of its parts.”[308] The activity

of Nature is one, as God is One.

This activity, more particularly regarded, signifies that germs unfold

themselves in everything: everywhere there are organic Beings which

produce themselves; nothing is isolated, everything is combined and

connected and in harmony. Robinet here goes through the plants, the

animals, and also the metals, the elements, air, fire, water, &c.; and

seeks from them to demonstrate the existence of the germ in whatever has

life, and also how metals are organized in themselves. “The example of

the polypus is convincing as to the animal nature (_animalité_) of the

smallest portions of organized matter; for the polypus is a group of

associated polypi, each of which is as much a true polypus as the first.

It stands proved that from the same point of view the living consists

only of the living, the animals of minute animals, every animal in

particular of minute animals of the same kind, a dog of dog-germs, man of

human germs.” In proof of this Robinet states in a “Recapitulation” that

“animal sperm swarms with spermatic animalcules.” Since he then connects

every propagation properly so-called with the co-operation of both sexes,

he alleges that every individual is inwardly or also in the external

organs a hermaphrodite. Of the minerals he says: “Are we not compelled

to regard as organic bodies all those in which we meet with an inward

structure such as this? It presupposes throughout a seed, seed-granules,

germs, of which they are the development.” In the same way the air must

have its germ, which does not come to reality until it is nourished by

water, fire, &c. “The air, as principle, is only the germ of the air;

as it impregnates or saturates itself in varying degrees with water and

fire, it will gradually pass through different stages of growth: it will

become first embryo, then perfect air.”[309] Robinet gives the name of

germ to the simple form in itself, the substantial form, the Notion.

Although he seeks to prove this too much from the sensuous side, he yet

proceeds from principles in themselves concrete, from the form in itself.

He speaks also of the evil and good in the world. The result of his

observation is that good and evil balance each other; this equilibrium

constitutes the beauty of the world. In order to refute the assertion

that there is more good than evil in the world, he says that everything

to which we reduce the good consists only in an enjoyment, a pleasure,

a satisfaction; but this must be preceded by a want, a lack, a pain,

the removal of which constitutes satisfaction.[310] This is not only a

correct thought empirically, but it also hints at the deeper idea that

there is no activity except through contradiction.

3. IDEA OF A CONCRETE UNIVERSAL UNITY.

The result of the French philosophy is that it insisted on maintaining

a general unity, not abstract, but concrete. Thus Robinet now

propounded the theory of a universal organic life, and a uniform mode

of origination; this concrete system he called Nature, over which God

was set, but as the unknowable; all predicates which could be expressed

of Him contained something inapplicable. We must admit that grand

conceptions of concrete unity are to be found here, as opposed to the

abstract metaphysical determinations of the understanding, _e.g._ the

fruitfulness of Nature. But, on the other hand, the point of most

importance with these philosophers is that what is to be accepted as

valid must have presence, and that man in all knowledge must be himself

the knower; for, as we may see, those philosophers made war on all

external authority of state and church, and in particular on abstract

thought which has no present meaning in us. Two determinations found

in all philosophy are the concretion of the Idea and the presence of

the spirit in the same; my content must at the same time be something

concrete, present. This concrete was termed Reason, and for it the

more noble of those men contended with the greatest enthusiasm and

warmth. Thought was raised like a standard among the nations, liberty of

conviction and of conscience in me. They said to mankind, “In this sign

thou shalt conquer,” for they had before their eyes what had been done in

the name of the cross alone, what had been made a matter of faith and

law and religion—they saw how the sign of the cross had been degraded.

For in the sign of the cross lying and deceit had been victorious, under

this seal institutions had become fossilized, and had sunk into all

manner of degradation, so that this sign came to be represented as the

epitome and root of all evil. Thus in another form they completed the

Reformation that Luther began. This concrete had manifold forms; social

instincts in the practical sphere, laws of nature in the theoretical.

There is present the absolute impulse to find a compass immanent

in themselves, _i.e._ in the human mind. For the human mind it is

imperative to have a fixed point such as this, if, indeed, it is to be

within itself, if it is to be free in its own world at least. But this

striving after really present vitality took forms which as by-paths were

themselves one-sided. In this striving after unity, which was, however,

concrete unity, the further varieties of the content likewise lie.

On the theoretic side of their philosophy, therefore, the French

proceeded to materialism or naturalism, because the requirements of the

understanding, as abstract thought, which from a firmly fixed principle

allows the most monstrous consequences to be drawn, drove them to set up

one principle as ultimate, and that a principle which had at the same

time to be present and to lie quite close to experience. Hence they

accept sensation and matter as the only truth, to which must be reduced

all thought, all morality, as a mere modification of sensation. The

unities which the French propounded were in this way one-sided.

a. OPPOSITION OF SENSATION AND THOUGHT.

To this one-sidedness belongs the opposition between _sentir_ and

_penser_, or else, if you like, their identity, making the latter

only a result of the former; there is not, however, any speculative

reconciliation of this opposition in God, such as we find in Spinoza and

Malebranche. This reduction of all thought to sensation, which in certain

respects took place with Locke, becomes a widely extended theory. Robinet

(_De la Nature_, T. I. P. IV. chap. iii. pp. 257-259) lights also on this

opposition, beyond which he does not get, that mind and body are not

separate, but that the manner in which they are united is inexplicable.

The _Système de la Nature_ (T. I. chap. x. p. 177) is marked by an

especially plain reduction of thought to sensation. The leading

thought is this: “Abstract thoughts are only modes in which our inmost

organ views its own modifications. The words goodness, beauty, order,

intelligence, virtue, &c., have no meaning for us if we do not refer and

apply them to objects which our senses have shown to be capable of these

qualities, or to modes of being and acting which are known to us.” Thus

even psychology passed into materialism, as for instance we may find in

La Mettrie’s work _L’homme Machine_: All thought and all conception have

meaning only if they are apprehended as material; matter alone exists.

b. MONTESQUIEU.

Other great writers have opposed to the above the feeling in the breast,

the instinct of self-preservation, benevolent dispositions towards

others, the impulse to fellowship, which last Puffendorf also made the

foundation of his system of law (_supra_, p. 321). From this point of

view much that is excellent has been said. Thus Montesquieu, in his

charming book, _L’Esprit des Lois_, of which Voltaire said it was an

_esprit sur les lois_, regarded the nations from this important point of

view, that their constitution, their religion, in short, everything that

is to be found in a state, constitutes a totality.

c. HELVETIUS.

This reduction of thought to feeling in the case of Helvetius takes

the form that if in man as a moral being a single principle is sought,

this ought to be called self-love, and he endeavoured to demonstrate by

ingenious analysis that whatever we term virtue, all activity and law and

right, has as its foundation nothing but self-love or selfishness, and is

resolvable thereinto.[311] This principle is one-sided, although the “I

myself” is an essential moment. What I will, the noblest, the holiest, is

_my_ aim; I must take part in it, I must agree to it, I must approve of

it. With all self-sacrifice there is always conjoined some satisfaction,

some finding of self; this element of self, subjective liberty, must

always be present. If this is taken in a one-sided sense, there may be

consequences drawn from it which overthrow all that is sacred; but it is

found in equal degree in a morality as noble as any possibly can be.

d. ROUSSEAU.

In connection with the practical side of things this particular must also

be noted, that when the feeling of right, the concrete practical mind,

and, speaking generally, humanity and happiness were made the principle,

this principle, universally conceived, had certainly the form of thought;

but in the case of such concrete content derived from our impulse or

inward intuition, even though that content were religious, the thought

itself was not the content. But now this further phase appeared, that

pure thought was set up as the principle and content, even if again there

was lacking to this content the true consciousness of its peculiar

form; for it was not recognized that this principle was thought. We see

it emerge in the sphere of will, of the practical, of the just, and so

apprehended that the innermost principle of man, his unity with himself,

is set forth as fundamental and brought into consciousness, so that man

in himself acquired an infinite strength. It is this that Rousseau from

one point of view said about the state. He investigated its absolute

justification, and inquired as to its foundation. The right of ruling and

associating, of the relation of order, of governing and being governed,

he apprehends from his own point of view, so that it is made to rest

historically on power, compulsion, conquest, private property, &c.[312]

Rousseau makes free-will the principle of this justification, and without

reference to the positive right of states he made answer to the above

question (chap. iv. p. 12), that man has free-will, because “liberty is

the distinguishing feature of man. To renounce his liberty signifies to

renounce his manhood. Not to be free is therefore a renunciation of a

man’s rights as a human being, and even of his duties.” The slave has

neither rights nor duties. Rousseau therefore says (chap. vi. p. 21):

“The fundamental task is to find a form of association which will shield

and protect with the power of the whole commonwealth combined the person

and property of every one of its members, and in which each individual,

while joining this association, obeys himself only, and thus remains

as free as before. The solution is given by the Social Contract;” this

is the association of which each is a member by his own will. These

principles, thus abstractly stated, we must allow to be correct, yet

the ambiguity in them soon begins to be felt. Man is free, this is

certainly the substantial nature of man; and not only is this liberty

not relinquished in the state, but it is actually in the state that it

is first realized. The freedom of nature, the gift of freedom, is not

anything real; for the state is the first realization of freedom.

The misunderstanding as to the universal will proceeds from this, that

the Notion of freedom must not be taken in the sense of the arbitrary

caprice of an individual, but in the sense of the rational will, of

the will in and for itself. The universal will is not to be looked on

as compounded of definitively individual wills, so that these remain

absolute; otherwise the saying would be correct: “Where the minority must

obey the majority, there is no freedom.” The universal will must really

be the rational will, even if we are not conscious of the fact; the

state is therefore not an association which is decreed by the arbitrary

will of individuals. The wrong apprehension of these principles does

not concern us. What does concern us is this, that thereby there should

come into consciousness as content the sense that man has liberty in his

spirit as the altogether absolute, that free-will is the Notion of man.

Freedom is just thought itself; he who casts thought aside and speaks of

freedom knows not what he is talking of. The unity of thought with itself

is freedom, the free will. Thought, as volition merely, is the impulse

to abrogate one’s subjectivity, the relation to present existence, the

realizing of oneself, since in that I am endeavouring to place myself as

existent on an equality with myself as thinking. It is only as having

the power of thinking that the will is free. The principle of freedom

emerged in Rousseau, and gave to man, who apprehends himself as infinite,

this infinite strength. This furnishes the transition to the Kantian

philosophy, which, theoretically considered, made this principle its

foundation; knowledge aimed at freedom, and at a concrete content which

it possesses in consciousness.

D. THE GERMAN ILLUMINATION.

The Germans were at this time quietly drifting along in their

Leibnitzo-Wolffian philosophy, in its definitions, axioms and proofs.

Then they were gradually breathed upon by the spirit of foreign lands,

they made acquaintance with all the developments which there came to

pass, and took very kindly to the empiricism of Locke; on the other hand

they at the same time laid aside metaphysical investigations, turned

their attention to the question of how truths can be grasped by the

healthy human understanding, and plunged into the _Aufklärung_ and into

the consideration of the utility of all things—a point of view which

they adopted from the French. Utility as the essence of existent things

signifies that they are determined as not being in themselves, but for

another: this is a necessary moment, but not the only one. The German

_Aufklärung_ warred against ideas, with the principle of utility as its

weapon. Philosophic investigations on this subject had degenerated into

a feeble popular treatment of it which was incapable of going deeper;

they displayed a rigid pedantry and an earnestness of the understanding,

but were unspiritual. The Germans are busy bees who do justice to all

nations, they are old-clothesmen for whom anything is good enough, and

who carry on their haggling with everyone. Picked up as it was from

foreign nations, all this had lost the wit and life, the energy and

originality which with the French had made the content to be lost sight

of in the form. The Germans, who honestly sift a matter to its root, and

who would put rational arguments in the place of wit and vivacity, since

wit and vivacity really prove nothing, in this way reached a content

which was utterly empty, so much so that nothing could be more wearisome

than this profound mode of treatment; such was the case with Eberhard,

Tetens, and those like them.

Others, like Nicolai, Sulzer and their fellows, were excellent in

their speculations on questions of taste and the liberal sciences;

for literature and art were also to flourish among the Germans.

But with all this they only arrived at a most trivial treatment of

æsthetics—Lessing[313] called it shallow chatter. As a matter of fact,

indeed, the poems of Gellert, Weisse and Lessing sank almost, if not

quite as much into the same poetic feebleness. Moreover, previous to

the philosophy of Kant, the general principle was really the theory

of happiness, which we have already met with in the philosophy of

the Cyrenaics (Vol. I. p. 477), and the point of view of pleasant or

unpleasant sensations held good among the philosophers of that time as an

ultimate and essential determination. Of this manner of philosophizing

I will quote an example which Nicolai gives in the account of a

conversation which he had with Mendelssohn: what is in question is the

pleasure in tragic subjects which is held to be awakened even by means of

the unpleasant emotions depicted in a tragedy:

HERR MOSES.

“The power of having an inclination for perfections and of

shunning imperfections is a reality.” Therefore the exercise

of this power brings a pleasure with it, which, however, is in

nature comparatively less than the displeasure which arises from

the contemplation of the object.

I.

Yet even then, when the violence of passion causes us unpleasant

sensations, the movement (what else is this movement than the

power of loving perfections, &c.?) which it brings with it has

still delights for us. It is the strength of the movement which

we enjoy, even in spite of the painful sensations which oppose

what is pleasant in the passion, and in a short time obtain the

victory.

HERR MOSES.

In a stage play, on the contrary, as the imperfect object is

absent, pleasure must gain the upper hand and eclipse the small

degree of displeasure.

I.

A passion therefore which is not followed by these results must

be altogether pleasant. Of this sort are the imitations of the

passions which the tragedy affords.”[314]

With such vapid and meaningless drivel they rambled on. In addition to

these, the eternity of punishment in hell, the salvation of the heathen,

the difference between uprightness and godliness, were philosophic

matters on which much labour was expended among the Germans, while the

French troubled themselves little about them. Finite determinations

were made to hold good against the infinite; against the Trinity it was

asserted that One cannot be Three; against original sin, that each must

bear his own guilt, must have done his own deeds of himself, and must

answer for them; in the same way against redemption, that another cannot

take upon himself punishment that is due; against forgiveness of sin,

that what is done cannot be rendered undone; to sum up generally, the

incommensurability of the human nature with the divine. On the one side

we see healthy human understanding, experience, facts of consciousness,

but on the other side there was still in vogue the Wolffian metaphysics

of the dry, dead understanding; thus we see Mendelssohn take his stand by

the healthy human understanding, and make it his rule.

Some movement was brought into this authority, which had settled into

perfect peace and security and let no dreams of other matters cross its

path, by the chance dispute of Mendelssohn with Jacobi, first as to

whether Lessing had been a disciple of Spinoza, and then regarding the

doctrines of Spinoza himself. On this occasion it came to light how much

Spinoza was really forgotten, and in what horror Spinozism was held. But

while Jacobi in this way once more unexpectedly brought to remembrance

in connection with Spinozism a quite different content of philosophy,

faith, _i.e._ the simply immediate certainty of external, finite things,

as well as of the divine (which faith in the divine he called reason)

was certainly placed by him, as an independent thinker, in opposition to

mediating knowledge, which he apprehended as mere understanding. This

continued until Kant gave a new impulse in Germany to philosophy, which

had died out in the rest of Europe.

As far as the transition to modern German philosophy is concerned, it

is from Hume and Rousseau, as we have said (pp. 369, 374, 402), that

it took its start. Descartes opposes extension to thought, as what is

simply one with itself. He is charged with dualism, but, like Spinoza

and Leibnitz, he did away with the independence of the two sides, and

made supreme their unity, God. But, as this unity, God is first of all

only the Third; and He is further determined in such a way that no

determination pertains to Him. Wolff’s understanding of the finite, his

school metaphysics generally, his science of the understanding, and his

divergence into the observation of nature, after it has grown strong

in its conformity with law and in its finite knowledge, turns against

the infinite and the concrete determinations of religion, and comes to

a standstill with abstractions in his _theologia naturalis_; for the

determinate is his domain. But from this time an utterly different point

of view is introduced. The infinite is transported into abstraction

or incomprehensibility. This is an incomprehensible position to adopt.

Nowadays it is looked on as most pious, most justifiable. But as we see

the third, the unity of differences, defined as something which cannot

be thought or known, this unity is not one of thought, for it is above

all thought, and God is not simply thought. Nevertheless this unity

is defined as the absolutely concrete, _i.e._ as the unity of thought

and Being. Now we have come so far that this unity is a unity simply

in thought, and pertaining to consciousness, so that the objectivity

of thought—reason—comes forth as One and All. This is dimly conceived

by the French. Whether the highest Being, this Being divested of all

determination, is elevated above nature, or whether nature or matter is

the highest unity, there is always present the establishing of something

concrete, which at the same time belongs to thought. Since the liberty of

man has been set up as an absolutely ultimate principle, thought itself

has been set up as a principle. The principle of liberty is not only

in thought but the root of thought; this principle of liberty is also

something in itself concrete, at least in principle it is implicitly

concrete. Thus far have general culture and philosophic culture advanced.

Since what is knowable has now been placed entirely within the sphere of

consciousness, and since the liberty of the spirit has been apprehended

as absolute, this may be understood to mean that knowledge has entered

altogether into the realm of the finite. The standpoint of the finite

was at the same time taken as ultimate, and God as a Beyond outside

consciousness; duties, rights, knowledge of nature, are finite. Man

has thereby formed for himself a kingdom of truth, from which God is

excluded; it is the kingdom of finite truth. The form of finitude may

here be termed the subjective form; liberty, self-consciousness [Ichheit]

of the mind, known as the absolute, is essentially subjective—in fact it

is the subjectivity of thought. The more the human reason has grasped

itself in itself, the more has it come down from God and the more has it

increased the field of the finite. Reason is One and All, which is at the

same time the totality of the finite; reason under these conditions is

finite knowledge and knowledge of the finite. The question is, since it

is this concrete that is established (and not metaphysical abstractions),

how it constitutes itself in itself; and then, how it returns to

objectivity, or abrogates its subjectivity, _i.e._ how by means of

thought God is to be again brought about, who at an earlier time and

at the beginning of this period was recognized as alone the true. This

is what we have to consider in the last period, in dealing with Kant,

Fichte, and Schelling.

SECTION THREE

RECENT GERMAN PHILOSOPHY