This twofold labor or task, which consists in making the necessary pass
into reality in us and in making _out of us_ reality subject to the law
of necessity, is urged upon us as a duty by two opposing forces, which
are justly styled impulsions or instincts, because they impel us to
realize their object. The first of these impulsions, which I shall call
the _sensuous instinct_, issues from the physical existence of man, or
from sensuous nature; and it is this instinct which tends to enclose him
in the limits of time, and to make of him a material being; I do not say
to give him matter, for to do that a certain free activity of the
personality would be necessary, which, receiving matter, distinguishes
it from the Ego, or what is permanent. By matter I only understand in
this place the change or reality that fills time. Consequently the
instinct requires that there should be change, and that time should
contain something. This simply filled state of time is named sensation,
and it is only in this state that physical existence manifests itself.
As all that is in time is _successive_, it follows by that fact alone
that something is: all the remainder is excluded. When one note on an
instrument is touched, among all those that it virtually offers, this
note alone is real. When man is actually modified, the infinite
possibility of all his modifications is limited to this single mode of
existence. Thus, then, the exclusive action of sensuous impulsion has
for its necessary consequence the narrowest limitation. In this state
man is only a unity of magnitude, a complete moment in time; or, to
speak more correctly, _he_ is not, for his personality is suppressed as
long as sensation holds sway over him and carries time along with it.
This instinct extends its domains over the entire sphere of the finite
in man, and as form is only revealed in matter, and the absolute by
means of its limits, the total manifestation of human nature is
connected on a close analysis with the sensuous instinct. But though it
is only this instinct that awakens and develops what exists virtually in
man, it is nevertheless this very instinct which renders his perfection
impossible. It binds down to the world of sense by indestructible ties
the spirit that tends higher, and it calls back to the limits of the
present, abstraction which had its free development in the sphere of the
infinite. No doubt, thought can escape it for a moment, and a firm will
victoriously resist its exigencies: but soon compressed nature resumes
her rights to give an imperious reality to our existence, to give it
contents, substance, knowledge, and an aim for our activity.
The second impulsion, which may be named the _formal instinct_, issues
from the absolute existence of man, or from his rational nature, and
tends to set free, and bring harmony into the diversity of its
manifestations, and to maintain personality notwithstanding all the
changes of state. As this personality, being an absolute and indivisible
unity, can never be in contradiction with itself, as _we are ourselves_
forever, this impulsion, which tends to maintain personality, can never
exact in one time anything but what it exacts and requires forever. It
therefore decides for always what it decides now, and orders now what it
orders forever. Hence it embraces the whole series of times, or what
comes to the same thing, it suppresses time and change. It wishes the
real to be necessary and eternal, and it wishes the eternal and the
necessary to be real; in other terms, it tends to truth and justice.
If the sensuous instinct only produces _accidents_, the formal instinct
gives laws, laws for every judgment when it is a question of knowledge,
laws for every will when it is a question of action. Whether, therefore,
we recognize an object or conceive an objective value to a state of the
subject, whether we act in virtue of knowledge or make of the objective
the determining principle of our state; in both cases we withdraw this
state from the jurisdiction of time, and we attribute to it reality for
all men and for all time, that is, universality and necessity. Feeling
can only say: “That is true _for this subject_ and _at this moment_,”
and there may come another moment, another subject, which withdraws the
affirmation from the actual feeling. But when once thought pronounces
and says: “_That is_,” it decides forever and ever, and the validity of
its decision is guaranteed by the personality itself, which defies all
change. Inclination can only say: “That is good _for your individuality_
and _present necessity_”; but the changing current of affairs will sweep
them away, and what you ardently desire to-day will form the object of
your aversion to-morrow. But when the moral feeling says: “That ought to
be,” it decides forever. If you confess the truth because it is the
truth, and if you practise justice because it is justice, you have made
of a particular case the law of all possible cases, and treated one
moment of your life as eternity.
Accordingly, when the formal impulse holds sway and the pure object acts
in us, the being attains its highest expansion, all barriers disappear,
and from the unity of magnitude in which man was enclosed by a narrow
sensuousness, he rises to the _unity of idea_, which embraces and keeps
subject the entire sphere of phenomena. During this operation we are no
longer in time, but time is in us with its infinite succession. We are
no longer individuals but a species; the judgment of all spirits is
expressed by our own, and the choice of all hearts is represented by our
own act.