ON THE FOURTH CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT, AND THE FORM OF
THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT.
§ 40. _General Explanation._
The last Class of Objects for our representative faculty which remains
to be examined is a peculiar but highly important one. It comprises but
_one_ object for each individual: that is, the immediate object of the
inner sense, the _Subject in volition_, which is Object for the Knowing
Subject; wherefore it manifests itself in Time alone, never in Space,
and as we shall see, even in Time under an important restriction.
§ 41. _Subject of Knowledge and Object._
All knowledge presupposes Subject and Object. Even self-consciousness
(_Selbstbewusstsein_) therefore is not absolutely simple, but, like our
consciousness of all other things (_i.e._, the faculty of perception),
it is subdivided into that which is known and that which knows. Now,
that which is known manifests itself absolutely and exclusively as
_Will_.
The Subject accordingly knows itself exclusively as _willing_, but not
as _knowing_. For the _ego_ which represents, never can itself become
representation or Object, since it conditions all representations as
their necessary correlate; rather may the following beautiful passage
from the Sacred Upanishad be applied to it: _Id videndum non est: omnia
videt; et id audiendum non est: omnia audit; sciendum non est: omnia
scit: et intelligendum, non est: omnia intelligit. Præter id, videns,
et sciens, et audiens, et intelligens ens aliud non est._[151]
[151] "Oupnekhat," vol. i. p. 202.
There can therefore be no _knowledge of knowing_, because this would
imply separation of the Subject from knowing, while it nevertheless
knew that knowing--which is impossible.
My answer to the objection, "I not only know, but know also that I
know," would be, "Your knowing that you know only differs in words
from your knowing. 'I know that I know' means nothing more than 'I
know,' and this again, unless it is further determined, means nothing
more than '_ego_.' If your knowing and your knowing that you know are
two different things, just try to separate them, and first to know
without knowing that you know, then to know that you know without this
knowledge being at the same time knowing." No doubt, by leaving all
_special_ knowing out of the question, we may at last arrive at the
proposition "_I know_"--the last abstraction we are able to make; but
this proposition is identical with "_Objects exist for me_," and this
again is identical with "_I am Subject_," in which nothing more is
contained than in the bare word "_I_."
Now, it may still be asked how the various cognitive faculties
belonging to the Subject, such as Sensibility, Understanding, Reason,
are known to us, if we do not know the Subject. It is not through
our knowing having become an Object for us that these faculties
are known to us, for then there would not be so many conflicting
judgments concerning them; they are inferred rather, or more
correctly, they are general expressions for the established classes of
representations which, at all times, have been more or less clearly
distinguished in those cognitive faculties. But, with reference to
the necessary correlate of these representations as their condition,
_i.e._, the Subject, these faculties are abstracted from them (the
representations), and stand consequently towards the classes of
representations in precisely the same relation as the Subject in
general towards the Object in general. Now, just as the Object is at
once posited with the Subject (for the word itself would otherwise have
no meaning), and conversely, as the Subject is at once posited with
the Object--so that being the Subject means exactly as much as having
an Object, and being an Object means the same thing as being known by
the Subject--so likewise, when an Object is assumed as being determined
_in any particular way_, do we also assume that the Subject _knows
precisely in that particular way_. So far therefore it is immaterial
whether we say that Objects have such and such peculiar inherent
determinations, or that the Subject knows in such and such ways. It
is indifferent whether we say that Objects are divided into such and
such classes, or that such and such different cognitive faculties
are peculiar to the Subject. In that singular compound of depth and
superficiality, Aristotle, are to be found traces even of insight into
this truth, and indeed the critical philosophy lies in embryo in his
works. He says:[152] ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ ὄντα πώς ἐστι πάντα (anima quammodo est
universa, quæ sunt). And again: ὁ νοῦς ἐστι εἶδος εἰδῶν, _i.e._, the
understanding is the form of forms, καὶ ἡ αἴσθησις εἶδος αἰσθητῶν, and
sensibility the form of sensuous objects. Accordingly, it is all one
whether we say, "sensibility and understanding are no more;" or, "the
world is at an end." It comes to the same thing whether we say, "There
are no conceptions," or "Reason is gone and animals alone remain."
[152] Aristot., "De anima," iii. 8. "In a certain sense the
intellect is all that exists." (Tr.'s Add.)
The dispute between Realism and Idealism, which appeared for the last
time in the dispute between the Dogmatists and Kantians, or between
Ontology and Metaphysics on the one hand and Transcendental Æsthetic
and Transcendental Logic on the other, arose out of the misapprehension
of this relation and was based upon its misapprehension with reference
to the First and Third Classes of representations as established by me,
just as the mediæval dispute between Realists and Nominalists rested
upon the misapprehension of this relation with reference to the Second
Class.
§ 42. _The Subject of Volition._
According to what has preceded, the Subject of knowledge can never be
known; it can never become Object or representation. Nevertheless, as
we have not only an outer self-knowledge (in sensuous perception), but
an inner one also; and as, on the other hand, every knowledge, by its
very nature, presupposes a knower and a known, what is known within us
as such, is not the knower, but the willer, the Subject of Volition:
the Will. Starting from knowledge, we may assert that "I know" is an
analytical, "I will," on the contrary, a synthetical, and moreover an
_à posteriori_ proposition, that is, it is given by experience--in this
case by inner experience (_i.e._, in Time alone). In so far therefore
the Subject of volition would be an Object for us. Introspection
always shows us to ourselves as _willing_. In this _willing_, however,
there are numerous degrees, from the faintest wish to passion, and I
have often shown[153] that not only all our emotions, but even all
those movements of our inner man, which are subsumed under the wide
conception of feeling, are states of the will.
[153] See "Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik," p. 11, and in
several other places.
Now, the identity of the willing with the knowing Subject, in virtue of
which the word "I" includes and designates both, is the _nodus_[154] of
the Universe, and therefore inexplicable. For we can only comprehend
relations between Objects; but two Objects never can be one, excepting
as parts of a whole. Here, where the Subject is in question, the rules
by which we know Objects are no longer applicable, and actual identity
of the knower with what is known as willing--that is, of Subject and
Object--is _immediately given_. Now, whoever has clearly realized
the utter impossibility of explaining this identity, will surely
concur with me in calling it the miracle κατ' ἐξοχήν.
[154] _Weltknoten._
Just as the Understanding is the subjective correlate to our First
Class of representations, the Reason to the Second, and pure
Sensibility to the Third, so do we find that the correlate to this
Fourth Class is the inner sense, or Self-consciousness in general.
§ 43. _Willing. The Law of Motives (Motivation)._
It is just because the willing Subject is immediately given in
self-consciousness, that we are unable further to define or to describe
what willing is; properly speaking, it is the most direct knowledge we
have, nay, one whose immediateness must finally throw light upon every
other knowledge, as being very mediate.
At every resolution that we take ourselves, or that we see others take,
we deem ourselves justified in asking, why? That is, we assume that
something must have previously occurred, from which this resolution has
resulted, and we call this something its reason, or, more correctly,
the motive of the action which now follows. Without such a reason or
motive, the action is just as inconceivable for us, as the movement
of a lifeless body without being pushed or pulled. Motives therefore
belong to causes, and have also been already numbered and characterized
among them in § 20, as the third form of Causality. But all Causality
is only the form of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in the First
Class of Objects: that is, in the corporeal world given us in external
perception. There it forms the link which connects changes one with
another, the cause being that which, coming from outside, conditions
each occurrence. The inner nature of such occurrences on the contrary
continues to be a mystery for us: for we always remain on the outside.
We certainly see this cause necessarily produce that effect; but we
do not learn how it is actually enabled to do so, or what is going on
inside. Thus we see mechanical, physical, chemical effects, as well as
those brought about by _stimuli_, in each instance follow from their
respective causes without on that account ever completely understanding
the process, the essential part of which remains a mystery for us;
so we attribute it to qualities of bodies, to forces of Nature, or
to vital energy, which, however, are all _qualitates occultæ_. Nor
should we be at all better off as to comprehension of the movements and
actions of animals and of human beings, which would also appear to us
as induced in some unaccountable way by their causes (motives), were
it not that here we are granted an insight into the inward part of the
process; we know, that is, by our own inward experience, that this is
an act of the will called forth by the motive, which consists in a mere
representation. Thus the effect produced by the motive, unlike that
produced by all other causes, is not only known by us from outside,
in a merely indirect way, but at the same time from inside, quite
directly, and therefore according to its whole mode of action. Here we
stand as it were behind the scenes, and learn the secret of the process
by which cause produces effect in its most inward nature; for here
our knowledge comes to us through a totally different channel and in
a totally different way. From this results the important proposition:
_The action of motives (motivation) is causality seen from within_.
Here accordingly causality presents itself in quite a different way,
in quite a different medium, and for quite another kind of knowledge;
therefore it must now be exhibited as a special and peculiar form of
our principle, which consequently here presents itself as the Principle
of the Sufficient Reason of Acting, _principium rationis sufficientis
agendi_, or, more briefly, as the _Law of Motives (Law of Motivation)_.
As a clue to my philosophy in general, I here add, that this Fourth
Class of Objects for the Subject, that is, the one object contained
in it, the _will_ which we apprehend within us, stands in the same
relation towards the First Class as the law of motives towards the
law of causality, as I have established it in § 20. This truth is the
corner-stone of my whole Metaphysic.
As to the way in which, and the necessity with which, motives act,
and as to the dependence of their action upon empirical, individual
character, and even upon individual capacity for knowledge, &c. &c., I
refer my readers to my Prize-essay on the Freedom of the Will, in which
I have treated all this more fully.
§ 44. _Influence of the Will over the Intellect._
It is not upon causality proper, but upon the identity of the knowing
with the willing Subject, as shown in § 42, that the influence is
based, which the will exercises over the intellect, when it obliges
it to repeat representations that have once been present to it,
and in general to turn its attention in this or that direction and
evoke at pleasure any particular series of thoughts. And even in
this, the will is determined by the law of motives, in accordance
with which it also secretly rules what is called the association of
ideas, to which I have devoted a separate chapter (the 14th) in the
second volume of my chief work. This association of ideas is itself
nothing but the application of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
in its four forms to the subjective train of thought; that is, to
the presence of representations in our consciousness. But it is the
will of the individual that sets the whole mechanism in motion, by
urging the intellect, in accordance with the interest, _i.e._, the
individual aims, of the person, to recall, together with its present
representations, those which either logically or analogically, or by
proximity in Time or Space, are nearly related to them. The will's
activity in this, however, is so immediate, that in most cases we
have no clear consciousness of it; and so rapid, that we are at
times even unconscious of the occasion which has thus called forth a
representation. In such cases, it appears as if something had come into
our consciousness quite independently of all connection with anything
else; that this, however, is impossible, is precisely the Root of the
Principle of Sufficient Reason, which has been fully explained in the
above-mentioned chapter of my chief work.[155] Every picture which
suddenly presents itself to our imagination, every judgment even that
does not follow its previously present reason, must be called forth
by an act of volition having a motive; although that motive may often
escape our perception owing to its insignificance, and although such
acts of volition are often in like manner unperceived, because they
take place so easily, that wish and fulfilment are simultaneous.
[155] See "Die Welt, a. W. u. V." vol. ii. ch. xiv.
§ 45. _Memory._
That peculiar faculty of the knowing Subject which enables it to obey
the will the more readily in repeating representations, the oftener
they have already been present to it--in other words, its capacity for
being exercised--is what we call _Memory_. I cannot agree with the
customary view, by which it is looked upon as a sort of store-house
in which we keep a stock of ready-made representations always at our
disposal, only without being always conscious of their possession.
The voluntary repetition of representations which have once been
present becomes so easy through practice, that one link in a series of
representations no sooner becomes present to us, than we at once evoke
all the rest, often even, as it were, involuntarily. If we were to look
for a metaphor for this characteristic quality of our representative
faculty (such as that of Plato, who compared it with a soft mass that
receives and retains impressions), I think the best would be that
of a piece of drapery, which, after having been repeatedly folded
in the same folds, at last falls into them, as it were, of its own
accord. The body learns by practice to obey the will, and the faculty
of representing does precisely the same. A remembrance is not by any
means, as the usual view supposes, always the same representation which
is, as it were, fetched over and over again from its store-house;
a new one, on the contrary, arises each time, only practice makes
this especially easy. Thus it comes to pass that pictures of our
imagination, which we fancy we have stowed away in our memory, become
imperceptibly modified: a thing which we realize when we see some
familiar object again after a long time, and find that it no longer
completely corresponds to the image we bring with us. This could not
be if we retained ready-made representations. It is just for this
reason too, that acquired knowledge, if left unexercised, gradually
fades from our memory, precisely because it was the result of practice
coming from habit and knack; thus most scholars, for instance, forget
their Greek, and most artists their Italian on their return from Italy.
This is also why we find so much difficulty in recalling to mind a
name or a line of poetry formerly familiar to us, when we have ceased
to think of it for several years; whereas when once we succeed in
remembering it, we have it again at our disposal for some time, because
the practice has been renewed. Everyone therefore who knows several
languages, will do well to make a point of reading occasionally in
each, that he may ensure to himself their possession.
This likewise explains why the surroundings and events of our childhood
impress themselves so deeply on our memory; it is because, in childhood
we have but few, and those chiefly intuitive, representations: so that
we are induced to repeat them constantly for the sake of occupation.
People who have little capability for original thought do this all
their lives (and moreover not only with intuitive representations,
but with conceptions and words also); sometimes therefore they
have remarkably good memories, when obtuseness and sluggishness of
intellect do not act as impediments. Men of genius, on the contrary,
are not always endowed with the best of memories, as, for instance,
Rousseau has told us of himself. Perhaps this may be accounted for by
their great abundance of new thoughts and combinations, which leaves
them no time for frequent repetition. Still, on the whole, genius is
seldom found with a very bad memory; because here a greater energy
and mobility of the whole thinking faculty makes up for the want of
constant practice. Nor must we forget that Mnemosyne was the mother of
the Muses. We may accordingly say, that our memory stands under two
contending influences, that of the energy of the representative faculty
on the one hand, and that of the quantity of representations occupying
that faculty on the other. The less energy there is in the faculty, the
fewer must be the representations, and conversely. This explains the
impaired memory of habitual novel-readers, for it is with them as with
men of genius: the multitude of representations following rapidly upon
each other, leaves no time or patience for repetition and practice;
only, in novels, these representations are not the readers' own, but
other people's thoughts and combinations quickly succeeding each other,
and the readers themselves are wanting in that which, in genius,
counterbalances repetition. The whole thing besides is subject to the
corrective, that we all have most memory for that which interests
us, and least for that which does not. Great minds therefore are apt
to forget in an incredibly short time the petty affairs and trifling
occurrences of daily life and the commonplace people with whom they
come in contact, whereas they have a wonderful recollection of those
things which have importance in themselves and for them.
It is, however, on the whole, easy to understand that we should more
readily remember such series of representations as are connected
together by the thread of one or more of the above-mentioned species
of reasons and consequences, than such as have no connection with one
another, but only with our will according to the law of motives; that
is to say, those which are arbitrarily grouped. For, in the former,
the fact that we know the formal part _à priori_, saves us half the
trouble; and this probably gave rise to Plato's doctrine, that all
learning is mere remembering.
As far as possible we ought to try and reduce all that we wish to
incorporate in our memory to a perceptible image, either directly, or
as an example, a mere simile, or an analogue, or indeed in any other
way; because intuitive perceptions take a far firmer hold than any
abstract thoughts, let alone mere words. This is why we remember things
we have ourselves experienced so much better than those of which we
read.