THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ME CANNOT PRODUCE TRANSCENDENTAL SCIENCE.
70. The testimony of consciousness is sure and irresistible, but it
has no connection with that of evidence. The object of the one is a
particular and contingent fact; that of the other, a necessary truth.
That I now think, is to me absolutely certain; but this thought of
mine is not a necessary but a decidedly contingent truth; for I might
never have thought, or even existed: it is a purely individual fact, is
confined to me, and its existence or non-existence in nowise affects
universal truths.
Consciousness is an anchor, not a beacon: it saves the understanding
from shipwreck, but does not light it on its way; in the assaults
of universal doubt, consciousness is at hand to shield it from
destruction; but if asked to direct us, it gives us only particular
facts.
These facts have no scientific value, except when made objective, or
rather, when the mind, reflecting upon them, bathes them in the light
of necessary truths.
We think, we feel, we are free; these are facts; but of themselves they
are barren. If we would fecundate them, we must take them as a kind of
material of universal truths. Thought becomes immovable, it congeals,
if deprived of the impulse of these ideas; sensation is common to us
and the brutes; and liberty, without combination of motives presented
by reason, has no object, no life.
71. Here we discover the cause of the obscurity and sterility of German
philosophy since Fichte. Kant fixed himself upon the subject, without,
however, destroying objectivity in the internal world; and therefore
his philosophy, although containing many errors, offers to the mind
some luminous points: but Fichte went farther, planted himself upon the
_me_, and made no use of objectivity, save when it was necessary to the
more solid establishment of a fact of consciousness; and so he found
only realms of darkness and contradiction.
Men of gifted minds have labored in vain to make some ray of light
emanate from a point condemned to obscurity. The soul sees itself
in its own acts; and that it presents immediately to itself facts
conducing to its own cognition is the only title it has, more than
other beings distinct from it, to be conceived by itself. What would
it know were it not to perceive its own thought, its will, and the
exercise of all its faculties? How is it to discuss its own nature, if
not from data furnished by the testimony of its own acts? The _me_ then
does not see itself intuitively; is offered to itself only mediately,
by its acts; that is, so far as it is known, it is in the same category
as all other external beings, which are all known by their effects upon
us.
The _me_ in itself considered, is not a luminous point; it supports
the fabric of reason, but is not the rule according to which it is
to be constructed. The true light is found in objectivity, for it
is properly the object of knowledge. The _me_ can neither be known
nor thought, save inasmuch as it makes itself its own object, and
consequently places itself on a level with other beings subject to
intellectual activity, which operates only by virtue of objective
truths.
72. Intelligence cannot be conceived without at least internal objects;
but if the understanding do not conceive relations and consequently
truths in them, they will be sterile. These truths will have no
connection, will be isolated facts, if they involve no necessity;
and even those relations which refer to particular facts furnished
by experience will not be susceptible of any combination if they do
not, at least conditionally, involve some necessity. The brilliancy
of the light in the room where I now write is in itself a particular,
contingent fact, and science, as such, cannot make it its object except
by subjecting the movement of the light to geometrical laws, that is,
to necessary truths.
Science then may find a resting-point in the _me_ itself as subject,
but no point of departure. The individual is of no service to the
universal, nor the contingent to the necessary. Assuredly there would
be no such thing as the individual A's science, if the individual
A himself did not exist; but the science which stands in need of
the individual subject is not science properly so called, but the
collection of individual acts by which the individual perceives
science. This collection of acts is not the science perceived, which
is something common to all intellects, and does not need this or that
individual: the fund of truths constituting science does not spring
from this collection of individual acts, particular facts, which are
lost like minutest drops in the ocean of intelligence.
How then can science be based solely upon the subjective _me_? How
can the object be made to spring from this subject? Consciousness has
no connection with science, except in so far as it furnishes facts to
which we may apply objective, universal, and necessary principles,
independent of all finite individuality, constituting the patrimony of
human reason, but not requiring the existence of any man.
73. No analysis of the facts of consciousness will produce the origin
of the lights of science. Such an act would be either direct or
reflex. If direct, its value is objective not subjective, the act does
not found science, but the truth perceived, not the subject but the
object, not the _me_, but that which is seen by the _me_. If reflex, it
supposes another previous act, to wit, the object of reflection, which
is primitive, and not the act.
Neither is the combination of the direct with the reflex act of any
service to science, except as connected with necessary and objective
truths, which are independent of the subject. An act individually
considered, is an internal phenomenon, which, apart from objective
truths, teaches us nothing. It has, indeed, a scientific value, if
considered under the general ideas of being, cause, effect, principle
or product of activity, modification, or its relations with its
subject, which is the _substratum_ of other similar acts; that is, if
it be considered as a particular case, comprised in the general ideas
as a contingent phenomenon, to be appreciated by the help of necessary
truths, as an experimental fact to which a theory may be applied.
The reflex act is only a cognition of a cognition, feeling, or
some other internal phenomenon; and therefore all reflection upon
consciousness presupposes a prior direct act. The object of this
direct act is not the _me_; the fundamental principle of the cognition
therefore is not the _me_, as the object known, but only as the
necessary condition, since there cannot be thought without a thinking
subject.
74. These considerations destroy the very foundations of the system
of Fichte, and that of all who take the human me as their point of
departure on the voyage of science. The me, in itself, is not presented
to us; we know it only by its acts; and herein it participates of a
quality of other objects, the essence of which is not immediately
offered to us, but only what emanates from it by the exercise of their
activity upon us.
Thus guided by objective and necessary truths, which are the laws
of our understanding, the type of the relations of beings, and
consequently a sure standard of them, we ascend by reasoning to the
cognition of things themselves. We know that our mind is simple,
because it thinks, whereas the composite, the multiplex cannot
think. It is thus we know the _me_. We are conscious of its thinking
activity, and this is the material furnished by the fact, but then
comes the principle, the objective truth to illumine the fact, and
show the repugnance between thought and composition, and the necessary
connection between simplicity and consciousness.
Upon examination, this reasoning will be found to apply not only to the
_me_, but to every thinking being; and this is why we can extend our
demonstration to all such beings: the _me_, therefore, which applies
this truth, does not create, it only knows it, and knows itself to be a
particular case comprised in the general rule.
75. To pretend that truth has its source in the subjective _me_, is
to begin by supposing the _me_ to be an absolute, infinite being, the
origin of all truths, and the reason of all beings; which is equivalent
to making philosophy commence by deifying the human understanding. But
as one individual has no more right to this deification than another,
to admit it is to establish a rational pantheism, which, as we shall
hereafter see, is nearly, if not quite, identical with absolute
pantheism.
If we suppose individual reason to be only a phenomenon of the one
absolute reason, and consequently what we call spirits not to be
true substances, but modifications of a single spirit, and each
particular consciousness to be only a manifestation of the universal
consciousness, we can then conceive why the source of all truth is
sought in the _me_, and why we interrogate our own consciousness as
a kind of oracle through which the universal consciousness speaks.
But the difficulty is that such a supposition is gratuitous, and that
they who thus seek the reason of all truths, begin by establishing the
most incomprehensible and absurd of propositions. Who will persuade us
that our consciousness is only the modification of another? Who will
make us believe that what we call the _me_ is common to all men, to
all intelligent beings, and that the only difference between them is
the difference of the modifications of one absolute being? Why, then,
is not this absolute being conscious of every consciousness which it
comprises? Why does it not know that which it contains, and by which
it is modified? Why does it believe itself multiplex, if indeed it
be one? Where is the bond of this multiplicity? If each particular
consciousness were only a modification, would it preserve its unity,
and a connected series of all that happens to it, when this series,
this unity is wanting to the substance which it modifies?
76. However this may be, not even by supposing pantheism, can the
friends of subjective philosophy at all advance their pretensions.
With pantheism they legitimate, so to speak, their pretension, but
do not realize it. They call themselves gods, and as such, have a
reason for the source of truth being in them; but as there is in their
consciousness only one apparition of their divinity only one phase of
the orb of light, they can only see in it what it presents to them; and
their divinity finds itself subjected to certain laws which make it
impossible for it to give the light demanded by philosophy.
77. If we interrogate our consciousness upon necessary truths, we shall
perceive that, far from pretending to found or to create them, it both
knows and confesses them to be independent of itself. If, thinking
of this proposition: "It is impossible for a thing to be, and not be
at the same time;" we ask ourselves if the truth of this originates
in our thought, consciousness at once answers that it does not. The
proposition was true before our consciousness existed; and should it
now cease to exist, the proposition would still be true; true, also,
when we do not think of it: the soul is as an eye which contemplates
the sun, but is not, therefore, necessary to the existence of the sun.
78. Another consideration demonstrates the sterility of all philosophy
which seeks in the _me_ alone the sole and universal origin of human
knowledge. Every cognition requires an object; purely subjective
cognition is inconceivable; although we suppose the subject and object
to be identified, duality of relation, real or conceived, is still
necessary; that is, the subject as known must stand in a certain
opposition,--opposition at least conceived,--with itself as subject
knowing. Now, what is the object sought in the primitive act? Is it
something not the subject? Then the philosophy of the subject falls
into the current of other philosophies, since in this something which
is not the subject are objective truths. Is it the subject itself? Then
we ask, is it the subject in itself or in its acts; if the subject in
its acts, then the philosophy is reduced to ideological analysis, and
has no special characteristic; if the subject in itself, we say it
is not known intuitively, and least of all can they who call it the
_absolute_ pretend to this cognition; it is for them even more than
for others a dark abyss. In vain will you stoop over this abyss, and
shout for truth; the dull rumbling which reaches your ears is only the
echo of your own voice; the profound cavern rolls back to you only your
own words still more hollow and mysterious.
79. Eminent among the philosophers most given to empty cavils is the
author of the _Doctrine of Science_, Fichte, of whose system Madame de
Staël ingenuously remarked, that it very much resembled the awakening
of Pygmalion's statue from sleep, which, turning alternately to itself
and to its pedestal said, _I am, I am not_.
Fichte says, in the beginning of his work entitled _Doctrine of
Science_, that he proposes to seek the most absolute principle, the
absolutely unconditioned principle of all human knowledge. This his
method is erroneous: he begins by supposing what is unknown, and does
not even suspect that there may be a true multiplicity in the basis
of human cognitions. We believe that there may be, and that there
really is such a multiplicity, that the sources of our knowledge are
various, and of different orders, and that we cannot reduce them to
unity without leaving man and ascending to God. We repeat it, this
equivocation has become exceedingly general, and its only result
has been uselessly to fatigue inquiring minds or to drive them to
extravagant systems.
Few philosophers have toiled harder than Fichte after this absolute
principle; and yet, to speak plainly, he accomplishes nothing; he
either repeats Descartes' principle, or amuses himself with a play
upon words. We feel pity at seeing him labor so earnestly to so
little purpose. We beg the reader to follow us with patience in our
examination of the German philosopher's doctrine, not with the hope of
finding a thread to serve as a clue to the Dædalus of philosophy, but
in order to judge, with a knowledge of the cause, doctrines which have
made so much noise in the world.
"If this principle," says Fichte, "is absolutely the first, it can
neither be defined nor demonstrated. It must express the act, which
neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations of
our consciousness, but rather lies at the bottom of all consciousness,
and alone makes consciousness possible."[4]
[4] _Wissenschaftslehre, Th. 1, § 1_.
Without any antecedent, or any reason, without even taking the trouble
to show on what he bases it, Fichte assures us that the first principle
must express an act. Why may it not be an objective truth? This, at
least, would have deserved some attention, for all preceding schools,
the Cartesian included, located the first principle among objective
truths, not among acts. Descartes himself needed an objective truth in
order to establish the fact of thought and existence. "Whoever thinks
exists," or, in other words, "whoever does not exist cannot think."
80. This last remark shows one of the radical vices affecting the
doctrine of Fichte and other Germans, who attribute an altogether
unmerited importance to subjective philosophy. They accuse others of
too easily making the transition from the subject to the object, but
forget that they, at the same time pass, unauthorised by any reason or
title, from objective thought to the pure subject. Confining ourselves
to the passage of Fichte just cited, what, we ask, will an act be which
neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations
of our consciousness? The principle in question is not exempted from
being known because it is absolute; for if we do not know it, we cannot
assert that it is absolute; and if it is not, and cannot be presented
among the empirical determinations of our consciousness, it neither
is nor can be known. Man knows not that which is not present in his
consciousness.
The absolute principle upon which all consciousness rests, and which
makes it possible, either does or does not belong to consciousness.
If the former, it is liable to all the difficulties affecting the
other acts of consciousness; if the latter, it cannot be the object of
observation, and therefore we can know nothing of it.
Fichte confesses that in order to arrive at the primitive act, and
separate from it all that does not really belong to it, we must suppose
the rules of all reflection to be valid, and start with some one of the
many universally admitted propositions. "Conceding us," he says, "this
proposition, you must, at the same time, concede as act that which we
desire to place as the principle of the whole _Doctrine of Science_;
and the result of the reflection must be that this act is conceded to
us as the principle together with the proposition. We take any fact
of empirical consciousness, and strip it one after another of all its
empirical determinations, until reduced to all its purity it contains
that only which thought cannot absolutely exclude, and from which
nothing further can be taken."[5]
[5] _Ibid._
These words show that the German philosopher proposed ascending to a
perfectly pure and wholly indeterminate act of consciousness, which,
however, is impossible. Either he takes the act in a very broad sense,
and understands by it the _substratum_ of all consciousness, in which
case he only expresses in other words the idea of substance; or else
he speaks of an act properly so called, that is, of some exercise of
that activity, that spontaneity which we feel within ourselves; and
in this sense the act of consciousness cannot be separated from all
determination without destroying its individuality and existence. Man
cannot think without thinking something, desire without desiring
something, feel without feeling something, or reflect upon internal
acts without fixing his reflection upon something. There is some
determination in every act of consciousness: an act perfectly pure,
abstracted from every thing, and wholly indeterminate, is impossible,
absolutely impossible; subjectively, because the act of consciousness,
although considered in the subject, requires some determination;
objectively, because such an act is inconceivable as individual, and
consequently as existing, since it offers nothing determinate to the
mind.
81. Fichte's indeterminate act is only the idea of act in general. He
imagined he had made a great discovery when he conceived nothing in the
groundwork but the principle of act, that is, the idea of substance
applied to that active being whose existence consciousness itself makes
known to us.
If we may be allowed to say candidly what we think, our opinion is,
that Fichte, with all his analytical investigations, has not advanced
philosophy one step towards the discovery of the first principle. We
see from what has already been said how easy it is to stop him by
simply demanding an account of the suppositions made on the first page
of his book. Still, wishing, as we do, to oppose him with all fairness,
we will not take up his ideas without allowing him to explain them
himself.
"Every one admits the proposition: A is A; just as that A = A, because
such is the meaning of the logical copula; and indeed without the least
deliberation we perceive and affirm its complete certainty. Should any
one ask a demonstration of it, we should by no means give any, but
should maintain that the proposition is absolutely certain, that is,
without any further foundation. Thus incontestibly proceeding with
general consent, we claim the right to _suppose something absolutely_.
"We do not, in affirming the preceding proposition to be certain
in itself, suppose that A _is_. The proposition A is A, is not
equivalent to this: A _is_, or, _there is an_ A. (_To be_ placed
without a predicate has an entirely different meaning from _to be_
with a predicate, whereof more hereafter.) If we make A denote a
space contained between two straight lines, the proposition remains
exact, although the proposition, A _is_, be evidently false. But, we
assert: _if_ A _is_, A _is thus_. The question is in no wise whether
A is in general or not. The question is not of the _contents_ of the
proposition, but only of its _form_; not whereof we know something, but
what we know of any object whatever.
"Consequently, by the above assertion, that the proposition is
absolutely certain, this is established, that between the _if_ and
the _thus_ there is a necessary connection; and it is this necessary
connection between both which is supposed _absolutely_ and _without
other foundation_. I call this necessary connection provisionally = X."
All this show of analysis amounts only to what every logical student
knows, that in every proposition the copula, or the verb _to be_,
denotes not the existence of the subject, but its relation to the
predicate. There was no need of so many words to tell us so simple a
thing, nor of such affected efforts of the understanding in treating of
an identical proposition. But let us arm ourselves with patience, and
continue to listen to the German philosopher:
"But to return to A itself, _whether_ A is or not; nothing is as yet
affirmed thereon. The question then occurs: under what condition is A?
"X at least is supposed _in_ and _by_ the _me_, for it is the _me_
which judges in the above proposition, and indeed judges by X as by a
law, which consequently being given to the _me_, and by it established
absolutely and without other foundation, must therefore be given to the
_me_ by the _me_ itself."
82. What does all this Sanscrit mean? We will translate it into
English: in identical or equivalent propositions there is a relation
which the mind knows, judges, and according to which it decides upon
the rest: this relation is given to our mind; identical propositions
need no proof in order to obtain assent. All this is very true, very
clear, and very simple; but, when Fichte adds that this relation must
be given to the _me_ by the _me_ itself, he asserts what he neither
does nor can know. Who told him that objective truths come to us from
ourselves? Is one of the principal philosophical questions, such as
is that of the origin of truth, to be thus easily solved with a dash
of the pen? Has he, perchance, defined his _me_, or given us any idea
of it? Either his words mean nothing, or they mean this: I judge
of a relation; this judgment is in me; this relation, as known and
abstracted from real existence, is in me; all which may be reduced to
Descartes' more natural and simple expression: "I think, therefore I
exist."
83. Upon carefully examining Fichte's words, we clearly see that
he made no more progress than the French philosopher. He goes on:
"_Whether_ and _how_ A in general is supposed, we know not; but as
X must mark a relation between an unknown supposition of A and an
absolute supposition of A under the condition of this supposition,
in so far at least as that relation is supposed, A exists _in_ the
_me_, and is supposed _by_ the _me_, just as X. X is possible only in
relation to an A: but X is really supposed in the _me_, therefore A
also must be supposed in the _me_ in so far as X is referred to it."
What confusion and mystery in the expression of the commonest things!
How great Descartes appears beside Fichte! Each makes the fact of
consciousness revealing existence the beginning of his philosophy. The
one expresses his thoughts clearly, with simplicity and in a language
which all the world does or may understand; the other, in order to
seem an inventor, and to show that he has no master, envelops himself
in a cloud of mystery, with darkness all around, whence in a hollow
voice he pronounces his oracles. Descartes says: "I think, I cannot
doubt it, it is a fact attested to me by my internal sense; no one can
think without existing; therefore I exist." This is clear, simple, and
ingenuous; it manifests a true philosopher, one without affectation
or pretension. Fichte says: "Take any proposition whatever; for
example, A is A:" and then goes on to explain how the verb _to be_ in
propositions does not express the absolute existence of the subject,
but its relation with the predicate; the whole with a show of doctrine,
wearisome in its form, and ridiculous in its sterility; and this too
when he only wants to inform us that A is in the _me_, because the
relation of the predicate with the subject, that is, X, is possible
only in a being, since A denotes some being or other. Let us compare
the two syllogisms. Descartes says: "No one can think without existing;
but I think; therefore I exist." Fichte says literally what follows:
"X is only possible in relation to an A; but X is really supposed in
the _me_; therefore A must also be supposed in the _me_." There is at
bottom no difference at all, and the only difference in form is that
which exists between the language of a vain man and that of a sensible
man.
At bottom the syllogisms are not different, we repeat it. Descartes'
major proposition is: "Whatever thinks exists." He does not prove
it, and admits that it cannot be proved. Fichte's major is: "X is
possible only in relation to an A," or, in other words, no relation
of a predicate with a subject, in so far as it is known, is possible
without a being which knows. "X must mark a relation between an unknown
supposition of A and an absolute supposition of the same A, _at least
in so far as that relation is supposed_," that is, inasmuch as it is
known. And how does Fichte prove a relative supposition to suppose an
absolute supposition, that is, a subject in which it is supposed? Like
Descartes, he does not prove it at all. There is no relative A without
an absolute A; what does not exist cannot think. This is clear and
evident; farther than this neither Fichte nor Descartes goes.
Descartes' minor is: "_I think_;" this he does not prove, but refers to
consciousness beyond which he confesses that he cannot pass. Fichte's
minor is this: "X is really asserted in the _me_;" which is equivalent
to saying: the relation of the predicate with the subject is really
known by the _me_; and as, according to Fichte himself, the proposition
may be selected at pleasure, to say that the relation of the predicate
with the subject is known by the _me_, is the same as to say that any
relation whatever is known by the _me_; which in clearer terms may be
expressed thus, _I think_.
84. Here we would remark, that the difference, if any there be, is
altogether in favor of the French philosopher, who understands by
thought every internal phenomenon of which we are conscious. In order
to establish this fact, he has no need of analyzing propositions,
and confusing the understanding upon those very points where it most
requires clearness and precision. Fichte, to arrive at the same point,
takes a roundabout way. Descartes points his finger to it, and says:
_this is it_. The one acts like a sophist, the other like a true man of
genius.
Had the German philosopher confined his forms, little calculated as
they are to illustrate science, to what we have thus far examined,
their greatest inconvenience would have been to weary both the author
and his readers; but unfortunately his mysterious _me_, which makes its
appearance at the very vestibule of science, and which, in the eyes of
sound reason, can only be what it was to Descartes,--the human mind,
knowing its existence by its own thought,--goes on dilating in Fichte's
hands, like a gigantic spectre, which, beginning in a single point,
ends by hiding its head in the heavens and its feet in the abyss.
This _me_, absolute subject, is then a being which exists because it
supposed itself: it is a being which creates its own self, absorbs
every thing, is every thing, and is revealed in the human mind as in
one of the infinite phases of its infinite existence.
What we have thus far said, suffices to show the tendencies of Fichte's
system. We are here treating of certainty and its foundations; this,
then, is not the place to anticipate what we propose to say more at
length upon this system when we come to explain the idea of substance
and refute pantheism: for this is one of the gravest errors of modern
philosophy; everywhere, and under all aspects, it must be combatted,
but to do this we must attack it in its roots. This is why we have
examined at such length Fichte's fundamental reflection in his
_Doctrine of Science_, and stripped it of the importance which he
claimed for it, so as to make it the basis of a transcendental science;
for he flattered himself with being able to determine the absolutely
unconditioned principle of all human knowledge.(7)