[Sidenote] _Indissolubility of intellective from intuitive knowledge._
The two forms of knowledge, aesthetic and intellectual or conceptual,
are indeed diverse, but this does not amount altogether to separation
and disjunction, as we find with two forces going each its own way. If
we have shown that the aesthetic form is altogether independent of the
intellectual and suffices to itself without external support, we have
not said that the intellectual can stand without the aesthetic. This
_reciprocity_ would not be true.
What is knowledge by concepts? It is knowledge of relations of things,
and those things are intuitions. Concepts are not possible without
intuitions, just as intuition is itself impossible without the material
of impressions. Intuitions are: this river, this lake, this brook, this
rain, this glass of water; the concept is: water, not this or that
appearance and particular example of water, but water in general, in
whatever time or place it be realized; the material of infinite
intuitions, but of one single and constant concept.
However, the concept, the universal, if it be no longer intuition in one
respect, is in another respect intuition, and cannot fail of being
intuition. For the man who thinks has impressions and emotions, in so
far as he thinks. His impression and emotion will not be love or hate,
but _the effort of his thought itself_, with the pain and the joy, the
love and the hate joined to it. This effort cannot but become intuitive
in form, in becoming objective to the mind. To speak, is not to think
logically; but to _think logically_ is, at the same time, to _speak_.
[Sidenote] _Critique of the negations of this thesis._
That thought cannot exist without speech, is a truth generally admitted.
The negations of this thesis are all founded on equivoques and errors.
The first of the equivoques is implied by those who observe that one can
likewise think with geometrical figures, algebraical numbers,
ideographic signs, without a single word, even pronounced silently and
almost insensibly within one. They also affirm that there are languages
in which the word, the phonetic sign, expresses nothing, unless the
written sign also be looked at. But when we said "speech," we intended
to employ a synecdoche, and that "expression" generically, should be
understood, for expression is not only so-called verbal expression, as
we have already noted. It may be admitted that certain concepts may be
thought without phonetic manifestations. But the very examples adduced
to show this also prove that those concepts never exist without
expressions.
Others maintain that animals, or certain animals, think or reason
without speaking. Now as to how, whether, and what animals think,
whether they be rudimentary, half-savage men resisting civilization,
rather than physiological machines, as the old spiritualists would have
it, are questions that do not concern us here. When the philosopher
talks of animal, brutal, impulsive, instinctive nature and the like, he
does not base himself on conjectures as to these facts concerning dogs
or cats, lions or ants; but upon observations of what is called animal
and brutal in man: of the boundary or animal basis of what we feel in
ourselves. If individual animals, dogs or cats, lions or ants, possess
something of the activity of man, so much the better, or so much the
worse for them. This means that as regards them also we must talk, not
of their nature as a whole, but of its animal basis, as being perhaps
larger and more strong than the animal basis of man. And if we suppose
that animals think, and form concepts, what is there in the line of
conjecture to justify the admission that they do so without
corresponding expressions? The analogy with man, the knowledge of the
spirit, human psychology, which is the instrument of all our conjectures
as to animal psychology, would oblige us to suppose that if they think
in any way, they also have some sort of speech.
It is from human psychology, that is, literary psychology, that comes
the other objection, to the effect that the concept can exist without
the word, because it is true that we all know books that are _well
thought and badly written_: that is to say, a thought which remains
thought _beyond_ the expression, _notwithstanding_ the imperfect
expression. But when we talk of books well thought and badly written, we
cannot mean other than that in those books are parts, pages, periods or
propositions well thought out and well written, and other parts (perhaps
the least important) ill thought out and badly written, not truly
thought out and therefore not truly expressed. Where Vico's _Scienza
nuova_ is really ill written, it is also ill thought out. If we pass
from the consideration of big books to a short proposition, the error or
the imprecision of this statement will be recognized at once. How could
a proposition be clearly thought and confusedly written out?
All that can be admitted is that sometimes we possess thoughts
(concepts) in an intuitive form, or in an abbreviated or, better,
peculiar expression, sufficient for us, but not sufficient to
communicate it with ease to another or other definite individuals. Hence
people say inaccurately, that we have the thought without the
expression; whereas it should properly be said that we have, indeed, the
expression, but in a form that is not easy of social communication.
This, however, is a very variable and altogether relative fact. There
are always people who catch our thought on the wing, and prefer it in
this abbreviated form, and would be displeased with the greater
development of it, necessary for other people. In other words, the
thought considered abstractly and logically will be the same; but
aesthetically we are dealing with two different intuition-expressions,
into both of which enter different psychological elements. The same
argument suffices to destroy, that is, to interpret correctly, the
altogether empirical distinction between an _internal_ and an _external_
language.
[Sidenote] _Art and science._
The most lofty manifestations, the summits of intellectual and of
intuitive knowledge shining from afar, are called, as we know, Art and
Science. Art and Science, then, are different and yet linked together;
they meet on one side, which is the aesthetic side. Every scientific
work is also a work of art. The aesthetic side may remain little
noticed, when our mind is altogether taken up with the effort to
understand the thought of the man of science, and to examine its truth.
But it is no longer concealed, when we pass from the activity of
understanding to that of contemplation, and behold that thought either
developed before us, limpid, exact, well-shaped, without superfluous
words, without lack of words, with appropriate rhythm and intonation; or
confused, broken, embarrassed, tentative. Great thinkers are sometimes
termed great writers, while other equally great thinkers remain more or
less fragmentary writers, if indeed their fragments are scientifically
to be compared with harmonious, coherent, and perfect works.
[Sidenote] _Content and form: another meaning. Prose and poetry._
We pardon thinkers and men of science their literary mediocrity. The
fragments console us for the failure of the whole, for it is far more
easy to recover the well-arranged composition from the fragmentary work
of genius than to achieve the discovery of genius. But how can we pardon
mediocre expression in pure artists? _Mediocribus esse poetis non di,
non homines, non concessere columnae_. The poet or painter who lacks
form, lacks everything, because he lacks _himself_. Poetical material
permeates the Soul of all: the expression alone, that is to say, the
form, makes the poet. And here appears the truth of the thesis which
denies to art all content, as content being understood just the
intellectual concept. In this sense, when we take "content" as equal to
"concept" it is most true, not only that art does not consist of
content, but also that _it has no content_.
In the same way the distinction between _poetry and prose_ cannot be
justified, save in that of art and science. It was seen in antiquity
that such distinction could not be founded on external elements, such as
rhythm and metre, or on the freedom or the limitation of the form; that
it was, on the contrary, altogether internal. Poetry is the language of
sentiment; prose of the intellect; but since the intellect is also
sentiment, in its concretion and reality, so all prose has a poetical
side.
[Sidenote] _The relation of first and second degree._
The relation between intuitive knowledge or expression, and intellectual
knowledge or concept, between art and science, poetry and prose, cannot
be otherwise defined than by saying that it is one of _double degree_.
The first degree is the expression, the second the concept: the first
can exist without the second, but the second cannot exist without the
first. There exists poetry without prose, but not prose without poetry.
Expression, indeed, is the first affirmation of human activity. Poetry
is "the maternal language of the human race"; the first men "were by
nature sublime poets." We also admit this in another way, when we
observe that the passage from soul to mind, from animal to human
activity, is effected by means of language. And this should be said of
intuition or expression in general. But to us it appears somewhat
inaccurate to define language or expression as an _intermediate_ link
between nature and humanity, as though it were a mixture of the one and
of the other. Where humanity appears, the rest has already disappeared;
the man who expresses himself, certainly emerges from the state of
nature, but he really does emerge: he does not stand half within and
half without, as the use of the phrase "intermediate link" would imply.
[Sidenote] _Inexistence of other forms of knowledge._
The cognitive intellect has no form other than these two. Expression and
concept exhaust it completely. The whole speculative life of man is
spent in passing from one to the other and back again.
[Sidenote] _History. Its identity with and difference from art._
_Historicity_ is incorrectly held to be a third theoretical form.
History is not form, but content: as form, it is nothing but intuition
or aesthetic fact. History does not seek for laws nor form concepts; it
employs neither induction nor deduction; it is directed _ad narrandum,
non ad demonstrandum_; it does not construct universals and
abstractions, but posits intuitions. The this, the that, the _individuum
omni modo determinatum_, is its kingdom, as it is the kingdom of art.
History, therefore, is included under the universal concept of art.
Faced with this proposition and with the impossibility of conceiving a
third mode of knowledge, objections have been brought forward which
would lead to the affiliation of history to intellective or scientific
knowledge. The greater portion of these objections is dominated by the
prejudice that in refusing to history the character of conceptual
science, something of its value and dignity has been taken from it. This
really arises from a false idea of art, conceived, not as an essential
theoretic function, but as an amusement, a superfluity, a frivolity.
Without reopening a long debate, which so far as we are concerned, is
finally closed, we will mention here one sophism which has been and
still is widely repeated. It is intended to show the logical and
scientific nature of history. The sophism consists in admitting that
historical knowledge has for its object the individual; but not the
representation, it is added, so much as the concept of the individual.
From this it is argued that history is also a logical or scientific form
of knowledge. History, in fact, should elaborate the concept of a
personage such as Charlemagne or Napoleon; of an epoch, like the
Renaissance or the Reformation; of an event, such as the French
Revolution and the Unification of Italy. This it is held to do in the
same way as Geometry elaborates the concepts of spatial form, or
Aesthetic those of expression. But all this is untrue. History cannot do
otherwise than represent Napoleon and Charlemagne, the Renaissance and
the Reformation, the French Revolution and the Unification of Italy as
individual facts with their individual physiognomy: that is, in the same
way as logicians state, that one cannot have a concept of an individual,
but only a representation. The so-called concept of the individual is
always a universal or general concept, full of details, very rich, if
you will, but however rich it be, yet incapable of attaining to that
individuality, to which historical knowledge, as aesthetic knowledge,
alone attains.
Let us rather show how the content of history comes to be distinguished
from that of art. The distinction is secondary. Its origin will be found
in what has already been observed as to the ideal character of the
intuition or first perception, in which all is real and therefore
nothing is real. The mind forms the concepts of external and internal at
a later stage, as it does those of what has happened and of what is
desired, of object and subject, and the like. Thus it distinguishes
historical from non-historical intuition, the _real_ from the _unreal_,
real fancy from pure fancy. Even internal facts, what is desired and
imagined, castles in the air, and countries of Cockagne, have their
reality. The soul, too, has its history. His illusions form part of the
biography of every individual. But the history of an individual soul is
history, because in it is always active the distinction between the real
and the unreal, even when the real is the illusions themselves. But
these distinctive concepts do not appear in history as do scientific
concepts, but rather like those that we have seen dissolved and melted
in the aesthetic intuitions, although they stand out in history in an
altogether new relief. History does not construct the concepts of the
real and unreal, but makes use of them. History, in fact, is not the
theory of history. Mere conceptual analysis is of no use in realizing
whether an event in our lives were real or imaginary. It is necessary to
reproduce the intuitions in the mind in the most complete form, as they
were at the moment of production, in order to recognize the content.
Historicity is distinguished in the concrete from pure imagination only
as one intuition is distinguished from another: in the memory.
[Sidenote] _Historical criticism._
[Sidenote] _Historical scepticism._
Where this is not possible, owing to the delicate and fleeting shades
between the real and unreal intuitions, which confuse the one with the
other, we must either renounce, for the time at least, the knowledge of
what really happened (and this we often do), or we must fall back upon
conjecture, verisimilitude, probability. The principle of verisimilitude
and of probability dominates in fact all historical criticism.
Examination of the sources and of authority is directed toward
establishing the most credible evidence. And what is the most credible
evidence, save that of the best observers, that is, of those who best
remember and (be it understood) have not desired to falsify, nor had
interest in falsifying the truth of things? From this it follows that
intellectual scepticism finds it easy to deny the certainty of any
history, for the certainty of history is never that of science.
Historical certainty is composed of memory and of authority, not of
analyses and of demonstration. To speak of historical induction or
demonstration, is to make a metaphorical use of these expressions, which
bear quite a different meaning in history to that which they bear in
science. The conviction of the historian is the undemonstrable
conviction of the juryman, who has heard the witnesses, listened
attentively to the case, and prayed Heaven to inspire him. Sometimes,
without doubt, he is mistaken, but the mistakes are in a negligible
minority compared with the occasions when he gets hold of the truth.
That is why good sense is right against the intellectualists, in
believing in history, which is not a "fable agreed upon," but that which
the individual and humanity remember of their past. We strive to enlarge
and to render as precise as possible this record, which in some places
is dim, in others very clear. We cannot do without it, such as it is,
and taken as a whole, it is rich in truth. In a spirit of paradox only,
can one doubt if there ever were a Greece or a Rome, an Alexander or a
Caesar, a feudal Europe overthrown by a series of revolutions, that on
the 1st of November 1517 the theses of Luther were seen fixed to the
door of the church of Wittenberg, or that the Bastile was taken by the
people of Paris on the 14th of July 1789.
"What proof givest thou of all this?" asks the sophist, ironically.
Humanity replies "I remember."
[Sidenote] _Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural
sciences, and their limits._
The world of what has happened, of the concrete, of history, is the
world that is called real, natural, including in this definition the
reality that is called physical, as well as that which is called
spiritual and human. All this world is intuition; historical intuition,
if it be realistically shown as it is, or imaginary intuition, artistic
in the strict sense, if shown under the aspect of the possible, that is
to say, of the imaginable.
Science, true science, which is not intuition but concept, not
individuality but universality, cannot be anything but a science of the
spirit, that is, of what is universal in reality: Philosophy. If natural
_sciences_ be spoken of, apart from philosophy, it is necessary to
observe that these are not perfect sciences: they are complexes of
knowledge, arbitrarily abstracted and fixed. The so-called natural
sciences themselves recognize, in fact, that they are surrounded by
limitations. These limitations are nothing more than historical and
intuitive data. They calculate, measure, establish equalities,
regularity, create classes and types, formulate laws, show in their own
way how one fact arises out of other facts; but in their progress they
are always met with facts which are known intuitively and historically.
Even geometry now states that it rests altogether on hypotheses, since
space is not three-dimensional or Euclidean, but this assumption is made
use of by preference, because it is more convenient. What there is of
truth in the natural sciences, is either philosophy or historical fact.
What they contain proper to themselves is abstract and arbitrary. When
the natural sciences wish to form themselves into perfect sciences, they
must issue from their circle and enter the philosophical circle. This
they do when they posit concepts which are anything but natural, such as
those of the atom without extension in space, of ether or vibrating
matter, of vital force, of space beyond the reach of intuition, and the
like. These are true and proper philosophical efforts, when they are not
mere words void of meaning. The concepts of natural science are, without
doubt, most useful; but one cannot obtain from them that _system_, which
belongs only to the spirit.
These historical and intuitive assumptions, which cannot be separated
from the natural sciences, furthermore explain, not only how, in the
progress of knowledge, that which was once considered to be truth
descends gradually to the grade of mythological beliefs and imaginary
illusions, but also how, among natural scientists, there are some who
term all that serves as basis of argument in their teaching _mythical
facts, verbal expedients_, or _conventions_. The naturalists and
mathematicians who approach the study of the energies of the spirit
without preparation, are apt to carry thither these mental habits and to
speak, in philosophy, of such and such conventions "as arranged by man."
They make conventions of truth and morality, and their supreme
convention is the Spirit itself! However, if there are to be
conventions, something must exist about which there is no convention to
be made, but which is itself the agent of the convention. This is the
spiritual activity of man. The limitation of the natural sciences
postulates the illimitation of philosophy.
[Sidenote] _The phenomenon and the noumenon._
These explications have firmly established that the pure or fundamental
forms of knowledge are two: the intuition and the concept--Art, and
Science or Philosophy. With these are to be included History, which is,
as it were, the product of intuition placed in contact with the concept,
that is, of art receiving in itself philosophic distinctions, while
remaining concrete and individual. All the other forms (natural sciences
and mathematics) are impure, being mingled with extraneous elements of
practical origin. The intuition gives the world, the phenomenon; the
concept gives the noumenon, the Spirit.