When I observe how a billiard ball, when struck, communicates its
motion to another, I remain entirely without influence on the process
before me. The direction and velocity of the motion of the second ball
is determined by the direction and velocity of the first. As long as
I remain a mere spectator, I can say nothing about the motion of the
second ball until after it has happened. It is quite different when
I begin to reflect on the content of my observations. The purpose of
my reflection is to construct concepts of the process. I connect the
concept of an elastic ball with certain other concepts of mechanics,
and consider the special circumstances which obtain in the instance
in question. I try, in other words, to add to the process which takes
place without my interference, a second process which takes place in
the conceptual sphere. This latter process is dependent on me. This
is shown by the fact that I can rest content with the observation,
and renounce all search for concepts if I have no need of them. If,
therefore, this need is present, then I am not content until I
have established a definite connection among the concepts, ball,
elasticity, motion, impact, velocity, etc., so that they apply to the
observed process in a definite way. As surely as the occurrence of
the observed process is independent of me, so surely is the occurrence
of the conceptual process dependent on me.
We shall have to consider later whether this activity of mine
really proceeds from my own independent being, or whether those
modern physiologists are right who say that we cannot think
as we will, but that we must think exactly as the thoughts and
thought-connections determine, which happen to be in our minds at any
given moment. (Cp. Ziehen, Leitfaden der Physiologischen Psychologie,
Jena, 1893, p. 171.) For the present we wish merely to establish
the fact that we constantly feel obliged to seek for concepts and
connections of concepts, which stand in definite relation to the
objects and processes which are given independently of us. Whether
this activity is really ours, or whether we are determined to it by
an unalterable necessity, is a question which we need not decide at
present. What is unquestionable is that the activity appears, in the
first instance, to be ours. We know for certain that concepts are not
given together with the objects to which they correspond. My being
the agent in the conceptual process may be an illusion; but there
is no doubt that to immediate observation I appear to be active. Our
present question is, what do we gain by supplementing a process with
a conceptual counterpart?
There is a far-reaching difference between the ways in which, for
me, the parts of a process are related to one another before, and
after, the discovery of the corresponding concepts. Mere observation
can trace the parts of a given process as they occur, but their
connection remains obscure without the help of concepts. I observe the
first billiard ball move towards the second in a certain direction
and with a certain velocity. What will happen after the impact I
cannot tell in advance. I can once more only watch it happen with
my eyes. Suppose someone obstructs my view of the field where the
process is happening, at the moment when the impact occurs, then,
as mere spectator, I remain ignorant of what goes on. The situation
is very different, if prior to the obstructing of my view I have
discovered the concepts corresponding to the nexus of events. In
that case I can say what occurs, even when I am no longer able to
observe. There is nothing in a merely observed process or object
to show its relation to other processes or objects. This relation
becomes manifest only when observation is combined with thought.
Observation and thought are the two points of departure for all
the spiritual striving of man, in so far as he is conscious of such
striving. The workings of common sense, as well as the most complicated
scientific researches, rest on these two fundamental pillars of our
minds. Philosophers have started from various ultimate antitheses, Idea
and Reality, Subject and Object, Appearance and Thing-in-itself, Ego
and Non-Ego, Idea and Will, Concept and Matter, Force and Substance,
the Conscious and the Unconscious. It is, however, easy to show that
all these antitheses are subsequent to that between Observation and
Thought, this being for man the most important.
Whatever principle we choose to lay down, we must either prove that
somewhere we have observed it, or we must enunciate it in the form of
a clear concept which can be re-thought by any other thinker. Every
philosopher who sets out to discuss his fundamental principles, must
express them in conceptual form and thus use thought. He therefore
indirectly admits that his activity presupposes thought. We leave
open here the question whether thought or something else is the
chief factor in the development of the world. But it is at any rate
clear that the philosopher can gain no knowledge of this development
without thought. In the occurrence of phenomena thought may play a
secondary part, but it is quite certain that it plays a chief part
in the construction of a theory about them.
As regards observation, our need of it is due to our organisation. Our
thought about a horse and the object "horse" are two things which for
us have separate existences. The object is accessible to us only by
means of observation. As little as we can construct a concept of a
horse by mere staring at the animal, just as little are we able by
mere thought to produce the corresponding object.
In time observation actually precedes thought. For we become familiar
with thought itself in the first instance by observation. It was
essentially a description of an observation when, at the beginning
of this chapter, we gave an account of how thought is kindled by an
objective process and transcends the merely given. Whatever enters
the circle of our experiences becomes an object of apprehension
to us first through observation. All contents of sensations, all
perceptions, intuitions, feelings, acts of will, dreams and fancies,
images, concepts, ideas, all illusions and hallucinations, are given
to us through observation.
But thought as an object of observation differs essentially from all
other objects. The observation of a table, or a tree, occurs in me
as soon as those objects appear within the horizon of my field of
consciousness. Yet I do not, at the same time, observe my thought
about these things. I observe the table, but I carry on a process of
thought about the table without at the same moment observing this
thought-process. I must first take up a standpoint outside of my
own activity, if I want to observe my thought about the table, as
well as the table. Whereas the observation of things and processes,
and the thinking about them, are everyday occurrences making up the
continuous current of my life, the observation of the thought-process
itself is an exceptional attitude to adopt. This fact must be taken
into account, when we come to determine the relations of thought
as an object of observation to all other objects. We must be quite
clear about the fact that, in observing the thought-processes, we are
applying to them a method which is our normal attitude in the study
of all other objects in the world, but which in the ordinary course
of that study is usually not applied to thought itself.
Someone might object that what I have said about thinking applies
equally to feeling and to all other mental activities. Thus it is said
that when, e.g., I have a feeling of pleasure, the feeling is kindled
by the object, but it is this object I observe, not the feeling of
pleasure. This objection, however, is based on an error. Pleasure does
not stand at all in the same relation to its object as the concept
constructed by thought. I am conscious, in the most positive way, that
the concept of a thing is formed through my activity; whereas a feeling
of pleasure is produced in me by an object in a way similar to that in
which, e.g., a change is caused in an object by a stone which falls on
it. For observation, a pleasure is given in exactly the same way as the
event which causes it. The same is not true of concepts. I can ask why
an event arouses in me a feeling of pleasure. But I certainly cannot
ask why an occurrence causes in me a certain number of concepts. The
question would be simply meaningless. In thinking about an occurrence,
I am not concerned with it as an effect on me. I learn nothing about
myself from knowing the concepts which correspond to the observed
change caused in a pane of glass by a stone thrown against it. But I do
learn something about myself when I know the feeling which a certain
occurrence arouses in me. When I say of an object which I perceive,
"this is a rose," I say absolutely nothing about myself; but when I
say of the same thing that "it causes a feeling of pleasure in me,"
I characterise not only the rose, but also myself in my relation to
the rose.
There can, therefore, be no question of putting thought and feeling on
a level as objects of observation. And the same could easily be shown
of other activities of the human mind. Unlike thought, they must be
classed with any other observed objects or events. The peculiar nature
of thought lies just in this, that it is an activity which is directed
solely on the observed object and not on the thinking subject. This
is apparent even from the way in which we express our thoughts about
an object, as distinct from our feelings or acts of will. When I
see an object and recognise it as a table, I do not as a rule say,
"I am thinking of a table," but, "this is a table." On the other
hand, I do say, "I am pleased with the table." In the former case,
I am not at all interested in stating that I have entered into a
relation with the table; whereas, in the second case, it is just
this relation which matters. In saying, "I am thinking of a table,"
I adopt the exceptional point of view characterised above, in which
something is made the object of observation which is always present in
our mental activity, without being itself normally an observed object.
The peculiar nature of thought consists just in this, that the thinker
forgets his thinking while actually engaged in it. It is not thinking
which occupies his attention, but rather the object of thought which
he observes.
The first point, then, to notice about thought is that it is the
unobserved element in our ordinary mental life.
The reason why we do not notice the thinking which goes on in our
ordinary mental life is no other than this, that it is our own
activity. Whatever I do not myself produce appears in my field of
consciousness as an object; I contrast it with myself as something the
existence of which is independent of me. It forces itself upon me. I
must accept it as the presupposition of my thinking. As long as I think
about the object, I am absorbed in it, my attention is turned on it. To
be thus absorbed in the object is just to contemplate it by thought. I
attend, not to my activity, but to its object. In other words, whilst
I am thinking I pay no heed to my thinking which is of my own making,
but only to the object of my thinking which is not of my making.
I am, moreover, in exactly the same position when I adopt the
exceptional point of view and think of my own thought-processes. I can
never observe my present thought, I can only make my past experiences
of thought-processes subsequently the objects of fresh thoughts. If
I wanted to watch my present thought, I should have to split myself
into two persons, one to think, the other to observe this thinking. But
this is impossible. I can only accomplish it in two separate acts. The
observed thought-processes are never those in which I am actually
engaged but others. Whether, for this purpose, I make observations
on my own former thoughts, or follow the thought-processes of another
person, or finally, as in the example of the motions of the billiard
balls, assume an imaginary thought-process, is immaterial.
There are two things which are incompatible with one another:
productive activity and the theoretical contemplation of that
activity. This is recognised even in the First Book of Moses. It
represents God as creating the world in the first six days, and only
after its completion is any contemplation of the world possible:
"And God saw everything that he had made and, behold, it was very
good." The same applies to our thinking. It must be there first,
if we would observe it.
The reason why it is impossible to observe the thought-process
in its actual occurrence at any given moment, is the same as that
which makes it possible for us to know it more immediately and more
intimately than any other process in the world. Just because it is
our own creation do we know the characteristic features of its course,
the manner in which the process, in detail, takes place. What in the
other spheres of observation we can discover only indirectly, viz.,
the relevant objective nexus and the relations of the individual
objects, that is known to us immediately in the case of thought. I
do not know off-hand why, for perception, thunder follows lightning,
but I know immediately, from the content of the two concepts, why my
thought connects the concept of thunder with that of lightning. It
does not matter for my argument whether my concepts of thunder and
lightning are correct. The connection between the concepts I have is
clear to me, and that through the very concepts themselves.
This transparent clearness in the observation of our thought-processes
is quite independent of our knowledge of the physiological basis of
thought. I am speaking here of thought in the sense in which it is the
object of our observation of our own mental activity. For this purpose
it is quite irrelevant how one material process in my brain causes or
influences another, whilst I am carrying on a process of thought. What
I observe, in studying a thought-process, is, not what process in
my brain connects the concept of thunder with that of lightning,
but what is my reason for bringing these two concepts into a definite
relation. Introspection shows that, in linking thought with thought,
I am guided by their content, not by the material processes in the
brain. This remark would be quite superfluous in a less materialistic
age than ours. To-day, however, when there are people who believe that,
when we know what matter is, we shall know also how it thinks, it is
necessary to affirm the possibility of speaking of thought without
trespassing on the domain of brain physiology. Many people to-day find
it difficult to grasp the concept of thought in its purity. Anyone who
challenges the account of thought which I have given here, by quoting
Cabanis' statement that "the brain secretes thoughts as the liver does
gall or the spittle-glands spittle, etc." simply does not know of what
I am talking. He attempts to discover thought by the same method of
mere observation which we apply to the other objects that make up the
world. But he cannot find it in this way, because, as I have shown,
it eludes just this ordinary observation. Whoever cannot transcend
Materialism lacks the ability to throw himself into the exceptional
attitude I have described, in which he becomes conscious of what in
all other mental activity remains unconscious. It is as useless to
discuss thought with one who is not willing to adopt this attitude, as
it would be to discuss colour with a blind man. Let him not imagine,
however, that we regard physiological processes as thought. He fails
to explain thought, because he is not even aware that it is there.
For every one, however, who has the ability to observe thought, and
with good will every normal man has this ability, this observation
is the most important he can make. For he observes something which
he himself produces. He is not confronted by what is to begin with
a strange object, but by his own activity. He knows how that which
he observes has come to be. He perceives clearly its connections and
relations. He gains a firm point from which he can, with well-founded
hopes, seek an explanation of the other phenomena of the world.
The feeling that he had found such a firm foundation, induced the
father of modern philosophy, Descartes, to base the whole of human
knowledge on the principle, "I think, therefore I am." All other
things, all other processes, are independent of me. Whether they be
truth, or illusion, or dream, I know not. There is only one thing
of which I am absolutely certain, for I myself am the author of its
indubitable existence; and that is my thought. Whatever other origin
it may have in addition, whether it come from God or from elsewhere,
of one thing I am sure, that it exists in the sense that I myself
produce it. Descartes had, to begin with, no justification for reading
any other meaning into his principle. All he had a right to assert
was that, in apprehending myself as thinking, I apprehend myself,
within the world-system, in that activity which is most uniquely
characteristic of me. What the added words "therefore I am" are
intended to mean has been much debated. They can have a meaning on
one condition only. The simplest assertion I can make of a thing is,
that it is, that it exists. What kind of existence, in detail, it has,
can in no case be determined on the spot, as soon as the thing enters
within the horizon of my experience. Each object must be studied in
its relations to others, before we can determine the sense in which we
can speak of its existence. An experienced process may be a complex
of percepts, or it may be a dream, an hallucination, etc. In short,
I cannot say in what sense it exists. I can never read off the kind of
existence from the process itself, for I can discover it only when I
consider the process in its relation to other things. But this, again,
yields me no knowledge beyond just its relation to other things. My
inquiry touches firm ground only when I find an object, the reason
of the existence of which I can gather from itself. Such an object
I am myself in so far as I think, for I qualify my existence by the
determinate and self-contained content of my thought-activity. From
here I can go on to ask whether other things exist in the same or in
some other sense.
When thought is made an object of observation, something which
usually escapes our attention is added to the other observed
contents of the world. But the usual manner of observation, such as
is employed also for other objects, is in no way altered. We add
to the number of objects of observation, but not to the number of
methods. When we are observing other things, there enters among the
world-processes--among which I now include observation--one process
which is overlooked. There is present something different from every
other kind of process, something which is not taken into account. But
when I make an object of my own thinking, there is no such neglected
element present. For what lurks now in the background is just thought
itself over again. The object of observation is qualitatively identical
with the activity directed upon it. This is another characteristic
feature of thought-processes. When we make them objects of observation,
we are not compelled to do so with the help of something qualitatively
different, but can remain within the realm of thought.
When I weave a tissue of thoughts round an independently given object,
I transcend my observation, and the question then arises, What right
have I to do this? Why do I not passively let the object impress itself
on me? How is it possible for my thought to be relevantly related to
the object? These are questions which every one must put to himself
who reflects on his own thought-processes. But all these questions
lapse when we think about thought itself. We then add nothing to our
thought that is foreign to it, and therefore have no need to justify
any such addition.
Schelling says: "To know Nature means to create Nature." If we take
these words of the daring philosopher of Nature literally, we shall
have to renounce for ever all hope of gaining knowledge of Nature. For
Nature after all exists, and if we have to create it over again, we
must know the principles according to which it has originated in the
first instance. We should have to borrow from Nature as it exists
the conditions of existence for the Nature which we are about to
create. But this borrowing, which would have to precede the creating,
would be a knowing of Nature, and would be this even if after the
borrowing no creation at all were attempted. The only kind of Nature
which it would be possible to create without previous knowledge,
would be a Nature different from the existing one.
What is impossible with Nature, viz., creation prior to knowledge, that
we accomplish in the act of thought. Were we to refrain from thinking
until we had first gained knowledge of it, we should never think at
all. We must resolutely think straight ahead, and then afterwards by
introspective analysis gain knowledge of our own processes. Thus we
ourselves create the thought-processes which we then make objects of
observation. The existence of all other objects is provided for us
without any activity on our part.
My contention that we must think before we can make thought an
object of knowledge, might easily be countered by the apparently
equally valid contention that we cannot wait with digesting until we
have first observed the process of digestion. This objection would
be similar to that brought by Pascal against Descartes, when he
asserted we might also say "I walk, therefore I am." Certainly I must
digest resolutely and not wait until I have studied the physiological
process of digestion. But I could only compare this with the analysis
of thought if, after digestion, I set myself not to analyse it by
thought, but to eat and digest it. It is not without reason that,
while digestion cannot become the object of digestion, thought can
very well become the object of thought.
This then is indisputable, that in thinking we have got hold of one
bit of the world-process which requires our presence if anything is
to happen. And that is the very point that matters. The very reason
why things seem so puzzling is just that I play no part in their
production. They are simply given to me, whereas I know how thought
is produced. Hence there can be no more fundamental starting-point
than thought from which to regard all world-processes.
I should like still to mention a widely current error which prevails
with regard to thought. It is often said that thought, in its real
nature, is never experienced. The thought-processes which connect
our perceptions with one another, and weave about them a network
of concepts, are not at all the same as those which our analysis
afterwards extracts from the objects of perception, in order to make
them the object of study. What we have unconsciously woven into things
is, so we are told, something widely different from what subsequent
analysis recovers out of them.
Those who hold this view do not see that it is impossible to escape
from thought. I cannot get outside thought when I want to observe
it. We should never forget that the distinction between thought which
goes on unconsciously and thought which is consciously analysed, is a
purely external one and irrelevant to our discussion. I do not in any
way alter a thing by making it an object of thought. I can well imagine
that a being with quite different sense-organs, and with a differently
constructed intelligence, would have a very different idea of a horse
from mine, but I cannot think that my own thought becomes different
because I make it an object of knowledge. I myself observe my own
processes. We are not talking here of how my thought-processes appear
to an intelligence different from mine, but how they appear to me. In
any case, the idea which another mind forms of my thought cannot be
truer than the one which I form myself. Only if the thought-processes
were not my own, but the activity of a being quite different from me,
could I maintain that, notwithstanding my forming a definite idea of
these thought-processes, their real nature was beyond my comprehension.
So far, there is not the slightest reason why I should regard my
thought from any other point of view than my own. I contemplate the
rest of the world by means of thought. How should I make of my thought
an exception?
I think I have given sufficient reasons for making thought the
starting-point for my theory of the world. When Archimedes had
discovered the lever, he thought he could lift the whole cosmos
out of its hinges, if only he could find a point of support for his
instrument. He needed a point which was self-supporting. In thought
we have a principle which is self-subsisting. Let us try, therefore,
to understand the world starting with thought as our basis. Thought
can be grasped by thought. The question is whether by thought we can
also grasp something other than thought.
I have so far spoken of thought without taking any account of its
vehicle, the human consciousness. Most present-day philosophers
would object that, before there can be thought, there must be
consciousness. Hence we ought to start, not from thought, but from
consciousness. There is no thought, they say without consciousness. In
reply I would urge that, in order to clear up the relation between
thought and consciousness, I must think about it. Hence I presuppose
thought. One might, it is true, retort that, though a philosopher who
wishes to understand consciousness, naturally makes use of thought,
and so far presupposes it, in the ordinary course of life thought
arises within consciousness and therefore presupposes that. Were this
answer given to the world-creator, when he was about to create thought,
it would, without doubt, be to the point. Thought cannot, of course,
come into being before consciousness. The philosopher, however, is not
concerned with the creation of the world, but with the understanding
of it. Hence he is in search of the starting-point, not for creation,
but for the understanding of the world. It seems to me very strange
that philosophers are reproached for troubling themselves, above all,
about the correctness of their principles, instead of turning straight
to the objects which they seek to understand. The world-creator had
above all to know how to find a vehicle for thought; the philosopher
must seek a firm basis for the understanding of what is given. What
does it help us to start with consciousness and make it an object of
thought, if we have not first inquired how far it is possible at all
to gain any knowledge of things by thought?
We must first consider thought quite impartially without relation to a
thinking subject or to an object of thought. For subject and object are
both concepts constructed by thought. There is no denying that thought
must be understood before anything else can be understood. Whoever
denies this, fails to realise that man is not the first link in the
chain of creation but the last. Hence, in order to explain the world
by means of concepts, we cannot start from the elements of existence
which came first in time, but we must begin with those which are
nearest and most intimately connected with us. We cannot, with a leap,
transport ourselves to the beginning of the world, in order to begin
our analysis there, but we must start from the present and see whether
we cannot advance from the later to the earlier. As long as Geology
fabled fantastic revolutions to account for the present state of the
earth, it groped in darkness. It was only when it began to study the
processes at present at work on the earth, and from these to argue back
to the past, that it gained a firm foundation. As long as Philosophy
assumes all sorts of principles, such as atom, motion, matter, will,
the unconscious, it will hang in the air. The philosopher can reach
his goal only if he adopts that which is last in time as first in
his theory. This absolutely last in the world-process is thought.
There are people who say it is impossible to ascertain with certainty
whether thought is right or wrong, and that, so far, our starting-point
is a doubtful one. It would be just as intelligent to raise doubts as
to whether a tree is in itself right or wrong. Thought is a fact, and
it is meaningless to speak of the truth or falsity of a fact. I can,
at most, be in doubt as to whether thought is rightly employed, just as
I can doubt whether a certain tree supplies wood adapted to the making
of this or that useful object. It is just the purpose of this book
to show how far the application of thought to the world is right or
wrong. I can understand anyone doubting whether, by means of thought,
we can gain any knowledge of the world, but it is unintelligible to
me how anyone can doubt that thought in itself is right.